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First and Fourteenth
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Civil and Human Rights Violations
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Fourteen articles describe racism and civil rights violations by Stephen A. Mitchell, directors, lawyers, staff, Kapos (enforcers), and some tenants at Council House during the past five years. They contain evidence of dereliction by government officials and their investigators which has resulted in unlawful evictions of physically and financially disadvantaged elderly people.
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Council House directors have shown indifference to tenant abuse by managers and their thugs. They have denied tenants their right to complain in violation of their constitutional right to freedom of expression. They have also either threatened them with eviction or evicted them for filing legitimate complaints with government agencies.
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Fully researched and documented, the articles allege that government officials have not dealt with complaints in accordance with law. They have consorted with Council House directors and their lawyers to conduct a whitewash of multiple instances of elder abuse and racism. By that, they violated Civil Rights Act Title VIII and Seattle Open Housing Ordinance.
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Investigation revealed an extensive pattern or practice of elder abuse, violation of civil and human rights, and denial of due process of law. The term "pattern or practice" means an intentional violation of rights granted by the Civil Rights Act evidenced by more than an isolated instance, or by regular repeated conduct in violation of that Act.
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John W. Meyers, US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Thomas A. Carr, City Attorney, City of Seattle; Germaine W. Covington, Director, Seattle Office of Civil Rights (SOCR); Norm Maleng, King County Prosecuting Attorney; and their employees, have neglected to investigate allegations of racism, elder abuse, and homicide by abuse. Evidently, they covered up those crimes for political expediency. Consequently, two Council House tenants filed in US District Court, Western District of Washington, for injunctive relief.
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Prior to publication, all people mentioned had a chance to refute statements that could negatively affect their reputations or cause investigation or prosecution.
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[Introduction to New/Updated Articles] [Constitutional Rights Initiative]
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Lauren Jeanne Hawk (65) now has competent legal counsel for her eviction trial (which includes First and Fourteenth Amendment issues) against Stephen (aka Stefan) A. Mitchell (40) and Council House before Washington Superior Court, Seattle (26 Sep 05). Another tenant brought similar charges against Mitchell four years ago (20 Mar 01). That case now awaits a decision by Washington Supreme Court. [Supreme Court Review]
Hawk's case provides one of many examples that show how anonymity, obtained by depriving one journalist of his right to freedom of expression, has allowed elder abuse at Council House to escalate. Mitchell took advantage of his relative immunity from prosecution and anonymity granted by a court order to increase his hold over tenants. [Hawk and the Raven]
Mitchell used a neo-fascist ideology to the detriment of dissidents. With the knowledge and complicity of his directors, and with help from corrupt lawyers and judges who denied due process of law, he obtained restraining orders. For that purpose he coerced or suborned declarations from a team of people willing to commit perjury to gain favor. He then terrorized the remaining tenants for his own benefit. The majority have lived in fear for at least five years.
Six of the eight witnesses who offered testimony against Hawk previously filed perjured declarations against other Council House tenants. Directors and their thugs have consistently suborned a tenant elite since 2001. In addition, six directors committed perjury which they used to pervert justice. Mitchell also tampered with each of the tenant witnesses for the petitioner in the 2001 case now before Washington Supreme Court. He either unlawfully evicted them, tried to bribe them, or had his Kapos seriously harass them. [Supreme Court Review]
In Washington state, perjury by signing misleading declarations or giving false testimony classifies as a class B felony which carries a maximum punishment of ten years in a correctional institution, and/or a $20,000 fine, on each count. Corrupt judges have repeatedly disallowed discovery and cross-examination that would have exposed those crimes: instead, they granted Council House directors impunity. [Impunity]
First Amendment to the US Constitution protects speech unless it defines narrowly as a true threat, even though it may alarm the person targeted. Courts have routinely found that protection extends to speech and conduct that society at large views as vile, politically incorrect, or borne of hate. If the constitution proscribed unsettling, disturbing, arousing, or annoying communications and allowed only behavior that would not alarm, then the protection of the First Amendment would have no worth.
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First Amendment to the United States Constitution
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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For more than five years, Council House has ambiguously proscribed “acts that will disturb the rights or comforts of neighbors”, “rude behavior”, and “abusive behavior”, without defining those terms. That proscription reaches far beyond acts or speech that constitute a true threat - a statement that a reasonable person would interpret as a serious expression of intention to harm or take the life of another individual.
Lawyer and Judicial Misconduct
Washington State Court Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC) require lawyers to make a full disclosure of their interest. Those rules contain nothing that allows lawyers to remain anonymous and unidentifiable. Yet Judge James (Jiminy) A. Doerty issued an order that gives Silence, Censor, and Beleaguer (SCaB), Seattle, a rogue law firm, protection from exposure and allows them to act unlawfully in the same way as their clients. Washington State Bar Association [WSBA] uses this quotation as a slogan but Washington judges pay little heed to it and repeatedly deny due process of law.
[RPC Rule 8.4 Misconduct] [The Scab Family]
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Hon. Robert F. Utter, Retired Justice, Washington State Supreme Court wrote that:
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The vibrancy of our Democracy depends upon our willingness to ensure that the fullest range of voices and interests is represented and heard. This is what the fight for equal justice is all about.
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SCaB mainly employs inept, scabrous tyros straight out of school to handle dirty work for its clients. The partners apparently have a revolving door employment policy. In the Council House case, they have cycled ten attorneys under a cloak of anonymity. Some of those lawyers have repeatedly colluded with their clients in suborning witnesses - the resultant perjury has figured in a string of court findings. [Pattern or Practice]
Four years ago (19 Apr 01), Doerty placed a prior restraint upon this author. By that unconstitutional act he granted SCaB a license to kill. He sanctioned a conspiracy by Council House directors and handed down a contempt order for jail with solitary confinement for publishing their names and reporting their alleged crimes to government agencies.
[Hanging Judges and Bloody Assizes]
SCaB recently added several new attorneys to its team. One of them showed a modicum of ethics during Supreme Court oral argument. Ironically, he must also remain anonymous unless he signs a waiver for filing with the trial court - a travesty commented upon by one of the justices. The restraining order applies to mention of opposing lawyer and firm names, despite full names and affiliation appearing on all court documents as a matter of public record and court rules requiring full disclosure.
That confederacy allowed unlawful or criminal acts among lawyers and judges under cover of anonymity condoned by impunity. The trial and appellate court decisions by these allegedly corrupt judges awaits a Washington Supreme Court decision that will allow publication of Council House directors’ and lawyers’ names; meanwhile, pseudonyms replace them.
[Supreme Court Review]
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Elena Luisa Garella, Attorney-at-Law, Seattle, a prominent First Amendment lawyer (already an attorney in the Council House Supreme Court action) and Kaustuv Das, Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT), will represent Hawk. Both attorneys work under the aegis of the Housing Justice Project (KCBA). Garella and Das will challenge the constitutionality of Council House actions on grounds that Mitchell has tried to evict Hawk for exercising her right to freedom of speech and on several other constitutional issues. Neither Garella nor Das has shown any inclination toward anonymity.
[Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction]
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Alex J. Rose (SCaB) represents Stephen A. Mitchell and Council House Inc. Doerty’s gag order allows SCaB attorneys to have no known name or identity and to lack any marked individuality contrary to state bar association (WSBA) rules. Therefore, appropriate pseudonyms replace the attorney’s name and firm and his picture bears Doerty's stamp. When courts muzzle journalists, then lawyers and their clients have free reign to act unethically. If Doerty had not initially granted anonymity and impunity to Council House directors they probably would not have acted as they did, then elder abuse and deaths may not have occurred.
Heterodox Expression and Dissent
Ironically, most of the language used by Council House tenants has constitutional protection while the language and actions of management, staff, and Kapos fits into the true threat category. They repeatedly abuse physically sick or mentally vulnerable people with behavior that has resulted in at least two cases of alleged homicide by abuse. [Homicide by Abuse]
Sociopathic managers project their own speech and behavior onto their victims, then bring frivolous lawsuits to evict them. Council House rules state that the manager will not tolerate rude or abusive behavior towards residents and staff for any reason. He interprets those ambiguous and capricious terms at his sole discretion and without reason.
Hawk has admitted that she alleged that Mitchell has racist leanings and mismanages Council House. Mitchell claims that her statements upset tenants. He neglected to qualify the statement by saying that she upset a minority who act as straw men and Kapos whom he employs to protect him from criticism. Several other tenants have made similar remarks and some of them have suffered eviction and jail for their efforts. [Hawk and the Raven]
At his deposition, Mitchell could not define the terms “rude” or “abusive.” He admitted that reasonable people differ as to whether a particular behavior or statement defines as rude and/or abusive. He admitted that he based his enforcement of the lease on his personal and arbitrary discretion and that some violations result in written warnings and ultimate eviction while others do not.
Mitchell concluded under oath that some expression adversely affected the health or safety of tenants. He said that he considered unhealthy any stress caused by having an opposing view. He opined that calling a staff member “liar” amounted to rudeness, lease violation, and cause for eviction. He ignored the fact that Council House leases rely upon impermissibly over-broad or vague proscriptions which encompass constitutionally protected activity. If any irony exists in this bizarre situation, then it relates to a pathological liar evicting tenants for calling him a liar. [Thespian Liar]
Rude and Abusive Behavior - by Management
Lynn C. Wartnik (wife of Washington Superior Court Judge Anthony P. Wartnik), and Sheila Sternberg (wife of Craig S. Sternberg, a Seattle bankruptcy attorney), former co-presidents of Council House, forged HUD documents to insure Mitchell's appointment as building manager. Consequently, tenants have had to contend with sociopaths entrenched in racial discrimination and pathological lying for at least five years.
Mitchell threatens eviction to anyone who questions his management policies or refuses to conform to his neo-fascist dictates. If they do not maintain political silence then he targets them for eviction. Council House directors remain indifferent to his behavior although his contract calls for instant dismissal for dishonesty (lying and lack of integrity). [Conspiracy of Silence]
Lynn Wartnik and other directors committed perjury to evict a tenant and place him in solitary confinement (on Mitchell’s recommendation) for speaking out about racism and elder abuse. Judges James A. Doerty and Michael C. Hayden, Judge Wartnik’s pandering poodles, condoned that behavior by effectively granting them anonymity and impunity.
[Perjury and Subornation]
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Statement by
Washington Superior Court
Judge Anthony P. Wartnik:
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He's right where he
should be . . .
Solitary Confinement
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Lynn C. Wartnik, his wife and former co-president Council House, Seattle, forged HUD documents to insure appointment of Stephen A. Mitchell as building manager and committed perjury to place a tenant in solitary confinement.
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Judges Doerty and Hayden condoned their behavior and effectively granted them impunity.
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Prosecutors must now indict Wartnik's wife for forgery and perjury.
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[Queer Connection]
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Four years have passed. Despite a pending Washington Supreme Court First Amendment decision, Mitchell has tried to evict Hawk on similar grounds. He has used the same tired argument of rude and abusive behavior based upon her complaints about racism and elder abuse that pertained in the case under review.
Hawk says that Mitchell “constantly uses the term liar when yelling at me and other tenants”. She says that another tenant, William Farmer, suffered three burglaries and Mitchell refused to help him adequately secure his windows, then called him a liar and denied any robbery had taken place. Hawk says that: “Mitchell believes that he can change reality by calling someone who resists him a liar, then gets his enforcers [Kapos] to go along with him”.
Mitchell padded his resume with false qualifications so that he could control tenants by calling himself a mental health professional. He falsely claimed that he qualified as a social worker and mental health counselor. Then, he unlawfully made mental health diagnoses about tenants to justify his Kapos acting as vigilantes to enforce his zero-tolerance fantasies.
Police have arrested and incarcerated tenants on several occasions based entirely upon Mitchell’s mental health "diagnoses". He had three residents incarcerated without due process during a twelve-month period for complaining about abuse and ostracism and then evicted all of them.
Mitchell locked out another tenant from his apartment using anti-harassment laws obtained by suborning perjury, railroaded others (unlawful eviction) from their apartments, and evicted another on perjured testimony. Mitchell and his staff have repeatedly used blackmail and search and seizure as intimidation.
He also persuaded police to take another tenant to a mental institution. Doctors found nothing wrong with her after four days observation and returned her to her apartment. Mitchell then unlawfully evicted her. Those tenants only complained about “rude and abusive” treatment by managers and exercised their constitutional right to freely express themselves.
Mitchell repeatedly used five Kapos as enforcers and informants willing to perjure themselves and suborn others. One of them has since been evicted, apparently as a result of the exposure of her racism and physical attacks on black tenants in Contra Cabal.
All five Kapos allegedly committed crimes - several of them felonies worthy of prosecution. Mitchell allegedly committed multiple felonies and violations of federal law yet the directors continue to cover up those crimes.
Hawk says that she told Victor DeLeon, President, Council House, on the telephone that she wished to conciliate and had approached him because Mitchell had lied and violated laws. She says that DeLeon replied that he would try to get members of the board of directors to speak with her. Nobody called.
Reportedly, DeLeon said that he would keep an open mind even though he remained a big supporter of Mitchell. DeLeon will eventually have to face perjury charges in the case of another tenant along with Mitchell. The birds continue to flock together. [Hawk and the Raven]
Mitchell considers that Council House leases allow selective or arbitrary enforcement at his sole discretion despite laws and regulations to the contrary. In the middle of the current furor over his dictatorship, he even said that he will extend the curtailment of free speech to people visiting the building.
Landlords as State Actors
Private landlords participating in federal housing programs become state actors when they receive mortgage benefits and rent supplements from Federal Housing Authority (FHA). Restrictions imposed on the owner by FHA lease forms and regulatory agreements underscore the purpose to make private capital a tool of government housing policy.
Council House, nominally a private entity, becomes a state actor because government has a mandated say in its management or control. Private landlords who receive HUD subsidies also rank as state actors for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
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Federal regulations govern all aspects of Council House landlord-tenant relationships. As state actors, the directors intertwine with US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials. That interlacing precludes individual discretion by managers in defining terms that relate to changes in rent, modification of lease conditions, and termination of tenancy.
Council House managers and directors have abrogated federal regulations for several years by taking advantage of laissez faire policies at HUD. Hawk’s case demonstrates that dereliction and emphasizes the unlawful eviction of many other tenants without due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
As a state actor, the provisions in leases effectively classify as government regulations. Council House may not, therefore, promulgate a lease that curtails or narrows federal rights and may not apply the lease terms in a manner that violates those rights. Landlords may not impose provisions which may be unfair to tenants.
Council House leases and house rules do not provide guidance to the interpretation of the phrases “disturb the rights or comforts of neighbors”, “rude behavior”, or “abusive behavior”. Therefore, they classify as impermissibly vague and inherently unreasonable. Moreover, “acts that will disturb the rights or comforts of neighbors” and “rude or abusive behavior” encompass protected First Amendment activity which makes those lease terms impermissibly over-broad.
Vagueness Doctrine
The vagueness doctrine has two purposes: to provide tenants with fair warning of what conduct they must avoid; and, to protect them from arbitrary, ad hoc, or discriminatory law enforcement. Council House seeks to prohibit “noises or acts that will disturb the rights or comforts of neighbors” yet does not provide any definition of those terms.
US Supreme Court held an ordinance prohibiting conduct that annoyed people passing by as void for vagueness because conduct that annoys some people does not annoy others. The vagueness arises not from the sense that it requires a person to conform his conduct to an imprecise but comprehensible normative standard, but rather the lack of any standard of conduct at all. The phrase “disturb the rights or comforts of neighbors” suffers from the same lack of specificity.
Just as conduct that annoys some people does not annoy others, conduct that troubles or destroys the tranquility or serenity of some people will not bother other people. Playing some types of music immediately springs to mind.
Council House lease provisions seek to prohibit speech that disturbs the rights or comfort of neighbors rank as unconstitutionally vague. Evicting tenants on the basis of such language ranks as patently absurd. Neither leases nor house rules define the term “rude” which suffers from the same constitutional ambiguity as the terms “annoy” or “disturb”.
Council House tenants live in continual fear that something they say to another tenant might cause them to ask Mitchell to invoke house rules. If he considers that a statement affronts his ideology then he threatens eviction. He develops house rules that generally seek to curb conversation and he actively promotes ostracism as a control factor. He punishes anyone who breaks that banishment.
Mitchell’s inability to objectively define terms, and his admission that reasonable people cannot agree about application of them, emphasizes that the lease conditions that underlie his attempt to evict Hawk contain no standards. The lack of definition allows police officers, judges, and juries to subjectively decide standards of conduct that statutes proscribe and which the framers of the constitution probably did not intend.
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Humpty Doerty and the Ravens
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| Historically, tricksters (ravens) worked the courts as straw men. They placed a piece of straw in their shoes to indicate to judges and lawyers which witnesses would commit perjury for a price. |
| With artifice, Council House and their lawyers employed straw men. They brought frivolous lawsuits and suborned witnesses. |
| Typically, a lawyer asks the straw man in the witness box a leading question under oath: "You know that Tweedledum screamed rude and abusive language and spit at Tweedledee, don't you?" The witness always answers: "Yes", then collects graft on the way out of the courtroom. |
| Alice repeatedly objected to the ambiguity inherent in the phrase "rude and abusive". Straw Judge Humpty Doerty smiled queerly and said in a scornful tone: "Words mean what I choose them to mean - neither more nor less". Alice shook her head in disbelief while Doerty chanted T-dum T-dum T-dee. |
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Under oath, Mitchell several times stated that tenants were upset when Hawk allegedly opined about Mitchell’s racism and building mismanagement. The only rationale for attempting to evict Hawk relates to quashing dissent under the misguided notion that it protects tenants from “stress”.
Mitchell asserted that stress caused by the expression of opinions with which he does not agree adversely affects health or safety. However, regulation consistent with the First Amendment does not curtail free speech of dissenters to save Mitchell and his elite from “stress”.
Mitchell’s preoccupation with tenant “stress” has no bearing upon tenants who lease independent-living apartments designated as senior citizen housing. The apartment block does not classify as a nursing home, does not legally house vulnerable adults, and tenants do not come under vulnerability mandates. Those who legally live at Council House possess all their faculties and have the ability to act independently. [Vulnerable Adults]
Tenants rent apartments in a block governed by landlord/tenant laws in the same manner as anyone else. The difference between Council House tenant and other landlord/tenant relationships lies only in economic disadvantage and age eligibility, not physical or mental disability. [Elder Abuse - Introduction]
Mitchell would have the public believe that all tenants are vulnerable (crazy) so that for some inexplicable reason (apart from his own psychosis) he can control their lifestyles using neo-fascist, zero-tolerance policies. This evidences in his present constitutional problems which he has now exacerbated by again changing house rules retroactively to meet pernicious goals. This repeats his previous use of time-warp stratagems to gain absolute control over tenants.
Mitchell has added to the terms “rude” and “abusive” (which he claimed placed stress on tenants and has acknowledged under oath as ambiguous), a new string of nebulous terms not permissible in a legal document by any stretch of imagination (01 Aug 05). Lawyers have already challenged his terminology and he admitted under oath that he uses nebulous definitions at his sole discretion. Despite that determination, Mitchell has again altered lease addenda, apparently to support his subornation of illegal tenants as perjurers in the same case which challenges the original definitions.
He has added the terms “guests” and “visitors” to the categories affected by his language restrictions which broadens rather than narrows the scope of his denial of First Amendment rights. He qualifies the use of absolutely verbal restrictions by claiming that they reasonably relate “to the safety, care and cleanliness of the building and the safety, comfort and convenience of tenants”. Denial of freedom of expression has very little to do with those conditions, especially when Mitchell and his staff regulaly use “rude and abusive” language while about their daily elder abuse.
If Mitchell revised the wording of that last phrase to “. . . comfort and convenience of Kapos and a tenant elite” then it might have a degree of validity. As it stands it could apply equally to garbage collectors, newspaper delivery boys, and whores who visit Council House as guests.
To give credence to the constitutional rights of whores in a lease addendum seems bizarre. To add ambiguous terms to a signed legal document presently under deliberation in a court of law, then use them to retroactively sanction visiting or guest straw men who have perjured themselves, sounds truly Kafkaesque. [Kafka - The Trial]
[Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction]
Straw Men and Hypocrisy
Mitchell used a Kapo and moll team (Nathaniel Stahl and Charlene Sego) as straw men in an antiharassment suit with the sole intent of effecting unlawful eviction of Pola Doenyas (76). He previously used a similar team (Felippe Jacques and Kathryn McKinley) to evict Donald Jackson, a black man, and his wife by manufacturing evidence and creating a racist situation.
[Pattern or Practice] [Donald Jackson - WIP]
On other occasions, Mitchell has used an allegedly queer couple (Glen Thompson and Michael Johnson who unlawfully poses as his care giver) to provide false evidence in Hawk and other cases. Mitchell also used a violent, female racist (Virginia Lambert) as a straw to bring a court action in an attempt unlawfully to evict Leon L. Harris, another black man. Previously, Lambert had physically assaulted two black Council House women on separate occasions with impunity.
[Hawk and the Raven] [Racism] [Trials of Leon L Harris]
After Jackson's unlawful eviction, apparently as a reward, Mitchell allowed Jacques (a self-proclaimed racist who recently changed apartments) to move his moll into Jackson’s vacated home situated across the hall from his own. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has reportedly now taken multiple abuse of black people at Council House under advisement. [Noblesse Oblige]
US Constitution permitted Nazis to march in a town populated by Holocaust victims even though the march indubitably inflicted psychic trauma on Shoah survivors and other Jews. Council House leases apartments to several holocaust survivors who strive to grant others their constitutional rights while Mitchell marches with the Nazis - evidenced by the death of a holocaust survivor from alleged homicide by abuse three days after Mitchell used his sole “discretion”.
Naftali Nathan Vilensky (72+) suffered a nightmarish existence at Council House during nine months preceding his death. He suffered constant abuse from Mitchell, his staff and Kapos, also from an elite among tenants. They constantly attacked him for his physical appearance in the same way that they have treated Hawk and other tenants with disabilities by constantly humiliating and defaming them.
[Last Cruel Days. Homicide?]
Mitchell’s self-portrayal exemplifies his own freedom of expression under the First Amendment but also displays the utter hypocrisy of misplaced spirituality and subversion of religion to support neo-fascism. Stephen (aka Stefan) A. Mitchell considers that he possesses divine provenance and claims on his web page that “Reverend” Bruner says: “To listen to Stefan is to have heard God”. [Stefan Mitchell]
Hawk and almost two hundred Council House tenants, plus the US government, probably think otherwise. A background check on Reverend Bruner found him “excitedly pursuing the path of forgiveness following a recent encounter at Baskin-Robbins”. This may persuade the judge to buy the perjurers ice cream so that they can taste forgiveness. Then Mitchell and SCaB can bring more frivolous law suits against Council House tenants by recycling perjurers yet again.
[David Bruner]
[Nmesis]
Ages shown (30 Jun 05).
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