Freshwater: The paranoia grows
A new story is making the rounds now, to the effect that R. Kelly Hamilton, Freshwater’s attorney, has been in contact with the anonymous source of the black bag in the parking lot. That source, it is said, is willing to testify in the hearing but not in public because of fears for his/her safety. So Hamilton has asked the referee to hear testimony from that person with the hearing closed to spectators and press and the referee is considering whether to do so.
As I noted earlier, this has gone past strange and is well into bizarro territory. Does the anonymous source fear that the Evil Atheist Conspiracy is going to take revenge on him/her? Are there mobs of evolutionists with torches and pitchforks waiting outside the walls of the hearing room? Not hardly, not in this county. The one slight justification I can see is if the anonymous source is a school employee and fears being fired for removing the black bag and its contents from the school without authorization (assuming it actually came from the school and not Freshwater’s garage, which is not established). But as far as I know the hearing referee has no power to grant immunity from prosecution for theft, so taking the testimony in private won’t solve that problem for him/her.
Bear in mind that this is the same R. Kelly Hamilton who brought pressure to make the names of the Dennis family public after a federal court had granted them anonymity to protect them, particularly Zachary, from reprisals. And note that the Dennis family finally felt it necessary to move away from this community because their children were being subjected to harassment from other students and school staff – teachers and at least one coach. So why is Hamilton so hot to protect an adult’s anonymity now?
After the B.S. story Don Matolyak offered to justify taking an armed escort with him to retrieve the black bag while deciding he didn’t need the cops, I am of the opinion that this is just more of the smokescreen and is intended to amp up the drama casting John Freshwater as the poor persecuted Christian man in heathen Knox County, Ohio. It’s designed solely to bring more pressure on the Board of Education to settle on Freshwater’s terms. But Hamilton, Matolyak, and Freshwater appear to be becoming so enamored of their delusional fantasies of persecution that I fear for their ever more tenuous grasp on reality.