The Bollyn Trial:
The Criminalization of an Outspoken Journalist

By Christopher Bollyn
29 June 2007

This conviction was for the sole purpose of destroying the credibility of Mr. Bollyn and retaliating against his controversial reporting on issues of the day.

- Dr. Linda L. Shelton, MD, PhD.

First of all, I want to extend my sincere thanks to the very kind, exceptionally gifted, and extremely generous people who have supported me during my ordeal with the authorities of Hoffman Estates and Cook County, Illinois.  The sage advice and the financial, moral, and legal support that I have received from people around the world is nothing short of incredible. 

A positive and substantial result of this sordid affair is that it has separated the wheat from the chaff; it has clearly distinguished friend from foe.  Determining friend from foe among the patriot community and in the 9-11 truth movement is essential and my case has done exactly that.  Apart from Eric Hufschmid, author of Painful Questions, and Prof. Steven Jones of Brigham Young University, not a single 9-11 researcher has even come forward to provide moral support.

For example, while my former colleagues from American Free Press, most notably Michael Piper and Willis Carto, quickly revealed themselves as quislings of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) by defaming me and stabbing me in the back while stealing my money, real patriots stepped forward to support me. 

People of conscience have enabled me to fight the malicious prosecution I have faced since three undercover cops invaded my home and brutally assaulted me on 15 August 2006, after I had called 911 to report a suspicious vehicle.  To the people who have supported me during this ongoing struggle, I am sincerely grateful.

SILENCE ENDS

I was strongly advised by my attorneys not to write about the trial prior to the sentencing date of 25 June 2007.  The court and prosecution were carefully watching what I wrote, I was warned, and would take into consideration what I wrote when sentencing me.

Now that that date has passed and the Chicago-area newspapers and my detractors on the Internet have indulged in wholesale character assassination and defamation, I am compelled to explain my position regarding the corrupt judicial process I have been through in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

In order to defend myself against the widespread defamation, which originates with the ADL and which has been repeated in Chicago-area media outlets and in malicious reports on the Internet, I offer the following statement about my case, which was heard before the Honorable Hyman I. Riebman, Associate Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court (3^rd Municipal District).

"AN UNJUST SYSTEM"

I did not attend the sentencing hearing on 25 June 2007 in order to avoid wrongful incarceration for two baseless charges, which may very well have been the likely outcome had I been present.  The obvious prejudice and extreme malice of the prosecution and court made wrongful incarceration a very real danger to me and my family.

"I personally feel you are completely justified in staying away," a devout Christian lawyer from California who attended the entire four-day trial wrote the day before the sentencing. "The system can easily grind you up and spit you out.  Why should you be obligated to appeal for justice in an unjust system?"

"You need not fight an unjust system on its unjust terms," he wrote.  "Within reasonable God-given limits you are free to set your own terms when faced with institutionalized injustice."

As a supporter from Europe put it, "There is not much point in standing in front of a six gun and letting them pull the trigger as many times as they want."

MALICIOUS PROSECUTION

My first calling is to serve the truth and as a father and husband, I have a God-given obligation to preserve myself and my family.  I simply could not allow myself or my family to be subjected to the cruel and inhumane punishment to be meted out by the extremely prejudiced prosecution and court.  I would have shown a serious, and possibly fatal, lack of judgment to have subjected myself to such injustice. 

After going through the seriously flawed four-day trial, which has been described as "a travesty of justice" by Dr. Linda L. Shelton, PhD, MD, an expert court observer who attended the last two days, I knew that I had about as much chance of a fair sentencing before Judge Hyman Riebman as a Camp Delta prisoner tried in a U.S. military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"This conviction was for the sole purpose of destroying the credibility of Mr. Bollyn and retaliating against his controversial reporting on issues of the day," Shelton wrote.

"To me the trial seemed like a crucifixion of someone with alternative views and had almost nothing to do with assault or resisting arrest.

"In this country one cannot be legally convicted based on gross defamation of the defendant, denigration of the defendant’s character without basis, and mischaracterization of the evidence presented.  

"This is what has happened in the Bollyn case, making it a travesty of justice," she wrote. "The defendant was so thoroughly defamed and denigrated without basis that this highly prejudiced the jury into ignoring the evidence."

"I attended the trial. It was simply a farce - a Salem Witch trial, where someone with alternative views was crucified," Dr. Shelton wrote.  "It is clearly an illegal penalty on the exercise of constitutional rights - freedom of speech.

"The judge allowed the prosecution to make statements that were inconsistent with the evidence and highly inflammatory slander and defamation of Mr. Bollyn's character. The prosecutor so tainted the trial that a fair hearing was impossible."

I clearly need several months to obtain and examine the entire transcript of the trial – including the unusually large number of sidebars – before I can determine my next course of action. 

Why is the court so hasty and eager to sentence me – before I even have the chance to read the transcript, examine the testimonies, and see what was discussed in the sidebars?

What needs to be remembered, and what may not have occurred to a single one of the jurors, is that it was I who chose to go through a jury trial, at great personal expense, because it was the only option available in which I could maintain my innocence and through which the evidence could be presented. 

Despite the popular American notion that a person is innocent until proven guilty, in reality a person who is dragged into the court, in Cook County and elsewhere in the United States, is in every way presumed to be guilty until proven innocent.  In fact, every one of the options available to the defendant require accepting guilt through a plea bargain or submitting to a bench trial in which a single judge acts as the finder of law and fact on a very scanty amount of evidence presented.

When I realized that my first lawyer, Jack C. Smeeton of Wilmette, was simply protecting the police and the state at my expense, I began investigating the events that occurred on August 15 and found that the Hoffman Estates police had committed a raft of serious crimes when they attacked me on my front lawn.

The police had clearly conspired to commit violence against me in retaliation for my exercise of my First Amendment rights, which is a federal offense.  What Hoffman Estates police officers Michael Barber, Timothy Stoy, and Darin Felgenhauer did to me on my front lawn was completely criminal, as was the perjury they committed in the court of Judge Riebman.  Somehow in today's America, none of that seems to matter.

In a letter to Paul P. Moreschi, my second legal counsel, Dr. Shelton wrote:  "Now I understand why Helje (Mrs. Bollyn) stated to me she is more afraid of living in this country now than she was under Soviet occupation of Estonia.  Seeing your husband viciously attacked by undercover police without warning on your own property, then hearing them make false statements on the stand, seeing them falsify their records, hearing the prosecutor fabricating defamatory baseless statements, and then the judge and jury believing this story, would do this to you."

I discovered and documented ample evidence of conspiracy and criminal conduct by the Hoffman Estates Police Department (HEPD) and the three officers who assaulted me.  I did the best I could to present this evidence to my attorneys and the court.  My wife and I even made at least a dozen exhibits for the trial.  My lawyers, however, were simply unable or unwilling to present to the court this solid evidence of conspiracy by the police. 

During the trial and closing arguments, my attorneys failed to stress that I, as the defendant, must be considered innocent unless the evidence proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Why did you," one court observer asked Moreschi, "fail to tell the jury in your closing statement about the massive violations in this case of Mr. Bollyn's constitutional rights by a conspiracy – at least on the part of the police?  And why didn't you harp on the duty of the jury to convict ONLY on the basis of 'beyond a reasonable doubt,' which on information and belief, you failed to mention even once, when every professional criminal defense attorney always harps on it over and over?"

"The discussion of reasonable doubt in front of the jury by a defense attorney is his greatest weapon and at the same time the worst nightmare for the prosecuting attorney," the lawyer from California noted.  "For Moreschi not to have done the slightest commentary/explanation/elaboration even during the closing argument, not to mention the opening argument was for me personally, almost beyond belief.

"There was an overwhelming amount of testimony and evidence to establish reasonable doubt, and well beyond the minimum threshold requirement of reasonable doubt necessary to mandate an acquittal.

"Truly, it was one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice I have ever personally witnessed and I have seen some pretty bad ones…In my opinion there are substantial grounds for having the case declared a mistrial." 

Judge Riebman even disallowed my expert witness who was prepared to testify about police procedures and how they had been violated by the three undercover officers of the HEPD.  Failure to allow this expert witness was highly prejudicial and denied due process. It could have provided exculpatory information. This alone should qualify as grounds for a mistrial.  But would Riebman find this to be grounds for a mistrial?

Riebman denied every pre-trial motion presented by me or my attorney.  Most importantly, he refused to sanction the police for their destruction of the video evidence of the assault they committed against me.  What fairness or leniency should I expect from such an unfair judge and process? 

When the police officers or the prosecution made utterly unqualified statements about the effects of the TASER or the damage done to my broken elbow, Riebman simply overruled the objections of my counsel.

The judge and the jury all heard how the testimonies of police officers clearly contradicted each other.  The court was repeatedly made aware of the fact that the police officers were conversing and exchanging notes with each other and with the prosecution's one non-police witness during testimony in the hallway.  However, none of these contradictions or serious infractions, which were clearly indicative of false and tampered testimony, seemed to have any effect on either the judge or the jury. 

For example, Ofc. Barber, who shocked me with 50,000 volts with a TASER while I was fully restrained and pinned down beneath two officers, one of whom (Stoy) knelt with his full body on my right temple for at least two minutes, told the court that Ofc. Stoy had yelled, "TASER, TASER, TASER," prior to electrocuting me with the device. 

When Stoy took the stand, however, he said Ofc. Barber had called out "TASER" before the TASER shock was applied.  (Stoy also said that he smelled alcohol on my breath from 10 feet away.)

As the person who was TASERed, I can say that absolutely no verbal warning of any sort was given prior to being TASERed.  I was TASERed by Barber for one reason and one reason alone: to torture and cause injury.  The fact that Barber and Stoy were obviously lying about this supposed verbal warning seemed not to have registered with either the judge or the jury.

The fact that two emergency vehicles from the fire department arrived at my house one second after the arrival of the undercover tactical unit was not properly emphasized by my attorney.  He refused to get into the police "conspiracy" behind the assault on me.  Rather than interrogate the fire department personnel about why they had been sent out to handle an "unknown medical emergency" well before I was assaulted, Moreschi chose to avoid the abundant evidence of a conspiracy.  He could have capitalized on the evidence at hand, which was corroborated by the testimony of the technical expert from the 911 dispatch center.  This evidence clearly revealed a police conspiracy to assault me for exercising my First Amendment rights.

Moreschi said on 25 June 2007:  "Christopher knows that he's innocent and believes that the process has let him down."

I must say, it wasn't just the process that let me down.  I have been let down and betrayed by the elected officials of my village and state, my former employer and the people at American Free Press, my legal counsel, and even my brother, who has chosen to support the corrupt local police rather than his own brother.

Moreschi admitted on several occasions that he had not read a single article that I had written and clearly wanted to avoid the matter that I was being dragged through this process because of my journalism.  Supporters of the ADL, however, were obviously present in numbers during every day of the trial.    

One sinister looking fellow tried to sit as closely as possible to me and send me evil looks.  I was appalled to see that during one break he emerged from the judge's chambers practically arm in arm with Judge Riebman.  As I said, the malice was most evident. 

Of course, it would have been nice to have had a dozen supporters present to provide a counter-balance to my foes, but that did not happen.  Apart from a handful of stalwart supporters, I was quite alone against the ADL and their agents. 

Steven Rosenblum, the supervisor of the prosecutor's office, attended every session and coached James Pontrelli and Stacy Cosseth, who dutifully carried out Rosenblum's orders including asking for my immediate incarceration after the jury found me guilty.  I was well aware that Rosenblum was prosecuting me because of my writings, which he described as "anti-Jewish."

Judge Hyman Riebman's wife is active in a Jewish Zionist organization known as ORT America.  ORT, hardly an American organization, stands for Obschestvo Remeslenovo i. Zemledelcheskovo Trouda which was founded by Russian Jews in the Pale of Settlement in Czarist Russia in 1880.  Riebman, however, feigned complete ignorance of my writings.

The extreme malice that I have witnessed in court has nothing to do with what happened in my front yard.  This is simply payback from the Zionists for what I have written about Israel and 9-11.  It is also evidence of the power that Zionists have over the judicial process in the United States.

"The truth of 9-11 will certainly not be given to us on a silver platter.  It is something we will have to fight for," I wrote at the conclusion of my essay "9-11 Through the Eyes of an American Skeptic."   

The United States is, after all, a nation at war.  It is waging illegal wars in the Middle East and maintains illegal prison camps filled with people it has kidnapped in the name of its fraudulent global "War on Terror," a Zionist fraud based on the false flag terror attacks of 9-11.

The U.S. is also waging a war against its own people, firstly against those who are exposing the lies of both 9-11 and the phony "War on Terror."  I happen to be one of those who has been targeted for exposing the lies. 

In war, when faced with overwhelming hostile force, there are but two options:  to stand and face capture and possible death, or to make a strategic retreat and live to fight another day.  I have made my choice.

One-time Hoffman Estates mayoral candidate wanted

http://www.dailyherald.com/search/printstory.asp?id=326286 

By Erin Holmes
eholmes@dailyherald.com
Posted Monday, June 25, 2007

A judge issued a warrant today for the arrest of Christopher Lee Bollyn, the one-time Hoffman Estates mayoral candidate convicted by a jury in June of resisting arrest and aggravated assault.

Bollyn, 50, was scheduled to be sentenced this morning, but never showed in court.

Cook County Judge Hyman Riebman issued the no-bond warrant about an hour after the scheduled court time.

“I’m not certain of the exact reason” he failed to appear, Bollyn’s lawyer, Paul Moreschi, said afterward. “I really just don’t know.”

Moreschi still filed motions to reverse the jury’s June 5 decision and for a new trial. The latter motion alleges myriad errors were made throughout the process.

Bollyn was convicted after a four-day trial and two hours of jury deliberations.

The saga began last August, when Bollyn - a self-described journalist who lost out in the city’s 2000 mayoral primary - called 911 to report a suspicious sedan driving in his neighborhood.

The car turned out to be an unmarked squad. When the officers returned to identify themselves, prosecutors say, a wrestling match ensued in the front yard of Bollyn’s Kingman Lane home that left Bollyn facing assault charges and alleging police brutality.

At the trial, prosecutors contended the officers - who eventually tackled Bollyn and used a Taser gun to stun him - were defending themselves from a man they say made a fist in one officer’s face and yelled that he was heading inside to “get reinforcements.” The police officers, tactical officers in the area for a traffic stop, testified they felt threatened.

Bollyn suffered a broken elbow in the fracas. Defense attorneys described him as a concerned husband and loving father, and contend police used excessive force and saw the incident as an excuse to let off some steam.

Bollyn’s two children were playing outside at the time.

Bollyn, a writer, has said he believed the men in the unmarked car were federal agents targeting him because of his views. He has published articles critical of the Iraq war and has suggested Israeli operatives had a hand in Sept. 11’s terrorist attacks.

After the trial, prosecutor James Pontrelli dismissed Bollyn’s claims as “ridiculous.”

Bollyn also has two theft convictions out of California in 1981, and an assault charge, prosecutors say.