The Nancy Hollebeke Case: The Truth and the Whole Truth Part I

What follows is the first part of the story of the Nancy Hollebeke case. There will be those readers of my blog who are completely familiar with this case and then there will be those of you who think you are familiar with this case because you watched some of it in the news or read accounts in the El Paso Times, and then there will be those of you who have never heard of this case. While writing this series, I will presume that my readership has no knowledge of the case and is reading from a layman's (not a lawyer's) point of view. For those of you who relied on the local media to inform you of this case or who heard accounts from police officers, I ask you to set aside what you think you know and try and read this with a clean slate and then form your opinions.--This case led to an awakening that has led to my bid for District Attorney.

The facts of this case and its legal proceedings catapulted my good friend attorney Stuart Leeds and me out of our regular law practices and into an alternate, parallel dimension which is in fact the true reality of the filthy, dirty practice of law in El Paso County, the corruption and reckless stupidity of our city representatives and mayor, the cowardice of lawyers and laymen alike who are willing to watch their neighbors be dragged out of their houses and lynched from trees, see no evil hear no evil judges, a police department that has been pervaded with deep-seated, dangerous corruption for years run by a hydraheaded monster disguised as respectable men in uniform, a press made up of more than one member that thinks nothing of writing and telling lie after lie and lastly a District Attorney so depraved and base in his moral character and judgement and so compromised as a politician that he is willing to strip innocent people of their freedom and dignity and standing in the community and all for what we have yet to find out.

Prior to representing Ms. Nancy Hollebeke, Stuart Leeds and I enjoyed active but uncontroversial law practices. We were on almost every judge's appointment list as lawyers to give work to as being diligent and aggressive on behalf of their clients. Stuart on occasion lunched with judges and both of us enjoyed many warm and open friendships of lawyers in the District Attorney's office. We were on the ****tail circuit as it were. But as you have rightly surmised, this nice, tranquil life came to an end. What we were exposed to at the Court House and what we learned subsequently about people we thought we knew was so shocking that it can only be likened to waking up and finding out that your spouse is not the law abiding CEO of a prosperous company but rather the murderous thug head of the mafia and you better quick come to because your sweet spouse is about to lay you open for your discovery.

On November 20, 2003, Stuart Leeds was court appointed by Judge Julie Gonzalez of County Court at Law Number Two, to represent Ms. Nancy Hollebeke who had been charged with a class B misdemeanor of "False Report to a Peace Officer." Stuart met with Ms. Hollebeke (hereinafter referred to respectfully as Nancy) and as is the common practice, he conveyed the DA's office's "offer" of PTD which is the acronym used for the first time offenders program. Under PTD you don't have to plead guilty. You attend classes once a month for 6 months to one year. At the end, the case is dismissed and you have no conviction on your record. Nancy told Stuart, whom she had just met, that he didn't understand, that she was guilty of nothing and would take no deals and that she had been raped by two cops and then was herself thrown in jail for reporting it. She told Stuart she wanted to go to trial to tell her story even if she had to be the defendant.

Although Stuart didn't convey this to Nancy at the time, he was stunned by what she had just told him. This was no typical false report case where some drunk had crashed his car, fled the scene and then called it in stolen to the police and then confessed to what he had done.-- Stuart did tell Nancy that he would look closely at the file and then call her and tell her what his advice would be. Stuart read Nancy's file and what he saw was just the tip of the iceburg of what there really was. What he read was a twisted, inverted upside down, macabre deviation of what should have happened when a female reports that she has been raped. And the female getting thrown in jail is not part of that procedure.

Stay tuned for part II in which I discuss what happens next to Stuart and Nancy and the army Esparza marched out against them, ie. assistant district attorneys Karen Larose and Lori Swopes and first assistant Marcos Lizarraga and others from the DA's office.