Only a protective order could shield Pearce from the "harm . . . to his reputation and political career," if Pearce was questioned about Ready, accurately described by Rose Law Group in its court filing as "a neo-Nazi white supremacist mass murderer of women and children."
Surprisingly, federal Judge Frederick Martone granted the request, barring Reza's attorney, Stephen Montoya, from asking Pearce about Ready during a recent deposition.
Pearce arm-in-arm with baby-killer J.T. Ready in 2007.
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Martone agreed that information about the relationship might "inflame" a jury, but he also suggested that such questioning could be "duplicative," in that Montoya "had already discovered evidence showing the defendant was a 'friend, sponsor, and mentor' to Ready."
In other words, the connection between the two men already had been firmly established. An achievement for which I'd like to take full credit, but really is due to Pearce's own racism and stupidity.
That Pearce would be so reluctant to discuss his ties to Ready under oath is telling. A veritable maestro of mendacity, Pearce has lied so many times and for so long about his father-son-like relationship with Ready that he no doubt was petrified by the thought of having to come up with a version that jibed with all the facts, which I've laid out in innumerable blog posts and columns.
Ready was not the only extremist drawn to Pearce: Neo-Nazis have praised Pearce's legislative efforts online, old-school Phoenix storm trooper Elton Hall donated money to Pearce's failed attempt to beat back the recall last year, Mexican-haters such as convicted public urinator "Buffalo" Rick Galeener have endorsed him heretofore, and, in general, the nativist crowd considers him a deity.
What about that anti-Semitic rant from the neo-Nazi National Alliance he e-mailed in 2006? To this day, Pearce claims he simply had not read the Jew-bashing tirade in full.
And those racist e-mails made public by the ACLU, particularly ones quoted above by Frosty Wooldridge, a fave scribe of onetime Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke?
Well, when it comes to Wooldridge's contention that Mexicans "spawn . . . corruption wherever they go," Pearce defended the concept if not the phrasing.
"I don't think it's racist," Pearce stated in the deposition. "I think [Wooldridge's] trying to use metaphors about the corruption that's coming across that border with all those bad guys."
Pearce's old pal Ready would have concurred. And all the pics of sleeping babies and puppy dogs in the world won't change that.