Why Danelle Essary Should NOT be Appointed to the Tarrant GOP EC
By
James Scott Trimm
At our January meeting Danelle Essary aka "Duhnelle Essary" of Facebook, was nominated as a precinct chair. No vote was taken, because we no longer had a qurum for appointing Precinct chairs.
The Executive Committee absolutely should not approve this nomination. Danelle is not a person that we should have officially representing the Republican Party in Tarrant County.
Danelle Essary has viciously slandered Associate Court Judge Diane Haddock, (at the time) a member of the Tarrant County Republican Party Executive Committee. Some persons have tried to marginalize Mrs. Essary's slander, by saying that a person has a right to have opinions. This word "opinion" is often used by liberals suggest that all points of view are equal, to give statements an inoffensive appearance by reducing them to the level of tastes. By this thinking all tastes are acceptable, therefore all opinions are also acceptable. Tastes, colors and opinions are not open for discussion.In the name of opinion, Essary's allies defend her eight to slander Judge Haddock.
But I am not talking about matters of opinion here. We are talking about matters of fact, not opinion. Danelle Essary has not only defamed the character of Diane Haddock, she participated in production of a video which made blatantly dishonest edits to statements by Diane Haddock in order to lead people to believe that she said things she did not say.
Let me share with you four slanderous statements made by "Duhnelle Essary":
Statement 1: A Facebook post made on or about August 22nd 2017 “If Judge Diane Haddock will lie about a family who’s child had just been tragically murdered in an attempt to protect the 233rd in Fort Worth Texas are there any limits to what she is capable of? This is only scratching the surface of how deep the corruption is and the players they have involved to try to conceal it.”
Statement 2: A Facebook post made on or about August 23rd 2017 “When she didn’t realize she was being recorded, DIANE HADDOCK, who could have saved precious Lele lies about the case.”
Statement 3: A Facebook post made on or about August 23rd 2017, forwarding the post in Statement 1 with an introductory statement “It makes my blood boil that a judge made up lies about a family that was grieving over the tragic murder of a child...all because she did not want to look responsible in any way.”
Statement 4: A Facebook post made on or about August 26th 2017 “The fact that Diane Haddock of the 233rd was trying to discredit the family for trying to do the right thing is appalling isn’t it?”
These statements are not opinions, they are questions of fact. Judge Haddock either lied, or she did not. There is either "corruption" in the 233rd Court or there is not. Judge Haddock was either responsible for murder of a child, or she was not.
Several months ago I wrote a blog titled
The Death of Leiliana: The Untold Story ,
Almost immediately an anonymous video began to be
circulated in response, which was billed as being “The Real Untold Story”.
This video features Danelle Essary (pictured in the video at the top of this article.)
The basis of the video is a secretly recorded conversation
between Danelle Essary and Judge Diane Haddock. In my research, I acquired a copy of this
recording back in February of 2017.
This recording was not new information for which my article did not
account,
The secret recording was made in a highly unethical manner,
by Danelle Essary, whose brother has a case in judge Haddock’s court. Essary called the court, claiming to be
returning a call, but the court had no knowledge of a prior call to Essary. Judge Haddock answered, and had what she believed
was a private conversation. Just over a
minute and thirty seconds into the conversation, Judge Haddock asks the caller
“can we talk freely?” to which Danelle Essary dishonestly replies “we can talk
freely.” It appears that to Danelle
“we can talk freely” means “I am secretly recording this phone call and intend
to publish it.”
As I said, I have had a copy of this entire phone call for
several months before I wrote my article.
I was well aware of its contents, and there is nothing about this fraudulently
recorded conversation that calls the facts presented in my article into
question.
Since there was nothing about this recorded conversation
that supports the false claim that the judiciary are responsible for Leliana’s
death, Danelle's video stoops to dishonest edits of the most extreme
variety, and engaging in a campaign of misdirection and distraction, addressing issues that are
unrelated to responsibility for the death of Leiliana, often at the expense of
the family.
Did CPS Contact the 233rd District Court?
After a brief introduction he first segment of the video is
designed to convince the viewer of something that has been well established as
false. The video begins with an outtake
[slightly altered] of Judge Haddock from the recorded phone call saying:
The 233rd never heard any evidence.
[We... you know when they filed, when the Klakley's filed]
And it was really Alisa, the grandmother,
when she filed she attached an affidavit.
But there was no evidence to the affidavit
Now since we have done the research that
we have done and since CPS did their research
there was never even a CPS report prior to January of 2016.
(The words in brackets were edited out in the video)
The narrator/interviewer then picks up saying:
So contrary to what
Judge Haddock said, CPS was there?
Here the producer intents to give the false impression of a
refutation of something Judge Haddock said, but actually responds to something
Judge Haddock never said at all!
This dishonestly worded question is posed as an interview
question directed to Leiliana’s grandmother Alisa Clakley, who responds:
“Yes because uh, I believe that Crystal Evans had told me
that she had to be subpoenaed to go to court um in this case period. And us so
I am assuming that also going back
the following month that judge Haddock
and the attorneys all know she was there.”
Despite what Mrs. Clakley may have been “assuming” there is
no subpoena for Crytsal Evans and/or CPS records in the court record. No such subpoena was filed with the 233rd
District Court in this case.
No one seems to be disputing that the CPS worker was there,
participating in out of court negotiations.
However, as presented in my blog, the evidence indicates that she was
there to participate in negotiating a settlement. What is known is that Crystal Evans (the CPS worker) disappeared
into a room with the two attorneys, and they came out of that room with a
settlement.
We may never know what took place in that conference. However the CPS Fatality Report sheds some
light on the negotiations that appear to have been “approved” by CPS that
day. The CPS Fatality Report says “on
December 17, 2014, CPS approved the mother's request to move the PCSP from the
sibling's paternal relatives to the children's maternal relative's home.”
No hearing was held that day, and CPS did not present any
evidence or testimony to the court.
Mrs. Clackley chose to settle her case out of court that day and
therefore chose to not call up the CPS
worker to give any testimony to the court.
It is unlikely Judge
Haddock even knew at the time that a CPS worker had been there participating in
negotiations, because the case was never brought before her.
Although Judge Haddock made the statement on the recording
that there was not a CPS report until January 2016, there was a CPS
investigation before that time, as detailed in my recent blog.
It is possible that Judge Haddock simply did not know at the
time of the recording, that there had been a CPS investigation before the
January 2016 report. Or she may be
referring only to the 2016 investigation as a “CPS Report” because the prior
investigation was originally opened for “neglectful supervision” not abuse, and
was ultimately closed with a finding of “ruled out”. Since the term “CPS Report” can mean many things (such as a
report made to CPS, or any number of types of reports made by CPS).
At any rate the truth is that there was is no Subpoena for CPS or
the CPS worker filed with the 233rd District Court and there was no testimony
of evidence provided to the court by CPS.
The video simply seeks to cloud the issue and convince people of a
falsehood.
Brian Maker’s Drug Problem
Next the video presents another sound clip from the recorded
conversation:
Brian Maker, the son of the Clakley's is a drug addict. In
Rehab out of rehab. None of this did we
know at the time of course everything I am telling you is what we have learned
since then. You wanted a review, we
have done it, trust me, um. But anyway he
is a drug addict and so he... But he
was here, I heard he was here.
This clip is followed by the narrator asking Mrs. Clakley
another interview question:
“How does it make you feel when you hear this judge speak
about your son like this, after his daughter has just been murdered?”
To which Brian’s mother responds:
I was very aggravated, very upset at the fact that she was
making that assumption, if you will. My
son has never been in drug rehab, never.
Where she got that information from, I would like to know.
In light of what Brian Maker has suffered with the murder of
his daughter, it is unfortunate that Mrs Essary chose to make this private
conversation public, and even more unfortunate that the producer of the video
has in a very public way, used this in a cut to imply that Judge Haddock
wrongly accused Maker of having a drug problem.
It is worthy of note that Mrs. Clakley did not object to the
claim that Brian Maker was “a drug addict” but only that he had been in
rehab. If a person is a drug addict,
but has never tried rehab, it is not disparaging to wrongly assume that they
would have tried rehab. And it is not
defamation to say that a person has had a drug problem if it is true.
It is especially unfortunate that the producer has paraded
this private conversation into this video, because, other than stirring up the
pitchfork crowd, this issue has nothing to do with the false claim that the
judiciary has was responsible for Leiliana’s death. It is merely presented as a distraction to exploit the grieving
family to forward a malicious political agenda.
Did CPS Drug Test the Mother?
Next the video plays another sound clip from the recording:
But the affidavit said that the mom was a known drug user,
did you know that there was no evidence in the CPS file of her drug use?
Then the video immediately shows a clip from a news
broadcast:
In October, 2014, two months before the scheduled hearing,
CPS already had a report that Leiliana’s little half brother was born with drugs in his system. And during that
investigation, the children’s mother tested positive on a drug test.
However the editor of the video has cherry picked certain
statements by Judge Haddock, while conveniently leaving out others:
Later in the same recorded conversation Duhnel Essary asks:
Duhnell: Well it seems as if they had asked for that [drug
test] mom certainly would not have passed it. I mean-
Judge Haddock: No she would have. Mom was being tested-
Duhnell: She did take a drug test-
Judge Haddock: She was being tested thru her parole, not
thru us and not thru CPS. Yea mom would have passed..
While the CPS Fatality Report says:
On December 1, 2014, CPS received the mother's drug test
results. She tested positive for marijuana.
However it also says:
It appears the mother was drug tested through either her
service provider or probation
services, however results of drug tests were not clearly
documented. CPS did not drug
test any parent during the FBSS case.
So Judge Haddock’s statements that “there was no evidence in
the CPS file of her drug use” and that “She was being tested thru her parole,
not thru us and not thru CPS” were absolutely correct.
Remember, Judge Haddock did not have the CPS report, at the
time she signed off on the family’s out of court agreement. She is here referring only to what she has
learned since the child’s death. This
issue also has nothing to do with the false claim that the judiciary was
responsible for Leiliana’s death. It is
merely presented as a distraction.
Did Judge Haddock Call Brian Maker a “Dead Beat”?
Now we come to the most dishonest edit yet. The video extracts the following statement
by Judge Haddock from the audio recording:
She got pregnant right when she got out of prison to this
other, ahhhh, can you forgive me for using
a pejorative, but another dead beat.
A message on the screen says “Judge Haddock describes Brian
Maker as a “deadbeat.”
The narrator/interviewer then asks Brian’s mother:
Alisa, the Judge Haddock describes your son as a
“deadbeat.” Do you feel she is biased
in this case?
However if we look to the statement Judge Haddock actually
made, we find this video producer is being completely dishonest. In context Judge Haddock was speaking, not
about Brian Maker but about a completely different person: the
father of Leiliana’s younger half-brother. The complete statement in the original audio recording was:
She got pregnant right when she got out of prison to this
other, ahhhh, can you forgive me for using
a pejorative, but another dead beat. And she gets pregnant with this guy
and his name is ***name withheld**
Although judge Haddock says “another” deadbeat, it is
unclear what this means. She could be
referring to the father of Leiliana’s three older half siblings, to the mother
herself, or simply to other parents who have gone thru the 233rd in other cases
as also being “deadbeats.” But through
dishonest editing, the viewer of the video is led to believe that statement in
the outtake referred specifically to Brian Maker.
That said, if a father who helps create a child and fails to
financially support his child is a “deadbeat” then it is interesting to note
that Maker signed onto an out of court settlement which required him to pay no
child support and which stipulated that he would have “no access to the child”
and “not be allowed in the presence of the child”.
It is unfortunate that the video producer has chosen to
embarrass Mr. Maker, a man whose daughter was murdered, by dragging the issue
of whether or not he was a deadbeat into a public video. No such statement came from Judge Haddock. Brian Maker is not who she was talking about, and the
whole issue is simply brought forward by the video producer as a distraction,
as it has nothing to do with the false claim that the judiciary was responsible
for Leileana's death.
Standing Strong: Fighting for Changes in the Law
Next the video gives us another statement by judge haddock,
from the recorded conversation:
When this happened with Leiliana I knew it was not my case
because I knew I had never heard any evidence like this. But I none the less
put myself on trial for about a week and I have researched it. I have gone to- and I have with my own time
with my own money,
to try and find [out] any crack that I can possibly find.
And I am happy to tell you that I am going to stand strong.
The narrator/interviewer again misquotes the statement from
Judge Haddock:
“How do you feel when you hear Haddock say she’s proud to
say she’s standing strong?”
In fact Judge Haddock said nothing about being “proud” and
the dishonest editor has cut the edit just before Judge Haddock explains her
words. In the original recorded conversation,
Haddock immediately follows these words with:
I knew and I know that my heart is pure, and there was
absolutely nothing that this court
could have done. We do need some changes in the law and I hope we get
them. But I got to start fighting for that, because I will tell you right now,
its met with a lot of resistance.
So when Judge Haddock said “I am going to be standing
strong” it had nothing to do with pride, it meant that she would be “standing
strong” “fighting for” “changes in the law” that she is concerned will be “met
with a lot of resistance.” Fighting such opposition and not a fight for the weak
or impure of heart.
The Best Interests of the Child
Next the narrator-interviewer asks the grandmother:
“But isn’t this court supposed to be more concerned with
what’s in the best for the child?”
To which the grandmother very emotionally responds:
Absolutely, and I don’t feel that at all in this case- at
all. Because if Leiliana was the center
of it, then it wouldn’t have come to the point that it did.
In Texas law it is presumed that the parents act in the best
interests of their child unless it can be proven that this would significantly
impair the child's physical health or emotional development. When a family enters into an out of court
agreement, the law in the State of Texas presumes that family is acting in the
best interests of the child, and Texas law therefore compels judges to sign off
on such agreements.
On December 17th both Alisa Clakley and Brian Maker signed
their names to an out of court agreement, which stated right up at the top “In
the Interest of Leiliana Rose Wright.”
Judge Diane Haddock simply followed the law in signing off on the out of
court agreement that the family had declared was “In the Interests of Leiliana
Rose Wright”.
[Above] Close up from the out of court settlement
"In the interest of Leiliana Rose Wright"
[Above] The Out of Court Settlement "In the Interest of Leiliana Rose Wright"
Signed by Alisa Clakley and Brian Maker
Stamped "Agreed w/o hearing or conference"
Unfortunately the very people who placed custody of Leiliana with her mother,
now wish to blame the judges who never had the case before them. It is even more unfortunate that this grieving family is being exploited by Danelle for a political agenda.
[Above] Closeup from the Out of Court Agreement
Signed by Alisa Clakley (upper left) and Brian Maker (lower left)
Stamped "Agreed w/o hearing or conference"
Settled Out of Court
In yet another dishonest sound edit the next out take in the
video poses the following question from Duhnelle Essary with a very dishonest edit
of Judge Haddock’s answer.
In the video we hear:
Duhnelle: As a judge, don't you make the final determination
in that:
Judge Haddock: No, that is not true.
I can't make it- be a final determination about all cases in
all children all over the world.
But Judge Haddock’s actual answer on original audio
recording is:
Judge Haddock: No, that is not true.
The law of the land is, and I think we want it that way,
parents get to make the decisions, they get to parent their children, and the
judge can only make a decision when evidence is brought to us. And we can't,
I can't make it- be a final determination about all cases in
all children all over the world.
Then we hear the following question from Danelle Essary: “I
understand, but if it's before your court?” but this is replaced in the
transcript running on the screen with “But all before your court?”
This is yet another dishonest change and is designed to imply
that the case was actually brought before Judge Haddock’s court (it was
not). The original question Danelle
Essary asked Judge Haddock only refereed to any hypothetical case brought
before her court “if it’s before your court” but the question substituted on
the screen edits out the phase “I understand” (which implied Danelle knew
that the case had not come before Haddock’s court) with a declaration implying
that this case was before Judge Haddock’s court “But all before your court?”.
Judge Haddock then responds:
No ma'am, that is not true.
It isn't. They filed a pleading
and they did not want to prosecute it. They just did not want to. Did they not
want to because they had something on them? Did you think about that? Did they
not want to because, maybe their lawyer
said "You know she is going to ask if your drug free, and if you’ve used anything in the last six months,
your not going to get custody, Did you think about that?
The layman may not understand that “filed a pleading” means
that they filed a case in the court, and “did not want to prosecute it” means
that they chose to settle out of court rather than bring the case before a
judge.
The narrator / interviewer then asks the grandmother:
Alisa, do you feel it is in fact a judges responsibility to
make decisions about cases like your granddaughter’s in her court?
To which the grandmother responds:
Um- absolutely. She should have been uh- making a judgment
call but we never got into the courtroom. And it sounds to me like she knew
nothing about anything as far as this case goes. If she did, and as Judge
Harris had said, he had made a statement that this case should have been heard
in court, Now- they were together, so if she knew and read the evidence, and
saw everything that we have produced for them, she should have read it.
The truth is that this case never went before a judge for
one simple reason: because the family settled it out of court. Contrary to the grandmother’s statement,
there was never any evidence presented in this case. The only thing filed was an affidavit from the grandmother
attached to the original petition, which was never presented to the court. By signing the out of court settlement, the
grandmother was effectively recanting the affidavit (which itself never
mentioned the CPS investigation of Leiliana, and which probably did not meet
the very high standard for a grandparent to obtain custody from a parent).
Judge Haddock never saw this affidavit, because it was in the main file in
Judge Harris’s court, and was not needed because the family chose to settle out
of court.
Next that narrator asks the grandmother:
Was she also suggesting that you as Leiliana’s grandmother
was [sic] also using drugs?
It is very clear from the original audio that Judge Haddock
said no such thing about the grandmother.
Moreover this issue is merely thrown out as part of a distraction,
because it has no impact on the false claim that the judiciary is responsible
for Leiliana’s death.
The narrator asks the grandmother what one question she
would ask the judge. And the
grandmother responds “Why can’t you tell the truth,” yet the judges have been
completely truthful. It is now time to see
the other side of the coin.
The 233rd Court Has Saved the Lives of Thirty Children!
The video ends as it began with an outtake from the recorded
conversation in which Judge Haddock says:
In seventeen years we’ve lost five babies.
Then the narrator snidely adds “Tarrant County does not need
a sixth.
And Danelle Essary writes on her Facebook page to her pal Marie Howard::
"...from what I understand that is an extremely high
death count to happen in one courtroom."
However the truth is that this number is shockingly low!
On average about 1,580 children in the US die from abuse or
neglect each year. Over a seventeen
year period that would be 26,860 children out of 74 million children in the
USA, or 36 out of every 100,000 children.
Approximately 4,800 children pass through each Tarrant
County Family Court each year. Over a
seventeen year period that is 81,600 children.
Out of that, only five children who went through the 233rd District
Court, died from abuse or neglect. That
is an average of 6 out of every 100,000 children. This is way below the national average!
In other words the children who passed thru the 233rd
district court were six times less likely to die from abuse or neglect than the
national average. Put another way,
Judges Harris and Haddock have together, saved the lives of over thirty
children, and we will never know who they were!
Danelle's video is filled with dishonest sound edits, and falsifications, dealing almost
entirely with issues that are distractions from the real question of
responsibility for the death of Leiliana.
In the end, this video is a sad exploitation of the death of a child and
a grieving family.
Danelle Essary, aka "Duhnelle" Essary absolutely should not be appointed the the Tarrant County Republican Party Executive Committee. Her slanderous statements about Judge Diane Haddock are well beyond "opinion". They are both false and inflammatory. And there is absolutely no excuse for the wholesale dishonesty in the dishonest audio edits in Danelle's video, which are clearly designed to give the impression that Judge Haddock said things she did not say.
