Why is Justice Barred
My name is Shondell Butler, I have been accused of an Arson 1st degree, 2 counts of Intimidating Witnesses 3rd degree, and Arson 2nd degree (attempted). I’m currently serving 28 years to life for a crime I did not commit. There is no physical evidence nor any witnesses to these crimes, yet I still sit here after attempt after attempt has failed to prove my innocence. How does this happen? Well, I invite you and all you know to read my story, “Bean”. If any can offer me any assistance, I’ll welcome it with open arms.
Bean
I wonder sometimes how do I put in writing the very moment that my life was blatantly and unfairly stolen from me.
In June of 2002, I was arrested for Arson 1st degree and two counts of Intimidating a Witness in the 3rd degree, stemming from a fire that took place in September of 1998.
The fire was at the home of the mother of my daughter, Christina Micheletti. Most Officers of the law will have you believe that the majority of violent crimes committed towards a person are most likely committed by the souse or significant other. That’s not true, it’s simply easier to place the spouse or significant other at the scene, since they’re usually around each other more than anyone else is. That is like shooting fish in a barrel. It gives the system an improper advantage.
In my case I was neither the partner, nor anywhere near the scene of the crime.
On the night in question, I visited a downtown night club called “Area 51” with my then companion Mrs. Melody Lindow. We departed the club at approximately 10:45-10:50 PM.
After leaving the night club, we stopped by the gas station for a couple of dollars in fuel for the morning trip to work. On the way to her residence to retire for the night, we were stopped by the Syracuse Police Department (SPD) because Mrs. Lindow ran through a Stop sign. During that stop, it took quite some time to give the Officer the proper documentation to the vehicle she was driving, because it was a Loaner. Mrs. Lindow’s vehicle was damaged by a powerful storm that ran through Syracuse, New York just prior to.
After the satisfactory paperwork was produced, the Officer felt it necessary to remove us from the vehicle and pat us down. The office attending to me went in my pockets and retrieved a bag of dehydrated formaldehyde. Immediately, they alleged it was some sort of drug. They asked me what the contents in the bad were and I told them. Still a little confused, I told them to ask Mrs. Lindow, she could further elaborate since the contents belonged to her. I was only carrying it because she didn’t have any pockets in the pants she was wearing.
She explained that she came and picked me up directly from her job as a nail tech. The contents in the bag were for the dry storage of acrylic nails for her side jobs. After finding that explanation satisfactory, they ticketed Mrs. Lindow for running a Stop sign, timed for 11:05 PM. We went to her residence and retired for the evening.
The following day, September 17, 1998, while at work I received a page from an unknown number. Curious as to who it was, I answered. It was an Officer from the SPD wanting to talk to me. I told him I’d be available after my shift was over.
I went to my grandmother’s house for lunch, as usual, and there I saw a picture of my daughter’s residence in the Daily News Paper and I read the story attached, a fire had occurred. Well, it didn’t take a whole lot of time to connect the dots. They thought I was in some way responsible.
Since I was working with my dad, I told him what was going on. It didn’t surprise him because ever since I terminated my 2-week tryst with Ms. Micheletti, she had been trying everything under the sun to make trouble for me.
For instance, one evening I was sitting in the car with her as she was trying to convince me that we should be together, a woman came to the car starting trouble. She was clearly disturbed, so I told her to “Beat it!”. The second time, she came back and called me by someone else’s name. When I stepped out of the car to try and show her I wasn’t who she thought I was, she jumped into the open car door and began to assault Ms. Micheletti. I pulled the woman out of the car and threw her to the ground. The woman got up and ran as I tended to Ms. Micheletti.
After calming her down and making sure she wasn’t harmed, she drove me back to my home where I stayed for the rest of the night.
Later that night the Police came by my residence and told me that they were answering a call made by Ms. Micheletti, saying I had someone assault her. After telling them the whole incident, the Officer left, seemingly perturbed.
Another time, after bringing me a Hallmark Card confessing her love for me, I told her our relationship was limited only to our daughter and nothing further. I guess she couldn’t take no for an answer because at 2:00 AM I received another visit from the SPD with a report that I had beat her and threatened to kill her; they arrested me. From that next morning until trial, Ms. Micheletti stalked me and continuously called my pager until it was full, despite the fact she had taken out a Restraining Order on me. She would show up to the clubs I would frequent, mysteriously show up at grocery stores and drive by my house or my companion’s, Mrs. Lindow. Subsequently, I was acquitted of all charged.
It was not long before Ms. Micheletti was cooking up her next scheme to make my life miserable.
She called Child Protective Services in 2001 and reported to them that I was locking our daughter, and another daughter I have with another woman, in their bedroom at my house and starving them. After a brief visit to my house, the Social Worker witnessed the behavior of my children and commented how well behaved my daughter was with her sister. She also said she couldn’t believe she was the same little girl that was running around her mother’s house needlessly screaming and throwing things. I too was shocked to hear such a report. I’d never seen that type of behavior exhibited.
Anyway, I received numerous pages from the SPD wanting to know if I was still coming to talk to them. I don’t’ know how many times the word “yes” can be misinterpreted. I accompanied them to the station where I was questioned for five and a half hours.
Actually, the first few minutes were about me. Once they asked me where I was on the previous night about 11:00 PM (because the 911 call came at 11:01 PM), I answered, “With you guys”. One Officer said, “Excuse me”. I told them of the traffic stop. Once they confirmed what I was saying with their “CHAIRS” Report, they immediately checked out where I had said I was. People who may have seen me at the club, my then companion Mrs. Lindow. They questioned my mother and other people until they found confirmation that my whereabouts left me no window of opportunity to commit this crime.
To the contrary, the questioning of Ms. Micheletti didn’t go so well. According to Police records, Ms. Micheletti was asked about the fire at her home. She said she didn’t know what was going on any more than what she was telling them. They told her that they reviewed her 911 call in which she told them in great detail what was going on. She had no answer for that.
She had portrayed our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, but later admitted she wasn’t being truthful.
They were also puzzled at how a new mother could leave her new born child of 9 months behind in a burning building to save herself. Then when her 14-year-old cousin told her the baby was still in her crib, she still refused and sent the adolescent back in to retrieve her. As a result, the 14-year-old received 3rd degree burns to her back and was in a coma for quite some time. My infant daughter was in the ICU struggling for her life and I was prohibited from visiting, since I had a Restraining Order placed on me from the charges of beating her. An ordeal in which the Doctors wrote, of this pale skinned woman, “Patient complaining of soreness and pain, but there is no bruising, swelling, or redness”.
The Police began questioning her family members. Charity Holmes, Micheletti’s aunt, told Officers that Micheletti was obsessed with me. She stalked me. She was so consumed with what I was doing that she would often forget to feed or even medicate our child. Charity also related that maybe her attitude was such, because no one had ever paid attention to her. I was her first “relationship”.
They went to her 14-year-old cousin when she was well enough to answer questions. She expressed several concerns. The events Micheletti told the Officers were not true. Micheletti said she woke up and fed our child. The 14-year-old said Micheletti never gets up when our daughter cries, that she always cares for our child. The cousin contends that the baby always sleeps in the bed with Micheletti, but on this night my daughter was in her crib in a separate room.
The cousin told the Officers that she was awoken by the breaking of a lamp in the living room where she slept. When she looked up, Micheletti was standing over her telling her there was a fire outside the door. Despite the fact that Micheletti told Police that she only saw a glow on the wall. Again, differing from her 911 call.
It was then that the 14-year-old’s attention was trained on the door and she could not help but notice that the chain lock wasn’t on. Something the cousin says that Micheletti never fails to affix every night. The 14-year-old had expressed concerns that Micheletti repeatedly has shown up to the hospital trying to make her change her story. Strangely enough, the batteries were removed from the smoke alarm (See: Attached Reports).
When further reading the report, the investigators gave Micheletti a chance to ask any questions of our daughter’s condition at the hospital. Her only question was if I was sleeping with the girl she saw me walking with earlier. Apparently, Charity Holmes had told the investigators that earlier in the day of the fire, Micheletti and Holmes saw me walking down the street with a woman. Holmes told Micheletti to forget about it. According to Holmes, Micheletti kept pounder her fist into her hand and repeating “You’ll gets yours Shon, you wait and see, you’ll get yours” (See: Report).
Unsatisfied with what they were being told, they obtained a warrant signed by Judge McKinney to search the unburned portions of the house. Amongst some of their findings was a stack of letters addressed to me, accompanied by what appeared to be a suicide note. When asked about this at trial, Micheletti contended that it was a poem someone else wrote. When she was told that the handwriting analyzer determined it to be her writing, she resorted “Well, I copied it from someone in High School and never threw it away”.
Their first offer to me was 15 year to life. It was the only offer I was given. They told my attorney to tell me that if I didn’t take the offer, they’d charge me with another Arson. I didn’t see how that could be possible. I thought it was a scare tactic to getting me with an Arson in 2000 of a woman I’ve only met once in my life. It began where I was breaking up a fight between a pregnant woman and another opponent.
The pregnant woman’s name was Shannon Aman. A woman that I had a brief relationship with and was pregnant with my son, or so I thought. Shannon had a major problem with two women, in particular Julie Finley and another woman named Shauna. I wasn’t clear what the beef was about, but she called me complaining some girls were going to jump her while she was pregnant.
Not knowing the magnitude of the situation, a few of my friends and I went over there to prevent the unthinkable from happening. We arrived to a lot of yelling and screaming and as soon as I stepped into Julie’s home, Shannon shot two blistering jabs into Shauna’s face lifting her clean off of her feet. I immediately restrained Shannon and that was when all the occupants of the residence began saying that no one wanted to beat her up, there was just an argument between Shauna and Shannon.
Sometime after this incident, I was ignorant enough to provide an alibi for her. She called me one night from a pay phone saying her street was flooded with Police and Fire trucks. She was concerned because her street was blocked off and she could not reach her home.
Realizing that Shannon and Julie had lived on the same street, not seven houses away, I told her to come back to my home. Later that night the police came to my home asking where Shannon had been all night. I looked at her and lied. I told them that she had been with me all night. All I could see was a woman who said she was a high-risk pregnancy with my child. I felt a lie to the police would be better than the stress and possible miscarriage of my child.
Shannon later had this beautiful little boy in which she abandoned with me at six weeks of age. I nurtured and raised him with my wife Melissa for over a year. When I was arrested, she didn’t want my wife, who he now called mommy, to raise him. I took a DNA test in the County Jail to establish my legal right to the child only to find out that he wasn’t biologically mine.
I named and cared for this child like my own. I guess to assure her victory, she contacted the D.A. and told him that I was responsible for the attempted arson she so badly needed the alibi for.
I also found out that Shannon Aman and Christina Micheletti were schoolmates in High School.
When the first trial arrived, Melody Lindow got on the stand for the prosecution and changed everything she told the investigators in 1998. Everything she said that coincided with Police records and the testimony of people who knew me and not her, was turned backwards contrary to all the proof and common sense, and was believed.
That lengthy traffic stop, that was described in great detail at my trial, read in my transcripts, the traffic stop took a total of 25 to 35 seconds.
With the weight of the State on me, I felt it better that I cut my losses and plead guilty to the second case so as to keep from being sentenced to consecutive terms. When checking what I could be sentenced to, the Court Clerk said “Five years”. I accepted the deal.
They made good on their promise.
At sentencing, the Judge gave me 28 years to life for the first case, along with two counts of Intimidating a Witness, even though Mrs. Lindow and her sister Luanne Monterville did not meet the criteria of a witness turning State’s evidence. Their testimonies were complete opposites. Mrs. Melody Lindow testified to a series of specific events, greatly detailed, but admitted to not actually seeing anything despite being with me. When asked how she knew, she said I told her. She said at the gas station I filled up a 40 oz beer bottle with gasoline right next to the gas station attendant’s booth. If you remember, earlier I said we stopped for a couple dollars of fuel. It was exactly that: two dollars. She said she knew I put it in because she saw the gas needle move. Any of you people out there that know anything about cars, if you saw the gas needle move off of the two bucks, a 1986 Buick Century, you’ve put all that money in, there’s nothing left. Gas attendants won’t allow you to fill up anything other than vehicles or a gas can. Where is the video tape of my purchase? We all know gas stations get robbed, the tape would have shown my purchase. Wouldn’t the police have checked it in confirming my alibi?
Apparently, the State is saying that I took said bottle, walked up the stairs to the apartment, pouring gas the whole way, then light it and walked out. Despite the fact that the 14-year-old cousin said no one came up those stairs without being woken up because they’re too old and rickety.
To all those chemists out there, do you know what happens when you spread gasoline all over a small enclosed stairwell, up approximately 20 stairs, and then trying to ignite it and leave? Well, if you don’t know let me enlighten you. Going by the State’s testimony, the stairs were old and creaky, so if by some means I could get up them without being heard, it would have had to be rather slow. Spreading gas would have given time for the fumes to settles. The fumes of gas are heavier than air, and it’s the fumes that ignite, not the liquid so much. Lighting it would’ve cannon balled and consumed me and my life.
In that second case from 2000, at sentencing, the Judge gave me 25 years. When I protested, the Judge denied ever agreeing to five years. I had decided to fight it because I believed I knew who was responsible for the attempted arson of that home. My lawyer, Charles Lupia, advised me to take the plea and he could get it reversed because of the blatant discrepancy. I guess when he realized that that part of the plea conversation was not on the record, he ceased all contact with me.
I wrote him and asked if he was going to help me and he replied that he never defended me and had no idea what I was talking about.
Going over countless reports trying to free myself, I read some notes from Lt. Baunee who followed me over to the home in question, of the attempted arson, to break up that fight. His notes conveniently stop just as me and a few friends showed up there, but doesn’t mention be breaking up any fight. As I sat and pondered where I recognized that name, not only did he testify in my first case, he was also the Officer that was sent to prison (Clinton Correctional Facility – A.P.P.U.) for having sex with under aged children and giving them alcohol and drugs to lower their inhibitions. He was a drug dealer and pedophile, and this trip to prison was his second offence.
So here I have sat since 2002, trying to beg for help where I fall short. The only good thing that has come of this is that my daughter that was in that fire visits her father. She writes and has told me she knows her mother is crazy. She also says that since her mother doesn’t have any control over this now 21-year-old woman, her only response to her coming to see me was “Good, well I hope he tries to kill you again”.
She is still my beautiful daughter. The one I affectionately call “Bean”.
SHONDELL BUTLER
(02-B-2275)
Attica Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 149
Attica, NY 14011-0149
Email: maxis719@verizon.net
To make things clear, I was never a suspect in this crime. The lead investigator, Sean Mullin, was so convinced of my innocence, he checked in on me regularly to find out if Ms. Micheletti had said anything incriminating that the State could use against her in a court of law.
Even after my indictment, he flew back to NY to testify on my behalf.
For four years after this crime was committed, I shared joint custody of my darling daughter. Do you think Ms. Micheletti would’ve dropped off our child to me, on weekends, for four years, if she thought I was responsible for this horrible crime?