CityViewOnline.com
April 2006

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  • Press Release: Judge Bill Swann Refused to Pay Child Support, Charged with Civil Contempt of Court - Backup copy
  • David Lee's election blog
  • David Lee's Emergency Press Release from jail MP3
  • Inside Tennessee: David Lee vs Judge Bill Swann - Bill Swann calls David Lee's 8-page political advert "sleazy". WBIR TV and HP Video refused to obey the plaintiff's subpoena for this video in Rose v Swann. Subpoena was quashed under TN Reporter's Shield Law. Video is missing from six Indymedia servers worldwide...until now.
  • Joiner v Joiner - backup - Judge Swann illegally "disbarred" David Lee from Knox County Circuit Court Division IV.
  • Rose v Rose - War of the Roses
  • Lanthorn v Sobieski - Legal malpractice claim filed by David Lee against Wanda Sobieski, for missing the deadline to file a claim for wrongful death. Sobieski filed the petition for civil contempt of court that jailed David Lee.
  • Rose v Swann $1-million libel lawsuit - Docket C:06-346406; Judge Swann was "disciplined" by the Tennessee Court of the Judiciary in this matter, for his sworn confession during deposition to "extorting campaign contributions" from lawyers by calling them into chambers in the middle of their trials.
  • Trial date set in Rose v Swann libel lawsuit - Trial date 26 July 2010.
  • Rose v Swann - Entire 400-page pre-trial court file of the $1-million libel and civil rights case, Docket C:06-346406, Knox County Circuit Court, Knoxville, Tennessee. Trial date 26 July 2010.
  • Pirate News Radio Show broadcast - Discussion of the pending jury trial date in Rose vs Swann, WBCR 1470am in Alcoa TN, July 2010.
  • Judge Swann jails Phil Cobble for 1 year in divorce court - Cobble's attorney, Roger D. Hyman, argued “strict compliance” meant, according to prior rulings, “the ability to pay;” otherwise, “We’ve gone back a couple hundred years and we’ve reinstituted debtors’ prison.” Cobble's new attorney Russell Egli won a petition for habeas corpus from Judge Wimberly, on 11 June 2010, for failure to set bail on criminal contempt. Criminal contempt carries a max sentence of 10 days jail. Swann is facing another potential lawsuit for deprivation of civil rights, by denying a divorcee bail in a criminal contempt case, and ignoring court orders by federal bankruptcy court.
  • Judge Bill Swann named in $6-million civil rights case against SWAT raid of New Years Eve party - Judge Swann signed the search warrant for kicking undercover deputy out of "Outlaws" © ® TM biker club.
  • Tennessee legislature investigates complaints against Judge Bill Swann
  • Senators Hear Tales of Abusive Judges - More than a dozen litigants and attorneys trooped before a Senate panel Tuesday where they accused a judicial watchdog agency of failing to rein in abusive judges in a process often shrouded in secrecy, reports Andy Sher. Among them was Wendy Rose-Egli, of Knoxville, who told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that 4th Circuit Court Judge Bill Swann kept control of her child custody case for 41/2 years. She said Swann refused to recuse himself from her custody case even though her attorney was running against Swann -- with her support -- and the judge took out a print ad attacking her. Rose-Egli said the state's Court of the Judiciary, which is charged with investigating judges, dismissed her first complaint. Later, Rose-Egli said, she was aided in filing another complaint by her second husband, Russell Egli, who is an attorney. The Court of the Judiciary later informed her that they had taken unspecified "private" disciplinary action against Swann, the couple said. Russell Egli told lawmakers at one point, the then-chief disciplinary counsel of the Court of the Judiciary told his wife that he and Swann were "good friends." Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, an attorney, said if that were true, "that is absolutely beyond the pale." See also the Tennessean report, which includes this commentary from Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, after listening to some of the stories: "They shock my conscience," he said. "It causes reasonable people to question the court system. ... It leads me to conclude that some members of the judiciary have no respect for the Court of the Judiciary."
  • Judicial watchdog council not doing its job, Senate panel told - More than a dozen litigants and attorneys trooped before a Senate panel Tuesday where they accused a judicial watchdog agency of failing to rein in abusive judges in a process often shrouded in secrecy. Among them was Wendy Rose-Egli, of Knoxville, who told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that 4th Circuit Court Judge Bill Swann kept control of her child custody case for 41/2 years. The chairman of the subcommittee, Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, an attorney, said he was astounded by that and other accounts. “Some of the examples I’ve heard testified to today, they shock my conscience — that someone would say something politically or publish something and then not recuse themselves,” Bunch said. He called that “just inviting disaster. They’re inviting people to question the integrity of the court system.” The Court of the Judicary’s presiding judge, Rutherford County Judge Don Ash, said he could not address specific cases, but he defended the 16-member council’s actions generally. The council includes various state and local judges, attorneys and members of the public. Private reprimands, censures and similar actions allow the council to warn judges of unacceptable behavior, much of it less serious. But Ashe said said he and several other members are working on a new rule regarding judges who are asked to recuse themselves. He said the proposal would allow attorneys to press the issue with a member of the state Court of Appeals. In fiscal year 2009, the Court of the Judiciary dismissed more than 90 percent of the 348 complaints filed against judges, according to the group’s annual report. The court issued two public censures, three public reprimands, five private letter reprimands and five deferred disciplinary agreements.
  • TN attorneys say they fear retribution if they file complaints against judges - Next Page1| 2Previous PageState lawmakers learned Tuesday that attorneys are afraid to complain about some Tennessee judges, fearing retaliation from the judicial system. They also heard stories about judges refusing to step down from cases even though those judges had conflicts of interest. Middle Tennessee attorneys Connie Reguli and Jim Roberts said they had been retaliated against for asking a judge to step down on different cases. "We know who the honest judges are. We know who the dishonest judges are. We're deathly afraid of being retaliated against," Roberts said. "This is a persistent problem. Lawyers don't want to file motions to recuse." Roberts and Reguli said retaliation took the form of their cases being dismissed, accusations of civil contempt and complaints filed against them with the Board of Professional Responsibility — the body that disciplines lawyers in Tennessee. But Reguli said retaliation has a chilling effect on lawyers who don't want to stick their necks out for one client only to have a future client punished. "You can't stand up," she said. "You can't fearlessly represent your clients." Many witnesses testified that without a lawyer to help guide a complaint through the Court of the Judiciary, it would most likely get dismissed. Of 344 complaints received last year, only one resulted in a public reprimand, according to the court's most recent annual report. . The court often takes private disciplinary action. When a public reprimand is deemed necessary, a letter summarizing violations and discipline is released to the public. "That's not very scary," said Janice Johnson, a Nashville activist for judicial reform. Solutions put forth included making more discipline public and giving the court the power to assess civil penalties such as monetary fines. Currently, when the court suspends a judge, that judge still gets paid because the state Constitution prevents judges' salaries from being altered mid-term. "We are opening ourselves to grave and intentional miscarriages of justice," said Christopher Savoy, a Williamson County man who is suing Judge James Martin for lifting a restraining order against his ex-wife, who fled with their children to Japan. "All they do is write letters. They're not going to get my kids back." State Sen. Dewayne Bunch: "It causes reasonable people to question the court system."
  • Beatty Chadwick attorney at law jailed in debtors prison since 1995 in his divorce trial - Civil contempt of court carries a life sentence on death row, no bail, no trial, no appeal allowed.
  • Affidavit of Indigency, Homestead Exemption and Tenancy in the Entirety - How to legally avoid all payment of civil judgements, fines, or court costs in any civil or criminal lawsuit, even when you own a $10-million mansion in Florida.
  • Judges kidnapping children for profit - In recent years there have been many detractors of Child Protective Services (CPS), an organization founded to protect children. Brenda Scott, in her study of CPS concluded, “Child Protective Services is out of control. The system, as it operates today, should be scrapped. Removal is the first resort, not the last. With insufficient checks and balances, the system that was designed to protect children has become the greatest perpetrator of harm.” Professor Ted Melhuish, in his research of December 7, 2006 concluded that every dollar invested in CPS produces a return of $7.16. The immediate impact of CAPTA was an exponential increase in reported cases of suspected child maltreatment from 6,000 confirmed cases of child abuse in 1967 to three million in 1993. Gregory A. Hession, president of Family Legal Services in Massachusetts, stated that six million children are taken ever year by Child Protective Services. He further states that one of the federally-driven incentives for more money is a ‘special needs child’ which means the child takes a prescribed drug. He estimates that a really useful child could bring the state a quarter million dollars per year. According to Mr. Hession, ninety percent of CPS funds are geared toward taking children and ten percent to helping families.
  • PA judges were paid millions of dollars bonus in family court - The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench. In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. “I’ve never encountered, and I don’t think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids’ lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money,” said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre. Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward. The judges are scheduled to plead guilty to fraud Thursday in federal court. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years behind bars.

This political advertisement in CityView was banned and censored by the editorial board of Knoxville News-Sentinel, which supported convicted dead-beat dad Judge Bill Swann and his four wives. Metro Pulse ran the same ad as City View, but Metro Pulse has since been bought by Knoxville News Sentinel and its parent company, Scripps Howard. Pirate News TV was banned and censored during the Republican primary, to allow Judge Swann to promote his daily public-access TV attack upon David Lee, without rebuttal, on Equal Time. Judge Swann co-hosts his weekly public access TV show, Orders of Protection, with WATE TV's co-host "deputy mayor" Gene Patterson, along with WBIR TV's host Bill Williams. Pirate News obtained copies of Gene Patterson's $100,000 paychecks as "deputy mayor" in charge of propaganda. Pirate News TV won two appeals for reinstatement on public access TV, once after the GOP primary election of David Lee vs Judge Swann, and again before the jury trial in the $1-million libel case against Judge Swann. Pirate News Radio Show is broadcast from Blount County, and its multistate listening audience includes all of Knox County. David Lee is brother of John Lee, executive producer and host of Pirate News TV and Pirate News Radio. By signing more Orders of Protection than all other judges in Tennessee combined, Judge Swann has probably jailed more divorcees than all other judges combined.

Pirate News asked dominatrix Leola McConnell to investigate allegations against Judge Swann. She had written a book about her 3-way liaison with homosexual president George W. Bush and his alleged gay lover at Yale Skull and Bones, Knoxville mayor/ambassador Victor "Victoria" Ashe. Judge Swann was a professor at Yale, which formerly was a male-only college. Swann has been married 4 times. McConnell is now missing and feared murdered. McConnell had been a candidate for governor of Nevada when she published her book, and was a candidate for US Senate at the time of her disappearance.

"WOW! Have you seen this website, PirateNews.org? It's totally awesome!
I can't believe that Judge Swann put David Lee in jail! What an asshole! Well, I'm gonna vote for David Lee."
Member of Leadership Knoxville, run by Knox County billionaires

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