Lester Eugene Siler

[Kennedy 0]

Lester Eugene Siler

I'm just going to post three or four little links and leave the rest to you.
FYI: the audio is a bit... disturbing...
and be sure to have the transcript open if you do listen.

http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2006/04/28/the-war-on-drugs/
http://hammeroftruth.com/2006/04/25/southern-fried-justice-becoming-epidemic/
http://web.knoxnews.com/pdf/silertranscript.pdf
http://wms.scripps.com/knoxville/siler/siler.mp3

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[skydyvr 0]

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Lester Eugene Siler

That is easily the most fucked up group of men I've ever heard on tape, or pretty much anywhere else. Wild.

. . =(_8^(1)

[akarunway 1]

That IS fucked up. The drug war is fucked. Kinda like my apprentice at work. Got 11 yrs. in the pen for possession of a quarter gram of meth. They were gonna give him LIFE under the three strike law in Ca.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

And what again where those officers convicted for?

[warpedskydiver 0]

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And what again where those officers convicted for?

they should have been convicted of human rights violations and civil rights violations besides the state laws that were broken...oh and possibly convicted under the RICO act

[SkyDekker 1,465]

interestingly enough, they weren't.

[Kennedy 0]

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they should have been convicted of human rights violations and civil rights violations besides the state laws that were broken...oh and possibly convicted under the RICO act

interestingly enough, they weren't.

What makes you say that? Maybe I need a flashier title and succinct synopsis to garner more speakers corner interest, but it's my understanding that they plead guilty - hence convicted

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_3908434,00.html

What I can't understand is why the local prosecutor would let them off the hook, just because it's gone federal. All I can imagine is some good old fashioned good-ole-boy "just letting it go."

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By JAMIE SATTERFIELD, satterfield@knews.com
July 6, 2005

You won't see this on "Cops."

Nearly a year after five Campbell County lawmen beat and tortured a drug dealer, a secret audio recording that captured 40 minutes of the two-hour attack has been filed in U.S. District Court.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Atchley also has filed a 60-page transcript of the tape's contents.

The audiotape and transcript were filed in preparation for next week's sentencing hearings for the five former Campbell County Sheriff's Department deputies - David Webber, Samuel Franklin, Shayne Green, Joshua Monday and William Carroll.

Webber, Franklin, Green and Carroll earlier this year pleaded guilty to charges they conspired to violate the civil rights of Lester Eugene Siler in the July 2004 attack on the convicted drug dealer in his White Oak community home. Monday pleaded guilty to threatening to shoot Siler with his service weapon.

The audiotape was made by Siler's wife, who stashed a tape recorder in the house after she saw the lawmen, none of whom was in marked cruisers, arrive outside her home.

The sounds captured on that tape are graphic, the language raw and the suffering by Siler audible.

(cont)

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Kennedy 0]

ask and ye just might receive

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2 more ex-Campbell deputies jailed

Lawyer says man who was tortured by lawmen still tormented by memory

By JAMIE SATTERFIELD, satterfield@knews.com
February 25, 2005

Even with four of the five lawmen who beat and tortured him behind bars, Lester Eugene Siler cannot rest easy, his attorney said Thursday.

"Every time he sees a police officer ride by his house, he wonders, 'Will they come to my house?' " attorney Kristie Anderson said. "He's constantly afraid. He doesn't know if there are people out there who might want to retaliate. His whole family is fearful."

Siler watched Thursday as two more former Campbell County Sheriff's Department deputies were ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Tom Varlan to be jailed pending sentencing after the pair pleaded guilty to violating Siler's civil rights.

Joshua Monday, a former rookie deputy, pleaded guilty to brandishing a firearm and threatening to shoot Siler during a two-hour attack on the convicted drug dealer at his home in the White Oak community last July.

Shayne Green, a part-time process server and chief of the Jacksboro Fire Department, pleaded guilty to conspiring with Monday, narcotics chief David Webber, veteran Detective Samuel Franklin and process server William Carroll to violate Siler's civil rights through force and intimidation.

Webber and Franklin pleaded guilty in the conspiracy earlier this week. A court date for Carroll has not been set.

Siler and his wife, Jenny Siler, have appeared at each hearing. Siler has declined to speak, but his wife said Thursday that she remains angry and upset at the ordeal.

"They shouldn't have done what they've done," she said.

It was Jenny Siler who secretly stashed a tape recorder in the kitchen when the five lawmen showed up at her house on July 8 to arrest her husband on a violation of probation warrant.

Before she was ordered to leave with her 8-year-old son, she turned on the recorder. Anderson has said there had been "other visits" by Campbell County deputies that prompted Jenny Siler to turn on the recorder. Anderson did not elaborate, other than to say that the Silers already had complained about mistreatment before the July attack.

"They were told they needed proof," Anderson said. "You have to go to the same people that are involved to report it. You don't expect them to believe you."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Atchley said at Thursday's hearing that Monday faces a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years on the gun charge.

Green, Webber, Franklin and Carroll all face a maximum 10-year prison term.

Monday's attorney, Dennis Francis, had filed a motion last week asking Varlan to allow the former deputy to remain free until his sentencing hearing in May.

On Thursday, however, Francis withdrew the motion.

"My client had decided to accept full responsibility for what he did," Francis said.

Attorney Kim Parton, who represents Green, also declined to ask Varlan for her client's freedom.

"Mr. Green is accepting full responsibility in this incident, and he has specifically stated he wished to do that," she told Varlan.

Both Monday and Green admit they beat a handcuffed Siler and threatened to hurt or kill him in an effort to get Siler to sign a form giving them permission to search his house.

Monday specifically admitted in his plea agreement to "slapping, punching and kicking" Siler and striking Siler with a plastic baseball bat. A FBI transcript of the secret recording revealed that Monday pointed his gun at Siler and at least twice threatened to shoot him.

Green conceded in his plea agreement that he beat and threatened Siler. He also admitted he forced Siler's head under water in a fish tank and an "overflowing toilet" during the ordeal.

Webber has admitted in his plea agreement that he was the ringleader of the torture and beating of Siler. Unlike the other four former lawmen, Webber's plea agreement contains an immunity clause and suggests Webber has admitted to the FBI and federal prosecutors other misdeeds.

Campbell County District Attorney General Paul Phillips has said he asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to probe Webber's removal of $4,000 from the Sheriff's Department drug fund last year. Webber has failed to provide any documentation to show what he did with the money, which is supposed to be used only for drug investigations.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*