The Press Conference and the huge stack-o-papers
*******UPDATE******
Thank God, KTVA did the scanning for us!
- Memorandum of Findings
- Memo of Complaint
- Transcription of Mike Wooten Interview
- Transcription of Sarah Palin Interview (1)
- Transcription of Sarah Palin Interview (2) 8/18/2005
- Memo Re: Suspension
- Sarah Palin email to Col. Julia Grimes
Photo: PSEA Executive Director John Cyr
John Cyr also made it clear that this was about Mike Wooten. He was not going to discuss anything to do with Walt Monegan.
I'm not going to delve into all of the mostly "unfounded" (investigated and found to be not true) or "not substantiated" (investigated and can't be proven) charges. The best summary I can give is of the ones that were substantiated. However, a personal note: 1) the Heath Clan has a lot of involvement in this when (in my opinion) they have no business being there. 2) Mike Wooten is not perfect and in some instances is not the sharpest crayon in the box. He also has bad taste in mistresses (yes, there was infidelity involved...surprise! Can't have a woman/family scorned without infidelity!) 3) It seems that the family members may be using that lack-of-sharpness against him.
The charges that were substantiated:
- Molly Heath McCann's son from her previous marriage, Payton, was the "witness" who accused his step-father of drinking while driving. (The other "witnesses" were long time friends of the Heaths, Adrian and Marilyn Lane. Their testimony was rejected by the investigator because of that conflict of interest, but his decision was overthrown by retired Colonel Julia Grimes, who found them credible. It's good to note that Grimes was also the recipient of the email from Palin which had a "between-us-girls-I'm-gonna-make-your-life-difficult" feel.)
Amazingly, no one said anything at the time and this all came up when there was a custody fight.
- Payton was also the 10-year-old boy "dry tasered" by Wooten. To be clear, Wooten was an idiot to do this no matter what. However, his version of the event is that 10-year-old Payton wanted him to do it because he wanted to see what it was like...and that, as someone who trains people in the use of tasers, Wooten knew what he was doing. (He also should have known better.) The boy denied asking him to do it and Molly's version of events is worthy of a movie on the Lifetime Network.
- Sarah Palin's email stated that in Sept. 2003 Wooten illegally shot a cow moose. Wooten admits it and his story was that Molly begged him to come with her so they could "shut her father up" who wouldn't stop giving her a hard time because she hadn't used her tag. When they went out, the only hunting gun they had was his and when he asked her to shoot it, she didn't want to and wanted him to do it. He did, he brought it back where he and Chuck Heath (father-in-law) butchered it. Wooten took it to get it processed and the meat was shared with the Heath family. Two years later, they suddenly remembered it was illegal.
Again, it was stupid...very, very stupid. However, in his defense, many Alaskan married couples who do any kind of fishing or hunting have broken the law. We have because my arthritis makes it impossible to haul in a halibut by myself and my husband helps me...OK, a lot. I know it doesn't make ANY of it right and he has to maintain a higher standard because of his position...but COME ON!
The packet contains 270 pages of documents involved in this investigation. John Cyr explained that it was only partial...he showed us that he couldn't give the whole file to us as he held up two huge white binders. I'm going to try and scan some of it tomorrow...especially the email from pre-Governor Sarah Palin in 2005 to retired Colonel Julia Grimes.
(Note: In all of the craziness today, I never did thank the lovely Myster from "Own the Sidwalk" for alerting me to the post on Andrew Halcro's blog. I never would have made it to the press conference in time if she hadn't. Thank you, oh brilliant and fashionable one!)
Thank God, KTVA did the scanning for us!
- Memorandum of Findings
- Memo of Complaint
- Transcription of Mike Wooten Interview
- Transcription of Sarah Palin Interview (1)
- Transcription of Sarah Palin Interview (2) 8/18/2005
- Memo Re: Suspension
- Sarah Palin email to Col. Julia Grimes
Photo: PSEA Executive Director John Cyr"My purpose here is not to substantiate who did what or what happened. Officer Wooten has asked that we release the records around that investigation so that the press can take an open and honest look at what happened and you may draw your own conclusions."--John CyrThe conference started out with an abundance of information...they gave us a huge stack-o-papers (about two inches) of all the complaints and investigations having to do with Mike Wooten...released by request of Mike Wooten. I've been reading them in parking lots, parked in the street, all over.
John Cyr also made it clear that this was about Mike Wooten. He was not going to discuss anything to do with Walt Monegan.
I'm not going to delve into all of the mostly "unfounded" (investigated and found to be not true) or "not substantiated" (investigated and can't be proven) charges. The best summary I can give is of the ones that were substantiated. However, a personal note: 1) the Heath Clan has a lot of involvement in this when (in my opinion) they have no business being there. 2) Mike Wooten is not perfect and in some instances is not the sharpest crayon in the box. He also has bad taste in mistresses (yes, there was infidelity involved...surprise! Can't have a woman/family scorned without infidelity!) 3) It seems that the family members may be using that lack-of-sharpness against him.
The charges that were substantiated:- Molly Heath McCann's son from her previous marriage, Payton, was the "witness" who accused his step-father of drinking while driving. (The other "witnesses" were long time friends of the Heaths, Adrian and Marilyn Lane. Their testimony was rejected by the investigator because of that conflict of interest, but his decision was overthrown by retired Colonel Julia Grimes, who found them credible. It's good to note that Grimes was also the recipient of the email from Palin which had a "between-us-girls-I'm-gonna-make-your-life-difficult" feel.)
Amazingly, no one said anything at the time and this all came up when there was a custody fight.
- Payton was also the 10-year-old boy "dry tasered" by Wooten. To be clear, Wooten was an idiot to do this no matter what. However, his version of the event is that 10-year-old Payton wanted him to do it because he wanted to see what it was like...and that, as someone who trains people in the use of tasers, Wooten knew what he was doing. (He also should have known better.) The boy denied asking him to do it and Molly's version of events is worthy of a movie on the Lifetime Network.
- Sarah Palin's email stated that in Sept. 2003 Wooten illegally shot a cow moose. Wooten admits it and his story was that Molly begged him to come with her so they could "shut her father up" who wouldn't stop giving her a hard time because she hadn't used her tag. When they went out, the only hunting gun they had was his and when he asked her to shoot it, she didn't want to and wanted him to do it. He did, he brought it back where he and Chuck Heath (father-in-law) butchered it. Wooten took it to get it processed and the meat was shared with the Heath family. Two years later, they suddenly remembered it was illegal.
Again, it was stupid...very, very stupid. However, in his defense, many Alaskan married couples who do any kind of fishing or hunting have broken the law. We have because my arthritis makes it impossible to haul in a halibut by myself and my husband helps me...OK, a lot. I know it doesn't make ANY of it right and he has to maintain a higher standard because of his position...but COME ON!The packet contains 270 pages of documents involved in this investigation. John Cyr explained that it was only partial...he showed us that he couldn't give the whole file to us as he held up two huge white binders. I'm going to try and scan some of it tomorrow...especially the email from pre-Governor Sarah Palin in 2005 to retired Colonel Julia Grimes.
(Note: In all of the craziness today, I never did thank the lovely Myster from "Own the Sidwalk" for alerting me to the post on Andrew Halcro's blog. I never would have made it to the press conference in time if she hadn't. Thank you, oh brilliant and fashionable one!)
Labels: brother-in-law, CC, Chuck Heath, Governor Sarah Palin, John Cyr, Julia Grimes, Molly Heath McCann, press conference, PSEA, Trooper Mike Wooten, Trooper Union, Walt Monegan
posted by CelticDiva at 4:43 PM
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15 Comments:
He was married less than five years and he screwed around on Molly? Dang.
He dry tazed Payton. . .
Call the drama Peyton's Place?
No, no, not the sharpest crayon in the box. But neither is the governor in this. BECAUSE she is the gov. she should have let Molly and Mike battle it out and avoided any association with this.
Where are pics of the mistress? We def. need to see them. We can put her on "Hot or Not."
I think that's the whole point for me. I can completely understand being the concerned, pissed-off sister. (I have one married to an abuser.)
However, our Governor can't use her job to follow through on her feelings. Otherwise, she leaves the "governor" realm and heads into the "evil overlord" territory.
Sarah Palin was NOT governor when all this happened.
So what am I missing?
And, the Wooten character is a complete jerk. What kinda bastard tazes his stepson? What a complete a-hole. Is this some Alaska thing?
It is TOTALLY understandable that any family and any wife/exwife would try to get a nut like him away from her kids.
My God!
Now, let's sink our teeth into that juicy e-mail. Who's got it?
Meeeeeeeeeeee...I got it.
However, it's got the name of his "girlfriend" on it so I may have to "redact" some stuff. (There's a government word I just pulled out of retirement.)
I don't have a scanner yet in my home (sigh) so I have to go to Kinkos tomorrow.
You have a good blog...however, I don't see why this not remaining private. Custody battles are messy. There's no evidence (as of yet) that she abused her power. Until they prove something, this is just speculation (coming from Halcro who has hit pieces weekly).
It's not remaining private because it was released to the press at a press conference, which had nothing to do with Andrew Halcro.
Sheesh...maybe I'll have to scan some of this tonight. Kinkos is open 24 hours.
Here's a link to the email posted on KTVA's website. Hopefully this will save you a trip to Kinko's!
http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site163/2008/0717/20080717_064401_645.pdf
Yeah, but dang...
There are phone numbers in that email!
But isn't that the definition of "open and transparent"? ;)
I guess that's another reason why you should be careful with information put into documents that may be publicized.
BTW: Is Palin REALLY a journalist? I thought that email was poorly written. I write better than that, and I don't have a single journalism course under my belt.
press conferences are public, there were civilians there, and the union released their documents with the phone numbers. everyone who's number's there, call them, ask for explanations - except you'll be too late cuz the media will have done that already and they'll likely change the digits soon. that's the nature of the game - that was '05 anyway; as guv in '08 i think she knows it well enough for those digits to change quickly.
but Linda - i wasn't commenting to write that, that's courtesy of the beers i drank since i was doing my once-a-year see the parents thing. i wanted to say you should credit Halcro as well as Myster - he broke this, and he's not even a journalist. although when i found out what went down i wanted andrew to get a job at my paper. no matter what you think of the palin/halcro 'feud', andrew had his shit together on this.
I did credit Halcro in the first post...the one below that one :D
I don't always agree with him, but on this one he deserves all the credit in the world :D :D
Oh and by the way, I was really shocked at the poor quality of Sarah's writing.
As I also have a BA in Communications/PR/Journalism, I'm wondering what her degree requirements entailed?
Halcro plus his readership -- the ADN comments boards were peppered all over with the link yesterday.
I'm not sure I'm convinced the Wooten cluster is related to the Monegan debacle. I think theory #1 (he stood up to her on the budget and the department's priorities) is more plausible... but even if the two are unrelated, it does characterize the Heath clan fairly poorly. I can understand standing up for a sister in need -- but you can see right through some of these allegations. I mean, come on -- Chuck Heath butchered the illegal moose but no one bothered to make a big deal out of its being illegal until they were out to get Wooten. It seems there's an unquestionable flavor of self-interest despite Palin's protestations of objectivity.
I just stumbled across your site........interesting! Didn't read all of it yet. I'm from Maine. And can I just say that I (as do most of you) know guys like Wooten very, very well. I know them from my drinking days. Hell, i wasn't all that different from him, back then! And I also know his from my current social work days. These guys.....yeah, I know them WELL. And like I always tell my clients: WHEN YOU PLAY ON THE TRACKS YOU GET HIT BY THE TRAINS. Wooten is one of those guys who has spent a LIFETIME playing on the tracks. The train has now hit him. It's name is Sarah Palin. (The train named Jim Cyr will hit him too, if I ever run into him. I'll gladly WhitePages.com his name to see if I can get HIS phone number, and I'll give him a call and let him know what I think of him.) Guys like him need to be called out--EVERY TIME. That's all they understand. They operate solely on the fear principle: make other people afraid. Maybe he'll swiften up, stop drinking, and become a "PRODUCTIVE MEMBER OF SOCIETY" some day. Who knows. Stranger things have happened.
In Maine, where I live, (and it's not very different at all from Alaska in my part of the state), any one who would Taser a kid (and threaten another one), or POACH, would get his ass whipped by some one--any one-- so fast it would make your head spin. We don't put up with that bullshit. Sounds like Sarah doesn't either. Good for her. She'w won my vote. (And what's really funny is that punks like Wooten think they can mess with a guy like McCain---at 72, the guy could STILL last longer in a North Vietnames POW cell than TEN Michael Wootens could!)
Oh, and I'll the ADPS too--to call them out on their (OBVIOUS) cover up of their fellow boy. Sounds like many of his colleagues (and the investigators) need to be investigated and maybe be sent to jail....
Is there something in the air in Alaska? This family helped cut up the moose and ate it. Aren't they not accessories to the crime? The tasering of a child is wrong anywhere, but in the State of Florida, the cops tasered a grade school child and the conservatives thought it to be okay. Divorces are messy. Sarah's sister isn't too bright - her ex was married twice before she married him and once after her. Is there not real men in Alaska? McCain picked a winner, a ruthless Governor we don't need as our Vice-President.
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