From the May 2007 Idaho Observer:

The case of Richard Geffken

Richard Geffken has been contributing timely, relevant and insightful articles to The IO for the last several years. Though we seldom ask or seek to find out why the prisoners who correspond with us are in prison, one day I just decided to look him up. I was moved to tears. The story you are about to read is heartbreaking—and true. ~DWH

My five-year-old son was tortured, sexually molested and abused by some politically powerful Florida officials while I was in California working for nine months in 1994.

Seven professional child therapists treated his trauma, and heard his own tearful stories of his mother forcing him to wear a dress and holding him while men forced their genitalia into his mouth. One of the therapists was the Secretary General of the Patronado, Costa Rica. Another child therapist, licensed in Florida and Texas, formerly worked nine years with federal law enforcement. Additionally, two of the other five therapists who had seen my son reported that he played at snorting lines made from sugar, "like Mommy and her-friends."

Unable to stop him from praying, "Mommy die," I took him to priests and ministers who also verify his stories. So did ambassadors and other public authorities. A police lieutenant witnessed him freeze in terror and pee his pants upon being told he must go back to Mommy.

Declared mentally incompetent and ordered confined by courts in three states, a pediatrician wrote that my son’s mother is the most dysfunctional mother he has ever seen in 30 years of practice. She damaged his rectum with a spoon. She attempted to murder him twice (one attempt can be proved through hospital records). Another pediatrician reported suspicious bruises; during the relevant period, an MD was treating her cocaine addiction symptoms.

A Republican Party Chairperson signed a witnessed document while attending a therapy session. Her kind efforts by letter, FAX, and in person to stop his molesters and identify them for prosecution, caused a contrary result.

Since those molesting him are prominent Florida officials and wealthy (and substantial evidence and admissions by a state attorney and FBI agents indicated that my son was also used for child pornography), demands for the prosecution of these powerful individuals caused two courthouses to be burglarized and records stolen; records were stolen from a pediatrician’s office and a politician was caught attempting to purge the mother’s criminal and psychiatric histories from the NCIC computer (All of the foregoing can be confirmed by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Defense and a private investigator).

Since I can prove all of this, I was taken into custody, under the false claim that I was in contempt of a different county court for taking my son to safety (per his own witnessed pleas) in violation of a custody order (a contempt charge that had already been adjudicated). In the absence of either subject matter or personam jurisdiction, I was locked up, tortured, starved and held incommunicado for 10 months in a Florida county jail.

In denying my son’s regular therapist to testify as a witness and ordering that all proof that the mother was found insane and subsequently confined to mental institutions be concealed, Judge Robert K. Mathis ruled, "She could be the Wicked Witch of the West for all I care, that’s not relevant to whether or not he violated the court order."

Keep in mind that the contempt order for which I was being held was not from his court and had already been adjudicated. Plus, to be more concerned about punishing me for a contempt order while ignoring well-supported allegations of severe abuse, evidences that Judge Mathis was an advocate of enslaving children for sex and other forms of abuse.

Meanwhile, being prevented by the state from removing my poor son from his abusers, he was returned to them and they put bars on his windows to prevent him from escaping. I can prove they tortured him at least once and that he was being sexually assaulted.

While sitting in jail after final judgment of my contempt trial, the purchased prosecutor signed a written, witnessed contract with a professional criminal con man to entrap me into more serious crime. The con man would be freed from serving time for the five felonies he committed if he were successful. Everyone who knew me then could attest to the fact that I had no disposition for criminal activity. The con man and I were locked up together in isolation for 15 days. Wearing a wire, the con man got me to say that I could spray those harming my child with an Uzi. A full seven minutes of that same conversation was chopped out. The most significant edit was when the con man suggested he’d sell them poisoned cocaine and I said, "I don’t want them dead."

The tape was kept at a private home with editing equipment, and the tabs to prevent editing only removed in the courtroom months later. All of this violates wiretapping law.

The jury even certified a question as to what was supposed to be criminal about the conversation as edited. They were told to return a verdict anyway.

Thank you, Richard. To you and all of my friends behind bars, it is with great frustration that neither I nor the thousands of prisoner advocates out there seem to get any closer to reversing wrongful convictions or commuting heavy sentences. But, the system that is holding you—and the system that is holding us—is breaking on its own. What that means, no one knows. But it is happening. I think we should all "fire the grid" July 17 at the correct time (see page 16) and pray for the best. ~DWH