y enough. A DPS officer named Patricia Manos had been seeking out a man, to serve him with a traffic ticket, and when presented with a great deal of frustration, sought to "throw the book" at him. Her superiors refused to issue anything more than a citation, and the only thing she could dredge up was a warrant for his arrest for failure to appear for a prior traffic ticket. A subsequent trial on this man netted the state a grand total of no jail time and $1,000 in fines, not nearly enough to cover the cost of the investigation.

Being told he was staying at a woman's house in Maricopa, Manos contacted Lopez, and egged him on to pile on charges. After all, according to Manos, this woman committed the dreaded sin of refusing to give her information over the phone, when there was no way the woman could actually confirm this was a law enforcement officer and not some crank.

So Lopez was convinced by this tiny pretty woman in a Highway Patrol outfit to write up a series of charges against this woman. It would turn out to be the biggest mistake in his career so far. Because when he went to trial to testify against the woman, he provably and demonstrably perjured himself on the witness stand and in the police reports. Seems like a small thing. Cops do it every day. The matter might have ended there, except that the woman was actually held by the judge to have been guilty of doing the very thing the deputy did, filing a false police report. And this would have been an obscure case, with a very tiny fine, and would have been forgotten about. If it were not for the identity of the woman.

Because the woman's name was Liz Michael.

In case the name Liz Michael does not ring a bell to you, consider the following facts:

Fact 1: Liz Michael is a candidate for the United States Senate in Arizona. She is a Democrat running against John McCain. Daniel Lopez didn't have a clue about this.

Fact 2: Liz Michael has a website, LizMichael.com - Political Activism for the Liberation of the World. Liz has been a political activist for nearly 30 years. She has a rolodex of names of everyone ranging from Ronald Reagan, the former President, to Alex Jones, the famous conspiracy analyst, to the late Irv Rubin of the Jewish Defense League. She probably knows personally, or knows someone who knows, damned near everyone in what could loosely be called "the patriot movement". She openly advocates revolution, "by any means necessary". A statement featured on her website boldly declares that Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable," a statement by that wild-eyed radical... John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Fact 3: Liz Michael knows a lot about the law. You see, Liz Michael repesented herself at trial. Not that she "volunteered" to represent herself The court forced her to, by denying her counsel. Liz knew they would do that. And that it would be a case for constitutional appeal. Through the laundry list of Daniel Lopez's charges, in front of a frustrated and angry Pinal County Attorney, Liz acquired not guilty verdicts on every bogus charge but one, the one about "filing a false police report". It actually would have been better for Daniel Lopez if he HADN'T won that one charge. Because of fact number 4:

Fact 4: Liz, in the outrage of the Patton slaying, had organized a web page devoted to exposely "tyrants", as she calls them, to expose them to the public and not allow them to cower in secrecy. She calls the page "America's Least Wanted". And lo and behold, Daniel Lopez made it to this list.

Yes, right there, next to Eric Hall, who slew the Smoak family pet on a highway in Tennessee, to Chaquila Peavy, who slew a family pet in Milwaukee, to Jack Dean, who led a commando style raid against a foreclosure victim, to Tempe principal Sue Saviglio Jarvis, who held a child hostage and abused her after she admitted she brought a small pocket knife to school by mistake... right down there, at #10, is Daniel Lopez.

Well, what brought that on? Just a stupid little charge involving a traffic ticket? Well, the trouble is, it didn't end there. Lopez, angry at having failed in all his charges except one, radioed out an APB on a phony charge, trying to get Michael. The deputy which Lopez sent after Michael, Scott Clarke, almost ran her off the road and killed her.

The interesting thing is, that Michael, in listing Lopez, and the accomplices in this whole escapade, didn't list herself as the victim. She hid her own identity, and didn't make it public. So many in her own position would have broadcast that from the roottops. Why not admit you were the victim, in effect, of a police mugging?

"If I went public with having been the target of such abuse, I have friends all across the country that would come into Arizona, hunt down these sons of bitches, and kill every goddamned last one of them. I have some friends that are very, very bad news. It was enough of a job to keep a lid on the folks who DID know about these incidents." Some of Liz's friends would consider what happened to her, police harassment at best, and an assassination attempt at worst.

And probably, there would have been a tight lid kept on this, and most of you all would probably never have learned of it.

Except Daniel Lopez discovered, nine months later, what most of the patriot movement already knew: who Liz Michael was. And he got scared s&#tless. And he squealed to someone who squealed to the Attorney General's office.

And so on the morning of October 30, 2003, Liz Michael received a visit from Special Agent William H. Sutter of the Special Investigations Section of the Attorney General's office. The visit was actually fairly pleasant, considering the two agents faced the same "Trespassers Will Be Shot" sign Daniel Lopez encountered that March morning, and additionally had to circumnavigate Liz's new Lab-Pit Bull mix puppy, Jesus. They asked about a lot of things about the website: who was the webmaster, who wrote America's Least Wanted, etc. But only one name came up. Lopez. Not Scott Sulley, the judge who made the errant decision. Not H. Berkeley Rourke, who was seething in anger over losing the rest of his case. And not even Patricia Manos. Indeed, Manos has not been heard from in this whole case against Liz Michael even though she started it. Neither the prosecution nor the defense called her. Manos has, in fact, pretty much hung Lopez out to dry.

Nor were any of the other infamous should-be criminals in blue, or in robes, or on the bar, mentioned. Just Lopez. Yes, Liz admitted, she did know Lopez. Yes, she admitted, he was involved in a continuing legal case with her. And what did Lopez do? Liz flatly told the investigators: "he committed perjury on the stand".

Now, when Lopez actually testified at trial, he stated that he was hesitant to approach the residence. Not because of the occupants of the house. And not because of the "Trespassers Will Be Shot" sign in the window. He stated he was afraid to approach because of the animals. What dreaded animal was Deputy Lopez afraid of? Pit Bulls? White tigers?

Chickens. Liz Michael happens to own a lot of chickens. They free range and walk all over the place when let out in the morning. No wonder Daniel Lopez is afraid of Liz. He's scared of chickens for crying out loud.

Here is the section of the ARS which Agent Sutter quoted to Liz: ARS 13-2316 A 5. Recklessly using a computer, computer system or network to engage in a scheme or course of conduct that is directed at another person and that seriously alarms, torments, threatens or terrorizes the person. For the purposes of this paragraph, the conduct must both:

(a) Cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress.

(b) Serve no legitimate purpose.

Now, I suppose a cop who is afraid of chickens can conclude that he is "terrorized" by a mere request for information about him, even though that information is part of one ongoing appeal, one ongoing criminal defense, and now, probably a series of investigations. Because now, Agent William H. Sutter of Terry Goddard's office is now in possession of an accusation that a law enforcement officer committed perjury. And he has to follow up on it. That's pretty "legitimate purpose" if you ask me.

I asked Liz what kind of information she was seeking about Lopez. She told me frankly: "evidence that he has previously falsified reports and lied on the witness stand". And that's what she told William Sutter.

Liz feels compelled now to make this issue a public issue, and give her side of the matter. She doesn't think the case will get out of hand. But there's always that "1% chance". After all, a Special Agent is a Special Agent, no matter how benign they may seem. So she has announced a Liz Michael Legal Defense Fund, and is soliciting donations and assistance:

Liz Michael Legal Defense Fund P. O. Box 11591 Casa Grande Arizona 85230

For anyone who makes light of patriotic Americans' objections to what is commonly known as "traffic tyranny", this case should be an illustration of how a mere traffic ticket can escalate, through shoddy and vengeful lawful enforcement, into charges of "terroristic threats" on one side, and charges of "attempted assassination" on the other. On the other end of this, traffic tickets and routine stops have on frequent occasion, gotten good police officers killed.

Comparing the two sides in this affair, Liz Michael is accustomed to daring the Law a little bit, and is a renown rebel. That she is coauthor of a document calling for localities to secede from the federal government is evidence of that. She is used to being controversial, and can handle that.

Daniel Lopez, however, never signed up for any of this. Yet even if nothing sticks legally, the entire country, yea, the entire world, will have the impression of him as a "dirty cop" that can't be trusted: this incident will follow him his entire career. Sly defense lawyers will use it to undermine any case in which he testifies, now that this has become so public. And the effect this has on Scott Clarke cannot yet be determined.

All this out of meeting Liz Michael and writing a ticket.

However, if there is one clear loser in the episode, it is Judge Sulley. If she knows anything, Liz Michael knows how to run a negative political campaign, and should Sulley stand for reelection, the voters of Maricopa will hear no end of this incident. No one that Liz Michael has ever run against, or has managed a campaign against, currently holds elective office any more, save for one person. And one person she managed a campaign against served time in prison after Liz filed an FEC lawsuit against him.

As for all those "revolutionary friends", Liz counsels them to "hold their fire". "On the scale of patriot emergencies, Daniel Lopez is but a gnat and a maggot not worthy of our attention", she says. Of course, should anything more serious happen to Liz, God only knows how her supporters might react if she is not there to restrain them.

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