I mentioned in a comment the other day that an intellectually disabled man here in Oregon had been picked up & extradited to Kansas on a totally fabricated charge-
Background
Well, after a bunch of phone calls, legwork & emailing info to the local district judge and an appearance by phone, (mine, Richard was there in person), the case is being dropped. The tone of the judge's voice was priceless when he set
a date for a second appearance, it very strongly implied that if everything in front of him was true, it had better not still be on his docket come June 16th. :-)
Of course they're not taking any responsibility for getting him home, 'Oopsie, the arrest & 5 weeks of incarceration plus an all expense paid tour of eight jail facilities was a mistake, but we have no authority to disburse money to send him back to where we picked him up.'. Weaseling bastards. The Greyhound ticket runs between $169 and $230, depending on the advance time, and he's already going to be down by another month's benefits because he's been in custody more than 30 days, so we're going to have to stretch his budget hard just to make rent, we can't cover the fare, too. Grrr. The DA did say he was looking into social services to see if they could manage something, but Richard's being held until arrangements can be made for transport.
I'm still thinking of filing a federal Americans with Disabilities Act suit for him, with the intention of getting back what their 'mistake' cost him in benefits, and an injunction against any more harassment. This is the second time in a year that the locals have trumped up something and held him just long enough to make SS drop a month.
Full disclosure, he is a low level sex offender. He committed his crime almost 20 years ago. It was statutory, not forcible and for some reason the two other men involved weren't charged, even though they instigated the crime. Info's thin this far out, maybe they just charged the not very bright guy who freely admitted participating & called it good, I haven't been able to find out. He served time in state prison and has been on parole & homeless for 14 years, no reoffending and no other types of trouble other than absconding when the Oregon coast was just too miserable to be homeless on. lol I got a call once from the American Consulate in Mexico City, asking if I had a photo to assist in ID, so they could bus him back to the border.
He's intellectually disabled, and has Type I Bipolar Disorder as well. If he had been diagnosed & treated, his crime never would have happened. I've known him for a decade, he used to help out on the farm periodically between manic episodes. We finally managed to get a state ID and applied to SSDI, (it took one psychologist's exam to get approval), he's been on medication since last summer, (until Lincoln County picked him up in April, they refused to continue his meds and didn't send them with him, so he's been off for 5 weeks).
I despise bullies. I've watched Lincoln County harass and abuse this guy for more than a decade. His reading comprehension is between 3rd & 5th grade, he has zero coping skills, no way to deal with anxiety. I've watched them over and over again capriciously harass and threaten and browbeat him into manic episodes so he'd abscond and they could jail him & have the state pay them for it when he returned. No guilt on their part since he never committed any other crimes when he'd go walkabout. He amazingly has no substance abuse issues, (though he can be annoying to the point of difficult on the way to a manic episode).
I asked him to sign a full & durable power of attorney a year ago, so I would have some leverage in dealing with the county and I've been running regular interference ever since. I'd done a professional evaluation for San Diego County in 2008 when he was picked up down there for not having ID or having registered, since he was traveling through, and gave copies to his PO, who promptly canned it and continued on with harassment as usual. And if I hadn't had that paper, he would have been spending the next 17-45 months in the Kansas State Prison because, while he registered when he traveled there to visit a family member last year, he didn't tell them when he left & came home a few days later. He got home & was sanctioned and jailed for a couple of weeks and has been here ever since, never missed a check in, never caused a problem. That's the evidence that I called the Kansas district judge with, backed up by the (thankfully) honest supervisor of Community Corrections, (head of the department & his assigned PO are crooked as hell, but thanks FSM the supervisor's a professional from another area.
It took me exactly two phone calls to investigate the circumstances of the alleged felony, establish a time line and show that he had done everything he was supposed to have done, he had registered there, he had come back and never missed a check in here. HE DID NOTHING WRONG, but he'd have been spending at least the next year & a half in state prison except that some pushy old broad got her back up and pissed off two local constabularies by making them behave themselves.
I despise bullies and cheats. Land of the free, my sweet ass. Grrrrr.