Article 19 - feedback page

The following e-mail was sent to Clowne e-zine, regarding a gross and rather scary, miscarriage of justice in the USA:

I would like to send you some links to publications about my criminal case.

I worked for Mitsubishi Electric Automation in Vernon Hills, IL, USA. My case are getting public attention now as an example of miscarriage of justice. I could not defend myself, because I did not have enough money for computer expert. I was forced to confess for possession of child porn.

I got browser hijackers while browsing the web. I was redirected to illigal sites against my will. Some illegal pictures were found on my hard drive only after recovering in unallocated clusters, without dates of files creation/download. I do not know how can courts press widely on people to convict them, while whole Internet is a mess.

The problem for me now is to find lawyer, who can review the case. When I pleaded guilty, there were no any publications, like in wired news. This article was posted on hundreds sites, published in newspapers, discussed on many boards, and translated to many languages. I think the problem with my confession was prosecutors pushed case to trial without any thoughts about computer experts. Judge answered NO for any requests. Prosecutor promised couple years in prison. My lawyer came to me and said 'You must answer in next 5 minutes, after that they call jurors for trial'. 100% you will get conviction, no doubt. 100% to get conviction, and go to prison for couple years. This was opinion of very experienced lawyer.

Going to prison with child sex conviction, there were possibilities to get raped, bitten, or even killed. These were real, very real. So it was pressing like criminals pressing on victim.

I am political refugee from Soviet Union, and in my understanding, there are no difference between prosecution, court, police and criminals. I got another prove of this. People are silent in this country because charging with any crime is very easy, but defence costs huge money. Most people do not have $15,000 for lawyer, but this is not enough. I think $200,000 is not enough to defend yourself. So police and and procecution enjoy abusing of power, like masters with slaves. I just tryed to explain why there was plea agreement. Some people do not understand this. They asking questions like why admitted something you are not guilty of.

Josef Stalin victims admitted to any crime just to exchance for easy death. Also you probably read Orwell '1984'

Fima.

Webmaster's comments:

I'm so sorry to hear about your ordeal. It's a terrible miscarriage of justice, and it's also scary for everyone because hackers and viruses/Trojans can infect anyone's computers, even those with firewalls and anti-virus software are not 100% immune.

I'm willing to publish your entire email in Clowne e-zine if you wish, but first 'd like to ask you: Would you like your name/email/previous place of work published, or would you rather they (and any other identifying details, if you can think of any which I haven't mentioned) were left out, to protect your identity? The reason I ask is, there are a number of spiteful idiots who believe people must be guilty of child porn/molestation/abuse just because somebody says so, and they can be very bullying. (You may wish to send another email for publishing, leaving out or "blanking out" the bits you don't want publishing).

I do understand a bit about the American "plea bargaining" process, but only the basics. Here in the UK we don't have plea bargaining, not officially anyway.

Finally, yes I have read "1984". Here in the UK, just like in the US, it seems to be coming true - although 21 years after Orwell predicted it!

Good luck and best regards, Anthony Karl Page.

Reply from Fima, early May 2005:

I got today customer with this problem. Interesting thing how spyware can download wallpaper and remove any possibility to undo changes. I wonder if next time spyware will install illigal porn as computer screen background at some judges or police chief work computer.

Clowne-e-zine article which inspired the above reply

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