When reviewing what I wrote however, I realized there were some additional points I wanted to make about a particular subject that had been brought up. More specifically, the points I wanted to make involve the further reasoning behind the high likelihood that my former attorney William Johnson was working hand-in-hand with the prosecution against his client.
I went over how on the Friday before the Monday guilty plea hearing, I had made the mistake of telling William Johnson about my post-conviction plans related to pardons and getting my rights restored. I didn't think there was any issue with telling him about this since things had calmed down during the meeting, and I wanted to hear what he thought about it. I would have never said a word about my plans if I honestly thought it was getting back to the prosecutor. That was a line I didn't expect even William Johnson to cross.
Johnson immediately went heavy on attempting to convince me that this wasn't possible and I should forget about any attempts to restore my rights or get a pardon later. He wasn't just saying it wasn't possible, he really wanted to talk me out of even making the attempt. Which is a rather odd thing for a defense attorney to do. It certainly helps raise further suspicions about him. If he really believed it wasn't possible to restore my rights or get a pardon - why bother trying so hard to convince me to not even attempt it?
I've talked to other people on the subject since that time, and those knowledgeable on such things have flat out told me that nothing Johnson was telling me was correct. Both the Charlottesville and Hampton probation officers said he was absolutely wrong on pardons. A late neighbor on my parent's street sought me out after my release from jail (she had been told by my mother what Johnson had said), revealed to me that her son is a pardoned felon in Virginia, and went over the process with me. A friend of mine had a felony charge and yet legally owns guns after getting his rights restored.
What Johnson told me in his attempts to talk me out of even trying for a pardon was a lie. This in turn certainly raises questions about why he was lying about something that has nothing to do with him in the first place. Why was he so dead-set against me asking for the restoration of my rights and a pardon? Why did he even care what I was planning to do? It literally did not affect his life one bit.
As I mentioned in the post, after I told William Johnson about my plans that Friday, the prosecution would conveniently slip something into the plea agreement. A term of 20 years good behavior was added to the plea deal early Monday morning. Johnson went over the plea agreement with me minutes before I was to walk out into the court room. He had just seen it himself, by his own admission. At least he claimed he had just seen it, for all his word actually matters. I naturally wanted to know what the hell that 20 years good behavior meant, and instead of answering that question Johnson dismisses it as "no big deal" and tells me it isn't something I should be worried about. There are lawyers I've spoken with since who want to see Johnson answer just for that alone.
Upon seeing that I was not convinced (20 years of anything is a pretty fucking long time after all), Johnson snaps back that I should be happy I'm not looking at 20 years in prison by comparison. He then reminds me of Warner Chapman's (the head prosecutor) threats against me and says I'm lucky that Chapman isn't filing multiple felony counts instead as retaliation.
Johnson moves on to instruct me that like he did at the preliminary hearing waiver, he would write 'Y' and 'N' at the top of his notepad. During these procedures the judge asks the defendant certain questions before concluding. Johnson instructed me that I was to answer to whatever he points to with his pen just like the preliminary hearing, and if I don't answer to what he points to I'm going to spend time in prison.
The only time he will not point to anything is when the judge asks if I've been satisfied with the job my attorney has been doing. Johnson tells me that I can go right ahead and tell the judge that I wanted to fire my lawyer and how the prosecutors threatened me, but that absolutely nothing will be done about it and I will spend a long time in prison as a result. "You know exactly how you need to answer Mr. <Redacted>" was his final statement on that.
Thankfully the copies I have of Johnson's notes still have the 'Y' and 'N' he wrote at the top during the hearing, which helps me prove that Johnson had indeed done this. Like I said many times before, the fact that Johnson was so massively arrogant means that he unintentionally dumped a lot of evidence in my lap that proves what went on.
One of the big issues I pointed out in that Malicious Prosecution post was that it was pretty clear that William Johnson was working for the prosecution given that the prosecution seemed to know exactly what I had planned to do in the future. After all, I told Johnson on the Friday before the hearing that I was going to get my rights restored and ask for a pardon, and on Monday the prosecution adds 20 years good behavior to the plea agreement. A penalty which just so happens to prevent asking for pardons and rights restoration for 20 years.
I didn't realize the 20 years good behavior prevented pardons and rights restoration. The reason I didn't realize it is because Johnson didn't tell me it does this - likely because he knew I'd have immediately known that he told the prosecutor about my statements on getting a pardon. So I wasn't aware of this effect of the 20 years until the probation officer in Charlottesville informed me of the issue. It was her opinion that the 20 years good behavior was added specifically to prevent me from asking for a pardon for 20 years, and she said she wanted me to get with a lawyer to fix that as soon as I was off probation.
It was at that point I realized what Johnson had really been doing the entire time. But not just because of the prosecution seeming to know what my plans for pardons were. This was not in fact the first time that the prosecution seemed to miraculously predict the future precisely during the case.
The afternoon prior to the preliminary hearing, held back in July of 2006, Johnson had waited until the last minute to look at evidence. I previously made mention of this in the Malicious Prosecution post when demonstrating his laziness and incompetence in his handling of my case. After retrieving some of the evidence from the prosecution, Johnson met with me at the jail in one of the meeting rooms as he discussed his plans for the preliminary hearing.
During this meeting Johnson said he was going to call me to the stand to testify in my own defense, and we went over the questions that I would likely be asked. He stressed that he wanted me to keep my answers simple and not try to get into details in an attempt to explain myself. Johnson said that he fully expected to lose the hearing and that I would be convicted on both misdemeanor charges. He also said he expected the district court judge to certify the felony charge, which was actually part of Johnson's plan.
I disagree in hindsight with Johnson's belief in what the judge's decision for the felony would be, because the judge in the case seemed very dead set against there being any evidence of death threats in the emails. He argued a lot with Joseph Platania at the bond hearings, demanding to know where these supposed death threats were (which Platania couldn't answer), and he later hugged my mother after the final bond hearing and told her it was all going to work out. When waiving the preliminary hearing (which I'll discuss that in a moment) the judge kept asking me if I was absolutely sure I wanted to waive the preliminary hearing while he kept glancing over at my attorney with a glare. I think he would have dismissed the felony charge and only given me the two misdemeanors. Unfortunately I never got the chance to find that out but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Johnson stated that he expected the loss on the misdemeanors, and for the felony to be pushed on to circuit court. He told me that the wording for one of the misdemeanors matched the wording on the felony charge. His plan was that he would argue in circuit court for a double jeopardy on the felony, and have it dismissed based on the fact the wording on the felony matches one of the prior convicted misdemeanors.
Now given that I'm not a lawyer I have absolutely no idea whether this actually would have even remotely worked out this way, or whether Johnson was just blowing smoke up my ass. I definitely have my doubts these days that Johnson's plan was remotely legit. He very likely could have just come up with some BS to look as if he was actually doing something, maybe thinking that he could still convince the Manweilers to go along with the original plea deal he proposed. However, given what the prosecutor would later pull - perhaps Johnson's plans were not a lie.
In the threat email from Joseph Platania, uploaded previously in the Malicious Prosecution post, Joseph Platania did a direct indictment on the misdemeanor charges. What this meant is that I would not be tried on the misdemeanor charges in district court, and instead they would be pushed to circuit court to be tried right alongside the felony charge. Which means that William Johnson's plans for the hearing and the felony charge were completely ruined - almost as if Joseph Platania knew ahead of time what Johnson had been planning to do.
As for why I waived the preliminary hearing - mere minutes before I was to go before the judge Johnson drops the bomb on me about the prosecutor's threats. He shrugs his shoulders, then admits he was unprepared for the hearing. He states that he still believes he can do something, but he needs me to waive the hearing so he can get back to work on figuring out something else. Johnson says he's got nothing else for the hearing so I need to waive it - and I had to make that decision on the spot.
I was in a complete state of shock, so much so that after the waiving of the hearing I accidently began following Johnson out of the court room. I didn't even know what I was doing in that moment. The bailiffs had to run up and politely directed me back towards the cells at the bottom of the courthouse. I remember them being very nice to me, which I appreciate because I was really out of it. Johnson had deliberately timed the reveal right before I was to go out, knowing I'd be in shock and not have enough time to process anything and fully make up my mind.
Returning to the prosecution's apparent out-playing of William Johnson - the problem with this is that Platania (assistant prosecutor) and Chapman (head prosecutor) aren't actually that competent to predict William Johnson's plans like that. These are two prosecutors who were played for a bunch of fools by a newly minted lawyer fresh out of law school (Michelle Dickerman).
Platania was dumb enough to blatantly show his affections for Michelle Dickerman in front of witnesses, and had a clearly inappropriate sexual discussion with the defense attorney about the claimed "victim" the prosecution was representing. That's beyond incompetent behavior. Platania even offered to set up a meeting between Johnson and Michelle Dickerman after getting excited during this sexual discussion. Johnson is a massive womanizer and yet even he seemed taken aback by Platania's outburst, and he mocked Joseph Platania's voice as he retold the conversation to me at the jail. Johnson turned down the offer, citing the fact that it was a long drive from Mathews County to Charlottesville and he didn't see what there was to gain from this meeting.
None of Platania's actions strike me as being the behavior of someone that is remotely competent as a lawyer let alone as a prosecutor. How could anyone claim that Platania wasn't an idiot when he behaves like a teenage boy who never knew female attorneys existed before Michelle Dickerman? While Chapman and Platania were not nearly stupid enough to put certain things down in writing, they were still dumb enough to risk the cooperation of an arrogant defense attorney that they knew wasn't doing his job. All in the hopes that said arrogant attorney would somehow keep his mouth shut. Spoilers - Johnson did not in fact keep his mouth shut.
So how is it that Joseph Platania just so happened to predict William Johnson's plan for the preliminary hearing so precisely? Because like I said, Platania wasn't a smart enough man to predict this on his own. He wouldn't have acted like such a blatant horndog when it came to Michelle Dickerman if he was intelligent enough to tell the future like that. How did Platania also seem to know that I had told my lawyer about my plans for pardons and rights restoration on Friday?
It's a real stretch to say that he just so conveniently happened to come to his own conclusion on the pardon plans at the last minute - just in time to put them in the document on Monday morning. Platania just so happened to know exactly what he should do to prevent the rights restoration plans (for 20 years at least) that I expressed to Johnson the previous Friday? On top of just happening to predict Johnson's plans on the double jeopardy with the felony?
I posted one of the emails between Johnson and Platania in the Malicious Prosecution post, the one on Thursday where they were discussing the plea deal terms. You won't find a single mention of 20 years good behavior in the Thursday email. Those plea deal terms only showed up Monday after I had talked to Johnson about the rights restoration on Friday - because those terms were never discussed prior in any emails between Platania and Johnson in my possession. Nor did Johnson ever bring it up until he read the plea agreement on Monday. None of Johnson's notes seem to hint at him even knowing about this 20 years good behavior prior to the Monday hearing.
Joseph Platania some how managed to know things at the last minute that were only discussed between myself and my lawyer in person at the jail. There are only two possible explanations for this happening.
The first option would actually cause a pretty big criminal investigation from what I've heard. None of these conversations with William Johnson took place over a jail phone, which my understanding anyway is that the jail would potentially be entering into sketchy territory in sharing those calls with the prosecutor since they didn't include anything illegal. I was warned that it wasn't an absolute guarantee when it came down to jail phones and that they shouldn't be considered safe, but that actually isn't relevant anyway. Because all of these talks with Johnson on these two subjects took place in person - especially because the asshole wouldn't answer jail calls from me or even answer my mother's calls.
We were in interview rooms specifically intended for defendants to talk to a lawyer with the expectation of privacy. It certainly never occurred to me at the time that the jail would possibly record meetings between a defendant and his counsel. It wasn't a concern Johnson ever expressed either. If the jail was recording us and sharing those conversations with the prosecution, that could explain why Platania seemed to know everything being discussed. But I've also been told that doing something like this would have crossed some lines and broke laws on the Federal and State level.
Of course law enforcement doesn't give a shit about breaking the very laws they hold the rest of us accountable for. However, I very much doubt this was actually a thing. I can't imagine a district attorney's office could keep such a thing hidden. Especially if they did it often. It would become a massive scandal if it was found out that Charlottesville prosecutors were recording defense attorneys during their assumed private meetings at the jail. Given that some defense attorneys become prosecutors, I would imagine they would express outrage if they found out that the district attorney's office was pulling something like this during one of their own past cases. Imagine finding out you only lost a case because the prosecutor recorded you during a private meeting with your client? It would certainly piss me off and I'm not even a lawyer.
I can't imagine that someone wouldn't have turned whistleblower all this time if this was a practice by the jail and the district attorney. Even if the prosecution only did it once, it would call into question every single case the prosecutors involved in this behavior ever handled. Because if they did it once how do you know for certain whether or not they actually did it in other cases? You wouldn't be able to trust the prosecution's denials on which cases they used it on and which ones they didn't. It would turn into a massive shitshow for the City of Charlottesville. One that I don't think the prosecution would have been willing to risk.
I certainly could be wrong about what the prosecution was willing to risk, considering the clear desperation on the part of the prosecution to railroad me in order to coverup the scandal they would face due to Michelle Dickerman's actions with the evidence. But I find it hard to believe that the prosecution would be willing to risk something as serious as recording a defense lawyer's private meetings with their client. Getting caught doing that even once could wreck their entire career, and create potential issues with every conviction they were involved with if it ever came out. All it takes is someone at the jail becoming a whistleblower, or a later district attorney with integrity finding out that the DA's office of Charlottesville pulled a stunt like this once.
So the more likely explanation I think is that Johnson actually told these things to Joseph Platania because he was cooperating with the prosecution against his client. There are at least three possible motives for him to do this:
- To protect Michelle Dickerman from answering for her criminal acts - a fellow attorney that William Johnson constantly expressed his attraction towards.
- Johnson might have been paid off by Michelle Dickerman's father Gregory Manweiler to throw the case.
- Johnson was an absolutely lazy piece of shit who wanted to take his money and run. As soon as he realized that the case was not going the way he wanted, he took the path of least resistance and cooperated with the prosecutor to end it quickly with as little effort on his part as possible. Fighting for his client would have required work that Johnson was clearly not interested in performing.
I don't have evidence for the second listed motive yet, which is the bribery to throw the case, so for now I have to lean towards the first and third proposed motives - which are the ones that I do have evidence to point towards. It was likely a combination of the first and third if I'm being honest (again, assuming Johnson wasn't just paid off to throw the case).
There was a lot more that happened that further leans heavily towards Johnson working in cooperation with the prosecution. Hell there is a lot about this case that I haven't bothered writing about, because there is just so fucking much that happened and went wrong with this case. A lot of it has probably been mentioned over the years, especially about Johnson, and is just spread out over all kinds of posts. I just can't summon the desire to go hunting through posts to see if I can consolidate all of it.
It already drags me down just writing what I have discussed so far on this blog. Every time I get done with one of these posts I flip back and forth between feelings of being emotionally drained and feelings of wanting to cave someone's skull in. Given that I've felt increasingly backed into a corner as of late, you can imagine that working on something that causes me to swing through very strong emotions isn't good. The events of 2006 already run through my mind in a constant loop every waking moment. I get little downtime from that, with none of my hobbies being an outlet for that anymore. So it isn't exactly helpful to focus on and relive those events as I sit here typing about them. Maybe at some point I'll attempt to consolidate a lot of what I've written, but with everything else currently going on I just can't do it right now. So it's just bits and pieces here and there.
I need to get the long post done, along with the website. I've delayed a lot on those two, especially the long post. In fact there are some things I'll have to remove because I ended up talking about them in (supposedly) smaller posts that were done instead of the "longer" post. It also hasn't helped my ability to focus that I received confirmation during a meeting with my supervisor that it is not a matter of 'if' I'll lose my job, but 'when' I'm going to lose said employment. You can imagine that doesn't make things better with the sizeable amount of anger I already feel about my situation with the false felony charge.
Until I've finished the long post, what I've written so far should be more than enough for people to work with. Hopefully I can get that completed soon enough. It might be the last post I make on the blog for a while, at least until I get the website completed. At most I might put up something short, but I'm certainly not going for lengthy writing after that long post until the website is done.
To close this out, I will leave off with stating the obvious. William Johnson is an absolute piece of shit. Though admittedly he’s not the only lawyer in this case who is a piece of shit. That describes every lawyer that had direct involvement, especially Michelle Dickerman, but with the sole exception to that being Katherine Peters (I have no reason to believe Peters did anything wrong). But Johnson is definitely the kind of lawyer who clearly only became a lawyer in order to get lots of money. Johnson is a lawyer because he likes his tailored suits and expensive toys, and he clearly couldn't care less who gets hurt in the process of securing that. Then again that's something he shares with Michelle Dickerman, which is probably why he liked her so much. He found a fellow corrupt kindred spirit. After all, you don't become a litigation lawyer for the government because you care about people - you do it for those parasitically bloated GS benefits.
Money obsessed individuals like this are the last kind of "people" we need in the legal field, but unfortunately they seem to instead be the majority. I've seen little to convince me that it isn’t the majority. Every now and then though I will admittedly come across lawyers that are genuinely there to either help people or fight for their beliefs, and I respect those people. But they seem to be the exceptions that prove the rule. Two Youtube channels run by such lawyers are 'The Civil Rights Lawyer' and 'Fudd Busters' (there are quite a few I watch but those stick out right now in my mind). You also have non-profit organizations like the pro-2A 'Firearms Policy Coalition’, groups looking to help the wrongfully convicted like the ‘Innocence Project’, and groups trying to stop legal overreach like the ‘Institute for Justice’.
You would never catch lawyers like Michelle Dickerman and William Johnson working for a non-profit legal organization to help people - because there isn’t any money to be made in such things.