Virginia blogger Paul Boyne has been in the custody of the Connecticut Corrections Department for more than a year, waiting for trial.
He faces 18 counts of stalking and electronic stalking for blog posts published on his Family Court Circus, which condemned CT family court judges Gerard Adelman, Jane Grossman, Thomas Moukawsher and others.
CT says he crossed the line into stalking when he wrote that a Jewish conspiracy controls Connecticut Family Courts, which, combined with references to guns, historical remedies to tyranny, and ruminations on certain judges meeting such a fate puts it into a category of hate crimes.
Boyne claims his speech is protected under the First Amendment.
Boyne told FR that his court-appointed attorneys, from-Kirschbaum Law Group, derailed a plea dealhe believes would have allowed him to walk free after more than a year in jail.
The judge was prepared to sentence him to time served, which would have meant his immediate release, he said. Instead, his court-appointed lawyers, Jennifer M. Buyske and Alice M. Osedach Powers, without his consent, raised Boyne’s mental competency to stand trial.
Boyne believes this was a deliberate move to keep him incarcerated.
Attorney Jennifer M. Buyske
Attorney Alice M. Osedach Powers
New Haven, CT state court Judge Gerald L. Harmon
His lawyers’ claim of incompetence was bolstered by a concussion Boyne suffered in jail almost a month ago during an altercation with another inmate. Boyne says the injury had no impact on his present mental state or ability to understand the proceedings.
Attorneys Buyske and Osedach Powers declined requests for comment.
Boyne said, “My attorneys met with me before the hearing, which was supposed to be a motion to suppress and a motion to dismiss. Alice Powers went off begging to be fired, claiming I argue too much, and I don’t understand. Then she launched into this concern about competency. And then she tells the judge that I have a concussion, and I believe [former Connecticut Supreme Court Justice and DCF Commissioner] Joette Katz is involved, and that it had already been arranged. It was a five minute hearing.”
According to Boyne, Powers misled the court by telling the judge Boyne has a concussion, instead of explaining the concussion was in August.
“She was just throwing mud at the wall.,” Boyne said. “It didn’t matter. And then the judge said, ‘Okay, I order the evaluation.'”
With the court-ordered competency evaluation, the trial schedule is suspended.
“It’s a page right out of the Nutmeg Playbook. My lawyers weren’t ready for trial. We don’t even know what the nature and cause of the accusations are. We have no particulars. I was just trying to plead out.
“I told my lawyer, I said, ‘I’ll plead out to being the gunman on the grassy knoll.’ And she says, ‘Well, I don’t think we understand the charges against you.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I understand the stalking charge is bullshit. So let’s plead out, and I’m going home.'”
Boyne said Judge Gerald L. Harmon had agreed to impose a sentence of time served.
“If my lawyers had gone and got the plea, I would have gone home. It would have been over. But now everything’s off the table.”
FR was unable to confirm if Boyne’s understanding that he would have been sentenced to time served was accurate, what plea deal he was offered, and whether he might have been sentenced to additional time over and above time served if he had accepted a plea.
His lawyers request for a mental competency evaluation will delay the matter for some time, and Boyne remains in jail for a charge he has not been convicted of, and which, though his speech is, by most standards, deplorable, may indeed by protected by the First Amendment
Hear Paul Boyne’s voice in his interview from jail with Rich Luthmann.
https://frankreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Your-paragraph-text-1.mp4
