SEE THIS WOMAN????

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Her name is Rose Newman; she is the mother of Elsa Newman, unjustly incarcerated at Maryland Correctional Institution for Women at Jessup. Elsa was charged and convicted of a crime committed and admitted to by someone else. This someone else was one Margery Landry. Both Landry and Elsa Newman have said repeatedly that Elsa had nothing to do with the crime. In fact, Elsa Newman was out of the state at the time Landry broke into the house of Arlen Slobodow, Elsa Newman’s then-husband.

One of the most fascinating and at the same time judicially reprehensible aspects of the Elsa Newman case is the fact that Landry refused to plead guilty either to attempted murder or to conspiracy, saying neither charge was valid. The court accepted Landry’s statement and allowed her to plead to lesser charges.

In the trial of Elsa Newman, however, attempted murder and conspiracy were exactly the things she was charged with and convicted of. Thus the jury found Elsa Newman guilty of attempted murder—although she was out of state at the time of the incident, and there was, in fact, no "attempted murder," only an accidental shooting; they also found Elsa Newman guilty of conspiracy, although there was no recognized co-conspirator. Strange….stranger…strangest—to say the least.


ON TO THE SUBJECT OF ROSE NEWMAN—AND HER PERSECUTION BY HER DAUGHTER’S FORMER HUSBAND AND THE FORMER HUSBAND’S ATTORNEY:

The woman you see pictured above is 95 years old. She lives alone and on her own, her husband having died years ago. She had three children, one of whom is Elsa Newman, now unjustly incarcerated. Rose Newman also has another daughter, older than Elsa. And she had a son who died in an accident.

According to Rose Newman herself, in a conversation with me, the loss of her son was devastating, as those of you who have lost a child in death will doubtless attest. However, this grand elderly woman met, some years ago, with a tragedy she says is even more devastating: her younger daughter was accused of a crime committed by someone else; this daughter was convicted—although innocent—and was unjustly imprisoned. In addition, the grandchildren involved in this case were effectively stolen from her, as they were, by default, committed to the custody of a father of whom they had revealed unspeakable sexual abuses, as well as virtually every other form of abuse.

And now? Now comes the persecution part. When Elsa Newman’s sons were born, Rose Newman and her daughter started a fund for each of the children. Nobody—that would be nobody at all—except for these two women, the mother and the grandmother, contributed to the funds for the children. As I understand it, Rose Newman contributed $10,000 per child for each of the first four years of each child’s life, for a total of $80,000. Elsa Newman invested the money for her sons, added some additional monies of her own, and the total climbed.

When Elsa Newman was falsely accused of someone else’s crime, Rose Newman carefully checked with attorneys and the court—and upon being assured that she had the right to do so, based upon the best interests of her daughter’s children—Rose Newman put a portion of the children’s funds toward legal assistance for her daughter. The premise here was that keeping their innocent mother out of prison was in the best interest of the two children.

Now, another disaster has struck Rose Newman. The father of the boys, with the assistance of his attorney, Stacey Blondes Talbott, has sued Rose Newman for the money she removed from the account to use on behalf of her grandsons and for their mother’s defense.

The father’s lawsuit was more than successful. Although Rose Newman had used only $70,000 of the money for the defense of the boys’ mother, the court has ordered her to pay $120,000 to the father, supposedly on behalf of the boys. However, since the father somehow managed to have himself appointed as guardian of the funds, it isn’t too difficult to see who is going to end up with both the original $70,000 and the additional $50,000 added by the courts—minus attorneys fees, of course.

So now we have a 95-year-old woman, frantic and scurrying about, trying to gather $120,000 in order to meet the demands of the father, his attorney, and their friends at court.

Not only that, but apparently the father’s attorney has begun harassing Rose Newman, informing her that if she does not come up with the money—immediately, if not sooner—then she will lose everything she has: home, bank account, investments, everything.

I am only 68, although I sometimes stoop to adding a year or two and calling myself seventy-ish. I own my own home, but my bank account is minimal and I have no investments at all. I can barely imagine what it must be like for a woman of 95 to be so threatened—so terrorized (is that too strong a word?)—by this injustice…by this former son-in-law...by this court…by this attorney.

What is it like to be 95 years old and thus threatened? Are these people trying to turn Rose Newman into a bag lady?

My congratulations to Stacey Blondes Talbott! First you help put Rose Newman’s daughter behind bars, despite her innocence. [What do you mean you had nothing to do with that? Remember that wild race to the police station with your box of files when first you heard of Margery Landry’s crime? Practically fell all over ourselves in the rush, didn’t we?]

Then you defend a man accused by his own sons of unspeakable sexual and other abuses.

Then you take on an elderly woman in a seeming attempt to deprive her of everything she has and turn her into the streets.

I stand in stunned awe of such chutzpah!