By William John Easterling
My claims seem jaw dropping, but anyone can feel free to check the court dockets on the web or pacers.com. Its a habeas 2255, Dockets 126, 189, 199-1 Case # 1:18-cr-00045-PLMM USA v. William John Easterling USDC 6th District, Kalamazoo, MI Judge Paul L. Maloney, Trial date 9/5/2018. I have an associate’s degree from Grand Rapids Community College in Automotive Technology and a bachelor’s degree from Ferris State University. I had never been in trouble with the law until this case.
I was indicted around Feb 2018 for 4 federal offenses, Title 18 2251(a)(e) 2256. AKA “Full blown cheese pizza” as they say on this USP yard. They (TV 17&8) in Grand Rapids, MI, broad brush painted me as a “Jerry Sandusky,” abusing teens with a plunger handle and slamming their faces onto the table while throwing them backwards across the room and other types of abuses only seen on the internet. I must have had the nation’s most inept Federal Public Defender. She is the caricature of Sesame Street’s “Big Bird,” walks, talks, looks and acts just like the part. Dumb as a dodo bird also. Trial was a blur. It lasted six hours total. It was palpable that the jury was only interested in eating the Panera bread after the guilty verdict.
Twelve years of being a fireman/first responder pulling people out of burning car wrecks. Twenty-four years of marriage and never abused or cheated or even raised my voice to my now ex-wife. I had a five-acre horse farm with a so-called “man cave” with an auto/metal shop. I had no consumer debts and no mortgage. I was a tool & die maker clearing $70,000 a year with three kids grown and successful in their 20’s.
Ninety years consecutively stacked, and there were no dead bodies, no one was raped or had sexual contact in testimony, and there was no forensic evidence. There were no monies embezzled and no property damaged.
I got to the USP May 2019 and just lay on my bunk for months just waiting to pass away and be done. Well, several kind inmates had different plans.
They pestered me day in and day out to get my discovery from my FPD. “We need to see if we can build a Habeas 2255,” they said. Well, they helped me motion the court because the FPD was obstinate. Presto! It happened; the court got involved and ordered them to produce it. It all came, the grand jury testimony, the forensic interviews, a big pile of it. They read through troves and piles of files called “Discovery.” They said to me, “We have to put every bit of this into the court record, man! You had the most inept mindless FPD known to man and beast!”
To shorten the story. There is/was no substantial step, no overt act, no evidence of any modulated signal or transmission, no production evidence, no evidence of any media devices required for evidence, and no corroboration of testimony concerning the attempt charge 2251(e). With these guys’ help, I have put together actual innocence claims for a Motion 2241 later if this fails.
Now for the grand act in court. The prosecutor was so desperate to get a conviction and provide Panera bread to the jury, she played Govt’s Exhibits 1 & 2. Two spliced videos that were made on a cell phone which were not in evidence displayed on a huge screen in court and on all laptops and showed 1 minute and 30 seconds of a 16-year-old doing a “jerk video” or “cheese Pizza video.” It was an unredacted, unedited lascivious display with full genitalia showing in open court in front of families and full court media.
My FPD of course made no objections to the effect this would have on the jury to be impartial triers of fact. I filed complaints to the Senate and Houses of Congress and the President along with the Attorney General and the Bar associations against all the lawyers. The teen had a history around his high school for making these types of videos with his brother. It was called “Vaginal Brothers” jerk videos. Well, see the irony?
They played this in open court in my dockets. The judge takes responsibility for it so far. The irony is if it’s so bad to play it unredacted, then why award 90 years stacked?? The inmates here tell me I’m the only one who looks like I’ve been framed. The two videos were found on a hard drive in a box of extra parts during a search warrant.
That’s all there is in evidence. Oh the victim did say to the police I asked him for a “jerk video.” That’s it. There’s only an unsupported claim and two videos with no metadata on them because they were in the recycle bin. This person (16 years old) used my computer when I was at work all the time, but the government said, “It’s your computer.”
I did not testify at trial. I was being heckled as “Jerry Sandusky” in the media firestorm in West Michigan at that time. By now, I have gotten my sanity back, and I have helped dozens of inmates with their cases. Now I look at this experience as getting my Ph.D. Maybe my Masters would fit better.
I hope you will post the Michigan prosecutor’s response to Mr. Easterling’s account.
Ken Wagstaff