I received the following email from Scott Rolick threatening legal action against me for posting the videos he encouraged me to post, so I removed the videos, not wanting to spend any more energy than I have to on this issue. I’m done with this story. The original story, however, remains below.
> *****
> DATE 4/3/2014
> Dear carlos
> Your website is currently linking to my video : [http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/03/24/california-cps-officials-retaliating-man-video-recorded-expose-abuse-power/](http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/03/24/california-cps-officials-retaliating-man-video-recorded-expose-abuse-power/)
> This email to you is notice to you that you are illegally linking to and/or using this video and/or distributing this video This is my video. I did not and do not authorize you or your company and/or website to display and/or use and/or distribute this video in any manner, and I demand that you immediately remove it from your website and any other form of redistribution. I also demand that you destroy any form of this video that may be in your possession, either on your server or hard drive, or any other electronic storage device. Please note that the Ventura County Superior Court has ordered this video removed from all sources, and your failure to comply with my demand for same will be considered a violation of a court order.
> Confirmation of the requested action is required. Please send email confirmation, the subject of which shall be noted “Video Removal”, directly to my attorney at: jani@anilaw.com.
> If you have any questions please contact me on my cell phone immediately at (805)814-6447.
> This email is notice to you that any failure to comply with the demand to remove or to confirm removal via email he video shall force me to seek all legal relief available to me, including but not limited to a civil abatement action, and attorney fees incurred as a result of having to enforce this demand.
> Sincerely,
> William Scott Rolick,
> cc: Jennifer Ani, Esq
> ****
First, Ventura police raided Scott Rolick’s home, saying they were looking for drugs being sold by his girlfriend’s grandfather who lived at the home with the couple.
Then, after making no arrests, they returned five days later with a Child Protective Services worker who falsely accused Rolick of using drugs, removing his four-year-old daughter, Stevie, from the home and placing her in foster care – even after he and his girlfriend tested negative for drugs at the local police station.
And then, after he secretly video recorded a conversation with a CPS case worker the following week, who urged him to “suck it up” and attend court-mandated drug classes to “look good in court” ( despite there being no evidence he is even a drug user), the agency stripped him of unsupervised visits with his daughter in the foster home where she is rooming with a boy who has stolen from her.
She also lives among troubled teens who have difficulty controlling their temper in the [**Casa Pacifica facility,**](http://photographyisnotacrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/www.casapacifica.org) one who can be heard shouting in the top video, “open the fucking door!”
It is a harrowing story to the least, especially since he is told they have no available supervisors to oversee his visits with his daughter; a blatant abuse of systemic powers where they will now try to use California’s wiretapping law to keep him from spreading the truth about their abuse.
California is a two-party consent state, meaning he is not allowed to record others whom have an expectation of privacy, so they do have a legal argument.
In one video, footage from the foster home appears that it was recorded in a courtyard and doesn’t contain anybody else’s voices besides his girlfriends and the screaming boy, who Rolick says is about 13 years old, so it might be difficult to prove he broke the law.
But the footage with the case worker appears to have been recorded in an office without anybody else within earshot, so that might not work in his favor.
However, the state’s wiretapping law includes a provision [**(PC 633.5)**](http://photographyisnotacrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=630-638) that states it is not illegal to record surreptitiously if it is for the purpose of gathering evidence against “extortion, kidnapping and bribery.”
And that is pretty much what is happening here.
Besides, the wiretapping laws in this country need to be updated to allow citizens to record their interactions with public officials, especially when they are trying to disrupt your life.
But now the 37-year-old is looking for a lawyer to represent him on Tuesday in a hearing in which Child Protective Services will ask a judge to order the removal of the two videos in question from the internet.
However, the videos are not even in his control anymore. They were first posted on Barry Cooper’s Never Get Busted Youtube channel, a former drug enforcement officer turned antiwar drug war activist who was the [**first to break the story.**](http://nevergetbusted.com/hot-news/cps-holds-war-veterans-child-retaliation-filming-cps/)
I then posted them on *Photography is Not a Crime’s* Youtube channel to show the court that they will never be able to remove these videos from the internet, so hopefully more people do the same.
The second video may also cause him some problems because he recorded a CPS worker without informing her in a call where she stripped him of his visitation rights and threatening him with legal action in regards to the first video.
“I have many more damaging video that I have not posted yet,” he said in an interview with *Photography is Not a Crime*Sunday night.
He has received calls from the Ventura Police Department wanting to speak with him about the videos, but he has no plans to talk to them.
In fact, he left his home in Port Hueneme and is now living in an undisclosed area because he fears police plan to arrest him.
But he still talks daily to Stevie by phone, who believes she is attending some type of summer camp.
“She says, ‘daddy, I want to come home,’” he said.
But it is not clear when she will be coming home. The night they took her, Rolick’s brother drove from Hollywood to pick her up, but they would not allow him to talk to her.
The nightmare began on February 21 when he was doing lawn work in his front yard when a bunch of cops came running up, ordering him to get down on the ground.
“‘Do you know why we’re here?” they asked.
“No,” he responded.
“Grandpa’s been bad,” they said.
They handcuffed him and left him lying on the side of the street as they entered his home with a search warrant signed by judge Mark Borrell apparently in search of drugs, not having to use the battering ram they came equipped with because the door was unlocked.
They told him they had arrested his girlfriend’s 70-year-old grandfather during a traffic stop for “sale of narcotics,” Rolick said.
They left 45 minutes later without giving any more explanation.
Two hours later, his girlfriend’s grandfather returned home, telling them he had just been pulled over but not arrested, not giving any more details than that.
Rolick said the man pays rent in the four-bedroom home but mostly keeps to himself, leaving everyday at 8 a.m. and returning home by 4 p.m. and never receiving any visitors.
He is also very sick, suffering from cancer and diabetes, requiring twice-daily intravenous infusions, and is currently in an intensive-care unit after CPS ordered him out of the house.
Rolick said his arrest is very mysterious because there is no mention of it in the Ventura County judicial website.. And police have not released any details, citing a pending investigation.
But it’s clear the grandfather has not been charged yet nor is it clear exactly what they suspect him of doing nor what evidence, if any, do they have against him.
In one CPS report, it was alleged that they found water balloons for packaging heroin when in reality, the water balloons are used for Stevie and her friends to toss on each other for fun.
Five days later, Ventura police returned with a CPS worker named Christy Byrne, who accused him of being under the influence of drugs.
However, when he and his girlfriend went to the police department for a drug test, it came out negative.
But by then, CPS had already taken Stevie and were not about to return her.
Rolick is aware that he may have violated California’s wiretapping law by secretly recording them but it was all he could do to expose the truth.
“I”ll go to jail for this because it needs to be exposed,” he said.
Below is a screen shot from one of the videos with numbers of whom to call.
**UPDATE**: Was just informed by Rolick that police did find a small amount of methamphetamine under the grandfather’s pillow, but have not filed any charges.
