Arizona State Hospital: The Bermuda Triangle Of Federally Protected Personal Mail: Wherein, yet again, mail that I addressed to a well recognized authoritative bureau and then attempted to mail from the Arizona State Hospital vanishes. 

       Below, basic e-mail records relating to documents that went missing after I submitted them to the mail office at The Arizona State Hospital, an office that is maintained by ASH security staff. Between May, 2011, and February, 2012, approximately 21 sealed letter documents at a minimum vanished after I attempted to send them out through the ASH mail office, all 26 of them addressed to one or the other of various authority agencies that I tried to file reports of abuse and related misconduct to, including but not limited to: The American Civil Liberties Union, The Joint Commission (on the accreditation of hospitals), the American Medical Association, and in this specific case, The Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners (ABBHE) (see this blog: 4/24/12 "Citizens Commission On Human Rights"). As described, the matter specific to this particular piece of missing mail is one of the final unlawful actions taken by administrative staff members before my late February, 2012,  discharge, but the issue of stolen outgoing mail is something I had to deal with throughout the duration of my treatment at ASH. I also found my incoming mail preopened on a number of occasions, including in the cases of registered mail sent to me, and one letter from an attorney with The Maricopa County Public Advocates Office.
       It is in direct violation of federal law for anybody to interfere with another persons mail, and although institutions like ASH are at times justified in limiting mailings by patients who have an established record of mail fraud or other like misconduct, they cannot so limit patient mail arbitrarily or without specific cause. In my case, I have absolutely no record or history- period- of mail fraud or other like misconduct in relation to the federal mail system, and the unlawful seizure of my personal outgoing mail by security and/or administrative staff at ASH is a criminal abridgment of my rights and protections under federal law and policy.
       Here again, a clear example of the radically out of control conditions at the Arizona State Hospital, where hospital clinicians and administrative staff do business however they see fit, in utter defiance of well established law and policy. Now it is a matter of me going through the trouble of forwarding the originals of two different documents that I tried to send the ABBHE in October, 2011, (in regards to social worker staff, including a social services supervisor named Laura), and February, 2012 (in regards to the 4/24/12 article, and the ASH social workers Robert Washington, and Veneranda Heffern)); along with a complaint about the absence of secure mail and the contribution of that issue to ongoing social worker misconduct at ASH.

This is an email that I sent to the AZ Board of Behavioral Health Examiners last week: 

                   TO: INFORMATION@AZBBHE.US

Hello: My name is (PJ Reed)  I was recently discharged from the Arizona State Hospital (ASH)  in Phoenix, AZ, following over 13 months of treatment for major depressive disorder. During that time, I was repeatedly subjected to blatant deception and misrepresentation of facts central to my status and needs as a mentally ill person in the state of Arizona by various representatives of the hospital's social worker staff, including several administrative social workers, as well as the ASH Chief Operating Officer, Donna Noriega, who I believe is licensed through your office in relation to her duties and responsibilities at ASH. I filed two separate complaint reports to your office by mail in late October, 2011, and again in early February, 2012, but never heard anything back from you. While hospitalized at ASH I learned that that outgoing mail is often unlawfully seized, and today believe that the mail I sent to to you was also unlawfully seized. This perhaps sound fantastic or ill conceived, but I need to verify whether or not your office received any of my mail, at a minimum. I am currently involved in an investigation of administrative misconduct at ASH, and while I cannot share the details at this point, I have been instructed to make this request. Please verify one way or the other if my earlier correspondence was ever received, and respond as soon as possible to me at....

            Thank you. Sincerely (PJ Reed)  

 This is the response, received by me today (April 28, 2012):

From: Patricia Reynolds patricia.reynolds@azbbhe.us	Apr 26 (1 day ago)
(Mr. Reed)

      The Board has not received any complaints or correspondence from you regarding people working at ASH. I hope this is helpful to you.

       Sincerely,

       Patricia Reynolds

      At this point, I will do what I can to follow up on seeing that this particular brand of criminal conduct at The Arizona State Hospital is investigated and that the ones responsible for these matters is held accountable. It is a tough row to hoe, however, given that patients at ASH are not able to send registered mail, therein creating another absence of reasonable oversight in terms of protecting patient rights specific to personal mail. I anticipate an ASH defense based on patent denials of my claim that I even tried to mail these documents, but the reality is as follows: I am not one who had any reason to hold back on trying to contact whoever the heck I could come up with in terms of possible support while I was a patient at ASH, where I was subjected to ongoing abuse for the entirety of my time there. These documents were sealed, addressed, and submitted by me to ASH staff who are responsible for seeing that all of mail made into the hands of the United States Postal Service. I attest to his fact with no hesitation. 

paoloreed@gmail.com