Free Richard Fine
Washington DV Press
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Free Richard Fine - A Political Prisoner of Corrupt Judges
Free Richard Fine

California’s Superior Court judges are paid $178,789 a year and have generous medical and retirement benefits – up to 75 percent of their salary. Los Angeles County’s judges fare even better because the county pumps another $47,726 into their compensation.

It’s been happening for years, but it’s also been illegal for years, a state appellate court ruled last October in a lawsuit brought by Harold Sturgeon.

Sturgeon alleged the extra pay violated a section of the state constitution saying the Legislature sets judicial compensation, aimed at preventing judges from being bribed by local officials. A local judge ruled – not surprisingly – that Sturgeon’s case was without merit. The appellate court overruled him.

That created a dilemma. Not only would the county have to stop paying the extra money, but conceivably county supervisors, who approved the payments, could be liable for illegal disbursement of public funds.

The solution was a quick legislative fix. One of the many “trailer bills” in last month’s multibillion-dollar budget package, called “Sturgeon fix” in legislative documents, authorizes Los Angeles and other counties to provide extra payments and protects county officials from liability.

It’s another illustration of how state budget bills have become vehicles for matters that have nothing to do with the budget but are slipped through without public airing. Indeed, the package was enacted while most of California’s 38 million residents were still sound asleep early one Thursday morning.

One wonders how Los Angeles County’s taxpayers would have reacted had they known that the Legislature was approving extra judicial payments while the county’s supervisors are staring at a $200 million budget deficit and contemplating steep cuts in services, especially those to the poor and unemployed, in a county with a jobless rate of nearly 11 percent.

The biggest extra pops for the judges are the same “Megaflex” benefits, 19 percent of their salaries, that county employees get, even though judges are now considered state employees.

That’s $33,970 per judge. It’s supposed to be used to buy medical, dental and disability coverage, but anything not spent for those benefits can be taken as extra taxable income. And as state employees, L.A.’s judges already are supplied with health benefits from another source.

In addition, each judge gets a $6,876 “professional development allowance,” which can be spent on almost anything related to the job, such as attendance at judicial conventions. Finally, each judge gets up to $6,880 for a private retirement plan over and above the ordinary pension system.

Los Angeles County has 439 Superior Court judgeships, so those extra payments amount to about $21 million a year, more than 10 percent of its deficit. County officials contend the extra compensation is needed to attract qualified judicial candidates.

That’s always the excuse when someone gets an extra bite of the public apple.
Call The Bee’s Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters.

Complaint filed with US Attorney Office against US Magistrate Carla Woehrle and others at the US District Court, Central District of California - for public corruption and deprivation of rights.
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Los Angles, July 12 – complaint was filed with US Attorney Office, Central District of California, by Human Rights Alert (NGO) and Joseph Zernik, PhD, against US Magistrate Carla Woehrle and others at the US District Court, Central District of California, alleging public corruption and deprivation of rights under the color of law pertaining to their conduct in the cases of Fine v Sheriff (2:09-cv-01914) and Zernik v Connor et al (2:08-cv-01550) at the US District Court – as part of cover up of alleged widespread corruption of the judges of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. The complaint alleged that Magistrate Carla Woehrle, US Judges Virginia Phillips and John Walter, Clerk of the Court Terri Nafisi, Pro Se Clerk Chris Sawyer, and Courtroom Assistant Donna Thomas conspired to conduct in the two cases litigations, which were never deemed by the US Court itself as honest, valid, and effectual court actions. Instead – they conducted pretense litigations.

In Fine v Sheriff (2:09-cv-01914), former US prosecutor Richard Fine filed a petition for a writ for habeas corpus. Richard Fine was arrested on March 4, 2009 in the court of Judge David, Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, with no warrant at all. He has been held in solitary confinement ever since, with no judgment, conviction, or sentencing ever entered in his case.

In Zernik v Connor et al (2:08-cv-01550), Joseph Zernik filed complaint alleging deprivation of rights by a group of judges of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, who forced him to leave his residence under the threat of force, took his home for private use with no compensation at all, and conducted conveyance of title, which was opined by fraud expert of the highest reputation as real estate fraud. No judgment was ever entered in the case of Joseph Zernik at the Superior Court of California either, no writ of execution was issued, and the court distributed the proceeds of the sale in what was alleged as money laundering.

Both Richard Fine and Joseph Zernik attempted to protect their rights by filing complaints at the US District Court, and both cases ended up in the court of US Magistrate Carla Woehrle. The cases were presided by Judges John Walter and Virginia Phillips, respectively.

Conduct of named accused, detailed in the complaint, allegedly included, but was limited to:
1. Adulteration of commencing records in both cases;
2. Denial of plaintiff’s right to file papers in court, by eliminating paper from the dockets with no due process of law;
3. Production of adulterated court dockets, by permitting conduct of numerous transactions in the dockets by unauthorized court personnel;
4. Conduct of fraudulent litigations, by permitting defendants’ counsel, who were not counsel of record, to appear and file false records with no authority at all;
5. Fraud on plaintiffs, through the Issuing of minutes, orders, and judgments with no authentication at all, yet nevertheless falsely publishing such void, not voidable judicial records in PACER dockets as “entered”, as if they required “full faith and credit”;

Conduct of the accused was alleged as deliberate perversion of justice, through pretense of judicial review. Conduct of the accused is further alleged as intended to cover up widespread corruption of the judges of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, and therefore – public corruption, in and of itself.
Consequently, Clerk of the Court Terri Nafisi repeatedly denied Dr Zernik access to court records in the two cases, in alleged violation of First Amendment rights. Moreover, to this date Clerk of the Court Terri Nafisi refuses to certify the dockets in the two cases as dockets, which were constructed pursuant to the authority of the clerk and the law of the United States.

Furthermore, both Clerk of the Court Terri Nafisi and Chief Judge Audrey Collins refused to initiate corrective actions, as required by law, after being duly informed of the conduct detailed in the complaint.
The complaint requested that the US Attorney provide equal protection to the former US prosecutor Richard Fine and to Dr Joseph Zernik. The complaint further requested that the US Attorney conduct investigation in the matter and prosecute the accused, if appropriate, to the full extent of the law.
The complaint was copied to the United Nations and the US State Department, to the Honorable Dianne Feinstein - Senator from California, and to the US Congress Judiciary Committees.

In April 2010, Human Rights Alert (NGO) filed complaint with the United Nations alleging widespread corruption of the justice system of Los Angeles County, California, and refusal of the US government to take action to provide equal protection for the 10 million residents of the county. The complaint was filed as part of the first ever Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights in the United States by the United Nations, scheduled for November 2010.

A petition has been created to free Richard Fine, gentleman attorney with distinguished career of many examples of success over forty years, a kidnapped, targeted individual (TI), Falsely Imprisoned Person (FIP) in hospital solitary "coercive confinement" under horrendous circumstances and conditions in what ACLU stated is absolutely the "worst" jail in America.

Richard Isaac Fine (1940) established the Law Offices of Richard I. Fine & Associates in 1974. He received his Bachelor of Science from University of Wisconsin (’61); Doctor of Law from University of Chicago (’64) and Ph.D. in International Law at London School of Economics, University of London (’67). He received a Certificate from Hague Academy of International Law, a Certificate of Comparative Law from International University of Comparative Science in Luxembourg, and a Diplome d'Edudes Superieures du Droit Compare from Faculte Internationale pour L’Enseignment du Droit Compare in Strasbourg.

Before opening his firm, Mr. Fine was founding chief of the first U.S. municipal antitrust division for the City of Los Angeles; Special Counsel to the Governmental Efficiency Committee of Los Angeles City Council; and member of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division in Washington D.C. Mr. Fine has practiced law with an international law firm in London and a law firm in Los Angeles. He served Southern California as Consul General for the Kingdom of Norway.

Crusader

Known as a "crusader," the "taxpayer advocate attorney," the "peoples' lawyer," and now, as of March 4, 2009, "America's forgotten political prisoner," Mr. Fine has challenged and corrected government corruption.

His experience encompasses antitrust cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal and state courts, requiring United Way to allow donors to designate the beneficiary of their contributions, the lawsuit against OPEC, class action cases, complex litigation, constitutional cases, criminal cases, environmental cases, international cases including those involving diplomatic immunity, public corruption and abuse of power cases, securities cases, and cases helping homeowners, among others.

The Free Richard Fine website highlights that among notable achievements for the common good, Mr. Fine:

* Forced LA County to stop stealing from children after discovering the County holding child support monies before paying them to parents. The County was illegally keeping all interest, callously depriving millions of helpless children, never paying some of the support monies.
* Stopped LA County overcharging residents on sewer bills, causing $85 million in refunds to residents. Since 1993, Mr. Fine caused the return of approximately $350 million dollars to Californians that state, country and municipal governments unlawfully took from "special funds" and "trust funds."
* Discovered County leaders striking sweetheart deals with developers, practically giving taxpayer-owned land to them in exchange for campaign donations and unknown other trades costing hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax collections, "money we’ll all have no choice but to make up elsewhere, because judges dismissed all the lawsuits filed trying to recover the lost tax value of at least $700 million dollars," according to the Free Richard Fine website, The Best Courts (Your) Money Can Buy.
* Upon realizing oddities in several cases he had filed against LA County that were mysteriously dismissed for nonsensical and bogus reasons, Mr. Fine uncovered LA County illegally paying judges to always win lawsuits determined by those judges.

To protect and provide justice to taxpayers, and fulfill obligations by oath as officer of the court, Mr. Fine insisted that judges should have revealed on their mandatory financial disclosure forms their County payments and voluntarily stepped aside to not determine outcome of such cases.

Facing possible repayments of huge sums of money and/or prison, the judges refused to disqualify themselves and denied all allegations. When Mr. Fine continued advocating for taxpayers and against the judges, the judges removed his license to practice law and charged him with “moral turpitude” for questioning courts’ neutrality, an issue that has been before the U.S. Supreme Court. (See State Bar files waiver of right to respond, meaning Mr. Fine's appeal is unopposed.)

LA judges admitted to holding a hearing about Mr. Fine without notifying him, issuing orders in his absence. This provided him no opportunity to object or respond.

Kidnapped

Judge Yaffe acted as a witness in Mr. Fine's contempt "trial", improperly putting himself as judge of truthfulness of his own testimony. To prosecute the "contempt charge", Yaffe and developer Jerry Epstein attorneys agreed that Epstein's attorneys would prosecute the case.

"Mr. Fine was kidnapped in court," said one of his strongest advocates, human rights defender Dr. Joseph Zernik, Ph.D.

In a warrantless arrest, ten men in the back of the courtroom came forward to forcibly remove Mr. Fine and take him to Men's Central Jail hospital in downtown LA, home to 20,000 inmates. There Mr Fine is held on false charges.

"The judges are so scared that they’re keeping Mr. Fine in jail despite knowing that the California Court of Appeal issued a decision late last year in a case brought by Judicial Watch called Sturgeon v. LA County which left no doubt that it is absolutely illegal for the County to make these payments to judges," according to the website advocating for Mr. Fine.

Rather than conform to law as the Sturgeon decision commanded, those involved colluded. "Guided by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, they hired expensive lobbyists (paid with public funds?) to manipulate the State Legislature into literally sneaking a midnight bill (called “SBX2-11”) during the 2009 budget crisis peak," states the adovcacy group website.

Laws were then changed to: make the payments appear “legal,” authorize continued payments, and grant retroactive immunity from criminal prosecution to all colluding. "Immunity", however, is never given when no crime is involved. Paragraph of SBX2-11 about retroactive immunity was not entered into the official Code like the rest of the bill.

Why hide this pardon of over Ten Million Felonies from the public? SBX2-11 is an ex post facto law. Its immunity provisions will ultimately be repealed.

Mr. Fine has an appeal for release before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. 'Torture Judge" Jay Bybee sits on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals where increasing demonstrations call for Bybee's impeachment due to his authoring the torture memos.

In June, a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. confirmed that judges must disqualify themselves from presiding over cases in which they received money from a party before them.

Judicial Watch sought a preliminary injunction on July 13, 2009 to stop LA County Supervisors from paying judges. (One supervior was reportedly caught phoning a judge on behalf of a campaign contributor to influence a case outcome.) Protecting fellow judges, Judge Richman dismissed this case, ruling SBX2-11 now authorizes the payments.

On February 20, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger signed into law retroactive immunity for all involved in the criminality. (See 09 12 17 Richard Isaac Fine - Review)

Torture

According to Mr. Fine's advocates, he has experienced sleep deprivation at the LA jail hospital. Bright overhead lighting is left on him all night. This meets criteria of psychological torture. Furthermore, he is not allowed outside.

"The judge’s malice was clear from the beginning, however, inasmuch as he ordered that Mr. Fine be denied paper and pencil with which to petition a higher court… a basic civil right of ALL incarcerated persons, even mass murderers.

"Reporters were not allowed to interview Mr. Fine and he is denied bail or any kind of hearing. He has no access to a law library or any legal materials. He is ordered to remain in the jail hospital until he relents and acknowledges the void "order" as being legitimate.

Mr. Fine's all-volunteer support team gained relaxing of a small amount of jail restrictions. His continued confinement has prevented income for over a year with devastating financial consequences.

As a taxpayers’ advocate, Mr. Fine never lived a life of opulent luxury. Now he faces losing everything according to his advocates.

"One judge even took money directly from a client settlement fund of Mr. Fine’s, forcing him to pay for the judge’s attorneys to defend his receipt of the illegal payments" according to the Fine advocate website.

Dr. Zernik asserts that Mr. Fines story is "eerily reminiscent of coercive hospitalization of dissidents by the KGB under the former Soviet Union." (OpEdNews: Attorney Richard Fine - dissident's false hospitalization in Los Angeles County, California, Joseph Zernik; January 21, 2010)

No modern group knows what Dr. Zernik stated better than targeted individuals. They consistently report that their whistleblowing and/or complaining of their persecution results in coercive psychiatric evaluations and attempted forced hospitalization, too often successfully.

Learn more, take responsible action, and keep asking, "Why?" and "Why not?" Sign the peition to release Richard Fine. The Free Richard Fine Webite emphasises: Mr. Fine worked tirelessly for Americans but now has nothing left beyond hope that decent citizens will return a small part of the favor and support efforts to restore and enforce the Constitution. Consider voting against all incumbent Superior Court judges and LA County Supervisors in the next elections. Consider voting against all California State Senators and Assemblymen who voted in favor of SBX2-11 in committee. Consider voting against all who refused to get involved with the Fine case with the excuse that it’s “a judicial matter,” namely Congressmen Brad Sherman and Adam Schiff and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (who also signed SBX2-11).

See Dr. Joseph Zernik's human rights work at http://inproperinla.blogspot.com/.

Learn about the lawyers’ version at http://sites.google.com/site/freerichardfine/Home/the-money-trail and the shorter version at http://sites.google.com/site/freerichardfine/money-trail---edited-version. Stay updated by visiting: RightTrumpsMight.blogspot.com. See the “Free Richard Fine" website.

Sign the petition to free Richard Fine.

Deborah Dupré, M.S., QMHP holds post graduate research degrees from United States and Australian universities. Ms. Dupré has been a human rights defender for over twenty-five years, contributing to research and development in marginalized communities in her home state, Louisiana, Least Developing Pacific Island Nations and most remote, marginalized Australian Aboriginal communities. She can be contacted and her work supported through wwww.DeborahDupre.com.