WORMSCAN.& is composed of long stories received from various
Internet sources.
Blocks are filed by date, and marked by three snails at the head.
One paragraph summaries are in WORMSCAN.
Many more incidents are reported in WORMSCAN.
byter@mcimail.com
@@@
881200, US Senate, (GOV DOC # Y 4.F 76/2:S.prt.100-165). In
Date: Thu Feb 22, 1996 8:52 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: SNETL: (fwd) Federal facilitation of narcotics smuggling:
the evidence (fwd)
-> NOTICE - this list is MOVING before 3/1/96
-> Send "subscribe iufo" to listserv@xbn.shore.net
LONG. From alt.conspiracy.
Evidence about the drug-smuggling criminals running this country.
Psst ! We peasants are coming with our pitchforks. Fill up those
moats fast.
----Forwarded message-----
Do you want solid evidence that persons at the highest levels of our
government have facilitated the importation of tons of cocaine into
this country? Read on. What follows are excerpts from a government
document called, DRUGS, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND FOREIGN POLICY. This
document, which some had hoped would be lost and buried, was produced
in December 1988 by the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and
International Operations of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United
States Senate. It is for sale by the U.S. G.P.O., Supt. of Docs.,
Washington, April 13, 1989. (GOV DOC # Y 4.F 76/2:S.prt.100-165)
Excerpts are from pp. 36, 41, 42-47, 53-58, 59, 60. The guts of it
I`ve boiled down to 5 pages. Key parts are typed in caps, for those
who might only want to skim. Parenthetical remarks are mine.
NARCOTICS TRAFFICKERS AND THE CONTRAS
The head of the Costa Rican =91air force,=92 and personal pilot to two
Costa Rican presidents, Werner Lotz, had a very simple explanation for
the involvement of drug traffickers with the Contras in the early days
of the establishment of the Southern Front in Nicaragua: =93The Contras
were desperate for resources. Without drug money their efforts would
certainly have failed.=94=20
The logic of having drug money pay for the pressing needs of the
Contras appealed to a number of people who became involved in the
covert war (against the possibility of successful socialism in
Nicaragua). Indeed, senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the
idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras=92 funding
problems. (If the Congress would not allow the Contras and the
struggle against communism to be funded legally, then other means
would have to be found. =91Communism=92 had to be stopped---no matter
what the price. The ends justified any means necessary.)
The initial Senate Committee investigation into the international drug
trade, which began in April, 1986, was precipitated by allegations
that Senator John F. Kerry had received, regarding illegal gun-running
and narcotics trafficking associated with the Contra war against
Nicaragua. This investigation attempted to discover the interaction
between foreign policy, narcotics trafficking, and law enforcement.
The investigation came to two conclusions: first that the supply
network of the Contras was used by drug traffickers, and secondly that
the Contras knowingly received financial and material assistance from
drug traffickers. In both cases, one or another agency of the U.S.
government had information regarding the involvement, either while it
was occurring or immediately thereafter.
- More specifically, this committee investigated:
1) The participation of narcotics traffickers in Contra supply
operations through business relationships with Contra organizations,
2) Provision of assistance to the Contras by narcotics traffickers,
including cash, weapons, planes, pilots, air supply services and other
materials, on a voluntary basis by the traffickers,
3) PAYMENTS TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS BY THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT, using
funds authorized by Congress for humanitarian assistance to the
Contras, IN SOME CASES AFTER THE TRAFFICKERS HAD BEEN INDICTED BY
FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES ON DRUG CHARGES, in others while
traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies.
_____________________________________________________
On several thousand acres of land in northern Costa Rica, which were
owned by a number of Americans (one of whom was receiving $10,000 a
month in coke proceeds, by way of orders from Oliver North in the
Reagan White House.), there was constructed a rather elaborate
infrastructure, ostensibly for assisting the Contra Southern Front, in
Nicaragua, just to the north. Mainly it consisted of runways (6 of
them), hangars, housing, storage buildings, and airplane refueling
facilities. This infrastructure became increasingly important to the
drug traffickers, as this was the very period in which the cocaine
trade to the U.S. from Latin America was growing exponentially.
In the words of Karol Prado, an officer of the ARDE Contra
organization of Eden Pastora on the Southern Front, `drug traffickers
approached political groups like ARDE trying to make deals that would
somehow camouflage or cover up their activities.`
As DEA OFFICIALS TESTIFIED last July (1987) before the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime, Lt. Col. Oliver North suggested to the DEA in
June 1985 that $1.5 million in drug money---carried aboard a plane
piloted by DEA informant Barry Seal and generated in a sting of the
Medellin Cartel and Sandinista officials---be given to the Contras.
While the suggestion was rejected by the DEA, the very fact that it
was made, highlights the utility and appeal of drug profits, among
those engaged in covert activity.
Costa Rican pilot Werner Lotz emphasized that Contra operations on the
Southern Front were in fact funded by drug operations. He testified
that weapons for the Contras came from Panama on small planes. The
pilots unloaded the weapons, refueled, and headed north towards the
U.S. with drugs. These pilots included Americans, Panamanians, and
Colombians, and occasionally uniformed members of the Panamanian
Defense Forces. Drug pilots soon began to use Contra airstrips to
refuel, even when there were no weapons to unload. They knew that the
authorities would not check the airstrips because the war was
`protected.`...
U.S. GOVERNMENT FUNDS GOING TO COMPANIES WITH=20
DRUG CONNECTIONS
To supply `humanitarian assistance` to the Contras, the (Reagan-Bush)
State Department selected four companies known to be owned and
operated by narcotic traffickers. The companies were:
- SETCO Air, a company established by Honduran drug trafficker
Ramon Matta Ballesteros;
- DIACSA, a Miami-based air company operated as the headquarters
of a drug trafficker enterprise for convicted drug traffickers =20
Floyd Carlton and Alfredo Caballero;
- FRIGORIFICOS DE PUNTERENNAS, a firm owned and operated=20
by Cuban-American drug traffickers;
- VORTEX, and air service and supply company partly owned by
admitted drug trafficker Michael Palmer.
In each case, PRIOR TO THE TIME THAT THE STATE DEPARTMENT ENTERED INTO
CONTRACTS WITH THE COMPANY, FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS HAD
RECEIVED INFORMATION THAT THE INDIVIDUALS CONTROLLING THESE COMPANIES
WERE INVOLVED IN NARCOTICS.
Officials at NHAO (Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Organization)
told GAO investigators that all the supply contractors were to have
been screened by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies
_prior_ to receiving funds from State Department on behalf of the
Contras, to insure that they were not involved with criminal activity.
But neither the GAO nor the NHAO were certain whether this had
actually been done.
Consider the State Department`s first choice, SETCO. U.S. law
enforcement records clearly show that SETCO was established by
Honduran cocaine trafficker Juan Matta Ballesteros. A 1983 Customs
Investigative Report states that `SETCO (Services Ejectutivos Turistas
Commander) is headed by Juan Ramon Mata Ballestros, a class-I DEA
violator.` The same report states that, according to the Drug
Enforcement Agency, `SETCO aviation is a corporation formed by
American businessmen who are dealing with Matta and are smuggling
narcotics into the United States.`
One of the pilots SELECTED to fly Contra supply missions for SETCO was
Frank Moss, a man who has been under investigation as an alleged drug
trafficker since 1979. Moss has been investigated, though never
indicted, for narcotics offenses by ten (10) different law enforcement
agencies.=20
This Subcommittee received documentation that one Moss plane, a DC-4,
N90201, was used to move Contra goods from the United States to
Honduras. On the basis of information alleging that the plane was
being used for drug smuggling, on the return trips, the Customs
Service obtained a court order to place a concealed transponder on the
plane.
A second DC-4 controlled by Moss was chased off the west coast of
Florida by a Customs Service pursuit plane. Mid-air, the Moss DC-4
began dumping into the ocean, below, what appeared to be a large load
of drugs. When the plane landed at Port Charlotte no drugs were found
on board, but the plane`s registration was not in order and its last
known owners were drug traffickers. Law enforcement personnel also
found an address book aboard the plane, containing the telephone
numbers of some Contra officials and the Virginia telephone number of
Robert Owen, Oliver North`s courier and principal associate. Careful
inspection of the plane revealed the presence of significant marijuana
residue. The DEA seized the aircraft on March 16, 1987.
FRIGORIFICOS DE PUNTERENNAS
Frigorificos de Punterennas is a Costa Rican seafood company which was
created as a cover for the laundering of drug money. This according
to the grand jury testimony by one of its partners, as well as the
testimony by Ramon Milian Rodriguez, the convicted money launderer who
established the company.
From=20its inception, it was operated and owned by Luis Rodriguez of
Miami, Florida, and Carlos Soto and Ubaldo Fernandez---two convicted
drug traffickers. It`s main purpose and function was to launder drug
money. According to Massachusetts law enforcement officials, owner
Luis Rodriguez directed the largest marijuana smuggling ring in the
history of the state, and was indicted on drug trafficking charges by
the federal government on September 30, 1987 and on tax evasion in
connection with the laundering of money through Ocean Hunter on April
5, 1988.
**Luis Rodriguez** was also the person who controlled the bank account
held in the name of Frigorificos, WHICH RECEIVED $261,937 IN
`humanitarian assistance funds` FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT IN **1986**.
Rodriguez signed most of the orders to transfer the funds (for the
Contras) out of that account. Rodriguez was also president of Ocean
Hunter, an American seafood company created for him by Ramon Milian
Rodriguez. Ocean Hunter imported seafood it bought from Frigorificos
and used inter-company transactions to launder drug money.
Milian Rodriguez TOLD FEDERAL AUTHORITIES ABOUT **LUIS RODRIGUEZ`**
NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING PRIOR TO MILIAN RODRIGUEZ` ARREST IN MAY
**1983**. In March and April 1984, IRS AGENTS **INTERVIEWED** LUIS
RODRIGUEZ REGARDING OCEAN HUNTER, DRUG TRAFFICKING AND MONEY
LAUNDERING, and he took the Fifth Amendment in response to every
question. In September, 1984, Miami police officials advised the FBI
of information that Ocean Hunter was funding Contra activities through
`narcotics transactions,` and noted that Luis Rodriguez was its
president. This information confirmed previous accounts the FBI had
received concerning the involvement of Ocean Hunter (and its officers)
in Contra supply operations which involved the Cuban American
community.
DESPITE THE INFORMATION POSSESSED BY THE FBI, CUSTOMS AND OTHER LAW
ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, FULLY DOCUMENTING Luis Rodriguez` INVOLVEMENT IN
NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING AND MONEY LAUNDERING, the Reagan-Bush State
Department used Frigorificos, which Rodriguez owned and operated, to
deliver `humanitarian assistance` to the Contras in late 1985.
Official funds for the Contras (and the drug traffickers), from
American taxpayers, began to be deposited into the Frigorificos
account in early 1986, and continued until mid-1986.=20
In May 1986, Senator Kerry advised the Justice Department, the Drug
Enforcement Agency, the State Department, the NHAO and the CIA of
allegations he received that Luis Rodriguez (and his companies) were
involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. In August 1986,
the Foreign Relations Committee asked the Justice Department whether
the allegations about Luis Rodriguez were true, and requested
documents to determine whether the State Department might have in fact
provided funds to a company controlled by drug traffickers. However,
the (Reagan-Bush) JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REFUSED TO ANSWER THIS INQUIRY.
The indictment of Luis Rodriguez on drug charges 18 months later
demonstrated that the concerns raised by Senator Kerry to the Justice
Department and other agencies in May 1986 (concerning Rodriguez`
companies), were well founded. =20
The inescapable conclusion: THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HAD, IN FACT,
KNOWINGLY CHOSEN COMPANIES OPERATED BY DRUG TRAFFICKERS TO SUPPLY THE
CONTRAS.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF JOHN HULL, PATRIOT
John Hull was a central figure in Contra operations on the Southern
Front of Nicaragua when these operations were being managed by Oliver
North, from 1984 through late 1986. Before that, according to former
Costa Rican CIA station chief Thomas Castillo`s public testimony, Hull
had helped the CIA with military supply and other operations on behalf
of the Contras. In addition, during the same period, at Oliver
North`s direction, Hull received $10,000 a month from Contra leader
Adolfo Calero, (ultimately paid for by America`s growing number of
coke and crack addicts).=20
Hull was an Indiana `farmer` who moved to northern Costa Rica in the
mid-1970`s and persuaded a number of North Americans to invest in
ranch land in the northern part of that country. Using their money
and adding some of his own, he purchased thousands of acres of Costa
Rican farm land just south of the Nicaraguan border. Properties under
his ownership, management or control ultimately included at least six
airstrips. To the many pilots and revolutionaries who passed through
the region, this collection of properties and airstrips became known
as John Hull`s ranch.
On March 23, 1984, seven men aboard a U.S. government-owned DC-3 were
killed when the cargo plane crashed near Hull`s ranch, revealing
publicly that Hull was allowing his property to be used for airdrops
of supplies to the Contras. But even before this public revelation of
Hull`s role in supporting the Contras, officials in a variety of Latin
American countries were aware of Hull`s activities as a liaison
between the Contras and the United States government. For example,
Jose Blandon testified that former Costa Rican Vice President Daniel
Oduber suggested that he (Blandon) meet with Hull as early as 1983, to
discuss the formation of a unified southern Contra command under Eden
Pastora.
Five witnesses have testified that Hull was involved in cocaine
trafficking: Floyd Carlton, Werner Lotz, Jose Blandon, George Morales,
and Gary Betzner. Betzner testified that he personally witnessed, in
Hull`s presence, cocaine being loaded onto planes headed for the
United States.
Hull became the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney for
the Southern District of Florida in the spring of 1985. In late March
1985, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Feldman and two FBI agents went
to Costa Rica to investigate neutrality Act violations by participants
in the Contra re-supply network that were also under investigation at
the time by Senator Kerry. Both the Feldman and Kerry inquiries had
been prompted in part by statements made to reporters by soldiers of
fortune imprisoned in Costa Rica, who alleged that John Hull was
providing support for the Contras with the help of the (Reagan-Bush)
National Security Council.
Feldman and the FBI agents met with U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica,
Lewis Tambs, and the CIA Chief of Station, Thomas Castillo, who told
him (Feldman) that John Hull knew Rob Owen and Oliver North. Castillo
gave the impression that Hull had been working for U.S. interests
prior to March of 1984. In addition, one of the embassy security
officers, Jim Nagel, told one of the FBI agents accompanying Feldman
that, regarding Feldman`s inquiries, `...these are agencies with
other operational requirements and (you) shouldn`t interfere with the
work of these agencies.` When Feldman attempted to interview Hull, he
learned that Hull had been told by the embassy staff not to talk to
him unless he (Hull) was accompanied by an attorney. Not
surprisingly, Feldman concluded that U.S. Embassy officials in Costa
Rica were taking active measures to protect Hull. (It would not be
the first time that a U.S. Embassy was managed and staffed by the
CIA).
@@@
881200, Washington, DC.
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 07:44:33 -0800
From: mregen@ix.netcom.com (Marnie Regen )
To: DRCTalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Narcotics and the North Notebooks
Message-ID: <199601101544.HAA19095@IX5.IX.NETCOM.COM>
Caught this on usenet, thought some might be interested:
-----------------------------------------------------------
DRUGS, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND FOREIGN POLICY: A REPORT
-----------------------------------------------------------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations of
the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December
1988.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale the U.S. G.P.O., Supt. of Docs.,
April 13, 1989.
-----------------------------------------------------------
GOV DOC # Y 4.F 76/2:S.prt.100-165.
-----------------------------------------------------------
>From pp. 145-147.
APPENDIX: NARCOTICS AND THE NORTH NOTEBOOKS
SUMMARY
Among the voluminous testimony and documents received by the
Iran/Contra Committee was a significant amount of material relevant
to matters under investigation by the Subcommittee on Narcotics,
Terrorism, and International Operations.
In early 1987, the Subcommittee Chairman, Senator John F. Kerry
and Senator Daniel K. Inouye, the chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan
Opposition, worked out an agreement under which staff assigned to
the Subcommittee would receive the necessary special security
clearances to study all of the documents to which the Iran/Contra
committees had access.
In November and December 1987, the cleared Committee staff read
thousands of pages of Iran/Contra Committee material including the
"North notebooks," which consisted of 2,848 pages of spiral-bound
notes taken by North on a daily basis from September, 1984 through
November, 1986 covering his activities, telephone calls and meetings
while he was at the National Security Council. In reviewing these
notebooks, the Committee staff found a number of references to
narcotics, terrorism and related matters which appeared relevant and
material to the Subcommittee's inquiry. However, in many of these
cases, material in the Notebooks adjacent to the narcotics references
has been deleted from the material provided to the Committee.
Upon reviewing the matter with staff of the Iran/Contra Committees,
the Subcommittee learned that neither the Iran/Contra Committees nor
the White House had had access to uncensored North Notebooks. Instead,
North or his attorney had deleted portions of the Notebooks which they
considered to be outside of he jurisdiction of the of the Iran-Contra
Committees. In all, 1,269 of the pages of the Notebooks were
censored to some extent by North or his attorneys prior to being
delivered to the Iran/Contra Committees, with 155 pages blacked out
completely.
This occurred because North took the Notebooks from the White House
in November 1986 before his documents were impounded, and turned them
over to his lawyer, Brendon Sullivan. The Notebooks were then
subpoenaed
by the Iran/Contra Committees. North asserted his Fifth Amendment
Constitutional right, and was then given limited immunity by the
Committees to compel his testimony. After North was given immunity,
his attorneys still objected to furnishing the full Notebooks,
contending that they were not relevant to the Committee's investigation
and North need only furnish portions which he and his attorneys
determined were relevant.
Because of the Iran/Contra Committee's very tight deadlines and the
need to have the Notebooks for at least a brief period prior to
beginning the questioning of North, the Committee agreed to allow
North's lawyers to make deletions from the Notebooks. North or his
attorneys blacked out hundreds of Notebook pages and numerous entries.
Some of the censored entries were read by Committee lawyers, but most
were not. Most important, the lawyers who read the diaries at that time
did not know names, dates and places which would later prove to be
important, and therefore were not in a position to determine the
relevance of the material deleted.
The Iran/Contra Committee's staff had only a few days to review
the material before North was questioned. The thousands of pages were
furnished in often illegible copies and would have taken weeks of
analysis to make sense of under the best of conditions.
Under a fundamental agreement over classification which the
Iran/Contra Committees made with White House, the Notebooks were
classified at codeword level and could only be released after a
review by a White House declassification team.
Following the review of the diary entries by cleared staff,
Senator Kerry read several hundred pages of the North Notebooks and
wrote the White House on January 25, 1988 requesting the immediate
declassification of 543 pages containing references to drugs and drug
trafficking, North's probe of the investigation into North's
activities initiated by the Foreign Relations Committee in 1986,
and related matters.
A White House declassification team declassified some of the
requested materials. Some of the materials were deemed "not relevant to
the investigation," and others were not declassified because the White
House team could not determine what they meant without reading portions
not in their possession since they had been previously censored by
North and his attorneys. The White House did not declassify 104 of the
pages requested by the Committee staff, contending that all further
declassifications would have to await the processing of materials
necessary for Independent Counsel Walsh in connection with the
prosecution of Admiral John Poindexter, Albert Hakim and Richard Secord
for alleged criminal activity in connection with their roles in the
Iran/Contra affair.
When the Committee staff discussed the problem posed by the high
classifications given the materials within the North notebooks, White
House Counsel A.B. Culvahouse said the White House considered the
Notebooks the property of the federal government and subject to
classification at the highest levels.
The Subcommittee chairman, Senator Kerry, wrote the White House to
state that if the Notebooks were as sensitive as the White use
contended, they should not be allowed to remain in the possession of
either North,whose clearances had been terminated and who remained
under indictment,or in the hands of his attorneys, who cannot be
cleared to the codeword level. While reiterating that it considered the
materials to be highly classified, the White House took no steps to
secure the materials it contended remained federal property.
COMMITTEE ACTION
On April 26, 1988, the Committee voted 17-1 to approve a subpoena
for the full North Notebooks. The subpoena was served on Lt. Colonel
North.On May 10, 1988, North's attorney, Brendon V. Sullivan, Jr.,
appeared before a Committee hearing called for the purpose of receiving
the subpoenaed materials. Sullivan provided no materials and asserted
North's Fifth Amendment privilege. He further asked the Committee to
rescind the subpoena on the grounds that its issuance would jeopardize
North's right to a fair trial, and that the material requested was
beyond the jurisdiction of the Foreign Relations Committee. After
receiving legal advice from the Office of the Senate Legal Counsel, the
Committee voted 10-8 to enforce the subpoena on September 14, 1988, but
was unable to secure the materials prior to the end of the 100th
Congress.
CASE STUDY: THE DRUG-RELATED ENTRIES
Because of the extensive deletions in the Notebooks made first by
North and his attorneys and secondly by the White House, it is
difficult to gauge from the non-classified materials of the Notebooks
the full extent to which the Notebooks relate to terrorism or narcotics
trafficking, the areas of the Subcommittee's direct jurisdiction.
However, even in their highly incomplete state, the Notebooks do
contain numerous references to drugs, terrorism, and to the attempts of
the Committee itself to investigate what North was doing in connection
with his secret support of the Contras.
Among the entries in the North Notebooks which discernably concern
narcotics or terrorism are:
May 12, 1984. ... contract indicates that Gustavo is involved
w/drugs (Q0266)
June 26, 1984. DEA - (followed by two blocks of text deleted
by North) (Q0349)
June 27, 1984. Drug Case - DEA program on controlling cocaine -
Ether cutoff - Colombians readjusting - possible
negotiations to move refining effort to Nicaragua -
Pablo Escobar - Colombian drug czar - Informant
(Pilot) is indicted criminal - Carlos Ledher -
Freddy Vaughn (Q0354)
July 9, 1984. Call from Clarridge - Call Michael re Narco Issue -
RIG at 1000 Tommorrow (Q0384) - DEA Miami - Pilot
went talked to Vaughn - wanted A/C to go to Bolivia
to p/u paste - want A/C to p/u 1500 kilos - Bud to
meet w/Group (Q385)
July 12, 1984. Gen Gorman - *Include Drug Case (Q0400) Call from
Johnstone - (White House deletion) leak on Drug
(0402)July 17, 1984. Call to Frank M - Bud Mullins Re
leak on DEA piece -Carlton Turner (Q0418)
Call from Johnstone -
McManus, LA Times-says/NSC source claims W.H. has
pictures of Borge loading cocaine in Nic. (Q0416)
July 20, 1984. Call from Clarridge - Alfredo Cesar Re
Drugs-Borge/Owen leave Hull alone (Deletions)
/Los Brasiles Air Field-
Owen off Hull (Q0426)
July 27, 1984. Clarridge: - (Block of White House
deleted text follows)
- Arturo Cruz, Jr. - Get Alfredo Cesar on Drugs
(Q0450)
July 31, 1984. - Finance: Libya - Cuba/Bloc Countries - Drugs ...
Pablo Escobar/Frederic Vaughn (Q0460)
July 31, 1984. Staff queries re (White House deletion) role in DEA
operations in Nicaragua (Q0461)
Dec. 21, 1984. Call from Clarridge: Ferch (White House deletion) -
Tambs-Costa Rica - Felix Rodriguez close to (White
House
deletion) - not assoc. W/Villoldo - Bay of Pigs - No
drugs (Q0922)
Jan. 14, 1985. Rob Owen - John Hull - no drug connection -
Believes (Q0977)
July 12, 1985. $14 million to finance came from drugs (Q1039)
Aug. 10, 1985. Mtg. w/A.C. - name of DEA person in New Orleans re
Bust on Mario/DC-6 (Q1140)
Feb. 27, 1986. Mtg. w/Lew Tamb- DEA Auction A/C seized as drug
runners. - $250-260K fee (Q2027)
Numerous other entries contain references to individuals or events
which Subcommittee staff has determined to have relevance to narcotics,
terrorism, or international operations, but whose ambiguities cannot
be resolved without the production of the deleted materials by North
and his attorneys.
Accordingly, the Subcommittee continues to believe that the
production of the deleted material could shed important light on a
number of important issues in connection with foreign policy, law
enforcement and narcotics and terrorism. The Chairman of the
Subcommittee will urge that further steps be taken to secure the
original North notebooks in an uncensored form.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 20:14:59 -0800
From: mregen@ix.netcom.com (Marnie Regen )
To: DRCTalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Oliver North and the CIA/DEA "sting" (2/3) (long)
Message-ID: <199601230414.UAA20346@IX.IX.NETCOM.COM>
---- Begin Forwarded Message
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: MENA: Oliver North, Barry Seal, and the CIA/DEA "sting" (2/3)
Date: 22 Jan 1996 23:54:23 GMT
-----------------------------------------------------------
ENFORCEMENT OF NARCOTICS, FIREARMS, AND MONEY
LAUNDERING LAWS:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Oversight Hearings before the Subcommittee on Crime of the
Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives,
One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, July 28,
September 23, 29, and October 5, 1988.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the U.S. G.P.O.,
Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office, 1989.
---------------------------------------------------------
GOV DOC # Y 4.J 89/1:100/138
-----------------------------------------------------------
The following testimony is from pp. 56-67, 72, 74-78.
The persons asking the questions are:
Congressman William J. Hughes, Chairman of the Subcommittee
on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee.
Congressman Bill McCollum
Excerpts from Oversight Hearings before
the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee
ENFORCEMENT OF NARCOTICS, FIREARMS,
AND MONEY LAUNDERING LAWS
Thursday, July 28, 1988
TESTIMONY OF RON CAFFREY, CHIEF OF THE COCAINE DESK IN 1984,
DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY [DEA], U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; FRANK
MONASTERO, FORMER ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, DEA; AND DAVE WESTRATE,
ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, DEA
Mr. CAFFREY. I have been a field agent, supervisor, middle
management, special agent in charge. I have held various positions at
the headquarters level in our Office of Inspection, Chief of our
Domestic Enforcement, and Chief of our Cocaine Section.
Mr. HUGHES. Are you still Chief of our Cocaine Section?
Mr. CAFFREY. Special Agent in Charge in Atlanta, Georgia?
Mr. HUGHES. As Chief of the Cocaine Desk, DEA Headquarters, when did
you first become aware of the Seal Nicaragua case?
Mr. CAFFREY. In the Spring of 1984.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you have any personal involvement or are you aware
of the CIA being asked to assist the DEA?
Mr. CAFFREY. I am aware the CIA was involved with us, but
specifically to track down when that occurred. I couldn't do.
Mr. HUGHES. How did you first become aware of the case?
Mr. CAFFREY. In the early spring or late winter, the National
Narcotics Border Interdiction in Washington, D.C. referred Barry Seal
to one of my staff coordinators in Washington. Seal was interested in
cooperating with the government.
One of my staff coordinators, Frank White, interviewed him,
determined in fact there was a case on him in Florida, and he was
referred back to the Miami Division to cooperate with our office in
Miami.
Mr. HUGHES. At what point did the Seal Case become a case of major
interest to your section.
Mr. CAFFREY. When he commenced making airplane visits to Latin
America, Colombia and so forth, to bring drugs into the country.
Mr. HUGHES. Did DEA have information that supported Seal's reports
that the Ochoa organization may be moving from Colombia to Nicaragua
and other places?
Mr. CAFFREY. Independent of Seal, no. At that time my recollection
is that, the Colombian organization had suffered a number of setbacks
in the spring of '84 and they were diversifying their operations to
various places in Central America. But my recollection is that
Nicaragua really surfaced through Seal.
Mr. HUGHES. Can you explain for us what the impact of the tranquil
and difficult raid was in March of 1984?
Mr. CAFFREY. Approximately ten tons of cocaine were seized in the
Coquita Province, which is later labeled Tranquil Landia by the
Colombian National Police. The DEA furnished leads to the police that
resulted in those raids. While the availability of cocaine, the change
in the availability of cocaine was incremental as a result of that, I
think it did stir up some consternation among the trafficking groups.
That is surmise on my part or analysis, but they were concerned. They
felt out in the middle of the jungle they were safe and here one of
their major complexes was raided and seized.
Mr. HUGHES. But there is no question that that raid gave them great
deal of concern. Many of the top leaders in the Medellin cartel left
Colombia during that period of time?
Mr. CAFFREY. There were a series of events. That was one major
event. There was an assassination made on the Minister of Justice, I
believe subsequent to that, which placed a lot of law enforcement
response by the Colombian Government against the traffickers. So there
were a number of reasons why they were seeking other areas to operate
out of.
Mr. HUGHES. The assassination of the Justice Minister in particular
put a great deal of pressure on the organization?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes.
Mr. HUGHES. Did DEA have any involvement in acquiring the C-123K air
transport used by Seal, which was described earlier by Mr. Jacobsen?
Mr. CAFFREY. I am not aware we were. I think we may have assisted in
paying for some retrofitting on it, but in terms of the acquisition of
the aircraft, I am not familiar with that.
Mr. HUGHES. But you did assist in retrofitting it at the Air Force
Base?
Mr. CAFFREY. We assisted financially with it. That was our function
in Washington. We didn't really - we were not operational line control
people. We were coordinators who supported investigations by gaining
authorities or by providing funding.
Mr. HUGHES. Who actually made the arrangements at DEA to have that
work done?
Mr. CAFFREY. I am not sure.
Mr. HUGHES. You didn't?
Mr. CAFFREY. I did not.
Mr. HUGHES. You did not participate in that?
Mr. MONASTERO. I did, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HUGHES. Okay. Did you provide any briefings to the White House,
National Security Council, the CIA, the Department of Justice, State
Department or others, other agencies prior to the time Seal left
Homestead Air Force Base to pick up the cocaine in Nicaragua?
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't recall that I did. I recall that I gave a
briefing after his return with the drugs and prior to his return with
the money. I gave that briefing - I don't know the specific date, but I
gave it to Oliver North of the National Security Council. A CIA person
by the name of Dewey - his first name is Dewey - and one other person.
Mr. HUGHES. We will get into that. But at that point you had not
conducted any briefings for anybody at the National Security Council or
State Department?
Mr. CAFFREY. I had not, no.
Mr. HUGHES. You had not. How were you advised of the results of
Seal's successful trip to pick up the cocaine?
Mr. CAFFREY. By the Miami Division. By the case agents in Miami who
were running the operation.
Mr. HUGHES. Was that by teletype?
Mr. CAFFREY. Probably by phone and by teletype.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you receive the photographs that ere returned on the
plane the same day Seal returned from Nicaragua? That would be about
the 26th of June of 1984.
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't recall the exact date when we got the photos,
but it was shortly after their return - the return from Nicaragua with
the drugs - that the photos were sent to me from Miami.
Mr. HUGHES. Had you received the photos from Miami before you were
asked to brief the National Security Council?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes.
Mr. HUGHES. Who asked you to brief the NSC?
Mr. CAFFREY. I believe it was Mr. Westrate or Mr. Monastero or both.
Mr. HUGHES. What was the reason given for the briefing? Do you know
off hand?
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't know that they gave me a reason. I presume I
knew what the reason was at the time, to ensure that our investigation
was coordinated, since it was an investigation taking place in a
sensitive area where we did not have an office as we normally operate.
Mr. HUGHES. But after the C-123C returned from Nicaragua with a load
of cocaine, it was at that point, during that time frame, that you were
then requested to brief the NSC?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. Shortly thereafter, within a few days?
Mr. CAFFREY. It occurred before the return trip on July the 7th. I
just can't pin down the exact date.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you know before you went to the briefing who was
going to be present?
Mr. CAFFREY. No sir.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you know what government agencies would be
represented?
Mr. CAFFREY. I knew representatives from the National Security
Agency would be there.
Mr. HUGHES. This was not a formal meeting of the NSC?
Mr. CAFFREY. No sir.
Mr. HUGHES. Just members from the NSC or staff?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. Were you given any instructions prior to the briefing by
your superiors?
Mr. CAFFREY. No sir.
Mr. HUGHES. Were you told to withhold any information or restrict
details of any particular matters?
Mr. CAFFREY. No sir, just to show them the photographs and keep them
up - brief them up as to where we were at that particular point in time
in the investigation.
Mr. HUGHES. Tell us what took place at the initial briefing, where
it took place, and what took place, and who was present.
Mr. CAFFREY. It took place in the Executive Office Building. As I
say, it occurred somewhere between the 26th - the return with the drugs
- and July 7th and the departure. I went over to the building and
Oliver North was there with a person from the CIA by the name of Dewey
and another individual whose name escapes me. I don't recall who that
was. And I displayed the photographs that we had and pointed out some
of the defendants who were the picture. It was my sense of it, that
they were familiar with the investigation.
Mr. HUGHES. So you sensed they already had the photographs and knew
who was in the photographs?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes. It was simply really we rehashed what our
intentions would be in the investigation in the future and I did most
of the talking in terms of the briefing, and during the course of it,
they were asking me questions.
Mr. HUGHES. What did you say to them during that briefing? Now
present apparently were Colonel North - Oliver North - with the
National Security Council, a man by the name of Dewey, who was with the
Central Intelligence Agency, yourself?
Mr. CAFFREY. There was also another person from the DEA with me, but
I am not exactly sure who it was. It may have been one of the staff
assistants for the front office.
Mr. HUGHES. It was just those three agencies who participated in the
briefing - DEA, CIA -
Mr. CAFFREY. There was also another individual that, as I say, I
couldn't identify. I don't know what his affiliation was.
Mr. HUGHES. What did you say during the briefing?
Mr. CAFFREY. Well, I brought them up to speed as to where we were
with the investigation in terms of the fact that the drugs were back in
the United States. This was a photograph of who was in the picture.
There were some questions asked of me what our intentions were
generally and I told them you know, generally what we were going to
attempt to do was to go back and pay for the drugs, that we had some
problems to work out with the U.S. Attorney's office, who was somewhat
hesitant about us going back, for justifiable reasons, but we felt it
was an operational decision that we would ultimately make in the DEA.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you describe to them the significance of this
operation?
Mr CAFFREY. Yes sir. They were very well aware of the significance
of it. In fact, the CIA representative, in pointing out Frederico
Vaughn in the photographs, I knew that Frederico Vaughn was a defendant
in a case, but frankly, I didn't really know he was, and the CIA
representative told me that he was an associate of a government
official, a Nicaraguan government official, which was news to me at the
time.
Mr. HUGHES. That is news to me too, because the CIA tells us they
don't know anything about him. But they understood the significance,
that we were talking about high level traffickers?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. Escobar, Ochoa?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes. The CIA had assisted us prior to my briefing of
them. They in fact assisted us in putting cameras on the aircraft.
Mr. HUGHES. What did they say. Who carried the conversation for the
other agencies?
Mr. CAFFREY. Most of the conversation was Colonel North.
Mr. HUGHES. Did he conduct the meeting as such?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. What did he say during the meeting?
Mr. CAFFREY. Well, he asked our intentions as to whether we were
going to go back. He voiced his opinion that it was probably a
dangerous thing to send the informant back in, particularly in light of
the fact that at one point during this investigation the informant had
been shot down and incarcerated, so to speak, at the airport.
Colonel North asked me hypothetically if we were going to return
with the aircraft and the money, why we couldn't land the plane
somewhere outside of Nicaragua, outside the airport in Managua, and
maybe turn the money over to the contras.
I told him that was really out of the question because it would
jeopardize our informant. It was more a hypothetical question.
Mr. HUGHES. Oliver North was asking you if it was possible for you
to land the plane with the million and a half dollars outside of
Managua?
Mr. CAFFREY. If it was possible for Seal to land the plane.
Mr. HUGHES. Seal to land the plane outside of Managua so that the
money could be channeled to the contras?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. And you told him that that was not possible, that would
jeopardize Barry Seal to begin with, and of course, that wouldn't be
proper anyway, would it?
Mr. CAFFREY. Right.
Mr. HUGHES. You indicated that Oliver North expressed some concern
about perhaps jeopardizing Barry Seal. Did Oliver North also suggest to
you any other reasons why that operation shouldn't go off as planned?
Mr. CAFFREY. No, but he did ask me when this investigation could go
public, when the information could be released, and I said certainly at
some point in time it would, but we had a lot of things to finish off
the investigation prior to that.
Mr. HUGHES. Isn't it a fact Oliver North wanted to go public then
and there with it?
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't recall that he suggested we go public. He asked
me if we could, or when we could actually, when we go.
Mr. HUGHES. Why did he say it was important to go public with it?
Mr. CAFFREY. He did indicate to me there was a vote coming up at
some point in time on an appropriations bill to fund the contras.
Mr. HUGHES. So he wanted too public because there was a contra aid
vote coming up before the Congress?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. And he told you that?
Mr. CAFFREY. He mentioned it in a conversation.
Mr. HUGHES. And what did you say to him?
Mr. CAFFREY. I told him that public disclosures would probably be
made by the U.S. Attorney's Office at the proper time, but that we had
a number of things that we still had to do in the investigation,
namely, we had arrests to make and we had to pursue some - we had a lot
of goals left in the investigation, some of which we were going to have
to accomplish in a relatively short period of time.
Mr. HUGHES. Well, the fact of the matter is that Barry Seal had made
tremendous inroads into this Medellin cartel, had he not?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. You were familiar with the fact that he was trusted. In
fact, to your knowledge, they suggested that they wanted to take him,
show him their assets, wanted to take him to the Yucatan Penninsula in
Mexico, and in fact, when it appeared in the press, in the Washington
Times, he was on his way?
Mr. CAFFREY. Well, some of that information developed subsequent to
my briefing with Colonel North, as I recall. We did know what his
capabilities were, but on the other hand, we recognized that we had
taken cocaine out of the country and had delivered it to defendants n
Miami, had arrested them. We had taken - we were about to go back with
money to make a payoff. There is not too many times we could do that,
and him to continue that way, but contemporaneous with that, we did
have these other goals in the investigation.
Mr. HUGHES. How long have you been with DEA?
Mr. CAFFREY. Twenty-four years.
Mr. HUGHES. In your 24 years do you ever recall a confidential
informant, an operative, working their way into those levels of a major
cartel?
Mr. CAFFREY. We have had a number of real good investigations but I
would say this was a top notch investigation.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you ever recall an opportunity to reach the kingpin
of a cartel all at one time, as Barry Seal was in this operation?
Mr. CAFFREY. From an operational standpoint. I don't recall any. We
have had a number of investigations that have resulted with potential
indictments against - historical conspiracies against -
Mr. HUGHES. The reason it was important for this operation to move
ahead was because that potential existed to learn much more about the
organization, about their assets?
Mr. CAFFREY. That was a goal, but one of the primary goals was
actually the arrest of the principals.
Mr. HUGHES. The arrest of Ochoa?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes.
Mr. HUGHES. And Escobar, and you were close to them. In fact your
operative was with them, traveling with them, staying at their
residences and had worked his way into their confidence. So you were
very close to that operation?
Mr. CAFFREY. We were very close to the operation but we were also
our informant, Seal - was in a precarious position at the time in a
sense that they had begun to check him out. He had already delivered
cocaine back into the United States and people had been arrested
subsequent to the delivery of that. So I mean, we were not about to end
our investigation at that point, but we realized that we were on the
clock so to speak, in terms of trying to achieve the goals that we had
in the investigation....
Mr. HUGHES. Did you explain to Oliver North when he suggested that
this operation be released - to utilize the photographs, I presume that
were taken of the transfer of the narcotics in Managua to get that out
to the press - did you suggest to him that that could put Barry Seal at
risk?
Mr. CAFFREY. We didn't discuss putting the photographs out in the
press. What he asked is could the story be told in the press, that is,
the story about flying into Nicaragua and the government being
involved. We didn't discuss the photographs being released. That was
not discussed, as I recall.
Mr. HUGHES. What he wanted to get out was there was an instance
where Sandinistas were involved in drug running?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes sir.
Mr. HUGHES. That was the principal interest?
Mr. CAFFREY. That wasn't his principal interest, but he wanted to
know
how long was the case going to go on, what else did we plan on doing,
and
so forth.
Mr. HUGHES. Had you been to the National Security Council to brief
them on any other drug operations?
Mr. CAFFREY. I had not.
Mr. HUGHES. Since then have you?
Mr. CAFFREY. I may have attended another meeting where I didn't
actually do the briefing but - and it was during this time frame - but
I
just can't recall.
Mr. HUGHES. Isn't it unusual for the NSC to be interested in law
enforcement operations?
Mr. CAFFREY. It is the first time in my experience.
Mr. HUGHES. You have been at DEA for 24 years. Is that the first
time
you had that experience?
Mr. CAFFREY. Well, we have worked with CIA overseas on occasion.
Mr. HUGHES. Any question in your mind that the reason that Oliver
North was interested was because it was Sandinistas involving drug
trafficking.
Mr. CAFFREY. He was concerned about that.
Mr. HUGHES. An entry in Oliver North's notebook dated June 27 - I am
going to ask one of our staff to put it up - lists some topics under
the
heading "drug case." I want to direct your attention to this document.
Do
you recognize some of the topics? Can you read that?
Mr. CAFFREY. It contains the names of some of the defendants in the
case but the actual date really doesn't have much significance.
Mr. HUGHES. It has no significance?
Mr. CAFFREY. Not to me it doesn't, no.
Mr. HUGHES. But you did discuss the DEA program of controlling
cocaine?
Mr. CAFFREY. I beg your pardon?
Mr. HUGHES. You did discuss the DEA program of controlling cocaine?
Mr. CAFFREY. I did?
Mr. HUGHES. I am asking the question. I don't know.
Mr. CAFFREY. In my conversation with North, and I don't believe it
was
on the 27th -
Mr. HUGHES. When do you think it was?
Mr. CAFFREY. I think it was after that.
Mr. WESTRATE. Mr. Chairman, I think that relates to a brief I had on
the 27th.
Mr. HUGHES. I see. Are there any other matters discussed with Oliver
North and this person Dewey? I presume you are referring to Dewey
Clarridge. Any other discussions at that meeting?
Mr. CAFFREY. No. The meeting ended just with what I thought was the
general understanding that we were probably going to go back with the
money. We had not really finalized that plan yet. We had to get
permission from our boss, but that was how I left off the meeting.
Mr. HUGHES. How many times did Oliver North suggest to you that the
operation should be aborted and go public with it?
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't know that he said it should be aborted
necessarily. He didn't think it was a good idea that the informant
should
go back down there. I seem to recall that after that meeting, I had a
conversation with him. I don't know whether it was on the phone or
whether I actually went over and talked to him, but when we in fact had
decided that we were going to go back and make the payment with the
money, and he expressed surprise that we were going back, which
indicated maybe we had some misunderstanding the previous time, that he
thought we weren't. But all I really left off with him previously was
we
hadn't made a final decision to go back yet, but probably we would go
back.
Mr. HUGHES. How many times did Oliver North indicate to you that he
felt that you ought to go public with it because of the contra vote
coming up?
Mr. CAFFREY. He just mentioned that one time during the course of
our
briefing. As I say, I was doing the briefing, so I was doing most of
the
talking, and some of the questions he posed -
Mr. HUGHES. Did you report or tell your superiors about Oliver
North's
suggestion that the plane be landed in another country besides
Nicaragua
and divert the $1.5 million to the Contras?
Mr. CAFFREY. I am not sure that I did that. My conversations when I
came back really related more to the possible publicity, possible -
that
there were a number of people now more conversant with the case. I
think
my concerns were more in that area.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you have any other briefings with the National
Security Council after that?
Mr. CAFFREY. Did I?
Mr. HUGHES. Yes.
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't recall that I had, but it is possible that I
may
have attended another meeting, but I just - I remember the one
specifically prior to the trip back with the money, because I was
conducting the briefing. I may have been in another one, attended one
with someone else who was really running the meeting, but off hand, I
don't recall.
Mr. HUGHES. Did there come a time when you learned that the
operation
was compromised and the media had it, had the story?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes. That was the middle of July. I am not all that
conversant with that aspect of it, but there was a story that was
coming
out in the papers.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you find out about it before the story came out?
Mr. CAFFREY. I did not, but I believe somebody else in DEA did.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you ever conduct an investigation of the source of
the
leaks?
Mr. CAFFREY. I did not personally, no.
Mr HUGHES. Did you participate in any meetings where that suggestion
was made?
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't recall that I did, no.
Mr. HUGHES. Once the story was out to the Washington Times, then the
operation was clearly exposed?
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes. Seal's viability operationally was over. He was
now
a witness and not an operator.
Mr. HUGHES. So there is no question that he was of no further use as
an operator, as a confidential informant at that point?
Mr. CAFFREY. No. His utility after that would be as a witness.
Mr. HUGHES. When that story broke was Seal in this country?
Mr. CAFFREY. I am not sure where he was.
Mr. HUGHES. You don't have any personal knowledge?
Mr. CAFFREY. I am sure the case agents knew where he was.
Mr. McCOLLUM. I am trying to get a clarification. I wanted to know
if
he was asking the whole panel or just you, Mr. Caffrey. I think we are
doing it one at a time even though we have a panel. I think will do it
that way. Mr. Caffrey, how long did this briefing last with Colonel
North?
Mr. CAFFREY. About an hour.
Mr. McCOLLUM. It was a briefing that you gave to him, and the CIA
also
participated in the actual briefing.
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCOLLUM. This was at his request?
Mr. CAFFREY. On whose request - my boss told me to go over and give
him a briefing, so this is what I did.
Mr. McCOLLUM. There was no indication from North as to how he
happened
to be aware of this to ask for a briefing o to be given one or anything
like that?
Mr. CAFFREY. No, but I gave him the briefing. They were pretty
conversant with the operation.
Mr. McCOLLUM. There has been an implication in earlier testimony
that
a White House aide, I suppose the implication is that it might be
North,
was the one who leaked this story to the press. You have told us about
the briefing. You told us that North would like to have - at one point
indicated he would like to have had this information released or the
story available. Do you have any actual knowledge that Oliver North or
anyone at the National Security Council did in fact leak this
information
to the press?
Mr. CAFFREY. No, I don't. I don't know who leaked it. I just know I
didn't leak it.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Understood. That is fair enough. In the process of an
investigation involving informants like this, Mr. Caffrey, where you
got
somebody such as Barry Seal involved, you go through using him for a
period of time, what makes this witness credible or not to you, what
makes this informant credible?
Mr. CAFFREY. When he tells us something that we are able to
corroborate through physical evidence or intelligence or through other
witnesses or other informants or from observations made by our agents.
Mr. McCOLLUM. And it was on this basis that you decided to use Barry
Seal because that type of information had come forward.
Mr. CAFFREY. Yes, sir, plus he was a pilot, a desirable commodity
for
smugglers.
Mr. McCOLLUM. How did you first get involved in this yourself? I
know
you were here in the Washington office. Is this routine for you to
oversee, or was this a special kind of a case because of the nature of
it
or how did it come to your attention to begin with
Mr. CAFFREY. There is a cocaine section we functionalize in the DEA,
cocaine and heroin section. It is our responsibility in our section to
monitor and coordinate most of the high caliber cocaine cases. We don't
supervise the cases or conduct the investigation. That is done in the
field level. But where there is special emphasis needed, if there is
extra recourses required, or special authorities like foreign travel,
things of that nature, or some investigation of a sensitive nature, we
would be more conversant with those cases than we would be with the run
of the mill street cases. That was our function that we had staff
coordinators responsible for various geographical areas of the world.
Mr. McCOLLUM. You were responsible for this area.
Mr. CAFFREY. I was responsible for all cocaine and I had staff,
about
eight or nine staff coordinators at the time working for me who had
responsibility, one of whom had responsibility for this case.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Who had that responsibility.
Mr. CAFFREY. I believe it was Frank White.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Would you have had any direct contact with Mr.
Jacobsen
who was the agent out in the field that we had as a witness this
morning.
Mr. CAFFREY. I don't believe so. I am not saying that that doesn't
happen but I don't recall that in the investigation I had any contact
with him. I think I had most of my contacts with Miami and with the
special agent in charge.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Who was?
Mr. CAFFREY. Mr. Joura.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Some of the contacts go through Mr. White because he
was
directly -
Mr. CAFFREY. Mr. White would be the person that handled a lot of the
details, requirements, if they needed money or equipment or special
authorities.
Mr. MCCOLLUM. Who would you report to in your chain of command at
that
time.
Mr. CAFFREY. Mr. Westrate.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Who directed you to give the briefing to Ollie North?
Mr. CAFFREY. I believe Mr. Westrate....
Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Monastero, if I might, you are now retired from the
Drug Enforcement Administration.
Mr. MONASTERO. That is correct.
Mr. HUGHES. How many years did you serve with the DEA?
Mr. MONASTERO. I served the entire time DEA was formed 1973, with
the
prior agency and the agency prior to that.
Mr. HUGHES. When did you retire from DEA?
Mr. MONASTERO. June 30 of 1985.
Mr. HUGHES. What was your position at that time?
Mr. MONASTERO. I was the Chief of Operations, the Assistant
Administrator for Operations.
Mr. HUGHES. Assistant Administrator for Operations.
Mr. MONASTERO. Yes.
Mr. HUGHES. Actually, you were in charge of all operations.
Mr. MONASTERO. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. HUGHES. Worldwide.
Mr. MONASTERO. Yes....
Mr. HUGHES. Did you participate in any meetings at the National
Security Council?
Mr. MONASTERO. I did not.
Mr. HUGHES. You did not. Did you appear with - did you go to any
meetings where the leak was discussed, where you were attempting to do
something about the leak?
Mr. MONASTERO. Go to any meetings?
Mr. HUGHES. Yes. Did you attempt to do something about the
Mr. MONASTERO. Well, I went to a meeting on the 17th of July, the
day
that the leak or that the first press, direct press information
appeared
in the press. I was asked to go to brief Carlton Turner, who was the
Drug
Policy Advisor at the White House, on the investigation.
At that meeting, there was a discussion of the investigation and of
the leak at that time.
Mr. HUGHES. Was there an investigation underway to try to identify
the
source of the leak?
Mr. MONASTERO. There was no investigation of the leak at that time,
no.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you as Carlton Turner if he had any knowledge about
the leak?
Mr. MONASTERO. The recollection that I have of the meeting was to
the
effect that he asked me about the investigation and the leak. It was
obvious from our conversation that he had considerable amount of
information about the investigation. The inference that I drew from
some
of what he said was that he was accusing us, accusing DEA, of leaking
the
story. I became quite irritated with that, got quite upset, and let him
know in no uncertain terms, as I
recall, that I thought the leak came from the White House, because of
the
contra support vote that was upcoming and that we had no intention of
leaking the story.
That, as a matter of fact, if whoever did leak it would have waited
just a little bit longer, they would have had more incriminating
information about what involvement the Sandinista Government, in fact,
may have had in that case.
Mr. HUGHES. Is that the first time with the Barry Seal, Nicaragua
case
that you were privy to any information that the Nicaraguans,
Sandinistas
or anybody else in Nicaragua was trafficking in drugs?
Mr. MONASTERO. The Barry Seal case?
Mr. HUGHES. Yes.
Mr. MONASTERO. As far as I can recall, yes.
Mr. HUGHES. Do you recall after that case any information coming to
your attention involving he Sandinistas, drug trafficking?
Mr. MONASTERO. No.
Mr. HUGHES. So that was the only instance?
Mr. MONASTERO. To my recollection, it was, yes.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you become aware of the suggestion that was made
apparently by Oliver North to Mr. Caffrey that perhaps playing with the
$1.1 million which might be sent down in another country, where the
money
could be channeled to the contras?
Mr. MONASTERO. I think Mr. Caffrey said it would land outside of
Managua, but in Nicaragua, but, no, I don't have any recollection of
being told that at the time, and, frankly, if he did tell me, I
wouldn't
at that time have realized the significance of that.
Mr. HUGHES. You would not have realized it?
Mr. MONASTERO. I wouldn't have realized it at that time because
nobody
knew that Oliver North was doing what he was doing.
Mr. HUGHES. I see....
Mr. HUGHES. To your knowledge, who had the information about the
operation beside DEA?
Mr. MONASTERO. To my knowledge, certain people, and I can't go
through
a litany of names, at the White House knew about it. People at the CIA
certainly knew about it. There were people in the Defense Department,
although I think, well, there were people in the Defense Department who
knew about it.
There may have been people in other agencies that I am not aware of
that may have known about it. But those agencies certainly besides DEA
knew about the investigation.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you participate in any of the discussions with (IA
at
any point when they were attempting to release the information, when
they
were trying to get it released publicly?
Mr. MONASTERO. l am not aware that the CIA was ever - I heard the
testimony this morning. That is the first time I heard that.
Mr. HUGHES. You have no knowledge of that, though?
Mr. MONASTERO. Not the CIA, no.
Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Westrate, you are presently with the DEA, are you
not?
Mr. WESTRATE. I am currently the Assistant Administrator for
Operations.
Mr. HUGHES. What was your position in May and June and July of 1984?
Mr. WESTRATE. Mr. Monastero's deputy, so I was a Deputy Assistant
for
Operations.
Mr. HUGHES. Deputy Assistant for Operations?
Mr. WESTRATE. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUGHES. Did there come a time when you became aware of the Barry
Seal operation?
Mr. WESTRATE. Yes, sir, during the same time frame, May, June, and
July of 1984.
Mr. HUGHES. HOW did you become aware of it?
Mr. WESTRATE. Through the normal course of business.
Mr. HUGHES. Were you the contact person in operations?
Mr. WESTRATE. Well, I supervised all of the drug desks, so I was the
natural conduit between the drug desk and Mr. Monastero.
Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Caffrey reported directly to you?
Mr. WESTRATE. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Mr. HUGHES. You were aware from the very beginning that it was
brought
to the - that Barry Seal was brought to your attention?
Mr. WESTRATE. Well, I don't think necessarily the minute he was
debriefed because as we developed into the potential of actually making
a
trip to Nicaragua I was certainly brought in because that was very
sensitive.
Mr. HUGHES. What was your role during that period of time?
Mr. WESTRATE. My role was normal supervision, coordination down with
Mr. Caffrey, up with Mr. Monastero and some interaction activities.
Mr. HUGHES. Did you attend any briefings at the National Security
Council?
Mr. WESTRATE. Yes, sir, I did. I attended two meetings at the White
House. One on June 27th and a second one on June 29th.
Mr. HUGHES. Who was present at the meeting on June 27th?
Mr. WESTRATE. On June 27, there was myself, Colonel North, Mr. Dewey
Clarridge of the CIA, Kennedy Grafanrid, who was, as I understood,
assistant to the President and Greg Johnstone of the Office of Indian
Affairs at the State Department.
Mr. HUGHES. Who conducted the meeting?
Mr. WESTRATE. Colonel North.
Mr. HUGHES. What was discussed at the meeting?
Mr. WESTRATE. There were a number of issues discussed at the
meeting.
The meeting opened with a presentation of the photographs by Mr.
Clarridge. The photos were passed around the room and discussed. The
second thing that we discussed was whether or not to release, the
release
of the facts in this case would in any way influence the pending vote
on
the Congress. And interestingly enough the conclusion of the group was
that it probably, in the end, would not.
We also discussed at some length the rules about press releases in
cases. most of which I led, because I wanted to make certain that
everybody understood that there was within the criminal justice
system a very strict protocol on media coverage of investigations, and
we
were quite concerned that - I wanted to be certain nothing happened in
this case that would be different from another case, because clearly we
expected to be prosecuting some of the most major cocaine traffickers
in
the world, and didn't want to prejudice the prosecution.
So I explained at length the Department of Justice rules and how
generally we don't comment beyond as is often said the four corners of
an
indictment and so forth. There also was some discussion about how
details
of an investigation would or could come out and my objection was that
something as high visibility as this, in my view, having watched cases
over the years, that if the regular announcement were made, the media,
as
strong as it is, probably within a few days would elaborate
considerably.
That just seems to be the way things go. So we discussed that. And
we
also discussed at length the future, the potential that we felt that
this
investigation had. This meeting was the day after the cocaine had
arrived
in Miami, so the thing was really cooking at that point.
That meeting lasted quite awhile. And Friday, June 29, we attended -
Mr. HUGHES. Before you move on to the 29th of June, what prompted
the
discussion about the operation and how that would impact the contras?
Who
raised that issue?
Mr. WESTRATE. I don't remember who actually raised that.
Mr. HUGHES. What relevance would that have to this investigation?
What
difference does it make?
Mr. WESTRATE. I think it was quite clear, Mr. Chairman, that the
people at the White House felt that having derogatory information on
members of the Sandinista government would be helpful in this vote.
Mr. HUGHES. As a law enforcement officer, it wouldn't make any
difference to you what the politics were about the individuals, would
it?
Mr. WESTRATE. No, sir, it would not.
Mr. HUGHES. Obviously it was raised by somebody from the White
House?
Mr. WESTRATE. Yes, because they clearly were interested in this.
Mr. HUGHES. You didn't raise it, did you?
Mr. WESTRATE. No, I did not. That doesn't mean they wanted to
disclose
it prematurely but they were certainly interested in as soon as
possible.
This would be useful was the general tone of it. I wasn't sure it would
be useful. More cocaine traffickers, there are so many everywhere that
we
weren't sure they would have any impact at all. There was quite a
discussion on that very subject.
Mr. HUGHES. What precipitated your discussion with them concerning
the
rules of the Justice Department with regard to releasing information
and
the extent of the operation, nature of the operation, was it a
discussion
that perhaps it might be released in connection with an upcoming contra
vote?
Mr. WESTRATE. I think there were some assumptions made by people
there
who were not familiar with the investigative process in handling the
press about cases, that all the details could be disclosed including
photographs and, you know, other things that would normally in my
context
be evidentiary or perhaps grand jury information, or be, you know,
speculative or what have you, which we don't do in the investigative
process, press releases.
Mr. HUGHES. Was that, did that discussion come from Dewey Clarridge
or
from Oliver North or where did it come from?
Mr. WESTRATE. I really don't recall, sir. It was four years ago and
-Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Caffrey's recollection was it came from Oliver North.
You have information to that fact or to contradict that?
Mr. WESTRATE. It may have. I don't recall specifically.
Mr. HUGHES. The meeting of the 29th, who was present at that meeting
and what was discussed?
Mr. WESTRATE. At that meeting, Mr. Caffrey was present. He and I
went there, according to my notes, Mr. Clarridge, Mr. North, and again,
Mr. Johnstone. The purpose of this meeting was to just keep everybody
up to date and also to report the fact that the cocaine had actually
now been delivered and the seizure played in Miami. Again to reiterate
the fact that we had future plans and we were going to proceed with our
future plans.
Mr. HUGHES. Had you been to the White House, on the operation, like
on-going operations such as this before?
Mr. WESTRATE. Not on this particular thing, but I have been there a
couple times since on very sensitive cases.
Mr. HUGHES. That is the exception rather than the rule, is it?
Mr. WESTRATE. Yes, it is.
---- End Forwarded Message
------------------------------
@@@
890803, St Louis, MO, Matt Elrod. Marijuana claims another
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 08:09:14 -0800
From: Creator@IslandNet.com (Matt Elrod)
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Re: St Louis radio interview
Message-ID:
Phil wrote:
}Killing the 10 percent of the population that uses/traffics in
}illegal drugs would cost trillions of dollars to carry out. Because
}illegal drug use is most prevalent among young adults, the same group
}that is most likely to be gainful employed and raising families ...
Strange that after calling for the death penalty for smugglers Newt
said:
"As a further solution to the underclass problem, he said, ''The
second thing you have to do, frankly, is reestablish the strength of
the family ...
I'm not talking about some return to a Norman Rockwell, Puritan
environment or whatever the exaggeration of this comment will
lead to.
``But I am saying to all of you something that Pat Moynihan
said in 1965, which is a society in which young males grow up
without authority structures and without authority figures is a
society that is asking for destruction and chaos.''
At 5 a.m. on August 3, 1989, police came to the home of Bruce Lavoie,
34, a machinist with a wife and three children. Without announcing
themselves and with no evidence that Lavoie was armed, police smashed
the door in with a battering ram. They had a search warrant based on
an informant's tip that was 20 months old. As he arose from his bed,
Lavoie was shot to death as his son watched. A single marijuana
cigarette was found.
A single-parent family was left behind.
Matt.
------------------------------
@@@
900428, Costa Rica, The Orange County Register. Costa Rica is
The following article was originally printed in the Saturday, April 28,
1990 issue of *The Orange County Register* on page A18.
COSTA RICA MAY BAN IRAN-CONTRA FIGURES
Legislature blames scandal for increasing nation's drug traffic
Reuters
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - The Costa Rican Legislative Assembly
recommended permanently banning former US officials involved in
the Iran-contra affair from entering the nation, saying the
clandestine Nicaraguan rebel arms network had increased drug
trafficking in Costa Rica.
In a 50-2 vote Thursday evening, the assembly approved the
recommendations made in a report by a special congressional
drug commission.
Among its 32 proposals, the commission suggested banning
five Iran-contra figures, including former U.S. Ambassador to
Costa Rica Lewis Tambs.
Along with Tambs, the report named former National Security
Adviser John Poindexter, Lt. Col. Oliver North, ex-CIA station
chief Joe Fernandez and arms dealer Richard Secord.
Citing the Iran-contra record and testimony to the commission
given during a year-long investigation, the report said they
indirectly had contributed to Costa Rica's drug-trafficking woes
by bolstering a clandestine arms network that subsequently was
penetrated by cocaine traffickers.
Costa Rica serves as a transshipment point for South American
cocaine flown in aircraft too small to make the flight to the
United States without stopping to refuel or unload their cargo for
transshipment by other means.
The report also recommended that contra collaborator John Hull
be stripped of his Costa Rica citizenship. Hull, accused of murder
and violating Costa Rican neutrality, jumped bail and skipped the
country last year and now lives in his native Indiana.
Costa Rican courts have instructed the Foreign Ministry to
request Hull's extradition from the United States.
The report also recommended that former Public Security
Minister Benjamin Piza be censured for his participation in the
construction of a clandestine airstrip used to supply the contras.
None of the commission's total 32 recommendations are binding.
END OF ARTICLE
-------------------------------
@@@
901217, Lockerbie, Scotland, Primary source here is from
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6 Num. 70
======================================
("Quid coniuratio est?")
-----------------------------------------------------------------
LOCKERBIE: THE INTERFOR REPORT
==============================
[Primary source here is from Barron's, 12/17/90, "Unwitting
Accomplices?" by Maggie Mahar.]
There is a country south of the United States called Nicaragua.
The United States has been involved there for decades. In the
early part of this century, a General Sandino down there fought
against the United Fruit Company (if my memory serves me
correctly.) So that is where the name "Sandinistas" comes from:
it is derived from the name of the Nicaraguan hero (to some)
General Sandino.
There was a dictator down there named Somoza. FDR said once that
"Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's *our* son of a bitch."
Somoza had a son who also became a dictator in Nicaragua, and the
U.S. owned him just like we owned his father. [Source: *The CIA's
Greatest Hits* by Mark Zepezauer]
The people (or the commies) overthrew the second Somoza in 1979.
In the 1980s, Reagan-Bush wanted to go to war down there so we
could get control of Nicaragua back from the commies (or the
people). But the Congress, which had some balls in those days,
wouldn't allow it.
So what happened? Reagan-Bush went around the law and funded a
"covert" war against the people (or the commies) who controlled
Nicaragua. (They should have consulted with bold-as-brass Bill
Clinton, who just "do as he please" in such matters.) One way
they funded their illegal war was, after the planes flew the
weapons down there, they had the planes fly back with drugs.
Readers of Conspiracy Nation know the pattern: guns get traded
for drugs and the banks get a piece of the action.
But the CIA, who helped run this illegal war of the 1980s, are
big-time drug dealers: they are worldwide. To paraphrase Meyer
Lansky, drug kings CIA are "bigger than U.S. Steel."
Ever on the alert for ways to fund their operations, the CIA got
into a separate deal, according to a private-investigation firm
called Interfor Inc. Juval Aviv, head of the firm, helped Pan Am
with its own investigation of the crash of flight 103 near
Lockerbie, Scotland. Here is what seems to have happened, based
on Aviv's report:
Monzer Al-Kassar, a Syrian drugs and arms smuggler, had started a
heroin-smuggling operation at the Frankfurt, Germany airport. Al-
Kassar "reportedly received $1.2 million from a Swiss company
controlled by Albert A. Hakim and retired Air Force Maj. Gen.
Richard V. Secord." These folks, in turn, were part of the Iran-
Contra network. So it seems that this Al-Kassar is not just your
average drug smuggler.
Back around this time, some U.S. citizens were being held hostage
in Lebanon. A deal seems to have been struck: Al-Kassar gets to
keep smuggling heroin into the United States if he will use his
influence to help get the American hostages released.
Al-Kassar was big-time: not so big as CIA, but still having an
impressive underground network of his own. "Al-Kassar also used
his drug-arms routes to purchase and convey arms to the
Nicaraguan Contras." (The Contras were the "secret" army being
funded and supplied by Reagan-Bush with the help of Oliver North.)
The Interfor Report spells it out like this: "[T]ons of heroin
[flowed] into the arms of U.S. citizens... in the hopes that
these terrorists might repay the favor by releasing six hostages
[in Lebanon]."
So to help fund an illegal war in Nicaragua, Al-Kassar got
himself a sweet deal. He seems to have been in a similar position
to that of the late Barry Seal, who also got a sweet deal thanks
to CIA. In fact, many drug smugglers apparently can say a big
"thank you" to CIA for lending them a hand. The CIA employs
criminals, and these criminals get a "perk" -- if they get
caught, they can often just say to DEA, "Hey. I'm CIA, baby."
Ahmed Jibril is the head of the Syrian-sponsored Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine General Command. In Conspiracy
Nation, Vol. 6 Num. 69 was mentioned "...an Iranian Airbus, with
290 people on board, was shot down by an American warship in the
Gulf in the summer of 1988." Jibril was under pressure to avenge
the downing of that aircraft.
Jibril, it is alleged, persuaded Al-Kassar to substitute a bomb
for the usual heroin. "The Samsonite case was then substituted
for one of the checked suitcases..."
You will recall that, in CN 6.69, the London Telegraph reported
that
Within hours of Pan Am flight 103 devastating the Scottish
border village of Lockerbie in December 1988, a team of
American secret agents was methodically working its way
through the crash site.
By the following morning a small area on the outskirts of
the town had been sealed off. The Americans removed a
suitcase full of heroin and some incriminating documents
from a U.S. undercover agent, who died in the crash, and was
taking part in a "sting" drug smuggling operation in Lebanon.
This seems to confirm the heroin-link in the Lockerbie tragedy.
CIA veteran Victor Marchetti favors the conclusions of the
Interfor Report: "I have always thought the essence of the
Interfor Report was true," he is quoted as saying.
-------------------------------
@@@
941022, New Orleans, LA, Washington Post. Oliver North claims to
Date: Fri Feb 16, 1996 11:44 pm CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: CIA Contra Crack Connection
From: Bob Witanek
Subject: Police
To: JLowery@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu, Freematt@aol.com
9 Cops Indicted in New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS (Reuter) - Nine New Orleans police officers, including one
arrested earlier for ordering a murder, were indicted for drug trafficking by
a federal grand jury Wednesday.
Eastern Louisiana district U.S. Attorney Eddie J. Jordan said the
officers, who face 15 years to life in prison if convicted, were charged with
protecting the storage and movement of more than 130 kilograms of cocaine.
One of the men, Len Davis, was arrested Monday after Federal Bureau of
Investigation wiretaps revealed he plotted and then celebrated the Oct. 13
death of a woman who had filed a brutality complaint against him for
pistol-whipping a teenager.
Other officers indicted were Davis' patrol partner, Sammy L. Williams Jr.,
Christopher Evans, Adam E. Dees, Sgt. Carlos Rodriguez, Keith Johnson, Brian
K. Brown, Sheldon Polk and Larry Smith Jr., a juvenile division officer.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Neil Gallagher said the officers protected a
warehouse where the cocaine was stored and were paid in excess of $97,000 in
bribes. Some of the officers used official New Orleans police cars in the
conspiracy to distribute the cocaine.
He said the drugs were under FBI special agents' control at all times and
were not distributed on the streets of New Orleans.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Richard Pennington, who took charge of
the department in October, was briefed on the investigation and provided
valuable assistance, Gallagher and Jordan said. His predecessor, Joseph
Orticke, was not informed of the lengthy investigation, police sources told
Reuters.
Additional information is not available because the investigation and
federal grand jury probe are continuing, Jordan said.
Davis, 30, was arrested Monday by the FBI for conspiring to violate the
civil rights of 32-year-old Kim Groves, who was shot to death.
Transmitted: 94-12-07 15:43:17 EST
-----------------------------
@@@
950304, San Francisco, CA, San Jose Mercury News (AP).
San Francisco (AP) - Reporters have no right to see police files
of public complaints of officer misconduct, even with the
officers' names left out, a state appeals court ruled Friday.
State law provides only for disclosure of data showing the
number, type and disposition of complaints against officers, said
the 1st District Court of Appeal.
That law should be interpreted "liberally in favor of disclosure"
said Presiding Justice Ming Chin in the 3-0 ruling. But he said
a request by the San Francisco Bay Guardian for police files from
the city of Richmond was too broad.
State law "imposes confidentiality upon peace officer personnel
records of investigations of citizens' complaints," with limited
exceptions, Chin said.
A lawyer for the weekly newspaper said the ruling was troubling.
"How police are doing their jobs, including disciplining
themselves, is receding into secrecy, and that's just not
healthy," James Wheaton said.
He said the ruling appeared to entitle the public only to a
limited amount of statistical information about police complaints
and not descriptions of cases and other pertinent details. If a
police department doesn't keep statistics on complaints of racial
abuse, no information on the subject will be released.
Assistant City Attorney Everett Jenkins said Richmond regularly
releases statistics about police complaints but opposed release
about additional information from complaint files, even with the
officers' names removed.
-----------------------------
@@@
950407, New York City, NY, NT Times.
Date: Fri Apr 07, 1995 7:01 pm CST
From: drctalk l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: drctalk-l@netcom.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: NY TIMES on Police Corruption
Times reports today (4/7 s.B pg. 1) "Three More In Precinct Are Accused"
Lead reads:
"The window on corruption in the troubled 30th Precinct in
Harlem widened slightly yesterday with perjury accusations
against a sergeant and two officers who were charged with lying
about arrests that were made illegally and about evidence that
they seized unconstitutionally to put suspected drug dealers
behind bars.
"The arrests, announced by D.A. Robert Morgenthau of
Manhattan and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, raised to
33 the number of officers implicated in the past year in the most
sweeping scandal in one precinct in city history. It has touched
more than one of every six of the 192 officers assigned to the
precinct, which has come to be known as the 'Dirty Thirty'."
"But unlike most of the previously arrested 30th Precinct
officers, who have been accused of operating like gangs, stealing
drugs, guns and money, beating up dealers and sometimes breaking
down doors, those arrested yesterday were described by some
officials as merely overzealous officers who had broken the law
to enforce it, and then had lied about what had happened."
"The authorities said that the officers had joined others in
forcing their way into drug dealers' apartments and ransacking
them without search warrants to find hidden drugs or weapons,
then had falsified arrest records and backed them up backed them
up with testimony, saying that they had entered the suspect's
apartments legally and had only taken evidence left out in plain
view."
The rest gets better with Bratton defending the officers,
citing the "extraordinarily difficult task" of enforcing drug
laws. Bratton also estimates that "only" about 1% of NYC's cops
are corrupt. (Please hold your laughter until the end).
I think we ought to push on the corruption issue. The Times
also reports today (s.B pg. 2) that a 13 yr. veteran cop from
the 90th Precinct in Brooklyn was convicted yesterday of drug
trafficking. Corruption is clearly the inevitable result of
prohibition, and it worries a lot of people who are currently
pressing for civilian review boards. They are barking up the
wrong tree, as we know.
If anyone wants the full text of either article, please
email me, I didn't want to clutter the line w/them. If enough
people want them, I will post them. Also, if this posting was in
itself inappropriate for this forum, someone please let me know,
I'm not looking to cause problems.
Adam J. Smith PEACE, Adam
Peace 2000
ajsmitty@bu.edu
-----------------------------
@@@
950414, Puerto Rico.
Article: misc.activism.progressive.21959
Message-ID: <3MUQO5$IRT@NEWS.MISSOURI.EDU>
From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: PUERTO RICAN JOURNAL
CRITICA: A JOURNAL OF PUERTO RICAN POLICY & POLITICS
Drug Trafficking in Puerto Rico:
Narcopolitics, Tax Havens, Migration and National Security
Juan M. Garcia Passalacqua
For over a month now, Puerto Rico has been taken by storm by
controversies filling all front pages on the corrupting
effects of the drug trade on local lawyering and politics.
It has become an urgent issue for the future of Puerto Rico.
Most recently, for example, a legislative commission held
close hearings and dropped a bombshell by indiscriminately
announcing the names of five Puerto Rican legislators that
they contended had some drug connections: representatives
Nicolas Nogueras and Freddie Valentin of the governing New
Progressive Party (PNP), senators Marco A. Rigau and Antonio
Fas Alzamora and representative Jose Enrique Arrar_s of the
Popular Democratic Party (PPD).
-----------------------------
@@@
950510, Beaver Dam, WI, Wisconsin State Journal.
Date: Fri May 19, 1995 11:24 pm CST
From: drctalk l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: drctalk-l@netcom.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Slain by narcs for 3 grams
From the Wisconsin State Journal, May 10 1995
WRONGFUL DEATH CLAIM FILED IN DRUG RAID
Victim's parents call shooting unjustified
By Richard W. Jaeger regional Reporter
The parents of Scott Bryant, who was killed by a law enforcement bullet
in a raid on his trailer home north of Beaver Dam, have filed a wrongful
death claim with Dodge County.
The claim by Boyd and Shirley Bryant seeks damages from Dodge County on
behalf of their slain son and his family. The Bryants claim a Dodge
County sheriff's official was not justified in shooting and killing
their son.
Bryant, 29, was killed April 17 by a bullet to the chest. Preliminary
reports show that Dodge County Sheriff Detective Robert Neuman fired the
fatal shot.
Neuman told investigators he could not remember pulling the trigger on
his police Beretta.
The State attorney general's office has completed it's investigation of
the shooting and sent its reports to Dodge County District Attorney
Patricia Remirez and Sheriff Stephen Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said he could not comment on the report until it is reviewed
by Ramirez
A spokesman for Ramirez said the District Attorney had not read the
report and was not ready to comment.
The District attorney has the authority to file charges in the shooting
if necessary.
James Haney, a spokesman for the state attorney general, said the state
investigation will not make any recommendations as to charges in the
case. He also would not reveal the findings of the investigation.
Beaver Dam Attorney Scott Rasmussen said he had been promised a copy of
the investigation report by the district attorney and by the state
attorney general since he had court approval to investigate possible
wrongful actions in Bryant's death.
He said Tuesday that he had not seen the report but would proceed to
file the wrongful death claim without it.
"We will be claiming that the shooting was both negligent and an
intentional act. Both of those are questions for a jury to determine,"
Rasmussen said.
The Beaver Dam attorney said he expects the claim to be denied by the
county, opening the way for him to file a lawsuit.
Rasmussen said he will file the suit in federal court and be asking for
specific damages. He has six months to file the suit after the claim is
denied.
He would not comment on possible criminal action by the district
attorney because he had not seen the investigation report.
"We do know from the preliminary report that the officer who shot Scott
said he couldn't remember how. And there appear to be conflicting
statements from witnesses to the shooting," Rasmussen said.
Neighbors to Bryant's trailer home in the North Hills Trailer Court said
officers kicked in the door without knocking. One neighbor said she
heard "a kick, a pop, and a scream" and the next thing she knew Bryant
was dead.
Officers say they knocked and announced they were serving a warrant for
drugs.
According to the preliminary report, Neuman said he had his gun drawn as
he followed fellow deputy James Rohr into the trailer. Rohr said he
knocked first.
The deputies found a small amount of marijuana in the trailer in the
trailer along with two .22-caliber rifle and five pellet guns.
-----------------------------------------------------------
(End of Article) I have not been able to learn much more. The DA's
office says they will turn it over to another County's prosecutor.
Scott Rasmussen tells me the Officer admitted the gun was cocked when he
entered the apartment. The Atty general's office won't even send me
their press release. Very little in the press. Guess that's what
happens if you get killed on a bad news day. (the night before OKC).
-------------------------
On Tuesday, 30 May, beginning at 8:00 a vigil will commence in memory of
Scott Bryant, a Beaver Dam Wisconsin man gunned down in front of his 7
year old son by a Dodge County sheriff.
The vigil will be held on the 100 block of West Washington St. in
Madison Wisconsin in front of the Lorraine Building which houses the
State Dept. of Justice.
Scott was killed by a sheriff who (a) doesn't remember pulling the
trigger and (b) thought Scott's remote control was a firearm. After
killing Scott in front of his 7 year old son, police were able to find
only 3 GRAMS of marijuana. The District Atty for Dodge County has yet
to begin an investigation into the events surrounding Mr. Bryant's
death.
Date: 27 Jul 95 04:06:33 EDT
From: Tom Ender <73511.3611@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Marijuana MURDER !
To:
Hemp HOMICIDE ...
I'd like to provide more details and some corrections to the earlier
"Marijuana MURDER" post about the killing of Scott Bryant of Beaver Dam, WI in
April. There can be no question that this was an appalling abuse of power by
local law enforcement. However, we should ensure that we don't let a few
minor inaccuracies detract from the credibility of people who use this as an
example of the Drug War nightmare.
The original post asserts that the police found three grams of hemp and
no guns. It was actually 24 grams (less than an ounce) and the police did find
a rifle and a pellet gun when they searched Bryant's trailer. The police admit
that Bryant was unarmed and offered no resistance, and that the hunting
weapons found later in the trailer played no role whatsoever.
It is not true that Bryant's seven-year-old son Colten "watched his
father die". What happened was arguably even more nightmarish and bizarre. No
member of Bryant's family was with him when he died because the police did not
notify anyone. A neighbor called Bryant's parents, who had to _guess_ which
hospital their son had been sent to. Colten Bryant, Scott's son, cowered in
his bedroom for over an hour after the shooting until the deputies found him
and brought him out. When he finally arrived at the hospital, the police still
had not told him what happened. It was his grandfather who told him, "You have
to be brave. They shot Daddy."
Detective Robert Neumann, the deputy who fired the shot, has been Dodge
County's highest-profile narcotics officer for years. He is county coordinator
for CEASE (Cannabis Eradication and Suppression Effort). In the past five
years, he has attended at least 57 classes and conferences ranging from
"Cannabis Detection" to "SWAT shoot". In spite of his credentials as an
experienced drug warrior, Neumann maintains he does not even _remember_
pulling the trigger!
As if the story wasn't bad enough already, political power and pull also
appears to have played a significant role in this tragedy. Detective Neumann,
Bryant's killer, is the chairman of the Dodge County Republican Party, and
has campaigned for Sheriff Stephen Fitzgerald since the sheriff was first
elected in 1988. His ability to make front-page news via drug busts and cash
seizures - just prior to strategic elections - has made him a valuable asset
in Sheriff Fitzgerald's election bids. Detective Neumann himself was recently
elected to the Beaver Dam school board.
An internal investigation by the District Attorney ruled the shooting
"not in any way justified". However, no criminal charges were filed, not
even negligent use of a firearm. After a two-month hiatus (with pay)
during the investigation, Detective Robert Neumann was returned to
active duty. According to Sheriff Fitzgerald, "The detective has
suffered enough. He has had the wrath of God on him since this
happened."
Fact Sources: "North Country Libertarian" Libertarian Party of Wisconsin,
March/April Issue
"Isthmus" Madison Weekly Newspaper,
Vol 20, No. 26, June 30-July 6 Issue
Let Freedom Ring!
...Tom Ender (OS/2Warp/GCP 2.11-73511.3611@compuserve.com)
-----------------------------
@@@
950607, Cali, Columbia.
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 20:44:55 -0500
From: carlolsen@dsmnet.com (Carl E. Olsen)
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Ex-Justice lawyer indicted
Message-ID: <9506080144.AA27804@DSM6.DSMNET.COM>
The Des Moines Register
Tuesday, June 6, 1995 3A
Ex-Justice
lawyer named
in drug probe
Indictments charge 60
in smuggling conspiracy
The former prosecutor later went to work for the Colombian cocaine cartel.
Miami, Fla. (AP) -- The man who as the government's extradition expert
once helped bring Colombian drug smugglers and other foreign criminals to
justice in the United States was among three U.S. lawyers accused in a drug
smuggling conspiracy Monday.
More than 60 people were charged in the case, including the former
Justice Department official and a former federal prosecutor. Three other
lawyers, including a second federal prosecutor, have pleaded guilty to
reduced charges.
One of the lawyers named in the indictment was Michael Abbell, who once
headed the international affairs office of the Justice Department's criminal
division. Abbell's duties included heading efforts to bring the Cali cartel
smugglers to justice in the United States.
The charges against the former Justice Department lawyers stemmed from
activities after they left the department, authorities said.
Officials said the lawyers warned potential witnesses to keep silent,
provided drug money to relatives of cartel associates being prosecuted and
fabricated evidence for use in Colombia to obstruct prosecution.
U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey called the indictment "the single most
significant prosecution in history against the Cali cartel."
After leaving government service, Abbell represented reputed cartel
leader Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela.
Another of the lawyers, William Moran, was accused of tipping the cartel
to the identity of an informant who was later killed. Moran lawyer Marty
Weinberg said his client is innocent.
"These lawyers defended clients charged with drug crimes aggressively,"
said Roy Black, Abbell's attorney. "They did all the things lawyers are
supposed to do and now they're charged."
The investigation, dubbed Operation Cornerstone, provided one of the most
detailed pictures yet of the sophisticated Cali cartel and especially how it
used U.S. defense lawyers to deliver money, falsify evidence and even
deliver warnings to those in jail about the hazards of cooperation, federal
agents said.
The cartel, which is run like a Fortune 500 company, has smuggled 200,000
kilograms of cocaine into the United States since 1983 and is responsible
for bringing in 80 percent of the cocaine circulating in this country,
federal officials said.
The indictment also charged cartel leaders Miguel Rodriguez-Orejuela,
Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela, Jose Santacruz-Londono and Helmer
Herrera-Buitrago and dozens of distributors and managers in Latin America
and the southeastern United States. Earlier indictments named many of the
leading figures in the Cali cartel.
About a third of the people named in the indictment are in the United
States. Federal officials said 22 had been arrested by Monday.
"Lawyers have a license to practice law," said James Milford, special
agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Miami field office.
"But they don't have a license to be above the law."
The indictments also charged lawyers Moran and former Assistant U.S.
Attorney Donald L. Ferguson of Boca Raton with involvement in the cartel's
smuggling enterprise.
********************************************************************
* Carl Olsen * carlolsen@dsmnet.com *
* Post Office Box 4091 * http://www.calyx.com/~olsen/ *
* Des Moines, Iowa 50333 * Carl_E._Olsen@commonlink.com *
* (515) 243-7351 voice & fax * 73043.414@compuserve.com *
********************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 1995 12:23:51 -0400 (Thu)
From: gdk@mhis.bix.com (Gary Kendall)
Subject: Cocaine net lands US prosecutors
To: libernet@Dartmouth.EDU
The Electronic Telegraph Thursday 8 June 1995
[World News]
Cocaine net lands US prosecutors
BY CHARLES LAURENCE IN NEW YORK
THREE former US government prosecutors have been charged along with
four alleged Colombian cocaine barons and 55 other alleged smugglers,
money launderers and corrupt lawyers.
The indictment is against the Cali cartel, responsible for an
estimated 80 per cent of cocaine traffic to America. Twenty-two of
those charged, including the former prosecutors, have been arrested.
Michael Abbell, former head of the Justice Department's Office of
Internal Affairs, and Donald Ferguson, a former prosecutor in Miami,
charged with racketeering and conspiracy, face life imprisonment
without parole if convicted.
The alleged offences were committed after the former prosecutors had
gone into private practice. Joel Rosenthal, former federal prosecutor
in New York and Miami, has pleaded guilty to money laundering.
The four alleged Cali cartel leaders are Miguel Rodriguez-Orejuela,
his brother Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela, Jose Santacruz-Londono and
Helmer Herrera-Buitrago.
The four and many others on the charge sheets are in Cali or other
locations outside the United States, and are unlikely to be brought to
trial in an American court.
Two more American lawyers netted by Operation Cornerstone are William
Moran, charged with identifying an informant who was later murdered by
the cartel, and former assistant US attorney Donald Ferguson of Boca
Raton, Florida, charged with involvement in smuggling cocaine.
------------------------------
@@@
950608, Arizona.
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 95 12:27:44 PDT
From: karnow@cup.portal.com
Subject: "Computer error" not a basis for suppressing evidence
Original-Subject: Unlawful arrest based on computer error does not lead to
exclusion of evidence
The United States Supreme Court in Arizona v. Evans (March 1, 1995)
discussed an illegal arrest precipitated by a "computer error." A man was
arrested based on what police officers thought was an outstanding warrant
for his arrest; in fact the warrant had been quashed; court clerical
personnel had failed to clear the warrant from their computer system. The
police thus had no legal basis for the arrest.
Following the arrest, the police found a bag of marijuana. The issue was
whether the marijuana evidence should be suppressed (which would have the
effect of dismissing the case). The state court threw out the evidence under
the old suppression rule -- holding that the "fruit" (drugs) of the
poisonous tree (the illegal arrest) should not come into evidence. The U.S.
Supreme Court reversed, and held that the purpose of the exclusionary rule
-- to encourage proper police procedures -- would not be furthered by
tossing the evidence.
The Supreme Court found that excluding the evidence would not have a
significant effect on the actions of court personal, and thus that errors by
court clerks were not a basis for excluding evidence. The Court did not
address whether court personnel's outright misconduct, and such personnel's
deliberate efforts to violate peoples' constitutional rights, would lead to
the exclusion of evidence, but the reasoning in this case strongly suggests
that such misconduct would *not* lead to exclusion.
@@@
950623, Latin America.
Date: Mon Jun 26, 1995 8:41 pm CST
From: IATP
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: iatp@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: NAFTA & Inter-Am Trade Monitor 6/23
NAFTA & Inter-American Trade Monitor
Produced by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
June 23, 1995
Volume 2, Number 19
INTER-AMERICAN DRUG TRADE
Cocaine and other drugs represent a large segment of agricultural
production in the Americas and a significant aspect of international
commerce. In 1993, in Colombia alone, coca planting was estimated
at 42,000 hectares, with an additional 20,000 hectares in poppies
and 6-8,000 hectares in marijuana. The Colombian government
claims that coca and other drug production has doubled since 1993,
due to defense of producers by guerrillas, who charge a tax for
protecting growers, laboratories, and air fields.
As officially reported Colombian export income shot up by 29.8
percent (from $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion) in the first two months of
1995, compared to the same period in 1994, many experts say that
the sharp increase is due in part to fraudulent invoicing to hide drug
profits. Colombian drug profits are estimated at $800 million to $3
billion annually.
While drug cartels make large amounts of money, drug couriers
receive relatively low pay and are at relatively high risk. Producers,
too, receive far less money than those controlling marketing and
distribution, and are frequently the targets of international action to
destroy their fields. In the face of U.S. demands that the Bolivian
government eradicate their fields, Bolivian coca producers joined
with teachers and labor unions in national protests over neoliberal
government policies and low wages. In April, the government
responded to the strikes and protests by declaring a state of siege.
Tarahumara Indians in remote villages of northern Mexico have been
brought into marijuana and opium poppy production by Mexican
cartels. Initially, the relatively high returns on drug cultivation
attracted some farmers. Drug cartels later used violence and threats
of violence to consolidate and maintain their hold on production.
Mexican police and government officials frequently collaborate with
the cartels, removing any avenue of appeal for campesinos who
would prefer not to cooperate. Drug trafficking allegedly involves
such high officials as the sons of billionaire Carlos Hank Gonzalez and
the brother of ex-president Carlos Salinas.
Although the United States and Europe are still the primary markets
for cocaine exports from Latin America, Argentina and Chile have
also increased domestic consumption in recent years. Argentina is a
transit country for cocaine from Peru and Colombia, some of which is
processed into hydrochloride by Bolivian-Argentine joint ventures.
Most cocaine consumed in or passing through Chile comes from
Bolivia. The cocaine trade has fueled a real estate boom in some
Chilean cities, and benefits from banking secrecy in Chile.
Nor is government corruption by drug money limited to Mexico and
Latin American countries. In early June, a former senior official in
the U.S. Justice Department's "war on drugs," two other former Justice
Department officials, and two former federal prosecutors in Florida
were indicted in Miami on charges of participating in a cocaine
smuggling conspiracy. According to the New York Times, "So many
Miami lawyers are under indictment at any one time that courts
have been obliged to hold special hearings to inform their clients that
their lawyers may have conflicts in representing them because the
lawyers may also be bargaining with the prosecution for
themselves."
"Mexico: Narcos at the Heart of the State;" "Argentina: "White Coffee"
Boom;" "Chile: Cocaine Enters Politics;" THE GEOPOLITICAL DRUG
DISPATCH, May, 1995; Anthony DePalma, "Mexico's Indians Face New
Conquistador: Drugs," NEW YORK TIMES, 6/2/95; Neil A. Lewis, "U.S.
Charging Ex-Prosecutors in a Drug Case," NEW YORK TIMES, 6/6/95;
Monica Iturralde Andrade, "Colombian Traffickers Use Ecuadorians to
Smuggle Narcotics," INTERPRESS SERVICE, May, 1995; "Coca Growers
Ready for Dialogue," COCA PRESS, April 26-May 2, 1995; Yadira
Ferrer, "Narcoguerrillas Said Raking in Money," INTERPRESS SERVICE,
May 8, 1995; "Bolivia: Strikes End, But State of Siege Continues,"
NOTISUR, May 12, 1995; Yadira Ferrer, "Drugs and Exports,"
INTERPRESS SERVICE, June 5, 1995.
-----------------------------
@@@
950623, Philadelphia, PA, Inquirer. Fifteen more drug cases
libernet
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 13:01:17 -0400
From: Mark Jones
To: libernet@Dartmouth.EDU
*** Police admit to planting drugs on the innocent ***
Ever want to explain to someone that drug laws are just too easy
for law enforcement folks to abuse? Well, here is some great evidence
of just how out of hand it can get.
Within:
"The arresting officers... all have admitted they lied about
drug arrests and searches... and have pleaded guilty to federal charges."
15 MORE DRUG CASES OVERTURNED
The costs could be huge for Philadelphia. Suits are likely over
the 39th I District police corruption. -
By Mark Faziollah INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
It could force the review of a thousand drug cases.
Put hundreds of drug defendants back on the streets.
And cost the city millions.
Yesterday, as a specially assigned judge dismissed charges against
13 more defendants, Philadelphia got its loudest warning yet of the potential
enormity of the 39th District police-corruption scandal's impact.
First Deputy District Attorney,Arnold H. Gordon, a veteran prosecutor in
the odd role of requesting a mass acquittal - asked Common Pleas Judge Legrome
D. Davis to reverse the defendants' 15 cases "in the interest of justice."
The arresting officers in the cases - five former 39th District
policemen - all have admitted they lied about drug arrests and searches in the
North Philadelphia district between 1988 and 1991, and have pleaded guilty
to federal charges.
Yesterday's dismissals bring to 27 the total number of drug defendants
whose cases were dismissed because of the federal investigation. And Public
Defender Bradley Bridge, who represented most of the defendants at yesterday's
hearing, said it's just the beginning.
"Many innocent defendants have spent years in prison," Bridge said.
"Sadly, this is not yet even the tip of the iceberg. Many, many more cases
will follow."
Davis appeared to accept Bridge's prediction. He said he would handle
-all future requests for dismissals arising from the 39th District
investigation, thus speeding the process. The five former officers were
indicted Feb. 28. They have since pleaded guilty to obstructing defendants'
civil rights, and have agreed to help federal prosecutors expand the
investigation.
Bridge said after the hearing that his preliminary review of past drug
cases showed the five officers handled 200 cases in 1988 alone, and that his
office later this week would begin reviewing all arrests made by the five
officers between 1987 and 1994.
Eventually, he predicted, a thou.sand cases would have to be reexamined
and hundreds of convictions could be overturned.
Thus far, all 12 of the drug cases the public defender has submitted
for review by the District Attorney's Office have been dismissed.
And each case is a potential lawsuit.
Deputy City Solicitor James B. Jordan said he was "expecting a whole
bunch" of suits related to the 39th District scandal.
"This could have very significant financial implications," Jordan said
after yesterday's hearing.
Several of the defendants already are talking of suing.
There is Betty Patterson, 53, who completed her three-year prison term
last year and was on parole until her charges were dismissed yesterday.
John Baird, a former 39th District officer who pleaded guilty to
corruption charges, has said police framed Patterson and planted drugs in her
North Philadelphia home - in an effort, Baird contended, to get evidence in
a separate case against her three sons.
Patterson wore a big smile after the hearing but declined to comment.
Her attorney, Jennifer St. Hill, has notified the city that a suit is imminent.
John Wayne Coleman, who spent the last four years in prison, had all his
drug charges dismissed yesterday.
"When they came into my house, they never acknowledged they were
police," Coleman told reporters at the hearing. "Before this conviction, I
wasn't in trouble for 10 years."
Coleman's attorney, Adrian J. Moody, said his client, too, would sue
the city.
In addition to dismissing the convictions of Patterson and Coleman
and the 13 other cases, Judge Davis also began expunging the defendants'
records of all information about the arrests.
Officially, Betty Patterson, who was accompanied at yesterday's hearing
by six of her relatives, now has no criminal record.
"Fortunately, the truth finally came out," said Daniel-Paul Alva,
Patterson's original trial lawyer, who attended yesterday's hearing.
"The police woke up that day and said they were going to make her a criminal."
Davis also dismissed charges against defendants identified as Denise
Patterson (no relation to Betty) , Andre Bonaparte (who had three cases
dismissed), Daniel Briggs, Clinton Cotton, Clifford Foster, Lonyo Holmes, Larry
Maddox, Anthony Thomason, Steven Trotty, John Walker and Wanda Wilson.
Typically, the defendants had been convicted of possessing crack
cocaine with intent to deliver.
Briggs and Thomason had never been convicted. They ' had been sought
by authorities since they failed to appear in court shortly after their 19
88 arrests. Davis ordered their arrest warrants withdrawn.
"They can come home again," attorney Bridge said.
He said the only time Briggs and Thomason had been arrested was when
they were picked up by the former 39th District officers.
Later this week, Bridge said, he intends to ask the District Attorney's
Office to dismiss 10 to 20 additional cases - selected from the 200 he has
identified from 1988 files. He said he would seek immediate attention for
cases involving defendants still imprisoned.
Denise Patterson, one of those cleared yesterday, was an 18-year-old
nursing student when she was arrested in November 1988. Though she did not
attend the hearing, she has steadfastly maintained she was innocent of drug
charges,
"We'll sue," said her attorney, Vincent J. Ziccardi. "Now the fun begins."
-- end --
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 14:07:37 -0500 (EST)
From: HATHAWAY@stsci.edu
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Tip of Iceberg
Message-ID: <01HU6KR3FU9EHV425Z@AVION.STSCI.EDU>
Aug 17, 1995
The Wash. Post Page A-3
_Police Scandal Creates Storm In Philadelphia_
.. Geroge Porchea was released from jail last month after serving more than
two years on drug charges...
.. the officers who arrested him in 1988 pleaded guilty earlier this year to
a three-year rampage of making false arrests, planting drugs, filing bogus
police reports and robbing victims in Philadelphia's 39th Police District.
Porchea's case is part of the first wave of what probably will be hundreds
of overturned convictions in cases involving the five officers implicated
in the scandal. Forty cases have been overturned so far, and some people,
like Porcheas, have been released from prison. ...
To date, 16 lawsuits or notices of lawsuits have been logged in ...
Betty Patterson, for instance, is seeking $7 million to compensate
for the three years she spent in prison. The officers who arrested
her admitted planting the drugs found in her home, said her attorney,
Jennifer St. Hill. Patterson, 53, is a churchgoing grandmother with
no prior criminal record. St. Hill called her client's prison time
"a hellish experience."
.. estimates at least 1,400 cases involving the officers will be
reviewed...
The 39th Police District covers a poor, mostly black swatch of North
Philadelphia... "... the officers preyed on, their lack of resources
and credibility."
At the time of his arrest, George Porchea was ... sleeping at his
girlfriend's house when several officers broke down the door the night
of Jan. 5, 1988, ransacked the house and herded him and his girlfriend's
brother into a police van, according to his attorney...
... the two were locked in the van for six hours while police got
a search warrant and planted crack cocaine in the house. At the
police station, she said, officers beat Porchea into a confession.
When the case went to court, Boyce said Porchea was advised by
his attorney at the time to plead guilty so he could get a lessor
sentence.
"Juries tend to believe police, and think people who push drugs
are dirty slime," Boyce said. "What could he do when these four
officers were alleging they took crack cocaine from him?"
..
.. getting financial compensation won't be easy. Although the
five officers have admitted guilt, they are "judgement-proof"
because they have no money.
.. the "word on the street" is that up to another dozen or so
police officers may be indicted soon.
"if this was simply an unprecedented, unusual situation it wouldn't
be the worst thing in the world," Rudovsky said. "But this is the
tip of the iceberg."
---------------------------------------
Now, can we get away from the 'my head is more important than your bed'
stuff and concentrate on the real threat to Liberty? Lives are
being ruined. The Prohib Warriors are destroying this country.
I have to write my letters to the newspapers from my home machine
(not connected to any network), but I hope to compose a blistering
response to this latest - and unfortunately, not isolated - outrage.
WHH
From: nattyreb@ix.netcom.com (Marpessa Kupendua)
To: can-ar@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
X-Note: Only the first 25K of this message is displayed. You can retrieve
the entire text by selecting "Download."
Date: 95-08-31 10:28:13 EDT
Excerpts from 8/31/95 Philadelphia Inquirer
SIX MORE DISTRICTS INVOLVED
by Mark Fazlollah and Dianna Marder
In a major expansion of the search for corrupt police
officers, federal investigators have subpoenaed the logs of as many
as 100,000 arrests over 10 years in six Philadelphia police
districts. Federal grand jury subpoenas were delivered Monday
for all arrest log books for the last decade from the 22d, 23d,
24th, 25th and 26th Districts and the Highway Patrol.
Investigators are looking into a pattern of police abuse
against primarily poor black residents. Police have been charged
with framing people, lying to obtain search warrants, stealing
money, false arrest, and beating and threatening citizens. Law
enforcement officials have said some cops were also selling seized
drugs back to street dealers.
So far, 42 criminal convictions have been overturned and
more than 1,000 more are under review because they were tainted
by testimony from corrupt officers. The 25th District headquarters
was the site of a large drug find in January, 1994. An officer
cleaning an air duct in the division's locker room discovered a
package containing 81 small bags of heroin. Police checked
further, finding four vials of crack cocaine, nearly a gram of
cocaine and 12 grams of marijuana. One officer involved in the
probe said they were part of an illegal stash, apparently used by
officers who planted them on suspects. They later found 27 vials
of crack cocaine in the locker of 25th District officer Bruce
DeNoble, who was fired but later reinstated after arguing that
through an oversight he failed to properly dispose of the drugs.
-------------------
Excerpts from 8/31 Philadelphia Daily News
DIRTY COP PLEADS GUILTY
by Jim Smith
For about two months in 1990, John Baird and Louis Maier
were the Starsky and Hutch of the 39th Police District. They were
aggressive, in-your-face cops, part of the North Philadelphia
district's nearly all white plainclothes narcotics squad. Some
residents of the predominantly black area called the two partners
Blondie and Red because of the colors of their hair.
They made up reasons to search and arrest known and
suspected drug dealers, stole what money they could, and arrested
people on trumped-up charges, at times planting evidence when
none existed to make their cases more attractive for prosecution.
Once, on a whim, they chased a drug addict on Broad Street in
their unmarked police car and rammed the man's car several times
to force it to the side. Then they smashed the driver's side
window, yanked out the addict and shoved him to the ground.
Finding only two vials of cocaine, they planted 10 more as
evidence in hopes the district attorney's office might prosecute the
man.
Maier, 38, the son of a former cop who is now deceased
and the nephew of a city judge, yesterday became the sixth officer
from the 39th District to cop a plea in federal court and to agree
to tell all he knows about police corruption, to inform on others,
just as Baird had copped a plea earlier and ratted out Maier. The
judge set sentencing for Dec. 15 and allowed Maier to remain free
on $10,000 unsecured bail.
------------------------
Date: Sat Sep 09, 1995 6:20 pm CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Philadelphia Police Corruption Exposed
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 14, 1995 issue of
Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
PHILADELPHIA POLICE:
CORRUPT, RACIST CRIMINALS EXPOSED
By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia
An official investigation of police activity here has
revealed persistent racism, planting evidence against
suspects, and widespread corruption and criminality.
The investigation has uncovered a pattern of police
abuse against impoverished Black and Latino residents--
no surprise to these communities. Time after time,
people whose only crime was to be poor and oppressed--
ranging in ages from youths to grandparents--have
been framed and sent to jail.
In thousands of cases, the only solid evidence against
people convicted of crimes was planted or otherwise
created by the police. Cops also often used made-up
evidence to extort money from alleged drug dealers--
or they sold the drugs themselves.
Racism and corruption are nothing new in Philadelphia's
police force. Temple University historian Russell F.
Weigley describes the city's newly consolidated police
force in 1854 as follows: "The police were recruited
from the kind of toughs who came out of the street
gangs and were accustomed to beating up Irishmen and
Blacks. The early police specialized in legalized
violence." (Philadelphia Daily News, Aug. 30)
You don't need to go back over 100 years, however, to
find evidence of racism, abuse and corruption in the
Philadelphia police department.
In the 1970s Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo targeted
the Black Panther Party. Philadelphia cops also
assaulted and murdered members of the MOVE
organization in West Philadelphia. The May 1985 police
bombing of the MOVE house left 13 people dead and 61
homes destroyed.
This July 8, a group of cops barged into a wedding at
Zion Baptist, a Black church in North Philadelphia,
and arrested the groom.
The investigation that started with the 39th district
has been expanded to the department's showpiece unit--
the Highway Patrol, which escorts presidents and other
visiting dignitaries and provides back-up in drug
arrests.
In this unit described as the "cream of the police
department," as many as nine officers face charges.
They are accused of not only stealing drugs and money
and framing suspects, but also of selling seized drugs
back to street dealers.
COPS FRAMED SUSPECTS
In the 39th district, five white former cops have
already been convicted of framing people, lying to
obtain search warrants, stealing money, falsifying
arrests, and beating and threatening people.
Their victims, all Black, may number over 1,150. To
date convictions have been overturned in nearly four
dozen cases in which these cops made the arrests.
In late August, a sixth 39th-district officer, Louis
Maier III, also pleaded guilty.
The widening corruption probe also now includes five
murder cases. The former cops have admitted to paying
witnesses to testify in murder prosecutions, and to
planting drugs to justify illegal searches in order
to obtain evidence for murder convictions.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Aug. 31 that
federal investigators have subpoenaed the logs of as
many as 100,000 arrests over 10 years in six police
districts--the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, and the
Highway Patrol.
Meanwhile, another case revealed a lot about the
deep-set racism in the police department.
A white police captain, Thomas Thompson, was recently
transferred and faces suspension. Thompson was head of
the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Unit, which
handles community complaints of police racism.
This police official--who was supposed to be in charge
of "sensitivity" to and relations with the oppressed
communities--was overheard making racist slurs against
a Black police officer while both were on assignment
at the Aug. 12 rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal at City Hall.
THE WHOLE BUSHEL'S ROTTEN
As scandal and corruption rock the police force,
the city administration has attempted to downplay
the crisis as merely a case of "a few bad apples."
Mayor Edward Rendell says he wants to "just put
this behind us."
The population doesn't buy this argument. African
American talk show host Mary Mason told the Daily
News (Sept. 1) that callers were "unanimous in
their belief that this is not an aberration. They
were more than willing to share their own bad
experience with the police."
While the scope of the investigation is limited,
it has helped expose the role of police under
capitalism. Their job is not to protect working-
class and oppressed neighborhoods. It is to occupy
these communities.
Philadelphia City Council member Michael Nutter has
called for an independent panel to probe the police.
But many people in the community say internal
investigations and special commissions, set up by city
officials, only whitewash police crimes.
The people of North Philadelphia need an independent
community-control board--one with powers to investigate,
expose and prosecute the racist, corrupt cops.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint
granted if source is cited. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to:
ww-info@wwpublish.com)
------------------------------
Date: Mon Mar 25, 1996 12:36 am CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Philly: Impact of Frame Ups
From: Bob Witanek
Posted dadoner@chesco.com Sun Mar 24 17:00:49 1996
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/philly-police.html
> [banner]
> [toolbar]
>
> March 24, 1996
>
> Philadelphia Feels Effects of Inquiry
>
> [P] HILADELPHIA -- After another 60 criminal
> convictions were overturned by a Common
> Pleas Court judge last week as a result of a
> continuing investigation into police corruption,
> the various agencies involved say the impact has
> only begun to be felt.
>
> So far, 116 convictions have been overturned in
> cases involving six police officers who pleaded
> guilty last fall to corruption charges,
> including illegal searches, lying under oath and
> planting false evidence. In all, 1,800
> convictions are being reviewed.
>
> District Attorney Lynne Abraham said current
> cases that should result in convictions were
> being dismissed because juries and defense
> lawyers were increasingly questioning the
> integrity of police officers.
>
> And the police union is seeking a wider
> investigation to include other criminal justice
> departments.
>
> The charges against the six officers, all from
> the 39th District in North Philadelphia, were
> the result of an investigation by the district
> attorney and U.S. attorney in Philadelphia.
> Among the other cases that have surfaced is one
> involving an officer convicted of stealing $242
> from a store on his patrol in the city's middle
> class Roxborough section, Ms. Abraham said.
>
> Ms. Abraham said the investigation had
> "wideranging effects for both judges and
> juries." She refused to discuss the ongoing
> inquiry.
>
> "There are significant areas of concern that the
> criminal justice system isn't working anyway and
> this is another demoralizing influence," she
> said. "It plants a seed of doubt since any
> arrest involved an officer's credibility. It can
> be a game lawyers play: In how many cases can I
> ride this wave and get my client's case
> dismissed?"
>
> Despite the high-profile investigation, the City
> Council turned down Ms. Abraham's request for
> $600,000 to finance a police corruption unit.
> And Philadelphia officials have downplayed the
> city's potential liability in class actions
> suits being brought by people whose cases are
> overturned. The cases are reviewed by the public
> defender's office and the district attorney; a
> judge makes the final decision.
>
> Police morale has been sapped by the
> investigation, said Richard Costello, president
> of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5.
>
> While he blamed media attention for creating the
> perception of widespread corruption, Costello
> said the department itself began the
> investigation now continued by the other
> agencies.
>
> "We have a force of 6,200 officers. We had six
> plead guilty and there are rumors of four more.
> I'll match that record against any profession on
> Earth, but it's still 10 too many," he said.
>
> Costello questioned why the district attorney's
> office disbanded its white-collar crime unit yet
> has sought a police corruption unit. He has
> called the current investigation "politically
> choreographed" and has asked U.S. Attorney
> Michael Stiles to extend it to include lawyers
> practicing in Philadelphia courts.
>
> Costello has asked for oversight by federal
> officials from outside Philadelphia but has
> gotten no reply from Stiles, whom he calls "a
> protege" of Mayor Ed Rendell.
>
> A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office would
> not comment on the investigation.
>
> Police corruption is changing, making it more
> difficult to detect, said Gary Sykes, director
> of the Southwestern Law Enforcement Institute in
> Dallas. In earlier generations, officers and
> superiors were paid off to ignore criminal
> activity, but today's officers are tempted
> individually or in small groups beyond direct
> supervision.
>
> Two years ago, Pennsylvania police union
> officials refused to let officers participate in
> a survey to measure their exposure to, and
> opinions of, official misconduct, Sykes said.
>
> The National Institute of Justice, part of the
> U.S. Department of Justice, surveyed 700 Ohio
> officers and found 10 percent had seen fellow
> officers perform an illegal search for drugs. In
> Illinois, the survey excluded Chicago and found
> one-quarter of 1,200 officers questioned had
> seen such an improper search.
>
> "The concern is that officers are willing to
> overlook things and compromise on the small
> things, that makes it much easier to compromise
> on the big things," Sykes said. "That's a kind
> of abuse of authority by people who see
> themselves as above the law."
>
> So, instead of defending homicide cases
> involving the death penalty, Assistant Public
> Defender Bradley Bridge is reviewing the
> hundreds of cases where verdicts may be
> reviewed.
>
> "We're trying to track down every case in which
> these officers were involved and track down all
> the people involved," he said. "I had no idea it
> was going to expand this far."
>
> Home | Sections | Contents | Search | Forums | Help
>
> Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Apr 04, 1996 10:38 pm CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Philly Corruption Chron
From: Bob Witanek
Posted dadoner@chesco.com Thu Apr 4 09:05:11 1996
http://www2.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Apr/04/city/CRON04.htm
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer] City & Region
>
> Thursday, April 4, 1996
>
> Some major events of corruption probe
>
> By Richard Jones
> and Mark Fazlollah
> INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
>
> Yesterday's indictment of four Philadelphia police officers was the
> latest blow to a department already reeling from 13 months of
> scandal.
>
> Here is a chronology of key events in the corruption probe:
>
> Feb. 28, 1995 -- A federal grand jury indicts five former officers
> in the 39th District in North Philadelphia -- John Baird, 40; Thomas
> DeGovanni, 44; Steven Brown, 48; James Ryan, 39; and Thomas Ryan,
> 38. They are charged with planting drugs on suspects, stealing more
> than $100,000 in cash and property, and falsifying police reports.
> They and a sixth former officer, Louis J. Maier 3d, later plead
> guilty.
>
> March 15, 1995 -- Joe Morris, 53, in prison for a 1988 drug
> conviction, is freed at the request of the District Attorney's
> Office. His is the first of more than 100 convictions overturned by
> the courts because of misconduct by the six former officers.
>
> April 7, 1995 -- Two former 19th District officers -- Derrick Mayes,
> 31, and Kevin Daniels, 33 -- are convicted of stealing cash,
> planting drugs and making false arrests of young men in West
> Philadelphia. Each is sentenced to five to 10 years.
>
> June 8, 1995 -- A former 35th District officer, Sgt. Gene Lomazoff,
> 39, is convicted of stopping motorists for minor infractions, then
> shaking them down for cash. He is sentenced to seven to 22 years.
>
> July 26, 1995 -- Two former 39th District officers -- Brown, named
> in the February indictment, and Robert Miller, 47 -- are charged
> with running a lucrative fencing operation out of a North
> Philadelphia variety store.
>
> Aug. 14, 1995 -- In the first of a series of mass transfers, Police
> Commissioner Richard Neal guts the 39th District's command, shifting
> the captain and 11 other supervisors to new assignments. In the 35th
> District, 11 supervisors are moved to new posts.
>
> Aug. 15, 1995 -- City Councilman Michael Nutter criticizes Mayor
> Rendell's response to the widening scandal and calls for an
> independent commission with broad powers to investigate police
> misconduct. An existing commission is purely advisory.
>
> Aug. 30, 1995 -- Federal investigators subpoena arrest logs in the
> 22d, 23d, 24th, 25th and 26th Districts and the Highway Patrol. The
> logs cover up to 100,000 arrests over 10 years.
>
> Aug. 31, 1995 -- Neal announces a 10-step plan to fight police
> corruption, including beefing up the department's Internal Affairs
> Division, expanding ethics training, and instituting random drug
> testing. Three men who claim they were falsely arrested by corrupt
> officers file the first federal class-action suit stemming from the
> scandal.
>
> Sept. 19, 1995 -- Before a packed City Council chamber, the Police
> Advisory Commission opens public hearings into the case of Moises
> DeJesus, a North Philadelphia man who died in 1994, three days after
> struggling with arresting officers. ``He was hit, then handcuffed,
> then hit again, and again, and again,'' said one witness. ``He was
> thrown in [ the police van ] like a dog. That's when I said, `He's
> dead. He's dead.' '' At the close of the hearing, about 200 off-duty
> officers chant: ``Kangaroo, kangaroo!''
>
> Sept. 26, 1995 -- Breaking with a traditional code of silence, the
> president of the group representing the city's black officers calls
> on all police to turn in corrupt colleagues and report misconduct,
> past or present. ``The credibility of this police department is at
> stake,'' says David E. Fisher, president of the Guardian Civic
> League. ``These rogue cops are . . . tarnishing the badge.''
>
> Nov. 16, 1995 -- The Inquirer reports that the Rendell
> administration paid $20 million over the preceding 28 months to
> settle more than 225 lawsuits alleging police misconduct. A
> spokesman for the mayor calls the upsurge ``a statistical anomaly.''
>
> Dec. 21, 1995 -- In its report on the death of Moises DeJesus, the
> Police Advisory Commission calls for the suspension of six officers.
> The report says that one officer struck DeJesus with a flashlight or
> nightstick and that five others ``were not truthful in reporting
> what they observed.''
>
> April 3 -- Four more officers -- Julio C. Aponte and Edward A.
> Greene of the 25th District and Lester F. Johnson and John P.
> O'Hanlon of the Highway Patrol -- surrender for booking on federal
> corruption charges.
@@@
950700, Mena, AR, Penthouse.
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 5 Num. 07
======================================
("Quid coniuratio est?")
THE CRIMES OF MENA
Investigative report by Sally Denton and Roger Morris
[*Penthouse*, July 1995]
Yes, this is the article, originally scheduled to run earlier
this year in the *Washington Post*, that was yanked at the last
possible moment. "At the very last minute... the *Post* killed
the piece -- and refused to give a satisfactory answer for its
action."
The authors, Denton and Morris, obtained what they refer to as
"the Seal archives" after more than a year of digging into the
story. Named for reputed drug smuggler *extraordinaire* Adler
Berriman Seal, the archives seem to have been primarily gathered
in via the efforts of Denton (author, by the way, of a good book
on drugs and political corruption in Kentucky, *The Bluegrass
Conspiracy*), who "scoured her considerable law-enforcement and
underworld sources throughout the nation."
"By late summer 1994, what we called the Seal archive was mostly
gathered -- more than 2,000 documents, from the smallest receipt
to whole volumes of investigation..."
For those of you tuning in late, here is what the Mena story is
all about, based on the testimony of scores of witnesses,
investigators, experts, insiders, and researchers. Mena is a
small town in Western Arkansas. During the 1980s, huge C-130
cargo planes, laden with weapons, would take off from there and
fly down to Central America. The weapons would be unloaded and
given to the *Contras*. (Some say that the weapons were being
distributed to *both* *sides*.) The cargo planes did not fly back
empty; weapons sales were financed, at least partly, by cocaine
and marijuana; the cargo planes flew back to Arkansas filled with
illegal drugs. The sales of these illegal drugs caused many
Arkansas banks to be, as Sherman Skolnick puts it, "awash with
cash."
The genesis of the Mena affair was the attempt (illegal) by
some/all of the Reagan/Bush White House to circumvent the Boland
amendment which had cut off Congressional funding for the
*Contras* in Nicaragua. They are supposed to have paid off then-
Governor Clinton and some/all of the Arkansas government in
return that they look the other way and pretend not to notice
anything unusual going on at places like Mena, Arkansas.
So, if the many witnesses are to be believed (and I think they
are telling the truth), Arkansas was a beehive of drug/gun
smuggling and money laundering activity during the 1980s. And the
real kicker is that some/most highly-placed persons within the
U.S. government were involved in all this! So that we had (and,
some say, still have) a "war on drugs" in this country in which
the forces of "law and order" were not only combatting drug
smuggling but were also, themselves, smuggling in the drugs!!
So now it is like, as if we didn't have enough proof of this
already, here comes Denton and Morris with even *more* proof. We
don't need more proof! The proof is already there! It is like, as
if "Well maybe the 'massa' don't see it our way because we ain't
done put it down double-spaced and with 1-inch margins." The
"massa" don't see it 'cuz the "massa" don't *want* to see it!
It's not that the "massa" just don't have enough proof! The
"massa" ain't never gonna have enough proof because this story,
if it *were* to come out in the "official" media would make the
"massa" look bad! So the "massa" ain't gonna see it and it's not
that he just needs more proof or that the report must be double-
spaced or any of that crap.
But, anyway, here is more proof, good proof, in the July 1995
*Penthouse*. What good is it going to do? Will Tom Brokaw
suddenly sit up and take notice? ("Gosh, all I needed was more
proof! I'll get right on it!") Is this factual account of grand
commissars and high potentates of the U.S. government dealing
drugs -- and even banking the profits -- finally going to push
the O.J. Simpson trial off the tube? Don't bet on it.
-----------------------------
@@@
950707, Yuma, AZ, AP. Sheriff's Deputy Jack Hudson was charged
APn 07/07 2249 Drug Agency Slayings
Copyright, 1995. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By BETH SILVER
Associated Press Writer
YUMA, Ariz. (AP) -- Sheriff's Deputy Jack Hudson was popular with his
colleagues, a rookie of the year, a member of an elite drug task force -- all in
all, the last man his boss expected to find on the other side of the law.
The 37-year-old former Marine is accused of shooting to death two fellow
lawmen who caught him after hours in the task force office as he tried to steal
confiscated guns and drugs.
Hudson was charged Friday with murdering Yuma police Lt. Dan Elkins and Sgt.
Mike Crowe of the state Department of Public Safety.
All three were members of the Southwest Border Alliance, a group of officers
from local, state and federal agencies fighting the drug trade around Yuma, on
the Arizona border with California and Mexico.
Hudson, who has a beard and long, scraggly hair he grew for his job as an
undercover officer, had a flawless record, said Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden.
"I wish I had 184 more files that looked like this," a teary-eyed Ogden said
Thursday. "If anything, he was the exemplary one out there, the one everyone
hung on, the one with the common sense."
Hudson came to the sheriff's office in 1992 after he was honorably discharged
as a Marine staff sergeant. He served three years as an air traffic controller
at the Corps' Air Station in Yuma.
He was charged with shooting his colleagues late Tuesday with a Mac-10
semiautomatic pistol after they surprised him trying to steal from the
task-force evidence room.
Crowe, 41, was shot three times in the back and pleaded, "Please don't shoot
me again," but the gunman jammed another magazine into his weapon and shot him
in the head, The Arizona Republic reported Friday, citing an unidentified
source.
Elkins, 42, escaped to make a 911 call before being gunned down.
Investigators wouldn't say how many times he was hit.
A third man, evidence technician Jim Ehrhart, escaped being shot, allegedly
because Hudson's pistol jammed.
Amphetamines, methamphetamines, marijuana and 18 firearms logged as task
force evidence were seized in a search of Hudson's home.
"It is apparent that Hudson was stealing evidence items from the property
room and offices at SBA to use as his own property," investigators said in court
papers.
Hudson was jailed on $15.5 million bail.
Police Chief Robby Robinson, in charge of the investigation, said earlier
reports that Elkins and Crowe were responding to a burglar alarm were wrong.
"Exactly what they were doing out there, we're still trying to figure out,"
he said.
Hudson's attorney, Mike Telep Jr., asked Friday to stop the release of any
more documents on the case, including Hudson's personnel records and records of
searches. Justice of the Peace Richard Donato said no further information would
be released until a hearing next Friday.
Telep said he may ask to have the case moved.
"This is a small community," he said. "This is a tight-knit law enforcement
community."
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the houses of its children."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
@@@
950720, San Antonio, TX, UPI. Two high-ranking officials of the
UPsw 07/20 1840 Law officers face drug charges
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, July 20 (UPI) -- Two high-ranking officials of the
Maverick County Sheriff's Department were arrested by federal agents Thursday on
drug distribution charges, federal authorities said.
Don Clark, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Antonio office, said
Maverick County Chief Deputy Rudy P. Rodriques and Jail Administrator Miguel A.
Omana were taken into custody without incident in Eagle Pass.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Antonio said a federal grand jury indicted
the pair Wednesday on a variety of charges, including conspiracy to possess with
intent to distribute heroin, cocaine and marijuana, and aiding and abetting in
the possession of drugs.
The indictment also charges Rodriques, 44, and Omana, 43, with conspiracy to
commit theft from a program receiving federal funding, theft of government
property and interference with commerce by threats.
Federal prosecutors said the charges in the indictment stem from activities
that occurred in 1991 and 1992 when the two men were members of the 293rd
Judicial District Drug Task Force at Eagle Pass and Crystal City.
Clark said the indictment alleges that Rodriques, Omana and another member of
the task force, Domingo Moncada Jr., conspired to distribute heroin and cocaine
that had previously been seized in drug raids. He said the three men used the
drugs to establish their credentials as drug dealers and provided security for
future drug shipments.
The indictment returned Wednesday superseded a previous indictment issued in
March that charged Moncada and two other men -- Alvaro Tobias- Barrios and
Hector Manuel Martinez -- on similar drug and conspiracy charges.
Moncada, 32, was arrested by federal authorities March 30 and remains in
custody with along Martinez. Tobias-Barrios was released on bond.
If convicted of all counts, Moncada could be sentenced to a maximum 75 years
in prison and fined $3 million. Rodriques faces a 25-year sentence and a $2.5
million fine, while Omana could be imprisoned for 45 years and fined $1.5
million, federal officials said.
(Written by Mark Langford in Austin)
-------------------------------
@@@
950805, Sydney, Australia, Reuter. A serving drug squad police
RTw 08/05 0439 POLICEMAN ARRESTED IN HUGE AUSTRALIA CANNABIS HAUL
SYDNEY, Aug 5 (Reuter) - A serving drug squad police officer was among 18
people arrested on Friday in what a police spokesman said could prove to be
Australia's largest-ever drug haul.
Several tonnes of cannabis resin originating in the Middle East, as well as
illegal firearms, were seized from several boats in the tourist town of Hervey
Bay, 250 km (155 miles) north of Brisbane on Australia's east coast, a spokesman
for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said.
"Further inquiries are being pursued in relation to the source of the
drugs," the spokesman said, adding that both AFP officers and overseas law
enforcement personnel were involved.
He said the arrests of the Australians and seizure were the result of the
largest investigation ever undertaken by the AFP, Australia's national police
force. The investigation had lasted for more than two years, he said.
Arrests had been made in the states of Queensland, where the cannabis was
seized, New South Wales and Victoria, and more would be made, he said.
The crew of an Australian-registered trawler MV Paulsun and those of
smaller vessels to which cannabis had been unloaded were arrested following
lengthy surveillance, he said.
Among those arrested in Sydney was a serving member of the AFP's Drug
Operations Division," an AFP statement said.
Seven people appeared in Sydney's central local court in relation to the
haul. The serving policeman was named as George Sabados, 27, of Sydney.
Two of those arrested were granted bail. Sabados and four others were
remanded in custody. All will reappear in court on August 12.
REUTER
-------------------------------
@@@
950813, Latin America, SD UNION. Ex DEA Agent Celerino Castillo
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 1995 17:55:05 +0000
From: Peter Webster
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: ABC Prime Time
Message-ID: <199512261750.SAA28688@HADES.MONACO.MC>
At the risk of cluttering up your mailboxes:
Flash! Ex-DEA Special Agent tells about PHONY WAR on Drugs onABC/ Prime
Time Live: Wed 12/27.
Here's a pipeful to all the Patriots rallying in defense of our Liberty
our Sanity and Free Enterprize! And let us not be deterred in our efforts
to persuade Prosecutors throughout the land to leave off with the immoral
prosecution
/persecution of the sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
America fights phony "War on Drugs"
by Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales (are co-authors of "Latino
Spectrum," a syndicated column focusing on Latinos and Latin American
affairs.) SD UNION, 8-13-95
In April, ex-Drug Enforcement Agency agent Celerino Castillo made a
pilgrimage to the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington D.C., where he left
his boots next to the name of a friend killed in the war. The Pharr,
Texas, native also left his Bronze Star, which he earned for his covert
actions in Southeast Asia in 1972, and a letter to the president:
"Dear President Clinton,
" In the 1980's, I spent six years in Central America as a special agent
with the DEA. On January 14, 1986, I forewarned then Vice President George
Bush of the U.S. government involvement in narcotics-trafficking (Oliver
North)....but to no avail....
In display of my disappointment of my government, I am returning my
Bronze Star, along with my last pair of jungle boots that I used in the
jungles of Vietnam, Peru, Columbia, El Salvador and finally Guatemala."
Drug connection is exposed
While stationed in Central America, Castillo exposed the U.S.
government's drug connection. He personally kept records on planes used in
the U.S.-Contra resupply operation at Ilopango Air Force Base in El
Salvador---arriving with guns and departing to the United States with
cocaine from Columbia.
"Every single pilot involved in the operation was a documented drug
trafficker, who appeared in DEA files," he says.
Castillo not only turned over his files to his superiors, but also
confronted Bush with the information in Guatemala City---several months
before American Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua, an incident
which first exposed the Iran-Contra affair.
Had castillo testified at the Iran-Contra hearings, he says North would
have gone to jail and both Bush and President Reagan would have been
impeached. "But nobody ever subpoenaed me," he says, and notes that the
DEA claimed no files ever existed.
"It was Bush's operation. In fact, it was impossible for President Reagan
not to have known about it," says Castillo.
In the 1980's, the same allegations of government-sanctioned
drug-trafficking were continually leveled by wild-eyed "radicals" and
Central American peace activists. However, because of his position as
special agent, Castillo's charges cannot easily be dismissed.
Amazingly, the drug operation at Ilopango was not a secret among U.S. and
Salvadoran officials, he says. The Salvadoran military was perplexed as to
why the drug connection was illegal. They thought it was simply part of
the effort to topple the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
When Castillo started with the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1978, he was
ready to fight against a scourge that had claimed many of his friends in
Southeast Asia, only to find that U.S. intelligence agencies themselves
were involved in drug-trafficking and the training of death squads.
Recent revelations by Congressman Robert Torrecelli of the CIA
involvement in the deaths of an American and a revolutionary in Guatamala
barely scratch the surface. The real tragedy is that for decades,
thousands of Guatamalans have disappeared yearly, says Castillo.
Torrecelli is expected to call for hearings this fall to investigate
human-rights abuses against U.S. citizens in Guatamala.
"I'm ready to testify, and so are three other agents," says Castillo,
hoping that the role of the intelligence services in the drug trade, death
squads and "disappearances" will finally be exposed.
Because Castillo's findings went unheeded, he recently left the DEA and
wrote a book, "Powderburns" (Mosaic Press), which documents his charges.
Drug traffic has increased
Castillo says that on the basis of his work, he is convinced that drug
money is what finances U.S. covert operations world wide. He believes that
despite the "War on Drugs," there are more drugs coming into the United
States today than 15 years ago and estimates that at least 75 percent of
all narcotics enter the country with the acquiescence of or direct
participation by U.S. and foreign intelligence services.
It is they who must be held accountable for the flood of drugs on our
streets today, he says.
Similarly, the policy of turning a blind eye to drugs has created
narco-democracies (governments tainted and funded by drug money) in
Central and South America. That was the price of the U.S. war against
communism, says Castillo.
Today, Castillo spends his time painting. One haunting image is of a
Mayan warrior with an American flag in one hand, an M-16 in the other and
a DEA helicopter with a skull insignia hovering overhead. The Mayan's face
is that of his friend, a dead DEA agent felled in the drug war in Peru.
The image conjures up his plea to Clinton not to perpetuate this false
"war": "Please do not do what Mr. Robert McNamara did regarding the
Vietnam War."
JAL/Logic13@aol.com
@@@
950819, Floyd County, KY, WKYU, KNN. Kentucky State Police
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 11:20:55 -0400
From: PLTFIBER@aol.com
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: Judge Combs (KY): busted
Message-ID: <950826112054_63808839@MAIL02.MAIL.AOL.COM>
Combs acknowledges using pot
Former high court judge says it helps him sleep
By Lee Mueller
Eastern Kentucky Bureau
Former state Supreme Court Justice Combs acknowledged yesterday that he
smokes marijuana at night, saying the illegal drug helps him sleep.
Combs, 71, who resigned his seat on the state's highest court in June 1993
for health reasons, said in a telephone interview that he discovered "quite
some time ago" that marijuana makes him sleepy.
He did not say precisely how long he has been smoking pot.
"I sleep like a baby" afterward, said Combs, who has had two strokes and
suffers from a memory disorder. "I have a sleeping problem... I probably
could have gotten a prescription for it if I'd asked my doctor, but I never
did."
The medicinal use of marijuana is banned in the United States, although it
was allowed by the federal government on a case-by-case basis from 1976 to
1992 for conditions such as glaucoma and nausea caused by chemotherapy.
Combs and his 16-year old son were charged last week with cultivation and
possession of marijuana after Kentucky State Police searched his Floyd County
home and reported finding 4 ounces of processed pot, drug paraphernalia and
one plant growing in a container outside the home.
Combs did not say yesterday whether he owned any of the marijuana found in
his home, but he indicated he considered what he does at home to be his own
business.
"I never go out and I never drive" after smoking marijuana, he said. "I just
stay in the privacy of my own bedroom....
"One joint would probably last me one or two days."
The search of his home upset Combs and his attorney, Eric Conn, who have
suggested that some evidence was planted by state police. Conn also has filed
an affidavit by Combs son, Alfred Ghent Combs, that claims troopers appeared
to be pressured by Floyd District Judge James Allen Jr. to find something
during the search.
State police have denied the allegations,. and Allen said this week he was
bewildered by the affidavit. "I've always gotten along with Dan Jack," Allen
said.
Conn, however, said Wednesday he has obtained corroborating evidence to the
younger Combs sworn statement from Janice Keller, a friend of Combs from
South Carolina.
Allen has scheduled a hearing Tuesday in Floyd District Court on the
misdemeanor charges against Combs and a motion by Conn for Allen to step down
from the case.
Appeals Court Judge Paul D. Gudgel, a member of the state's Judicial
Retirement and Removal Commission, said yesterday the panel could not
investigate or censure Combs if he smoked marijuana while he was a judge
because it has been more than 120 days since Combs was on the bench.
Asked yesterday whether they were aware that Combs used marijuana, three
judicial commission members -- lawyer Joe Savage of Lexington, Jefferson
District Judge Charles Scott and Carroll District Judge Stan Billingsley --
said no.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert F. Stephens could not be reached for
comment last night.
Capt. Robert Forsythe, commander of the Pikeville state police post, who
has defended his officers' conduct during the raid at Combs' home, declined
comment last night.
Combs said yesterday he had no idea who could have told police he might have
marijuana in his home. Combs said he had not talked about it, and his two
teenage sons wouldn't, either.
Police have declined to say who tipped them.
Conn said Combs agreed to let state police search his home only after they
told him they had a search warrant.
But Forsythe said no search warrant was obtained, because Combs signed a
consent form, permitting search. "If we'd had a search warrant,. we wouldn't
have needed his consent," he said.
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 11:43:45 -0400
From: PLTFIBER@aol.com
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: Combs says drug searchers were like 'Gestapo"
Message-ID: <950905114345_91534504@MAIL06.MAIL.AOL.COM>
Lexington Herald-Leader 9/4/95
Combs says drug searchers were like 'Gestapo'
by Jamie Lucke
Former Kentucky Supreme Court Judge Dan Jack Combs says state police
invaded his Floyd County home "in a storm trooper sort of way" when they
charged him with possession of marijuana last month.
But Combs, 71, who admits using pot to help him sleep says he's not fighting
the misdemeanor charges to make the police look bad, even though he referred
to the officers who conducted the search as "the Gestapo."
"There's no one who has more respect for law officers than I do if they're
conducting themselves in a proper manner," Combs said yesterday in Lexington
on "Your Government" on WLEX TV (Channel 18).
"What a person does in the privacy of his own home to me is sacrosanct and
certainly should not be disturbed or invaded in a storm trooper sort of way
as was done in my case."
On the advise of his attorney, Eric Conn, Combs declined to say whether he's
still smoking himself to sleep. Last week Combs said he had quit using the
illegal drug since he and his son were charged with possession and
cultivation of marijuana Aug. 18.
Combs admits to smoking a joint on the frequent nights when "it looks like
I'm going to be walking the floor to the wee hours."
But he repeated his claim that the 4 ounces of marijuana and one marijuana
plant that police say they found at his home did not belong to him.
Combs and Conn say the evidence would have had to have been put there by
someone other than Combs.
Combs' son Ghent, 16, and a friend of Combs who were at the house at the
time have sworn that one of the state police officers reported by phone to
someone he called Allen that they couldn't find anything illegal at Combs'
residence.
Yesterday, Combs said he does not know whether the trooper was talking to
Floyd District Judge James Allen, as originally alleged by Combs' son. The
former justice said he knew only that Allen was the "name that was mentioned
when the Gestapo was there the first time."
Combs stepped down from the Supreme Court in 1993 because of health
problems. Yesterday, he said a memory disorder prevents him from being sure
whether he used marijuana while still on the Supreme Court.
A psychiatrist testified in a civil case several years ago that Combs
admitted using marijuana when he still was on the court.
In any case, Combs said it would not have affected his legal judgments. He
challenged legal authorities to review the majority opinions and many
dissents he wrote for signs of bias or unclear thinking.
Combs said he regrets letting police enter his home, which is in Betsy
Layne, without a search warrant.
Combs. who also refused to say who supplied him with the drug, said he
thinks marijuana should be legal "if it's used carefully and sparingly."
Combs said he uses it only "when I'm ready for bed. I never go out. I never
drive. No one's in my room when I do it-smoking, that is."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 16:21:40 -0500 (EST)
From: HATHAWAY@stsci.edu
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: Re: more on Combs of the KY HIGH court
Message-ID: <01HUOV1OZF2A02YQWM@AVION.STSCI.EDU>
> A Lexington psychiatrist who treated Combs for depression after a 1989
>motorcycle accident confirmed under questioning that Combs used marijuana to
>help him sleep.
> Dr. Robert Granacher said in the deposition that Combs surprised him by
>"telling the truth. Most patients would not admit that."
> Granacher said the admission was not relevant to Combs' problem because
>marijuana does not cause major depression. Later, Granacher said he
>prescribed Prozac-a powerful antidepressant-for the judge. He also said he
>administered four shock treatments-at Combs' request-that temporarily
>relieved his depression.
???? What happened to patient/physician confidentiality? How is it
this Dr. is telling details of his patient's treatment? If Combs
gave him permission AND gave the police permission to enter his
property without a warrant (as previously reported), he has got
some real problems with understanding personal rights and how to
protect them. Weird. I feel real sorry for the guy, but he seems
to have forgotten the law. Good thing he did step down.
WHH
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 17:03:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bill Redding
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: Re: more on Combs of the KY HIGH court
Message-ID:
On Wed, 30 Aug 1995 HATHAWAY@stsci.edu wrote:
> ???? What happened to patient/physician confidentiality? How is it
> this Dr. is telling details of his patient's treatment? If Combs
> gave him permission AND gave the police permission to enter his
> property without a warrant (as previously reported), he has got
> some real problems with understanding personal rights and how to
> protect them. Weird. I feel real sorry for the guy, but he seems
> to have forgotten the law. Good thing he did step down.
I believe, this is not necessarily the truth, that if a patient is
indicted a physician is supposed to release pertinent information? And on
reading about this case and what has happened I have the feeling that
Combs may have wanted to be arrested. To make a stand...to show the
world, or at least the US, that marijuana is used by many people. It is
not the evil drug that the media and government say. Maybe..just maybe
this was his idea?
--
Bill Redding
lennon@simons-rock.edu
http://plato.simons-rock.edu/~lennon
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 13:20:44 -0400
From: PLTFIBER@aol.com
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: Doctor says Combs smoked pot as justice
Message-ID: <950829132041_86222288@EMOUT04.MAIL.AOL.COM>
Doctor says Combs smoked pot as justice
Lexington Herald-Leader Sunday Aug. 27, 1995
AP Louisville, KY
A Lexington psychiatrist who had treated former Kentucky Supreme Court
Justice Dan Jack Combs said in a court deposition that Combs smoked marijuana
regularly during his tenure on the court.
Dr. Robert Granacher also said in the 1992 deposition that Combs underwent
electric shock treatments in 1991 and 1992, when he was still on the state's
highest court, to relieve suicidal depression, the Courier-Journal reported
yesterday.
Granacher last night acknowledged giving the deposition but said he could
not ethically comment on it because Combs is still his patient.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert F. Stephens also declined comment on the
report last night.
Combs retired from the high court June 30, 1993, citing the fact that he had
suffered two strokes and was having memory lapses.
Combs told the Herald-Leader last week that he smokes marijuana regularly to
relieve insomnia but that he started only after retirement.
Asked Friday night about Granacher's testimony, Combs attorney, Eric Conn,
said his client reiterated "his earlier position that to the best of his
memory he only smoked marijuana subsequent to his supreme Court tenure."
Kentucky State Police, acting on a tip, raided Combs Floyd County home on
August 18 and found a marijuana plant growing in his yard. Police also found
4 ounces of processed marijuana, pipes, water pipes and rolling papers
scattered about his home.
Combs and his 16 year old son have been charged with possession and
cultivation of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Combs said in a telephone interview Friday that his mental problem was
similar to Alzheimer's disease.
His mental difficulties started about the time he joined the Supreme Court
according to court testimony in a suit Combs filed against a drunken driver
who knocked Combs off his motorcycle, Aug. 19, 1989.
In connection with the suit, Granacher testified about Combs mental
condition after the accident. He first saw Combs March 19, 1990.
"He didn't feel like he could keep up with things, and he would not write
opinions," Granacher said of Combs at his first visit. "He was depressed to
the point he could not make his mind work to produce writing, to hear a case
on the Supreme Court. ...He had thoughts of suicide, actually."
During this first visit, Combs told Granacher he regularly smoked marijuana,
according to the court records.
"The judge surprised me by telling the truth," Granacher testified. "Most
patients would not admit to that."
"Granacher said four electric shock treatments, administered from December
1991 through January 1992, improved Combs mood. But he said Combs' depression
was permanent.
Under cross-examination, Granacher said Combs' daughter reported that he had
been suffering from memory loss and concentration problems for two years
before seeing Granacher.
----------------------------END----------------------------------
------------------------------
From: PLTFIBER@aol.com
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: more on Combs of the KY HIGH court
Message-ID: <950830113017_87053727@EMOUT04.MAIL.AOL.COM>
Lexington Herald-Leader
Aug. 29, 1995
Combs son's allegations lead to judge's withdrawal from case
By Lee Mueller, Eastern Kentucky Bureau
Prestonburg, KY
As the swarm of TV and newspaper reporters left the Floyd County Courthouse
yesterday, Dan Jack Combs watched from under a nearby shade tree.
The 71-year old former state Supreme Court justice grinned broadly and
leaned forward on his toes. "Is High Times here, too?" he asked, referring to
a national pro-marijuana magazine.
It was kind of a joke: Combs' droll comment on the hubbub that has developed
since Aug. 18 when state police acting on a tip-found a marijuana plant
growing in his backyard at Betsy Layne.
What began as a rather routine drug raid-Combs and his 16 year old son,
Ghent, were charged with possession and cultivation of marijuana, both
misdemeanors-turned into the stuff of which national TV programs are made
after Combs acknowledged he had smoked pot for quite some time to help him
sleep.
Yesterday, Floyd District Judge James Allen Jr. stepped down from the case
because Combs' son alleged-falsely Allen said-that Allen helped orchestrate
the police search that turned up water pipes, rolling papers and 4 ounces of
marijuana at Combs' home.
Still to come, however, is an appearance on a new CBS News program, "Day &
Date" which Combs' attorney, Eric Conn of Stanville ,said was billed to him
as a cross between "Entertainment Tonight" and "Good Morning America."
Combs, who was elected to the Supreme Court in 1988 after five years on the
state appellate court, retired in 1993, citing health problems. As a judge,
he was outspoken on behalf of constitutional rights and plain-spoken about
his life and lifestyle, which included riding a motorcycle and attending
seances.
Combs said yesterday he has no memory of smoking marijuana before he retired
form the bench, but said he has a memory problem similar to Alzheimer's
disease, brought on by two strokes and other factors.
"I may have-but never while court was in session." Combs said of using
marijuana. "I'm sorry, I wish I did have total recall, but I don't. I used to
have an excellent memory. I could quote Thanatopsis," a poem.
A1992 deposition in a Pike County civil case indicates Combs smoked pot
while he was a judge.
A Lexington psychiatrist who treated Combs for depression after a 1989
motorcycle accident confirmed under questioning that Combs used marijuana to
help him sleep.
Dr. Robert Granacher said in the deposition that Combs surprised him by
"telling the truth. Most patients would not admit that."
Granacher said the admission was not relevant to Combs' problem because
marijuana does not cause major depression. Later, Granacher said he
prescribed Prozac-a powerful antidepressant-for the judge. He also said he
administered four shock treatments-at Combs' request-that temporarily
relieved his depression.
Dr. Mary Lee Harper, director of the University of Kentucky's drug
information center, said yesterday that if Combs were smoking marijuana and
taking Prozac at the same time, "there are no studies indicating there are
problems with mixing the two."
Last week, before he was aware of Granacher's deposition, state Supreme
Court Chief Justice Robert F. Stephens said he saw no indication
that Combs smoked pot while on the high court.
The chief justice stuck by that observation this week.
Stephens said he knew nothing about Combs' taking Prozac, having shock
treatments or the validity of the drug charges.
"All I can tell you is, you've got to remember why the man quit the
court-because he realized he was having a problem," Stephens said. "And if
that doesn't say something for him, I guess I have the entirely wrong
standards to judge human beings."
"When he began to fail, he knew it-and he quit."
In yesterday's hearing, Allen read a statement, saying he was stepping down
to avoid "even the appearance of impropriety."
"I will step aside, not because I believe there are grounds in the motion
and affidavit for me to do so, but because I want the defendant to feel that
he will be heard with the neutrality of an impartial judge."
Allen said he would ask that a special judge be appointed to hear other
motions, including one to quash results of the police search.
Combs said he has not smoked marijuana since the search but hopes to
continue the practice. Marijuana, which he called one of "God's foods," helps
him sleep and should be legalized for medicinal purposes, he said.
Given the nationwide interest his case has attracted, however, Combs said he
expects it will be difficult for him to obtain the drug.
------------------------------
@@@
950831, Cleveland, OH, AP. County Judge Michael Gallagher who
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 95 10:21:54 PDT
From: AP
Newgroups: clari.local.ohio, clari.news.drugs, clari.news.crime.misc
Subject: Judge Indicted On Drug Charges
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A county judge who favored legalizing drugs was
indicted on cocaine charges after offering the drug to an
undercover federal agent.
Judge Michael Gallagher could face 68 years in prison and a $3
million fine if convicted on all five counts. Gallagher, 39, was
put on an indefinite paid leave of absence.
Gallagher, a Republican, said after his 1990 election that he
favored legalizing drugs but would follow state guidelines on
mandatory sentences. He made the comments after granting early
probation to a teacher who had been sentenced to 18 months in
prison on a drug charge.
The judge was arrested Aug. 4 after he showed an undercover Drug
Enforcement Agent two lines of cocaine inside a jewelry box and
rolled a bill of paper money for use in inhaling one of the lines,
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Edwards said.
Gallagher has an unlisted phone number and could not be reached
for comment. His attorney, Mark B. Marein, said there would be no
comment.
The alleged cocaine dealing occurred from June through August.
------------------------------
@@@
950911, Washington, DC, Washington Weekly, Sarah McClendon. At a
Date: Mon Sep 11, 1995 10:20 pm CST
From: John Q. Public
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: capmicro@execpc.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Sarah McClendon: Are Dems and GOP Using Drug Money?
The following appears in the 9/11 edition of the Washington
Weekly, and is posted here with permission:
SARAH MCCLENDON ASKS WHITE HOUSE ABOUT DRUG PROFITS
White House Press Conference, September 7, 1995.
MS. MCCLENDON: Mike, I understand that Vice President Gore
has told President Clinton that he understands that the
government is letting sale from - profits from narcotics which
are coming in here be used, be laundered and be used to finance
both political parties. Mr. Clinton was apparently not aware of
this, but Mr. Bush apparently was. And Mr. Gore has insisted
that it be stopped. And Mr. Clinton, I understand, is now saying
that he will take some steps to stop this financing of political
parties, both political parties, by profits from drugs coming
into this country for sale which are ruining the country. Now, I
wonder when Mr. Clinton is going to start his movement on this
and what he's going to do.
MR. MCCURRY: I haven't heard any of that before. That
sounds like the plot for a very good novel. But I haven't heard
-
MS. MCCLENDON: Now, don't make fun of it, Mike, because it's
true. It's true.
MR. MCCURRY: I'm not making fun of it. If it's true -
MS. MCCLENDON: Just go and check it with the President.
MR. MCCURRY: All right. I'll go ask the President if he's
taken any steps on that and report back to you.
[We'll be waiting -Editor]
Copyright (c) 1995 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
@@@
950921.
Date: Thu Sep 21, 1995 8:21 pm CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Who is Colin Powell?
*****************************************************************
WHO IS COLIN POWELL? (I)
"Ye shall be known by the company that ye keep."
21 September 95
*****************************************************************
Who is Colin Powell, the media's favorite candidate for president?
#Colin Powell is a close friend of Richard Armitage:
"He is an independent. He's registered independent," says former
assistant secretary of defense *Richard Armitage*, who may be
*Powell's closest friend* (and who insists he doesn't want the
general to run). "I don't know that he'd feel entirely comfortable
in either party."
(Newsweek, 10/10/94, p.20)
But, according to Ross Perot, Richard Armitage is part of the drug-
smuggling, money-laundering Washington cabal:
Beyond Perot's frustration at feckless government, though, lies a
deeper motive for his candidacy. Friends and colleagues say Perot
believes that powerful forces in Washington -- and George Bush
specifically -- have betrayed an undetermined number of American
fighting men in Southeast Asia. He is convinced that the conspiracy of
neglect springs from a desire to protect some elements of the
government that have been engage engaged in a corrupt and long-term
relationship with narcotics traffickers in that part of the world.
[...]
Perot's theory has its roots in Vietnam. In the late 1950s, when
operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency intensified intelligence
gathering in Laos, the United States began forging operational
alliances with two groups. The first was the Royal Laotian Army. The
second was the Hmong, a migratory tribe that had thrived for centuries
in the hills of northern Laos.
The area comprises one leg of Southeast Asia's so-called Golden
Triangle. By 1971, the region was a major supplier of high-grade
heroin to the United States. At about this same time, the growing
number of American heroin addicts had increased both demand and price
for the drug. Exports from northern Laos rose accordingly.
The CIA's role. The Hmong and the Royal Laotian Army thrived. Both
had been deeply involved in the opium trade for years. The CIA was
right in the middle. By the late 1960s, it had recruited a force of
some 9,000 Hmong and installed as their field commander an ambitious
lieutenant colonel named Vang Pao. Like Hmong chieftains before him,
Vang Pao was involved in opium trafficking. Historian Alfred W. McCoy,
author of the ''The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global
Drug Trade,'' says bluntly: ''The CIA's covert-action assets [became]
the leading heroin dealers in Laos.''
According to friends, Perot believes that the conspiracy against the
POWs and MIAs began almost the minute the war ended on April 30, 1975.
He and others argue that it was possible at that point for the United
States to make considerable progress in identifying and beginning to
secure the release of prisoners of war and in resolving conflicting
reports about the hundreds of soldiers missing in action. But the
government's interest seemed to flag. One of the main reasons, in
Perot's mind, was George Bush, who became director of central
intelligence in 1976. Perot has complained that little effort was made
during Bush's tenure at the CIA on the POW/MIA issue. Indeed, soon after
Bush's departure, the CIA relinquished all responsibility for POW/MIA
reports. The matter was transferred to the Pentagon's Defense
Intelligence Agency. [...]
Perot was furious, though, because he began to believe that the reason
for the apparent lack of effort had to do with the CIA's involvement
in heroin trafficking in Southeast Asia. It is unclear from these
accounts whether Perot believes that the CIA used profits from drug
trafficking to fund covert operations or how long such activity may
have persisted.
Perot's basic charges are disputed by several official and unofficial
inquiries. The CIA's inspector general examined allegations about
agency links to drug runners in June 1972 and found that ''local
officials with whom we are in contact ... have been or may be still
involved in one way or another in the drug business.'' The report also
concluded, however, that there was ''no evidence'' that ''any senior
officer of the agency has sanctioned or supported drug trafficking as
a matter of policy.'' Then and now, that was considered by many to be
a weasel-word response that raised more questions than it answered.
[...]
Still, Perot's associates say he remains unconvinced that the CIA put
much distance between itself and the drug business. His suspicions
center on two institutions and one individual. Australia-based Nugan
Hand Bank failed in 1983 with the mysterious death of one partner,
Francis John Nugan, and the subsequent disappearance of the other,
Michael John Hand. Hand was a highly decorated Green Beret who
reportedly worked as a contract employee for the CIA in Southeast
Asia.
Nugan Hand drew the attention of investigators from Australia, Hong
Kong and the Philippines for three reasons. First was the massive fraud
that cost investors millions of dollars. Second was the bank's ties to
known and suspected drug traffickers. Third was the unusual number of
retired American military and intelligence officials on its payroll.
In Nugan Hand, Perot reportedly believes, drugs and intelligence agents
had joined forces once again. [...]
Flimsy evidence. The other suspicious outfit was Hawaii-based Bishop,
Baldwin. Its chairman was a con man named Ronald Rewald. Like Nugan
Hand, Bishop, Baldwin had a lot of former intelligence officers on the
payroll. At his trial, Rewald claimed that Bishop, Baldwin was a CIA
front company. Although the CIA petitioned to have some evidence in
the criminal proceedings sealed, there was little to support Rewald's
defense. He is now serving an 80-year prison term for fraud and other
crimes. [...]
The individual at the top of Perot's suspect list is *Richard
Armitage*, a highly regarded former assistant secretary of defense and
close friend of Gen. *Colin Powell*, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. Armitage currently serves as point man for the Bush
administration's aid program to the republics of the former Soviet
Union. In 1975 and 1976, he served on the staff of the U.S. defense
representative to Iran. Friends say Perot has suggested that Armitage
had ties to Bishop, Baldwin and that he obstructed efforts to obtain
answers about prisoners and soldiers missing in action. [...]
(US News & World Report, 6/1/92)
#Colin Powell was a protege of Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci.
[Powell's] rise was spectacular, not just in the army, but in
political Washington as well. *Weinberger and Carlucci* insisted on
bringing Powell along with them--first as Weinberger's military aide
when he became secretary of defense, then as Carlucci's deputy
national-security adviser, then as Carlucci's successor: national-
security adviser to Ronald Reagan--and finally as chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff under George Bush.
(Newsweek, 10/10/94)
Weinberger (subject of much net.speculation of late) was implicated in
Iran-Contra crimes. With Carlucci, things are less clear. However,
*The Nation* ran an article about him that was summarized this way:
Carlucci's Three Faces. Frank Carlucci, the new Secretary of
Defense, is depending on the headlines you prefer, a bland and
poised `competent manager' or a bedraggled `quintessential survivor'
or a more sinister-sounding `diplomat, businessman, spy.'
(Nation, 12/19/87)
Who *is* Colin Powell?
One thing can be said: He has poor taste in friends.
***********************************************************************
------------------------------
@@@
950923, San Diego Union-Tribune. Former DEA agent Celerino
Date: Sat Sep 23, 1995 6:19 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: CIA: Shooting Up in Public
Control Freaks, Pushers,
& a Nation of Junkies
On August 13, an interesting story appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
According to the report, former DEA agent Celerino Castillo stated that he
and three other ex-narcs were willing to testify before Rep. Robert
Toricelli's proposed subcommittee on the intelligence community and human
rights violations in Guatemala and Central America regarding the extent of
direct involvement by the Central Intelligence Agency in international drug
trafficking. The estimate he gave the newspaper was that approximately 75
per cent of the drugs that enter the United States do so with the
acquiescence or direct participation of U.S. and foreign CIA agents.
Several years ago, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and
International Operations, headed by Sen. John Kerry, held hearings on
allegations that the contra forces fielded by the U.S. in its war against
Nicaragua were using "national security" as a cover for cocaine smuggling;
Oliver North, who was one of the primary organizers of the terrorists,
wrote in his diary that at least $14 million that went to his arms
operations came from drug kingpins. In its final report, the subcommittee
was able to establish, despite stonewalling by the Reagan administration
and shortages of staff and time that caused it to cut short many intriguing
leads, that involvement of the contras in drug smuggling had been
pervasive, with at least four of the "humanitarian" organizations set up to
funnel tax money to the front being run by known traffickers.
Other published reports in the mid-Eighties indicated that the Afghani
"freedom fighters" that the CIA armed and trained in its biggest operation
of the post-Vietnam Cold War were responsible for between 40 and 80 per
cent of the heroin coming into the United States during those years.
Nor is the involvement of the CIA and its sister agencies in the
international narcotics pipeline a recent phenomenon; in the 1950s there
was the Burmese and Nationalist Chinese Golden Triangle, source of most of
the world's opium; in the 1960s, Gen. Vang Pao and the Hmong growers, who
served as the CIA's secret army in exchange for the Agency's aid in
transporting its opium to the West; and in the 1970s, the "rogue"
operations of Ted Shackley, Edwin Wilson and the Australian Nugan Hand
Bank, "rogue" only in the sense that the CIA maintained its deniability and
jettisoned the high-level officers in charge when their role threatened to
become known. And throughout, there were the experiments with LSD on U.S.
citizens, along with other operations whose records were deliberately
destroyed when Congress began investigating them after Watergate.
Indeed, the complicity of the U.S. and other intelligence communities in
the drug trade is so widespread that last year Shapolsky Publishers titled
an expose by a former CIA agent, Ken Bucchi, "C.I.A.: Cocaine In America?"
A number of other well-documented books have traced the sordid facts. Among
the best are Alfred McCoy's classic The Politics of Heroin (originally
published in 1972 as The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, and reissued
in greatly revised and expanded format in 1991); The Great Heroin Coup:
Drugs, Intelligence, & International Fascism, by Danish journalist Henrik
Kruger (1980); The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic,
by former top DEA agent Michael Levine (1993); Cocaine Politics: Drugs,
Armies, and the CIA in Central America, by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan
Marshall (1991); The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money,
and the CIA, by former Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny (1987);
In Banks We Trust, by the late Penny Lernoux (1984); Storming Heaven: LSD
and the American Dream, by Jay Stevens (1987; the chapter titled "Noises
Offstage," regarding CIA MK-Ultra experiments using LSD on unsuspecting
American citizens in the Fifties and Sixties); and Acid Dreams: the CIA,
LSD and the Sixties Rebellion, by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain (1985).
Despite overwhelming evidence of the direct involvement of agents of the
State in pushing both heroin and cocaine, the official stance of the
apparat is that it is diligently pursuing a "zero-tolerance" strategy aimed
at eliminating the "scourge of illegal drugs" from our society. As the
cliche has it, the first casualty in this war has been the truth.
We are now in the 24th year of the Drug War, a war first declared by
Richard Nixon during his re-election campaign, and rededicated, as the
Boston Globe noted, by "every President within living memory". As a result
of the War, the U.S. prison population is now over a million, the highest
or second-highest rate in the industrialized world. Almost five out of
every eight federal prisoners are in for drug-related crimes, primarily
personal possession of marijuana, referred to by a DEA Administrative Law
Judge as "the safest therapeutically active substance known to humankind."
Growing an acre of hemp, or marijuana, can net you the death penalty, while
the crime bill presently before Congress would strip courts of their
jurisdiction over prison conditions, declaring that routine brutality and
stifling overcrowding are, by legislative fiat, neither cruel nor unusual.
Certainly not unusual.
Federal forfeiture laws have ensured the deepest levels of corruption of
local law enforcement officials all across the country, as municipalities
and counties strapped for cash have taken advantage of the provisions that
allow the agencies to keep or dispose of assets supposedly accumulated
through drug profits, without having to go through the rigmarole of
convincing a jury of guilt; without, in fact, having to bring charges at
all.
As I write, police forces from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and all points
in between are under investigation for fabricating evidence, torturing
prisoners to obtain confessions, and numerous other violations of
fundamental rights - primarily in drug cases, and primarily though by no
means exclusively directed against minorities. (In Los Angeles County, no
white person has been prosecuted through the federal courts on crack
cocaine offenses in recent years; the state courts through which their
cases are channeled average eight years less in sentencing for the same
offense than the feds, who concentrate on Blacks and Latinos. Nationally,
first time possession of powder cocaine, an expensive form of the drug
favored by white lawyers and yuppies, is treated one hundred times as
leniently as first time possession of the same amount of the crack form -
cheap, and favored by poorer, darker, inner city residents.)
The "zero tolerance" game has also been used to accustom the average
citizen to intrusive urine tests, radar surveillance of neighborhoods,
random stop-and-searches of automobiles or persons, and other tools of the
totalitarian corporate state. Drug hysteria among officialdom, whether
genuine or manufactured to serve the agenda of oligarchy, is so pronounced
that bills are introduced to deny tax exempt status to any organization
that proposes the legalization of drugs - a position taken by such radicals
as pundit William F. Buckley, former Secretary of State George Schulz, and
Baltimore Mayor Kurt Shmoke.
Part of the reason for prohibiting discussion of alternatives such as
legalization is that the proponents of "tough love" and tougher sentences
frequently have no honest argument to make, so that in a genuine debate,
they would be almost certain to lose. Thus in 1989 Parents for a Drug Free
America was forced to acknowledge that it had been using footage of the
brain waves of a person in a coma to represent those of a person under the
influence of marijuana - a lapse that they indicated they felt perfectly
justified in undertaking. During the campaign to reinstitute prohibition in
Alaska, a DEA officer claimed that no one ever died from tobacco use. Other
lies that surfaced during the extended campaign were the old, discredited
"gateway drug" argument, the unsupported claim that marijuana grown today
is ten to thirty times as powerful as that grown fifteen years earlier, and
the insinuation of permanent sterility from casual use.
Even as the last veneer of Constitutional protection of individual rights
is stripped away, and the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, legally binding as a treaty on every agent of the government in the
United States, become a dead letter, all purportedly in order to stop the
use of certain officially disapproved psychoactive substances, the
marketing of other such substances, far more deadly, proceeds apace - not
only under the benevolent eye of Big Brother, but with subsidies provided
courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen.
Jesse Helms, who blames AIDS victims for their disease, declares that the
government ought to be putting more money into researching the cause and
prevention of heart disease - whose single largest cause, as he knows full
well, is the use of tobacco, the main cash crop in his home state of North
Carolina. Tobacco is not only subsidized by taxpayers, but enjoys the
services, gratis, of the U.S. Trade Representative whenever the governments
of benighted third world nations such as Thailand assert their intention to
reduce consumption of the crop by their citizenry. Other subsidies help the
tobacco giants develop stronger and more addictive strains of nicotine to
help them increase market share. Meanwhile, tobacco kills 450,000 U.S.
citizens a year, when used as intended by the manufacturer.
The second largest mass murderer of note, alcohol, is also a mass-marketed
commodity, and despite heroic efforts by well-meaning groups such as AA, is
largely off the agenda when it comes to discouraging drug use. A beer after
a football game is as traditional as tailgate picnics at Indy, yet few
would suggest that they and their friends should go out and shoot some
smack after a victory. Yet alcohol is at least as deadly as heroin, and in
fact produces similar sensations of euphoria and well-being. Its use, again
as intended by the manufacturer, is responsible for over a hundred thousand
deaths of our countrymen and women each year, not counting homicides and
drunken driving accidents. Legal prescription drugs - prozac, valium,
lithium, demerol, xanex - kill thousands more.
Less deadly to the body, perhaps, but more insidiously deadly to the
spirit, are the many other substances that escape classification as drugs
altogether, despite numerous studies that demonstrate their psychoactive
properties. Sugar, coffee, chocolate, religious cults, television,
Nintendo, the endless consumption of useless commodities: America is a
nation of addicts, endlessly groping for a substitute for community, for
self-esteem, for partnership and cooperation, for the good society.
Dysfunction and its handmaidens are, indeed, the motor force of the
economy, the guarantor of profit and the sine qua non of control and
stability.
In the mid-Sixties, when the populations of America's ghettos rose up
against institutional and pervasive racism and repression, the availability
of heroin increased dramatically. Pure "China White" was suddenly cheaper
than rotgut, while Speedballs (heroin, cocaine and LSD in injectable form)
made their first appearance in the hippie enclaves and countercultural
atolls of the East and West coasts. Militant Blacks, who had chased the
pushers out of their communities, found people too high to listen to their
rhetoric. Meanwhile, the hippies who had begun to ally with certain sectors
of the radical left were kept busy putting up posters warning that "Speed
Kills," and trying to recover friends too strung out to know their own
name.
These days, the crack cocaine "epidemic" serves a not dissimilar purpose in
distracting the surplus population of the city from uniting to change its
desperate situation, while enabling the control combine to whip up support
for repealing the Constitution piecemeal. Dissidents of little or no
means, especially those outside the mainstream, can likewise be dealt with
through the repressive apparatus, as in Wisconsin, Iowa and California's
Humboldt County, all of which have recently featured the killing of people
in their homes for possession of a harmless herb. For the relatively
affluent, on the other hand, the usual co-opting strategies will have to
serve; after all, they do possess disposable income, and they tend to vote.
Perhaps it is time to consider, not just the legalization of illicit drugs,
but the outlawing of capitalism, the banning of hierarchy, and the
abolition of meaningless, numbing and antisocial jobs, labor and production.
------------------------------
@@@
950923, Pacifica Radio Network, Daniel Sheehan interview.
Date: Sat Sep 23, 1995 8:12 am CST
From: snet l
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: snet-l@world.std.com
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Part 1, DANIEL SHEEHAN: C.I.A. Agents Infest U.S. Mass Media (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 09:28:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Di Nardo
To: map@pencil.math.missouri.edu, rich@pencil.math.missouri.edu,
nyt@nyxfer.blythe.org
Cc: act@efn.org, beastnet@farces.com, lindat@iquest.net,
financial.opportunities@canrem.com, pauls@cic.net,
pnpj@db1.cc.rochester.edu, jad@locust.cic.net
Subject: Part 1, DANIEL SHEEHAN: C.I.A. Agents Infest U.S. Mass Media
____ ____
--____ ____---- ----____ ____---- ----____ ____--
---- ---- ----
T H E P E O P L E'S S P E L L B R E A K E R
____ ____ ____
__---- ----____ ____---- ----____ ____---- ----__
---- ----
News They Never Told You .... News They'll Never Tell You
DATE: _________ __, ____ PRICE: __ CENTS
THE NEWSPAPER FOR THE PEOPLE OF
MONTANA
* * * * * MORNING EDITION * * * * *
EDITOR: John DiNardo
From the Pacifica Radio Network station,
WBAI-FM (99.5)
505 Eighth Ave., 19th Fl.
New York, NY 10018
(212)279-0707 wbai@igc.apc.org
Part 1, DANIEL SHEEHAN: CIA Agents Infest U.S. Mass Media
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GARY NULL:
The Public's right to know is not always what the Public ends up
getting. The Public frequently gets such one-sided, biased
information -- and not just from the mass media. It's easy to have
a long arm that protects the special interest groups: this kind
of a "one world family" of insiders that is capable of affecting
federal judges, U.S. attorneys, to slant or obstruct justice, to
hide or cover up crucial information, and to interfere with our
liberties.
Daniel Sheehan, as much as any attorney in the United States, and
the Christic Institute have taken it upon themselves to try to
challenge some of these injustices and to give us the information
that they have distilled from their work that gives us a different
perspective. Unfortunately, rare is it that any of the mainstream
media covers the work of the Christic Institute or of Daniel Sheehan.
And if they did, it would be a very enlightened Public who would be
benefiting from this. Welcome to our program, Daniel Sheehan.
DANIEL SHEEHAN:
Thank you, Gary.
GARY NULL:
Daniel, earlier on, one of our guests was talking about -- and I'd
like for you to follow through on this theme -- that what we're told
in the media (and what we're told officially from Government sources)
and what is the truth are frequently at varying degrees against
each other. Give us one specific .....
DANIEL SHEEHAN:
That's absolutely true. There has been a major campaign on the part
of the Central Intelligence Agency, for example, to place Central
Intelligence Agency agents, trained agents, IN various news media
posts. We've found the documents on this. It was called "Operation
Mocking Bird". And they placed Central Intelligence Agency operatives
in places like TIME Magazine and LIFE Magazine, the New York Times,
inside CBS [TV] and ABC [TV] News.
Originally, the intent of "Operation Mocking Bird" was to make certain
that these major media outlets reflected an adequately anti-communist
perspective. And then, of course, as they became entrenched and
in-place, any time the Central Intelligence Agency wanted a story
killed or distorted they would just contact their agents inside.
Now, they have bragged openly in private memos back and forth inside
the Agency about how proud they are of having really important
"assets" inside virtually every major news media in the United States.
And I've encountered this repeatedly.
For example, the Chief National Security Correspondent for TIME
Magazine, Bruce Van Voorst[sp], is a regular Central Intelligence
Agency officer. It turns out that Ben Bradlee from the Washington
Post was a regular Central Intelligence Agency officer prior to
coming to his post at the Washington Post.
Bob Woodward at the Washington Post was the Point-Briefer for
U.S. Naval Intelligence of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff before he went
over to the Washington Post.
We find these people constantly in the news media and, as I may
have pointed out to you in one of your shows, when the New York
Times was refusing to print any information about Oliver North and
Richard Secord [President Reagan's assistants], Albert Hakim and
Rob Owen, and all of these other men who, throughout 1985 and
1986, were engaged in this MASSIVE criminal conspiracy to violate
the Boland Amendment prohibiting any weapons shipments to the
Contras, and who were involved in smuggling TOW missiles to Iran ....
as this information was being communicated to the New York Times by
sources that we had, the New York Times absolutely refused to print
any of this. And the reason for it was, according to Keith Schneider
-- who was one of the reporters assigned to at least address this
stuff and look into it .... he said that they were refusing to
print any of it because their high-level sources inside the Central
Intelligence Agency refused to confirm the stories.
Now, that kind of relationship between self-conscious "assets" of
the Covert Operations Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
a political police force on an international level, if you will,
and an economic police force to protect the ostensible economic
interests of United States industries .... to place those people
inside a news media -- which, under the First Amendment, ostensibly
has the responsibility to critique and investigate potential
injustices on the part of the State, inside the Government --
is an extraordinarily dangerous development here in the United States.
GARY NULL:
Thank you for that insight. Could you also give us some
understanding of one case in particular (if you could highlight it)
that you're privy to, to show how they can export a form of terrorism,
how they can support movements to destabilize DEMOCRACIES in any country
whose position they don't choose to support, where multi-national
corporations' interests may feel threatened and, as a result,
they'll use our various branches of Government to thwart the local
populace, invade their sovereignty, disrupt their complete
political system, and how they manipulate the stories in the
Press so that it's NEVER the way that we're told it is.
(to be continued)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I urge you to repost this episode to other newsgroups,
networks, BBSs and mailing lists.
John DiNardo
------------------------------
@@@
950930, Muskogee, OK, AP. Choctaw County Sheriff J.W. Trapp
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 1995 13:27:53 GMT
From: adbryan@onramp.net (Alan Bryan)
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Re: Sheriff Indicted For Bribery
Message-ID: <199509301330.IAA16443@MAILHOST.ONRAMP.NET>
MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) -- A sheriff has been charged with taking
thousands of dollars in bribes to look the other way on drug and
gambling operations in his county.
Choctaw County Sheriff J.W. Trapp took more than $150,000 to
protect drug operations, in some cases by warning alleged drug
dealers about federal investigation, according to a federal
indictment handed up Thursday.
Trapp also was accused of taking $500 in exchange for giving a
woman a confidential homicide report by the Oklahoma State Bureau
of Investigation.
The deals took place soon after Trapp became sheriff in 1989,
and continued through the fall of 1993 when Trapp asked for $5,000
from a man to warn him about a federal drug investigation, the
indictment alleges.
Trapp is being held without bond. The charges carry a maximum
penalty of life in prison and more than $4 million in fines.
Four others were also named in the indictment, including Willie
Wright, who was accused of paying Trapp $42,000 to protect a
marijuana operation during the sheriff's first year in office.
Wright was still at large.
@@@
951008, Herndon, VA, Ralph McGehee. Distributing CIABASE of
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
From: lpease@netcom.com (Lisa Pease)
Subject: "Before I Am Arrested"
Message-ID:
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 18:20:22 GMT
[ Article crossposted from alt.politics.org.cia ]
[ Author was Ralph McGehee ]
[ Posted on Sun, 08 Oct 1995 08:02:51 -0700 (PDT) ]
10/8/95
President Clinton
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Fax # 202 456 2461
Mr. John Deutch
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Fax # 703 482 6790
Mary Pecora
U.S. Office of Special Counsel
1730 M Street, N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036-4505
OSC File No. MA-95-2195
Before I am Arrested.
At the risk of being considered paranoid but in the hope that this
published letter might afford me some protection, or the basis for
a legal action, I note continuing efforts to stop me from posting
information from my data base about the CIA and its covert
operations.
It is obvious that commercial installations not only in Herndon
but in other areas of Fairfax County have a police "notice" on me -
the nature of which I do not know.
My last encounter with this occurred on Thursday, 5 October 1995 at
the Woodrow and Lothrop store at Fair Oaks Mall.I spent about an hour
looking around, then went to the exit nearest where I had parked my
vehicle. As I approached within a few feet of the exit, the alarm
bells went off. I, fearing a trap, veered away and avoided exiting
for some time - only to be confronted in a few minutes by a tall
female who got directly in my face. I assume had I gone through
the exit at a minimum I would have been seized and subjected to
a search - if not the planting of evidence.
Why doesn't the CIA, (I especially suspect the CIA's lobbying
organization the Association of Former Intelligence Officers as
also having a role in this harassment), take legal action against me
rather than harassing me? First, I challenged its early attempts to
censor CIABASE and won written approval to distribute CIABASE's
public domain information.
Secondly, to challenge me legally would give me and CIABASE
undesirable publicity. Here the danger is real, to demonstrate that
one person using a computer can effectively challenge and expose
covert operations, raises the possibility that many others, including
foreign governments, can do the same. The best way to handle the
problem for them is to discredit me by "shoplifting" arrests or
some other means - even this letter serves to bolster claims
of paranoia.
Actions I have taken. I have written letters, inter alia, to
President Clinton, the Director of the FBI and to John Deutch,
the Director of the CIA. After about a year of letters, the FBI
wrote and denied their involvement and suggested I direct my
concerns to the CIA. The CIA also responded in about a year and
denied any involvement. Lee S. Strickland, Chief, of the
Privacy and Classification Review, answered for the CIA and
said they would pursue my FOIA request - but this if it is
not assigned any priority, could take years.
The U.S Office of Special Counsel wrote on 6 October 1995, and
its letter states the CIA is exempted from its investigative jurisdiction.
If I did not write within 16 days it would close my file. This letter
is in part a response to that requirement - yes please advise me of
any additional rights I may have. Yes please do not close my file.
What seems so obvious is that an investigation could take a
few hours, query the Herndon police, the mayor, the Town Council,
commercial establishments, the Fairfax Police, or any one
of the numerous persons and installations I have cited in
earlier correspondence.
Addressees - please take appropriate action and advise me
re the above.
Ralph McGehee
422 Arkansas Avenue
Herndon, Va 22070
(703) 437 8487
--
Lisa Pease
----------
If we will not fight for the truth now - when our President has
been shot down in the streets and his murderers remain untouched by
justice - it is not likely that we will ever have another chance.
JIM GARRISON
Check out my web site at:
ftp://ftp.netcom.com//pub/lp/lpease/realhist.htm
-------------------------------
@@@
951016, Caracas, Venezuela, American Reporter. National guard
COCAINE CD IS LATEST TWIST IN SMUGGLING PLOYS
by Roy S. Carson
American Reporter Correspondent
CARACAS -- Venezuela's defense minister General Moises Orozco
Graterol has admitted publicly that "national territory is being used as
a bridge for drug trafficking" -- and his words were confirmed as he
spoke to a press conference here.
National guard officers seized 55 kilos (121 pounds) of
high-grade cocaine over the weekend and were immediately able to trace
it to the Cali cocaine cartel in Colombia as part of an original
shipment of 900 kilos (1,980 pounds).
Drugs police also busted a drug trafficking ring which used an
international overnight air courier service to send camouflaged compact
discs of cocaine to addresses in the U.S. and Canada.
Audacious smugglers had removed CDs from their covers to fill
the cavity with cocaine before putting on a new factory seal. It's
feared that thousands of discs may have reached U.S. destinations
before the ruse was discovered.
And Gen. Orozco Graterol has just returned to the capital from
an aerial survey of mountainous borderlands with Colombia aboard a
newly-loaned U.S. aircraft, specially equipped with sophisticated
equipment to detect illegal drug plantations.
It's the latest sign of cooperation between the Venezuelan
military and Washington, although the Venezuelans still refuse to let a
American pilots take the flight controls.
They say it's a matter of national sovereignty -- although
they're ready to take U.S. money, helicopters, radar and communications
equipment at no cost.
DEA sources say the Venezuelans don't understand that the high-
profile arrest and 10-year prison term in Florida given to Venezuelan
Brigadier Gen. Alexis Ramon Sanchez Paz and other high-ranking military
officers does little to bolster the State Department's or the DEA's
confidence in the nation's military.
It's well-known that the Colombian cartels have a stranglehold
on their own military, but the Venezuelan defense department also seems
less than willing to clean up its own act in the the face of widespread
allegations of deep-rooted corruption in its armed forces.
Apart from that, the Venezuelan justice ministry's director of
security, Army Maj. Edgar Alonzo Uzcategui, says there have been 49
recent attempts at escape from Venezuelan jails -- all financed and
manned by the multimillion dollar cross-border drug industry.
A case in point is the recent escape of 30 long-term convicts
from the state penitentiary in Tachira. They were all serving time for
drug trafficking; police say their escape was efficiently organized from
the outside.
DEA agents here, speaking to The American Reporter on condition
of anonymity, say it's a matter of perception, since while U.S.
administrations traditionally blame producer nations for exporting
cocaine, heroin and cannabis to the United States, South American
governments -- and Venezuela's is no exception -- see th U.S. drug
problem as the fault of the end-consumer, and want the United States to
foot the bill to get rid of the menace.
"The U.S. government seems finally to have understood that they
must fully cooperate in the destruction of the sources of drugs,"
Venezuelan Ambassador Leopoldo Taylhardat said, "but they must also
realize that until inside the U.S. they apply tough punishment to drug
dealers and consumers, and while there is a wealthy market for drugs,
nothing meaningful will be achieved by attacking the drug sources or the
distribution cartels."
"There is so much money involved that very strong action is
needed at the source and consumption ends, not to mention the
'speedways' and 'bridges' we [Venezuela] have become."
"Either that or legalize drug use," says the Venezuelan
ambassador. "Which one will come first?"
In vaguely related news from Buenos Aires, president Carlos
Menem's anti-drug secretary Alberto Lestrelle has caused a sensation in
a broadcast statement about Argentine lawmakers who sometimes sleep
through boring marathon night sessions in congress and are somehow able
to produce eloquent oratory at drop of a hat.
"Some legislators are half-asleep at night and suddenly explode
with great speeches," Lestelle told Radio Mire. "No doubt they go to
the bathroom and snort cocaine."
Meanwhile there are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding
the arrival today Monday in Bogota, Colombia, of PLO chairman Yasir
Arafat, who will also visit Brazil before heading to New York for the
United Nation's 50th Anniversary celebrations.
Colombian and Brazilian foreign ministry officials are saying
nothing officially, but there's widespread speculation in all political
and diplomatic quarters about the purpose of the visit.
-30-
(Roy Carson is South American Bureau Chief of The American
Reporter.)
-------------------------------
@@@
951017, Mena, AR, Orlin Grabbe. Operation Black Eagle, under
Allegations Regarding Vince Foster, the NSA, and
Banking Transactions Spying, Part XXX
by J. Orlin Grabbe
What do the Mena, Arkansas, and Fire Lakes, Nevada, airfields have
in common? The answer is they were both secure facilities run by the highly
classified National Programs Office (NPO). Other facilities were located at
Joppa, Missouri, and Iron Mountain, Texas.
President Ronald Reagan appointed Oliver North as the secret head
of this secret organization, and sometime in 1983, the NPO, which is
organizationally part of the National Security Agency (NSA), became the
effective administrator of a covert plan called Operation Black Eagle.
Operation Black Eagle became a network of 5000 people who made
possible the export of arms in the direction of Central America, and the
import of drugs from the same direction. According to Navy Lt. Commander
Alexander Martin (ret.), he, as an assistant to Major General Richard Secord,
worked closely with Oliver North, Richard Secord, Felix Rodriquez, and
Jeb Bush (son of Vice-President Bush) in the operation. Different aspects
of Black Eagle were consolidated under the office of the Vice President.
Martin himself admits to setting up fraudulent paper "investment
projects" through which the wealthy could donate money to the Contra cause.
They would "invest" in projects that didn't exist, and write off the investment
on a two-for-one basis.
But it is estimated that only 3 (three) percent of the money actually
found its way into the hands of the Contras. The rest of the money was
diverted to other purposes, and some of it still exists, stashed away in
hidden bank accounts in the U.S. and around the world.
For the next several years the importation of drugs into the U.S.
was largely a U.S. government monopoly, with the Drug Enforcement Admini-
stration (DEA) acting as the government's enforcer to eliminate any private
competition.
Not everyone who participated in the operation knew the full picture,
nor did they approve of what was going on. I talked to two pilots who used
to fly in and out of Mena airport, among other places.
Pilot A was appalled when he found out he was transporting cocaine.
Among other things, this was totally contradictory to an apparent "war on
drugs". Later on he grew more cynical, as he came to realize that the "war
on drugs" was precisely what made the whole operation so profitable, as well
as serving as a broad strategy for social control. Later on he was offered
a job transporting cocaine by the producers themselves.
"It was good money. They would pay a $100,000 a flight. They
would send out maybe eight planes at a time, and if only two of them got
shot down, the operation would still be profitable. So there was some
risk involved."
But he turned the job down. "You can't do business with those
people," he said. "I was used to working in an environment where if you
got into trouble, you kept your mouth shut. But in that environment if
anyone got into trouble, they would inform on anyone and blab about anything
they knew about. That was the risk I couldn't take."
Pilot B let everyone know in no uncertain terms that he wasn't
transporting any drugs, anywhere, at any time. "They were quite upset with
me for not going along." One day as he was about to fly out of Mena in
the direction of Florida, he became suspicious of the "equipment" cargo
he was transporting. He feared that not only was the cargo really cocaine,
but also that he was being set up to be busted because of his unpopular
view of things. He started prying into one of the wooden crates but was
warned off by Uzi-carrying guards. So he took off, dumping the entire
cargo (with *was* cocaine) all over the runway in the process, leaving a
white cloud behind him. He headed East and didn't stop till he arrived at
CIA headquarters to scream at Bill Casey.
"They still complain about the millions of dollars I cost them,"
he says, unrepentantly.
Operation Black Eagle was the basis for the diversion that became
known as the "Iran-Contra" affair, a term invented by Attorney General
Ed Meese, and obediently repeated *ad nauseam* by the news media. The
exposure of the sale of TOW missiles to Iran, which no one really cared about,
was intended to divert the attention of reporters toward the Middle East and
away from the official government importation of drugs into secured NPO
facilities.
In addition to facilities such as Mena and Fire Lakes which were
guarded by the Wackenhut Corporation, the operation involved sophisticated
electronics developed by NSA contractor E-Systems of Dallas, Texas, to
create electronic "holes" which would allow planes to cross U.S. borders
without tripping NORAD's Early Warning System. Or, if need be, to hide a
flight path from U.S. spy satellites.
The monetary logistics of this operation were overseen in part by
Vince Foster of the Rose Law Firm, using the financial software resources of
Systematics, Jackson Stephen's Little Rock software company. Vince Foster's
"NSA connection" involved an extensive knowledge of the NPO's management of
the flow of men and materials, money and drugs.
Today no one wants Operation Black Eagle exposed or talked about.
And that's one of the reasons investigations into the death of Vince Foster
have been quashed on every side. You might call it a massive outbreak of
National Insecurity.
---------------------------------
[The following interview with Lt. Commander Alexander Martin (retired) took
place on Tom Valentine's Radio Free America program on July 10, 1995.
Valentine's comments follow "Q" while Martin's follow "A".]
Q: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
A: I'm Alexander Martin of Iran-contra fame. I testified before the Kerry
committee and every single investigating committee in Congress from 1987
until 1990. I was the former employer, employee and subordinate of Major
General Richard Secord, a name familiar to people. In 1984, I was approached
by a representative of the good general with a mandate that I raise money
and form a series of corporations to raise money and legitimize flows of
money to what Oliver North described as "the cause" and what Secord described
as "the enterprise". That was a covert and illegal effort to support and
maintain a contra army within the border of Nicaragua.
Q: I've heard you were instrumental in much of this.
A: I don't know how instrumental I was, but I raised millions for these
boys.
Q: A lot of us have heard a lot about the so-called "Iran-contra" affair
which was very big in the media at one time, during the congressional
hearings, etc., but based upon what I know, I don't think the public really
knows the whole story. Do you think it has been clarified as to what
really did happen?
A: Of course not. Anyone who is in the people's government who is a politi-
cian obviously doesn't have a vested interest in telling the people the
truth. I'm going to try to tell the truth.
Q: You were a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy prior to your involve-
ment in the Iran-contra affair?
A: Yes, but I was retired from the Navy at the time I was brought into
what later became known as Iran-contra. That's when I became very closely
aligned with Richard Secord, Oliver North, Jeb Bush, Felix Rodriquez and a
whole panoply of people who essentially ran Iran-contra as it were.
[Q+A section on public's attitude omitted]
Q: I actually had somebody tell me recently that, in their words, "Iran-
contra was no big deal. They were fighting communism, weren't they?"
A: What became known as Iran-contra (and it was then-Attorney General Edwin
Meese who thought up the terminology) was the largest illegal covert
operation the government has ever undertaken. It involved nearly 5,000
people at one time, billions of taxpayers' dollars and egregious acts of
government which were illegal, including, obviously, the surreptitious
trafficking in arms and narcotics, as part of a state-sanctioned policy.
There has been great speculation in the press ever since the collapse of
Iran-contra about the CIA's sponsorship of narcotics trafficking to
generate covert revenues and the illegal trafficking of weapons, etc.
Q: There are still many who believe Iran-contra was not a government-
sponsored affair; that those who were responsible were part of a so-called
"rogue" operation by people who did it for their own profit.
A: To some extent, it's true. I've been asked about this before. There
were billions upon billions of dollars raised, ostensibly to support a
50,000-man rebel army in Nicaragua. And the money raised was certainly vast
resources beyond what was necessary to support that army. When Oliver
North, before the Kerry Senate hearing was asked by Senator Dan Inouye,
how much of those billions that the taxpayers were raped and pillaged for
actually went to support the Nicaraguan contras, North himself said in
public testimony that it was only 3 percent.
Q: Only 3 percent? That means 97 percent went somewhere else.
A: It went into people's pockets. General Secord certainly profited
handsomely. General John Singlaub and a host of others did likewise.
However, would it have been possible for these men to carry out such an
enormous conspiracy, to traffic in such enormous quantities of illegal
items, without the duplicity and complicity of the United States govern-
ment?
Q: I don't see how it would have been possible.
A: It would not have been possible, and it was not possible at the time to
do so. I think George Bush said it very well in an interview with Sarah
McClendon, the grand dame of the Washington press corps. When Bush consented
to an interview with Mrs. McClendon in June of 1992, he said on record, which
she printed in her newsletter that month, when she asked him about Iran-
contra and he said, (and I'm quoting from her newsletter): "If the people
were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets
and lynched." This was a public comment by George Bush.
Q: George Bush actually admitted that?
A: He said it and it was printed in Mrs. McClendon's newsletter in June of
1992.
Q: That's interesting since Bush just got reimbursed for his legal fees
arising from the Iran-contra affair. Could you refresh us as to the details
of Iran-contra from your unique vantage point as a participant?
A: Very simply put, what became known as Iran-contra was originally an
operational policy formulated by the director of central intelligence
William Casey, early in the Reagan presidency. It was codenamed "Operation
Eagle" at that time. It was essentially put on the shelf until 1983,
renamed "Operation Black Eagle", and Oliver North was brought into it at
that time. One of the first things Ronald Reagan did was to appoint lowly
lieutenant colonel Oliver North to be director of the then-secret National
Programs Office (NPO), an agency which, in 1983, was still very highly
classified.
Q: Who suggested North's appointment to Reagan?
A: CIA Director Bill Casey. North was his hand-picked fellow. As far as
Ronald Reagan's role in Iran-contra (which I'm often asked about), I have
only met him once in my official capacity. It was always my impression
that Ronald Reagan had the broad concept of establishing a "contra" (or
rebel) army inside Nicaragua to act as a ward against what he perceived to
be a spreading Red tide in Central America. But that is about all Reagan
thought and that is about all he knew, at least based upon what I was able
to perceive at the time. He didn't come up with the policy; he was not
kept informed in regular briefings. All Iran-contra initiatives were
ultimately consolidated under the office of Vice President George Bush
who was ultimately responsible for the initiation of policies. He was
fully apprised of virtually every operation.
Q: Bush told the public that he was "out of the loop".
A: In fact, it was Reagan who was out of the loop. Certainly that was my
perception at the time. It was CIA Director Casey's idea to consolidate
Iran-contra operations under the office of the Vice President so that they
wouldn't "stick out" so much, as it were.
Q: The contra operations are relatively simple to understand. But how did
Iran become involved in the picture?
A: The whole concept of "Iran-contra" is a misnomer. It was thought up by
Ed Meese, who went on national television the day after Thanksgiving in 1986
and told the American people that their government had been involved in an
illegal act: to wit, the sale of arms to Iran and a diversion of the profits
from those weapons to support the Nicaraguan contras. That's all Meese said.
The ruse of talking about "Iran-contra" was done to misdirect the media into
looking at the Iranian aspect of it and stay away from the contra and
Central American aspect of it. It was in the latter case that the real
political and legal liability for the government lay.
Q: And this is where the real profit lay as well.
A: Narcotics were not involved with the Iranian operations. The more egreg-
ious acts involving our government didn't relate to the sale of some $30
million in TOW missiles to the Iranian government. Frankly, no one cared
about it at the time.
Q: The left-learning Sandinistas government was in power in Nicaragua at
this time and Ronald Reagan wanted to drive them out. Congress did not.
A: As early as 1983 Congress was fighting aid to the contras. They were
afraid of another Vietnam-style involvement. We were facing a well-equipped
120,000 man Sandinista army, thanks to arms from the Soviets. Therefore
they appropriated very little money (less than $100 million) during 1983
to 1986. Even that, Congress stipulated, would only go to "civilian
materiel assistance." That is, non-weapons. However, as it turned out, as
Oliver North pointed out, it didn't work out that way, but that is what
Congress intended.
Q: Somebody is going to make a lot of money in any war.
A: As Richard Secord was fond of saying, "If you look up the word 'covert'
in the dictionary, you'll find a dollar sign next to it."
Q: You were part of the financial end of Iran-contra, setting up dummy
companies that handled money for the operation.
A: Effectively, I was "legitimizing" money for the operation. I would
set up an investment company, let us say oil and gas, which tends to be one
of the oldest of right-wing favorites, for the production of covert revenue.
I would be provided by Richard Secord with lists of very well-heeled
Republicans who were supportive of "the cause" (Iran-contra) and wish to
contribute money but could not do so insofar as it was an illegal action
of state. Therefore I would set up an investment which existed nowhere
else but in a file drawer and I would sell this investment product to these
"investors" and the money would wind up in the hands of Oliver North and
Richard Secord, ostensibly to support "the cause". When the fraud was
perpetrated in this act was on the U.S. Treasury, insofar as the money that
these people were supposedly investing they got to write off on a very
high-levered basis. Consequently the IRS was denied substantial revenues
that they should have received.
Q: How did people manage that since there is very little that is able to
be written off these days?
A: This was prior to the 1986 tax reform laws. These are 50 percent maxi-
mum tax bracket days. These are the days of many tax shelters, oil and gas
certainly being premier among them. Obviously if you had a very well-heeled
gentleman in the 50 percent tax bracket, and you could provide him with an
investment where he could write off his money on a two-for-one leveraged
basis, then after taxes, his so-called "investment" didn't cost him a dime.
And, as Oliver North used to remind me, he had the gratification of serving
America--certainly Oliver North's version of America. One reason I've been
speaking out is that I have to defend myself. Obviously, Oliver North has
criticized me publicly in the past, even on his radio talk show.
North has said, for instance, that by telling the American people
the truth about what he and other did that I am being "unpatriotic". That
is essentially what he has said in his criticisms of me. That it is
obviously "unpatriotic" to tell the American people the truth about what
their government has been doing to them, a truth that if the American
people ever fully realized what has been done to them and did something
about it, could--in North's words--"prove dangerous to the political order
of the state."
Q: Let's hope so. The political order of the state brought us Oliver
North an his scandal. Now if they had been able to solve the problem in
Central America, we might conclude that they had done a good deed. How
do you look at that?
A: The original concept, in my estimation, was noble. But after 1983 it
became twisted as those in the shadows of government recognized an oppor-
tunity to profit by this. They recognized that in the name of "patriotism"
they were able to rape and pillage banks, securities and insurance firms,
to traffic in illicit items, all in the name of profit, and nothing in
the name of patriotism.
Q: This was a secret, covert operation so they could virtually get away
with murder.
A: Absolutely correct. The government was forced endlessly to cover up for
fraud by people who were only marginally connected to Iran-contra operations.
Q: The rape of the savings and loans was all part of this tax scam, for
this covert operation (Iran-contra), which became a scam.
A: The best description of what Iran-contra became was said to me in a
conversation with Richard Secord in September of 1985. I told the general
that I was becoming nervous about the volume of activity that we had become
engaged in. I was concerned that if the American people found out that the
political repercussions would be enormous. I pointed out to him that the
vast amount of money being raised was far beyond what was necessary to sup-
port a 50,000-man army. It wouldn't have taken a tenth of what we were
raising.
Q: Where does the CIA's Mena, Arkansas drugs-and-arms smuggling operation
fit into all of this?
A: Mena was essentially the hub of Olive North's so-called guns-for-drugs
operations. It was drugs flowing north and guns flowing south. How Mena
actually came into existence was that Mena was actually a secure facility
of the National Programs Office in 1983. You will notice that all of the
facilities used in the weapons and narcotics transactions--that is, at the
well-known places mentioned in the press before, such as Iron Mountain,
Texas, the airfield at Joppa Missouri, the airfield at Fire Lakes, Nevada, etc.
had a common link in that they were all facilities controlled by the National
Programs Office, an office that could operate in extreme secrecy and initially
keep these sites extremely secure. That is how we got to Mena. Also at
Mena there were existing CIA facilities and you had an existing CIA
command structure: communications and logistics support. I was the first
person to reveal the names of the CIA support people on the ground at Mena.
Now Mena is coming back in the news. There is a move within some GOP
circles on Capitol Hill to bring it back. We have not heard the last of Mena.
Q: Are you not afraid for your personal safety in exposing all of this?
There have been a lot of "suicides" we've been hearing about and other
strange deaths related to all this.
A: Out of the roughly 5,000 of us who were originally involved in Iran-
contra, approximately 400, since 1986, have committed suicide, died
accidentally or died of natural causes. I knew every single person who has
died. In over half of these deaths, official death certificates were never
even issued. In 187 circumstances, the bodies were cremated before the
families were even notified. I am lying low, so to speak. I have been
forced to do so. ###
-------------------------------
@@@
951023, Philadelphia, PA, LA Times.
Corruption Scandal Rocks Philadelphia Police (Philadelphia)
By Stephen Braun
PHILADELPHIA Officer John Baird's reputation preceded him. When
he pounded on row house doors in his North Philadelphia patrol area,
hustlers and hard-working citizens alike grew nervous.
The word on the street was that Baird was a tough cop tough on
dealers flush with cash, tough on their hard-boiled friends and
families, tough on anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.
All Philadelphia now knows Baird's reputation. Its public airing
in recent weeks has staggered the city's criminal justice system and
shaken a police department that had hoped a decade of reform would end
years of episodic corruption scandals.
Andre Bonaparte ran when he saw Baird coming on a snowy day in
November 1987. Baird was faster. ``I told you never to run from me,''
Baird told Bonaparte, now 27, who had been arrested once on a drug
possession charge. Baird took out his regulation flashlight, Bonaparte
recalled, hammering at him until he bled. Thn Baird and his partner
drove Bonaparte to the 39th District station, producing evidence for
one more street arrest a tiny amount of cocaine Bonaparte insisted
was not his.
It was the standard whine of the perpetrator, but in this case, as
in too many cases in North Philadelphia, it happened to be true. Baird
was among a corrupt cell of uniformed officers in the 39th District
who shook down drug dealers, beating them, planting evidence and
trumping up charges against criminals and innocent victims, most of
them poor and black.
Indicted last February by a federal grand jury for violating the
civil rights of more than 40 Philadelphia residents and stealing more
than $100,000 in cash and property, Baird and five other officers have
pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at the end of the month.
Their admissions have overturned 60 criminal cases including
Bonaparte's and are threatening hundreds more, setting off legal
tremors inside Philadelphia's courtrooms and reinforcing longstanding
complaints in the city's poor, minority communities that police
corruption and abuse are out of control.
``There is an absolute tie between police corruption and brutality
and the racism of white officers,'' said City Councilman Michael
Nutter, who represents voters in some of the 39th Police District.
``This wouldn't have been tolerated in a working-class white
community.''
Just as former Detective Mark Fuhrman's taped confessions raised
doubts about reformers' ability to recast police culture in Los
Angeles, the yawning scandal in Philadelphia provides graphic evidence
that even a few ``rotten apples'' can negate years of systematic
police reform and cause epic damage to a police department's efforts
to control crime.
``It makes you wonder about every case you ever worked on,'' said
Bradley S. Bridge, a city public defender who is overseeing a review
of more than 1,400 criminal convictions based on recantations by the
corrupt officers.
Almost weekly, prisoners shuffle into downtown courtrooms, then
are freed by judges citing statements that 39th District officers
planted drugs, falsified police reports and rigged confessions. Some
of the defendants' stories sound like modern updates of ``Les
Miserables.''
One innocent victim, George Porchea, 27, served two years in jail
after drugs were hidden in an apartment he was visiting overnight.
Another, Betty Patterson, a 54-year-old grandmother, was imprisoned
for three years for selling cocaine. A housekeeper and devout church
parishioner, Patterson was out on parole when she learned in July
that Baird and two other officers had admitted planting narcotics in
her row house before she was arrested.
The officers' crimes were uncovered by Philadelphia investigators
and federal agents in 1991 after Arthur Colbert, a Temple University
student, swore out a complaint against Baird for beating him. It was
the 23rd complaint against Baird in his 14-year career. All had been
dismissed by internal investigators as unfounded.
``People in the neighborhood constantly complained about these
cops,'' said Margaret Boyce, an attorney for Porchea and Bonaparte.
``And it wasn't just the druggies. Everybody knew to steer clear of
them.''
Police and prosecutors admit innocents were caught up in the
corrupt officers' schemes. But they insist that most of those arrested
were career criminals who are now being freed or cleared of old
charges on legal technicalities.
(Begin optional trim)
``Guilty people are walking free because bad cops cut corners,''
said Capt. Frankie Heyward, a 30-year police veteran who took over the
39th District in the wake of the growing investigation.
Silent for years, poor residents of the 39th District are now
coming forward with tales of mistreatment by local officers. ``A lot
of them said nothing because they thought nothing would be done,''
Heyward said. ``They figured the code of silence would keep everything
under wraps.''
A veteran reformer, Heyward is a black officer who served with Los
Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams in Philadelphia's park police
force in the 1960s. Brought in after the 39th District's commanders
were purged, Heyward now has two daunting tasks ahead of him
reassuring the community's suspicious residents while reminding his
150 patrol officers that any hint of corruption and brutality will be
dealt with sternly.
[yeah, right! -amp]
Weeding out bad cops has been a longstanding weakness of the
Philadelphia force. Corruption scandals have erupted regularly since
the 1950s, not only during the reign of Frank ``Il Bambino'' Rizzo,
the department's no-nonsense chief and later Philadelphia mayor, but
also throughout the reform years that followed.
Williams was Philadelphia's commissioner for over three years
until he won the Los Angeles job in April 1992. It was under Williams
that Baird and his colleagues made dozens of their now overturned
arrests. Despite his reputation as a reformer, Williams is now being
second guessed for allowing the scandal to grow unchecked on his
watch.
(End optional trim)
High-ranking Philadelphia police officials have said little
publicly about the latest scandal and with good reason it is still
growing. Federal agents are combing through old cases in other city
police districts and probing former Philadelphia cops now working for
the state Highway Patrol.
Some critics say that Philadelphia's new wave of corruption, like
similar scandals plaguing police departments this year in New York and
New Orleans, indicate that police reform is being mismanaged or
allowed to flag after being declared a success.
``Reforms don't penetrate and they don't stick if the supervisors
from the upper levels down into the station houses aren't made
accountable,'' said Temple University criminal justice professor James
Fyfe.
But at least one former high-ranking Philadelphia police official
maintains that the latest scandal occurred simply because some
officers always manage to ignore even the most well-intentioned
reforms.
``These officers are truly evil,'' said Thomas Seamon, who
recently left his job as deputy police commissioner to take over
security at the University of Pennsylvania. ``No matter what controls
you put into place, there are always some who fall victim to
temptation and bitterness.''
Andre Bonaparte came away from his two years in prison where he
earned a high school equivalency degree thinking the same thing.
Despite the fact that three old convictions are now overturned and he
has won a fresh start, Bonaparte's pulse still throbs every time a
police car passes by.
``There's still cops out there screwing peoples' lives up,'' he
said. ``It's gone on for years and it ain't about to stop now.''
... Ethernet (n): something used to catch the etherbunny
-----
DARRYL SHULER - ONE OF MANY FRAME UP VICTIMS OF PHILLY'S 39TH.
When Darryl Shuler returned home in 1989, he found 3 cops who claim
they had a search warrant for his home. They entered his home,
cuffed and arrested him. According to Mr. Shuler, the cops
ransacked his home and took $17,000 cash his father had saved and
claimed that they had found a bag of cocaine. In later months, 6
cops of the 39th. District, including those who arrested him, were
indicted on Federal corruption charges including the conducting of
illegal searches, planting evidence and lying under oath. Almost
every case in the indictment involved Black or Latino suspects.
Thus far, 56 drug convictions have been overturned and authorities
are reviewing 1600 arrests between 1987 and 1994. 10 lawsuits have
been filed and 20 more people state that they plan to sue. While
charges against Shuler were dropped, he states that the police
never returned the $17,000 that he alleges was taken. Mr. Shuler
states that the situation in the 39th. is so bad that many
residents run when they see police coming rather than risk
harassment.
Mr. Shuler has joined with 9 other individuals and the Philadelphia
NAACP and the Police-Barrio Relations Project in a class action
suit against police officers and the City of Philadelphia which
contends that systemic racism is rampant in the Philadelphia Police
Department. The suit aims to end a "historic pattern of police
abuse" toward minorities. The suit is being filed by the
Philadelphia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. For
the ACLU, Stefan Presser comments: "We feel a moral obligation to
see that the Federal courts will be part of the forum about the way
policing is done in this country, even in 1995." We thought
policing the way it has been done here ended in 1955." Mr. Presser
states that the suit aims to prove that white Philadelphia police
routinely treat whites and minorities unequally. The also suit
names Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell, Police Commissioner
Richard Neal. It contends that city officials have been
"deliberately indifferent to the pattern of abuse and
unconstitutional conduct that has become an integral part of
policing in Philadelphia."
In support of the charges, the complaint cites a 1985 police
operation at 70 street intersections in minority neighborhoods
supposedly designed to halt drug peddling. In one week, 1500
people were detained or arrested, almost all of them Black or
Hispanic. The ACLU obtained an injunction against the operation
and successfully sued the city for $500,000 on behalf of the 1500.
The complaint also cites a 1988 police search for a man who was
sexually assaulting women. As part of their investigation, "scores
of Latino citizens" were arrested or detained and the ACLU
successfully sued the city for $50,000. Mr. Presser states that
the lack of a response to dozens of citizens complaints of police
misconduct demonstrates a "mindset for discrimination" and
"indifference to the racial consequence of police behavior."
Another plaintiff in the case Keith Scott states "The public has
to know that nobody is above the law. I'm a young Black man but
that makes me no worse than a white man with a badge."
------------------------------
@@@
951023, Washington, DC, The White House Press Secretary.
Document-Id: PDI://OMA.EOP.GOV.US/1995/10/23/10.TEXT.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release October 23, 1995
TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:
Pursuant to section 204(b) of the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1703(b) and section 301 of the National
Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1631, I hereby report that I have exercised
my statutory authority to declare a national emergency in response to
the unusual and extraordinary threat posed to the national security,
foreign policy, and economy of the United States by the actions of
significant foreign narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia and to
issue an Executive order that:
blocks all property and interests in property in
the United States or within the possession or
control of United States persons of significant
foreign narcotics traffickers centered in
Colombia designated in the Executive order or
other persons designated pursuant thereto; and
prohibits any transaction or dealing by
United States persons or within the
United States in property of the persons
designated in the Executive order or other
persons designated pursuant thereto.
In the Executive order (copy attached) I have designated four
significant foreign narcotics traffickers who are principals in the
so-called Cali cartel in Colombia. I have also authorized the Secretary
of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the
Secretary of State, to designate additional foreign persons who play a
significant role in international narcotics trafficking centered in
Colombia or who materially support such trafficking, and other persons
determined to be owned or controlled by or to act for or on behalf of
designated persons, whose property or transactions or dealings in
property in the United States or with United States persons shall be
subject to the prohibitions contained in the order.
I have authorized these measures in response to the relentless
threat posed by significant foreign narcotics traffickers centered in
Colombia to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the
United States.
Narcotics production has grown substantially in recent years.
Potential cocaine production -- a majority of which is bound for the
United States -- is approximately 850 metric tons per year. Narcotics
traffickers centered in Colombia have exercised control over more than
80 percent of the cocaine entering the United States.
Narcotics trafficking centered in Colombia undermines dramatically
the health and well-being of United States citizens as well as the
domestic economy. Such trafficking also harms trade and commercial
relations between our countries. The
penetration of legitimate sectors of the Colombian economy by the
so-called Cali cartel has frequently permitted it to corrupt various
institutions of Colombian government and society and to disrupt
Colombian commerce and economic development.
The economic impact and corrupting financial influence of such
narcotics trafficking is not limited to Colombia but affects commerce
and finance in the United States and beyond. United States law
enforcement authorities estimate that the traffickers are responsible
for the repatriation of $4.7 to $7 billion in illicit drug profits from
the United States to Colombia annually, some of which is invested in
ostensibly legitimate businesses. Financial resources of that
magnitude, which have been illicitly generated and injected into the
legitimate channels of international commerce, threaten the integrity
of the domestic and international financial systems on which the
economies of many nations now rely.
For all of these reasons, I have determined that the actions of
significant narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia, and the
unparalleled violence, corruption, and harm that they cause in the
United States and abroad, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat
to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United
States. I have, accordingly, declared a national emergency in response
to this threat.
The measures I am taking are designed to deny these traffickers the
benefit of any assets subject to the jurisdiction of the United States
and to prevent United States persons from engaging in any commercial
dealings with them, their front companies, and their agents. These
measures demonstrate firmly and decisively the commitment of the United
States to end the scourge that such traffickers have wrought upon
society in the United States and beyond. The magnitude and dimension of
the current problem warrant utilizing all available tools to wrest the
destructive hold that these traffickers have on society and governments.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
October 21, 1995.
# # #
------------------------------
@@@
951103, Albany, KY, Kathy Bergman.
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 95 16:50:00 UTC 0000
From: k.bergman@genie.com
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: What the WOD is really about
Message-ID: <199511031723.AA021579429@RELAY1.GEIS.COM>
When Punishment is So Harsh that Forfeiture seems Incidental:
(I received this information in a telephone conversation with
Michelle Avery last night, and have attempted to repeat what she
told me, the best I can. Any mistakes made in dates, names and details
are mine.)
On September 26, 1995, in a federal courthouse in Bowling Green,
Kentucky, John Paul Avery, 56, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, was
sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. That same day, his
daughter Michelle received a 10 year sentence and his daughter
Sherri was told she will be spending the next six and one-half
years away from her children as a prisoner of the United States of
America too.
Approximately two weeks later, Michelle Avery's husband, Ricky
Daniels and his friend, David Tapley, were sentenced to five years
and two and one-half years respectively, much less than the family
they testified against. And, as unbelievable as it seems, the
Averys are paying the price for crimes they knew nothing about.
Here is their story:
On February 17, 1994, Daniels and Tapley were busted in a surprise
raid on an underground marijuana growing operation located on 50
acres that belong to the Averys near Albany, Kentucky. Then, in
order to keep from serving long prison sentences, Daniels and
Tapley agreed to testify against the Averys, including Daniels'
own wife Michelle. Tapley also agreed to wear a wire tap in an
effort to obtain evidence that could be used to indict John Paul
and his two daughters. Apparently Tapley was successful, as he
claims he has received $10,500.00 from the federal government for
his efforts, and a fairly light sentence, considering he and
Daniels were arrested with 1,276 marijuana plants and 35 pounds of
harvested marijuana.
Michelle Avery has since divorced Daniels, and says she told him
after she was indicted, that she could have blown him to pieces all
over their front yard and received a lesser sentence than the
marijuana charges would likely bring.
John Paul Avery left the Bowling Green courtroom on Sept. 26 and
spent the next two weeks in a local jail, awaiting his trip to a
federal facility. He is now in the U.S. Medical Center, at
Springfield, Missouri. He is not doing well.
Both Michelle and Sherri have been confined to house arrest since
their sentencing. They are waiting to learn which prisons they will
be sent to, and are allowed to spend only eight hours a week
outside their homes. Each night they receive a phone-call
generated from Colorado, checking to see if they are at home.
Daniels and Tapley, although also awaiting prison assignments, are
not under house arrest. Michelle claims there is some doubt
whether Tapley will actually go to prison.
Any day now, when the women are sent off to pay their debt to
society, they will be leaving three children behind. Luckily,
there is a grandma Avery who the children can live with, but she
will have her work cut out for her. Michelle's daughter is nine
and has hydro-cephaelis, so wears a shunt to drain brain fluids.
She is unable to walk and cannot care for herself. Although Sherri
is married, her two young children will be staying with their
grandmother also. As I was speaking to Michelle last night, I kept
thinking, over and over, you CAN'T go away from your little girl
that needs you so much for ten years. You just CAN'T. But she
will.
Michelle told me that neither she or Sherri testified during their
17 day trial, although she felt she should. "You'll go to prison
if you take the stand," her attorney told her. During the
sentencing hearing, Judge Thomas B. Russell had the women take the
stand so he could speak to them, however. Michelle said Russell
badgered them, saying things like, "there is no way you could not
have known about the growing operation." I wonder, was he trying
to justify the federal mandatory minimum sentence he was handing
out? We'll never know.
They DIDN'T know of the hidden grow room though, Michelle says.
And, she says, of the 120 fingerprints found, none belonged to the
sisters, and only one belonged to their father, and that was on a portable
piece of equipment. All the other fingerprints belonged to Daniels
and Tapley.
The Averys were tried together before the same jury, in a case that
took 17 days. Nine of the jury members were women. There were an
awful lot of good looking men in uniform testifying against them, Michelle
chuckled to me. Prior to the trial, she said, details of the bust and
speculations about the growing operation dominated the local tv
stations and newspapers. Although they (Michelle and her father)
own only 50 acres, by the time it hit the newspaper, the farm was
a 250 acre spread. And, a new home that John Paul and his wife
were building at the time of the bust was referred to as a
"marijuana mansion" in the newspapers, inferring that the money to
build the home came from selling marijuana.
In fact, the Averys lived for more than 20 years in a "basement"
home, saving for the day they could build their own, nice house,
with earnings from the family business, Twin Lakes Drilling, an oil
drilling company with one oil rig. Michelle did the books for her
father's business, part time.
Although Sherri was indicted on three counts, Michelle remembered
that when the jury came back from deliberations, they had convicted
her on four counts! The record had to be corrected of course, to
reflect the actual three counts.
In order to send John Paul Avery away for a good long time,
according to Michelle, the government needed to prove he was guilty
of a continuing criminal enterprise. To do this, she said, they
needed to show that he had been a crime boss, of sorts, over at
least five other people. So, Tapley testified that in fact there
were five people under Mr. Avery: himself, Daniels, Sherri and
Michelle and up until three months before the bust (when he died in
a freak accident while repairing his vehicle), the girls' 34 year
old brother, who lived on the 50 acre farm. Michelle believes that
her brother probably was involved in the growing operation; in fact
she says he was so clever that he probably designed and built the
underground grow-room himself. But, she is convinced her father,
like she and her sister, knew nothing about it. Since her brother
was a bachelor, it was quite easy for him to do things that no one
else knew about, except Daniels and Tapley, who were part of the
operation, of course.
The day that law enforcement agencies came with a search warrant,
three helicopters and between 75 and 130 men participated in the
raid, according to Michelle, including DEA agents and some local
police and sheriffs.
Michelle and her mother arrived home during the bust, to find a
fire engine, ambulance, doctor and paramedics stationed outside
their lane. They were scared and questioned why they were there,
knowing that injuries can happen around an oil rig, and remembering
it had only been three months since Michelle's 34 year old brother
had been crushed under his vehicle.
The paramedics responded "the law is up there and told us to be on
standby".
Instead of an oil-field accident, however, Michelle found her
husband and Tapley in handcuffs, and dozens of men searching the 50
acres and eventually, her trailer home and her parent's basement
home on adjacent properties. That day, only Daniels and Tapley were
arrested, but it didn't take them long to try to push the blame
onto the Averys as a means to keep from spending life in prison.
It was not enough for the federal government to criminally charge
this family, though. They also want to take away their
property. Civil charges have been filed against the land and
several vehicles. That case is pending, Michelle says.
Consider: five people were convicted on various counts for running
a large scale marijuana growing operation. Two of those people
pled guilty to lesser charges and testified against the other
three, in a successful attempt to lessen their prison sentences.
Is it right that our laws allow a husband who commits a crime to
implicate his wife to save is own ass? Is society any better off
now that John Paul Avery is sitting in his wheel chair in Missouri,
his medical bills being paid for by taxpayers? Does it make sense
to take mothers away from their children, and lock them up for the
rest of their kid's childhood years? What are the chances these
children will go on to lead productive lives now? How long before
the government is paying for their care also, since the next thing
on the government's agenda is them forfeiting their home?
I do not believe society is being well-served here; especially when
you consider that the men who pled guilty at the expense of two
innocent women and their crippled father, will do little if any,
time at all. What kind of system is this for heaven's sake?
This family does not belong in prison, and I'm mad as hell that
they are being sent there! There must be a better, wiser way to
punish mothers and fathers, so that their children don't get
punished also. Is it really so very important to our country to
fight this "war on drugs" that we throw away all compassion in the
name of Justice? I truly do not think I can stand to hear another
story like this. There MUST be something we can do to put a stop
to this NOW.
Kathy Bergman
Forfeiture Endangers American Rights
(F.E.A.R.)
------------------------------
@@@
951104, Washington, DC, Reuter.
Bribe Reportedly Admitted in Noriega Trial
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that a key
witness in the drug trafficking trial of Panamanian dictator Manuel
Antonio Noriega may have been bribed into testifying by the Cali drug
cartel, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
The disclosure of an alleged payoff of $1.25 million was made in the
government's written response to Noriega's demand for a new trial, the
newspaper said.
Lawyers for the former general charged two months ago that prosecutors
entered into ``a secret deal'' with the Colombian cartel to convict
Noriega, the Post said.
Noriega is serving a 40-year sentence for allowing Panama to be used as
a major way station for cocaine shipments to the United States during
the 1980s.
The Post said that federal prosecutors, in their response to the new
trial request, disclosed that an unnamed informer told agents with the
Drug Enforcement Administration in September, that the cartel paid the
witness, Ricardo Bilonick, $250,000 in cash the day before Noriega
surrendered to U.S. authorities in Panama.
In addition, the informer told them the cartel placed $1 million in
certificates of deposit in Bilonick's safety deposit box in Panama, the
newspaper reported.
Another informer, also unnamed, confirmed the outlines of the alleged
payoff, according to the prosecutors. Nonetheless, they denied that the
allegations were sufficient grounds for a new trial.
The Post said prosecutors stressed that the bribe was only an
``allegation'' at this point. Bilonick, in his own written deposition,
denied receiving any reward, monetary or otherwise, from the Cali
cartel, the newspaper said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Sussman Oakland University SBA WWW Administrator
djsussma@jupiter.acs.oakland.edu
http://sba_server.sba.oakland.edu/staff/djsussma/djsussma.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Subject: Noriega Motion Denied
Posted dadoner@chesco.com Thu Mar 28 08:57:34 1996
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Mar/28/national/NORI28.htm
>
> [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
National >
> Thursday, March 28,
1996 >
> New trial is ruled out for Noriega
>
> By Catherine Wilson
> ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
> MIAMI -- Former Panamanian leader Manuel Antonio Noriega is not
> entitled to a new trial, even if Colombia's Cali cocaine cartel
> bribed a key witness to surrender and testify against him, a
federal > judge ruled yesterday.
>
> Defense attorneys argued last month that Noriega's trial was
tainted > by witnesses with ulterior motives -- one who allegedly
took $1.25 > million in cartel bribes and another who said he was
promised a > greatly reduced prison sentence.
>
> But U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler, who presided over the
> trial and retrial hearing, sided with prosecutors who argued that
> none of the flaws claimed by the defense would have changed the
> jury's verdict.
>
> Despite losing the retrial motion, defense attorney Jon May said
> yesterday that the hearing proved the government won its case by
> fraud.
>
> ``To the extent that the world will no longer view this verdict
as > legitimate, Gen. Noriega has already won,'' he said.
>
> But a member of the prosecution team that put Noriega in prison
said > the former strongman ``was grasping at straws.''
>
> ``The assertion that there was any wrongdoing by the government
was > hogwash,'' said Myles Malman, who is now in private practice.
>
> Noriega was convicted in Miami in 1992 after being captured in
1990 > during the U.S. invasion of Panama, and is serving a 40-year
> sentence for protecting U.S.-bound cocaine flights by the Cali
> cartel's rival, the Medellin cartel.
>
> The defense contended that two crucial witnesses against Noriega
> would have lost their credibility if jurors had known about their
> alleged motives.
>
> The disputed testimony came from Ricardo Bilonick, who co-owned
a > cocaine-smuggling airline with Medellin leader Pablo Escobar,
and > Carlos Lehder Rivas, an imprisoned Medellin kingpin.
>
> Two informants from the Cali cartel testified that Bilonick was
> bribed to testify against Noriega.
>
> Lehder said that in exchange for his testimony against Noriega,
he > was promised a 30-year sentence in place of a term of life
plus 135 > years. Noriega's prosecutors said any deal was outside
their > jurisdiction.
>
> The ruling now becomes a part of the appeal file before the 11th
> U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
@@@
951124, Washington, DC, US Dept of Justice.
US JUSTICE DEPT. 1993 MISCONDUCT COMPLAINTS UP 78% OVER 1992
A report of the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) shows
a 78% increase of misconduct complaints against Department of
Justice attorneys and assistant US Attorneys in 1993 over the
number of such complaints in 1992. 20 Justice Dept. attorneys quit
during investigations of misconduct allegations against them in
1993. Between 1985 and 1991, there were only 22 such resignations.
In the late 1980s, a series of major prosecutions in Florida,
California, Illinois and other states were derailed after federal
judges criticized the professional conduct of prosecutors. Only
10% of the 1993 complaints were the result of charges brought by
defense attorneys. 49% of complaints came from within the
department, 24% from individuals and 3% from judges.
The OPR report also noted that 20 FBI employees were dismissed and
another 53 resigned during an OPR inquiry, and that during 1992,
23 employees were dismissed and 39 resigned or retired. 5 DEA
employees were criminally charged and 5 were fired in 1993 compared
to 6 charged and 14 fired in 1992.
951125, Washington, DC, Dept of Justice. Federal convictions of
From: rmz@computek.net (Bob Ramsey)
Here are the (estimated) yearly figures for FEDERAL CONVICTIONS
OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS: 1970-1988. I made them by reconstructing
the graph with MS EXCEL, tweaking the numbers until the resulting
graph matched the book's chart as nearly as possible. The book
is THE ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION, by Mark Thornton. It refers to
USDoJ "Report to Congress on the Activities and Operations of the
Public Integrity Section"
I'd like to see the actual numbers, and also the numbers for
years before 70 and after 88. If anyone can post them, please
do.
To me this chart ought to be a real eye-opener for both sides in
the WoD. The black-market forces that corrode governments around
the world are dissolving integrity at home also. Money is a
temptation that will corrupt more people than any other "drug".
The accompanying text explains: 'The "function" of corruption is
to facilitate transactions when control over transactions has
been delegated to government.'
1970 40
1971 105
1972 150
1973 185
1974 220
1975 182
1976 380
1977 445
1978 410
1979 555
1980 550
1981 725
1982 670
1983 960
1984 910
1985 1000
1986 1030
1987 1085
1988 1065
@@@
951205, Mexico City, Wayne Mann. In today's (Nov 25) issues of
From: Wayne Mann
In today's (Nov 25) issues of El Financiero and La Jornada, two
of Mexico City's most influential daily papers, it is reported that
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Mexican ex-president and now
member of the board of directors at Dow Jones, along with his
father and brother, maintained extensive joint business operations
with Juan Garcia Abrego, one of Mexico's top drug traffickers. In
earlier reports, Mr Salinas' net worth had been estimated at
between $10 and $25 Billion dollars, in spite of his
comparatively miserly $400,000. salary as president.
It is worth asking why the DEA and FBI waited so long to leak
this information, when they now claim that this business
relationship goes back decades, to when Salinas' father was
Mexican Secretary of Commerce over two decades ago. What
relationship did Salinas have with the Bush administration,
during which the FBI and DEA certainly knew of the Salinas
family's large-scale cocaine trafficking and money/laundering
activities? What relationship is there today with the Clinton
administration, in particular with Treasury Secretary Rubin, who
with Salinas masterminded the large-scale Mexican financial
fraud of 1994, and subsequent bailout of Mexico. Where is the
money that disappeared in Mexico, requiring massive amounts of
US taxpayer supplied money? How much of it is in the Salinas
Clan's hands? How can Salinas move about freely in the US when
the FBI and DEA accuse him of being a drug trafficker and large-
scale money launderer?
What role do Dow Jones and Citibank play in this affair? The
former was responsible for the deliberate circulation of a
Mexican coup de etat rumor in Wall Street circles recently, and
the latter helped Raul Salinas, the ex-president's brother, launder
"hundreds of millions of dollars" according to El Financiero.
How can Dow Jones, once a prestigious Wall Street Institution,
now allow alleged drug traffickers and money-launderers on its
board of directors? How does the presence of Salinas on the
Dow-Jones board influence the firm's policies? Does his
enormous financial and political muscle cast a long, dark shadow
over Dow Jones' more modest board members?
While it is clear to all that the Mexican Government and the
Revolutionary Institutional Party (a non-sequitur at best) that has
controlled it for nearly seven decades are practically synonymous
with Mexican organized crime, it is fair to ask how much
influence their American counterparts have in the US federal
government, including the White House, the Department of
Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Armed Forces.
The Mexican Armed Forces are widely held to be in charge of
protecting drug plantations in Mexico and in providing security
to Cocaine transshipments from South America. Are similar roles
played by their American counterparts in the US?
\\/ayne //\ann
If we taxed every single person in the US worth $500,000
and up at 100% tax rate, it would not pay for the federal
government's operations for three days. (CBO, 1993)
-------------------------------
@@@
951202, Naples, Italy, AP. Roger D'Onofrio, 72, former CIA
agent, is arrested in Sicily on charges of money laundering and
trafficking in arms, drugs, and radioactive materials.
AP Reported on 12/2/95
American Arrested In Probe
NAPLES, Italy (AP) -- An American believed to be a former CIA agent was
arrested Saturday in an arms trafficking and money laundering investigation,
police said.
Roger D'Onofrio, 72, was the 19th person arrested in the probe, police
official Vincenzo Vacchiano said. Raids in recent weeks brought arrests in
Sicily, Rome and northern Italian cities.
D'Onofrio, a native of Italy, lived several decades in the United States
before returning to Italy in 1993, Vacchiano said. Italian police believe he
worked for the CIA for years and helped the agency open Swiss bank accounts to
pay its operatives, Vacchiano said.
D'Onofrio was charged with criminal association aimed at laundering money,
illegal financial transactions, and trafficking in gold and diamonds, Vacchiano
said. Naples prosecutors looking into the alleged money laundering planned to
question him Monday.
Police have said the Vatican bank may have been used to process some of the
alleged illegal profits, and want to question Barcelona's archbishop, Cardinal
Ricard Maria Carles, about whether he knows of any money laundering.
Last month, the cardinal denied any such knowledge, and the Vatican said
allegations about the cardinal and the Vatican bank were unfounded.
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6 Num. 65
======================================
("Quid coniuratio est?")
-----------------------------------------------------------------
VATICAN BANK MONEY LAUNDERING RING SUSPECTED
============================================
A Reuters wire service story (Sat, 2 Dec 1995 8:50:06 PST) and an
Associated Press wire service story (Sat, 2 Dec 1995 17:00:06
PST) both tell of a suspected Vatican Bank money laundering ring.
According to Reuters, the allegations have been highlighted by
the arrest Saturday, December 2nd, of a 72-year-old retired CIA
agent, Roger D'Onofrio, near Naples, Italy. It is suspected that
D'Onofrio "used his CIA contacts to help an international ring
launder money and traffic in arms, drugs and radioactive
materials." The Associated Press story adds that Italian police
have linked him to various Swiss bank accounts.
Also implicated in the affair has been Cardinal Ricard Maria
Carles, the archbishop of Barcelona, Spain. Articles in Italian
and Spanish newspapers have charged the Cardinal with helping
supervise "the laundering of some $65 million in lire into
dollars through the Vatican bank." Although both Cardinal Carles
and the Vatican have denied these allegations, Prosecutor Alfredo
Ormanni casts doubt on their denials: he says that an Italian
financial expert, Riccardo Marocco, in a wiretapped telephone
conversation, specifically named Cardinal Carles "as the Spanish
contact for the money laundering ring."
Chicago researcher Sherman Skolnick adds additional elements to
the story. He says that not only have they grabbed the ex-CIA
agent, but that, according to foreign journalists he has talked
to, D'Onofrio "has confessed that he is the head of a team that
[has done] the work arranging the money laundering on behalf of
the Mafia and the CIA through the Vatican Bank, and that his team
were the ones that poisoned [the late Pope] John Paul I."
Skolnick is pursuing leads that may show a link between the
arrest of D'Onofrio and the tragic assassination recently of
Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. The Chicago investigator
says that Israeli journalists have confided in him that Israeli
intelligence appears to be behind D'Onofrio's arrest. States Mr.
Skolnick: "My Israeli sources claim that the Mossad is gloating
over it; that they arranged it because of this thing about the
Pope and this whole business I was telling you about." [See CN
6.45 at ftp.shout.net pub/users/bigred for background.]
Now looking into what he sees as a possible Chicago-Israel-Italy
connection to the Rabin assassination, Skolnick questions an
under-reported visit to Chicago this week by Ariel Sharon, a
prominent Israeli. Why was Sharon in Chicago? Was it just to give
a speech, as reported? Or was there another reason?
Why too, wonders Skolnick, was Jonathan Pollard's father also in
Chicago this week?
Mr. Skolnick, editor of Hotline News (312-731-1100) and co-host
of a highly popular public access cable TV program in Chicago,
admits that this is a story he is still at work developing.
Still, one wonders why the American press hasn't paid more
attention to at least some aspects of it -- at least to the
arrest of the retired CIA agent and the charges of Vatican Bank
money laundering. Says Skolnick: "If there was an honest press,
you know how *big* that story would be?
Senior CIA Official Arrested In Naples!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Confesses He's Part Of Team That Poisoned The Pope!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And Has Been Doing The Money Laundering on
Behalf of the Mafia and the Vatican Bank!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That should make headlines! Nothin'. It's on National Public
Radio. And even the story on National Public Radio was not
complete."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
@@@
951209, Fairmont, WV, AP. State Police crime lab chemist Fred
Zain is cleared of felony perjury charges of fabrication of
evidence. Texas wants to try him now, again on evidence
fabrication.
Ex-Crime Lab Head Acquitted
FAIRMONT, W.Va. (AP) - A former police chemist accused of
botching dozens of cases that sent at least six innocent men to
prison was cleared Friday of the last of three felony perjury
charges.
Circuit Judge Rodney Merrifield found a lack of evidence to
support a retrial on the charge related to Fred Zain's testimony
in a 1991 double-murder trial.
Zain was previously acquitted of two other perjury charges, but
a jury deadlocked on this charge last March. He was to be retried
in January.
Officials said they don't believe they can further prosecute
Zain, although he still faces charges in two Texas cases.
``It's always horrible when any of us feel that justice hasn't
occurred, particularly in a case like this where the allegations
are so sensational and so horrifying,'' said Bill Forbes, a
prosecutor whose office appointed a special counsel for the case.
A 1993 state Supreme Court report concluded that Zain's work as
head of the state police crime lab could not be trusted. A panel
examined 36 of the thousands of cases he handled and found evidence
of fabrication in all.
The four innocent men have been freed by retrials or dropped
charges. Judges across the state continue to look at more than 70
cases to determine whether Zain's work was relevant to their
convictions.
Two men also have been freed in Texas, where Zain worked in the
Bexar County medical examiner's office from 1989 to 1993. He
continued to assist West Virginia authorities even after he left.
Zain was not in the courtroom Friday and did not immediately
return a message left through his attorney, Arthur Ciccarello.
``This whole matter has cost him his job, his career, his home and
it almost cost him his family, and to have three counts of an
indictment not supported by evidence, it's pretty hard to take,''
Ciccarello said.
Ciccarello said the whole process has been a ``witch hunt'' for
a person who is not a ``DNA expert and never held himself out to
be one.''
Questions about Zain's work arose in 1992 after the
convictions of a man in two sexual assaults were overturned based
on genetic testing. He was only charged in the 1991 case because
of a three-year statute of limitations on perjury.
AP-NY-12-08-95 2224EST
------------------------------
@@@
951209, Sheriff Is Convicted
MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) - A former sheriff accused of taking bribes
to protect marijuana growers and an illegal gambling operation was
convicted Tuesday on racketeering charges.
J.W. Trapp, sheriff of southern Oklahoma's Choctaw County from
1989 until he resigned in October, faces up to 20 years and a
$250,000 fine. He was released on bail until his sentencing, which
wasn't immediately set.
Trapp was convicted of soliciting tens of thousands of dollars
in bribes from marijuana growers and a night club owner who
operated a dice game and sold alcohol without a license.
A club owner testified that Trapp charged $400 a week for
protecting a craps game, then raised the rates when business was
booming. Another witness said Trapp asked him for $20,000 to
protect his marijuana operation.
After more than two weeks of testimony, jurors deliberated more
than three hours before returning their verdict.
``I'm disappointed,'' Trapp said outside the courthouse. ``My
attorney and the judge did all they could do. The judge is the
fairest I've ever seen. I've got nothing bad to say about them.''
AP-NY-12-05-95 2342EST
-------------------------------
@@@
951209, Mexico City, Los Angeles Times. Mexico and all seven
Operation Unidos: Mexico, Central American countries join forces
MEXICO CITY - Mexico and all seven Central American countries have
carried out what a U.S. official Friday called the biggest
multinational counternarcotics blitz in history, a ten-day operation
enlisting the Mexican army, navy and police forces.
The operation seized more than five tons of cocaine, nearly forty tons
of marijuana, two aircraft, six ships and more than 650 alleged drug
traffickers in Mexico alone.
In unveiling the operation, confirmed Friday by Mexican authorities,
U.S. officials also said the Drug Enforcement Administration played a
key "support" role in the crackdown, dubbed Operation Unidos.
Friday, officials on both sides of the U.S. border agreed that the
quantity of drugs confiscated during the operation was less important
than the unprecedented level of multinational cooperation.
@@@
951212, Canberra, Australia, Extracted from The Canberra Times.
A policeman who cared for children at police service "Blue Light Discos" was
filmed secretly, ordering a child sex pornographic movie, watching X-rated
videos and engaging in oral sex with a woman who gave him cocaine, ecstasy and
cannabis.
Detective Sergeant Wayne James Eade, former head of the Gosford drug unit and
father of teenagers, told the police Royal commission yesterday that he was
not corrupt.
Sergeant Eade, who was suspended last night without pay, covered his eyes as
the first of four videotapes was played, showing him - evidently drunk - with
a "friend" who had let her home be bugged. His visits, in August and
September, usually ended with sex (edited out).
At his first appearance at the commission in September, he had described the
woman as an informant who gave valuable information on drug traffickers, but
when she was shown trying to give him information on how the ST Triad at
Cabramatta was spreading heroin to the Central Coast, he ignored her and
pressed for sex.
Apart from his initial shock, he seemed unflappable as he was grilled all day
by Commissioner Wood and counsel assisting, Virginia Bell, about the tapes.
Ms Bell: "You have been confronted today with evidence ... that is
damning."
Eade: "Agreed."
In the surveillance film of August 27, GDU7 is seen telling him, "I'll see if
I can get that kid's movie too by the end of the week," and on September 12,
"Now listen, as these kids' porno movies go ... $150 okay? And I can't do any
deals for that ... if you want one of those, I'll have to fork out 150 bucks."
Eade: "I can afford it."
On August 30 she says she has information about "a big heroin job for you -
bloody massive ... You know the Triad in Cabramatta ... are you listening to
me at all?"
Eade: "I'm listening."
GDU7: "Are you interested in the job or not?"
Eade: "Yeah, I am, of course I am. Come on."
GDU7: "Can you just wait a minute ... I'm talking to you about
something very important."
Eade: "I am too."
GDU7: "Yes, your [penis is] very important, can you just wait for ...
get off!"
On September 7: "You put any on that and I won't ..."
At this point of the viewing, Ms Bell suggested, "GDU7 was telling you that
you were not to place any of that cocaine on the tip of your penis."
Eade: "That's how I'd construe that conversation."
Extracted from The Canberra Times, 12 December 1995
------------------------------
@@@
951221, Minneapolis, MN, Star Tribune. Stanley J. Capistrant,
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 96 17:13:00 UTC 0000
From: j.paff1@genie.com
To: fear-list@svpal.org
Subject: Cops dipping into loot again
Message-ID: <199601011722.AA189266950@RELAY1.GEIS.COM>
ANOTHER ILLEGAL DIP INTO THE FORFEITURE FUNDS
According to the Minneapolis _Star Tribune_ of December 21 and 22,
1995, a veteran city police narcotics officer is under
investigation for stealing nearly $200,000 from the city's asset
forfeiture trust fund. Stanley J. Capistrant, the officer under
investigation, handled the forfeited funds for the past six years.
According to police captain Stephen Strehlow, the forfeiture fund
accounting system has "built in checks" to prevent embezzlement.
Unfortunately, no one had monitored the accounting records for
years, and it wasn't until a recent audit that anyone realized that
the cash was missing.
Narcotics unit supervisor Bernie Bottema, who was "devastated" by
the incident, partially attributed the embezzlement to the brisk
business the city's forfeiture squads were doing lately. He was
quoted as saying, "When the seizure business started, it probably
could have been handled by one person on a book. But it became too
much for one person to handle."
The FBI and U.S. Attorney were called in to investigate, because it
was felt that the Hennepin County Attorney's office, which would
ordinarily conduct the investigation, may have a conflict of
interest since that office receives a share of the city's forfeited
funds.
A 1989 analysis of the forfeiture fund by the city's Budget and
Evaluation Division had found several "severe trouble spots" in the
procedures for handling seized and forfeited cash and property.
According to an internal audit that followed the Division's report,
cash receipt were not numbered, leading the auditor to conclude
that the procedure "appears to be an opportunity for an officer to,
for example, seize $1,000, list that amount on one form and give a
copy to the suspect, then prepare a second form stating that the
seized amount was only $500 and pocket the balance."
Unfortunately, the city elected not to implement all the financial
safeguards recommended by the Division and the auditor.
==end
------------------------------
@@@
951222, Cuyahoga County, OH, NewYork Times. Cuyahoga County,
Date: Tue Dec 26, 1995 11:46 pm CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Ohio Dope Dealing Judge
Posted: Bob Witanek 12/26/95
OHIO JUDGE PLEADS GUILTY TO DOPE DEALING CHARGES
Cuyahoga County, Ohio Judge Michael Gallagher faces up to 20 years
in prison, $1 million in fines and loss of his law license after
pleading guilty to federal cocaine distribution charges. He was
arrested on August 3 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents.
Gallagher, who supports drug legalization, once said "Anyone who
uses drugs is an idiot, but I do not feel it is an illegal matter."
(Source: New York Times, 12/22/95)
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Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 12:01:31 -0800
From: mregen@ix.netcom.com (Marnie Regen )
To: DRCTalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Pro-Decrim Judge Pleads Guilty to Drug Charge
Message-ID: <199512272001.MAA02261@IX11.IX.NETCOM.COM>
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A county judge who favored legalizing drugs yet said
only an idiot would use them has pleaded guilty to distributing
cocaine.
Michael Gallagher, 39, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court. He
faces as much as 20 years in prison, a maximum $1 million in fines and
the possible loss of his law license.
He was released on bond and ordered to report to a substance abuse
program.
``Judge Gallagher has confronted his problem and looks forward to the
day when he can once again make a positive contribution to society,''
said his lawyer, Mark Marein.
Gallagher, who was elected to the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in
1990, has no listed telephone, so he could not be reached for comment.
Gallagher was arrested Aug. 3 when he invited an undercover Drug
Enforcement Administration agent to snort a line of cocaine during a
drug deal at the judge's home, federal officials said.
The Ohio Supreme Court will determine his future as a judge and lawyer
after sentencing, which has not been set. He was suspended from the
bench at the time he was charged.
Asked once during a newspaper interview whether he had used drugs,
Gallagher responded, ``Let's say it's been a long time, and make any
implication you want to. Anyone who uses drugs is an idiot, but I do
not feel it is an illegal matter.''
Gallagher was elected despite a Cleveland Bar Association poll in which
94 percent of respondents rated him ``not recommended.''
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 15:26:47 GMT
From: adbryan@onramp.net (Alan Bryan)
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Judge sentenced for drug distribution
Message-ID: <199603211437.IAA00255@MAILHOST.ONRAMP.NET>
Wed, 20 Mar 1996:
>
> CLEVELAND, March 20 (UPI) -- A former Cuyahoga County Common Pleas
>Court judge was sentenced Wednesday in Cleveland federal court to a one-
>year prison term for distributing cocaine.
> Michael Gallagher previously pleaded guilty to the charge he
>distributed the drug to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
> U.S. District Court Judge Lesley Wells also fined Gallagher $20,000
>and ordered him to serve three years supervised probation after his
>release from prison.
> Last summer, the U.S. Secret Service, the DEA and the FBI received
>information Gallagher was engaged in the use and distribution of
>cocaine.
> During the investigation, the judge met with a DEA agent who, unknown
>to Gallagher, was acting undercover.
> At the meetings that took place at Gallagher's Lakewood home, the
>judge reportedly discussed his cocaine use, and was observed using crack
>cocaine with another person.
> The undercover agent reported Gallagher told him he could obtain the
>drug for him, and that the DEA agent overheard Gallagher talking with
>other people about buying cocaine.
> Closure came to the investigation when, as a test, Gallagher offered
>cocaine to the agent. Gallagher had received tips from suspected drug
>dealers that the person meeting with the judge was a DEA agent.
[adb--was the judge nuts or what?]
> The agent said the judge wanted to see whether the agent snorted the
>white powder.
> Once the cocaine was offered to the agent, the sitting county judge
>was arrested by FBI agents.
------------------------------
@@@
951227, Los Angeles, CA, LA Times. The Los Angeles County
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 14:47:51 GMT
From: Jim Rosenfield
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Drug War Continues to Corrupt L.A. Sheriffs Dept
Message-ID: <199512271447.OAA15771@HOLLYWOOD.CINENET.NET>
Dear LEOs:
Found this in this morning's L.A. Times. Not unlike many, many other such
stories this past year. Could this corruption of our noble public servants
have anything to do with the dreadful failure of the War on Drugs?
Apparently this
is not a *rare* phenomenon, but consistent with and endemic to drug prohibition.
***************************************************************************
Couple accuses Sheriff's Department of planting evidence.
Ex-deputy says she was harassed into resigning because of her
protests. Her deputy husband contends minorities were targeted.
By KENNETH REICH, Times Staff Writer, 12/27/95
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, beset in recent
years by charges of racial discrimination and harassment, was
accused Tuesday of falsely arresting and routinely planting
evidence on minority group members in heavily black and Latino
communities.
"It's happening every day," eight-year deputy Michael G.
Osborne asserted at a news conference to announce a legal claim
against the department. Osborne, who is on paid leave for stress
disability, said he has seen it happen in the Firestone,
Lynwood, Compton and Willowbrook communities, all patrolled by
deputies.
Osborne's wife, Aurora Alonso Mellado, a five-year deputy who
resigned last Friday, filed the damage claim against the county
and the Sheriff's Department, charging that she was harassed and
forced out after she alleged that her training officer, Deputy
Jeffrey Jones, had planted narcotics on suspects. At the news
conference, she said that the incident involved two black
suspects and that she was asked to write false reports against
them.
In her claim, Mellado says that in seven weeks of being
trained by Jones as a patrol deputy last summer, she found that
he was "engagingyin illegal activities, including planting
evidence, using throwaway guns, transferring drugs, assaulting
and battery of civilians, and violating of suspects' civil
rights." Such claims, if rejected by the county, are usually
followed by lawsuits.
Since she first made the allegations to department officials,
Mellado and Osborne said at the news conference, both have
repeatedly received death and other threats directed at them and
their two small children from people they believe to be
department employees who have access to their unlisted home
telephone number and address.
The race-related allegations are reminiscent of testimony by a
lead prosecution witness in a string of federal cases in recent
years involving drug money skimming. Robert R. Sobel testified
that as a former sheriff's sergeant in Lynwood and nearby
communities, he frequently arrested African Americans who were
simply walking the streets and had committed no crime. Sobel
later acknowledged in court lying more than 100 times in his
testimony in such cases.
The Sheriff's Department, which videotaped Tuesday's news
conference, made only a brief statement about the allegations.
Capt. Jeff Springs, Sheriff Sherman Block's chief spokesman,
said: "When the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department became
aware of the allegations, an internal investigation was
initiated. Because that investigation is still active and our
department has not formally received the complainant's claim, it
would be inappropriate at this time to discuss the specifics of
the case."
Jones is on leave and efforts to reach him Tuesday through the
department for comment were unsuccessful.
Mellado, Osborne and their attorney, James H. Davis of Los
Angeles, said they have been informed that on Nov. 14, Sheriff's
Department investigators asked the district attorney to file
three criminal charges against Jones in
connection with Mellado's complaints against him. They said
the district attorney has made no decision on whether to act.
A spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said the office
could neither confirm nor deny whether charges were pending
against Jones.
She added, however, that it was not uncommon for weeks to pass
before a decision is made on whether to file charges. "Sometimes,
further investigation is required, so it can take a long time,"
she said.
Mellado and Osborne said it has been made clear to them by
investigators that if charges are filed against Jones, she will
be a principal witness against the deputy.
What has angered them, they said, is that when the death
threats began, including threats to her well-being at the
sheriff's pistol range where she was temporarily assigned, they
could not persuade sheriff's investigators to take action to
protect them.
Osborne said both now believe that as perceived "snitches"
they have no future in the department.
"If we require deputies to report misconduct of other
deputies, then we must protect those who make the complaints,"
said their attorney, Davis.
Osborne said that in his three years at the Century Station,
fake drug arrests were very common, most always against
minorities, and that one reason is that deputies get overtime pay
when they are required to testify in such cases.
Osborne said both now believe that as perceived 'snitches'
they have no future in the department.
Jim Rosenfield
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tel: 310-836-0926 fax: 310-836-0592
jnr@cinenet.net
cis: 103034,352 http://metro.turnpike.net/~jnr/
------------------------------
Date: Fri Dec 29, 1995 2:13 am CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: LA Sheriffs: Evidence Planting Alleged
From: Bob Witanek
Subject: LA Sheriffs: Evidence Planting Alleged
Posted mnovickttt Wed Dec 27 22:14:20 1995
From: Michael Novick
Subject: evidence planting by la sheriff's deputies
Ecidence-Planting Claims
Probed
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two sheriff's deputies have accused their
co-workers of routinely planting evidence on black and Hispanic
suspects, an accusation that the sheriff said Wednesday was being
investigated.
``It's happening every day,'' said Deputy Michael G. Osborne,
an eight-year veteran on paid leave for stress disability.
The allegations were made Tuesday by Osborne and his wife,
Aurora Alonso Mellado, a five-year deputy who resigned last week.
She claimed she was harassed and forced out after she accused her
training officer, Deputy Jeffrey Jones, of planting narcotics on
suspects.
The couple filed a legal claim against the county sheriff's
department. Such claims, if rejected by the county, are generally
followed by lawsuits.
Mellado said she was asked to write false reports on two
suspects and regularly saw evidence planted during seven weeks of
patrol training. Jones is on paid administrative leave and could
not be located for comment.
Osborne said fake drug arrests, largely of minorities, were
common. He said many deputies make such arrests because they get
overtime pay when they have to testify.
``I certainly cannot say that the allegations are not true,
because I don't know,'' Sheriff Sherman Block said at a
newsconference. ``In fact, that's why the district attorney now
has the matter before them as to whether or not they'll proceed
with criminal prosecution.'' There are 8,110 deputies in the
sheriff's department.
AP-NY-12-27-95 1947EST
Copied from the PRODIGY(R) service 12/28/95 00:28
12/28/95
DRUGS: Evidence-planting case goes to D.A. Sheriff
confirms that officials will investigate deputy accused of framing
minorities. He also denies assertions by former officer that department
ignored accusations.
By KENNETH REICH, Times Staff Writer
Sheriff Sherman Block confirmed Wednesday that the case of a
deputy accused of planting drug evidence on minority group members in
heavily black and Latino communities has been submitted to the district
attorney for possible prosecution.
But the sheriff denied the assertions of another deputy who
resigned last Friday, Aurora Alonso Mellado, that she had brought
allegations that the deputy had planted the evidence to the attention of
superiors first herself.
Block asserted at his monthly news conference that it was a
supervisor who overheard a conversation about possible improprieties by
Deputy Jeffrey Jones and then asked Mellado, whom Jones had been
training, about them.
Block also contested assertions by Mellado and her husband,
an eight-year deputy on stress leave, that they had provided
documentation to Internal Affairs investigators of death threats they
said they had received since the investigation began.
Mellado, a five-year deputy, and her husband, Michael G.
Osborne, stood firm on their assertions in interviews Wednesday. They
insisted that Mellado had reported alleged unlawful conduct by Jones
before any supervisor asked her about it, and that they had documented
written threats.
At a news conference Tuesday, Osborne accused sheriff's
deputies of routinely planting evidence on minority group members.
Mellado, meanwhile, also announced the filing of a legal damages claim
in which she said she was harassed and forced out of the department
after she told authorities that Jones had planted narcotics on suspects.
Such claims, if rejected by the county, are usually followed
by lawsuits. Mellado has been granted criminal immunity for her
testimony against Jones, but the district attorney's office has not yet
decided whether to prosecute him.
Answering a barrage of questions on the matter, Block said he
was aware that discriminatory treatment of minorities exists in his
ranks, but added: "I believe there are very few people in this
department at any level who will knowingly tolerate that kind of
activity. "When you say minorities are targeted in an area, the area
[Firestone, Lynwood, Compton and Willowbrook] is about 100% minority, so
it's hardly a targeting issue," Block said.
"If you're asking me if deputy sheriffs ever engage in
inappropriate conduct," the sheriff continued, "I'd be a fool to say it
never occurs.
"But I'm also secure in saying that when it is determined
that such behavior does occur that we move very aggressively in dealing
with it."
Mellado and Osborne had suggested during their news
conference that a "code of silence" exists in the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department that not only keeps deputies from reporting
wrongdoing by other deputies but also leads to threats against those who
do.
In their case, they said, it resulted in threats against them
and their children after the allegations against Jones surfaced.
They said the department had done little to inquire into or
stem the threats.
Block responded Wednesday: "I don't think there is such a thing
as a 'code of silence,' but I would be less than truthful if I didn't
believe that there were people that on occasion saw things that they
knew were improper and rather than reporting it as they should decided
for reasons best known to them that they would not."
When this happens, Block went on, the reputation of the
department is "tarnished" and "everybody's badge is just a little duller
because of that kind of activity."
Block said the couple had been given equipment to record
threats phoned into their home. However, no evidence of such threats
has been returned to investigators, the sheriff added.
Mellado later countered that she submitted copies of certain
written threats to a departmental investigator as early as late August.
As for Block's assertions that the department had questioned
her about Jones' conduct before she made allegations of wrongdoing,
Mellado said she had made the allegations to a former supervisor and to
a sergeant who was her supervisor at the time. Her husband also said he
told another supervisor -- all before she was first questioned Aug. 18.
Block, who said at his news conference that Mellado had filed
false reports on Jones' drug arrests and therefore also was implicated
in wrongdoing, responded late in the day:
"To date, and until the investigation reveals otherwise, it
appears that Ms. Mellado did not initiate a report to her supervisors
or anyone else in her chain of command."
Copyright Los Angeles Times
Copied from the PRODIGY(R) service 12/28/95 00:48
@@@
960102, Urbandale, IA, The Des Moines Register. Urbandale Police
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 19:41:55 -0600
From: carlolsen@dsmnet.com (Carl E. Olsen)
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Subject: DARE cop busted for meth
Message-ID: <9601030141.AA20249@DSM7.DSMNET.COM>
The Des Moines Register, Tuesday, January 2, 1995, Page 1A
DRUG POSSESSION CHARGE
Urbandale officer arrested in D.M.
'Scores' of sex-oriented items are also found in the van driven by police
veteran James Trimble.
By MICHAEL McNARNEY
Register Staff Writer
James R. Trimble, Urbandale police officer and school liaison officer
for the Urbandale district, was arrested early Monday for allegedly
possessing methamphetamine with the intent to deliver.
Also found were "scores" of sex-oriented pictures and letters. No
charges relating to those had been filed by Monday night.
Trimble, an 18-year Urbandale police veteran, will likely be suspended
until the investigation is completed, Urbandale Police Chief David Hamlin said.
Trimble, 43 was pulled over by Des Moines police about 4 a.m. in the
600 block of Clark Street. In a police report, Officer Steven Kees said,
"There was a substantial amount of what appeared to be meth in the van.
Besides Trimble, of 501 Second St., West Des Moines, a woman with him
in the van was also aressted: Lorrie K. Breiholz, 34, of 433 S.E. Phillip
St., No. 106, in Des Moines. Both were charged with possession of narcotics
with the intent to deliver them.
Wife Is Arrested, Too
Trimble's wife was arrested six hours after he was when police raided
their home. Robin Lynn Trimble, 41, was charged with possession of
narcotics. A police report of the search alleged she was in possession of
marijuana.
Trimble's mother, Beverly, let police search her home at 7213 Palm
Drive in Urbandale. They found nothing. Police said the van Trimble was
driving, which belongs to his mother, was circling a neighborhood north of
downtown when Breiholz was seen by police not wearing a seat belt. They
said when Trimble pulled over, he made movements toward the center of the
van "as if he was trying to hide or reach for something."
Trimble got out of the van and walked toward officers, and he did not
get back in the van as ordered. The police report said he was "extremely
nervous."
While Trimble was detained in a police car, he told Kees that he was an
Urbandale police officer. Officers found a substance in the van, and a
field test indicated that it was methamphetamine. Des Moines police also
called Hamlin, Urbandale's chief, to tell him what happened.
In a telephone interview Monday night, Hamlin said he was shocked when
he got the news.
"He had a good work record, a good reputation with the department,"
Hamlin said. "I found it rather stunning to hear about it."
Hamlin said he had not consulted with the city attorney, but he said he
intends to suspend Trimble pending further investigation. "At that time,
I'll determine his long-term status," he said.
Hamlin said Trimble had been the school liaison officer for five years.
"I had no idea," Superintendent Tom Davis said of the news Monday. He
referred questions to school attorney Jeff Krausman.
Krausman said officials could not comment because Trimble is employed
jointly by the school district and the city.
Trimble was active in D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), an
anti-drug education program. "We don't just teach kids what drugs look
like," Trimble said in a 1992 interview. "We teach life skills needed to
say no to drugs, alcohol and tobacco.
Trimble was being held at the Des Moines City Jail Monday night. Bond
was set at $19,500.
******************************************************************
* Carl E. Olsen * carlolsen@dsmnet.com *
* Post Office Box 4091 * http://www.calyx.com/~olsen/ *
* Des Moines, Iowa 50333 * Carl_E._Olsen@commonlink.com *
* (515) 262-6957 voice & fax * 73043.414@compuserve.com *
******************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 23:48:43 -0800
From: "Carl E. Olsen"
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Cc: evans@calyx.com
Subject: DARE cop busted for meth #2
Message-ID: <30EB865B.5A57@DSMNET.COM>
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
-----------------------------266471058114054
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--
******************************************************************
* Carl E. Olsen * carlolsen@dsmnet.com *
* Post Office Box 4091 * http://www.calyx.com/~olsen/ *
* Des Moines, Iowa 50333 * Carl_E._Olsen@commonlink.com *
* (515) 262-6957 voice & fax * 73043.414@compuserve.com *
******************************************************************
-----------------------------266471058114054
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The Des Moines Register, Wednesday, January 3, 1996, 1A
'I feel we have to be more careful of who we put in charge of
your kids.'
-- Brad Van Horn, parent
Shock, anger follow arrest of policman
Urbadale youths looked up to James Trimble, who encouraged them
to lead responsible, drug-free lives.
By STEPHANIE ARMOUR
Register Staff Writer
Urbandale, Ia. -- For years. Angie Van Horn believed her
basketball coach was dedicated to keeping kids off drugs.
Now the 15-year-old doesn't know what to believe.
Early Tnesday morning, her parents told her that James R.
Trimble -- an Urbandale police officer and long-time coach -- had
been arrested. The liaison officer with the Urbandale school
district is charged with trafficking in marijuana and
methamphetamine.
Police also say Trimble -- found with a sexual device
insented in his body -- was driving around with scores of sex-
oriented videotapes and pictures, including photos of himself. A
Des Moines woman was arrested with him.
"I looked up to him as a teachcr," Angie said of Trimble,
who had been the ninth-grade girls' basketball coach. "He would
tell us not to do drugs and what they can do to you, I'm kind of
angry, because he was teaching me not to do that kind of stuff."
Angie's not alone. Parents, students and co-workers who
know Trimble expressed anger and shock at news of the arrest.
Trimble. an 18-year veteran of the Urbandale force, coached
ninth-grade girls' basketball and volleyball. He also was an
officer with the district's Drug Abuse Resistance Education
(D.A.R.E.) program.
"A Hollow Spot"
Family members also said they were stunned.
"I just have a big hollow spot," said his mother, Beverly
Trimble. "I'm too upset. Until I have a chance to talk to my
son, I have no comment. If you would let this subject drop, it
would give the family some peace."
Starting today, the Urbandale district will launch a "crisis
plan" -- holding group meetings and visits with counselors to
discuss Trimble's arrest.
In light of some of the sexual material found with Trimble,
administrators said they will probably talk with students to see
if anyone felt uncomfortable with, or was threatened by, the
officer.
Trimble has been suspended by the police department and the
school district.
As a D.A.R.E. officer, he was one of several police members
who would talk to young people about staying off drugs. The 17-
week program is aimed at fifth-graders.
He was described as a somewhat tempermental basketball coach
who would cheer at football games and sit in on drug-abuse
panels. His daughter is a student in the Urbandale school
district.
"People Are In Shock"
"A lot of people are in shock," said Urbandale Police Chief
David Hamlin. "He had a good background and devoted the last
five years to working with young people. It makes it more
difficult to understand."
But some parents said they don't understand why Trimble was
working with kids in the first place.
"We're very surprised and upset at the school system," said
Brad Van Horn, Angie's father. "I feel we have to be more
careful of who we put in charge of your kids. It stands to
reason you can trust a police officer."
Some said they were troubled by the sexual smorgasbord
discovered with Trimble.
He had "all kinds of sexually explicit" material, said Des
Moines police Sgt. Bill Judkins. Police said Trimble had a
sexual device connected to a battery pack inserted in his body.
School officials described Trimble as "very actcve" in
student activities, although not at the elementaty level.
"We are shocked and saddened by this," said Len Cockman, an
Urbandale school spokesman.
But some said there should be few surprises when it comes to
methamphetamine.
"Quite frankly, I can tell you we've been involved in
investigating every race, every nationality, almost every
occupatIon you can think of," said Des Moines police Lt. Russell
Underwood. "Now there's a police officer, which is devastating."
SCHOOL ROLES
Urbandale officer James Trimble was involved in:
* Coaching ninth-grade girls' basketball and volleyball in the
Urbandale school district.
* Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., as a school
liaison officer.
* Quest, a program at Urbandale Middle School that aims to build
character and values.
-----------------------------266471058114054--
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 1996 00:14:43 -0800
From: "Carl E. Olsen"
To: drctalk@calyx.com
Cc: carlolsen@dsmnet.com
Subject: DARE cop busted for meth #3
Message-ID: <30EB8C73.5438@DSMNET.COM>
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
-----------------------------918787919148
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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--
******************************************************************
* Carl E. Olsen * carlolsen@dsmnet.com *
* Post Office Box 4091 * http://www.calyx.com/~olsen/ *
* Des Moines, Iowa 50333 * Carl_E._Olsen@commonlink.com *
* (515) 262-6957 voice & fax * 73043.414@compuserve.com *
******************************************************************
-----------------------------918787919148
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
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The Des Moines Register, Wednesday, January 3, 1996, 1A
Trimble's wife accuses him of domestic abuse after dispute
He is ordered to stay away from his spouse after allegedly
threatening to kill her and himself in a dispute hours before his
arrest.
By TOM ALEX
Register Staff Writer
An Urbandale police officer arrested on drug trafficking
charges is also facing a charge of domestic abuse.
James R. Trimble threatened to kill his wife and then commit
suicide early New Year's Day, according to a no-contact order
issued Tuesday in Polk County District Court. The order was
issued after police said Trimble's wife turned up at the West Des
Moines police station, saying she had been the victim of domestic
abuse.
Under the order, Trimble must stay away from his wife, Robin
Lynn, until Jan. 24.
The incident is said to have occured two hour's into 1996
and about two hours before James Trimble was arrested by Des
Moines police.
Trimble, 43, an 18-year veteran of the Urbandale department
who has been active in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program (D.A.R.E.), was arrested early Monday. Police said they
found a little over 7 ounces of methamphetamine -- $20,000 worth
-- in the van he was driving.
He was charged with two counts of possession of narcotics
with intent to deliver and with a tax stamp violation.
Authorities said he also had sexually explicit videotapes
and pictures when Des Moines police pulled him over in the 600
block of Clark Street. He has been suspended from his work with
the department and the school.
A Des Moines woman with Trimble also was arrested: Lorrie
Breiholz, 34, of 433 Philip St. was charged with possession of
narcotics with the intent to deliver. Police said Trimble
apparently picked her up at Seventh Street and College Avenue
earlier in the morning.
Police said they did not show a prior arrest record for
Breiholz and did not say how she came to be in the car.
Police raided the Trimble home at 50l Second St., West Des
Moines, hours after the arrests. Robin Lynn, Trimble's wife, was
charged with possession of narcotics after a "dime size" amount
of marijuana was found, police said. She was later released.
According to the report filed by Trimble's wife, he
allegedly grabbed her by the arms during an argument and left a
bruise the size of a quarter on her upper right arm.
Meanwhile, Urbandale Police Chief David Hamlin said officers
were checking to see whether any confiscated drugs held for court
cases were missing from evidence lockers.
Hamlin said that Trimble, who until Monday headed the five-
officer drug prevention unit, has been entrusted in the past with
the task of destroying illegal narcotics by burning them.
As with any pollee officer on the department, Trimble was
hired only after an extensive background check, Hamlin said.
"Regardless of the procedures you set up, if an officer
wants to be crooked there's a way to do it," Hamlin said.
At a news conferenee Tuesday, Des Moines police Sgt. William
Judkins described the arrest as traumatic.
"I feel badly for the image of the police department,"
Judkins said.
No charges were filed in connection with the "large amount"
of sexually oriented photographs and videos police said they
found on Trimble. Judkins, noting that Trimble has been a school
liaison officer in Urbandale, made a point of saying none of the
pictures or videos included anyone of school age.
Following an initial appearance Tuesday in Polk County
District Court, Trimble was released from the Polk County Jail
under the county's pretrial release program. He is scheduled to
appear in court on the two drug counts on Feb. 6.
THIS ARTICLE includes a report from Register Staff Writer
Stephanie Armour.
-----------------------------918787919148--
------------------------------
@@@
960105, Newark, NJ, Star Ledger. Police Officer Darrell
Date: Fri Jan 05, 1996 12:35 am CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Newark, NJ - Cocaine Positive Cop Dis Overturned
Posted by Bob Witanek 1/4/96
JUDGE ORDERS OVERTURNING OF NEWARK, NJ COP DISMISSAL DUE TO
POSITIVE COCAINE TEST
Administrative Law Judge Ken Springer ordered the reinstatement and
reimbursement of back pay, benefits and legal fees of a Newark
Police Officer who was dismissed from his job after testing
positive for cocaine. Officer Darrel Armstrong was ordered to have
a drug test after missing an average of 40 days per year between
1991 and 1993. The judge stated that the police can not order a
drug test simply on the basis of missed days for work. An attorney
for the city of Newark stated that the city will appeal the
decision. Armstrong tested positive for cocaine in April of 1994
and was fired after an administrative hearing in July of 1994, The
cop claims he testified that his wife had put cocaine in his juice,
unbeknownst to him, to relieve pain he suffers from a work related
injury. Armstrong stated that it was due to the injury that he had
taken so many days off. Up to 10 Newark police officers have been
fired for testing positive for drugs in recent years according to
a city attorney. Many of those cases will not be effected by this
decision, because the fired cops failed to appeal within 45 days.
The attorney stated that he is awaiting a decision in the case of
another dismissed cop, Michael Gugliotta, as he expects to handle
others. If this decision is allowed to stand, it could have
implications for other police departments, as well as for other
public workers, throughout NJ. (Source: Star Ledger, 1/3/96)
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960105, New York City, NY, NY Times. Police Officer, Steven L
Date: Fri Jan 12, 1996 10:39 pm CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: NYPD - 'Dirty Thirty' Perjury Conviction
Posted Bob Witanek 1/12/96
'DIRTY THIRTY' PERJURY CONVICTION - NY Times, 1/5/96
Still declaring his innocence, a former police officer from the
corruption-plagued 30th Precinct in Harlem was sentenced to three
months in prison for testifying falsely about a drug arrest. "I am
neither a corrupt cop nor a rogue cop nor a Dirty 30 cop," said the
officer, Steven L. Pataki, who fought to control his emotions as
his Hungarian-immigrant parents looked on sadly. Justice Sheila
Abdus-Salaam of State Supreme Court in Manhattan told Mr. Pataki,
32, she had agonized over the sentence because she believed him to
be a good person. But while she rejected a request by the District
Attorney's office for a long sentence, she said she also thought
that some jail time would make the point that police must not commit
perjury. The judge noted that one defendant in the case in which
Mr. Pataki gave false testimony spent three years in jail. Of 33
officers from the northwest Harlem precinct arrested since March
1994 on corruption charges, 17 were charged with perjury. Mr.
Pataki's lawyer, Bruce Smirti, told the court that his client was
an innocent man who had become a Kafkaesque victim. Mr. Smirti
said that Mr. Pataki was never linked to any of the more serious
crimes in the corruption case, like drug trafficking, but instead
was convicted of lying under oath by two witnesses who Mr. Smirti
said lied themselves in testifying against him.
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960106, Peru & Columbia, NBC. WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The United
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 13:17:51 -0800
From: mregen@ix.netcom.com (Marnie Regen )
To: DRCTalk@drcnet.org
Subject: NBC: US-South America campaign to kill smugglers
Message-ID: <199601062117.NAA15200@IX7.IX.NETCOM.COM>
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The United States is quietly directing Peru and
Colombia in a campaign to shoot down planes operated by South American
drug cartels, NBC News reported Friday.
Quoting unidentified sources, the network said the Pentagon, the
Customs Service and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were involved
in directing tracking and intelligence gathering outposts in Peru and
Colombia.
With U.S. guidance, according to the report, Peru and Colombia have
machine-gunned two dozen planes in flight and destroyed or confiscated
70 others on the ground.
NBC said each of the tracking stations was staffed with about 40 U.S.
Army and Air Force troops who operate the surveillance gear.
Officially, they work as advisers only.
When a radar operator detects a suspicious aircraft, an American
pursuit plane is called in. When the Americans are satisfied that they
have locked on to a drug plane, the Peruvians scramble in lightly armed
attack planes for an aerial confrontation, NBC said.
The Peruvian pilots first try to talk the suspect planes down, and if
that fails, they fire a machine-gun burst as a warning. As a last
resort, they fire on the aircraft, according to the report.
NBC said the Pentagon was spending $120 million on the project. It
added that, based on information provided by the Defense Intelligence
Agency, the National Security Agency and the CIA, Peru and Colombia
often bombed drug airfields and raided hideouts.
------------------------------
@@@
960107, New York City, NY, Trenton Times. Police Officer Darryl
Date: Wed Jan 10, 1996 1:51 am CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: NYPD - Cop on Gang's Payroll
Posted: Bob Witanek 1/9/96
COP ON GANG'S PAYROLL THWARTS INVESTIGATION
Trenton Times, 1/7/96
NEW YORK (AP) - Three leaders of a wealthy and homicidal Upper West
Side drug gang known as the Young Talented Children (YTC) were
convicted yesterday in Manhattan on narcotics, conspiracy and four
murder charges.
The jury deliberated 2 days before convicting Angel Ayala, 22,
Om,ar Alvarez, 21, and Pedro Diaz, 24. The three face maximum
sentences of 100 years to life when Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder
sentences them Jan. 30.
The YTC gang operated in the Manhattan Valley area around 107th
Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Central Park West. Prosecutors
said the gang's crack cocaine business grossed $100,000 a week. It
was disclosed during the 2 month trial that investigators were
unable to infiltrate the gang or catch its members in any illegal
activity because a uniformed police officer was on the gang's
payroll. Officer Darryl Edmunds, now on modified assignment at the
24th Precinct, warned gang leaders when police planned to move on
them, former YTC member Raymond Rivera, 25, testified. He said
Edmunds even carried a YTC beeper. Edmunds is under investigation.
One of the gang's murder victims was Lamont Williams, 14, an I.S.
195 eighth-grader gunned down Nov. 17, 1993, on a West 112th Street
park bench because the YTC shooters could not find the rival
gangsters they sought.
Rivera said the Alvarez bragged he "blew the kid's melon off." The
gang, most of whom attended Brandeis High School at Columbus Avenue
and 84th Street, killed the teen "to teach the block a lesson,"
progecutors said.
A law enforcement official familiar with the case said YTC members
turned to crack dealing and murder after "they became bored playing
video games. They constructed their own fantasy world where they
played God, decided for real instead of on a video screen who lived
and who died."
The jury acquitted Alvarez on one drug count, but that will have
no practical effect on his sentence since he still faces 100 years
to life."
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960110, New York City, NY, NY Times. In the perjury trial of
Date: Fri Jan 12, 1996 12:48 am CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: NYPD - Dirty 30 - "Booming"
Posted: Bob Witanek 1/11/96
SERGEANT ADMITS ILLEGAL APARTMENT BREAK-INS IN CORRUPTION PLAGUED
"DIRTY 30th." PRECINCT
NY Times, 1/10/96 - Excerpted
BY GEORGE JAMES
A rogue police sergeant from the corruption-plagued 30th Precinct
testified yesterday that the precinct's commander and his top aide
led him on a drug raid of a building in which they illegally
entered apartments by breaking down doors to gain entry - a
practice that came to 'be known as "booming." Kevin P. Nannery,
who supervised a band of corrupt officers called "Nannery's
Raiders," said in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday that the aide,
Capt. Lewis T. Manetta, even handed him a sledgehammer for
smashing into apartments in a Harlem building where they thought
drugs were being sold in September 1990. "It was kind of implied
that this was what they wanted," Mr. Nannery said, referring to
Captain Manetta and the precinct's commander, Peter J. Buccino, who
was also a captain at the time and now heads the department's bias
unit.
Mr. Nannery said that because the precinct's most senior officers
had led the raid and were conducting a search of the building at
555 West 151 st Street without first obtaining a warrant, he took
it to mean he should adopt such tactics in f ighting drug dealers.
So, he testified, he told his own men: "If this is what they
wanted, then that's what we would do."
Mr. Nannery's testimony in State Supreme Court yesterday at the
perjury trial of a fellow officer, Michael Dauphinee, marked the
first time that Mr. Buccino's name has surfaced in connection with
the 30th Precinct corruption scandal. Mr. Buccino now holds the
higher rank of deputy inspector in overseeing the bias unit. But
Captain Manetta, who went on to command the newly formed 33th
Precinct in Washington Heights, has been dogged by allegations he
condoned corruption while he was the executive officer in the 30th
Precinct, in 1990 and 1991. He has put in his retirement papers
after twice being passed over for promotion to deputy inspector.
Law enforcement officials said they could not talk about the
accusations in a case that is under way, but Deputy Inspector
Robert K. Cividanes, a spokesman for the police department, said,
"the police department, the District Attorney and the U.S. Attorney
are aware of the allegations being made by Nannery." He would not
discuss the matter further. . . . . . .
Sergeant Nannery, along with another sergeant, was the highest
ranking officer arrested in the 30th Precinct scandal, which saw
police officers charged with drug trafficking, taking bribes from
dealers, stealing cash and drugs, conducting illegal searches and
seizures, and then lying under oath to cover up the illegal arrests
they made. Yesterday was the first time Sergeant Nannery, a slim,
dark-haired man in his mid-30's, testified since his arrest in
September 1994.
In an agreement to become a cooperating witness and testify against
his former colleagues, he pleaded guilty in November 1994 to
Federal charges of conspiring to violate civil rights by knocking
down doors and stealing keys of suspects in order to enter and
search their apartments for guns and drugs. He also pleaded guilty
to evading taxes by not reporting $10,000 in stolen cash as income.
Mr. Nannery acknowledged on the witness stand to developing a
drinking problem shortly after being assigned to the 30th Precinct
in April 1990, and said he was soon making illegal arrests, at
times vouchering the money recovered or sharing it with other
officers. Once he stole four tires from a suspected drug dealer's
car and another time stole st dozen railroad ties from a Metro
North storage yard for use as a wall in his backyard.
He said that in September 1990, acting on information that Captains
Buccino and Manetta received, they raided 555 West 151st Street,
where he said he could hear the sounds of doors being broken
throughout the building. This was the first time he recalled in
which they "boomed" doors. When asked on direct questioning by
Florence Finkle, the prosecutor in the case, whether Captain
Manetta had led other booming raids after that, Mr. Nannery said,
"There were a few others where Captain Manetta participated."
Eventually, however, the precinct was getting so many complaints
of broken-down doors, he said, that he and others officers invented
new ways to get into apartments.
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960111, Boston, MA, PRN. Bernard G Sylvia, "corrections" officer
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 07:41:28 -0600 (CST)
From: adbryan@onramp.net
To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Subject: Corruption
Message-ID: <199601121341.HAA08223@MAILHOST.ONRAMP.NET>
<---- INCLUDED ---- MESSAGE BEGIN>
From: ADBryan@aol.com
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 08:25:02 -0500
To: adbryan@onramp.net
Subject: Corruption
BOSTON, Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- A Massachusetts corrections officer
pleaded guilty today to an indictment charging him with laundering drug
proceeds.
United States Attorney Donald K. Stern announced that BERNARD G. SYLVIA,
51 years old, of 315 Loftus Street, New Bedford, Massachusetts, pleaded
guilty today to 30 counts of money laundering in a hearing at the federal
courthouse in Worcester, Massachusetts, before United States District Judge
Nathaniel M. Gorton.
At that hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark W. Pearlstein stated that
if the case had gone to trial the government would have proved the following:
SYLVIA was a corrections officer at the Bristol County House of Correction.
Between 1990 and 1994, while he was out on disability leave, SYLVIA began
laundering money for a Massachusetts drug trafficker. Acting at the drug
trafficker's request, SYLVIA conducted 94 separate transactions with the
proceeds of cocaine sales. The trafficker would give cash to SYLVIA -
typically in amounts in excess of $3,000 - and ask him to send the money to
persons in Florida. SYLVIA would take the cash to Western Union agents in
New Bedford, and transmit the funds, through Western Union's money transfer
system, to the designated recipients in Florida.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Pearlstein stated that SYLVIA transmitted a total
of $247,240 to persons in Florida in this manner. SYLVIA knew these funds
represented the proceeds of cocaine trafficking, and that the purpose of the
transactions was to conceal the trafficker's interest in the funds. Each
time SYLVIA conducted a transaction he was paid with a $50 bag of cocaine.
Judge Gorton scheduled sentencing for April 2, 1996. SYLVIA faces up to
20 years' imprisonment and a fine of $500,000 on each count.
The case was investigated by special agents of the Internal Revenue
Service's Criminal Investigation Division, and is being prosecuted by
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark W. Pearlstein, Chief of Stern's Economic Crimes
Unit.
CO: U.S. Attorney's Office
ST: Massachusetts
IN:
SU:
<---- INCLUDED ---- MESSAGE END>
------------------------------
@@@
960112, New York City, NY Times. Police Commissioner William J.
Date: Fri Jan 12, 1996 10:44 pm CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: NYPD - Bratton in Denial Over 'Dirty 30' Testimony
Posted Bob Witanek 1/12/96
BRATTON TRIES TO DENY HIERARCHICAL CORRUPTION IN DIRTY 30 PRECINCT
(NY TIMES, 1/12/96)
BY DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Police Commissioner William J. Bratton yesterday rebutted a rogue
police officer's court testimony that the 30th Precinct's rampant
corruption was encouraged and initiated by the precinct's two top
commanders. Sgt. Kevin P. Nannery, testifying on Tuesday in the
State Supreme Court trial of another 30th Precinct officer, said
his precinct commander, Capt. Peter J. Buccino, accompanied him
on his first illegal raid in 1992. He said he also broke down
apartment doors with a sledgehammer provided by the commander's top
aide, Capt. Lewis T. Manetta. But Mr. Bratton said the
department's internal affairs unit had known about Mr. Nannery's
assertions for months, investigated them and found them groundless.
"I don't think Buccino was even assigned to the precinct." he
said.
Sergeant Nannery, who led a crew of rogue officers known as
Nannery's Raiders, has pleaded guilty to civil rights violations
and was testifying for the prosecution as part of a plea agreement.
Captain Manetta, has filed for retirement after twice being passed
over for promotion, and Captain Buccino has been promoted to
deputy inspector and now heads the bias investigation unit.
Mr. Bratton said that he purposely declined to promote Captain
Manetta while the corruption allegations were pending but that he
now considers the charges unsubstantiated. Yesterday, the officer
whom Sergeant Nannery was testifying against, Michael Dauphinee,
was convicted of four counts of perjury arising from an arrest he
made with Mr. Nannery.
=================
COMMENT: While Bratton is in denial over Nannery's testimony, a
court found the testimony believable enough for this conviction.
Bratton's comment that he doesn't 'think' Buccino was assigned to
the precinct on the date of events described by Nannery is worded
vaguely enough that Bratton can back out of it if need be. In
fact, if Bratton has evidence that Nannery's testimony is false,
perhaps he ought to bring that evidence before the court.
Otherwise, he is just creating a media smog to hide the rampant
corruption within the NYPD! - Bob
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COMMENT#2: "I don't think Buccino was even assigned to the
precinct." Are you saying that there are no records kept of where
these cops are??? --byter
COMMENT#3: Can we get the Police Commissioner on perjury????
@@@
960115, Sydney, Australia, AP. New South Wales Police
Date: Thu Feb 15, 1996 11:05 pm CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Aussie Cops
From: Bob Witanek
Posted: pinknoiz@ccnet.com (Bob Gonsalves)
Subject: Aussie Officer Steps Down
1/15/96
Aussie Officer Steps Down
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - The police commissioner of Australia's
most populous state announced his resignation on Monday as a
government inquiry continues to unearth evidence of widespread
corruption within his force.
New South Wales Police Commissioner Tony Lauer said he was
stepping down to allow someone else to clean up the organization.
The inquiry has startled the citizens of New South Wales for more
than year with evidence that senior officers have taken bribes from
underworld figures for years. Other have dealt in narcotics and
prostitution.
Much of the evidence has come from officers who informed on
colleagues after admitting their own bad deeds.
On several occasions investigators used hidden cameras and
microphones to catch corrupt officers in the act.
The inquiry is due to release an interim report on its work on
Jan. 31. It will then continue to take more evidence.
@@@
960118, New York, NY, NY Times. Police Officers Hilton Velez
Date: Sun Jan 21, 1996 12:39 am CST
From: Moderator of conference justice.polabuse
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: bwitanek@igc.apc.org
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: NYPD - Cops Charged in Burglary
Posted by Bob Witanek 1/20/96
2 NYPD COPS CHARGED IN BURGLARY OF CASH AND FAKE COCAINE
(NY Times, 1/18/96 ) - By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Two New York City police officers were arraigned on burglary and
drug charges yesterday after cash and simulated cocaine were stolen
from an apartment in the East New York section of Brooklyn during
a sting operation, police officials said. The officers, Hilton
Velez, 28, and Bienveni Rodriguez, 25, were formerly partners in
the 75th Precinct in East New York, the center of a major police
corruption scandal in 1992, but officials said there was no
evidence that other officers were involved in the current case.
The two officers were accused of conspiring with a civilian police
employee, Felix Acosta, 28, to steal $10,000 and two kilograms of
simulated cocaine from an apartment that investigators had set up
to look like a drug dealer's home, said the First Deputy Police
Commissioner, John F. Timoney. I
The investigation began after informers told the Brooklyn District
Attorney's office and the Police Department's Internal Affairs
Bureau that an officer in the East New York precinct was planning
to rob the apartments of suspected drug dealers there. Within 48
hours of receiving the tip, Commissioner Timoney said, Deputy
Inspector Jeffrey Amundson hid video cameras and tape recorders in
a sparsely furnished apartment designed to look as if it was used
only for storing and dealing in cocaine. After Officer Rodriguez
and Mr. Acosta stole the cash and counterfeit cocaine, the two
officers arranged to sell the drugs to an undercover detective who
was posing as a drug dealer, Commissioner Timoney said. The Chief
of Internal Affairs, Patrick E. Kelleher, said investigators
followed Officer Velez and Officer Rodriguez for 10 days before
their arrests to determine whether other police officers were
involved.
Neither officer had previously been suspected of using or selling
drugs, but Officer Velez was transferred to the Manhattan Court
Section last September when he was accused of public lewdness for
"exposing himself to a young person," Chief Kelleher said. The
75th Precinct was previously the base of Officer Michael Dowd, who
admitted running a drug ring from the station house between 1986
and 1992 and accepting tens of thousand of dollars in payoffs from
dealers. In court testimony and statements made before a special
city commission on police corruption, Mr. Dowd said he and five
other officers had frequently stolen cocaine, guns and cash from
drug dealers, then sold the narcotics themselves on Long Island.
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