Monday, November 2, 2009

FOR THE WANDERING JEW...

Please see below: I hope you will take a look at the story of this Jewish mother, innocently imprisoned for a crime committed and admitted to by someone else. The collage is the cover of a brochure I created for Elsa Newman, #921975, Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup. The text is the material from the inside of the brochure.
As an additional note, I want you to know that I have learned that Newman suffers incredible harrassment for being a Jew...an attorney...white...and innocent. I have written to Gary Maynard, head of Maryland's Department of Public Safety and Corrections, and he has been able to reduce some of the harrassment--but not all of it...never all of it.




This is the story of Elsa Newman and her sons, a mother unjustly imprisoned in Maryland, while her two boys live in Tampa, Florida, with a father they have accused of incredible molestation and abuse.
In the early 2000's in Maryland, Newman and her then-estranged husband, Arlen Slobodow, were divorcing when her two small boys began disclosing that they were being molested by their father. Before visitation, the boys clung to furniture and begged their mother not to make them go.
On a night in January, a friend of the Newman family, Margery Landry, broke into the home of Arlen Slobodow while his two sons were visiting. She carried a gun containing two whole bullets--hardly the arsenal of a woman intending murder--possibly the arsenal of a woman afraid of Slobodow because he had assaulted her more than once.
Landry, having heard of the molestation and abuse by the children's father and seeing that neither children's protective services nor law enforcement nor the courts seemed able or willing to do anything about it, entered the home at night to see if she could find evidence of the molestation.
She found no evidence, but before she left, she decided to look in on the two little boys. However, when she reached the bedroom of the younger son she found his bed made and empty.
Landry turned toward the master bedroom and looked in. There she saw Arlen Slobodow, nude from the waist down, in bed with his younger son, who was completely nude.
Question: In January in Maryland, how would she have known about the nudity if the pair had been sleeping and thoroughly covered as one would expect in the NE at that time of year?
Question: Why did Landry testify at trial that she "tried to pull them apart" if they were doing nothing but sleeping?
A struggle followed the attempt. Slobodow forced Landry to the floor and tried to turn the gun on her. It went off. One bullet struck the wall and one struck Slobodow in the thigh. Although his pajama bottoms were covered with blood, there was no bullet hole in the pajamas, verifying the claim that he had, indeed, been half naked when discovered.
Landry broke free and fled. She would be arrested the next morning.
Slobodow called 911 and set up the case for the prosecution in the trial that was to follow: "My wife sent someone to try to kill me."
During this time, Elsa Newman was out of state. When she heard that the police wanted to talk to her, she returned voluntarily, with no idea that authorities would accuse her of involvement. She was arrested and charged with everything Landry had done, plus conspiracy and attempted murder.
Landry pled guilty to other charges, but refused to plead either to conspiracy or attempted murder. Conspiracy and attempted murder were both null prossed for Landry. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Offered a reduced sentence if she would implicate Newman, she refused to do so.
Newman was tried twice. In her first trial one of the witnesses against her was her own divorce attorney, who, some two days after he discovered that she was planning to file a complaint against him, suddenly remembered that she had sat in his office and plotted to kill her estranged husband.
Maryland’s highest court voided the verdict the first trial, saying that her attorney should never have been allowed to testify against her.
Newman was released. In the second trial, the divorce attorney's secretary testified against her. Although Landry had denied conspiracy or murder attempt, those charges were held against Newman, who was offered a reduced sentence if she would apologize. She refused to apologize for something she had not done, and is now in Maryland Correctional Institution for Women at Jessup.
Her two sons, now young teens, continue to live with their father in Tampa. Since molesters do not change, I assume they are still being molested.

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