Petition updateExonerate Kenneth Clair: DNA Evidence Points to Someone Else.GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME WHEN I VISITED THE DA YESTERDAY? Petition at 156,800 plus. IT'S time to ta
C. J. FordFullerton, CA, United States
Jan 14, 2016
First of all I like to thank all of the supporters for everything that you have done to make this campaign successful. I am going to share my experience with you of my visit to the Orange County District attorney's office at 4:10 PM, on January 13, 2016. Zach Weissmueller, producer for Reason TV was covering our campaign. Mr. Weissmueller produces online video versions of national news, culture, and politics. His work reaches out to about 1,000,000 people per month, and I was honored that he decided to film our campaign. He is producing a YouTube production for our Campaign. The climax of our day, in reference to the campaign, was to go to Mr. Tony Rackauckas office and serve him with a copy of the petition, support, and comments. I knew that a large portion of our supporters, have been calling and had been sidetracked by the district attorney's office. So I tried to personally approached the DAs office myself in behalf of all our supporters. When I arrived at the District Attorney's Office, Mr. Weissmueller was there to film the event, plus a reporter was present from the Orange County Register. I was filmed getting out of my car, and approaching the entrance way of the District Attorneys Office. We did a short interview before I entered the office, and I had a large manila envelope in my hand clearly marked “ Kenneth Clair Petition, representing our interest. The first set of doors that you come into has a security officer sitting at a desk at the right side of the office, and then there is another set of doors to actually go into the reception area. I passed the security guard, with the camera crew, and we went into the reception area. There was a lady in line ahead of me, so I signed in on their sign in sheet, so there would be documented proof that I was there carrying out the task of serving them a copy of the petition. When the reception people saw the camera crew, they notified security and an argument pursued between the camera crew, and security. Security ask the camera crew to leave, a constitutional discussion occurred between the camera people and the security officer. The camera crew reminded the security officer that we were in a public building, and what right did he have to ask the camera crew to leave. The camera crew was eventually lead out of the reception area, and had to stand outside of the building. The reception people at the DA’s office were busy trying to figure out what was going on. However, I think that they were tipped off by the manila envelope that I had in plain sight regarding our petition in support of Mr. Kenneth Clair. There was either a glass or plexiglass petition between me and the receptionist. Several of them gathered towards the middle of the office and started a conversation. They were trying to keep the conversation down to a whisper, but I overheard them say that they thought that I was there in regards to our petition for Mr. Clair. The receptionist kept telling me that she would be with me in just a minute, and finally after about 5 minutes or so, she acknowledged that I was there. I stated to the receptionist my purpose for being there. I told her that we had over 155,000 people that signed a petition in support of Kenneth Clair. I told her that the supporters were angered by the fact that the DA’s office participated in a back room session at the Ninth Circuit Court. I told the DA receptionist that by doing that, the DA’ stripped Kenneth Clair of his rights to counsel, and of eliminate the possibility of having his case retried. Immediately after I made that statement to the receptionist, a man came out of one of the side entrances. The man told me that his name was Mark Gutierrez and that he was the DA on duty for that day. Mr. Gutierrez, said that he would talk to me outside of the presence of the reporters, so we engaged in a conversation. Mr. Gutierrez stated that he had no personal knowledge of who Kenneth Clair was, and knew nothing about the case or the petition. I filled in Mr. Gutierrez of our petition, that the DAs office had concealed exculpatory information and DNA results, and about the back room session with the Ninth Circuit Court. Mr. Gutierrez told me that The District Attorney's Office basic purpose is to fight for the people. I reminded him that I had a petition which had 155,000 people at the time, that his office was not fighting for. We had a friendly conversation that lasted about 10 minutes or so. Towards the end of our conversation, Mr. Gutierrez laid out the procedure that I needed to go through to complain about our petition. I was told that I needed to write a letter to Ebrahim Baytieh and layout my complaint and mail it to their address. I know that a lot of you, the supporters, have told me about the difficulty that you had in the phone calling phase of our campaign. Either you were told that they didn't know anything about Kenneth Clair, and you were switched to either answering machines or you were told that you had contacted the wrong department. This is why I personally wanted to go there, and give them a copy of the petition and comments. I did this because so many of our supporters had contacted me about their DA’s experience, and every time, no one at the DA’s office could retain into their memory the knowledge of our petition or Kenneth Clair. So I felt the appropriate action was to hand deliver it to them. Even though, I am positive that the DAs office knows about our petition and Kenneth Clair, because it has been out on the AP and papers as far away as the Washington Post have picked up the story. However, I made sure that Mr. Gutierrez had the information on our petition and the comments. I told him to personally give it to Tony Rackauckas in behalf of Mr. Clair’s supporters, since Mr. Gutierrez had no knowledge of anything. I assured him that Mr. Rackauckas was aware of this matter. Mr. Gutierrez told me that he would do that. I then told Mr. Gutierrez that I would follow up on the complaint procedure that he lined up. I assured him that I will write the letter that was needed. I also warned Mr. Gutierrez that I was aware of the DA complaint process which usually takes about 60 to 90 days, and then you receive a letter back saying that the district attorney looked into your complaint and they are unable to assist you. I then told Mr. Gutierrez that while you are taking this 60 to 90 days to review my letter, the petition will be growing every day. With all of the exposure and the coverage that we’ve been having in support of this petition our support may get up to 1,000,000 supporters. I told Mr. Gutierrez that this petition is growing larger each day. I also told him that we were unveiling a fund-raising project for the campaign and our intentions were to fight this all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, if Mr. Clair is not exonerated first by some level of the government. So now we know that the DAs office is going to play hardball with us, and I am revealing the fundraising portion of our campaign, because a vast majority of the supporters have been wanting to donate money or what ever they can to help Mr. Clair, and to expose other people nationally that have been suffering because of a failed justice system. I have supplied you with a link so that you can donate money to the Kenneth Clair Campaign. Any amount of money is appreciated. There is no demand on any supporter to give money, only give money if you can, and if you feel that you can. I also wrote a book called “ Whistle Blowing Orange County Style because some of our supporters have expressed how they needed to put together a successful campaign to fight against the justice system or the bureaucracy on their own personal issues. This gives you the 10 basic rules that you need to put together a winning strategy. I will donate personally, 50% or more of the royalties to the campaign if you choose to buy this book supporting Mr. Clair. The link is: http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000009257167 We are starting to incur costs beyond my personal ability to finance, and we are now engaged in an all-out fight. I have retained the services of an attorney who specializes in criminal and civil matters who's office is outside of the Orange County area. This attorney will help us deal with all of our legal requirements to hold events, and will be able to deal with our adversaries in the DAs office, because I am only a licensed private investigator and have no legal standing in court. So hopefully I have answered all other supporters questions now about what our next steps are going to be. We are going to fight this issue in the media, in the justice system, and by getting multitudes of people to sign this petition !!!
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