On Saturday March 19th, 2011 a car traveled eastbound down a residential street with many children playing in the street. The car was driven by a young female and a middle aged man. The two neighbors that were supervising the kids yelled at the car to slow down. One of the neighbors said, “There goes the judge and his daughter again, they are the worst offenders”. Brett Zandes told his neighbor that he couldn’t believe that a judge would condone that type of behavior from anyone let alone his daughter. He asked his neighbor what street they lived on. The neighbor said “They live two streets over, but I don’t know exactly what house”. No sooner did they finish the conversation when the same young female (minus the middle aged man) came traveling westbound at a high rate of speed. The neighbor jumped out of his chair and ran in the middle of the street with the chair above his head ready to protect the children from the speeding car. The young female wagged her finger at the neighbor as to say who are you to tell me to slow down.

 Brett Zandes went looking for a judge two streets over as described by his neighbor since the young female was long gone. When Brett arrived on the street, he was approached by a man and Brett asked, “Are you the judge?”  The response was both negative and challenging.  The verbal exchange escalated and was filled with loud, angry, and ugly words.  Brett left the street and returned home.  The man, who is a Superior Court Judge, called 911 and within minutes police officers arrived on the scene.  What Police Officers described to Brett and his family as a minor verbal dispute, escalated, as a result of the judge’s influence. The bail amount which traditionally is $75,000 was hiked up by the accusing judge’s good friend and co-worker who was not the presiding judge on duty. Before arriving at jail, the misdemeanor charge escalated to a felony, with $500,000 bail, and a bail restriction, usually reserved for drug dealers and crime families to ensure that Brett could not get out of jail for some time.  The man seemed to be making good on his comment, “You don’t want any part of me.”  Four days and three nights of jail time later, the charges at Brett’s arraignment were reduced back to a misdemeanor with a $25,000 bail.

 For 10 days the trial between “David and Goliath” went forward.  The DA’s office where this judge worked for 17 years threw everything at Brett plus the kitchen sink. The DA’ office, where this judge worked for 17 years, spent an estimated $200,000 and utilized over 10 people and an estimated 1000 hours of time to convict Brett of a misdemeanor that should have never even went to court. Brett has never been in trouble with the law and is an outstanding person and highly respected member of the community. In the end, the jury split its decision on the two misdemeanor charges.  Brett was found innocent of a PC 422 (which is a criminal threat), but was unfortunately found guilty on a PC 76 (which is threatening a public official).
 
The fact is this:  If this can happen to Brett it could happen to you or someone you love.  Who of us have not become angry about an unsafe situation? Who of us wouldn’t protect our children? Who of us has not let our mouth get the best of us?  Who of us wants to be judged for a moment, a snapshot, rather than the moving picture of our lives?  Who of us would not turn back time and “retake” and “redo” any given moment in time? The bottom line is Brett said words that were harsh and foul, but not a crime under his constitutional rights.

Take Action:
 The petition is designed to let the judge know that there is no way Brett Zandes should be sentenced to jail even for one second as the whole trial was an orchestration of injustice, tampering, civil rights violations, ethics violations, lies and perjury.

 Please sign this petition below in support of Brett and his family. Thanks, The Zandes Camp

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