This is how the WHOLE thing got started, and how Justin’s name was ever mixed up in this robbery to begin with.

This is the story as told in Justin’s OWN words:

…so I’ve been able to send you an excerpt of sworn court testimony of one of the witnesses in this Robbery case. Not his whole transcript testimony, but a portion that helps prove my innocence in the Robbery case. The whole “preliminary hearing” transcript is like 50 pages long, with the testimony of like 6 witnesses, and I’ll be getting you a FULL copy of those transcripts and sending them to you soon, so you can read every word and SEE that even as they looked at me in court, none of the witnesses identified me as being the “light skinned guy” in the Robbery. As a matter of fact, other than the biased speculation of my racist ex-neighbor, Diane Minutes (who wouldn’t allow me into her house when I was a kid because I was half Black), there isn’t one single piece of “evidence” tying me to that Robbery at all. And Diane Minutes wasn’t even there when the robbery occurred at the K-Mart store where she worked. She just came forward two days later, claimed she watched the blurry videotape, and testified basically that I had the same body build as the light skinned robber in the photo, so it had to be me. But let’s start from the beginning…

Notice that attached to the back of this letter, that I have 8 Exhibits marked 1 through 8.

Okay, first look at “Exhibit 1”. This is how the WHOLE thing got started, and how my name was ever mixed up in this robbery to begin with. This exhibit is a copy of the police report that was made when my lying stepfather read about the Robbery in a newspaper, and called the police to tell them I told him I did it, so that he could retaliate against me for going into his house to sleep for the night (after he’d kicked me out of the house), while he and my mother were on truck driving trips to New York. Notice at the top of the first page the “Robbery” was reported by K-Mart to have occurred on “7-27-96” at 1:56 A.M. And on the second page, in the bottom paragraph the officer says my stepfather reported me as one of the robbers on “7-30-96”. Yet at the bottom of the page you see the officer didn’t actually write this report that my stepfather allegedly gave him until 4 or 5 days later on “8-4-96”. I find that kind of odd; officers usually write out the reports the same day they receive the information.

Anyway, so my stepfather tells the cops this little story about how I told him I robbed the store and showed him a shotgun I “stole”, and all that right? THEN in the report he goes on to tell more lies (not realizing the cops might check up on it) where (on the third page of Exhibit 1) he goes on to claim that I told him I’d “carjacked” an Asian woman for her car in the city of Norwalk, California. Yet if you read page 5, of Exhibit 1, you can see the police checked the police departments in the city of Norwalk, AS WELL AS those in the surrounding cities of “Lakewood” and “Pico Rivera”, and NO reports of any carjacking were filed, or found. My stepfather’s first proven lie.

But because I was on parole, as you can see on page 4, of Exhibit 1, my parole officer “Charles Hildenbrand” put a warrant out for my arrest for suspected parole violation (because of the report my stepfather made), and ordered me to be arrested on sight. Not one single piece of evidence linking me to any Robbery except my stepfather’s bald-faced accusation and I get a warrant placed out for my arrest.

Now remember I told you that several years later when I got transferred to California, while being completely confused as to why and how I ever got accused of being part of this Robbery to begin with. Remember? Then I told you how I finally got the police report saying that it was my stepfather who called the police and gave them my name, and it was only then in November, 1998 that I finally figured out what happened? Then I told you how my stepfather was ashamed and embarrassed at me finding out and confronting him on the phone, and he denied (and denies to this day) ever doing it? And to try to “prove” this to me, he refused to go to court and testify that I’d told him that I’d robbed the store, when the prosecutor called him and asked him to testify? Well skip forward to “Exhibit: 5” real fast. This is the brief excerpt of one of the witnesses’ Preliminary hearing testimony that I was telling you about. I couldn’t get the cover page copied, so I wrote all the cover page information on the next page in line (this “Index” page on top), instead.

This is the “Index” page that lists the names of all the witnesses (6 of them) that testified during the preliminary hearing in this case. Yet notice my stepfather’s name (William Feldon) is not listed as one of the people who came to court to testify. This proves what I was telling you. He knew that he lied and got me mixed up in that Robbery case; he denies he ever did it, and he refused the prosecutor’s request to testify, like I said. Now if I really did it and told him all that stuff, and he called the cops to get a case filed on me, then why has he denied it ever since, and refused to follow-up on what he started, and testify against me in court to help ensure I get convicted? The only reason my name ever got mixed up in this Robbery case to begin with, was because of petty retaliation by my stepfather that had NOTHING to do with the robbery.

Okay…now go ahead and read the 3 K-Mart Robbery police reports (EXHIBITS: 2, 3, and 4). These reports give you all the details of the robbery, how it happened, and whatever evidence or “leads” they had to who did it. Read them fully. Alright…now let me point a few things out. Well I guess that in the first report (EXHIBIT: 2) “suspect one” is supposed to be me.

Okay, now after reading the reports you can see that “Brendan Mansfield” had by far the most contact with the two robbers and that he was really the ONLY witness that was there that gave any real description of what the two robbers looked like. Yet not even HE gave any descriptive information that a cop or anyone else could legally say: “Yes! This is evidence indicating Justin Rueb indeed is the one who did it”. There was nothing the witnesses said that in any way tied ME to being one of the guys in the Robbery. You read the reports- nothing. Just the speculation of that racist “Diane Minutes” who wasn’t even THERE during the robbery, and was only speculating I was involved based on some blurry videotape. (That wasn’t shown during the preliminary hearing, by the way, and which no one actually ever proved EXISTED!).

But read page 4 of “EXIBIT: 2” where the main witness who really WAS there at the robbery, “Brendan Mansfield”, DESCRIBES the guy that’s supposed to be me-“suspect #1”. He described the guy as being a “Hispanic Male”, in his late teens, and only weighing about 120 pounds. I am black male, I was 21, and I weighed about 155 pounds or so, at that time. He also described the guy as being short at about”5 foot, 7 inches” tall, and I am a normal man’s height at “5’, 10” tall. In addition, you can also see that he describes the robber that was supposed to be me as having a “Hispanic” or Mexican accent to his voice. I had a Black accent - nowhere close to a Mexican accent. “Suspect #2” was described by “Mansfield” as a “dark black” guy. This all is yet MORE evidence of my innocence in this case.

Then notice the highlighted part on page 4 (Exhibit: 2) towards the lower middle of the page? Mansfield told the police that he could not probably identify Robber #1 by looking at his eyes, if he ever saw them again, right? Now…skip forward to “EXHIBIT: 5” to the Preliminary hearing transcript of “Mansfield’s” preliminary hearing testimony given in November, 1998. You see Mansfield gave testimony from page 2 through page 19 of the transcript. I’ve only sent you the first 2 pages of it where he gets sworn under oath, then pages 16 and 17 of it where the prosecutor attempts to get “Mansfield” to identify me in open court, as being the “light skinned” robber. Look at what “Mansfield” says – Remember, he had told the police he could identify the robber by his eyes if he ever saw them again. And now here’s “Mansfield” in court, ten feet away and despite the prosecutor asking him over and over again if he can identify anyone in the courtroom as being the “suspect 1” robber (referring to me), he first says:” Well, I’d have to look right in his eyes. I don’t want to say, you know, that’s whoever”. (Meaning that he couldn’t identify me by looking at my eyes in the courtroom, and that he didn’t want to lie and say that it was me, and that he recognized me). Then the prosecutor asks again, and again he gives an answer to the effect that he can’t identify me as a robber. Then the prosecutor asks a THIRD time, and he says (in response to being asked if he can look at my eyes and identify me or not), “Yeah. I’d say so, but I mean, I CAN”T…”Now my attorney should’ve objected when the prosecutor asked this same question the second time, let alone the third, because he had already answered and said no the first time. What the prosecutor was doing was unethical, because she was asking “Mansfield” “leading questions”. In other words, she was trying to ask the same question over and over in the hopes that she could pressure and “lead” “Mansfield” to finally say yes, it was me, and give her the answer she wanted to hear. It’s against the rules for an attorney or prosecutor to ask repetitive questions that have already been answered, and it’s against the rules for the prosecutor to ask leading questions to a non-hostile (prosecutor’s) witness. My incompetent attorney should’ve put a stop to it, and objected on EITHER of those two grounds. But as it is, the prosecutor finally stopped on her own after the third time.

Anyway…the important thing is that now you’ve seen PROOF that after saying repeatedly that he could identify the light-skinned robber by his eyes, while looking at me and my eyes during court he testified that, no, he could not say that I was the light-skinned guy that helped to rob that store.

This is MORE evidence of my innocence. And if you look at the transcript “Index” page again, look at the amount of testimony that the OTHER robbery victims that were there gave. “Robert Ratcliffe” remembered so little about the robbery, and knew NOTHING that could identify the robbers, that he only gave 4 pages of transcript testimony. “Ruben Hidalgo’ and “Lisa Brown” knew so little that they each only gave 2 pages, total, of testimony. I told you the deal about Diane Minutes who gave 9 pages of testimony. And “Brad Garland” I believe was a cop, and his testimony was only like 2 pages as well. You’ll see when I send the whole transcript copy to you. So WHERE is the evidence that I was involved with this robbery? As you can see there WAS none. And not only that, but you can see that the evidence (like Mansfield’s police report statements and his testimony) actually shows that it was another guy – some short, skinny Mexican – who did it.

And now look at THIS…look at “EXHIBIT: 3”, page 2 at the highlighted part. Now you see where the officer writing this report mentions that a K-Mart store security official told the police that at least FOUR OTHER identical K-Mart “take over” robberies had occurred before this Robbery, at at least 4 other K-Mart stores? And that each one was done by a Black guy partnered with a Mexican? Well I had my court paid private investigator check into when these other similar robberies at other K-Marts had occurred, and my investigator discovered that at least ONE of those other robberies done by the Black guy and Mexican had happened and occurred just a few months before…while I was STILL IN PRISON in Blythe, California. So there’s NO WAY I could’ve been the “light skinned/Mexican” guy in these series of K-Mart robberies! I don’t have the Private Investigator’s report about that because he never got around to giving it to me. But if I ever have to go to trial on this Robbery case (if I can ever first get my forced guilty plea withdrawn) I can easily have a P.I. check into it again and get the proof. Especially since the police report names the city locations of all the other K-Mart stores that were robbed. This is yet MORE proof of my innocence.

And then on page 3 of this second police report (Exhibit: 3) look at the portion I highlighted. This is talking about how K-Mart security officer actually suspected one of K-Mart’s OWN employees as previously stealing from the store, and not showing up for work that night, and very possibly being involved in the Robbery. Again, more evidence that someone, other than me, did this robbery.

Now…look at the police report in “EXHIBIT: 4”. This was written by an officer named “R. Beltran”.

Now remember my stepfather (in “EXHIBIT: 1”) called the police on July 30^th, 1996 to give them my name and get me blamed for this robbery. Now if you look at the bottom of the last page of each of the two other police reports that we just went over, you can see that the two officers wrote those reports on 7-27-96 (the same day the robbery occurred). Then my stepfather drops my name to the police on 7-30-96, and then all of a sudden officer “R.Beltran” in this third report acts like they had evidence, and suspected that I was one of the robbers all along. They now claim to have videotapes “clearly showing” that it had to be me, because of my body size. And now all the sudden they’ve recruited my racist ex-neighbor to help them point fingers at me. But notice how my name was not implicated in ANYTHING until July 30^th, when my stepfather called and set me up. Then all the sudden they file this report, like they’d been building a case based on evidence against me, all along.

What happened here is that as soon as my stepfather gave them my name, the cops immediately went to K-Mart with photos of me to question all of the employees as to whether or not they’d seen me before, or knew me. And my racist ex-neighbor figured since the cops were looking at me as a suspect, that I must’ve did it, so she started lying about me and another light-skinned guy going into the back storeroom three days before the robbery (yet when asked to produce the videotape showing us supposedly going into the storeroom 3 days before the robbery, it was mysteriously “missing” and never produced by either K-Mart OR lying Diane Minutes. She just lied and said that to make it look like I was scouting out the store, a few days before I “robbed the store”). And then she used her former position as my neighbor to make it sound like she knew me very well, and that, therefore, her claiming that I looked similar to one of the robbers on the videotape (by claiming that it looked like the light-skinned guy on the tape had a “ponytail’ – because she knew from the police photos that the cops showed her of me, that I now had long hair).

Basically, once they were given my name, the officer went on to cultivate “Diane Minutes” into being more than happy to say:” Yeah that’s him on the videotape”, “Yeah, he did it”, and helping them pin this robbery on me. But really, NOTHING she said was valid. The robber’s faces were covered with Bandanas and sunglasses at all times, and even their tops of their heads were totally covered- along with any hair or “ponytails’ they may have had. My body build, weight and height are the SAME as tens of thousand of other men in that city. And even if one of the robbers DID have a ponytail, so what? Many men – White, Black, and Mexican have long hair that they tie in ponytails. I never had a chance to see any of the alleged videotapes myself, but my private investigator said he did, and he said because the surveillance tapes had been used and reused so many times before, that the videotape images of the fully masked, gloved, and clothed robbers, were all blurry and scrambled. Yet that racist “Diane Minutes”, tried to help the cops blame me for the robbery by swearing up and down that she could recognize me somehow in the videotapes. The ONLY reason that her, or anybody, was able to try to manipulate stuff to try to FORCE me to be guilty, was because my stepfather has thrown them my name to pounce on. Why didn’t “Diane Minutes” “recognize” me as being one of the robbers in the videotape until AFTER the police got my name from my stepfather, and then approached her with my name, photograph, and videotapes? See what I’m saying? And if I HAD had a chance to ever go to trial on this robbery case (instead of being forced to plead guilty), I would’ve tore her, her bogus “identification”, and her testimony apart during trial. Especially when my mom and sister came in to testify to Diane’s racist beliefs, and racist treatment of me when I was a kid. The so called “evidence” that they used to even justify filing a formal criminal case against me, to begin with, was weak and bunk. The Prosecutor abused her discretion by filing these baseless, evidenceless charges against me to begin with.

But anyway, that’s the information regarding the Robbery case, and the various pieces of evidence showing that my stepfather really did lie and set me up to retaliate against me, and that I AM indeed innocent of this robbery.

LEGAL ISSUES

Okay…now for the legal issues regarding why, legally, the California courts must, by their own laws, allow me to have an evidentiary hearing to prove that I should be allowed to withdraw my guilty plea, because the state appointed attorney provided me with unlawfully inadequate legal advice and representation in this case; and to also prove I was forced to plead guilty against my will.

Please just go ahead and read “EXHIBIT: 6” (my “Defendant’s Memorandum of law in support of Habeas Corpus petitions”). This will explain the legal issues involved, as well as the applicable laws and caselaw – everything. This particular “Memorandum of law…”was written and filed by the California Federal Court over 4 and a half years ago, in support of the Federal Habeas Corpus petition I had filed at the time (which the Federal Court never ultimately ruled on, but denied as supposedly being filed “too late”). But the arguments and stuff within are WORD-FOR-WORD the SAME legal arguments that I raised to the California State Courts, when I was still trying to get one of those judges to listen to my state Habeas Corpus petition. But as I told you, that Superior Court judge, “Bob Krug” played games, ignored most of my legal arguments, cherry picked others, and arbitrarily came up with excuses to deny my petition, without even giving me my legal right to an evidentiary hearing to gather more evidence and prove my claims, first, before he makes a ruling and decision on it. That’s the law. But he disobeyed it. Then California Appeals Court, then California Supreme Court turned a blind eye and let him get away with it. Then I tried to turn to the Federal Court to overturn that Robbery guilty plea, and the Federal Court finds some technicality and says I filed it in Federal Court too late, and dismisses the Federal Habeas petition. And that was that – the end.

As of right now there’s nothing further I can legally file or do in court to try to overturn that California robbery case anymore…

Go ahead and read “EXHIBIT: 6” now. Now you have a THOROUGH understanding of what’s going on, legally, with me trying to get my California Robbery case overturned. You now know the caselaw regarding it as well, and know what, legally, the California Court should have done – but didn’t.

Okay…"EXHIBIT: 7”. This is my Memorandum of law arguing why the U.S. Attorney General’s motion to dismiss my Federal Habeas Corpus petition, should’ve been denied by the Federal Court. However, despite my legal arguments and legal battle about this, I ultimately lost. The arguments in my brief were denied, and my Habeas petition was dismissed on technical, vague Federal statue that said I hadn’t filed my Federal Habeas petition on time.

The Exhibits attached to this “Memorandum of law…”are copies of actual court orders. Wait until you read them- you see ALL those various, legitimate, legal arguments in my Habeas Corpus support brief (Exhibit: 6). THEN read how briefly and flippantly this judge rules on them, while ignoring (and refusing to address or rule on) virtually every single issue I raised.

Now keep in mind, that at that time, I had filed like 3 or 4 SEPARATE state Habeas Corpus petitions, to try to overturn 3 or 4 SEPARATE, different California criminal pleas and convictions. And the law requires that you file a separate Habeas Corpus petition for each separate case. The law also says that once you’ve filed a Habeas Corpus petition for a particular case, and that petition is ruled on and finished, you can’t come back later on with new issues that you forgot to include the first time, and file a second Habeas Corpus petition for the same case.

 Well this judge knew that too. So what he did to try to play games and  confuse my 4 separate Habeas Corpus cases, is while arbitrarily denying my different petitions, he tried to pretend like I was violating court rules and law by filing “successive” or repeated  Habeas Corpus petitions, and trying to raise new issues for the SAME case. And as you can see, his claims as to that were pure lies. He was just being abusive, trying to take advantage, and playing games so that he could break the law, deny the petitions, and deny me my lawful right to a hearing. And I think he was also hoping to confuse the Appeals Court and Supreme Court as well, by trying to lump all my different, individual Habeas petitions together and tying to pretend I was breaking the rules by “harassing” the court with successive identical petitions, for the SAME case.

If you look at the top left hand corner of each of his three court order decisions denying two of my four Habeas petitions I had filed at the time, and that are under “EXIBIT: 7-1, EXHIBIT: 7-4, and EXHIBIT: 7-5”, you can see that he even went as far as to give these three distinctly different Habeas Corpus petitions the SAME court case number of:”SWHSS-5092”. (I only have 3 of the 4 Superior Court Habeas Corpus ruling denial orders, attached as” EXHIBIT: 7-1, EXHIBIT: 7-4, and EXHIBIT: 7-5” to that Memorandum of law. But the one for “EXHIBIT: 7-5” is the most important, because THAT is the one that judge “Krug” made to deny my Habeas petition for the California Robbery case. See how he ignored all my arguments, and cherry picked a few things to “justify’ not giving me a hearing, and denying the grant of my Habeas Corpus petition? He tries to claim that my own exhibits shown to him show that no detainer had been lodged by California with Colorado, prior to around July, 1998, and that I was thus extradited to California within the 180 day allowable period, and thus my “speedy trial rights” were not violated, and that I should not be allowed to overturn my case on grounds that my speedy trial rights were violated. And notice how he disregards all of my other arguments by merely claiming:” The remaining issues raised are without support and without merit”. But notice how he never explains exactly WHY or HOW all of my other claims for relief are without merit. See what I’m talking about?

Now he was right that a letter that I submitted from Colorado D.O.C., as an exhibit, said that the Colorado D.O.C. had no “detainer lodged with this department”. But the Colorado D.O.C. was NOT where the detainer that my speedy trial rights relied on was lodged. The ORIGINAL, first detainer had been filed with Adams County jail while I was housed in the Adams County jail. And if I had been given a chance to PROVE that a detainer was lodged there, during an evidentiary hearing, I could’ve subpoena’d records from the jail to PROVE IT. Such as the detainer records that I ultimately DID subpoena for my Adams County lawsuit several years later.

Now please look at “EXHIBIT: 8”. What does that headline say on the front page of this exhibit? It says: "Detainer-Detainer-Detainer”, at the Adams County sheriff’s Dept. And the date that it was lodged with the jail was on:”1-21-97”. That was WELL before the July, 1998 date that that judge claimed. Now if my incompetent attorney had done just a LITTLE research into whether or not I had had a detainer at the Adams County jail for that California Robbery, back in 1997, she would’ve found this jail detainer form in the jail’s records, and my ENTIRE California Robbery case would’ve been dismissed forever on “12-14-98” on grounds that the prosecutor took too long to take me to trial, and that my speedy trial time-clock DID begin in January, 1998 when I sent my formal speedy trial demand to California through Colorado D.O.C., and NOT in July, 1998 when California filed it’s SECOND detainer (this time with Colorado D.O.C.) as that judge “Krug” tried to twist my evidence around to claim.

So now I have the irrefutable PROOF that a detainer HAD been filed as far back as January 21^st, 1997, and that, thus my speedy trial demand made in January, 1998 WAS valid and that it DID start the 180 days speedy trial time-clock for the prosecutor to take me to trial. But now that my one Habeas Corpus chance is gone, and I was cheated out of my right to an evidentiary hearing, or even to a fair legal ruling, I’m buried.

By the way, EXHIBIT: 1 is a judge “Krug” Habeas Corpus denial order for that California Burglary case I went to prison for back in 1994, that I was trying to get overturned. EXHIBIT: 2 is a copy of the Appeals Court denial order for that case. EXHIBIT: 3 is a copy of the California Supreme Court denial order, upholding judge “Krug’s” abusive games. Then EXHIBIT: 4 is a copy of judge “Krug’s” order denying the Habeas Corpus petition I filed to get my “Escape” charge guilty plea in California, withdrawn. I guess I no longer have the Appeals Court and Supreme Court denials for THIS one.

But you can see how that judge “Krug” plays games and tries to pretend like I’m filing repeated petitions for the same cases, so he can use THAT as excuse to deny some of my petitions as well. Then EXHIBIT: 5, as I said, is “Krug’s” order where he plays more games and refuses to address nearly all of my issues and legal arguments, while cherry picking one, and denying my petition to get my California Robbery guilty plea withdrawn. EXHIBIT: 6 is a copy of the Appeals Court order denying my Habeas Corpus petition, without comment, and upholding judge “Krug’s” abuses and unlawful behavior. EXHIBIT: 7 is a copy of the Supreme Court order denying relief, and turning a blind eye on what judge “Krug” did as well.