Tonya Craft Case: Time for Disbarment of Prosecutors

I will admit that the Tonya Craft trial which I have been covering from my blog is the most unbelievable trial I ever have seen. In fact, it is not a trial at all, but rather is something akin out of Kafka, and it got worse yesterday. A very well-known clinical psychologist from Atlanta had examined the children of Ms. Craft (after she was being accused by the State of Georgia of molesting them) on orders from a judge in Tennessee, who was dealing with a custody battle.

The psychologist, Dr. Ann Hazzard, reported that she found no signs of sexual abuse at all. Soon afterward, prosecutors Len Gregor and Chris Arnt got a warrant and the state sent a SWAT team to Hazzard’s office, where they began to bully her and her clients and trashed the office until Hazzard gave them the file on Tonya Craft’s children. It gets better.

Dr. Hazzard came to the trial yesterday as a witness for the defense. Even though she has testified in hundreds of trials and is considered a highly-qualified witness, the prosecution objected to her testifying at all and tried to block it. The judge, going against all settled law, agreed that she could take the stand, but that she would not be permitted to say anything regarding her own examination of Ms. Craft’s children, saying that it would be inadmissible hearsay.

Readers need to understand that almost the ENTIRE prosecutorial case is built from hearsay, and at least some of it clearly has been perjured and, moreover, the prosecution has been adding things that never were in discovery, as witnesses on the stand are claiming (I am not making this up) that “I JUST remembered.” For example, Suzi Thorne, a “forensic interviewer” who does not have a college degree and has almost no formal training at all in the techniques of interviewing children, was interviewing one of the children, asking leading questions over a long period of time.

The child on the video clearly does not allege any sexual abuse, not even close. Thorne then testified that after she turned off the video camera and went to her desk, the child then came to her and said, “I just remembered, Miss Tonya did…(a sexual act to her).” However, despite this deus ex machina that supposedly had fallen in her lap, Thorne did not turn on the video camera to record this stunning “disclosure,” nor did she even write any notes. She did NOTHING to memorialize this alleged event, nothing.

This testimony absolutely reeks of perjury, yet Judge Brian House, who has been taking all of his cues from prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor, permitted Thorne’s testimony to be entered as evidence. This was pure hearsay, and obvious perjury, yet that was OK with House. If you want proof of a rigged trial, it does not get better than this.

Thus, because of this incident and because of their general awful and disruptive behavior during the entire trial, I have announced in a post put up Friday that I will be seeking to have Gregor and Arnt (whom I call the Dishonest Duo) disbarred under Rules 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5 of the Rules of Conduct for Advocates of the Georgia State Bar. I’m in the process of having people who have attended this trial prepare sworn, notarized statements, and because the actual proceedings have been recorded by the local media, we have hours and hours of evidence of actions by these prosecutors that the rules say can result in disbarment. I’m in the process of sending in some material regarding Arnt’s obvious breaking of Rules 3.6 and 3.8 (outside statements regarding the defendant and defense counsel), although the penalty for this only is reprimand from the bar.

House threw down a gag order in this case (although he only has applied it in reality to the defense) at the urging of Gregor and Arnt, who have engaged in reprehensible conduct that you have to see to believe. Most readers simply cannot fathom what is going on every day in this trial, and if you want to see the utter nihilistic power of the state in action, I can find no better example. To give you an idea of what is happening, a woman who attended the trial Thursday gave me this account (which is backed up by the trial record and the videos):

When a witness was on the stand, (Len) Gregor blurted out this line of questioning:

Gregor:  So, has Tonya ever “stroked your boobs”? She emphatically said “NO!”

Gregor:  So, are you saying Tonya has never stroked your boobs while sitting on your lap?  She emphatically said “NO!”

Gregor:  Has Tonya ever made reference to your boobs.  The witness said, “At Tonya’s wedding, I had on a dress that showed some cleavage…Tonya said to me (jokingly), Wow, you have really big Boobs!!!

Gregor says:  “Are you sure that Tonya was not sitting on your lap, stroked your boobs and said, “Wow, I don’t ever need to get a boob job when I have these to play with !!!”  The witness said  “Absolutely NOT”

Then a little later, Gregor asked her “Do you know what sound is made when a finger touches a vagina”

The witness looked mortified and shook her head NO…he repeats the question…the witness continues to shake her head NO in total disbelief that he is asking this question.  Gregor then closes with the statement that “it doesn’t make a noise and if the child doesn’t say anything, NO ONE WOULD EVER KNOW!!!”

There were so many objections by the defense during this questioning…but our “dishonorable” Judge House let the blood hound continue on.

He is so Crude and Inappropriate!!!

There is so much more, and I have a team of people compiling evidence against these men. (We will deal with Judge House later, although he already has lost all credibility and his career as a judge essentially is over.)

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4:42 am on May 1, 2010