KILLING MR. JOSEPH
(A Sit Down Interview With Joseph Dickey)
By: William Seth Hooker

It’s a nightmare scenario for anyone to imagine: you’ve been charged with sex crimes against children, facing complete ruination of career and alienation of family, and to make matters even worse, the very people you depend upon to provide legal representation and prepare your defense are so apathetic and incompetent, it appears they are secretly working harder than the prosecution to put you in prison and keep you there for life. But you’re innocent, and in many ways you can actually prove it. The evidence against you is circumstantial at best, and a host of witnesses supporting your claim of innocence are lied to, denied, and delayed by your own lawyer until their opportunity to provide valuable testimony has passed them -and you- by.

Could this really happen? According to Joseph Dickey, 55, an inmate of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it happened to him and it occurs everywhere in America on an almost daily basis. lt certainly isn’t implausible. You can be a model, law-abiding citizen all your life, and in an instant that can all change through no fault of your own. ln Dickey’s case, an associate was apprehended for child pornography and other charges and faced a lifetime behind bars. Edward Lee Thomas was arrested with more than enough evidence to secure a conviction of fifty or more years in prison; but the FBI offered ‘Eddie’ a deal: give us someone else -a bigger fish- and we’ll let you walk away- scot-free. For someone staring down at a life sentence, who wouldn’t jump at such an offer- even if it meant lying?

You guessed it: Eddie fingered Joseph Dickey as the ‘bigger fish’ they were looking for. Yet investigating authorities were unable to find any evidence against Dickey or to corraberate Eddie’s story after years of searching. One might reasonably expect that if no incriminating evidence was found, it would lead to a presumption of innocence on Dickey’s part. Instead, investigators were incensed and insisted that Dickey was a criminal mastermind that had cleverly covered all his tracks and disposed of all the so­ called ‘evidence’ their ‘star’ witness and trustworthy, credible informant said he possessed.

Perhaps a simpler explanation is that Eddie lied to authorities simply to save his own sorry behind. Joseph Dickey was someone Eddie knew and had spent time with around his family, and Eddie took advantage of the fact that Joseph was a single -father and had previously maintained a career as Campus Child Care Director. Joseph holds a Master’s Degree in Family Studies and was once the Coordinator of Campus Child-Care at the University of Alabama and was affectîonally known as “Mr. Joseph”. All-in-all, Joseph Dickey was the perfect fall-guy for someone like Eddie.

None of that mattered to investigators bent on knocking-down their contrived ‘kingpin’. Detectives and prosecutors are always looking to ‘trade-up’ on their suspects, turning them into informants in order to access more valuable targets. We do the same with terrorists. Any criminal can ‘flip’ on someone else in exchange for immunity or lesser charges and sentencing. lt happens all the time. What could possibly go wrong, right? But is Joseph Dickey as innocent as he claims to be? His story is a twisted labyrinth of events and circumstances that could appear to go either way for him, depending on the leanings of the reader. Yet there are elements of Dickey’s story that should outrage and shock Americans of any stripe or persuasion. Once you understand what the courts did to Dickey, it will undermine your faith in the American justice system and force you to admit that our government can be -and is- as corrupt and abusive of human rights as any dictatorship or third world country in the world. Remember here that Joseph Dickey’s story is not unique.

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing”

Churchill’s words are ever as applicable here as anywhere and at any time. As Joseph Dickey struggles to have his case reviewed in the higher courts, it seems that the “Brotherhood of the Badge” also extends to the courts, and both are willing to stand by the wrongdoings of their fellow legafists at any cost. Where does it end? So, if evil lays at the heart of the courts, where can Americans go to expect justice? Granted, the majority of legal professionals wholly embrace the tenets of law and justice they swear to uphold, but these same professionals must also do more to police themselves and resign themselves to the fact that overzealous prosecutors and burned-out, indifferent defense counsels can do as much or more damage to our society than those criminals they seek to prosecute.

We Are The People:

When legal defenders callously ignore their professional duty to provide competent and thorough defense for their clients, they violate the trust of the American people. When prosecutors disregard evidence or testimony that could acquit or benefit a defendant, or manufacture evidence or testimony, such as through third-party informants that are paid or otherwise benefit through their testimony, they violate the trust of the American people. When judges or magistrates, whose hands are often not as tied by the many complicated vicissitudes of the Law, though still maintain considerable discretionary power, fail to hold those under their purview accountable, and thereby allow such abuses of government power to erode at the core of the courts \ and justice system, they violate the trust of the American people.

Mister Joseph:

I met Joseph Dickey in 201O as a fellow inmate of the Federal Correctional Institution at Marianna, Florida. I worked beside him in the UNICOR recycling factory and have had ample opportunity to observe this quiet, reserved man’s behavior over the course of many years, and under the strain of some of the most inhospitable and trying conditions any man can endure. Prison brings out the worst and best in human beings. lt isn’t that the system is structured that way -lt isn’t- it’s that we, individually, are hard-wired each in our own way to do what we must in order to survive and move forward with our lives. For some that means force and violence and extortion -what I like to call “doubling-down of stupid”, to learn to be a ‘better’ criminal and siphon off society as much as possible; for others it is simply holding on to every vestige. of humanity and ethos we are able to maintain, and working hard to secure some ephemeral vision of a better future for ourselves and our loved ones. Prison doesn’t change people. lt merely intensifies who they really are, revealing the truest essence of inmates and staff alike. This is the world I found Joseph Dickey living in, and I never cared to make any presumption upon his guilt or innocence.

Many-if not most-incarcerated individuals are notorious, sometimes inveterate, liars. Especially when it comes to their own responsibility and culpability in the crimes they are charged with. Yet in the many years I knew Dickey, he seldom talked about his past and always seemed to be engaged in his own private struggle. That struggle, as I would come to learn, was his Quixotic fight with the American justice system to recognize his professed innocence and to undo the many injustices that were heaped upon him by the courts and resulted in his conviction as a sex-offender in 2006. When I learned that Dickey had a website with detailed information about his case, I have to admit that morbid curiosity got the best of me. I read a printout of his site thoroughly and felt as though I was seeing him for the first time. Though I had never made any presumption on his guilt or innocence before, sometimes a simple ‘nudge’ in a positive direction can bring about positive results. ln an effort to uncover the truth about Joseph Dickey’s alleged crimes and his personal ordeal with due process of law, I decided to interview him with the hopes and expectations of bringing him into a more public, and perhaps favorable, view. Perhaps the Court Of Public Opinion will be the last hope for Joseph Dickey and others like him. ln Dickey’s case, he has been spun around by the appellate courts for so long he is now considered to be ‘procedurally-barred’ from presenting his case in any court ever again.

THE INTERVIEW

 

WSH	Who was Eddie Thomas? What was your relationship with him?
JD	Who was Eddie Thomas? ….. well ….. l now know he was a monster. But to answer your question, he was a man I met after I had adopted my child and published my story in a national magazine called “Adoption Today”. My adoption story was also on the front page of the Tuscaloosa News and was sent out all over the nation via the AP (Associate Press). ln addition to this, I placed my adoption story on the internet. My goal was to raise money for all the children I felt like I left behind when I adopted my child. So many people would like to adopt but they do not have the money. The adoption of my child cost me around $25,000 and I just wanted to help raise money for those who wanted to adopt but had no way to get the money. I was contacted by many people and Eddie was someone who contacted me saying he would like to adopt one day but there was no way he could afford that kind of money. He also stated that he had no idea a single man could adopt. We started talking about our lives and why we were not married and eventually formed a relationship.
WSH	How did you first find out about Eddie’s crimes? What was your reaction?
JD	I found out Eddie had been arrested and in jail when I called his house around the holidays in 2002. His mother answered the phone and I asked her where Eddie was, I had not heard from him in days. She said he was in jail facing at least 30 years. When I asked what for, she was silent and then just hung the phone up. At that time I had no idea what he had been arrested for. I was thinking it might be something to do with money because he was unemployed and needed money. lt was only later that I found out he was in jail for sexually abusing some of his family members. What was my reaction? Sick to my stomach. So many thoughts ran through my mind. I was in a state of shock. Everyone kept asking me what was wrong but I could not tell them because no one knew about my relationship with Eddie, which had nothing to do with the sexual abuse of children or child porn. How could I reveal that I had a relationship with a man who turned out to be a child molester? I was from a very religious family but it does not take a genius to figure out what kind of relationship I had formed with Eddie. I am a single man, never married, never really dated, worked in a female dominated field, and had adopted a child as a single man. You do the math.
WSH	Were there no “Red Flags”, no warning signs about Eddie which, in hindsight, you should have seen?
JD	Looking back I can see some things which might have been Red Flags, but you have to remember that my mind was not thinking about sexual abuse back then. He was always wanting to “help out” with the kids. Give them baths, watch them while I went to get us food, etc. Looking back he had absolutely no appropriate skills with children and was essentially a creep but he was the first person on Earth I talked to about my struggles with my own sexuality therefore I craved to be around him so I could for the first time in my life talk to someone about who I really was. lt is hard to explain but of course I am looking back with hindsight, which they say is always 20/20. But like I said, my mind was not analyzing him to see if he was a sexual predatory. I guess I was kind of naive before this nightmare happened to me. Now days I look at everyone as if they might be a sexual freak. That is what happens to you when you live with convicted sex offenders for nearly 18 years.
WSH	When Eddie first “flipped” on you, did authorities come to raid your house and question you?
JD	No. The authorities did not come to my house until about 3 years after Eddie had “flipped”. lt is only after I got my FBI file did I learn the FBI had been watching me for almost 3 years trying to gather evidence to support what Eddie had told them about me.
WSH	At least in my mind there are a couple of things that don’t add-up; help me to clarify on these points: * The FBI unit tasked with your investigation declined the opportunity to recommend you to a grand jury for prosecution. So why did the Mississippi authorities do it anyway?
JD	I don’t think the FBI recommends people to the grand jury. lt is my understanding that the FBI only collects information and presents the information to the District Attorney’s Office. ln my case, based upon the records I have uncovered, it appears the FBI collected data for nearly 3 years on me and found basically nothing. The FBI made comments to the effect of “there is nothing to corroborate” Eddie’s story about me. The records also indicate the FBI believed the crimes for which Eddie said I had committed with him perhaps did not even happen and if they did happen they may have happened without my knowledge. Based upon all of this, the District Attorney’s office in Alabama declined to bring charges and the FBI in Alabama closed their case on me because of a lack of any incriminating evidence. However, it appeared the Mississippi FBI office had one agent who refused to let the case go because she had apparently made a deal with Eddie and had investigated me for almost 3 years. She eventually used the testimony of Eddie, which as known to be false, to obtain a search warrant for my house. This is actually illegal to use information in a search warrant affidavit which you know is false but the FBI agent appeared to be desperate. Why did they do it anyway? I don’t know if I will ever know the answer to this other than an investigation for n~arly 3 years and you still have nothing, well. ..that makes you look really bad. They had to make me out to be the monster Eddie described or they would have looked like a fool for making a deal with him. That is my opinion.
WSH	What is a ‘Frank’s Violation’? How did it affect you?
JD	A Frank’s Violation is what I just described earlier. lt is illegal to use information from an informant which is known to be false. ln this case, the FBI clearly used information to get a search warrant which they knew was false. Eddie had told them i was involved in trading child pornography online and I had sent him all the images they found on his computer. All of this was a total lie and according to the FBI files I have uncovered, the FBI knew it. However, they submitted an affidavit to a judge telling him they had a witness who had personal knowledge of my online child pornography activities. Remember, this is the same witness which the Alabama FBI h~d determined was lying and had closed the case. So a Franks Violation is when one basically uses false information to get a search warrant. If my trial attorney was not so ignorant and had investigation and done her job, she could have gotten the entire indictment thrown out because the FBI should have never even came to my house. There was absolutely nothing to incriminate me other than Eddie’s testimony …which was known to be a lie.
WSH	The photos found on your flashcard in 2002 contained about a half dozen pictures of child pornography. You say they were in your possession for almost three years, and yet you never knew about them. How is that possible?
JD	First of all, there were no ‘photos’, as one might assume,in my house. A flashcard which was used to make the photos 3 years earlier was in my house. This flashcard only showed my family’s 2002 Christmas pictures on it. The FBI forensically recovered the child porn images which were in a deleted state. I, nor anyone, could view or even know those pictures were there unless you had special software like the FBI to see what had been deleted on the flashcard. When the FBI does a forensic analysis on any electronic device and finds evidence that something illegal was on that device at some point in the past, you can be charged for possession of the illegal materials. Why was there evidence my flashcard had been used to make child pornography? Well, after getting my FBI file I discovered that Eddie had admitted “something happened” (Eddie’s words) when I left the children alone with him to go get pizza for all of us. That something turned out to be the fact he made pornographic photographs of the children with my camera and put the photographs on his computer, then deleted the evidence he had used my camera. Most people will find this hard to believe that someone would do something like this in a span of 45 minutes but there is a case out of Florida which clearly illustrates how fast a predator will strike. I strongly encourage anyone having doubts about this to look up the case of United States v Grzybowicz. ln this case the man talked a co-worker into bringing her children to an amusement park with him. He then encouraged the mother to ride the roller-coaster. While the mother was on the roller-coaster for about 6 minutes, he took her 2 year old daughter to the bathroom, sexually abused her, took photographs of her, and sent the photos to his email account. All of this happened in a span of 6 minutes. Eddie had at ( least 45 minutes. For a predatory like Eddie, 45 minutes is an eternity. So yes, I had the flashcard for 3 years but had no idea what Eddie had done. The news media loves to tell the negative side of something without telling the entire story. I did not have child pornography’. in my house. I had a flashcard which had been used 3 years earlier to make child pornography. While the legal consequences are still the same and the legal term for a situation like this is possession of child pornography, the reality of what was found in my house is nothing like the news media reported. There were no child pornography pictures like one is led to believe. None of the computers I had ever owned or used had child pornography on them. The FBI tracked down every computer I had ever touched and nothing was found. The only thing found was the flashcard which was used by Eddie on one date when the children were left alone with him. I think when one learns the facts and views the evidence, it becomes clear what took place.
WSH	You claim that some of the crimes you were convicted of were ‘factually impossible’. What do you mean by that?
JD	All of my charges surround the 7 dèleted images and Eddies story. I was charged with: having the images; traveling for the purpose to make the images; conspiring to produce the images; and transporting the images across state lines when I brought the camera back to Alabama from Mississippi. Then … ln addition to all of these charges, I was charged for crossing state lines to engage in a sexual act with the minor victims in this case every time I ever went to visit Eddie. The alleged victims were nowhere near my travel location on at least 3 of the occasions I went to visit Eddie, so even if one believes I traveled to abuse the victims, it is impossible for me to have done that for the purpose to engage in a sex act with them on 3 of the 6 times I am charged because they were nowhere near where I traveled. The victims were not there, they were not part of my travel plans, and were actually in a different state. I just went to visit Eddie. 45 years of my 135 year sentence is for stuff that did not even happen. The victims’ family has tried to tell this but no one would ever allow them to speak, which is also against the law. Crime victims have a right to be heard but apparently not in my case. They were totally ignored and not allowed to speak in court. I am amazed that this proverbial Elephant ln The Room has never been addressed by any court at any time.
WSH	Despite your claim of innocence you signed a plea-agreement, which is tantamount to an admission of guilt. Why did you opt for the plea-agreement instead of taking your case to trial?
JD	If you do the research you will find that 18º/o of exonerees who were freed by DNA through Innocence Projects pied guilty. Unless someone has ever faced the nightmare of being accused of something with the threat of never being with your family again, they could never understand why someone who is innocent would plead guilty. ln my case I was charged with a heinous crime and I was told I was going to prison and it was up to me for how long. I knew at that point my life was over as I knew it. I was told if I would plead guilty I could possibly get probation and custody of my son back. However, if I tried to fight the Feds I would never see my son again and possibly spend up to 30 years in prison. This seems unbelievable but the documents to prove this is on my website. I ask you, what would vou do? I felt as if I had no choice. As crazy as it now sounds, I really tho~ght I could ~et proba.tian and be with my son again. I was an emotion mess and all I wanted to do is be with my family ~gain .. 1 had no idea my ignorant trial attorney had me sign a plea agreement which was actually for 135 years. No one in their right min~ would have don~ that. My trial attorney also had my family believing the plea agreement was the best option and she recruited them to convince me to plead guilty. I never wanted to plead guilty. I fought with my lawyer over this for weeks. 1 remember my mother telling me I had been hard headed all my life and she begged me to listen to my lawyer and do what she says .. lt was not just ~e w~o was tric~ed b~ t~is lawyer, it was my entire family, including the alleged victims of my crime. My website has sworn affidavits concerning this issue. So, against my gut feeling, I took my family and lawyer’s advice and acce~ted the plea agreement. This is a mistake which possibly will make me spend the rest of my life in prison but I had never been rn trouble before and I had no idea what I was doing. I trusted my lawyer.
WSH	You know that if a person Googles your name,some pretty incriminating information comes up about you. Something about a victim from 1991 and a journal you had describing your crimes and also something about transporting child pornography in a Bible. How do you explain these things?
JD	Oh my God, I know. How does a person defend themself against something like that? I mean, if you attack an alleged victim, then you are viewed as even a worse person than before. But if you just let it go then you essentially admit to something that is absolutely not true. You really can’t win when someone accuses you of something like that. I will try to answer it like this: ln my case the actual, alleged victims were providing evidence and testimony to prove I had not committed any of the crimes Eddie said I had committed. However, the government needed a victim because they had spent nearly 3 years and had indicted me. So here comes this alleged victim from 1991. I find it most puzzling that the actual victims of my alleged crimes were not allowed to speak, but an alleged victim for 1991 became the star witness. I don’t know why he said what he did about me but I can tell you this: There was no abuse in 1991- period. Something I ask people to consider is this: The alleged victim from 1991 is also the son of the court stenographer who had worked in the same courthouse with my crooked, ignorant trial attorney for nearly 20 years. Is that not suspicious? Something very fishy took place in my case and I have not connected all of the crooked dots yet, but none of it makes any sense. One minute I am living my life and I am a trusted member of society who had worked years with children and families. My adoption and my position as campus child care director for the University of Alabama was in the news media, I had been on TV before concerning child care issues yet no one ever said anything about me. I even did an internship working directly with the Department of Human Resources, ironically- in the agency which investigates child sexual abuse, the summer after this alleged 1991 abuse and report took place. Then one day I am accused of a heinous crime by a sexual predator which the government had made a deal with. When this predator’s story about me started to fall apatt, the government desperately needed a victim. Here comes this person from 1991 who somehow now ‘proves’ I did the crimes Eddie said I did. lt is so crazy it blows my mind. I can’t explain it. All I will say is there was never any abuse in 1991, or for that matter, in any year. Any allegation of such abuse is absolutely false and I can prove this in a court of law. As far as a journal talking about the sexual abuse of children, that is totally ridiculous. There was a journal talking about my struggles with my adult sexuality which had absolutely nothing to do with children. If anyone would read the journal they would clearly see it had nothing to do with the sexual abuse of children. The journal was written years before any of the alleged victims were even born. And as far as child porn being transported in a Bible, affidavits from individuals clearly show the flashcard was found in my mother’s Bible. She saved the flashcard in her Bible because she put everything which she thought was important in her family Bible. I think this is something older southern people use to do. The flashcard had our family’s Christmas 2002 pictures on it and the flashcard was corrupt and the Christmas pictures would not print out. Rather than throw the flashcard away, my mother said she wanted to keep it in case we could get the pictures printed out later. She did not want to throw away our Christmas pictures. lt is hard to understand or explain how the government and news media can connect dots and paint a picture of something that is a completely fabricated story based upon half truths. If anyone wants to Google me, then I ask them to please finish their online research of me and go to my website to see all of the actual documents which tell an entirely different story. The Google results are only speculation and gossip, my website has the documents to prove every single thing I have said. To problem is, most people want to believe the juicy bad story and sadly they are not interested in the truth.
WSH	Even if you were outright guilty of the production of child pornography and traveled across state lines, etc .. , is your sentence at all commensurate with the crimes you were accused of?
JD	Absolutely not. I have been prison for nearly 18 years. I have seen sex offenders come to prison, do their time, and then go home yet I am still here. My website has examples of 4 heinous sex offender cases in which if you add all of their sentences up, I still have 1 O years more than all of their sentences combined. While I never want to seem like I am minimizing the sexual abuse of children or any sex crime, 135 years for 7 deleted images for a first time offender is insane. However, I don’t even care about my sentence anymore as much as I care about how the government let Edward Lee Thomas sexually abuse my family, exploit them through pornography, trade the pornography on the internet and then get absolutely zero time. Regardless of whether everyone reading this thinks I am a monster, it was still my family. I am still upset at what he did to my nephews and still believe he should pay for it. lt is easy to think of me as someone who has no feelings but what Eddie did to my family haunts me every day of my life. lt still hurts for people to think I did these crimes, but I think it hurts me even more to know what Eddie did to my family. What people think I am and what I really am are as different as night and day. Also, no one uses common sense. I worked in child care, the victims were my family members, I had a camera, the victims were with me years before I met Eddie and years after Eddie yet there are only a few pictures of these victims which were made on one date in which they were alone with Eddie. Eddie admitted to the FBI he did it when I went to get pizza for all of us one day and left the children with him. What am l missing? lt is crystal clear to me what happened. Eddie did the exact same thing to someone else in 2020. I just don’t get it. Why is everyone so convinced I am guilty and refuse to even look at the facts? Why would I need Eddie to produce child porn when I had worked in child care for years. had a camera, and had access to many many children? There were absolutely no pictures except the 7 recovered images which were made on the one date the victims were left alone with Eddie. To me it just is common sense who the predator is, but I guess society and the courts want to see me as the monster so common sense does not matter.
WSH	Your website contains letters and sworn statements from some of the families of your alleged victims. Where are they now? Why aren’t they out there advocating for your innocence?
JD	They did advocate for me for years, but people eventually run out of gas. Family members move on with their lives. They are weary and tired. So am l. You can only beat your head against a wall so many times before you give up. I have almost given up myself. Many of my family members have passed away, the younger family members are married with children of their own and don’t even remember me that much. Being in prison is like dying with your eyes open. You get to see what happens when you die. lt is like I have died. You also have to consider that when only one side of the story has been told, that side often becomes the truth. My younger family members have grown up with Google and the news media’s story of me being a child molester who produced child porn. What do you expect them to believe? That is all they have heard their entire life and they don’t even really know me.
WSH	What do you want from this website? Do you believe any good can come of this interview?
JD	I want the truth to be posted and told. I want anyone reading this to tell someone else, then tell that person to tell another, and so on. Why? Because I don’t want this to ever happen again to anyone else. The only way to stop corruption is to expose it. I have lost my life. My life is over as I knew it. I look in the mirror and I now see an old man. I just want the loss of my life to make a difference somehow, some way. I also want Eddie’s newest victims from 2020 to know why it was possible for Eddie to abuse their children. lt is because he was given a free pass back in 2002. These newest victims have no idea what Eddie had done or what the government has done. They need to be told. Because of “flipping”, their baby and toddler were sexually abused, photographed and shared all over the world via the internet. The government “seals” cases so there is really no way to find out who they are or to contact them. But they need to know. The government is liable for their children’s abuse and the government needs to be held accountable. This needs to be exposed. Someone reading this right now could possibly be the person to help make a change. That is what I want.
WSH	You suggested the title for this interview piece yourself: ‘Killing Mister Joseph”, and l have decided to go with your suggestion. What significance does this title have for you?
JD	I use to be known by the children and parents at the child care centers I worked for as Mr. Joseph. He was a kind, caring, loving individual who was loved and trusted by the parents and children. This man does not exist anymore. I am now just a shell of a man. Basically like the TV series “The Walking Dead”. Yes I can walk and move around but I am basically dead. An indictment, lies, threats, and years of living among monsters has killed Mr. Joseph. All that is left is an old man who is now viewed as a monster himself. Mr. Joseph is dead.
WSH	Do you ever look back and wish you had never worked in child care or become ‘Mister Joseph’?
JD	At times I do. I think perhaps this would not have happened to me if I had never had the jobs I had. I also have thought about if I was a woman, not that I am transgender, that my relationship with Eddie would have been understood and I would have been viewed as a sort of victim myself. lt is well known that predators often target single moms with children but if you are a single dad it seems you cannot be viewed as a target, you are a co-conspirator. Plug all of the facts of my case into a situation where I am a single mom instead of a single dad and see how that erases any doubts of what happened. But to answer your question, no I do not regret being Mr. Joseph. The loving kind Mr. Joseph was the one who was approved to adopted my child and my child is the greatest thing in my life. Even if I die in here, at least I was instrumental in giving my child a new life in America. So all in all. .. No.
WSH	If you could change one single thing that you did in the entire chain of events that brought you to this point in your life, what would it be and why?
JD	That is the easiest answer to any of the questions you have asked me. I wish I had never ever ever met Edward Lee Thomas. Mr. Joseph would not be dead and my son would have grown up with his dad. (tears in his eyes)

At a time in our history when the American Bureaucracy is being used to defame, delegitimize, and destroy political opposition, should we be surprised that this is the result of decades of turning a blind eye to the same kinds of practices that were used to target ordinary citizens like Joseph Dickey and thousands of others? When government institutions like the DOJ condone unsound, unethical, unsavory policies such as ‘flipping’ suspects in order to acquire higher-value targets, they engage in a war against The People wherein no one is safe and no rule is sacrosanct. There is no evidence to support Eddie Thomas’ claim that Dickey was a ‘bigger fish’. Conversely, Thomas was arrested with enough child pornography to imprison him for fifty years or longer- not once but twice! And the fact that the FBI set Thomas free in exchange for his pack of lies is nothing less than knowingly and willingly abetting in further crimes, turning loose a monster on society and endangering children everywhere.

lt comes down to a simple question: Is this the kind of society we we want for ourselves? Was this our choice, an instrument of our own making? Or was it foisted on us clandestinely by dark and unseen sources within our own government who strive to undermine our liberty and humanity? Where is the bill that enables such a policy as ‘flipping’? What politician would put their name on such a thing? Whatever it is that you believe, Joseph Dickey may eventually become the poster boy for its soulless implementation, and come to symbolize the disparity between what is and what should never be.

Addendum To Interview:

If you want to know more about Joseph Dickey and his struggle with the courts, details are available through his website at: GovMisconduct.com. If you are outraged or offended by the government’s use of ‘flipping’ suspects, write to your local congressperson and express your feelings on this issue. Also, find like-minded individuals and form grass-roots organizations to lobby against this heinous practice. Research ‘Franks’ Violation’ and learn why prosecutorial misconduct is a threat to all American citizens and represents a systemic erosion of our principles and morals at all levels in the courts. Finally, read the book, ‘Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice: by Ethan Brown (2007)”, to learn more about the practice of “flipping” and how it works.