Vladek Filler and The Modern Day Witch Trials of Fathers and Men

PROCURATORE CANAGLIA NEL MAINE Vale la pena ricordare i tanti casi d’ ingiustizia che avvengono anche nel nostro Paese di Totalità Un procuratore degli Stati Uniti è diventata tristemente nota per aver corrotto uno o più processi legali, mandando in prigione persone innocenti. Mary N. Kellet è così audace nella sua pessima condotta legale che ora c'è un grande numero di persone che vogliono vederla radiata dall’albo. I cittadini, se capiscono che il sistema giuridico sbatte in carcere persone incolpevoli a vantaggio di altre potenti e conosciute, se le accuse risultano false e tendenziose, si ribellano e si muovono affinché ciò non possa più succedere. Ci sono volte che scuotiamo il capo per le ingiustizie nel mondo. A volte sembra essere tutto quello che possiamo fare. E così con i tanti problemi che ci circondano e la loro spesso sistemica, intrattabile natura da cui derivano, può essere difficile scegliere quale battaglia sociale abbracciare, a favore di chi e quando. A causa di questo abbiamo sempre più popolazioni di scuotitori di testa, preoccupati per una serie d’ingiustizie, che spesso non sanno dove andare o cosa fare per risolverle. Con questo in mente ho l'opportunità, proprio qui e ora, a faccia in giù sulla tastiera, di evidenziare una terribile ingiustizia, il male assoluto, in corso nello stato del Maine. Vladek Filler sta per affrontare il processo per la seconda volta con l'accusa di violenza carnale verso la moglie, Ligia. E’ stato portato in giudizio la prima volta dal procuratore di Bar Harbor Mary N. Kellett, che ha cercato di imprigionare il sig. Filler nonostante lei non avesse alcuna prova scientificamente o giuridicamente riconosciuta, e nonostante il fatto che l’ accusatore Ligia Filler, avesse dimostrato varie volte di essere una donna estremamente violenta, una bugiarda accertata per le false accuse contro il marito. Ligia ha anche più volte aggredito i figli e il consorte, riscontro del quale è leggibile nei certificati medici presentati dalla difesa in ambito dibattimentale. Inoltre la donna presenta una storia di gravi problemi psichiatrici. Tutto queste prove sono "certificate" dal personale del dipartimento dello sceriffo che Ligia ha ripetutamente minacciato di uccidere. La condotta professionale dell’avvocato Kellett, in merito a questo caso, azzera praticamente tutti i canoni di etica legale in ambito di pubblici ministeri, sostenuta vieppiù da giurati volutamente corrotti e dal tentativo riuscito di nascondere o distruggere prove a discarico dell’imputato. Tutto ciò, e molti altri casi simili, sono stati diretti sotto la supervisione del procuratore distrettuale di Bar Harbor, Carletta Bassano, e portano alla conclusione -quasi inevitabile- che il problema non sta solo nel procuratore canaglia, ma soprattutto nel procuratore distrettuale che è il complice “armato” dal massimo potere decisionale. Inoltre, tutti gli eventi menzionati sono trapelati senza nemmeno che i media locali sollevassero un sopracciglio, probabilmente perché anche loro comprati dal duo malefico della giustizia. Pertanto, data la complicità del suo supervisore e la mancanza di attenzione da parte dei media locali, la Kellet sembra incoraggiata a continuare questo regno di terrore sulla vita di Vladek Filler, sui suoi figli, e su altri innocenti che risiedono nella comunità e che lei dovrebbe proteggere. Dopo che la prima condanna contro Filler è stata ribaltata dalla Corte Suprema del Maine, a causa della cattiva condotta giuridica della pubblica accusa, la stessa senza perdersi d’animo, ma con ancora più astio, si è scagliata di nuovo contro l’uomo accusandolo dello stesso reato e rinviandolo a processo. Kellett non è una giustizialista, lei si fa beffe della legge in modi che rasentano la criminalità. E’ fuori controllo e nessuno con autorità superiore cerca di contrastarla. E data l'arroganza dimostrata da parte delle sue azioni, è chiaro che si sente libera di colpire impunemente chiunque le tagli la strada. Non si può, deve, permettere che ciò accada. E’ contro la natura giuridica stessa. Questa è una battaglia che i cittadini del Maine hanno deciso di combattere contro un’aguzzina dalla galera facile. Contro una despota che se solo la incroci e non la saluti ti manda a casa la polizia per condotta irriverente contro l’autorità. Forza cittadini del Maine, sbattetela fuori assieme alla sua degna compare, il procuratore federale. Ma non è l’unico luogo dove stanno accadendo simili abusi. Vale la pena ricordare i tanti casi d’ ingiustizia che avvengono anche nel nostro Paese, con persone rinchiuse in carcere -senza prove certe e confutabili- da forze dell’ordine e da magistrati senza scrupoli, solitamente soggiacenti al volere del ricco, del possidente che denuncia una persona per levarsela di torno, poiché divenuta troppo ingombrante; perché a conoscenza di segreti finanziari che potrebbero crearli problemi fiscali e altro ancora. Non esiste una reale, dignitosa etica professionale: l’importante è assecondare il denunciante, se agiato e facoltoso, il resto si vedrà. Il resto intanto se ne va quatto quatto in galera. pubblicato il 10/12/2011 13.35.47
http://www.totalita.it/

Mary N. Kellett, a prosecutor for the Bar Harbor Prosecutors Office in Ellsworth, Maine, has been placed on the offenders registry at register-her.com, and is listed there as a corrupt public official. Kellett has a well-documented history of malicious prosecutions, and has now been subjected to harsh criticism in a feature article that was just released by Russian Times. Her actions are currently under investigation by the Board of the Overseers of the Bar for Maine. It was the prosecution of Vladek Filler for allegedly raping his wife that first brought Kellett under serious scrutiny. Filler’s wife, Ligia Filler, a documented false accuser and child abuser with a history of mental illness, alleged she was raped by her husband during the course of a hotly contested divorce that Mr. Filler filed after multiple incidents of abuse from his wife. Kellett proceeded with the case despite having no forensic evidence and despite knowing about Mrs. Filler’s history of false allegations, child abuse and public threats to kill Mr. Filler by “cut[ing] him into pieces.” JTO-Ligia Filler Audio Ligia Filler is also listed at register-her.com for false allegations of domestic violence. Vladek Filler was at first convicted of the rape allegation but was exonerated of the charges on retrial after the first conviction was overturned due to Kellet’s prosecutorial misconduct. More recently, Kellett is falling under additional scrutiny for alleged witness tampering in another case. Currently a bar complaint is being processed in that case as well.
http://www.avoiceformen.com

Alleged prosecutorial misconduct by Maine ADA Mary Kellett has gone international. In this article, Russia Today reports on allegations of ethical violations against Kellett, the Vladek Filler case and disciplinary proceedings against Kellett by the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar (Russia Today, 9/1/11). Complaints against Kellett cover almost a decade. In all the cases, Kellett brought charges of sexual wrongdoing against men. Often she did so with little or no credible evidence to back up the charges. Withholding exculpatory evidence, tampering with witnesses and improper argumentation are also staples of Kellett’s conduct in the courtroom. The Board has received a petition signed by over 1,100 people calling for Kellett’s disbarment. It’s also received a recommendation by its counsel saying that probable cause exists to discipline Kellett. But local media have so far been at pains to defend Kellett, mostly by ignoring the multiple allegations against her. It’ll be interesting to see how the Russia Todaypiece affects future coverage not only of Vladek Filler’s case but also Mary Kellett’s disciplinary proceedings. The article gets a few facts wrong, but there’s no doubt about how it - and therefore how many Russian and international readers - view Kellett and the plight of men in Ellsworth, Maine. The article repeatedly calls the scandal a “witch hunt” and the “Rape Hysteria of Ellsworth.” To an audience that only 20 years ago lived under the Soviet communist system of justice, the concept of powerful prosecutors, unanswerable to the electorate, imprisoning people with little evidence of guilt must feel eerily familiar. Indeed, Mary Kellett can be seen to exemplify what Italian communist Antonio Gramsci called the “long march through the bureaucracy.” By that he meant that any group seeking political power has to populate governmental bureaucracies with its people. Bureaucrats have considerable power to interpret laws as they see fit and Gramsci understood that the politicization of those countless interpretations is vital to consolidating power by the particular group. So it’s one thing to parade in the streets waving signs that read “All Men Are Rapists.” It’s another thing altogether to empower that political view with real prosecutions of real men in real courtrooms with the real possibility of prison darkening their horizon. My guess is that Mary Kellett drank that Kool-Aid a long time ago and it still poisons her mind. I can say the same about the female bureaucrat in the Department of Education who promulgated the new and highly controversial regulation lowering the standard of proof colleges and universities are required to use when a student or school employee is charged with rape or sexual assault. That standard is now “preponderance of the evidence,” the lowest standard of proof in any judicial setting. Professors and students across the country are crying ‘foul’ but so far the regulation is still in place. What Mary Kellett is doing in the criminal arena, the new regulation is doing in the academic one. The two have similar goals; Kellett seeks to put as many men behind bars as possible; the DOE regulation seeks to damage the academic record of as many men as possible. Both are virulently misandric. Both seek to expand the concept of due process of law to include police-state tactics with which Russian readers of Russia Today must be all too familiar.
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org

Ellsworth, Maine is a small town that helps make up a county of only 50,000 people, but a big scandal is erupting as citizens are rallying against the District Attorney. DA Mary Kellett is accused of bringing false accusations against men who suffered prison time for crimes they didn’t commit. After 16 years of marriage, Vladek Filler filed for divorce from his wife a few years ago, alleging that he didn’t want his children to be raised in a household ripe with abusive behavior from his mentally unstable spouse. While Mr. Filler attempted to tackle the legal proceedings in as civil of a manner as possible, Ellsworth residents say that divorce started off what they call the a modern day witch hunt, dubbed the Rape Hysteria of Ellsworth. Filler’s wife responded to the divorce filing with allegations of her own. She said her husband would murder their children. She also said that she wanted Vladek dead and would cut him into pieces herself. The allegations against Mr. Filler were proved false by a DHHS investigation, but once the woman brought charges of rape against her husband, Vladek was put behind bars. Without any physical evidence of a sexual assault, Assistant District Attorney Mary Kellettt crusaded against Vladek Filler and had him arrested and charged with rape and assault. There was no proof aside from testimonies from his wife, who had previously been labeled as having “mental issues” by the police and “certifiable” by the Sheriff’s Department. DA Kellett pushed on with the case, however, humiliating Mr. Filler in the courtroom and saying that the state could not afford a more thorough forensic investigation but that statistics suggest that Mr. Filler most likely raped his wife. She urged the jury to find him guilty on all counts despite presenting no evidence and hurdling prejudiced accusations. Evidence regarding Mr. Filler’s innocence was disregarded on trial and the jury was never even made aware that he had sought a restraining order from his wife in order to protect him and his children. Mr. Filler was convicted by a jury on a slew of charges, but eventually won an appeal. Had he not, he faced up to 30 years in jail. The Maine Supreme Court ruled that Mary Kellett had “improperly encouraged the jury to use the absence of evidence” to convict Fuller, but years after the case first came to light, Ellsworth residents are now turning on the District Attorney for other prosecutions she unjustly aided in. Earlier this month, the state Board of Overseers of the Bar Counsel is saying that DA Kellett applied prosecutorial misconduct while serving as District Attorney. While the Filler case might have garnered some attention on false rape charges, Kellett led trials against several other Maine men for crimes that might not have been committed. According to the Bar Counsel, witnesses and evidence were both tampered with by Kellett at numerous court hearings and she has at time presented false information and evidence before both judge and jury. In one such incident, Kellett incorrectly informed a jury that one of the defendants she lobbed rape charges against had killed his first wife. He did not. During other trials she tried to deny defense attorneys access to alleged evidence and has been accused of knowingly making false statements in the courtroom. Upwards of four men in the small Maine community are indicted on counts of rape each month, and Kellett has been aiding in these prosecutions often delivering only allegations and accusations against defendants that are produced by often mentally unstable spouses and girlfriends. While Mr. Filler was able to appeal his convictions, not all are so lucky. Now advocates are calling for the disbarment of the prosecutor. As of this month, 1,133 people have already signed their names to a petition to disbar Mary Kellett. The Stop Abusive and Violent Environments advocacy group say that she has “had the effect of undermining public respect for law,” and calls her dangerous. Despite her misconduct, DA Kellett continues to lead prosecutions against men in Ellsworth with often nothing more than allegations from estranged spouses. In most of the cases, defendants are found guilty with no evidence to show. Presidential candidate Bob Barr has called for an investigation into civil rights crimes committed by Kellet and renowned private investigator TJ Ward has been tackling the case for Filler free of charge. According to Ward, this prosecutorial corruption scandal is affecting numerous innocent lives. As Kellett’s wrath wages on, more men in the town of Ellsworth aren’t safe from persecution as the DA continues her witch hunt.
http://rt.com/usa/news

Contact: Paul Elam, A Voice for Men P.O. Box301172 Houston,TX77230 http://www.avoiceformen.com e-mail: avoiceformen@yahoo.com Bar Harbor Maine prosecutor faces disbarment for prosecuting innocent men for rape A Bar Harbor Maine prosecutor faces historic proceedings after the state Board of Overseers of the Bar Counsel issues a rare recommendation of finding probable cause of prosecutorial misconduct following a 7 month long investigation. Assistant district attorney Mary N. Kellett has been accused of prosecuting dozens of men for sex crimes even when evidence of their innocence was established. Several prosecuted men were accused by their wives or girlfriends in the course of their divorce or child custody disputes. The complaints investigated by the Bar Counsel Scott Davis cited witness and evidence tampering and presentation of false facts and evidence before the Court by prosecutor Mary N. Kellett. The misconduct first came to light in the case of Vladek Filler, a husband accused of sexual misconduct by his estranged wife during their divorce and child custody battle in the Bar Harbor area[1]. Filler won and maintained sole custody of his children during two criminal prosecutions for spousal rape and the prosecutor’s appeal to the Supreme Court[2]. Renowned private investigator TJ Ward of the Natalie Halloway Aruba case conducted a two year investigation of the Filler rape case and called it a “fabrication,” publicly criticizing prosecutor Mary Kellett’s conduct[3]. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court followed with a decision noting prosecutor’s misconduct in the case[4], and numerous complaints to the State of Maine’s Board of Overseers of the Bar followed[5]. The Filler case shed light on numerous prosecutions of innocent men[6] in this small New England community which have been dubbed “The modern day Salem witch trials”[7]. Even on the eve of Board of Overseers Commission meeting concerning prosecutor Mary Kellett’s misconduct, new charges surface of witness tampering and misinforming the Court. The misconduct resulted in a mistrial and in the office of Attorney General’s office publicly pointing at prosecutor Mary Kellett[8]. A Voice for Men, an advocacy organization, is calling for disbarment of attorney Mary Kellett by the Board of Overseers of the Bar, and for her immediate suspension in the interim by the Hancock County District Attorney Carletta Bassano. For more information contact Paul Elam of A Voice for Men at avoiceformen.com # # # [1] http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/110410 [2] http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/3.30.11pressrelease.pdf [3] http://ncfm.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/110407-NCFM-press-release-re-Vladek-Filler-in-Maine.pdf [4] http://www.courts.state.me.us/court_info/opinions/2010%20documents/10me90fi.pdf [5] http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/COMPLA1.pdf [6] http://fillerfund.com/marykellett.htm [7] http://fillerfund.com/ [8] http://bangordailynews.com/2011/08/18/news/hancock/blue-hill-man-seeks-case-dismissal-over-bad-information-from-prosecutors/
http://www.avoiceformen.com

As I reported on recently, Mary Kellett, the Ellsworth, Maine prosecutor notorious for pursuing flimsy cases, always against men accused of sexual or domestic assaults, has put her foot in it again. Only this time it appears that her misstep has put her ankle deep in a bear trap. A recap of the most recent case goes as follows. Keovilaisack Sayasane, 44, was charged with threatening to harm his wife with a hammer in their home. A problem for the prosecution in the case was that Sayasane’s wife was scheduled to testify for the defense. As the only eyewitness and alleged victim in the case it could have proven to be an insurmountable obstacle to a conviction. But the wife had a change of heart about testifying when she was told by Mary Kellett that Sayasane had been convicted of killing his first wife some 25 years earlier. The Bangor Daily News reports that when the judge in the case, Justice Kevin Cuddy, learned of this, he ultimately declared a mistrial, which ended the current proceedings against Sayasane, but allows the prosecution to retry the case. Sayasane, however, had not killed his first wife. He was convicted of manslaughter in the 1987 stabbing death of a man in Hampden, Maine. Court transcripts reveal that both defense attorney Jeffry Toothaker and Mary Kellett informed the court that they were both given the erroneous information on Saysane’s conviction by Deputy Attorney General William Stokes, head of the Attorney General’s Office’s criminal division. But Stokes has a strikingly different story. Namely that it never happened. This is Stoke’s version according to the Bangor Daily News: “Stokes said he never provided any information to Kellett that indicated that the victim in the manslaughter case was Sayasane’s previous wife, or even that the victim was a woman. Stokes said he had no prior knowledge of the case before Kellett contacted him about it, and so had to go look up the information in case summaries that are kept on file at the Attorney General’s Office in Augusta. The summary, Stokes said, indicates that the victim in the 1986 stabbing was a 21-year old man named Boudone Meuaneboutdy who was a friend of Sayasane’s. He said that is the information he forwarded to Kellett. “Where the wife part came in, I have no knowledge,” Stokes said. Now, assuming that Stokes is not lying, Mary Kellett has just been dropped into the fryer. On the merits of his statement alone, two factors become abundantly clear. Mary Kellett engaged in witness tampering by lying to the alleged victim in the case thus coercing her to withdraw exculpatory testimony. Mary Kellett further perpetrated a fraud on the court by misleading the judge to believe that she had been furnished information from the state AG’s office, when in fact she had been furnished no such information. There may well be other violations that become apparent as this case is investigated further. But these two points of interest do serve as grounds for further complaints to the Overseers of the Bar in Maine, as well as to the office of Governor Paul LePage and the Office of the State Attorney General. There is a pending bar complaint on Mary Kellett stemming from the Vladek Filler case that was filed by the National Coalition for Men. That complaint has been investigated and referred to the bar with the recommendation that sanctions against Kellett were warranted. It was originally the position of AVfM that before a complaint was filed with the bar against Kellett for the Sayasane case that the Filler complaint would be allowed to come to conclusion. These recent revelations by the state AG of Maine are grounds to revise that decision. The time for action is now. On behalf of the people of the United States and in the interest of justice, AVfM will now proceed with a bar complaint against Mary Kellett for the willful fraud of a court of law and for witness tampering in a criminal proceeding. We will also be sending letters of protest and pleas for justice to Governor LePage and to the Attorney General of Maine. I am also going to call on readers of AVfM to assist with these vital actions as quickly as possible. Please write Governor LePage and the State Attorney General and ask them why, after such demonstrated malfeasance on the part of a Maine state functionary, is she being allowed to continue prosecuting in Maine. I am also writing Ellsworth District Attorney Carletta Bossano, Mary Kellett’s direct supervisor and the individual that holds the ultimate responsibility for actions that emanate from her office, to demand that Kellett be suspended from duties until her actions are thoroughly investigated. I ask all those interested in justice to do the same. Finally, if you have a blog or website, no matter how large or small, I ask you to please help us go on the offensive against the Orwellian nightmare happening in Maine by posting this article, in its entirety to your site. Facebook and twitter users, please do the same, and thank you all for helping us turn up the heat on an ongoing miscarriage of justice. Remember, if we can just take one corrupt prosecutor out it will send reverberations throughout the system of feminist governance and will correct an absolute evil going in the state of Maine. Even the Bangor Daily News, previously hesitant to fully address this story, is now smelling blood. Let’s finish this. Let’s FTSU, and I mean NOW. Contact Maine’s State Attorney General Contact Governor Paul LePage Contact District Attorney Carletta Bossano
http://www.avoiceformen.com

Vladek Filler has been sentenced to 21 days in jail on the conviction of assaulting his wife, Ligia Filler. The evidence in the case was a bruise on Mrs. Filler’s arm that was not there at the time of the complaint, but mysteriously “appeared” four days later. Filler is appealing the conviction and has been allowed to remain free pending the appeal. The Bangor Daily News reports (and we use that word loosely) that prosecutor Paul Cavanaugh was seeking 60-90 days in jail at the time of the sentencing. This is a significant change from what inside sources reported to AVfM, which was that the prosecution was seeking the full sentence possible of one year in prison. It appears that something caused Cavenaugh to back off the harsher recommendation and go for something less. No probation was ordered so whatever sentence Filler ultimately receives, if any, should complete his connection to this case. We will post a notice here when the new trial date is set.
http://www.avoiceformen.com

She’s baaack! Ellsworth, Maine prosecutor Mary N. Kellett is at it again. If you’ll recall, she’s the one who handled the Vladek Filler case. Her charge of spousal rape against Filler was so badly handled that the trial judge overturned Filler’s original conviction. He was acquitted on all but a misdemeanor charge on retrial earlier this year. Filler’s ex-wife Ligia made the claim of spousal rape in the course of the couple’s divorce and custody cases. Ligia had a history of mental illness and had made previous false accusations against boyfriends. There was no physical evidence to support her charges because she refused to be examined. Also, she made the claim many days after the alleged assault. In short, there was an entire absence of objective evidence at trial, but that didn’t deter Mary N. Kellett. It did deter the family court. After Vladek Filler’s original conviction during which Kellett committed repeated acts of prosecutorial misconduct that would eventually result in retrial, the family court gave sole custody of their two children to Vladek. I’m not sure how many times family courts have given custody to men convicted of spousal rape, but it gives a good idea of how little the court thought of Ligia Filler. So the kids lived with Vladek while he awaited retrial. The older one testified at the second trial that his mother had often assaulted Vladek, but not the other way around. Vladek was acquitted of all but one misdemeanor count. Given the weakness of the case, it should never have been pursued by the prosecution in the first place. Mary N. Kellett’s multiple violations of ethical rules and apparent obstruction of justice are detailed in this analysis (S.A.V.E.). The analysis also includes at least eight other cases, all involving rape or sexual assault, in which Mary N. Kellett has either pursued a case without evidence, used fabricated allegations against innocent men or ignored obvious red flags such as allegations arising in the course of a custody battle that had occurred 10 years previously. Those were used in an attempt to have Mary N. Kellett disbarred earlier this year. The complaint is still pending. Well, add this one to the list (sorry, no link available; all quotations from the Ellsworth American). It seems that Keovilaisack Sayasane was charged by Mary N. Kellett with “terrorizing, assault and criminal threatening” of his wife. But, as so often seems to happen, there were problems with Mary N. Kellett’s case. The biggest one was that the alleged victim, Sayasane’s wife, intended to testify on his behalf. Defense attorney Jeffrey Toothaker said he had expected Sayasane’s wife to testify favorably on his behalf July 20… “She was going to testify very favorably to get him out of trouble,” Toothaker said. But if you’re Mary N. Kellett, you don’t let a little thing like your only witness to the incident testifying for the defense get in your way. So she got creative. Two days before the trial was to start, the prosecution told the wife that Sayasane had killed his first wife, Toothaker said. The news “sent shivers up her spine, as it should,” he said. But there was just one thing wrong with that bit of information - it was a lie. Sayasane does have a 25-year-old manslaughter conviction, but against another man, not his ex-wife. That part was added by Mary N. Kellett. The whole scheme backfired. When Sayasane’s wife heard Kellett’s lie, she understandably backed off of her defense of him. But when his attorney found out about Kellett’s witness tampering, he moved for dismissal, which was granted. Another loss for Kellett in a case that never should have been pursued in the first place. I wonder how much taxpayer’s money Mary N. Kellett has wasted in her single-minded drive to ignore the canons of ethics and try every man accused by any woman regardless of how shaky the evidence. Her tampering with a witness in the Sayasane case should be reported to Board of Overseers of the Maine State Bar. Kellett plainly violated ethical guidelines for prosecutors and should be disciplined. The more complaints bar associations receive, the more likely they are to take disciplinary action. From here, Kellett looks like a loose cannon. Moreover, she looks like she’s got an anti-male agenda. Consider this: Vladek Filler’s sentencing is scheduled for August 10th. The prosecution (no longer Mary N. Kellett; she was pulled from the case for reasons I think I can guess) intends to seek the maximum sentence for the Class D misdemeanor of which he was convicted - one year hard time. Vladek has no criminal record. Plus, he’s the sole custodian of two minor children. But as this article shows, the same prosecutor, Paul Cavenaugh, sought only a 30-day sentence for a female teacher who sexually abused a 13-year-old boy (Bangor Daily News, 11/21/08). His reasoning? She had children at home who’d be without their Mom. Of course the kids also had a father as well as his mother in the home to care for them. But when it comes to Vladek Filler’s kids, Cavenaugh apparently believes they don’t need any parent for a year. Amazing. Of course Paul Cavenaugh and Mary N. Kellett are two different people, and the one shouldn’t be tarred with the bad acts of the other. But they also work for the same District Attorney’s office, and that office time and again shows its willingness to try to imprison men based on patently unbelievable claims by women. The suspension or disbarment of Mary N. Kellett would be richly deserved. It would also send a message to other prosecutors in Ellsworth, Maine, that her methods aren’t acceptable.
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org

Many of you will know the name of Vladek Filler. Thanks in part to your help with drawing media attention to his case, and the fact that he was innocent, Filler was exonerated of the false rape charges against him. He was, however, convicted falsely of assaulting his estranged wife, Ligia Filler, by putting a bruise on her arm. The court has scheduled Vladek’s sentencing hearing for August 10, 2011, at 9 am at Hancock County Superior Court in Maine, despite clear evidence that the assault conviction was based on fraud. I am asking for help from MRAs to make their voices heard concerning the fraud and abuse inflicted on Vladek Filler and his children by Ligia Filler, ADA Mary Kellett, DA Bassano, ADA Paul Cavanaugh, and the local legal establishment which is determined to severely punish an innocent man because he fought for the custody of his sons and because he has defied their corrupt actions against him. Vladek’s attorney not only filed an appeal for the assault conviction but went further and filed a post-trial motion asking the judge to acquit Vladek or order a new trial based on evidence of Vladek’s innocence. Vladek Filler Motion for New Trial Included in the motion is just a few irrefutable facts proving that Filler was wrongfully convicted, based on the evidence. What the motion did not mention was that the original trial judge blocked a mountain of key evidence, including Police reports which explicitly stated that Ligia Filler changed her entire story days later after she materialized a fresh bruise on her arm. None of her prior transcribed statements about the incident were allowed at trial. To date the judge has not ruled on the post-trial motion to acquit or set aside the conviction for a new trial. Instead the establishment is rushing to use the wrongful misdemeanor conviction to harshly punish Vladek before blatant fraud and evidence suppression gets reviewed by a higher court. Simply put, Filler’s insistence on defending himself against lies and corruption has made him a liability to the system. They are pushing actively to put him in jail as quickly and quietly as possible. As Thomas Ball faced certain court abuse and jail at his upcoming hearing, on August 10, 2011, Vladek will face what is, on its face, political imprisonment. Prosecutor Paul Cavanaugh will argue for Filler to receive the maximum prison sentence (1 year). Yes, that is a year in prison for allegedly putting a bruise on a known liar’s arm that did not appear for four days after the “incident.” The judge allowed Vladek to remain free pending appeal, but required a $50K surety bail stating that it was “due to the seriousness,” of the allegations against him. This treatment for a class D misdemeanor conviction with no prior record is unheard of. The fix is in, people. They want to use this misdemeanor assault charge to make an example of Filler for speaking out; for filing a Bar Complaint against Kellett; for blowing the whistle on their crimes against men. This is the same district and prosecutor (Paul Cavanaugh) who sought only 30 days in jail for a confessed female child molester. Not only was she allowed to keep custody of her boys despite being convicted for molesting their friend, but the rationale used for her 30 day sentence was to allow her to be with the children. No one seems to care that Vladek’s abused and traumatized sons will face more trauma and threats from both CPS and Ligia Filler if Vladek is imprisoned. Ligia Filler has a documented history of abusing her children. Officials saw her treatment of them as serious enough to award Vladek full custody despite the fact that he was being prosecuted for rape and assault. But it gets even more insane in Salem Village. Filler was criminally charged with this fake assault solely by Ligia Filler’s over the phone complaint. That’s right, the police never even responded to the “scene of the crime.” They simply had a warrant issued for his arrest based on an allegation an alleged victim made on the telephone. Evidence shows the police chief, Guy Wycoff, helped Ligia Filler concoct her story days later. By contrast, the police department and Kellett’s office refuse to allow criminal charges against Ligia Filler for well substantiated domestic abuse, harassment, or even for being caught by the police causing over $10,000 of theft and destruction to Vladek’s awarded property. Instead, on August 10, Ligia Filler and the same strangers who coached her to cry to be more believable, and helped her destroy Vladek’s life and lives of his children, will be allowed to address the Court and call for his imprisonment. Ligia Filler will be allowed to make her demands for his punishment for a misdemeanor assault by using her absurd and false rape accusations. Vladek’s sentencing is being turned into a public stoning by the villagers. The witch trials must end. As I write this, still another false sexual assault case is being readied for trial by Mary Kellett against another father desperately fighting for his children with his wife. And there is also the recent event that Kellett conned a woman in another case to not testify on behalf of her estranged husband by convincing her he had killed his first wife. That case was thrown out on Kellett’s misconduct when the judge found out what she did. More on both of these cases later. But right now I am calling for help from MRAs to speak out against this gross abuse of due process and civil rights. As Thomas Ball faced certain court abuse and jail at his upcoming hearing, on August 10, 2011, Vladek will face what is, on its face, political imprisonment. We need as many messages of support as possible before the sentencing hearing. The letters will be considered directly by the trial judge and will allow Vladek’s supporters to have direct access to the judge. We need people to call for Vladek’s acquittal or new trial. We need people to demand justice for Vladek and his children – not more abuse and imprisonment. Respectful emails for Judge Robert Murray of the Hancock County Superior Court, who is presiding over the case, can be sent to free.vladek@gmail.com. They will be forwarded to his office. You might also e-mail their letters to the local media and the Governor’s office.
http://www.avoiceformen.com

Vladek Filler- Abused by his wife, then falsely prosecuted for rape. UPDATE! Vladek Filler found NOT GUILTY of spousal rape.
http://falseallegationsawareness.com

Vladek Filler was acquitted by a jury in Hancock County, Maine on May 27, 2011 of sexually assaulting his estranged wife Ligia. Filler was retried after the Maine Supreme Court overturned his January 2009 sexual assault conviction and ordered a retrial. Filler and his wife lived in Gouldsboro, Maine when they separated in 2007 with the intention to divorce. Filler told his estranged wife that he was planning to move from Maine to Georgia where his relatives lived, and that he wanted the couples two young children to move with him. She then filed a criminal complaint that on one occasion Filler anally raped her and on two other occasions physically abused her. After doing that she filed for a protection order and an order granting her full custody of their children. She also included the allegations in a subsequent divorce petition. Filler was charged with rape, gross sexual assault, and two misdemeanor counts of assault. There was no evidence of that Ligia had been raped because she refused to have a medical examination even though the police encouraged her to do so. During Filler’s trial his defense was that after learning he wanted to move to Georgia his wife fabricated the rape allegation and grossly exaggerated arguments they had by claiming they were assaults in order to obtain custody of the couple’s children. The prosecution objected when Filler’s lawyer attempted during his cross-examination of Filler’s wife to impeach her credibility by questioning her about the custody dispute and the timing of her making criminal accusations against her husband. The judge sustained the prosecution’s objection based on his opinion that her testimony would amount to litigation of the still unresolved “custody issues and that’s not what this case is about.” Then during its rebuttal argument the prosecution argued that Filler had not presented any evidence supporting his claim that it wasn’t until after his wife realized they were going to have a major custody dispute that she made criminal accusations against him. Filler’s lawyer objected to that argument and moved for a mistrial because it was the prosecution that objected to the testimony by Filler’s wife that would have supported the truthfulness of Filler’s claim that the criminal charges were related to the couple’s custody dispute. The judge overruled the objection by Filler’s lawyer and denied the motion for a mistrial. The jury convicted Filler of one count of gross sexual assault and two counts of misdemeanor assault. Filler’s lawyer filed a post-verdict motion for a new trial based in part on the argument that he was denied a fair trial by the prosecutor successfully objecting to testimony by Filler’s wife about their bitter custody dispute, and then arguing to the jury that the absence of any testimony about the custody dispute disproved Filler’s claim that they had a custody dispute. The judge agreed that the prosecutor’s argument prejudiced Filler’s right to a fair trial and vacated his conviction. The prosecution appealed, and on September 9, 2010 Maine’s Supreme Court affirmed the grant of a new trial in State of Maine v Vladek Filler, 2010 ME 90 (ME Sup Ct, 9-9-2010). The Court’s ruling states: The likelihood that the jury might have been persuaded to accept the central premise of Filler’s defense—that his wife had a strong motive to fabricate her claims—was greatly diminished by the State’s emphasis on the absence of evidence that the marriage was ending and the parties were engaged in a child custody dispute. The court did not err in concluding that the interest of justice requires a new trial. (Op. Cit. 14) The prosecution elected to retry Filler. Prior to the retrial T.J. Ward, the former lead investigator in Aruba’s high-profile Natalee Holloway murder case, publicly described the sexual assault charge against Filler as a fabrication by his wife and that he was the victim of malicious prosecution, because there was no medical or forensic evidence supporting her allegation, there was no rape kit because she refused to be medically examined, and she had a had a history of emotional instability. After a three-day trial the jury acquitted Filler on May 27, 2011 of the gross sexual assault and one of the misdemeanor assault counts. He was convicted of one count of misdemeanor assault based on a photograph introduced during the trial that showed a small bruise on his wife’s arm. The misdemeanor assault conviction carries a maximum of one year in prison and a minimum of probation. Filler was released on bond pending sentencing. His lawyer said he will appeal that conviction. Filler, 41, lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his two children, now 5 and 14. He was awarded custody of his children based on the recommendation of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. It is reported that he and his wife Ligia are finalizing their divorce.
http://justicedenied.org

I try to keep my writing devoid of my sarcastic wit; however, at times it’s difficult to hold back especially when dealing with stressful events that make you feel like you are in the Twilight Zone. Last week I attended the State v. Filler criminal re-trial in Ellsworth, Maine to lend my support to Vladek Filler and his family. I rarely if ever get involved or lend my support in criminal matters for the accused; however, after meeting Vladek, his mother and his sister a few years ago and reading about the case against Vladek extensively I was convinced that an egregious wrong had been perpetrated. I wanted to do what I could to help. The newspaper accounts of this trial do not do it justice, after all reporters can only give their readers a glimpse of what went on in that court room during the trial. A reporter is only allowed so much space to write his article and has deadlines to meet. Having sat in that court room for three of the four trial days, watching the proceedings and listening to each person’s testimony, as well as spending time with the Filler family outside the court room I definitely came away with a much more comprehensive understanding than if I had just read the newspaper accounts. Watching Asst. DA Paul Cavanaugh present the State’s side of the case was like viewing a made for TV “B” movie. You know the kind of movie I mean, one of those low budget films with some the cheesiest acting and dialogue you have ever seen. Sadly, this proceeding was anything but a made for TV movie. It was a real life drama with a man’s life, freedom and his children’s future on the line. For more background information on this case please read my blog entries dated of 4-12 and 4-14-2011. State v. Filler May 25th 2011 - Day Two Nicole (who is a volunteer advocate with DAHMW) and I drove to Ellsworth early to be at the courthouse for the 8:30am start time for the day’s court proceedings. We met up with Vladek, his two sisters, his mother and his oldest son. First stop was a room in the courthouse reserved for the Filler family during the trial and then onto the court room for the hearing. Let me just take a moment here to tell you about the collective Filler family. The Fillers are the type of people who would give you the shirt off their backs and the last dollar in their pocket if they knew you needed it. I have never in my life met a more close knit, warm and loving family. After sitting down and talking with Vladek, his son and his extended family for just a few hours it felt like we had all been great friends for many years. Here they were at one of the most intense, grueling times in their lives (I say “their” because it’s so evident that if one of them is suffering they are all suffering…they are that close) having lived under a dark ominous cloud for more than four years and yet they took the time to make sure you feel welcomed, appreciated and included. Asst. DA Paul Cavanaugh was into his second day of presenting the State’s case against Vladek Filler when we arrived. The States star witness was Vladek’s ex wife, Ligia, who was first up on the witness stand that morning. That morning the star witness was cross examined by Vladek’s defense lawyer Stephen Smith. Before I discuss the cross examination of the prosecutor’s star witness let me just say for the record that I am an assiduous and fervent advocate for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. I volunteered at our local rape crisis center for over a year and have been the victim of date rape myself as a teenager so I fully and completely empathize with victims of these crimes. I feel that those who commit sexual and domestic assault against women, men and children should get the harshest punishment allowable by law. So you know that if I believed for one second that Vladek Filler had committed the crimes that he was accused of I would have been sitting in the front row behind the prosecutor and not the defendant at this trial. However, I have no respect, empathy or use for someone who would use the legal system, victim’s services and the taxpayer’s money to exact revenge against their former intimate partner. As I watched and listened to the prosecution’s star witness on that Wednesday I thought to myself, “This lady is in the wrong profession, she should have gone into dramatic acting.” Please understand that it is not my intent to belittle or make light of this most serious situation, it’s just that I found the alleged victim to be disingenuous. I was totally unmoved by her overly dramatic testimony. She sat on the witness stand looking forlorn holding her hand to her chest and taking slow deep audible breaths in and out, in and out, with every response she gave as she was cross examined by the defense attorney. When she wasn’t taking slow deep audible breaths she spent a great deal of time having sips of water and pausing to use a tissue to wipe her eyes. She responded to most of the questions asked with, “I don’t understand the question…could you repeat the question…I don’t remember….I can’t recall…I can’t remember…I don’t recall…I don’t know….” Again, her testimony struck me as melodramatic and insincere. She appeared to have a difficult time remembering key facts such as whether the alleged sexual assault took place on the top surface of the washer, the dryer, or with her head inside the laundry basket that was on top of one of these appliances. With regards to the alleged assault that she said happened in 2005 she couldn’t remember which came first, her slapping Vladek or him throwing water (from what she said enough to soak her face, hair and/or clothing) from a glass at her two times. Nathan, 14 year old son of the star witness and Vladek testified that he had been awoken by the sound of his parents arguing and that he witness what happened. Nathan testified that he saw his mother punch his father in the nose knocking the glasses off his face and that his father did not throw water at his mother. He also testified that his mother’s clothes and hair were dry and not wet as they would have been had she just had water thrown at her. The star witness was asked by the defense to describe the alleged sexual assault. She testified that Vladek had held her two hands behind her back with one of his hands and held her head down on the dryer/washer with his other hand and while she struggled he pulled her corduroy pants down (she couldn’t remember if they were button fly or had a button with a zipper) to around her ankles, pulled his own pants down and then sodomized her. If I remember correctly she said he didn’t use any lubrication. She further testified that after he was done she felt his semen run down her leg. She testified that after filing a complaint with the police about the alleged sexual and domestic assaults she was advised to go to the hospital to have a rape kit done (to preserve evidence of the alleged sexual assault for trial) by both of the police officers she spoke with. I don’t doubt that her friend who’s house she was at when she met with the first officer also told her to get a rape exam. Her fairly new friend was instructor of the CNA classes that the star witness attended as well as a nurse. None the less she ignored everyone’s advice and chose not to have a rape exam done. No doubt, there can be good reasons for choosing not to have a rape exam; it can be an uncomfortable and humiliating experience to have such a procedure done. However, it could also be that in this case the accuser knew there wouldn’t be any evidence of sexual assault because the assault never happened. Reflecting further on the star witnesses bizarre behavior (IMHO) and evasiveness to the questions asked of her I suppose it’s possible that she has some sort of medical or mental health condition that would cause her to respond in this manner when under stress. However, since the prosecution refused to answer to repeated requests from the defense to produce her medical and mental health records no one will ever know. It does seem odd though that she appeared much less forgetful when the Asst. DA posed questions to her after the defense finished his cross examination. I am reminded at this time of a quote from Mark Twain, “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” After the star witnesses cross examination there were a number of other witnesses for the prosecution that testified on Wednesday and Thursday. Some of those witnesses were unremarkable and not worth a mention while others were quite memorable. The three prosecution witnesses that most stand out in my memory are Lt. Travis Willey, the former Police Chief of Gouldsboro PD and Officer Harry Larrabee who is currently with Gouldsboro PD. I don’t recollect the former chief’s name so I will just call him Chief Wiggum. Lt. Willey was the officer who answered the call to pick up the star witness as she did her mad dash down the street and through the blueberry fields in bare feet wearing nothing but a bra and black pants. Shockingly she was also carrying her toddler son on her hip at the time. According to Lt. Willey and the audio of the event it took about an hour and a half to get to their final destination where she could be psychologically evaluated. He spent a good deal of that time chasing after her, convincing her to turn the toddler over to him, putting her in restraints and driving to the hospital. Part of the audio of this can be heard by clicking here. The jury heard about 35 minutes of the 90 plus minute audio of this event during the trail. They were advised that they could take the audio in with them when they deliberated if they felt the need. One of the things she alleged in this recording was that her husband had sexual molested the children. That accusation was investigated by DHHS and found unsubstantiated/to have no merit. During her mad dash she threatened to kill the officer, her husband and pretty much anyone who stood in her way. She suggested that a cousin of hers would help her kill her husband. One minute she was raging and threatening to kill someone and the next she was laughing like a person possessed. Here are some examples of her recorded ramblings, “I will kill you mother f’er,” “You messed with the wrong person…We going to cut you to pieces,” “He’s going to die because I’m going to f’ing kill him myself,” “You’re going straight to Hell and you know what? I am going straight to hell too but you know what? I’m going to enjoy it…” and “I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy.” At one point in the recording you could hear her kicking violently with her feet hitting some hard surface (perhaps the back of the front seat in the police car). You can hear Lt. Willey say in the audio that she is “right certifiable.” Asst. DA Cavanaugh tried to convince the jury that the star witness acted this way because as an abused woman she was at the end of her rope because help couldn’t come fast enough for her to protect herself and her children from a controlling, abuser and rapist. I don’t think the jury bought that theory though. SIDE BAR: I understand that the audio also contains an accusation made by the star witness against Lt. Willey. When they arrived at the hospital she accused Lt. Willey of hurting her and he denied it. If the jury was to believe that the star witness was a victim at the end of her rope as Asst. DA Cavanaugh claimed then what about her falsely accusing her husband and Lt. Willey? Should they also just ignore the fact that she falsely accused both of them? I wasn’t too surprised when I noticed one of the jury members wiping tears from her eyes when listening to this audio. Others saw a few more jury members dabbing their eyes also. It was a deeply disturbing audio of a woman over the edge, who wouldn’t have been touched and concerned by what they heard? State v Filler May 26, 2011 The next noteworthy witness for the prosecution was Officer Harry Larrabee. Officer Larrabee was the first person that the star witness spoke with at the police department about the alleged assaults. BTW, did you know that someone can just call the police, report that they were assaulted by their spouse a few weeks ago and without any face to face interview or written and sworn testimony from the accuser a person can be charged with domestic assault? Maybe I am just naïve but I was shocked to hear that this could happen. Officer Larrabee’s testified that he took the complaint over the phone and then went straight to the Filler house to charge Vladek with assault. Pretty scary stuff. Officer Larrabee also testified that when he met with the star witness face to face on Sunday he asked her if she had any bruises from being grabbed by the arms and pushed down into a chair (from the 2007 assault). Officer Larrabee reported that he asked the star witness to her pull up her short sleeves and he looked at the front, back and sides of her arms and found no indication of a bruise. Former Chief Wiggum took the witness stand after Officer Larrabee. He testified that that he met with the star witness a day after Officer Larrabee had on Monday and that she showed him a bruise on her arm and he took a picture of it. That picture of the bruise was enlarged to the size of a piece of 8 ½ by 11 piece of paper and submitted as evidence. I don’t know about you but I find it telling that there was no sign of a bruise anywhere on her arms on Sunday but by Monday there was a bruise to be photographed. Chief Wiggum testified that he was one of the investigators who assisted with the collection of evidence of the alleged 2007 sexual assault crime scene. He testified that he and another officer (whose name eludes me also so I will just call him Eddie) went into the Filler home with an arrest and a search warrant. The star witness told them to look for condoms and lubricant…these items were not found. I was a little confused because I thought the star witness testified that he didn’t use lubricant. Chief Wiggum and Eddie dusted the dryer/washer for hand and face prints and took the two throw rugs that were on the floor in the bathroom to test for semen. Chief Wiggum testified that they found no prints on the dryer/washer and no semen on the rugs. The defense asked Chief Wiggum whether or not the clothing worn by the star witness and the accused during the alleged sexual assault was collected. He testified that it was not. SIDE BAR: Vladek took the witness stand on Thursday. During his testimony he described the approximate size of the bathroom where the alleged assault occurred. There were also pictures (regular size not 8 ½ by 11” like the bruise picture) of the bathroom submitted into evidence. Vladek testified that the space between the dryer/washer and the wall opposite these appliances was literally not even wide enough for two people to occupy at the same time. Someone once told me that the more absurd a scenario is the more believable it is…. So Chief Wiggum and Eddie took pictures, collected two throw rugs, dusted for finger/face prints and search for condoms and lubricant that the star witness said they would find but did not collect the clothing each person was wearing. I would have thought collecting the clothing worn during the alleged assault important given that the star witness said that she felt sperm run down her leg after the sexual assault and that her pants were around her ankles. Maybe I just watch too much NCIS. SIDE BAR: The court took a morning break during Chief Wiggum’s testimony. He was to return to the witness stand after the break for further cross examination. Only a few people stayed in the courtroom during the break. The bailiffs stepped out for a few minutes. I happened to walk back into the court room while attorney Smith was conferring with his client just outside the court room door. I sat down and immediately noticed that Chief Wiggum was stretching his neck to read the notes left on the podium by the defense attorney. I didn't think that attorney Smith would appreciate having his notes read by the prosecution's witness so I shot out of my seat and rushed to let attorney Smith know that Chief Wiggum was reading his notes on the podium. Attorney Smith made a bee line into the court room. State v. Filler May 27, 2011 The State and the defense presented their closing arguments on Friday morning. Some of the highlights were: Asst. DA Paul Cavanaugh, as I mentioned before, asked the jury to view the star witness’s “certifiable” moments with Lt. Willey as an abused woman’s cry for protection and help rather than as a mentally unstable woman’s need of hospitalization. He also told the jury that in the real world evidence collection by police investigators at crime scenes are rarely as substantial or definitive as what you see on TV shows like NCIS. He mentioned that NCIS crime scene investigators always seem to find the evidence they need to prove their case but in the real world that just doesn’t happen. However, he criticized the police's handling of the investigation in this case quite a bit. Attorney Smith asked the jury, (and I am paraphrasing here) was the star witness was barking mad or was she clever as a fox? Vladek's main defense was that the star witness made up the assault allegations to get revenge for him wanting to divorce her and have custody of the children. He reminded them about Nathan’s testimony of witnessing the 2005 argument and that he saw his mother punch his father in the face knocking his glasses off and breaking them but never saw his father strike or throw water at his mother. Closing arguments went on for about 90 minutes and then the jury received their instructions from the judge before then went into deliberation. One of the instructions was on the definition of circumstantial evidence. The judge used an analogy about snow to explain what circumstantial evidence was and again I am paraphrasing here but basically he said if they look out at bedtime and see that there is no snow on the ground but when they wake up they see snow, they can reasonable assume that it snowed during the night. They didn’t see it snow but they have circumstantial evidence that it did snow. The jury went to deliberate. After about 75 minutes of deliberation the jury asked for a lunch break. They came back from lunch at around 1:15pm and went back to deliberations. Waiting for the verdict was agonizing, the minutes passed like hours, hours passed like days. The jury was finally ready to render their verdict at 4pm. We all rushed back into the court room. Vladek had three criminal charges against him, two misdemeanor assaults, i.e. for allegedly throwing water at the victim in 2005 and for grabbing the star witness by the arms and pushing her down into a chair in 2007, and one felony charge of gross sexual assault. If they found him guilty of the gross sexual assault Vladek could have been put away behind bars for many years. The jury’s verdict: Not guilty of the 2005 assault, Not guilty of gross sexual assault, Guilty of the 2007 assault. A few observations: When the forewoman read the verdict something strange happened to her voice. She was completely audible when she read the not guilty for the 2005 assault but her voice was almost a whisper and she seemed to have a difficult time saying not guilty on the gross sexual assault charge. The judge had to ask her to repeat the verdict. I don’t know if this has any relevance but we heard that there was a lot of loud arguing going on in the jury’s deliberation room at times. BTW: She was one of the jurors that we saw wiping away tears as she listened to the disturbing audio. I would love ask the jury how they came to find Vladek was guilty on the 2007 assault charge. I have a hunch that they remembered that big 8 ½” by 11”picture of the bruise on the star witnesses arm taken by Chief Wiggum three days after the alleged incident and forgot about the fact that there was no indication of a bruise when Officer Larrabee examined her arms the day before Chief Wiggum. We were all grateful that the jury reached the right conclusions and found Vladek not guilty of the alleged 2005 assault and 2007 gross sexual assault and disappointed that they found him guilty of the 2007 assault. He may appeal the conviction. No date has been set for sentencing on that charge at this time. Since the charge is a misdemeanor Vladek may have to pay a fine, be mandated to some type of batterer’s intervention class and/or receive up to 364 days in jail. It’s all up to Judge Murray. If his sentence includes jail time the guardian ad litem i.e. the lawyer for the children, who testified at the trial the first day recommended that the children stay in the custody of their fraternal grandmother and aunts in Georgia and not be given to their mother. Some further observations: The State got to present their case from Tuesday morning 8:30am until Thursday morning 11:30am while the defense only had about three hours on Thursday afternoon to present their case. After the State rested the prosecutor and defense attorney went into the judge’s chambers. The defense attorney made a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the prosecutor lacked enough evidence for a conviction. A newspaper reporter from the Bangor Daily News was allowed to go into the judge’s chambers with them during this procedure. It seemed odd but perhaps it happens all the time… If you think something like this can’t happen to you well so did Vladek at one time…. The opinions expressed here are those of Jan Brown and not necessarily that of the Filler family or the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women.
http://domesticviolenceresourcesformen.blogspot.com/

Vladek Filler was found not guilty of raping his wife in a retrial of the 2007 charges. Read about it here (Bangor Daily News, 5/27/11). Filler is the Maine man who was charged with rape and two counts of misdemeanor assault by his wife Ligia. Despite being advised by police to be examined medically for evidence of rape, Filler’s accuser refused to do so. In fact, it was almost a month after the alleged incident that she thought to complain about it at all. And that was immediately after Filler had told her he was going to leave her and attempt to get custody of their two children. Ligia had made false allegations against other men before. So there was no physical evidence of abuse at the first trial and the couple’s son, who was 11 at the time told police that it was Ligia who had assaulted Vladek, not the other way around. But Assistant District Attorney Mary Kellett took the case to trial anyway and won convictions on all three counts. Vladek was released on bail pending his appeal and, amazingly enough, was given custody of the two children. The appellate court overturned his conviction and remanded the case for a new trial which came to an end last Friday with ‘not guilty’ verdicts on the rape charge and one of the assault charges. Filler was found guilty on the third misdemeanor assault charge. He was released pending sentencing which, if there’s any justice, will be time already served. Even that charge, despite the jury’s verdict, seems dubious. Here’s the description by the Bangor Daily News of the ‘evidence’ supporting it: “Filler’s wife testified her memory was unclear about the alleged physical assaults and, though there was testimony about Filler’s wife having a bruise around the time of the second alleged assault, there has been no clear evidence introduced at trial about how she got that bruise.” So Filler’s announced that he’ll appeal that too. The taxpayers of the county in which the case was tried have spent who knows what amount of money to persecute a man who looks to me to have done nothing wrong. That’s mostly thanks to the latest misdeeds of ADA Kellett whose record of prosecuting men for evidence-free allegations of sex crimes has been well-documented elsewhere. From here Kellett looks like another true believer who swallows any story told by a woman about a man committing an illegal sex act. The canons of ethics for prosecuting attorneys include the concept of exercising professional judgment about what cases to prosecute and which ones to drop. Kellett seems to have little understanding of which sexual assault cases are meritorious and which ones aren’t. And the taxpayers of the state pay the price for her inability. Of course a man who is surely innocent of the only serious charge against him has paid an enormous price in attorneys fees, heartache, anguish and time behind bars. He should never have had to do any of that. A responsible prosecutor would have looked at the case and seen that the allegations originated during a custody case, there was no physical evidence, the couple’s older child said it was his mother who was violent, the accuser was mentally unstable and had made false accusations before. That same responsible prosecutor would have dropped the case like a hot rock. And speaking of cases, in l’affaire Filler, there is actually an assault case that has some evidence to back it up. The Filler’s oldest son said he saw his mother hit his father in the face on at least one occasion. Since the testimony comes from the son and not a party to a divorce case who’s trying to gain the upper hand, it carries enough weight to convict. So where’s the DA’s office on charging Ligia Filler with assaulting her husband? No word on that as yet.
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org

ELLSWORTH — Tearful testimony from an estranged wife did not persuade a jury to convict a former Gouldsboro man of rape. After deliberating for nearly six hours last Friday, a Hancock County jury found Vladek Filler not guilty of sodomizing his wife on April 6, 2007. During closing arguments, First District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh conceded to the jury that the state had no forensic evidence. Police had suggested to Filler’s wife that she get a medical exam after the alleged rape, but she did not. Investigators sent a rug from a room where the assault allegedly occurred to the Maine Crime Lab for testing, but no semen was found, according to court testimony. Cavanaugh told the jury that just because Filler’s wife didn’t go to the hospital for an exam, as police had urged her, doesn’t mean the alleged crimes didn’t occur. During defense attorney Stephen Smith’s cross-examination of Filler’s wife, she said she didn’t remember the officers telling her to get a medical exam. “In any event, you didn’t get a medical exam?” Smith asked. “No,” the wife said. “Why not?” Smith asked. “I don’t know,” she said. In addition to the gross sexual assault charge, Filler also was tried on two misdemeanor assault charges. He was accused of throwing two glasses of water on his wife on Dec. 15, 2005. The jury found him not guilty in that alleged incident.
http://fenceviewer.com

ELLSWORTH, Maine — A former Gouldsboro man testified in his own defense Thursday afternoon in Hancock County Superior Court, telling a jury that he never assaulted or raped his wife. Vladek Filler, 41, is accused of throwing water in his wife’s face in December 2005 and of assaulting her and raping her in April 2007. Filler originally was tried on the allegations in early 2009 and found guilty. But the previous trial judge and then the state supreme court ordered a retrial after Filler argued that the case’s previous prosecutor, Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett, inappropriately raised during closing arguments an issue that had been barred from testimony. The defense rested its case around 3: 30 p.m. Thursday. Closing arguments and then jury deliberations are expected to begin at 9 a.m. Friday morning. On Thursday, under direct questioning by his defense attorney Stephen C. Smith of Bangor, Filler said “no” several times when asked if he had done certain things. He denied forcibly sodomizing his wife or assaulting her in any way. He said that she punched him in the face during the December 2005 argument but that he did not throw her out of the house, prevent her from using the plumbing, or otherwise retaliate. He denied preventing her from using the family car or disabling the car, though he did say he asked her in December 2005 not to use the car with the children because he thought it was not reliable. Filler contends that his marriage to his estranged wife was failing and that she fabricated the allegations against him in order to gain a tactical advantage over him in the looming custody battle over their two sons, who are now 5 and 14 years old. Filler since has been granted custody of the two boys, who live with him in suburban Atlanta. He testified Thursday that in early 2007, he told his wife he was making plans to leave her. She had an “extremely emotional” negative reaction to this news, he said. “It [became] a constant ongoing subject of arguments and discussion and plans and negotiations” between him and his wife, Filler said. According to testimony, things came to a head on Saturday, April 21, when Filler’s wife went to pick up her daughter, who was fathered by another man, at the Bangor bus station. Filler’s wife took their infant son with her but, after picking up her daughter, who is now 21, she went to a friend’s house and then spent the night at another friend’s house in Steuben. She and Filler have been separated ever since. Under cross-examination by prosecutor Paul Cavanaugh, Filler said he was concerned but not hysterical when his wife and toddler son did not return later that day. He said he became more concerned on Sunday morning when she still had not returned home with the child, who then was less than 2 years old. Cavanaugh pressed Filler about statements he supposedly had made to his children’s guardian during subsequent divorce proceedings about his wife being violent with his children. If she was known to be violent, Cavanaugh asked, why didn’t he call police right away on Saturday? Filler said his wife had “taken off” unexpectedly before for several hours, but always returned home. “I had no idea she abducted our child,” Filler said. “I figured it was one of those kinds of episodes. My [14-year old] son was begging me to call the police.” Filler said he called a friend of his wife’s Sunday morning to try to track down his younger son, but did not find out where the boy was. He was about to call the police next, he said, when they pulled up in his driveway, after his wife had called police from Steuben to file a complaint that Filler assaulted and raped her earlier that month. Filler’s 14-year-old son also testified Thursday afternoon. The teenager said his father and mother argued frequently before they separated but said he never saw Filler strike his mother. The boy testified that, during the December 2005 argument during which Filler allegedly twice threw water from a cup into his mother’s face, he saw his mother strike Filler in the face. He said he never saw his father throw water on his mother. The boy was 9 at the time. When Cavanaugh asked the boy why he waited more than a year to tell anyone about seeing the altercation, the boy shrugged. “I was just a kid,” he said. “I didn’t want to bring attention [to it].” When asked by Cavanaugh if he loved his mother, the boy said, “Hard to say.” The boy added he had not seen his mother since his parents’ divorce proceedings were held in November 2009. Immediately after the state rested its case Thursday morning, Smith moved to have the charges dismissed. His request was denied. Smith told Justice Robert Murray in the judge’s chambers that the case should be dismissed because there is no physical evidence to support the sexual assault allegation against his client. Smith added that Filler’s wife testified her memory was unclear about the alleged physical assaults and, though there was testimony about Filler’s wife having a bruise around the time of the second alleged assault, there has been no clear evidence introduced at trial about how she got that bruise. “This is a person who has problems with reality,” Smith told the judge. “I would suggest to the court that her credibility is suspect.” Cavanaugh, in a brief response to Smith’s motion, said the state supreme court already had reviewed the allegations against Filler and declined to dismiss the case. Cavanaugh added that the Law Court has ruled that allegations without physical evidence are enough to bring charges against alleged perpetrators. In denying the motion to dismiss on Thursday, Justice Murray said it is up to the jury to decide whether the evidence presented is credible enough to convict Filler. The state rested its case late Thursday morning after calling two Gouldsboro police officers and a friend of Filler’s wife to the witness stand. The police officers testified separately that Filler’s wife told them in mid-April 2007 she had been raped by Filler a few weeks earlier. The officers also testified that each had told Filler’s wife she should get a post-rape medical exam. Each officer also indicated that to his knowledge, she never did. The friend of Filler’s wife testified Thursday morning that she drove Filler’s wife to a friend’s house in Steuben on Saturday, April 21, 2007, but that she did not know the friend’s name or remember how to get there. When Filler called her the next day to ask where his family was, the friend said she told him truthfully that she did not know.
http://new.bangordailynews.com

ELLSWORTH, Maine — The chilling sound of a Steuben woman’s screams reverberated through the courtroom Wednesday as the sexual assault trial against her husbandcontinued in Hancock County Superior Court. The screams were from a recording of the woman being taken into protective custody by police on April 24, 2007, a little more than two weeks after she says her husband, Vladek Filler, raped her in their Gouldsboro home. The recording was presented Wednesday as evidence in the sexual assault retrial of Filler. Washington County sheriff’s deputies took Filler’s wife into protective custody on April 24 after she called police from a friend’s house in Steuben and they went to check on her well-being. Called as a prosecution witness, Lt. Travis Willey of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department testified that he found Filler’s wife on a rural road near a blueberry field, wearing no shoes, black pants and a bra, and carrying her youngest son, who then was about 18 months old, in a sweatshirt. Willey told the jury in Filler’s trial that he made the recording as he and other police took Filler’s wife into protective custody and took her to Down East Community Hospital in Machias for an evaluation. When questioned on the stand by Hancock County First Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh about her state of mind, Willey said Filler’s wife was not making a whole lot of sense. She appeared tired and, because she had white froth around her mouth, dehydrated as well, Willey said. “She seemed very irrational at the moment,” the deputy said. On the recording, Filler’s wife can be heard making accusations between her screams and other unintelligible comments. She threatens on the recording to kill her husband and says that he sexually assaulted her and her three children. The woman has two boys with Filler and she has a now-21-year-old daughter who was fathered by another man. “She didn’t go into details, but she did say that [Filler molested the children],” Willey said under cross-examination by Filler’s attorney, Stephen C. Smith of Bangor. Filler, 41, is on trial for assaulting and sexually assaulting his estranged wife, but has not been charged with any crimes against his two sons or his stepdaughter. Filler now lives in suburban Atlanta and has custody of their two sons, who are 5 and 14 years old. Filler originally was tried on the allegations in early 2009 and found guilty. But the trial judge and then the state supreme court ordered a retrial after Filler argued that the case’s previous prosecutor, Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett, inappropriately raised during closing arguments an issue that had been barred from testimony. During the trial on Wednesday, Filler’s wife was heard screaming on Lt. Willey’s recording, “I will kill him!” and “I’m not crazy! I‘m not crazy!” The jury of eight women and seven men, including three alternates, listened to the recording for about half an hour at the end of Wednesday’s testimony. The trial is expected to resume around 9 a.m. Thursday. Before Willey’s testimony, Steuben resident Linda Gleason testified that in the days leading up to Filler’s wife being taken into protective custody, Filler’s wife, stepdaughter and youngest son were staying with Gleason in Steuben. Gleason, a friend of Filler’s wife, said that they were staying with her after Filler and his wife had a fight about Filler’s wife using the car. Gleason said Filler’s wife called police from her house on April 23, 2007 — the day before she was taken to Machias for a mental evaluation — to tell them about the alleged rape she said happened on April 6 that year. In the days leading up to the recording, Gleason testified, she did not see Filler’s wife eat or sleep. Filler’s wife also testified earlier Wednesday while being cross-examined by Smith. The defense attorney questioned her about the alleged sexual assault on April 6, during which Filler supposedly sodomized her against the laundry washer and dryer machines in a bathroom. Filler’s wife answered slowly and several times asked Smith to repeat his questions. Several times throughout the day, each attorney objected to questions asked by the other. They held many sidebar sessions with presiding Justice Robert Murray, out of earshot of the jury, to discuss their objections or concerns before questioning resumed. Under cross-examination, Smith asked Filler’s wife how Filler held her down, which of his hands he used to do what, how her head was positioned during the alleged assault in relation to the machines and a laundry basket, and other questions about the incident. During the line of questioning, Filler’s wife said she does not know why she did not later get a post-rape medical exam, which police had recommended that she do. She also acknowledged that when she spoke to police about an unrelated matter on April 11, she never told them she had been raped five days earlier. Fillers wife also said that in December 2005, around the same time Filler allegedly threw water from a cup into her face during an argument, she was thinking about leaving her husband. She said she had gathered some personal documents and photographs in a bag in case she decided to leave. “I was afraid,” she testified. Smith asked her if she was afraid that, if she left, her husband would get custody of the children. “I was afraid,” she repeated. The prosecution is expected to continue calling witnesses on Thursday. Smith has said that Filler and his eldest son are each expected to testify in the trial. The trial is expected to conclude on either Thursday or Friday.
http://new.bangordailynews.com

ELLSWORTH, Maine — The wife of a man on trial for allegedly raping her in their Gouldsboro home in 2007 testified tearfully Tuesday in Hancock County Superior Court that he screamed insults at her during the incident. Called as the first witness in the retrial of Vladek Filler, his wife sobbed repeatedly on the witness stand late Tuesday morning as she described some of the incidents in which she said her estranged husband assaulted her. Filler and his wife are getting divorced, but the divorce is not yet final, she told the jury. The 41-year-old woman told the jury that in December 2005 there was an incident in which Filler was angry with her and yelling at her in the bathroom of their former Gouldsboro home. She said she could not remember why Filler was angry, but that twice he threw water from a cup into her face as he screamed at her. “He was insulting me,” she said as she tried to keep her emotions in check on the witness stand. She said he called her vulgar names and said she was worthless. “He called me all kinds of things,” she said. The alleged rape, she told the jury, occurred in April 2007. She said her husband did not want her to use the family car, but that she did so to make it to a haircut appointment. When she returned home, Filler stormed into the kitchen from another room and assaulted her, she said. “‘Who the …. do you think you are?’” she said Filler yelled at her as he grabbed her and threw her about the room. “I told you not to use the car.” The altercation continued into the nearby bathroom, where she said he pinned her against the laundry machines and forcibly sodomized her. “I couldn’t get out,” she testified, sobbing through tears on the stand. “He kept insulting me.” Filler, 41, was originally tried on the allegations in early 2009 and found guilty. But the trial judge and then the state supreme court ordered a retrial after Filler argued that the case’s previous prosecutor, Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett, inappropriately raised during closing arguments an issue that had been barred from testimony. Paul Cavanaugh, first assistant district attorney for Hancock County, is the prosecutor for Filler’s retrial. In March, Filler’s defense attorney, Stephen C. Smith of Bangor, filed a motion to have the trial moved to Portland because, he argued, media coverage of the case would make it difficult for Filler to get a fair trial in Hancock County. The presiding judge in Filler’s retrial, Robert Murray,denied the motion earlier this month. Cavanaugh and Smith each made an opening statement to the jury Tuesday morning. The jury consists of eight women and seven men, including three alternates. Cavanaugh summarized the allegations against Filler in his opening statement, saying Filler assaulted his wife twice and raped her once. Smith suggested to the jury in his opening remarks that Filler’s wife made up the allegations because she and Filler were in a custody battle over their two sons and that she was mentally unstable at the time the allegations arose. Smith said Filler is expected to testify in his own defense. The older of the 14- and 5-year-old boys, who are now in the custody of their father, also is expected to testify, the defense attorney told the jury. Filler’s wife continued testifying Tuesday afternoon, telling the jury about the timeline of events in her life that led up to and followed the alleged assaults. She testified that, in another alleged assault, Filler refused to let her use the tap water in the house and physically threw her out of the bathroom, bruising her arm in the process. Dr. John Lorenz, a psychologist appointed as guardian ad litem of Filler’s children during the Fillers’ subsequent divorce proceedings, also testified Tuesday. Though Lorenz was called as a prosecution witness, he testified under cross examination by Smith that Filler had custody of their two sons throughout the divorce process. Lorenz also said he recommended that Filler keep custody of the boys after the divorce was final. Lorenz said that in 2009, during Filler’s first trial, he recommended that the boys live with Filler’s mother and sister in suburban Atlanta if their father was sent to jail. Testimony stopped for the day around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday after Cavanaugh finished questioning Filler’s wife. Testimony is expected to resume at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday with Filler’s wife being cross-examined by Smith. The trial tentatively is expected to conclude sometime on Thursday.
http://new.bangordailynews.com

ELLSWORTH, Maine — A jury has been selected in the retrial of a former Gouldsboro man accused of sexually assaulting his wife. Vladek Filler’s new trial is expected to get under way Tuesday morning, May 24, in Hancock County Superior Court. Filler, 41, who now lives in suburban Atlanta, was tried and convicted in 2009 of one count of gross sexual assault and two counts of assault against his then wife. The trial judge, and then the state supreme court, ordered a retrial in the case after Filler’s attorney filed an objection to comments that Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett made during her closing arguments. Filler has a new defense attorney for his new trial and a different prosecutor, First Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh, is trying the case. The parties appeared in a Bangor courtroom earlier this month to present oral arguments about a motion to dismiss two of the charges, gross sexual assault and one count of assault, and another motion to move the trial out of Hancock County, among others. Justice Robert Murray, who will preside over Filler’s retrial, denied the dismissal and change-of-venue motions. Court officials were concerned that intense media coverage of the case — which has been generated in part by supporters of Filler who claim that Kellett handled the case inappropriately — might affect their ability to select and seat a jury. Nonetheless, a jury was picked successfully in Hancock County this past Monday. Filler’s supporters claim his wife fabricated the assault allegations as part of a custody dispute over their two sons, who now live with their father in Georgia. After his first trial, Filler was granted custody of his two sons in the couple’s subsequent divorce.
http://new.bangordailynews.com

I can’t speak about the Filler case with Paul Elam’s authority, but I offer my two cents merely to supplement Paul’s coverage of this sad spectacle of so-called justice. I am confident that Mr. Filler will be acquitted. Why? You will recall what happened at the first trial: the prosecution improperly prevented Filler from mounting the only defense available to him by keeping evidence of the custody battle out of the case. That was bad enough. What happened next is the kind of cheap, dishonest lawyer trick one would expect from a disreputable ambulance chaser, not a guardian of justice who bears the title of prosecutor: the prosecution exploited that improper victory by telling the jury the following: “I would ask you where the evidence is to back up his statement that he stated in both his opening and his closing that this is a marriage that was ending, this is a child custody, this was a first step in a child custody fight. Where is one piece of evidence about that? . . . . The suggestion that [Filler's wife] has made this all up just for the purpose of getting ahead in the child custody, where is the evidence of that? . . . . Custody dispute? Where is that?” Of course the prosecutor knew “where the evidence” was to back up Mr. Vladek’s defense that the claims against him were fabricated to gain the upper hand in a custody dispute: the prosecution kept it out of the trial, that’s where it was. The prosecutor’s suggestion to the jury that there was no child custody dispute is both heinous and unpardonable. Did the jury have any choice but to convict, in light of the fact that Mr. Filler’s lawyer promised the jury evidence of a child custody dispute and failed to deliver on it? That won’t happen at the retrial. The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine has given the trial court its marching orders by writing an opinion that is now the law of the case. At the retrial, the trial court is not permitted to deviate from or to overrule the legal principles announced in that opinion. The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine has made clear that “evidence of a complaining witness’s motivation bears directly on the issue of credibility. . . ..” Here, “evidence that Filler’s wife had taken legal steps to gain custody of the children was relevant because it made a fact of consequence–whether she had a motive to fabricate her allegations of abuse–more probable than not. . . . . [E]vidence of the legal actions taken by Filler’s wife would have supported Filler’s theory that she had an ulterior motive in making the claims in the first instance. . . . . Filler’s wife’s credibility was central to the outcome of the case and Filler’s defense necessarily rested on his impeachment of her. Thus, the probative value of her motivation for potentially fabricating the allegations of abuse was substantial. . . . .this relevant evidence would have required only a few minutes of trial time to be fully explored.” In light of the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, I don’t see how evidence of the custody battle can be kept out of the retrial, and I don’t see how that evidence won’t cast at least a reasonable doubt in the minds of a reasonable jury. The astounding thing is that the prosecutor didn’t drop the case in light of what the appellate court ruled.
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com

BANGOR, Maine — After a judge on Thursday denied several legal motions during a pretrial hearing, the trial of a Georgia man accused of raping his wife is expected to go forward this month in Ellsworth. Vladek Filler, 41, formerly of Gouldsboro, was found guilty in 2009 of raping his wife but, after his then-attorney argued that a prosecutor made an inappropriate comment during her closing argument, Filler requested a re-trial. The trial judge, Justice Kevin Cuddy, granted the request — a decision that later was upheld by the state supreme court. Jury selection in the new trial is expected to be held Monday, May 16, in Hancock County Superior Court. Filler is facing two counts of assault and one count of gross sexual assault. On Monday, Filler’s new defense attorney, Stephen C. Smith, on Thursday asked the new trial judge, Robert Murray, to dismiss the gross sexual assault charge and one assault charge against Filler. Smith argued that there is not enough evidence to support the assault charge, and said that the judge who presided over Filler’s divorce proceedings determine that the alleged sexual assault did not occur. The divorce resulted in Filler gaining custody of his two sons. Paul Cavanaugh, the new prosecutor in the case, told Murray that the divorce judge’s opinion has no bearing on the state’s criminal prosecution of Filler. The divorce was not an adjudication of the criminal allegations against Filler, he said. Murray denied both of Smith’s motions to dismiss charges against Filler. Smith also had filed a motion seeking a change of venue in the case. The attorney cited several media articles about Filler’s case and has said that they contain comments by Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett, the prosecutor for Filler’s first trial, that are “extensive and persuasive” and that have been “designed to engender ill will” toward his client. Smith argued that the case should be moved out of the print coverage area of the Bangor Daily News because of the amount of attention the case has received in the BDN. He suggested that Portland would be the best location because of its distance from the Bangor media market. Cavanaugh countered Smith’s claims by saying that much of the media attention surrounding Filler’s case has been generated by Filler and by groups that have taken up his cause — including one that held a press conference Thursday morning outside the Bangor courthouse that included Filler standing in front of news organization video cameras. Several of those groups have highlighted Filler’s case on their websites, saying he has been unfairly prosecuted and criticizing Kellett’s prosecution of the case. Kellett has declined to comment on the Filler case or on the accusations against her. “It is not genuine [for Filler] to complain about the [extent of media] coverage,” Cavanaugh told the judge Thursday. Murray denied Smith’s request for a change of venue. He said that, despite the media coverage, it has not been demonstrated that the media attention has been prejudicial against Filler. Murray also considered other arguments raised by Smith, such as whether certain testimony or potential items of evidence such as emails or photographs might be admitted during the trial. Murray said he would have to decide during the trial whether to allow such testimony or evidence to be submitted, depending on how the case is presented to the jury. Before Thursday’s hearing, relatives of Filler, representatives of the group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, and another former rape defendant held a press conference outside the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor. They said that too many questionable cases alleging sexual assaults in Hancock County are being brought against men who end up being acquitted. SAVE President Edward Bartlett said Thursday that funding for criminal prosecutions in Maine should be reduced to help lower the number of what he said are frivolous prosecutions brought against innocent men. Bartlett said that on Wednesday, his group delivered to Gov. Paul LePage’s office in Augusta a petition with more than 1,000 signatures on it. The petition requests that Kellett be disbarred and that all charges against Filler be dropped, he said. Mike Webber, 38, of Penobscot said he was tried twice in Hancock County in recent years, once on 14 sexual assault or contact charges and a second time on charges of assault and unlawful sexual touching. Both trials were the result of a custody battle he was having with his ex-wife, he said, and both times he was acquitted. Webber said the accusations against him were fabricated and he never should have been prosecuted. He said the experience has damaged his personal life and his auto repair business. “I lost four years of my life,” Webber said. “Somebody tried to use me as an example, for what I don’t know. I’m still trying to put things back together.”
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/12/news

Part 1

Up until the 1970’s we had few laws and no real system in place to protect victims of child abuse, domestic violence and/or marital rape. At that time this type of violence was treated more like a family matter to be dealt with within the confines of the family and not through the criminal justice system. Victims of family violence were not taken as seriously as they are today and there were few remedies for them.

Today, when an accusation of child abuse, domestic violence and/or marital rape is made by or on behalf of an alleged victim we have a myriad of laws and services in place. We expect the authorities to take each report of family violence seriously, to investigate it thoroughly and hold the guilty person accountable for their actions. We want the guilty punished and the victim protected from further harm.

However, rarely are things are as black and white as they may appear, especially when it comes to human relationships. At times, perpetrators of family crimes are able to fool authorities and others into believing that they are victims. These perpetrators pose as victims for several reasons; to seek retribution against an intimate partner for leaving them, to cover up the fact that they are the abusive partner/parent, to get custody of the children in a divorce, and/or to prevent the real victims from the getting assistance and support.

A perpetrator that is validated as a victim can wield a tremendous amount of power over their victim, especially if the perpetrator is a woman. Female perpetrator/victims have the ability access to free victim and legal services and all the support they need to continue the charade.

Law enforcement personnel, social service workers and others who assist alleged victims of family violence crimes may have, “perceptual accentuation.” Perceptual accentuation is a process that leads a person to see and perceive what they want and expect to see and perceive as reality, even if it isn't reality.

We like to believe that justice will always be served, the guilty will pay and the innocent will go free. However, that’s not always the case. At times, the police, DA’s and others involved in investigating and prosecuting crimes get it wrong. DNA testing has exonerated many a prisoner who was once investigated, prosecuted and found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Abusive people who pretend to be victims seem to have little fear of authority and no compunction about lying to get what they want. Sadly, these types of people can tie their victim’s stomach, life, and future up in knots and forever change the lives of other innocent victims who get caught up in their web of decent, namely the children.

Vladek Filler, formerly of Hancock County, Maine probably believed in the justice system at one time…that is before he became a victim of it. Vladek has learned much about the justice system over the last four years. Mostly importantly, he has learned that once the “wheels of justice” are set in motion the truth no longer matters.

In early 2007, after many years of marriage to a woman who was reportedly physically, emotionally and psychologically abusive Vladek decided it was time to end his marriage. He was deeply concerned for his children’s safety and welfare given that they had been the targets of her abuse also. He was, perhaps, naïve enough to think that he and his wife could divorce amicably and put the children’s needs first and foremost.

Vladek started making plans to move to Georgia where his mother and sister were also relocating. His soon to be ex had other plans for him. Shortly after he asked for a divorce his wife filed a police report claiming that Vladek had raped and assaulted her during their marriage. She also made claims that he molested and abused the children.

Vladek was arrested and jailed on charges of gross sexual assault and domestic assault against his wife. Evidently there was some question about his wife’s parenting abilities because after Vladek’s arrest the minor children were placed in the custody of child protective services, not the custody of their mother.

Could the children being place in foster care instead of their mother’s care have anything to do with this police audio (recorded the same month that the ex Mrs. Filler filed the police reports of rape and assault against her fleeing husband)? In this audio you can hear the ex Mrs. Filler screaming death threats and obscenities one minute and laughing hysterically the next as police officers attempt to subdue her as she is walking down the road barefoot, without a shirt, and carrying her toddler in her arms. Even the judge in their divorce trial found her actions on that evening appalling and terrifying to their toddler.

http://domesticviolenceresourcesformen.blogspot.com/2011/04/

PRESS RELEASE: Rape Accusation a ‘Fabrication,’ Says Former Natalee Holloway Investigator
www.cnbc.com

I've reported over the years on the problems facing our nations' abuse shelters, including funding woes, over-worked staff, loosey-goosey procedures, and even illegal conduct. But nowhere have I seen what I'm going to reveal about the Next Step, a shelter located near Bar Harbor in lobster-addled Maine...

On March 15, 2007, the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence unveiled three ambitious bills. One bill would create a new class of crimes for "domestic violence assaults." A second bill would establish a so-called "predominant aggressor" policy that would help police sort out cases of mutual abuse. And the third bill would restore $1.9 million from previous budget cuts: http://www.nextstepdvproject.org/2008-dv-legislation/

But to get political traction, the issue would need to garner loads of media coverage. And enticing media interest would require...you guessed it...flesh and blood victims.

As revealed by blog entries on its website, the Next Step staff is a politically active bunch, making frequent lobbying forays to the state capitol in Augusta. The shelter workers knew they desperately needed to find a poster child who could be paraded around so legislators could be persuaded to sign on to the proposed laws.

Problem is, victims of battering are in short supply these days. So when no victim is known to exist, the solution is obvious: fabricate one!

Following is the account of Ligia Filler, 41, a native of Guatemala and ersatz domestic violence victim. A web of police reports, judge's orders, sworn testimony, and a recent Maine Supreme Court decision forms the basis for the improbable tale I'm about to share...

Abandoned as a child, Ligia first traveled to the United States at age 17 to meet her parents for the first time. By then Ligia had developed severe psychological problems, attempting suicide several times.

In 1991 she met Vladek Filler. They married and eventually had two children. But the marital union didn't resolve the emotional torment; in fact, she repeatedly abused the children, both physically and emotionally. Once she punched Vladek in the face in front of the children.

A judge would later award custody of the children to the father, finding that "The children were victims of violence from their mother," including hitting one child "with spatulas and spoons, leaving bruises."

The children began to speak openly about wanting to avoid their mother for their own safety. In the Spring of 2007, Vladek decided he had to take necessary steps to protect the kids from the escalating abuse.

When he announced that he and the children would soon be leaving the marital residence, Ligia went into a funk that turned rageful, her abuse quickly spinning out of control.

The following day, Vladek contacted the Next Step shelter, begging for help. Not only did Next Step refuse his request, the staff mocked him. Little did he realize that the Next Step had already taken Ligia under its wing, coaching her to make allegations of domestic violence against the very victim of her long-standing abuse, Vladek Filler.

April 24 witnessed a complete break-down, with a partially dressed Ligia running in the streets, vowing to kill police officers on the scene, and accusing Vladek of child molestation and marital rape. One officer can be heard remarking the woman was "certifiable" for involuntary commitment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsKIcQhjaJg&feature=player_embedded#at=20

Regarding the child molestation claim, the Ellsworth District Court later ruled, "That allegation was false and known to be false. She has shown a capacity to manufacture claims."

But inexplicably, a marital rape accusation by an unhinged woman was viewed as credible. Vladek was arrested and charged.

Ligia was carted off to the hospital for a shrink-check. And as soon as she was released, Ligia became a god-send for the Next Step and its stalled legislative agenda.

Knowing that the Next Step was footing the legal bill, Ligia allowed herself to be persuaded to make lurid allegations of sexual violations, shamelessly amplified by the local prosecutor. "It was sexual punishment," prosecutor Mary Kellett recounted with a straight face to the Bangor Daily News. "It was punitive and angry."

Maine newspapers would eventually run 11 separate stories on the case, replete with riveting details of the alleged attack.

The facts that Ligia was a known child abuser, that there was no confirmatory medical or forensic evidence, that she refused a rape kit evaluation, that she was likely motivated by an impending custody dispute, and that Ligia was known to locals as "that crazy woman" gave little pause to the media bloodhounds.

During the trial, DA Kellett improperly withheld key exculpatory evidence, leading the Maine Supreme Court to later chastise her for prosecutorial misconduct and to remand the case for a retrial: http://www.courts.state.me.us/court_info/opinions/2010%20documents/10me90fi.pdf

The Next Step's devious ploy was successful, the political payoff incalculable. All three domestic violence bills introduced in March were enacted into law. At the ceremonial signing on July 25, 2007, Gov. John Baldacci marveled at the achievement, warning, "Too many women and children are being victimized, and each story is tragic and compelling."

Vladek Filler and his two children, victims of an abusive woman, were not in attendance. And Ligia, now divorced and estranged from her children, has yet to receive the mental health treatment she so desperately needs.

http://www.renewamerica.com

Listen to internet radio with AVoiceforMen on Blog Talk Radio

PRESS RELEASE Rape Accusation a ‘Fabrication,’ Says Former Natalee Holloway Investigator Contact: Teri Stoddard, 301-801-0608, tstoddard@saveservices.org WASHINGTON / April 5, 2011 – The former lead investigator of the high-profile Natalee Holloway case is now calling for Maine prosecutors to drop their 4-year-old case against Vladek Filler. TJ Ward, a lead investigator in the Natalee Holloway case in Aruba, has concluded the original allegation was a “fabrication” and believes continued prosecution of the innocent man would be “malicious.” In a recent radio interview, Ward ticked off a long list of irregularities in the case involving an allegation of rape that was made in the course of a marital break-up. The accuser had a well-known psychiatric condition. She refused the rape kit that the doctor offered to use. During the trial, the prosecutor provided no medical or forensic evidence. Worse, the prosecutor wrongfully blocked the introduction of evidence that would have served to prove Mr. Filler’s innocence. The exculpatory evidence included evidence that the accuser was a known child abuser, that she had a record of prior criminal charges, and that the defendant had requested a restraining order to protect him and his children from her abusive behavior. Ward also highlighted that the state Department of Health and Human Services had sided with Mr. Filler by recommending he continue to have custody of the children. But Kellett sought to bar that fact, as well. “It’s just a shame that this gentlemen…has come here to the United States, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, and is experiencing this type of behavior, when he’s been exonerated, when he’s not guilty with what he’s charged with, and they’re continuing to hound this man and run him into the ground.” The State of Maine’s prosecution of Vladek Filler has attracted international media attention. In December, the state Supreme Court criticized assistant district attorney Mary Kellett for prosecutorial misconduct and ordered a retrial. The case is scheduled to be heard May 23-26 in Ellsworth Superior Court, Maine. The interview of TJ Ward can be heard here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avoiceformen Stop Abusive and Violent Environments is now calling for the immediate dismissal of all charges against Mr. Filler: http://www.saveservices.org/wpcontent/uploads/BassanoLtr4.4.2011.pdf
http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/April-5-PR-Dismiss-the-Charges.pdf
http://www.saveservices.org/press-releases/

ELLSWORTH, Maine —- A former Gouldsboro resident who is expected to get retried on a rape charge next month is asking that his new trial be held outside of Hancock County.

Vladek Filler, 41, is claiming that his case has received too much media attention in eastern Maine for him to get a fair trial, according to documents filed in Hancock County Superior Court. Filler was arrested in April 2007 on multiple charges and later, in January 2009, was convicted by a jury of one count of gross sexual assault and two counts of assault against his wife. Those convictions subsequently were overturned by Justice Kevin Cuddy when he ordered a retrial in Filler’s case.

Filler’s attorney, Stephen C. Smith of Bangor, cited 11 newspaper articles in a motion he filed March 29 in Superior Court on behalf of his client. The articles and comments made in them by Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett have been “extensive and persuasive” and have been “designed to engender ill will toward [Filler],” he wrote.

“Publicity in this case has been high profile and fanned by the prosecution,” Smith wrote in the document. “The defense respectfully asserts that any impartial jury and a fair trial can only be gained through a change of venue to Portland, Maine.”

In an email Monday, Smith declined to comment on his change of venue motion or about media coverage of his client’s case. He wrote in the email that Filler lives out of state with his two sons. Smith indicated in the email that he plans to file a motion seeking to have Filler’s felony gross sexual assault charge dismissed.

The Hancock County District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, had not filed a response to Filler’s motion by Monday afternoon. First Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh, who will be the prosecutor for Filler’s new trial, could not be reached Monday for comment.

Aside from the attention Filler’s case has received in print media, it also has received and continues to receive a lot of attention on the Internet, where several websites and blogs have criticized Kellett’s former handling of the case. Kellett was the prosecutor who presented the state’s case against Filler at his previous trial.

Kellett declined last week to comment about the Filler case.

Several websites and blogs encourage supporters of Filler’s cause to contact the media and state officials about Filler’s situation and Kellett’s handling of the case. One of the sites is called “A Voice for Men” while another is called “Anti Misandry — Curing Feminist Indoctrination.” Other such websites include or are maintained by National Coalition For Men, Fillerfund.com, and The False Rape Society.

Another group that supports Filler, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, last week issued a press release in which it claims to have filed a complaint against Kellett with the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar, seeking her disbarment. An official with the state agency, citing its confidentiality policy, declined last week to confirm whether the agency had received any such complaint about Kellett.

Last September, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld a decision to grant Filler a retrial, saying that testimony that was barred from Filler’s trial should have been allowed. After Filler was convicted, he requested and was granted a new trial by Cuddy, the trial judge. Kellett then appealed Cuddy’s decision to the state supreme court.

Filler’s defense attorney at the time, Daniel Pileggi of Ellsworth, was barred by Cuddy during the first trial from introducing testimony about attempts by Filler’s wife to gain custody of their two young sons. Filler claimed the marriage was deteriorating and that his wife fabricated the assault allegations in order to gain custody of the children.

Kellett had argued that allowing such testimony during Filler’s trial would confuse jurors about the issue they were being asked to decide, which was the assault allegations, not the custody dispute. Cuddy agreed to prohibit testimony about the wife’s efforts to gain custody of the boys, but did allow Pileggi to tell jurors that the marriage was disintegrating and that a custody dispute was likely.

But after the trial, in response to a motion from Filler for a retrial, Cuddy ruled that Kellett went too far with some of her comments in her closing argument. Kellett had said there was no evidence of a child custody dispute, which Cuddy said warranted a retrial because he had barred any testimony about the child custody dispute.

The Law Court later decided that testimony about the child custody dispute should have been allowed in the trial, and agreed with Cuddy that Kellett “amplified” that prejudice in her closing argument. The Law Court ruled last September in favor of Cuddy’s retrial order.

Filler’s new trial is tentatively scheduled to take place in Hancock County Superior Court in May.

http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/04/04/

[The following press release went out to 10,000 media outlets today. - PE] PRESS RELEASE Contact: Teri Stoddard: 301-801-0608 tstoddard@saveservices.org Maine Prosecutor Coddles Known Child Abuser In Pursuit of False Rape Claim WASHINGTON, March 30 / P.R. Newswire / Victim advocacy group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) has filed a Grievance Complaint with the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar, requesting the disbarment of assistant district attorney Mary Kellett. The Complaint can be seen here: http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/COMPLA1.pdf “Thanks to prosecutor Kellett, proven child abusers in Maine know they can get a free pass by making a claim of rape,” explains Philip W. Cook, SAVE spokesman. “Mary Kellett has prosecuted many innocent citizens on allegations of domestic violence and rape. The Board of Overseers of the Bar needs to disbar prosecutor Kellett immediately.” The case arose from the accusations of Ligia Filler, a proven child abuser with a previous criminal charge history. “The children were victims of violence from their mother,” including hitting her oldest daughter with spatulas and spoons, according to a December 3, 2009 Ellsworth (Maine) District Court ruling. One son said that his mother “would hit everyone in the house. She was a terror to everybody.” After Ligia’s husband Vladek indicated his plan to leave the marital home for the safety of the children, Ms. Filler had an apparent mental break-down, running through the streets partially clothed, screaming death threats at police officers on the scene. Ligia made an allegation of marital rape, and within few days prosecutor Mary Kellett filed charges. No forensic, medical, or other physical evidence of sexual assault was presented during the trial. Assistant district attorney Kellett repeatedly sought to bar the introduction of key evidence that would serve to exonerate the defendant. Court-appointed attorney Neil Fishman later commented the proceeding was so flawed that it resembled a “Salem Witch Trial.” On September 9, 2010 the Maine Supreme Court issued a ruling that found Kellett had “improperly encouraged the jury to use the absence of evidence regarding the marriage ending and a child custody dispute…as a reason to reject Filler’s defense.” The case was remanded for a retrial in May. More information on the case can be seen at http://www.saveservices.org/abuse-hysteria-campaign.
http://www.saveservices.org/press-releases/
http://www.avoiceformen.com/2011/03/30/s-a-v-e-issues-press-release-on-mary-kellett/
http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/03/30/2949145/maine-prosecutor-coddles-known.html

From what I can see, Paul Elam's A Voice for Men has amassed overwhelming evidence of prosecutorial bias against a man named Vladek Filler, who was tried in Maine and found guilty by a jury of one count of gross sexual assault and two counts of assault. After the verdict, the trial court granted Mr. Filler's motion for a new trial due to the exclusion by the trial court of certain potentially crucial evidence that would have shown a motive for his ex-wife to fabricate the claims against him, and because of improper remarks of the prosecutor in her closing argument.

Paul is featuring the case on a very special edition of A Voice for Men Radio tonight, and I know that our readers will be glued to it. Paul has amassed much information that is beyond the reported judicial decision of the Filler case, so I thought it would be appropriate for us to confine our focus to the actual decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine to explain why the Court concluded that the prosecution unfairly prejudiced Mr. Filler.

First, it is well to note the prosecution's theory of the case, as reported in the Bangor Daily News immediately after the jury verdict that found Mr. Filler guilty: "According to investigators, Filler’s wife alleged that her husband forced her to have sex against her will when he became angry. . . . . Filler’s control of his wife manifested itself in his temper and in sexual assaults, according to Kellett. . . .. 'I’m very pleased with the outcome,' Kellett said. 'It is an appropriate outcome.' . . . . Filler’s control of his wife manifested itself in his temper and in sexual assaults, according to Kellett. 'It was sexual punishment, so it was very hard for her to talk about,” the prosecutor said. 'It was punitive and angry.'" See here .

After that article was written, the trial court had misgivings about its own handling of the case and granted Mr. Filler a new trial based on the improper exclusion of evidence about the child custody dispute, and due to the improper remarks of the prosecutor in her closing argument that exploited the exclusion of that evidence by suggesting there was no child custody dispute.

On appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, the courtaffirmed the order granting a new trial. That decision is reported at 2010 ME 90, 3 A.3d 365 (2010). The Court wrote:

"The charges [against Vladek Filler] stemmed from allegations thatFiller physically and sexually assaulted his wife on several occasions between December 2005 and April 2007. . . . . Filler's defense was premised on the theory, introduced in his opening statement, that his wife fabricated or exaggerated her allegations against him to gain an advantage in an anticipated custody case involving their minor children . . .. Filler was not allowed to question his wife on cross-examination to establish that his wife had initiated a series of legal actions to secure legal custody of the children after she had alleged the incidents of abuse that resulted in Filler's prosecution."

It is well to note that it was the prosecutor who objected to allowing Mr. Filler's lawyer to question the wife regarding the custody dispute. During the trial, the trial court erroneously agreed with the prosecution and excluded the evidence because the judge (wrongly) believed that such evidence would sidetrack the case. (In fact, the trial judge would later see the error of his order excluding the evidence because such evidence would have great probative value in impeaching the wife's credibility.)

Here is where the prosecutorial error comes in. After having improperly prevented Filler from mounting the only defense available to him by keeping evidence of the custody battle out of the case, the prosecution exploited that improper victory to put the final nail in the coffin of Vladek Filler. In her closing argument to the jury, the prosecutor said the following:

"I would ask you where the evidence is to back up his statement that he stated in both his opening and his closing that this is a marriage that was ending, this is a child custody, this was a first step in a child custody fight. Where is one piece of evidence about that? . . . . The suggestion that [Filler's wife] has made this all up just for the purpose of getting ahead in the child custody, where is the evidence of that? . . . . Custody dispute? Where is that?"

Of course the prosecutor knew "where the evidence" was to back up Mr. Vladek's defense that the claims against him were fabricated to gain the upper hand in a custody dispute: she kept it out of the trial, that's where it was. Her suggestion to the jury that there was no child custody dispute is both heinous and unpardonable. Did the jury have any choice but to convict, in light of the fact that Mr. Filler's lawyer promised evidence of a child custody dispute and failed to deliver on it?

According to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine: "Filler objected to the State's rebuttal and moved for a mistrial. He argued, among other things, that the State had improperly encouraged the jury to use the absence of evidence regarding the marriage ending and a child custody dispute--evidence that had been excluded based on the State's objection--as a reason to reject Filler's defense."

The trial court eventually granted Filler's motion for a new trial on the basis that the prosecutor's rebuttal argument referenced the absence of evidence of a child custody dispute among the parties. The trial court also held that it should not have excluded evidence of the child custody dispute.

In affirming the grant of a new trial, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine held that the grant of the new trial was correct because "evidence of a complaining witness's motivation bears directly on the issue of credibility. . . .." The court explained: "we have recognized that '[t]he exposure of a witness' motivation in testifying is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination.'" The court cited precedent in another case that "a defendant was entitled to a new trial when the court excluded testimony regarding the alleged victim's prior threats to fabricate claims that the defendant had raped her. . . .. The evidence was erroneously excluded because it 'demonstrated a distinct manifestation of [the alleged victim's] vindictiveness' towards the defendant. . . . . . We concluded that when the victim is the State's primary witness against the defendant, 'evidence tending to impeach [the victim's] credibility ha[s] greatly enhanced probative value.'" Here, "evidence that Filler's wife had taken legal steps to gain custody of the children was relevant because it made a fact of consequence--whether she had a motive to fabricate her allegations of abuse--more probable than not. . . . . [E]vidence of the legal actions taken by Filler's wife would have supported Filler's theory that she had an ulterior motive in making the claims in the first instance. . . . . Filler's wife's credibility was central to the outcome of the case and Filler's defense necessarily rested on his impeachment of her. Thus, the probative value of her motivation for potentially fabricating the allegations of abuse was substantial. . . . . this relevant evidence would have required only a few minutes of trial time to be fully explored."

As for the prosecutorial error, here is what the court wrote: "The prosecutor's rebuttal argument . . . suggested that Filler's theory of the case should be disbelieved because there was no evidence that the marriage was ending or that his wife took any steps related to a child custody dispute: 'I would ask you where the evidence is to back up his statement that he stated in both his opening and his closing that this is a marriage that was ending . . . this was a first step in a child custody fight? Where is one piece of evidence about that?' The prosecutor's reference to 'a first step' refers directly to Filler's wife's report to the police that Filler had victimized her. The absence of even 'one piece of evidence about that' refers to a second step--an actual child custody fight or divorce proceeding. Thus, the State's rebuttal argument asked the jury to reject Filler's defense that his wife had a motive to fabricate her allegations because of the absence of any evidence that she had taken any legal steps to acquire custody of the children.

". . . . the State's rebuttal argument created a high likelihood that Filler was unfairly prejudiced. . . . . The likelihood that the jury might have been persuaded to accept the central premise of Filler's defense--that his wife had a strong motive to fabricate her claims--was greatly diminished by the State's emphasis on the absence of evidence that the marriage was ending and the parties were engaged in a child custody dispute. The court did not err in concluding that the interest of justice requires a new trial."

A prosecutor is the gatekeeper of justice whose job is not merely to convict but to do justice. That's a hefty burden to place on someone whose job performance is too often judged by his or her success in the courtroom. But do justice they must. The prosecutor here did not do justice. A prosecutor should only bring charges, as Prof. Bennett L. Gershman described it, when he or she is convinced to a moral certainty of both the defendant's factual and legal guilt. To bring charges when there is any less certainty, and then to suggest to the jury that the man on trial has no defense precisely because the prosecutor has improperly prevented him from presenting it, scarcely fulfills the prosecutor's duty to do justice. It invites miscarriages and the possible conviction of an innocent defendant.

Prosecutor Mary Kellet's actions in the Filler case were morally grotesque and warrant her discharge. In light of this case, it is questionable whether any man can get a fair trial when she is prosecuting him.

http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com

Listen to internet radio with AVoiceforMen on Blog Talk Radio

This May, Maine resident Vladek Filler will finally get a new trial. He’s been in prison for almost two years having been convicted of raping his wife, Ligia Barrientos Filler.

From the outside, his conviction looks to be one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice to come along is a good while. Of course, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know all the facts and circumstances, but this one doesn’t pass the smell test.

Vladek and Ligia had been married for 16 years when he decided to end their marriage. Ligia responded to that with multiple allegations of sexual abuse of their children. Filler’s website here includes the audio tape police made when neighbors called them to apprehend Ligia who was in the street, partially clad and screaming about sexual abuse.

The state Department of Health and Human Services investigated Ligia’s claims and found them to be entirely baseless. The family court judge was so impressed with Ligia’s claims that she awarded custody of the children to Vladek saying,

“[Ligia Filler] accused Mr. Filler of molesting the children. That allegation was false and known to be false. She has shown a capacity to manufacture claims…

That capacity for manufacturing claims apparently came, not only from her relationship with Vladek, but as well from those with other men previously.

Having failed in her attempt to separate him from his children, Ligia then cried rape. That got Vladek jailed; he made bail and turned his attentions to saving his children from harm at the hands of their mother who seems to have mental/emotional problems. Such was the conclusion drawn by police and sheriff’s deputies. That’s when the family court awarded him custody.

But just when it seemed that justice had prevailed, enter stage left, Assistant District Attorney, Mary Kellett. Kellett looks to be the type of prosecutor who, steeped in the politics of the 80s, assumes all claims of rape to be true. It seems she takes them all to trial irrespective of their objective merits. Given that rape, unlike most criminal charges, requires nothing beyond the say-so of the complaining witness to get to trial, there’s nothing to stop the likes of Kellett from forcing falsely accused men to trial. That’s what it looks like happened in Filler’s case.

After all, many prosecutors would look askance at a case in which the woman had praised the man as “the most loving and caring man and father” she had ever known, but who suddenly, when he announces his intention to divorce her, levels baseless accusations of child sexual abuse at him.

Into the bargain, Ligia refused to be medically examined and there was in fact no medical evidence whatsoever offered by the state at trial.

There’s more. Ligia claimed Vladek had assaulted her on several occasions, but the defense was able to prove that many of those times Vladek was elsewhere. On one of the dates, their 12-year-old son was present. He testified that nothing had occurred. He also testified that he’d never seen his father be violent toward his mother, but he had seen her commit violence against his dad.

Add all that to that the fact that the complainant has falsely accused men in the past and has evident emotional problems and most prosecutors would know what to do - drop the case. Not Kellett. She took Filler’s case to trial and won a conviction. How? She got the judge to exclude all evidence that the allegations arose from a fight over child custody as well as all evidence of Ligia’s previous lies.

If that weren’t bad enough, she then told the jury in closing argument that there was no custody case. That proved too much even for the trial judge who ruled the verdict to be a product of prosecutorial misconduct and ordered a new trial. The Maine Supreme Court agreed and Vladek Filler will get another opportunity to prove his innocence.

Hopefully the trial judge will have learned his lesson about just who Ligia Filler is and will make evidentiary rulings accordingly. The life of a thoroughly decent man and the welfare of his children are at stake.

In the mean time, Vladek has filed a multi-page, multi-count complaint with the Maine State Bar concerning Mary Kellett’s misbehavior. When that is scheduled to be ruled on, I don’t know.

I’d bet good money that Vladek Filler is an innocent man railroaded into prison by an unstable wife threatened with the loss of her kids and an unscrupulous prosecutor who believes all claims of rape. We’ll follow this case as it goes to trial.

http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/

Listen to internet radio with AVoiceforMen on Blog Talk Radio

Vladek Filler will get a new trial. In this opinion, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirms the ruling of the trial court setting aside his conviction of sexual abuse and ordering that he be retried (Leagle, 9/9/10). Important as well is the fact that the court ruled that the trial court erred in excluding evidence that Filler's wife used the charges she leveled against him as a tactic in their child custody matter.

If you haven't read about Filler's case, it's a doozy. He and his wife Ligia had been married for 16 years and had two children, when Filler filed for divorce. The ensuing custody battle set off a series of claims by Ligia that Filler had sexually abused her. This was the man Ligia had called "the most loving and caring man and father she had ever seen."

Despite the fact that there was no evidence to corroborate her claims, despite the fact that she refused a medical examination and despite the fact that Ligia was considered to be "mentally unstable" by the local police, Filler was found guilty by the jury of three counts of sexual abuse.

That was largely because the judge had refused to admit evidence to prove that Ligia's claims had come in the course of a bitter custody fight. Into the bargain, the court did allow the prosecutor to ask the jury during final argument, "where is one piece of evidence about that (i.e. the custody fight)?"

Even the trial court recognized that it had erred in allowing prosecutor Mary Kellett to make that argument, so it ruled that Filler was entitled to a new trial. The state appealed that order, but the appellate court agreed with Filler and the trial court that he should get another chance to prove his innocence. But it went further than the trial court saying that, in the new trial, Filler can bring in all of the evidence about the custody matter and the fact that none of the allegations had been made until custody became an issue.

That's obviously important to Vladek Filler, but, since it's a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court, it's also important to countless other men in Maine. No more will their criminal trials on allegations of domestic abuse be marred by their inability to adduce evidence that the charges arose in the course of child custody cases.

Men's and fathers' rights advocates in Maine aren't exactly the biggest fans of Mary Kellett. They describe her as a prosecutor who will believe any woman who claims sexual or physical abuse against her partner, irrespective of the evidence. They say she uses her office to separate fathers accused of those offenses from their children.

It's just a guess on my part, but from my far remove, I'd say that Maine's judiciary might be starting to agree. The Filler case has always struck me as the type of travesty of justice that, under other circumstances would be easily swept under the rug. The trial court or the appellate court or both could have used the old "harmless error" dodge, but neither did. That's where a court says in effect that a ruling it made might have been wrong, but it couldn't have affected the outcome of the case, so it was "harmless error."

Harmless error is used all the time to avoid reversals in criminal cases and keep people in prison. So the fact that neither court took refuge behind that concept says a lot to me. It says they think Vladek Filler is innocent. It may also say they think Mary Kellett is guilty.

http://glennsacks.com/

http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/

Mike Nifong, the supposedly “rogue” prosecutor who pursued the Duke rape suspects long after there was abundant evidence to exonerate them, has become the poster boy for false rape culture.

Nifong, while getting massive amounts of coverage from the media, was hardly the exception, and not even the most extreme. Mary N. Kellett, a prosecutor in Bar Harbor Maine, is making a career of rape cases. She is averaging one indictment a week, from a population of less than 60,000.

Her most notable case so far has been against Vladek Filler, who was convicted of raping his wife, with no forensic evidence, and only her word that the rape occurred. The conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct and Kellett is appealing the case to the Maine Supreme Court.

The chronology of this story is lengthy and the details somewhat complicated, but have a look, and a good listen, to the following recording of police interaction with Filler’s wife.

This is what passes for a credible complainant in a modern rape case. This is the compelling reason to put a man behind bars. Kellett is clearly a prosecutor out of control, but she is nonetheless still serving as an Assistant District Attorney, and rumor has it she has ambitions to run for the District Attorney when her boss retires.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/08/01/on-jury-nullification-and-rape/

This is an update on a case currently being argued in front of the Maine Supreme Court about an out-of-control prosecutor named Mary Kellet, who has wrongfully charged and prosecuted many innocent men in Maine…

The Maine Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the State of Maine vs. Vladek Filler.

National Director of the Domestic Abuse Helpline Jan Brown attended the hearing as did some others. The “Michael Nifong on steroids” Mary Kellett has prosecuted countless innocent men on trumped up charges and false evidence. When it becomes easy for a prosecutor to lie to judges and juries with impunity, it is also easy for them to lie to the Supreme Court. Mary Kellett mislead the Supreme Court about her misconduct and the trial record.

When the trial court found Mary Kellett guilty of prosecutorial misconduct against Vladek Filler she continued to abuse her power as the representative of the State of Maine. She filed an appeal of her prosecutorial misconduct, then wrote the appeal herself, and then argued it herself before Maine Supreme Court. It is equivalent to a corrupt police officer investigating himself then writing a report finding the victims at fault.

The prosecutor brazenly lied to the Supreme Court about her misconduct and explicit court order violations at trial, pointed the finger at the defense attorney, and argued for Vladek Filler to be denied acquittal or even a new trial.

One Justice asked Mary Kellett whether she considered a custody battle for the children important in a case where the wife is alleging spousal rape against the husband. Mary Kellett responded that it is the defense who should be concerned with the importance of child custody battle evidence. The admission of the State’s unconstitutional “burden shifting” is stunning. The State of Maine has admitted that it is less concerned with evidence ulterior motives and false allegations, and relies on defense to seek the truth and be concerned with such evidence.

Vladek Filler’s attorney argued the systematic and flagrant prosecutorial misconduct committed by Mary Kellett and the insufficiency of evidence to support Vladek Filler’s conviction or even for bringing charges against him. That in fact, the evidence showed this prosecutor brought numerous charges of rape against a man where the accuser herself made admissions that it was consensual.

This highly politicized appeal is pending in the Maine Supreme Court. Not a single media outlet in Maine has covered the State’s appeal or the systematic prosecutorial abuse of innocent men in the Bar Harbor region. The prosecutorial and civil rights crimes against Vladek Filler and men like him must be exposed. For more information, see: www.fillerfund.com

http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/06/15/maine-supreme-court-hears-case-on-out-of-control-dv-prosecutor/

I'm not personally familiar with this case but I have seen ADA Mary Kellett in action as both as a potential juror and relative of an unjustly charged individual. She lies and consistently brings doomed cases just to punish the persons involved. She loses most of her cases, but in the meantime the persons charged are put through hell, and their reputations permanently damaged. It seems she only won the Filler case by misconduct. We can hope this hearing will bring her misconduct to light. The lawyers around here will speak privately of her appalling behavior but of course no one wants to cross her publicly.

http://dirtydecisions.blogspot.com/2010/05/guilty-until-proven-innocent-dennis.html

…No doubt about it, Maine's domestic violence industry has friends in high places. One of them is Mary Kellett, Assistant District Attorney for the Bar Harbor area. Think of her as Michael Nifong on steroids.

Inspired by feminist Catherine Comins' sneer, "Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience," Kellett has taken to prosecuting every allegation of sexual misconduct, often ignoring glaring inconsistencies in the woman's account or clear evidence of consensual activity: http://www.fillerfund.com/marykellett.htm

In one case, Kellett summed up the case to the jury with this comment, "there has been no evidence presented to you as the jury that would suggest that a sexual act hadn't occurred on those dates," revealing a sad ignorance of the legal principle that the burden of proof falls on the plaintiff.

In another trial, Kellett did not present a shred of physical evidence, prompting the defense attorney to comment, "We were just very surprised with the only evidence the state had, that they brought these charges at all."

Unfortunately for her prosecutorial victims, none of them play lacrosse at an exclusive university or have wealthy parents to hire high-powered attorneys. As a result, many have spent months in jail awaiting their trial.

It gets worse.

Maine now has a law enforcement policy that says in effect if a woman punches the living daylights out of her husband, somehow it must be the man's fault. "Identifying Predominant Aggressors in Domestic Violence Cases" is a training guide put together by the Maine Criminal Justice Academy: http://www.maine.gov/dps/mcja/docs/Mandatory-Law/Predominant%20Aggressor.doc

A little background: It is well known that many domestic violence incidents are mutual in nature — she slaps him, he shoves back. One study by Centers for Disease Control researcher Daniel Whitaker reported fully half of all incidents of partner aggression are mutual. More often than not, it's the woman who instigated the incident.

So when the police arrive on the scene, they need to decide who to stick in the Paddy Wagon. For years, police used the commonsense yardstick, Who started the fight? But feminists don't cotton to that approach because, truth be told, too many women were getting arrested.

So they reached into their bag of tricks and — abracadabra! "Predominant aggressor" magically appeared in the law enforcement lexicon. Any guesses who the predominant aggressor might be?

Before I give away the punch line, you may want to see for yourself the Ms.-Information that the Predominant Aggressor curriculum bandies around:

1. The idea that abuse can be mutual is a "misconception" (I say so, it must be true.)

2. "DV is the leading cause of injuries to women between the ages of 15-44 in the U.S." (It's also a proven fact that the moon is made of Swiss cheese and the 9/11 attacks were masterminded by the CIA.)

3. Even if the violence is mutual, it's bad to arrest both parties because the "batterer gains more power." (Don't ask to see the research. I'm the one with the mic and I'll give you the boot if you start to ask questions.)

Then the curriculum goes on to enumerate the types of violence that it whimsically classifies as defensive:

1. Face scratches
2. Eye gouges
3. Bites to arm

Go ahead, ladies, scratch his face and gouge his eyes out. You can always say it was in self-defense — and now they'll have to take you at your word.

Patrick Henry College professor Stephen Baskerville has recently issued a stunning indictment of our contemporary criminal justice system, lambasting it as a "Feminist Gulag." Now in Maine, a man can be killed in cold blood without consequence to the perpetrator, prosecuted for rape with the flimsiest of evidence, or framed in a partner dispute on account of his sex.

And whatever happened to the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution?

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/100201

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/02/01/in-maine-it-doesnt-pay-to-be-a-man/

http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_212282095.shtml?rssfeed

http://news.mensactivism.org/node/14669

http://domesticviolenceresourcesformen.blogspot.com/2010/02/in-maine-it-doesnt-pay-to-be-man.html

http://www.chronwatch-america.com/blogs/1458/In-Maine-It-Doesnt-Pay-to-Be-a-Man.html

http://www.ifeminists.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.679

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2010/01/31/in-maine-it-doesn’t-pay-to-be-a-man/

http://www.silobreaker.com/in-maine-it-doesnt-pay-to-be-a-man-5_2263202116686315520

...One case which has received some attention is that of Vladek Filler, a husband who was accused of sexual assault by his wife during their bitter split up and custody battle. Filler, a self employed honors graduate from Babson College, decided to leave his wife after 16 years and get custody of his two sons. Child Protective Services and Court investigations granted Filler temporary custody of his children. His wife was found to be a threat and had her supervised visits with them suspended.

Prior to being arrested and charged for his wife’s accusations, Filler sought help from a local domestic violence organization which turned him away and chose to give assistance to his abusive wife instead. Filler sought a protection order from court and his wife decided to drop the “nuclear bomb” of divorce and custody battles. She accused Filler of abuse, child molestations, and spousal rape. She demanded immediate custody of their children. A video about the events appeared on YouTube.

Despite absence of any corroborating evidence other than his wife’s accusation, the children were taken away, and prosecutor Mary Kellett had Filler arrested, charged, and eventually convicted. What emerged after his January 2009 trial were revealing details of how prosecutions of men are conducted by prosecutor Mary Kellett and the Hancock County DA’s office.

Filler was apparently not allowed to present any evidence at all of the bitter custody battle, his wife’s troubled past, or her false claims of abuse in another custody battle with another man. Kellett, in turn told the jury "there was no evidence that the sexual assaults did not occur" , and placed the burden on Filler to prove his innocence. Kellett suggested that if forensic and physical examinations were conducted they would impede justice in this case and that statistically Filler was more likely to sexually assault his wife than a stranger. Aware that Filler was prevented from presenting evidence, Kellett repeatedly told to the jury that a child custody dispute did not even exist and therefore could not be a motive for false accusations by his wife.

When considering the disturbing details of the Filler case, one can’t help but to wonder how something like this could happen in our justice system. What is taking place in Hancock County Maine is extremism based on a myth that men are inherently bad, and are a threat to helpless and innocent women; that the State needs to punish and control men to maintain order within relationships and families. This is not much different; from how Puritans viewed women accused of witchcraft in their community. The way men are being characterized in Maine has caused the public to be fearful and suspicious of men. Maine’s Attorney General Janet Mills, a former co-founder of the Maine Women’s Lobby, recently stated that her number one priority is domestic violence, and that "We need to send the message to boys and young men in Maine" . Such views from Maine’s top law enforcement official are made despite numerous credible studies suggesting that women are just as responsible, if not more, for "domestic violence" and "child abuse".

Such gender biased rhetoric demonizes boys, men, and fathers and leads to the numerous falsely accused men to face years in prison and the perpetual skewing of domestic violence statistics.

So powerful is the myth against men, that despite difficult fiscal and economic times, the flow of funding to the domestic violence industry continues to be strong, as does the prosecution of men. The message of the rhetoric being sent to the girls in Maine is "blame the boys for everything and the State will do the rest", so maybe the message to the boys in Maine should now be "God help you".

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2009/10/23/false-rape-witch-hunts-gone-wild/

http://wadvpress.org/?p=370

http://www.ifeminists.com/print.php?news.14532

http://framedfathers.blogspot.com/2009/10/false-rape-witch-hunts-gone-wild.html

http://antimisandry.com/false-allegations/false-rape-claim-industry-24368.html

The shameless tactics of Mary Kellett, and Michael Povich continue in the state of Maine. It makes one wonder what they are really doing in their capacities if they feel it necessary to prosecute every false allegation this vigorously.

Here is what they’ve been up to lately. These cases should be dismissed with prejudice. Instead, they enable the behaviors of this sick woman. Her name is Ligia Filler, and she is a man’s worst nightmare.

The state of Maine, Michael Povich, and Mary Kellett are guilty of trying to block this evidence and the Filler’s continue to run out of money to help this poor man. This must stop and stop soon.

http://wadvpress.org/

Anyone following what has been happening in Maine knows that men are being charged, prosecuted and convicted by a corrupt DA’s office. One trial of another innocent man just ended yesterday.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:current616:35cc49b062d12c52b4b9ea6182ac98c6/Prosecutor-Gone-Wild

Gross prosecutorial misconduct and civil rights abuse of men and fathers is taking place in the Bar Harbor region of Maine by Assistant DA Mary Kellett.

Some have called it a modern day Witch Hunt where men are targeted and persecuted with little or no credible evidence of a crime.

This video details one case involving a father who tried to leave his wife of 16 years and gain custody of his children. What happened next is reminiscent of the 1600's Salem Witch Trials.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsKIcQhjaJg

State of Maine
vs.
Vladek Filler
(and his children)

http://www.tiredblackman.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=6021

It’s interesting when I call up prosecutor’s who are misbehaving. Nobody is willing to step up and be accountable for their actions. It happened with Jennifer Weiler of Thurston County and the Jeremy Kanoa Hughes case, and now its happening again with Mary N. Kellet, Assistant District Attorney/Hitwoman for Maine’s 7th district court. She’s not talking. Period.

A new rape "trial" for the Vladek Filler family has been ordered due to her misconduct up in Ellsworth, Maine where as many as 4 men per month have been indicted on multiple counts of Rape, each carrying up to 30 years in prison. The details are disturbing, especially the conduct of Ms. Kellett within the courtroom itself.

So, I contacted Michael Povich this afternoon to get the prosecution’s side of the story.

http://wadvpress.org/?p=177#more-177

New Trial for Man Convicted Of Wife Rape, an incredible tale of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct arising from the war against men and fathers, "guilty unless he proved otherwise…" The defense attorney stated in his motion that [Assistant DA Mary] Kellett told the jury "there was no evidence that the sexual assaults did not occur…"

http://www.californiamenscenters.org/wordpress/?p=10658

Filler, who is free on post-conviction bail, was engaged in a child custody fight during the time his wife alleges she was assaulted. The court did not allow evidence of the custody dispute during the trial.

… As a result of the court’s efforts to sanitize the criminal proceeding, Mr. Filler was deprived of the opportunity to present to the jury a complete picture of the relationship, and a context for Mrs. Filler’s allegations,” the defense attorney stated.

Hancock County Superior Court Justice Kevin M. Cuddy stated in his decision that during the trial, the court excluded from evidence facts relating to the child custody dispute.

Cuddy stated in his decision to grant a new trial that one of the major points of the prosecution in its closing argument entailed the child custody dispute.

In his motion for a new trial, Pileggi stated that the defense would have presented evidence of his client seeking a protection from abuse order.

This evidence would have included Mrs. Filler’s filing of a similar petition in Washington County after her efforts in Hancock County to gain custody of the couple’s two sons had failed, Pileggi stated.

The evidence would have demonstrated “the existence and vehemence of the Fillers’ child custody fight, all occurring at the same time and immediately after Mrs. Filler’s claims of physical and sexual abuse,” Pileggi stated.

“The error was compounded by the prosecutor’s repeated statements during her closing argument that the record contained no evidence of a custody dispute and that Mr. Filler’s defense should therefore be discounted,” Pileggi stated.

Pileggi also contends in the motion that his client should be acquitted, citing that the alleged sexual act was physically impossible given the space constraints of the location in which Mrs. Filler says the assault occurred.

Pileggi stated in his support for acquittal that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has made clear that a conviction may be sustained solely upon a witness’s testimony, but in order to do so the testimony must reflect actions that were physically possible.

“For example, the court would not be compelled to accept Mrs. Filler’s testimony if she had said she had identified Mr. Filler as her assailant through a conversation with aliens,” Pileggi stated. “The evidence here is similarly outrageous.”

No reasonable jury could have found Filler guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the defense attorney said.

“Given the vast array of evidence demonstrating Mrs. Filler’s claims to be impossible, the only inference that may be drawn is that the jury improperly placed a burden on Mr. Filler to disprove the crime’s occurrence.”

Pileggi also contends that Kellett misstated the burden of proof, “implying that Mr. Filler was guilty unless he proved otherwise.”

The defense attorney stated in his motion that Kellett told the jury “there was no evidence that the sexual assaults did not occur.”

http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php/2009030519618/Latest/New-Trial-for-Man-Convicted-Of-Wife-Rape.html

ELLSWORTH -- A Gouldsboro man accused of forcing his wife to engage in a sex act was charged with rape Friday in Hancock County Superior Court

The charge of Class A gross sexual assault against Vladek Filler, 39, stems from an incident that allegedly occurred April 6 at the couple's Gouldsboro home.

Anthony Beardsley, as Ellsworth attorney who represented Filler in court on Friday said his client denies the charges.

We feel there is a custody component involved in this," Beardsley said, referring to the couple's children.

Bail was set at $10,000 cash or $50,000 surety.

Beardsley had argued for a lower bail based on the fact that his client had no criminal record.

http://www.bangordailynews.com

When Winning Becomes More Important than Seeking the Truth Male Victims and Children Suffer
April 12, 2011 by Jan Brown of Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women Inc


	Media Coverage