ATTENTION: MAINE VOTERS
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS DENIES HELP
TO MAINE MAN IN MILITARY PRISON
WE PROVE – THANKS TO F.O.I.A.
HIS RIGHTS VIOLATED
BUT COLLINS DOESN’T CARE

With all the subtlety of a slap across the face or a stab in the back, Maine’s junior senator, Susan Collins, has refused to help a former serviceman from Windham, Maine who is unfairly imprisoned in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth, Kansas.

“She built up our hopes, then smashed them,” said Janice (Tilton) Wescott, sister of former Air Force Staff Sergeant Jerry Tilton (see our related stories below).

“We were told by Bill Vail in her Portland office, that Sen. Collins would be willing to send a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force. All we had to do was have our attorney ‘draft’ a suitable message the senator could ‘sign off on’ and mail in,” Wescott said.

MilitaryCorruption.com has obtained a copy of the letter, which in no way commits Collins to declaring Tilton either “guilty” or “innocent.” All it asks for is justice.

It states at the beginning that Collins realizes she cannot “by law” interfere with “the appellate process.” [Tilton is appealing his conviction to the Air Force Board of Clemency and Appeals]. And, she acknowledges that the Air Force secretary cannot involve himself, either.

But, in the draft version of the letter, Collins does say to the service secretary that he “has the power right now” to grant “clemency” and “commute Tilton’s prison sentence to “time served,” in light of the many injustices committed against the Maine man during and after his court-martial on phony “child molestation” charges.

“It cost us over $2000 – at $250 an hour – for our lawyer to draft the letter and participate in conference calls with the Collins office. Then, after trying to stall us on when the letter would be issued, we were contacted by the Collins lawyer – a Mr. Bopp – that there would be NO letter after all!

“He had the gall to tell us the “reasons” – really weak excuses – were that Sen. Collins thought it would be “unethical” for her to get involved, and that, after all, she “doesn’t know Jerry Tilton personally.”

What has THAT got to do with the price of beans?

And WHO are the Collins people to preach about “ethics?” What they did to the Tilton family, who came to them as Maine constituents seeking HELP, was in itself grossly UNETHICAL.

Bopp, even “rubbed salt” into the Tilton family’s wounds when he smugly added this last sentence to his letter: “Please feel free to contact us again if we can be of assistance.”

It took three long years for the Tilton family to get ONE meeting with anyone from the Collins office! And that only came after a Maine native and former newsman in Augusta and Portland - MAJ Glenn MacDonald, USAR (Ret), editor-in-chief of MilitaryCorruption.com – went on the popular MAINE IN THE MORNING radio show to openly appeal for Collins to help.

“Our idea was, since Collins is running for re-election, we thought she might be more responsive this year than some other politician without a seat at risk,” Wescott said.

But, unfortunately for all concerned – except the incumbent senator – Collins’ Democrat opponent is a far-left “Hillary Clinton clone,” former State Sen. Chellie Pingree. The frustrated Maine Democrats, desperate to beat Collins any way they can, tried to “co-opt her positions” by “out-flanking” her to the “left” of the political spectrum. That is a place with very little room in Maine these days.

Collins votes with the Democrats half the time, and thus has grabbed the opposition’s issues – including approval for “partial-birth abortions” – something even some Democrat senators in other states “blanch” at supporting.

The latest polls in Maine show Collins far ahead, thanks in part to a clumsy start by Pingree, when the shrill feminist ran misleading television ads distorting Collins’ record on prescription drugs.

But Maine people are very sensitive to injustice and crafty politicians. Especially ones like Collins, who spend big bucks running television spots highlighting a supposed desire to HELP all her constituents.

Political observers in Maine tell us the TV ads came after a particularly damaging column in early September in the Portland PRESS HERALD.

Bill Nemitz wrote: “Hello, senator, are you there? Please answer” a detailed account of the frustrations one Dan Milligan had in dealing with the bureaucratic Collins local office. Just like the proverbial “bad penny,” Vail surfaced in the story as one of the less-than-helpful Collins officials.

“We read that article, knowing the PRESS HERALD is a liberal paper and Nemitz – a talented writer, but clearly no Republican – might be trying to score points for Democrat Pingree,” another Tilton family member told us. “We didn’t think in our worst nightmare that what Nemitz wrote would apply to us too. Now WE know what it feels like to get the brush-off.”

MAJ MacDonald, a veteran radio news broadcaster in civilian life, has made three appearances thus far on MAINE IN THE MORNING, and the impact of Collins’ actions is starting to affect the public.

“I’ll never vote for her again,” said a lady who e-mailed us from Caribou, in Aroostook County, Maine – supposedly a Collins stronghold.

“I’m an Independent, but I’m skipping her name on the ballot,” messaged another voter, this one from southernmost York County.

“I never really trusted her,” said a moderate Republican and veteran political sage from Augusta, Maine. “I’m not at all surprised at what she did.”

And a young couple from Gardiner wrote: “I and my wife heard your broadcast and have decided NOT to vote for her this time – she doesn’t deserve it.”

From all over the Pine Tree State – Republicans, Independents and even a handful of thoughtful Democrats – tell us they are offended by how the Tilton family was treated. Collins is clearly “bleeding” votes. But not enough to cost her the election. That she has “in the bag.” But such erosion at the polls may be enough to make her sit up a little later on election night before she can start “celebrating.”

“Do you think a smaller vote will teach her any humility?” said one longtime Maine Republican. “No, not a bit,” said another. “She doesn’t need the little people. And what’s worse, she knows it!”

Certainly the large Tilton family and all their Maine relatives – strong supporters of Collins in 1996 – will NOT be voting for her this time around. They learned the hard way not to trust in any “politician.”

Since our last story, MilitaryCorruption.com has been contacted by a former Leavenworth DB inmate, U.S. Air Force COL James Sills, who has a mother living in Maine.

COL Sills revealed to us that HE TOO had his appellate rights violated when the cover sheet (“charge sheet synopsis”) on his paperwork going forward to the Clemency and Appeal Board was falsified by a worker at the prison – the same one, it turns out – that did similar “sabotage” to Jerry Tilton’s papers. COL Sills was able to get the matter corrected, but only after he had been first “thrown out” of the offending official’s office.

“I have powerful friends on the outside,” COL Sills told us, “and holding a much higher rank than that of staff sergeant,” he said, he was able to get the documents corrected.” So far, Tilton has not.

Do you, dear reader, see a pattern here? An INJUSTICE perhaps? Why doesn’t Sen. Collins? Can’t she at least look into THAT?

There are few things more offensive to the Constitution and Bill of Rights than for an American citizen to have his or her appellate rights VIOLATED by the deliberate criminal act of their jailers.

Maybe Collins doesn’t want to “rattle the cage” of some of her female supporters who think ANY male “accused” of a crime MUST be “guilty” as charged. Does “political-correctness” enter into this equation?

If George Mitchell was still in the U.S. Senate, and the imprisoned one here was a woman, falsely charged, what would be the “politics” then? We will never know.

But we do know this. Susan Collins turned her back on Jerry Tilton and his family. She obviously thinks she can afford to do that with only a few weeks left before election day.

YOU, the voters of Maine, have an opportunity to send her a “message” on November 5th.