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More On Manassas Park’s Setup
By Greg L | 4 February 2007 | Rack & Roll Scandal | No Comments
I’m not the only blogger interested in the Rack & Roll scandal in Manassas Park. Radley Balko, who in his day job works for the Cato Institute, has been following this story and digging into the evidence on his own. In his latest post on the subject he adds his own research and observations to “Anatomy Of A Setup” which are definitely worth a visit.
Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:
Many of Ruttenberg’s problems stem from the fact that he was too trusting and too cooperative with Manassas Park police. David’s father and brother are lawyers. This is a family that has for a long time had nothing but trust in the political and criminal justice systems. They regularly turned in drug dealers. When the police asked if they could use Rack n’ Roll for undercover operations, the Ruttenbergs obliged, thinking that cooperating with the police is a sound, civic-minded thing to do. Little did they know that their very cooperation would later be what doomed them.
Are you listening Paul Ebert? What kind of message are you sending to the residents of Virginia about cooperating with authorities if you allow this to stand?
Many of the drug deals Kifer set up were later used against Ruttenberg at his hearing before the ABC board (Virginia’s liquor board). Ruttenberg, who had hired staff to root out drug activity, who had installed an expensive security system to catch drug activity, and who had asked the police to cooperate with him to find and eliminate drug activity, eventually lost his liquor license because he wasn’t being vigilant enough about keeping drug activity out of his business — drug activity set up and executed by the police. And of course, he was barred from subpoenaing police records to prove the informants were in fact informants because police grant (and courts uphold) informants complete confidentiality.
Radley can definitely write a good post. Go read it.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
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