Mary Elaine Keating Objects

It has been 21 days since my husband has been held in the Los Angeles County Central Jail. Now I’m beginning to wonder just how long this living nightmare is going to last. To think that this is happening in our United States is still totally unbelievable to me. I guess I’m still very naive.

To think that our court system is allowed to keep an untried, non-threatening man in a “holding cell” runs counter to everything I always believed in the Constitution and civil liberties in America. America has long forgotten her once firm belief of “innocent until proven guilty.” Do you ever once wonder if our government and our media might single you out because you stand for something they disagree with?

Our government has effectively silenced all savings and loan executives by what they have done and are doing to my husband. Good, solid citizens, who have been stripped of their businesses and their jobs, are sitting back quietly--ever fearful of becoming another Charlie Keating. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said my husband’s photo should be hung in every board room in America to warn executives not to be like him. Try to tell me that Charlie is not being used as a weapon of fear? Try to convince me that he is not being treated as a convicted felon?

Yes, corporate America is scared. Do you blame them? Everyone told us, “Never fight the government.” My husband, however, still believes he is right. Because of his beliefs, he has earned shackles and chains. He is lied about and mocked in the press and the media. Every day we read more and more horror stories about things we’ve never done. Once one paper runs a story others repeat it like it’s gospel truth.

My six beautiful children, their spouses, 23 grandchildren all love their father and “Papa.” We all know him as a loving, caring and honest individual, who has time for all our concerns and needs, as well as those of the needy of the world and tried to instill these virtues in his family. He is not the man the media make him out to be, that is a desperate fugitive, a man without a country and a serious risk because he may flee his responsibilities. Charlie Keating has never fled from anything. Why should he start now? His belief in his innocence certainly has not changed. Yes, we’re scared to death of the power of government which is looking desperately for a scapegoat on whom to blame the destruction of our American banking system.

The scapegoat is Charlie. He spends every day in a tiny concrete cell with an iron door. Except for court appearances, he does not see daylight. He is chained and shackled (his arms tied to his waist) when he is escorted to the attorney room to meet with his lawyers. He is allowed one visit per day, which consists of talking on a phone through a plexiglass wall while he is chained to a chair and guarded. Life is difficult. We are strong and we are together as a family. We must get him out! He cannot fight this immense battle from a holding cell. Our government knows this and delights with it. The games they have been playing with him are ludicrous. And this is justice?

MARY ELAINE KEATING

Paradise Valley, Ariz.