The arrest of Shawn Christy. Was the FBI justified?

As many of you know Shawn and his father, Craig Christy, were arrested on August 18th.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

But Shawn and Craig, 47, are accused of being interested in technology as well. On Aug. 18, the day after a federal grand jury in Alaska indicted the pair, agents at the FBI office in Allentown, Pa., arrested the father and son and charged them with making hundreds of harassing, expletive-filled, and threatening phone calls to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's attorney John Tiemessen and employees of his law firm in early August. The calls were placed after Tiemessen and Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee and potential 2012 presidential candidate, obtained restraining orders against the two men in the last year because of what they said was harassment, including text messages and phone calls to Palin family members and friends. 

Shawn Christy reportedly admitted in court to having threatened to rape Palin, and sending her numerous emails and gifts. Following their arrest, Craig and Shawn appeared in U.S. district court in Allentown. "There's a level of obsession here that elevates the conduct from merely creepy to truly threatening," Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gallagher reportedly said in arguing for the men to be held until they're transported to Anchorage for further court hearings. They face up to two years in jail, U.S. Attorney Retta-Rae Randall tells The Daily Beast.

I had written about Christy two times in April. Once essentially calling Sarah out for publicly playing the victim over these phone calls rather than handling it quietly (Like President Obama would) and then again later in the month after Christy lost his job, possibly over this same publicity.

I spoke to Shawn on the phone and though I did detect some difficulty separating reality from fantasy, I did not believe that Shawn posed a viable threat to the Palin family at that time. (An assessment also shared by the FBI, Secret Service, and Alaska law enforcement.) I did however tell Shawn that he should NEVER come to Alaska again, and that he needed to stop making any calls, or sending any e-mails, to the Palin family or friends. He agreed that was a good idea.

However clearly he did not take that "good idea" to heart.

In an affidavit dated Aug. 12, FBI Special Agent Jacqueline DeCou details the quite disturbing calls that the father-and-son duo allegedly made to the offices of Tiemessen and his family members. In an Aug. 1 call that Shawn allegedly left Tiemessen, he says: "... are you just a little fucking Semite kike that likes to get a dick up your ass and likes to fuck people over? Well, surprise, for the first time in your life, John, somebody small, some little dick fuck from McAdoo is going to ram it up your fucking ass and take everything away that you ever fucking—everything you fucking love ..." 

On Aug. 4, Craig allegedly left Tiemessen a death threat, according to the affidavit, in which he said: "I tell you, motherfucker, you're playing with the wrong fucking boy. I tell you what, you want to play fucking games like that, I'll fucking kill you. There's a fucking threat now, fucking bring it on, motherfucker. You got that? You wanna fuck with my boy like that, I will come and fucking kill you ..."

I am sorry, but there is just NO excuse for making these kind of threatening phone calls, or sending e-mails with a similar content.

I also spoke to Shawn's mom, Karen Christy, about the situation (Before I knew anything about the above exchanges.)  I chose to talk to Karen instead of her husband because I believed she was the most rational person in the family.

I talked to her about getting Shawn counseling, but she said he had passed a psychiatric evaluation with no problem, and that Shawn only had problems stemming from his exposure to Lyme disease.  She spoke about his gentleness and intelligence, and seemed to believe that the REAL problem stemmed from Sarah Palin and her family. Sadly there seemed to me to be a certain disconnect for Karen when it came to her son and husband's behaviors.

Anyway after that phone call I severed my communication with the Christy family.

Listen I know that it is very natural for those of us who have watched Sarah and her crazy antics all of these years to almost automatically take the side of anybody with whom she has a conflict.  But if what is described in the above affidavits is accurate, and I am sorry but it is hard to believe at this point that it is not, then as rational people we have to recognize that in this circumstance Sarah Palin might actually have really been the victim.

In other words, to answer the question posed in my headline, yes, it appears that the FBI was probably justified in their arrest of Shawn and Craig Christy.   I may wish that such were not the case, but all of the evidence seems to suggest that they had little choice.

Did Sarah Palin's constant compulsion to play the victim cost a young man with emotional difficulties his job?

About a week ago the so-called "Sarah Palin stalker, Shawn Christie, contacted me via Facebook to let me know that he had just been fired from his job. 

Today Shawn sent me the following:

Jesse, I was waiting to get my last check and make sure there were no other problems. I started working for the company in February, I was hired after I was working for a temp company since December.

The articles (about the new restraining orders) came out in my local newspapers on Saturday, and that Monday the 18th, I came into work and they let me go.

It was weird too because they had done a background check on me when I was hired and they knew about the first PFA's, but I think it really had to do with the BS that Sarah put out about me raping her daughter, so now I have no job, we are already losing our house, my mother is unemployed, and my father is disabled.

So I guess this is how Sarah deals with people who, as she said, are mentally disturbed??? Take away their job, that really helps.

As I posted before, Shawn Christy completely denies that he threatened to rape Palin's daughter or made any other threats against the family:

I spoke with Palin's attorney Tiemessen last Friday, he said there was a letter mailed 60 miles from where I live that was magazine words taped together, something about Willow, I didn't send it and I told him that..

I contacted the company that Shawn worked for, Genova-Pensylvania, and spoke to his immediate supervisor to ask him if their reasons for letting him go had anything to do with this recent tabloid story, or pressure from Palin supporters, but he said the company policy was not to comment to the press about their employees.

Look I know that receiving a letter making threats against your child, if indeed that happened, would make ANYBODY want to take steps to protect their family.  But WHY release that information to TMZ knowing full well that it could have a very detrimental effect on a potentially innocent young man's life, and the life of his family?

We know for a fact that President Obama receives dozens of death threats every single day, but how many of those individuals names show up on a gossip website?  None.

Sarah Palin, the woman who is constantly claiming that bloggers are always going after her and her family, has used TMZ, and the numerous other websites that ran with the story, to destroy Shawn Christy's opportunities for employment, and attempt to bully his family into staying silent about their difficulties with the Palin family.

Gee, why does THAT sound familiar?

You know if Palin actually has proof that Shawn Christy is harassing her family, and sending letters threatening her daughter, why has she not filed charges against him?  In order to get a PFA, or Restraining Order, all anybody has to do is say they had a relationship with somebody, state the reasons why they feel they need one, and sign some papers.  No actual evidence required.

However this really does not protect Palin, and her family, until AFTER Christy defies the order and shows up close enough to her to be in non-compliance with the order.  If the Mama Grizzly is really so terrified for her family does it not make more sense to have him charged with a crime? 

Or is there some reason that Palin does NOT want this to go in front of a judge?

Shawn Christy responds to charges that he threatened to rape Palin's daughter.

I may not have mentioned this before but I am Facebook friends with Shawn.

We have even spoken on the phone once, and he freely admitted that he had made some stupid mistakes in the past because he thought some of the incidents that happened to him were the fault of the government. And when his letters and e-mails were ignored he started to send threats to President Obama, John McCain, and yes Sarah Palin, thinking that would make them pay attention to him.  And it did! 

However he contends he NEVER planned to hurt anybody. And in fact he was checked out by the FBI, the Secret Service and his own local police force, and NO ONE considered him to be a legitimate threat.

No one, that is, except Sarah Palin. (And no, the story of Christy having been arrested while he was up here in February is NOT true!)

Christy seems to have some difficulty separating fact from fantasy, but he strikes everybody who speaks to him as a relatively harmless young man with some mental and emotional challenges.

I reached out to Shawn via Facebook to ask him if he had seen the article and to give me a heads up as to what is going on.  Here is his reply.

Yeah read it. I spoke with Palin's attorney Tiemessen last Friday, he said there was a letter mailed 60 miles from where I live that was magazine words taped together, something about Willow, I didn't send it and I told him that... now my parents have restraining orders (against) them also, thanks for the heads up,

SRC

Now at this point it is only Shawn's word against Palin's.  However I should point out that in my discussion with Shawn on the phone he did not once deny or water down the seemingly crazy things he was accused of doing.  He admitted all of them, and even told me about a few other things that I did not know about as well.

Like I said Shawn says some pretty outrageous things, but he also seemed to be fairly honest about them.  And in my estimation, and that of the FBI, Secret Service, and the Anchorage police, he does NOT pose any real danger to anybody. Including Sarah Palin.

You know our President receives up to 30 death threats a day, but all Sarah Palin has is this one poor young man to try and turn into the Zodiac Killer so that she can play the victim.

I certainly hope he and his parents DO have a restraining order against her, I believe he has much more to fear from her, than she does from him.  These allegations she is making against him, if indeed false and I will bet they are, should be more than enough reason for him to hire a lawyer and sue her ass for slander.