(This isn't fiction. This actually happened to me.)
I can honestly say I have spent a cold day in hell. It happened this past July of 2006, which is typically the hottest month of the year.
In June, the month before July, I had filed a grievance with the Kentucky Attorney Generals Office. For a year, the Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall refused to move forward with a child support request against my ex husband, and Halls child hood friend and fellow Bar member, attorney Jonah Stevens.
In frustration because Stevens would periodically drop our children's health insurance; I researched on the internet to find a way to make Hall do something. The Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts website stated that if a citizen had problems with a prosecutor, they were to file a grievance with the Attorney Generals Office to the Prosecutors Advisory Council.
I did just that. I sent an email to the Attorney Generals Office addressed to the Prosecutors Advisory Counsel. Within days I received a letter from the Attorney General. Imagine my surprise when the letter addressed to Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall stated that the Attorney Generals Office "had no intention or jurisdiction to interject itself into the matter". My surprise turned into dismay.
The letter also stated that the Attorney General "stood ready to assist" Hall in resolving the matter in any possible. That statement terrified me, and for good reason.
June 8, 2006; that's the date the Attorney General wrote the letter. Within four days, the Pike County Attorney was typing up a felony warrant for my arrest on June 12, 2006. Yes, as surreal as it may seem, the Pike County Attorney typed up a warrant for my arrest (despite the glaring conflict of interest) even though my alleged crime took place in Floyd County where the Pike county attorney doesn't have jurisdiction.
The Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall knows that Attorney General Greg Stumbo is going to protect him and cover up the false arrest. Isn't that why Hall gave money to Stumbo's campaign in the first place. Are not campaign contributions a quid pro quo, protection money? Despite this, I digress from the theme.
Cold.
Have you ever been really cold? Have you been cold for a long time without any way to warm up your body? Have you ever been so cold that when your teeth are chattering; its so loud your afraid you might end up chipping a tooth, but you still can't stop the shivering because you are so cold?
Hell.
The hell began in Floyd County Kentucky where Judge Paxton (whose husband is also a campaign contributor to Greg Stumbo) had her bailiff arrest me on the felony arrest warrant which didn't have jurisdiction. She knew the warrant was without jurisdiction, but wouldn't do anything.
Her bailiff was angry. I told him he was violating my constitutional rights by arresting me, but then he threatened to have me charged with resisting arrest because I was talking. (I wasn't yelling or screaming, just talking). He didn't read my rights. He wouldn't even handcuff me in front of my family. He said he didn't want to embarrass me.
He took me to the Floyd County Detention center where I was booked, fingerprinted, and put in a holding cell. By this time, it was after six and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since before the 1:00 hearing.
Nasty.
This was all a new experience to me, having never been arrested. I didn't know music, which I love dearly could be a part of hell. You see, the Floyd County Detention center plays a CD constantly till Midnight. Its the same CD over, and over, and over. At first it wasn't so bad, but then my head started to hurt from the shock and dehydration.
The water fountain in my holding cell didn't work. And even if it did, I wouldn't have trusted the water from it. You see, in that five by five cell, I shared with another female inmate; there was every type of bodily fluid imaginable on the walls and floor. I had to sit in it, in the floor. There was the large blood splatter on the gray wall. The rest of walls, were covered in . . . . you name it , spit, boogers, feces, urine, and yes, I suspect even semen. And I was sitting in the middle of it, in the floor afraid that my feet were going to touch the pit in the floor where it all drained. The pit had some type of neon green stuff in it.
Why do I suspect there was semen on the walls? Well, the night shift staff disappeared for a very long time. That's when my cell mate decided to talk to the men in the cell next door. The cell doors were at a 90 degree angle where you could talk and see the person in the cell beside of you. Like you see on TV, there is a slot with can be opened up.
My cell mate started saying "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" to a man in the next cell. That's when she began to lift up her top and push her breasts through the opening. Thankfully, I only saw her back. The impression I got from the discussion was that he was putting his penis through the opening on his cell door.
When the staff finally came back, the peep show was over. They moved both of us. She went to the back, while I went into another holding cell on the other side of the one I was in. The light bulb was broken in the second cell. I think that was a blessing.
My new cell mate was laying in a mass of blankets which covered the whole floor. We talked for awhile, and it was clear she was mentally ill. I just tried to make as little small talk as possible and prayed that my family would somehow get me out.
At some point, I fell asleep and was woken up sometime in the middle of the night. I was to be transported by a Kentucky State Trooper. He, and the guards were saying that the Pike county Sheriffs department was supposed to be in charge of transporting detainees, but they refused to transport me. Later, it was reported on VINE that I had been transported to the Henry County Jail. In case you don't know it, there isn't a Henry County Jail.
One thing you can say about Pike County Sheriff Fuzzy Keesse; he is no fool. He knew it was a false arrest and did not want his department to get sued by being involved.
The trooper drove so fast that night. It was like a roller coaster, and I wasn't even handcuffed. He said he didn't know where the detention center was, and asked me if I knew. I thought that was odd, but I smarted off saying "I hadn't ever been arrested before and didn't know where it was".
I did know where it was, but only because it's the same building as the courthouse Also, during Hillbilly Days, the inmates would yell out through the windows. I told the trooper that he needed to do an investigation into my false arrest and the Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall.
During this whole ordeal I was terrified. I was scared that an inmate may hurt me, of catching some type of disease, or even being murdered. How easy would it be to make it look like that I had committed suicide?
I was in shock, dehydrated, and terrified. If I hadn't been so dehydrated, I would have peed on myself when the trooper took a road that did not lead to the Detention center. What was he going to do? Kick me out of the car, and say I ran away?? But, thankfully I had a contingent plan. The day before I had personally went to Lexington to drop off documents to the Federal Prosecutor. In Louisville, I had spoke in length to an FBI agent at the Mazzoli building, also giving them documents.
So I start spouting off to the trooper that if anything happened to me, that there would definitely be a federal investigation because I had went to both the FBI and a federal prosecutor. Somehow my visits to federal authorities were able to remind this KSP trooper where the detention center was. Again, I want to stress had there been anything in my bladder, it would have ended up in the backseat of that KSP cruiser.
A cleaner hell.
The first thing I noticed about the Pike County Detention Center, is that the white walls were much cleaner than the nasty gray walls at the Floyd County Detention center. The second thing I noticed, is that they knew the real reason I was there; I was there to be punished for filing a grievance against the Pike county Attorney and protesting publicly against him.
The Floyd County detention center did a pat down of me. I had a safety pin in my skirt where the button had broke; The Floyd County pat down didn't catch it. Besides, they knew I was falsely arrested and not a threat to anybody.
The Pike County Detention center did a pat down of me. Oh, and a full body cavity search. The Pike County Detention center also knew I was falsely arrested but were under orders to punish me by the Pike County Attorney. Federal Courts have ruled that strip searches are illegal when there is no indication that the arrestee has weapons or contraband.
A body cavity search is bad, but the punishment wasn't over.
I was put in solitary confinement. That in a way was a blessing, because at least I wouldn't have to be present during a peep show. The only items in the room were a cot and blanket. The blanket was made of pressed lint and had several holes. One hole was large enough for my seven year son to fit through.
But it was quiet, and somehow I slept.
In the morning the lights came on and breakfast was served. At this point, I was afraid to eat or drink anything because it may have been drugged and then I would be charged with some type of felony drug charge. This water fountain worked; but again I was afraid that it could give me hepatitis depending on who was in the cell before me. There were no blood splatters on the wall, just several boogers where somebody had laid there on the cot and wiped them on the wall.
Then somebody turned the air conditioner on high.
I begged the guards for another blanket. The one I had was full of holes and I was wearing a summer suit; just a jacket, short skirt, and pantyhose. The guards laughed at me and taunted me. The joked that the temperature was just fine and that even if they had another blanket, that I didn't need one.
I had been praying a lot before then. But when the air conditioner torture started, I began praying even more. And I don't mean just praying. I remembered a service about Paul and Silas from the Bible. They had been jailed unfairly. Instead of complaining, Paul and Silas sang and gave praises to the Lord. I took that to be my instructions.
I wrapped the blanket around me and walked back and forth. And I sang every song I knew that gave praise to God. At some point I would sit back down on my bunk and would sing and pray. And then I would lay down and sleep for a few minutes, but quickly wake up because I was so cold.
This cycle repeated itself. This went on for hours. I don't really know how long. I would try to sleep but would be too cold. Then I would wake up and pace back and forth and sing. Then I would sit down and pray and sing. But at some point I was repeating the same songs over and over. Then I started making up new songs using Bible verses. I know the verse I used the most was Romans 8:28. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
I have a decent voice so I didn't hear any complaints from other cells. Well, there was one complaint. The Guard who laughed at me, enjoyed my singing but then said she got tired of me singing church songs; that I needed to sing something from the radio.
That was my cold day in hell. My family being from Louisville, was unable to get the five thousand dollar full cash bond that night to get me out. They had been fearful for me, and brought four thousand dollars between all of them "just in case". But then again, this wasn't about every day due process of handling an ordinary case.
This was about political retaliation. How dare I, Amy Mischler an American citizen, exercise my First Amendment Rights and protest publicly against Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall? How dare I file a grievance against Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall with the Attorney Generals office?
It was a cold day in hell. But, like Paul and Silas, I sang and gave praise to God who touched the Judge's heart to reduced my bond to five hundred dollars. My lips were cracked from dehydration, and I was cold down to my very soul. It was strange walking on the hot July pavement outside the detention center, yet still be cold on the inside.
I asked my parents to take me to the nearby Captain D's so I could get a super large unsweetened ice tea because I was so thirsty. As I sat there in my suit, I felt contaminated. I was afraid to touch my family, in case I had come in contact with AIDS or hepatitis. And I felt like a thanksgiving turkey defrosting on the counter. I was room temp on the outside, but frozen on the inside.
And I wanted to get out of Pike County as soon as possible in case they manufactured some other reason to arrest me or my family.
But I am out, and awaiting to be held over to the grand jury by the Pike County Commonwealth Attorney, who of course is my ex husbands good friend. And of course, my ex husband is also a campaign contributor to the Pike County Commonwealth Attorney.
Singing and giving praise to God will get you out of jail.
What about the other prisoners in the Pike County Detention Center? According to the Appalachian News Express, State inspector Jeff Burton reported that "several of the dorms were very cold and probably are not within the minimum range" within the Pike County Detention Center. Temperatures ranges vary widely in the jail, according to the report.
That's right. Even as you read this, there are innocent and guilty people at the Pike County Detention Center suffering through a cold day in hell. This a form of torture. Who is going to help them? Will you?
Meanwhile, with my own plight; will anybody investigate the Pike County Attorney and the Attorney General who is protecting him? Will you?
I can honestly say I have spent a cold day in hell. It happened this past July of 2006, which is typically the hottest month of the year.
In June, the month before July, I had filed a grievance with the Kentucky Attorney Generals Office. For a year, the Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall refused to move forward with a child support request against my ex husband, and Halls child hood friend and fellow Bar member, attorney Jonah Stevens.
In frustration because Stevens would periodically drop our children's health insurance; I researched on the internet to find a way to make Hall do something. The Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts website stated that if a citizen had problems with a prosecutor, they were to file a grievance with the Attorney Generals Office to the Prosecutors Advisory Council.
I did just that. I sent an email to the Attorney Generals Office addressed to the Prosecutors Advisory Counsel. Within days I received a letter from the Attorney General. Imagine my surprise when the letter addressed to Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall stated that the Attorney Generals Office "had no intention or jurisdiction to interject itself into the matter". My surprise turned into dismay.
The letter also stated that the Attorney General "stood ready to assist" Hall in resolving the matter in any possible. That statement terrified me, and for good reason.
June 8, 2006; that's the date the Attorney General wrote the letter. Within four days, the Pike County Attorney was typing up a felony warrant for my arrest on June 12, 2006. Yes, as surreal as it may seem, the Pike County Attorney typed up a warrant for my arrest (despite the glaring conflict of interest) even though my alleged crime took place in Floyd County where the Pike county attorney doesn't have jurisdiction.
The Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall knows that Attorney General Greg Stumbo is going to protect him and cover up the false arrest. Isn't that why Hall gave money to Stumbo's campaign in the first place. Are not campaign contributions a quid pro quo, protection money? Despite this, I digress from the theme.
Cold.
Have you ever been really cold? Have you been cold for a long time without any way to warm up your body? Have you ever been so cold that when your teeth are chattering; its so loud your afraid you might end up chipping a tooth, but you still can't stop the shivering because you are so cold?
Hell.
The hell began in Floyd County Kentucky where Judge Paxton (whose husband is also a campaign contributor to Greg Stumbo) had her bailiff arrest me on the felony arrest warrant which didn't have jurisdiction. She knew the warrant was without jurisdiction, but wouldn't do anything.
Her bailiff was angry. I told him he was violating my constitutional rights by arresting me, but then he threatened to have me charged with resisting arrest because I was talking. (I wasn't yelling or screaming, just talking). He didn't read my rights. He wouldn't even handcuff me in front of my family. He said he didn't want to embarrass me.
He took me to the Floyd County Detention center where I was booked, fingerprinted, and put in a holding cell. By this time, it was after six and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since before the 1:00 hearing.
Nasty.
This was all a new experience to me, having never been arrested. I didn't know music, which I love dearly could be a part of hell. You see, the Floyd County Detention center plays a CD constantly till Midnight. Its the same CD over, and over, and over. At first it wasn't so bad, but then my head started to hurt from the shock and dehydration.
The water fountain in my holding cell didn't work. And even if it did, I wouldn't have trusted the water from it. You see, in that five by five cell, I shared with another female inmate; there was every type of bodily fluid imaginable on the walls and floor. I had to sit in it, in the floor. There was the large blood splatter on the gray wall. The rest of walls, were covered in . . . . you name it , spit, boogers, feces, urine, and yes, I suspect even semen. And I was sitting in the middle of it, in the floor afraid that my feet were going to touch the pit in the floor where it all drained. The pit had some type of neon green stuff in it.
Why do I suspect there was semen on the walls? Well, the night shift staff disappeared for a very long time. That's when my cell mate decided to talk to the men in the cell next door. The cell doors were at a 90 degree angle where you could talk and see the person in the cell beside of you. Like you see on TV, there is a slot with can be opened up.
My cell mate started saying "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" to a man in the next cell. That's when she began to lift up her top and push her breasts through the opening. Thankfully, I only saw her back. The impression I got from the discussion was that he was putting his penis through the opening on his cell door.
When the staff finally came back, the peep show was over. They moved both of us. She went to the back, while I went into another holding cell on the other side of the one I was in. The light bulb was broken in the second cell. I think that was a blessing.
My new cell mate was laying in a mass of blankets which covered the whole floor. We talked for awhile, and it was clear she was mentally ill. I just tried to make as little small talk as possible and prayed that my family would somehow get me out.
At some point, I fell asleep and was woken up sometime in the middle of the night. I was to be transported by a Kentucky State Trooper. He, and the guards were saying that the Pike county Sheriffs department was supposed to be in charge of transporting detainees, but they refused to transport me. Later, it was reported on VINE that I had been transported to the Henry County Jail. In case you don't know it, there isn't a Henry County Jail.
One thing you can say about Pike County Sheriff Fuzzy Keesse; he is no fool. He knew it was a false arrest and did not want his department to get sued by being involved.
The trooper drove so fast that night. It was like a roller coaster, and I wasn't even handcuffed. He said he didn't know where the detention center was, and asked me if I knew. I thought that was odd, but I smarted off saying "I hadn't ever been arrested before and didn't know where it was".
I did know where it was, but only because it's the same building as the courthouse Also, during Hillbilly Days, the inmates would yell out through the windows. I told the trooper that he needed to do an investigation into my false arrest and the Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall.
During this whole ordeal I was terrified. I was scared that an inmate may hurt me, of catching some type of disease, or even being murdered. How easy would it be to make it look like that I had committed suicide?
I was in shock, dehydrated, and terrified. If I hadn't been so dehydrated, I would have peed on myself when the trooper took a road that did not lead to the Detention center. What was he going to do? Kick me out of the car, and say I ran away?? But, thankfully I had a contingent plan. The day before I had personally went to Lexington to drop off documents to the Federal Prosecutor. In Louisville, I had spoke in length to an FBI agent at the Mazzoli building, also giving them documents.
So I start spouting off to the trooper that if anything happened to me, that there would definitely be a federal investigation because I had went to both the FBI and a federal prosecutor. Somehow my visits to federal authorities were able to remind this KSP trooper where the detention center was. Again, I want to stress had there been anything in my bladder, it would have ended up in the backseat of that KSP cruiser.
A cleaner hell.
The first thing I noticed about the Pike County Detention Center, is that the white walls were much cleaner than the nasty gray walls at the Floyd County Detention center. The second thing I noticed, is that they knew the real reason I was there; I was there to be punished for filing a grievance against the Pike county Attorney and protesting publicly against him.
The Floyd County detention center did a pat down of me. I had a safety pin in my skirt where the button had broke; The Floyd County pat down didn't catch it. Besides, they knew I was falsely arrested and not a threat to anybody.
The Pike County Detention center did a pat down of me. Oh, and a full body cavity search. The Pike County Detention center also knew I was falsely arrested but were under orders to punish me by the Pike County Attorney. Federal Courts have ruled that strip searches are illegal when there is no indication that the arrestee has weapons or contraband.
A body cavity search is bad, but the punishment wasn't over.
I was put in solitary confinement. That in a way was a blessing, because at least I wouldn't have to be present during a peep show. The only items in the room were a cot and blanket. The blanket was made of pressed lint and had several holes. One hole was large enough for my seven year son to fit through.
But it was quiet, and somehow I slept.
In the morning the lights came on and breakfast was served. At this point, I was afraid to eat or drink anything because it may have been drugged and then I would be charged with some type of felony drug charge. This water fountain worked; but again I was afraid that it could give me hepatitis depending on who was in the cell before me. There were no blood splatters on the wall, just several boogers where somebody had laid there on the cot and wiped them on the wall.
Then somebody turned the air conditioner on high.
I begged the guards for another blanket. The one I had was full of holes and I was wearing a summer suit; just a jacket, short skirt, and pantyhose. The guards laughed at me and taunted me. The joked that the temperature was just fine and that even if they had another blanket, that I didn't need one.
I had been praying a lot before then. But when the air conditioner torture started, I began praying even more. And I don't mean just praying. I remembered a service about Paul and Silas from the Bible. They had been jailed unfairly. Instead of complaining, Paul and Silas sang and gave praises to the Lord. I took that to be my instructions.
I wrapped the blanket around me and walked back and forth. And I sang every song I knew that gave praise to God. At some point I would sit back down on my bunk and would sing and pray. And then I would lay down and sleep for a few minutes, but quickly wake up because I was so cold.
This cycle repeated itself. This went on for hours. I don't really know how long. I would try to sleep but would be too cold. Then I would wake up and pace back and forth and sing. Then I would sit down and pray and sing. But at some point I was repeating the same songs over and over. Then I started making up new songs using Bible verses. I know the verse I used the most was Romans 8:28. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
I have a decent voice so I didn't hear any complaints from other cells. Well, there was one complaint. The Guard who laughed at me, enjoyed my singing but then said she got tired of me singing church songs; that I needed to sing something from the radio.
That was my cold day in hell. My family being from Louisville, was unable to get the five thousand dollar full cash bond that night to get me out. They had been fearful for me, and brought four thousand dollars between all of them "just in case". But then again, this wasn't about every day due process of handling an ordinary case.
This was about political retaliation. How dare I, Amy Mischler an American citizen, exercise my First Amendment Rights and protest publicly against Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall? How dare I file a grievance against Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall with the Attorney Generals office?
It was a cold day in hell. But, like Paul and Silas, I sang and gave praise to God who touched the Judge's heart to reduced my bond to five hundred dollars. My lips were cracked from dehydration, and I was cold down to my very soul. It was strange walking on the hot July pavement outside the detention center, yet still be cold on the inside.
I asked my parents to take me to the nearby Captain D's so I could get a super large unsweetened ice tea because I was so thirsty. As I sat there in my suit, I felt contaminated. I was afraid to touch my family, in case I had come in contact with AIDS or hepatitis. And I felt like a thanksgiving turkey defrosting on the counter. I was room temp on the outside, but frozen on the inside.
And I wanted to get out of Pike County as soon as possible in case they manufactured some other reason to arrest me or my family.
But I am out, and awaiting to be held over to the grand jury by the Pike County Commonwealth Attorney, who of course is my ex husbands good friend. And of course, my ex husband is also a campaign contributor to the Pike County Commonwealth Attorney.
Singing and giving praise to God will get you out of jail.
What about the other prisoners in the Pike County Detention Center? According to the Appalachian News Express, State inspector Jeff Burton reported that "several of the dorms were very cold and probably are not within the minimum range" within the Pike County Detention Center. Temperatures ranges vary widely in the jail, according to the report.
That's right. Even as you read this, there are innocent and guilty people at the Pike County Detention Center suffering through a cold day in hell. This a form of torture. Who is going to help them? Will you?
Meanwhile, with my own plight; will anybody investigate the Pike County Attorney and the Attorney General who is protecting him? Will you?
Comments
If convicted, I will spend one to five years in jail.
This was the first and only time I returned my children late. I was trying to get an EPO in an area outside of east KY.
At around noon, I realized that I wouldn't be able to get an EPO, so I voluntarily had a friend call my ex husband and return the children.
At no time did my ex husband ever call me on the cell to see what was going.
Think of it this way, I might spend one to five years in jail, for voluntarily returning my children the next day.
Also, his attorney Kim Thompson made an ex parte phone call to the family court Judge in the case. The family court Judge, who has sole subject matter jurisdiction over custody matters REFUSED to sign the custodial interferance warrant.
So when the Judge refused to sign the warrant for the Pike County Attorney, the Pike County Attorney then went to a Pike County Trial Commissioner who did not have jurisdiction to sign the warrant.