BENTON – Former lawyer Gary Peel, who served time for bankruptcy fraud and possession of child pornography and keeps trying to overturn his conviction, failed again to overturn it.
U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle, who denied his motion for a common law writ of error in June, denied reconsideration on Sept. 7.
“While Peel takes umbrage with various aspects of the court’s ruling, he fails to demonstrate that the court actually disregarded, misapplied, or failed to recognize controlling precedent,” she wrote.
Peel formerly pursued Madison County class actions for Tom Lakin’s firm. Lakin himself would also go to prison, for distributing cocaine.
Peel and wife Deborah divorced, and he agreed to pay sums to her and their three children.
He then married former client Deborah Pontius.
In 2005, he transferred assets to Deborah Pontius for a dollar and petitioned in bankruptcy court for relief from his divorce agreement.
At an examination of assets and liabilities, similar to a deposition, he provided evidence of a high standard of living.
He said Deborah Pontius liked mermaids and had a mermaid fountain weighing 800 pounds.
The bankruptcy court shared a transcript with creditors including his children.
In 2006, his son David Peel provided a copy of the transcript to the Record, which published a summary.
Peel later put a note in ex-wife Deborah’s mailbox with photographs of her sister nude at age 16. He advised her to stop the publicity or he’d start circulating the photos.
Grand jurors indicted him on charges of bankruptcy fraud, obstruction of justice, and possession of child pornography.
At trial before judge William Stiehl in 2007, jurors found him guilty.
Stiehl imposed concurrent sentences of 12 years for obstructing justice, 10 years for possessing child porn, and five years for bankruptcy fraud.
Peel appealed and in 2010, Seventh Circuit judges vacated the obstruction conviction and ordered resentencing.
Stiehl imposed 12 years again, with consecutive sentences of 10 years for possession of child porn and two years for bankruptcy fraud.
Peel appealed and the Seventh Circuit affirmed Stiehl.
In 2014, from a Kentucky prison, he filed for habeas corpus in Eastern Kentucky district court.
The court denied the petition.
In 2015, after Stiehl retired, Peel moved to reform judgment.
The clerk assigned Yandle, who denied the motion.
Peel filed a motion for immediate release at the Seventh Circuit, which denied it.
He persisted at all levels and last year alone, the Seventh Circuit rejected two appeals and the Supreme Court denied review on one.
After release he couldn’t file habeas corpus petitions, so he responded to the Supreme Court decision by asking Yandle for a writ of error.
He claimed false evidence about his first wife’s claim in bankruptcy court was used to procure his fraud conviction.
He claimed he didn’t possess child porn because the subject wasn’t a child.
He relied on law as of 1976, defining 16 year olds as adults for sexual activity.
He alleged ineffective assistance of counsel.
Yandle denied a writ in June.
She found Peel filed miscellaneous motions over the years making the same or substantially similar arguments all of which were denied.
On false evidence she wrote, “This court rejects Peel’s latest repackaging of this exhausted argument.”
On adult status, she found the Seventh Circuit ruled 10 years ago that Peel committed a misdemeanor form of statutory rape in 1976.
On ineffective assistance, she found he couldn’t establish errors of a fundamental character justifying relief.
In his motion for reconsideration he wrote, “There are multiple examples of photographs depicting naked children that do not qualify as child pornography.”
He specified National Geographic in the Amazon and a girl nine years old running from a village in Vietnam.
“While it may be uncomfortable and a bit embarrassing for any court to acknowledge reversible error and vacate criminal convictions improvidently prosecuted or erroneously decided, it is better that an innocent man go free than to jealously protect a defective condition,” Peel wrote.
Yandle denied reconsideration, finding a party moving for it must present new evidence or establish manifest error of law or fact.
She found Peel couldn’t employ reconsideration to rehash arguments she rejected.
She quoted a judge who wrote, “Manifest error is not demonstrated by the disappointment of the losing party.”