A Letter To Then U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Made To Explain The 2012 Tort Claim and Offer a Settlement Opportunity (Which was declined at the time)

An Open Letter to Mr. Eric Holder, Attorney of the United States, regarding Felicia Adams, Paul David Roberts, and other employees of the  U.S. Justice Department, most of whom are situated in the Northern District of Mississippi

 From: Thomas Lowell Ketchum, Jr.

 Dear Mr. Attorney General Holder,

 Your staff will confirm my Federal Tort claim, filed with your office on or about 25 June 2012, the text of which follows this letter.

 As of the writing of this blog, the matters addressed therein remain unresolved. This letter if to inform you of the most recent steps taken to resolve my issues prior to filing suit in the United States District Court District of my choice, which I am entitled to do on account of my status as a United States citizen who is a bona fide resident of a territory outside the United States, as provided by law.

 As the Tort claim makes clear, the Justice Department, through employees in Mississippi who are connected to the family of Mississippi District Three Circuit Judge Robert W. Elliott, has been used to punish, silence and attempt to discredit me as allegedly "incompetent" because of my attempts to bring information to light about a murder of a young woman who was a former wife of the brother of now-Judge Elliott.

 The brother of the Judge in question was a medical doctor who once practiced medicine with my late father, Dr. Thomas Lowell Ketchum. My father confessed his part in the cover-up of the murder of Dr. Elliott's wife from his bed at Baptist Memorial Hospital in March of 1991, as his death approached.

 Ever since the truth came out about the murder, the Elliott family has used every possible connection, whether state local, or federal, in order to silence those who might see Charles Elliott prosecuted for murder and see Judge Elliott prosecuted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy, among other things.

 None of this will bring the dead woman back to life and nothing asked for in my tort claim will give me back the time and grief lost in my life on account of this criminal family and the conduct of both them and their corrupt associates, some of whom are employees of your Justice Department.

 I have tried to bring some closure to my most recent experiences at the hands of your Justice Department. However, it seems that I will be treated with the same callous disregard of my civil rights as others have been, such as Paul Kevin Curtis (the poor, unlucky man who was falsely accused of sending contaminated letters to certain public officials).

 As of this writing, neither he nor I have been made whole for the personal destruction of our respective lives at the hands of some of the very same employees of yours. It is my hope and wish that you will seek to remedy some of the wrongs done to me and to Mr. Curtis.

 Below, follows the most recent attempt to resolve my issues prior to litigation. I invite you to find a way out of this that sees:(1) justice done about the murder and the cover-up by the Elliott family of Ripley, Mississippi; (2) expunges my records of anything criminal that has been placed there since this began in 1991; and (3) make me whole for the illegal extradition, false imprisonment, fraudulent mental health evaluations and "results", defamatory and false publicity at the hands of the FBI and those who fed false information to the local news media in Mississippi and elsewhere.

On or about March 17, 2013, I wrote to Ms. Felicia Adams, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi, in order to propose a method by which we may have both resolved outstanding issues which remain after the failed prosecution of me by her subordinate employee, Assistant United States Attorney Paul David Roberts, which resulted in (1) a defective indictment, the underlying fact/circumstances of which are now time-barred from future prosecution; (2) my false arrest and imprisonment for 205 days in Romania based on said defective indictment; (3) my kidnapping by Supervisory Deputy Marshal Scotty Peters on or about 25 March 2011; (4) the fraudulent return of the arrest warrant stemming from the aforementioned fraudulent indictment of 2006 (which was not even in my name); (5) my abusive exposure to the “Mental Health Gulag” by Roberts, former FBI Special Agent Matthew Bulwinkle, and CJA Attorney, C.R. McCoy, which resulted in my being held in the Lafayette County Detention Center for a period at least equal to that that which was required for any “evaluation” of me by Mental Health Professionals at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, (6) my illegal and unconstitutional incarceration for a period of 170 days beyond the legal time authorized by statute for any mental health evaluations pursuant to 18 USC Sections 4241-4247, et seq., and, finally, (7) the failure and refusal of your staff (and the U.S. Marshals) to provide me with a new passport, subsistence, and return transportation to my “place of domicile or arrest”, in Romania, when it became clear that I was an “arrested but unconvicted person”, within the meaning of 18 USC Section 4282.

 The transcript of the hearing on 12 December 2012 in the matter styled “United States of America vs. Thomas Lowell Ketchum”, number 1:06-CR-051, makes clear that Chief Judge Michael P. Mills found, among other things, that my “constitutional rights, including the right to due process of law” had been violated by the A.U.S.A. by continuing to hold me for any period of time which exceeded that authorized by law for my mental health evaluation, which both the applicable the statutes and the Butner Federal Medical Center fix to be on or about 25 June 2012.

 As you are probably aware, I have pending before the Justice Department in Washington, DC, a Federal Tort Claim for $5,000,000.00 for damages to me resulting from events (1) through (5), listed above. To date, that claim remains unresolved and I am prepared to file a formal complaint which explains, fully, the reasons for my unlawful treatment by your staff and the connection of these events to the expressed wishes of Mississippi District 3 Judge Robert Elliott and the Farese family of Ashland.

 In a last effort to avoid the ugly consequences of litigation in support of my tort claim, I offered U.S. Attorney Felcia Adams one last opportunity to avoid the adverse publicity and other unhappy circumstances which will almost certainly follow the filing and prosecution of my claims in Federal Court in the United States.

Since the Federal Court has recognized, on-the-record, that my Federal Civil rights have been violated with respect to due process of law for my incarceration beyond the lawful limit of 25 June 2012, I proposed to offer that your Office settle a claim with me for the period of my recognized unlawful incarceration, together with the costs expended by me in securing a new passport, 2 weeks of hotel and a plane ticket to Romania at Christmas time.

From the date of my release on 12 December, 2012, to the date of my arrival in Romania on 27 December, 2012, I spent $7,000.00 on securing a passport in a hurry, on hotel, meals, transportation, communications, clothing, medicine, and a very expensive, last-minute, one-way air ticket to Romania.

  The remainder of this computation now turns to what is the value of my false imprisonment from 25 June, 2012, through 12 December, 2012.

 Here is my math:

June 25-June 30 5 days

 July 01- July 31 31 days

 August 01- August 31 31 days

 September 01- September 30 30 days

 October 01 – October 31 31 days

 November 01- November 30 30 days

 December 01 – December 12 12 days

 Total days: 170 days

 Allowing the nominal sum of $100.00 per day as compensation for unlawful incarceration, we get a total of $17,000.00 ($100 x 170 days).

 Adding the previous total of $7,000.00 as compensation for expenses incurred upon release, which were directly related to returning me to my domicile and place of arrest in Romania, as we get a Grand Total of $24,000.00.

HERE WAS  MY PROPOSAL:

Your Office would have presented me with a Treasury Check in the amount of $24,000.00, along with settlement forms in which I release the United States of ALL LIABILITY, INCLUDING THAT CLAIMED IN THE PENDING TORT CLAIM IN WASHINGTON, DC..

 Your Office was proposed to further and additionally take the following actions:

 You will promptly take such actions as may be necessary in order to FULLY EXPUNGE ALL CRIMINAL (AND OTHER PUBLIC RECORDS, INCLUDING MEDIA STATEMENTS, PICTURES, AND ANY OTHER, RELATED MATTER) RECORDS RELATED TO ME, IN WHATEVER NAME, AT EVERY LEVEL AND AGENCY, WHETHER STATE, FEDERAL OR LOCAL, IN THE UNITED STATES AND INTERNATIONALLY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, INTERPOL;

2. Your office will also ensure that my name does not appear on any “lists”,  such as“no fly lists”, “infragaurd lists”, or any other  “watch lists” of any kind or character;
3. Your Office will ensure that I am granted a Federal firearms license and an export license, within thirty (30) days of the date that any agreement is signed;
4. Your Office will publicly announce, through a press release, that the case against“Thomas Lowell Ketchum” has been dismissed and that I have left the United States as a free man, and with your apologies for my having been arrested, imprisoned, and extradited from Romania, wrongfully, in the first place.

 For the above, you get my full release and “hold harmless” agreement for the United States and it's agents and/or agencies.

 When all relevant parties have signed the documents and the Treasury Check has been presented and honored, then your Office shall have 30 days in which to effectuate the full expungement of records in accordance with the agreement. If such expungement and other conditions and terms of the agreement are NOT honored within 30 days of the date of signing and check changing hands, then the “hold harmless” and “release”agreement is rescinded and I will be free to file the lawsuit for the $5,000,000.00 claim and,in that case, the chips fall wherever they do.

 At the time of my writing, I felt the terms and conditions of this proposal were easy enough to meet and are legally possible at your level in the Justice Department, given my understanding of the limitations of your authority under the Federal Tort Claims act, as effectuated in the Code of Federal Regulations, as amended.

 This offer was  good for seven (7) days, after which, it was  withdrawn.

 Since your Office has plainly behaved indifferently to my proposals and each of them, I feel that it is now necessary to ensure that all “interested parties” get the message before I file suit. It is in that spirit that this “Open  Letter” is being published on the internet.

 Sincerely,

Thomas Lowell Ketchum, Jr.

 The full text of the original Federal Tort Claim, filed in June of 2012, appears in a related Blog post