Ed Kramer will go to trial on child molestation charges in December. Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge Karen Beyers placed Kramer’s case on the calendar for the weeks of Dec. 2 and 9 reports the Gwinnett Daily Post. Still to be worked out are reasonable accommodations for health issues affecting Kramer’s ability to participate in his defense, which might alter the length of daily court sessions.
Testifying at today’s hearing, Dr. Lloydstone Jacobs, medical director at the GwinnettCounty jail, said Kramer suffers from all of the following —
[P]ain related to a cervical (neck) fusion; Type II diabetes; psoriatic arthritis; hypothyroidism; asthma; COPD, or emphysema; sleep apnea; narcoplepsy; fluid retention in his feet; “moderate to severe” hearing loss; and a recent bout with staph infections. Jacobs said all of the defendant’s issues are being addressed and controlled with medication or other treatments, and that Kramer rarely complains of any side effects from that long list of medications.
Kramer used a walker to enter the courtroom Monday, breathing heavily even with an oxygen tank.
Judge Beyers also heard from the parties about Kramer’s habeas corpus complaint, which argues that the bond conditions implemented upon his release from house arrest in 2008 — particularly, that he not have unsupervised contact with anyone under 16 — were no longer valid because of a 2009 modification. Kramer is still seeking release on bond, which was denied at an earlier hearing.
Edwin Marger, one of Kramer’s attorneys at the time, testified at today’s hearing that the 2009 modification was not meant to nullify the previously agreed upon conditions of bond.
Judge Beyers reserved judgment, giving the parties until Wednesday, August 28, to file their proposed orders on the matter.
[Thanks to Don Cook and Nancy Collins for the story.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Kramer will finally get the day in court that his supporters have always claimed he desperately wants, to clear his name. He should be overjoyed!
I hope there is a thorough trial with a thorough examination not just of the two boy’s complaints but all the alleged red flags around Kramer’s behaviour in the fandom community since the eighties, espcially the grooming accusations and those who are accused of turning a blind eye to same.
Just as with Sandusky, you have accusations of a guy that’s constantly making a beeline for the preteen boys, creating a coterie of “Ed’s Boys”, getting inappropriately close to them, showering with them, and so forth, and claims that some closest to him knew all about his sexual interest and made sure to keep their children away from him.
The reality is that pedophiles find the science fiction fandom community attrative. If Kramer is one of them, we must learn from the experience of his having infiltrated to a top position in SF fandom. I don’t think we need draconian conduct codes at cons (no adult may ever have a conversation with a minor not his own) just a bit of common sense and a willingness to report and call out suspicious behaviour.
And if Kramer is innocent, doubtless the trial will expose this fact and this long saga can end.
Also:
Sleep apnoea, emphysemia and narcolepsy? The man should be dead!
Yet as soon as he gets near a film set filled with pre-teen boys, he’s got enough vigour to go for long walks with his camera out, unaided by wheelchair or respirator. Children really seem to put the life in the guy.
Ok, one careful comment and one snarky one. Feel free to censor if you must.
Mandatory reference to the Breendoggle and All Fandom Being Plunged Into War.
Fandom in the Breendoddle era was far smaller, and more people knew one another The big underlying factor here is not so much as the face in the crowd, but the man who organised and directed people.