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1If you're charged with a crime you didn't commit, you still might take the plea deal. That's not a bug in the system — it's a feature.

Criminal defense attorney Edward F. Cohn has spent 23 years inside courtrooms in Arizona, Michigan, and Massachusetts watching this play out. In this episode of The Infamous Ex-Chief, we break down the trial penalty, why prosecutors make their move before you even step foot in a courtroom, and the hidden long-term consequences of a guilty plea that most defendants never see coming.

Attorney Cohn holds an LLM from Boston University School of Law, a certificate in comprehensive negotiation from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and carries an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell — held by fewer than 10% of attorneys nationwide.

Topics covered:
— What the trial penalty actually is and why it exists
— How early prosecutors push for pleas (and the leverage they use)
— Hidden consequences: employment, housing, firearm rights, immigration — When to fight and when to take the deal
— What Cohn would change about American plea bargaining today
🔗 Contact Atty. Cohn: cohn-justice.com | edwardfcohn@gmail.com | (520) 333-3348

📌 Subscribe to The Infamous Ex-Chief for accountability journalism, legal breakdowns, and content that holds power to account.
#pleabargain #criminaldefense #trialpenalty #innocenceproject #constitutionalrights #wrongfulconviction #criminaljustice #theinfamousexchief

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She was two days from walking into that courtroom.

Dawn Pasela wasn't a random victim. She was the office manager of a federal mortgage fraud task force — handling evidence, organizing discovery, working alongside FBI agents and federal prosecutors every single day.

Then she started seeing what was really happening inside that office.
Fabricated cases. Destroyed computers. A prosecutor sleeping with the government's star witness. Exculpatory evidence buried under 45,000 pages of paperwork. Witnesses threatened. Careers destroyed.

Dawn made a choice. She was going to testify. She was going to blow it wide open.

She never made it to court.

Found dead in her Parma, Ohio apartment — April 25, 2012. Window wide open. Thermostat at 85 degrees. No vomit. No cups. Food still on the stove. Three cell phones at the scene. None collected. Her computer? Gone.
Parma Police called it accidental. No canvas. No security footage pulled. No detectives called. Six officers responded to a welfare check in under a minute and walked away like there was nothing to see.

The prosecutor who had been threatening her announced the cause of death before the autopsy was even finished.

Tony Viola joins me for the full story. We cover everything — the task force, the botched undercover operation, the prosecutorial misconduct, the crime scene that doesn't add up, and the new developments happening right now including the Yale Law School ruling and the missing tapes that multiple court orders have failed to produce.

New to this case? We get you fully up to speed. Been following from the beginning? There are things in this video you haven't heard yet.

I'm Scott Gardner. Former cop. Homicide detective. Chief of Police. I know what a real death investigation looks like.

This wasn't one.

Be loud. Be heard. Shake the system until the truth falls out.

👍 Like if Dawn's story deserves answers
🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss what's coming
📢 Share this — her family is still waiting

📌 RESOURCES & LINKS
🌐 Justice for Dawn: justicefordawn.com
🌐 Free Tony Viola / Evidence Locker: freetonyviola.com
📧 Submit an anonymous tip: justicefordawn.com

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction: Tony Viola & the Dawn Pasela Case
3:16 Who Was Dawn Pasela?
8:34 The Botched Undercover Operation & Tony's Trial
19:14 Prosecutorial Misconduct: Caseres, Clover & the Cover-Up
1:02:01 Dawn's Death: The Crime Scene That Doesn't Add Up
1:13:17 Expert Reviews & Parma's Refusal to Investigate
1:27:26 The Yale Law School Case, the Missing Tapes & What You Can Do

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North Royalton police stop controversy involving Officer Lowe has raised serious questions about police accountability, internal affairs investigations, and DUI stop procedures.

In this interview, retired LAPD Internal Affairs Sergeant Marlon Marrache (Truth Behind the Badge) breaks down the North Royalton police stop and explains how internal affairs investigations actually work behind the scenes.

We cover key issues in the North Royalton case:
• Was the DUI stop valid?
• What happens during an internal affairs investigation?
• What it means when a police report is changed
• How police accountability applies when command staff is involved

This is not speculation. This is a real internal affairs perspective on a real Ohio police case.

Because this isn’t just about North Royalton.

It’s about whether the rules apply equally in law enforcement.

The Tentacle Nation pipeline just delivered another receipt.

Be loud. Be heard. Shake the system until the truth falls out.

🌐 www.theinfamousexchief.com

🎯 Join the conversation: https://liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

#ProCopNotProCorruption #TheInfamousExChief #NorthRoyalton

0:00 North Royalton Police Stop Intro (Officer Lowe Case Overview)
1:00 Recording Issues & Technical Note Explained
2:39 Marlon Marrache Interview – Internal Affairs Expert (LAPD Background)
14:00 DUI Stop Explained – Probable Cause & Police Traffic Stop Breakdown
18:44 Police Double Standard – Law Enforcement Discipline Explained
22:42 Police Report Changed? Internal Affairs Misconduct & Cover-Up Analysis
43:48 Body Cam Evidence Breakdown – Police Cover-Up Consequences
46:53 Police Accountability Explained – Internal Affairs Reality Check
51:29 Command Staff Controversy – North Royalton Case Final Analysis

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Apple Creek’s former Police Chief Doug Miller is speaking out… and he’s not holding anything back.

In this exclusive sit-down with The Infamous Ex-Chief, Miller breaks down what really led to his resignation, the internal battles with council, and what was happening behind the scenes that the public never saw.

From budget fights and leadership philosophy to what he calls “personal” attacks… this conversation pulls back the curtain on how small-town politics and law enforcement leadership collide.

We also dive into the so-called “FlaskGate” incident, the anonymous complaints, and the culture clash between departments — including a raw discussion about how officers are often targeted from within their own ranks.

This isn’t a press release. This isn’t damage control.

This is one cop talking straight.

If you care about police accountability, transparency, and what’s really happening inside departments across Ohio… this is a must-watch.

Drop your questions and thoughts in the comments — we read them all.

Be loud. Be heard. Shake the system until the truth falls out. 🔥🚔📄

#ProCopNotProCorruption #TheInfamousExChief #DougMiller

www.theinfamousexchief.com

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What if the biggest problem in media coverage isn’t what gets said — but what gets left out?

In this interview, I sit down with Rob Rosen, Emmy-winning television producer, investigative journalist, and author of Crimes of Omission: Distorted Justice, the Media’s War on Truth. We break down how major national stories involving police, crime, and public outrage can be shaped not just by falsehoods, but by missing facts, selective framing, and narrative steering.

We talk about:
What Rob means by “crimes of omission”
How media narratives form before all the facts are in
Why cases like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, and George Floyd still matter

The Ferguson Effect and what it did to policing
How journalism drifted from truth toward advocacy
Why public trust in media collapsed

What happens when people are reacting to different versions of reality
This wasn’t a conversation about blind support for law enforcement or blind hatred of media. It was a conversation about truth, context, omission, and accountability.

If you’re tired of being handed a conclusion before the evidence is in, this one’s for you. 🎙️📚⚖️
Support Rob Rosen and check out Crimes of Omission.

www.theinfamousexchief.com

#RobRosen #CrimesOfOmission #MediaBias #PoliceAccountability #Journalism #TrueCrime #GovernmentAccountability #TheInfamousExChief

Chapters
00:00 Why people feel lied to without being directly lied to

00:45 Intro: Scott Gardner and today’s topic

01:20 Meet Rob Rosen and his new book

02:04 Rob Rosen joins the show

03:16 Why Rob wrote a book criticizing journalism

04:13 What “Crimes of Omission” means

06:29 How media narratives lock in before facts arrive

07:33 Journalism working backward from conclusions

10:24 Where Rob saw this happen most

15:38 “Hands up, don’t shoot” and real-world impact

18:42 Michael Brown, witness credibility, and media malpractice

22:42 Officer perception, force, and public misunderstanding

23:47 DOJ report vs the public narrative

26:24 How local stories become national flashpoints

29:06 What gets left out of national coverage

29:38 Tony Timpa and the stories media ignored

32:38 Public perception vs actual numbers

33:56 Trayvon Martin and the damage already done

38:21 George Floyd, nuance, and bad policing

41:46 Burnout, PTSD, and officer mental health

43:47 Reform, broken windows, and the Ferguson Effect

45:59 The “straw man” problem in media panels

48:42 Ferguson and “hands up, don’t shoot” revisited

50:18 What the Ferguson Effect means

51:46 Where to get the book

52:56 Why journalism is still the window to the world

55:45 Does this book give cover to bad policing?

57:10 What Rob hopes readers take away

58:18 Final thoughts from Rob Rosen

59:37 Scott’s closing thoughts and why this interview matters

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All my lawyers in the house—this one’s for you. You already know what you’re about to see, because the moment you put body camera, the police report, and the law director’s letter side-by-side, the argument collapses. ⚖️📄🎥

Today we’re walking through North Royalton’s justification for altering a police report using the phrase everyone loves to throw around: “prosecutorial discretion.” The problem? The way it’s being used here has nothing to do with what prosecutorial discretion actually means.

Here’s what we’re covering:

The traffic stop and the officer’s documented observations supporting an OVI investigation
The discovery of firearms and why that fact matters in the historical record
The controversy over an edited incident report (and what’s missing)
Why the Sundance audit log is the key public record—and why I’m suing for it

The law director’s two core legal errors:
confusing prosecutorial discretion with authority to rewrite investigative records
treating suppression as if evidence never existed

This isn’t about whether a prosecutor should file a charge. That decision belongs to the prosecutor. This is about record integrity—because once the factual record becomes negotiable, the system stops documenting truth and starts managing narrative.
D
rop your thoughts in the comments: If “nothing improper happened,” why fight the audit log so hard?
#NorthRoyalton #PublicRecords #PoliceAccountability #FourthAmendment #OVI #GovernmentTransparency #TheInfamousExChief

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What would happen in your town if the mayor just shut down the fire department—no reorganization, no restructure, no negotiation—just turned it off?

That’s essentially what residents in Hiram, Ohio woke up to: the Hiram Fire Department, including local EMS coverage, was suspended. And when emergency services disappear, even briefly, that’s not small-town drama. That’s a public safety issue.

I’m Scott Gardner, former cop, former homicide detective, and former chief of police. This platform is about accountability—especially when government decisions put the public at risk.

Here’s what raised the alarms: residents were left asking who was covering the village, with reports that surrounding departments were expected to handle calls through mutual aid. Mutual aid is common, but it’s supposed to be supplemental—not a replacement for an entire department. If you’re going to suspend fire and EMS, a clear coverage plan should already exist, and the public should be told what it is.

Then there’s the college factor. Hiram is home to Hiram College, with hundreds of students in dorms and campus buildings. During the suspension, students were messaging me asking if they even had a fire department. Whether that communication failure sits with the village or the college administration is a fair question—but students learning it through social media is a problem.

And the image that became the symbol of this situation: police cruisers parked across the fire station bay doors while services were suspended. Maybe there’s a practical explanation. If there is, I’ll air it. But the optics were terrible.

Services were later restored, but restoration doesn’t erase the need for answers. I end with three public safety questions the village still owes the
residents. ⚠️🚒📌

#TheInfamousExChief #ProCopNotProCorruption #HiramOhio #PortageCounty #GovernmentAccountability #PublicSafety #FireDepartment #EMS

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I’m going to talk about something I don’t normally cover—and I want to be clear up front: I’m split on this issue. I’m not a cannabis activist. I’ve never used marijuana. This isn’t “stoner politics.” This is an accountability conversation.

In 2023, Ohio voters passed Issue 2—legalizing recreational marijuana for adults 21+, setting possession limits, home grow rules, taxes, and a distribution structure. Whether you like marijuana or not, the key point is simple: the voters passed it. In a constitutional republic, that’s supposed to mean something.

Governor DeWine opposed Issue 2 and raised concerns about kids, edibles, and public health. Those are legitimate debates. But what started making me uneasy was what happened next: almost immediately, the conversation shifted from “the people voted” to “how do we change what they passed?”
Fast forward to December 2025: Senate Bill 56 gets signed. Now we’re looking at restrictions on hemp-derived THC products, limits on where products can be sold, license caps, recriminalization of certain conduct, and changes to how money gets distributed. Some people call that common-sense regulation. Others call it government overreach. I can see both sides—up to a point.

Because here’s the accountability question: What happens when voters pass a law and politicians reshape it afterward? If the precedent becomes “let the people vote, then we’ll fix it later,” then what exactly was the vote for? Was it law—or was it a suggestion? And once that precedent exists, it doesn’t just apply to cannabis. It applies to everything. ⚖️🗳️📌

#TheInfamousExChief #ProCopNotProCorruption #Ohio #Issue2 #SenateBill56 #Accountability #Government #Politics

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