This story gets downright Kafkaesque and more relevant, since it reveals that not just our deputies, but our prosecutors and judges had neither attempted to sort out the guilty from the innocent, nor even followed the letter of the law. This same unchecked and unbalanced legal system, on top of all the other ”law” and “justice” expenditures that eat up our general fund, is now asking us to fund an oversize jail, which, once built, can be counted on to be filled to capacity, but with whom?

First up, there is no “maybe” [she’s innocent]. I am innocent; over these long 5 years, no judge or prosecutor could refute my facts or arguments for actual innocence and reversal of Elich’s unconstitutional conviction. There had been no happy ending to this story as of May 2015, but it’s far from over. Missing my chance to get into the Court of Appeals due to a medical eye condition, I took it to the Supreme Court, where no one had the integrity to correct a conviction pronounced by a judge who made up an admission, though the technicalities allowed it and no one, even the prosecutor, could justify Elich’s and Uhrig’s actions, or even address them directly. But in my quest for the miracle of justice, I’ve seen so much that I will be writing a series of articles, as I’ve promised a long time ago, where I will name names and cases, and hyperlink to the evidence and court documents (which also proves every fact in this comment).

I’m not about to hold back, since all of our rights mean nothing when judges flat-out make things up to get the outcome they want, and I, for a change, have the time to write something besides legal papers (I have a whole year before the deadline to go back to the Court of Appeals). For today, I’m posting a more precise rendition of the factual narrative in John’s initial article (I try to maintain his style; the following paragraphs are almost the same, as they were when I e-mailed them to him around 6/1/13).

It started back in 2009. More than a 100 properties in the mostly low income community of Paradise in Kendall had a 4 acre greenbelt adjoining them. The greenbelt was abandoned, officially, in 1999 and came with arcane title issues, such as having an illegal reversion clause for a foundation. A good ol’ boy from Acme,  who no longer could get bonding for his logging projects, had turned it into a business opportunity. On the good ol’ boy’s expert advice, his good ol’ girl buddy handed some money to Isenhart for the weirdly illegal title and all it came with.

Unless they bought the pieces of greenbelt from him now, the good ol’ boy’d plow through other folks driveways and properties, grabbing the trees that couldn’t get out of his way fast enough, get to the greenbelt, get it nice and clear-cut, and then sell the clear-cut pieces. He would sub-divide it all by himself. He had qualifications, having previously gotten in trouble for practicing law w/o a license, and prohibited from doing so in the future. He didn’t bother to get the boundaries surveyed or look at the plat-map, or the original pins. The troubles began. The County called it all a civil matter. The bullying and “plowing” was going on for a couple months, when, on 11/26,  the good ol’ boy from Acme came into the woods in Luba’s backyard, accompanied by a big chainsaw.  She thought this was the day he would cut down every tree on her property he had an eye on. She may well have been right about her title to the disputed property, and it wasn’t like her title to her deeded property was ever in dispute, but that’s not the focus for now. On 11/26/09, 5 days after the good ol’ boy held an idling chainsaw next to her body, she was digging a barricade in a 4’4’’ passage of the greenbelt. When she saw him again she demanded that he get off her property. He kept on coming. She then stood in his way, holding her shovel across her shoulders and would not move to “excuse” him and what he was about to do.  There was a tree on one side of her and a fence on the other. He shoved past her and “proceeded on”. He walked further into the conflict zone, set down his tools and chainsaw, turned around and started coming at her. She didn’t wait around to see how the drama would unfold this time, ran to the chainsaw and grabbed it, hiding it behind her home.  She promptly called the sheriff and so had he, complaining of a theft of a saw, and also, of being hit with a shovel.

A deputy came. He asked her to give him the saw, but she wanted to return it to the Sheriff’s Office that Monday, to be held until a judge decides on this twist of the civil matter, otherwise, it would just be given back to the logger and he would continue destroying her property. The deputy had no ear for such complications, insisting only that she give him the saw.  She gave it to him. He ordered her to shut off her recorder, which was capturing their interaction. When she refused, he promptly arrested her for theft, and also, assault, which he never mentioned until then.  It was Thanksgiving morning and off she went to jail.

Our legal system kicked in and Luba was prosecuted and convicted of two gross misdemeanors - theft and assault - by Judge Elich. The “victim” - the guy with the chainsaw - admitted under questioning that he was unhurt and had no injuries; Luba denied hitting him.  The prosecution made no sense. It was “he said/she said”, with self-contradicting and physically impossible testimony from the prosecution’s witnesses, and no physical evidence of guilt. But Elich resolved those complications by inventing that Luba admitted to striking Hatch and found Luba guilty of assault; guilty of stealing the chain saw too, for not helplessly watching Hatch do whatever he wanted on her property as he’d done on her neighbors’ - even though Hatch threatened to cut trees on her deeded property months before her arrest; even though she had initiated an action to have a judge resolve the title dispute to the small strip of greenbelt adjoining it; even though she was only trying to keep the violence from escalating and protect her property; even though she was the one who called the sheriff; even though she returned the saw.  She now has criminal misdemeanors on her record, for life. Unless an appeal would overturn it.

So, in late July 2010 she appealed the District Court decision to Superior Court. For the past three years she has been given the run around by judges and prosecutors, a year was spent almost exclusively on appealing Snyder’s decision to prohibit her from filing pleadings on the underlying title dispute, and there was plenty of obstruction on the criminal case: her District Court case-file has been lost (and as hard as the junior clerks and the criminal supervisor searched, it wasn’t found until 2 weeks later in a “special cabinet for thick files”); it has taken 1-3 years for evidence designated for the appeal to be transmitted from the 4th floor District Court to the 3rd floor Superior Court. It appears Judge Elich had effectively controlled which designations the District Court clerk would transmit to the Superior Court.  Almost three years after the conviction, Luba’s appeal evidence was finally transmitted with the help of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Luba Pekisheva has represented herself throughout this process; that was the only way she could put up the rigorous defense an innocent person needs once they get wrongfully arrested.  She was assigned a public defender in the beginning but, after giving him a chance to persuade her to the contrary, she felt he couldn’t/ didn’t want to distinguish between theft and property defense, and in a case such as hers, where there was no hope of the client pleading guilty, was of no help, and of considerable hindrance. Another public defender wanted to work with Luba, but neither her supervisor, nor Judge Elich let Luba switch from one to another. She took the case to trial herself. Of course, self-representation makes lawyers cringe, but she must’ve done good for Judge Elich to resort to making up an admission to a deliberate shovel strike, and to repealing the right to property defense, while he was at it. Besides, as Elich pushed the case to trial, it was less work to learn enough of the law to get the job done than to get an attorney who’d reveal the case sufficiently to do it justice, despite the fact that she or he aren’t making any money off it. At any rate, having talked to 2 local attorneys at different stages of the case, and gotten positive responses, but no commitment to jump in at this stage of the case, she didn’t really have time to try to pitch her case to the point that it takes to get someone gutsy and trustworthy pro bono.