An Ohio attorney facing 66 years and six months in jail for speaking out a city council meeting was jailed last Thursday after making a routine court appearance in preparation for her upcoming trial.
Information still remains sketchy as to the exact reason why attorney Elsebeth Baumgartner was hauled away to the Erie County jail, but sources close to the case say it's nothing but 'political pay back' for uncovering serious corruption in Cuyahoga County leading all the way to the doorstep of the White House.
As outrageous as it sounds, Baumgartner faces a total of more than 109 years in jail on other felony charges stemming from city council incident, including emailing a high ranking Ohio judge and running a controversial web site accusing high ranking Ohio officials with serious crimes.
'They have twisted the law and essentially taken away my freedom of speech rights,' said Baumgartner two weeks ago after appearing on Greg Szymanski's radio show, The Investigative Journal.
However, close friend and associate, Angela Caputo, provided the following update on her case, saying as of Sunday evening Baumgartner was still being held in the Erie Country essentially as a modern day 'political prisoner.'
'Elsebeth is in the Erie County jail. Thursday was supposed to be the start of her trial on felony fleeing and eluding in front of Visiting Judge David Knepper,: said Caputo. 'I do not have any details yet - just a message from her husband Joe Baumgartner.
'I believe that her knowledge and exposure of the case fixing via visiting judges is the main international scandal that is being contained. Here is a direct quote from Elsebeth's document that was sent to Agent John P. Pearson, USDOJ, and Ted Wasky, FBI Cleveland, with copies to Cuyahoga Judge Nancy McDonaldand Erie County Judge Roger Binette on May 17, 2006 which sums it all up:
'My allegations included widespread case fixing via manipulation of special
prosecutor and or visiting judge appointments to protect far ranging corrupt activity in Ohio including pay to play and the facilitation of federal grant fraud, insurance fraud and or thefts of public resources including sensitive biotechnologies by Ohio law firms such as Benesch Friedlander, Coplan and Aronoff; (Cleveland) Baumgartner& O Toole (Sheffield Lake); Roetzel and Andress (Akron and Toledo); Murray and Murray (Sandusky) and Spengler Nathanson, and Eastman and Smith (Toledo). Later reports to the USDOJ included allegations of protection of extortion, drug trafficking, weapons running, and various sex crimes including child pornography and other crimes against women and children by compromised prosecutors, judges and law enforcement officers including federal officers, prosecutors and Judges David Katz, Patricia Gaughan and others.'
Caputo went on to say:
'I agree and have stated the same conclusion to Elsebeth that you have - her exposure of this truth is the biggest story in America and I believe that it is being suppressed at the highest levels of our fascist government.
'I do not say that lightly. Several months ago, Else discovered her name had been inked to a gateway porn site. I looked at the site and saw that it was actually a political bulletin board with the domain owned by a Russian.
'The site regularly discusses Erie Voices, Elsebeth Baumgartner, and Bryan DuBois in some type of repetitious code. This site has talked about 'shooting civilians in Iraq' for months and the story was just finally was reported in MSM. I find it strange that allegedly this tragedy occurred (November 19) only 2-days after John Murtha's speech and confrontation with Jean Schmidt (November 17).
Baumgartner's story provides a sad glimpse at the clamp down of freedoms in America, as she has already spent more than 244 days in jail, including 10 days 'locked in a hole' without right to counsel, clergy or even phone calls.
The Arctic Beacon has covered the story extensively because of its importance as media outlets have ignored the case especially in Cleveland where the press, Baumgartner claims, is complicit in covering up for crooked politicians.
In earlier Arctic Beacon stories, Baumgartner, who graduated first in her class from the University of Toledo Law School, said:
'I was essentially put in a hole for 10 days and held incommunicado as a domestic terrorist,' said Baumgartner. 'I wasn't allowed legal counsel, the right to clergy and even the opportunity to make a phone call.'
And if anyone thinks Americans don't already have two feet buried deep into the mud of fascism, pay close attention to how and why Baumgartner was originally jailed for 234 days on a misdemeanor charge.
'I basically was jailed for standing up and speaking at a city council meeting,' said Baumgartner about the night in 2001 leading to arrest five days later on technical charges of Falsification.
The charges stemmed from statements she made questioning a huge ferry boat contract awarded to an Ohio businessman, citing affidavits from some of her clients alleging the boats were being used for illegal drug running with full knowledge of state politicians, law enforcement and federal officials.
Further, she questioned the legality of awarding the lucrative Lake Erie contract since it amounted to nothing more than 'a political favor' as another company was overlooked who was more competent and provided the same ferry boat service for less money.
'All I did was speak out and use my right as a citizen to question our government,' said Baumgartner, adding that she must have struck a nerve that night, leading to corruption at the highest levels of Washington, as well as the Ohio Governor, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Ohio Attorney General.
Baumgartner said five days after the city council meeting she was arrested, the state twisted the law to say she falsified statements at an official public hearing.
However, legal observers say the technical law used in her 'illegal arrest and incarceration' was never intended for mere statements made at open forum city council, but rather the Falsification misdemeanor law was intended for official government hearings when witnesses are placed under oath.
'They just twisted the law and I was jailed,' said Baumgartner. 'As a lawyer, respected in my community, I never thought this could happen in America, but I am living proof it can and it's not over yet.'
As a bio-tech attorney representing influential clients, Baumgartner's original troubles also began when she notified state and federal authorities about sensitive bio-tech information being hi-jacked, information which could have been used to wage bio-tech warfare against the U.S.
But instead of receiving cooperation from the feds, she claimed any serious investigations were stonewalled, as she became the brunt of harassment and illegal surveillance for reporting the alleged bio-tech misappropriation of information.
Besides the bio-tech and ferry boat matters, Baumgartner also tried to save her local school district $1.5 million involved in a contract scam she uncovered, a scam involving top officials and only the tip of the ice berg, leading to how money may have ended up in the coffers of George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign as a for return on political favors.
'I think they wanted to contain the scandal brewing to the state and local levels and this why they came down hard on me,' added Baumgartner.
After serving 234 days and then losing her law license, Baumgartner started a web site, deciding to go all out, exposing how she was being 'railroaded' and exposing even more state and federal political corruption.
In a recent letter directed to family and friends, Baumgartner tries to explain what's now unfolding in her battle against government corruption:
'A 15 county indictment was issued for me today with a warrant in Cuyahoga County. These charges relate to my alleged intimidation of my former business partner Bryan DuBois and his wife Mandy DuBois related to Erie Voices in Erie County while I resided in Ottawa County. It appears Cuyahoga is trying to boot strap the case to the current case in Cuyahoga in order to keep the case there to complicate my defense and deny me a fair trial. Those of you who have followed the story know that while I was held in the State Mental Hospital, Bryan and Mandy stole Erie Voices from my family and turned it in to a Baumgartner bash and disinformation site.
'When I got out and started aggressively publishing the truth of what happened including the fact that over $35,000 had been misappropriated from us or our company exclusive of equipment and the value of the contents of the website itself; (well over $50,000 invested) the DuBois felt the truth intimidated them.
'It was at this point that the site was shut down by the DuBois at the government's urging in order that all the evidence necessary to my defense, the public good and of their own intimidation of my family and me was not available. This was also the reason for the raid on my home. To obtain all of my computer records related to pay to play, and evidence gathered related to the website.'
