Take A Polygraph Schiavo, No More Excuses
Posted on Friday, 18 of July , 2008 at 12:55 pm
COMMENTARY
By June Maxam
Troopergate is one of the hot button topics in New York State these days.
It’s hard to imagine how the name Michael Schiavo, one of America’s most infamous husbands, surfaces when discussing the New York State Police and politics but yet when one mentions the name of retired State Police Lt. Col. Daniel Wiese, the name of Michael Schiavo, the man who willfully, knowingly and intentionally killed his disabled wife, immediately comes to mind for many people.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions in the Schiavo case, just like there are in Troopergate. But there’s one big difference. Wiese, former head of the Governor’s Security Detail for former New York Gov. George Pataki and a long-time friend of ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, says he’ll take a polygraph or lie detector test anytime, anywhere with an examiner of the state’s choosing.
Michael Schiavo has to date refused to take such a polygraph which begs the question, if he’s telling the truth as he claims, especially about the night of Terri Schindler Schiavo’s collapse on Feb. 25, 1990, why he wouldn’t willingly take the test to clear himself?
Schiavo is the husband of the late Terri Schindler Schiavo who died March 31, 2005, at Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park 13 days after he removed her nutrition and hydration, while the whole world watched, after he had lobbied the courts and particularly the court of Pinellas County probate judge George Greer, for nearly a decade to gain court permission to kill his wife.
In October, 2003, during an appearance on the Larry King Show, King asked Schiavo if he would voluntarily take a lie detector test to which he responded, “I’ll refrain from that right now” although his euthanasia supporting attorney George Felos indicated that “sure”, his client would submit to a polygraph.
He’ll “refrain” from that right now? Kind of a strange answer, isn’t it? He’s going to hold himself back from taking a lie detector test? Why? This isn’t like refraining from eating dessert? This is a question about criminality and clearing your name. Or is he afraid that he’ll be indicted for murder?
CALLER: Hi Larry. I have a question for Michael. Since he’s so passionate about it being Terri’s wish, when she was 25 years old, that watching a TV program, to give peace to Terri’s parents and brother, why doesn’t he just take a lie detector test?
And one more quick question. If they could bathe her, they could probably give her a pap smear. So he should just take a lie detector test and it would bring peace and resolution to the situation for the parents and brother.
FELOS: The ultimate lie detector has gone before 20 judges who found Mr. Schiavo to be a loving, caring husband.
KING:(UNINTELLIGIBLE) you could voluntarily take one, right?
FELOS: Sure.
KING: Would you take one?
SCHIAVO: I’ll refrain from that right now.
KING: OK. This ain’t a court.
SCHIAVO: It’s not a court.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0310/27/lkl.00.html
Schiavo has taken at least one polygraph, one required as part of his employment application but it’s hard to imagine how he passed it and what questions were asked.
Schiavo, a registered nurse, has been employed at the Pinellas County
jail and on the public dole, since Oct. 11, 2004, having been hired by Sheriff Everett Rice just a few weeks before Rice left his post as sheriff to represent District 54 in Florida’s House of Representatives.
Schiavo had submitted an allegedly falsified employment application on July, 19, 2004, for the position, omitting at least four citations when asked to list all violations of law for which he had been cited thus Michael Schiavo allegedly engaged in both misrepresentation and omission regarding his record and filed a false written instrument with the law enforcement agency.
According to the policy of the sheriff’s department for “Employment Selection Process”, a warrants and criminal history check is done of all applicants including a drivers license history and status. If indeed this had been done properly by the sheriff’s department, it would have been revealed that Schiavo had lied on his pre-application questionnaire.
The “selection process” also requires that a “comprehensive polygraph exam will be conducted for all positions within the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office”, that psychological testing is required, education confirmation and confirmation of previous employment along with a thorough background investigation. Such raises great questions about the “selection process” conducted regarding the Michael Schiavo application and why the inconsistencies about his college degree, employment and other issues did not surface during the polygraph supposedly administered.
The North Country Gazette obtained a copy of Schiavo’s application for appointment and found that the section concerning the application process was almost totally blank, failing to indicate when or if Schiavo had completed—as required by department policy—a physical abilities test, a medical exam, a drug screen, psychological test or if a background investigation of his employment, drivers license, credit record etc. had been completed. No results were listed except under the section for polygraph, the columns for “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory” had been blacked out. There was no date indicated for completion of a polygraph test for Schiavo.
However, Marianne Pasha, public information officer for the sheriff’s department, has now stated that Schiavo completed a polygraph test on Aug. 2, 2004, but she refuses to give the results. It would seem unlikely that if Schiavo failed the polygraph, that he would be hired by the sheriff’s department. If he failed, it opens grave questions about the quality of people hired by the law enforcement agency.
Pasha has refused to release the polygraph questions asked of Schiavo, citing an exemption under Florida Statutes for examination questions and answer sheets of examinations administered by a governmental agency for the purpose of licensure, certification, or employment are exempt.
The sheriff’s department administers polygraph exams as part of the Standard Operating Procedure and hiring practice of the Sheriff’s Human Resource Division. Pasha says that currently, a local outside vendor is under contract to provide polygraph services for the sheriff’s department.
Schiavo filed his application for employment with the sheriff’s office, employer of his concubine’s mother, Eleanor Centonze, on the same day that his disabled wife’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, filed a motion in Pinellas County Circuit Court seeking relief from the death judgment against their daughter issued by Judge George Greer.
Based in part upon the recent statement by Pope John Paul II, they argued that the orders mandating withdrawal of the PEG tube from their daughter and authorizing Michael to challenge the constitutionality of “Terri’s Law” violated her “free exercise of her religious beliefs [and] her right to enjoy and defend her own life and, in fact, imperil her immortal soul.”
Included as an exhibit with the motion was a sworn affidavit from a longtime family friend, Fran Casler, who said that she had many times hear Michael Schiavo complain he didn’t know what Terri wanted.
Relief from judgment motion
Appendix to motion(seven exhibits)
In 1992, before the medical malpractice case was tried, Schiavo began talking with one of Casler’s friends in earshot of Casler about all the information he was being asked to provide to lawyers as part of the case. “I could hear what he was saying as we were sitting in beach chairs and I was only about three feet away from him. He as complaining that he did not know answers to questions he was being asked. I specifically remember Michael saying ‘How should I know whether she wanted to die? How should I know what she wanted?’
“He was gesturing at the time in a somewhat grandiose way. He also mentioned that he and Terri were only 25 years old and ‘you don’t think about things like that at that age’”, Casler attested in her sworn affidavit.
“That certainly was not the first and not the last time I heard Michael make hose kinds of statements……he was like a broken record, complaining about the effect on his life of Terri’s collapse, about how could he possibly know what Terri would want to have done and similar statements”.
Schiavo completed the employment application which boldly instructed the applicant to “leave no blank spaces”. It read “A candidate may be rejected “who has intentionally made a false statement or omitted a material fact, or practiced, or attempted to practice, any deception or fraud in their application and their examination, or in securing their eligibility for employment”, he was cautioned in writing.
He signed the “applicant’s certification and agreement” before notary public Priscilla Irvine who neglected to state whether or not he took an oath as to the honesty of the statements. The certification he signed stated that “it is agreed that any misrepresentation or omission by me in this application will be sufficient cause for its cancellation or rejection or dismissal from service of the Sheriff’s Office if I am appointed. It is also agreed that I have answered all of the questions on this form completely. If not, this application may be rejected”.
He then certified that the facts set forth in the application were true and complete to the best of his knowledge.
But they weren’t and the public record that exists that proves that they weren’t. So how did he pass the polygraph test? Did he pass the polygraph test? What questions were asked?
Instead of terminating Schiavo for the alleged omission and misrepresentations on his employment application after he became sheriff, replacing Rice, Centonze’s former boss, Sheriff Jim Coates promoted Schiavo and gave him an annual raise of over $11,000 plus benefits, all at taxpayer expense.
In 1990, when Schiavo applied to become guardian of his incapacitated wife at the behest of attorney Daniel Grieco, Schiavo falsely stated that he was the recipient of a degree from Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. Schiavo also failed to comply with provisions of Florida’s guardianship law and violated the state’s co-habitation law. Didn’t Schiavo’s polygraph exam include any questions about his wife, about him violating the state’s law concerning adultery?
Considering that the taxpayers are footing the bill for Schiavo’s paycheck and benefits as they were for Terri’s Medicaid and Medicare, doesn’t the public have a right to know just what questions were asked of Michael Schiavo for his polygraph exam and whether or not he passed it?
Schiavo misrepresented his arrest record on the employment application. Under the section regarding arrests and summonses, he omitted at least four citations which by itself is grounds, according to the application, for his termination from employment. If the department reviewed his drivers license record as part of the “screening process” at it claims, why weren’t these misrepresentations identified?
Such untruthfulness and misrepresentations should certainly preclude him from being employed by any law enforcement agency and should constitute grounds for the suspension and/or revocation of his professional licenses as his application as filed was provably dishonest, containing false statements contradicted by public record. Violations of Florida’s co-habitation law constitute misdemeanors.
Coats instituted an anti-adultery policy after he took office in late 2004 when Rice left for the Florida Legislature and officers have been disciplined for violating that policy. So why was Michael Schiavo allowed to not only openly violate department policy but Florida Statutes concerning adultery? http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/2007/12/sheriffs-offi-2.html
According to Michael Schiavo, everyone else is lying in the Schiavo case.
In March, 2005, during an interview with Matt Lauer on Dateline, when confronted about a statement made by his wife’s brother, Bobby Schindler that “we have collected or gathered a tremendous amount of evidence that possibly suggests something violent happened to my sister the night she collapsed, Michael said that “Bobby has no proof, he has offered no proof to this. Where is this evidence? Cause they had none”.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12025860/
Michael seems just a little too defensive about the issue every time it’s raised so if he’s so innocent, why wouldn’t he be willing to take a lie detector test to prove that what he’s saying is true?
He has made a lot of allegations about Bob and Mary Schindler and Terri’s sister, Suzanne Vitadamo and when they point the finger at him, he laughs and says they have no proof, almost tauntingly.
Michael Schiavo makes a lot of unsubstantiated, uncorroborated statements in his book which are shown to be lies and contradictions by the facts, by witnesses and by his own previous testimony. The “proof” shows that Michael Schiavo has made numerous misrepresentations and outright false statements concerning what has become known as the Schiavo case.
He called his book “Terri: The Truth” and said that “the point of writing this book was to tell you the truth as I saw it…..this may cause you to wonder who was telling the truth and who wasn’t……both sides can’t be right”.
The problem is, its the truth as Michael Schiavo sees it, not the real truth.
It’s way past time that the real truth be told and had it been told before, Terri Schiavo might be alive today.
What really happened on Feb. 25, 1990, during the night and early morning hours when Terri Schindler Schiavo mysteriously collapsed after a day eclipsed by yet another argument with Schiavo about money and other issues.
If Michael Schiavo is telling the truth, he should have no problem with taking a polygraph graph test to answer questions about what really happened in Terri’s nursing home room on Feb. 14, 1993, answer questions under oath and polygraph about his claim of Terri’s wish to die, the money from the malpractice lawsuits, the role of former Pinellas County sheriff Everett Rice, Attorney General Charlie Crist, DCF attorney Frank Nagatani and in particularly Judge George Greer in the Schiavo case, nurse Carla Iyer’s allegations about the insulin syringe found in Terri’s room and the hematomas on her body after Michael’s visits, about his alleged comments including “when is that bitch gonna die” and the life insurance policies on Terri.
In that Michael Schiavo is so defensive and maintains that everyone is lying but him, it’s highly questionable why he has not undertaken a lie detector to put to rest once and for all the allegations against him, allegations that he may have been the one responsible for her incapacitation.
Why is he “refraining”?
Only a lie detector test will put this important question to rest and perhaps the most important one of all, what really happened to Terri Schindler Schiavo on Feb. 25, 1990.
If Schiavo is indeed telling the truth and is confident in his claims and denials of wrongdoing, he should have been eager long ago to take test. The longer that Michael Schiavo refuses to take the test, the stronger the incrimination factor and the real question, what’s Michael Schiavo hiding?
Take the lie detector test Schiavo. No more excuses. 7-18-08
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Category: Courts, Crime, Disabled, Florida, Government, Opinion, Police, Schiavo
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