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Justina Pelletier (left) had reportedly gone over a year without her vital medications when alleged “guardian hacktivist” Marty Gottesfeld (right) interceded to save her. (Pelletier and Gottesfeld family photos, respectively)
If a picture is worth a thousand words then a movie is worth a million:
The video above is of medical kidnapping survivor Justina Pelletier. My name is Marty Gottesfeld and I fought to save her life. For those who aren't familiar with our cases, here is brief synopsis written by Michelle Malkin after she came to Boston and interviewed my wife Dana:
Dana’s husband, Marty, faces felony charges of computer hacking and conspiracy related to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in April 2014 against Boston Children’s [Hospital] and the nearby Wayside Youth and Family Support Network residential treatment. Marty had organized a social media army to knock the computer networks of both institutions offline to protest the medical kidnapping of then-15-year-old Justina Pelletier. Hackers from the loose-knit collective, Anonymous, allegedly participated in the campaign.
Justina’s plight had become international news in Marty’s backyard. One fateful winter day in February 2013, Justina traveled with her mom to BCH [Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH)] from her West Hartford, Connecticut, home, seeking relief from a severe case of the flu. Ordinary sickness compounded Justina’s rare medical conditions, including mitochondrial disease and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. But those illnesses hadn’t stopped her from participating in school, competitive ice skating and an active family life.
Instead of receiving top-notch care and attention at BCH, however, Justina was snatched from her parents and recklessly re-diagnosed with a psychological condition, “somatoform disorder.” She was dragged from BCH’s neurology department to its infamous psych ward, where she was reprimanded for being unable to move her bowels or walk unassisted in her weakened state. At Wayside, she was harassed by a staffer while taking a shower. The physical and mental torture lasted 16 months.
The family is now suing the gold medallion-adorned, scandal-plagued Boston Children’s Hospital.
“They tried to break us all,” Justina’s dad, Lou, told me at his West Hartford home, where Justina fights to recover from post-traumatic stress and physical deterioration suffered while she was held hostage.
But the arrogant, tunnel-visioned torturers failed. Thanks to an aggressive awareness-raising campaign by an eclectic coalition including Justina’s family, the Christian Defense Coalition’s Rev. Pat Mahoney, conservative media personalities and left-leaning critics of the Massachusetts child welfare bureaucracy, Justina was eventually freed and reunited with her parents.
Marty G’s DDoS attacks were an instrumental catalyst at a time when Justina’s family faced a gag order for speaking out.
Michelle's full article is available at her website here. Or, to watch Justina tell her story in her own words, (warning: adjust your speakers first, video may autoplay) click here for her interview with Beau Berman, who would go on to win two Edward R. Murrow Awards for his coverage on Justina's case. Yet another option is to watch the interview which Justina and her family gave to Governor Mike Huckabee on Fox News, which spares younger audiences from some of the scariest details:
It's also worth noting that the Pelletiers went to every state and federal authority that they could reach during their struggle to save their daughter. They tried everyone from the Boston Police Department to the State Attorney General, the Governor and the FBI. They even filed a federal habeas corpus petition on Justina's behalf.
But under President Obama and Deval Patrick (D-MA), who was the governor of Massachusetts at the time, no law enforcement agency would help them.
Indeed, as Michelle Malkin also found:
It’s all about power, prestige and pull in the top echelons of the Bay State’s medical community, many New Englanders have informed me. BCH’s teaching affiliate is Harvard Medical School. The ties between and among influential and wealthy alumni in the realms of health care, politics and the courts are innumerable.
It’s a network that’s “practically untouchable,” Dana explained.
And like the third rail, those who dare challenge these renowned institutions risk great danger to their freedom and their lives.
Eventually, as detailed by Michelle and others, Justina's family found themselves put under a gag order imposed by Massachusetts Judge Joseph Johnston. They weren't allowed to speak to the media about what was happening to Justina.
Additionally, they found themselves put under a separate order which was also reportedly enacted at the insistence of Boston Children's. It forbade them from discussing Justina's care and treatment (or lack thereof) by the hospital staff both during their 1-hour weekly in-person visits, which were chaperoned by armed guards, as well as during their 20-minute weekly monitored telephone calls.
By the time Justina finally returned home 16 months into her ordeal, she had lost almost all the feeling below her hips and she remains in a wheelchair today, more than four years later. During Justina's time at Boston Children's, staff ripped her toenails by letting her feet drag on the floor as they pushed her wheelchair, they left her staring at a blank wall for hours or days when she couldn't move herself elsewhere, they refused to let her attend Mass and take Communion, and they even hid her birthday presents from her, all according to Justina's firsthand accounts in the interviews above as well as the lawsuit which the Pelletiers filed against the hospital and four of its doctors and which has now been slowly working its way through Massachusetts Superior Court for nearly the exact same 28 month period that I've been locked up.
And all of this allegedly happened in America at a very well-connected #1 ranked Harvard-affiliated children's hospital. It seems that it wasn't the first time that something like this had happened there either, nor even the second. Rather, it appeared to be just the latest example of the consistent pattern of abuse dating back at least twenty years.
When her family announced their lawsuit against Boston Children's, Justina told the assembled press that she really wanted to be able to walk and skate again.
Yet while there has been no federal prosecution of the hospital nor any of its staff for civil rights violations nor healthcare fraud, and further, while there is a fine American legal tradition of legitimately acting in the defense of others, especially innocent children like Justina – and especially when the authorities can't or won't intercede in time – the FBI immediately began targeting me for protecting Justina at the alleged financial cost of her tormentors. And they’ve had a lot of help.
For example, as you can read over at The New American here, Marianne B. Bowler, who is the federal magistrate judge who approved the search warrant application for my home and first ordered me held without bail, was also the Director of The Boston Foundation, which raises thousands of dollars for Justina's tormentors. Additionally, Bowler's husband, Dr. Marc Pfeffer, is a Harvard Medical School professor and salaried employee of one of the “other Harvard-University-affiliated hospitals” to which the search warrant application refers in its eighth paragraph. Another apparent conflict of interest – Bowler herself worked as a research assistant at Harvard Medical School before she embarked on her legal career and the search warrant application specifically alleges that research was interrupted at Harvard Medical School's affiliate, Boston Children's Hospital (in their lawsuit, the Pelletiers allege that the hospital used Justina as an experimental research subject.)
Interestingly, according to this sworn affidavit, it was the federal court itself which appointed Bowler to the Board of The Boston Foundation.
So, perhaps it's no small wonder then, that the front of the search warrant application is dated September 30th, 2014, while the warrant itself is dated the day before, September 29th, 2014.
Subsequently, since Federal Trial Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton started presiding over my case, we have learned that he was on the board of advisors at an organization called The Home For Little Wanderers and that he donated to The Home around the time of my arrest. Now, it also turns out that The Home For Little Wanderers is a longtime partner of Boston Children's Hospital and indeed, around the same time that Judge Gorton was cutting them a check, the hospital also donated $50,000 to The Home. Further, it appears from The Home’s website that it helps adopt out kids like Justina after their parents are stripped of custody, and indeed at one point, there were attempts to put Justina on a path towards adoption. Additionally, Magistrate Judge Bowler's Boston Foundation, which again raises substantial funds for Justina's tormentors, also appears to solicit online donations for The Home For Little Wanderers itself.
Yet, neither Judge Gorton nor Magistrate Judge Bowler recused themselves from my case, which it seems the law required them to do. Specifically, 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) mandates that any federal judge “shall disqualify himself [or herself] in any proceeding in which his [or her] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Tellingly though, while she stayed on my case, Magistrate Judge Bowler did recuse herself from another matter involving Boston Children's Hospital just ten days before she denied me bail to eulogize my recently deceased father.
And now, while Judge Gorton fails to recuse himself, he has ruled that I won't be allowed to mention what happened to Justina at my trial. As far as my jury is concerned, it will be as if her suffering at the hands of the people who donated to Judge Gorton’s charity never happened. To read about how my prosecutors David J. D'Addio and Seth Kosto (who have their own apparent conflicts of interest) made this unfair federal show trial happen, you can (again, lower your speaker volume beforehand) click here.
But regardless of what happens to me, Justina knows all too well what happened to her. She thanked me at the end of her Rolling Stone interview. To read that article, click here, but I must note that while Rolling Stone did a good job getting the critical details of Justina's story correct, many if not most of the specifics of my background are at best partially incorrect, not that they matter as much.
What does matter though, if I may address Justina for a moment: Justina, young lady, you're welcome. You are worth it. And I hope that someday soon you will walk and skate again.
Marty Gottesfeld defended former figure skater Justina Pelletier when she was maimed at Harvard-affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital. The Obama administration arrested him in February 2016, and he’s being held without bail by judges with apparent conflicts of interest. See FreeMartyG.com, the FreeMartyG Facebook page and the @FreeMartyG Twitter account for more information.
