View across intersection of 5th and Market Streets, Wilmington, NC
5:52 PM: DEAR READERS: I just received email from a friend who claims this blog had a warning pop up when he accessed it, claiming it might be a phishing scam -- which it certainly is not. Please contact me immediately if you see this happen, and also if you know how I can deal with what appears to be harassment. Now THAT'S what I call REAL Cyber-Stalking! --if true. LOL!!! (see below)
Yes, yes, I am reappearing on my blog on April Fool’s Day, and God knows, that does seem most appropriate!
First, I want to thank those who emailed in my absence, concerned about what might have happened to me. Nice that they were from various parts of the country and even a couple of foreign countries. It’s heartening to find that despite the “madness” of some of my writing, there are those who found it worthy of their attention.
I was released Monday evening from the New Hanover County Jail near Wilmington, NC after a 28-day detention on misdemeanor charge of "cyber-stalking", due to the fact that I could not raise the paltry $350.00 bail – that because I only remembered my parents’ phone number, and they did not feel I should be released as I awaited trial, nor would they give me my siblings’ phone numbers or those of my five 1st cousins who live in Wilmington so that I could ask them. I know they had their reasons, and really, it all worked out perfectly as I used the time to relax from the mayhem my life had become and to plan how to proceed.
After I finally contacted the Legal Department at Harvard University to let them know I have much information on what happened that robbed them of managing the estate of my former employer, playwright Tennessee Williams (who had added a codicil to his will that Harvard would administer the gift he was giving The University of the South in honor of his grandfather -- this at the suggestion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at a meeting we attended on January 10, 1982 -- all hell broke loose here in Wilmington, and let me state emphatically, that I DO NOT accuse the person who brought charges against me of playing a part in that – he may well have been a “victim” of my manipulating adversaries, too.
Tennessee Williams' estate, valued at the time of his death in 1983 at about $11 million, is now worth upward of $1/3 billion.
A lot of money is at stake.
Now, previous readers might recall that I had blogged in what I have come to realize was sometimes an irresponsible way – especially about this gentleman. Relaxing while in jail, I had already come to realize that long before going to trial and knew that as soon as I was released, I would delete all references to him in my blog (which the judge also did order). I also had decided that I would seek psychological/psychiatric counseling on my own to see that I never again allow myself to get so out of sorts. (The judge ordered this too, as well as a year of probation.) I have followed through on both counts, and then, just this morning, was introduced to my probation officer, although my sentence is now in suspension, awaiting results of my appeal.
Let me be perfectly clear: I and only I am responsible for ALL my words and actions. Period. While there is a constitutional issue here since blogging is actually a form of journalism and has certain protections other communication does not have – and a clear disclaiming statement is posted to the right side of my blog that I sometimes play “loose” to get at the truth (which in the non-legal world can have a somewhat different meaning than in the courtroom), I DO accept that I did my accuser MORAL wrong in that I should not have used a public blog to broadcast what I should have given to the District Attorney, and I should not have allowed myself to be so bedeviled by adversaries that I became overly strident.
That said, I did not actually violate the law as written, which I am confident a jury will see – if my conviction is not tossed out for constitutional reasons. I do not wish to go into this further before trial.
However, I WILL say that had my accuser asked me to remove the offending material, I would have done so, but he unfortunately decided to prosecute me, which has only served to bring the whole thing to the attention of MORE people, and the appeal will multiply THAT number.
This was HIS decision, and he’s in a profession that can give no excuses for behavior in courts. So be it.
The net result is that, having been denied a month of income-producing time, I am nearly flat broke (I have $19.31 in my checking account and $1.87 in my pocket), and as of today, owe two months’ rent ($630.00/month), and some utility bills. Now that I have gotten urgent matters taken care of and begun the appeal process, I am free to begin the search for a job of nearly any description – I’m a writer so am NOT looking for a career position, and my living expenses are actually quite low. I have heard from a friend who also moved here from Atlanta that he might be able to employ me in a month or so when he inaugurates his own business – one he ran successfully for years in Georgia – but I can’t wait for that.
If anyone knows of a job (that is legal and available) – or opportunity that does not require monetary investment, please let me know!
I will resume efforts to re-sell my Tennessee Williams memoir, which got rave reviews from the critics, but whose publication last April by Alyson Books was canceled. The company went belly up after owner Paul Colichman (a closet Republican), bought the company and bled it to death. None of their 30 spring 2010 books – of which I was to be the featured non-fiction release – were published. You can see more about my book here: www.walkingonglass.net .
Also, I will find the woman I met in front of the local synagogue a couple of months ago who books speaking talent. She was most interested to hear of my Tennessee Williams experience, to say nothing of all that has happened since I wrote the book, and seemed to indicate she could book me on speaking engagements. Imagine that – a PAYING audience, YEEHAW!
As I pursue these real world earning solutions, I’ll still be behind the MONEY eight-ball, and must also ask for the help of my readers. Please, if you can spare a few dollars, donate. I will be more than happy to send you an electronic copy of my book. I apologize that I must ask (and that my website is in need of updating of my personal information). If you’d like to email me, use the address on the side of this blog. I have not been able to access the one on my book’s website for months and cannot change it myself. I DO get your email address from PayPal, so can send the file. My photos are on a stolen computer and I cannot send those until I find the $99.00 to re-activate my me.com “cloud” and download them – but I will, by the Grace of God and your or someone else’s help.
Please, also let any friends who value the United States Constitution and Liberty and Justice know of my situation. Ask them if they can help too. Donate through my book's main page, but also be sure to check the other pages, especially the rave reviews which can be found here: www.walkingonglass.net/reviews.php .
Thanks to one and all – even if the most you can do is think about what Liberty (Freedom tempered by respect for others) and Justice mean. If you do that, we are all winning, and that is what I stand for. But if you can manage a little, please also help me out.
Donate, pour favor!
Scott D. Kenan
Here is an email to my Public Defender, listing my reasons for appealing my conviction:
Hi Emily,
I’m just back from getting a newspaper to look at the classifieds to begin a job search. “Slim pickin’s” is putting it mildly, but I do have a few friends here, including one who said I might be able to work for him in a month after he gets a new business up and running (he ran the same business in Atlanta successfully for about eight years before moving here about three months ago, so he does know what he’s doing), but that is not as soon as I need, and there are more and better ways to find a job, BUT, I also realized that Wilmington really is like a small town in many ways, which means that word of mouth and whispered rumors – true or not – can sink a person, and after seeing the character-assassination attempts of the witnesses for the prosecution in court Monday, I realize I have no real choice but to appeal my case for the following reasons and wish to do so (barring some unknown-to-me factor that really precludes it):
1. No reputable employer hires someone without a background check and for me to have this conviction and its probation and psychological testing/treatment mandates, without my appealing, is only to confirm my guilt. This is especially true in such a tight job market.
2. This confirmation would tend to confirm any vicious rumors anyone wished to spread about me, whether they be true or false, the guilty verdict without protest would seem to confirm them.
3. I would only be able to find a job with someone exceedingly sympathetic to me or one that is questionably legal or worse.
4. The probation requirement precludes me from the “geographic cure” (to borrow a term I know Alcoholics Anonymous uses describing the erroneous idea that moving away from the trouble you’ve caused can cure the actual problem), and I don’t want that anyway.
5. But most of all, there IS a real constitutional issue at stake here and I am innocent of the actual offense as well.
6. While, from a spiritual point of view, it is not my place to give the two prosecution witnesses their just due for lying under oath – reality catches up to all of us eventually – there IS a place in the legal world to do this, although since no one but the three of us knows what was said or occurred between any of us and they are two against my one, but, as I understand it, this does not have to be proven either way to prove my innocence of the legal charge or to stand on the constitutional issue.
7. In conversation with my mother today, she is upset that I would even CONSIDER an appeal. While I do NOT want to jump to conclusions about that – and let me also say that my parents were kind enough to deposit $100.00 cash into my checking account yesterday – which I used fully to stock food as I was down to virtually nothing – but today, she was as strident in her view that I need to be on medication and attempted to talk loudly even to the point of yelling at me, OVER me, and then when I asked her to give me a moment to finish my sentences at least before interrupting, she hollered that it was I who had interrupted HER. This was absurd. I had apologized for calling her a literal and figurative Nazi and admitted how it must have only been peculiar coincidence (not circumstantial evidence) that must be totally unfounded which led me to that accusation. I had even nearly completely convinced myself that Faye Gold and Bernice Weinstein, both of the Atlanta area, had not actually told me in 1990 that my parents were top Nazis (which I do have my original note of from 1990 in my possession, but figured maybe I had just made that up back then and forgotten I’d manufactured it). She continues to demand that I immediately do nothing but search high and low for employment without trying to pave the way first as I feel is necessary. I feel I would at least have a chance at a job if I can show I am doing everything possible to clear my name – even if not yet cleared. I believe Mom’s “demanded” approach would have no effect but to further spread the news of my conviction, “mental instability”, and non-employment-worthiness, burning real possibilities as I go. Through most of this time, she has tried to convince me to apply for disability insurance which in my view is not only a waste of my talent but a drain on meager resources meant to be available to help those with REAL disabilities. It seems to me that her demanded approach would only set me up for a downward spiral and possibly even eventual institutional care. I reject that path categorically, although I agree with the idea and necessity of my finding income sources ASAP – including finding a job. I should also say (in case I forgot to previously) that my landlord was kind enough on Tuesday to grant me a ten-day grace period to get some things in order – he really is the great guy as I first thought he was, so not ALL my judgments are in error.
8. I was quite heartened when in first checking email after my release to find quite a few emails from a good number of people who are followers of my blog (all in distant places – two in foreign countries), including a truly wonderful woman from California, but now living in Florida, who has been a lifelong dedicated Republican of enough influence to have attended inaugurations of both Governor Schwarzenegger and President George W. Bush as an honored, invited guest to BOTH inaugurations. She had even taken the initiative to call the New Hanover County Jail looking to see if I was there – halfway through the time I WAS there – and the man who took her call listened to her considerable tale of why she was so concerned about me, then surprisingly said he didn’t know and could NOT check immediately, but would check and call her back – WHICH HE DID NOT DO! Now, just how does anyone explain that??? She was so relieved to finally hear from me.
9. A woman I met in Puerto Vallarta in November, who since returned to her home in Canada, and with whom I’d had no contact since meeting and speaking with for only a few minutes then in a restaurant, had inquired and actually sent me a donation of $20.00 CN DESPITE having lost her job with the additional wish, two days ago, that she could support me with ALL the necessary money, had she not lost her job! The Wilmington public radio station just finished a fund-raising campaign and exceeded their goals a day before concluding, which demonstrates that people who care about quality DO support what is important even in times of difficulty – so that gives me more hope I can raise some funds.
10. When I first entered my apartment after getting out of jail, I found that the knob lock, keyed deadbolt, slide deadbolt and two chain-locks were all unlocked on the back door, yet nothing in my apartment was molested that I’ve been able to see, and I’ve checked some of my most important, stored evidence of other crimes. This same kind of thing happened to my house in Georgia several times shortly before I moved to Mexico, as well as to one of my apartments in Mexico and my car several times in both countries. While it is possible that a time or two I had screwed up with locks, I do not hallucinate or have real delusions. I know my landlord would never have done that and I have NOT reported this to him – not wanting him to be alarmed about my tenancy, but he had told me when I moved in that the locks had not been changed here for several changes of tenants. He said I could change the locks and provide him with a copy of the new key(s), but acted as if that was not his responsibility. I don’t know NC law about such things, but in any case, I cannot do that until I scare up more money. I took all these things to be a sign that “the Mafia” was giving me a warning of their “reach,” and/or trying to drive me crazy and to make public claims that would appear to be evidence that I am gonzo nuts.
11. I DO have the email on my computer from the person (anonymous) who emailed me about 6 weeks ago that someone had posted a mug-shot of me as “WANTED” on the counter in the Good Shepherd Center a few days after I was with no explanation or reason that I could discern told I was trespassing there when I tried to enter for breakfast, and then called the cops on me – the grizzled man who mans or then manned the metal detector at the door for free breakfasts, and also told me that I had been banned from ALL homeless shelters and meal providers in Wilmington (a theory I have not tested).
12. I also, a couple of days before my arrest, received an anonymous email from someone else who warned me that I was being defamed on the internet and sent a link to a new blog by an anonymous poster that was ONLY defamation of me, including mentioning that twice in December I was so crazy I had been barred from entering Liberty Hall in Kenansville, NC even – proof that I was insane. What is of particular interest in this is that not only is this true, but I had NEVER mentioned it to a soul or written about it ANY way, including in email or on blog to anyone. They could have only known about it through other sources. At the time I visited Liberty Hall, I’d had no altercation with anyone, although I had spoken with a young woman the first time about some of my situation, which seemed to fascinate her and in no way scare her. She said her associate who would take me to the house was in a meeting and if I returned in an hour, they could show me the house then, so I got lunch. When I returned an hour later, the reception building was locked with no explanation posted (although the same few cars were still there), so I went to the adjacent Cowan Museum, where a clearly nervous older gentleman was locking up and claimed his wife had suddenly taken ill and he had to close it to go home to care for her. I left. I returned a week or two later, and the door was again inexplicably locked during normal hours – same few cars were parked in the lot. I stood in consternation, and a Sheriff’s car pulled in. The gentleman (I don’t know if he was the sheriff or a deputy), was very polite and kindly, and explained that I had scared the women before and that if I didn’t mind, it would be best if I simply returned in a couple of weeks. I suggested I call first to let them know in advance and make sure all was well, and he agreed that that would be a good idea. I have not yet attempted to return – nor have I alerted Thomas S. Kenan III, who they had told me regularly checks the guest log. The property was given to the county school board which manages it some years ago, and is no longer actually owned by the Kenan family.
Well, as I said, I do have evidence to back up most of the claims I make in this email – unless that mysteriously disappears like so many other things have disappeared from my computers in the past. Also, I should tell you that it is John Blades, my indirect contact to TSK III, who is Executive Director of the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, FL (a major Kenan philanthropy. Thomas S. Kenan III is listed as “Secretary” last I checked), who showed me that at least one of my emails to him a year ago had been changed during transit to him. I have kept Mr. Blades frequently updated via email as well as asked him that I be informed if I am offending my distant relatives or that they wish me to cease. I have only directly contacted TSK III a couple of times in the last year – both by US mail. Mr. Blades has neither blocked my emails nor discouraged me, so much of what I have claimed of their support is by my own inference, but SOMEONE had to have caused Walter Cronkite’s former producer, who also freelances for 60 MINUTES, to, with a previously-unknown-to-me near-ish relative, flag me down as I walked the highway south of Puerto Vallarta, immediately establish our blood connection, and introduce me to the news producer who power-typed on her already ready computer as I power-told my story for 45 minutes.
Or, could that have been another trick? I don’t think so. The producer’s parting “Shalom” transformed me and warmed me through and through.
Well Emily, after our phone conversation, I believe the die is cast, and correctly. Turned out I had much more to add to this than I then realized, and have taken my time to be sure I am more exact and not “loose,” as much of my previous PUBLIC reporting had been.
We’re going to have a good time with this going forward, and hopefully achieve something important to Liberty and Justice for ALL.
All best,
Scott
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