March 12, 2009 - Thursday
A personal letter from Dave
Greetings All
It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter. I know that over
the past year that some people
have been questioning my integrity, and it is rightfully so that they
are questioning me. I will
try to address all of the issues of my case in this letter.
Since this letter is intended for all my friends, and some of you
may not know my
background, I will first let you know who I am, where I come from,
and why the U.S.
Government would go to so much trouble to turn my life, and the lives
of my family upside
down.
First, I am or should say I was the owner of one and only 23 legal
brothels (whore-houses)
in the United States. Also my brothel license was the oldest standing
license in the State of
Nevada. To compound the problem, I was the manager for many years of
the first legal
brothel in America (Mustang Ranch). Mustang has always been a thorn
in the side of the
government. A short list of some of things the government didn’t
like was things like voter
Fraud, The government said we brought people into our small county
to vote and get our
own Sheriff elected, as well as the Judge, District Attorney, and County
Commissioners.
Then there was the time when the I.R.S. came in and confiscated the
brothel. So
"
allegedly" someone started a fake company and bought the brothel
back from the
government and reopened it. And then there was the small thing about
the world champion
heavyweight boxer Oscar Bonavena who was shot dead at the front door
the brothel. Oh,
and there is one more thing I should mention that happened before I
came around the club,
that was where the government took me to court to try and make my legal
prostitutes
employees. Those cases backfired on the government and now, not only
are all legal
prostitutes, independent contractors, but also now all of the strippers
in America use my
case and they are now considered independent contractors! (I wonder
what that cost the
government every year?)
The local government (backed by the U.S. government and the I.R.S.)
closed my brothel
and said I was unfit to own a brothel because of my association with
Hell’s
Angels, of
course I took the government to court over my 1ST amendment right
to "associate" and
won that case. That by the way cost the government $300,000 for my
lost earnings for two
months not including the cost of my prosecution.
So now I will fast forward to the events that lead me to this 15
year prison sentence. (By the
way, while I was in "holding" in Nebraska waiting to be transferred
to Lompoc, I found
out there was an inmate in there doing 3 years for getting his
13 year old step daughter
pregnant and I got 15 years for "allegedly" having pictures
on a hard drive. (More about
the hard drive shortly) So anyway, over the years, I seem to have
accumulated quite a large
mob of female friends, both over 18 and also some under 18. I think
it was because of my
large home and large swimming pool. I am sure it was no secret
to the government that my
backyard swimming pool was always full of young teenage girls as
well as after school all
the girls from the neighborhood were using my home as a hang-out.
It actually got to, where
my neighbors were bringing their daughters to me because they knew
their children were
safe at my house. I raised my stepdaughter Fara since she was 7
years old; just ask her what
kind of guy I am. Do you think Fara would now bring her own daughter
around me if she
believed anything the government claims?
Now for the specifics regarding my charges, I am charged with one
count of possessing
kiddy porn on a hard drive, and one count of transporting kiddy
porn across a state line.
The kiddy porn that was found on the 2 hard drives that were
stashed in my motor home,
were all pictures that were downloaded from the internet. The
government said there were
over 65,000 kiddy porn pictures on these two hard drives. It
is only in the last few years that
fast Internet connections were available in my neighborhood so
I think downloading 65,000
pictures would have taken many years over a phone modem. And
by the way, the
government seized two computers from my house and found NO evidence
of any illegal
downloading or child porn from either of my computers,ever! One
of my computers had at
least 3 years of my personal Internet activity on it. As some
of you know I have an intense
web site called www.davesworld81.com and both computers were
filled with traffic from my
web pages,. There was also a lot of Internet traffic from all
the kids that were constantly in
and out of my house and were allowed to use my computers. Mostly
such as "myspace"
stuff and popular music websites , no "kid" chat-rooms, and
most definitely no illegal
websites. The reason the government claimed the two hard drives
belonged to me was
because somehow some of the legitimate contents from my website
(www.davesworld81.com) was also downloaded. Now for some interesting
information
regarding the two hard drives. Even though these hard drives
were similar to drives I had
bought at Comp USA in Reno Nevada, with my credit card, these
two hard drives that were
found in my motor home were traced to being purchased from a
warehouse in Las Vegas
Nevada, five hundred miles from my home and neither hard drive
could not be traced to ever
being sold to anyone!. As a side note, the the case was prosecuted
by FBI out of Las Vegas
not Reno. (I wonder why?)
Now back to when I was originally indicted, it was for possessing
and transporting 5 illegal
kiddy porn pictures on those two hard drives. FBI agents came
to my house and told me to
make a deal with them. They told me if I did not agree to get
the Hells Angels Motorcycle
Club involved in some criminal adventure they (the FBI) would
make sure to make me look
so bad that even my brothers in the Hells Angels would disown
me, and that I would spend
the next 20 years in prison branded as a pedophile!. Well as
you know, I told them to go
fuck themselves! And now here I am writing this letter to all
of you.
So anyway after the "government forensics" team got a hold
of the hard drives, it came to
light that those five kiddy porn pictures that I was charged
with were "NEVER" accessed!
So the next court hearing went from five pictures to over
600 pictures. An interesting note is
that anything over 600 pictures is a "mandatory" prison sentence.
At that point the, U.S.
attorney offered me a deal, but part of the deal was that
I would lose my brothel (not sell it,
just close it and lose it.) Again, I said "NO DEAL". So by
the time I got to court, the
amount of pictures jumps to over 65,000. And for some odd
reason it didn’t
matter to the
jury that none of the pictures were ever accessed?
You may ask why didn’t my attorney ever object or bring up any
of those issues at my trial.
Well as you may or may not know, at the time I was arrested,
I also had a 2 million dollar
IRS lean on all my assets, and the government closed my
brothel, so I had no income to hire
a good attorney. So the judge let me have a "public defender" (That
was my biggest
mistake) my "public defender" was not at all interested in
defending me. Every time I
talked to him, he wanted me to make a deal with the government!
because where I was going
to trial in Wyoming was the most conservative county in
the most conservative state in
America and the jury was going to convict me because I
was a, "HELLS
ANGEL who
owned a whorehouse"!. He did no research! One week before the trial,
I went before the
judge and asked for a new attorney because my attorney
was not looking out for my best
interest. This pissed the judge off so much that he said
I could have anyone I wanted for an
attorney but my trial was starting the next Monday with
NO extension or postponement. No
attorney will take a case to trial without preparing for
it. The next Monday at my trial, my
attorney was so pissed at me for trying to fire him and
for not making a deal, that he sat with
his back to me through the whole trial.
I have been a professional photographer for more than 20
years and a graduate of the New
York Institute of Photography.) I am sure a lot of you
have seen some of my club and event
photos. I had personal photos of a friend's daughter
on a private web page so he could see
them. It seems that the photos of her turned up on those
2 hard drives, only now the photos
have been altered with captions on them! These captions
were added by a "photo-shop"
program, I don't and never have used Photoshop! The "photo-shop" program
was not on
any of my computers nor the software anywhere around
me! I use a different software
program, which was found on both my computers, for altering
photos for my website and I
have been using this program for more than five years.
Not even one of the hundreds of
photos altered for my website was ever "water marked" with the "Photoshop" program
used to alter the captions on the photos of her (a water
mark is an electronic signature left
behind by all photo editing programs).
So at this time, the only other thing I can say is that "I SWEAR
THAT I AM
INNOCENT" of all the allegations and at this time my case is on
appeal with the best law
firm that my family can afford. I know that my family
and friends are behind me 100% and
I would like to thank them for standing with me during
this nightmare. And I thank all of
you who continue to believe in me! I welcome any and
all support, feel free to write me!With Love, Strength
and
Respect,
Dave Burgess
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