However I was able to pull up a record of Alston's attempted appeal when he tried to unsuccessfully remove his 3 years of probation that the judge placed upon him. The court paperwork gives a summary of the events surrounding Alston's killing of Sisk. Link to caselaw.findlaw.com
Amazes me the guy had the gall to try to appeal his three years of probation, given that Alston was lucky to just get slapped on the wrist with being sentenced to 3 years in prison for Voluntary Manslaughter (that he only served 2/3's of in a reportedly white collar prison) for putting 20 stab wounds in a guy. Sisk apparently never even initiated violence, and Sisk's verbal argument wasn't even with Alston.
But let's face it - it wasn't luck that got Alston a slap on the wrist by the Charlottesville legal system. It was because he was a UVA student being tried in Charlottesville and he had a rich father. Which is exactly the same thing that resulted in Michelle Dickerman having law enforcement railroad me into a false felony charge in order to cover for her tampering of evidence during my case in 2006. Dickerman was a recently graduated UVA law school student at the time of my case, and has a banker father who is also an alumni of UVA and donates to the university.
Anyway I'll keep the old link up, but I don't think the original article is going to reappear.***
Here is an article for reference on the case I will be discussing in this post:
http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/3198291.html
I'm still working on the post I previously mentioned. I won't be going into details on what exactly was the issue I was facing, not in this post or the next one. I will only mention that it did not go well, and it did not go well solely because of the felony charge. More specifically it was the plea agreement terms those involved in the decision took issue with. In the meantime I wanted to post about a case I've brought up multiple times before on this blog. That case namely being the prosecution of Andrew Alston by the City of Charlottesville. Alston is a former University of Virginia (Ms. Manweiler alma mater) student who was charged with voluntary manslaughter, and received a 'slap on the wrist' as a penalty. Consider this in a way an 'Evidence Posting Part 3' post. Now there are two reasons for why the Andrew Alston case is closely involved with the legal dispute with Michelle Annette Manweiler (now Michelle Annette Dickerman, an attorney who has worked for both Greenberg Traurig and the US Department of Treasury).
The first reason is that the Andrew Alston verdict was a blatant display of the favoritism that Charlottesville shows towards UVA students with rich parents in it's legal system. In a fight Andrew Alston stabbed a volunteer firefighter about 18-20 times, resulting in the man's death. He was charged with voluntary manslaughter and after a trial (something he received but I was denied) he was given 3 years, which he was released five months early from on good behavior. As I recall, one news article said that this was less than a third of the minimum sentence required in the state of Virginia for voluntary manslaughter. His father was said to be a rich attorney out of Pennsylvania. I was also informed by inmates at the jail that Andrew Alston was shipped off to a white collar prison to serve out his sentence. For those not knowledgeable of such things, if you stab someone to death you do not go to the same prison as people who committed embezzlement, yet this is where Alston was apparently sent. Every inmate in the jail was aware of this happening. Even when most of the general population was pulled out of my cell block and the Bridge Ministry inmates brought in, they verified the same exact story as the general population. The favoritism towards UVA students shown by Charlottesville was common knowledge to all of them without exception.
It is of interest to note that Andrew Alston received three years for killing someone, while the terms of my plea agreement involved five years suspended for a few mean emails sent to Michelle Manweiler - meaning I could have potentially served more time behind bars than a man who stabbed another human being to death. All because Ms. Manweiler got emails from a guy she never laid eyes on since 1999. It really doesn't get more disgusting and blatant than this. Being that she is a lawyer Michelle Manweiler (Dickerman) is 100% aware that the results of this case are ridiculous, and she is aware that she received massive favoritism and unwarranted extra protection. This was extra protection which wouldn't have been given to any regular US citizen, especially a citizen who wasn't a UVA law student with a banker father. Manweiler's father is also a UVA alumni and was a donor to the university, though I haven't bothered to find out if he continues to donate to this day (rather irrelevant whether he still donates years after the case). Her husband John Dickerman also has a law degree and is completely aware of the truth of my statements on the blatant favoritism his wife received back then, though I doubt he has the ability to ever admit to it.
A perfect example was the police response to an incident that happened to my sister a couple years after my release. My sister had received threatening text messages from a violent individual a couple years after my sentencing. These texts were from the ex-husband of her friend who was staying with her. From what I recall of the incident during the custody battle for their child, the friend was living with my sister out of fear of violence from the soon to be ex-husband. Because my sister was trying to help her friend with protection and legal paperwork, the woman's ex began sending threats to my sister. He mentioned that he was aware of where she lived and that she knew what he was capable of doing to her (he had a criminal record of prior violence), and that she had better stay out of his business or else.
Knowing what was done to me, my sister decided to see what the local police response would be to the messages. Despite the fact that the man's threats were blatant, my sister was told that the police couldn't do anything because he didn't specifically use the word "kill", and that they felt his statements were too vague to support charges at that time ("you know what I'm capable of doing to you" is somehow too vague of a statement). The police department told her to call immediately if the guy came knocking on her door, but otherwise they would not take any action against him. Funny how my sister didn't have police falling all over themselves to ruin this guy, like the C-ville law enforcement did for the benefit of Michelle Manweiler. Guess we don't have enough money and contacts to flash around like the Manweilers.
As a second example of how others do not receive the kind of protection Ms. Manweiler did, there was a case involving an inmate in my cell block who was briefly being held for battery against his girlfriend. If you somehow don't know what that is, it means he beat the hell out of his girlfriend.
This guy was on anti-psychotic medication (he received daily med visits from the jail medical staff to ensure he took the pills), and he would become violent if he missed a dose. He had spent time in jail before, and other inmates who knew him said in a past jail stay when he had missed his medication, he tried to strangle an inmate with a hand towel. Even with the doses, he constantly eyed everyone in the cell with a clear desire for violence. During one outburst in front of everyone, he told another inmate he didn't like that he was going to stab the guy in the throat with an ink pen while he slept. Even though his girlfriend had a protective order filed against him, he continued to attempt to call her from the jail phone daily and was getting angry that she refused to accept the call. Keep that in mind - he was using a jail phone to call a woman who had a protective order against him. You can't tell me they didn't know he was doing this. He continued to say that as soon as he was bailed out, he would visit his girlfriend and clear everything up. He was told repeatedly by inmates that violating a protective order was going to get him in worse trouble, but he couldn't have cared less.
Finally the day of his bond hearing came around - and it went far better than mine. He returned to the jail with a huge smile stating that bond had been granted, and that a family member was paying the bail immediately. The corrections officer told the inmate that as soon as there was confirmation he'd be back to get him. The guy packed his stuff in the crate every inmate was given (he hadn't been there long so didn't have much built up) and waited by the door. The guy continued to say he was going to go speak to his girlfriend after he got out. The corrections officer came back for him and took him to get processed out - far quicker than they came for me on the day of my release. The jail kept making excuses for why I couldn't be released immediately after my sentencing, in order to hold me for as long as possible, but they couldn't get this guy out of there fast enough.
This guy was a dangerous and violent individual with a prior criminal history of violence. He was a danger to everyone around him if he wasn't medicated - he tried to strangle someone when he didn't get his meds in time. He wasn't accused of sending emails, he had beaten a woman. I had no criminal record, not even a speeding ticket. Held a security clearance and worked for an engineering company. No history of violence. Was accused of saying mean things in a couple emails to a woman who hadn't even seen me in person since 1999. I had never known where she even lived in Charlottesville (roughly a three hour drive one way from where I lived) because I didn't even care to find out. A woman I've never laid a hand on.
I'm the one who gets denied bond and deliberately held for nearly five months on a felony that wasn't even supposed to be a felony in the state of Virginia. Threatened out of my right to a fair trial to cover for a UVA student who can be proven to have lied to police. Police and prosecutors used evidence she printed up and handed to them with no verification whatsoever (really hard to verify when police claim they damaged my hard drive so badly they needed nine months to piece it together before they could get anything off of it). These emails exhibited blatant tampering that would have taken criminal negligence to not notice.
I'll be going over this in greater detail in the next post, but Manweiler had written April and May dates on two claimed emails that had a March printer time stamp on them (guess she must be a time traveler). Not only can I prove beyond a doubt that the printer time stamp is correct (the email actually says it was sent on the date that the time stamp indicates) but I can prove they are in fact one email and not two separate emails - Manweiler had split them up to make it appear as if I sent more emails than I really had. One email says "To Rick" when it is supposed to have said "From Rick" considering it was supposed to be an email from me in her inbox. Even my lawyer noticed it and recorded it in his notes, though later he continued to deliberately ignore it (I'll get into why I think he did it in the next post). Michelle Manweiler also deliberately withheld emails from police that would have shown she was never threatened, and can be proven to have taken down her Myspace profile right after my arrest thus conveniently destroyed those emails she had withheld.
All of this, and yet Michelle Manweiler receives far more protection/action from the Charlottesville law enforcement than the female victim of the inmate I mentioned. I guess to have gotten that same level of protection that woman should have been a few shades lighter on skin color, attended UVA law school and had an alumni banker father just like Michelle Annette Manweiler (Dickerman). Hell Michelle Manweiler received more favoritism from the Charlottesville legal system than the man who was stabbed to death by Andrew Alston. Which brings me back to the original discussion, and back to reason number two.
The second reason for the Andrew Alston case to be tied together with my legal situation involves the timing. The controversial Andrew Alston verdict had happened well before the dispute between Ms. Manweiler and I even took place. However, Andrew Alston was released from prison when this legal dispute with Manweiler started. If I recall correctly I was arrested June 14th and he was released from jail on June 21st. There had been plenty of local media coverage and discussion occurring for some time prior to Alston's release date (and prior to my arrest). People were angry and the blame was being pointed at the Charlottesville legal system. The Alston case was viewed as an example of how the "justice" system in Charlottesville was breaking down. Something had to be done by the prosecution and police to distract everyone from this case of blatant favoritism towards a rich UVA student.
Then along comes Michelle Manweiler with just what the prosecution and courts needed - and boy did Joe Platania play this case up in the media. The Manweiler case was hyped up to be something far more massive than the minor stupid dispute it actually was, partly helped by Michelle Manweiler's own exaggerations. I have already proven in previous posts that Ms. Manweiler has always embellished the tale, by comparing her high school letters with comments she made in the victim impact statement. It's rather hard for her to say she didn't lie about those events, when her own handwritten notes say otherwise. This case began to drown out the story of Andrew Alston's early release in the media, and after a little while people forgot about his release. Mission accomplished obviously.
I was made out to be some monster, yet the only thing the media ever reported correctly was that I was arrested. Even that detail got screwed up. I was arrested in Hampton by the HPD right down the street from my apartment (my landlady watched me being handcuffed in the rain). While Detective Rudman had left me in the Hampton lockup for transport by Sheriffs office the next day, according to the detective himself his supervisor called him halfway to Charlottesville, and told him to turn around and bring me up that night.
A "source" with the Charlottesville police then told the media the next day that they had arrested me in Charlottesville attempting to confront Manweiler over the emergency protective order (I never even heard of such a thing as a protective order until Rudman told me about it in the interrogation room after my arrest in Hampton). This way they were able to sell the case as being ten times worse than what actually happened. The false narrative sounds a lot more dangerous and exciting when you claim I was arrested trying to confront Manweiler in Charlottesville. Rather than telling everyone the boring truth that I was in Hampton, on my way to pick my youngest sister up from playing video games at my apartment to drop her off at a church function. She really appreciated the shock she received when a plainclothes Hampton detective managed to jimmy the lock on my front door and walk in.
I wonder if that "source" behind the false report had been the police supervisor who told Rudman to turn around and transport me that night, how convenient for his story that I had already been transferred to Charlottesville before anyone was the wiser. Of course my arrest report tells a completely different story than what this "source" with the C'ville police claimed to the media, which is why most of the news media eventually stopped reporting this claim (they didn't correct the earlier bad reports they just stopped talking about it, nobody should be surprised by that lack of integrity). The primary exception was a "news" reporter by the name of Leslie Nowak for the Daily Progress, who apparently couldn't get even this detail straight months later when everyone else had already figured it out. But there were lots words put in my mouth, and personal attacks by this reporter, that made the continued false report of a Charlottesville arrest a minor grievance in comparison.
Not only was my case a godsend at first glance to the Charlottesville legal system during the coverage of the Andrew Alston release, but I also can't ignore Michelle Manweiler's timing when she went to the police. Understand that the handful of emails I sent, were sent over a course of roughly seven months. Yet Michelle Manweiler not only waited until after her graduation to take action (which was likely in May), but the timing of Andrew Alston's upcoming release coinciding with Ms. Manweiler's complaint to police potentially suggests something deliberate on her part. Perhaps it was a reminder to her that UVA students get special treatment in Charlottesville. Or potentially more likely she knew that the scandal would make the CPD and DA's office desperate to get anything on the news that distracted people from Alston's release.
Their rush to club me over the head and quickly drag me in meant not looking over the evidence, or the entire situation, as well as they clearly should have. Siccing the police on someone is much like pulling a trigger - once done there will be consequences that can not be taken back, at least not easily and not without a price to pay. The damage they had initially inflicted on me meant there would be penalties for the Charlottesville law enforcement if they tried to take it back. They sold a hyped up story to the news media before they realized their mistake. Admitting they went forward with an arrest based on bad evidence by a rich UVA student, along with admitting I didn't do all the things they had claimed to the media, would have resulted in a worse scandal for the C'ville legal system than Andrew Alston's short prison stay.
At least with Alston they could point the finger at the jury, despite the fact that I truly believe their was cooperation by the C'ville district attorneys to ensure a favorable verdict (they sent him to a white collar prison after all). But the Manweiler case would have made the police, magistrate, and the prosecutors look very bad. So rather than take the righteous path by admitting they screwed up, they instead took the ball Manweiler handed them and ran it down the field. And here we are today, with a situation that will never go away for the guilty parties.
Michelle Manweiler and the rest of her family will never have a right to open their mouths again about any cases involving injustice in the world, because it'll just show them all to be nothing but a bunch of hypocrites and liars. You don't get to be completely in support of something this disgusting and blatant done for your family's personal benefit, and then run your mouth about other issues you think are wrong that reflect the very same thing you are supporting. I can not only prove she received special treatment (though it's obvious enough to not even need me to go over it), but I've also been able to prove that she lied to police and the courts - as well as hidden evidence that would have shown me to be innocent of the charge I'm currently walking around with. What she did is just as wrong as any of those issues I'm sure you all have been harping about. You just want to ignore it because it's for her personal benefit, and that somehow makes it okay. By all means, keep proving yourself a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is just part of being a narcissist posing as a tolerant humanist, with beliefs that have never been anything more to you than a fashion statement.
I'm sure that Michelle Manweiler has claimed that none of this was her decision. That this was all the prosecutor's fault, that she never gave any input or pushed for any of these things to be done to me. The reason I'm sure of her saying such things is due to her track record with me. Manweiler has a history of refusing to take any responsibility for her choices or bad behavior - instead always giving excuses, putting blame on someone else, or even just lashing out. I've admitted my faults and mistakes many times, in the past I've even apologized to Manweiler for actions I was fully justified in doing, in order to talk the situation over with her peacefully. As arrogant as she is I knew I had to apologize to Ms. Manweiler no matter how right I felt I was. Michelle Manweiler however, has shown a complete lack of ability to admit to a mistake even when the wrong is blatantly obvious. She'll say and do anything to avoid admitting she screwed up, I've even demonstrated this using a snip from one of the notes to me in the past. It was always everyone else's fault but hers.
The problem with any such assertion by Ms. Manweiler, that it was all the prosecutors and not her (and her family), is that it can be proven to be a lie. The prosecutors tell a different story than the one I'm sure Ms. Manweiler has been telling other people around her. I even have the prosecutor's emails to prove she was involved and engaged in the entire process. Both Michelle Manweiler and her family had a major hand in the actions of the prosecution, because prosecutor Joe Platania had no issues admitting that they were asking for all this to be done to me. In fact Joe Platania was quite fond of trying to not look like the bad guy in court, and instead would point the finger towards the Manweilers. So take a guess why I'm blaming Michelle Manweiler and her whole family?
My lawyer stated to me that he didn't feel this had anything to do with prosecutors Warner Chapman and Joe Platania - he said he felt this was due to pressure that Ms. Manweiler and her family were putting on law enforcement. That's why the letter he wrote on his proposed deal to avoid the felony was directed at Ms. Manweiler and her family - because they were the ones who were the most responsible for making the decisions on how far this would go. Joe Platania made repeated statements to this fact. It was Michelle Manweiler (Dickerman) and her family who pushed for all that was done to me, and they have supported everything that happened this entire time. If Ms. Manweiler has ever told anyone that she had no part to play in what was done to me, even the prosecutors are saying that she lied to you.
An example of one such decision is shown below that proves her and her family's involvement, it is a snip from one of the prosecutor's emails to my attorney. The first thing to note in this email is that he fully admits the motivation behind asking for a pre-sentencing report was to intentionally extend my confinement for far longer than what is warranted. He also clearly states that Michelle Manweiler and her family wanted this to happen as well (he was always sure to include her family every single time). There was no reasonable purpose behind artificially extending my confinement, especially in such a blatantly underhanded way. I had already been informed that Ms. Manweiler had left Charlottesville. It wouldn't make sense anyway for her to hang around until November in a city she clearly didn't intend on remaining with, when she already had a job lined up in Washington, DC.
Email from Joseph Platania to my attorney William Johnson, dated August 24th, 2006
Primary quote to focus on: "Also, I contemplated <Redacted> staying in custody until November as did V and her family. Let me know if this changes anything and sorry for the confusion." - Joe Platania
There it is, the prosecutors own confession that the primary reason for wanting a pre-sentencing report was to deliberately extend my confinement - and that Ms. Manweiler and her family had wanted this as well. This email was in August, and they wanted me to remain in jail waiting until November. There was no defensible reason whatsoever for Michelle Manweiler and her parents to demand for me to remain in jail until November when a decision to threaten me into a plea deal was already ongoing. You could either have me sitting in jail to serve a sentence assigned by a judge after a trial, or have it resolved with a plea deal - you don't get to pull a stunt to deliberately bypass the judge in order to have both. But being entitled and self-absorbed, the Manweilers feel they can do whatever the hell they want to other people. It only served to cause more anguish for my family (especially my mother and grandmother) and ensured my position at my work would be filled by the time I was released. My former boss attempted to hold off hiring anyone for as long as possible, but when a flood of work came in he no longer had any choice. I was informed he finally had to hire someone in October.
Yet Manweiler is somehow surprised at why I ever lashed out at her in the first place, when this is just typical of the behavior she has always presented to me. It should also never have been a surprise to her that this situation has become as severe as what it is now. She made the choice to push this dispute to a level that merely ensured it's continuation - and did this not only knowing full well that she had lied, but that it was absolutely wrong. She didn't just cause serious and permanent damage to my life by taking things as far as she did - she caused some major harm to my family as well through the decisions she made.
Prior to Ms. Manweiler going to the police with an exaggerated story in the summer of 2006, I had considered this dispute to be solely between the two of us. Everything I did was intended to piss her off, I couldn't have cared less about the people around her at the time, as they had never done anything to me. Now I have just as much hatred for her family as I do for her, and consider the whole family to be a part of this dispute now. Even those family members not involved in the decisions of 2006 are still supportive of everything she has done to me. Hell my family suffered thanks to how far the Manweilers took this, so why should her family get off the hook? Ms. Manweiler and her parents had no problem with giving evil and disdainful glares as my mother ran crying out of the courtroom during the preliminary hearing, even though my mother had done nothing to the Manweilers. And then they have the nerve to wonder why I hate them.
So now you have the summation of the legal case I've often referenced in this blog. I have no timeline for when the next post will be finished, currently the project I'm on at work is ramping up and I might not be available to finish work on it for a couple weeks to a month.