Has The Metro DC Police Ever Heard of the First Amendment?

I was seriously defamed by Dennis M. Race, Esq., my supervisor, and a coworker (who was subsequently terminated for gross misconduct) at the Washington, DC law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, as well as the DC Office of Corporation Counsel.

In the year 2004 I sent out job inquiries to employers, which summarized allegations made against me by the above-named parties. On October 12, 2004 ten (10) Metro DC Police officers (including a second district supervisor) plus four (4) FBI agents showed up at my residence because of a letter I sent to an employer, who had contacted the police in alarm. The letter was purely factual; several prospective employers, including The Montgomery County Government, sent me a cordial reply to a nearly identical letter. So damaging was the defamation to which I was subjected that the police were convinced I must be insane to have written such a letter. The police had me transported to DC General Hospital in handcuffs for an emergency psychiatric examination. I've always wondered how much all that manpower cost the District and the federal government.

Oddly enough, six years earlier, in October 1998, the Honorable Jon Newman, former Chief Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York sent me a cordial reply to an inquiry I sent to him about a possible judicial clerkship. The letter I forwarded to Judge Newman contained much of the same information about my potential for armed violence and homicide as the 2004 letter that sent the Metro DC Police into a conniption fit.

Here is the text of the letter I received from Judge Newman:

United States Court of Appeals
Second Circuit

Chambers of Jon. O. Newman
U.S. Circuit Judge
450 Main Street
Hartford, Conn. 06103

October 2, 1998

Gary Freedman, Esq.
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008-4530

Dear Mr. Freedman:

This will acknowledge your letter of September 28, 1998. Though it was sent to me in my former capacity of Chief Judge, a position I relinquished last year, I believe I can be responsive to your letter.

Most of the law clerks who assist judges of this Court are selected by the judges individually. Any information you wish brought to their attention should be directed to any judge to whom you apply for a clerkship. In addition to law clerks who assist individual judges, the Court each year employs a small number of law clerks who assist the Court as a whole in connection with motions and pro se matters. I am forwarding your letter to the office in charge of that hiring.

Sincerely,

J. O. Newman
United States Circuit Judge

Here is the letter I wrote to Judge Newman inquiring into a judicial clerkship with the Second Circuit, in New York City. I had wrongly believed that Judge Newman was still the Chief Judge of the Second Circuit and that his office was located in Manhattan:

September 28, 1998
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008-4530

Honorable Jon O. Newman
Chief Judge
U.S Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit
40 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007

Dear Chief Judge Newman:

I am an attorney licensed to practice in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and qualify for consideration for a position as law clerk to a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Preliminary to forwarding a copy of my resume to the Court I believe I have a legal duty to advise the Court of the following facts regarding concerns about my potential for armed violence or homicide, intent to purchase firearms to commit a felony, and the illegal transport of a deadly weapon: concerns placed in controversy and affirmed, by the District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel, as relating to genuine fears about my criminal intent.

The Government of the District of Columbia has affirmed that my former employer, the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump") terminated my employment in October 1991 on the basis of genuine concerns about my mental health and stability, including the potential for violence. The employer's termination decision was made following an ex parte consultation with a psychiatrist who did not examine me personally. Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order, June 10, 1996), affirmed by the D.C. Court of Appeals (Terry, Reid, and King, associate judges), No. 96-CV-961 (Memorandum Opinion and Judgment filed Sept. 1, 1998). As of the filing of the complaint in the Superior Court proceedings, in October 1995, and at all times thereafter, it was unlawful under the laws of the District of Columbia for a psychiatrist to offer a professional psychiatric opinion about an individual without benefit of personal examination as is strongly recommended by the American Psychiatric Association's Principles of Medical Ethics. The D.C. Code in its latest revision makes it unlawful for a physician to "[fail] to conform to standards of acceptable conduct and prevailing practice within a health profession." See D.C. Code 2-3305.14(26). This provision was added to the District of Columbia Health Occupations Revision Act by D.C. Law 10-247, enacted on March 23, 1995.

The District of Columbia Superior Court as well as the Court of Appeals did not find that the action of my Akin Gump supervisor in stating to employees that she feared that I might have had plans to kill her and the action of the supervisor in arranging to have her office secured against such a homicidal assault, see record on appeal at 41, was invidiously motivated.

The District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel expressly affirmed to the D.C. Superior Court and to the Court of Appeals in pleadings filed in the above-referenced proceedings, relying on legally-irrelevant "after-acquired" evidence, see McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co., 115 S.Ct. 879, 885 (1995), that my coworkers had formed genuine fears (i.e., not motivated by discriminatory animus) that I might have been armed and dangerous and poised to carry out a homicidal assault on the firm's premises. See Brief of Appellee District of Columbia Department of Human Rights and Minority Business Development at 9, Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C. Court of Appeals No. 96-CV-961 (citing record on appeal at 276). The District implicitly asserted that my coworkers' concerns about my potential for armed violence were relevant to the employer's decision to terminate my employment.

I stand by the "Statement of Gary Freedman to the Office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Regarding Intent to Commit Crime of Violence as Determined by the Law Firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld," ("Statement to the U.S. Attorney") dated April 24, 1995, and made under penalty of criminal sanctions (D.C. Code 22-2514).

I want to advise, however, that representations made by the District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel (M. Justin Draycott, Esq.) to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals at oral argument in December 1997 that I "admitted" in pleadings that I filed with the D.C. Department of Human Rights that my "coworkers" were genuinely "afraid" of me (specifically with regard to my potential for armed violence or homicide) conflict with the prior Statement to the U.S. Attorney, and that said conflict may give rise to the appearance that the exculpatory representations that I made in the Statement to the U.S. Attorney were unreliable, knowingly false, or perjured.

Additionally, the Court of Appeals has affirmed, see D.C. No. 96-CV-961 at 3 n. 1, that the Department of Human Rights had legally-valid concerns that a document I submitted to the agency may have been inauthentic (i.e., forged or fabricated), see record on appeal at 8; presumably, according to the agency, I submitted the possibly inauthentic document in order to deny forensic psychiatric evidence filed by Akin Gump with the agency: forensic psychiatric evidence relating to my mental health (specifically relating to the psychiatric symptom "ideas of reference") and stability (specifically relating to my potential for violence). But see Namerdy v. Generalcar, 217 A.2d 109, 111-112 (D.C. 1966) (circumstantial evidence, such as evidence that a letter is written on the author's letterhead, is sufficient for authentication).

Robert Chapman, Esq., Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is familiar with this matter, and will respond to any questions the Court may have. The telephone number of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington is (202) 514 7566.

I am confident that the above facts will in no way impair my chances for fair consideration by the Court for a judicial clerkship.
Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

cc: Honorable Alfonse D'Amato