...A prosecutor told jurors at Bradley’s assault trial that Bradley told officers investigating [Patsy's] death: “I guess she won’t be testifying against me”... Bradley would have had his initial hearing Tuesday but passed out before he was brought into court...
[PATSY HOPED PETE COULD CHANGE.]
MySpace page:
"JUSTICE FOR PATSY TINSLEY BRADLEY"
"JUSTICE FOR PATSY TINSLEY BRADLEY"
News Excerpts September 2nd through today:
PETE BRADLEY CHARGED WITH FEDERAL FIREARMS VIOLATION
September 2, 2008
Former Woodfin police chief Pete Bradley is charged with possession of a firearm by someone convicted of domestic violence, according to a federal indictment unsealed today. The indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Asheville says the career law enforcement officer was found in possession of a .45-caliber Sig Sauer pistol on Aug. 2. Bradley was indicted by a grand jury on Aug. 5. He was arrested by U.S. marshals Friday and jailed in the Buncombe County Detention Center. Bradley was convicted in March 2007 of assaulting his wife in their Biltmore Forest home, about a month before Patsy Bradley died of what officials deemed suicide. He was sentenced in Buncombe County Superior Court to 30 days in jail after being found guilty by a jury of assaulting his wife. Prosecutors said Bradley struck his wife in the head during the early morning hours of Aug. 31, 2005, leaving a lump the size of a golf ball. Officers said they found her scared and crying in her car at a neighbor’s house. Patsy Bradley was found dead in her home just more than a month later. The State Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation, and an autopsy report released later by the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner called her death a suicide brought on by depression and domestic discord. A prosecutor told jurors at Bradley’s assault trial that Bradley told officers investigating the death: “I guess she won’t be testifying against me.” Family members testified Patsy Bradley was terrified of her husband. Hospital workers said she told them her husband struck her with a flashlight. But Pete Bradley testified that he didn’t strike his wife. His attorney suggested she might have injured herself in a fall, cited inconsistencies in what Patsy Bradley told authorities and said she may have concocted a “wild story”... [LINK]
BRADLEY FACES FIREARM CHARGE Domestic attack conviction bars gun possession
September 3, 2008
[Excerpts] Former Woodfin Police Chief Pete Bradley was released under $25,000 bond today after his first appearance in federal court. He was charged with possession of a firearm by someone convicted of domestic violence... Bradley would have had his initial hearing Tuesday but passed out before he was brought into court. "It sounds like you had what we call a fainting spell where I'm from," said Federal Magistrate Judge Dennis Howell. Bradley stood and apologized, saying he was 95 percent recovered... A federal law passed in 1996 banned possession of firearms by individuals convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Violation of the law carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison... [Full article here]
BRADLEY RELEASED, TO BE ARRAIGNED
September 4, 2008 12:15 am
...James Mills, Bradley’s defense attorney, said his client has been living for the past 10 months in the Holiday Inn East. Howell released Bradley to live again in the hotel but ordered him to report daily to federal probation officers. He also set Bradley’s arraignment for 10 a.m. Wednesday in federal district court... [Full article here]
Previous entries:
- [NC] Another suicide that won't die. Patsy Tinsley Bradley - Patsy was a very giving and loving lady who was always willing to help others and did so many times. She loved to make people laugh and smile. She worked Santa Pal many years, worked at West Asheville Police Resource Center and volunteered many other places... She was and is dearly loved by all who know her...
- [NC] Ex-police chief husband of (slain?) Patsy Tinsley Bradley arrested by U.S. Marshals - Patsy Tinsley's husband, ex-police chief Pete Bradley was arrested by U.S. Marshals on undisclosed federal charges.
TOPIX FORUM: Bradley faces firearm charge
ReplyDeleteAsheville Citizen-Times
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/asheville-citizen-times/TB1BKILDQEBUF9RQS
TOPIX FORUM: Pete Bradley charged with federal firearms violation
Asheville Citizen-Times
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/asheville-citizen-times/TL3NDSTTA1NTABFES/p3#lastPost
2002
ReplyDeleteNC DMV Corruption Probe
The Charlotte Observer – by Jim Morrill – April 5, 2002
(3/30/02) - Embarrassing personal revelations about a former officer of the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles have opened the window into a widespread corruption probe of the agency.
The revelations are in a report by the State Bureau of Investigation into claims of DMV corruption in Western North Carolina. Portions of the report were leaked to the media last month just before the former DMV officer, Pete Bradley, was fired as police chief in the town of Woodfin, just north of Asheville.
Investigators decline to discuss the investigation, now in the hands of the Special Prosecutions section of the Department of Justice.
"The DMV investigation is serious and important ... (but) this is an ongoing investigation and that precludes public comment," Justice Department spokesman John Bason said.
This month, SBI investigators contacted prosecutors in Davie County about a similar allegation of DMV impropriety.
Last week, the 4,000-member N.C. Police Benevolent Association asked Attorney General Roy Cooper to expand the investigation still further.
"The problems ... are not just isolated to the Asheville area," wrote President Jeffrey Fluck, "but are examples of what we believe is a systemic problem, statewide, from the mountains to the coast."
Interviews, court documents and news reports show the allegations against DMV include:
* Coerced political contributions. Bradley, a DMV enforcement officer from 1996 to 1999, said supervisors pressured him to make contributions to then-Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt and other candidates.
"It was common knowledge," he said. "You want to get promoted, you want good assignments, you want to be a team player ... you want to play, you've got to pay."
Bradley said he had to give Hunt's campaign more than $2,000 in 1996 "to get my (job) application processed." Records show he and his wife gave Hunt, former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker, Senate Leader Marc Basnight and others $6,600 over the next two years. Bradley said he gave the money through supervisors, and gave more in unreported cash donations.
DMV Capt. Gary Ramsey, Bradley's supervisor, declined to discuss the allegations. "It would be nice if the state would let me, but they won't," he said.
* Bribery. Bradley told the SBI two years ago about what he said was bribery and extortion by DMV officers at weigh stations in Buncombe and Henderson counties in western North Carolina. District Attorney Charles Hipps of neighboring Haywood County told the (Asheville) Citizen-Times this month that he tipped SBI investigators about what he thought was ticket-fixing by DMV officers in 1999.
* Soliciting contractors. In a Haywood County lawsuit filed last fall, former enforcement officer David Brookshire claimed a supervisor asked him to ask a paving contractor for $500 toward a golf outing for DMV and Transportation Department officials.
"The solicitation of such cash contributions from paving and other contractors for such purposes was standard practice within the Enforcement Section of DMV," Brookshire said in the complaint. He also said it was "standard practice" for enforcement officials to accept football tickets and other gifts from contractors.
Brookshire's supervisor, Ramsey, denied the allegations in a motion to dismiss the suit.
* Retribution. Brookshire, who worked with Bradley, said superiors retaliated when he began talking to SBI investigators. He lost his job last October after 21 years at DMV.
Transportation Department spokesman Sherri Creech Johnson said the department is "waiting for the SBI findings and recommendations." Col. D.C. Richards, director of DMV's enforcement division, said he has seen no evidence of wrongdoing.
"Following policy and procedure is something we do in a paramilitary organization," he said. "And you don't operate outside of it."
Similar to past claims
The current probe involves claims that echo previous criticism of DMV. The most publicized was in 1997. A former enforcement officer named Algie Toomer testified before a state House committee that then-DMV commissioner Alexander Killens pressured him into donating to Hunt's 1996 campaign. The panel was investigating a $100,000 settlement Toomer received on leaving DMV.
DMV officials denied having coerced a donation. A Hunt spokesman said the governor had ordered his campaign not to accept money from rank-and-file state employees.
But in 1997. a coalition of groups, including the conservative John Locke Foundation and the more liberal N.C. Alliance for Democracy, asked the state auditor to do a comprehensive review of political patronage at the Transportation Department, which includes the DMV. One of the groups, Democracy South, found that DOT employees and their families had given more than $100,000 to Hunt's 1996 campaign.
"What emerges is a pattern of widespread abuse within DOT that involves political money linked to jobs, promotions, board appointments, highway contracts and the location of roads," they wrote state Auditor Ralph Campbell.
Campbell's audit forced changes at DOT but didn't directly address contributions by state employees. Other current allegations also recall earlier ones.
The Citizen-Times said a confidential 1986 memo by a DMV official "alleges officers at weigh stations in Buncombe and Henderson counties accepted payoffs and gifts, campaigned for political favorites while on the job and failed to cite `grossly overweight' trucks owned by influential construction and paving companies." Weights are monitored for tax purposes and to comply with safety guidelines.
Gary Bradshaw, a former DMV enforcement officer from Kinston, said he was forced out of his job in 1993 after telling state investigators that certain trucking companies were allowed to elude regulations and making other allegations of misconduct. Bradshaw said nothing came of his complaints. Recent news stories prompted him to ask the attorney general to investigate his dismissal.
"It sounded like the same kind of thing was still happening to people," said Bradshaw, now a Baptist minister.
Letter called blackmail
Pete Bradley always wanted to be a cop.
As a kid, he dressed up in a police uniform and "directed" bicycle traffic in his Asheville neighborhood. After leaving the DMV in 1999, he opened a law enforcement supply business. The next year, he said, he tried and failed to get his DMV job back.
"They wanted more money to come back. That's when I went to the SBI," he said.
He said he was asked to give Democratic candidates $5,000 to get his job back. "That's when I blew up and said, `I'm sick of this crap,' " he said. That's also when he went to federal and state investigators.
Just before he did, he got what he described as an anonymous blackmail letter. It alluded to parties he attended with men who wore diapers and snapped pictures of one another.
"No threats here," the letter said, "but I would suggest leaving well enough alone to preserve YOUR privacy or people may need to know the deal. The repercussions could be bad for any careers, yours and others. Let it go man."
Bradley later acknowledged participating in the consensual gatherings, which he called his personal business. On his attorney's advice, he gave SBI investigators the letter only after being assured it would remain confidential.
This January, the 42-year-old Bradley was hired as Woodfin's police chief. He sparred with Mayor Homer Honeycutt, whom Bradley said he once confronted and accused of corruption.
Last November, a Woodfin patrolman said, he taped Honeycutt bragging about fixing tickets. "I fix more tickets than you probably write," Honeycutt boasted on the tape obtained and reported by the Citizen-Times. "You write 'em, I fix 'em." Honeycutt did not return calls.
In February, the portion of the SBI report involving the diaper parties was leaked to the Asheville media and published in at least two newspapers. Fliers containing it were distributed at a town meeting. The town board fired Bradley shortly afterward.
The source of the leak is unclear, though District Attorney Ron Moore said he gave portions of the report to a law enforcement agency he won't identify. Until recently, Honeycutt worked for the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office.
Moore and two other western prosecutors turned the full SBI report over to the state Justice Department prosecutors months ago. Henderson County District Attorney Jeff Hunt said they realized the scope of the allegations went beyond the 13 counties the three represent.
Bradley, who said leaks about his participation in diaper parties caused him "significant emotional distress," said he plans to sue the state of North Carolina and other parties involved. He flew to Miami on Thursday to retain a law firm.
"Somebody's going to be accountable for that," he said. "A bunch of people are going to be accountable."
http://www.dukeemployees.com/news102.shtml
Former Woodfin police chief arrested on federal firearms charge ***UPDATED***
ReplyDeleteby Jason Sandford on 09/02/2008
***UPDATED: Pete Bradley was released from the Buncombe County Detention Center Wednesday afternoon. A jail employee confirmed that Bradley was no longer being held there, and court records show that Bradley was released on $25,000 unsecured bond. The documents show that Bradley has hired attorney James H. Mills to represent him, and that his release included conditions, such as not having unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18. Bradley is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court at 10 a.m. on Sept. 10. Click here to go to the Xpress Files and read the court order setting the conditions of Bradley’s release.
Pete Bradley, the former Woodfin police chief convicted of assaulting his wife in 2005, had his first appearance before a federal magistrate Tuesday morning on charges that, as a convicted felon, he illegally possessed a firearm.
Bradley was found in possession of a .45-caliber Sig Sauer handgun, according to court records. Bradley was arrested Friday on the charge and was held in the Buncombe County jail over the weekend. According to the court documents, the federal indictment on the charge was sealed by U.S. Magistrate Dennis Howell on Aug. 5. An arrest warrant issued Aug. 6 was also sealed by the court. The court opened the documents following Bradley’s court appearance.
Bradley was convicted on the domestic violence charge in March 2007, more than a year after his wife, Patsy Bradley, was found dead at the couple’s Biltmore Forest home in September 2005. Patsy Bradley’s death was ruled a suicide, according to a medical examiner’s report.
The Woodfin town board fired Bradley in 2002 following media reports detailing his sex life. Bradley sued the town, maintaining that the information leak about his personal life and his firing were retaliation for his blowing the whistle on corruption within the state Division of Motor Vehicles, where he worked before being hired as Woodfin’s top law-enforcement officer. Bradley made his allegations to the State Bureau of Investigation, which prompted an investigation that eventually covered 13 Western North Carolina counties and led to a federal grand-jury probe. During the investigation, Gov. Mike Easley merged the DMV with the State Highway Patrol.
Bradley won his case against Woodfin in April 2005 and showed up at a town board meeting with a briefcase and a boom box. He asked Mayor Jerry VeHaun for permission to play a song “that speaks to the freedom of speech.” The song — Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” — filled the room.
Go to the Xpress Files to see Bradley’s arrest warrant and indictment.
— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor
http://www.mountainx.com/news/2008/former_woodfin_police_chief_arrested_on_federal_firearms_charge
Firearms charge against Pete Bradley dropped
ReplyDeleteAsheville Citizen-Times, NC
Clarke Morrison CMorrison@CITIZEN-TIMES.com
September 5, 2008 5:00 pm
The U.S. Justice Department filed a motion today dropping a felony firearms charge against former Woodfin Police Chief Pete Bradley just two days after his initial court appearance.
But prosecutors reserved the right to file the charge again if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns a recent Appeals Court ruling limiting the scope of a law that bans possession of firearms by those convicted of domestic violence.
The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Asheville, said Bradley was found in possession of a .45-caliber Sig Sauer handgun on April 2. The career law enforcement officer was arrested by U.S. Marshals Aug. 1 and jailed in the Buncombe County Detention Center.
Bradley was convicted in March 2007 of assaulting his wife in their Biltmore Forest home, about a month before Patsy Bradley died of what officials deemed suicide.
A federal law passed in 1996 bans possession of firearms by individuals convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Violation of the law carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
But the motion filed by prosecutors Friday said a ruling issued by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals last year casts doubt on whether Bradley could be prosecuted under that law. The court said that the underlying misdemeanor crime of domestic violence must have, as an element, a domestic relationship.
Bradley was convicted of assault on a female, a North Carolina law crime “that does not contain as an element that there be a domestic relationship, although that fact is present in the underlying case,” according to the motion.
Clarke Morrison Call Clarke at 828-232-5849 or e-mail CMorrison@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880905102
Charge vs. Bradley dropped
Court ruling clouds case against ex-police chief
Asheville Citizen-Times, NC
Clarke Morrison CMorrison@CITIZEN-TIMES.com
published September 6, 2008 12:15 am
ASHEVILLE - The U.S. Justice Department dropped a felony firearms charge against former Woodfin Police Chief Pete Bradley Friday, just two days after his initial court appearance.
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But prosecutors reserved the right to file the charge again if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns a recent Appeals Court ruling limiting the scope of a law that bans possession of firearms by those convicted of domestic violence.
The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Asheville, alleged Bradley was found in possession of a .45-caliber Sig Sauer handgun on April 2. The career law enforcement officer was arrested by U.S. marshals Aug. 1 and jailed in the Buncombe County Detention Center.
Bradley was convicted in March 2007 of assaulting his wife in their Biltmore Forest home, about a month before Patsy Bradley died of what officials deemed suicide.
A federal law passed in 1996 bans possession of firearms by individuals convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Violation of the law carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
But the motion to dismiss the charges filed by prosecutors Friday said a ruling issued by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last year casts doubt on whether Bradley could be prosecuted under that law. The court said the underlying misdemeanor crime of domestic violence must have, as an element, a domestic relationship.
Bradley was convicted of assault on a female, a North Carolina crime "that does not contain as an element that there be a domestic relationship, although that fact is present in the underlying case," according to the motion.
The motion states there is a split among circuit courts on the issue, "with the 4th Circuit standing as the lone minority," and the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to review the case. Unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise, however, the lower court ruling is binding, according to the motion.
"As such, the underlying assault of a female conviction currently is not a qualifying misdemeanor crime of domestic violence," the motion states. If the Appeals Court ruling is reversed, the charge against Bradley would be refiled, according to the motion.
The Justice Department said it would have no comment beyond the court motion. Bradley's attorney, James Mills, couldn't be reached for comment.
Bradley was released Wednesday on a $25,000 bond. Prosecutors said he struck his wife in the head during the early morning of Aug. 31, 2005, leaving a lump the size of a golf ball. Officers said they found Patsy Bradley scared and crying in her car at a neighbor's house. Bradley was sentenced in Buncombe County Superior Court to 30 days in jail after a jury found him guilty of assaulting his wife.
Patsy Bradley was found dead in her home just more than a month later. The State Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation, and an autopsy report released later by the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner called her death a suicide prompted by depression and her troubled marriage.
Clarke Morrison Call Clarke at 828-232-5849 or e-mail CMorrison@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880905144
Wonder where you are now Pete... Aug2024
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