Silver Bracelets For…
MARK VANCE HALBURN
A PutnamLIES.com/Trash Bloggers Alliance Exclusive
After a 3 1/2 hour trial today in Putnam County magistrate court, Mark Vance Halburn was was found guilty of violating a personal safety order issued against him on behalf of Dr Joe Matusic.
It took the jury just 10 minutes to return a guilty verdict.
The day began when Halburn arrived at the courthouse and started barking out orders to his attorney, Christopher Butch. The first thing he did was hand him a piece of paper and said, “These are questions for you to ask me.”
He then sat in the waiting area and prayed out loud for the jury to understand that he had the wrong address.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.” Matthew 6:5
He also brought his Sugar Mama, Barbara, for support. And to go to his car and get his root beer that he needed.
Babs is fascinated by the newfangled cellular telephone.
Once in court, Halburn’s ancient attorney Christopher Butch appeared clueless and shook the whole time. But that was OK because Halburn seemed to run the whole show, sitting back in his chair like he owned the place, telling his attorney what to do and say, shoving papers at him the entire time and whispering to him every minute or so. The poor guy couldn’t keep his concentration because of it. To the point where Halburn was told by the judge several times to be quiet and the prosecuting attorney asked “Which one of these men is counsel”?
It was a cut and dried case.
In his opening statement Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Lawson told the jury there were only two things to remember. There is a protection order, and that Mark Vance Halburn went to the home. The rest you hear, he said, is just smoke and mirrors meant to distract.
Lawson entered the order as exhibit 1, then a Google Earth shot of the Matusic property showing how you can’t see the house from Peach Ridge because the driveway is about a quarter of a mile long,
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| Exhibit 2: View of Matusic’s driveway from Peach Ridge Road |
then pictures of the three no trespassing/ private property signs Halburn passed coming up the driveway, then a picture of the mailbox with large reflective numbers on it, and lastly a photo of Halburn’s car in Matusic’s driveway.
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| Exhibit 4 – Halburn driving his car up Dr. Matusic’s driveway |
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| The red marker indicates the location of Halburn’s car in the picture above |
Magistrate Linda Hunt accepted them all into evidence and they were shown to the jury.
The Prosecution called just one witness. Dr. Joseph Matusic.
Dr. Matusic did an excellent job on the stand.
He testified to the long term harassment and stalking by Halburn.
He explained about the pictures of Halburn’s car taken in the driveway.
The defense tried to bring up a lot of crap such as “Halburn is a local reporter and was going to get pictures” and “Why did you let Channel 13 on your property and not Halburn when he was just doing his job?”
The simple answer given was, “I don’t have a PSO against Channel 13 and you write a blog.”
At that point the prosecution rested its case.
The defendant's first witness was Putnam County Sheriff Deputy Shawn Johnson who testified that he went and took the report, went to the courthouse to verify the protection order and also spoke with Hurricane Fire Department.
Next, when Halburn took the stand they couldn’t shut him up. He would elaborate on anything and everything and talk and talk. The magistrate called him down multiple times because he would drone on and on. She finally said, “Just answer the questions”!
The answer to “did you go on to this property” isn’t a 15 minute response.
Halburn claimed he had an email of the broadcast text sent to him by someone who worked (supposedly) at one of the television stations that he tried to enter as evidence. Magistrate Linda Hunt shut that down quickly. He wasn’t allowed to enter any of his material as evidence. The look on his face was priceless when he had to come to terms with the fact that nobody cared about his mountain of useless, irrelevant and inadmissible evidence.
Halburn repeatedly tried to bring in what everyone told him on the phone and persisted with it. The Prosecutor’s objections for hearsay were sustained every single time.
Then the lies started.
Halburn lied and said that he got lost and turned onto a public road. Except it was a driveway with no road sign on it, a mailbox clearly marked with large reflective numbers and THREE no trespassing signs. He then drove up a 1/4 mile driveway to a house that can’t be seen from the road.
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| This shows the distance Halburn had to travel up the Matusic’s driveway. |
Halburn had to make a conscious effort to go out Peach Ridge Road. It isn’t on the way to anywhere. He intended to go there. It’s not a thruway or side street. He drove 2 miles out a road that goes nowhere. Halburn knew exactly where the Doctor lives.
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| The route Halburn took to the house. |
But he wants a jury to believe that an address that was clearly on a document he was served with was one he didn’t know.
And that he just made a mistake.
He can’t stop at someone’s house, ask if that’s Matusic’s property and then make the choice to continue to the property and call it an accident. If it was “an accident,” when the person told him it was Matusic’s property he would have turned around and gone home.
He continued to lie and said he was at the bottom of the driveway, except the Prosecution had pictures showing he was at the top of the driveway.
Lawson did a great job of tripping up Halburn’s defense on numerous inconsistencies, such as Halburn stating that he was given a wrong address from Hurricane Fire Department. The house number was on the mailbox at the main road and it is the same as was on the protection order. So that claim was disproved quickly.
Halburn tried to say he never came up the driveway and was nowhere near the house, but when shown the photos of his car at the top of the driveway, he admitted that it was his car.
Halburn continued to use his lame excuse that he was given the wrong address and he was there to take pictures for his news website because he is a “News Reporter.”, He got called out on that by Lawson who pointed out that it’s already been decided by the courts that it is a blog. At that point, Halburn slung his fat ass back in the chair until it looked like it was going to tip over.
On several occasions Magistrate Linda Hunt actually rolled her eyes at Halburn’s statements.
Halburn told the jury that Matusic followed him and therefore that negated the intent of the order.
The jury obviously thought that was just more of Halburn’s bullshit.
Halburn also wanted the jury to believe that Matusic called the police after Halburn blatantly violated the third personal safety order issued against him because Matusic was somehow trying to affect a motion to a family court judge that Halburn filed weeks earlier for sole custody of his son.
At one point, Halburn told his attorney to have Matusic’s fiancee thrown out for “Witness Intimidation.” Halburn’s sugar mama told the judge the fiancee was talking and helping out during the trial.
The jurors were buying none of it.
The surprising thing is that they could actually find six people that didn’t already have an opinion of him.
Then the verdict came in and the words people have been waiting years to hear were read.
“We the jury be unanimously agreed to find the defendant, Mark Vance Halburn, guilty of a misdemeanor offense of violation a personal safety order. So say we all”
Halburn’s lawyer then asked about the sentencing.When asked by Magistrate Hunt if he wanted to do sentencing today, Butch said he didn’t bring his calendar.
She said “We can do sentencing today if you want.”
Butch asked, “Is he going to be sent to jail today?
And then the real laugher came out.
Butch says, “We would ask that you suspend any sentence your honor.”
Hunt asked, “You mean suspend any sentence?”
Butch meant suspend it permanently.
The State then asked for sentencing to take place immediately, but Butch asked for 3 weeks.
They rambled back and forth for several minutes before settling on September 21 for Halburn’s sentencing.
Then Halburn and his entourage of lawyer and sugar mama shuffled out of the courthouse and to the parking lot.
- Halburn and his party doing the walk of shame.
- Can you believe this guy? Who keeps their car this filthy?
Here is a little known fact of the legal system. Halburn chose a jury trial thinking he could trash his victim that much more or he chose a jury trial because no sane judge would believe any of his rants. Anyhow, if you have a bench trial with a judge, and you appeal, then you get an entire new trial at no expense.
Halburn lied about his “businesses” and other sources of income in order to get a court appointed lawyer for his criminal contempt trial so that wouldn’t have been any skin off his nose.
But if he wants to appeal a jury trial, he can only appeal on errors that may have arisen during the jury trial. He will not get a new trial, only an opinion from a judge about any errors. AND he must pay thousands in court costs for the appeal. That’s money he does not have.
We should not make fun of nor torment the mentally ill.
Mark Halburn is an exception because he is the kind of mentally ill that is not bad enough to be in an institution, not mild enough for him to seek effective treatment and irritating enough to his fellow countrymen to piss off just about everyone he interacts with. Halburn is a blowhard and a bully who uses his “intelligence” and gifts of literary skills to extort local businesses out of some semblance of an income. Anyone who encounters Halburn can pretty quickly figure out that his elevator does not quite go to the top floor, but most also see that he is more the kind to post slanderous things than take physical action.
We all watch the news, we all see events where mass trauma and murder have been committed by the mentally ill. People whom others knew were dangerous, but had not quite committed enough to get them either incarcerated or helped before they hurt and killed others. Mr Halburn appears to fit into that category of pathology. We never know when Mr Halburn is going to go the next step but we should all be prepared for the day that happens and take appropriate action when it does. But until then, lets hope Halburn learns from this experience, hope that Halburns new cell mates can help him see the error of his ways, hope that Halburn’s sugar mama/girlfriend/ fiance Barbara is a good influence on him and calms the demons inside him even though she empties bedpans for a living and seems as dim witted as Halburn.. God knows his two ex-wives were never able to do anything.
But anyone who interacts with him should also remember this statement from his court ordered mental evaluation:
“Mr. Halburn’s psychological profile and behavior would suggest that he has propensity for aggressive behavior. Given his degree of agitation and volatility, any threats made by Mr. Halburn should be taken seriously and dealt with appropriately.”
Mental illness often has patterns and cycles and Halburn’s now appears to be on the escalation phase.
In June, he was sentenced in Kanawha County to 6 months in jail for harassing WCHS Radio and the Mayor of Charleston. While awaiting this trial, he trespassed at a church camp and has a personal safety order from that incident which prevents him from seeing his own son. In the weeks after that, he visited several churches of the same denomination and left flyers on worshipers’ cars while they were attending church services.
Halburn will be sentenced on September 21 at 2:30pm. The State will ask for the maximum sentence of 90 days.
It would be better than jail for him to do the time in a mental hospital.
Actual incarceration isn’t going to fix his problem.
He needs to be involuntarily committed.
PutnamLIES.com will have more on this story as it becomes available
Read Dr. Matusic's story here:
http://www.babymd.net/stalker.html
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