False Arrest

Shat terd

Men

The hidden half of domestic violence

Note that in the following case both the Public Defender and the Prosecutor are now working together to defend a woman who has admitted her guilt. She also has the victim's advocate and a private investigator working on her behalf at State expense.

From: "Stanley A. Green mailto:greest@bmi.net

Subject: Seattle area DV case spotlights gross imbalance of system

We need to increase public understanding of this type of injustice. Greg's earlier posting follows.

--Stanley GreenUpdate on the Eastside DV Case

Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 08:51:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Greg Schmidt mailto:little_schmidts@yahoo.com

The following is an update from the DV case taking place in Northeast District Court [Redmond, Washington State--home of Microsoft]. This is the case involving the male firefighter that was the subject of an article and follow-up Opinion piece by Lisa Scott in the Eastside Journal, Bellevue, WA. at http://www.eastsidejournal.com/sited/story/html/44468 posted before, and stating that gender profiling is prevalent in domestic violence cases. The continuing saga of Mark Sundt is a case in point.

On 3/15/01 the 5th hearing took place in this case involving the male victim of domestic violence. Remember that he was originally arrested for this same offense and now he has turned the tables and forced the issue that the facts clearly depict him as the true and only victim.

The case has been continued for 5 more weeks at the request of the defense so the probable cause hearing set for 3/23 has been cancelled.

The defense has also been granted a private investigator now for this case. Yes of course this will be at the State's expense. Our victim, Mr. Sundt, objected quite eloquently to this appointment of a private investigator at our expense. He spelled out that originally when the female was the alleged victim she had a prosecutor and a victim advocate working for her at the State's expense. Now that she is the suspect she has two Prosecutor's in the courtroom working on her case TO HELP HER DEFENSE, she has the original DV advocate still by her side in court, and of course the new DV advocate assigned to Northeast District Court had to jump in and is now also at her side, the Public Defender which was assigned to her was done without even determining if she qualified or not financially and now the female DV suspect also has a private investigator.

Mr. Sundt did not add up the dollars spent by the State so far on this case all for a female DV suspect but his point was made to anyone who actually listened. Mr. Sundt also reminded the court that he paid several thousand dollars to right a wrong while he was listed as the suspect.

Mr. Sundt is facing this battle alone. Mr. Sundt is not an attorney. Picture a teetor-totter with all of the State's paid players sitting on one end and Mr. Sundt as high in the air as he can go on the other end hoping that somebody will just look at the fact that the female already signed a statement admitting to her acts of assault against him.

Mr. Sundt later asked the court if he could be assigned an attorney, at the State's expense, to protect his rights which he states have been trounced upon and he fears further victimization by the system. He of course was denied along with his request that a
victim advocate be assigned to him.

The Public Defender and the Prosecutor working against Mr. Sundt have both attacked Mr. Sundt publicly in the court and in the newspaper that Mr. Sundt is this 'bad man' and that they intend to liberally apply the rules of evidence against Mr. Sundt even though they know they will not be able to get most of that evidence later into the trial.

Mr. Sundt is forced to evaluate whether he wants to pay for an attorney to be present in the courtroom to protect his rights as a victim and to shut down the intended liberal use of the rules of evidence that the defense stated they will exploit against him.

Does anybody want to call that King County Prosecutor, Mr. Rogoff was it, who spoke out about how fair his office is in treating all victims of domestic violence. Maybe Mr. Rogoff could step into the courtroom on Mr. Sundt's behalf and put his money where his mouth is.

Every Victim Counts,
Greg Schmidt

He does not have a prosecutor by his side which if Norm Maleng and company were truly gender blind they would be there.

= = =
Here is an earlier message from Greg on this case:

Judge orders prosecution of female DV perpetrator over prosecutors' objection
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:32
From: "S.A. Green" <greest@bmi.net>

As some of you know, the author of this message, Greg Schmidt, spent his life savings defending himself against a bogus DV charge after he was attacked. He eventually was acquitted in a trial which drew much media attention in Washington State. Greg established the Seattle Police Dept's DV program several years ago and is now suing his employer in his own case. Here, he narrates another case in which Judge St. Clair, a member of the Washington State Gender & Justice Commission, overturns the efforts of a King County (east of Seattle) prosecutor who tried unsuccessfully to prosecute the male victim and ignores the judge's order to file charges against the female perpetrator.

This is a very profound breakthrough in DV jurisprudence in Washington.

--Stanley Green
Stop Abuse For Everyone
greest@bmi.net
SAFE website:
http://www.safe4all.org/
==============================

King County Prosecutor takes one on the chin
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 20:02:23 -0800 (PST)

From: Greg Schmidt mailto:little_schmidts@yahoo.com

Sit down and get ready for some promising news.

First a little background:

02/27/00 Mark Sundt becomes a male victim of a domestic violence assault at the hands of his now ex-girlfriend. She leaves the house. Four hours later King County Officers arrive at his house and, you guessed it, off to jail Mark goes. Two days later he bails out.

He appears at his arraignment on his own thinking that the Prosecutor and Judge will see the grievous error that has occurred and dismiss his case. Obviously the Prosecutor would have none of that and the case continued. Mark hired an attorney and eventually the Prosecutor talked to the attorney and stated basically that they had no case against Mark and they would eventually be dismissing the charges.

September 2000, seven months later, Mark appears for TRIAL and the Prosecutor finally dismisses the charges. But they were not done with him yet and the Prosecutor filed a different charge against Mark! Minutes later, the Judge dismissed the bogus charge.

Mark is obviously a little beside himself after all this.

Now for the promising news I told you about.

11/17/00 Mark appears in Northeast District Court and files a criminal complaint and an affidavit requesting that his ex-girlfriend be charged with assault. The Judge requests that Mark contact the DV Prosecutor and give them a chance to file charges on the case themselves.

Mark makes several attempts to contact the DV Prosecutor to have them file charges, including a certified letter. The DV Prosecutor will have nothing to do with him.

12/08/00 Mark reappears in court requesting that the charges go forward. Judge Weley St. Clair is
presiding, who is one of the county's judicial experts on domestic violence. He gives the DV Prosecutor another month to review the case and to talk to Mark. He also suggests to the DV Prosecutor present to consult with the Head DV Prosecutor for King County.

01/12/01 Mark reappears in court. Of course the DV Prosecutor never contacted Mark and she told me she never contacted her boss. She wasn't even going to appear in court but the Judge ordered her into the courtroom.

The Judge then made his ruling, "Mr. Sundt started us down a path and we are going to continue down that path." The DV Prosecutor was not very happy and as she spoke up saying, "If these charges are filed" The Judge then interupted her and said, "there is no more if!"

To Judge St. Clair's credit he did exactly what he had to do. He stated that this is only the 2nd time in 18 years that he has ever done this. He trains hand in hand with the Head DV Prosecutor for the county, Barbara Fleming, but it did not stop him from following the court rules.

So what happens next:

On 02/02/01 there is a preliminary hearing to determine which prosecutor or prosecutor's office should prosecute this case. Obviously we will be pushing for King County not to prosecute the case because of their obvious inability to recognize a male victim.

An additional preliminary hearing has already been set for 02/16/01 on this case also.

It is sad that an individual had to do a Prosecutor's job, but obviously that is what it took in this case. The Eastside Journal was given the exclusive rights to this story and their story should appear any day if it didn't already appear today.

I will keep you posted.

Every Victim Counts,

Lisa Scott's article on this case in the Eastside Journal, Bellevue, WA. can be found at

http://www.eastsidejournal.com/sited/story/html/44468

--

Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.
455 Bear Creek Road
Colorado Springs, CO 80906-5820
Telephone:     (719) 520-1089
Facsimile:        (719) 328-1588
eFax:              (509) 472-5275
AIM:               drcecorry
E-mail:        mailto:ccorry@pcisys.net
Home page: http://boulder.earthnet.net/~ccorry
Domestic Violence Against Men: http://www.dvmen.org