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The attempt by Warren County Sheriff Larry J. Cleveland to incarcerate North Country Gazette publisher June Maxam for 100 days has been dismissed.
A more detailed account including the final decision and order will appear later this week.
The decision issued Monday by Warren County Court Judge John S. Hall concludes the two-month long ordeal.
According to statements allegedly made by Cleveland, Chestertown residents Eleanor and Donald Lambert had stormed his office in early January, expressing their dissatisfaction with a cardboard sign on the publisher’s property which read “Case Dismissed, Lamberts Lose” and allegedly demanded that Cleveland take action against Maxam.
Convictions which Lamberts had filed against Maxam in 1998, assisted by Cleveland, were first reversed and vacated in April, 2005 on constitutional grounds and then totally dismissed in December, 2005 on findings that Maxam’s constitutional rights had been additionally violated.
Following the dismissal of the 7 ½ year old case, Maxam placed the cardboard sign on her property, an exercise of First Amendment rights and in full compliance with the town’s zoning ordinance.
On advice of an attorney, Maxam had tried to file a harassment complaint against the Lamberts in 1998. Cleveland refused to allow her to do so and when she then filed it directly with the court, Cleveland himself filed charges against her, saying that it was a false complaint although the matter was never adjudicated nor merits of the complaint reviewed. Although a jury found that a town court clerk had signed and filed three false written instruments against Maxam in order to fraudulently obtain an indictment and then gave perjured testimony, Maxam was found guilty and served the sentence in separate stages, 80 days in 2000 before a stay was issued by the state Supreme Court.
No direct evidence was ever presented to the court proving Maxam’s complaint was false. Although Cleveland was the complainant, he refused to submit himself for questioning, denying Maxam her right to confront her accuser. While Cleveland claimed that there were surveillance videotapes which supposedly proved that Maxam’s complaint was false, the tapes were never introduced into court and audiotapes which would have proven that proven that Cleveland’s complaint was false were withheld from Maxam’s defense, a Fifth Amendment denial of exculpatory material.
She completed the sentence in 2003.
However, in papers filed with the court on Jan. 12, Cleveland claimed that Maxam had not served the sentence and owed 100 days. When those documents were proven false by Maxam, Cleveland then submitted more false documents to the court including a computerized booking slip from 2003 indicating the wrong charge, the wrong court, the wrong sentence and other erroneous information. It was then learned by Maxam that the jail did not begin computerizing booking until 2005, two years after Maxam had completed the sentence.
Maxam has asked the Governor’s office and the Public Integrity Unit of the Attorney General’s office for a criminal investigation of Cleveland. She will also be asking Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan to open an investigation into the matter. 3-7-06
© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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