By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
Updated: 04/20/2010 06:00:44 PM PDT
Chanting "This is America, not Russia," about 75 people gathered Tuesday morning outside the downtown Stanley Mosk Courthouse to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to free former taxpayer advocate attorney Richard I. Fine from jail.
In Washington, D.C., about 50 people staged a similar protest on the steps of the high court, which is scheduled to meet Friday to decide whether Fine should be released.
Fine, a 70-year-old Tarzana resident and former U.S. Department of Justice attorney, has spent more than a year in Men's Central Jail for contempt after refusing to divulge financial information. Fine was placed under "coercive confinement" following a series of cases in which he alleged judges received an extra $57,000 in pay from the county on top of their $179,000 annual state salaries. Fine alleged that these "undeclared bonuses" render judges biased in cases where the county is a defendant.
"Richard Fine has been cruelly, unjustly punished for bringing to light a judicial issue that affects each of us as Los Angeles residents and U.S. citizens," said Chatsworth resident Janette Isaacs, co-organized of "Free Richard Fine," a grassroots, community organization committed to ending judicial corruption in California.
"This could happen to anyone."
Retired Sheriff's Department Sgt. Richard Valdemar, who served as the "jailer" in the case of Los Angeles Herald-Examiner reporter William Farr who was held in jail in 1972 for contempt for
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refusing to divulge sources relating to the Charles Manson case, said a person has a right to actually be charged with a crime if they are held in jail for more than a year.
"We don't even house our misdemeanor people in jail for more than a year," Valdemar said. "Yet Mr. Fine is being held longer and it's not like Mr. Fine is a kook or something. This is a man who is an expert on the law and is trying to do the right thing. He's basically a whistleblower and he's being punished for that."
In a letter to the Supreme Court, Fine's daughter, Victoria Fine, an editor with The Huffington Post, asked the justices to release her father "from the horror he and my family have endured during the last 13 months of our lives."
"He has raised me to trust in our country's justice system to uphold freedom, democracy and moral right," she wrote. "I admit that as today, as my father sits in solitary confinement, I have very little faith left in our American system. But now, as I write to you, I place that faith in your hands to make the decision that will free my father and send him home to my mother and me."
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AS ABOVE WE SEE HOW JUDGE'S ABUSE THEIR POWER, SEE BELOW HOW THE ELDERLY AND THEIR FAMILIES ARE BEING ABUSED AS WELL!!!
We request that the President Obama to stop this corruption and violation of our Constitutional Rights and hold these Judge's, Attorney's and Guardian's responsible for their crimes against the elderly and their family's.
Like many of us in Guardianship cases fight for the right to care for our parents, the more we fight, the more these Judge's abuse and violate the laws. Who's watching these corrupt Judge's, who gave them all this power, I think its time that this power should be taken away from them.
My mother Yvonne Sarhan was murdered by Judge Celeste Muir on February 2, 2010 she allowed the Guardian Vicki Brail and Dr Steven Leslie Kaplan to poison my mother with 400 mg of Seroquel a day until she was dead, why because the guardian and attorney's already took all the money from our family.
We believe since our since our Governor Charlie Christ has allowed this to happen in our State, our Congressmen the Balart brothers have allowed this to continue for years, we believe the President of the United States through the chain of command must stop these Human Rights and Constitutional Rights Violations against our American Citizens young and old.
This is a request to meet President Obama as soon as possible to stop the abuse and exploitation of the elderly and their family's......Robert Sarhan, MD
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