Posted on 01/18/2004 8:00:35 PM PST by doug from upland
A few hours ago, I had the pleasure of having a conversation with attorney and Arkansas Blood Scandal witness Tona DeMers of Pensacola, Florida. She is on her way to Little Rock as a witness and is hopeful that the expose of this terrible scandal, "FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL," will not be prevented from being shown at the SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL in Park City, Utah.
In 1991, DeMers was an inmate attorney in the Compliance Office under the Arkansas Board of Compliance. She has a great deal of knowledge about the inside workings of how prisoners in Arkansas who were infected with AIDS and Hepatitus C gave blood that subsequently infected and killed people in several countries. She was deeply involved with the film in both interviews and editing. Governor Bill Clinton was up to his eyeballs in the scandal and benefitted in the form of campaign contributions. He stepped in on two occasions to keep the dangerous program going. Arkansas was the last state to use prisoner blood.
Michael Galster recently succeeded in obtaining an injunction to keep the film from being publicly shown, including at the Slamdance Film Festival.
DeMers was on the original team with attorney David Bowden representing the producer of the film. She hopes to be able to appear before the 8th Circuit Federal Court as a witness and convince the court to step in and remove the injunction. The first public showing of Factor 8 was supposed to be today.
From the Festival info:
Slamdance has invited 19 feature films to compete in their tenth annual festival taking place in Park City, January 17-24. Eleven of those films are fictional narratives with the rest being documentaries. Joining the features will be 21 shorts in competition.
Screenings will be split between two different venues this year - Treasure Mountain Inn (Slamdance HQ) and the brand new Madstone Theater Location in Trolley Square. Screenings at Madstone will focus on competition docs.
"FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL" - (USA, 85 min., Documentary, 2003) WORLD PREMIERE - This film investigates the sale of tainted blood from infected prisoners to Canada, Europe and Japan, thus spreading AIDS and Hepatitis C. Directed by Kelly Duda.
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FReepers, help spread the word. Please add tainted blood links to this story. If you know talk show hosts who would like DeMers on the air, please let me know. Clinton must pay a price for what he has done.
Uh........ do we really wanna go there? I keep thinking of things like office sinks and Paula Jones...... :-) The Clintons have gotta have some tentacles somehow into this one, wouldn't you think!!!
Ain't THAT special?!!!! Only in Arkansas.........
I guess "the producer of the film" in this case means duda?
anybody got an idea of what the source of income would be for DeMers today?
Doug,
Thanks for posting the story. I was not appointed by Clinton. It was just a state attorney job in the compliance office of the Arkansas Board of Correction. I can also assure you that Kelly's depiction of the blood scandal is accurate. I have been a prison activist ever since leaving that position and I have either interviewed or represented over 3000 inmates since 1991. Also, I gave Kelly information from the investigation conducted by L. D. Brown, the Arkansas State Police investigator. L.D. has become a close friend of mine. I first represented him in his lawsuit against Jim Guy Tucker.
There was never a contract or agreement between Kelly and Galster for Kelly to do the film for Galster. Galster was unable to produce one in court during his testimony. Kelly has a degree in film and had returned to Arkansas after 11 or 12 years in Hollywood. Why would someone like Kelly do a film for someone else and sit second chair? Besides, legally, no one can own facts and that's what this story is. If Galster invested some money in the film, fine. So did a lot of other people, including me. So, Galster didn't pay for everything, if anything.
Additionally, if Kelly allegedly "stole" the film from Galster 3 or 4 years ago, why is he just now suing? Why didn't he sue back then if he's telling the truth? Tell your posters that guesses without facts aren't worth much.
Thanks,
Tona
Still a practicing attorney, I presume. Doug?
Kelly has a degree in film and had returned to Arkansas after 11 or 12 years in Hollywood. Why would someone like Kelly do a film for someone else and sit second chair?
being "degreed in film" kelly prolly had 100's if not 1000's of story lines to bring to life on film.
why did he chose the blood story at cummins of all things?
Besides, legally, no one can own facts and that's what this story is.
at what point in time did kelly come across the facts related to the blood story at cummins?
what was his source of these facts?
Sorry to disagree with your take, but I watched Kelly play his games three years ago and he's still doing it.
Kelly was always talking about having the video ready for the next film festival -- and this was three years ago (and it had been going on for at least a year before that). But he never finished it, never turned in anything. I talked it over several times with one of the other backers -- a man who had helped Kelly with editing, even drove him to Canada for an interview -- and each time we concluded that Kelly would never finish that video so long as Mike was paying him to work on it. It was his bread and butter. My friend, who had viewed the video, said he could have finished the video in eight hours -- and he has no background at all in graphic arts.
Kelly had no business walking off with Mike's property. All of us "Bloodhounds" in Free Republic were joined in a volunteer effort to get this story publicized. We worked with Mike. We had a cheery meeting at Slick Willy's in Little Rock with Mike attending, we had a more formal weekend meeting in Hot Springs to advance the cause, we had a major press conference in WDC (for which Mike hired at least one outside cameraman, btw), plus all the work on Free Republic. Kelly's claims now are an affront to all of us who pitched in for this effort.
most such state jobs are patronage positions. if she was employed in that capacity in '91 who appointed her?
She has a great deal of knowledge about the inside workings of how prisoners in Arkansas who were infected with AIDS and Hepatitus C gave blood that subsequently infected and killed people in several countries.
based on her position as inmate attorney w/ board of compliance, I don't doubt that she knows the whole story.
how did you meet this interesting lady, doug?
if she was working in this capacity as late as '91, why did she not come forward with what she saw "was happening" until a decade later?
just curious.
p.s. keep up the good work, doug. it seems like you get some very interesting guests on your radio program.
you must be offering them a good venue to get their message out.
Just curious thinden, but we're talking about 1991 here, right?
If Clinoccio could be directly linked to accepting bribe monies -- for whatever reason -- wouldn't those crime(s) be subject to a statute of limitations?
Interesting this claims the Bent1 took possession of this money via campaign contributions, because that sure seems to have been the guy's preferred mo for laundering the dirty dough he extorted.
Still, as much as I'd like to see the SOB skinned alive for this kind of corruption, past or present?
It's kind of difficult to imagine he'll be nailed for something like this, today.
After all the public sure didn't seem interested, or didn't appear to mind a wit the Bootist Monks or the PRC "pitching in" for his campaignS any more than did Bernard Schwartz at Loral and God only knows who and/or what else.
...did they?
I cannot answer whether a statute of limitations applies to Clinton taking bribes, but I'd say he is open to much more serious charge along the lines of causing the loss of life by being party to a criminal conspiracy and/or felonious activities.
Hillary was in it too.
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