Here I am on November 18, 2018, and I’ve been stuck in the Lee County Jail for over 25 months, and incarcerated for nearly 30 months in total. This nightmare began on June 28, 2016, and it never seems to end. After 2 1/2 years I only got to see my discovery for the first time yesterday, nearly 2 weeks after trial was set to begin before being cancelled at the last moment. I guess it was a blessing that I didn’t go to trial without seeing my full discovery, but this is deeply disturbing at the same time. My faith in God keeps me going, and I pray daily that He will expose these criminals and shine a light on this most obvious corruption.

How is it possible for someone to sit in jail for over 2 years without seeing their discovery? And now the Court and the State are working together to give the illusion of fair treatment by trying to give me access to my discovery, which is not truly giving me adequate and meaningful access to my discovery at all, violating my right to be apprised of the charges and the right to meaningful access to the courts. It is an absolute joke. Meanwhile, I’m stuck here on a highly excessive bail that goes way above the standards, also violiating my right to be protected from excessive bail. w, just seeing my discovery now, I can be stuck here for another 2 years or more awaiting trial, unless I go to trial blind like they tried to make me do less than 2 weeks ago. What is crazy is that I was set for trial on June 11, 2018, Noand when they continued that date for a mental health evaluation, they set it all the way to November 6, 2018, before cancelling it the day before. This Court is running a circus and treating me like the clown. How can they get away with this? Well, since the alleged victims are other judges in this court and friends with the trial judge, Margaret O. Steinbeck, and since the state prosecutor, James D. Miller was hired to try and use these bogus charges to give me a life sentence, they can apparently do whatever they want with no rules to worry about.

Prior to this last trial I filed a “Motion to Compel Discovery” because I was looking for the specific documents I am accused of filing, since this has not been made clear to me in all of this time. Granted, my court-appointed attorney, Sebouh Gourjian, who represented me for over a year should have made this clear, but never did. As a matter of fact, he never even provided any discovery to me in that entire year. Then, after firing him and representing myself, he maliciously dumped tens of thousands of documents on me. On January 27, 2018, he delivered these documents to me using a handtruck, and just giving me stacks and stacks of papers that were not organized at all, refusing to explain anything to me. He told me that he didn’t represent me any longer and wouldn’t talk to me about them. With the help of several other inmates, I took the piles of paper to my cell, which now looks like a law library or some sort of paper printing mill. Over my time here many inmates have even used the stacks of papers as seats during our bible studies. However, yesterday I came to realize that this was only a portion of my discovery and not nearly all of it. There are still audio and video files that I have never seen or heard, but as a pro se defendant I can’t access those files without a computer, which inmates to do not have access to. So I’ve just gone without large portions of my discovery. Sebouh Gourjian really got a kick out of doing this to me, and was smirking along with the corrections officer who brought him to drop off those tons of documents back in January. This is all part of the state’s plan to overwhelm me. Of course 90% of the documents are useless and have nothing to do with the charges, but I still needed to look through them like finding a needle in a haystack.

Anyway, this motion to compel I filed before trial was only to request about 7-10 documents pertaining to the actual charges, since that still hasn’t been made clear. In hearings earlier this year Judge Margaret O. Steinbeck asked me if my attorney (Sebough Gourjian) had ever explained the charges to me, and I said “no”. She acted shocked and dismayed, as if I gave her the wrong answer. She replied something like “Mr. Rosado, what do you mean?”, (the transcript will provide the exact exchange between us) and she gave me the normal condescending smirk that she always gives me. I responded by advising her that what I mean is what I said. The truth is that Sebouh Gourjian never told me my charges in over a year of representing, never provided any discovery to me, and only reviewed brief portions of the discovery he did have in an attempt to get me to plea guilty and accept the prosecutor, James D. Miller’s extortion offer.

What is interesting is that on November 1, 2018, just 5 days before trial was set to begin, James D. Miller dumped 235 pages of new discovery on me that had nothing at all to do with the charges, nor did I feel it would have any impact on the up coming trial. Then, just one day later, on Friday, November 2, 2018 at 4pm, just one business hour prior to our trial call that was set for Monday November 5, 2018 at 8am, I received Mr. Miller’s motion to continue trial for a variety of reasons. His reasons included having a scheduling conflict with another trial, having certain witnesses who were on vacation, an investigator (Robert Nichols) who was not feeling well, and the primary reason was that the state wasn’t ready because it is a complex case. Not ready after 2 1/2 years??? Not to mention they had nearly 5 additional months to prepare from the first scheduled trial? What is going on here? Meanwhile, here I am, all by myself, ready to go up against the entire state and their endless resources that are being piled against me, without even seeing my complete discovery, only for them to cancel the last moment? And of course Judge Margaret O. Steinbeck allowed it because she doesn’t say no to the State for anything.

Getting back to my original point, I was only asking for 7-10 simple documents that I am being accused of filing. This is the alleged fraud. This is how I allegedly “simulated the legal process” with “fraudulent” documents. That’s all I’m asking, please show me what I actually did. Not these thousands of other documents about my life, and statements from people threatened and coerced into saying bad things about me, please just show me what you are saying I did! Of course, the state used this simple discovery request as another excuse to delay the trial set for earlier this month. During trial call on November 5, 2018 I advised the court that if this simple request was going to delay trial I would withdraw my motion and just move forward with trial the following day without those documents. I mean I imagine I would have to see them at some point through the course of the trial if they want a jury to convict me of something. So, while they can dump hundreds of documents on my just days prior to trial, they won’t just give me the few documents that pertain the the actual charges against me. I prepared for this trial for months, subpoenaed witnesses, and my mother drove across the country to be here, only for them to pull this move on us. If this doesn’t smell funny I don’t know what does.

Once learning of James D. Miller’s motion to continue trial I prepared my own motion in opposition to the state’s request for a continuance and had it filed first thing on Monday, November 5, 2018, the morning of trial call. I argued why the trial should not be continued, stating all of my objections to a judge who already had her mind made up before I walked into the courtroom. I’m certain this was planned by Judge Steinbeck and James D. Miller, because she was not the least bit fazed by the state’s last minute request. What’s interesting is that in the past when I had attempted to continue a previous trial I was denied and told by the judge what an inconvenience it was because of her schedule and other judges having to cover her cases and such. Yet, here we are, just one day prior to trial, with no valid excuses to justify this continuance, and she has no problem with it at all. If you look at court transcripts from June 8, 2018 and this recent transcript from November 5, 2018, you will see exactly what I am talking about. Judge Steinbeck is co-counsel to the state prosecutor, and has one objective and that is to help them continue to ruin my life more than they already have.

During our trial call on November 5, 2018, the judge addressed my discovery request and basically said that the state doesn’t have to actually explain which discovery documents are which, and they can do a “document dump” on me so I have to figure it out. She had her famous condescending smile when she said the words “document dump”, which told me that she was actually getting a kick out of the state’s dumping of documents on me. I was shocked that she used that actual term, as I thought that documents dumps were just done by attorneys to each other to be malicious and vindictive, but didn’t think it was referred to like that in open court. Judge Steinbeck did order the state to give me the documents I had asked for, but again they figured out a way to avoid giving me what I was requesting. The judge said that the state wasn’t required to tell me which document pertained to what charge and so forth, but I was under the impression that I would at least get the documents for the charges themselves, in which case it would be easy enough to figure out.Well, of course that never happened.

Then, on November 7, 2018, Judge Margaret O. Steinbeck signed an order that I didn’t receive until around the 14th or 15th, saying that due to my complaints about discovery, I would be given access to 2 DVDs with my discovery, and the jail would give me access to those DVDs through an electronic device, which is basically a laptop. The order says that this will “effectuate discovery in an expeditious and sound manner”. To coordinate with the judge’s order, the state filed a “Notice of Discovery” on November 13, 2018, which was served to me at the jail, and accompanied by a jail lieutenant (Amoroso), who explained the details of how I could view my discovery. Oh yeah, that’s the other catch about the judge’s order. I can only “view” the discovery, so there is no true access to the discovery. They won’t print the documents for me, so how am I expected to write motions to defense myself, or even admit any of the discovery documents as trial exhibits if need be? Again, the state is avoiding giving me the few documents I asked for. I’ve got to give it to James D. Miller, he’s a slick one. Just give me that document haystack without the ability to print anything and let me try and figure it out. Thanks buddy.

Anyway, this little move by Steinbeck and Miller sounds all fine and dandy, but in reality it’s just them giving the illusion of giving me fair treatment before they try to railroad me at trial. So, I decided to play the game and see if this would work. On Friday, November 16th I contacted the officer on duty as I was told to by the lieutenant a few days earlier, and asked if I could arrange time to view this discovery on the laptop computer they claim to have provided. The officer told me she would get back to me, and of course she didn’t. This is not unusal, since we can’t even get the officers to give us toilet paper when we run out, let alone doing something like this. I figured this would be the case so I sent a message to the sergeant advising him of Lieutenant Amoroso’s instructions and the judge’s order, and yesterday (November 17, 2018) the officer arranged for me to have access to the laptop computer to view this discovery. Okay, maybe we are getting somewhere. Granted, I don’t have a photographic memory and am still being denied the ability to print documents, but at least I can try to find these 7-10 documents (out of the 10,000 or so on there) that I asked for to begin with.

So, I spent a few hours looking through the first DVD, but was only able to listen to a few of the audio interviews. This took up quite a bit of time and I didn’t even get through half of them. However, I was unable to see any of the thousands of documents because they are in PDF format and there is no PDF software viewer. This kind of brings me back to square one, and who knows when I’ll be able to get back on that computer. The officer on duty (I don’t know his name, which is unusual because Iknow most of them by now) was not very happy to help, nor will the others be. When I needed to stop for our afternoon count, I asked him if I would be able to get back on the computer later, which made him annoyed and he said I would have to ask the next shift. That was fine, but I was hoping he would inform the next shift so I didn’t have to jump through hoops and go through the same hassle again. I also asked him if he could see about getting the software installed in order for me to view the actual files in PDF format, and he told me that I needed to email whoever I contacted to get him to help me to begin with. Okay, looks like I’m going to need to contact a sergeant every single time. This hardly seems like the way Lieutenant Amoroso explained it, suggesting that everyone would be made aware and would help accomodate me so long as it didn’t interfere with normal jail business, which makes sense. Obviously there are times when we are locked down for count and other emergencies that take place, but he definitely made it sound like the staff would be informed of my situation so I don’t have problems. I found out quickly that is certainly not the case.

So, here I am, weeks after trial was to begin, incarcerated for nearly 30 months, and still no discovery. Who knows when I will be able to see it all. I guess the silver lining so far is that in some of the audio files I’ve already listened to there is great information to impeach some of the state’s witnesses, most of whom have no credibility to begin with. If a jury can get to hear some of this stuff they will see the game being played against me, but of course I would need to have that evidence admitted, which is not easy when I’ve got a judge working against me making those decisions. At this point I’ll be 80 years old by the time I go to trial. I’ve been here for 3 birthdays already, so what’s another 35. Maybe I’ll die from stomach cancer by then from the food they feed us.

Just when I thought the end was near, here I am back at the beginning. How is this possible? How can they get away with this? I will try to file for another bond reduction for Judge Steinbeck to deny, but at least it will be on record. I don’t know what else to do anymore. I pray for God to continue to give me strength to fight this corruption and show me a way through it. Please help me by sharing this story. There has to be someone out there willing to investigate these crimes happening right out in the open. The actions of the Lee County judges and the State Attorney’s Office are so blatant, but nobody wants to see it. The extortion attempt by Miller, the judge’s orders, the transcripts from our hearings in open court. Someone please look at this stuff and see what’s going on here. Sebouh Gourjian, the court-appointed attorney hired by the court to bring me down. The fact that he refused to take depositions of the court clerk and judges, who are the alleged victims, and work in the same courthouse he works everyday, but he’ll fly across the country to Glendale, California, where his parents conveniently live, to do a deposition of a witness with nothing to do with the allegations. The taxpayers are paying for all of this. For Sebuoh Gourjian to visit his family, and for he and James D. Miller to travel the country together. Is that not disturbing? The defense attorney and prosecutor hanging out together? What is going on here?

God please help me. I beg you to act quickly and save me.

PSALMS 70: (King James version)

Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord.

Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul; let them be turned backward, and put them to confusion, that desire my hurt.

Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, aha.

Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee. and let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let God be magnified.

But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying.