Other than hearing it mentioned from time to time, or glancingly reading about it in the newspaper, I knew nothing about this particular agency. In general, I looked upon it as just another layer of bureaucracy that attests to failure of the one above it, a most familiar pattern from the federal down through the most local level.

As implied by the name, Consumer Affairs Office, the alleged purpose of the agency was to see after consumer affairs in the form of protection. In fulfilling its "duties", one function of this office was to receive and process consumer complaints against a named business. This is the route by which I, by indirect means, became directly involved.

A friend doing business in the area decided to see if any complaints had been lodged against him. He called the Consumers Affairs Office and asked about getting copies of complaints. They asked him why he wanted them. Since it was really none of their business why he wanted them, and because he enjoyed rattling bureaucratic cages once in a while, he jokingly replied, "You're being investigated." At this point, they told him that he would be charged a dollar per page of copy. He sent someone to pick up some copies and made a point of getting a receipt for the amount of payment per copy.

Later, when he told me of the incident, he suggested doing an actual investigation of the office and asked if I would do it. I agreed to do it assuming just a cursory look and some minor inquiries would be the extent of it. Not knowing much about this bureau, I began with the highly visible. Brief legal research revealed a breach of statutory law in the charge for the copies in that the allowed charge could not exceed the cost of copying. When they were informed and asked to justify such cost, they returned the overcharge.

I did not know if this price set on a copy was from ignorance, or an attempt to hinder an investigation. It did, however, serve to peak my curiosity about the office. The next highly visible point of investigation dealt with the number of complaints handled by the office. Numerous times, I had seen in the newspaper the Director's claim of handling around 10,000 complaints per year.

I went to the Consumers Affairs Office and requested to see all the files generated since the office began. Since I had not been openly involved in the copy scene, I was not known to them. They assumed that I was doing some kind of research project and suspected nothing. I was directed to two rooms with filing cabinets and left to view as I wished. I selected a few cases to have copied and to look into more thoroughly at home. While I was selecting these files, I was also doing a manual count of all the files in existence. When I finished, I verified by the office personnel that I had been shown ALL the files. This was of critical importance due to the frequent claim of the Director about the number of files handled. She had claimed the handling of around 10,000 complaints per year. Since the Office was over five years old, there was supposed to be in excess of 50,000 complaints. Imagine my surprise when my count revealed the existence of only slightly over 9,000 for the entire five years and four months that the office had been in operation. The shortfall of 40 odd thousand complaints whetted my curiosity even more.

Examining the files that I had copied didn't help to brighten the picture for the office. Whoever had done the pencil work on most of these complaints was obviously incapable of dealing with fourth grade level arithmetic. It was chaos. The figures often didn't jell at all. This led to another move that I had not anticipated earlier: Cost\return analysis: After securing some more complaints to get a better average, and then straightening out the arithmetic in a manner to at least make it coherent, the cost analysis ratios showed that if a fund had been established to pay out the dollar claim of each complaint, it would have cost the taxpayers less than office handling and "settling" such matters.

After preparing considerable documentation, we took the issue to the County Commissioners who had established this office via a local Ordinance. These meetings were private one to one situations in an effort to get individual attitudes. Of the five Commissioners, only one was likely to be interested as he had opposed the office from the beginning, whereas, the other four were in favor of it, and as expected, were more concerned with making excuses and offering "justification" than dealing with the facts of the matter.

By this time, word of the investigation and the results were beginning to spread. It became a topic on local talk radio, and I began to receive calls and visits from newspaper reporters. It garnered enough attention that on one occasion, two tv stations' cameramen and crews arrived at my door almost at the same time. Questions were asked as the cameras rolled. The situation was clearly escalating.

As stated above, in the beginning, I started from the highly visible and worked my way in. I had no "contacts", no "sources", no "deep throat." The publicity changed this. Eventually, I was privy to inter-office memos; conversation in various places, including the State Attorney's Office, and covert notes of various content and import. Most of all, I was contacted by one infinitely familiar with the situation, and who had problems with the Consumer Affairs Office from day one. This person, whom I shall call the Intermediary was most helpful in many ways.

At this point, envision this picture. I was opposing a fraudulent Consumer Affairs Office allegedly designed to oppose fraud. To make matters even worse, this office was affiliated with the State Attorney's office whose lawful obligation is to prosecute fraud. This is the atmosphere and attitude in which I was investigating and pursuing the demise of the fraudulent office.

Via the Intermediary, the "cause" got somewhat of a boost. He sent me a copy of the recently revised Ordinance under which the office operates. What I had read in the newspaper about this revision was not at all what I read in the Ordinance itself. The lies printed were so blatant as to be almost unbelievable; which was to cause me considerable problems in the area of convincing. This proved especially difficult as I soon discovered that the largest newspaper in the area was very very cozy with the Consumer Affairs Office and was most reluctant to print anything negative about it.

The newspaper had been reporting that the revision of the Ordinance increased board membership from three to five and delegated more authority to them. The truth was the revision decreased the board membership from five to three and by some deletions and additions culminated in making the Director the nearly sole authority in the operation. This was in such a clear manner that I did not consider it possible that it was a matter of "misinterpretation" and misunderstanding. I knew this allocation of dictatorial power to be deliberate and the lying to the newspapers deliberate as well. (This is not to mention the other numerous illegalities that saturated the document).

To expose this element of more fraud, I wrote a letter to the newspaper (Letters To The Editor section). A couple of weeks went by and my letter never appeared. I took names from some of the letters that did, called then and asked when their letters had been submitted. They were all much later than mine. I sent this information to the Editor and asked why my letter had not been published.

In response, I received a telephone call from said editor. He hummed and hawed about what they had been told and implied that my information must be in error. He asked if I thought they were trying to keep from publishing my letter. I informed him that this was exactly what I thought. Eventually, my letter did appear in the paper and the second major issue now came under much scrutiny and discussion. I think the only reason that they finally published my letter is because of two smaller newspapers in the area who were not so friendly with the office. I think the editor understood that if he did not publish my letter, it would be found in another paper with the notation that he refused to publish it. Still, the editor and some of the reporters continued to try to bury the story by discrediting me as the source. A reporter would call, ask a question, receive my answer - then print not my answer, but something he had made up to suit his purpose. After dealing with this by a corrective letter to the editor a time or two, I simply refused to answer any question unless they would put it in writing, then publish my answer as written.

After going around and around with this newspaper for several months, the editor called me one day and said that he had sent a reporter to investigate the matter. The reporter obtained a copy of the revised Ordinance and concluded that I was right all along. At this time, the editor said the reporter would be publishing an article on the matter in Thursday's paper and cite my involvement. However, it didn't happen quite this way, but it did happen at least part way. The article was published on Sunday, but there was no mention of me and my involvement that lead up to the article. Still, it was quite interesting. The reporter confronted one of the assistant State Attorneys about the Ordinance saying one thing while giving different information to the newspaper and public. He hit the assistant State Attorney straight on with the delegation of dictatorial power issue. The assistant attorney's response was really incredible: "I don't know how that got in there - and I wrote the damn thing." - Unreal, huh?

Wondering what else had been lied about, I sent some inquires investigating the Director's resume, which to me was highly suspect since it claimed credentials that didn't jell with the rest of the scene. A rather interesting thing happened in this pursuit. Early one morning, the Intermediary called me and suggested that I go get a copy of the most recent edition of a small newspaper in an adjoining city. This I did, and much to my amazement, therein were the answers to the questions I had asked about the Director's resume. Unknown to me, an investigative reporter for the small paper had been looking into this matter for some time. Not surprisingly, she came up with information showing that the Director had lied again and again on her resume. It was all right there in this little paper. Upon publishing this information, it was denied by the Director and the newspaper was threatened with a lawsuit if they did not retract the story. Fat chance. The reporter had done a thorough job and the editor was not about to back up; nor did the Director file suit as threatened. (Later, this reporter and I worked together in corroboration certain elements in the case).

I was also threatened with a lawsuit for libel and slander for stating that a certain radio station was being used to dispense propaganda and fraudulent information about the Consumer Affairs Office to the public. (The Director was a regular feature on this station.) What prompted the threat was a letter I sent to the station owner\manager stating this most directly. His letter to me said that he had turned the matter over to his attorneys and if I did not cease making such statements, I would be sued. In turn, I informed him (by letter) that libel and slander suits depend on lies, not the truths that I was stating. To clear up the matter, I suggested that we have an on-the-air meeting to resolve the issue. I volunteered to make the same statements on his radio station, have it recorded, and argue the points with him, the Director, or any number of lawyers he wished to bring. I heard no more about the threatened suit although I stepped up the accusations).

At this point in the proceedings, it had been clearly and irrefutable shown that the Director had repeatedly lied about the number of complaints handled and the economic value of the office. The assistant State Attorney publicly admitted the delegation of authority thing in the revised Ordinance; in effect, admitting that the public had been lied to on this matter as well. The investigative reporter had conclusively shown that the Director lied on her resume. This looks like three strikes to me and one might think that this was enough to end the charade of "public service." Not so. Combine general gullibility of most with the circling of the political wagons toned the propaganda down a bit, but the "good ol' boys" were well entrenched and were going to protect "their own."

In the course of my investigation, I had discovered that the Director frequently issued declarative statement and\or innuendo that damaged the reputation of a business or person without justification. In one instance, I contacted a toy manufacturer in NY to get some facts on his product. After reading the newspaper article I sent him wherein the Director had made several erroneous statement about the product, he compelled a retraction, or else a lawsuit. He got the retraction.

I didn't know how widespread this action was until the Intermediary called and said that several businessmen in the area were willing to finance a lawsuit to get rid of the office. After making financial arrangements toward this end, I did some more legal investigation and came up with the general complaint on constitutional grounds. With this, I compiled state statutory law, federal codes and a very long list of court decisions supporting my conclusions. In short, I put the case together. Problem. I wasn't an attorney, so I couldn't handle the case in court. Then came the search for an attorney and things went from bad to worse.

Neither I nor the Intermediary knew of an attorney that we could trust to handle the case. An individual on the fringe of the action suggested his personal attorney. I agreed to meet with said attorney for a discussion or two to determine if he was suitable. When I did meet with the attorney, I took with me the general complaint form, a trial brief of around 30 pages with supporting legal references. I left this with the attorney for his perusal so that he could get some idea of what was going on. He was to call me later and we would continue the discussion and see if we could reach an agreement. I had stated certain conditions in the initial meeting: Itemized accounting of all expenditures, copies of all documents sent or received, and my approval for actions.

I did not receive any call from this attorney. What I did receive from this joker a few days later was a bill; a bill for "additional research" - without any details, and which had not been agreed upon; especially so, since this attorney had not even been hired. To cap off this bill, was a charge of $500, but no mention of what for.

I imagine you can pretty well guess what kind of a letter I wrote to this "law dog." (SOB) I refused to pay for the ripoff. However, the person who recommend this attorney simply would not believe he was such a crook. So, the Intermediary and this person negotiated a settlement; a settlement wherein they would take the responsibility for taking the money out of the fund, and furthermore, I wanted all of the papers involved including some explanation of the mysterious $500 charge. Eventually, I got the papers, and the scene got more incredible.

The $500 charge? This clown had taken my 30 page trial brief and sent it to a legal research firm upstate. What came back was at least 50 counts of undeniable plagiarism. Sometimes, their "research" was verbatim of what was in my brief. Other times, only a word or two had been changed. To top off this insanity of stealing and butchering my work, to make it appear that they had done something, they threw in a case of two which at best were repetitious, and at worst, irrelevant and distracting to the issue. One of their cases was admitted to be in the area of jurisdiction. What in the hell this had to do with a constitutional suit they did not say. What the whole thing did do was show what a joke this so called expert research facility really is.

So, here we were without attorney again. The Intermediary had spoken to one that said he was very interested in the case. I called the attorney. On the phone, he indicated that he was willing to go along with my condition. I met with him. I signed his attorney-client contract, and he signed my client-attorney contract, which not only spelled things out in detail, but had a clause that in case of disagreement, my contract superseded his.

I left him with the papers and in a few days, the suit was filed. Trouble in river city. This attorney failed to follow procedure and the Defense had it dismissed immediately. I knew full well that in filing such a suit that it is required to send a copy to the state Attorney General. I assumed this attorney knew it too, so I didn't mention it during our meeting. Things didn't get better.

The magical $500 figure pops up again. This ? sent me a bill for $500 for refiling the Complaint. Aside from the fact that the whole cost, including a copy to the Attorney General, was probably around $50, he expected me to pay for HIS blunder. Not in this lifetime! I sent this "attorney at flaw" a letter stating that if I know that I owe, I pay immediately. If in doubt, I pay as well. However, if I know that I don't owe, I am damn hard to collect from. What I was doing was inviting him to take me to court to try to collect. I actually hoped that he would. He sent no more bills and I never saw or heard from him again.

By this time, I had had it with these arrogant, asinine, thieving pretenders and their tactics of larceny. I had no confidence that I could find an attorney with the know how and honesty to adequately handle the case. One more attorney like the last two and I was going to feel like hurting somebody. So, I decided enough is enough. What remained of the fund, I returned to the contributors.

The Office was not abolished, but all the action and unfavorable publicity sure took a lot of wind out of its sails. The Director was still making noises when I moved from the area, but there weren't too many listening. Still, politics goes on with the podium and power paid for by the ever-gullible who imagine they are being protected even as they are being robbed.

..... Delmar England