Demanding Accountability

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Innocent and Facing Trial
Clark County, Washington's Roddy Kartchner
Suffering False Charges
Prosecutor Arthur Curtis' Ethics Questioned
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By Edward Snook
Investigative Reporter

Clark County Prosecutor Arthur Curtis

Vancouver, WA – 52-year-old Roddy Kartchner of Vancouver, WA. was charged in early 2009 with 20 “false” criminal counts ranging from Identity Theft to Money Laundering and numerous counts of Attempted Theft in the First Degree.

Based upon a very inept and un-professional investigation conducted by Detective Jim McClafferty, of the Major Crimes Unit, Clark County Sheriff's Department and his subsequent reports, a rush to judgment occurred on the part of Deputy Prosecuting Attorney (DPA) John Fairgrieve of the Clark County, WA District Attorney's Office.

McClafferty's investigation consisted of learning that a Cyber-Crime had occurred and that Roddy Kartchner was the person who had deposited a forged check into a Bank of America account - period. McClafferty made no attempt to obtain the truth about this case – that Kartchner was factually a victim and not a perpetrator of the crime, and that the project for which he received the funds was in fact real. Without any further investigation, which at a minimum should have included following the paper trail, and not-with-standing the fact that Mr. Kartchner at the time of his arrest was 51 years old, had strong ties to the community and absolutely no criminal record, McClafferty arrested Mr. Kartchner, despite glaring inconsistencies in his theory that Kartchner was the mastermind of the crime at the worst, and complicit in it at the least.

McClafferty then found a number of PROMISSORY NOTES, most of which included collateral, and in what can only be considered an absurd stretch, alleged they were “instruments of theft.” It is significant to note that none of these promissory notes had any direct correlation to the original crime and yet comprise over half of the counts leveled against this innocent man. This “stacking of the evidence”, as one judge has called it, is designed to make the case appear stronger than it actually is.

McClafferty's slanted investigation led DPA Fairgrieve to form several conclusions that were based on inept theory as opposed to factual information. In a June 18, 2009 letter to Kartchner's attorney, Fairgrieve states, “In 2008 and early 2009 Mr. Kartchner was engaged in an ongoing attempt to gain possession of certain amounts of money through contacts he had developed on the Internet. He had no legal claim to any of this money. Although he often used the terminology “projects” and “investors” in his emails, there were in fact no legitimate investment projects or investors.”

I traveled to CA and spoke with Tom Goodwin, the person who partnered with Kartchner for the purpose of funding his “Orbital Device.” A legitimate project, this engine could be a major breakthrough in our evolution of devices that convert energy from a fuel to mechanical energy. I have seen the plans for this substantial project and assure our readership that it is indeed an extremely worthy project and that it does exist.

The Kartchner Family: Top row left to right, Wendi, Roddy, Joshua Bottom row left to right, Jessica, Ryan and Jordan

Other projects that Mr. Kartchner is involved with include a Remediation process for cleaning up contaminates, a Dehydration process that would enable us to make better use of resources we have by improving production and availability of foods and food products and the development of Agricultural Acids in an attempt to allow us to re-claim flooded and damaged lands sooner than it takes naturally. Isn't it amazing that this investigator can readily find these facts yet McClafferty did not and DPA Fairgrieve failed to question McClafferty's lack of factual information?

DPA Fairgrieve concludes in his world of theory that Roddy Kartchner borrowed $10,000 from Vancouver, WA resident Don Rutherford and did not intend to pay it back. He states, “The State's theory is that there was never any intent on the part of the defendant to repay the loan.”

The US~Observer's investigation proves that Roddy has borrowed funds numerous times in the past that he has repaid and that there is every indication to support his claim that he entered into an agreement to borrow money with the intent to repay Mr. Rutherford. We have also learned that despite the overt attempts by McClafferty to convince Mr. Rutherford that Mr. Kartchner had defrauded him, Mr. Rutherford is not a witness for the state. What we actually have here is a detective that questions people and hears what he wants to hear and disregards what does not fit into the theories of his false prosecution and a DPA who questions nothing, indicts an innocent man and then keeps him locked up in Clark County, WA jail cell for 526 days to date, while the family has worked to raise the funds for adequate legal counsel and while he has attempted to scare Mr. Kartchner into accepting a corrupted plea-bargain.

More astonishing yet is the fact that the Observer has learned McClafferty admitted that he knows Mr. Kartchner believed in the validity of the pay-off of what he borrowed the money for. This is significant because the pay-off Mr. Kartchner expected to receive was the source for the repayment. Where then is the basis for the state's wild assertion that Mr. Kartchner did not intend to pay any of the lenders back? Has this ace detective forgotten that a person must have INTENT to commit a crime?

It is obvious that McClafferty found it much easier at this juncture to make wild and unsubstantiated accusations against Kartchner, than to spend the time and effort required to track down the guilty parties.

The facts of this case clearly show that Kartchner is a victim of sophisticated cyber-crimes that were crafted by highly skilled professionals in the United Kingdom and elsewhere over-seas.

Kartchner himself sent well over $80,000 of his own money in addition to borrowed funds to (what he now knows to have been) scam artists, for all types of fees and costs in an effort to obtain major funding for the environmental technologies listed above.

At the end of the day, there are actually two people who will go to trial this November. One is an innocent defendant named Roddy Kartchner and the other is Clark County, WA Prosecuting Attorney Arthur D. Curtis. While DPA John P. Fairgrieve is the prosecutor who initiated this false-prosecution, his boss Arthur Curtis is the one that the US~Observer will hold publicly responsible.

Roddy Kartchner will live with this travesty of justice for the rest of his life and so will those involved with his prosecution. They will either be known as ethical men who realized they made a rush to judgment and corrected their mistakes, or as corrupt individuals who prosecuted an innocent man.

Editor's Note: The US~Observer will provide a detailed report on all aspects of this case should it proceed to trial.

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