A cesspool of Judicial Corruption

THIRTY-THREE wes hoyt views the panorama

Wesley Hoyt's continues his chronicle:

Swisher appeared to have credibility, and he attributed radical statements to Mr. Hinkson. The government agents brought in others on the same bandwagon who made exaggerated statements as well. All of the participants had a financial or revengeful interest in the outcome of this case.

Swisher in participation with Richard Bellon and others attempted to take over the WaterOz business and properties. Bellon, Swisher and others obtained a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) under false pretenses from the Idaho County Court. Although vacated, the TRO permitted Swisher, Bellon and others to take control of the business for eight days. During the takeover, much damage was done to the business. Even customer files were removed and not returned. However, Swisher and his cohorts were ousted by Court decree, and Mr. Hinkson’s Management Team was restored to the WaterOz business.

Swisher attempted on several occasions to obtain a foothold in Mr. Hinkson’s lucrative WaterOz business. He erroneously reported his analytical readings as if they were consistent with the label when in fact the product’s PPM mineral content actually fell short. Those readings created FDA product labeling violations for Mr. Hinkson–he was not aware of the deficiency. Hinkson had relied upon Swisher as an expert in the analytical testing field to provide true and accurate information. The product-labeling violations were then used as a pretext by the government under a claim for immediate protection of the "public health" to obtain the July 2002 indictment.

Hinkson is a pioneer in the field of dietary mineral supplements whose North Central Idaho home and water bottling facility, WaterOz, was raided by a combined 50-man federal swat team in November 2002. At that time Mr. Hinkson expressed concern that 25-masked, machine gun toting government agents dragged him out of his bed at 5:00 a.m. just to enforce alleged FDA labeling and IRS tax-filing laws.

Hinkson was immediately released on his own recognizance. Charges ranged from failure to file income tax forms, product labeling errors and bank reporting violations. Subsequently, in May 2004 he was convicted (not for tax evasion as incorrectly reported but for failing to file income and employment tax returns). Absurdly, he was convicted as well for withdrawing on two occasions within 24 hours his weekly cash payroll–nothing illegal.

In April 2004, just prior to trial in the Tax Case, Hinkson pleaded guilty to two vicarious offenses (as the party responsible for a business). The FDA charges were misdemeanors and involve highly technical labeling violations for dietary supplements.

Once the government handed down their indictment (July 17, 2002) they held it for four months without doing anything–they claimed it was to provide for the immediate protection of the "public health." Instead, during the four months the government positioned itself for a preemptive strike against Hinkson’s home and factory. The strike was orchestrated by the very same government agents who had maligned Mr. Hinkson for years, whom he had sued for $50 million because of alleged governmental misconduct. These same agents were suddenly, by the issuance of the FDA search warrant to protect the "public health," empowered to attack Mr. Hinkson with impunity–applying the level of force they deemed appropriate.

In his testimony before a federal grand jury in April 2002 Swisher presented a glowing report of WaterOz and its owner, David Hinkson (at that time he was being paid by WaterOz for product analysis, and his erroneous reports had not been discovered). Nor was Mr. Swisher forthcoming with his allegations. For a year he remained silent–itself a crime (misprision of a felony) while he planned his takeover of the WaterOz business.

Contrary to Swisher’s claim that he was a decorated war hero, the public records confirmed that he was a liar and forger. In addition, Swisher’s claim of being an injured war veteran enabled him to fraudulently, obtain medical benefits from the Veteran’s Administration to which he was not entitled.

Hinkson asserts that Swisher made up the claim of solicitation of murder to put him in jail so that Swisher could grab Hinkson’s property, which he coveted. Mr. Hinkson was not permitted to present the evidence of Swisher’s fraud so that the jury was, in essence, hoodwinked into believing that Mr. Swisher’s testimony was credible.

Hinkson was initially imprisoned April 4, 2003, and has been held ever since on preposterous stories that made absolutely no sense except to the government fiction writers who concoct their fables to justify the arrest of an innocent man. In an effort to bolster an otherwise preposterous fabrication, it became necessary for the government, after the initial arrest, to find other implausible witnesses, such as Mr. Swisher.

In addition, Hinkson was arrested for allegedly violating conditions of his pretrial release. Purportedly he solicited the murder of three federal officials while on bond. The charge of solicitation for the murder of federal officials is commonly used in Idaho by the federal government against innocent people. By accusing people of solicitation for murder, the government is required to use one or more of its 15,000+ paid informants. These informants are trained to lie under oath with court authorized use of stealth and deception. The informants will lie against any person who has been designated as the target of a government investigation because it’s their job.

The FBI in Idaho has become emboldened by the fact that the courts will not regulate the use of "stealth and deception." They have now accused Mr. Hinkson’s legal team of being co-conspirators in a plot to murder federal officials. The implausibility of this new murder-for-hire plot has become the government’s latest and greatest fiction in the saga of David Roland Hinkson and surpasses all comprehension. However, this latest incident of accusing Mr. Hinkson attorneys, points to the real source of the problem. Let’s be clear: the government is becoming desperate. It attempts to implicate innocent people for crimes that did not occur simply to justify the forfeiture of property to pay for more informants.

The government having been empowered by the courts to engage in a broad range of techniques and methods to disclose criminal activity, through stealth and deception, have now stooped to an all time low. They now accuse any innocent person who dares to oppose them of murder-for-hire of federal officials [and we are learning that mostly the money figure is $10,000].

In this case, all informants for the government were either disgruntled former employees of WaterOz with a grudge against David Hinkson, or they were persons with an economic interest in seeing Mr. Hinkson jailed. Unfortunately, our court system does not require a second accuser to corroborate the statements of a person such as an Elven Joe Swisher.

After the verdict in the Tax Case in late June 2004 and after Mr. Hinkson had been held in jail for one year and three months an indictment was finally issued against him. The indictment issued for eleven counts relating to alleged statements of threatening harm to the federal officials. It is upon this indictment that the jury returned its mixed verdict on January 27, 2005.

The root of the problem is that in its last revision of the money laundering law in 1996, Congress failed to tie the use of the money obtained in a structured transaction to criminal conduct. By removing criminality as an element of any offense, Congress has opened a Pandora’s Box. By allowing the government prosecutors to prey upon the American people for innocent conduct where no criminal intent exists, it is turning ordinary banking transactions into criminal law violations.

Hinkson says, "If they can do it to me, they can do it to anyone." Mr. Hinkson, as a former national talk-radio host says, that "no American is safe from indictment under the new structuring law. You may not intend to do so, but if you bought a used car with $9,000 cash down that was drawn out of your bank account on day-one and day-two you paid off the balance with $5,000 (also cash from your bank account), congratulations, you’ve just structured a currency transaction. You’ve now committed a federal felony, and you are now subject to government prosecution with asset forfeiture and five years in prison.

Beware! Those of you who simply withdraw cash, cashier checks, traveler’s checks or money orders in an amount greater than $10,000 which is split over more than one day, you are in violation of this structuring law."

David Hinkson then became a political prisoner of the United States. That means he was in jail for one year, before he went to trial, on the counts of failure to file income tax. It was Mr. Hinkson’s analysis of the federal tax code that led him to a determination that he was not a person required to file tax forms during 1994.

In 2000 when the tax investigation began against him, Hinkson endeavored to engage the IRS in a civil law. He sought to have a jury resolve the question whether he was a person required to file tax returns. When, in March 2000, he demanded trial by a civil jury, the IRS, who had previously advised him in writing that the investigation was civil, immediately turned the case into a criminal prosecution. This precluded Mr. Hinkson from litigating the applicability of the tax law as it applied to him.

Is David's Case one that just slipped through the cracks of the Justice Department? Maybe some people are seeing a glimmer of foul play.