Gov. Robert Bentley is not the first to abuse law-enforcement power to target my wife and me; oily Alabama lawyer Rob Riley beat him to the punch

Rob Riley: He invented
abuse of police powers
against Legal Schnauzer

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has pressured law enforcement to seek dirt on me in an effort to stop our Legal Schnauzer reporting about the governor's affair with aide Rebekah Caldwell Mason, according to a report this week from Bill Britt, of Alabama Political Reporter (APR). I have followed Britt's work for several years, and I see him as an excellent journalist with solid sources, so I believe the report is on target. But I do not believe Bentley is the first to use law enforcement against my wife, Carol, and me. In fact, it's obvious the idea did not originate with Bentley.

That leads to this question: Are the federal and state authorities investigating Bentley's misuse of law-enforcement resources to target me also going to scrutinize others who have done the same thing.

By "others," I'm referring to Homewood attorney Rob Riley (son of former Gov. Bob Riley, 2003-11) and the conspirators who helped him have me unlawfully arrested and thrown in jail for five months (from October 23, 2013 to March 26, 2014). Thanks to Rob Riley and Co., I became the first U.S. journalist to be incarcerated since 2006 and the only one to be imprisoned in the Western Hemisphere in 2013. My research indicates I'm the only journalist in American history to be incarcerated because of a defamation lawsuit (which had no basis in law or fact) that sought a preliminary injunction and resulting contempt order that have been unlawful under First Amendment law for more than 200 years.

Who were Riley's conspirators? Some are obvious from the public record. Riley's co-plaintiff was lobbyist Liberty Duke, and her attorney was Christina Crow, of Union Springs. Almost all members of the Riley Jackson Law Firm--Jay Murrill, Jeremiah Mosley, Keith Jackson, Francois Blaudeau--played a role in representing their boss/partner. Claud Neilson, pulled out of retirement in Demopolis to serve as "judge,"rubber stamped every document the Riley firm prepared for him, so it seems likely he was in on the scheme. Several Shelby County deputies--especially Chris Blevins, Jason Valenti, and Mike DeHart--trampled our Fourth Amendment rights, so their boss at the time (former sheriff Chris Curry) likely was involved.

I strongly suspect U.S. Circuit Judge William H. Pryor was a conspirator, given that law enforcement started swarming our home shortly after I reported about Pryor's ties to gay pornography, via full-frontal nude photos that appeared at badpuppy.com in the 1990s.

How did abuse of law-enforcement authority take shape in the Riley case? Let us count just a few of the ways:

(1) Officers trampled our property for more than a week in the days after the Pryor/gay porn story broke. Birmingham Attorney David Gespass later viewed the unlawfully sealed case file--after visiting me in jail--and reported no summons had been issued at the time the sheriff's department started flexing its muscle. The deputies' story--and they came 2-3 at a time, always in multiple vehicles, often parked to block our driveway--apparently was that they were trying to serve us with the complaint in the Riley lawsuit. But if no summons had been issued, they could not have been attempting lawful service. Without a summons, officers had no lawful grounds to be on our property and they were committing criminal trespass and invasion of privacy. The evidence suggests the officers, in fact, were trying to arrest us, not serve us.

Liberty Duke

(2) Since we refused to fall for the "swarm the property" con game, Officer Mike DeHart was dispatched to attempt an even more dubious tactic. After conducting surveillance on our house for roughly two hours--according to sheriff's department records--DeHart stopped us in the parking lot of the North Shelby County Library, supposedly because I had rolled through a stop sign in our neighborhood. I knew the traffic-violation claim was bogus the minute it left DeHart's lips, but he only gave me a warning for that. But then the real fun began: DeHart extended the traffic stop, contrary to decades of Fourth Amendment law, to "serve" me with papers in the Riley lawsuit. If Gespass is correct, DeHart actually didn't serve me at all because his papers did not include a summons. Thus, I had no reason to appear the next day for a hearing. (DeHart did not even bother trying to serve Mrs. Schnauzer, who was with me at the time of the traffic stop.) Since our encounter with DeHart, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued an opinion in a case styled Rodriguez v. U.S. (2015), driving home the point that his actions were a gross violation of our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. (A traffic stop, by law, is a seizure.) DeHart could not extend the traffic stop unless he had reasonable suspicion that our vehicle was connected to criminal activity. Even DeHart, as dense as he apparently is, never hinted at that. Once he returned the traffic-related documents (license, registration etc.) he, by law, had to let us go. But he didn't do that.

(3) When I challenged DeHart's "service" as unlawful, filing a motion to quash service, Deputy Chris Blevins and several colleagues (including Jason Valenti, who threatened to break my arms) were dispatched to our home to arrest me--no matter how many constitutional violations it took. As I pulled our car into the basement garage of our house, Blevins entered without showing  a warrant, saying he had a warrant, or even stating his purpose for being there. This violated state and federal law, but he then beat me up--violently shoving me to a concrete floor three times and dousing me with pepper spray. I then was dragged to the back seat of a squad car and driven to the Shelby County Jail in Columbiana, where I stayed for five months. as the story made international news.

Without a summons, Blevins and Co. were trespassers and kidnappers. That's how ugly the Riley case got.

What about Robert Bentley's abuse of law-enforcement power? What forms has it taken? We don't have a definitive answer to that question, but available evidence points to some very ugly actions, indeed--almost as if Bentley borrowed directly from the Rob Riley playbook.

Bottom line: If Robert Bentley is under criminal investigation, in part, because of his actions toward me, Rob Riley and Co. also should be investigated.