Florida atheist sues Polk County sheriff for her arrests...calls it "pervasive religiosity"

[madfloridian]

that "deprived the residents of Polk County, Florida, of their right to access virtually any form of erotic speech or entertainment through a concerted effort to intimidate any purveyor of such entertainment through overzealous law enforcement efforts" including threats of racketeering charges.

Her attorney says in the lawsuit more about the religious atmosphere under Grady Judd as sheriff.

He notes other actions that show how Judd expresses his religious leanings as sheriff: Biblical scripture in a PCSO newsletter used to describe his 2007-2008 budget; gospel singers performing at sheriff's office events, some of which were held in Baptist churches; and a newsletter that highlights prisoner baptism statistics.

"While the above listed actions may seem innocent in isolation, they point to an obvious and deeply-ingrained tradition of Christianity within the agencies and officials overseen" by the sheriff, Walters writes. "The atheist, Jew, Muslim, or other non-Christian who reads Defendant Judd's newsletters receives a clear message — ‘you are not one of us.'"

Here is more about Ellenbeth Wach's lawsuit against Grady Judd. From the Lakeland Ledger:

Activist Atheist to Sheriff: Leave Me Alone

LAKELAND | The Atheists of Florida's legal coordinator filed a federal lawsuit Friday against Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd that alleges her recent arrests are retaliation against her secular views.

EllenBeth Wachs, jailed twice this year, is seeking an injunction to stop Judd from arresting her or launching new investigations about her. She claims the charges she currently faces are a result of her "assertion of a non-religious, atheist viewpoint in the predominantly Christian-oriented Polk County," the lawsuit says.

The Ledger recently had a great defense of Wachs and a firm condemnation of how Grady Judd is doing business.

Second Arrest For Atheist: Bill of Rights Not for Polk

The paper says the charges should be dropped and then they use these words..

Otherwise, so much for the American way in Polk County.

More:

EllenBeth Wachs was arrested Sunday, accused of making noises in her home that sounded as though she was having sex. The arrest warrant says she made noise in her home on March 13 that "sounded like a woman experiencing sexual gratification in an extremely loud fashion."

So much for the Fourth Amendment in Polk County.

Wachs is the same person arrested by the Sheriff's Office on March 3 and charged with impersonating a lawyer by using the term esquire. She signed her name EllenBeth Wachs, Esq., indicating that she is a lawyer, said an investigator for the State Attorney's Office in the warrant for her first arrest.

So much for the First Amendment in Polk County. Indeed, look out for the Bill of Rights in Polk — two down, eight to go.

Even the judge who heard the case about the sex noises in her own home appeared to take part in the "pervasive religiosity".

Judge tells woman who made sex noises not to make unusual noises in her home.

On Friday, the judge settled on a $6,000 bond for Wachs. He also warned her not to make unusual noises around the house. She's also banned from making contact with her neighbors or minors.

[HockeyMom]

1. Very rual South

Yes, even Florida can be very rual South and Bible Belt country.

[L0oniX]

2. ...and now florida.arrests.org will be using their extortion racket on her

[hdsgfgasgdgd]

27. arrests.org scam information

I only registered to post this so I don't have the ability to post a new thread, but there is a 93 page report detailing arrests.org and evidence that suggests a possible extortion scheme involving arrests.org and removeslander.com. Even if this is not the case, at the very least, arrests.org is almost certainly violating some laws and liable for legal action.

You can find the report at either of these links. Due to size and formatting considerations, they must be linked:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/58921958/An-Investigation-Of-arrests-org

http://www.multiupload.com/F8I2U2NHS6 arrests.org-report.zip (1.78 MB)

And just to keep these names in Google (how fitting!), here are some of the people behind these sites:

-------------------------------------------------

arrests.org
floridamugshots.us
crunchline.com
agilelegalmarketing.com

WIGGEN, ROBERT
[e-mail]
813-658-5137, 888-316-7516, (Fax) 888-435-3097
PO BOX 732
FLAGLER BEACH FL 32136

WIGGEN, JAMES C
7530 CRANES CREEK CT.
WINTER PARK, FL 32792

-------------------------------------------------

removeslander.com:

985-633-1413

Ronelle "Ron" Collins
Location: New Orleans, LA
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=505391334
E-mail: [e-mail]

Tyronne "TJ" Jacques
Location: Mandeville, LA
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000387963087
E-mail: [e-mail]

-------------------------------------------------

[struggle4progress]

3. Florida Suit Says Arrests Are Retaliation for Atheism (NYT)

y LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: June 24, 2011

... EllenBeth Wachs, the legal coordinator for the group Atheists of Florida, asked the court to prevent the sheriff, Grady Judd, from conducting any new investigations, arrests or complaints resulting from her “nonreligious, atheist viewpoint in the predominantly Christian-oriented Polk County, Fla.” ...

... A nonpracticing lawyer, she signed the requests with the designation Esquire after her name. Sheriff Judd sent a team of officers to arrest her and charged her in March with illegally posing as a lawyer, a felony ...

Ms. Wachs was arrested a second time, in May, for moaning repeatedly in a sexual manner from an open window in her house, saying, “Oh, John,” in a crescendo, as a ploy to stop neighbors, including a young boy, from playing basketball. The moans followed a dispute with the neighbor. The sheriff’s office arrested her on a felony sex charge. The police searched her house and took away a safe, among other things.

Later that month, the police arrested her again and charged her with possession of marijuana, after saying they had found drugs in the safe ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/us/25athiest.html?_r=1

[onethatcares]

4. that's an amazing stretch of the Fourth Amendment.

imagine having to defend yourself against that one.

[struggle4progress]

6. My impression is that this may be a really ugly story

The woman seems to be very good at pushing people's buttons -- which is normal in adolescence but not so normal later in life

IIRC she's had a dispute with her homeowner's association, she's helped disrupt school board meetings, she's had the dispute with the neighbor ...

On some of this, I'd support her abstractly: I don't think the school board should open its meetings with prayer -- but the approach she and her friends took was designed to tick folk off maximally. I might expect her to win that lawsuit anyway, though

I really don't know the exact details of the charge that she presented herself as an attorney. Some of the city government seem to claim she presented herself as an attorney in negotiations over the prayer dispute. I would expect that the real intent of the Florida law was to prevent shysters from suckering folk who need legal advice, so I might expect her to beat that charge too, but I'm not a lawyer and don't know the case law there

The dispute with the neighbor was weird. From the news reports, it sounded like she really unnerved a neighborhood kid just trying to play basketball -- and based on those news reports, I might suspect she's a bit off. The simulated sex act charge sounds over the top, but it's sometimes the case that the authorities resort to charges to get somebody into the system. I don't know whether that charge will just go away or whether she'll have to agree to some psychiatric treatment to get the charges dropped

The sheriff got the safe, I think, through an investigation of the "presenting herself as an attorney" charge, presumably to look for documents supporting that. If the prior evidence for "presenting herself as an attorney" didn't really support the search of her safe, then I'd hope the alleged marijuana bust got tossed too, as fruit of the poison tree, but if there was adequate case for the search of the safe, maybe the marijuana bust sticks

It looks to me like she's gotten into a pizzling match with the conservative establishment, which naturally puts me on her side, and it sure looks like the establishment is over-reaching, which also naturally puts me on her side -- but my view is also that smart people stay away from illegal drugs if they want to challenge the conservative establishment to a pizzling contest

Moreover, although I don't know the facts here, it seems possible to me that she's been self-medicating with cannabis for multiple sclerosis, which might relieve some disease symptoms while simultaneously worsening cognitive impairment associated with the condition



Judge Gives Embattled Atheist Bail and A Warning
By Suzie Schottelkotte
THE LEDGER
Published: Friday, May 6, 2011 at 7:07 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, May 6, 2011 at 7:07 p.m.
... Her lawyer, John Liguori .. also said Wachs, who's been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, hasn't been getting her medication since her arrest ...
http://www.theledger.com/article/20110506/NEWS/110509549

The question of whether marijuana (Cannabis sativa) should be used for symptom management in MS is a complex one ... Yet there are serious uncertainties about the benefits of marijuana relative to its side effects ... Some people with MS report that smoking marijuana relieves several of their MS symptoms ... Since MS can impair thinking, and previous studies suggest that smoking cannabis also impairs thinking, investigators at the University of Toronto investigated how cannabis use influenced cognition specifically in people with MS ... The study confirmed for the first time that cannabis can worsen cognitive problems in MS ...
Marijuana (Cannabis)
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/about-multiple-sclerosis/what-we-know-about-ms/treatments/complementary--alternative-medicine/marijuana/index.aspx

[csziggy]

7. Wachs is an attorney, just not a member of the Florida Bar

She was a licensed attorney in another state and I think she retired before she moved to Florida. The charge of "presenting herself as an attorney" was because she is the Legal Affairs Coordinator for Atheists of Florida http://atheistsofflorida.org/. I suspect that she considered that she was representing herself as part of the group and that she did not charge anything for her services.

It looks as though the group's "trouble making" consists of things like objecting to prayers at public meetings, not being quiet during those prayers, and wearing a T-shirt that says “One Nation Indivisible”.

[struggle4progress]

8. I posted the Florida statute and a related Florida ruling here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1056465&mesg_id=1059530

[csziggy]

9. Thanks - I guess the Florida statue is specific enough she could be charged

And I really like the Polk Law blog - thanks for that link.

I grew up in that county. My parents still live there. And I am SOOOOOOOO glad I did not return there when I finished college!

[madfloridian]

10. Arrested for which offense? The sex noises or using esq while an attorney.

She did not claim to be the atheist group attorney. They have another one. I think is overkill myself.

[csziggy]

11. She is the "Legal Affairs Coordinator" but that does not mean she's acting

As their attorney. So if they have another attorney, then that charge is not warranted.

The sex noise charge is completely ridiculous.

[Macoy]

17. No Coke? Child Porn?

I was surprised to read that the police found marijuana in her home. This is very sloppy work by the police; they can usually find cocaine and illegal weapons if they really try. :(



Macoy

[bongbong]

24. What I read

What I read earlier is that she has a medical condition and was trying to rest early on a Sunday morning. The neighborhood religious puke wanted to bother her, so he had his kid loudly bouncing a basketball right next to her window at something like 8 AM Sunday morning.

Disclaimer: I wasn't there, so I don't know if this is true, but knowing repigs & religious pukes as well as I do (I know their M.O. VERY WELL), that sounds very likely to be true.

[madfloridian]

5. Judd is the one who arrested the couple making porn in their own home.

There was something off about this story. I don't know the exact wording of the law, but Judd's internet porn team is apparently very invasive. A sting operation that draws child predators here.

I don't feel sure it is my business or Judd's business what they were doing unless a specific law was broken. I feel that the term "pervasive religiosity" is probably appropriate in this area of Florida. If one is not religious, it is easier to keep one's mouth tightly shut.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/polk/kimberly-kupps-arrest-060611

""We want a wholesome community," Judd continued. "We don't want smut peddlers and they if they try to peddle smut from Polk County or into Polk County, we'll be on them like a cheap suit."

According to a judge, several videos the couple produced from their house were obscene and therefore violated state law. The Taylors were both arrested and charged with multiple obscenity crimes, including wholesale promotion and distribution.

Many who live near the couple had no idea what went on behind closed doors."

[lpbk2713]

13. Don't forget about Judd's All Pro Wii Bowling Team

They made world wide headlines a while back. :eyes:


{Click}

[madfloridian]

15. I remember that. They made fools of themselves.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

12. NYT article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/us/25athiest.html?scp=1&sq=ellenbeth%20wachs&st=cse

"The imbroglio between Ms. Wachs, 48, who lives in Lakeland, and Sheriff Judd dates to last year when the sheriff removed the basketball hoops from the Polk County jail and donated them to several local churches.

This angered Ms. Wachs, who filed several public-records requests on the matter. A nonpracticing lawyer, she signed the requests with the designation Esquire after her name. Sheriff Judd sent a team of officers to arrest her and charged her in March with illegally posing as a lawyer, a felony.

“This does not violate any bar rules,” said her lawyer, Lawrence G. Walters. “She is allowed to use esquire.”

[immoderate]

14. EllenBeth Wachs is scheduled to speak at an American Atheists Mini-Convention in Broward this winter

Details TBA.


--imm

[madfloridian]

21. That should be interesting.

:hi:

[immoderate]

22. I'll keep you informed.

--imm

[madfloridian]

16. How can they make the warrant so broad as to seize a safe over "sex sounds"?

I have wondered how they could charge her with marijuana possession after a search warrant when she made sex noises?

"Wachs was last jailed in May when she was accused of simulating sex sounds from inside her home while within earshot of a neighbor's 10-year-old son. Sheriff's deputies said she made the noises in an attempt to make the boy stop playing basketball outside her house. Later that month, deputies charged her with possession of marijuana, alleging they found marijuana in a safe confiscated from her home.

Her suit claims that a search warrant served at Wachs home was too general, allowing deputies to seize items related to litigation and other materials protected by the First Amendment. It also says that a detective attended a civil hearing on an injunction Wachs' neighbors sought related to the alleged sexual sounds she had made at home. The detective immediately arranged a meeting with the family, "seizing the opportunity to continue his campaign of harassment against" Wachs, which is "misusing the state criminal law enforcement process."

http://www.theledger.com/article/20110624/NEWS/110629694?p=all&tc=pgall&tc=ar

[bertman]

18. Good for her!! REC.

[madfloridian]

19. Good coverage by ABC Action News, Tampa. Video of her lawyer speaking.

Grady Judd's internet porn team is running sting operations and actually drawing people to Polk County who otherwise would not have come there at all. I suspect that there was cooperation at all levels to get her arrested so many times.

I am sure she annoys them, but that is not enough for her to spend 6 days in jail...spend $6000 in fines for making sex noises.

The whole thing is absurd.

[madfloridian]

20. Oops, forgot the link to the article and video

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/atheist-suing-polk-county-sheriff-grady-judd-for-disregarding-separation-of-church-and-state

[BeFree]

23. That's crazy

That sheriff is violating the constitution.

Who the hell does he think he is?
He screws with people and goes on TV and brags about it, and he's still a constitutional officer?
He must have some serious dirt on the judges and politicians down there.

Is he the future of America, or just a remnant of it's most horrific past?

[sulphurdunn]

25. The police arrested her for

how she signed her name, even though she was entitled to sign it that way?
Then they arrested her on a felony sex violation for not actually having sex? Then they took her safe (I hope they had a warrant for that). Later that month they arrested her claiming to have found weed in the safe. Later that month? Does anything seem fishy about that?

She may be just a big pain in the ass to these good so called Christians as some folks have contended, but that is irrelevant. Ones civil rights are not forfeit for being a pain in the ass.

[madfloridian]

26. How the lawsuit could affect the sheriff.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/polk/lawsuit-would-handcuff-grady-judd-06282011

"He is doing an exorcism of atheists," Wachs told FOX 13 on Tuesday. "This is a legal lynching that is occurring."

The suit asks for injunctive relief. In other words, if it is successful, the federal government would have to give Judd the okay to investigate or arrest Wachs again. Wachs made a big media splash after Judd removed basketball hoops from the jail, and donated them to a local church. Wachs said that Judd was violating separation of church and state.

..."Conservative religious leaders in Polk say Wachs has it all wrong. Lynne Breidenbach, a Christian activist and media consultant for churches, says Wachs and other members of Atheists of Florida are the ones who are the cause of the ongoing problems.

"This is a community of faith, and faith is very important to the people of Polk County, and if they (Wachs and other atheists) would like to live and work here as members of this community, they need to be more accommodating of us," Breidenbach said."


Did you read that? She has declared this a community of faith....and the rest of us will have to fit in.

[Supply Side Jesus]

28. take that puke down

how utterly revolting....

[1monster]

29. I had to go to Chattahoochee last week. An eight hour round trip to west Florida...

The fartherest west I'd been in Florida before was I-75. The more west we went, the more I kept hearing in my mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK1FaXcqUgc

I was really glad to get back to the east coast!