http://www.fogcityjournal.com/news_in_brief/lt_grasshopper_trespass_jew_070916.shtml
above is link to publication by Luke Thomas, no friend of Grasshopper. I link it to show, if you want, several photos, including that of Zadik Shapiro. I feel the photos are useful, and sometimes his writing was accurate, possibly…
prior post:
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But that is what it means to live in a state of terror. Finally it will become a crime to think the wrong thoughts under a waning moon from the rooftops to the stoops.
After I finally got her out of my cab, despite having wasted all that time, I wanted to get out of the van myself for a break, before pickup up anyone else, to avoid passing any of her bad energy along. Of course, Janet Vandebos turned out to to be the last taxicab ride , as such, I legally tranported. How sad.
It occurs to me , that possibly , perhaps it is because I am vegan, and commited to avoiding the karma of the cycle of murder , that for this reason I am being terrorized with the conviction of terrorism, a torture hard to explain. But i made no threat then, nor do I now. I was falsely convicted, a state of affairs that ought to be corrected, I implore you.
Although I was homeless, my friend let me shower here at his place where i now reside, and i came here to stretch and relax. Instead, I received a phone call upon the Grasshopper Taxicab land line the the cops made me install here. This was my business office at the time. I paid my friend a fee to answer the phone between 9 am and 5 pm, to fulfill the taxicab law. He was my “manager.” They later tried to claim that one of my business violations was not having this landline, an absurd claim. So I received this phone call from Sam at Citywide Dispatch, also technically a business location for my cab company. He told me to come down there because he wanted to speak with me. He wouldn’t say the cops were there waiting for me.
So I got back on the road and waved at the first cop I saw. Why? Well, I was running for mayor and it was a bad habit i had gotten into. Is it a crime to wave at the police? They pulled me right over and one cop, Oryall, comes up to me and swiftly pulls his gun out and is raising it to aim. When I saw that gun, I said, “Whoa, wait a minute, I waved at you, remember?” trying to make it clear that I was not a threat. They put me in the back of a cop car, Vandebos shows up for her “cold show” and says, “yeah, that’s him” and then they bring me a few blocks away to 850 Bryant and booked me for felony terrorism and a few other things. Like, not being a legal cab. This was a lie because Sam had told them that I was not legal, upon query. That was a lie. I was actually legal at that time. Now, it is true that Citywide Dispatch had cancelled their radio service for me, having given me a thirty-day notice. However, my radio service was still legally in effect at that time, therefore I was fully legal.
Eventually , they released me, then dropped those charges, long after $3400- dollars bail was forfeited.
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Although they dropped the charges within a few days, my business remained suspended. After I parked in Ed Jew’s driveway, then a few days later they brought back these Vandebos charges upon me. This is part of the reason they didn’t really have a specific Vandebos date or day of the week coming into that stinky and smelly trial. They had re-charged me much later, at least 6 weeks after that bad ride, and didn’t have any facts to go with at all, ever. That’s because there was no crime committed by me, Grasshopper, the author of this work, nor within the Grasshopper Taxicab while I was the driver. Neither I nor my taxicab committed any crimes upon the person of Janet Vandebos. I urge the court to review , then clear this messy record, and all of the garbage spewed upon my good name, thank you.
When they locked me up at 850 Bryant on July 26th, 2007 , I had about $49- bucks cash or so. One guard, Dejani, he was called DJ, this gentelman gave me clothes that were too small for me. He even gave me size M, medium pants that were choking me at the waist. Even before I put them on I was begging him for extra large, which is what i wore in jail later. These jail sizes are all intentionally smaller than standard sizing elsewhere, to be humiliating for the wearer. After several hours of these pants choking my diaphragm, I tried to loosen them up enough that I could wear them. But they ended up ripping, and once they started, they just kept shredding. They took away the pants and put them in a paper bag, as well as the receipt for the money. Then they stole the money.
They also put me in solitary for several hours, right there in the jail intake (I guess actually off 7th street) . I spent several solitary hours before they finally released me, long after getting bailed. But my business was suspended, and it stayed shut down despite a lack of any pending Vandebos charges, which were all initially dropped. This should be the red flag to the reader that something fishy was hopping around Grasshopper.
Meanwhile, Dejani stole my money, which is what happens in jail. And , I was forcibly tortured by being put into solitary, my first bitter taste of it. It was at this time, upon release, that the city instantly became a jail for me. To me, my freedom has been irreconcilably compromised by these sad infringements. Sure they let me out, but they destroyed my life and freedom, rendering me to life in jail, albeit without the bars. Thank you , San Francisco, and all the folks whom comprise your glorious and sovereign nation, which I dared to trespass upon in Ed Jew’s driveway. Thank you for the torture and terror. Thank you so kindly.
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Part II. No Opening Statement
On this Vandebos trial , I was not granted an opening statement, while the prosecutor had no problem making hers. Zadik said that the situation he was put into was a “lawyer’s worst nightmare.” Although he was familiar with the case and all, and had sat in on all of it, at no point was he able to make any opening statement. He was ordered to pick up the case after a 5 minute recess. When I tried to make an opening statement, acting on my own defense counsel, I was constantly interrupted and berated by Judge Carol Yaggy. She really had it in for me, others have said. Zadik says that she shouldn’t have been making me look bad in front of the jury, whether I was acting as my own counsel, or thereafter.
She frequently harassed me in front of the jury for the way I spoke. She could not allow my employing such harmless phrases as, “Oh my god,” that she deemed inappropriate. I used these words harmlessly, in exclamation just prior to being removed from my own counsel harshly in front of the jury, where I as one said what another might phrase, “ouch!” or “goodness,'“ or “good grief!” to mean about the same thing. She openly complained about me being just a few minutes late in front of the jury to make me look bad. Also, if I used a Spanish word, which one witness himself had just used, she would bawl me out, saying to only speak in English, or else…
Yaggy kept interrupting my opening statement which I was attempting to give in my own defense. Imagine that! Please note that I selected to give my opening at the start of my defense presentation rather than in rebuttal to the prosecution opening. This unorthodox choice may have caused some confusion and the need for scorn , Judge Yaggy must have decided, because I was speaking about what the prosecutor had already failed to show or prove. I’m sure she was greatly upset by the fact that I chose to represent my self, but I was making every effort to be courteous and surely I was not intending any harm. She seemed to feel that I was wasting her time by taking the case to trial, and would make me pay. She was certainly downright and openly hostile, in her more aggressive times, while being only mildly pissed-off at me during her happier days. I don’t really know why she hated me so, that judge.
At this time, I would like to request that the Vandebos trial be declared a mistrial, for the prosecutor was able to enter an opening statement while I was not. Nor was my defense attorney. This is an inherent bias in the trial, a violation of my well known constitutional rights to due process and freedom from unfair prosecution and arbitrary arrest and detention.
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Further, regarding this issue, I have tried to have entered by the court reporter, Joanne Farrell, this sad fact that I was not able to , I was not allowed to make any opening statement on my own behalf without interruption, but I don’t believe that she entered it into the record. Zadik did ask for a new trial, because the defense had no opening, but Yaggy denied this motion, which Zadik only made after the trial was over.
Now, after the trial, when they asked the jury why it was that they chose to convict me, I’m told the jurors said that I appeared to be less credible than Janet Vandebos, and of course that would be the case if the judge in an official capacity from her position of power was constantly interrupting me, speaking to me as though I were a small child in front of the jury, complaining and belly— aching about my attempts to defend myself, and generally harassing and intimidating me, all of which she indulgently engaged in, well, then it’s no surprise that my credibility was shot; especially when, as the culmination of this abusiveness and intolerance from the judge herself, I was thrown off my own counsel like a drunk getting kicked out of a bar. Imagine that!
A better lawyer in my defense might have satisfactorily addressed this clear problem of no provable intent nor motive for the “crime,” whatever it was. But Yaggy’s court was hell bent to murder me, logic and fairness notwithstanding. My character was assassinated. In fact, intent must be shown on the charge for which I was convicted, yet none ever was. Probably because not only did I never intend to commit a crime, but also, I actually never committed any crime. No intent, no motive , no crime. Yet they convicted . That’s justice, I suppose. Or , not.
That Carol Yaggy hated me thoroughly is evident by the excessive harsh punishment I received, serving 6 months, half in solitary. This for a crime for which no physical evidence was presented, because there was none. There was no evidence to present. That is because there never was any crime committed. Thank you very much. It was her word over mine. But there never was any presentation of whatever motive for the imagined crime. It was malicious and hateful conspiracy by the comfortably—seated , to torture and terrorize me. Good grief.
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(to be continued…)
http://www.fogcityjournal.com/news_in_brief/overheard_071203.shtml
this link i’ve added is not exactly 100% accurate, but then LT was never my friend.
anyway, it is as good a summary as any, except for the accuracy factor…
and you can see what me and the van they later repossessed looked like before they took it while i was busy being terrorized in jail.
Thank you for reading. Blessings to you and your families…
Good photo Grasshopper.
Nice set of wheels.
I am thinking back to an earlier post of yours. Did you say that Vandebos didn't want to use your taxi from the airport, but there's sort of a rule to take the first cab?
If the case then that was unfortunate as a bad attitude customer, with a high opinion of herself, and maybe some horsey friends, is a red flag.