Posted on 05/22/2014 1:30:32 PM PDT by windcliff
Two more men have been arrested in connection with a bizarre alleged scheme to illegally photograph the elderly wife of Sen. Thad Cochran—a scandal that already has shaken up the state’s Republican primary.
Mark Mayfield, a lawyer and board member of the Central Mississippi tea party, has been charged with conspiracy. And Richard Sager has been charged with tampering of evidence and conspiracy, report’s Mississippi’s WLBT, citing a lawyer for political blogger Clayton Kelly.
Kelly, who is said to go by the nickname “Constitutional Clayton,” was charged Friday with breaking into a nursing home in order to photograph Cochran’s wife, Rose, who has been a patient there since 2000. Rose Cochran is reportedly bedridden and suffering from dementia.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
Clever sleight of hand.
It wasn’t the AUTHORITIES that waited two weeks to bring charges. That happened within a couple of days of having the information.
It was the Cochran campaign that waited two WEEKS to even ALERT the authorities.
Why’d they wait two + WEEKS to even contact the popo about the incident?
Why’d the campaign wait several days before they even told Thad about it?
Would you wait two WEEKS to contact the popo if it were YOUR spouse? Would you fire employees who waited even a millisecond to tell you about something like this, much less several days?
She’s been there 14 years?
.
Why am I not surprised with your response? Clairvoyance is a rare talent, but you seem to have it in spades.
So why did the Cochrans wait two WEEKS to bother to contact the authorities?
And then only after the story about Kay Webber became local news?
Because most people can’t understand that delay. Human beings would pick up the phone and call right away.
Who’s really running the campaign if they thought they had latitude to even avoid telling the husband about this immediately after it happened?
The dirty trick, as far as I know, was pulled by the other guys. Sure the timing was good to help the campaign, but the dirtiness started and, IMO, ended with the guys taking the photo and posting it online.
(And I hope Cochran loses to McDaniel.)
Just reading that link made me furious. What a horrible man. He’s tossed is wife aside as if she was a bag of trash.
I’d like to say more about him but this is family time on FR. :-).
.
I’m probably one of the few posters on this thread who actually votes in Mississippi. I have my opinions and am not shy about expressing them. I am not a fan of Sen McDaniel but if he wins in a fair and honorable way I will vote for him in the general election as I have done for more than fifty years. I have never failed to vote, and I have not voted for a democrat.
Having said that, it troubles me greatly to watch people eating their young while the real targets of our wrath should have (D)in front of their names, as in Pelosi and Reid.
I’ve heard all of the rhetoric before so I would just as soon not be corrupted by it.
Not voting for senator Amnesty Cochran no matter what.
If McDaniel did do this, not voting for him either, obviously.
We know Cochran is a horrible man by how he’s treated his own kin, wife and the mother of his children. McDaniel might be a horrible man, yet to be determined.
Politicians are like diapers, should be changed often and for the same reasons. 6 terms is 5 terms too many.
Have you been robo-polled as many times this week as we have?
I agree. I would not take anything for granted here, though, as far as who did it, and who was supposed to be made to look bad, etc.
But I can’t find any information as to how they did it. I’ll bet that at least one poor employee will get fired. Did they pose as visitors, doctors, repair people, what? Cable guys and people like that are supposed to have IDs. Because of medical privacy and also very real concerns about residents’ safety, most places aren’t just going tort anybody waltz into a nursing home and do what they want, especially with senile dementia residents.
I’ve never been to Mississippi, and don’t know anything about this race, but I will say that the position that the Cochrans are in is a very tough one and I believe McDaniel when he said that he didnt orchestrate it and his campaign didnt. Until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins, most people aren’t going to go there with Cochran. This is why I think it might be somebody wanting to make tea party people look bad. I think that there have already been phony tea parties and tea partiers creating distractions.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/22/two-more-arrests-in-cochran-photo-probe-in-mississippi/
Cochran campaign spokesman Jordan Russell said the Cochran camp learned about the video shortly after it was posted April 26 because they received text alerts or calls. He said Cochran hired an attorney, who investigated and gave information to police in Madison last Thursday.
One might legitimately call into question as to why he hired an attorney to investigate who then took several weeks to turn that information over to the police. OTOH, we don’t know if the authorities were contacted sooner or what if anything they were actually doing about it. Generally speaking the local police aren’t so good at investigating things like “someone posted a picture of my loved one in a nursing home on their Face Book page or You Tube account without my permission”, etc. Try it sometime and let me know how that turns out for you. I’m not saying this was the case but I can also see why he and his camping might get his attorney and or a private investigator involved. The nursing home might also have some liability if they allowed this to happen or looked the other way or if any of their employees were involved, so that might on that front turn out to also be a matter for a civil suit in which case getting an attorney involved would make sense and might be something I would do myself.
BTW, this was hardly a ‘private’ nursing home she was in. Apparently she was in her room with the door open and anyone visiting any of the other patients there could look in and see her. Lots of people take lots of pictures in nursing homes. I haven’t seen a ‘cameras and photographs prohibited’ sign at any of the ones I’ve ever been in. And I’ve seen a lot of pics posted on facebook that were clearly shot in a nursing home with who knows who in the background of the intended photographed subjects.
That’s not what happened here and you know it. Happening to walk by nursing home or a hospital room with the door open and happening to see the patient in that room or inadvertently catching someone in the background of a picture that you are taking of a loved one you are there to visit is vastly different from going to this nursing home and purposely taking pictures of one patient in particular, someone you don’t know or have any connection to other than for the express purpose of taking and using those pictures to smear someone (whether they deserve a smearing or not) on a public forum like You Tube. That’s not cool. No way no how. It would be somewhat analogous to sneaking into political candidate’s child’s school and taking pictures of their kindergartener in the bathroom and posting a video saying so and so is such a bad person and a bad parent that his child had an accident in his pants.
And FWIW, I’ve over the years had family members and close friends in nursing homes and in hospice care and in ICU and, or at least all those I’ve ever been to, you just don’t walk in the front door and go in and out of patient rooms at will. At a minimum, you sign in and often have to tell someone at the desk who you are visiting, how you are related to them or know them, sign a visitors’ log, and sometimes even have to show a photo ID or even leave your ID at the front desk before being given a visitor badge and only get it back after turning in your visitors’ badge and signing back out.
How Cochran and his campaign handled the situation and whether or not they handled it they way any of us would or should have; that still does not negate what Clayton Kelly and the others involved in taking those pictures of Cochran’s wife and posting it did before that. Two wrongs do not make a right. And perhaps what Cochran did after the fact was less than honorable and he used it to his advantage, that doesn’t change what happened in the first place – that shouldn’t have happened. Cochran’s wife certainly was and is in no position to agreeing to this and no moral or upstanding or right thinking person would sneak into a nursing home and take pictures of an invalid.
He’s tossed is wife aside as if she was a bag of trash.
We know Cochran is a horrible man by how he’s treated his own kin, wife and the mother of his children. McDaniel might be a horrible man, yet to be determined.
Cochran’s wife has been in a nursing home for, not for a few weeks or months but for some 14 years now, she is completely bedridden and has been for some time now, unable to speak or recognize anyone; she is the last stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s. Her husband could sit at her bedside 24-7 and it wouldn’t make at bit of difference. She is being cared for and hasn’t exactly been “abandoned”.
We can question the “morality” of Cochran’s relationship with another woman, whether that is proper given that his wife is still “technically” alive and perhaps calling that relationship into question is fair game, but taking pictures of this poor invalid woman is quite beyond the pale. Attack Cochran on his voting record and attack him hard, but IMO neither side should be making his is wife a political pawn.
I think Ive figured it out. He posed as some sort of contractor who was also one of those people too poor to afford picture ID.
Do you vote in Mississippi?
;-)
What don’t you like about McDaniel?
(I’m from halfway across the country and hadn’t heard of him previously.)
“Her husband could sit at her bedside 24-7 and it wouldn’t make at bit of difference. She is being cared for and hasn’t exactly been “abandoned”.
It certainly does make a difference. The sound of a voice,or a touch,can be comforting. Even in the best of nursing homes the resident with regular family visits gets more attention.
No one expects this man to stay there 24 hours a day,but frequent,regular visits would be nice.
.
.
McDaniel was on Mark Levin today. Levin made a point of not asking him about this affair, instead they talked about Cochran’s position on amnesty and stuff.
About not going to the police? Not sure about that. Maybe they weren’t sure that it was a police matter. But I would have damn well read the riot act to the administrator and threatened to move Mrs Cochran elsewhere. Laws governing these places vary from state to state, but if she’s in such an advanced state of dementia it’s probably the type of place that falls under HIPPA. Places like that are supposed to put resident safety FIRST. I’m sorry to say that a lot of the violent crimes like rape against vulnerable people are perpetrated from in-house, such as nursing assistants, but still. That’s why I was curious how they got away with it. Who knows, maybe a fire exit was propped open or something. Still memory care type places are usually alarmed in case confused residents wander out.
Incorrecto. I said nothing about all Tea Party members. By both sides I was referring to this specific primary campaign - scum on both sides. Mark Mayfield was arrested and is reportedly the VP of the Mississippi Tea Party. Unlike some I won't mute criticism of someone if they just happen to belong to some group I like.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.