OPEN LETTER TO CRIMINAL FORMER PROSECUTOR

 Dear Benjamin Acob:

This is to update you on the disaster that County of Maui has made of my life. I’ll never know why the county decided I was an enemy of the people, but I do know that it continues to make my life miserable.

Moana Lutey is largely responsible, as I document in the following blog.  www.MoanaLutey.blogspot.com.  

Lutey is a brazen criminal and now she is Corporation Counsel. The Mayor knows she is a criminal, but nominated her anyway. The Council Members know she is a criminal, but rubberstamped her nomination anyway. I was not allowed to testify at the hearing on her nomination. By appointing her, the county has ensured there will be no rule of law here.

You too must shoulder much of the blame, as your actions started the cascade of misconduct and crimes that have caused me years of grief. Let me refresh your memory, first with a hypothetical, then a reminder of what you did.

Sign waving is a time-honored tradition in this country,  especially in Hawaii and especially for politicians running for office. If a sign-waving politician were assaulted and battered by an opponent, or the agent of an opponent, and the assault was witnessed by police officers, justice would be swift and sure. The assailant and the person(s) or business responsible would surely do serious time and pay a hefty fine, then get sued by the victim.

Why should the average citizen have any less right to demonstrate than politicians? Doesn’t the Bill of Rights apply to all of us? When I was assaulted and seriously injured (cracked ribs and a shredded rotator cuff that required surgery) while sign waving, the assailants paid no price whatsoever for their crimes, even though two police officers witnessed much of the assault. The cops filed an incident report, but did not arrest the person they saw assaulting me. This is all described in the blog referred to above, and described in more detail in links provided in that blog.

Your office assured me the assailant would be prosecuted – and kept assuring me for a whole year. When I would call to check on the progress in the case I was always told to be patient, these things take time, quit pestering us, etc. Finally, a year after the assault I asked to meet with the assistant prosecutor in charge of the case. It turns out she hadn’t even read the police report yet – a year after the assault! Moreover, she questioned me in a hostile manner about why I was demonstrating, even though five judges had affirmed my right to demonstrate by denying TRO petitions filed by those who later hired the assailant.

When I told her she was out of line trying to put me on the defensive, she angrily kicked me out of her office and told me to never come back. Two weeks later I received a letter informing me that no charges would be pursued in the case. No reason was given. We both know that this would not happen to a politician or a high-profile celebrity. As I said, there is no rule of law or equal justice under the law here.

It’s important to note that, in spite of all my “pestering”, your office never called me in for an interview. I was seriously injured in an assault witnessed by police officers, but you had no interest in hearing me out, much less holding the assailants accountable.

This is exactly what happened in the Michael Best case I describe in the blog www.LethalReprisals.blogspot.com (I was arrested for posting this and emailing links to the mayor and to council members). I was damn near killed by a drunken thug and spent two weeks in the hospital with a hole in my torso (to repair a collapsed lung) and several cracked ribs.

Every day I called the police and asked that an officer come to my bedside and take my statement about the assault. Every time I was told they had decided (based on what the assailant told them) that it was just a case of disorderly conduct and they refused to interview me – until I threatened a lawsuit for obstruction of justice. Is this any way to run a justice system?

If you have any regrets for the harm your actions caused me, there is something you can do to partly make amends. You can draft and advocate for a law that would allow private parties to prosecute crimes against them when prosecutors refuse to do so. Such laws exist in some states and we need one here. Otherwise justice will continue to be arbitrary and depend on the capricious whims of individuals.

 

                                Sincerely, 

                                                Kurt Butler