So remember that whole “I love Askinosie chocolate” phase I went through?
Cacao pods (aka chocolate fruit) grow low to the ground so animals like pigs will knock them off the trees, eat the lychee-like fruit inside and discard (or swallow whole and excrete) the bitter cacao nib (which we know as the source of chocolate) – which will then create more cacao trees. This story is a little like that.
A kind reader – a truffle customer, a fellow vegan, someone whose opinion I have no reason not to trust – emailed me some serious smack about Shawn Askinosie, the founder and head of the company. I did a ton of Googling (which I encourage you do as well), and everything he said checks out. I am going to copy and paste some of his email (kind reader, please let me know if that is not OK), and my commentary follows.
Here is the email from my reader:
“When I started hearing about Askinosie chocolate, the first thing that popped into my head was a scumbag lawyer in my hometown of Springfield, Missouri. I haven’t lived there in 18 years, but my family still does and we visit a couple of times every year. Doing a little research, I found out that it actually WAS the same Askinosie! I couldn’t believe it. When I read your glowing reviews of his company, it just doesn’t jive with the images I have of him and his law practice. I understand that people change and he has had some life altering turns in his life, but I just can’t bring myself to support his company. Askinosie was “the” high profile defense attorney in Springfield. How bad could that be in Springfield, MO? Well, actually some pretty bad stuff has happened that I have had some connection to.
First, my high school chemistry teacher was accused of killing his wife and two kids. Blew me away. He was the “fun” teacher that all the kids liked. Turns out he especially liked the girls in his classes. Looking back, he was creepy, but in a way none of us really realized at the time. Anyway, several years after I graduated, his family was brutally killed while “he was away at a teacher’s conference.” All circumstantial and some physical evidence pointed to him. Affairs came out, crazy lifestyle, etc., etc. Askinosie was his attorney and of course, all over the news. Every time you watched him, you felt like washing your hands afterwards. I understand that defense attorneys have some kind of duty to represent the best interests of their client, to defend in every way possible, etc. Whatever. He came off as incredibly sleazy. In the end, the state prosecution botched the case and the guy got off.
More recently, a guy who was in my high school class – 300 people, so most people knew each other…I wouldn’t call this guy a friend – owned a tanning salon and got caught video taping female clients, including minors. Police found video footage all over his computer. This was only about 2 years ago. Askinosie was his attorney and put forth a defense that the state law was “vague” regarding privacy laws. Nice. This time, Askinosie lost and my ex-classmate is doing 15-to-30 in the Federal pen with no chance at parole (and a concurrent state sentence).
So, why am I telling you all of this? It seems like you care as much about the products you buy and consume as I do. I research the individuals and companies I buy from to make sure I’m supporting the best possible, and in turn believe that my family and I benefit from their good intentions. Needless to say, I have not and will not use Askinosie chocolate.”
* * *
With this new information, it is with a heavy heart that I have to report that I cannot support this company and can’t recommend that you do either. A part of me believes that you can’t go so far as to research what the heads of the companies you use did before they were chocolate makers or whatever, but the fact is that this information has been dropped in my lap, and I can’t ignore it. It is clear to me that this guy is not the kind of person to whom I want to give my money. There are other small, organic, fair-trade chocolate companies. Any lawyer who voluntarily defended a guy who killed his wife and kids is not a guy I can work with – aside from the obvious reasons, it brings back bad memories.
As the reader says, people can change. But that explanation isn’t good enough for him, and it’s not good enough for me. To be honest, I’m not really into the “people can change” thing. I’ve never been a Republican, because Republicans are heartless. I’ve been vegetarian since my mother explained what a hamburger was. Some things are just simple, and a part of me will never fully trust people who are lovely people today but have sordid pasts filled with bad judgments.
I’m not talking about drug abuse or anything like that – that stuff happens, and you really can change that kind of behavior, I do believe that – I’m talking about political beliefs and bedrock values. People who defend murderers like this guy did have something wrong deep in their hearts, and I don’t want me or my money anywhere near them.
And anyway, since I wrote up my review of their chocolate mentioned above, my sweetheart (who possesses a chocolate tasting palate chocolate companies would kill for, and whose taste I trust absolutely) tasted it and didn’t even like it. He called the bar cloying and the cocoa powder too sour.
So there.
I have known Shawn Askinosie for 30 years and he is an extremely loving, passionate, and ethical person. It is true that he was a criminal defense lawyer. Hopefully, you do not think those accused of a crime should not have lawyers. I can tell you that Shawn believes with all his heart and mind that the accused teacher was absolutely innocent. Why is it fair to sum up the trial as a prosecutor failure? It is simply not true that all circumstantial evidence or some physical evidence pointed to his client. If you are interested in drawing your own conclusions about the case then call him. Shawn is the type of person that will talk to you. Then you will have more than one sides’ opinion.
In regard to the tanning salon case, Shawn never represented that person in the federal case which resulted in the defendant’s imprisonment, another lawyer unrelated to Shawn did. Shawn withdrew from representing him in the state court case when the accused failed to appear in court.
I don’t think it fair to call someone a “scumbag lawyer” because he or she defends someone accused of a crime. In a free society every person accused of crime (regardless of their guilt or innocence) deserves to have an attorney. I would not write this if I did not care about Shawn and believe him to be worthy of your support, and that obviously also means my opinion is biased because he is my friend. Nevertheless, I’d sure be grateful if you would still consider what I have to say. I believe you are entitled to your opinion and my only hope is that you will at least consider speaking with him or doing some more research before you condemn him. Please check out http://www.lostandfoundozarks.com because Shawn started that. Thanks, Dan
Hello Dan,
Thanks for the info. I figure everyone who knows anything about this can state their case here, and then people can make up their own minds.
I only know what I have found out through Google and the reader who emailed me, but the fact remains that he chose the cases he took (unless I am somehow mistaken).
I’m going to pass on the opportunity to speak with Shawn.
I’ve watched clips of him on various TV programs, and he seems, well, OILY. I’m happy that he has great friends like you, however, who think otherwise. I really really hope that he is a great guy, and if so I’m sorry that I am slandering him on the Internet. But my gut tells me something is fishy.
I’m OK with you using the information I sent. My purpose was to share information that I just happened to know with you and your loyal readers who share the same beliefs that I do. It’s strange that all of this even came up…the Springfield, MO connection…that he’s a chocolate guy now…that I know who he was/is…that I found this blog where people might actually care about stuff like this, the food they eat, and the companies they support as much as I do.
Oh, and thanks for the shout out – “A kind reader – a truffle customer, a fellow vegan, someone whose opinion I have no reason not to trust”. Perfect!
I’m going to chime in here with a biased opinion as well.
I worked for Shawn for about 5 months at his chocolate factory. Before that, I hardly knew him, nor did I know much about his prior career, nor did I care.
Instead of repeating what Mr. Sivils has already stated – that, in America, everybody has a right to a lawyer, not least so we can (attempt to) sleep well at night, knowing that as a society we followed due process as best we could before condemning somebody to a life in prison or worse. It’s as much about how we look at ourselves in the mirror as it is about the rights of defendants.
But outside of that, I found Mr. Askinosie to be fiercely driven, conscience of the impact his business has on both the environment and the local community, and protective of the farmers in Ecuador and Mexico that do business with him. He approaches everything he does with a completely internalized code of ethics.
I respect your desire to do your own research with some Googling. We could maybe use a little more of that in the world we live in. But there are a lot of people that would look pretty different to us if we relied solely on a perusal of what a search engine picked up. So please take my (and others) up-close- and-personal view of Shawn for what it’s worth to you, which in my opinion should be quite a bit in comparison to some news clippings.
Though I’m compelled to defend him here, I should say that I have no stake in the chocolate factory’s continued success and have no affiliation with it whatsoever. I am proud of what they have achieved, though. It’s a good business. Good people work there. I hope you will give them another chance.
defense attorneys are a very necessary part of our judicial system. should you ever be charged with a crime, you would want someone as passionate and tenacious as shawn askinosie. even if you condemn all defense attorneys, you surely cannot boycott the product of a reformed attorney. it makes absolutely no sense to condemn the product of askinosie chocolate because you do not approve of the proprietor’s former occupation.
i personally am not a fan of his chocolate but i wish i was. his company is engaging in fair trade practices and producing something free from corporate corruption and unhealthy additives.
judge askinosie chocolate by its practices and product not shawn’s past.
Well, I changed the title of this post. I’m not ready to say that they can go to hell.
And I have nothing against defense attorneys, of course. Two of my very best friends are lawyers. It just seems that Shawn Askinosie is a creep. A creep who is now making very ethical chocolate.
And it makes perfect sense to me to boycott his chocolate because I don’t approve of what he did in his former occupation (different from boycotting it because of his former occupation). If George Bush opens up a fair trade and organic chocolate factory in two months, I won’t buy that chocolate either. I’m not saying Shawn Askinosie is George Bush, I’m just pointing out that we need to use all the information at hand to make decisions. As I’ve said, I’m just passing along information that was dropped in my lap – which no one has really disputed, aside from saying that he believed the teacher who allegedly killed his family was innocent and that he never represented the tanning salon guy in the case that resulted his imprisonment.
It seems to me that he never should have taken either case, and to be honest, I believe my “kind reader” more than Askinosie’s friends who are posting here. And Kind Reader says that he was a well known creep in his town. So again: I’m not going to buy chocolate from a creep.
Okay, fair enough.
But if you were a defense attorney, and you sincerely believed your client was innocent, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to defend them?
And if you didn’t, wouldn’t that, in fact, be unethical?
That’s all I want to ask. I won’t post anymore. I’m not a random blog troll.
Of course.
But I’m not convinced that’s what Askinosie believed.
My reader tells me that “all circumstantial and some physical evidence pointed to” the guy. Maybe Mr. Askinosie could school us on the case so we could decide for ourselves whether or not that was true, and maybe my reader could find the evidence he’s talking about and we could hash it out here.
Also and confidential to Megster: of course I can check links to my blog! Prove to me that Republicans aren’t heartless and I’ll eat my hat.
is your hat made of chocolate?
says the person that actually talked about you probably being able to follow who linked to you.
i know some republicans that are not heartless… just sadly misguided
Let me first re-state why I shared the information that I did. I’m not providing evidence to re-try this or any other case. My intent was to share information on this blog with people of like mind who want to live as clean as possible and know as much information as possible about the food they eat and suppliers they support. I grew up in Springfield (but haven’t lived there in 18 years) and had two chance exposures to Shawn Askinosie through sensational trials that I was interested in…Jon Feeney was my Chemistry teacher at Glendale High School and Brett Kent was a classmate. Through these trials, I drew a conclusion about Mr. Askinosie and know that I don’t want my family to consume any of his products or support his company.
As Lagusta stated, she had an “I love Askinosie chocolate phase”. Since I had a very different feeling about this company and knowing that Lagusta sees things in this world very much like I do, I wanted to let her know what I knew. I sent it to her in an e-mail. My intent was not to publicize it or organize a boycott of Askinosie chocolate. She asked me if she could post the information I sent to her and I agreed, knowing there would be other like-minded readers who would want the same information.
I searched and sent Lagusta some articles about the cases. Of course, these are media accounts so anyone can shoot them down as biased. It’s the best I can find. I have sent these long articles to Lagusta and she can post parts of them, comment on them, or whatever she wants.
Again, this really isn’t the point…I’m not attempting to re-try any cases or anything. I’m just trying to explain how I arrived at my decision not to purchase Askinosie chocolate based on what I know about its founder.
As Lagusta has said time and time again on her blog as well as her professional site, personal is political. That means political is personal, too. So when a small business owner’s politics (in this case, Askinosie chocolates) don’t jive with another small business owner’s politics (Lagusta’s Luscious), it really does not make any sense to do business together, does it?
While researching this matter on the internet, I came across a somewhat disturbing website: http://therelevantelephant.com/
In particular, I came across a somewhat disturbing 4-part interview:
Part 1: http://therelevantelephant.com/blog/entry/shawn_askinosie_conservative_chocolatier
Part 2: http://therelevantelephant.com/blog/entry/shawn_askinosie_part_2_a_chocolate_company_and_the_government
Part 3: http://therelevantelephant.com/blog/entry/shawn_aksinosie_part_3_politics
Part 4: http://therelevantelephant.com/blog/entry/shawn_askinosie_part_4_fair_trade
While he does have a few good points, such as his view on the current War in Iraq, it’s extremely alarming that anyone could and would long for the days of Ronald Reagan.
Another alarming notion is how on his website he talks about God helping him in his journey of chocolate making. I for one do not want to support a company whose leader feels that God helped him in his quest for a career change, thus leading into Askinosie chocolates.
[...] Start here [...]
One quick thing. Well 2:
1) Wow, thanks Veronica. That’s some good digging.
2) When I said “all Republicans are heartless” I meant politically. I kinda thought that was implied and obvious, but I guess I should never assume. I buy raspberries from a farmer I am pretty sure is a Republican, and I don’t think he’s out drowning kittens on his time off or anything. But his political views are – by definition – heartless.
What do you know about the past of your current chocolate purveyor? If I had to do that much research on every company I purchased from, I would be exhausted. It appears that none of what I read about Shawn Askinosie, as a person, is definitive. As a company, the facts show an ethical, socially-minded company. The kind of company I wish there were more of.