I decided to write this post based on some additional hypocrisy coming from the Manweiler side of the fence. Recently on Facebook, there are users who have taken to using the pink equal symbol that is the current banner for marriage equality, related to the gay marriage debate. I’ve been told Mr. Dickerman, Ms. Manweiler’s husband, has switched his avatar image to this symbol. I find this amusing if true and I will especially find it amusing if any members of the Manweiler family start using this symbol as well. The reason I find it funny is that it would be a massive amount of hypocrisy for anyone on the Manweiler side of the fence to ever champion equality or ever claim it as a belief important to them. After all, this entire legal case revolves around an extreme inequality done for the benefit of the Manweiler family.
I was denied my right to a fair trial, a right I would have exercised had I not been threatened with retaliation by both the prosecution and my own attorney. I knew that I never threatened to harm Ms. Manweiler or her family. I made mistakes, but I never did that. Others who read the emails agree, including a Hampton Magistrate and a Newport News prosecutor. Even Judge Downer in the District Court told Assistant DA Joe Platania that he saw no evidence of any threats of violence in the emails he read. Had this case gone to trial, I’m confident an unbiased jury would have agreed and found me not guilty of the felony charge. However, with the prosecution stating that they would file multiple felony counts as retaliation for exercising that right, the risk was too great. Multiple felonies meant spending years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit, and I had also been threatened to be sent to one of the worst ones around – the inmates called this prison “The Slaughterhouse”.
As I said, I’m confident an unbiased jury would have found me not guilty of the felony written threats charge. Unfortunately Charlottesville isn’t much for being unbiased. When Andrew Alston, a wealthy UVA student, stabbed a volunteer firefighter to death (18 to 22 wounds if I recall correctly) and only received three years in a white collar prison for voluntary manslaughter, I knew that it was going to be rough getting a fair trial. But with one felony, if the jury was dumb enough to falsely convict me it would be a suspended sentence, and I could later appeal the false conviction. With multiple felony counts for something I didn’t do? I’d first have to spend years in prison being turned into a violent individual, if I even came out of there at all.
In addition I had my family to think of, as they were busy paying my bills while I was locked up on top of already paying $15,000 for an asshole lawyer who didn’t do his job. My mother was literally at her wits end over what was going on, and I knew that a trip to prison for me would be too much for her. Her racing out of the court room in tears at my preliminary hearing wasn’t an act of theater; she really was devastated and confused about what was happening and still hasn’t recovered to this day. All the Manweilers could do was give her evil looks when she hadn’t even done anything to them.
I also had my own lawyer threaten me as well. I was told by him that if I refused to plead guilty, he would quit just so that Platania would carry out the threat and I’d go to prison for years. My family and I were planning on firing him and hiring Katherine Peters to replace him (though I had no idea how my parents were even going to afford another lawyer), but once the head prosecutor Warner Chapman found out about this, Chapman stated that if I tried to fire my attorney and get another he would carry out the threats made against me.
My former attorney freely admits this happened in a tape recording I did after my release. Chapman had also stated that he was so angry that I tried to get another attorney, that come the guilty plea hearing he might just go ahead and file the multiple felonies and force my plea of guilty to them (how he was going to accomplish this forcing was not elaborated on). My former attorney, William Johnson, stated that if this happened he would refuse to defend me – no defense provided in court and no questioning of witnesses, he would just sit there.
The prosecution knew the emails had been tampered with, that this whole case was garbage, and that Ms. Manweiler lied to them. So they came after me out of desperation to cover the whole thing up. They didn’t want to get sued or have the public know they screwed up. So what was I to do? I didn’t have any options, it was either let them apply the lube or they go in dry essentially. All for something I didn’t do. Anyone claiming that this threat by the prosecution wasn’t violating the right to fair trial is an idiot - and a hypocrite as I guarantee you wouldn’t want it done to you or your children.
An example I gave before illustrates exactly what happened without the legalese nonsense. Imagine you go to vote, but someone tells you that if you try to exercise this right they will hit you with a baseball bat in the head. But they claim they aren’t violating that right because you still have the option to ignore them and vote anyway, just so long as you understand that they will hit you with the bat in retaliation. Should sound like a violation of a right to anyone with common sense. Those amendments in the Bill of Rights don’t come with an attachment that you can be retaliated against for exercising them. It’s not a right if someone can threaten me with harm for doing it.
All of this is known by the Manweilers and their allies. Both the prosecution and my former attorney admitted that Ms. Manweiler and her parents were informed that I was being threatened into pleading guilty at the Preliminary hearing. The Manweilers knew a violation of civil rights was occurring, and they were perfectly okay with it so long as it personally benefited them. They have also been to my blog and seen the prosecution’s emails, along with my statement about being threatened out of firing my own attorney. They couldn’t care less – making them a bunch of hypocrites to ever claim they stand up for people’s rights or equality. Because when it was for their benefit, they willingly allowed rights to be violated and inequality to exist.
The inequality is quite blatant and Ms. Manweiler, especially as an attorney, knows for a fact that she received special treatment. She’d be stupid not to realize it. I already gave the example of Andrew Alston, who received three years in a white collar prison for stabbing someone to death. He gets three years, while I have a five year sentence hanging over my head, and with 20 years good behavior time that means it’ll hang over my head until then. So there is the possibility of me spending more time behind bars than a man who stabbed someone to death – and all I was accused of doing was just writing mean emails. You can’t tell me that’s justice. He didn’t get 20 years good behavior time over his head either. Keep in mind that when I say “good behavior time” that doesn’t mean the same good behavior time that gets guys out of prison early. Very different and it’s not as nice as the name makes it sound. It means that five year suspended prison sentence hangs over my head for 20 years of my life.
To give you an idea of just how excessive that is, especially for what I was accused of doing, they have never handed this out to rapists and child molesters. How do I know this? I know it because the prosecutor admitted to this in court. At the guilty plea hearing in the Circuit Court, Judge Hogshire made a comment about the plea deal terms being excessive (BTW the prosecution said at that hearing that Ms. Manweiler had read the agreement and fully consented to all terms). Platania agreed with the Judge, and admitted that he was aware that the 20 years good behavior time would be the maximum ever handed out in the history of the Charlottesville Circuit Court. Platania made that exact statement about it never being handed out in the history of C’ville Circuit Court.
The Circuit Court handles major crimes and felonies: Rape, Molestation, Manslaughter and Murder. It has never handed out 20 years good behavior time before in their entire history until my case - again the prosecutor freely admitted this in court. What was I accused of doing? I was accused of writing mean things over the internet to a rich UVA student; who I hadn’t even been in the presence of until the Preliminary hearing and didn’t even know where she lived in Charlottesville. Worked in engineering, no criminal record to speak of (not even a parking ticket), no history of violence, DoD clearance, etc. Are you starting to get the picture here? Would love to hear Ms. Manweiler explain why she deserved more protection than molested kids.
Michelle Annette Manweiler knows she received special treatment. She knows it and her family knows it. So does her husband John Dickerman. Yet no one on the Manweiler/Dickerman side has ever stood up and admitted this was wrong. It’s called hypocrisy. They claim to be in favor of equality, justice and civil rights – but only when it’s convenient for them. If they personally benefit from inequality and denial of rights, they are perfectly okay with it. That tells me what kind of people I’m dealing with here.
I absolutely hate this woman and wouldn’t shed a tear about anything happening to her, yet even I wouldn’t agree to things like this. I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror and claim that something this excessive is acceptable. I couldn’t claim it to be justice when it is apparent that it wasn’t. What Ms. Manweiler did to me was evil, but it doesn’t equal the crime of rape or molestation and thus shouldn’t be punished equal to or higher than that. Not to mention that the simple fact here is that I was innocent of this felony. I know what I said and I know my intentions behind my comments, and there was never a threat of violence made. This is something Ms. Manweiler will never get away from for the rest of her life. She had someone convicted of a crime they didn’t commit and she knows it.
What this experience has taught me is that I was 100% correct in my beliefs about Ms. Manweiler and the people surrounding her. A dialogue exchange from a favorite show of mine sums up my feelings on that:
“Seems odd that you would name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of."
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
- Commander Karken and Captain Mal Reynolds, "Firefly"
To finish up my point - if Mr. Dickerman actually has the marriage equality symbol still on his profile (or anyone on the Manweiler side for that matter) it would be hypocritical to leave it up. How can he claim to be standing up for equal rights, when he’s quite aware that his wife was party to a major act of injustice and inequality? Can this guy even look me in the eye and state that any part of this was right? If I ever managed to overturn this whole thing and have charges brought against Manweiler, regardless of whether it’s possible or not, I wouldn’t expect or accept for her to get the same treatment in court that I received. She has a right to a trial and her punishment shouldn’t meet or exceed that of a worse crime, especially when it wasn’t done that way for anyone else. She may deserve it after allowing it to happen to me, but it still wouldn’t be right. I’m not like Ms. Manweiler, I can see an injustice even if I hate that person.
Of course I’m sure that Ms. Manweiler’s and Mr. Dickerman’s hypocrisy will continue - I’m not expecting anything here. When it comes to the people on the Manweiler side of the fence, hypocrisy and ignorance are the only things I expect. All I have ever witnessed from Ms. Manweiler, and her parents, is distain for others, narcissism, hypocrisy and viciousness - and I have never had any reason to believe anything different. I don’t expect anything related to honor and integrity from the Manweilers, so I’m not surprised that anyone who is related to or associates with them would be just as bad.
As for where I stand on the issue of the marriage debate? A post from another blogger actually sums up my current beliefs quite well, especially when it comes to all the ignorance and hysteria surrounding an issue important to me – an issue that was used as justification for the actions done to me, despite it being admitted to by the prosecution that I never did anything wrong or criminal with this right. This blogger fully points out the level of hypocrisy and ignorance on that side of the fence, and it perfectly sums up the Manweilers and the people surrounding them. His blog is called “The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse” and the specific post is titled “The Post in Which I Piss Off EVERYBODY: or, How I Learned to Stop Caring” (link provided). I won’t quote his entire post in here as I don’t wish to take away traffic from him, but upon reading it you will know exactly how I feel about a lot of issues now. I will at least quote a portion of the post to give you an idea of how I feel:
“First they came for the blacks, and I spoke up because it was wrong, even though I'm not black.
Then they came for the gays, and I spoke up, even though I'm not gay.
Then they came for the Muslims, and I spoke up, because it was wrong, even though I'm an atheist.
When they came for illegal aliens, I spoke up, even though I'm a legal immigrant.
Then they came for the pornographers, rebels and dissenters and their speech and flag burning, and I spoke up, because rights are not only for the establishment.
Then they came for the gun owners, and you liberal shitbags threw me under the bus, even though I'd done nothing wrong. So when they come to put you on the train, you can fucking choke and die.”
Nobody has ever spoken up for my rights. Nobody stood up for me and told the Charlottesville law enforcement they were wrong to take things that far. Nobody questioned it when others used a lawfully exercised right as an excuse to hurt and bash me, just because it wasn’t a politically correct right. What I owned had nothing to do with this case and should never have been dragged into this. But nobody gave a shit. So why should I give a shit about the rights of others, when no one spoke up for me?