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After Louie became the mayor I had a feeling that we would begin to have
problems with the city of Rossford. With that in mind, I purposely made sure
that everything I did was right on the mark. By no means did I want to give
Louie any excuse to get even, because that's the way he looked at it. He hadn't
forgotten a thing and I knew that the first thing my company did wrong would
provoke him to try to put us out of business. There was no doubt about that.
I knew Louie was upset about having me operate the landfill in Rossford; I
just didn't know how upset. It didn't take long to find out though. Shortly
after he became the mayor, his campaign to close the landfill began. Remember,
up to this point we had never received any citation from the city of Rossford
or anyone else stating that we had ever broken any laws.
Louie's first attempt to close us started with the Wood County
commissioners. I'm still not sure why he started with the Wood County
commissioners, unless it somehow took the burden of a lawsuit off the city of
Rossford. To me this didn't make sense. If we had done something illegal, all
the city of Rossford had to do was to charge us with a violation of our permit,
take us to a legitimate court, and if we were found guilty, close us. The only
problem with that scenario is that there were no violations, so they couldn't
do it that way. They had to try to go through some back doors, which they were
more than willing to do.
To keep this from looking like a grudge, Rossford sent a councilman before
the Wood county commissioners, and he was somehow able to convince them to
revoke their permit to us. The only problem was that they never notified us of
this. For whatever reason, they kept it a secret.
When I reopened the landfill, the whole situation came to a head. When Louie
came to the landfill, he never told me that Wood County had revoked their
permit; he just started making excuses for why he had closed the landfill. When
I questioned him about it, he became unruly, so I told him I was going to
contact my attorney before doing anything. To make matters even worse, Art
James told me over the phone to tell Louie that he could not close the landfill
without due process, so I should tell him to leave the premises.
When I heard this advice from Art, I told him that I thought Louie would
snap mentally if I did that because he was already out of control. Art said
that no matter how angry Louie became, he did not have the right to close the
landfill. So that's exactly what I went out and told Louie.
Before I could get the words out of my mouth, Louie went over the edge and
threw an absolute tantrum. If I didn't close that minute he'd come back and
arrest me. At that point, any attempt at logic with Louie was impossible. As a
matter of fact, I couldn't even talk with him because by now he was just
screaming at me. Louie was so pissed-off that within ten minutes of leaving the
landfill he returned with the chief of police and they both arrested me.
By now Louie was so irate it didn't matter to him that he had exceeded his
authority in closing the landfill; he was so out of control that he even
demanded that the police chief arrest me. Then to finish his act, Louie was
able to try me in his own court, with himself as the judge. How convenient!
Louie accuses me, Louie arrests me and Louie tries me in his own court! Could
anyone have stacked the deck any better than that?
Unfortunately for the mayor and the prosecutor, their victory was brief.
After Art James demonstrated to them in their own court how illegal and
incompetent their actions had been, the prosecutor, with great displeasure,
agreed and eventually was able to convince Louie that he had to dismiss the charges.
The hanging would have to wait for another day.
Fortunately for me, the key to all this was that they had no case to begin
with. I hadn't done anything wrong; it was nothing less than an attempt at
payback. I have to admit though, at this point I was quite impressed with Art.
He handled himself and the situation very professionally.
After their attempted lynching in the Rossford mayor's court backfired,
their revenge immediately intensified. Now they, the Rossford mayor and
prosecutor were ready to go to whatever extreme necessary, including the
cancellation of my rights under the United States Constitution, if that's what
it took to put me out of business.
I'm not sure why, but I was always under the impression that all
politicians, including local politicians, judges and lawyers, understood the
Constitution and their sworn duty to uphold it. I thought that was the basis
for their pay checks. They’re there to protect an individual’s rights, not
violate them. In this case though, they did what they pleased, when they
pleased, and unfortunately for me, they were able to do it.
To make matters even worse, besides having to fight an out-of-control,
ill-tempered mayor, I now had to contend with a corrupt prosecutor. The reason
I say that about the prosecutor is that he was the one who supposedly went to
the landfill, in the dark of night, without a search warrant, and found this
"box full of goodies."
Keep in mind that the planting of their evidence and the illegal search took
place the very next night after the mayor dismissed the charges against me in
his court. When I said earlier that the mayor was furious about having to drop
the charges against me in his own kingdom--I mean court--I wasn't exaggerating
a bit. Louie wanted me out of business, and nothing or no one was going to stop
him.
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