REPORT: Mother of Slain Dumond Victim Asks for Huckabee Apology; Campaign Refuses - Video 12/5/07

Blogs for Fred Thompson ^ | December 6, 2007 | brkcmo

[blogsforthompson.com]

Here is a report from KC station KCTV-5 in which the mother of one of Wayne Dumond's murder victims reportedly requests an apology from Mike Huckabee for his support of freeing Dumond from prison in Arkansas. As you will see in the report, the Huckabee campaign is refusing to apologize.....

[Andy'smom]

Interesting. So he basically blames the parole board when he himself lobbied for the con’s release?

[threeleftsmakearight]

This is going to be the death-knell for Huckabee.
The thing I don’t understand is why the liberals are so quick to jump on this story, because they should be pushing for Huckabee as he has no shot of winning the general election.

[Cicero]

This is dumb, dumb, dumb, not to say evil.

There were strange circumstances in the Dumond case, and Huckabee might have been excused for thinking that clinton and the Dixie Mafia had framed him.

All he had to do was apologize, say he was mistaken and very sorry, and put it behind him.

Instead, he is lying through his teeth about his responsibility for the parole decision. What that tells me is that he is a vicious liar who cannot be trusted on ANYTHING.

I didn’t think he had any real chance of winning the nomination anyway, but I might have voted for him against hillary or obama if he had. Now, he joins the select group of people I will never vote for even to keep hillary out of the White House: Giuliani, McCain, and Huckabee. Oh, and Ron Paul.

[pandoraou812]

As you will see in the report, the Huckabee campaign is refusing to apologize.....

Sure Huckabee had a hand in this man getting out if he did indeed go before the parole board & suggest this man had a hard life etc. If the rapist had a sentence of life in jail there is where he ought to have stayed..Hard life or not. So Huck helps him get out & he kills 2 women. I think Huck needs to talk to this mother. Maybe he can be so forgiving but I think he made a huge mistake here & ought to own up to it.

[river rat]

I’m in favor of ANYTHING that removes this ridiculously incompetent poseur from the contest..

I can’t believe ANYONE sees this clown as a viable candidate..

Voting for him, simply because he wears his Christian beliefs on his sleeve is no better than the 96% of blacks who vote for a candidate simply because they’re black.

The “Huckster” is simply another mindless leftist in “RINO” clothing....

[A. Morgan]

The Huckster is a blame shifter, the parole board did it... absolving himself of any wrong doing. What a CLASS ACT! NOT!

[Badeye]

Huckabee’s rise to the top just took a fatal turn.

[W04Man]

YOU ARE SO RIGHT.

Look here what ABC's GMA said this morning:

Click on the picture to go the video from this morning's Good Morning America report by Brian Ross on Mike Huckabee and Wayne Dumond.

Look especially at Huckabee's denial of having a role in Dumond's release and the statement by Charles Chastain, a former parole board member, saying that Huckabee made "a personal appeal for Dumond's release." Also, at the end of the report, Ross says this, "After first denying that these letters were genuine, a spokesman for the Governor confirmed last night that at least one was received by the Governor's office, but he went ahead anyway."

What will Huckabee say now?

[Badeye]

I saw the Fox News story on this last night. The fact some that attended the parole board hearing are saying Huckabee is flat out lying about his comments to them is devastating.

He’s toast.

[NavyCanDo]

Has shades of similarities to the Gold Star Moms. Is she doing this on her own, or is there someone influencing her?

[texastoo]

I had much rather have Ron Paul than this POS. At least Ron Paul is honest in his ignorance but this POS is evil.

The Huckster takes no responsibility in any past decisions. All he had to do is state “pardon or parole DENIED”. Instead he is blaming the dems. What a crock. Hillary and Bill will not let that fly. He has named too many dems already and that is why the liberal press is after him.

[NavyCanDo]

“Has shades of similarities to the Gold Star Moms. Is she doing this on her own, or is there someone influencing her?”

Let me add, regardless of what the influence is, I’m glad it is happening. If he was a help in getting this creep out of jail, then lets hope this is the end of his political career.

[basil]

I don't get this "apologize" stuff that has become so popular in recent years. Like an apology will make everything okay?

So, Huckaby apologizes to this woman--does she get her daughter back?

Of course nothing will bring her daughter back--but I think I would be furious enough to hit him where it hurts the most--both in his campaign, and in his pocket book.

[onedoug]

This, to me, makes Huckabee an accessory to murder.

No thanks. Not Huckabee, EVER.

[SpringheelJack]

I don't get this "apologize" stuff that has become so popular in recent years. Like an apology will make everything okay?

It's basic integrity to acknowledge a fault and apologize to the person who's been hurt by it. No, it doesn't bring everything back the way it was. Words of decency don't have utilitarian value, just moral.

[dit_xi]

Did you know that Ashley Stevens, who was 17 when she was raped by Dumond, had a meeting with Huckabee right before he commuted Dumond's sentence?

From the Boston Globe article: Huckabee could face hurdles from the past Parole of rapist haunts campaign

...After becoming governor in 1996, he [Huckabee] announced his desire to commute Dumond's sentence. Dumond's rape victim, Ashley Stevens, saw it differently.

Stevens, now 40 and living in the western United States, said she tried to persuade Huckabee not to shorten the sentence for Dumond.

"I told [Huckabee]: If you ever let him out, he's going to do it again," she said in an interview.

She was able to get a meeting with the governor - who, she said, had not spoken to her before announcing his intention to commute Dumond's sentence - but realized Huckabee had "made up his mind." So Stevens stood up, she said, walked over to Huckabee, who was seated on a sofa, squatted down and thrust her face inches from his.

"I said, 'This is how close I was to Dumond's face for an hour,' " Stevens recalled. " 'I'll never forget his face, and you'll never forget mine.' "

The parole board - following a closed meeting with Huckabee - decided to let Dumond go. The following year, Dumond committed the Missouri slaying."

Can you believe it? Huckabee ignored her. He IGNORED her plea not to let Dumond out. Ashley Stevens is right, Huckabee will never forget her face. But a turd's a turd, he'll just float to the top and not let it bother him.

[Cicero]

Does an apology do any good for the dead? No. But he owes her one. And he owes all of us the decency to tell the truth about this. I could forgive a stupid decision, maybe, because of the whole back story on Dumond. But I can’t forgive an outright lie, claiming that he had nothing to do with it.

[trisham]

That’s a pretty damning piece.

[DoughtyOne]

As Conservatives most us hold a very dim view of inappropriate paroles meeted out to prison imates.  If those inmates go on to cause serious injury to subsequent victims we rail on those who have had sympathy for the prison inmate and have aided in their release.

Such an instance is being heralded these days concerning Mick Huckabee.  It's the old Willie Horton case all over again.  Or is it?

I would encourage forum paticipants to read the following article circa 1996, in which the case for Wayne Dumond is made.  Read this article for a description of what took place back in the day.  See if you could fault someone for thinking this guy got railroaded.

D1


NEW GOVERNOR REOPENS CASE EMBARRASSING TO CLINTON
Hope for Justice Rekindled
By Cathy Tapie, July 29, 1996
The Washington Weekly, (http://dolphin.gulf.net)

A spokesman for Arkansas' new Governor Huckabee has told the Washington Weekly that an old case of injustice in Arkansas will be re-opened. The case could turn out to be very embarrassing to Bill Clinton.

The story reads like a scenario right out of the movie "Deliverance" and is not recommended for the faint of heart. Reported on June 2, 1996 in the New York Post and chronicled in the book "Unequal Justice," it starts around 1984 and goes like this:

Forty nine year-old Wayne Dumond, father of six and Vietnam Veteran, had been telling his church congregation about suddenly disappearing automobiles in their community. It would later turn out that the local county sheriff, Coolidge Conlee, was the culprit. It seems he was running, among other things (a casino at the Sheriff's office and drug running), a handy little car- theft ring. The sheriff was corrupt. Which is not necessarily unusual for Arkansas.

Needless to say, Wayne Dumond's vocality about disappearing cars was a thorn in this sheriff's side.

Long about this same time frame, a 17 year old girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped. But the girl was Governor Bill Clinton's cousin, a little known fact and well kept secret at the time. Her father is also a millionaire and a big contributor to Bill Clinton's various election campaigns and her mother worked in Governor Clinton's "inner circle."

Guess which innocent man got fingered and ultimately convicted despite overwhelming (suppressed) evidence of his innocence? Wayne Dumond. But this is where the story turns even uglier.

While an innocent Wayne Dumond was awaiting sentencing (later meted out at life plus 20 years), it seems that two masked men, acting on orders of the corrupt county Sheriff Coolidge Conlee, burst into Wayne's home. They had guns and knives. They hog tied Wayne. They raped him. Then, as if that wasn't enough, with surgical scalpels, they castrated him.

If it hadn't been for Dumond's two sons coming home from school and calling for help, Dumond might well have bled to death.

But there's more.

After the Sheriff Conlee's sociopathic cretins had had their way with Wayne and finished their brutal amateur surgical procedure - even as he lay in a hospital bed, near death, after having lost 3/4 of his blood supply from his butchered groin, the good Sheriff went to the Dumond family's bloodied home and retrieved the body parts so that he could display them in a jar on his desk with a caption that read: "That's what happens to people who fool around in my county."

What did Bill Clinton do about it? Absolutely nothing. In fact, after 4-1/2 years in prison, the parole board decided to release Dumond. But did Bill Clinton sign the release?

As reported in the New York Post, according to the managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Bill Clinton had a "romping, stomping fit" about it. He refused to sign the release.

Even though their innocent father was doing time in prison after having his manhood mutilated, the Dumond family did have a modicum of relief when they were awarded $20,000 in a lawsuit of "outrage." But that money went to compensate for damages when someone (I wonder who?) burned down the family home while they were in hiding from vigilantes and no insurance was paid.

It is now 12 years later and where is this cast of characters?

- Wayne Dumond? Still in prison

- Governor Bill Clinton? President of the United States.

- Sheriff Coolidge Conlee? Died in prison after being sentenced to 160 years on extortion and drug-dealing charges. But he was never punished for his crimes against Wayne Dumond.

- The allegedly raped girl and her parents? Not yet identified and probably living happily ever after.

- The alleged rapist(s)? Of the two men the girl initially identified (before she was "talked to" by her father and Sheriff Conlee), it is alleged that she dated one of them. Neither has been charged.

- The "vigilantes" that burned down the Dumond home? Not caught.

- The deranged amateur surgeons? Not caught.

Will the guilty be caught and punished? Is there light at the end of the tunnel for Wayne Dumond? Even though Dumond will never have his manhood back, will the new governor of Arkansas sign his release and see that the guilty are punished?

"We are very aware of the case. The governor is awaiting Dumond's application for clemency to be submitted to the Arkansas Post Prison Transfer Board," says Huckabee spokesman Jim Harris, "State law requires that this be done before the governor can consider it, so we are just waiting for the application and the governor will then be able to review the whole thing and do what is right and fair." The new governor of Arkansas has his work cut out for him on this one.

This case is not just about Arkansas corruption. This case is not just about injustice in Arkansas under Governor Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton has taken his operation national and into the White House. There is mounting evidence that points to an equal level of corruption and egregious violation of civil rights at the highest levels of the White House. Perhaps Arkansas justice will finally be served under Governor Mike Huckabee, but will justice ever be served while or even after Bill Clinton and his kind have run the United States of America?

Time will tell.

[Printed in the July 29, 1996 issue of the Washington Weekly]

http://192.80.61.73/WebVAX/WWeekly/WW29Jul96Dumond.html