Here’s some info that my “kind reader” sent me about the Askinosie cases. Again, this is just to put the information out there so people can decide for themselves. I am really not all that interested in the whole fracas anymore, to be honest. I have my position and feel fine about it.
In case you’re interested, here’s my position in a nutshell:
-It seems to me (a nonlawyer, just someone who’s done some reading on the case) that that guy he represented did kill his family. But that’s neither here nor there. (I mean, it is, and I hope he goes to prison and all that, but let’s just let it go for now, OK)
-But there is still the tanning salon thing. As I’m sure you recall, the situation was this:
Asshole (Brett Patrick Kent) takes (unauthorized, obviously) videos of naked women (and girls) in his tanning salon. Askinosie represents him and never denies that he took the videos. Instead, he “say[s] the law under which he was charged is unconstitutional.” That law would be the one that guarantees a person the right to privacy. One most women and even most men are, well, pretty fucking attached to. I personally have no use for tanning, but for those that do, how would you feel knowing that someone was LEGALLY videotaping you all naked in that weird little coffin? Or maybe taking a picture up your skirt from below as you climbed a staircase? As I recall, a photographer did this to crazyass Britney and it held up in court because the lawyer said the same thing Askinosie did.
No thanks to Askinosie, the guy still pled guilty (to 22 counts of felony invasion of privacy) and went to jail.
Askinosie then gives up the slimy lawyering biz and starts a highly ethical choco company. Somewhere along the way he finds god, too (puke) – search on his site, you’ll see him talking about it.
Thus:
I AM NOT GOING TO BUY FUCKING CHOCOLATE FROM SHAWN ASKINOSIE.
OK? That’s it. Case fucking closed.
But I highly encourage you to read everything below so you can make up your own mind about it.
(What the hell am I talking about? Good question. Read backwards to see:
Jon Feeney, whose family was murdered:
February 28, 2005
Section: Local
Page: 1B
10 years of pain and healing
Jenny Fillmer News-Leader and Ryan Slight, News-Leader Staff
Acquittal makes Feeney case hard to forget, victim’s father says.
Jenny Fillmer News-Leader and Ryan Slight, News-Leader From a distance, it looked like a family reunion. A group of 30 gathered Sunday afternoon in Springfield’s Phelps Grove Park, giving hearty “hellos” and long hugs to all who approached. A bunch of balloons wobbled in the breeze. A small boom box played music and a guitar case waited nearby. But the three people at the center of the gathering were not there. Ten years ago, Cheryl Feeney, 35, and her children Tyler, 6 and Jennifer, 18 months, were found murdered in their home just outside the Springfield city limits. Cheryl and Tyler were beaten, and Jennifer was strangled. Cheryl’s parents and siblings organized a memorial service for them Sunday at the park’s Victims Memorial Garden. “He’d be 17 this year,” said Cheryl’s mother, Lynne Hasch, pointing to a framed photo of her grandson. “Jennifer would have been 12.” Ozarkers remember the case well, in part because only one suspect was ever indicted: Jon Feeney, Cheryl’s husband and the children’s father. Feeney, then a chemistry teacher at Glendale high School, had gone to a teaching conference at the Lake of the Ozarks before the killings. He was soon identified as the lone suspect. In the fall of 1996, Feeney stood trial on three counts of first-degree murder. A jury found him not guilty. Feeney’s attorney, Shawn Askinosie, said he was certain of Feeney’s innocence, both then and now. “Zilch. Zero. Nada. Nothing,” Askinosie said of the state’s evidence against his client. “What they had was a dead family and a surviving husband.” But many are unconvinced. “He and George Revelle and O.J. (Simpson) all got away with murder,” said Judy Miles of Springfield, recalling two other high-profile cases from the 1990s in which husbands were charged and acquitted. Miles said she did not know the slain family, but she and her husband, Barry, followed the case closely. The two watched Sunday’s memorial from afar. “His wife and two little kids — the tragedy of it struck home big time,” said Barry Miles. Cheryl’s father, Don Hasch, said Feeney’s acquittal is the reason people remember the case so well. “They know he killed them,” he said. “They know he killed them.” Don, who offered a welcoming hand to friend and strangers alike at the service, said everyone was invited — except the man he believes took away his daughter and grandchildren. “We’re hoping Feeney doesn’t show up,” he said. Jon Feeney, who now lives in South America, was not seen at the service. Living with loss The Hasches had a granite bench installed at the Victims Memorial Garden five years ago in memory of Cheryl, Tyler and Jennifer. “Etched in our memories forever,” the bench reads. The garden is a comforting place for Lynne Hasch, who travels every spring from her Camdenton home to help plant flowers in the now barren beds. “It’s because of what it’s for — Cheryl and the kids and all the others,” she said. She also finds healing in the company of others working at the garden. “All of them have lost children,’ she said. “We all have something in common.” The tragedy becomes easier to handle as time passes, said Don Hasch. “The first year was terrible,” he said. The second year wasn’t as painful, he said. A decade later, he’s part of a group of men who lost daughters to murder. “We’re not a fraternity or anything,” he said, recalling a recent meeting, “but we’re in there hugging each other. I’m not a hugger. That’s how much it meant.” Several years ago, the Hasches set up a memorial scholarship at Cox (then Burge) School of Nursing, where Cheryl, a surgical team leader, had studied. “We’ve had a couple of real nice letters, and we’ve gone to several of the graduations,” said Don Hasch. The couple has kept in touch with several friends of their daughter, including Kathy Griffin, a co-worker of Cheryl’s. “Cheryl had wonderful parents, and I just had to come out and visit them,” said Griffin, who attended Sunday’s memorial. In the month following the murders, the Hasches also grew close to crime investigators who interviewed them weekly. “We’ve been to a patrolman’s daughter’s wedding,” said Don Hasch, and when he sees Greene County Sheriff Jack Merritt, then an investigator with the Missouri Highway Patrol, he “comes up to us like we’re his long lost.” Merritt shared an umbrella with Don Hasch on Sunday. Don Hasch still feels frustration with the judicial process, which led to Feeney’s acquittal. “I think we had some poor representation, from the judge on down,” he said. “There’s so many things that were fluked.” But he’s come to accept the trial’s outcome and these days, he’s even able to joke around with investigators who he said “botched” evidence. “I gotta joke about it,” said Don Hasch. “It seems to help. We’re all in the same boat.” Don Hasch said he and his wife have done their “bawling” about their loss, and now “we can handle it pretty well.” Even a recent television news report on the 10th anniversary failed to upset them. “Lynne or I, neither one of us cried, but you have a heavy heart,” he said. Tears did flow at the memorial service. Feeney’s grief over his family’s murder is unending, said Askinosie, who keeps in close contact with him. But in the past couple of years, Feeney appears to have developed a stronger relationship with God, he observed. The former defendant now does missionary work in South America, including building medical missions and orphanages, Askinosie said. “I don’t think he would mind me saying he’s a better person now than he was 10 years ago,” Askinosie said. “Certainly his weaknesses and frailties were dragged before the public like no other defendant I’ve seen or heard of,” the attorney said, referring to testimony about affairs Feeney allegedly had before the killings. Askinosie said Feeney planned to visit Springfield to mark the 10th anniversary of his wife and children’s death. “He and his family are having their own private memorial,” said Askinosie, adding that Feeney would not be available for interviews. Reasonable doubt Law enforcement officials are also still affected a decade after the killings. Merritt — then a Highway Patrol lieutenant involved in the investigation — had not visited the crime scene, but he noticed the deaths affect those who did. “It was a very emotional thing because of the children killed,” said Merritt. “And the brutality of the murders made it difficult for those officers who had to be in the tragedy.” Greene County Prosecutor Darrell Moore said he still often thinks of the case that became “his life” for several months after a grand jury indicted Feeney. “Obviously it was a challenge because it was a circumstantial evidence case. You didn’t have any eyewitness to the crime. But the case, in the end, we felt was strong. The case had to be tried,” Moore said. The Greene County case, which took place during and after the O.J Simpson case, attracted public attention like few others. Even routine motions filed before the trial were detailed in newspaper headlines and evening newscasts. Local stations carried the trial live, and the case was featured on Court TV and NBC’s “Dateline.” After being questioned by police, Feeney retained Askinosie. It was the lawyer’s first and only death penalty trial. “There were people on other continents watching this trial, but that didn’t scare me so much as the fact I knew there was going to be some pinhead lawyer in New York on Court TV doing color commentary on my quality or lack thereof of cross-examination,” Askinosie said. “That’s certainly not a stressor at the time, but it certainly goes through your mind that everyone’s watching to see if you make a mistake,” he said. The case highlighted the importance of attention to detail, even in the face of ridicule or death threats, Askinosie said. The state had planned to call a convenience store employee who recalled Feeney purchasing gasoline in Springfield on the night of the killings. However, Askinosie discovered the man wasn’t working that night, which excluded him as a trial witness. After about five hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a not guilty verdict, prompting Feeney to sob and then walk out of the courtroom to freedom. “Even when the stakes are the highest, the system works. It may look messy at times, but it works. And it worked in this instance,” Askinosie said. However, the decision disheartened prosecutors who were cautiously optimistic based on the items jurors asked to observe during deliberation. “Personally I felt that I had let down Cheryl, Tyler and Jennifer,” Moore said. “… The only comfort I have is that I believe, in terms of justice of this world, we gave it our best shot and our best effort.” Officers who worked the case were disappointed as well, said Merritt, who believed they had the right suspect. “I think the investigation went as far as it possibly could,” the sheriff said. A decade later, Askinosie said whoever killed Cheryl Feeney and her children remains a mystery. Some unanswered questions remain, he said, such as the source of a fingerprint on a garage light bulb not belonging to the Feeneys, or unidentified hairs discovered near Cheryl Feeney’s body. Moore said law enforcement officers spent several months of intensive investigation ruling out other suspects. They examined angles ranging from whether Cheryl Feeney had problems at work to teenagers involved in witchcraft, he said. But the prosecutor felt only one suspect had the motive and the opportunity. No new leads have surfaced since the trial, he noted. “Even as I sit here today, there is no reasonable doubt to my mind as to who killed Cheryl Feeney,” Moore said.
Timeline in the Feeney case Feb. 25, 1995: Jon Feeney leaves his suburban home and drives to the Lake of the Ozarks to attend a teachers conference. His wife, Cheryl, remains home with their two children, one of whom has been sick. Feb. 26: Early that morning, Cheryl Feeney, 35, and Tyler, 6, are beaten to death. Jennifer, 17 months, is strangled with a shoelace. Feb. 27: Jon Feeney returns from the Lake of the Ozarks and is questioned by police three times over the next few days. Police soon say he is their only suspect. July: Feeney quits his job teaching science at Glendale High School, saying the trauma and lack of resolution of the case have greatly affected his ability to teach. January 1996: A grand jury begins hearing testimony in the case. April: Feeney is indicted on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife and children. Sept. 4: Records filed in court show the state’s key witness, convenience store clerk Ron Gann, was not working the morning he says he sold gas to Jon Feeney in Springfield. Sept. 24: Jury selection begins for Feeney’s first-degree murder trial. Two days later, a jury of eight men and four women is seated to hear the case. Oct. 5: The defense rests and lawyers for both sides present closing arguments, which last almost four hours and are broadcast live on local TV. The jury begins deliberations at 3:55 p.m. Jurors return a verdict of not guilty at 9:05 p.m. November: Cheryl Feeney’s parents file a wrongful-death lawsuit against Jon Feeney, claiming he is not entitled to nearly $400,000 in insurance benefits. But they decide to drop the case after it moves to federal court. August 1997: Jon Feeney reaches a settlement with his in-laws regarding insurance. February 2000: A monument is dedicated in Phelps Grove Park to Cheryl Feeney and her children. Photo Caption:Lynne Hasch (left), who is Cheryl Feeney’s mother, and Threasa Ballenger grieve at a memorial service Sunday.
Copyright (c) Springfield News-Leader. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.
February 27, 2005
Section: Local
Page: 1B
Column:Sarah Overstreet
Sarah Overstreet Staff
A decade later, unsolved killing of family still haunts neighbors
The 10th anniversary of the horrific killings of a Springfield mother and her two young children casts a slight pall over those of us who remember it.
Things like this didn’t happen here, we thought. Nice moms — nurses — and their children don’t get killed in their own homes. Especially in nice neighborhoods like the 1900 block of West Nottingham Street. Ten years ago today, Cheryl Feeney and her son Tyler, 6, and daughter Jennifer, 18 months, were found dead in their southwest Springfield home. They’d also been sodomized, according to Rita Sanders, a Springfield defense attorney who was then a Major Crimes Squad investigator. The Feeney family had a pool in their back yard. The lot was beautifully landscaped. Two well-kept and washed cars pulled in and out of their suburban dream every day. Their children were cute as could be. Then, after husband and father Jon Feeney left for a teachers’ conference at the Lake of the Ozarks, they were mercilessly slain on Feb. 27, 1995. Cheryl was beaten repeatedly by a pipe or similar instrument. Tyler, 6, was also beaten to death in his bed. Jennifer, 18 months, however, was strangled. At Jon Feeney’s murder trial, the late James Spindler, then Greene County’s medical examiner, described her death as something that took several minutes, with the child resisting and suffering terribly. Jon Feeney was acquitted in that trial, for lack of compelling evidence. It’s an investigation and trial those who knew the Feeneys can’t put out of their minds easily. The Feeneys’ across-the-street neighbor, Tim Hill, started out believing Jon Feeney’s story. Asked to testify at the man’s trial, he began to have second thoughts. “After I sat in the witness room waiting for my turn, I had changed my opinion,” Hill says. The witnesses waiting to testify shared stories. “One of Cheryl’s good friends, a nurse, said she often had to work odd hours because (Jon) would not let (Cheryl) work those hours. Several of the other nurses had to cover for her because he didn’t want to be around the children. He didn’t want her to work because he’d have to baby-sit the children.” Sanders thought it was an inside job from the beginning. “Immediately my impression was that the suspect was either a family member or someone very close to the family: the family pictures being turned toward the wall; Cheryl was covered up, the children had pillows on their faces. If you’re going to be callous enough to murder a mom and two children, why cover them up?” There were other clues that left Sanders with the feeling that someone close to the family had done this. “There was a cat in the basement … and he was not allowed to come upstairs because Tyler had allergies. The door to the family room in the basement was shut, and the cat was still in there. Whoever committed the crime had to go into that family room, yet the door was shut. Every time we’d open that door, the cat would rush out and we’d have to go get him. Why would they close that door? Because they knew cat would have bolted out.” Some of Feeney’s fellow Glendale teachers began to suspect that all was not right at the science teacher’s home, and four teachers later reported adulterous liaisons with Feeney over several years since he’d married Cheryl, three of them on the stand at the murder trial. And former Glendale students reported incidences of Feeney buying alcohol for them, Sanders remembers. But in the initial investigation, it was what Cheryl’s friends told Sanders that made the investigator look at Jon. “It was people telling us he just took no interest in the children,” Sanders says. “They said Cheryl had to leave Jennifer’s baby seat in the middle of the living room so he wouldn’t forget her,” Sanders says. Hill says the years following the Feeney killings and Jon Feeney’s acquittal left neigh- bors with a lingering, bothersome question: “How could he still live in that house?” wondered the neighbor who had helped Feeney build a shed for his pool filter. “We are the only ones within three houses of him who are still here,” Hill says. “One of the people on the end of the street, the child had so much trauma from it, they had to move. The little boy just couldn’t stay in the house anymore. He’d have terrible nightmares every night. She moved back to St. Joseph and he stayed here long enough to get the house sold. “Everybody was very uncomfortable. Some put alarm systems in their houses. We already had one, but we began to have ours monitored.” Hill says Feeney moved back into the house about a month after the killings, but neighbors didn’t see him much. “He was pretty much a recluse.” Later, Hill says he saw Feeney out and had a conversation with him. “I think he told me he was going to China to teach the Bible to children, on a mission trip. It was a long time before I saw him again.” The neighbors say they don’t know where Feeney is now, after he sold the house on West Nottingham. They’re just glad the neighborhood seems normal again. “Most everybody was just in shock,” says Hill’s wife, Nancy, of learning the news of what had happened on their street. “I still have people asking me about it, when they find out where I live,” Tim Hill says. Neighbors talked about the murders for a long time, but rarely talk about it now, he says. “A lot of people don’t even remember it.” Contact News-Leader columnist Sarah Overstreet at soverstreetNews-Leader.com. Photo Caption:Cheryl Feeney and her children, Tyler and Jennifer, were killed in their Springfield home 10 years ago today. The killings remain unsolved.
Copyright 2005 Springfield News-Leader
Brett Kent, the tanning salon guy
http://www.ky3.com/home/related/4911951.html
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/news2008/kent.ple.htm
http://www.ky3.com/news/local/17205826.html
Lawyers for ex-tanning salon owner challenge invasion of privacy statute
Matt Wagner
© 2006, Springfield News-Leader
The former owner of a south Springfield tanning salon facing 22 counts of invasion of privacy waived a preliminary hearing this morning, and his attorneys say the law under which he was charged is unconstitutional.
Brett Patrick Kent, 33, appeared this morning before Greene County Associate Circuit Judge Mark Powell as more than a dozen victims and their families watched quietly from the rear of the courtroom.
Prosecutors allege Kent recorded images of women who were partially or completely nude as they tanned at his salon — formerly known as 360 Degree Tanning — on West Republic Road late last year.
Kent’s attorneys, Shawn Askinosie and John Gore, have filed a motion challenging the constitutionality of Missouri’s invasion of privacy statute.
“The bottom line is that the statute’s vague,” Gore said.
He pointed to a section of the law that suggests privacy has been invaded when images are recorded for sexual gratification or desire. “It allows you to do this for any other purpose,” Gore noted.
Senior Assistant Prosecutor Tyson Martin said he thinks the law is constitutional and that there is sufficient evidence to prove Kent violated the privacy of his customers.
Kent’s case was bound over for trial, and he will be arraigned Friday.
