Janet Phelan

While starting to sort through papers in preparation for my move to Ashland,  I came across the subpoena for T-Mobile records that had been handed to me by Investigator Scott Clauson. I peered at it, reading it word for word. I noticed that it wasn't complete.

In fact, the proof of service was left blank. What could that mean? Drawing on my knowledge of the law, I felt a small shock wave push through me. The subpoena did not provide any indication it had ever been served on T-Mobile.

I called the police department and got through to a supervisor. I explained to him the problem and asked for the department to mail me the document that had been given to me by Clauson. In fact, not only was there no indication that the subpoena had been served on the phone company, there was no documentation that the subpoena even existed,other than what I held in my hand. By asking the Department to send it by mail, I reasoned that it would become—in a sense—bonafide.

The sergeant refused to do so.

I began to get scared. Obviously, something was going on that wasn't kosher, not at all. The next day, I called again and asked for the investigation to be terminated. “I am withdrawing my complaint,” I announced.

The sergeant sounded woeful. "I am sorry, Miss Phelan, but we cannot allow for that. We have to see if a crime has been committed."

I called T-Mobile. I was refused the information about the subpoena and was told that the company's commitment to law enforcement precluded giving out this information.

I continued packing, thinking furiously. I knew entrapment by this time very well.I could smell it coming up Riverside Drive from the cop shop. I reviewed what I knew: 1) the police had disappeared one of my complaints, about the planted drugs. Only under duress did the department agree to investigate any of my concerns. 2)They assigned a financial crimes investigator to a phone harassment claim. 3) The subpoena I had been given did not pass legal muster and was likely bogus 4) The department refused to mail me the subpoena, further buttressing concerns that it was not a bonafide document. 5) The department refused to allow me to withdraw my complaint.

I kept packing. When I was done, I called a friend with a station wagon. On a Friday, he helped me put everything into storage. I figured I had a little time left until the net closed over me. I then went to the bank and withdrew most of my money.

The death this past week of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez raises some disturbing questions. It was reported that the iconoclastic and controversial leader succumbed to a two year- long battle with cancer. In so doing, he may have been the first world leader to lose his life to cancer since 1980, when the Shah of Iran succumbed to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma while in exile.

With cancer deaths figuring at 23% of the mortality rate in the United States (cancer is the leading cause of death in developed countries and the second leading cause of death in developing countries), one might think that the Big C might be striking down leaders of countries with the same regularity as it afflicts everyone else. The rather unusual and nearly universal tendency for the power elite to sidestep cancer death has raised questions as to whether or not the powers-that-be might be bogarding the cure.

Since Hugo Chavez was leading his country, boldly, in a manner that distinguished his leadership from the lockstep, pro-American arse licking that typifies most of the world’s statesmen at this juncture in time, one might ask if the power elite specifically bogarded the cure from Hugo Chavez.