Richard Luthmann and I were back, talking current events in the first thirty-two minutes.
Current Events
The topics included the Trump and Putin summit later today in Alaska. I thought it was a bad idea because it rewards Putin for doing nothing of consequence.
Richard brought up the summit in Reykjavik between then US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, but that summit came after Gorbachev implemented his perestroika and glasnost reforms.
Richard said Trump must hold firm that the war in Ukraine must end. I said that Putin will likely be ready for such a simple strategy.
We also updated on Richard’s case, and the set of missing fingerprints which may have triggered this whole fiasco where he’s wanted for violating a protective order in New York City.
In 2020, while serving time in federal prison, Richard Luthmann accepted a plea deal in a New York criminal case. As part of the deal, prosecutors added an extra charge using a Supplemental Criminal Information, or SCI—a legal shortcut to file additional charges without a grand jury indictment.
But Luthmann says the entire process was fatally flawed.
“Where is the NYPD fingerprint card for my 2020 SCI?” he demands.
He says it doesn’t exist—because he was never arrested or fingerprinted for the charge. And under New York law, that means the court never had jurisdiction.
In New York, fingerprinting isn’t just bureaucratic. It’s a legal requirement: No prints, no arraignment. No arraignment, no jurisdiction. Without it, Luthmann says the court had no right to accept his plea—making the conviction void.
Luthmann was in Allenwood Federal Correctional Institution in White Deer, Pennsylvania, at the time.
No arrest. No booking. No prints. Therefore, no case, he argues.
We also debated the wisdom of federalizing policing in DC. Richard thought it was necessary to reduce crime, while I thought it encroached on local power and violated the tenth amendment.
What the Hales
In the What the Hales segment starting thirty-two minutes in, we talked about Jeremy Hales latest gambit, trying to violate my first amendment rights. He sent in a dirty cop from Peninsula Ohio PD named Officer Dennis Pongracz to issue an empty threat. Check out the voicemail and our subsequent conversation below.
Pongracz falsely claimed that I would be violating “telephonic harassment” statutes in Ohio if I continued to contact Hales. The first amendment makes clear that Congress, “shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The 14th amendment then extended the same duty to all other legislative bodies.
As such, Officer Pongracz hates the first amendment and is a dirty cop. The email which triggered Hales is below.
After Pongracz’s empty threat, I sent a follow up email to Hales, Peninsula PD Chief Nagy, the mayor and town council in Peninsula, and the Summit County DA’s Office.
None of them responded, but this is not over. Officer Pongracz claimed to me that, “a report has been filed.” I have executed a public records request for that report, and the administrative assistant for Peninsula, Faith Dorton, passed the request to Peninsula PD Chief Jay Nagy assuring me, “this request to be received and responded to in a timely manner.”
As if Hales BS wasn’t bad enough with this incident, he also claimed to have filed a Bar complaint against Lisa from Two Lee’s in a Pod, claiming she was practicing law without a license.
A Bar complaint is only against members of the Bar, which she is not. Furthermore, the alleged infraction is that she mailed a filing which Ray Bonebrake wrote.
Susan Bassi’s selective transparence crusade
In the last segment starting fifty-nine minutes in, we talked about a study from Australia finding that police hurt domestic violence situations when they are called to investigate. This is a global problem, and our understanding of domestic violence is very poor.
Then, Richard talked about his recent interaction with Susan Bassi, a former divorce litigant who now crusades for transparency.
I like Susan and have interviewed her several times.
In this case, she acted like a child. Julie Holburn, who still has a corrupt child custody case in Orange County, was trying the get public records from the Costa Mesa Police Department. One of their officers previously told her that they had been directed not to take her complaint of a protective order violation.
Julie was asking for records, which Costa Mesa refused to provide. Richard stepped in, asking for the same records while putting several people including Susan and I on the email.
Supervisor Hinrichs,
We are journalists who cover family court, corruption, and justice matters nationwide.
Reference is made to your email below. As a matter of public interest, we request these records:
21-013527
21-019156
2021086339
2022093299
Susan was triggered by this email and needed to respond.
Please take me off this thread. I am not associated with and do not work with Julie Holburn. I have no idea who this is to or what it is about. It is not related to any of our reporting and it is not how we do records requests.
Besides asking for records from the appropriate party, there’s no other way to do records requests. Susan doesn’t like Julie and won’t do her story.
That’s one thing but actively trying to hurt her case is a bridge too far- one Richard wasn’t going to overlook.
Luthmann says Bassi’s personal history with Holburn has caused her to “abandon her claimed principles.”
“You are not welcome to send trolls on social media to attack and harass me… That is where you crossed the line,” Bassi snapped in an earlier email to Holburn, after Holburn publicly called out Bassi’s inaction.
Bassi even threatened Luthmann with legal action: “Do not contact me again or I will seek the appropriate remedy,” she wrote, citing what she called the “harassing and defamatory nature” of their communications.
The war of words had begun, with Bassi accusing Holburn of smearing her, and Luthmann charging Bassi with abandoning a victim to protect herself.
He said more articles are coming.
