Greetings Occupiers, supporters, and lovers of liberty,

Join the National Lawyer's Guild and Occupy Poughkeepsie for a Know Your Rights Training with Valeria Gheorghiu, Esq.

Sunday, February 19th
5:30 - 7:00 pm (right before General Assembly)
Christ Episcopal Church
20 Carroll Street, Poughkeepsie NY, 12601
RSVP: Andrew at (401) 338-6219 or andrewsawtelle@riseup.net

About Know Your Rights Trainings

Learn about your Constitutionally-protected rights to free speech and lawful assembly, and your protections against undue search and seizure and self-incrimination. Understand the procedures that police and federal agents are obligated to follow, and how to conduct yourself if you encounter law enforcement or become the subject of a investigation. Learn about the expansion of government procedures and powers under the PATRIOT Act and subsequent legislation.

Donations are requested for Valeria, Christ Episcopal, and the NLG Legal Observers Fund. Please help us support our fellow workers for justice. NLG's pamphlet "You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters" will be available. Download it and other resources are online at www.nlg.org/resources/know-your-rights/.

About the Trainer -**Valeria Gheorghiu, Esq.

Valeria Gheorghiu practiced immigration, non-profit, environmental and criminal defense law out of her office in Kingston, New York. She formerly worked as a workers’ rights attorney at the Worker's Rights Law Center of NY, Inc. and South Jersey Legal Services, Inc. She is a member of the National Lawyers Guild and is currently part of Occupy Kingston. She has spoken and led workshops at the U.S. Social Forum, the Left Forum, Folk Seeds, and for the Chatham Peace Initiative. She is published in the Fourth World Journal on her work in India as a Fellow for the Center for World Indigenous Studies with Gene Campaign. In 2011, as Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Ulster County Bar Association, she founded the Sojourner Truth Community Garden at the Ulster County Family Courthouse with the Relatives as Parents Program of Cornell Cooperative Extension. She also served as Commissioner of the Conservation Advisory Council of the City of Kingston, and is a Master Gardener volunteer.

Gheorghiu graduated from Vermont Law School in ’06 with a Juris Doctor and a Masters’ of Studies in Environmental Law. While in law school, she served as co-chair of the International Law Society, creating the annual legal book drive, which shipped donated new and used legal texts to universities of lesser developed countries such as Guatemala, Romania and India. As an Albert Schweitzer fellow at Vermont Law School, she taught international environmental justice to high school students, using Rosia Montana as a case study. In Rosia Montana, Romania, with Alburnus Maior, she helped their campaign to save Rosia Montana from a proposed cyanide leachate gold mine during the summer of 2004. She also researched the feasibility of a River keeper as a George Perkins Marsh Fellow in 2003.

Prior to Vermont Law School, she worked at Efficiency Vermont in the field of energy efficiency, as an organizer with the Vermont Mobilization for Global Justice and as an environmental educator with Nature’s Classroom. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from The Evergreen State College, with concentrations in environmental studies and anthropology. Her other activities include running, biking, yoga, meditation, poetry, fire devil sticks and flute.

Gheorghiu is a founder of Occupy Kingston, and ran for County Executive of Ulster County as a write-in candidate, promising Occupy-inspired General Assemblies if elected.

#ONYS #OPK #OWS