1
Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer
The nation's attention has been riveted in recent days on video of a woman being stomped at a Rand Paul rally in Kentucky. The thuggish behavior of Paul's tea-party supporters was captured on tape for the entire nation to see.
Republican thuggery is not new for my wife and me. We've been dealing with it in Alabama for roughly 10 years, long before most people had heard of Rand Paul.
One of the more unusual moments in our legal travails came in May 2008 when Republican thugs in Alabama caused our house to be unlawfully auctioned. We still live in the house, but our full ownership rights were essentially stolen. My wife and I now are fighting to get them back.
We have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging that attorney William E. Swatek (in photo above) and Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry led a conspiracy to violate our equal-protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Other named defendants include Mike McGarity, our criminally inclined neighbor; Sheriff Deputy Bubba Caudill; and Alabama Circuit Judge Hub Harrington. (See the complaint at the end of this post.)
Long-time readers might recall that we captured the bizarre sheriff's sale on video for our Legal Schnauzer audience. You can relive those memories here:
Showdown in Shelby County, Part II
What is the gist of the lawsuit? This section of the complaint pretty well sums it up:
The sale allegedly was for the purpose of satisfying a judgment against Roger Shuler in the amount of $1,525. The judgment had been entered in Shelby County Circuit Court in June 2004, in favor of Mike McGarity, who was represented by Attorney William E. Swatek.
Swatek made the only bid on the property, and he was awarded rights to the Shulers' property. A sheriff's deed was placed on the Shulers' property in Swatek's name, and the deed remains in place.
The sheriff's sale was conducted without due process of law and violated Alabama statutory, procedural, and case law in multiple respects.
The "auction" was a legal fiasco, apparently designed to threaten me into discontinuing my blog. It took place on May 12, 2008 (while I was on administrative leave from my job at UAB), and I was fired on May 19. That strongly suggests that the sheriff's sale and my unlawful termination are connected.
Swatek's son, Dax Swatek, is a Montgomery-based political consultant for the Republican Party and was Gov. Bob Riley's campaign manager in 2006. Dax Swatek's mentor is Bill Canary, president of the Business Council of Alabama and husband of corrupt U.S. Attorney Leura Canary (of Don Siegelman-case infamy). Bill Canary, of course, is a close associate of Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Karl Rove, Bush White House and GOP fund-raising strategist.
Bill and Dax Swatek are the Kevin Bacon characters in our Legal Schnauzer story, providing "six degrees" of connections to some of the sleaziest Republicans in American history. Does all of this suggest that my unlawful termination at UAB and the bogus auction of our house were driven, at least in part, by GOP political operatives? Does it suggest that our problems with debt collectors also might involve GOP politicos? We think the answer to both questions is yes.
1 | 2
