Man Lives 2nd Nightmare as His Molester Fakes Lawsuit
D.C. Judge Is Duped in Defamation Conspiracy Against Ohio Victim
The judgment stood for one day before unraveling. It was a plot so off the wall, so bizarre, that U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said it was "like something out of a novel."
After serving a prison term for molesting an eighth-grader in Ohio, David Copeland-Jackson moved to the District to live with his mother. He e-mailed a buddy and together, federal authorities said, they came up with a plan that would fool a respected judge into issuing a $3 million defamation order against Copeland-Jackson's victim.
Copeland-Jackson relied on forged documents, the victim's unwitting assistance and the help of a 71-year-old paralegal who had become interested in his case. He even hired a handwriting expert and impersonated a private detective, authorities said.
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On Friday, his friend Peter J. Brandel, 71, of Mansfield, Ohio, pleaded guilty to conspiracy before Leon, whose facial expressions signaled increasing astonishment as the details tumbled out. Brandel faces up to 2 1/2 years in prison under federal guidelines at his sentencing in November.
The victim, Joseph Cutlip, now 24 and still living in Ohio, learned about the scheme only when it was too late -- two years ago, when he received a court notice about the defamation suit in the mail. "My body felt numb," Cutlip said. He was just getting over the trauma of the abuse, said Cutlip, who agreed to be named for this story. "It all sent me back into a deep depression. I just didn't understand how he had taken advantage of me twice."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/23/AR2009082302140.html
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