Exclusive: Brett Kimberlin v. John Norton... and John Norton v. Brettt Kimberlin!

So every day I check the Maryland Judiciary Case Search website, seeing what Kimberlin and some of the other players are doing, particularly to see if Kimberlin has filed any more bogus charges, peace orders, etc. against me.  And I began to notice a few peculiar things.  First was a charge of misuse of phone against a Martin Maher in Florida filed by Kimberlin.  And then there was a peace order against John Norton, also by Kimberlin.  It was interesting, but I didn’t see any direct relevance involving me, until I saw Kimberlin’s response to my motion for a stay.  Then we see this in paragraphs 2 and 3 of his response:

2.      Petitioner [Kimberlin] has continued to receive many death threats and had people stalk him on behalf of Mr. Walker since the Peace Order was issued.  In fact, Petitioner had to file criminal charges against one man named Martin Maher who called Petitioner and said that he had a swat team that was going to “take care Aaron Walker’s problems.”  See Kimberlin v Maher, #. 3D00279429 Mr. Maher called Petitioner, Petitioner’s 13 year old daughter, Petitioner’s elderly mother, and all of Petitioner’s neighbors making alarming and threatening calls on behalf of Mr. Walker.

3.      On June 15, 2012, Petitioner found a stalker lurking outside his home taking pictures.  Petitioner called 911 and the police identified the man as John Firman Norton, and he lives in Fairfax, Virginia, very close to Mr. Walker’s home.  Mr. Walker’s client, Seth Allen, posted at least one of the pictures taken by Mr. Norton on a blog. Exhibit B.  On June 22, 2012, Petitioner filed for a Peace Order against Mr. Norton.

Well, first off I never heard of either man until Kimberlin filed against them and I certainly didn’t command them, ask them or even desire for them or anyone else to do anything of the sort (assuming they did anything he claims) and indeed had no knowledge that they were going to do this ahead of time, given that I didn’t even know they existed until Kimberlin filed against them.

But now these men were being accused of bad behavior, and I was being accused of controlling them, somehow.  Go figure.  Which made the filings against these men suddenly directly relevant to my life.

So today I obtained copies of the dueling peace orders and the criminal charges against Mr. Maher.  Today I’ll give you the peace orders, tomorrow the criminal charges.

Now I can’t tell you much about the veracity of either man’s account.  Kimberlin for his part is a convicted perjurer and an absolutely pathological liar who has shown no hesitation in lying under oath in order to harm me.  And he evidently thinks his charges against Norton harm me.

But it doesn’t follow from that, that Norton is innocent either.  In fact, Norton’s account leaves open to me a number of unanswered questions.  But at least it gives him a chance to defend himself.

But here’s the thing.  Even if you believe every word Brett Kimberlin has said, this is not sufficient for a peace order—at least if the District Court follows the law.

Let’s look at Kimberlin’s petition for a peace order:

Brett Kimberlin v. John Norton Petition for Peace Order 6.22.12 (OCR)

Now if you believe Kimberlin—and that is always the catch, isn’t it?—then this peace order shouldn’t stand.  I don’t say this to give advice—I am indeed not even a Maryland lawyer—but to show you how Brett Kimberlin is once again abusing the law.  You see in order to get a peace order, you have to first prove that a person has engaged in one of a number of acts under Md. Courts and Judicial Proceedings Code §3-1503(a).  Two of those listed are:

(6) Harassment under § 3-803 of the Criminal Law Article;…

(8) Trespass under Title 6, Subtitle 4 of the Criminal Law Article...

Let’s start with trespass, because that is the easiest one.  What this law is saying is that is that you have to make out the elements of the crime of trespass under the appropriate title.  Having looked into it, the part that applies the most obviously is Md. CRIMINAL LAW Code §6-403, which prohibits “Wanton Trespass on private property.”  It contains the following prohibitions:

(a) Prohibited -- Entering and crossing property. -- A person may not enter or cross over private property or board the boat or other marine vessel of another, after having been notified by the owner or the owner's agent not to do so, unless entering or crossing under a good faith claim of right or ownership.

(b) Prohibited -- Remaining on property. -- A person may not remain on private property including the boat or other marine vessel of another, after having been notified by the owner or the owner's agent not to do so.

They key element is that the person has to say something to that person: either “get off my lawn!” or not to come on it in the first place.  Now look closely at this passage:

I walked toward my car to pick up my a-year old daughter when I noticed that the man jumped into a red Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible and raised a camera to take pictures of me getting into my car.

So where exactly is he saying to the man to leave his property or not to come on it in the first place?  He isn’t.  So this claim should be dismissed and indeed I have seen the temporary peace order and they did not find the man trespassed on his property.

Meanwhile for harassment, Md. Criminal Law Code § 3-803(a) declares that “A person may not follow another in or about a public place...” But in fact in Kimberlin’s account, the man is not following Kimberlin; if anything Kimberlin is following him.  But the statute also prohibits a person from “maliciously engag[ing] in a course of conduct that alarms or seriously annoys the other.”  Now you might ask, well, what does “course of conduct” mean?  And that is answered by §3-801: “a persistent pattern of conduct, composed of a series of acts over time, that shows a continuity of purpose.”  Which seems to say to me that doing it once isn’t sufficient.

But there are even more problems in making out harassment.  There is also the requirement that this is done “after receiving a reasonable warning or request to stop by or on behalf of the other” and we trip right on the same problem we saw last time.  Kimberlin has not even alleged that he asked Norton to stop or indeed said anything to him.  So simply put, even if you believe Kimberlin—and frankly, I never do without solid verification—he hasn’t even properly alleged harassment.

And Kimberlin knows this.  In a previous peace order against me he has made sure he included the fact he asked me to stop.  Which I mocked as being similar to this:

So even if you believe Kimberlin, he had no right to file for this peace order, and the court shouldn’t have even granted it on a temporary basis.  But I have no faith these days that the District Court will get it right, which means that Mr. Norton will probably have to take advantage of the automatic appeal to which he is entitled.

Next we get Mr. Norton’s petition for a peace order against Kimberlin:

John Norton v. Brett Kimberlin Petition for Peace Order 6.25.12 (OCR)

Again, I have no idea who is telling the truth here—indeed his account leaves obvious questions unanswered.  But it also equally seems to be insufficient.  Both stalking and harassment in Maryland law requires a course of conduct, and I just don’t see it there.  I see a single incident.

But there is something else I dug out of this; it is worth going back to something Kimberlin wrote in his response to my motion for a stay:

On June 15, 2012, Petitioner found a stalker lurking outside his home taking pictures.  Petitioner called 911 and the police identified the man as John Firman Norton, and he lives in Fairfax, Virginia, very close to Mr. Walker’s home.

Now, I have redacted Mr. Norton’s street address from both documents, but obviously now I know his address, and I plugged it into my iphone’s map application and then compared how far one had to drive to get from my house to Mr. Norton’s house, and from Mr. Norton’s house to Mr. Kimberlin’s mother’s basement where Brett Kimberlin lives.  And the distance?  It’s 14.3 miles from my house, 17 miles from Kimberlin’s abode.  So Norton lives just about as “close” to me as Kimberlin

Which also undercuts his claims that no one would come from Fairfax, Virginia to Bethesda, Maryland except to bother Kimberlin.  There may be a state line between Mr. Norton and Mr. Kimberlin, but there doesn’t appear to be very much actual distance.  People who live in the area know people who commute across state lines on a daily basis just going to and from their jobs and other places of interest.  I suspect anyone who lives near a state border sees a similar phenomenon.

So what we have here is a pair of petitions for peace orders that never should have been granted, period.  And hopefully both will be denied at the hearing on both, that is taking place tomorrow.

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Sidebar: You will notice that I have censored out the name of a man connected to a website.  That would belong to a remarkably stupid blogger who amazingly got four stories wrong in a twenty-four hour period in his bid to be President of the Brett Kimberlin fan club, and has gotten about four thousand hits total.  I am not giving him the benefit of the increased traffic.

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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years.  I know that claim sound fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.  If you would like to donate and help my wife and I in this time of need, please go to this donation page or use the PayPal buttons on the right.  And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even been within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  As you will see by the time I am done telling my story that this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.