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Update
On July 9, 2009, Alla McGeary was officially sentenced.
She had been found guilty of FAILING TO RETURN A
DOG PERSUANT TO A BAILMENT AGREEMENT,
as was charged in the indictment.
The punishment was a fine of $2,500
plus court costs
which amount to $1,426. Court costs and penalty
to be paid within 6 months from sentencing.
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TRIAL UPDATE - MAY 4 & 5, 2009
Here at last is the trial update. I apologize for the
delay but because I wasn't able to attend the trial (my car broke down on the way Monday morning), and most of the supporters
not being present during the whole trial, it's taken a bit to get the update ready. The information in this update
was provided to me by Shirley Gladhill who was able to attend the trial both days.
The trial took place May 4th
and 5th and immediately took a wrong turn and stayed there. It was supposed to start at 9 a.m. but the court had
other small matters to hear first. When the court was ready to start (a little after 10 a.m.), it was discovered that
two of the 24 potential jurors had called in sick and five others had just not shown up. You cannot pick a jury out
of 17 people so the judge ordered a recess until such time as they had enough potential jurors to be able to select a jury.
After the potential jurors were chased down and finally arrived, jury selected and lunch was taken, the trial started
around 1:30. (Whoever heard of potential jurors just deciding not to come?) That was a happy bunch to have for
a jury trial.
The prosecution put their witnesses on first and rested at the end of the day. Of all their
witnesses, they only called Athy Conigliaro, Kim Danoff and Donna Piwetz. Alla's attorney made mince meat out
of Athy and Danoff. Donna Piwetz read a letter that Alla had sent asking DAR&E's Evaluation Committee for help
in monitoring Stella after her return to Danoff. Don't know why that was damning other than it showed that the powers
that be in DAR&E could not be trusted to oversee Stella's welfare.
Tuesday morning was for the defense
to put their witnesses on. The prosecution would not allow Dr. Sam Burke (President of the Doberman Pinscher Club of
America) to testify in front of the jury. They also tried to stop all of Alla's witnesses from testifying and quite
a bit of her exhibits. Alla's witnesses (Jill Joyce, Colleen Taylor, Linda Smith, Barbara Johnson and Carol
Hilliard) would not allow themselves to be bullied by the prosecutor and corrected him when he tried to twist their words.
Most of Alla's exhibits were introduced into evidence without being allowed to be explained in detail.
There
were three other witnesses that appeared (Inspector Heflin, Peter Schmitt and AC Officer Zoldak).
Inspector Heflin
introduced pictures of a tripod and some e-mails. Heflin is of the search warrant fame.
The vet (Peter Schmitt)
that Alla took Stella to for a checkup to ascertain that her
weight was where it should be and that she had no
physical problems, had written a letter (at the request of Danoff) stating that he saw Stella on Feb. 12th and that she looked
good, etc..., and had a shiny coat. When pressed to show where in Stella's
chart from the vet clinic it stated
such, he had to admit it was not there and that
Danoff had asked him to put that in. His excuse was that a dog's
coat could not change in three weeks. Obviously, he never worked with rescues in all conditions and, therefore, did
not realize that a coat (unless the dog was in such deplorable condition that its health was shot) can be, and is, made shiny
by a good shampoo and a conditioner for shiny hair (just like in humans). He also stated that he followed Danoff's
orders to him and left a message for Alla that he would call the police if Alla came into the clinic. (Alla still has
the tape from her answering machine).
The Animal Control officer that Athy had called on Feb. 10th, 2007 to go
and remove Stella testified that he turned her down by telling her it was a civil matter but conveniently forgot that he then
called Alla and told her what had occurred and what he had said and that when invited to come see Stella, he declined.
Somehow Alla knew all this on Feb. 10th since she relayed it to the members of DAR&E. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Alla
took the stand Tuesday afternoon as the last witness. The prosecutor cross examined her and then was allowed by the
judge to go beyond the cross of the questions asked by her attorney, John Boneta, and ask his own questions as if she
were
his witness. The judge overruled all objections. The judge also allowed Alla to be harassed by the prosecutor
by allowing him to repeatedly ask the same question over and over (again overruling objections) and trying to twist Alla's
answers to try to get her to agree that she had said something she had not. Oh, there was more and when the trial transcript
will be made available you will understand why more people have no faith in the judicial system.
I am wondering
how a jury can decide any issue when they are not allowed to hear all the facts and, in my opinion, this jury certainly did
not hear all the facts of this case!
Wanda
Permission To Cross Post In Its Entirety Only.
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May 9, 2009 by Jill Joyce
From where I
sat ... the experience of a Witness for the Defense of Alla McGeary.
First, thank you to those who showed up and
sat in the Courtroom for two days, to show their support for Alla (and thank you to Wanda for trying!). And
thank you to my fellow Defense Witnesses. I hold you all in high esteem. You spoke the
truth and stood up for Alla, even when the Prosecution tried to twist your words and not allow you to speak freely!
The witnesses were kept outside the courtroom until called to testify (and also at the
end to hear the closing arguments and jury verdicts). I think I can speak for all of us when I say that,
for seating, they provided the most uncomfortable, hard, wooden-slat benches that I have ever seen. If
you didn’t have a bad-back going in, you did coming out!
The Frederick
County system is so unorganized that the court case was delayed in starting by HOURS because they hadn’t managed their
jury-pool. If I was someone who hadn’t expected to be called to serve on the Jury, and then got called
in at the last minute, I wouldn’t be in a very good mood once I arrived. In fact, I would be pre-disposed
against the person being brought to trial. Not to mention that, “Innocent until proven Guilty”
is a great saying. But the presumption is that the Commonwealth wouldn’t waste time and money on
something frivolous … right??? (Talk about shaking your faith in the judicial system.)
The Frederick County prosecutor is certainly “inventive” at what he does.
At one point, on day two, he was actually sitting between me and the Defense attorney on one of the benches, chatting to Alla’s
lawyer like he was a dear friend. And later in the afternoon, the prosecutor tried to chat with the Defense
witnesses to clarifying dates and events, lamenting that he was “just doing his job”. (Was that to try and make
himself feel good? Make excuses for what he was doing? Made me want to retch.) And then
later he tried again to speak with the defense witnesses regarding the Danoff Home Visit. Either he didn’t
know the facts, or was trying to come up with a new way to bend them before the Defense witnesses were called to testify.
Further, in my opinion, while the judge didn’t get to give the verdict, he certainly
did as much as he could to drive the events so the jury would hear only what would make them come to the result that the judge
wanted.
From my own experience, I can share how the judge allowed the Prosecutor to use inflammatory
language (shouting at me, “So where in the guidelines does it allow a person to STEAL a dog!” over and over),
overruling the Defense objections to such leading language. That seemed to be his approach with everyone.
And to my personal shame, I didn’t think fast enough to tell him that DAR&E
stole dogs on a regular basis (or received dogs known to be stolen). Yes, there were frequently rumors
about some dogs that came into the system. (Remember, DAR&E is pretty shrewd. They
use the “need to know” philosophy, so that only a few people on BOD really have the full story at any given time.)
But I’m referring specifically to two cases for which there is absolute proof. Sadly, I wasn’t
able to throw that bomb out.
And, to make this all even more sickening….
As the Jury read the verdict, Danoff was crying in the courtroom, sitting in the back row with Athy and her mafia.
The tears immediately turned off when everyone was waiting while the Jury reconvened to come to the punishment.
Then when we went back into the courtroom to hear the punishment, Danoff started the tears back up and made sure she
sat in the first row “snuggled” up to Heflin (the “investigator” in the case). Talk
about gross and sleazy looking … really icky. I was also in the front row, and sitting close enough
that I could hear Danoff whispering to Heflin about “restitution”. Apparently, she had been
hoping that Prosecution witnesses could get back on the stand and make a last “boo-hoo” to the Jury in hopes of
increasing the punishment, or her getting some cash. Luckily, that wasn’t allowed.
And you could tell that Athy, Danoff and the rest of the flying monkeys were totally disappointed.
It is true that the Jury had issued a guilty verdict, which (again, in my humble opinion) occurred because of the permitted
manipulation of the defense witnesses and our testimony, suppression of evidence, and Judge bias. But the
Jury was at least able to mitigate their position by taking only a few minutes to choose the lowest level punishment they
had on the list … the $2,500 fine.
Folks, I don’t know what
comes next. Please continue to stand by Alla with your support, she still needs our help. Danoff has already
threatened that, “this isn’t over”. They have tried to bankrupt and ruin Alla.
I have no idea how far reaching a Felony conviction will go in damaging Alla’s ability to live a good life.
But we have to do what we can to help wherever possible.
Thanks,
Jill Joyce
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