Here we go again

The nightmare has started all over again. After five postponements (two requested by Ed's attorney, two procedural delays, and one court-ordered delay), the hearing was held on Friday, 1/12/96. In addition to the judge, Northampton County probation officer Scott Hoke, Secret Service agent Tom Varney, and Haverford Township detective John Morris were in attendance. Varney and Morris arrived in the same car.

Ed's attorney was unable to attend because his car had been plowed under in Philadelphia. He said he doubted the hearing would take place because of the weather but told Ed to drive up just in case. Ed drove several hours through blizzard conditions and arrived at the courthouse for the fourth time. Scott Hoke, however, did not take this effort into consideration and told the judge he would not tolerate any more postponements, despite the fact that most of the postponements had been requested by the court itself and that Ed had been wanting to get this over with from the start.

Hoke complained that Cummings had been "walking around on the street" for three months. He did not mention that Cummings has been fully employed during that time and has not violated any laws since his release. The judge chastised Cummings for his lawyer's failure to appear and refused to allow him to say anything.

Tom Varney of the Secret Service then told the judge that he believed Cummings to be a major threat to society and that he was concerned because of the upcoming presidential campaign. It was unclear if he was actually implying that Cummings would somehow be a threat to the president but the judge and the police listened intently. This was the first time a Secret Service agent had come to their town. Varney continued to describe the threatening items that had been found in Cummings' residence: a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, publications from Loompanix, a mag stripe read head (no electronics) which "could have been used" to commit fraud, and material thought to be C4 but later proven not to be. However, Varney said, the fact that it could have been showed how serious this was. Nobody questioned his logic.

All of this stems from an incident years ago when Cummings and two friends were being questioned by a Northampton County police officer. He had asked them about a tone dialer they had and, while he went into another room, somebody removed the batteries from the dialer. They were not under arrest and had not been instructed not to do this. However, based on this, Cummings was charged with "tampering with evidence" even though there was no proof that he had been the one to do it. Cummings refused to say who did and pleaded no contest. He was fined and that should have been the end of it. Then the events of March 1995 unfurled and all of a sudden, Cummings was a probation violator.

Prior to this hearing, the Secret Service made an extra effort to contact the county probation officer to insist that Cummings be imprisoned because he was such a threat. They made quite an impression upon him apparently. It also became known through various contacts that the Secret Service was particularly angry at Cummings because he had given pictures of Secret Service agents to local media (FOX 29) in Philadelphia. These pictures made the Secret Service agents look foolish. Later, Secret Service agents would say to a friend of Cummings: "Don't fuck with us. We're the biggest gang in town."

The judge determined that a probation violation had indeed taken place and that Cummings should be held and a sentencing date scheduled within 60 days. The judge had just done the same thing for a man who had just committed his third DWI offense. In fact, he had killed someone. The judge ordered that person held on $50,000 bail. Ed Cummings, however, was another matter. The judge ordered Cummings held on $250,000.

So Cummings was being held on a quarter of a million dollars because he was thought to have taken batteries out of a tone dialer years ago. He's in a 5 by 8 holding cell 22 hours a day with no windows and no clock. He never knows what time it is or whether it's day or night. The temperature reaches a maximum of sixty degrees and he has only one layer of thin cotton clothing and one blanket. To add to his misery, he was just notified that the Haverford Township police will destroy the property they seized from him last year unless he picks it up by Friday, January 19.

The hearing to determine how long Cummings will be imprisoned for will be scheduled within 60 days. He could get a maximum of two years.