confessions of an ambulance chaser–Dear Mr. Piccarreta–Mea Culpa–I’m a Very Bad Man…
I read somewhere recently that one of Warren Jeffs’ high-priced lawyers, a guy by the name of Michael Piccarreta, is going around writing in court documents and telling sympathetic newspaper reporters that I’m a bad man and unfair to his client.
Of course none of those newspaper reporters have done the professional thing and contacted me to get my response, so if you’ll indulge me, I will give my response now:
I can honestly think of no higher form of flattery than being attacked and disparaged by the likes of Michael Piccarreta, an attorney who has made hundreds of thousands of dollars representing a convicted child abuser and rapist of children. I’m totally good with that! I have always thought that a person is judged by both his friends and his enemies.
The truth is that Mr. Piccarreta is now desperately trying to keep photographs depicting his 52-year-old client cuddling and kissing a 12-year-old girl from making their way into an Arizona court room where Warren Jeffs will soon go on trial on charges of sexual conduct with minors.
The photos were seized during that ill-advised and ill-fated raid in West Texas earlier this year.
Mr. Piccarreta would apparently do just about anything to keep those rather incriminating pics out of the state of Arizona and to put the Texas raid on trial in Mohave County, including throwing up a lot of smoke screens and legal nonsense by saying mean and nasty things about people like me.
Let me save you the trouble Mr. Piccarreta. You are right on the money! I AM a bad man! Mea culpa! I’m guilty!
But I’m not the issue. The issue is your client, Warren Jeffs, a man already convicted by a Utah jury of forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her adult first cousin–a man who, if those Texas wedding photos are to be believed, took a 12-year-old girl (maybe two of them) as a bride for himself, adding the adolescent children to the hundred or so wives he already has–a man who once ordered all of his followers to pull their children out of the public schools in Colorado City and then sat back as his cronies bankrupted the school district and turned much of the looted public finances over to their prophet in the from of tithes–just the kind of money that is probably now going to pay much of your inflated salary, Mr. Piccarreta.
And now suddenly Mr. Piccarreta is all upset, whining like a little baby about me merely showing-up at the public offices of the Arizona Attorney General recently to do my job and cover the news.
(By the way, Mr. Piccarreta, I never once reported on that gathering–never once uttered a single word about it on the air or publicly until now. In fact, it seems to me, Mr. Piccarreta, that it is you who are now making this event such a big deal in the media for your own money-motivated, biased and cynical reasons. Bottomline: I never got into that meeting at the Attorney General’s office–never got passed the lobby. Remember! You wouldn’t let me. Whatever deal you cut or agreement you made with Flora Jessop about an interview is between you and Ms. Jessop. I have no idea what conditions you and she set. Although I have now been told that you were trying to get a sycophantic reporter of your choosing into that gathering at Terry Goddard’s office. Interesting! Clearly you don’t really mind the media coverage just as long as it is slanted your way. Let me assure you, Mr. Piccarrea, I didn’t show up at the A.G.’s office because anybody “invited” me. I don’t need an “invitation” to do my job. I don’t know about the reporters you hang around with, Mr. Piccarreta, but I don’t work that way. I was there to cover a story that I have been covering for the past 30 years–the chronic and systematic abuse of women and children inside secretive polygamous sects like Warren Jeffs’ FLDS church and the goon squad of ethically-challenged, money-grubbing lawyers who defend them.)
(See “confessions of an ambulance chaser–liars, lawyers and media scum.”)
Why is it, Mr. Piccarreta, that guys like you and all of Mr. Jeffs’ other $500-an-hour mouthpieces are always trying to have me thrown out of places? I wonder. Maybe it’s because you and your client have something to hide.
The truth is, Mr. Piccarreta, if you want to talk smack about me go right ahead. Because, at the end of the day, it just makes me think that I’ve probably done my job.
Mike Watkiss, Senior Reporter, KTVK, Phoenix Arizona.