ANDY MARTIN: Illinois election official quits in growing scandal

Philip Krasny, an appointee of the Illinois State Board of Elections, quit Tuesday after Andy Martin lodged corruption charges against Krasny and announced he would be adding Krasny’s name to a pending Sangamon County civil rights lawsuit. Martin was in the process of preparing a letter to Krasny when Andy received an email from Krasny announcing that Krasny had quit. Martin finished his letter and sent it to Krasny and the other conspirators.

Martin is seeking to reform the State Board of Elections so that the Board will no longer tolerate or allow corrupt lawyers to file “objections” on behalf of straw parties who in reality are acting as stand-ins for secret individuals who actually finance the lawyers’ actions. “There is no way fraudulent practices and procedures can comply with the U. S. Constriction,” Martin charges. “Dirty politics chases clean candidates out of the process.” A Sangamon County circuit judge has scheduled an emergency hearing on Martin’s lawsuit for Friday, July 23rd.

Adding another layer of mystery to the proceedings, using Andy’s clandestine background he observed that Finko, who refuses to disclose an address, had typed Finko’s own secret zip code, 60622, as Andy’s own. Someone corrected Finko’s label. Whodunit? Andy has the envelope.

ANDY MARTIN
“The name you can trust”
Illinois Reform Party for U. S. Senator/2010
Suite 4406, 30 E. Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611-4723
Toll-free tel. (866) 706-ANDY
Toll-free fax (866) 707-ANDY
Web site: http://www.AndyforUSSenator.com
E-mail: AndyforUSSenator@aol.com

Please donate:

www.AndyforUSSenator.com

Blogs:

www.AndyforUSSenator.blogspot.com
www.AndyforUSSenator.wordpress.com
www.IllinoisHighSpeedTrains.com

Andy Martin’s anti-Kirk blogs:

www.DefeatMarkKirk.blogspot.com
www.MarkKirk.us

July 20, 2010

Philip Krasny, Esq.
State Board of Elections
100 W. Randolph Street, Suite 14-100
Chicago, Illinois
via fax:
(312) 814-6485
(217) 782-5959
(312) 345-9860
via email:
philipkrasny@yahoo.com

Re: State Board of Elections proceedings

Dear Mr. Krasny:

We Episcopalians have an old saying that you should “be careful what pray for; your prayers might get answered.” For the past week opposing counsel Andrew Finko has been noting that my promise to respond to him on July 13th has not been fulfilled.

Mr. Finko’s prayers have now been answered. I am responding to him, and to you. My response does not paint a pretty picture of Finko’s behavior, or yours. In forty-one years as a lawyer, I have never seen a bunch of people make a bigger mess of a case.[1]

Due to his solipsism, Mr. Finko appears to believe that my life revolves around his machinations. That is obviously not the case. Although this letter is directed to you for obvious reasons, this letter also constitutes my response to Finko.

I suggest you pay serious attention to the constitutional violations that have been directed against me as a part of a criminal conspiracy to deny me the right to run for United States Senator.

1. Addressing you

While the facts and circumstances place us in an adversarial position, I wish to show you the utmost respect as a representative of the State Board. In my salutation I referred to you as “Mr.” If I should be addressing you by some other salutation please advise me and I will respect your request.

Unlike Mr. Finko, who engages in the juvenile behavior of using misleading and invented names for me, I do not play those games.

2. Recusal

As documented below, you engaged in what appears to have been a vile ex parte hearing on July 6th. As such, you are a witness, in both state and federal court, to what took place then. I assume there was no record of the proceedings. If there was a record, kindly furnish me with a copy immediately.

Because you engaged in an ex parte proceeding compromising your impartiality, because you are a witness to the facts and events of the ex parte proceeding, and because you will become a defendant on Wednesday in my pending civil rights lawsuit, I urge you to voluntarily recuse yourself from the proceedings.

I would also request a disclosure from you of your prior relationship with the State Board including any prior employment relationship with the board.


3. Illinois/Federal constitutional law on Due Process

As my memorandum of law which will be filed tomorrow will reflect, the Illinois Supreme Court interprets federal constitutional law as requiring a standard of “reasonableness.”

The undisputed and documented record reflects the totally unreasonable behavior directed against me by the Board and other participants.

In addition, while the state conducts elections, as a candidate for federal office I am entitled to the full protection of the U.S. Constitution. I am not a candidate for state or local office, where federal constitutional rights may not be as extensive.

4. The facts concerning the “objections” to my candidacy

Illinois law presumes that in the absence of a valid and properly filed objection, a candidate’s filings are legally presumed to be sufficient. I am entitled to avail myself of the benefits of that legal presumption because no valid objections have been filed to my candidacy.

a. Three “objections” against me were apparently tendered to the Board close to the close of business on June 28th.

b. The Board did not mail out its “notice” to me until the afternoon of Wednesday, June 30th.

c. There was no reasonable way to expect or believe that a letter mailed in Springfield on Wednesday would be delivered before Tuesday, July 6th with a federal holiday weekend intervening.

d. Andrew Finko mailed me a certified letter on July 14th, also a Wednesday. That did not arrive until the following Monday. (More on Finko’s letter later).

e. Andrew Finko never served me with his objection. Finko claims to have filed a purported “motion for summary judgment” on July 6th, and he failed to serve that as well. I received a “reply” to Finko’s ex parte motion yesterday. Obviously, in the absence of service of the original documents, Finko’s reply to himself says more about his state of mind than it does about the state of his objections or legal competence

f. I was never served with a copy of the objections filed by John Fogarty and Brien Sheahan.

g. It is axiomatic that service of documents is one of the bedrock principles of our legal system, both administrative and judicial. The fact that attorneys and pro se parties were submitting ex parte documents to the Board, and you made no effort to direct them to serve me, is outrageous.

h. On July 13th, you directed Fogarty to serve me with a “notice.” He did so on July 20th (today). Why did it take Fogarty a week to comply with your directions? Ask him. Fogarty also served a copy of his “objection” with his “notice.” Thus, out of three objections submitted to the Board on June 28th, I received only one, and that was today, on July 20th, over three weeks later.

i. On July 13th, in yet another ex parte action, you directed Finko to serve me with “notice.” Although Finko sent me a certified letter, see attached Exhibit A, he did not include either his original objection or his purported motion with his “notice.”[2] What is more significant is that Finko's letter was mailed in Chicago on July 14th, and did not reach my building until July 19th.

I would ask that you direct Mr. Finko to serve me with the front and back of his certified mail receipt (green card). In any event, if a letter mailed in Chicago took from Wednesday to Monday to be delivered, my claim that it was unreasonable for the Board to mail a letter in Springfield on a Wednesday and during a federal holiday and to expect immediate delivery is confirmed. Mr. Finko’s letter inadvertently solidified my lack-of-notice claim.

j. Mr. Finko refuses to provide a street address where he may be served both with Board matters and my civil rights lawsuit. In forty-one years, I have never seen a case where a practicing attorney refused to provide an actual street address for service. There is something seriously wrong with Mr. Finko, as the totality of his aberrant behavior confirms. I note that Finko mailed his letter in the 60622 zone where he has had a listed address. I can assure you Mr. Finko is within an eyelash of a federal civil RICO mail fraud claim though his legerdemain.

k. Neither you nor the Board staff have made any efforts to notify me directly. Instead, and despite the fact I furnished a web site to the Board with extensive contact information, you told Mr. Finko to be the go-between despite the fact he was submitting ex parte documents to the Board. I believe that was a constitutional violation of my right to notice from the forum.

l. Sharon Meroni has never served me with her objection.

5. The Sangamon County lawsuit

On June 30th I filed a Sangamon County federal civil rights lawsuit against the Objectors, their attorneys and the Board. Tomorrow I will be adding you and Brien Sheahan as defendants. I may add other defendants. Finko and Fogarty and Fogarty’s clients have tried to frustrate service of process. That is unprofessional activity when committed by an officer of the Illinois Supreme Court.

I am sure the Sangamon County judge will be concerned by such unprofessional behavior by offices of the court. Mr. Fogarty has already established a notorious record of unprofessional behavior in Sangamon County. I will serve you with a copy of my amended complaint naming you as a party.

6. Proceedings before the Board

The ex parte proceedings before the Board have obviously been a sham and mockery of Due Process. Therefore, on Friday I will be filing in Springfield a Notice of Removal pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 1441 of the Board proceedings to the U. S. District Court. After extensive review of the applicable law I am convinced I have a right, as a federal candidate, to remove the Board's proceedings to federal court. There will not be any Board proceedings unless and until the case is remanded, and I expect the federal court to retain the case, see 28 U.S.C.A. § 1446 (d).

7. Possible future board proceedings

I have launched a public interest “war” against the fraudulent proceedings conducted by the Board involving bogus “objections” which are solicited by “election lawyers” who act and are paid by undisclosed principals, and who use straw objectors such as Heffernan as proxies for the hidden interests which are orchestrating the Board proceedings.

In my opinion, no tribunal can receive public respect when lawyers are engaging in fraud on the tribunal by failing to disclose (i) who is paying the attorneys filing claims and (ii) who is soliciting the “objectors.” The Board has abdicated its independent constitutional duty to ensure that the Board's processes are not being used and abused surreptitiously. In almost all cases filed with the Board, the objectors are nothing more than stand-ins for the lawyers and their secret clients.

In the latest “objection” period, three sets of individuals (Meroni, Fogarty and Finko) filed indiscriminate objections against every candidate who filed to run against the established parties. The Federal Constitution is violated when ballot access procedures are misused to indiscriminately attack every candidate who files for office.

I believe the Board’s toleration of these tactics through failure to direct full disclosure, and the Board’s failure to allow either extensive pre-hearing discovery, or to adopt disclosure rules for attorneys practicing before the board to file affidavits concerning the source of their legal fees and any solicitation activity involving “clients,” makes the Board into a sham agency which is used by unscrupulous attorneys to harass candidates and to perpetrate a fraud on every Illinoisan.

In any future Board proceedings I will expect to be afforded extensive pre-hearing discovery so that I may depose all of the “Objectors” and their attorneys about their relationships concerning fees, solicitation, etc.

I have been fighting official corruption in Illinois for almost half a century. I am getting stronger, not weaker, and I have more energy, not less, for the battle to save Illinois from crooked lawyers and corrupt politicians. The State of Illinois is dying. I will do my best to save it.

8. Independent expert witness

I am in the process of seeking to retain an independent expert witness who may consult and offer expert opinions on the Due Process violations that have been directed against me by the Board and the sham objectors. I will serve you with a copy of any affidavit that becomes available.

9. A safe harbor offer

In order to bring the bogus objections against me to a rapid close, I am offering a safe harbor to any attorney or other defendant in the Sangamon County lawsuit. Anyone who voluntarily withdraws an objection before the Board before noon on Thursday, July 22nd will be dismissed as a defendant on July 23rd and will be able to go forward without any further claim of liability.

Any defendants who remain in the lawsuit after July 22nd will be subjected to the full panoply of criminal and civil law liability. I will promptly be placing liens on their real estate to ensure payment of judgments rendered against them.

Addendum:

After this letter was drafted and while it was being prepared for emailing, I received an e-mail from you voluntarily recusing yourself. Your recusal does not remove you as party defendant in the amended complaint. Because you conducted a secret hearing with the other defendants on July 6th, you remain a critical link in the chain of constitutional violations being orchestrated by Finko, Fogarty and Meroni.

What is interesting about your resignation today is that when you wanted to notify me of your resignation you found a way to do so. But, prior to today, you had never made any attempt to afford me any notice of your actions. Likewise, after acting in secret prior to today, when the Board in Springfield wanted to notify me today, they found a way to do so. These two communications today prove my point.

You should have your attorney contact me if you wish to avail yourself of the safe harbor offer in this letter.

Respectfully submitted,

ANDY MARTIN

AM:sp

W/encl. Exhibit A
[1] I am a Juris Doctor graduate of the University of Illinois. I am not a member of the Illinois bar. Therefore, I am a lawyer, but not an attorney.
[2] Adding yet another layer of mystery to Finko’s shenanigans, he originally typed my zip code as “60622” on his envelope (apparently Finko’s own secret zip code that he inserted unconsciously). Someone then crossed 60622 out and inserted the inked-in number. Is this a whodunit, or what? That is why depositions of the objectors and their lawyers is so essential to getting at the full truth behind the Finko-Fogarty scams.