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At the age of 20, on January 16, 1969, about 8:00 pm, I was crossing the bridge between Manhattan and the Bronx, in New York City, driving my six days old Chevrolet Station Wagon. Since I had a company car, I wouldn’t have been driving my personal vehicle under normal circumstances. But that day I had taken my new Station Wagon to the Chevrolet Dealer to have them install the required brackets for the transportation of my new .22 caliber hunting rifle on the interior of the rear door. My friend Johnny and I had a planned trip to go hunting small animals in Monticello, New York. I was employed by Mink Furs, Inc. and that day I had way over $30,000.00 worth of Mink fur coats in my Station Wagon. I didn’t like the smell, so I opened the windows. As I gather all these details in my mind, I can clearly perceive how the combination of events played a role in what took place that evening in the middle of that bridge.
I cannot help wondering if our human experiences are pre-determined, at least sometimes. For example, if my last customer that fatal day hadn’t delayed my departure from her apartment, I wouldn’t have met 29 years old Mr. [REDACTED]. If my windows had not been down, I would have probably ignored Mr.[REDACTED]’s immature conduct of blowing the horn of his car constantly under the awareness that the cars were moving very slow and that I could not drive any faster. Had I had not taken the exam to become a police officer, I wouldn’t have tried to conduct a citizen arrest, which is the fact that caused Mr.[REDACTED]’s impulsive decision to pull the rifle out of my hands by the barrel, which caused the weapon to discharge and thus the lamentable death of Mr.[REDACTED] at 9:20 pm, on the floor of that bridge.
Had I been in a better mood, I had not shown Mr.[REDACTED] my middle finger in reaction to the loud sound of his car’s horn. Had I not shown Mr.[REDACTED] my middle finger, he probably would not have rear ended my new Station Wagon with his car, which caused me to make the bad decision to conduct a citizen arrest, just as I had read about through my ARCO Manual. Had Mr.[REDACTED] remained driving behind my Station Wagon, instead of changing to the left lane and subsequently back to the right lane on front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to write down his car’s Plate Number. Had Mr.[REDACTED] not seen me writing down the Plate Number of his car through his rear-view mirror, most likely he would have not gotten out of his car in rage to confront me, which resulted in my pre-determined decision to conduct a citizen arrest after he threatened my life and seem to be under the effects of drugs. He made me believe that he had a gun.
We had stopped the traffic. A man driving one of those cars was an off-duty police officer. He approached me from behind while I was waiting for the cigarette lighter of my Station Wagon to come out and placed the barrel of his weapon on my head. Subsequently he demanded my handgun. I informed him that I didn’t have a handgun and that I was on the job, which was a misstatement, because I was not a police officer. He handcuffed me behind my back and slapped me with all his power on top of my left ear, knocking me to the floor, notwithstanding the fact that I had surrendered without any resistance. He continued demanding my handgun. He had his winter boot on my head, and my head was still spinning from the blow, so I couldn’t answer him. The civilian from the car just behind my Station Wagon, informed him that I had a rifle inside my Station Wagon. While aiming his gun at me, he retrieved the rifle from the rear of my Station Wagon and replaced the discharged bullet of my bolt action small rifle.
He had the prosecutor charge me with Murder in the First Degree and Attempted Murder, falsely claiming that it was me who had replaced the bullet in the chamber to point my rifle at him. Making it sound as if he had acted heroically. My attorney managed to get enough witnesses to have the Attempted Murder allegation deleted. Mr.[REDACTED] had left his fingerprints on the barrel of my rifle and we had the favorable statements from the witnesses to take the case to trial, but when I heard that Mr.[REDACTED]’s wife had suffered a miscarriage due to the news of the death of her husband, I assumed full responsibility for his death against the legal advice of my private attorney and pled guilty to manslaughter.
The judge sentenced me to ten years in prison, out of which I served less than four, including the ten months at the New York City Jail waiting for trial. Subsequently, I served the rest of my sentence under Parole supervision. At the completion, my civil rights were restored and I led a decent life. I paid my taxes and donated funds from time to time. All was going well until 1981, when Janet Reno and the Haar family of law enforcement agents decided to punish me with a false charge of molestation, which is well documented through my first blogs.
My attorney Jeffrey William Samek told me that Judge Robert Newman and Prosecutor John Hogan had plans to make me pay for the death of Mr.[REDACTED], because as Samek and Michael Lee Von Zamft (Iliana’s attorney), they too are Jewish. I have documented this fact before through other documents. I never had a winning chance under those circumstances. I was the victim of a conspiracy by those that had power over the outcome of my trials…. However, I complied with my function to speak the truth clearly and without fear at every opportunity. Nothing else was under my control. I didn’t have any other spiritual legal or moral duty. I have a clean conscious as a result, from where I am drafting my blogs.
Most sincerely,
FRANCISCO FUSTER-ESCALONA.