Are you a perjury victim?

Since creating my website, I’ve heard from many people who are struggling with the same issue I’ve been forced to deal with.  Some of these people are from the United States (where I live) and some are from other countries, but all share a common sense of outrage about legal processes that allow people to commit perjury, and many express the sentiment that “this is going to bankrupt me if it does not stop”. 

I’ve been a victim of many crimes.  I’ve owned numerous cars that have been broken into.  These crimes have forced me to replace smashed windows, fix dashboards that were mangled when thieves ripped out car stereos, and buy new batteries.  I’ve even had people steal seat covers from one car!  I’ve had homes broken into, and twice was jumped on the street by gangsta thugs emulating their “Straight Outta Compton” NWA heroes, once in Syracuse, New York in my late teens on my way home from my Grandmother’s funeral and once in San Francisco, California in my early thirties after putting in a very long day at the office.  As violated as I felt by all these crimes, none can compare to the sense of violation that results when the legal system allows a perjurer to take tens of thousands of dollars worth of assets that the perjurer only got because of blatantly obvious lies in sworn documents.  If you are going through such emotional turmoil and financial ruin, know that I (and no doubt many others) feel your pain. 

One of the questions I am frequently asked by people who are being victimized by perjurers is “what can we do about this?”  The real solutions to this problem are long term, and I’ll address them below, but in the short term I have some advice about what you might want to consider.  First and foremost, if you have a legal right to free speech guaranteed by your Constitution like those of us in the United States, do not voluntarily surrender that right!  When I was going through my divorce, my attorney, Paige Crable of Bixby, Crable, and Stiglmeier in Albany, New York had the audacity to tell me that any divorce agreement she would draft would have the following provision:

“Neither party shall in any way molest, harass, disturb, trouble or annoy the other or interfere with the peace, comfort, or prosperity of the other.  Neither party shall directly or indirectly make statements to the other, or any other persons, which are derogatory of the other party, and neither party shall harass, disturb or malign the other or members of the other’s family.”

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to tell my attorney that if she would not draft an agreement with language approved by me, then she should ask the judge for an extension of our case while I found an attorney who would respect my wishes.  In the end, telling my attorney that she needed to withdraw as my legal counsel if she refused to comply with my wishes caused her to draft a document that both protects both my ex-wife and me from defamation, libel, slander, and other harms codified in law, but otherwise respects our free speech rights.  Had it not, I would not have been able to create this website.

There are many laws that protect the innocent from harms caused by comments people make, including defamation of character, libel, and slander laws.  But disclosing evidence of a criminal’s guilt is not a violation of any of these laws.  Furthermore, criminals who have paid the price for their crimes should have a right to reintegrate into society, but those who have not are not entitled to enjoy the same “peace, comfort, or prosperity” that those of us who are honest enjoy.  I stress this because I think the only way we can achieve a long term solution to the problem of perjury is by publicizing our victimization, and if you are under pressure to sign an agreement that strips you of your legal right to free speech, please take a deep breath and think about the consequences of doing so.  Right now, you have the upper hand.  You’ve been honest and treated your adversary with respect.  But if you sign that document, you shall forever be prohibited from telling the truth about what happened to you.  Is that a price you are willing to pay?  Will denying yourself the opportunity to “speak truth to power” help others in the future who find themselves in your position?  Unless we work together, we will never achieve justice.

When I created this website I envisioned that it would eventually contain evidence of perjury committed by many different people, not just evidence that my ex-wife committed perjury.  But for legal reasons, I’m not in a position that allows me to tell your story on my website, because to do so would require that I become intimately familiar with the facts of your case and defend your allegations in court if I am confronted with a “cease and desist” order or other legal document from your adversary.  What I can do, however, is tell you that creating a website like the one I’ve created only costs $10 per year (from sites.google.com – this is NOT a paid endorsement or advertisement), and if you have clear and compelling evidence that perjury was committed and you have not signed any document that strips you of your free speech rights, you might want to consider building a website of your own.  (Before building a website, you might want to consult the Digital Media Law Project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, which I found to be very helpful while creating my website.)

So why should you document your victimization on a website?  The reality is that until enough of us “go public” with our experiences, the legal system will not listen to us.  I mentioned above that I would tell you my long term strategy, and here it is:  We need to create a civil remedy for perjury.  Currently the only remedy for perjury (in jurisdictions where I’ve lived) is a criminal remedy.  That means only prosecutors can take a person to court for perjury, you and I cannot not.  It also means that the burden of proof imposed for finding a person guilty of  perjury is the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt”, not the civil standard of “preponderance of evidence”.  The “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard provides enough wiggle room to defendants that prosecutors are reluctant to bring cases except in the most high profile situations, because unless a prosecutor is willing to invest vast resources to prove that a defendant’s claim that “I forgot” is not true, a conviction is unlikely.  But with the “preponderance of evidence” standard used in civil procedures, those of us who are perjury victims stand a fighting chance of holding criminals accountable for their actions, and obtaining restitution for the harms we have suffered. 

I am not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice, but if you are a perjury victim, I do have a sense of what you are going through.  All I can stay is be strong.  Those who capitulate in the face of adversity do not bring about change, but those who are tenacious, thorough, and conscientious just might.  I hope you will think of this as a collective, long term struggle, like the one undertaken by Thurgood Marshall and the young NAACP attorneys when they began plotting a strategy to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1896 decision in Plessy v Ferguson, which established the doctrine of “separate but equal”.  It took 58 years and a series of carefully selected cases taken to trial, but the 1954 decision in Brown v Board of Education rejected the “separate but equal” doctrine. Change may not come quickly, but it won’t come at all unless we persevere and support each other. 

If you decide to build a website to tell your own story, please send your URL to webmaster@perjuryanddivorce.com.  I care.