I posted State as a Con Artist in January 2010, and that con game lives on at this point. The case that I am referring to is Orange County, Florida case # 1996-CF-011913-B – the "B" means that Trevor is defendant B out of A through I. Trevor Campbell's Motion to Vacate and Set Aside Judgment of Conviction and Sentence was denied on March 10, 2010 by Circuit Court Judge Richard F. Conrad.
How could I even imagine the State of Florida doing the right thing for a change? Really; I should've known better. Judge Bob Wattles died and the state found a judge that would rule in their favor. Go figure. The State of Florida rarely represents the people and is not concerned with justice. Prosecutors in Florida are only concerned with convictions, and whether those convictions are correct is totally immaterial. Don't let them kid you.
When looking at the Bingo Racketeering Fiasco and the state's avoidance of complying with court orders to pay the $millions, this is made obvious. In that case the prevailing parties have now filed a motion seeking enforcement. The Florida Attorney General's Office is dead-set on costing the state an additional $million by prolonging the payout and forcing the parties to return to court again and again, so of course I should have expected the state to fight in Trevor's case.
Even when the Court of Appeals reverses the judge's order the state isn't going to give-up. Instead prosecutors with the Office of Statewide Prosecution will push it to the Florida Supreme Court. Poor Trevor will be fighting for the next decade to get this conviction reversed. Eventually it will be resolved in his favor, but eventually we will all be dead too.
I have a copy of the original Motion to Vacate, the state's response to the motion, and Judge Conrad's order denying the motion. The state speaks with forked tongue and uses the straw man approach in every responding paragraph. They include the reasoning that Trevor's motion should be denied because "it could pose an intolerable fiscal and intellectual burden to the judicial machinery of the state...." No shit, right? What about Trevor and the list of other defendants that were incorrectly prosecuted for commercial, and not criminal, behavior. What about the defendants' lives and financial burden?
The worst part of the state's response is the statement that places all blame on Trevor for making the guilty plea to begin with, and for not filing this Motion to Vacate in a timely manner, as after all – Trevor should have known better than to plead guilty to this trash case, right? What the State of Florida is saying is – hey Trevor – we don't give a flying fuck! You were dumb enough to plead to this crap and now you're stuck with it; right or wrong. Never mind that we held you in the rotten Orange County jail for an entire year before you made this plea and received "time served" plus probation. Never mind that you had an attorney that we intimidated into compliance. They are saying that Trevor should have known better.
They actually have the audacity to blame Trevor for not filing this same motion to vacate in 2000, and state that "Padilla wasn't a secret." According to the state, the "Motion to Vacate became time-barred as of March 9, 2002. Wasn't a secret to who I wonder? Regardless, the Michael J. Peter citation eliminates the issue of time in Trevor's case, but then the OSP has no stupid prosecutors and the state is well-aware of this fact.
Each defendant in the original case had at least one attorney, and most went through 2, 3, or more. No attorney was willing to take on the OSP and the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI). As stated in Memoirs, I spoke with Trevor's second attorney, from the Public Defender's Office, and this guy had no intention of going to trial; none whatsoever.
I think I'll make a list of all attorneys involved in the far-reaching mess so that you know where not to go for legal advice if you ever have the need.
The one attorney here that fights for the defendant and doesn't know the MBI well enough to fear them is Nick Sinardi. He is a Tampa area attorney and he handled the original case from Hillsborough County wherein defendant Padilla appealed his conviction in the Tampa court over the very same credit card sting operation by a Tampa area law enforcement agency. That case went on till 2000, when a Florida Appeals court reversed the judge's conviction and sentence. Trevor was smart and hired Sinardi to get the conviction vacated. Thanks to Sinardi, Padilla prevailed. That case is Padilla v. State, 753 So.2d 659 (2DCA 2000).
It's obvious to me that the law is a mere game to prosecutors in this state, and the many defendants in this case are proverbial notches on a belt of convictions. Shame on them!
Read the article entitled "The Screw-ball Scheme" in New York Magazine (pg. 30 also called "The Love Float") if you're interested in the IRS Operation Out Call that spawned the ridiculous MBI Operation Plastic Empire.
