Originally Posted - December 12, 2006

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OAK HARBOR, OHIO---"It doesn't matter if that was a good warrant or a bad warrant."

That statement was uttered by Ottawa County Sheriff Robert Bratton (left) after he committed the resources of four law enforcement agencies in order to arrest Dr. Elsebeth Baumgartner (right) of Oak Harbor, Ohio, last May on an alleged non-violent probation violation.

The execution of that questionable warrant acts as the foundation in the compounding criminal matters involving Dr. Baumgartner but so far, Bratton and two other police agencies have refused to produce a copy of the warrant nor will Bratton produce a copy of his department's policy pertaining to arrest warrants, saying none exists.

The chief of the arresting agency, Helen Prosowski of the Bay View Police Department, has so far refused to respond to a public records request, a blatant violation of Ohio law.

As a result of Bratton's actions, Baumgartner was arrested on May 20, 2005, by Bay View Police on a probation violation and also charged with felony fleeing, resisting arrest and the coup d'etat, grand larceny of an automobile although Baumgartner had made the down payment on the vehicle. The registered owner, her business partner Bryan DuBois, had not made any complaint and there was no complainant to appear before a grand jury to secure the indictment, and when the owner defaulted on payment, the finance company sought payment from Baumgartner, acknowledging her ownership interest in the vehicle.

For the past 18 months, Daniel Kasaris, special prosecutor in the matter, has acknowledged privately that legally there is no legal basis for the grand theft charge but yet he continues to prosecute Baumgartner for it anyway, refusing to withdraw it, leading Baumgartner to charge prosecutorial misconduct.

In 2004, Bryan DuBois and Baumgartner had teamed up to produce Erie Voices which, by DuBois' own characterization, was "a story of government tyranny unfolding in real time before your very eyes and ignored by the sleeping masses who are unable to think or question authority".
http://erievoicestoo.blogspot.com

"All the conditions are set: unquestioning media, rank and file police officers who don't question authority, county prosecutors and judges willing to act in concert to preserve their power and complete disregard for civil rights", DuBois wrote.

"Many who read this will not understand that their failure to protest will eventually lead to their own victimization", he prophesized.

In December, 2004, Baumgartner's nemesis, retired visiting judge Richard Markus, 75, was presiding over a libel trial brought against Dr. Baumgartner by Kellen Smith, a former member of the Benton-Carroll-Salem Board of Education, the same school board of which Dr. Baumgartner's husband, Joseph, had been a member for a dozen years.

Although Dr. Baumgartner did not testify in her own behalf and there was no credible proof submitted, Markus found Baumgartner guilty in what many said was a pre-determined decision, and assessed a $175,000 judgment against her.

Markus then cited her for 34 counts of contempt as a result of her allegedly calling him corrupt, a rent-a-judge and questioning his rulings, which resulted in her conviction on 27 counts following a bench trial earlier this year and her current incarceration in the Ottawa County Jail for 120 days. Markus then also filed a criminal complaint against Dr. Baumgartner, claiming that she had intimidated him and threatened him before the libel trial by sending him emails, resulting in her indictment on multiple felony counts of intimidation and retaliation along with a possession of a criminal tool, a computer. However, although he claimed he felt threatened and intimidated, he failed to disqualify himself for the trial and lodged the judgment against her.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/100105JudicialTyranny.html

In view of continuing violations of constitutional rights and alleged prosecutorial misconduct, Baumgartner has pleaded no contest to the intimidation and retaliation charges lodged against her in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court before Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold. After she agreed to plea no contest with the stipulation that she would be granted an appellate bond that would stay any sentence until appeals issues were heard by a higher court, Markus told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Baumgartner hadn't intimidated him but "he compared intimidating a judge to bribing one, all that matters is the attempt".

There is no statute under Ohio for attempted intimidation.

She could be sentenced up to 75 years in prison when she appears before Saffold on Dec. 18. Bratton says that "the Court" has asked him to be present for Baumgartner's sentencing in Cuyahoga County although it is unknown why.

DuBois had also been charged with intimidating Markus and was also charged with extortion for allegedly passing a threatening note to a witness at the Baumgartner trial in December, 2004 before Markus.

DuBois and Baumgartner had both been arrested on the intimidation charges in July 2005.

On Dec. 12, 2005, the day the charges against both Baumgartner and DuBois were scheduled to go to trial before Saffold in Cuyahoga County, according to an interview between DuBois and prosecutor Kasaris, exclusively obtained by the NCG, DuBois jumped ship, worked a deal with Kasaris and agreed to testify against Baumgartner. DuBois and his wife, Mandy, who it was later learned had been the "tipster" in the May, 2005 incident which led to Baumgartner's grand theft charges, filed an affidavit which led to a raid on the Baumgartner home in February 2006 when her computers were seized along with her legal work and privileged attorney-client communications relating to her defense as well as her research and information related to her allegations of government wrongdoing.

DuBois, whose father is a longtime probation officer with Ottawa County, worked a plea deal where his felony charges were dropped and he was accepted into a diversion program, avoiding jail time if he agreed to testify against Baumgartner. Along the way, he and his wife also filed a complaint against Baumgartner, alleging that she had intimidated them by responding to postings on her own blog which had been made against her during the time that she had been involuntarily confined to Northcoast Behavioral Center last December by Saffold.

In return for the deal, DuBois removed Erie Voices from the Internet.

DuBois was represented in the "deal" by attorney Jay Milano on a $25,000 retainer fee, $15,000 of which was loaned to DuBois by Precursor Inc., a corporation owned by Baumgartner's husband with the understanding that Milano would represent the First Amendment rights of Erie Voices, not serve as DuBois's personal attorney on criminal charges.

DuBois then borrowed the remainder of Milano's $10,000 fee to represent his personal interests in the criminal charges against him using a credit card which belonged to Arbor Group LLC, the company in which he and the Baumgartner family were the principals.

The DuBoises then moved to discharge the debts in their bankruptcy proceeding.

In essence, the Baumgartners paid for the attorney used by DuBois to turn on Baumgartner. Milano was scheduled to be a trial witness against Baumgartner.

DuBois had been forced to change attorneys last November when disciplinary charges unrelated to the DuBois case were brought against his attorney, Richard Olivito. At that time, he hired Milano of Cleveland.

When Baumgartner and DuBois appeared in court Monday, Dec. 12, 2005, to begin trial in the Cuyahoga County charges, Baumgartner produced a note from her personal physician stating that she was not competent to stand trial.

Saffold then ordered that Baumgartner be admitted to the Northcoast Behavioral Healthcare System for 30 days for evaluation and treatment.

Within hours, DuBois met with Kasaris for a four hour interview DuBois turned coat on Baumgartner.   DUBOIS INTERVIEW    While she was in Northcoast, defamatory and libelous postings against her appeared on Erie Voices.

In the interview with Kasaris on Dec. 12, 2005, DuBois made it clear that Baumgartner had an ownership interest in the vehicle which she had driven from Terry's Tavern on the evening of May 20, 2005, when his wife, Mandy, made a call to the residence of Sheriff Bratton, telling Bratton where she was and reminding him of the outstanding warrant.

Despite Kasaris being fully aware of the facts, he has continued for the past year to prosecute Baumgartner on the felony charge of grand larceny. Kasaris also acknowledges that he is aware that one of the police officers involved may have acted improperly by chasing Baumgartner in his private vehicle and that the warrant may have been defective, or as Buamgartner characterizes it, a sham warrant.

From Dec. 12, 2005 Interview between Kasaris and DuBois

Bryan: She told me that it was a bad warrant because, as I understand it, a motion is filed with the court and attached to that motion is an affidavit filed by the complaining witness saying that so-and-so, in this case was Baumgartner violated her probation. She told me that the motion that was filed with Ottawa Municipal did not have an affidavit, wasn't sworn to, and just from my common knowledge, I mean, I also saw it did not have an affidavit, so to me that meant that, sure, it wasn't a good warrant. I'm not a lawyer.

KASARIS: Okay, who, the Kia comes back to you?

BRYAN: On paper.

KASARIS: Who paid for the Kia?

BRYAN: She put the down payment.

KASARIS: And who made the payments for the Kia?

BRYAN: She made some of them, I made some of them.

KASARIS: But the car, is it currently titled to you? Do you still own it?

BRYAN: Yes, its titled to me.

KASARIS: And that night, who drove the car?

BRYAN: I drove it over there. She drove it out.

KASARIS: When you went over there, did you leave the keys in the ignition?

BRYAN: No, I left them on the table.

KASARIS: In the……….

BRYAN: She was going out to sit in the car. I said fine, and ………

KASARIS: You went to the bathroom. When you came out that is when you

BRYAN: I looked out the window and…………

KASARIS: What did you see when you looked out the window?

BRYAN: You know, the car was surrounded.

KASARIS: When you walked out of the bathroom, did you……..

BRYAN: I walked out of the bathroom, peeked over the counter. If you go in there, you probably have, look over see out the window. So I walked back out to pay for the…..

KASARIS: Right, right.

BRYAN: Then one of the officers…..

KASARIS: Jeff Wagner

BRYAN: I thought it was Captain Wagner.

KASARIS: Well, no he is not a captain.

BRYAN: Well, he told me that he was a captain.
KASARIS: There was a captain there, Blotsky.

BRYAN: Blotsky, I'm sorry. Wagner, yeah he comes in and he starts yelling, "get out here, get out here." You know, I looked over to make knowledge that it was my car and said that I will be out there. He said, "No you get out here now." So……

KASARIS: So you went out.

BRYAN: So I went out.

KASARIS: And when….

BRYAN: I told Blotsky, I said I tried to talk to her and meanwhile Brandy Adkins whipped out her ASP and she was going to break the window. At that point I was like, don't break my window. I mean, I am going to have to pay anyway $500 to have that window fixed, you moron. Then, you know, they go back and forth.

KASARIS: They were asking her to get out of the car?

BRYAN: Yeah, they were asking her to……

KASARIS: Were you asking her to get out of the car?

BRYAN: Uh, I wanted to calm the whole thing down and say. You know I was going to try to tell her don't go anywhere. Have Prosowski (part-time Bay View police chief Helen Prosowski) come over and have a rational discussion about what was happening and then……….

KASARIS: Then what happened?

BRYAN: Then Adkins, what I did was I told Prosowski, why don't you calm your officer down, that's your officer. You're in charge. Calm her down a little. I'll tell her not to go anywhere if she will listen to me and Brosowski said, "I don't think she is doing anything wrong." You know, I looked back over at robo cop and she's got her ASP out, like the whole thing is like she's going after a convicted murder or something. And, then I just kind of shook my head and moved back a little bit. I mean I was out of, I mean I didn't have control over it. She jumps into the passenger, into the driver's seat, started backing her up and takes off.

KASARIS: And takes off. Where are you standing when she took off?

BRYAN: Almost in front of the vehicle, probably about 30 feet, right in front of the sign there. Terry's Tavern sticks out ____________

KASARIS: I think the captain was standing with you, by you.

BRYAN: They had their vehicles surrounding.

KASARIS: Did she, uh, I know she didn't squeal her tires or peal out, I know, when she left. Did she, uh, did she…..

BRYAN: Muhudsky pealed out.

KASARIS: Right, well he went looking for her.

BRYAN: Yeah, in his own car.

KASARIS: Yeah, in his own car. I know that.

BRYAN: Which she lied to me, by the way. Prosowski lies to me and then I called her out on it, later on, and I got her on tape, you know, don't trick me. You lied to the (Port Clinton) News Herald about me. Don't lie to me. I know, I was there, I know what. She's like well, she tried to pay it off. But anyways.

KASARIS: No, he got into his own car and I asked, "what are you doing getting in your own car, following him." He said, "well I was, I wanted to see what was going on." So he get into his……..

BRYAN: typical bar fights.

KASARIS: He gets into his private car and he, I mean, and follows. I mean, he's not, they're not right behind him but he follows at a distance to see what's going on with this chase.

______ She knew she had a warrant, right?

BRYAN: What was to be?

_____ But you

BRYAN: Sure, I knew, right.

_____ I'm just having a hard time with the whole thing.

BRYAN: Yes, I understood that.

KASARIS: Did you know that the police told her that she was under arrest?

BRYAN: I don't believe they ever said that to her. When I was standing they never said it.

KASARIS: So you…………

BRYAN: If they said that to her while I was still in the restaurant, that's a different story.

KASARIS: Did you know that Helen walked out and said "Elsebeth". Did you know that Helen knows Elsebeth?

BRYAN: I don't know.

KASARIS: When Elsebeth made her complaint about. Elsebeth actually went to the Sandusky Police Department regarding Krista Harris.

BRYAN: Okay

KASARIS: And the allegations

BRYAN: Well, she even addressed the City Council.

KASARIS: But the police officer that Elsebeth and Krista talked to, was Helen Prosowski, because Helen is…..

BRYAN: She was a detective.

KASARIS: She still is a detective. (Prosowski is a full-time detective with the Sandusky Police Department and part-time chief of Bay View Police Department)

BRYAN: Sure.

KASARIS: Sandusky Police Department. So Helen knew Elsebeth and saw her sitting in the car she knew who she was. And Helen walks up and says, "Elsebeth, I have a warrant for your arrest. You are under arrest.

BRYAN: It's a bench warrant.

KASARIS: It's a bench warrant but it's still a warrant. I have a warrant for your arrest

BRYAN: Okay

KASARIS: You're under arrest, get out of the car. We don't want to break the windows, get out of the car. That occurred prior to you going outside. Did Elsebeth ever talk to you about that? About what happened?

BRYAN: Yep, she told me that

KASARIS: What did she tell you?

BRYAN: Prosowski came up and questioned if it was Elsebeth. She said, Elsebeth like __________. See if it was her because she didn't have any ID or she didn't know that that was her.

Baumgartner was subsequently arrested and charged with grand larceny after special prosecutor Daniel Kasaris obtained an indictment against her although there was no complainant that any vehicle had been stolen, a vehicle which she had financed. She was also charged with felony fleeing and eluding following a low speed chase and resisting arrest, but most importantly, no traffic violations. The stop was made by the Ohio Highway Patrol but that agency filed no charges against Baumgartner. OHIO HIGHWAY PATROL RELEASE

In an effort to obtain the incident and arrest reports of the Baumgartner case as the police agencies involved are required to maintain and which, according to Ohio law are subject to public review, The North Country Gazette submitted public records requests to both Proswoski at the Bay View Police Department and Bratton at the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department on Oct. 19, additionally seeking a copy of the department's pursuit policy. That appears to be a sticky point with Bratton.

As of this date, Prosowski has refused to respond to the request which by Ohio law she is required to do. When attempts to contact Prosowski at her full-time job at the Sandusky Police Department were made earlier this week, asking her to respond to requests for information pertaining to the Baumgartner arrest and a copy of the arrest warrant, Sandusky assistant chief Charlie Sams refused to relay the message to her, stating that "the Sandusky Police Department was not involved in this incident and has no information about the incident. Any questions or requests should be forwarded to the Village of Bay View".

In the case of Bratton, although the law requires that responses to records requests be made promptly and the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that a response which took six business days was too long, Bratton chose not to respond to the request until Nov. 3.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/103006HidingReports.html

Following her arrest on the defective probation warrant which was initiated by Bratton and the Ottawa County Sheriff's office Baumgartner was incarcerated in the Ottawa County detention facility without charge for seven days or hearing until her release on June 1, 2005, 13 days later.

But Bratton is claiming that there's no arrest or incident reports pertaining to Baumgartner even though he held her in his jail for 13 days.

The Ohio Code specifically states that arrest records are open records under the public records law.

And, you can't hold a person in jail for 13 days without charging them, at least not legally.

Therefore, in order to hold Baumgartner in the jail, Bratton and his department are required to have arrest and incident reports on file. Additionally, although Bratton has admitted to having the arrest warrant for Baumgartner entered into the department's "data file", so far he has refused to provide a copy of it to The North Country Gazette.

Not only has the newspaper been unable to obtain a copy of the warrant, according to Baumgartner and her attorneys, to date, no copy of the warrant has been provided to her. Withholding of such evidence which may be exculpatory is a violation of the Fifth Amendment, also known as a Brady violation.

In order to prove a Brady violation, the defendant must show that the prosecution suppressed the evidence, the evidence was favorable to the accused, and the evidence was material to the issue of guilt or punishment".

In the Baumgartner case, without a valid arrest warrant, the police had no legal cause or right to inform her that she was under arrest or to initiate a pursuit.

So far, Bratton has refused to produce a copy of the department's arrest warrant policy, saying he doesn't have one.

In his letter of Nov. 3, Bratton said "in order to set the record straight, on May 20, when Mrs. Baumgartner was pursued, that action had nothing to do with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office".

That statement by Bratton is wholly untrue as not only did he initiate the call to the Erie County Sheriff's Office, asking for assistance in executing the warrant, but the warrant was entered into Ottawa's data base. Bratton also had a role in increasing the limit on the warrant and extending the jurisdiction, a fact confirmed by special prosecutor Kasaris.

KASARIS: But in this case, actually, they were informed by the Ottawa County Sheriff's Dept.

BRYAN: Sure.

KASARIS: Ottawa County calls Erie County. Erie County calls Bayview and they say we have a warrant for Elsebeth Baumgartner and they run her and they see there's a warrant out for her. With a embrace of 2. Which means the entire state. 4 is adjoining counties. I think 3 is a little bit larger and 2 is the entire state. 1 is everywhere.

BRYAN: Okay.

KASARIS: So when they go…..

BRYAN: So Bratton raised the limit, right?

KASARIS: It is my understanding, you're right, it was raised from, you can hear it on the CD, from 4 to 2

BRYAN: Bratton, the coward, he knows, he knew there was question. He's the one who told me, we don't know if that thing is legit.

© 2006 North Country Gazette