FIND OUT how wide and deep corruption really runs in Monroe County. In addition, the man is a moron. He had been in office for over three years (at the time the site went up) and doesn't even have a single web page. If you knew what he looked like, you would probably understand why there are no pictures of him anywhere. He hasn't even registered his name as a domain. How smart can this alleged protector of the public be?
Actually, this is the only picture I could find of him. I think it speaks for itself.
Okay, I was being nice for a number of years, just having this site go to the keywestscamclub.com site as I did not want to divert attention from the most important thing, the scamclub.
However, times have changed.
His underlings go so far as to lie to the court, subourn perjury, tamper with evidence and withhold evidence from the court, all with his knowledge and apparent permission.
Much like Duck Tours came back to haunt the City of Key West who made an illegal bubba deal with Ed Swift, this bubba extortion under color of law and malicious prosecution is coming back to haunt the people who started it. They lied to the police, forged the evidence and committed perjury repeatedly, all with the knowledge and assistance of the State Attorney, his employees and the Monroe County Sheriffs Department.
The state attorney issued criminal charges completely without any probable cause. Even if everything the state presented at trial were true, the conduct alleged did not constitute a criminal offense. There was no probable cause at all. They totally mispresented the law and the case.
Not only was there no criminal case or any evidence to support it, but Mark Kohl was totally willing to be a whore and bill collector for a pathetic alleged $1500 auto repair bill. His office apparently can't even manage to read the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act. In fact, they ignored state law altogether, nor could they manage to lookup controlling case law. They didn't care anything about the law, they just wanted to do their friends a favor.
This nightmare began on Monday, February 25, 2002 when I had my car towed to a local transmission shop to get an estimate.
The state had one piece of evidence which was a total forgery. They tried introducing a photocopy into evidence. They must introduce the original, the best evidence there is. Thus the trial was adjourned for 15 minutes so they could go to the state attorney's office to get it. When they come back they have two carbon copies and the carbon paper of the three part form. The original is still not put into evidence. Obviously they did not lose the only piece of evidence they had, they tampered with it and concealed it from the court as it would have made the forgery obvious.
They claim I wrote the information on the form, which is a lie. They admit to writing part of it. Funny how the part they admitted writing and the part they said I wrote are in exactly the same handwriting. Nobody needed an expert to see that. Of course, the police never take handwriting samples from anyone and they never have an expert witness. It is only the testimony of the repair shop owners. It is complete perjury and the state knew it.
(OCT. 3, 2008 UPDATE: As I have explained, they NEVER introduced the only piece of evidence in the case. They tried to introduce a photo copy and then introduced the carbon copies which were worthless. I often wondered what actually happened to the original form. On Oct. 3 in Key West the owners of the transmission shop appeared for depositions in my civil malicious prosecution case against them. I finally got the answer to this question.
The witnesses were kept out of the courtroom so they could not hear each other's testimony. After the state introduced the carbon copies testimony began. While outside the courtroom waiting to testify the owners of the transmission shop looked through their papers and FOUND the ORIGINAL work order. They asked HH, otherwise known as Monroe County Sheriff's Detective Henry Hamilton if they should have it sent to the courtroom. Henry Hamilton told them "NO", the court didn't need it. THIS IS TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE, CONCEALING EVIDENCE. This form was the entire case.)
Under deposition, the detective (HH) admitted that the form had been changed by the auto repair shop's owners. During the trial he tried reversing his previous testimony and said he could not be specific about what exactly had changed. He obviously knew the form had been changed/forged.
It was obvious the fix was in. His testimony in the deposition was clear. Then in the trial he lies in a way coordinated with the lies of the owners of the transmission shop.
The perjury of the transmission shop owners did not end with the form, or even with the location of the car (which I talk about more below), but for some bizarre reason they even tried to change the time line of the events saying the car was towed in on a Sunday. After being confronted by my attorney they admitted that yes, it was Monday, the date on the form.
Then in the deposition Oct. 3 the owner claims that there were two employees in the office when I was there and I allegedly gave him permission to put the transmission into the car. At the trial they mentioned there was one other employee in the room. It is a small office and the simple truth of the matter is that nobody else was in the office at any time while I was there. (Having witnesses makes no difference under the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act. It is though another example of their perjury.)
Had this claim been true the state atttorney would have interviewed these one or two men, we would have done depositions and they would have testified at trial. Of course none of that happened. So once again, when you have no case, simply make it up and invent it as you go along.
But wait a minute.
The information they put on the form said I had agreed to up to $1500 of repairs without an estimate. This was the forgery. However, even though they had days, weeks or months to do it, they never did a BILL. There was no bill, no invoice. There was NOTHING that said they actually did any work. No parts charges, no labor charges, NOTHING. Nor was there any of the other information state law requires to be on the form. EARTH TO KOHL: There is no such thing as a VERBAL auto repair bill. State law does NOT recognize a verbal auto repair bill. I mean, they had months, and they never even so much as sent a letter demanding payment.
During all the proceedings everyone said I owned $1500. Everyone knew I had paid $200 in advance so the claim was really $1300, but that was ignored throughout.
The criminal justice system was perverted, the taxpayers' money was wasted and the site owner was virtually destroyed. Luckily I had the money for a good attorney and knew the law myself well enough to stand up against the power of the state.
Even the judge, the Honorable Mark Jones, at the end admonished the assistant state attorney, saying: "But you know, this was really a civil case."
The rank and file Sheriff Deputies have a lot more sense then their bosses. After the transmission repair shop called the sheriff and reported my car stolen (how does a non-owner even have standing to do that?) Deputy Paul Schultz responded. He too saw the form had nothing on it expect a notation of my payment of $200. The shop was in such a hurry that they didn't even write down my information. I gave him a business card with my name, cell phone and email on it. Deputy Schultz, naturally later had a case of selective memory about the form but I can't really say he lied like the detective did.
So anyway, the good deputy found out my address and came knocking on my door at about 4:30 in the morning. Another deputy who was never identified stood behind him. He was prepared to arrest me for "stealing my own car." I explained the situation to him and told him about Florida's Motor Vehicle Repair Act (something the repair shop testified under oath at trial they routinely ignore) and he couldn't decide whether any crime had actually been committed. He had the good sense not to arrest me and I never spoke with him again.
It was only after the owner of the repair shop discovered the car sitting in my drive way weeks later, on April 5, 2002 and tried to literally knock down my door and threatened me with physical violence if I did not pay him, that the entire criminal circus got going when he repeatedly went to the sheriff's office and lobbied them to arrest me, pointing out all the work he does for the sheriff's office and other bubba buddies.
(Oct. 3, 2008 UPDATE: The defendants, the owners of the transmission shop testified that they routinely violate the law. They talk like the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act does not even exist. In fact, violating the law is their standard way of doing business and they have been doing it so long they believe they have the right to operate their business that way. Then they are outraged that they are called on their illegal conduct and can't believe someone is accusing them of being crooks.)
Now, in legal reality it did not make any difference (it was my legally titled property and they had no legal claim on it) , but it was central to the case. I always said that the car was parked on the street. It was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. I never would have trespassed on their property or risked a physical confrontation. (Besides, they have a big high steel fence around most of it.)
In the Police Reports it says they stated the car was on their property, in their lot. In depositions in the criminal trial they both admit the car is parked on the street, unlocked and with the keys in the ignition, which is the truth and what I have been saying all along. Then in the criminal trial, they both testify under oath that the car was parked in their lot. Then in cross examination, the wife of the owner admits that yes indeed, the car was on the street.
In writing they make other outrageous claims. The owner's wife says I took my car two hours after telling them I didn't want them to do any work on the car. Again total lie. The car was towed there on Feb. 25, 2002 at the end of the business day. The owner was going to put it up on the rack the next day to look at the transmission and supposed to call me with an estimate. He never called. I walked over to the shop exactly one week later to tell him not to do any work on the car. I assumed because he did not call that he just didn't have time to get to my car... after all, it was there just for an estimate at that point. I actually found him in the parking lot of a closed nearby business where my car was parked and we talked outside. Anyway, he tells me that he already put a rebuilt transmission into the car and that I owed him $1500. I ask to see the bill and he says he hasn't made it out yet. State law requires that it be completed immediately following doing the work. I explain that there is no way I can or will pay that amount. I offer to give him the car as a way of settling the matter which he accepts, but it is just a verbal conversation.
Later that evening or the next day, Tuesday and again on Wednesday I walked over to the shop where my car was parked on the street. I removed the plates and all my personal property from the car and walked home with it. During the course of the week I consulted with different business people I knew and researched the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act as well as related case law online and determined that there was no way I owed any money and there was no reason to give the shop my car.
The next day, Thursday I am walking to Burger King around 5:30 p.m. and my car is still sitting unlocked on the street with the keys in the ignition. I eat and walk back towards my home and the car is still sitting on the street. It is raining. The car is my legally titled property and the shop has no claim on it. They don't even have any possession or control. They have left it on a city street for 4 days. I took my car. It is my car. What law says I can't drive my own car? There is none.
If the car was indeed parked on their lot, I think it is funny that they didn't have the keys for it. That is because they left the car on the street with the keys in it for days. I didn't even need a second set of keys to take back my car. We even asked them in the trial if they have the keys for the car, and they admitted they didn't. If they had I am sure the shop owner would have simply taken my car when he later found it at my home.
Finally, in cross examination during the criminal trial, the wife of the owner of the repair shop admits UNDER OATH that yes indeed the car was parked on the street before it disappeared. But she tried to minimize it by saying that the car was only on the street for ten minutes. In reality it had been there for days.
In deposition they testify that the Sheriff's office complains and gives them trouble for leaving customer cars on the street and they are only there for minutes. Another lie, it was there for days. Their bubba buddies don't give them any trouble, they go out of their way to help these car repair thieves.
THIS IS PERJURY. They testified under oath a number of times that the car was on their lot. But are they charged with perjury? Is Mark Kohl pissed his office's time was wasted... nope, not when it is one of his bubba buddies.
More importantly, in the civil case they keep arguing that it was the state that decided to bring charges. Well yes, true, however it was based on PERJURY and a forged document. There was no probable cause.
Later on in the process of trying to shake me down, Manny Madruga told my civil attorney that a warrant had been issued for my arrest but they were holding it in abeyance to give me an opportunity to pay the transmission shop. This was a complete and total lie. This man wants to be a judge? Manny totally lied to another attorney which certainly must cross some ethical line. In plain fact, there was no warrant at the time and no warrant can be held in abeyance under any circumstances. Thank God this lying assistant crook is not going to be elected a judge.
The form in question was a work order and it was blank except for a couple of things. This blank form was faxed by my civil attorney a week before the warrant was issued Monroe County Sheriff to Manny Madruga. Thus, Manny Madruga certainly knew there was no case and the office of the state attorney knew that the form was forged long after the fact and before the trial. Why do you think they refused to produce their only piece of evidence and went with a photocopy? So, do you think the word "crook" is too strong?
The State Attorney's office also had to present the case before a judge to get a finding of probable cause and have a warrant issued. The only way they were able to do that WAS TO LIE TO A JUDGE. That judge was none too bright in any case.
Kathrine Vogel of the State Attorney's office was also involved in this fiasco according to my attorney, but I am not yet clear on what her role was so I will not go into that at this time.
If you were the complaining witness or the defendant, would you want this moron (HH) handling your important criminal case.
(OCT. 3, 2008 UPDATE: As I explained, on Oct. 3 the owners of the transmission shop appeared for depositions under oath. The work order had been completed long after the fact, but the owners insisted that I had filled out the part authorizing $1500 worth of repairs without an estimate. This was their testimony at the trial. They insisted during the criminal trial I had approved of the alleged transmission repairs in writing and in person. During the deposition they admitted that they had completed the entire form. They didn't realize it during their testimony obviously, but they admitted to forgery and perjury. They knew about this website. Hello? Didn't they read it?)
HH had clearly stated in his deposition before the criminal trial that the shop owners had completed the form as a "representation" of what they said had been said verbally. Then at trial he changed his story. So HH, just how much of a lie amounts to PERJURY?
As mentioned elsewhere, in the deposition Oct. 3, 2008, we found out that HH actually was instrumental in concealing the only piece of original evidence from the court.
It is like their testimony about where the car was. What day is it? In the police reports they say the car was on their lot. In the depositions they admit it was on the street, unlocked and with the keys in the ignition. Then at trial they testify, again under oath, that the car was parked in their lot. Under cross examination one of the owners, when their depositon testimony is pointed out, admits that yes indeed the car was parked on the street. Guess what their current deposition testimony is? Got a coin to flip?
I also wrote a letter to Mark Kohl before the warrant issued explaining why it was a civil matter and why they had no legal grounds to arrest me for a crime. Mark Kohl was fully aware of this case and all of its details at that point.
Do you folks remember why Mark Kohl won election in the first place? Because the previous state attorney had mindlessly prosecuted a family for abuse, took their kids away for months, virtually bankrupted them when it turns out there was no abuse. Mark Kohl promised in his campaign to ONLY bring solid provable cases.
I have not previously disclosed the trial details because there is already quite enough on this site, but Don the flunky did lie to the court and I will now explain part of that. A good twenty five percent of the trial was in sidebars during which he told Judge Mark Jones all sorts of lies in order to keep out my evidence. He couldn't prove any of it and couldn't raise it in trial and he knew they were bald faced lies, but that didn't stop him from telling them to the judge. He even managed to argue that the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act had nothing to do with me taking my car and kept the statute out of the trial. On the other hand, my defense was that I had no intention of stealing the transmission, so the judge allowed me to talk around the statute without actually mentioning it. (He heard my testimony first without the jury.) During Don's cross examination of me though I managed to piss him off so bad that he quoted part of the statute back to me. At that point my attorney called for a sidebar and because Don the stooge had opened the door I got the statute in. That was the end of the state's case, in so many words.
Finally, the court accepted our jury instructions which said that if the jury found that the transmission shop had violated any of five listed major violations of the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act the jury had to find me not guilty.
They also received an instruction that if I did not have an intent to steal the transmission they had to find me not guilty. Every crime has different elements and all elements of the crime have to be proved. One of the primary elements of Grand Theft, a Class E felony, is that there needs to be an INTENT to commit the crime. The state must prove that intent.
AGAIN, another reason Mark Kohl and buddies are crooks. From the facts of the case and the letters I sent them, they KNEW there was no criminal intent. The ONLY WAY they could have any hope of trying to establish any criminal intent was to keep the entire Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act out of the case. Obviously the decision to lie to the court was decided at the highest levels of the Office of the State Attorney.
What does that tell you about their contempt of the law?
Thus, in reality the jury FOUND THE TRANSMISSION SHOP GUILTY. They rejected the state's entire case.
Up to that point it was debatable which side was going to win. I could well have been convicted of a felony and sent to prison. It would have taken many months to get an appeal heard and there is no telling what might happen.
(I don't trust anybody in the court system and this is one reason why. I had a civil case I was doing pro se where the appeals court judges didn't even read my reply brief which included an affidavit from a Chief United States District Court Judge proving my argument. They issued a ruling on such an outrageous and impossible legal foundation I wrote all the members of the court and told them they were either incompetent or they were crooks and they could take their choice. Two weeks later the appeals court WITHDREW their opinion and issued a new one. I still lost of course but at least it was on a plausible statute of limitations argument.
After about five minutes the jury foreman came out and asked the judge for a copy of the jury instructions. The judge explained that he can not give them the instructions in writing but would read back to them any of the instructions and to let him know what instructions they wanted to hear. The jury foreman went into the jury room and came back a minute later. The jury wanted to hear the two jury instructions my attorney submitted. The jury returned to deliberate and came out about six minutes later with the verdict of NOT GUILTY.
Consider this. If Mark Kohl and his staff are willing to totally pervert the criminal justice system to play bill collectors for an illegally operating auto repair shop and a pathetic $1500, what are they willing to do in a serious criminal case? How can they be trusted to follow the law? Will they let evidence in your case or that of a friend or relative be fabricated? Will they withhold evidence? Just how dirty will they play? If you are a defendant and you don't have money and they are out to get you, you are seriously screwed.
This isn't just about me, you too, or family or friend could be a victim of the outrageous corruption demonstrated by Mark Kohl.
These people tried to destroy my life and terrorized me for a year and a half without ANY legal foundation whatsoever. They never even had a theory of the case other than using prejury, forgery and fraud to try to convict me.
They are going to learn all about karma and pay-back. Once the judge sees the illegal conduct of the state attorney's office we hope he will refer the matter to the Attorney General and the Florida Bar for investigation. The office of Mark Kohl is totally corrupt.
The owners of the transmission shop called Mark Kohl and asked him what they should do. Mark Kohl told them to ignore me, that I would go away. Brilliant advice there, I must say.
I am not going to identify the defendants of my civil case here due to the ongoing litigation and other factors but will in the not-to-distant future. More information will be posted as I have time.
The legal advice he should have given the transmission shop was that they are a regulated business, regulated by Florida State Law and if they decide not to follow the law and they get called on it, then they eat the cost of the work. It is a cost of doing business illegally. In so many words, that is exactly what the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act says. The transmission shop only violated it in about twenty different ways, five of which would put them out of business.
Mark Kohl and his office should not have volunteered to become bill collectors.
Over that weekend, before I surrendered I wrote a six page letter with copies of the work order and faxed them (I had my own fax machine) to various officials from Jeb Bush on down and the media. (The state's copy was black and white. Mine was in full color.) I was scared to death. I was being railroaded and didn't know what was going to happen, so I wanted to get my side of the story out. I also faxed a copy to the Sheriff asking him if he knew how bogus the case was and why would he permit such a thing? Of course there was no answer and he turned it over to the State Attorney. The state attorney used one sentence out of the six pages against me, but I think it backfired on him.
I laid low over the weekend, went to my attorney and then his bond's man, paid him, signed the paper work and went to the Monroe County Jail and surrendered with the bonds man. Luckily I did not have to sit more than a few hours before I was released.
If I did not have the money to pay the $5,000 in bail, I could have sat in jail for weeks or months. It took well over a year for them to finally bring the case to trial. I would have lost my job. I would have been evicted. All my stuff would have been on the street and stolen. (We all know how landlords ignore the law in Key West.)
I had many tens of thousands of dollars worth of property. I would lost everything. If I did not have money I would not have been able to hire an excellent attorney such as Richard Wunsch. Public defenders are dedicated and often excellent attorneys, but their case loads are way too high and the quality of defense is much too much like gambling for me to trust. I knew the state attorney was out to get me. I was just lucky to have cash available.
This case cost me over $6,000 in direct expenses, plus much more in the additional injury. My damages for related and consequential injury, which is not relevant to this site to go into detail, are into many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
How much money do you, your family or friends want to spend the next time Mark Kohl prosecutes a BOGUS CASE?
LATER, after my case, maybe the sheriff learned something, but it was something he should have known long before my case.
It is really VERY SIMPLE. If you make a deal with someone and pay them a deposit or a partial payment and then fail to pay any more money, it is a civil case. Can you imagine if every claim of non-payment of a civil debt could result in the debtor being arrested? We would be back to the very old days before constitutions and the development of modern law where debtors could be put into debtor's prisons.
This woman naturally was VERY unhappy and went to The Key West Citizen to complain about the Sheriff and Brian Evans. The Sheriff's office explained to the Citizen that if there is a payment in such a transaction, it is a CIVIL MATTER. A news article was thus printed.
This directly relates to my case as well. I paid the transmission repair shop $200 towards what I thought were going to be a few hundred dollars in repairs. This was dually noted on the work order. The shop said they would call me the next day with an estimate. They never called. A week went by and I walked over to the shop to tell them not to do any work on the car, I was going to buy a new car. I am told that a REBUILT transmission has already been installed in the car and I owed $1500. There is no bill. There is no old transmission to see. No way, I say am I paying that.
What I did NOT realize at the time, is that transmission shop's DO NOT REPAIR transmissions. They take out your old transmission and replace it with a rebuilt transmission. They then sell your bad or maybe not so bad transmission to a rebuilder who fixes it up and sells it to another transmission shop.
Speaking of rebuilt transmissions, the transmission shop had NO bill of sale or any other paper work to prove that the transmission allegedly installed into my car even existed, much less what it was worth.
The deputies, the detective, the Sheriff and the state attorney are all aware that I had paid $200 in cash. The fact that it was all a civil matter was NOT new case law. It is well established case law. The state attorney is perfectly capable of researching and finding out what controlling case law is. It is his duty and OBLIGATION under the law.
Okay, STOP the prison bus! There was more case law too. There is case law that says that once an automotive part like a transmission is installed into a motor vehicle it becomes part of that motor vehicle. It losses whatever separate identity it had and is part of the vehicle, which is legally titled property. NOBODY can be charged much less convicted for stealing a transmission that is part of their legally titled motor vehicle property. (EXCEPT IN MONROE COUNTY, FL. which makes it up as it goes along.) There was no legal claim to the vehicle by the transmission shop and even if there was, it would all be a CIVIL case. There was no law whatsoever that said the owner of the car could not move his car, drive his car or even sell his car if he wanted to. Plus I moved it from a public street.
Mark Kohl's henchmen made a totally unnecessary plea deal with a child molester that put him back out on the streets driving around to commit more crimes. Michael Carroll, a friend of Scrub Club owner Jerry Andrews (17+ felony convictions) lived upstairs from the club after having been driven out of Jerry's basement in Colorado Springs by an angry community. He was arrested for drunken driving and was going to take it to trial. This three time convicted child molester had an interesting defense theory. My media company filed a motion with the court to videotape the trial. At the motion hearing the two sides revealed they had worked out a deal to allow the child molester to plead to reckless driving, so he was able to keep his license and continue to drive Scrub Club vans. The state and defense got out of being videotaped for television. Six weeks later on 08/25/2007, driving a Scrub Club van this child molester (Classified in Colorado as a "Sexually Violent Predator") was arrested on 3 new felony charges of offenses against children right here in Key West. Bail was set at $500,000, but because he had probation until he paid off the costs in the DUI case, he also has a probation hold with no bail.
Note: Sexual assault, crimes against children and similar criminal cases are not available online. If you are doing research online using an individual's name, none of these cases will be available to you. They probably are if you have an authorized law enforcement or court login account.
Mark Kohl refuses to do anything about the employees and customers getting ripped off or the reported prostitution. In fact, his investigators tell victims that they should have read my site, keywestscamclub.com before going in there.
There is a big difference between defrauding someone of their money and failing to pay a bill. This moron didn't know the difference or the fix was in. I got ripped off twice in this whole deal.
Visit alaneckstein.com and stevenboswell.com to learn about how criminals with bubba connections are not even investigated or prosecuted for major felony crimes, according to the author. If you are the right bubba or have the right bubba friends Mark Kohl and the Monroe County Sheriff will look the other way and let you skate. My case they call criminal, yet their buddies can rip off hundreds of thousands of dollars and they say it is a civil matter.
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