Sunday, December 15, 2013

Did Zinke try to muzzle McHenry County Blog?

We bloggers are really a dangerous bunch of writers. I mean, seriously. First I get accused of stalking "Big Bad John" (errr, I mean Keith) Nygren, and now Cal Skinner has apparently been accused of stalking "Tiny Tim" (errr, I mean Andy) Zinke.

You remember when Nygren said I stalked him; right? That was back when I was parked in the Jewel-Osco parking lot in Woodstock, and Nygren drove by and pulled in right next to me. He sat there and glared at me for 30 seconds. You know? Thirty seconds is a long time, when you are worried that he might run down that right-side passenger window and shoot me with a throw-away, numbers-filed-off pistol. And that's exactly what I told the Woodstock cop who responded to my call to the Police Department.

If you ever want to make a police report and the cop says he'll write it up at the station, make darned sure you get the Report Number before the cop leaves - even if he doesn't want to obtain a Report Number from the dispatcher and give it to me. Get it! Because then he'll have to write the report.

Cal Skinner wrote on McHenry County Blog yesterday that McHenry County Blog was not accessible for part of the day and today, "As I mentioned yesterday, McHenry County Sheriff’s candidate Andy Zinke had someone working for his campaign complain to the service that hosts my web site that I was violating its terms of service by 'stalking' him and linking to an obscene web site."

Could Zinke really have the gall to pull this kind of nonsense or to tolerate a campaign supporter to engage in this kind of activity.

Cal has referenced Zane Seipler's blog, www.zinke4sheriff.com

I was telling a friend last week about Nygren's efforts to scare me by siccing his legal beagle, Jim Sotos, on me with a subpoena for 27 months worth of records pertaining to my blog. I knew right away they were trying to learn which deputies were talking to me.

Scare tactics don't work on me. Nygren found that out. I filed my own pro se Motion to Quash the subpoena, and I won my motion. Sotos didn't even show up in court to argue it; he sent a staffer. And Judge Mahoney chewed her up. Judge Mahoney told her (standing in for Sotos, who should have been brave enough to be there himself to take the beating) that she wasn't entitled to what she had asked for in the subpoena because it didn't have anything to do with Zane Seipler's case. He told her she was just on a fishing expedition and he wasn't going to allow it.

If someone made a complaint against Cal Skinner regarding his blog content, that person deserves to be prosecuted. A charge of Attempted Defamation of Character might be a starting point.

Be sure to check Zane Seipler's blog regularly. It's at www.zinke4sheriff.com

2 comments:

Big Daddy said...

You mention an incident in a Jewel food store parking lot and the lack of a police report number. I'd like to hear more about that incident. Did Nygren say anything to you? Threaten you? Point anything at you or lead you to believe that he was going to point something at you? Glaring at someone is not a crime no matter how uncomfortable it may make you and I'm just wondering what kind of police report you were expecting. I guess the officer could have made a non-criminal incident report but the end result would be the same as you verbally telling him your story. That plus there being a record of your call would accomplish the same thing as a non-criminal report. There has to be more to this story. The Jewel part.Tell me more please.

Gus said...

I had attended a seminar at MCC and had driven the "back way" to Woodstock. I wanted to make a cell phone call and pulled in to the Jewel-Osco lot to look up the number and make the call. I parked near the far end of an aisle, away from the store and near Golden Eagle Bank.

Nygren's intentionally pulling in alongside my parked car in a distant area of the parking lot was an act of attempted intimidation. He's a large man and was in a big vehicle. His glaring and lack of response to my friendly wave definitely caused me concern for my safety.

He could have lowered the right-side window electrically, fired and driven away. As I told the Woodstock cop, they'd then be invsetigating a body in a red VW and no witnesses.

I asked the cop to take what we in Colorado called an Information Report; what you are calling a non-criminal incident report. I wanted it documented. I believed it would not have been, had I not insisted on a Report Number.

Imagine my surprise, when more than a year later, I learned that Nygren and Scott Milliman had just finished a conversation on that very day in Vaughan's restaurant, in which Milliman says Nygren asked him to rub out Dave Bachmann and make it look like an accident.

Getting the Report Number when I did, resulted in a written record of the date and time and what I said happened.

A non-criminal incident report is not the same as a verbal report to an officer. I did not want the officer to just make notes in his personal notebook and go on to the next call.