WORMSCAN: WORMSCAN.& [PART 5]
Involvement of Politicians, Judges, Lawyers, & Police in the Drug Business
NOTES: I made a few corrections to spellings but left the original document mainly untouched. Some dates are in YYMMDD format. These files are only a portion of the entire WORMSCAN.& file. I had to break it up due to length. There are hundreds of pages. Notice the change in format. There are much more details added to this file.
This is a continuation of the file named WORMSCAN.&.
WORMSCAN: WORMSCAN.& [PART 1]
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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. Then 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
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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, "s cores 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."
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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.
# # #
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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 himafter 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 hydrocephaelis, 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 his 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.)
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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.
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David Sussman Oakland University SBA WWW Administrator
djsussma@jupiter.acs.oakland.edu
http://sba_server.sba.oakland.edu/staff/djsussma/djsussma.htm
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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.
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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 US DOJ "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
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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)
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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
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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VATICAN BANK MONEY LAUNDERING RING SUSPECTED
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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!
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Confesses He's Part Of Team That Poisoned The Pope!
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And Has Been Doing The Money Laundering on Behalf of the Mafia and the Vatican Bank!
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That should make headlines! Nothin'. It's on National Public Radio. And even the story on National Public Radio was not complete."
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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
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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
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