For those of you who don't know Vincent Edwards, let me introduce you to a man who is taking the bull by the horns and running for Sheriff of Costilla County Colorado in November. Shoutout to for introducing him to me!
Mr. Edwards is a liberty-lover and plans to do away with all unnecessary county offices if he wins, taking back liberty at a local level. He plans to deputize those who agree to his platform, and apparently according to county law they do not have to live in the county, they can live anywhere. The deputy positions are voluntary with no pay. He has also publicly invited anyone who wants to help out to come down and live there, I think there are expenses involved but I'm not 100%.
He is currently facing a trumped-up felony charge from 2014, due in court April 2018. The court is apparently charging him because he threatened a public official, who was stalking him and trespassing, by saying via telephone and Facebook that if he didn't leave him alone he would sue him in court. When asked to produce the official warrant, which they never served him but jailed him for not showing in court, they gave him a "copy" of it which is possibly forged. It appears the warrant wasn't signed until after it was copied with the dot-matrix printer... the signature is in ink. A copy of a document supposedly produced a year earlier should've been just that, a copy, and the signature should've been pixelated like the rest of the document, which was copied on a dot matrix machine.
When they arrested him for non-appearance they trashed his house and basically ruined all his material possessions - to the point that after they let him out of jail 9 months later, he had to stay in a homeless shelter for a month because he couldn't return home. He couldn't bond himself out of jail because they set his bond at $10k, and most people do not have $10k just lying around, so he sat there.
Mr. Edwards' story is clearly one of constitutional violation and institutional harassment. You cannot be charged with a felony for threatening to sue someone... if that was the case no business in the real world could be transacted. Bill collectors would be felons, as well as small businesses who depend on small claims courts to protect them. It's really quite absurd, and I'm glad he's standing up to them, but he needs our help.
He can beat these bogus charges, but he needs good representation for that to happen. It seems that the judge is even in on this, so he needs to hire an attorney with the ability to launch a "social media trial" to force the court to do the right thing because the whole nation is watching.
So, I pledge to donate all SBD earned on this post
to Mr. Edwards, which is set at a 50/50 payout.
I will reach out to him and I'm sure he will be glad to provide all of you proof of my payout to him, looks like I can directly send SBD to him, but I will pay him however he wishes. I urge all my liberty friends, who are much bigger in our pond than I, to please help out with some resteems!! I know it is poor form to ask, but this is for a good cause - let's get everyone onto this story!
I also hope that Mr. Edwards will agree to do a Skype interview, which will be exclusive to Steemit. I'm sure he'd have no problem in doing so. He's trying to get the word out on YT and Twitter, but he's struggling there. Let's show him some Steemit love, as I feel like he'd fit in here nicely.
I urge everyone to check out all his content (links below), and maybe find a way to help him. Maybe some of you could volunteer some services to him - pro-bono attorney services, graphic design, campaign consulting, even helping pay for local marketing - whatever you can offer? He just launched a crowdfunding campaign for legal fees and also accepts any type of crypto donations (see below).
Success is rarely the result of one swell swoop, but more often the culmination of many, many small victories.
Joseph M. Marshall III, The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living
Links
YouTube
Gab
Funded Justice - Crowdfunding for legal funds through 4/5/18
Crypto Donations: 13M7fRHhpwwQ9Xe3fYqi8WBMuY3vMJKDUq