On the 19th of October 2005, I received as an attachment a letter that was written to the Love and Human Rights Forum by Shay Cullen and his staff. In this letter, I was severely libeled, and filed a case against the signers of that letter, said case being identified as I.S. 2005-1961 (Below is a quick synopsis of the complaint with followups, or the full text is provided here: complaint page 1, page 2, page 3. The counter affidavit is provided here: page 1, page 2, page 3. My response to said counter affidavit is provided here: page 1, page 2, page 3).
The first lie was not about me, however; it was stating that the beginnings of Preda Foundation Inc. was 30 years prior to the date of the letter, or 1970 (the letter was dated March 3, 2000). Obviously, if a case for wrongful appropriation of the property that is the current location of Preda had been filed against Shay Cullen in 1974, and the allegations in the complaint stated that the facility was called the “Zambales Rehabilitation Center,” then Preda obviously could not have existed in 1970, and apparently did not exist when the complaint was filed in July 1974.
In the second paragraph, first page of the letter, they state that I am a child abuser but not yet brought to court. This is defamatory, and they should have filed charges if they had proof.
In the third paragraph, first page of the letter, they state in no uncertain terms that they will file charges against me. They never have, and this is further proof of their lies.
In the fourth paragraph, first page of the letter, they state that they have already filed charges against me in the courts, which is a total lie, as no such charges were pending either before the prosecutor nor any court. Please excuse my ignorance, but did they, or did they not just finish saying that they had not yet brought me to court (boldfaced and highlighted for your convenience)? Could it be that they may have lied here?
In the first paragraph, second page, they state that they have received 25 complaints from this pedophile support group, and considering that at that time I have personally filed about 25 complaints against them where three had already reached court (libel, grave oral defamation and violation of R.A. 7610, and the charge of rape would reach court by August 2000), this directly called me a pedophile support group, which is amazing that one person can be a whole group!
In the second paragraph of the second page, they quote the Ten Commandments, specifically number 8, which they quote as “… you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, because we have so many people bearing false witnesses.” They also, in this same paragraph, claim that I am attacking them with false evidence, which defames me directly. So do they, or do they not violate the Commandment they directly quote?
In the third paragraph of the second page they state that they “… have put friends of Alan Edmonds in jail for child abuse.” This is not directly defamatory, but it states that they have put my friends in jail, yet I know of no such thing, so this is a simple lie. None of my friends were ever put in jail by Preda or anybody else at that time, so that is a direct falsehood. Perhaps they were thinking of Victor Fitzgerald – he is an acquaintance, as I did meet him after he had been in jail for a number of years, and since he has been released from prison in, I think, 2001, I have met him perhaps a total of three times in passing.
In the fifth paragraph of the second page they issue the statement that I was said to be “… emotionally unstable. *(mentally sick)” This is defamatory, is it not?
In the sixth paragraph of the second page, they again state (as they have elsewhere) that my daughter made her claim against Shay Cullen “… in a sex bar …”. This is again defamatory, claiming that I would take my minor daughter to a sex bar. Please see again the pictures of Mr. Pumpernickel’s Restaurant. It is NOT a sex bar in any sense of the description!
In the third paragraph of the third page, they state that my daughter had told the teachers, the police, the social workers and her friends that her brother had raped her. It seems strange that two police blotters, one dated 17 October 1997 and the other dated 29 January 1998 are in total agreement with each other and NEITHER makes mention of any accusation against the brother. This means that Shay Cullen and his Preda staff lied about the incident in order to inflame the reader against the girl’s family.
The seventh paragraph of the third page begins “Edmonds with other suspected criminals …”. Now, I don’t know about the reader, but to me this states that I am also a suspected criminal, and that is defamatory. They go on to state that “The evidence already on record of the court shows that the two boys committed the crime.” This is not true. In Branch 73, Regional Trial Court transcript of 30 March 1998 states “COURT:” “ … I interviewed her in my chambers and she told me she had been raped. So, she understood the word ‘rape’, but when I tried to explain how rape was committed, she merely demonstrated that she was not kissed on the left cheek or the right cheek, but that she was kissed on the lips. That was all she told me what happened to her.” (page 5 of the stenographer’s notes)
And finally, on the last page of the defamatory letter, they state that I “… live a strange life in the bars and brothels of Subic.” Considering that I own a house some 30 kilometers from Subic, this clearly places an untrue defamatory statement about my life. I have to go through Subic on my way to Barretto, where I get my mail, and also to Olongapo, where I have to get my money from the bank, and it should be noted here that there is no other way to get to Olongapo or Barretto from San Antonio except by passing through Subic. Certainly, if I want to stop in at a bar on my way home from those destinations, that does NOT make me “live” in Subic. It just means that I stopped to have a drink, the same as any other person might do.
Now, I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that they are very arrogant. Consider that the letter is signed by sixteen of the Preda staff and Shay Cullen (one block was left blank), and to be quite fair, I specifically did NOT name all of the signers of the document as respondent: Merly Hermoso was dead, so she was not named, and the block of Michael Reyes was not signed, so I did not name him either. So that left fifteen staff and Shay Cullen as respondents. However, only seven staff with Shay Cullen signed the joint counter-affidavit. Is it because the others simply think they don't HAVE to respond to the charges, or that they have a firm belief that Shay Cullen will get them exonerated by himself and the seven staff members? Are they that much above the law that they can ignore it?
Here is a event layout for this case up to the present. As any documents are uploaded, the information will be changed to a link for you to see the scan of the document of which is referred.
20051015: Letter received written by Shay Cullen and his staff.
20051024: Complaint filed with the public prosecutor's office in Olongapo.
20051125: Counter affidavit claiming that letter was "internal communications."
20051208: Response to counter affidavit.
20060428: Resolution from prosecutor.
20060616: Information filed to court. Case is now number 06-411
20060628: Notice of appearance of defense attourneys (3) requesting reduction in bail.
20060714: Reduction in bail granted.
20060718: Notice of appearance of private prosecutor.
20060807: Motion to quash, based on letter was written several years ago
20060810: Opposition to motion to quash based on fact letter was delivered on 19 Oct 2005
20060822: Order of court denying motion to quash.
20061215: Subpoena for arraignment on 9 February 2007. Note that only Shay Cullen and the six (6) respondents who signed the counter affidavit are named to appear. What happened to the others? Are they above the law?
Now, here is an interesting footnote: It seems that the judge in this court has been removed. Why? Is it because that Shay Cullen’s backers are mad at the judge for denying the motion to quash the case?
Why is it that judges or prosecutors involved with Shay Cullen’s cases either get promoted or dismissed?
The judge that summarily dismissed the Habeas Corpus case against him almost immediately got promoted. Another judge who staunchly condemned Shay Cullen’s courtroom antics was likewise promoted (she had nothing in her background that could be used to discipline her, so in order to remove her handling of the case and get another judge to be more favorable (said replacement judge made a mistake proving that he was not impartial, and I demanded and received his inhibition), she was promoted, but this took about two or three YEARS of proceedings before the promotion.
One of Cullen’s favorite supporters is bordering on an investigation into his antics against me, as he filed a patently malicious case against me without permission from his superiors, and this has been pointed out in court. Interestingly, neither he nor his lawyer has shown up in court since that revelation. I may or may not discuss the likelihood of filing a complaint when the case is settled with my lawyer.
Finally, an arraignment was done on Shay Cullen and six of his staff. It was reported at the arraignment that one staff member was out of country and those present could not account for the wherabouts of the rest of the accused. Next hearing is August 2008.
