Trial by Website – Part 8 – Topsy-Turkey

It is time to catch up to the happenings in the series, “Trial by Website.” There has been some interesting stuff going on in the continuing drama of website versus the trial court in Liberty County, Texas. A new website has arrived and while some of the old players have seemed to switch sides in the conflicts, the cast of characters has been enlarged, with at least one new website entering the fray. The whole affair is beginning to really develop the reputation of being quite a "who dunnit" with the "who" part switching around more like a tennis ball that is swatted back and forth by one racketeer after another across a net that won't stay in one place for much longer than several good swats in a row.

Today is the day before Thanksgiving Day and those who have an interest in all of this intrigue and adventure have much new material with which to work and, thus, a whole lot for which to be thankful other than possibly overfilling stomachs tomorrow.

Where to start? My big red notebook is getting so filled with ammo that starting to document most of it in this Part 8 would require a week's worth of hard writing. Therefore, the decision is to pick and choose among the many pages that are currently threatening to burst the covers off of the notebook. Time enough after that for a thinning, keeping only the documents that may be needed by my own attorneys should the Liberty County actors in all of this decide to sue me. (That sort of retention of “evidence” is often referred to as “CYA” action.)

First, it can be noted that not everything in this world is what it may seem to be. Almost throughout the prior seven parts of this series I had pretty much concluded that the folks who were busy producing the “Liberty Dispatch” website were “after” their official antagonist, the Liberty County district attorney, a long-time elected official by the name of Michael Little. After all, the person who founded and who presumably still owns the website, “Liberty Dispatch,” is being prosecuted for several felonies by Mr. Little and his staff. It seemed to be a logical thought that anything that could be done to adversely affect the cases against that founder and participant in the website, a Mr. Frederick Ray Akins, would be helpful to the accused's cause in the forthcoming trial. (Akins and his alleged co-conspirator, “Pastor” Edward "Eddie" Shauberger, are scheduled to be in court beginning in late February, 2012.)

My conclusion may have taken the wrong path. Then again, perhaps it was the right road at the time I began my trip. As I review things today, however, I can see that I may have given far too much credit to the “Liberty Dispatch” website bunch as to their conniving abilities. I also had believed them to have roped Akins' defense attorney into that scene. Today I'd be willing to bet that I was flat out wrong in my weaving the tale of what they were up to and how they went about it. As most will recollect, my idea was that Akins figured that anything he could do to hamper the district attorney in his forthcoming prosecution might possibly serve to get Akins “off easy or off altogether” by influencing the to-be-gathered jury, by hampering the operation of the district attorney's office, or by stalling the whole thing until everyone decided to walk away from a prosecution altogether.

A grand attack was made on the assistant district attorney, Mike Little's first assistant. An old and long-closed accusation against the assistant, Joe Warren, was re-opened and a captain in the Liberty County Sheriff Office prepared a "probable cause" affidavit with which to secure an arrest warrant for Joe Warren, The arrest warrant, sanctioned by a visiting judge from another county, was issued, Joe Warren was arrested, a costly special prosecutor from a distant county and a special investigator did their things. Liberty County's Grand Jury was convened to consider whether Joe Warren may possibly have committed any trial-worthy crimes his accusers brought before the grand jurors.

Joe Warren was no-billed (not charged with any crime).

Around the same time that all of this was going on, the Liberty County website environment was changing. Earlier, the Akins' website, “Liberty Dispatch” had headlined articles said to have been prepared for Akins' site by an entity that signed their articles as “The Outsiders.” Some of those articles were the bases for the earlier conjecturing as to who was doing what to whom and why were they doing it. Likely you read of all that in parts one through seven of this “Trial by Website” series.

To this striving investigative writer it was, therefore, logical and obvious that the “Liberty Dispatch” folks were working, hand in glove, with those “Outsiders.” One would itch, the next would scratch, and it looked as though one or both would thereupon say, “Thank you.” So, when an “Outsiders” story would be front-paged on “Liberty Dispatch” what it had to say was, to me, being said for “Liberty Dispatch,” Ray Akins, and co-workers, if not directly by them. Here came tales about sheriff's deputy, Louis Guthrie, telling of his getting an arrest warrant approved for the arrest of the assistant district attorney for his actions in an old, closed case involving the killing of Assistant District Attorney Joe Warren's pet dog by his neighbor's dogs. It was easy to think that Akins' bunch had put deputy Guthrie up to this.

Ah, me. Logic does not work well in illogical situations.

Yesterday I read a headline article in the “Liberty Dispatch” website that proved how wrong I could be when it came to figuring out what was what in a county beset with nests of warring poison-pen vipers. The writer was a fellow, James Richard Pegues.

Pegues is reportedly a teacher in a local school. He is the person who is evidently fronting for Frederick Ray Akins, who now oddly claims that he has nothing more to do with “Liberty Dispatch” (other than ownership and registration of the site by proxy and running the site vicariously). How far back Pegues goes with Akins is not known to me, but it must be long enough, or of dollar value enough, to cause Pegues to sit where he sits and to write what he writes. Pegues "not working for Liberty Dispatch" is an interesting "other" story to be dealt with in a future part of this "Trial by Website" series.

At any rate, Pegues' article belabored another of Akins' one-time pals, Ray Akins' alleged co-conspirator in the upcoming Liberty County felony trials, “Pastor” Edward (Eddie) Shauberger. Pegues explained that Shauberger and Shauberger's “Outsiders” friends had besieged Pegues with request after request to help them in their desire to get one of the local Liberty County judges to issue an arrest warrant for Assistant District Attorney Joe Warren on that old, closed dog case. Pegues went on to name Deputy Louis Guthrie as a person who was working with those “Outsiders.” I recognize that Shauberger certainly would have an interest in throwing monkey wrenches into the gears of the district attorney's office. After all, the February felony trials for Akins and Shauberger are both supposedly to be combined into one judicial effort. What the prosecution (and maybe even the defense attorneys) may not know yet is that Akins and Shauberger are no longer buddies. Even so, this get-together of the “Outsiders” with Shauberger came to me as a bit of a surprise.

There is no way for me to verify that the Akins cabal had nothing to do with the machinations that led to Joe Warren's arrest, nor am I willing to attest to the truthfulness or the lack of it of anything that James Richard Pegues might say or write. What I would declare, however, is that a notarized affidavit by someone indicates that the affiant probably really believes that which he is affirming – or that the affiant wants you and me to believe that what was affirmed must certainly be true.

Well, when it comes to this long-continuing trial by website, the real facts are difficult of sorting out from the unreal stuff. With that in mind and with no endorsement from me of any sort, I presented, above, a copy of James Richard Pegues' newly published notarized affidavit. It speaks loudly of the battles being waged in Liberty County, much as a huge howitzer might be said to speak with its big shells that explode and toss hot iron in every direction. I would certainly state, with no fear of argument or condemnation, that the “Trial by Website” has a long way to go yet before verdicts can be rendered in which you and I can believe.

On this day before Thanksgiving, let's just say that the whole thing is just plain “topsy-turkey.”

Trial by Website - Part 1http://hubpages.com/t/2629ab

Trial by Website – Part 2 http://hubpages.com/t/2739b0

Trial by Website – Part 3 http://hubpages.com/t/2752e4

Trial by Website – Part 4 http://hubpages.com/t/27c4f2

Trial by Website – Part 5 http://hubpages.com/t/27f8c9

Trial by Website - Part 6 http://hubpages.com/t/282a09

Trial by Website - Part 7 http://hubpages.com/t/292a27