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Once again, being an outsider to the political system makes it difficult to
pinpoint exactly what they did for him, because there are so many ways they
could have. By no means do I want you to think I'm grasping at straws when I
say I can't tell you precisely how these people were paid off, because
truthfully, I can't. What I am positive of is that Judge Spore did illegally
throw both cases for Rossford and the mayor. There's no doubt in my mind
whatsoever about that. Coincidentally, I believe that after Judge Spore did
lose an election, he was appointed to a visiting judgeship.
After this trial was over there was no doubt left in my mind that the only
way I could ever get a fair hearing and prevail was to get the proceedings out
of Rossford's and Perrysburg’s jurisdictions. As long as they could keep me in
their local judicial system they could basically do whatever they wanted, and
they did. There was just no way that I'd ever stand a chance. Another
interesting twist: if these trials were on the up and up, why were the records
missing every time I tried to get a copy of them? It wasn't just me, either. I
had three different attorneys go to the Perrysburg Municipal Court over a
ten-year period and attempt to get a copy of these trials. They also were not
able to get a copy because the files were missing. Isn't that convenient.
There's no doubt about it. I had a bad taste in my mouth for the legal
system after experiencing the corruption of the Rossford and Perrysburg justice
systems. These bastards were so good at rigging the judicial system in their
favor that they could have been classified as Olympic Kangaroos. The crucial
question in my mind was, "Just how corrupt is the rest of the judicial
system?"
With this in mind and before we went to court against Rossford in the
$4,100,000 lawsuit in Lucas County, Art James, my uncle and I met once again. I
asked Art if he thought we could receive a fair hearing in the Lucas County
court system. My question was: "What would make a Lucas County judge any
different, and what would stop the political system from getting to this judge
too?" Art acknowledged that the Lucas County prosecutor’s office had done
a huge political favor for the mayor of Rossford, but for some reason he didn't
think that we'd have that problem in Lucas County.
Every time I talked to Art about my concerns regarding being able to find a
judge whom they couldn't get to, he would tell me that my distrust of the legal
system was understandable, then very convincingly assure me that we would not
have to worry about that once we got it out of the Rossford and Perrysburg
legal system.
Since Art was our attorney, we had to take his word. Why would he lie to us?
Little did I know that at the same time Art was assuring me he would win all of
this hands down, the dirty son of a bitch had already sold us out and was
getting ready to do it again. One thing I am not is stupid, even though I might
feel like it when I look back at all of this. The only thing I can say is that
I really trusted Art. Hell, I was placing my future in his hands because I
believed him.
Well when our moment of justice finally arrived in the Lucas County court
concerning our suit against the city of Rossford, that's all it turned out to
be--a fleeting moment. The hearing only lasted a couple of minutes. When
Rossford’s attorney said that in his opinion the mayor and the councilmen were
all immune from being sued, the judge agreed and told both attorneys to file
their arguments and he'd make a decision. It was over.
I want to take a second to emphasize something. When I heard the judge say
this, I didn't stand up and say that he was crooked, because I didn't know. So
I didn't say anything. At that moment it was more of a wait-and-see basis. The
reason I'm even mentioning this is that I don't want anyone to think that
whenever something didn't go my way in court, I just stood up and claimed that
everyone was crooked. I'm not that erratic. When I told Judge Spore that he was
crooked, it was because I knew he was and he knew he was.
This time I didn't know what to think or say. This was supposed to be our
chance to get this all turned around, and it only lasted several minutes! To
make matters worse, they actually had a chance of getting off the hook, not
because they were not guilty, but because they might be immune. When I heard
this, the only thing I could think of was that there was probably some loophole
in the law which would allow them to get away with this. If there was, why
didn't Art know about it?
I waited until we left the court before I asked Art what the hell was going
on. Were we ever going to receive a fair trial or not? As far as I was
concerned, Art should have had some idea. He was the attorney. As always, Art
assured us that eventually we would prevail--there was no doubt in his mind. He
explained that if the judge decided they were immune, he would appeal his
decision and win.
As always, I had to rely on whatever answer Art gave because there was no
way of knowing if he was telling the truth or not. At that time I had no reason
to believe that he wasn't telling the truth. You have to take your attorney’s
word. You can't just walk in and ask the court or the judge if they think your
attorney is capable of winning this lawsuit. You’re virtually at the mercy of
your attorney, and all you can do is to hope that he knows what he’s doing.
Shortly after the hearing Art contacted me and said that Judge Glasser had
decided that the mayor of Rossford and the councilmen were immune from being
sued. Before I could get two words out of my mouth Art stopped me and said he
had already anticipated this outcome and was prepared to file an appeal. Art
stressed the point that Judge Glasser said they were immune, he didn't say they
weren't guilty, and Art assured me that he could handle the immunity issue.
There was absolutely, and I mean absolutely, no doubt in Art's mind, according
to what he told me, that eventually we would prevail. The only problem was that
the process could end up taking years.
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