King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association et al v. J. Kenneth Blackwell et al

Filing 86

RESPONSE in Opposition re 81 MOTION for Reconsideration re 78 Opinion and Order filed by Plaintiffs Ohio Voter Rights Alliance for Democracy, League of Young Voters/Columbus, Willis Brown, Paul Gregory, Miles Curtiss, Matthew Segal, Harvey Wasserman & King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association. (Attachments: # 1 Affidavit Declaration of Clifford Arnebeck, # 2 Affidavit Declaration of Miles Curtiss) (Arnebeck, Clifford) Modified on 4/27/2009 to clarify text (kk2).

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO, EASTERN DIVISION KING LINCOLN BRONZEVILLE NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION, ET AL., CASE NO. 2:06-CV-745 PLAINTIFFS, JUDGE MARBLEY VS. MAGISTRATE JUDGE KEMP JENNIFER BRUNNER, OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE, ET AL., DEFENDANTS.

DECLARATION OF CLIFFORD ARNEBECK I, of my personal knowledge, declare under penalties for perjury the following:

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I read Ms. Shaffer's declaration dated March 24, 2009, in this matter in which she states that someone told her that David Hickman was investigating her for me, and she wonders whether I had paid Hickman to do so. I have never paid Dave Hickman to do anything. Nor have I ever asked him to investigate Ms. Shaffer or anyone else. Mr. Hickman was a major activist and leader in the development of "meet-ups" and Internet lists, supporting the candidacy of John Kerry in the 2004 election. I am also aware that he worked with ACORN in promoting the registration of new voters in the 2008 election. In 2005 Hickman had been active in promoting social gatherings organized by the Free Press and Ohio Honest Elections Campaign. He later was critical of some of what he regarded as unstable and not credible individuals who asked to be included on the mailing list for such salons. Sometime in 2007, when we were presenting evidence of criminal activity to the criminal division of the Ohio Attorney General's office, Ms. Shaffer informed me that she was independently presenting evidence to an investigator of the same office. I have been aware of her further activities in this regard, because she has acted in a very public way, including holding news conferences and public demonstrations, videos of which were disseminated on the Internet. 1

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In the first week of May 2008, I met with Paul Scarsella to deliver a hard copy of Richard Hayes Phillips' book, Witness to a Crime. Scarsella asked me: "Whom do you want us to indict?" I subsequently advised him that we would seek to reopen our case for the purpose of conducting limited discovery in order to answer that question. On May 16, 2008, I requested of Rich Coglianese the Secretary of State's agreement to lifting the stay for the discovery deposition of Michael Connell. On May 17, 2008, at the Free Press Awards dinner,1 I indicated that further aggressive action on our part, targeting Karl Rove in the King Lincoln case was imminent. I had earlier conveyed similar information to approximately 15 people within the election reform community following a Free Press movie at the Drexel Theater. On July 17, 2008, we held a news conference coincident with our filing of the motion to lift the stay in this case. We identified Michael Connell as a key witness and Karl Rove as the principal perpetrator of a criminal conspiracy. This was widely reported on the blogoshere, with a video transcript of the entire news conference posted for viewing. Stephen Spoonamore participated by telephone. Spoonamore commented on my assertion that Karl Rove had orchestrated the shut down of the FBI's criminal investigation of the 2004 election. He stated that the head of FBI cyber security had not been consulted in the matter, as he would have been in any serious FBI investigation of the irregularities of the kind that were being reported at the time. On July 19, 2008, we received a report of a tip from within the McCain campaign that Connell had been threatened by Rove. The credibility of that tip was checked and confirmed to me by Stephen Spoonamore, our Republican cyber-security expert. On that basis, we began to seek to protect Connell by bringing him into the federal court system.

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/s/ Clifford Arnebeck ______________________________ Clifford Arnebeck

April 24, 2009 _____________________________ Date

I was accepting the Free Speech award posthumously for Benson Wolman who had assisted us in the Moss v. Bush election contest litigation before the Ohio Supreme Court. 2

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