Jurors look askance at documents like this one regarding the court records of Ray Rzeplinski’s 1995 felony plea bargain. But this document and one regarding expungement are excluded from the record, for unknown reason. (Photo Jackie Cordell)

Nicole Evans, prosecutrix for DA Coty Wamp, hastens to court and the Ray Rzeplinski trial Friday. (Photo David Tulis)

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Friday, Aug. 2, 2024 – A jury today accepts claims by DA Coty Wamp’s office that plumber Ray Rzeplinski amassed a 55-piece gun collection while knowing he was a convicted felon.

The 12 citizens also convict him for owning a short-barreled rifle, a strict liability offense in which the state does not have to allege or prove evil intent.

The jury rejects the claim he resisted arrest Aug. 16, 2019, when, under a pile of deputies, he kicked his legs and could not get his arms out from underneath his body. Swat team members broke five of his ribs “jumping” the unarmed man in a wellness check, and his kicking his legs was not the “force” envisioned in the law.

The case is a five-year prosecution in which an ostensibly conservative elected official commits great tax-funded resources to win a conviction over private armories intended to secure private property and public peace.

How did Mr. Rzeplinski not know he was a felon when at 19 he signed two court documents in a sideways plea bargain from felony down to a felony, serving 30 days in jail? He testifies he’d been assured authorities would clear the case and his record as he cooperated in Bradley County drug investigations.

State and county officials hid Mr. Rzeplinski’s felony conviction 24 years, even from people at TBI and Tennessee department of safety and homeland security authorized to search secret state databases. Mr. Rzeplinski has insisted he is a regular citizen at best and a misdemeanant at worst. But his plea bargain conviction in a burglary is a “felony crime of violence” involving burglary and theft, the state alleges.

“Every time he purchased a gun when he knew he was a felon – that’s a risk,” Wamp ADA Nicole Evans says Thursday. “Every time he checked that application, saying, ‘Not been convicted of a crime [with prison] one year or more,’ – it doesn’t even have to have said felony, because his judgment says ‘three years.’ So, he automatically knew he should’ve checked ‘Yes’ there on the form.”

“He wants you to believe because the state erred and gave him a permit, that he went and collected all these guns,” she says. She states that a carry permit is a license to buy a firearm. 2A Ray’s gun racks were full before the DOSHS concealed permit, and each gun without that permit is illegal, she states.

This claim is plain error of law, not part of the indictment, suggesting enmity in the Wamp office, or incompetence. The false statement passes without defense attorney Ben McGowan’s jumping up to object, and the falsehood is waived, a violation under attorney ethics Rule 8.

Holes in the defense

Mr. McGowan’s defense of Mr. Rzeplinski’s reliance seems incomplete, as if he were uncertain of its merit. He is state appointed because Mr. Rzeplinski pleaded poverty and filed for bankruptcy when prosecution began.

Reliance or “entrapment by estoppel” is made up of the myriad government documents concurring with his memory of his no-big-deal 1996 plea bargain. Mr. Rzeplinski sitting in his car in 1995 with “knucklehead” pals, as Mr. McGowan calls them, waited behind the wheel as they break into a store and steal a few dollars of Twinkies, crackers and smokes. This crime is the predicate “felony crime of violence” that Mrs. Evans – and the law – say bar gun ownership.

His “reliance” is upon a record of recollections and personal understanding matched by state record. Mr. Rzeplinski always knew he’d pleaded down the burglary case to misdemeanor, and that he’d not pleaded to a felony.

The state effectively agreed with him until Aug. 16, 2019, when Sgt. Jason Maucere discovered in the Bradley County criminal court archive missing files.

It sprung into action.

Rather than making defiance reliance records front and center of his case, Mr. McGowan lets the accuser get away with cluttering the landscape with irrelevant material, pushing his claim off center.

Ineffectiveness of counsel

The state’s case focuses heavily on testimony about the day of the arrest. This decision is not without peril. The beating of Mr. Rzeplinski wins him sympathy, but it distracts the jury in looking closely at small-bore evidences of harms alleged vis a vis Mr. Rzeplinski’s high-power confirmations of his being a misdemeanant.

McGowan fails to take advantage of the lineup of guns, most of which were acquired retail.

Mr. McGowan might have made much, for example of the retail sales document evidence Sgt. Maucere hid until the beginning of the trial, that being a sheaf of records from a single retailer showing 14 purchases of firearms that were approved by the TBI. Judge Dunn held no party responsible for such “Brady rule” violations of hiding exculpatory evience.

This stack and others handed over to Mr. McGowanby declare a TBI “green light” for the rifle or shotgun to change hands from store inventory to Mr. Zeplinski’s house at 1515 Crabtree Road in Hixson.

Miss Wamp showboats the jury with all the firearms seized from Mr. Rzeplinski. Mr. McGowan waives objection to this irrelevant and prejudicial display, offering a “standing non-obection” to the show. The theater of the guns is prejudicial because the ownership is not disputed, nor the fact that the objects are firearms. Miss Evans’ theory is to connect each charge with a particular illegal object, which the jury has perhaps a right to see. But they are irrelevant, proving something that needs no proof. This error is reversible on appeal for prejudice.

Mr. Rzepinksi fails to take advantage of this gun lineup of long guns and pile of boxes of pistols so high that they almost block the court reporter. That would have been for Mr. Rzeplinski to make a big deal of receipts, one for reach of the 56 pieces, and the implied GBI greenlight for the retail sale.

Summers Rufolo law firm, served by Mr. McGowan, should have drafted a script systematizing the evidence, making the trial go into a fourth day:

“Does this document show you bought this gun? [Yes.]

Does this document show that you paid $10 for a TBI background check? [Yes.]

Did the sale go through for this gun? [Yes.]

Did you rely on this record to inform you of your legal status and ability to buy this gun? [I sure did]

Please testify as to what this receipt, with evidence in blue ink of its F$10 fee for background check, told you at the time of the purchase. [Full statement here by Mr. Rzeplinski how this approved sale assures him he is complying with all relevant law]

He should have brought in Mr. Rzeplinski’s plumber’s license, which Mr. Rzeplinski says requires one not be a felon. The jury should have eyeballed every available plumbing or work contract with government agencies, which often require background checks.

This suppressed evidence should simply have joined detailed presentations of other evidence of Mr. Rzeplinski of the stand.

Since criminal acts in the past were not scrupulously excluded from jury notice, why was his inmate status sheet from his six months spell in Bradley County jail in a nonsupport case not entered showing his status as trusty in the jail, allowed only to misdemenants?

Mr. Rzeplinski testifies that he bought firearms from most all local pawn shops. Where are receipts from those taxable transactions in public commerce, each with a TBI OK? Each sale is confirmation that, whatever the 1996 court forms said, he served 30 days in jail for his role in the burglary, and that his plea in a felony case was not sideways to a felony, but to petty theft as a drug crime informant?

The script should have been used or every single scrap of reliance evidence to “estop” the prosecution and halt the proceedings. This should’ve been the script for each and every firearm stacked in front of the judge’s dais. This should’ve been the script for his carry permit, and everything else. But Mr. McGowan was not systematic. The grounds for 2A Ray’s reliance unsupported.

He lacked a strong theory of the case, and could not find the competence to override the jury’s predisposition to believe government actors, deputies and public servants — in incompetence and slavishness.

Diane Oliver, a defense witness from DOSHS about the gun permitting process, establishes that each application gets a thorough review of all records, giving Mr. Rzeplinski reliable cure of the Bradley County court record.

All the evidence about gun purchases are not proofs of crime, but proof of innocence. Mr. Rzeplinski is not making mistake of fact with each acquisition, but affirming a continuing record of clear conscience. That’s the only evidence the jury should have left the courtroom with – evidence of his knowing himself NOT having a felony crime of violence record. Jury instructions refer to mistake of fact, but also the essential element of scienter (evil intention), not addresses by the evidence.

Despite his major fault of no systematic presentation of documents, Mr. McGowan makes the point numerous times, especially in argument, that these evidences are proof of his good faith life and custom, cleared by the superseding actions of the state clearing Mr. Rzeplinski’s felony record. But rhetoric is insufficient.

He elicits from girlfriend Jackie Cordell that cops had been in the house more than once on burglary alarm false calls, because 2A Ray had nothing to hide and has had a clear conscience.

Judge Dunn apparently stymied the defense’s earlier motions, and allows the case to proceed stinking of malice, also known as bad faith. She states on the record Tennessee has no “reliance” or “entrapment by estoppel” defense — a plain error, because 39-11-505 lays it out. ‡

Such claims from the bench lead the list of assignments of errors vs. judicial actors on appeal.

Major gains with off-point evidence

Mr. Rzeplinski’s defense is harried by Coty Wamp’s bad faith list of  irrelevant witnesses unqualified to establish bad faith and intent, the main fact she had to prove.  These include a chaplain deputy Jonathan Parker, Capt. Harry Ritter, 2A Ray’s son’s ex-girlfriend Alexis Aaron, deputy Jacob Goforth, neighbor Steven Vaughn and deputy Aaron Cameron.

Static.

Mr. McGowan had to deal with the state’s witness list, no matter how much each person in the witness box uttered material off point to the prosecutor’s main task, and the defense’s strongest barrier.

Mr. McGowan could not avoid making as much as he could about the arrest date and beating of “the suspect.”  One benefit of this misdirection is that Mr. Rzeplinski’s injuries are brought to the forefront, again to show extraordinary lethal violence and willingness to use it by state of Tennessee, inescapable packaging for the state cause.

That Mr. Rzeplinski called HCSO for help in detecting criminal embezzlement also helps Mr. McGowan show that had respect for authorities, and counted on their goodwill – this expectation showing Mr. Rzeplinski as one who has nothing to hide. He made what I call “another 911 call from hell,” where good intentions are turned upon the citizen. He lived out a cultural fantasy that jury members share, that police and deputies are generally good and well intentioned. In other words, in Mr. McGowan’s premise, 2A Ray is innocent by being naive. Only an honorable citizen shares such folly, only decent Americans call HCSO for “wellness checks” or deputy intervention in one’s mental crisis.

Degenerate prosecution

Miss Wamp and her team are responsible for a degenerate and corrupt five-year prosecution and four-day trial of an innocent man who trusted in government, another dope of a citizen who made a “911 call from hell” and is shot in the head, effectively, holding a pot of water in his own kitchen.

Her office could have acted civilly and reasonably to restore the law and order and allay the alleged threat from Mr. Rzeplinski. On Sgt. Maucere’s discovery of the Bradley County archive error, it could have called him for a meeting and asked him to remove control of all firearms within five days, or a week so he could come into compliance with the law after the state discovered its recordkeeping botches.

Instead, to impress conservative supporters, Miss Wamp turns the case into a major anti-gun bust. Instead of accepting responsibility on behalf of the state for a hidden record, Miss Wamp places the onus of the record-keeping mistake upon the citizen, and snarls that he signed a probation and plea bargain pages telling him he had pleaded to a felony and is liable for staying away from pistols and rifles, and should’ve read the documents.

Mr. Rzeplinski had misread the facts of his record. So did government – the entire Surveillance State of Tennessee. It misread the facts of that record, for two decades, and stacked 57 felony charges on its victim.

”I would say, at a mere minimum,” Mrs. Evans says, “that he was reckless” in not knowing the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor. “But it’s best to remember, ‘It’s more about myself and what is best for me,’” she says. quoting the accused in a statement about why he pleaded guilty at 19. “He suddenly has amnesia, and forgets this happened.”

Miss Evans takes a statement he makes that he understands now that he was convicted of a felony to say that, up until Maucere’s discovery, he knew he was a felon. All the firearms transactions under perjury jurat are not proof of his knowledge, she says, but proof of evil intent. His signature on felony documents, she says, prove reckless, intentional and knowing acts to violate state law, because he was attached to his hand when it inked his name.

‘Alter and abolish’?

Tennessee is a corrupt government that invites its own overthrow pursuant to Tenn. const. Art. 1, sect. 1, which envisions the people’s right to “alter and abolish” the government.

But the people in the state who accept its operations against them as do these 12 jurors deserve it. They deserve its police. They deserve its sheriff’s deputies. They deserve its pretended conservative principles and its Todd Gardenhires and Mayor Tim Kellys. They merit its vaunted leadership, its Grand Old Party, all whose members silently watched from afar this sewer line scraping of a criminal case without protest.

They deserve the protection of the state’s citizen militia, its armed citizenry, none of whose members lifted a pinky to say anything or do anything in a long publicized wrong. They deserve decapitalization, sickness and ruin at the hand of people such as Coty Wamp and her party.

DA Wamp no doubt performs good work in holding to account murderers, thieves, rapists molesters, human traffickers, robbers or poison mongers in the fentanyl trade. For such private crime suppression the people of Hamilton County hired her and pay her wages.

Unlike those honorable cases under Tennessee law, the Rzeplinski case is an abuse of discretion among those with dry dugs that the members of the jury accepts.

They accept it despite evidence swirling like a tornado funnel around their heads and around the courts building in Chattanooga of dizzying abuse and deception centering in Washington with the aid of masters in Jerusalem, Brussels and London.

The alt press tells of national government corruption, mass breach of federal law in everything from military procurement, trillions in private gains in corruption, half of the dollar amounts in government contracts lost to self-dealing, universities brought into service of military-industrial interest, blob-connected profiteering in biowar gain of function, financial fraud, inflation, illegal surveillance, enforcement of tax laws applicable to foreigners and corporations upon U.S. and state citizens, foreign wars serving corporations and congressional inside traders, and stolen elections — the last harm metastasizing in 2016 in “the largest voting fraud operation in history” (as “JB” described it on TV) into a cancer consuming U.S. politics and too big to see, with election markets trying to not reveal too much by keeping the fraud under 15 percent locally.

The State of Tennessee has a massive record of fraud and injury in COVID-19 with its 150,000 jab deaths under VAERS and more than 1 million injuries in a state of 7 million people. Undenied evidence of breach of T.C.A. § 68-5-104 by the governor and his local white legal political establishment means nothing for the prosecutorial law enforcer in chief here or any other major downtown. Tennessee’s revenue department runs a $2 billion dollars a year shakedown against motor vehicle owners, with disastrous effects upon the poor starting in 2002 with revision of sect. 139 in the Atwood law upon people who cannot afford insurance and who lose their cars in traffic stops, with the commissioner of revenue having been put on notice July 26, 2023. Atwood law from 2015 put Cmsr. David Gerregano’s “eye of Sauron” on a tower to consolidate the looting, all in departure from the law.

The judicial department is particularly corrupt, controlled by the bar, its judges convening annually in secret and refusing to hear proper cases, pleadings seeking to bring courts into compliance to the rules of criminal procedure. The judicial department joined in the state of emergency March 13, 2020, in what is called judicial fraud in Demjanjuk v. Petrovsky, 10 F.3d 338 (6th Cir. 1993), subject to a notice of judicial department mass fraud filed with the supreme court filed in State ex rel Tulis v. Lee, one of the most damning legal filings in state history.

Looking no further than the borders of Tennessee, it’s hard not to see how the violent Rzeplinski case fits a Soviet style totalitarian, arbitrary and capricious bent. Soon after taking office, Miss Wamp on Nov. 15, 2022, shut down Budgetel Inn and Suites in East Ridge as a nuisance, throwing about 500 people from their rooms without due process notice of eviction or a hearing, people whose constitutional rights forbade her and Judge Boyd Patterson’s theory of nuisance and abatement promiscuously applied, just as Gov. Lee had done to “mitigate” CV-19.

Miss Wamp accepts the ritual inflow of stupid-ass cases such as those against disabled crime victim Pamela Grace Massengale, veteran Aaron Berry, jailed pallet recycler Shamica Burt, truck driver Michael James, even if a liberal policy allows for quick expungement of state criminal activity records against citizens. Miss Wamp, joined by public defender Steve Smith and Judge Dunn, accept hearsay-only “doggie-door” arrest warrants that create crimes and hurt the innocent.

As Miss Wamp allows continuing violation of warrant requirements and the rules of criminal procedure on the side of casual happy-go-lucky arrests, she accepts “redcoat warrants” about which the county got notice April 15, 2020, which breach lets cops arrest anyone for cause without a warrant, in violation of the “public offense” standard in T.C.A. § 40-7-103.

And while Miss Wamp justly indicates a desire to retreat from decades-old “commercial government-style” enforcement practices of the traffic law, she has refused administrative notice of her office of March 26, 2018, regarding ultra vires use of Tenn. code ann. Title 55, motor and other vehicles.

Like the rest of her closed union shop, Miss Wamp pretends that the only right of travel that exists, as under the Neal Pinkston DA regime, is change of domicile interstate. Denying the right of free movement, free locomotion, free ingress and egress, free communication – and not putting her foot down on the corrupt police practices in the district – she accepts continuing pillage and harm of the people. I call traffic stops the main trunk of Jim Crow tree today, nourished by the taproot of redcoat warrants and the commodification of crime.

These harms are institutional. The people bringing them are all party members, colleagues, and familiars, and it would be wrong for anyone to interfere.

➤ Judge Dunn allows the two members of the Wamp team to have a whack at closing arguments, with Mr. McGowan’s presentation followed by that of Mr. Jones.

➤ The trial was delayed a day after Miss Wamp on July 26 demanded to bar press coverage of the case and exclude from the courts building the only reporter to have covered the case. Judge Dunn is holding “in abeyance” the demand by this reporter that she show cause why she should not be sanctioned for bad faith and fraud on the court in her six-page attack on press rights and open courts.

‡ It is a defense to prosecution that law enforcement officials, acting either directly or through an agent, induced or persuaded an otherwise unwilling person to commit an unlawful act when the person was not predisposed to do so. If a defendant intends to rely on the defense of entrapment, the defendant shall give to the district attorney general a notice comparable to that required for an insanity defense under Rule 12.2 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure.

TN Code § 39-11-505 (2023) Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 1.