In a terrible update to an already awful story, the DEA has arrested the owners of Phat Stuff, the popular local head shop on Main Street that was raided in May of 2014. Panos and Katie Eliopoulos were arrested (allegedly in front of their kids) in February and have been charged with one count of “Conspiracy to Offer Drug Paraphernalia for Sale” and one count of “Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering”. You can read the short, three page indictment here.
The paraphernalia sales charge carries up to three years in prison and an unspecified fine and the money laundering charge carries up to twenty years in prison, an up to $500,000 fine, and an additional fine relating to the value of the property involved.
Longtime readers of Free Keene may recall that the raid nearly destroyed their business and left them penniless as the federal gangsters cleaned out their bank account and even stole their truck. Oh, and don’t forget the DEA’s theft of an entire box-truckload of store merchandise – probably $100,000 in inventory, which they’ll likely never get back, even if they’re found not guilty. The raid was done with the assistance of Keene police, who were protecting and serving their federal masters, not the people of this community. In an ideal world, the Keene police would have arrested the DEA agents and charged them with armed robbery. You can watch the 17-minute video of the raid, cut down from over four hours of raw footage here.
Eliopoulous Family’s Life Destroyed By Insane War on Drugs
The indictment was issued on February 11th and the arrests appear to have occurred a week later on February 18th, according to the bail paperwork. Bail conditions for Panos (and presumably Katie, though I haven’t seen her bail paperwork) include him submitting to search anytime police want, submit to urine testing, and give up any weapons, among other conditions.
Trial is currently slated for two weeks in federal court in Concord beginning on April 21st, 2015 at 9:30am. The Eliopouloses are represented by attorney Charles Keefe. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
The Seditious Sirens join us in studio to recap Liberty Forum. New mover and host of Unity Evolved Liberty Phoenix also makes a cameo appearance for a segment. Topics discussed on this week’s show all revolve around Liberty Forum. At Liberty Forum multiple 420 rallies took place, RLS recorded three shows, Polyamory and Secession talks Rob did with the artist formerly known as O-Girl, and the Liberty Forum Party hosted by the Rebel Love crew. Long story short, a lot of sex, drugs, and Anarchy ensued. Rebel Love Show broadcasts live every Tuesday night at 10 pm EST on LRN.FM with fellow Free Keene blogger Shire Dude.
Being Rob’s roommate and cohost of the Rebel Love Show, it was within my best interest to help fight the infamous sticker ticket he received in January. I drove him to the courthouse this morning for his pretrial hearing.
Camcorder in hand, I entered the courthouse. While being ushered through the security theater, a man behind the counter told me that I wasn’t allowed to record while in the building. I stood down, telling him I’d keep the device stowed in my pocket. He did not object.
The pretrial hearing consisted mostly of waiting in a small, unused courtroom with about 20 other victims of the state. They sat in complete silence, each person not sure what to do during this mandatory free time (posted forms in every room of the courthouse prohibited the use of cellphones, so some major Facebook withdraws were being felt). Rob and I entered the room, but we spoke to each other at a normal volume (other pairs started to follow suit, speaking amongst themselves – the resulting murmur dispelled most of the room’s tension). Sitting in the pews of the courtroom, Rob and I pondered aloud about the similarity of this room to a small church.
When Rob’s name was finally called, we were escorted out by a woman who wore a blazer that nearly covered her holstered gun. We were not allowed to carry weapons, according to gratuitous courthouse signage. Without saying a word, Rob handed over the letter that summoned him to court as well as a receipt for his current, valid vehicle inspection (which he had done promptly after his police encounter).
Upon seeing these two sheets of paper, the woman immediately said she would drop the charge against Rob. He no longer has to pay $60. There will be no trial.
Before exiting the courtroom, Rob and I spoke with the court’s head of security, who introduced himself as Bob. We inquired about the court’s policy about video and audio recording during trials, introducing ourselves as bloggers for Free Keene.
Walking us through proper courtroom film etiquette and regulations, he responded, “I’m very familiar with [Free Keene]. I’ve seen them come in.” He even printed a short list of pre-approved media outlets, showing us that Free Keene was already listed.
Next time Rob and I go to court, I will be attending the pretrial for a parking ticket that was left on my car during the insane Manchester parking prohibition. The ticket cites a $25 fine.
The author of the Sriracha Cookbooks, Randy Clemens says in a recent blog post that he’s been a libertarian for a long time and is leaving California and move to New Hampshire at the end of March as part of the Free State Project. He’s FSP signer #16,081 and hopefully we’ll see more people signing up and quickly making the move, rather than waiting until the official move is triggered at 20,000 signers.
When more people who love liberty move to New Hampshire, we solidify the position as the obvious destination for those who want to be more free. Success breeds success. If freedom matters to you, then please join Randy, and as of now more than 16,000 others like you and sign the Free State Project’s Statement of Intent. Then, start planning your move to join the fun. Still not sure? Here are 101 reasons to move to New Hampshire.
As you may already know, Keene is the liberty media capitol of the world. Television, radio, newsprint, youtube, blogs – we’ve got it all. One aspect of that is LRN.FM – The Liberty Radio Network. LRN.FM is a radio network of dozens of liberty-oriented shows, airing 24/7 on both the internet and via satellite, since 2009. The network feed originates from downtown Keene, New Hampshire and is listened to around-the-world. The LRN.FM “free-to-air” satellite channel is available in North and Central America and was until February of this year, available across most of Africa.
Our signal had been on satellite over Africa since 2012 as a bonus from our satellite provider, but in February of this year, they pulled the channel off-the-air. Now, we need to raise $22,000 to get the message of liberty back on satellite in Africa for the next three years.
You can help. Please visit our Indiegogo fundraiser at AFRICA.LRN.FM to learn more. Give what you can and please share the fundraising link or this video with your friends:
A couple weeks ago two people calling themselves “Ashley” and “Damon” moved to Keene. The liberty community here is generally welcoming to new arrivals, whether they moved here as part of the Free State Project, or not. However these two, within a matter of hours, had put much of the community across NH on-alert.
The day after they arrived in Keene, they headed out to Manchester for the Liberty Forum, where they, according to various reports, proceeded to offend many of the people they encountered. They were asking questions that appeared to be designed to troll and some even said they were trying to goad people into attacking them physically. Later that night, they were ejected from a private club for reportedly asking patrons for drugs and allegedly stealing from the club.
I like to err on the side of being forgiving and welcoming, so despite the disturbing reports, I brought them into a facebook group for local activists. I wanted them to have a chance to make good on their mistakes and apologize for blowing their initial appearance here in NH. They were shortly thereafter confronted for their behavior by some who had been affected and they didn’t seem too interested in really owning up or apologizing. After it became clear they weren’t going to, the admins agreed to remove them from the group.
“Damon” aka Jared Higley as a Teen Without Sunglasses
It was pretty clear they don’t actually believe in the principle of non-aggression, as they committed theft at the private club and then after being removed from the facebook group, they committed fraud when they ordered a pizza to a Keene activist’s home without his consent. They admitted to this crime while in the LRN.FM chat room.
Meanwhile, a group of liberty activists started digging up information on “Ashley” and “Damon”. Rumor was that Damon was the same person as “Freedomain Damon”, who allegedly DOXed internet philosopher Stefan Molyneux and some of his followers (and critics). Mind you, I’m a critic of Molyneux myself, especially since Molyneux used copyright (which he supposedly doesn’t believe in) to attack Freedomain Damon’s critical YouTube channel as well as another critical channel by TruShibes.
Is the “Damon” in Keene the same FreedomainDamon? What is his actual identity and the identity of his transgendered partner-in-crime, “Ashley”? We’ve learned a lot and someone decided to launch a website dedicated to collecting information about the two, DamonDOX. Turns out, “Damon” is actually Jared Daniel Higley, born 10/02/1992. The investigators still aren’t sure what the real name of “Ashley” is, but evidence pointing to her actual identity has also been posted to DamonDOX, along with pics of both, links to various profiles, and more.
In the midst of the investigation, the pair showed back up in Keene at our weekly event, Social Sundays. They proceeded to harass the regular attendees with ridiculous, trolling questions, eventually nearly spilling a pitcher of water in James Cleaveland’s lap. “Damon”/Jared is the one wearing sunglasses inside in this video of them getting kicked out of the venue:
The investigation continues and DamonDOX is being updated as the team learns more. If you can add to the information at DamonDOX please comment on this article. They are still in Keene and driving a 2007 red Volkswagen Jetta with Idaho plate “2J 53376”. They are not good people and should be avoided. Activists across NH and the rest of the world should be-on-the-lookout for these characters.
Dale from Flaming Freedom and Ann from the Seditious Sirens join us in the Rebel Love studio to pre-game before Liberty Forum. Topics on this week’s show include Liberty Forum updates, Tinder activism, good vs bad publicity, new movers, Flaming Freedom resurrected, entertainment for the liberty community, living life on the fringe of society, closet libertarians in the LGBT community, being open about your sexuality in the Shire, we reminisce about Keenevention and Porcfest, and porcupines helping out other porcs in emergencies. The Rebel LOVE Show broadcasts live every Tuesday night at 10 pm EST on LRN.FM.
The pretrial hearing consisted mostly of waiting in a small, unused courtroom with about 20 other victims of the state. They sat in complete silence, each person not sure what to do during this mandatory free time (posted forms in every room of the courthouse prohibited the use of cellphones, so some major Facebook withdraws were being felt). Rob and I entered the room, but we spoke to each other at a normal volume (other pairs started to follow suit, speaking amongst themselves – the resulting murmur dispelled most of the room’s tension). Sitting in the pews of the courtroom, Rob and I pondered aloud about the similarity of this room to a small church.
