Psychosis by Estoppel: My Strenuous Efforts to Prevent -- U.S. Secret Service Letter 7/28/97

It's hard to believe that the late Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq. at one time was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

July 28, 1997
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530

Philip C. Leadroot, S.A.
U.S. Secret Service
Washington, DC 20036

Dear Mr. Leadroot:

The U.S. Secret Service is advised that the District of Columbia filed its "Brief of Appellee District of Columbia Department of Human Rights and Minority Business Development" in the D.C. Court of Appeals on July 25, 1997 in Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, no. 96-CV-961.

The pleadings fully support, and are largely identical to, the District's response in the Superior Court proceedings below (Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq., Corporation Counsel), wherein the court found that my former employer, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"), had genuine, nondiscriminatory business reasons to terminate my employment.

The U.S. Secret Service is advised that the District's position that my former employer's termination decision was based on the employer's genuine concerns about my mental health and stability (including a potential for violence), derived in part from consultations with a psychiatrist, is not inconsistent with the facts that need to be alleged and proved to vitiate a defendant's criminal intent in the prosecution of any specific intent crime. The District's pleadings expressly affirm that my beliefs about the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld are the product of a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") (prominent in the psychotic disorders) and that those beliefs are long-held and genuine. (Note that the employer could just as easily have concluded that my allegations were a disingenuous fabrication, motivated by a spiteful animus against coworkers, and not the product of a psychiatric symptom: a determination that would not support an insanity defense in a criminal prosecution. The District's position therefore supports a choice among possible alternative interpretations that the employer might have placed on my harassment complaint to the employer, a choice that specifically favors the view that I lack mental capacity rather than the view that I am simply a spiteful opportunist who is mentally competent).

If, hypothetically, the District's assertions about me applied to Francisco Martin Duran, who was convicted in the attempted assassination of President Clinton, attorneys representing Mr. Duran might reasonably say that their client had been issued a blank check to kill a human being 1/ by the President's own lawyer (Charles F.C. Ruff). In such a case, how would we know that Mr. Duran's beliefs were long-held and genuine (thereby symptomatic of a psychiatric disorder that vitiates criminal intent), rather than a self-serving fabrication? -- Why, because the highest legal officer of the Government of the District of Columbia has already affirmed it to be so.

The District might accede to a request by the U.S. Secret Service to withdraw its pleadings.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

cc: Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq. (The White House)

____________________________

1/ Mr. Ruff (now chief White House Counsel to President Clinton) expressly affirmed, in the Superior Court proceedings below, that my coworkers had formed genuine fears, during my tenure, that I might have had plans to acquire firearms for an unlawful purpose and might have possessed the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm or commit murder.

Robert Chapman, U.S. Attorney
Michael Stiles, U.S. Attorney - Phila
Arlen Specter [U.S. Senate, former Phila. D.A.]
Robert Bennett [President's personal attorney]
Charles Ruff [Counsel to President, former DC Corporation Counsel]
Norton [representative in Congress]
Keeney [head, criminal division, DOJ]
Leadroot [U.S. Secret Service]