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Bonnie Foreshaw Case on WTIC 1080
Monday January 9, 2006
Mornings with Ray Dunaway and Diane Smith
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Monday
1/9
Alan Russell
Chairman of the Schaghticoke Indian Tribal Council
Re: Separation From Tribe
Joe Amarante
TV Critic for the New Haven Register
Re: Upcoming TV Season
[scheduled 9:05 a.m.]
Andy
Thibault
Author of "Law & Justice in Everyday Life,"
Columnist for Law Tribune Newspapers, Adjunct Professor of Journalism at
the University of Hartford and [Case Manager, McNicholas Associates].
Re: Bonnie Foreshaw Case
Mahmood Monshipouri
Political Science Professor at Quinnipiac University
Re: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Banning Western Music in Iran
9:05
a.m. Bonnie Foreshaw case
RD
– Ray Dunaway
DS
– Diane Smith
AT
– Andy Thibault
RD
– [Humming to the bumper music.] Who’s this? Who’s this guy? By the
way, WTIC. Hey, good morning, welcome to the program. Ray Dunaway. And
Diane Smith is here, and by and large, we’re having the best times of
our lives. Thank you for being part of it.
DS
– Here it is.
RD – We’ll take calls after 9:30. We’re going to talk about a
couple of things. To get you up to speed on things, Andy Thibault, who you
know, has been on this show before. He is a columnist for The Law Tribune.
And a very interesting guy in his own right. Anyway, he has taken on a
cause, and it all really goes back a ways. First of all, Andy, great to
have you on, buddy.
AT
-- Hey,
Ray, you got the beat. Thanks for having me on.
RD
– We got the beat, baby, we got the beat. This is the story of a woman
named Bonnie Foreshaw. Correct?
AT
– Yes sir.
RD
– First of all, let’s get the facts of the case. Because you’ve
written a letter to Gov. Rell saying, look, this woman was not fairly
charged, she was unfairly sentenced, this woman should be out by now. So
what are the particulars of this case?
AT
– Sure, Ray. I’ve been assured early in December that this would make
it to Gov. Rell’s desk. Every day Bonnie Foreshaw remains in prison, I
think, is a crime against humanity perpetrated by the state of
Connecticut. Just a little bit about Bonnie: She gave birth to her first
child at age 12. She’s been a victim of violence and sexual abuse from
childhood through her time in prison. That abuse has continued. After she
was beaten by her third husband she carried a gun for protection. She was
a machinist for Wiremold Company in Hartford for 10 years, shop steward,
bought a house in Bloomfield, cared for her children. And her third
husband continued to stalk her. One night she stopped for a drink at the
Jamaican Progressive League in Hartford. A man named Hector Freeman
offered her a drink. She declined. Freeman pursued her, would not leave
her alone, followed her to her car. He came toward her, he reached into
his pocket, she feared he was going to pull a knife or a gun. And Freeman
admittedly pulled a pregnant woman in front of him. Bonnie fired her gun.
She hit the pregnant woman who died. And that woman was used as a human
shield. A young, ambitious assistant state’s attorney James Thomas
grossly overcharged Bonnie.
RD
– What did he charge her with?
AT
– Premeditated murder of a person she had never met. So Thomas stepped
on Bonnie in a shameful and cowardly way to advance his career. He has a
chance to redeem himself by supporting – or not opposing – Bonnie’s
release when she goes before the Board of Pardons and Parole this year.
DS
– Andy, what would have been appropriate, what kind of action might
have been appropriate legally?
AT
– Manslaughter. She would have been out years ago. She’s served 20
years. The so-called Correction Department – which I would call the
Department of Sadism, Deception and Lies – gave Bonnie a Christmas
present. They stole her medical mattress. She has rheumatoid arthritis and
she’s been given an old, dirty mattress – one that should have been
thrown away. And she was sexually assaulted in prison last year and that
was covered up. So, I mean, we have a Gulag here in Connecticut and people
need to know about it.
DS
– Andy, why do you think this is happening? I mean, you’re using
pretty strong terms.
AT
–[Commissioner] Theresa Lantz has good intentions, but she’s not
getting the job done. Between her and the prisoners there are a lot of
sadists and nincompoops. In fact, regarding the guard who allegedly
assaulted Bonnie, another guard came to Bonnie’s cell and called that
guard a hero.
RD
– Let me ask you something, Andy. There’s no excuse for this. In fact,
this did happen. But, has she been by and large a model prisoner?
AT
-- As Wally Lamb, who tutors her in the writing group, says, she’s been
a surrogate mother and grandmother to many troubled women and teen-age
girls, she’s active in Literacy Volunteers, Alternatives to Violence and
the Hospice Program. She’s a model prisoner, a woman of great self
control, she’s sorry for what she did and she’s redeemed herself.
DS
– Andy, you said she’s already served 20 years, right?
AT
– Yeah.
DS
– I mean, a lot of people who go to prison on pre-meditated murder
charges rightfully, don’t serve 20 years.
AT
– I know a guy who walked into a courtroom in Norwich, pumped five
bullets into his wife in a divorce case and said, “Now I can sleep at
night.” He was only sentenced to 12 years.
DS
– What could happen, what’s the possibility here, what’s the only
way for Bonnie Foreshaw
[to get out] …
AT
– Well, it’s tough. She has to get a hearing. But I believe there are
good people who will do their duty on the Board of Pardons and Parole. She
has an all-star legal team. There’s a guy named Clint Roberts, who’s
an expert on sentence review; Hartford Atty. John Andreini, [Atty.] Rich
Meehan, who you know and [Atty.] Mary Werblin are her legal team. So
she’s got an all-star team, she’s got a just cause and we asked the
governor to turn the spotlight on this.
DS
– It’s not a case where the governor could act on her own, is it?
AT
– No, she couldn’t. But, as I mentioned to her staff: When things were
rotten in New London, Ella Grasso got involved in the cover-up of a
hit-and-run.
DS
– So Ella Grasso kind of brought it out and brought it to some kind of
an airing?
AT
– She put papers on the desk of Supreme Court Justice John Cotter, who
ordered a one-man grand jury led by Joseph Dannehy and Austin McGuigan.
DS
– What we’re talking about with Bonnie Foreshaw here also if she were
to serve her entire sentence, isn’t she still facing like 25 more years?
AT
– Yeah, she got sentenced to about 45, I forget how many years. The
longest sentence of any woman in Connecticut history. She’s 57, she’s
in ill health.
RD—So,
she’ll die in prison.
AT
– She’s being mistreated every day. I told you what she got for
Christmas.
DS
– I’ll ask you another question, OK, this is, we talk about a prison
system where we believe in rehabilitation. And we call it the Department
of Correction, not the Department of Punishment because we believe people
can turn their lives around with some assistance. This sounds like a
person who if in fact was guilty of the crime in the first place in the
way that they portrayed it – which sounds like it was a miscarriage at
that point – the woman has certainly … achieved rehabilitation
according to your account.
AT
– The greatest crime you can commit as a prisoner is to pretend you are
a human being. Because you’ll be punished for that.
DS—And
you say she’s done that by acting as a surrogate mother and grandmother
to some of the other inmates?
AT
– Yeah, what they want you to do is stay in your cell. To get to any
program you have to run through a gauntlet. It’s much easier to just
stay in your cell and just rot away.
DS
– You say you got to know her through Wally Lamb’s writing workshop.
Wally, of course, as most people know, is a world-famous novelist and he
did put together a wonderful book a few years ago written by women in that
writing workshop. I’m trying to remember now, was Bonnie one of them?
AT
– Yes, she was. She had a great piece in there. And, of course, you
remember that they punished the prisoners for trying to redeem themselves
and writing about it.
DS
– Although, wasn’t that eventually turned around, Andy.
AT
– Yeah, Blumenthal saw the light when 60 Minutes flashed a light in
his face.
DS
– Uh huh.
RD
– Well, Andy, I’ll tell you what. Once again, the name of the
woman is … Bonnie Foreshaw.
AT
– Bonnie Foreshaw must go free.
RD
– And she’s been in for quite a while.
AT
– Twenty years.
RD
– [Facing] another 25 years, she was sentenced to 45 years. There was no
hope of parole whatsoever?
AT
– Her legal team is trying to get her a hearing with the Board of
Pardons and Parole. We’re optimistic that will happen.
DS
– If people in the audience wanted to take up her cause, is there
something that people can do that is simple that doesn’t involve having
to go and protest or call 60 Minutes of whatever? Is there something they
can try to do to get this to happen?
AT
– They could inquire to their legislators, write to the governor, write
to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, you can get all that with a google.
RD—And
it is Bonnie Foreshaw. Once, again, I want to thank you, Andy, for being
on. Let’s stay in touch and let us know how it goes.
AT
– Thanks so much Ray and Diane.
DS—Thanks,
Andy.
RD
– Andy Thibault. This also ran, the piece he sent us, ran in The Norwich
Bulletin and The Law Tribune.
DS
– And The New London Day. It was originally one of the columns that Andy
writes for The Connecticut Law Tribune, but those two papers, New London
Day and Norwich Bulletin, picked it up. And I might say that Brian
Garnett, the former reporter for Channel 3 who’s now a spokesperson for
the Department of Correction, had a few unkind comments about it. I think
if all he’s asking for here is a hearing. You know, he’s not asking
for clemency. Obviously, that’s what Andy thinks should happen. But,
he’s asking for a hearing among people that he considers to be just and
fair.
RD
– Well, let’s get on the record whether she has been a good prisoner,
whether there have been issues. I mean, you know, just get it out there. I
agree.
DS – What’s so scary about a hearing?
RD
– It’s 9:18 on WTIC
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