TheAgitator.com
Mississippi Cardiologist Won’t Go to Prison for Online Dating
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009A couple of months ago I put up a post about federal prosecutors’ pursuit of Dr. Roger Weiner, an outspoken Mississippi cardiologist who was charged with Mann Act violations for using a Memphis-based website while in Mississippi to meet and date adult women. FBI agents posting as prostitutes repeatedly tried to get Weiner to agree to for money for sex. Each time, he explcitly turned them down, at one point writing to one in a chat room, “I’m not interested in a hooker.” They arrested him and charged him anyway.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. dismissed all charges against Weiner, ruling that the federal courts didn’t have jurisdiction in the case. Biggers’ opinion strongly suggested the case against Weiner was politically motivated, and came down hard on federal prosecutors, concluding:
The agents repeatedly played the roles of inducers in the present case. Their actions were nothing less than blatant, though unsuccessful, attempts to manufacture federal jurisdiction and are reminiscent of the behavior of the agents in one of the seminal cases on manufactured jurisdiction.
Biggers then goes on to compare Weiner’s case to the facts in United States v. Archer, in which, as indicated, federal agents blatantly manufactured a federal crime.
Of course, Weiner won’t be compensated for the time, money, and personal stress he spent defending himself from these phony charges. And if you think think there’s a chance in hell the federal agents who set Weiner up or the prosecutors who brought this bogus case against him will be sanctioned or disciplined in any significant way, well, I’ve got a judge in Mississippi I’d be willing to sell you.
Needs a stronger headline. Perhaps “Court dismisses trumped-up charges against whistleblower physician who opposed government corruption”?
I’d like to be happy to hear this news, but it only serves to underscore the fact that the only remotely probable outcomes when the government decides to fuck with you are total defeat and pyrrhic victory.
“… Biggers’ opinion strongly suggested the case against Weiner was politically motivated, and came down hard on federal prosecutors, …”
Nothing will happen. The prosecutors who used their power to go after an innocent man, knowingly, will suffer no legal consequences. Until that changes, nothing can fix our “in-justice” system.
Until state actors are held accountable for their misdeeds, egregious crap like this will continue to occur.
The criminal behavior of cops, DAs, judges etc is the single largest problem in the U.S. justice system.
thank god it wasn’t alabama and he got caught with a dildo.
“Mississippi hates children, but it loves giving them the gift of life”-brett jones
hehe…the judge said “seminal”
Joseph in Florida wins thread
#2 Zargon hath writ:
Wasn’t the Mann Act itself a poiltically
motivated ex post facto type law?
This is great irony.
That is… completely true.
And so incredibly depressing.
A few years back in a chat-room for drug law reformers, someone showed up and announced that ’she’ was a ‘14 year old girl with blond hair and blue eyes’.
When no one responded to ‘her’, ’she’ repeated the exact same phrase. No one said anything to her, as the members weren’t about to say anything to an unknown someone who claimed to be underage and obviously looking for trouble. ‘She’ left when no responses were forthcoming.
A few months later, it was announced that a multi-State task force had nabbed several alleged pervs seeking jailbait, and that some celebrity had been involved in the ‘fishing expeditions’.
You can’t help but wonder just where legit chasing after pervs ends and trying to inflate arrest statistics via entrapment begins. All done with our taxpayer’s dollars, of course.
Well, “sting” operations are illegal in most countries.
The ability to set people up, “undesirable” characters
or politically troublesome ones, is too easy.
I mean, hell, drop some money on the ground
and if the guy picks it up, arrest him.
It takes much more energy and time for a cop to wait for the theft,
chase a guy and tackle him than to sit around on a computer
pretending to be a 15-year old cheerleader.
Surely all Federal prosecutors can’t be corrupt. This case should be required reading for all prosecutors so they know who amongst their bretheren are unprincipled, perverse, inimical purveyors of injustice. At least that way these reprobates can be censured by their own fellow prosecutors.
“Surely all Federal prosecutors can’t be corrupt.”
Don’t bet on it. Assume they all are and one might, in a rare instance, be pleasantly surprised.