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My comments on reimbursment of Assistant Principal Ting-Yi Oei for legal expenses incurred when he was wrongfully prosecuted for doing his job in a 'sexting' incident.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Comments on Ting-Yi Oei Reimbursement
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8 Comments:
It's good of the school board to reimburse Mr. Oei his costs of defending himself. I think, John, you have the right attitude about Mr. Oei's liability.
My question is why this must come from the school's budget and not the county's budget? Why was this allowed to continue for so long? Why didn't school and / or the school board take a more proactive stance with the prosecutor's office?
Based on the story in the Post a few month's ago, this situation was obviously a case where we have an out of control prosecutor's office running a witch hunt that had no room for examining the context of actions taken. The prosecutor should have dropped this case as soon as it was picked up. It's almost grounds for impeachment of Jim Plowman!
As county residents, we now must see our tax dollars go to both sides of a court case which only served to distract from the real problems we have in this county. Thank you, Mr. Plowman, for giving us 1 less teacher in next year's budget.
If the charges against Mr. Oei were so wrongful, then why did a Grand Jury indict him? The charges were dropped only because Judge Horne had a different opinion on what constitutes child pornography than did Mr. Plowman.
Even if one believes Mr. Oei should be reimbursed for his legal bills, the reasonableness of the fees was questioned by LCPS Counsel Bill Chapman. It was his opinion that the charges were excessive and he recommended that LCPS should only pay $60,000. Why was LCPS so quick to pay the full amount of $167,000? Is this amount in addition to the $35,000 or $70,000 he will recieve from an insurance policy provided through the VEA?
The prosecutor manipulated the grand jury. When only one side is presented by an "legal expert" it is very easy to mislead people. That is why it is best to remember innocent until proven guilty. Even a incompetent prosector can "indict a ham sandwich!"
I did not know it was the job of an LCPS administrator to obtain an inappropriate picture of a minor student from another student and keep it on his personal cell phone. From his own story of the ordeal in his letter to the Washington Post, Mr. Oei said he did inform his principle of the 'sexting' picture, which was proper procedure, and she instructed him to transfer it to his OFFICE computer. There is no excuse for the picture ending up on his personal cell phone where it was discovered a few weeks later by sheriff investigators. I think it is odd he did not immediately delete the picture after it was transferred to his office computer where it belonged. I would speculate that had the picture been transferred directly from the student's cell phone to his office computer, no charges would have been filed. Mr. Oei made a big mistake and taxpayers should not have to pay for it!
The smear campaign that has been launched against Mr. Plowman is uncalled for. He did nothing improper.
Mr. Plowman, a social concervative in a blueing election district, choose to gamble his next chance at reelection on a risky high profile sex case. He apparently thought that by upping the ante with bogus child porn charges he could force Oei with limited resources into pleading gulty to a lesser charge and resign.
If Oei had cooperated Plowman would have had the perfect election theme: keeping loudoun free of sex perverts. Fortunately his strategy failed and now even valid child pornography cases are going to cost more to prosecute because Plowman's gamble means that no one can assume that the prosecution is being honest.
I encourage you to read Plowman's letter to the editor in the Loudoun Independent and compare it to the facts exposed by the court system and reported by multiple independent journalists to see how Plowman is willing to ignore facts and twist the details to further his political ambitions. Plowman is a bad-bad-prosecutor and none of us are safe from malicious prosecution with him in power.
Ed: Let's talk about the opinion of the court. Oei's lawyers filed a frivolous motion to have Plowman dismissed on the grounds he was biased. The judge ruled in favor of Plowman, saying he has done nothing out of the ordinary. To say he has been prejudice, biased, or overzealous is a bunch of hooey. It is no wonder Oei's legal bills were so high and the timeline so long when the defense was spending time on frivolous stuff like this.
Mr. Plowman's letter to the Loudoun Independent was a well-written explanation of the facts by a prosecutor who took an oath to serve the public and is far more credible than a reporter trying to sensationalize the trial or a self-serving letter to the editor by a defendent.
The fact that neither side disputes, which is also the one that horrifies parents the most, is that Mr. Oei kept a picture of an underage student wearing only panties on his personal cell phone for nearly a month. That is a serious betrayal of the public's trust. A lot of parents wonder why his is still employeed by LCPS.
At least I have the guts to attach a name to my opinions unlike anonymous (is that plowman?) who tries to smear an innocent man's reputation from behind a veil.
Annon's comment: "Mr. Oei kept a picture of an underage student wearing only panties on his personal cell phone for nearly a month." Huh? As Oei explained he didn't know how to use that feature on his phone (a student sent the picture to his phone) and the identity or age of the girl was not known. If Plowman really thought the picture was pornographic how come he didn't prosecute the producers of the picture -- the students.
If you think possession of pictures of teen girls in underware is perverted then you better start purging your house of all those Kohls bra ads in the newspaper.
Oh he kept the picture on his cell phone for over a month, wha wha wha. You are assuming that he knew how to delete if from his cell phone, I mean he had to have the student show him how to send it from phone to phone then phone to computer. If you dont use the application on the phone you dont know how it works. He probably assumed that the picture moved from the phone to the computer. To think he did it with forethought is stupid. The idiot commonwealth attorney needs to be responsible for the costs. this poor man followed school procedure and did what his superior told him to do. This WAS a witch hunt. Please vote Plowman out of office.
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