Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 11:48:48 PM
Suppose our clever widget maker had a nocturnal, or even a daytime hobby, one that was clearly illegal, or a friend who had such a hobby.
Hobbies of this sort come in very handy when setting up and executing complex confidence games. With care, and patience, documents can be made to change or even disappear over a period of time. The victim would not guess what was happening.
Suppose the need to make documents disappear or change became more urgent with the filing of a lawsuit. Slow change is difficult to detect. Fast change is easy to detect. Eventually it becomes obvious to the individual making the changes that his activity has been detected. The sudden appearance of a shotgun in the house would be a good clue.
So, our clever widget maker or his friend switches tactics. The visits suddenly are made very obvious and occur only once a month over a six month period. Instead of material being removed, sets of four items, one always associated with the clever Widget maker are brought in and put where they will be quickly, but not immediately found. Essentially the message appears to be that the nocturnal visitor can come and go at will. The last visit is particularly chilling as the visitor makes it clear that he has gone through computer files by printing out a long forgotten file out as a form of silent blackmail.
Just by pure coincidence, the clever Widget maker's attorney suggests that the lawsuit be dropped at exactly the same time. Would a reasonable person assume that these events are an interrelated form of blackmail whose purpose is to make a lawsuit go away?
What I have attempted to create in this thought experiment is an ongoing crime directly related to a civil lawsuit. Is it in the public interest to keep the victim from reporting it, and if it is reported, is it in the public interest to keep the DA from attempting to discourage this kind of activity?