Originally Posted - August 31, 2006

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"I had to remind people that what this government did to me, they can do to you", Michael Schiavo says as he continues to seek revenge against those politicians who he perceives did him wrong in trying to save the live of his disabled wife.

His campaign is withering on the vine. The more he talks, the more people see the real Michael Schiavo.

His single issue campaign fizzled.

Howard Dean and the Democrats have tried to capitalize on Schiavo's venom and anger but instead of being the political weapon that they envisioned in their own minds he would be, Michael Schiavo has become a political liability, an albatross, a loose cannon with whom they can't afford to be associated.

In a New York Times article which appeared several weeks ago, Schiavo's political "consultant" Derek Newton said that Schiavo might offer to help James Webb, Democratic challenger to Sen. George Allen of Virginia; Claire McCaskill, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri and several Congressional candidates in his native state of Pennsylvania.

Guess what. They don't want anything to do with Schiavo and are running as fast as they can away from him. One political analyst has deemed Schiavo "radioactive".

The anger and revenge of Michael Schiavo's politics permeated the 15-year battle Schiavo fought trying to end the life of his disabled wife. There's no empathy for Michael Schiavo. No one who wants to serve the public wants to attach themselves to someone as consumed and obsessed with retaliation and revenge as Michael Schiavo.

"What government did to me" he cries. He's just a big crybaby. It's always been about Michael Schiavo. It was in 1990 and it is today. If he's so family oriented, he should stay home and spent some time with his family instead of trying to plump his ego, pretending that the public wants to hear the drivel that he's spewing about how his feathers were ruffled because the majority Congress has a conscience.

He claims that when Congress tried to give Terri Schiavo the same rights as a death row inmate condemned to die by lethal injection, an impartial and new review of the case so controlled by Judge George Greer and the right to die movement, that they were interfering with private family decisions.

It wasn't the legislators or the President who took the matter from a family decision to a highly publicized governmental decision, it was Michael Schiavo himself. Michael Schiavo wasn't Terri's family, her parents and siblings were and she'd already expressed her desire to divorce him. Perhaps that decision, her rejection of him is why Terri Schiavo died.

Michael Schiavo took the issue away from Terri's family, her parents and siblings. He involved all three branches of the government when he retained George Felos in 1995 to legalize the murder of Terri Schiavo. It was Michael Schiavo and George Felos who took the matter out of the family's hands and placed it into the government's when they filed the 1998 petition to end Terri's life.

It was Michael Schiavo who prolonged the case, decimated Terri's privacy rights, denied her due process of law. When Michael Schiavo thought he had been successful in killing his wife in April 2001, after all appellate remedies had been exhausted and Terri had received her final feeding, Michael called a radio talk show the morning of April 24, 2001, making public statements about Terri's condition and her wishes, almost gloating. Those statements not only prompted his former girlfriend, Cindy Brashers Shook to come forward to state that Michael Schiavo had told her he had no idea what Terri's wishes were, but they served as the basis for a civil lawsuit against Michael Schiavo for perjury and fraud on the court.

The civil suit, which was quietly quashed, was amended in May, 2001 by attorneys for Terri's parents to charge Michael Schiavo with intentional conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty and infliction of emotional distress. That suit should have gone forward but once again, Greer ran interference for Schiavo.

Schiavo and his fiancé Jodi Centonze ducked process servers twice who were trying to serve subpoenas on them for a deposition for the civil suit and on June 14, 2001, at the last minute before the scheduled deposition, Schiavo's attorneys gave notice he wouldn't be available for the deposition.

Felos, Schiavo and his gang should all have been arrested for thwarting process.

In all likelihood, had Michael Schiavo not opened his big mouth to gloat about what he thought was Terri's imminent death by the removal of her feeding tube and about money that he thought he would receive, Terri would have died in 2001.

But as a result of his mouth, the Schindler family learned of his discussions of Terri with Cindy Shook, learned how he harassed and stalked his former girlfriend, learned of her fear of him.

As a result of Michael Schiavo's diarrehea of the mouth, Judge Frank Quesada recognized the inconsistency of Schiavo's trial testimony from 2000, which on its face was probable cause to bring charges of perjury, well within the statute of limitations. Judge Quesada ordered that Terri's feeding tube be reinserted which saved her life, ultimately for four more years, until March 31, 2005.

It was Michael Schiavo who invaded Terri's privacy, who involved the government. Pamela Hennessy, former spokesperson for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation says that had Schiavo "been the loving husband he claimed to be, he would not have taken time out of his own life to punish those who tried to ensure that his wife's wishes were served through the courts. Had he been a caring spouse, he would have welcomed the oversight. Schiavo, after all, was the guy who made this a matter for the government. Now, he wants you to believe that oversight was an intrusion into his affairs. There is a drop-off here. A massive one".

Michael Schiavo had unclean hands then and he has unclean hands now. He's profited many times over by causing the death of his wife by self-serving hearsay of himself and that unsubstantiated hearsay of his brother and sister-in-law. Such hearsay never should have been admitted at trial and certainly not allowed as the basis for a death order.

As the petitioner in 1998 before the Pinellas County probate court to remove the feeding tube of his wife in order to cause her death, Schiavo's complaint should have been dismissed or he should have been denied judgment due to the legal doctrine which states that a party who is asking for a judgment cannot have the help of the court if he/she has done anything unethical in relation to the subject of the lawsuit, or had "unclean hands".

A court of conscience, even that of Judge George Greer who had his own unclean hands in the Schiavo case, cannot under the maxim of equity grant relief to one guilty of unconscionable conduct, to a person who has acted wrongly, either morally or legally, and that certainly was applicable to Michael Schiavo. In family law, one example of unclean hands would be a spouse who conceals assets or otherwise.

misappropriates marital property during the marriage or separation. He would be penalized in the division of the property at the divorce by being awarded less than his fair share. Of course, this requires that the innocent spouse learn of the concealment or misappropriation. Greer, Felos and Schiavo acted together to try and conceal the assets in the Schiavo case by sealing the financial records. Schiavo attempted to conceal marital assets and property by placing real estate in which he had an interest wholly in the name of his concubine and then filing application with the state for Medicaid and the state taxpayers to pay for his wife's medical expenses while he spent the money earmarked for her medical care on lawyers to kill her.

Schiavo was living with another woman and fathering children while trying to kill his wife and collect what money was left. He had unclean hands.

In reviewing the testimony of Michael Schiavo given in depositions and prior to him asking Jodi Centonze to marry him, Michael Schiavo consistently said that Terri could feel pain. During the 1992 malpractice trial, he played the devoted spouse, professing his love for Terri-while in an intimate relationship with Cindy Shook, but saying that he wanted to live the rest of his life with Terri and care for her. The day of the malpractice verdict, Nov. 10, 1992, was the end of his relationship with Cindy Shook.

By July, 1993 or perhaps earlier, he had met Jodi Centonze and earlier, on Feb. 14, 1993, he had demonstrated his obsession with control by telling Mary and Bob Schindler, Terri's parents, that they were never going to see her again, that he was going to control Terri's care. He ordered that the Schindlers were not to be given any information regarding Terri's medical condition. Sometime during 1993, he made funeral arrangements for Terri at the Moss Fester Funeral Home. He tried to kill her by ordering that no treatment be administered for a bacterial infection, trying to solicit the nursing to engage in murder but the nursing home refused to honor his order, telling him it was illegal to withhold medical treatment. It's also illegal in Florida to withhold food and water from an individual.

Michael Schiavo had unclean hands.

He didn't remember for 10 years that Terri didn't want to be kept alive by "artificial means" and now he repeatedly contradicts his own testimony. He maintains that Terri didn't want to live, a statement dispelled by Terri's will to live, first in 2001, again in 2003 and her valiant effort to live in March 2005, struggling to tell the world that she wanted to live and demonstrating her will to live by clinging to life for 13 long, grueling days.

In his book, Schiavo claimed that the autopsy report supported his claims. It didn't. He claims "she would have never gotten better, not even a little bit". Over 50 doctors dispute that. "She had no cognition. She could not hear. She could Not see. She could not feel pain. There was no doubt whatsoever". Schiavo's book contains numerous lies and misrepresentations.

In the opening statement at the November, 1992 medical malpractice trial, Schiavo's attorneys Glenn Woodworth and Gary Fox stated in their claim for $20 million, "If she lives a normal life expectancy, 51 years, and the cost of that, depending on whether or not in an institution or Mike takes her home is between 12 and 16 million dollars. They say, well, she doesn't have a normal life expectancy. You'll hear if she receives proper treatment, there's no reason why she shouldn't. And she is not just a head on a pillow. She can't respond much but she can respond, and she does respond a little bit, not much. But enough to give him hope".

Page 27, Michael Schiavo Deposition prior to the Nov. 1992 Med Mal trial

6 Q (By Mr. Deacon) When your wife was at
7 Mediplex, who was she seeing there?
8 A As far as doctors?
9 Q Yeah. Who was her main physician at that
10 place?
11 A Dr. Carnahan.
12 Q Have you -- other than the fact that she
13 opened her eyes at the time she left Humana, have you
14 noticed any change in your wife's condition at all
15 between the time she left Humana and today, July 27,
16 1992?
17 A Very, very little.
18 Q And what very little -- very, very little
19 change have you noticed?
20 A She'll respond to noise, she'll respond
21. pain, and that's it.

Michael Schiavo continues to perpetuate The Big Lie on page 74 of his book, in talking about the medical malpractice trial at which he had testified she could feel pain, "Terri had no cognition, she was truly in a persistent vegetative state from which she would never recover. She could feel no pain".

Michael Schiavo changes his story to fit his needs and can't seem to tell the same story twice although he was consistent that Terri could feel pain until after he asked Jodi Centonze to marry him.

His trial testimony in November, 1992 at page 17

1 that was made relatively recently at Sabal Palms which
2 is designed to compress the average day for Terry into
3 a twenty minute video so that you all, so the jury can
4 have an opportunity to see what the day was like.
5 And if we can start the video now.
6 Q. (BY MR. WOODWORTH:) Mike, if you will, just as we
7 go along, tell the jury what's happening here.
8 Do you remember when we went over to Sabal Palms?
9 Tell the jury what's going on now.
10 A. Right here, basically, you can see she's dressed,
11 she's already had her shower and everything. We would get
12 her dressed, put her shoes and socks on. I'm drying out her
13 hands there. You have to keep the inside of the hands,
14 since she's contracted, you have to keep them dry because
15 infection can set in, and I usually do a little bit of range
16 of motion with her.
17 Q. And while you're doing that, do you talk to her?
18 A. Yes, I am talking to her right now telling her
19 it's okay.
20 Q. She doesn't like that very much?
21 A. No, she doesn't. She does feel pain.
22 MR. DEACON: I would have no problem.
23 with Mr. Schiavo --
24 MR. WOODWORTH: That's true.

Page 23
1 A. On her left foot. The small toe developed an
2 ulceration, what we believe were the potis boots we were
3 using for her and turned to osteomyelitis and her toe had to
4 be removed. The bone had to be taken out.
5 This is the physical therapist that's coming in now.
6 When he gets set up, I'll explain to you what he's doing.
7 The people you see now are assistants.
8 Q. Does she express discomfort when some of these
9 things are happening to her?
10 A. Yes. Yes, she does.
11 Q. How does she do that?
12 A. She'll moan and groan.

And as late as November, 1993, Schiavo states that Terri can feel pain.

Page 88, deposition Nov. 19, 1993, guardianship challenge
1 Q There is no expression or any other indication
2 from her movements that she's aware of anything, is that
3 what you're saying?
4 A Right. The expression that she shows, which God
5 left her with, was the expression of pain, and that has
6 been since Terry's been in the coma. Terry---they know
7 Terry can feel pain.
8 Q. They know she can feel pain?
9 A. Oh yes.
10 Q. Who has told you that?
11 A. Many of the doctors.
12 Q. Has Doctor Mulroy told you that?
13 A. Sure.

Michael Schiavo acted wrongly, both legally and morally in his efforts to kill his wife. No one, certainly not Michael Schiavo, should profit from wrongdoing. He had unclean hands in the homicide of Terri Schiavo, he has unclean hands in his political aspirations. 8-31-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette