If you’ve followed the scandal following my firing by the LA Times as an apparent favor to the LAPD, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I am talking to lawyers about the possibility of pursuing legal action against the Times, LAPD and/or LAPPL.
Despite major developments in this story, most notably my enhancement of the LAPD-supplied WAV dub to show that I was handcuffed and that there were angry witnesses, and the recent dismissal of Austin Beutner, the LAPPL-alligned publisher who was probably behind my firing, none of these organizations has contacted me. This forces me to conclude that they have no intention of trying to resolve our differences amicably.
People who listen to the enhanced tape know I was telling the truth and that the LAPD is lying about me…and so is the LA Times.
Lawyers tell me, however, that I will require a sophisticated and detailed analysis by a professional audio forensics specialist in order to move forward. Given the poor quality of the LA Times-supplied WAV dub, however, this has been challenging — and there is no guarantee that the results will be of sufficiently high quality. Ah, the irony: the Times fired me based on a tape so shitty that even professional forensicists can’t hear much on it. Ah, the bigger irony: I am now in the position of trying to use that same tape to exonerate myself.
Bottom line is, this will cost thousands of dollars. Which I don’t have, especially now that I’ve lost the income from the LA Times.
So here’s my request for a show of hands. If you would contribute toward this expense, please say so, along with how much, in the comments section to this post. This will help me determine whether I can continue my fight against the Times’ defamation and its collusion with the LAPD.
Thank you very much for reading this, and for supporting me during this trying time.
23 Comments.
I’m doing the best I can, Ted, with the GoFundMe.com campaign. Maybe this will help:
https://www.gofundme.com/9w3cezxg
Hi Ted, I’ll be glad to contribute what I can. I’m pretty poor right now, but I could afford $20 or so, and maybe more in the coming months.
The organization that is collecting the money and making it available for Ted takes their fee off the top of each donation. It is a percentage plus an additional set amount for each donation. Thus, Ted would benefit from a single donation more than from two or more (albeit is a matter of cents instead of dollars).
So my advice would be to wait until you have enough accumulated to feel comfortable donating and do it with one.
I’ve seen a lot of the regulars & irregulars urging Ted to take legal action. He’s stood up for your right of free speech often enough, it’s about time you returned the favor.
I’ll match up to $500 towards this effort. Take me up on it & your donation is worth double whatever it costs you.
I’ll take you up on that offer, but I won’t have funds until Tuesday (retirement). Match my $50.00 when I donate. 🙂
(And I realize that you’ve already contributed a substantial amount.)
@ CrazyH –
In the event that you find yourself matching several donations — wait until they accumulate to the $500 you are willing to match and donate this all at once. The reason I say this is because the site is set up so that EACH donation is reduced by a certain amount by WePay for their fee. One donation of whatever amount results in a certain set fee — and several donations means that fee is multiplied by the number of donations. (Unless I’m completely addled and misunderstood the terms.) So a $50 donation results in the same fee as a $500 donation. 🙁
thanks for info – I’d do it as a lump sum.
I’d definitely pay at least $100 for this, the LA(Times, PD, PPL) shouldn’t get away with something just because you can’t afford to fight back.
Incidentally, there’s a bit of a bug on your site. After I log in I get redirected back to the page I came from, which is nice in theory, but in practice the page I came from is the login page. It should probably redirect me back to wherever I came to the login page from, e.g. this comment thread.
Yeah, the redirect is pretty useless. 🙂
I just checked the GoFundMe drive, and just $198 in two weeks of fundraising is deplorable. Where is the outrage over cops silencing a truth-teller? Why is there silence about this fundraiser on Twitter? Ted’s vindication needs to be proven in a court of law. Anything less, and his reputation will remain irreparably tarnished.
https://www.gofundme.com/9w3cezxg
Ted,
1. I think the current GoFundMe drive’s lack of success is for four major reasons:
First, it’s in someone else’s name. Yes, anyone who looks around can tell it’s legit, but people don’t do that. They simply think: Oh, someone’s running a scam and using someone else’s name.
Second, how much has this been advertised? At the events for your Snowden book are you mentioning what’s going on with the LA Times?
3. How many thousands are we talking about? Four? 27?
And fourth? You’re not offering anything for the donations. People are mostly assholes. Help you out of the goodness of their hearts? Throw in a coffee mug? Now some people will come up with some scratch.
I’m not a lawyer, but if the lawyers are saying you’d need a tape analyzed to that degree, that means it hasn’t been yet by the other side (Brady requirements). However, you still don’t know if the actual tape still exists. If it does, that’s the one you’d send out for enhancing.
Personally? I’d turn it into a challenge and send it to MIT or
some similar group. Offer a $5,000 reward for anyone who can produce a corrected version of the tape that provides exculpatory details sufficient for you to win the case.
And I’d be leaning on the people who did this to me in the first place. You’re still being too nice, Ted, and you’re still being too quiet. It is the limitation of the thinking person. NPR? Have they covered this? ACLU? Except for one post about it, we don’t hear any followup on it. Where are the names? WHO at NPR won’t touch this? What’s the name of the person at the ACLU who won’t return your calls? Are there no people who’ve have run-ins with Durr? Have you spoken to various copwatch sites to see if any of them have info on Durr?
You’ve got two cases here: the purely legal and the public opinion one. You need to win the public one first. You have to get people mad as hell about what’s been done to you.
The reason the campaign is in someone else’s name — I have the time to administer it and Ted’s time doesn’t allow for constant monitoring.
Two things were done today:
1) I changed the goal to $15,000 — a more realistic accomplishment, which can be upped later.
2) I undertook changes to make certain that Ted can withdraw the money, without myself as a middle-man.
Those of you on Twitter can help by tweeting the site and encouraging others to donate.
🙂
I made one suggestion: offer a refund when Ted wins.
Assuming it all goes to expenses, those should be reimbursed upon a win – so it wouldn’t take anything away from any damages awarded.
Me, I’m happy to throw in the donation & not expect anything back.
Another thought would be a cartoon in return for a large donation. Ted could think of it as employment – he’s getting money for cartoons.
Oh, the standard donation still applies. I cancelled the old credit card though, so now the PayPal thing won’t work. You need to remove my old-card donation from your end of things. Apparently I can’t because it goes through a credit card, not PayPal. Once it’s closed, I can go through PayPal and do a new one.
At least $200 here.
I can slip you like $800ish. But not until October I am pretty cleaned out for September, sorry.
I can’t support financially at this time so sorry but no. Though Ted has been defamed I don’t see that giving a lot of money to lawyers will fix it, also speaking as a parrhesisties this sort of thing is expected isn’t it. North Americans spend lots of money suing each other. It’s not about the principle of the thing it’s about the money. Lawyers know they are not fighting for truth and justice, you need other methods.
parrhesisties = parrhesiastes
Sorry, but as the father of two attorneys I must take issue with your assessment. My offspring definitely fight for truth and justice and sometime it’s “pro bono”!
Assuming everyone here follows through with their pledges, I’m on the hook for five. I can do that – but waiting until mid-Oct paycheck.
As promised (somewhere here), I just donated $50.00 – 🙂
… and we’re there. Five Benjamins as promised.
You either stand up to corrupt cops, or you quit whining & accept the encroaching police state.
I donated $25 yesterday, and promise to donate more next week. Give ’em hell, Ted! Sue the bastards and clear your good name! We need truth-tellers like you!
Amen! 🙂