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Orange County Superior Courts Good Ole Boys Club Exposed, According to C. J. Ford Jr.

Closed door biases, conspiracy, discrimination, manipulations, and gaming of the legal system uncovered

In the past, the judge in department C5 has used his authority as auxiliary judge, chairman of the Steering Committee of Alternate Defense Services, and presiding judge to influence other judges to misuse their judicial powers.

According to Ford the results of his investigation "proves that biases against Pro Per and indigent incarcerated defendants were so strong that defendants in this classification were routinely striped of their Constitutional rights under the 6th and 14th amendments."

After repeated cases documented at Orange County Superior Court, defendants continued to try to terminate the services of a dishonest, court-appointed investigator who was engaged in unethical and illegal practices against his own defense clients. This investigator gets full support of the court because the court assigns him over 85 percent of the court's cases, and the court dismissed motions filed by the defendants to terminate his services.

Ford explained how this conspiracy worked. "In the case of Pro Per defendants, the judge in C5 decided that he was going to teach the Pro Per defendants a lesson for having the audacity to stand before him and the court on equal grounds, and before officers that have law degrees and bar licenses, to present their cases. The judge used his authority as chairman of the Steering Committee of Alternate Defense Service and conspired with the supervisor to override existing policy and procedure. The policy ensured the fair selection of investigators by defendants from a list or by rotating appointments.

"This judge and the supervisor then conspired to override the policy. They bought this investigator - whose resume supported his prospects for gaming the system. This investigator was paid a six-figure salary, owns a private plane, and takes frequent expensive trips. This investigator had past conviction of child abuse against his own daughter, in which he openly lied to authorities in both the Riverside Sheriff Department and Child Protective Services about the incident. After being terminated from the Riverside Sheriff department, this investigator filed a lawsuit against his former employer claiming that he should not been fired because what he did off-duty had nothing to do with his on-duty performance. The decision to justify his termination was upheld by an appellate court.

"The judge, the supervisor, and the investigator formed a relationship that was responsible for hundreds of convictions in Orange County Superior Court. This conspiracy blocked multiple motions from defendants to appoint other investigators. Policy manuals and lists were not assessable to defendants and the public because, if read, would have exposed this plot. The supervisor and the judge became the sole decisionmakers to appoint investigators - and, of course, they assigned their investigative partner.

"Defendants feared this investigator. Spanning back as far as 11 years ago, this investigator had the representation of losing exculpatory evidence, extorting his own clients by conducting investigations against them, not finding and interviewing his clients witnesses, and informing the district attorney of his own clients' case strategies.

"This investigator was so bold that he would tell his own defense clients that he could do as he pleases. He told them that he did not work for them. He told them that he worked for the court and the county. He told them that he knew all the judges and the district attorneys, and that he could not be fired."

Ford says that this investigator was telling his clients the truth. Ford's investigation revealed that this investigator did more destructive, then constructive, work on his clients' case. Ford investigation exposes that the court routinely denies motions to terminate this investigator, knowing that the motions contained ethics violations to actual criminal offenses that would not be tolerated by any other court. According to Ford, this investigator has about 100 active cases he works on at one time, and it would be virtually impossible for any investigator to effectively handle those many cases. Ford's research concluded that some clients have never seen this investigator, but their case files reveal that they were charged thousands of dollars for his services.

Ford says that the conspiracy worked for the court, because Pro Per defendants that dared to come before them were schooled. After the court's Teflon investigator got finished sabotaging his own clients' cases, the court just simply rushed cases to trial. "The defendants could not defend themselves. The court would just tell the defendants that they had plenty of time to create a defense, and that the fact that they didn't was just one of the disadvantages of going Pro Per."

Ford believes that courts should be impartial, and the court had "no right to interfere" with the defendants' Constitutional rights. "Most courts do not. However, this court took a stand against the Pro Per defendants when it insisted on picking their investigator and not allowing them to terminate this investigator's services. Even after these defendants filed complaints to the district attorney, none of the complaints were investigated, because the district attorney was the benefactor of information given to them by this investigator.

The mechanics of this conspiracy has been exposed in an article by Nick Schou, investigative reporter of the Orange County Weekly, and on the Web site of C. J. Ford Private Investigations at 'http://www.cjfordpi.com'. C. J. Ford Jr. has also filed a discrimination lawsuit against Alternate Defense Services in Federal Court. Ford is looking for a good civil rights lawyer. "Hundreds of victims will be looking for attorneys to represent them." Complaints are being compiled by C. J. Ford Private Investigations and victims should contact the firm to document complaints.

"Hopefully this exposure will cause good media investigative reporters to further expose this case," stated Ford. "The surface has just been scratched, and there are many other spin-off investigations of this conspiracy, victims to interview, and case dockets to research. We know that the court's investigator was unjustly enriched. I wonder who else was?"

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C. J. Ford Private Investigations
211 S. State College Blvd. #343
Anaheim, CA 92806
PHONE. 714-776-6504
FAX. 714-776-8355
EMAIL: cjfordpi@mac.com
http://www.cjfordpi.com