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The Road to Socialism and the New World Order, quotes Rep. Oscar Callaway of Texas in the Congregational Record of February 9, 1917, who explains how this control came about: �In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding and power interests, and their subsidiary organizations got together 12 men high up in the Newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the U.S. and a sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press in the U.S.
These 12 men worked the problem out by selecting 179 newspapers, and then began, by elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. The 25 papers were agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of these papers; an agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper, to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers. Therefore, even today, and in spite of changes in ownership and editors, the media is still under the control of this cabal. Remember that the J.P. Morgan group helped finance the original Round Table Group, from which grew the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission) which is always under the total control of the Left.
R.J. Rummel, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, is known as an authority on the phenomenon of �democide�� - THE SYSTEMATIC MURDER OF HUMAN BEINGS BY GOVERNMENTS. In his book, Death By Government, he reveals the nearly incomprehensible death toil of democide. �In total, during the first eighty-eight years of this century, almost 170 million men, women, and children (mostly White Christians) have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted deaths on UNARMED, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people.� ( The New American, 3/18/96)
These men and women, the government and the media explained, are professed "enemies of the state." What's more, if their bloody terrorist acts are to be prevented in the future, the people must now agree to give up some of their liberties in exchange for security. They must demand that the legislature pass new and very stiff "Draconian Laws" against terrorists immediately!
Laws like H.R. 916 which has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary and states on page 3, beginning at line 16: �"� 942. Unlawful acts (a) Offense. Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), it is unlawful for a person to manufacture, import, export, sell, buy, transfer, receive, own, possess, transport, or use a handgun or handgun ammunition."
Law and Order, and respect for government was demanded, talk against the government must stop, and they would stop! Therefore, new, wide-ranging, anti-terrorist legislation must be quickly enacted. Constitutional prohibitions against illegal search and seizure must be relaxed.
The Federal Government must be granted extraordinary investigative police powers. Only this, he counseled, will enable federal law enforcement to put an end to these mad terrorists, these shameless enemies of government.
Some, of course, oppose this massive increase in government police power. But the national leader was not to be deterred. He cagily hinted that anyone who opposed the government's plan were "haters of humanity," accomplices to the bombing of the federal building; they, too, he said, are social and religious pariahs, aliens to law and order. "We must purge the nation of this dark evil," trumpeted the national leader of this great democratic country. "Tighter gun control and firearms laws are necessary. Hate crime legislation is required. The negative, anti-government critics MUST be curbed - the voices of hatred and divisiveness MUST be silenced."
Cult: "Extremists (And Cultists) who would overthrow the government and who defame its institutions must not find a safe haven ever again," said the increasingly popular national leader. Remember, the most dangerous enemy to the state are those who follow a cult! "A Cultist is one who has a strong belief in the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ; who frequently attends Bible studies; who has a high level of financial giving to a Christian cause; who home schools his children; who has accumulated survival foods and has a strong belief in the 2nd amendment, and who distrusts big government." ( Janet Reno, in a speech before an ATF luncheon, Washington, D.C.)
The people: "Yes, everything will be set right by our national leader." His standing went up greatly in the polls, and he was sitting pretty. The people reasoned, "Our elected leader knows the best way. The anti-government protestors are, indeed, haters, cultists, and anarchists. Riff-raff. They must be harshly dealt with, the sooner the better."
"Yes," they roar in unison, "More national police are needed. More and more laws restricting our constitutional rights should and must be passed right away. It is he who wants only to protect us against the terrorists. In fact, we demand more power be given to the government and to our national leader! He knows who to tag as a terrorist. After all, it is he who deeply loves as and feels our pain; has he not shown it? It is he who wants only to protect us. He would never lie to us. We trust him.� Let us, therefore, use our federal police powers to destroy our enemies, these terrorists, these horrible, firebombing haters, cultists, fascist fanatics."
This is a tale of Two Cities: The above story is true. Indeed, it is, to use a Charles Dickens' phrase, A Tale of Two Cities. On February 27, 1933, Adolf Hitler, Germany's constitutionally elected leader, secretly ordered the firebombing of Berlin's Reichstag; a Federal Building roughly equivalent to our own nation's U.S. Capitol (But in the case of the same thing happening in the United States the Federal Building in Oklaohma City, Oklahoma was used by the government to accomplish the same thing). The public outcry inevitably resulted in the dictatorial empowerment of the federal government. The SS Gestapo was created (A National Police Force, 100,000 strong), and a leader who had become hugely popular, Adolf Hitler, assumed virtually complete, totalitarian authority (The same thing happened to Clinton after the bombing of the Marrura Building in OKC).
The people of Germany (And now the people of America are following the exact same path the Germans did prior to World War II) had gladly given up their constitutional rights and freedoms to a megalomaniac whom they unswervingly revered and trusted (The same as do the Democrats today) He spoke flatteries to them. He was for good against evil. He felt their pain and cried real tears while soothing their suffering. So Germany and the whole world entered a dark era of despair, horror, and death. And it all started with the clandestine torching of a single Federal Building!
As Santayana once said, "He who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it." And so, on April 19, 1995, a Federal Building was fire-bombed in Oklahoma City. President Bill Clinton, no doubt fully aware of Hitler's fantastic success with the same, outrageous scheme six and one-half decades prior, moved fast to follow in the Nazi Fuhrer's footsteps. His own, Himmler-type agent, FBI Director Louis Freech, in a speech in Oklahoma City, ranted and raved about "enemies of the state" and "haters of humanity." (Yes, he actually used those very terms!)
Any person who doubts that the Zionist/Globalist controlled U.S. Government is capable of bombing its own building in Oklahoma City should look at the following proven history of federally-engineered terror actions against the American people.
President Clinton's own, Hess-like agent, Attorney-General Janet Reno, arrogantly goose-stepped forward to the podium to announce that a mad bomber, though just one cog in a nationwide, terrorist conspiracy, had promptly been arrested. Once convicted, said Janet Reno, the evil Mr. Timothy McVeigh would pay the maximum penalty: Death!.
The American people, as the Germans before them, seem more than eager to oblige President Clinton and his henchmen in their lust-filled grab for the ultimate in government power and authority. The media have assured the ignorant and trusting masses that President Bill Clinton and his lovely wife, Hillary, would never lie to us. "Father" Bill and "Mother" Hillary adore and love our little children. Indeed, they love all of us. The government is only here to help you. Only believe...and you will remain safe and secure in your comfortable cocoons out in suburbia.
But distrust our national leader, they caution, and we will smash you. Criticize Big Brother, Big Sister, and their police state, and you may end up on the receiving end of an IRS or FBI investigation. Or worse, you may be accused of having drugs in your home, and the ATF, dressed in black ninja suits with hoods over their heads will break into your home in the middle of the night and kill you and your family.
All of a sudden, being dissent has become dangerous. Under a number of new state and federal laws, an American citizen may no longer be permitted to present his or her thoughts in public, if the expressed opinion is considered by "anyone" to be in any way offensive to someone.
If you are accused of such a crime, a federal statute (Public Law 101-275) requires that your name be reported to the FBI within three months of the date of the occurrence of the "alleged" offense.
Recent court rulings have held that the First Amendment may not protect speech if what is said is considered offensive or harmful in some way. Under Federal Law, what you think and believe can, indeed, be a prosecutable offense, if your thoughts and opinions are publicly expressed. You man lose your job, have your property seized or be incarcerated under civil law, have heavy fines assessed against you and be thrown in jail for having an unpopular, or not politically correct.
Many Americans may be unaware that the enforcement mechanisms in place to combat "hate crime" are also being used to "attack opinions or so-called hate-speech," when it is expressed in a manner considered inappropriate under the evolving standards of political correctness. Furthermore, if a government approved expert in bias-motivated crime identifies a citizen or a group as racist or homophobic, the expert opinion is recognized and entered into the official record without scrutiny or question; and even without the defendant even knowing it has happened. Who these so-called experts and authorities are and what they are saying about the constitutional and patriot movement is particularly disturbing in light of recent attempts to craft legislation against citizen militias and the so-called promoters of hate-speech.
An Intimidating Law: Since 1991, if the expression of an opinion is identified as in some way intimidating to a growing number of "government protected" groups (read that some so-called minority groups) in America, a citizen can be charged with a crime and have his or her name placed "permanently" in a centralized registry compiled and maintained by the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI.
Humor is particularly vulnerable in this new atmosphere of criminalizing communication. Radio talk show host Howard Stern,(It is amazing, but true, this degraded and vulgar, repulsive show is government protected: Because of its Jewish host) for example, had a warrant issued for his arrest in the state of Texas, (but has since been rescinded), for making allegedly insensitive comments concerning the shooting death of a popular Hispanic recording star.
In May, an Indianapolis police sergeant and commander of the Johnson County Militia was demoted to the rank of patrolman and suspended without pay for a month after a local television station showed him addressing a public meeting of the Sovereign Patriots Militia group and making a humorous, but apparently inappropriate and (an allegedly) anti-Semitic comment about Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. Sergeant James Heath referred to Goldsmith as Mayor Goldstein in his speech. Although fellow police officers considered the punishment for Heath's humor to be harsh and unfair, local members of the Jewish community demanded that Heath be fired for the comment.
Many laws are particularly pervasive concerning homophobic expressions. When Representative Dick Army (R.-TX) recently called homosexual Congressman Barney Frank, Barney Fag during a National Public Radio interview, for example, Armey could have been prosecuted under the statutes of Frank's home state of Massachusetts. Chapter 27 of the Massachusetts General Law, Section 16, makes it a crime to...disrupt a person's exercise of Constitutional rights through harassment or intimidation, [if] motivated by...sexual orientation prejudice.
So-called hate speech can also be prosecuted in civil court. The State Code of Virginia, for example, allows punitive damages to be awarded to anyone who feels harassed or intimidated because of his or her race, religion or ethnicity (unless they happen to be Christian and White). Section 8.01-42.1, Paragraph A, states, An action of injunctive relief or civil damages, or both, shall lie for any person who is subjected to acts of (1) intimidation or harassment or (2) vandalism directed against his real or personal property, where such acts are motivated by racial, religious or ethnic animosity.
The politics of controlling speech has serious risk. The Federal Election Commission, for example, fined the Christian Action Network $1.26 million in 1992 for mailing out letters to its members which asserted that then-candidate Bill Clinton supported special rights for homosexuals. Although Clinton did indeed order a number of new social endorsements and protections for Queers and Lesbians in government service within days of being elected into office, the FEC arbitrarily ruled that the Christian group may not use non-profit funds to advocate the defeat of a presidential candidate. A federal court in Virginia overturned the FEC fine on Friday, June 30, 1995, asserting that the Christian Action Network's comments were protected under the First Amendment. It is unclear if the heavily homosexual Clinton Administration will appeal the ruling.
Hate Crime Protection For Everyone: Despite recent court rulings, speech is not necessarily protected in many states. Some jurisdictions have such broad-based definitions of the supposed protected group that virtually anyone can claim membership and victimization under the statute.
In the state of Oregon, for example, the statute in section 181.550 states that a hate crime includes speech that intimidates or harasses an individual and is motivated by prejudice based on the perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, martial status, political affiliation or beliefs, member-ship or activity in or on behalf of a labor organization or against a labor organization, physical or mental handi-cap, age, economic or social status or citizenship of the victim.
Speech is being prosecuted in other ways as well. In the state of Montana, several citizens have recently been charged with an obscure crime called criminal syndicalism for expressing their opinions in public or in written form. A recent example involved a letter written by a resident of Indiana to a Montana state official, F. Joe Holland, of the North American Freedom Council, mailed an angry letter to a Montana government official, which has resulted in his being charged with the offense. Holland has railed against government corruption in dozens of states for decades. His writings are certainly unfriendly to government, however, Holland has no history of communicating threats, conspiring to harm American citizens or advocating violence against anyone in government. In Ravalli County, Montana, local dissident Cal Greenup has also been charged with criminal syndicalism for saying hateful things about the government. The Montana law is about to become a national issue. Both sides agree that the Holland case is expected to be litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Historically, the First Amendment has had to be saved from government intrusion by the free press and the free speakers who are frequently disdained by society in general, said former state senator and civil rights attorney John W. DeCamp of Lincoln, Nebraska, who is representing Holland. This is just one example.
DeCamp, the chief legal counsel for the family of slain tax protester Gordon Kahl and representative of various militia leaders (with, incidentally, a 12-0 record in court) points out that the free speech issue is under fire across the country as intensely as ever in our [nation's] history.
Although many states have enacted a variety of laws restricting communications deemed offensive, hate speech legislation is not specifically a state's rights issue in the 1990s. The federal government has taken control in many respects. One of the prosecutors in the Holland case, Montana State Assistant Attorney General John P. Connor, Jr., has privately implied that the U.S. government is involved with the litigation against Holland. Perhaps the most disturbing element in this new atmosphere of prosecuting "thought" crime is the involvement of the Reno Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in assisting state governments and local law enforcement agencies in writing legislation, formulating prosecution policy and establishing the reporting procedures for this type of crime. The origins of this new federal authority is rather revealing.
The New Federal Thought Police: In the 1992 Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook, distributed to all law enforcement agencies nationwide by the FBI, a newly designed police report has been introduced that seems to be more focused on the supposed bias motivation of crime than on the actual offense under investigation.
This new nationally standardized Incident Report is the most frequently used document in police work. Line officers and patrol supervisors fill out dozens of these reports each shift, for every offense from vandalism and property theft to assault and homicide. Note on the federally approved version of this report, almost 20 percent of the first page of the document concerns the so-called bias motivation associated with the incident.
The 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act (Public Law 101-275) requires all law enforcement agencies to provide quarterly and annual reports concerning bias motivated crime to the federal government. Americans are learning, often at great expense that the key problem with the language in the law is the usage of the terms intimidate and harass.
Defense attorneys have argued that the standard for definition of a hate crime is purely subjective, and should have no bearing on other criminal charges in state courts. The danger is that a misdemeanor charge of vandalism, for example, can become a federal offense under the statute. If the complainant or alleged victim of any crime claims that the suspect used a racial slur or made an inappropriate comment concerning the individual's sexual preference, the officer is required by federal law to report it. The officer's agency is then required to compile and send all such report every three months to the FBI in Washington. Even if no overt criminal act has actually occurred, if the alleged victim tells a law enforcement officer that he or she feels intimidated or harassed, because of membership in a protected group, a hate crime has occurred and the agency is required by law to report it to the federal government.
In the Quarterly Hate Crime Report expected to be sent to the FBI, the suspect in the crime "does not actually have to be charged." Not in the instructions for preparing the federal hate crime incident report the offense of intimidation...is to be reported...regardless of whether arrests have taken place.
For example, Republican Representative Dick Armey could have found himself a suspect in a criminal act, with this name entered on the NCIC computer with the following UCR Codes:
UCR Offense 10 (Intimidation)
Location 11 (Government Building)
(Anti-Male Homosexual [Gay])
Victim Type "4" and "1"
(Government) and (Individual)
Crafting Model Hate-Crime Legislation: Who decides what group will be protected and what type of legislation will be enacted to prosecute hate crimes in the United States? According to the FBI's Hate Crime Statistics, 1990, A Resource Book, the FBI has this to say about the ADL, one of the so-called "experts": "The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a human relations organization with 31 regional offices across the country. ADL is dedicated to promoting intergroup cooperation and interfaith understanding. Over the past decade, ADL has become a leading resource in crafting responses to hate violence, including model hate crime legislation, a 17 minute hate crime training video, a handbook of existing hate crime policies and procedures at both large and small police departments and a general human relations training program for law enforcement, designed to examine the impact of discrimination, while promoting better cultural awareness and increased appreciation for diversity."
All this from a group who has been found in criminal activity, by bribing and stealing information about various people and groups across the country, whom they themselves hate, and practice hate policies against!
Government-Approved "Experts": The FBI also recommends the American Jewish Committee, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force as groups able to help state legislatures craft laws against "hate."
By endorsing these particular agencies as "experts" in bias motivated crime the FBI has essentially facilitated the introduction of legislation throughout America based on the often biased political opinions of these groups, many of which raise tax-free funds based on the number of so-called hate crimes they report.
For example, the Souther Poverty Law Center and the ADL have recently written "Militia Task Force" reports which assert that citizens who acquire and train with firearms in an organized manner are linked with racist hate groups and anti-minority violence.
In a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, dated October 25, 1994, Morris Dees with the Southern Poverty Law Center claimed that the militia movement has been "infiltrated" by white supremacist leaders. This letter resulted in a response from the Justice Department that it was indeed investigating the militias in Montana, Michigan and Ohio for possible civil rights violations.
Perhaps the most disturbing consequence of a federal government endorsement of any private group's agenda or expertise is the ultimate authority these organizations exert on the state and federal legislative process. The FBI hate crime training manual endorses the ADL and the SPLC as experts, whose expert testimony is then subsequently worthy of congressional committee consideration.
During the April Senate Judiciary committee hearing concerning legislation directly involving the militia movement, for example, Dees was introduced as the preeminent expert on organized militias in the United States. His inflammatory comment concerning an alleged linkage between these groups and racism was taken without question and is now part of the "official" record in Washington. His testimony will further be used to "craft legislation" against the militias in America.
This trend is expected to continue. Expression that is considered "subversive," "offensive" or "racist" is about to be regulated. Indeed, based on the recent case in Montana, the government is about to be legislatively protected as a "victim group" when it comes to insensitive speech. There is little that can be done to halt this pattern of erosion against freedom of expression when protected groups in America are permitted to claim they have somehow been "assaulted" by words.
From burning flags to fiery rhetoric, certain speech can result in regulatory or judicial intervention. Until the courts or Congress decide to control this corrosive pattern of legislating political correctness, or for that matter, patriotism, the First Amendment may no longer apply. Many attorneys are now advising their clients to be cautious in their public statements. Hold your tongue, patriot. The Federal Government's "Thought police" are on patrol; and they are looking for you.
Christians must recognize that the sinful nature in people is the controlling factor in human interaction. Thus, there is no such thing as perfect conduct and perfect government. Law enforcement officers are human and part of government and they are subject to sin like everyone else, but their temptation are far greater. Therefore, there has always been a certain amount of corruption in law enforcement, waxing and waning at different times.
Christians must also realize that there are forces in control of the Federal Government and many state governments who have "Declared War on Christianity" that if they profess to be Christians, in the future they can full well expect these groups, such as the ADL to aim every government gun they can in their never ending efforts to destroy Christianity. That we are not dealing with sin in general, we are concerned about leadership in government agencies and the thrust toward the "New World Order," or whatever it may be called at that moment. The men and women of our police forces in the field exhibit propensities toward individuals, but they're not in positions to plan strategies on a global scale; they can only implement tactics in order to get their paychecks. If they must be politically correct under pressure, they'll do it. Most of them will follow their leaders and their directions on how to treat individuals.
From the 1960s to the present, strategists in influential places have sought to destroy the "thin blue line" for political reasons. In the 60s it was the socialists-leftists, but now the so-called "right-wing" has been included in the putsch. The O.J. Simpson lawyers, especially Alan Dershowitz, have given tremendous boost to this plan. They have used racism and individual police sin to advance this cause, so that the overall plan to discredit and destroy local law enforcement is ever nearer completion. For it is the local police that the leaders of the New World Order must use to control the masses, therefore they must create and generate a hatred for the police toward the citizen. Even solid Americans are now believing that the vast majority of police officers are corrupt, and the police officers are coming to view the citizens as their enemies not the criminals.
On the second anniversary of the Waco Massacre, a rented truck was parked in front of the federal compound in Oklahoma City containing the offices of the ATF and some other federal agencies. A device within the truck was detonated and the resulting, explosion scooped out the front of the building doing a remarkable amount of damage. The explosion has left 167 (their figures) dead, including 15 children. The count at Waco was 87 dead, including 17 children, who had been saved by the ATF from being abused.
When the news of Oklahoma City broke, many soon realized the sureness of the non-coincidental dates of April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1995. And because of those dates, realized that the Christian Patriot Right would be accused and associated with this tragedy. Perhaps a quick summary of the importance of April 19th in history is in order:
* April 19, 1776: The beginning of the American revolution at Lexington and Concord;
* April 19, 1993: Federal terrorists invaded the Branch Davidian Church;
* April 19, 1993: The U.S. Government opened the U.S. Holocaust Museum, even as the Holocaust in Waco was in process.
* April 19, 1995: On the same day of the Oklahoma disaster, a Christian Identity prisoner, writer and teacher named Richard Snell was wrongly put to death in Arkansas.
Snell's so-called "crime" was defending himself against a Negro police officer who intended to kill him, and in Snell's self-defense the Negro officer died. From the inception of Snell's trial to his row appeals, Snell's prosecution was laced with anti-Christian, anti-White rhetoric and bias.
Richard Snell's last words directed to the system: To Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, were, "Keep looking over your shoulder, Governor Tucker, because justice is coming."
* April 19, 1995: That same day that pagans and anti-Christians executed Richard Snell - someone, allegedly a man named Timothy McVeigh and possibly others, were said to have taken justice in their own hands, and they did so in a carbon copy fashion of the feds at Waco. The bomb in Oklahoma City killed some 167 people, most of them innocent women and children. And finally, did you know that on the rental form for the big, yellow Ryder truck that carried the bomb, McVeigh listed his birth date as April 19th. The meaning and symbolism is intentional and cannot possibly be missed.
The Proven History of Repeated Government Terror-Deception Actions: The U.S. and foreign governments have repeatedly utilized Terrorism as a means of increasing state-power. In the early 1900's, the chief of the Russian secret police, Sergei Zubatov "seems to have originated the idea of creating one's own opposition." He told one revolutionary: �"We shall provoke you to acts of terror, and then we shall crush you." Zubatov "created most of the supposed labor and intellectual opposition groups. He enticed the intellectuals (including the Social Revolutionaries) into heinous crimes, including the bombing of the Royal Family." ( Washington Times, 8/26/94)
This Russian government-engineered terrorism was also described in the 1994 book, "Comrade Valentine," by Richard E. Rubenstein. That book described the life of Yevno Azef, a police informer who infiltrated various revolutionary groups, beginning in 1893.
Later Azef created his own terrorist operations within the revolutionary movement. Azef's secret police bosses, "actually encouraged him in Bomb Plots." He was given a free hand to undertake any level of destruction as long as the secret police were kept informed.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks created a new secret police organization that utilized and improved upon Zubatov's tactics. Bolshevik dictator, V.I. Lenin appointed Feliks Dzierzhinski to head the Cheka secret police and spy agency (known in modern times as the KGB). Dzierzhinski perfected the use of "deception" and "false flag" opposition groups. The biggest success of this ploy was the famous "Trust" of the 1920s, a phony underground "opposition" organization. The U.S.S.R. repeatedly utilized this technique throughout the Cold War.
Dzierzhinski's Trust operations were described in Edward J. Epstein's 1989 book, "Deception." Part of the Trust deception scheme involved "Terrorism," conducted against the very Soviet system that was secretly directing the Trust. In order to dupe Western Industrialists, intelligence services and exiles into believing that the Trust was a genuine opposition group, Dzierzhinski's Trust agents engaged in various "Terrorist" operations: "The Trust delivered arms and supplies to their partisans inside Russia and contracted to undertake sabotage and assassination missions for them in Moscow and Petrograd...Police Stations were blown up...The Trust building, rather than being the cover for a subversive conspiracy, was the secret police headquarters for this seven-year 'sting.' It fed out all the secret documents, briefed all the false defectors...and even blew up Soviet buildings to make the deception more credible."
What explosion in the dead of night led to a declaration of war against Spain? The sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor with the loss of 260 men was blamed on a Spanish torpedo. The news media used this incident to manipulate public opinion in favor of war. Years later the ship was uncovered from the mud of the harbor revealing that the explosion had gone off inside the ship in the forward ammo magazine.
The U.S. entered WW I after the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat on the high seas. Americans were told by the media that the vessel was an "innocent passenger ship" merely carrying tourists to Europe. In fact, some 55 years late, the manifest revealed that it was a registered warship commissioned in His Majesty's Royal Navy. Under international law the ship was fair game on the high seas.
The German embassy ran ads in New York papers urging Americans not to book passage on the ship. The federal government lied to the American people and said it was only an ocean liner. The news media used this incident to ship up public sentiment for America's entry into the war in Europe. One hundred and sixteen thousand, five hundred and seventeen American soldiers died in WW I - senseless waste of lives of a hundred thousand young men by sinister forces within the government who favored war, made possible in no small part because of this deception.
What bombing produced an instant declaration of war on Japan and Germany in 1941? December 7th is truly a day of infamy. But no more for the Japanese than for President Roosevelt and others in his administration who knew the "Japs" were on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor. Their murderous failure to warn the young men on the ships was treason. Two thousand, four hundred and three sailors and army soldiers died in a hail storm of bombs dropped from Japanese planes. Yet the government, in vain attempts to hide its complicity in the bombing at Pearl Harbor, has classified as top secret the document dealing with the months preceding the bombing and immediately after.
Classified documents dealing with a war that ended fifty years ago. A huge cache of top-secret records at the U.S. Navy storage depot at Crane, Indiana, many of them dealing with the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, remain hidden from public view. An estimated 28.6 million pages and 4,631 rolls of microfilm remain classified materials from World War II. Why the fear of releasing the documents? Because many of the World War II generation are yet alive and would instantly become foes of Washington were they to see the documents.
Those documents dealing with the Roosevelt conspiracy to withhold information obtained through the breaking of secret Japanese codes, are records that expose murderously criminal behavior and are not to be released until the next century. ( However, a few of the documents have surfaced and much information about a "Purple Machine" which broke the Japanese Code was revealed in the Book "Saga of Hog Island.")
Other� classified documents currently lying on shelves in the National Archives are growing older by the day, fading, but not fading as fast as the generation who fought the war. Admiral Kimmel, the commander at Pearl Harbor that fateful day, later called Roosevelt "a damned traitor," and so he most certainly was.
In actions similar to the Oklahoma City bombing, the late Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin secretly engineered various assassinations and bombings. These deceptive state terrorist acts "were used as an excuse to stage the 1930s purge trials and justify the arrest of millions of Soviet citizens, who were sent to slave labor camps."
The late CIA counterintelligence chief, James J. Angleton had great detailed knowledge of Soviet Trust operations. Angleton, who was a fanatic Zionist, helped train the Israeli Mossad secret police spy agency in the exact same "Trust" deception tactics that had been perfected by Feliks Dzierzhinski. Many of the Israeli agents in the Clinton Administration, the FBI, the CIA and the BATF, have also received training based upon Dziezhinski's Trust terrorism-deception operations.
To achieve their political goals, the Israelis have not hesitated to use terror against Jews and Americans. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a terrorist who fought his way to political power and international influence in a nation where every recent government leader had a violent criminal record, met his end on November 3 at the hands of a young assailant in his own image: A Jewish gunman firing bone-breaker bullets. "The American press keeps saying this is an 'unprecedented' horror, a Zionist militant with Jewish blood on his hands," noted Naeim Galadi, and Israeli historian and author. "In reality, there's nothing 'unprecedented' about it. Rabin launched his own career the same way: With terrorist murders that shed both Arab and Jewish blood when cold political calculation demanded it."
When illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine became a flood in 1940 with crowds of fugitives from nationalist Europe, the British military government attempted to curb the unwanted influx by detaining and deporting undocumented aliens. The Zionist underground decided to sabotage the refugees' ships rather than allow them to be turned away, Giladi related.
In those days Rabin was a member of "Palmach, the name means 'action squads' it was a violent underground force," recounted Giladi. "In November 1940 his group blew up the refugee ship Patria in Haifa harbor. More than 250 Jewish emigrants died in the explosion."
In the ensuing months, three other ships swarming with Jewish refugees were dynamited by Palmach squads. More than 1,000 casualties later, Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary that the terrorist bombing "stirred more worldwide sympathy and support for us than we anticipated."
Many of these Israeli terror acts were described in Dr. Alfred Lilianthal's 1978 book, The Zionist Connection. In 1950 and 1951, Israeli agents set off bombs inside areas heavily populated by Iraqi Jews, including the Mas'uda Shemtov Synagogue, which resulted in death and serious injury to Jews and caused the sudden exodus of 125,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel. ( This Zionist use of terror bombings against Jews was documented in the May 29, 1966 issue of the Israeli Magazine Ha'olam Hazeh, in the November 9, 1972 issue of The Black Panther (a publication of Israel's Oriental Jews) and in Dr. Lilienthal's book, The Zionist Connection)
Israel's Use of Terror Deception Tactics: Many of these Israeli terror acts were described in Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal's 1978 book, The Zionist Connection. In 1950 and 1951, Israeli agents set off bombs inside areas heavily populated by Iraqi Jews, including the Mas'uda Shemtov Synagogue, which resulted in death and serious injury to Jews and caused the sudden exodus of 125,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel. This Zionist use of terror bombings against Jews was documented in the May 29, 1966 issue of the Israeli magazine Ha'Olam Hazeh, in the 11/9/72 issue of The Black Panther (a publication of Israel's Oriental Jews) and in Dr. Lilienthal's book.
In an effort to undermine U.S. relations with Egypt, in 1954, "an Israeli espionage ring was sent to Egypt to bomb official U.S. offices, and, if necessary attack American personnel, working there. Several bomb incidents around U.S. installations in Egypt followed." ( The Zionist Connection, Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal) This scheme was known as the "Lavon Affair," named after the Israeli Defense Minister Phinhas Lavon.
During the 1967 Middle East War, Israel undertook a similar terror-deception attack against America, when it repeatedly attacked the U.S.S. Liberty in international waters. The ship was clearly marked with U.S. Flags. Dr. Lilienthal described the REAL reason for the attack: "Had the Israelis been successful in 'sinking' the Liberty, the atrocity would have been blamed on the Egyptians and produced a Pearl Harbor-type reaction in the United States."
Newsweek Magazine reported that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency "'has penetrations all through the U.S. Government. They do better than the (Soviet) KGB,' says one U.S. intelligence agency.'"
Israel took legal action to stop publication of Ostrovsky�s book The Other Side of Deception in Canada and succeeded for six weeks. The book reveals details of International Terrorism carried out as an integral part of Israel�s day-to-day functioning. Israel was behind stories about Iraq�s development of �weapons of mass destruction,� a cover for its own experimentation in biological warfare. Palestinian infiltrators captured on the border were taken to Nea Ziyyona, south of Tel Aviv and used in an ABC warfare laboratory. (ABC stands for atomic bacteriological and chemical). The Palestinians were used as human guinea pigs to �make sure the weapons of the scientists were developing, worked properly.� A similar operation was carried out in Soweto, South Africa, and the United States by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. Black South Africans were used: �We�re testing both new infectious diseases and new medications that can�t be tested on humans in Israel.� ( The Other Side of Deception, p. 189) A hospital in Baltimore, USA was used as a cover for this operation.( New Trend, P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087)
Rabbi Ido Elba of Kiryat Arba on the occupied West Bank says that Jewish law permits killing of Arabs. He cited The Gemara to justify killing any non-Jew in �time of war.� He was asked, �What about innocent Arabs?� He replied: �According to Halacha (Jewish Law) there is no such...Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ruled that there is no prohibition against killing non-Jews even in peace-time.� (Special Interest Report of The American Council for Judaism, Jan/Feb 95)
While all this was going on, the Zionist Jews in the State of Israeli were even destroying the children of Sephardic Jews from Europe in a horrible manner.
Charges have been made by the Israeli media and confirmed by a former Israeli immigration inspector indicate that �hundreds, perhaps thousands� of the children of Sephardic Jews were taken from their parents and never returned.� Those Sephardic Jews which live in the Middle East and are thought to be descended from Jewish inhabitants of Judea.
However, the majority of Jews are Ashkenazi. A through study of history proves that they are the descendants of the Khazars, a people from Eastern Russian and Mongolia and who converted to Talmudic Judaism in the eight century. Children of Sephardic Jews from Yemen were subjected to a policy of the Israeli government in the �50s and �60s (and most likely even today) like the charges made against the Nazis during WWII. The Tel Aviv daily newspaper was told by the former inspector Ami Hovev that a �substantial number� of these children were killed in medical experiments and buried in lime pits. �I know that (Israeli physicians in state hospitals) conducted experiments on living children, extracting phosphorus and bone marrow from the spinal chord.� Hovev told Israeli TV. The parents were told that immigration regulations require underage children from the East to be hospitalized at entry. Families later received �notification� that their child had died in the hospital. These kidnaped children who were not used for medical experiments were given to European Ashkenozi families to raise. The revelation of this Israeli genocidal policy against Sephardic Jews has electrified the press in the Middle East, but the news has been completely suppressed by the controlled media in the U.S.( American Information Newsletter, 4/96, Box 44534, Boise, ID 83711)
The Israeli air force bombed the U.N. compound at Quana, which was occupied by many Palestinian refugees. One hundred and two people, mostly women, children, and the elderly, were killed. In response, an article appeared in the New York Times by Ari Shavit, a columnist for Haaretz, a Hebrew-language newspaper in Israel. �How easily we killed them,� Shavit said, �without shedding a tear, without establishing a commission of inquiry, without filling the streets with protest demonstrations, and without the carnage claiming a place as an election issue...Because the yawning gap between the unlimited sacrosanct importance we attribute to our own lives and the very limited sacred character we attribute to the lives of others allowed us to kill them. We killed them out of a certain naive hubris. Believing without absolute certitude that new, with the White House, the Senate and much of the American Media in our hands, the lives of others do not count as much as our own. Believing we really have the right to instruct 400,000 people to leave their homes within eight hours...and that we have the right to drop 16,000 shells on their villages and small towns. And that we have the right to kill without being guilty.�
If this had been written by a non-Jewish congressman, it would have been considered anti-Semitic. But one wonders just what the author means when he says: �with the White House, the Senate, and much of the American Media in our hands.� ( Rep. Ron Paul Survival Report, 7/15/96)
The Zionist/Globalists Who Control U.S. Government have long waged terrorism against Americans: The Oklahoma City Bombing was just another of a long series of Federal Terror Acts against Americans, that began after the U.S. Government joined the United Nations.
More Killings By Police: During public hearings held in New York, it was found that the following persons had been killed by police officers:
(a) Jos� Antonio S�nchez, Dominican, killed on 22 February 1997 by a police officer during a raid on the El Caribe restaurant in Queens where he worked as a cook. Police claimed S�nchez attacked them with a knife;
(b) Frankie Arzuega, aged 15, Puerto Rican, killed on 12 January 1996 after being shot in the back of the head as he sat in the back seat of a car stopped by police officers of the 90th Precinct in Brooklyn. Police claimed the driver of the car tried to drive off while being questioned by one of the police officers. No weapons were found. Officers did not report the case for three days, and were not disciplined;
(c) Yong Xin Huang, aged 16, Chinese, shot on 24 March 1995 by a Brooklyn police officer investigating reports of a child with a gun. He was shot at close range behind the ear. He was playing with a pellet gun;
(d) Anibal Carrasquillo, aged 21, Puerto Rican, shot dead by a police officer in Brooklyn on 22 January 1995. Police reportedly claimed he was acting in a suspicious manner. No weapon was found and an autopsy revealed that he was shot in the back;
(e) Aswon Watson, aged 23, African-American, killed on 13 June 1996 in Brooklyn. Reportedly shot 18 times by officers of the 67th Precinct while sitting in a stolen car. No arms were found. A grand jury chose not to indict the officers;
(f) Anthony Rosario, aged 18, and Hilton Vega, aged 21, both Puerto Rican, shot on 22 January 1995 by police from the 46th Precinct in the Bronx while trying to rob an apartment. Rosario was shot 14 times in the back and side. In March 1995 a grand jury voted not to bring criminal charges against the police officers. The CCRB supported the family claims, agreeing that excessive force was used and recommended that formal charges be brought against the officers. The CCRB sent its report to the Police Commissioner, who was said to have criticized the Board.
In addition, Anthony Baez, aged 29, Puerto Rican, was killed on 22 December 1994 by a police officer of the 46th Precinct in the Bronx who applied a chokehold on him. The officer who killed him had previously had 14 complaints of brutality lodged against him. According to the information received, the use of chokeholds was banned in 1993 by the New York Police Department (NYPD). Other police departments, such as those in San Francisco and Los Angeles, are said to continue using it if necessary to protect the lives of officers.
The deaths committed as a result of the use of pepper spray. Pepper spray is a weapon that attacks the respiratory system. While it is meritorious that police look for strategies and weapons that do not cause injuries, pepper spray has raised concerns because several persons are said to have died due to its use. At least two individuals died in San Francisco after pepper spray was used. Aaron William, an African-American, reportedly died in police custody after being beaten and pepper-sprayed by police officers. The Special Rapporteur was particularly shocked at the death of Sammy Marshall in San Quentin prison in California. Marshall, a 51-year-old man, was on death row for murder. On 27 February 1997, the California Supreme Court reversed his death sentence. According to the information received, he was never informed about it. On 15 June, several guards allegedly entered his cell and asked him to come out. When he refused, pepper spray was used, which reportedly caused his death.
The existence of a special unit in the Los Angeles Police Department, known as the Special Investigation Section (SIS), created in 1965 and composed of a group of about 20 officers who are known to conduct controversial operations which have on many occasions resulted in deaths. According to information received, on 12 February 1990 a McDonald's restaurant in the Sunland area of Los Angeles was robbed by four individuals while SIS members monitored the incident without intervening. Allegedly, once the four individuals had left the SIS agents opened fire as they were trying to leave in a car. Three of the robbers were killed and one was seriously injured. None of them was said to have fired any shots at the officers.
The existence of an independent civilian review system through which persons may file complaints of police misconduct offers the possibility of more impartiality. In New York, the CCRB was established in 1993. It is composed of 13 members appointed by the mayor, five of whom are chosen by the mayor, five by the City Council and three by the Police Commissioner. The Board is an independent, non-police agency with the power to investigate allegations of misconduct filed by citizens against NYPD officers. It has the power to receive, investigate, hear, make findings and recommend action on complaints concerning New York City police officers involving excessive or unnecessary use of force, abuse of authority and discourtesy or offensive language.
Once a case has been investigated, the Board may recommend any of the following dispositions with regard to the complaint: substantiated (the officer actually committed the alleged act), unsubstantiated (not enough evidence), exonerated (the incident occurred but the actions of the officer were lawful), or unfounded (acts did not occur). In cases of killings, the CCRB can carry out an investigation even if Internal Affairs is also doing it. The CCRB reports its findings to the Police Commissioner, but it has no authority to guarantee that disciplinary action will be taken. This will be decided by the police department while the officer under investigation may continue to work.
All sources consulted have agreed that police departments in the United States have high written standards in regard to training and guidelines on the use of force. Principles reflected in the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (General Assembly resolution 34/169 of 17 December 1979), as well as the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1990, are reportedly fully reflected in police regulations. This is despite the fact that there is little, if any, awareness of the existence of these international standards.
It was difficult to obtain information concerning killings committed by the police in the United States. National data seemed not to be available. There have been some attempts to collect national figures on police violence. The introduction in Congress of a bill called the Police Stop Statistics Act, which would require each individual police department to collect data on police stops, including whether a search was conducted or if violence was used, is an example.
The low rate of criminal prosecution in cases of police brutality remains the principal cause for the perpetuation of violations of human rights by the police, in particular violations of the right to life. The manner in which a Government reacts to human rights violations committed by its agents, through action or omission, clearly shows the degree of its willingness to ensure effective protection of human rights. States have the obligation to conduct exhaustive and impartial investigations into allegations of violations of the right to life, to identify, bring to justice and punish the perpetrators, to grant adequate compensation to the victims or their families, and to take effective measures to avoid the recurrence of such violations.
The fact that few police officers are subject to criminal prosecution for abuse of force resulting in death has been attributed to several factors, as described below:
Lack of proper investigations. On many occasions police misconduct; including killings caused by police, is investigated by an Internal Affairs Department (internal system for dealing with complaints and allegations of misconduct) within the police. According to the information received, they do not have independent subpoena power to call witnesses and compel their participation in proceedings. The District Attorney's Office generally receives notice of every shooting, but it does not necessarily get involved. The fact that it is the police department that investigates a shooting in which police officers were involved creates a conflict of interest. In most cases, police officers are not permanently assigned to the Internal Affairs Department; they work there for some years and then go back to the regular police force. It would be unrealistic to expect impartiality from those who conduct investigations against colleagues, particularly when their positions may later be reversed. Unless there is an independent oversight, these cases will not be properly investigated. This is why it is very important to have an independent body to investigate complaints against the police.
Compensation for damages does not generally come from the Police Department. The fact that money paid for damages normally does not come from police departments but from the municipality does not act as an incentive for the police department and allows the situation to be perpetuated. The Special Rapporteur was informed that in some police departments, such as in San Francisco, the situation has changed and that money comes from the police department itself. Consultations in this direction are also said to be under way in New York city.
Political influence of police in the country. Police unions in the United States are reported to be an important political entity. Not only do they represent their members, but they also make political endorsements. Politicians, when running for election, including for president, are particularly interested in receiving support from police unions because they are perceived as being "tough" on crime. In the context of misconduct, police are likely to benefit from political protection. At the federal level, there has reportedly been a lack of interest in investigating police misconduct.
Criminal prosecution is rare for similar political reasons: local district attorneys who run for office need support from police unions. In addition, the district attorney depends on the police department to conduct investigations. Unlike in many countries, the police in the United States are structurally independent of the judge as well as of the prosecutor's office. Therefore, prosecutors must always be aware, even as they seek to prosecute abusive police, that they will require the cooperation of these same police in all future criminal investigations and prosecutions. Therefore, it is allegedly difficult for a district attorney to decide to bring charges against a police officer. The district attorney must decide whether there is sufficient evidence to bring the case before a grand jury, which makes the decision whether or not the evidence justifies bringing an indictment.
NBC-TV Dateline Show reported that in 1953, the U.S. Government repeatedly sprayed a chemical warfare dust in the area around a school and in nearby Minneapolis neighborhoods. U.S. children were deliberately used as human guinea pigs, "without their knowledge." Four decades later, many of the alumni of that school believe that the government experiments ruined their health and the health of their own children. ( NBC-TV Dateline, 7/18/95)
What torpedo attack upon a U.S. ship in "international waters" led to war in Vietnam? The Tonkin Gulf resolution was passed immediately after Lyndon Johnson and others in the federal government deceived the American people into believing that a U.S. destroyer was attacked without provocation by the North Vietnamese Navy. It was revealed ten years later that no such attack had occurred. This deception by the President of the United States led to the deaths of 57,800 men in Viet Nam. The government to this day has engaged in a criminal cover-up of the fact that they left another 2,500 in bamboo cages as prisoners or war. Would the government lie to the American people? Ask a POW.
On March 8, 1977, the Army released a report "admitting" that it had secretly conducted "239 germ warfare 'open air' tests in at least eight major American cities between 1945" (the year that the U.S. joined the United Nations, openly) and 1969. The germs were released into the sea, the ground and into the air in both chemical and bacterial form. Among the areas subjected to "Federal Germ Warfare Terror Attacks" were: The Greyhound Bus Station in Washington, D.C., Key West and Panama City, Florida, St. Louis, Missouri, and around the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The Government also admitted that �"it had released microorganisms at Washington National Airport in 1965 and into the New York City subway system in 1966 during peak travel hours (where the highest number of Americans would be targeted)." ( New York Times, 1/25/94) "More than One-Million Commuters were exposed to U.S. Government Biological and Chemical Warfare Attacks." ( New York Times, 3/24/95)
LSD experiment costs U.S. 750G: Washington (AP) - "The government has tentatively settled a lawsuit charging the CIA used nine Canadians as human guinea pigs in mind-control research, including heavy doses of LSD, lawyers said yesterday. Sources who asked to remain anonymous said the CIA agreed to pay the plaintiffs a total of $750,000. The suit cited psychological and emotional damage from treatment in the late 1950s at McGill University's Allan; Memorial Institute." ( New York Post, Thursday, October 6, 1968)
The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Navy "deliberately" fogged the San Francisco Bay area with bacteria for six days in 1950, according to military records. "The records concluded that 'Nearly every one of San Francisco's 800,000 residents were exposed' to the cloud released by a Navy ship steaming up an down just outside the Golden Gate Bridge. The aerosol released by the ship 'contained a bacterial known as Serratia...which has been found to cause a type of pneumonia that can be fatal.'" ( Washington Post, 9/17/79)
The government never revealed the nature of the experiments despite an outbreak of Serratia-related pneumonia in San Francisco, within days of the biowar spray attack. At least one person died and 11 other cases of the diseases were confirmed at the time.
These Federal Government terror attacks against American civilians "rose sharply after May 1961," when then Defense Secretary (and leading New World Order supporter) Robert S. McNamara ordered the Army to attack the American population with "both biological and chemical warfare considering all possible applications."
Even after news of these domestic biowar and chemical attacks became known, the secret terrorism against U.S. civilians "continued!"
The New York Times reported: "Germ warfare experimentation 'in which bacterial agents are sprayed directly into the air.' Since 1979, the Army has conducted more than 170 open air tests at Dugway Proving Grounds, 70 miles from Salt Lake City, as part of an expanded biological warfare program. Army officials steadfastly asserted their right to test outdoors 'anywhere in the country, including the urban areas.'"
The Government "admits it is releasing a bacteria called Bacillus Subtilis, in Utah, to stimulate biological attacks with the more lethal Bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax. Other bacteria, including Serratia marcescens, have also been used in open air tests."
Many strange "new" outbreaks of rare viruses and unusual bacterial infections, "can be tied directly to these continuing secret Federal biowar terror attacks against Americans." ( New York Times, 11/29/88)
The February/March, 1995 American Reporter revealed that some of the many unmarked black helicopter sightings, in urban areas such as Atlanta and in rural areas (flying at night, at roof top levels), are "Spraying some kind of Chemical. Shortly after these mysterious overflights, people in the area have become infected with various respiratory diseases and certain types of influenza. The helicopters, appear to be U.S. made UH-1 Hueys and possibly Russian-built Kamov 'Helix' helicopters, whose civilian mission in Russia is spraying crops." ( The American Reporter, February/March 1995 issue)
The American Reporter also stated; "a large number of Russian chemical and biowarfare decontamination trucks have arrived in Mississippi."
Finally, newspaper accounts of the arrests of Egyptians accused of blowing up the World Trade Center reveal that not only did the FBI have advance notice of the bombing but, worse, their informant, a former Egyptian army officer, built the bomb. Emad Ali Salem infiltrated the anti-Israel group for the FBI, who asked him if the Egyptians could build a bomb. Salem told them they could not. The FBI instructed Salem to build a bomb for the Egyptians, using phony powder. Then the FBI told Salem to use real explosives. Salem did as he was told but began secretly to tape his FBI handlers in their meetings.
Transcripts of these recordings were published in The New York Times in October, 1993. Properly placed, the bomb would have killed a hundred thousand rather than the six people it did kill. According to court documents filed in New York, the FBI had advance knowledge of the bombing. But the decision was made on orders from the highest levels within the government to allow it to occur. Why?
Government-Engineered Radiation Terrorism: Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary released documentation of massive Federal radiation terror attacks against American citizens. The U.S. Government has conducted dozens of human radiation experiments which were targeted at "Pregnant women, fetuses, still born babies, live infants, the elderly and the mentally disabled."
During the 1940s, the Federal Government ran an iron absorption test on pregnant women at Vanderbelt University that led to an increase in cancer among children born to the patients.
Mind Control: From the end of World War II well into the 1970s, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Defense Department, the military services, the CIA and other agencies used prisoners, drug addicts, mental patients, college students, soldiers, even bar patrons, in a vast range of government-run experiments to test the effects of everything from radiation, LSD and nerve gas to intense electric shocks and prolonged "sensory deprivation." Some of the human guinea pigs knew what they were getting into; many others did not. Still others did not even know they were being experimented on.
Many of the stories of people whose lives were destroyed by mind-altering drugs, electroshock "treatments" and other military and CIA experiments involving toxic chemicals or behavior modification have been known for almost 20 years. But U.S. News has discovered that only a handful were ever compensated; or even told what was done to them. "There has essentially been no legitimate follow-up, despite the CIA's promise to track down victims and see what has happened to them," says Alan Scheflin, a professor at Santa Clara University Law School and an authority on cold war mind-control research. "It's just one of the many broken promises." A CIA spokesman last week said the agency is searching its files for radiation tests but has no plans to revisit other human experimentation.
MKULTRA: Most victims have never been informed by the government of the nature of the experiments they were subjected to or, in some cases, even the fact that they were subjects.
Most of the MKULTRA documents were destroyed in 1973 on order of then CIA Director Richard Helms, and the records that remain...clearly suggest that hundreds of people were subjected to experiments funded by the CIA and carried out at universities, prisons, mental hospitals and drug rehabilitation centers.
In 1955, the Army reported research at Tulane University in which mental patients had electrodes planted in their brains to measure LSD and other drugs. In other experiments, volunteers were kept in sensory-deprivation chambers for as long as 131 hours and bombarded with white noise and taped messages until they began hallucinating. The goal: to see if they could be "converted" to new beliefs.
As recently as 1972, U.S. News found the Air Force was supporting research by Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi, who is now dead, in which psychiatric patients at the University of Missouri Institute of Psychiatry and the University of Minnesota Hospital; including an 18-year-old girl who subsequently went into a catatonic state for three days; were given LSD to study "ego strength."
Gittlinger concedes that some of the research was quite naive. "We were trying to learn about subliminal perception and all the silly things people were believing in at that time," he says. One study even tried to see if extrasensory perception could be developed by "training" subjects with electric shocks when they got the wrong answer. But "most of the exciting and interesting and stimulating, and quite necessary as it happens, during that period of time," Gittinger insists.
Another former CIA official, Sidney Gottlieb, who directed the MKULTRA behavior-control program almost from its inception, refused to discuss his work when a U.S. News reporter visited him last week at his home. He said the CIA was only trying to encourage basic work in behavioral science. ( U.S. News & World Report, January 24, 1994)
Another Federal-directed radiation terror attack took place in the 1960-62 experiment at the Crocker Lab in Berkeley, California, "which the calcium...18 persons were injected with Plutonim, without their knowledge or consent, by Government Scientists in the late 1940s." ( Washington Times, 6/28/94)
The U.S. Government also ran an experiment where "62 teenagers labeled retarded, 'were fed radioactive meals at the Fernald State School in Waltham, Massachusetts; 131 inmates at Oregon and Washington state prisons had their testicles X-rayed to measure the effects of radiation on fertility."
At least 800 people were victimized by this Federal radiation terror (Time Magazine, 1/17/94) Afterwards, many of these government-terror victims died. In most of these tests, no long-term follow-up has occurred and some victims did not even know they were radiated. "Workers at a Paducah, Kentucky uranium enrichment plant 'Intentionally released radioactive gas into the air' in 1955 and 1974 to see how it would be carried by the wind...The Government did not warn anyone living in the area about the releases...From January, 1954 to September, 1955, Government records show that the plant discharged more than 14,000 pounds of uranium into the air, on about 650 pounds a month." ( New York Times, 8/6/94)
Federal Agents run Terror Deception Operations Inside U.S.A.: On February 11, 1976, the late Congressman Larry McDonald inserted evidence into the Congressional Record ( Pages E-617-619) documenting how "various U.S. terrorist groups were actually being funded and controlled by the Federal Government."
The government secretly funded a section of the Weather Underground Organization. ( Which was repeatedly involved in terrorist activities - INCLUDING BOMBINGS, ARSON, AND MURDER!) A January 10, 1976 Associated Press report stated: "The FBI created and funded a...group called the Secret Army Organization (S.A.O.)...in the early 1970s the 'San Diego Union' reports."
The newspaper described the S.A.O. as a "centrally designed and 'externally financed infrastructure designed for terror and sabotage...These acts were sanctioned by the nation's most powerful and highly respected Law Enforcement Agency: The FBI."
In 1971 and 1972, the S.A.O. "waged protracted guerrilla warfare..." and was "heavily armed with automatic weapons and explosives." The group engaged in "burglary, firebombing cars, kidnaping, and shootings." ( San Diego Union, January 10, 1976)
The San Diego Union also reported that the top S.A.O. leader was Howard Berry Godfrey, who "paid the expenses of the secret army, recruited new members, supplied the explosives, and picked out targets."
The newspaper further reported that Godfrey was also a paid FBI informer. Godfrey testified before a grand jury in 1972, admitting that "he had helped found the S.A.O. on orders from the FBI. While he led the S.A.O. Godfrey testified, he was in constant touch with his FBI supervisor ...making daily reports on his activities."
Another example of Federal-engineered terrorism was demonstrated in the 1965 murder of civil rights marcher, Viola Liuzzo. After being gunned down, allegedly by three klansmen who were riding in a car, those three Klansmen were quickly arrested. The fourth Klansman in that car was Gary Rowe, a paid FBI informer.
The National Review reported on a 1978 examination of the background of Gary Row: "The 1978 investigation implicated (Rowe) as an 'Agent Provocateur,' and he was accused of 'helping plant the bomb' that killed four Black girls in a Birmingham church in 1963." (The National Review, 7/10/95)
The Klansmen accused in the Liuzzo case, later admitted that they had been in the car, and that they had seen Rowe kill Viola Liuzzo.
In 1978, an Alabama grand jury indicted Rowe for first-degree murder in the killing of Liuzzo. At tat time Rowe had moved to Georgia and in 1980 a Federal Judge blocked extradition to Alabama, asserting that "a Federal 'agent' has rights that protect him when 'placed in a compromising position because of his undercover work.'"
The Federal Judge's ruling (upheld by a Federal appeals court) "exempted Rowe from any number of possible criminal charges in Alabama. In 1980, an internal FBI file came to light which acknowledged that Roe had led attacks on Freedom Riders, clubbing them with a lead-weighted baseball bat. The FBI paid the medical bills for Rowe's own injuries and gave him a $125 bonus."
In 1979, at Greensboro, North Carolina, a combined group of Klansmen and Nazis were involved in a shootout with members of the Communist Workers Party, which resulted in five dead Reds. In the 1980 trial that followed, it was revealed that Bernard Butkovich, an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) had infiltrated the Klan-Nazi group. Many witnesses from inside the Klan-Nazi group swore that "on several occasions, before the shootout, Butkovich suggested a variety of illegal acts."
Witnesses said that the BATF agent "suggested the 'Murder' of a rival Klan leader, urged members to buy equipment to convert semi-automatic guns to fully automatic weapons, and offered to procure explosives (including hand grenades)...None of the acts was carried out." (Washington Post, 7/15/80)
The New York Times reported witnesses swore that Butkovich also offered to "train them in such activities such as 'making pipe bombs and firebombs.'" (New York Times, 5/15/80)
One witness also "recalled that Butkovich had suggested, during the planning meeting, that the Nazis take weapons to the (Communist) rally in the trunks of their cars."
Because of filmed evidence showing that the heavily armed Communists fired many shots, "members of the Klan-Nazi agent Butkovich, was indeed working undercover in the Winston-Salem-Greensboro area" during the fall of 1979. (The Washington Post)
An internal Treasury Department investigation that followed, resulted in "Exactly the same kind of whitewash and cover-up that followed the later Government-Engineered Terror actions at Ruby Ridge, Waco and at Oklahoma City."
Such Federal-engineered terrorism proceeded right up to the period immediately before the Oklahoma bombing. The New York Times described how an FBI-BATF informer, named Eric Maloney, infiltrated a tiny unit of the Michigan Militia. That militia brigade had obtained photographs of Russian tanks that were being stockpiled for the New World Order U.N. occupation forces at Camp Grayling, a National Guard base.
Maloney claims that in late January, 1995, his local group of about 20 militia members created a plan to attack and blow up the tanks on February 10. "The attack never took place." On February 8, Maloney met with and "alerted...agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms." (New York Times, 6/25/95)
State and higher militia leaders had not approved of the scheme and didn't even know about it at that time. In his written statement to the FBI, Maloney alleged that the plan called for killing the base defenders and "blowing up" the entire camp. The newspaper interviewed members who had attended the original planning session. Some witnesses say that "it was Maloney who pushed the actual violence."
These members broadly confirm Maloney's story, "but differ on some important details. One says it was Mr. Maloney himself who helped devise the scheme and pushed hardest for it."
Kevin Shane, a brigade leader "accused Mr. Maloney of 'promoting the assault' and aid brigade leaders had spent several days trying to dissuade him. Mr. Shane has sued Mr. Maloney for slander."
Another member of the brigade pointed to Maloney as a chief architect of the plan.
McVeigh's 666 Microchip Implant: Timothy McVeigh told people in Decker, Michigan that his government-implanted microchip was causing a real sharp pain in his buttocks.
McVeigh said that the biochip was implanted "so the all-seeing eye of the government" could watch him and know his location. After he was arrested, one of the few things McVeigh spoke about was to complain about the continuing pain from his implant.
Martin Anderson, a former top advisor to President Reagan, stated: "There is an identification system made by the Hughes Aircraft Company that you can't lose. it is the syringe implantable transponder...It is an ingenious, safe, inexpensive, foolproof and permanent method of... identification using radio waves...A tiny microchip the size of a grain of rice is simply placed under the skin. It is so designed as to be injected simultaneously with a vaccination or alone. The chip contains a 10 character alphanumeric identification code that is never duplicated. When a scanner is passed over the chip, the scanner emits a 'beep' and your... number flashes in the scanner's digital display." (Anderson said that this system is sort of like a Technological Tattoo, October 11, 1993, Washington Times)
The 1988 book, Journey Into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse, by Gordon Thomas, stated: "Beginning in 1969, a team of CIA scientists from the Office of Research and Development (ORD) ran a number of bizarre and far-reaching experiments on mind control."
Head CIA mind control researcher, Dr. Sidney Gottlieg, told the agency director that "research findings by scientists demonstrated that humans could finally be programmed to attack and kill on command... Using the latest computer technology, CIA scientists built a system based on earlier work in radio telemetry, and the unfulfilled dream...of a world of electronically monitored people became that much more of a reality."
The system utilized a Schwitzgebel Machine (developed by Ralph K. Schwitzgebel at the Harvard Medical School). This device "consisted of a Behavior Transmitter-Reinforcer (BT-R) fitted to a body belt that received from and transmitted signals to a radio module. In the official description of the machine, the module was 'linked to a modified missile-tracking device which graph's the wearer's location and displays it on a screen.'"
The Schwitzgebel Machine was able to record all physical and neurological signs in a subject from up to a quarter mile!
The November 23, 1994 issue of Relevance Magazine described similar devices that are greatly improved: "When implanted under the skin of the subject, the biochip will emit a low frequency FM radio wave that can travel great distances - e.g., several miles up into space to an orbiting satellite." (Reliance Magazine, November 23, 1994)
This explains how the government has been able to track and monitor Timothy McVeigh around the clock since his biochip was implanted.
Reliance Magazine reported that: "biochips are already being used in Smartcards and are progressing to non-implantable biochips attached to the clothing or worn in bracelets... According to microchip researcher Terry Cook, U.S. military recruits are also being introduced to the bracelet, just as marine recruits at Paris Island helped test the military's Smartcard prototype." (Relevance Magazine)
The May 22, 1995 Washington Times reported: "Prince William, 12, second in line to the British throne, is to be electronically 'tagged' when he enters Eton this fall. Officials decided that in order to give William as much freedom of movement as possible in the 'security nightmare' of such a big school, an electronic tag was the answer. It was not specified whether the boy would wear an electronic device or have one implanted." (Washington Times, May 22, 1995)
The August 17, 1994 Los Angeles Times described the implantable microchip called Smart-Device, which is manufactured by Hughes Identification Devices:"The device is designed to be inserted within the 6 million-odd surgical implants placed throughout the world each year...The doctor can retrieve the data by using a radio-frequency decoder. The information on the chip would also be recorded on a computer-linked global registry." (Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1994)
Americans who receive a surgical implant may now find themselves implanted with a biochip without their knowledge.
Reliance Magazine reported that: "more sophisticated biochips have been developed, including behavior modification type biochips, where they were being used on inmates Chino Prison. We have been told, off the record, by sources in the military, that chips have been used by the Special Forces and by pilots in the Persian Gulf War."
Timothy McVeigh was preparing to join the Special Forces, immediately before his sudden change in personality.
The May, 1995 Planetary Association for Clean Energy (P.A.C.E.) Newsletter described biochip brain transmitters: "...governments and private companies are permitting enslavement of humans...with sophisticated electronic methods...Transponders as small as 2.2 x 12 mm can be injected...The radio-frequency device, consisting of a microchip and a ferrite antenna, is sealed together in a tubular 'bio-compatible glass enclosure.'" (Planetary Association for Clean Energy Newsletter, May, 1995)
Relevance Magazine stated: "...an engineer who worked on the biochip implant program reports that 'trial runs' of biochip implants 'in children' have been conducted 'in Florida daycare centers.'"
The June/July, 1994 Nexus Magazine carried an article titled "The Microchip and the Mark of the Beast" which stated: "The microchip is recharged by body temperature changes." Early research discovered that "the frequency of the chip had a great effect upon behavior."
A group of scientists found that behavioral change can be induced via such implanted biochips. "One of the programs was called the 'Phoenix Project,' which had to do with Vietnam veterans." It employed a chip called "the Rambo Chip. This chip would actually cause extra adrenaline flow." Microchips can be used for migraine headaches, behavior modification, etc. "There are 250,000 components in the microchip, including a tiny lithium battery." A doctor at Boston Medical Center was asked what that concentration of lithium in the body could do if the chip broke down. He said that you would get a boil or grievous sore. This information adds weight to McVeigh's complaint about suffering great pain from his microchip implant, because the negative physiological effects of such implants are not widely known.
The May 4, 1995 New York Times reported: "...the FBI and Justice Department had been negotiating since November, 1994 (long before the Oklahoma bombing) to loosen standards for investigating, infiltrating and conducting broad surveillance against targeted groups and individuals. These New World Order Totalitarian guidelines are based on what people say, write, or advocate. 'There would be no need to find an imminent violation of the law' (as required under the previous guidelines) 'but simply any conduct which might violate federal law. That interpretation has never been given to these guidelines before,' stated FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.'"
Targeted groups include fundamentalist Christians, militias, anti-environmental regulation protesters, right-to-life activists, gun owners, and anyone else who fights for our national sovereignty and Constitutional rights.
These new FBI guidelines establish a vast increase in federal informers, provocateurs and KGB/MOSSAD/BATF-style saboteurs. It is no mere coincidence that FBI Director Freeh has a very close working relationship with the revamped KGB in Russia and the Israeli Mossad.
Also, a number of dictatorial anti-terrorist bills were introduced at the beginning of the current session of Congress, long before the April 19th Oklahoma bombing.
Bill Clinton became very frustrated because no action was taken on most of this totalitarian legislation. The bombing achieved Clinton's goal. Immediately afterwards, the New World Republican Congress put the police-state legislation on a fast track for quick passage.
Writing in the July 10, 1995 National Review Professor Angelo Codevilla stated: "President Clinton's 'rhetoric' (immediately after the bombing) 'made it perfectly clear who, in his view, this country's potential terrorists are, and hence who the targets of the governments attentions will be. The standard developed after Oklahoma City, namely that possession of literature and frequent expression of opinions similar to those involved in violence constitutes a 'link' to violence (that) will enable the Clinton Administration to threat a wide variety of conservatives as a threat to national security.
Government officials, consider opposition to big government, to abortion, to high taxes, etc., to be the matrix out of which 'right-wing terrorism' grows...Clinton is making a clean break with the American tradition...to move away from the principle that the only people responsible for a crime are the ones who committed it, and to involve whole political parties and social categories as enemies in blood quarrels with the state is the first step down a well-worn path to civil war."
The 1985 book, The Body Electric, by Robert O. Becker, M.D. and Gary Selden, reported: "In 1973, Dr. Joseph C. Sharp of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, conducted research wherein subjects heard and understood spoken words delivered...in an echo-free insolation chamber, via a pulsed-microwave audiogram (an analog of the words' sound vibrations), beamed into their heads. Such a device has obvious applications in covert operations, designed to drive a target crazy with 'voice,' or deliver undetectable instructions to a programmed assassin."
The October/November 1994 Nexus Magazine described declassified documents on the CIA's MK-ULTRA behavior-modification program, where "tests were conducted on...servicemen, using...hypnosis... electronic brain stimulation (ESB), electronic brain implants, electromagnetic radio-frequency energy, and many other techniques. They were applied to subjects in any combination that showed promise for influencing or controlling human behavior."
"Why would the Federal Government do such things, you ask?" It is because; after President Clinton encountered strong opposition to his political plans, he vowed to come up with a way to "silence" his political opposition, especially radio talk shows. In late February, 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno issued a confidential memo to the Justice Department and U.S. Attorneys, calling for a series of investigations of anti-Clinton political groups. As a result, the FBI began intensive "surveillance" of patriotic and fundamentalist religious individuals and organizations.
The New York Times reported that new FBI guidelines �"tip the balance against the protection of citizen rights by removing the criminal predicate for investigation and 'inviting inquiry into all manner of speech,' some possibly hateful and irresponsible, but not necessarily illegal. It give the FBI an opportunity to slip into abuses that infringe on political dissent and the support of unpopular ideas."
These new guidelines; "would grant Federal agents 'intrusive new license to investigate constitutionally protected activities.'" (The New York Times, 5/10/95)
The Washington Times reported on recent FBI statistics on terrorist incidents in the United States from 1989 to 1994: "There were all of 31 such incidents in that whole period. In 1993, there were 11, most due to some petty violence by animal-rights activists. In 1994, there were no terrorist incidents in the United States at all. There is no terrorism in this country...and no need for 'Counter-Terrorist' laws that expand Federal Power." (Washington Times, 6/6/95)
On January 4, 1994, H.R. 97 was introduced calling for a Rapid deployment strike force in the FBI to create roving units to attack and round-up loyal Americans who resist the New World Order dictatorship. Under this bill, Attorney General Janet Reno would be given 2,500 special agents, including units of the military for actions against any group of citizens refusing to kow-tow to Federal edicts.
Congressional Republican globalists voted to collaborate with Clinton when they tore up part of the bill of Rights by passing H.R. 666, "allowing prosecutors to use evidence obtained without a search warrant." The Marxist Big-Lie media has played a key role in pushing anti-terrorist legislation. Immediately after the Oklahoma bombing, the media launched an "obviously well-planned and well-coordinated" Hate Month Campaign. (Based upon organized hate propaganda campaigns under Stalin and described in George Orwell's totalitarian novel, Nineteen Eighty Four)
A series of so-called "experts" appeared on TV and in major newspapers across America. Each of these alleged "experts," voiced the identically "ADL-Scripted Comments," directing their hate-venom against militias, Christians, and gun owners - even though no guns were involved in the bombing. Some of these hate propaganda shows even displayed charts and maps of militia locations, which the TV announcers admitted were prepared by the ADL. This propaganda campaign involved phony polls which claimed;� "up to 80 percent of the American people are willing to surrender their personal freedom and liberties in order to be more secure from terrorist attacks."
Anti-Terrorist Bill: So there was an anti-terrorist bill recently passed by Congress, that had as its stated purpose "To improve the ability of the United States to respond to the international terrorist threat." But a study of the bill proves it is more concerned with the United States and its citizens than it is about international terrorists.
It provides:
* Investigations of American citizens can be carried on by any agency of the Federal Government.
* Any and all evidence obtained by these agencies can and in most cases will be withheld from the defendants.
* The prosecution is not required to prove knowledge by any defendant of a jurisdictional base alleged in the indictment.
* Any evidence which the prosecution obtains will not be given to the defendant; in fact the defendant may not even know that he/she is under investigation until an indictment is handed down. And then they may not know what evidence is being used against them, which will make it an almost impossibility to defend oneself against the government's charges.
* Controls Over Terrorist Fund-Raising can mean any funds to any organization which the President may declare a terrorist organization, which can mean any religious, political, or other organization the President may wish to put on the hit list, and can be seized and confiscated.
* Even the court is denied all the evidence, and is to receive only a written statement as to what evidence the government has; if any. The government merely has to say it has evidence: It does not have to produce it!
* No protections for the defendant's right of a fair and just trial.
Media Complicity: It was only after the media demanded anti-terrorist legislation that the New York Trade Tower was bombed. The Arab "terrorists" arrested for that bombing quickly realized that they had been "set up." It was then that they played their "ace in the hole." They produced tapes of a U.S. FBI agent urging them to blow up the very Trade Towers that were attacked. Why is the U.S. Government so interested in having someone blow up something in America? Is it the FDR Pearl Harbor ploy once again - an excuse for doing what could not be done otherwise?
After the Oklahoma City bombing, the International Trade Cartel's (ITC) media sprang into action. They were told to fight "terrorism." The identity of the terrorists to be fought is of no consequence - there are repressive laws that the ITC wants to put on the books and it needs to fight "terrorism" in order to get Congress to pass them quickly.
In lock-step the media went after Islamic terrorists in a feeding frenzy. They discussed ways to retaliate against various mid-east countries. Experts were brought forward who suggested air strikes, economic boycotts, strategic assassination, and SWAT team actions. Sketches were produced demonstrating the feasibility of such acts. The FBI, the supposed target of the attack, pointed their finger at conservative, White, militia-connected, home-grown avengers. Media indecision and confusion lasted less than five minutes. Pointed in the right direction with new prey in their sights, they quickly came to the conclusion that since the attack took place on the anniversary of the Waco Massacre, the bombing must be in retaliation for it.
Waco Recap: For those with short memories, at Waco, scores of ATF agents (trained by the U.S. Government Delta Teams) appeared at the entrance to the Davidian church demanding audience with the church leader, David Koresh.
When he appeared in the door with some of his followers, male and female, the ATF opened fire, wounding Koresh and severely wounding several standing near him. Immediately, an ATF assault was launched against the wooden complex. The attack was supported by helicopters which flew back and forth overhead, spraying bullets into the building that contained women and children, several of whom were killed in these attacks.
The ATF assault team was repulsed with four troopers killed and something like 38 wounded. The remaining ATF assault team surrendered. The Davidains, in a charitable gesture, allowed the ATF to take their dead and wounded and, hands in the air, retire to the safety of their own lines instead of holding them as hostages for their own safety. By this time an unknown number of men, women and children in the church had been killed. No one inside or outside the church complex knew the reason for the attack. They still don't.
An FBI respect recovery team arrived and took over from the ATF. Their first act was to ban the press so that the world would not see the carnage inside the wooden church buildings. They brought up heavy tanks containing flame-throwers, the driver of one being the sniper who had just recently killed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, while she held her nine-month-old baby in her arms.
The media daily reported the exaggerations, falsehoods, and deceptions of the FBI spokesmen who accused those trapped inside the church complex of all sorts of things - accusations later proven to be false. The media quoted every word making no complaints over the censorship. The condemned in the church were prevented a chance to tell the public what was being done to them. We do know this much - the FBI denied bandages and medical assistance to the wounded women and children - and they did this after the mercy shown the survivors of the ATF storming party who had been allowed to return to the safety of their own lines.
After taking more than a month to indoctrinate the American public by demonizing the Davidians, it was time to hide the evidence. The 87 men, women, and children were incinerated. Heavy U.S. Army tanks first immobilized those trapped inside by spraying banned CS poison gas into the church so that their victims would be paralyzed and unable to escape. Then, lying helpless, the church was torched over them.
Autopsies Denied: What was left of the burned bodies was taken to refrigerated morgues to await autopsies. Family members of the victims asked for a court order allowing for independent autopsies to be performed. Federal obstructionism delayed the autopsy paperwork. After several months of sparring in court, the plaintiffs prevailed. Elated family members and survivors then began the task of securing the necessary investigators and pathologists, to aid them in the inquest.
While this was going on, the FBI had turned off the refrigeration. The bodies decomposed in the hot Texas weather beyond the ability of the medical examiners to achieve anything by autopsy. This act destroyed the last shreds of proof of government wrongdoing. The bodies were then pushed into a mass grave. Their families weren't notified, and only a handful were able to attend the burials on that rainy Saturday morning.
Instead of bringing those of the ATF and FBI responsible for the massacre to trial, trials were held for the few Davidian survivors. They were found innocent of all but minor charges, but had the book thrown at them by the federal judge who handed out forty-year terms.
Tears In Heaven: That's the title of the media picture showing the fireman removing the body of the child from the ruins of the Oklahoma City Federal Compound.
President Clinton, "Waco Bill" to his detractors, proclaimed a "National Day of Mourning." Headlines proclaimed: "Flag Half-Mast;" "Day of prayer;" "Suspect's Lawyers Don't Want Case;" "Right-Wing Militia Suspected;" "Rage of America." when asked by a reporter if "Oklahoma City" didn't compare with "Waco," the President dropped his mask and exclaimed: "No! The people at Waco were killers!" How many murders do you think 3, 4 and 5 year old children committed???
So much for the President's concern for the 17 Waco children who were burned to death at the hands of Government Terrorists. The President had a solution for the disaster: "Stop criticizing the government," no more "Waco talk;" "Commence wire tamps," "Infiltrate organizations suspected of anti-government bias," and, instead of disbanding the agencies causing the trouble, he recommended hiring one thousand more terrorists to act as "anti-terrorist government agents." Preventing future Wacos is seemingly far from his mind.
Mini-Wacos: Samuel Francis writes for the Washington Times. A recent article of his criticizes the continuing "mini-Wacos" that have occurred - mini-Wacos not reported in the national media - incidents revealing a government wolf preying on the sheep they are supposed to protect.
* On August 25, 1992, Donald Carison's home in California was invaded by Drug Enforcement Administration agents after midnight. Mr. Carlson reached for his hand gun to defend his home - the DEA shot him dead. No drugs were found.
* The DEA visited Donald Scott in October, bringing along the L.A. Sheriff's Department. Breaking into his house at night, the deputy sheriff shot Scott and killed him. No illegal drugs were found. The DA found that the raid was motivated by the desire of the officers to seize the Scott's ranch under federal asset-forfeiture laws.
* During a Bible Study meeting at Art and Louise Tingley's home on June 6, 1995, shortly before 5:00 p.m. in Federal Way, Washington, when the King County Police force swat team converged with other officials to "tactically secure the home of 70 year old retired Northwest Airline pilot and W.W. II Veteran. The King County swat team had 'no arrest warrant, no paperwork at all,'" the Tingleys did have a case pending in King County Superior court, which included a jurisdictional challenge of a pending writ of restitution. The Tingleys had no guns on the premises, nor own guns, neither did any of the people who were at the Bible Study, all were unarmed. "There were no warrants or papers ever served by the King County Police or the swat team on the Tingleys June 6, 1995. No charges were ever mentioned by the King County police on the swat team, nor was any probable cause for the raid ever given!"
* On September 1991, 60 agents from the DEA, ATF, National Guard, and the U.S. Forest Service stormed the home of Mrs. Sina Brush and two neighbors at dawn. She and her daughter were made to kneel and were handcuffed while dressed only in their underwear. No drugs were found.
* On August 25, 1992 at about 10:30 p.m. Donald Carlson returned to his home in Poway, California, opened his garage door with a remote control device, simultaneously illuminating the garage so that Drug Enforcement Administration agents conducting surveillance from nearby could see inside. Just after midnight, when Carlson was asleep, a group of DEA agents burst into his house. Thinking they were robbers, Carlson grabbed his pistol to defend himself. He also dialed 911 for help. The agents shot Carlson three times, twice after he was down and clearly disabled. Carlson spent seven weeks in intensive care, fighting for his life. No drugs were found on the premises.
It was later learned that the Federal Customs Service, the DEA and the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego had relied on an informant who was known to be untrustworthy and who claimed Carlson's garage contained 2,500 kilograms of cocaine (a large amount which would have taken up most of the garage) and four armed guards. The agents conducted the raid in spite of the fact they could see the informant's information was erroneous. As of this writing, none of the federal agents involved in the incident have been sanctioned nor has Mr. Carlson been compensated for his injuries.
* Janice Hart pulled up to her house from grocery shopping with her daughters to find her house being ransacked by ATF agents who had kicked in the door. Agents searched her home, throwing dishes, pulling clothing from hangers and emptying drawers on the floor (she photographed the damage). Some eight ATF agents interrogated her in the basement for an hour before reading her her rights. She asked to call an attorney and the agents refused to allow her to do so. When they finally asked her if she was Janice Marie Harrell, she told them no, that she was Janice Hart. ATF agents mocked her, accused her of selling firearms and cocaine, then arrested her. The Portland Police, who she commended for their professional demeanor, took her downtown for booking and, Within thirty minutes of fingerprinting here, realized ATF had the wrong person!
* In the summer of 1994 the ATF visited Harry Lumplugh in Pennsylvania. Twenty of the ATF force his wife and him to open safes and hand over private papers while holding a machine gun on them. Bored, they stomped the Lumplughs cat to death. No charges were ever brought against the Lumplughs.
* Again in 1994 four ATF agents raided the bedroom of Monique Montgomery at 4:00 a.m. She reached for a gun and was shot to death. Nothing illegal was found.
* The ATF raided the home of Louis Katona III in Ohio. They roughed up his pregnant wife causing her to miscarry. Nothing illegal was found.
There is also the death of John Singer, at the hands of government agents, the homes-schooler in Utah; Gordon Kahl; Arthur Kirk, the Nebraska farmer; Robert Matthews; and recently Tigerto, Wisconsin.
* IRS agents detained seven children at a Detroit area day care center, changed the locks on the doors, then called the children�s parents. The children were released only after their parents paid fees due the school that the IRS applied to a tax levy.
* An Alaska couple, disputing a tax assessment, had it tripled. To enforce the assessment, IRS agents seized the couple�s car while they were in it. Smashing the windows, the agents dragged the couple from the vehicle, leaving them bleeding on the pavement as a tow truck hauled their vehicle away.
* Falsified versions of a former U.S. Senator�s tax records were leaked to his opponent in the midst of a hotly contested re-election campaign. Coincidentally, the Senator was investigating the IRS.
* Six IRS agents raided a Georgia convenience store and seized not only the store�s assets, but property owned by its customers. A U.S. District Judge later ruled that the owners were victims of �bureaucratic incompetence, aggravated by hostility and arrogance.�
* The IRS sought to exhume the body of a taxpayer who died in the course of an audit in order to verify the victim�s identity. Said the executor of the estate, �They�re just mad because he had the audacity to die without settling his account.�
* A woman objected to the confiscation of vehicles on her property by armed men who refused to identify themselves, but who turned out to be IRS agents accompanied by armed U.S. Marshals. Seven months pregnant with twins, she resisted, and was beaten to the ground with the butt of an automatics weapon. One twin was born dead, the other brain damaged. Several weeks later, the agent in charge of this operation received a commendation. (This incident was recounted in detail in 1990 on the Larry King television show).
* The IRS fined a Virginia businessman $400 for failing to pay two cents on his $22,894 payroll withholding tax bill.
* The IRS ordered a police commission in a small town in Pennsylvania to pay $700 on a one cent underpayment in its deductions from employee paychecks.
* The IRS confiscated the bank account of a nine-year old girl to pay a part of a tax claim against her grandmother and the $20.25 life savings of a 12-year old boy because of his parent�s tax debt.
Mr. Francis comments: "In none of the cases I know about have any of the federal agents been charged; few have been disciplined; almost none made the national news."
He goes on: "Congress...should find out who authorized these and similar raids and who committed these atrocities against law-abiding citizens. It should abolish the agencies responsible, and it should make certain that the tyrants and murderers in federal uniform who planned, authorized or committed these crimes are brought to justice."
If the out-of-control FBI and ATF had been disbanded following Waco, there would have been no "mini-Wacos" and no reason for an Oklahoma City payback.
Anti-Christ Media: The basic need of the International Trade Cartel is to have orderly markets peopled with orderly populations: populations trained to accept foreign merchants, foreign products, and foreign workers who arrive with their foreign gods. Anything less hinders trade. One reason the Christian religion has always been a media target is that the Christian religion:
* Forbids trade with strangers. (Proverbs 6:1)
* Does not permit strangers to live in Christian lands. (1 Kings 4:21)
* Does not accept foreign gods. (Joshua 24:20)
* Teaches separatism. (2 Corinthians 6:17)
To open the land to free trade (Which, upon study, is found not to be free after all) and free travel by merchant-strangers and their gods, the priests, and the king and his soldiers reward those obedient to their wishes and punish the disobedient. This is the key to understanding Waco and Ruby Creek, Idaho.
A "separatist" is guilty by his mere act of trying to be separate. Weaver lived on a mountain top, Davidians lived a separated lifestyle in a Texas church complex; black separatists lived apart in Philadelphia and all were exterminated. All separatists must be reeducated, or marked for death. To discover separatists the king incites the people. Those who will not accept the king's (President's) edicts must be suppressed or exterminated. This is the final stage on the road to empire.
Civil disorders uncover disaffected separatists. People trying to protect themselves from a government-gone-wild are branded as separatists "rebels." It is in this context that one must look at the foreigners quarter at U.S. military bases.
At the proper time they will be given their own military equipment that has been stored for them in government warehouses, and they will help the ITC restore order in America - another U.N. police operation. The precedent has been set. So who is this Timothy James McVeigh? Is he a patriot seeking to put a stop to future Wacos, a government agent, or a fall guy? We remember that the media was beating the drum for "anti-terrorist" legislation BEFORE there were terrorists in the USA.
Putting It Together: It is interesting to note how fast the government held "anti-terrorist" hearings on the Oklahoma City bombing. Compare this with their absolute lack of interest in holding hearings on the Ruby Ride or Waco Massacres. It is also interesting to watch politicians and talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and others like him, when queried about comparing Waco with Oklahoma City - they fidget and refuse to talk about Waco. They are media-elected and don't dare antagonize their masters. Other things point to government involvement in the bombing:
* The FBI, the ones who ordered the final assault on the Davidians, should have been the logical target. They didn't have offices in the federal building that was attacked.
* Who placed the bombs that were disarmed within the Oklahoma federal compound?
* What about the seismograph story - that there were two separate explosions - ten seconds apart? Engineers tell that 4800 pounds of fertilizer explosive is a lot of explosive, but fertilizer bombs are very inefficient, and, there was an awful lot of damage done to that building. That amount of damage would be far more likely if an inefficient outside bomb were helped by an efficient one inside. Then, too, the YMCA building just across the street was still standing. Window washers weren't even blown off their scaffolding.
* Why was McVeigh driving a car without a license plate - an open invitation to be stopped?
* Lastly, and most interesting, of the 20 employees of the ATF in the bombed building, guess how many were hurt in the explosion? Absolutely none of them!
Neutralizing the Enemy: What is happening brings to mind one very particular scenario that, in the terms of the political environment and effect, was very similar to the Oklahoma City bombing. It was the early-1960s. The ultra-conservative movement was very active and rapidly gaining in popularity all around the country. In the South, Southwest, and West, especially, the conservative movement was making bold strokes against liberal, centralized government.
In homes, churches and business all over the nation one found patriotic literature. People were devoting their free time to the movement. They were organizing and conducting meetings in their own homes and businesses and churches.
These people were not led by political party leaders or politicians. No just like today, they took the initiative themselves. They hooked-up with everyone they knew, and because they spoke and taught the truth, the movement snowballed.
In the early 1960s, American politics as we know it was about to be changed forever. The ultra-conservative movement - what many of its enemies call "the far right" - was on a roll. And then that terrible, tragic thing happened that stopped the political and spiritual move to the right dead in its tracks - the assassination of President Kennedy. Suddenly, a marginally popular president, in many circles a despised, pro-socialist liberal, was turned into a national hero.
From the very day of the Kennedy assassination, the so-called "far right" was blamed. It was the so-called "conspiratorial far right," the government and the lap-dog media said, that killed Kennedy. It was said that those crazy right-wingers in Dallas had gone too far. It was said that money from the right-wing Hunt Brothers had something to do with Kennedy's killing. To this day, Dallas still suffers from the reputation as an enclave of murderous right-wingers.
None of these allegations held water, of course, but the damage had been done. For the government and the controlled media, allegations are enough to convince the general public. Allegations are all it takes to dirty one's political and spiritual enemies. And once again we see it happening today in the political and media fall-out of the Oklahoma City bombing.
One of the first, sure signs of a genuine conspiracy is when an out-of-power but rising group of political enemies is blamed for some terrible event. It happened with the Kennedy murder and it is happening with Oklahoma City. Today we are being told by the government and the media that right-wing extremists are roaming the countryside; getting ready to kill people just like the victims who were annihilated in Oklahoma City. That message is a lie! But it is the most effective tool the government and the media have to hurt the genuine, lawful, Christian conservative movement.
The second sure sign of a genuine conspiracy is this: A well-known and controversial figure close to the blamed political enemy is implicated. In this case, that figure is Mark Koernke, also known as "Mark from Michigan," and Koernke lives in Dexter, Michigan - the same hometown as James Nicholas.
We know that Nicholas and his brother, Terry, have been arrested and charged for setting off small bombs on their own property. And it is said that materials resembling those of the bomb fragments in Oklahoma City have been found on the Nicholas' farm. And according to the U.S. Attorney in Michigan, the Nicholas brothers were also arrested on the information that they "made numerous negative statements about the government."
Thought Police: Recent court rulings have held that the First Amendment may not protect speech if what is said is considered offensive or harmful in some way. Under a federal statute (Public Law 101-275), what you think and believe can, indeed, be a prosecutable offense, if your thoughts and opinions are publicly expressed. Since 1991, if the expression of an opinion is identified as in some way intimidating to any number of protected groups in America, a citizen can be charged with a crime and have his or her name placed permanently in a centralized registry in the U.S. Justice Department, and the FBI. You can lose your job, have your property seized, be fined and even be thrown in jail for expressing an opinion. (Media Bypass, via, Smyrna, P.O. Box 541, Fortuna, CA 95540)
Of course, making negative statements is not a crime but no matter. However, it is alarming that just two days before their arrest, President Clinton warned that those who made negative statements about the government must be stopped.
And what is worse, he said he would take the necessary steps to stop the negative speech. And brothers and sisters, this is the third sure sign of a genuine government conspiracy. The national news media immediately jumped all over Mark Koernke and it was claimed that he sent a so-called "cryptic fax" to Texas Congressman Steve Stockman before the bombing.
The fax supposedly communicated details of the bombing, and so it was supposed that Koernke had a hand in it. But the fax was sent, you guessed it, after the bombing and was itself based on news reports available to everyone.
So, it appears that Koernke was smeared by this coordinated media campaign, and so was Congressman Stockman. Congressman Stockman, it should be said, was newly elected in 1994. He is sympathetic to conservative Christians and has been repeatedly attacked, already, by the ACLU and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, or ADL.
Even after Koernke was proven innocent in the matter of the fax, the same ole lie continues to be passed around by Morris Dees (according to his divorce papers is a Pedophile, Queer, degenerate, and pervert), the Jewish civil rights attorney from Montgomery, Alabama. Dees appeared on the "Donahue" TV show on April 25, 1995, and accused Koernke of being on the run from the Government for having sent the so-called "cryptic fax." Folks, Koernke was never on the run and he personally appeared before the media to refute these claims, yet the lap-dog media never admitted they had been duped, and Dees insisted on repeating them on national television.
But who and what is Morris Dees? (From a review of his divorce papers, one can quickly find that Morris Dees is a Queer, degenerate, pervert, pedophile, and etc) Well, he runs a professional fund raising machine out of Montgomery, called the Southern Poverty Law Center. The local Montgomery press reported that Dees raises millions of dollars from scared Jews and minorities. His technique? He sends out hate letters, identifying false targets like Mark Koerenke and the State Militias. He then warns of impending violence, and says that money is needed to fight these made-up enemies. This is how Dees has become a multi-millionaire; by playing on the fears of uninformed minorities and Jews.
And so we see that from the very beginning and early on in the official investigation, the government and the media used dirty lying tactics to associate Koernke and all Christian conservatives with the bombing. Their goal? Stop the surging, populist, White, Christian conservative movement dead in its tracks.
The FBI has issued a �hate crime� resource book which recommends that state legislatures �model� new speech suppression laws after the recommendations of several Jewish, Black and Sodomite advocacy groups; such as the ADL, the NAACP and the National Gay (sic) and Lesbian Task Force. Speech considered �offensive� by these groups is to be criminalized with possible penalties to include heavy fines, property seizures, job loss and/or imprisonment. Furthermore, the FBI now recognizes these groups as �experts� who can identify others as �racists� and have that designation entered int FBI records. Current federal law requires that anyone whose speech is considered �intimidating� or �harassing� by standards established by the above-mentioned client groups must be reported within three months of the �offense.� (American Information Newsletter, 10/95, Box 44534, Boise, ID 83711)
Many believe it is fair to say, because of such government actions, that President Bill Clinton is a fascist. A fascist is a strange, hybrid creature who combines the most effective - and most virulent - strains of both Nazism and Communism. The fascist believes in a totalitarian government, but one ruled behind the scenes by a wealthy elite, such as the CFR and Trilateral Commission clique. The fascist despises God for he believes himself to be divine. The fascist deceitfully uses and manipulates the masses. From the rich he privately obtains his awesome power. From the deluded people he obtains his authority, which he wields with cruel and terrible effectiveness.
Today it is the fascists who stalk America. The modern day fascist tyrants, however, have not changed much from those of the past. President Clinton, like Hitler and Mussolini before him, tells outrageous lies. He lies about what really happened in Waco, and he cynically uses the Oklahoma City tragedy to arouse public fear and incite public anger toward perceived "enemies." He manipulates this fear and anger to achieve the hidden agenda of the Illuminati� elite: the granting of the dictatorial police powers and the setting aside of our nation's Bill of Rights.
In London's Daily Telegraph newspaper, historian John Keegan recently penned an article under the title, "Who Says a Hitler Could Never Happen Again?" Keegan observed, "People...cannot tolerate chronic insecurity. They crave civil peace almost as much as they need food. If denied it, they will give their loyalty to anyone who can assure it; they will also sanction any measures this Leviathan - as Hobbes called this bringer of security - deems necessary to restore order."
"Hitler's genius," Keegan continues, "was for playing on the fears and anxieties of ordinary men and women" who, frightened and desperate for order, agreed "to the whole apparatus of social control that Hitler installed, when he achieved power - with their votes." Keegan points out that the people, feeling themselves under pressure from a "collection of terrorists, fanatics, and criminals assented to police state tactics, deprivation of civil rights, imprisonment without trial, judicial murder, and, eventually, mass extermination of the enemies of the people."
To those who say that it couldn't happen today, not with an enlightened media, Keegan responds by reminding us that, in fact, the media were the greatest promoters of Nazi fascism and were among the warmest advocates of Adolf Hitler's totalitarian program. "Hitler's real genius," says Keegan, "was in public relations...The German press, radio, and cinema applauded the Nazi assault on 'anti-social and criminal elements' every step of the way."
And so we return to 1995, to President Bill Clinton and to an anxious and fearful America. Clinton's unconstitutional agenda, as was Hitler's, is applauded by the media.
Even the gassing and burning to death of the 17 children inside the Branch Davidian compound in Waco is described as a righteous act by an honest and virtuous President and Attorney-General. The German people had their Reichstag. The Americans now have their Oklahoma City. Apparently, the devil never changes his ways, and neither do his fascist agents here on planet Earth.
Who Profits?: No one but an insane sadist, or a scheming totalitarian, would have participated in or applauded the Oklahoma City bombing. Who, then, did profit from this otherwise senseless act of sheer terror? You know, and I know, the answer. In a manner frighteningly reminiscent of Josef Stalin's purges in Soviet Russia and Hitler's propagandistic, Nazi era, Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, and their totalitarian comrades are cynically and hyprociticaly using this tragedy to demand special, dictatorial police powers.
How disgustingly convenient, how cruelly perfect, how devilishly advantageous to the long-cherished agenda of Bill Clinton and his New World Order superiors was this monstrous firebombing and massacre in Oklahoma City! Truly God's Word is astute, for we read in Proverbs 8:36: "All they that hate me love death."
Enemies of the State: Both the government and the media agree: certain, designated "enemies" must be stopped. Federal law enforcement agencies, we are told, must be given the maximum authority to shut the mouths of dissidents. Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress seem determined to give to federal authorities dictatorial tools to end what the media describes as "the threat to public security posed by dangerous, anti-government factions."
America is being told that so-called "extremist, right-wing" groups must be thoroughly investigated, even if they are not suspected of actual crimes. For the good of the nation, they MUST be confronted with far-reaching, police state tactics.
Among the extremist groups identified by the media and the government as threats to national security are the following; look and see if you or someone you know could be on Big Brother's enemy hit list. Check to see if you are a designated "enemy of the state:"
* Pro-lifers, who oppose abortion, all of whom, the government and media claim, are guilty of a national conspiracy to firebomb abortion clinics and murder abortion doctors.
* Christian Fundamentalists, especially those who believe in a coming apocalypse, a literal Armageddon, the last days' rise of Mystery Babylon, and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.
* Conspiracy Theorists, especially those who warn of a "New World Order" or who criticize the United Nations.
* Farmers and Ranchers, because they oppose the "wisdom" of new environmental regulations and the government's management of their lands and homesteads. Of course, only the little farmers and ranchers are threats, the big, "agribusiness" titans are government-approved!!!
* Internet and Fax users, because they are supposedly guilty of spreading so-called "hate" messages by computer and over the fax lines.
* Gun Owners, vilified because they allege that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees to the citizenry "the right to keep and bear arms." This, we are told, is a dangerous and inflammatory idea.
* Militia Members, targeted because they expose the heinous and murderous acts perpetrated by the FBI and BATF in Waco, and Ruby Creek, things that the national media and the government prefer the American people not find out.
* Conservative Talk Show Hosts, because they provide forums where the enslaved working classes, American patriots, Biblical Christians, and other anti-New World Order voices stir up discontent and distrust of Big Brother Government - which, of course, is a decided no-no as far as the elitists are concerned.
* Tax Protesters, because they simply don't understand that it is a "good thing" for our friends at the IRS to exercise such massive and unconstitutional police powers over the suffering and ever more paying citizenry. How else can we pay for the police state, for all those much-needed government welfare programs, and for all that foreign aid?
* Constitutionalists, because of their unacceptable belief that the wording of the Bill of Rights is to be taken literally. Constitutionalists are also said to be extreme because they oppose the New World Order and warn of a coming, one world government system which would make obsolete the need for our "old and antiquated" national constitutional.
* Tenth Amendment Advocates, especially to be watched and beaten down are those who believe in the Tenth Amendment, which states that those powers not specifically delegated to the federal government, "are reserved to the states or to the people." This, say the media and the politicians in Washington, D.C. (District of Corruption) is a disturbing and revolutionary notion!
* Patriots, because they cherish the "Old America" the land that once belonged to the brave and the free, before today's socialist rot set in.
* Armed Forces Personnel, because they despise their "heroic," draft-dodging, U.S. military-loathing, Commander-in-chief. These men and women oppose PDD-25, the government's directive to turn over command of the U.S. military forces to United Nations' controllers. Many uniformed personnel are also "America Firsters," and this presents a roadblock to the glorious, soon coming New Age of one-worldism.
* Right-Wing Extremists, all of the people in the above categories, plus many more "anti-government" agitators, for example, home schoolers, objectors to homosexual conduct, etc., are lumped together and labeled as "right-wing extremists." The nation is being encouraged to distrust, investigate, watch, despise, and quarantine these terrible people.
Ten years ago Congress enacted the Comprehensive Crime Act of 1984, which provides that if the police have "probable cause" to believe that your car, say, or your home has been "used to facilitate" a crime, law enforcement agents are free to confiscate your property without having to bother with a trial.
Suppose, for example, the government has you confused with somebody else and thinks you're printing bogus stock certificates in the attic. Acting on suspicion alone, law enforcement personnel can seize your home and pitch you and your family into the street!
Or suppose you're stopped for speeding and the cops find a marijuana butt left on the floorboard by a garage mechanic. If they wish, and they probably will, they can confiscate your car, and they have a lot of incentive to do so because the profits are split between the arresting officers, the judge, the officers budgets and the government.
Oh sure you can get a lawyer and try to get your property back, but there's no presumption of innocence, and retrieving your belongings may cost you thousands of dollars in legal fees. One man in Houston, Texas had $50,000 seized and he went to court to redeem his money, after spending $75,000 on lawyer fees he finally got $20,000 back.
United Nations: Contrary to popular belief, the United Nations was not "born" in San Francisco, in July 1945 according to information revealed during a debate between Lt. Col. Archibald Roberts and Congressman Richard Ottinger, former Director of the United States Committee on the United Nations. Col. Roberts said, "...the United Nations was spawned two weeks after Pearl Harbor in the office of Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. In a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt dated 22 Dec., 1941, Secretary Hull, at the direction of faceless sponsors...recommended the founding of a Presidential Advisory Committee on Post War Foreign Policy. This...was the planning commission for the United Nations and its Charter."
Col. Roberts also identified the committee, including various State Department advisors and staff, leaders in education, media and foreign policy research. Ten of fourteen members belonged to the CFR. Roberts said, "Each member of the committee was, without exception, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, or under the control of the CFR." "We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent." ( Jewish Banker Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, as he testified before the U.S. Senate)
Swat teams raids upon the homes of citizens resulting in the killing of entire families are taking place all across the nation, but the national media is only reporting on the ones in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Several individuals in various patriot, militia, and Christian Identity groups believe that the bombing was perpetrated by the government agents in order to give it cause to disarm society and to bring about a "national emergency" in which all constitutional rights would be abolished.
Many believe the recent historical reports about the so-called Una-bomber are nothing but clandestine threats by government to Congress that they are not passing the anti-terrorist bills fast enough, and if they don't hurry and get on with the program there will be more bombings and more killings!
Now, let us turn to the front page of the Patriot Report which carries this head line, "Clinton Bashes Patriots." As if the patriots and the Militias were the worst terrorists in the U.S., WHEN REALLY THEY ARE THE ONES WHO WANT TO PROTECT OUR NATION FROM TERRORISM, AND ARE THE BEST OF THE PATRIOTS. �"Clinton spoke at a college graduation ceremony in Michigan Friday, May 5th, using the opportunity to demonize militias and American patriots. Quotes from AP: 'How dare you suggest that we, in the freest nation on Earth, live in tyranny,' Clinton said. 'How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes.' The President has sent Congress legislation to hire 1,000 more federal gents and to give the FBI broader powers to infiltrate and investigate paramilitary groups...Clinton said his comment were directed not only at paramilitary groups but at others 'who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from within our country or beyond our borders, but from our own government.' In the past the President has also denounced people who spread hate and division 'regularly over the airwaves.'
This is the latest installment of statements made by Clinton in his campaign to vilify American patriots. Clinton and his devious political cohorts are trying to tie in all militias and patriots with the Oklahoma bombing. This is blatantly unfair and paints millions of law abiding Americans as terrorists and hate-filled aggressors. The real fact is that Clinton and his socialist dreamers are the ones trying to aggressively change America!
They are the ones trying to dismantle and replace the U.S. Constitution, destroy morality in the armed forces and in the nation, destroy our economy through NAFTA and GATT and force our nation into a one-world government. These are facts.
Clinton is painting socialist dreamers as true patriots and the true Americas as hateful terrorists. In a recent speech, Clinton said, 'We must purge the nation of the origins of this hate.' Purge! Where have we herd that word before? Russia? China? Bosnia? All of the above. And just who is it the noble Federal Government wants to purge from this nation? American Patriots and Militias who want to defend America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. True Americans are the designated enemy now, not the Soviet Union, or Red China, or Communist Vietnam.
This is how far our nation has fallen, until the average citizen does not know good from evil. Any citizen who believes that militias and patriots are the enemy fully deserves the tyranny they are going to get.
The CFR and Trilateral members in the federal government caused Americans to wake up. Aggressive and offensive un-American activities by conspirators for a one-world government opened our eyes. Because of traitorous acts to destroy the U.S. Constitution, Americans began to see treason in our nation. And now, since Americans are waking up and recognizing the downfall of our nation, speaking out against the actions, Clinton begins to cry, 'Foul!' He does not want Americans to speak the truth over the radio waves, or to publish the things that are happening to our nation.
He wants us to go back to sleep and not to worry about anything. After all, the federal government with their IRS, ATF, and FBI agents are the real patriots and heroes. They are here to help us. We remember how they helped that family in Idaho - by shooting the 14 year old boy in the back and shooting the nursing mother in the head while she was holding her baby. We remember how the federal government came to Waco to help save the little children - they burned to death 18 children and murdered nearly a hundred people.
Who is it really that is terrorizing America? Who is getting laws passed to validate tyranny? The federal government has become a monstrous, corrupt system that is feeding on the weak and innocent. This is much worse than the taxation without representation that our forefathers faced in 1776. This is slightly more a problem than taxes on tea. This is a battle for the minds and lives of American citizens.
Clinton is using the media like a master politician to destroy the reputations and integrity of True American Patriots. He is utilizing a billion dollar news media to vilify true defenders of liberty. Then he complains about those on short wave radio. For Clinton to take the time to complain about radio talk shows that present a diverse viewpoint only proves how well the patriot movement has been growing, how wide-spread the message of liberty truly is across our nation. The Clinton's socialist and communist contacts and agenda are common knowledge. For Clinton to strike out against patriots is actually a validation of the patriot movement.
The office of the President is a position of honor, integrity, and most of all, true leadership. This office deserves respect, whether or not as Americans we always agree with the President's policies. But when the President uses the blood of innocent children to further his own political ambitions and agenda, respect for him is lost.
The fact that Clinton is publicly bashing militias and patriots has exposed his agenda to control all opposition and further erode our Constitution. This is waking up more Americans than any one patriot group could have done. thank God Clinton is so over confident! The more the conspirators lash out at the patriots, the more Americans will know the truth.
Truth is in short supply in our nation today. We must stand as a pillar of truth in a world full of lies. As Americans, we must unite against the brainwashing of an all powerful news media and make a rational stand for liberty. Patriots do not react irresponsibly, we respond with wisdom and common sense.
The conspirators for a one-world government have aggressively attacked our culture and nation. We have responded by exposing the truth and waking up America. we make no apologies for defending America and standing for liberty. If the socialist schemers continue to undermine our once great nation and attack the constitutional militias, they will once and for all expose their intentions. The military and police officers of America will see the conspirators for what they are, treasonous revolutionaries that are hell bent on destroying our constitutional Republic."
When someone breaks into your house and ransacks the place, taking all they want, we call that theft, and it is a theft of tangible assets. However, the eighth commandment, "thou slat not steal," refers to more than just tangible or physical property, it also refers to intangible things.
So let us give you just one example. If you were arrested by a policeman and incarcerated in jail without just cause, that is referred to as unlawful imprisonment. Most arrests in conjunction with traffic stops fall into this category as, in most states, the policeman only has authority to take you before a magistrate, not to jail. But what, then, is unlawful imprisonment? It is stealing your liberty or your freedom. It is kidnaping and imprisonment by officers of the state.
Freedom is something a Freeman enjoys and something that slaves do not enjoy, for slaves are not free. Any dictionary will tell you that freedom is defined as: "A state of exemption from the power or control of another..."
When your parents get a birth certificate, and fill it out, from that moment on you belong to the state. You are a slave of the Federal Government.
Even now in Texas there are court cases wherein the Texas Education Association states: "A parent has no right to know, or to control, what is being taught to their children in the public school system!"
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UNITED STATES CODE; TITLE 50 ‑ WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE; CHAPTER 32 ‑ CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAM.
� 1520. Use of human subjects for testing of chemical or biological agents by Department of Defense; accounting to Congressional committees with respect to experiments and studies; notification of local civilian officials
(a) Not later than thirty days after final approval within the Department of Defense of plans for any experiment or study to be conducted by the Department of Defense, whether directly or under contract, involving the use of human subjects for the testing of chemical or biological agents, the Secretary of Defense shall supply the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives with a full accounting of such plans for such experiment or study, and such experiment or study may then be conducted only after the expiration of the thirty‑day period beginning on the date such accounting is received by such committees.
(b) (1) The Secretary of Defense may not conduct any test or experiment involving the use of any chemical or biological agent on civilian populations unless local civilian officials in the area in which the test or experiment is to be conducted are notified in advance of such test or experiment, and such test or experiment may then be conducted only after the expiration of the thirty‑day period beginning on the date of such notification. (2) Paragraph (1) shall apply to tests and experiments conducted by Department of Defense personnel and tests and experiments conducted on behalf of the Department of Defense by contractors.
But what was the purpose of freedom? We know, from Genesis 1:26, that man's mission was to subdue and have dominion over the earth. Now if you steal a man, thus robbing him of his freedom, then that man comes under the control of another, and when that happens, how can he fulfill the prime directive given by God? Obviously he cannot.
We should point out that some men, perhaps even most men, are slaves by nature. They prefer to be controlled to some degree by man or state, rather than being in absolute 100% control of themselves under God. In fact, these men will tell you that we need to be controlled for the good of society.
However, in Scripture slavery was voluntary, and a dissatisfied slave could leave, and he could not be compelled to return, and other men were forbidden to deliver him to his master. We find this law in Deuteronomy 23:15-16: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou salt not oppress him."
Notice that this implies a certain amount of liberty on the part of slaves, and also a duty of just treatment by their masters. And, for the most part, so it was in the pre-Civil War South as slaves lived in their own quarters, had guns to hunt with, and a patch of ground on which to grow crops. Although they had a great deal of liberty, unlike slaves in the Scriptures they could not leave their master as they were considered a form of personal property. But, some were given their freedom and others were allowed to purchase their freedom.
However, in the Scriptures, a man who abuses his freedom can be sold into slavery in order to work out his restitution. We know this from Exodus 22:3: "If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft."
The principle seems to be that if a man cannot use his freedom for its true purpose, godly dominion, reconstruction, and restoration, he must then work towards restitution in his bondage. But masters were required to be fair in their dealings with their slaves, and this was confirmed by Paul in Colossians 4:1 where he stated: "Master, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a master in heaven." The prohibition of stealing referred originally to kidnaping as well. For example, we read in Genesis 40:15 of Joseph's removal from the land of Canaan. Joseph stated: "For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews..." Joseph seemed to understand that to kidnap a man was a stealing of that man and to enslave him is to rob him of his freedom.
We would also point out that Scripturally, kidnaping was punished by death for Exodus 21:16 states: "And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."
Likewise we read in Deuteronomy 24:7: "If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you."
Certain things clearly appear in these two laws. First, they forbad the kidnaping of any man, whether Israelite or foreigner.
Second, the selling of slaves was forbidden, and so a slave-market could not exist in Israel. Since Israelites were voluntary slaves, and since not even a foreign slave could be compelled to return to his master, slavery was on a different basis under the laws of God than in non-Biblical cultures.
Scripturally, the slave was a member of the household, having certain rights in that family. And the slave who was working out a restitution for theft had no incentive to escape, for to do so would make him an incorrigible criminal and subject to death. We have already seen that the death penalty is mandatory for kidnaping. No discretion is allowed the court, and so, to rob a man of his freedom requires death.
Fourth, Deuteronomy 24:7 forbids stealing a man by anyone who "maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him." Likewise in 2 Peter 2:3, Peter tells us that we will be as merchandise: "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you." Notice that this will be done, not with shackles, but by feigned words. In other words you will be enticed into becoming a slave for the good of society.
And the best way to entice a man into slavery is to control his assets, for if we cannot use our property without permission, then we are slaves to those who control the conditions under which we can use our property.
So property is basic to man's freedom and a tyrannical state always limits a man's use of his property. For example, the state taxes it, or confiscates it, which is a highly effective means of enslaving a man without putting him in shackles. The control or theft of personal property must be viewed as more than the lawless seizure or destruction of property: it is an assault on a man's freedom, and even his very life.
Neither the state nor any individual has any right to transgress this law. However, the state transgress this law all the time, not only by acts of confiscation, manipulation of money, and by taxation, but also by any and every undercutting of Biblical faith and education. For example, State supported and controlled education is theft, not only in its taxation plan, but also by virtue of its destruction of public character, so that a godly society is turned into a thieves' market.
During the law-abiding time of Israel's history, houses lacked doors. A curtain was hung in place of a door. Pagan dwellings in surrounding areas had heavy doors, sometimes of stone, carefully fitted into the stone wall, as a necessary protection against other men.
This difference, discovered by archeological work, is a striking one. When morality was the norm, when men were at peace with their neighbors, and when the law was obeyed and enforced, then the purpose of a door was merely to insure privacy, and a curtain, in a moderate climate, was sufficient. In lawless neighboring countries, stone doors were required, and men lived as prisoners within their own homes, in effect besieged by a lawless world.
Up until the 50s and 60s people in most parts of America didn't lock their doors, but now this same lawless siege-living condition again prevails in our society. By their destruction of godly education and of Biblical law, the nations have robbed their people of freedom, and the people, by their apostasy, have denied themselves freedom.
But to return again to the definition of theft as the stealing of freedom, the implication is clearly that property is freedom. A man is free if his person and his possessions are under his control. But if the state can prohibit you from using your own property or if the state can take it away from you if you fail to perform, such as by paying real or personal property taxes, then you are not free, they may not have you in shackles but they don't need to shackle you because you are a willing slave.
Guatemala and Other CIA murders: It is a great pity that the US people have never been allowed to read or hear or learn of the actual machinations of their leaders, particularly their industrial, political, media and security organizations (which of course decide who can afford to pay the huge financial costs needed to become President). The thoughtful people know that "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword," or �Violence breeds Violence.� Actually it is quite a relief to hear of deaths that are not of foreigners, not Iraqis, nor Iranians, not of dissidents against US Interests and their policies.
In the case of Guatemala, R. Torricelli has uncovered the US secret that the CIA arm of US Administration actually kills people, mostly foreign people and mostly in places like Guatemala. R. MacNamara also has finally admitted to the unnecessary US killing of about three million people in Vietnam‑Laos area. The US people can be assured that all those deaths are just the tip of the iceberg when considering the other unnecessary deaths in Latin America, Africa, Timor, Cambodia, etc. Or is it quite acceptable when foreign people are killed en masse for US trade profits? In 1845 USA annexed the territories of Texas and California
Uruguayan writer of Latin American history, Eduardo Galeano has much to tell you if you are prepared to imagine that history books supplied by all colonialist powers, especially including the USA, should be scrapped in favor of the truth. Here are some excerpts from the "Open Veins of Latin America." etc. His books are a must!
In the middle of the 19th Century William Walker on behalf of US Bankers invaded Central America at the head of a band of assassins and with the support of the US Government, robbed, killed and burned in successive expeditions till proclaiming himself president of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. He restored slavery in these States seized from Mexico, and was welcomed back home as a national hero. In 1912 President W H Taft declared that the whole of the hemisphere from the North Pole to the South Pole would be �ours, by virtue of our superiority of race, as it is already ours, morally!'
US Companies like United Fruit, Associated Press became the operators and catalysts for US takeovers. In 1933, Nicaraguan peoples' hero Sandino was invited to Managua to meet his President Somoza under US Good Neighbor Policy. He was murdered along the way. Somoza, the murderer, confirmed later that the US Ambassador had ordered the execution. With this power and the massacres that followed, Somoza, in 25 years, accumulated 46 coffee plantations, 51 cattle haciendas, the Cross of Valor, Medal of Distinction and Presidential Medal of Merit. Such are the US favorite corrupted friends. US control and profits magnified. Wall Street applauded.
In Guatemala in 1933 Pres. Jorge Ubico shot 100 Trade Union, Student and Political leaders who protested against laws forcing Indians to carry a book detailing hours worked each day at 30 cents per day. Readers Digest eulogized 'his efforts to avoid inflation.' Coffee and banana plantation foremen were exempt from Indian killing charges. This was the harbinger of the I.M. Fund. (Indian killing was also free in USA there in 1962). Ubico was followed by Presidents Arevalo and Jacobo Arbenz both of whom managed to break United Fruit's monopoly on unused land, allowing 100,000 peasant families to benefit. US media screamed 'communism.' US trained Colonel Armas, with troops and US F-47 bombers supplied by US President Eisenhower and CIA boss Allen Dulles, invaded Guatemala. Dulles was a Director of United Fruit. Both were shareholders. The land was returned to United Fruit.
Arbenz's fall started a conflagration in Guatemala which has never been extinguished. The same forces which bombed Guatemala City, San Jose in 1954 are in power today. New leader Mendez allowed his terror groups to murder at will. 'In 1967, expelled US Catholic Priest, Thomas Melville confirmed that 2800 intellectuals, students, trade‑union leaders and peasants were murdered for trying to combat the sickness of Guatemalan society'. Hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans were disposed of in systematic butchery with US approval, torture equipment and advanced weaponry. United Fruit and others needed their land to claim US protection as US interests. All the men of hundreds of villages were exterminated in Tituque; their intestines were gouged out with knives; in Piedra Parada they were flayed alive; in Agua Blanca they were burned alive after being shot in the legs; in San Jorge's plaza heads of� the rebellious were displayed on poles; in Cerro Gordo the eyes of Jaime Velasquez were filled with pins; the head of Ricardo Miranda had thirty-eight holes and with it the head of Haroldo Silva were found beside the San Salvador Highway. The head of Jose Guzman was chopped into a mass of tiny pieces and scattered along the road.(Do you understand what US terrorism has encouraged?)� Men in other villages greeted the dawn without hands or feet. All this fury began in 1954 and has not yet ceased. The slaughter that is greater but more hidden ‑the daily genocide of poverty‑ also continues. In 1968 another expelled Priest, Father Blase Bonpane reported in the Washington Post: "Of the 70,000 people who die each year in Guatemala, 30,000 are children. The infant mortality rate in Guatemala is forty times higher than in the USA.�
In the 1820's, Independence from Spain did not reward the Indians. The Latin American Nation‑ as the gentry, land-owners (oligarchies) and businessmen conceived it‑ looked too much like a busy port, inhabited by the mercantile and financial clientele of the British Empire. Free trade opened the doors to an avalanche of British merchandise. In 1824, Simon Bolivar assisted by British finance, arms and soldiers (as well as Germans French and mounted Indians) defeated the Spanish at the silent (no guns) battle of Junin Plain. Bolivar sold Potosi mountain of silver and all holdings of land and other assets in that part of Peru (name changed to Bolivia) to repay the 20 million English pounds. Bolivar was a warrior, not politician. In 1823 the adopting by the US of the Monroe Doctrine to preserve all Latin America for US interests, has led to 172 years of US hegemony, murder and repression of indigenous races."
And so, the voice of Rigoberta Menchu. "One little brother died from malnutrition. Nicolas died from pesticide spray fumes. When we were 14 my friend also died from cotton spray poisoning.
In every village, hundreds of young girls and women were being raped by the military, so I slept in the trees and rain each night with others. My father refused to part with our land so he was tortured regularly in jail. My mother said that when a woman sees her son being tortured, burnt alive, she is incapable of not hating.
In 1979 my younger brother died under torture at age 16. His name was Petrocinio Menchu Tum. He was made to walk away, kicked incessantly until he fell, then kicked in the face. When they had done with him he didn't look like a person anymore. He was kept in a well with many bodies. They forced stones into his eyes, cut off his skin and burned him. The wounds were infected. They shaved his head then cut the skin and pulled it down over his face, then cut off the fleshy part of his face.
Two weeks later they announced that all parents would have to come to the village to see their sons punished. We all, including my father, brothers and sisters had to walk all night to get to that place. Hundreds of peasants were there and machine guns and helicopters (US) threatened them. Soldiers had to cut the clothing from the prisoners as the officer told details of each type of torture for these 'guerillas. My brother had no soles left on his feet. Women had had their breasts or nipples slashed off, tongues and ears were missing everywhere. The Captain explained that the Government was democratic. What else do you want you are led by communists! All the sufferers were then doused in petrol and set alight. "Long Live Guatemala", said the Captain."
Wealth and power seems to turn men into brutes and animals. The US should consider the Oklahoma slaughter as a sign of the decay of morals and feelings especially by its successive sickening Administrations. Latin America and the Caribbean can never belong to such people. The whole world may die while America searches the stars for another sign of life. Even if life was found, people like the CIA, Pentagon and the Presidents with their deformed idea of �democracy� will only destroy that life too.
A History of U.S. Government Secret Programs: The following is a list of this century's most controversial government activities.
1931: Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.
1932: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. In this study, 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.
1935: The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits that it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occured within poverty‑striken black populations.
1940: Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.
1945: Project "Paperclip" is initated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.
1946: Patients in VA hospitals are routinely used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word "experiments" to "investigations" or "observations" whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.
1947: Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.
1947: The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.
1950: Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in western deserts and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.
1950: In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Franciso. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia‑like symptoms.
1953: U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.
1953: Joint Army‑Navy‑CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.
1953: CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.
1955: The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl; and Dallas, Texas. It is not know by this author how many other cities were used in this experiment.
1956: U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.
1960: The Army Assistant Chief‑of‑Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the european population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.
1965: Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of drugs.
1965: Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.
1966: CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.
1966: U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.
1967: CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and
designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.
1968: CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C and other cities across the nation.
1969: Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.
1970: Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology techniques are used to produce AIDS‑like retroviruses.
1970: United States intensifies its development of "ethnic weapons" (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.
1975: The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer‑causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T‑cell Leukemia Virus). In other words they created the AIDS virus.
1977: Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.
1978: Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.
1981: First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been introduced via the Hepatitis vaccine.
1985: According to the journal Science (227:173‑177), HTLV and VISNA, a fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and evolutionary relationship.
1986: According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (83:4007‑4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.
1986: A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.
1987: Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.
1994: With a new technique called "gene tracking," Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Gulf War veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man‑made. Senator Donald Riegle of Michigan issues a report listing 73 biological agents exported to Iraq prior to the Gulf War (this list is included at the end of WORLD ORDER by Andrew Goliszek). A complete Gulf War Illness Information Packet is also available for $10 from Dr. Andrew Goliszek at PO Box 24906,� Winston‑ Salem, NC 27114. Besides all the information currently available about GWS, the packet includes instructions and a form to sent blood for "free testing."
1994: Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf War.
1995: U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.
1995: Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.
Another No-Knock Raid on the Wrong House!: Can somebody please tell me how a confidential informant's mere hearsay constitutes probable cause to issue a no‑knock, dynamic entry search warrant?� Does it have something to do with the passage of HR 666?� These judges are issuing these warrants without so much as a shred of evidence being placed before them!� Maybe we have to perform a 3 am dynamic entry on one of these judges just to let them know how it feels.
Another Police Raid on a Home Yields No Drugs, but Much Trauma, By Michael Cooper: NEW YORK: Police officers broke down the door of a Brooklyn apartment, guns drawn, tossed a stun grenade into the front hall and handcuffed everyone inside, including a mentally retarded 18‑year‑old girl who was taking a shower. They were looking for guns and drugs. They found only a terrified family. "I thought America was invaded, that some force, a foreign force, came to kill us," said Basil Shorter, 62, a retired baker, describing the police raid of his Crown Heights apartment May 1 that turned his family's morning routine into a harrowing confrontation. "My family was helpless. I was helpless."
Other recent cases include:
On Feb. 27 police raided the Bronx apartment of Ellis Elliot. Elliot, who thought he was being robbed when his door was opened, took a gun and fired a shot. Police then sprayed at least 26 bullets into the room. No one was injured; no drugs were found. Officials later said that that they had hit the wrong apartment.
That same day the police broke down the door of another Bronx apartment only to find an 18‑year‑old woman who was eight months pregnant napping with her two children. No drugs were found. Police officials later said that they had hit the right apartment, but believed the drugs had been moved.
On March 18 the police raided the apartment of a family in Brooklyn only to find a grandmother� watching television with her daughter and grandson. Police officials later acknowledged that it was the wrong apartment: the officers had apparently misunderstood the directions from undercover detectives.
1998: Sallisaw Shooting: The actions of Sallisaw Police on Oct. 23, 1998 have been described� as "Gestapo tactics." Police stormed into a trailer home and shot Patricia Eymer while she was holding her 4-year-old daughter. An infant was only a few feet away, and a 13-year-old daughter passed out in fear and shock.
Eymer was shot in the right shoulder, and is recovering. It is still unknown whether doctors will be able to perform a shoulder replacement, or if she will lose her arm, according to Eymer.� "We filed a 1983 civil rights suit in federal court," said Daniel George, Sallisaw attorney for Eymer. "The officer and city have not yet been served, nor do they know of it.
It's fairly obvious that a .45 caliber slug in the shoulder will tend to violate your civil rights."� Despite the criticisms being raised, the Sallisaw mayor, the Sallisaw Police Department, the Sequoyah County sheriff's office, the district attorney, and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation have all refused to provide information to WorldNetDaily. Repeated and frequent attempts to get information have been met with silence.� Mrs. Eymer has not been charged, however her husband, Steven Eymer, and some guests in her home were arrested on drug charges. The evidence listed in court records does not identify any "controlled dangerous substance" or marijuana to support the charges made.
Saturday, November 14, 1998: The victim of a police shooting in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, has filed a federal lawsuit to recover damages, and officials still refuse to provide information to the public.� Press reports and talk-radio hosts across the nation have referred to� Detective Larry Blount led a team of Sallisaw officers on a drug raid at the Eymer home. He was assisted by officers Dawn Jerman, David Bethany, Freeman (first name unknown), and John Owens. Travis Holman is mentioned in the evidence report, but the police claim he is not an officer and they will not say who he is. George has identified Owens as the shooter in his suit.
�Police refuse to explain what evidence they had to justify the need for the search, nor will they explain why it was necessary to conduct a no knock search in a pre-dawn raid. Neighbors say they believe another neighbor falsely told police that the Eymers were making methamphetamine and selling drugs.� The warrant states that Detective Blount showed "probable cause" that there was evidence at the Eymer home that would result in a charge of "unlawful possession and/or distribution of controlled dangerous substances." Specifically, the warrant authorized a search for methamphetamine, and the items associated with its manufacture and sale.�� No such items were listed in court records of evidence found by police.
�The fact that they live in a very modest single-wide mobile home with no telephone is evidence of their income level, according to George. Both cars owned by the Eymers do not operate and are in need of repair. The family's income is extremely low. The attorney pointed out that there was no evidence the Eymers were making money selling drugs. The evidence list provided by the court does not list any drugs found in the home, although it does list some marijuana pipes.
�Mr. Eymer said their behavior and the evidence obtained did not warrant the dramatic entrance of the police into the home. He also said there was no provocation to justify police firing at his wife. Everyone in the home cooperated with police and offered no resistance, he said.� The Eymers' three children were taken by child protective services. Grandparents arrived the day of the shooting and were not permitted to take custody of the children, or even see them.
They said they were concerned about the needs of the children after witnessing a traumatic event, and they could not find out if the children were getting emotional help.� Three days after the shooting, Mrs. Martha Smyrl, who is Mrs. Eymer's mother, finally saw the children for a few minutes at a court hearing. "The 5-year-old, when I seen her in court, she came running to me and said, 'Grandma I want to come home with you.' She said, 'Grandma, Mama's been shot.' I told her, I said, 'Honey, Mama's okay. She's doing fine. I had to keep her calm," explained Mrs. Smyrl.
�"They won't tell us nothing about the kids," said Mrs. Smyrl -- more than a week after the shooting. "They wouldn't tell me where they were at. I couldn't see them. I'm their grandmother. I practically helped raise these kids. This is what I don't understand."� Mr. Smyrl said he was told that Oklahoma would not give custody to relatives who live out of state. The Smyrls live in Texas. After Mrs. Smyrl began looking for a place to rent, she was told the only place acceptable for her to have the children would be in Sallisaw.� Mr. Eymer says the traumatic experience the children went through, and the lack of contact with family members is a form of child abuse.
�The children were finally turned over to Mrs. Smyrl earlier this week. She said a great deal of grief for the family and the children could have been avoided if she was given custody earlier.� There are still many unanswered questions about this case, and police continue their silence. Mrs. Eymer said she and her family are being followed by police wherever they go. The apparent intimidation has made her more determined to proceed with her federal lawsuit.
July 22, 1998: Pedro Oregon Was Murdered by Houston Police in another botched raid. Officers had no warrant in fatal drug raid according to the Associated Press. Acting on an informant's tip, members of a Houston Police Department gang task force stormed into� an apartment on 7/22/98, where they believed illegal drugs� were being sold.� When the man who lived there locked himself inside his� bedroom, the officers kicked in the door and began firing.
�Thirty-three bullets later, 23-year-old Pedro Oregon Navarro� was dead, shot a dozen times, including nine times in the back. But the investigation in the wake of the fatal shooting shows� the officers had no warrant, the informant was not registered� with the police as required by department rules covering drug informants, police found no drugs in Mr. Oregon's apartment� and a gun officers said Mr. Oregon had pointed at them never� was fired.
�"They went knowingly and consciously in search of their own� heroics and forgot to abide by the rules," says Tony Cantu, a Hispanic activist in Houston. "I'm a Republican and I believe� in no government intrusion. If the police department coming into your apartment without a warrant is not intrusive, what is?"
�The case has mobilized many Houston Hispanics, prompting� calls for rallies and strategy sessions to pressure authorities� to prosecute and punish the officers. "It's frightening that officers would illegally enter a residence� and shoot a man in the back," said Paul Nugent, an attorney Mr. Oregon's family hired. "Evidence seems to indicate he was shot in the back while he� was on the floor. We think he dove to the floor for cover when the police kicked in the door.� "We hope there's a vigorous investigation. The family is afraid� there will be a whitewash and the officers' actions will somehow� be justified."� Six officers who took part in the raid, including a sergeant, are suspended with pay pending the outcome of investigations.
At least two are under way, one by the department's internal� affairs division and another by homicide detectives and the� district attorney's office, which is to present its case to a grand jury the week of Aug. 17. The Mexican government has expressed its concern because� Mr. Oregon, the father of two, was from Michoacan, Mexico.
�And the new national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, Houston attorney Rick Dovalina, wants� the Justice Department to look into the case.� "The bottom line is they shot an innocent young man in the� back after an illegal entry," Mr. Dovalina said. The Justice Department, while monitoring the case, is not� involved actively, spokeswoman Karen Guerriero said.
�The case also has put a spotlight on the department, which� has been hit in recent weeks by instances of bicycle patrol officers filing false time sheets and the suspension of an� officer accused of raping several women.� Police Chief Clarence Bradford, who won't talk about the� Oregon case while it is under investigation, denied accusations his department has a discipline problem. "I see some officers who probably in fact need to revisit what� they're going to do as Houston police officers and remember� the oath that we all took when we pin on our badge about� servicing the citizens of Houston," he said.
�The Houston Chronicle quoted an unidentified police source� as saying that one of the officers who burst into Mr. Oregon's bedroom around 1:30 a.m. July 12 shouted that Mr. Oregon� had a gun. About the same time, an officer's gun went off,� with the bullet hitting another officer and knocking him to� the floor.
The other officers, thinking Mr. Oregon had shot their colleague, opened fire. The wounded officer wore a� protective vest and was not hurt seriously.� Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. says� it's possible the officers could not be indicted for the� shooting because under the law, a person may not resist� an arrest, even if it is illegal. And he says if Mr. Oregon threatened them, it would be proper for them to use deadly� force against him.� "I don't know what happened out there," Mr. Holmes said.� "What I truly feel in my heart of hearts is these guys had� no idea what they were doing."� Mr. Oregon had been in the United States about eight years,� according to his mother, Claudia Navarro, who still carries two uncashed checks he earned from his job as a landscaper.� "We are looking for justice," she said in Spanish, appearing� this week at a demonstration outside the district attorney's office. "That's what this case is all about - justice."� "We want the police officers to be prosecuted and be given� life sentences," Susana Oregon, the victim's sister, added.� "He had no criminal record," attorney Nugent said. "He was hard-working, had a steady employment history, was a soccer� player and soccer coach. He didn't use drugs and certainly� didn't sell drugs. The police made a mistake. They killed the wrong man."
1998: The Dallas Morning News: 6 Houston officers dismissed over fatal raid� HOUSTON - In a case that has angered Hispanic residents� of Houston, police officials here have dismissed six officers involved in a botched drug raid in which police gunfire killed� a Mexican landscaper in his bedroom. "I have not seen, in my� opinion, a case as egregious as this case," said Chief Clarence Bradford, who announced the decision Monday night after the department committees on civilian review and administrative discipline recommended the dismissals.
A series of stories examining federal law enforcement officials� misconduct grew from another investigative series that Post-Gazette reporter Bill Moushey completed in 1996. That probe into the federal witness protection program exposed a secretive bureaucracy that too often rewarded violent criminals with money and freedom, only to watch as they committed violent crimes again.
Titled �Protected Witness,� it led to a congressional investigation, won the prestigious National Press Club�s Freedom of Information Award and was named a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting. While reporting Protected Witness, Moushey uncovered more than 100 cases in which defendants, lawyers and witnesses questioned the motives and actions of federal agents and prosecutors. He expanded his research, contacting families, academics, advocates and congressmen; interviewing lawyers, many of them former federal agents and prosecutors; and mailing letters to hundreds of federal prison inmates. He sifted through hundreds of other misconduct allegations via the Internet, where he also researched opinions from the 13 U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. He had soon collected more than 14 boxes of misconduct complaints, based on an examination of more than 1,500 cases, from Boston to Omaha; San Diego to Atlanta.
Some were simply sour grapes, but many included detailed court records and documents obtained through desperate searches; prisoners and their families sometimes waiting years before getting answers from federal agencies through Freedom of Information Act requests. Many times, the answers included information about key evidence that had been hidden from the defendants at their trials. Since the vast majority of federal criminal cases involve drugs, the vast majority of the misconduct complaints involved drug cases, but victims also included engineers, teachers, business owners, organized crime figures, lawyers and politicians, including former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
Through them all, Moushey found a common theme: a growing gap between the protections that the Constitution guarantees and the U.S. Department of Justice�s aggressive pursuit of convictions.� He also found hints of change. For two decades, get-tough-on-crime legislation enjoyed an almost free ride in Congress, even when it contained few safeguards against overzealous agents and prosecutors. Earlier this year, the House passed a Citizen�s Bill of Rights to address some complaints against federal prosecutors, although it was gutted when Congress approved its annual appropriations bill last month.
Out of control Legal rules have changed, allowing federal agents, prosecutors to bypass basic rights November 22, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer� Loren Pogue has served eight years of a 22-year federal prison sentence on drug conspiracy and money laundering charges.� Pogue, a Missouri native, never bought drugs, never sold them, never held them, never used them, never smuggled them, never even saw them.
But because federal prosecutors allowed a paid government informant to lie about Pogues�� involvement in the sale of a parcel of land to supposed drug smugglers, he was convicted. Under tough federal sentencing guidelines, a judge had no choice but to give the Air Force veteran what might effectively be a death sentence.� Pogue father of 27 children, 15 of them adopted is 65. He doesn�t expect to leave prison alive, and as details later in this story will show, he is baffled that the government he served for more than 30 years worked so hard to betray him.� In another case, hundreds of miles away, federal agents interrogated businessman Dale Brown for four hours at a Houston, Texas, warehouse. When he tried to leave, they stopped him. When he asked for a lawyer, they refused to get him one.
After Brown finally was charged in a government sting called Operation Lightning Strike, federal prosecutors denied that the warehouse interrogation had even happened. They said the dozen others who reported the same coercive tactics in the sting were making it up, too. Federal sting operations are supposed to snare criminals, but in Operation Lightning Strike, federal agents spent millions of dollars ENTRAPPING INNOCENT PEOPLE who worked on the periphery of the U.S. space program.
The Evidence Against Them Was Contrived. The Guilty Pleas Were Coerced: Those who fought the charges won.� Brown said all it cost him was his business, his savings, his family and his health.� In Florida, prisoners call the scam jumping on the bus, and it is as tantalizing as it is perverse. Inmates in federal prisons barter or buy information that only an insider to a crime could know often from informants with access to confidential federal crime files.
The prisoners memorize it and get others to do the same. Then, to win sentence reductions, they testify about crimes that might have been committed while they were in prison, by people they�ve never met, in places they�ve never been. The scam succeeds only because of the tacit approval of federal law enforcement officers. Cocaine smuggler Jose Goyriena used jump on the bus testimony to help federal prosecutors put three men in prison for life, and he was set to do it again for prosecutors who promised to cut his 27 year sentence by 10 years or more.
Prosecutors knew Goyriena had bragged about his lies to cell-mates, but the prosecutors didn�t reveal what they�d heard to any of the men Goyriena had helped condemn violating one of the fundamental tenets of American justice. It was defense attorneys who finally caught Goyriena in the scam.
In this nations war on crime, something has gone terribly wrong. A two-year investigation by the Post-Gazette found that powerful new federal laws designed to snare terrorists, drug smugglers and porn-ographers are being aimed at business owners, engineers and petty criminals. Whether suspects are guilty has come to matter less than making sure they are indicted or convicted or, more likely, coerced into pleading guilty. Promises of lenient sentences and huge government checks encourage criminals to lie on the witness stand.
Prosecutors Routinely Withhold Evidence That Might Help Prove A Defendant Innocent: Some federal agents work so closely with their undercover informants that they become lawbreakers themselves. Those who practice this misconduct are almost never penalized or disciplined. Its a result-oriented process today, fairness be damned, said Robert Merkle, whom President Ronald Reagan appointed U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, serving from 1982 to 1988. The philosophy of the past 10 to 15 years [is] that whatever works is what�s right.
The Justice Department did not respond to questions the newspaper posed in writing about concerns raised in this series. Nor would it return phone calls requesting comment.��� The rules have changed When this investigation began, the term prosecutorial misconduct would have elicited mostly blank stares. Only a few of the misconduct cases the newspaper was tracking in its nationwide research had generated more than a few lines in the back pages of local newspapers.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr changed that. His investigation of President Clinton has generated intense public debate about federal prosecutors and their tactics. Many of the issues Starrs probe has raised parallel concerns found in this investigation from the huge pools of money available for federal investigations to the lack of safeguards and oversight to the use and abuse of grand juries. One key component of how federal law enforcement is supposed to work has received only passing notice.
In rulings reiterated over and over during the past 50 years, the Supreme Court has made clear that federal agents and prosecutors have a broader duty than simply investigating, capturing and prosecuting criminals. They also are entrusted to ensure that the constitutional rights of suspects and defendants are not abused.
The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall, said the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial. There is every reason to believe that most federal agents and prosecutors respect Douglass edict, but this investigation found a significant minority do not, and their numbers seem to be on the rise.
The problem is at the margins but the margins are growing, said an article titled Curbing Prosecutorial Excess, which Arnold I. Burns co-wrote in the July 1998 issue of The Champion, a publication of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Burns is no left-wing zealot. A lifelong Republican, he was appointed deputy attorney general by Reagan, resigning that office in the wake of accusations about the conduct of Burns boss, Attorney General Edwin Meese.
There is a fragile balance between the rights of a defendant and the power of the government, Burns said in a recent interview. That balance has shifted, resulting in misconduct in every phase of federal criminal cases� from the investigation, to the grand jury, to the arrest, to the trial, to the sentencing, he said. Despite Douglass eloquent admonition to the contrary, federal law enforcement officers charged with enforcing the law too often decide they are above it.
The Powerful Prosecutor: Some would argue that�s nothing new. Federal law enforcement officers, after all, have always wielded great power. U.S. courthouses attract the politically ambitious, who can trade on a U.S. prosecutors crime-fighting stature to pursue higher office. The [federal] prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America, said former Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. And that was in 1940. But Jackson would have found the array of crime-fighting tools available to federal agents and prosecutors today staggering from racketeering to money laundering to conspiracy laws.
At the same time, Congress has eliminated many of the checks and balances aimed at preventing the abuse of this power, from trimming protections against illegal searches and seizures to punishing people who plead innocent rather than guilty in federal court. A person who fights a federal charge must, by law, receive more prison time than someone who pleads guilty to the same crime. Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton have signed on to this new crime-fighting order, and a more conservative Supreme Court has upheld these new laws at almost every turn.
The Justice Department the cabinet agency that is supposed to ensure that these new powers are administrated fairly has downplayed that role to the point that few complaints about abuse are even investigated. These changes didn�t happen in a vacuum. In the past 20 years, voters have made it clear that they love get-tough-on-crime politicians.
A campaign promise to toss drug dealers in prison will trump concerns about fair trials or individual rights every time. Congress, the Justice Department, the electorate and the courts have combined to give this nations most aggressive law enforcement agents and prosecutors far more power than they�ve ever had before and few reasons to worry about the consequences of abusing that power. Add political ambition to the mix, and the results are predictable and frightening, Merkle said.
A federal prosecutor is a political animal, he said. His boss is politically ambitious. He is being pressured for budgetary purposes to get statistics, and that causes them to prosecute absolutely [bogus] cases to get those statistics.� Other former federal prosecutors agree. I like to think that most prosecutors are honest and most agents are honest, but there are unfortunately enough examples of dishonesty cropping up that it is troubling to anybody in this business, said Plato Cacheris, who was born and raised in Oakland and worked eight years as a federal prosecutor before becoming one of Washington, D.C.s, top criminal defense lawyers. He currently represents Monica Lewinsky.
Thomas Dillard, who spent 14 years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Knoxville, Tenn., then four years as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida, said a lack of real world experience among prosecutors also has hurt. You�ve seen an increase in career prosecutors that you didn�t have 15 years ago, people who never practiced in the private sector, he said. They sit in this lofty tower with a rather skewed vision of the world. They are on a divine mission, and everything that gets in their way is evil. The ends justify the means. Huge budgets exacerbate the problem.
The war on crime has gotten to the point that all these [prosecutors] offices are stuffed to the gills with resources, Dillard said. They have to justify their existence. They go out and make things crimes that weren�t even crimes 10 years ago. For it to get to the point where prosecutors honestly believe they are immune from state ethical standards, they honestly believe purchasing witness testimony at any cost is OK, and they honestly believe a grand jury is their own little forum, all of that is...bizarre. Media attention on crime federal crime in particular has become huge and has gone awry
When a trap didn�t net big game, government targeted the little guys November 23, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Dale Brown was a poster boy for the American dream, an athletic former Eagle Scout whose start-up company near the Johnson Space Center outside Houston hustled contracts with NASA.� Brown worked seven days a week, 18 hours a day getting his company started in the late 1980s, trying to pair clients and their promising technologies with niches in the billion-dollar needs of the U.S. space program.
Like most small companies, Brown�s Terra space Technologies Inc. sometimes struggled to make ends meet. A man who bragged about his Mississippi roots and his ability to make things happen promised to change that in 1992. John Clifford told Brown he had developed a product that NASA might use and he was prepared to spend big money to get it noticed. It was called a miniature lithotripter, an ultrasound device whose technology might one day be used to improve the medical monitoring of astronauts in space.
Brown checked out Clifford and his companies with Dunn & Bradstreet, the Better Business Bureau and the banks that worked with him. All gave the Mississippi man a thumbs-up. �I came to believe this guy was our savior, our knight in shining armor,� Brown said. Brown, though, was wrong.
John Clifford was actually Hal Francis, an agent for the FBI. His new device was phony, though legitimate companies had agreed to help the FBI by pretending to manufacture it. It was part of an FBI sting operation aimed at trapping Brown and several others who worked in the space program or on its periphery.� Francis and dozens of other federal agents and prosecutors had set their sights much higher: Key employees at NASA and a few of its contractors were suspected of giving and taking bribes, but the feds had failed to snare these high-placed managers.
Millions already had been spent on Operation Lightning Strike, including enormous bills for luxury hotel suites, gourmet meals, deep-sea fishing trips and booze-filled nights at Houston strip clubs. Federal agents needed something to show for their effort. So they went to work trying to lure minor space agency players into doing something illegal. Brown would be one of these consolation prizes.
It was a scenario similar to dozens of other failed government stings that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette uncovered in a two-year investigation of federal law enforcement officers� misconduct.� Brown, now 38, eventually was charged with 21 counts of mail fraud and one count of bribery. After a jury deadlocked, all charges were dismissed, but the price of fighting for his innocence proved costly. Brown lost his business, his savings, his fiancee, his health and his belief in the American dream.� Not an isolated case Brown was in good company.
The other 14 targets in Operation Lightning Strike were also college graduates. Most had families. Only one had previously been the target of a criminal investigation.� In 1994, two years into the government sting, federal prosecutors charged each with violating federal laws. Several of the cases started with the lithotripter.
The government contended that Brown knew the device was phony, and thus every act he performed in trying to win a NASA contract for it constituted a crime, but that argument eventually self-destructed in court. Brown produced a picture of the prototype he took while visiting a firm that would supposedly manufacture the lithotripter.
Francis showed Brown the device to assure him it was real, and he didn�t know Brown had taken the picture. Francis cajoled other sting targets into situations that would bring criminal charges, even though several said they couldn�t imagine that what they were doing might be construed as a crime. All but two of the 15 suspects were coerced into quickly pleading guilty. Federal agents assured them that fighting the charges in court would result in long prison terms, huge fines and prolonged humiliation for their families.
The physical and psychological toll of Operation Lightning Strike was great. Seven small companies employing more than 100 people went bust. Three of those arrested had nervous breakdowns. One attempted suicide. Others experienced health problems that ranged from heart attacks to strokes. The government agents intentionally and methodically drove our companies and personal bank accounts to zero and drove our reputation to ruin, Brown said.
Court documents show the misconduct in this case originated with the government, not the people the government had charged, nor was Operation Lightning Strike an isolated case of a sting gone bad. Time and again, the Post-Gazette found poorly executed government stings that followed a similar pattern: Federal agents took aim at wrong-doing in high places and spent large sums of money pursuing it. When they failed to snare their high-ranking targets, they scrambled to charge minor characters, often people with financial problems, by enticing them into actions that might be construed as violations of the law.
Federal Agents Often Use Former Criminals To Pursue Their Quarry: Promising con artists, dope smugglers and perjurers money, freedom and reduced prison sentences to help nab the targets of a sting. Because the charges were often flimsy or based on lies, government agents worked hard to elicit guilty pleas. They would threaten defendants and their families with adverse publicity or long trials that would deplete their bank accounts.
Plea Bargains Had Another Advantage: Once a defendant pleaded guilty, federal agents weren�t required to reveal their evidence or their tactics. That�s what almost happened in Operation Lightning Strike. The 15 people charged were told they faced decades in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for their crimes. They were promised that guilty pleas would bring leniency. Of the 13 who pleaded guilty, 11 got only probation. One man served five months in prison; another served two months. Brown was the first to plead innocent and fight the charge.
Ignoring the safeguards Congress authorized government sting operations in 1974. The law allows federal agents to set up an illegal enterprise with the goal of luring criminals and then arresting them. Federal agents promised it would be a powerful tool.� But wary drug smugglers and other criminals are pretty good at spotting a government sting. That might explain why sting targets so often end up being people who haven�t previously been involved with crime.
In 1986, industrialist John DeLorean was tried on charges of cocaine trafficking after his arrest in a government sting. In a videotape shown at his trial, DeLorean said a suitcase full of cocaine that an undercover officer brought was better than gold, but a jury determined that the government, not DeLorean, had crossed the line. DeLoreans�� company was on the brink of financial collapse, and undercover federal agents proposed a drug deal to him that would bring in millions to save his business. Federal agents didn�t go after a criminal, the jury decided. They persuaded a desperate man to commit an act he would not otherwise have considered.
The DeLorean verdict reaffirmed safeguards that supposedly were already part of the 1974 law:� Sting targets must be predisposed toward committing a crime. Usually this means they already have done something criminal and the government wants to catch them doing it again.� Sting targets must be willing to commit a crime.
Talking innocent people into doing something wrong through bribes or other means is not supposed to be tolerated. Not only must the targets of a sting want to commit the crime, they must have the ability to do so. This might mean having the money or the connections to pull it off. The Post-Gazettes investigation found these safeguards frequently are ignored, especially when a sting fails to nail its original target.� No guarantees.
Many judges are willing to chastise government agents and prosecutors for overstepping their authority in running a government sting, but there�s no constitutional guarantee that an injustice will be discovered or, if it is, that it will be corrected quickly.
Several South Carolina legislators can vouch for that. In 1990, federal agents announced their open-and-shut case: They would indict 28 legislators, lobbyists and other officials caught red-handed swapping votes for money in a sting operation called Operation Lost Trust. But as often happens in sting operations, the key government witness, Ron Cobb, was a criminal and drug addict.
Agents had arrested this former state legislator on drug charges in 1989, while he was working as a lobbyist, then promised him money and immunity if he�d become the key figure in their sting operation. Federal agents paid him as much as $4,000 a month to operate a phony lobbying firm and promised him a $150,000 bonus if he helped win convictions against legislators.
Over the next few years, legislators and lobbyists pleaded guilty and went to trial, with Cobb serving as the key witness against them. Then, the truth came out. Cobb had lied to a grand jury about the activities of the people he had nailed. PROSECUTORS KNEW OF THE LIES YET WITHHELD THE INFORMATION FROM DEFENSE ATTORNEYS, A VIOLATION OF THE LAW.
Cobbs actions made it impossible to determine whether individuals snared in the sting had really committed crimes. In addition, prosecutors withheld hundreds of other pieces of evidence that would have allowed the defendants to craft their defenses.� Last year, an outraged U.S. District Court Judge Falcon Hawkins dismissed every outstanding charge involving the sting. Some defendants who pleaded guilty or were found guilty before the case unraveled have started the process of seeking to withdraw their pleas or have their convictions reversed.
The breadth and scope of the governments misconduct...[and] the involvement of the FBI during this entire incident was and is shocking to this court, Hawkins said. He said FBI agents hid information about Cobbs past, including his drug arrest. Most offensive to this court, however, is that the government sat silent when it knew that its silence would not only fail the efforts of the defendants to fully develop defenses to which they were entitled but would misrepresent facts to both the grand jury and the trial jury and mislead ...the court to such an extent as to affect its rulings...As reluctant as this court is to call it such...this silence in several instances was subornation of perjury.
A citizen who suborned perjury might face criminal charges, such as those included in the articles of impeachment being considered against President Clinton over his conversations with Monica Lewinsky prior to her appearance before a federal grand jury. But the Post-Gazette found no evidence that any federal agents or prosecutors in Operation Lost Trust were disciplined for their conduct. Nor was Cobb charged with perjury, despite his repeated lies.
The judge made clear prosecutors failed in their most important role: to make sure defendants receive a fair trial. While lawyers representing private parties may indeed, must do everything ethically permissible to advance their clients interests, lawyers representing the government in criminal cases serve truth and justice first, Hawkins wrote.
The prosecutors job isn�t just to win but to win fairly, staying well within the rules. The Justice Department has appealed the judges dismissals in Operation Lost Trust. Sting operations and other new crime-fighting tools that Congress authorized come with few protections against overzealous federal agents and prosecutors, said Bennet L. Gershman, a former New York state prosecutor and a law professor at Pace University of New York.
There�s really no significant restraint on federal law enforcement power, said Gershman, whose 1997 law book Prosecutorial Misconduct is in its second printing. Hiding the facts Discovery violations have made evidence-gathering a shell game November 24, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Galen Kelly�s job had more risks than most.
Parents hired him to rescue their children from religious cults. In 1992, Kelly, thinking he had found the daughter of a couple who had hired him, grabbed a young woman off a Washington, D.C., street and returned her to the family. But he had grabbed the wrong woman.� Federal agents charged the New York-based Kelly with kidnaping, and he went on trial in Virginia. He routinely faced risks in his job; attacks by cult members who felt threatened were not uncommon.
But they were nothing compared to those he would face trying to get a fair trial in federal court. Throughout the proceeding, Kelly�s lawyers requested that Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Leiser of the Eastern District of Virginia turn over discovery material. Discovery material includes any evidence that might help prove a defendant innocent.
It also includes anything that might show the biases of a witness against a defendant or background information that might lead jurors to question a witness�s credibility. Under federal law, defense attorneys are entitled to ask for discovery information, and prosecutors must provide it.� Kelly and his attorney believed the woman Kelly was accused of kidnaping, Debra Dobkowski, was a cult member who had set Kelly up by pretending to be the woman she knew he was after.
Dobkowski testified she was not a member of the cult and that she�d had no brushes with the law. Based largely on her statements, Kelly was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. Dobkowski, however, had lied. She was one of the cult�s leaders, and when she testified, she was being investigated for criminal mail fraud and money laundering. Leiser knew about her lies, yet said nothing.
It was three years before an appeals court overturned Kelly�s conviction. Dobkowki�s credibility was key to the government�s case, the court stated, but her testimony was �false in numerous respects and the government at least should have known it was false.�
Leiser, the respected former head of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, was suspended from his job, though that action was later overturned following an internal Justice Department appeal. Even the short-lived suspension of Leiser, then 49, was unusual. What Leiser did �was a bad judgment call, but one that was not indigenous to Larry Leiser,� Kelly�s attorney, Robert Stanley Powell, told reporters. �A lot of federal prosecutors do what he did.�
A two-year investigation by the Post-Gazette found Powell to be exactly right. Its review of 1,500 allegations of prosecutorial misconduct over the past 10 years found hundreds of examples of discovery violations in which prosecutors intentionally concealed evidence that might have helped prove a defendant innocent or a witness against him suspect.
But most cases reviewed by the Post-Gazette shared a key difference from the Leiser case: PROSECUTORS WHO VIOLATED DISCOVERY RULES WERE SELDOM PUNISHED. MANY VIOLATED DISCOVERY RULES OVER AND OVER AGAIN.�
An issue of fairness The discovery process is central to the American concept of a fair trial. Society wins not only when the guilty are convicted but when criminal trials are fair, wrote U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1963. Our system of the administration of justice suffers when any accused is treated unfairly. His words were at the core of the Supreme Courts Brady vs. Maryland opinion, which set the standard for discovery rules in this country.
John L. Brady and an accomplice were convicted of murdering a man during a robbery. Both were sentenced to death. But during Bradys�� trial, prosecutors withheld a police report that had been requested by defense attorneys, in which Bradys� accomplice confessed to pulling the trigger. The court ruled that by withholding the evidence, the prosecutor violated Bradys� rights under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Even if such information is withheld unintentionally, the court said, a defendant might still be entitled to a new trial or a new hearing on his sentence. Bradys� case was remanded for re-sentencing and he was spared the death penalty and given life in prison. But as with many Supreme Court rulings, a clear statement of principles can become fuzzy in its application.
To rectify discovery violations, the Supreme Court adopted a test that begins and ends with one basic premise: A conviction should be reversed only if the verdict would have been different had the discovery information withheld by prosecutors been known at the trial. Otherwise, the discovery violation is harmless error and the original court verdict should stand. In its investigation, the Post-Gazette found that the test has evolved into a devious calculation by many federal prosecutors: How much favorable evidence can be withheld without risking a reversal on appeal?
Rather than abide by the Supreme Courts admonition that their goal should be to ensure a fair trial, many prosecutors try to figure just how much they can cheat. Ignoring discovery rules improves the chances of a prosecutor winning a conviction with little risk of penalty. Brady violations account for more miscarriages of justice than any other violation, said Bennett L. Gershman, a former New York state prosecutor and now a Pace University of New York law professor.
Gershman wrote Prosecutorial Misconduct in 1997 and has explored discovery violations and the motives behind them. Prosecutors want to win, he said. Some believe the defendant is so guilty that any information that contradicts the guilt cant be trustworthy, so they believe they don�t have any obligation to turn over untrustworthy material while telling themselves they are being honest.
The double whammy for defendants, of course, is that there�s no guarantee that favorable evidence, once hidden by prosecutors, will ever be revealed. People have been sent to prison for many, many years before they find that [prosecutors knew of] exculpatory evidence, but that�s the built-in contradiction, Gershman said. If the information is hidden, how do you find it? Gershman asked. How do you get it to make a claim?
Much of this information will never see the light of day, even if it may be critical in proving the defendants innocence.� That hasn�t always been the way federal prosecutors operated. Gary Richardson was appointed U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Oklahoma by President Reagan, serving until 1984. During his tenure, Richardson said, his office had an open file discovery policy, which meant defense lawyers could come in and look at anything prosecutors had collected on a particular case. My attitude was that if you cant take the truth and win, then you weren�t supposed to win, he said.
Now Richardson is a criminal defense attorney and says he regularly complains about federal prosecutors hiding evidence favorable to his clients. The open-door policy he advocated is no more. Indeed, the Post-Gazette interviewed more than 100 defense attorneys for this series and none had been given open access to a prosecutors files during discovery. Ramsey Clark, U.S. attorney general under President Johnson, is now a defense attorney and bemoans the trend especially because of its impact on defendants who are poor and cant pay for lawyers who can uncover attempts to withhold evidence. It is really tragic, he said, how we grind up poor people in these situations.
Discovery violations are rampant, in part because the Justice Department has few rules penalizing a prosecutor who violates the discovery process. When he served as attorney general, Clark would seek to overturn convictions if he discovered misconduct by federal law enforcement officers. What we were trying for [was] sort of an open-file type of process, he said, where prosecutors would take defense lawyers into a room and give them the entire file on an individual charged with a crime. We used to confess error when we thought we were wrong. He said he rarely sees that happen anymore.
Facing no consequences Indeed, the Post-Gazette found no federal prosecutors eager to apologize for their conduct. The only public reprimands tended to come from judges who overturned convictions on appeal. And by that point in the judicial process, a defendant often had already served months or years in prison. Chake Kojayan, a middle-aged Lebanese woman, flew into Los Angeles in June 1991 with $100,000 worth of heroin sewn into her bag.
Within a day of her arrival, an acquaintance sold the drugs to two undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Kojayan and three others were arrested. She and the other defendants insisted they never knew the drugs were in the bag. The other defendants maintained that another man, Krikor Nourian, was behind the smuggling venture.
In fact, Nourian had been involved, and federal agents promised him leniency in exchange for information he provided about Kojayan and the other defendants. But defense attorneys were never told he�d become an informant, even though they repeatedly asked prosecutors to turn over information that would detail his role in the case. No fewer than 11 times during the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sinek insisted that Nourian had no role.
Kojayan and her co-defendants were convicted and received sentences ranging from six to 20 years in prison. Two years later, defense lawyers learned that Nourian had been a government informer and that Sinek knew it. Had defense attorneys known that during the trial, they could have presented a credible defense that Nourian was snitching on innocent people to save himself which is exactly what Kojayan maintained.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion on Kojayans�� appeal in 1993 that could as easily apply to hundreds of other discovery violations found by the Post-Gazette: What we find most troubling about this case is not the [assistant U.S. attorneys] initial transgression, but that he seemed to be totally unaware he�d done anything at all wrong, and that there was no one in the United States attorneys office to set him straight.
Nor does the governments� considered response, filed after we pointed out the problem, inspire our confidence that this kind of thing wont happen again. How can it be that a serious claim of prosecutorial misconduct remains unresolved even unaddressed until oral argument in the [9th U.S.] Court of Appeals? Surely, when such a claim is raised, we can expect that someone in the United States attorneys office will take an independent, objective look at the issue.
Yet the United States attorney allowed the filing of a brief in our court that did not own up to the problem, a brief that itself skated perilously close to misrepresentation.� The court ordered Kojayan released from prison. Sinek was never disciplined for misleading the court. He didn�t play along Prosecutors frequently argue that their discovery violations are inadvertent. That would be a tough argument to make in the drug-smuggling case against Miami attorney Frank Quintero Jr. For years, Quintero had represented drug smugglers. Federal prosecutors in 1994 charged that he had gone from being a counsel for drug smugglers to becoming one himself. In preparing their case, they interviewed Constantine Roca, the manager of a Florida marina.
An informant had told federal agents that Roca had handled the purchase of drug boats for Quintero and his Colombian cartel clients. But when questioned, Roca insisted that simply wasn�t true. In fact, he didn�t even know Quintero. Rocas�� statement carried weight he had no criminal record. Rocas� statement clearly should have been given to defense attorneys under the courts discovery order. But it wasn�t, and the case went to trial without the defense knowing of Rocas� existence.
Had a defense attorney ignored a similar court order, he might have been disbarred, or at least subjected to sanctions from an ethics tribunal. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Pelletiers deceit brought no sanctions. Quinteros first trial ended in a mistrial and his attorneys learned of Rocas� statement from Rocas� attorney as they prepared for Quinteros second trial. So they promptly put Rocas� name on their own witness list which proved to be bad news for Roca.
In September 1996, just a few days after learning Roca might be a witness for Quintero, Pelletier and Deputy U.S. Marshal Joe Godsk obtained a search warrant for Rocas� business. They would not reveal the basis for the warrant the agents refused Rocas� lawyers request for a copy of an affidavit of probable cause, and that information was nowhere on the public record. Armed agents found nothing in the search that would result in charges against Roca. Nor did they find evidence in the Quintero case. But Rocas� landlord had seen enough. He evicted Roca, which effectively destroyed his business. And for good measure, the government didn�t return his business records until after Roca had gone bankrupt.
Pumping up the charges Hiding evidence favorable to a defendant can clearly help a prosecutor win a conviction. And sometimes, the Post-Gazette found, it can help a prosecutor bring far more serious charges than the facts would warrant.
Consider the case of Norberto Guerra and Ramon Jimenez. They went to trial in January 1995 on charges of conspiring to bring more than 7,480 pounds of cocaine into this country. Witness after witness testified in Miami that they were the kingpins in the drug-smuggling enterprise. But they weren�t. Guerra and Jimenez had worked on a boat that smuggled drugs and they admitted that. They knew little else about the operation.
They didn�t know many of the witnesses who testified about their lofty status as drug lords. They also didn�t know that most of these witnesses were paid government informants who�d played key roles in the drug-smuggling venture. It was in the interest of these witnesses to pin the rap on someone else so that their own roles wouldn�t face scrutiny.
Time after time, attorneys for Guerra and Jimenez requested that prosecutors turn over background information on the witnesses, because their clients insisted the testimony was laced with lies. Prosecutors insisted there was nothing to turn over. It wasn�t until June 1995, after Guerra and Jimenez were convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison apiece, that they learned the depths of the governments deceit. A hearing revealed that federal agents and prosecutors had hidden or destroyed hundreds of pages of interviews with their key witness, Raul Sanchez, a long-time drug smuggler who insisted Guerra and Jimenez were among his top lieutenants.
Prosecutors also hid the fact that this key witness had confessed to being involved in at least two murders. This same witness had assured defense attorneys during the trial that he�d received no offers of leniency in exchange for his testimony. Yet in the evidentiary hearing on the charges of misconduct, the judge learned prosecutors had indeed promised Sanchez leniency for his help. That leniency offer was rescinded after Sanchez lied to agents to protect another person who was a target in the same drug probe.
Yet defense lawyers never saw his failed polygraph test, which should have been turned over as discovery material. As the judge pointedly made clear: A star prosecution witness who lies to the prosecution might be eyed with some suspicion by jurors. There were dozens of other discovery violations: Plea bargains and payments between the government and witnesses weren�t mentioned to defense attorneys. Criminal records were not turned over.
In one instance, prosecutors gave defense attorneys the criminal background sheet on witness Leonardo Alvarez, as required by law. They missed one small detail, however: a murder conviction. U.S. Magistrate Linnea Johnson grilled Assistant U.S. Attorney David Cora. I have no explanation for why it was done that way, Cora testified.
Sometimes we hand over rap sheets. Sometimes the rap sheets are indecipherable so we don�t hand them over that way. I have no explanation for that, your honor.� Guerra and Jimenez were clearly guilty of something, but Johnson agreed with their attorneys that the case against them should be dismissed. To allow a prosecution to proceed where the government itself has failed would be wrong, Johnson ruled. So Guerra and Jimenez went free.
The witnesses against them received much lighter sentences than they�d have faced had the trial not been marred by multiple discovery violations. Cora and the agents who helped him set up the case went back to their jobs. No one in the U.S. attorneys office was disciplined for the debacle.
Bowing to Pressure: The pressure to win convictions also played a role in many of the discovery violations found by the Post-Gazette. The bigger the case, the more the pressure. Xioa Leung was arrested in China in 1988 for his part in a drug smuggling operation to the United States. American lawmen lauded his arrest as one of the first efforts to cooperate with the Peoples Republic of China in stopping drug trafficking.
Another Chinese national, Wang Zong, was prepared to identify key players in the drug smuggling operation a perfect witness for the prosecution. And no wonder. To ensure his testimony would suit prosecutors, Chinese police officers in 1988 tortured Zong for a month. They kicked him, dragged him through the streets, blindfolded him, and shocked him with an electric cattle prod. He received little to eat or drink. They denied him sleep. They beat him over and over again and threatened him with death. Obviously, U.S. law prohibits the use of torture in eliciting a witnesses testimony. Yet when Zong testified at the trial of Leung in San Francisco, federal prosecutors insisted they knew nothing about his background that might help defense attorneys discredit his testimony. THEY LIED.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Swenson and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Tommy Aiu had both seen a confidential memo from a U.S. prosecutor stationed in Hong Kong. He warned that police in China had threatened Zong with the death penalty if he did not cooperate. That prosecutor, Robert McNair, also said he believed police had mistreated Zong during their interrogation.
It wasn�t until Zong was nearly through testifying that the truth leaked out on Jan. 30, 1990. I request that the court in America safeguard me, Zong said in open court. U.S. District Judge William Orrick ordered the jury removed, then listened as Zong continued. I am already in a position that I have been treated unfairly. The American government and the American judge, I don�t know if they�re aware of that.
As Zong recounted his torture in China, the judge thought that Swenson and Aiu had been duped by Chinese officials along with everyone else. He appointed a former federal prosecutor, Cedric Chao, to investigate, then declared a mistrial.
In late 1990 Orrick ordered a new trial after ruling that American lawmen had been overwhelmed by their collaboration with the Chinese. But Chao would soon learn that it hadn�t been U.S. lawmen who were duped. He won the release of more and more information from the U.S. attorneys office, and the long-hidden McNair memorandum from the Hong Kong prosecutors office finally was turned over. By the spring of 1993, Chao was able to show that Americans agents knew from their first trip to the Far East that Zong had been tortured. Because of the prosecutorial misconduct, the judge gave key players in the drug smuggling operation light sentences.
In October 1993, he permanently blocked Zongs�� return to China, calling the case a flagrant violation of the constitutional rights Zong was entitled to while on U.S. soil.� The judge accused Swenson of lying and covering up evidence in a tunnel vision approach to winning the case. The numerous instances of invidiously egregious conduct of important officials of the U.S. government shocks the conscience of this court, Orrick wrote.
The judge ordered the Justice Departments office of professional responsibility to investigate him for perjury and obstruction of justice. Nothing was ever made public about that probe. Swenson was transferred shortly thereafter from the criminal division to the claims and judgments unit, where he is responsible for collecting on unpaid student loans.
Few of cases twists, shady deals revealed in court November 24, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Federal prosecutors say Peter Hidalgo was a master drug smuggler and deserved the four life sentences that resulted from his conviction in 1994. Hidalgo says his trial was a farce that conniving federal agents and prosecutors orchestrated.
The Post-Gazettes investigation found one certainty: Government misconduct at�� Hidalgos trial� was so rampant and calculated that nothing resembling the truth could have emerged. Four years have passed since his trial, yet appeals courts have yet to rule on his challenge. Here�s what the Post-Gazette found: Hidalgo was accused of leading a smuggling operation that brought 423 kilograms of cocaine into Miami in 1992.
Although discovery rules require it, prosecutors failed to inform Hidalgo that 23 kilograms of cocaine were missing after the bust. Prosecutors had in their possession videotapes showing that individuals who had contact with the smugglers discussed the missing cocaine and suggested it had been split among informants and federal agents.
Hidalgo believes these informants and agents conspired against him to hide their misconduct. Prosecutors violated discovery by not turning the tapes over to Hidalgos attorneys. Prosecutors withheld other audiotapes and videotapes that included extensive conversations about the smuggling operation. The limited transcripts prosecutors provided were marked inaudible in many places, although Hidalgo later learned these inaudible conversations were perfectly clear on the tapes.
Hidalgo believes the tapes were withheld and the transcripts abbreviated because his name came up in none of the conversations. Prosecutors hid them because they showed he had no part in the operation, he believes.
Prosecutors failed to inform Hidalgo that a federal agent who played a key role in the drug bust committed suicide shortly after Hidalgos arrest. The agent was mentioned 31 times at Hidalgos trial and had told his sister just before his death that he feared he would be implicated criminally in one of his biggest cases.
Prosecutors failed to inform Hidalgo that police reports raised enough questions about this agents death that it could have been argued that he was murdered. Hidalgo did not learn until after his trial that some witnesses against him had perjured themselves in earlier trials, that some of these witnesses were convicted murderers and that the government paid some of them huge sums for their services. One man received $500,000.
Prosecutors failed to tell Hidalgo that a key witness against him had fabricated his testimony and bragged to his cell-mates that he expected a substantial cut in his prison time for his lies. Prosecutors failed to turn over copies of grand jury transcripts that would have pointed out many of these discrepancies.� Man of modest means Hidalgo, 38, made his living selling, racing and repairing boats in Miami Lakes, Fla. His skill behind the wheel brought him fame and the attention of drug runners who needed equipment that could outrun law enforcers.
Hidalgo, his wife and 1-year-old daughter lived in a modest rental house that he hoped they someday might buy. He considered himself lucky. Hidalgo escaped from Cuba in 1968, and the life he enjoyed in the United States, while modest, seemed a paradise by comparison.
That changed on Sept. 8, 1992. Federal agents arrested Hidalgo and charged him with being the kingpin behind the drug-smuggling operation that had brought more than 400 kilograms 880 pounds of cocaine to the United States from Colombia, via the Bahamas. The cocaine was worth about $6 million wholesale, far more when it hit the streets.� Agents were familiar with Hidalgo. He had been arrested in a 40,000-pound marijuana smuggling case, but all charges against him were dropped. He�d never been convicted of a felony.
The witnesses who would testify against him did not lead Hidalgos modest lifestyle. They were cartel-level millionaire smugglers, armed robbers, killers and thieves. The illegal drug trade had treated them well. They wore expensive clothes, drove expensive cars, lived in beautiful homes. And while federal agents never captured Hidalgos voice on tape, they recorded these men discussing the drug deal in telephone conversations.
Agents had photographed and videotaped them in the days before the drug-laden boat arrived and after it reached U.S. soil. None of the men who would be witnesses against Hidalgo had mentioned his name in their taped conversations, so Hidalgo figured federal agents and prosecutors would see through the ruse, that he was being made a scapegoat so that drug criminals could seek leniency by testifying against him. Hidalgo was wrong.
FEDERAL AGENTS and PROSECUTORS NOT ONLY IGNORED THE LIES and FABRICATED EVIDENCE THAT CAME FROM THESE WITNESSES, THEY MADE SURE NO ONE ELSE IN THE CASE WOULD KNOW ABOUT THEM. There was another difference between Hidalgo and the men who testified against him. Almost all were guilty and eager to cut deals in exchange for reduced sentences. Hidalgo got the same kind of offer.
If Hidalgo would plead guilty, he�d get a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison, prosecutors told him. He might be paroled after nine years or so, and if he would provide substantial assistance by testifying against others, he might qualify for the Justice Departments biggest prize: an even quicker release and a payment of tens of thousands of dollars, just like those who would eventually testify against him.� Hidalgo said he turned down the deal because he was innocent. Had he taken the government up on its offer, he would soon be a free man.
A strange alliance The shaky foundation of the governments case against Hidalgo began two years before the drug smuggling sting. In 1990, a Miami police officer named Ralph Rodriguez arrested two Cuban refugees for selling him 2 kilograms of cocaine in Miami. After their arrest, the two refugees filed a complaint against Rodriguez.
They said that twice in their presence he had sampled the cocaine they were selling, which, if true, would be cause for his dismissal. They also complained he had sex with a material witness in their case, also a violation of department rules. Lie detector tests supported their charges. This wouldn�t be the first investigation of the agents conduct. Defense attorneys and defendants had long complained that Rodriguez often broke the law in his efforts to enforce it.
But in August 1992, the two Cuban refugees withdrew their complaints. Instead, they signed a plea agreement that freed them from prison time if they would work undercover for Rodriguez, who by then had taken a job for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The undercover work the informants performed paid well. For starters, each was given $20,000 to relocate their families. Within a few years, both of the refugees would purchase ranches in South Florida worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, though they testified that they mowed lawns for a living.� Soon, Rodriguez and the two informants would work together again, this time helping to orchestrate the drug bust that would snare Hidalgo. Infiltrating the deal
The two informants told Rodriguez they knew of a drug operation that another man named Rodriguez was planning. The other Rodriguezs first name was Luis, and his nickname, Cejas, was Spanish for thick eyebrows. He also was a Cuban refugee. So Agent Rodriguez and his partner in a drug task force, Special Agent Lee Lucas of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, hooked the two informers up with Angel Pepe Vega, an undercover officer for the Florida Marine Patrol. They would soon work their way into the drug deal.
Here�s how it worked. Cejas and another Miami smuggler named Gilberto Morales arranged for the two government informants and a third man to pick up a boat from Manny�s Marina in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Manny Sanchez, another long-time drug smuggler, who had struck a great deal with federal agents, owned the marina.
In exchange for a cut in his prison time on one of his six convictions, the agents ran drug stings out of his business, which they had wired for sight and sound. In addition, agents paid Sanchez $500,000, although Sanchez would tell the jury at Hidalgos trial that he only got $200,000. He admitted he paid no taxes on the payments.
When the boat reached the Bahamas, Fernando Fernandez and a crew of Bahamians were waiting. Fernandez was a middle man in smuggling operations between Colombia and the United States. There were 11 bales of cocaine to pick up, each weighing 40 kilograms, or 88 pounds. Fernandez opened one of the bales and gave the Bahamian crew 17 kilograms of cocaine as payment for their work.
Twice, he carefully counted the remaining 23 kilograms from the opened bale in front of everyone present. That opened bale of cocaine and just how much eventually arrived in the U.S. would become a key factor in Hidalgos case but one that would never reach the ears of jurors during his trial.� The deal goes bad
On Sept. 4, 1992, the boat left Freeport, the Bahamas, then made a rendezvous with a vessel that Agent Rodriguez, his partner Lucas, and Vega, the third task force agent, staffed about a mile off the coast of Florida. Agents Rodriguez and Lucas would later testify that it was a stormy night and ocean swells made transferring the drugs from one vessel to the other difficult. They intimated that the opened bale of cocaine might have fallen into the water.
It wasn�t until after his trial that a meteorologist researched conditions and told Hidalgo that the water that night was tranquil. Agents Rodriguez and Lucas transported the cocaine to a government warehouse. No one else knew where the drugs were hidden. The two Cuban informants then called Cejas and Morales on tapped phones to demand payment in cash, $600,000, before they would make final delivery of the drugs. Morales and Cejas didn�t have the money; they had earlier agreed to pay for the work in drugs. They offered 50 kilograms, but the federal informants turned them down. Then Morales and Cejas offered 100 kilograms. Still, no deal. Morales and Cejas were getting desperate.
The Colombians who had set up the shipment couldn�t understand the delay in getting the drugs delivered. Morales made as many as 20 phone calls a day over four days to discuss the 423 kilograms of cocaine. While he later would testify that Hidalgo was his partner, he never mentioned Hidalgo in any of those calls, nor did he suggest that he had to check with anyone else before making new offers to get the drugs delivered. After four days, the Colombians and their Bahamian confederates began to wonder if Morales and Cejas were stealing from them. They dispatched two contract killers to kidnap Cejas. He would be held hostage until the drugs were released, and if they weren�t, Cejas would be killed. Morales knew if that happened, he would be next.
A friend in need That�s where Hidalgo finally entered the picture. He had known Morales for years. He said Morales asked him to call the Bahamians, since they had purchased boat equipment from Hidalgos business and trusted his word. Morales asked Hidalgo to tell the Bahamians that Morales and Cejas could be trusted. Nothing more was asked of him, Hidalgo said. The conversation was never captured on tape, at least prosecutors never produced it at the trial. While investigators had the entire process wired, they said the equipment was not turned on the entire time.
Prosecutors also attributed their failure to catch Hidalgo on tape to his careful nature. Morales would later testify that Hidalgo made the call in an effort to salvage the deal and his profits. Hidalgo admits he was stupid to make the call, adding he was simply trying to save the life of someone he knew. I knew the Bahamians from the boat business, he said in an interview earlier this year at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. They knew I was an honest businessman.
If I don�t do this, Cejas was dead. Morales was dead. I defused the entire situation. Shuttled across country Here is Hidalgos definition of hell: knowing government witnesses lied; knowing prosecutors hid evidence favorable to him while allowing fabricated evidence that would convict him; learning about the deceit only after he was convicted and sentenced.� Then being shuttled from prison to prison to prison diesel therapy, prisoners call it because, he says, he so aggressively has pressed his contention that federal agents and prosecutors sandbagged him.
In April, he was transferred from Miami to Atlanta; then to Oklahoma City; then to Leavenworth, a maximum security prison in Kansas, where many convicts with life sentences begin serving their time. Government rules say he should be allowed to stay in the prison closest to the court where his appeal was filed, until that appeal is decided.
Hidalgo filed his appeal in Miami. He is 1,460 miles away. Hidalgo has little money but was able to hire, briefly, an investigator to take a closer look at the governments misconduct, but most of Hidalgos research has been accomplished from his prison cells. Here are some of the additional things he learned: Hidden witness: Federal prosecutors gave Fernandez, the man who handled the drugs in the Bahamas, leniency for his testimony, but they never put him on the stand after he insisted that 23 kilograms of cocaine was missing from the amount he had shipped the cocaine remaining in the bale used to pay off the Bahamians.
This contradicted the governments other witnesses and buttressed Hidalgos contention that federal agents knew about the missing drugs. Paid liars: Hidalgo learned the governments witnesses against him received cash or were not forced to forfeit drug related property that federal agents had a right to seize. Most of those deals, which totaled more than $3 million, were never revealed at his trial.
Great deals: Morales, the man whom Hidalgo saved, faced 24 years in prison for his role in the operation. Federal prosecutors offered to reduce that to 10 years if he�d identify leaders of the drug smuggling operation. Morales knew that fingering real drug kingpins would lead to an early death, so he said nothing that resulted in charges against his contacts in Colombia.
He simply told prosecutors he was working for Hidalgo, even though the statement made little sense. If Hidalgo were a drug kingpin, why had he so little money and lived in a rental house? Morales admitted to making $5 million smuggling drugs during the previous 12 years.
Mystery man: One of the most mysterious witnesses was Jose Luis Goyriena, who testified he was a distributor for a major drug ring whose leaders included Hidalgo. Goyriena bragged to cell-mates that he�d never heard of Hidalgo but had obtained information about Hidalgos case and fabricated testimony against him so prosecutors would reduce Goyrienas� 27-year prison sentence. Even though prosecutors were told of Goyrienas�� scheme before and after Hidalgos trial, they said nothing to Hidalgos lawyers. Suicide questions: Angel Pepe Vega, the agent whose suicide was hidden from Hidalgo, suffered from anxiety attacks and depression after the drug bust.
Shortly after telling his sister that he feared he might be arrested in connection with one of his big cases, he was found dead in his car in the parking lot of his Fort Lauderdale, Fla., church. His death was ruled a suicide. He left a note of apology for his wife, but Hidalgos� investigator found discrepancies in Broward County police reports: Vega was left-handed, but he shot himself in the right side of the head. The downward path of the 9 mm slug that killed him was at an angle that would have been nearly impossible for someone to accomplish with his Glock pistol, with its 6-inch barrel. Vegas weapon was found pointing forward between his legs. The weapons recoil should have sent the gun falling into a back seat. No blood from the wound was found on the hand Vega would have used to pull the trigger. Despite those findings, police closed the Vega case as a suicide.
Its a big price Hidalgo has been in Leavenworth since April. He hopes for a new trial, but the cost of fighting the government is great, he said. He realizes that if he�d simply joined forces with the government and lied about others, as they did about him, he might have walked free. He said his conscience would not allow him to do that. Im not saying I�ve had the best associations, but what they�re saying I�m involved in, its bull, he said. Its a big price. I�ve lost my family. I have a daughter who I haven�t been part of her upbringing since she was 10 months old. These people have broke me financially; they broke up my family. The only thing they wont be able to break is my dignity and my principles. [If] they get me a new trial, Im gonna show what the government has done, that its out of control.
Federal misconduct creates an incident in Costa Rica November 24, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Federal agents believed Israel Abel was a leader in a major cocaine smuggling ring in the 1980s that imported 3 tons of cocaine from Colombia to Miami. They wanted him so badly that they were willing to go to lengths that would lead another country to file criminal charges against U.S. officials.
In 1991, a federal grand jury indicted Abel and several others on drug-smuggling charges, but by then he had been living in Costa Rica for five years and, by most accounts, was no longer in the drug business. But federal agents were so desperate to bring him to trial that they violated his most basic rights and then tried to cover up their actions, Abels lawyers charge. Because of the magnitude of the charges against him, it seems unlikely any court will intervene, even though the government of Costa Rica has issued criminal arrest warrants against the former deputy attorney general to Attorney General Janet Reno and a former U.S. Consular officer because of their conduct. The U.S. government extradited Abel in 1992.
The Justice Department sent Deputy Attorney General Richard Scruggs, a former Miami federal prosecutor, to Costa Rica. Costa Rican police then arrested Abel and turned him over to U.S. agents on an American jetliner. He was brought home, tried and sentenced to four life sentences in prison. Scruggs said everything went off without a hitch. Abel said Costa Rican and American agents kidnaped him, hid him for two days then shipped him back to the United States without benefit of the due process that laws in Costa Rica and the United States guarantee.
In the summer of 1993, Costa Rican officials, after scouring the documentation provided when Scruggs requested extradition, filed the first of three protests with the American government related to Abels case. They charged that Scruggs collaborated with over-zealous members of the Costa Rican National Migration board to circumvent the countries extradition procedures.
Within months, Costa Rica filed criminal charges against Scruggs and Donna Hamilton, a U.S. Consular officer in San Jose. Hamilton was transferred out of the country before she could be tried. Neither she nor Scruggs will face those charges, as long as they don�t return to Costa Rica. Robert Scola, Abels lawyer, has asked the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta to dismiss the case against Abel because of prosecutorial misconduct. The appeal charged that the governments documents, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, irrefutably demonstrate...the knowing use of both perjured testimony and affidavits by (Assistant United States Attorney Karen) Rochlin before and during evidentiary hearings. Despite discovery requests, None of these documents have ever been turned over to the defendant, Abels appellate brief stated.
Feds buy into deal with known drug trafficker November 24, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer David Wheeler had smuggled drugs for almost 20 years when federal agents finally arrested the Phoenix man as he was carrying a kilogram of cocaine in 1989 in Oklahoma. He faced the possibility of life in prison, so he offered federal agents a proposition.
He said he would help the government set up a sting designed to capture key drug cartel members from Mexico to Colombia. He might snare some Americans as well, including politicians who were on the take. Wheeler had always been a notorious con man, but federal agents knew his years in drug trafficking had left him well-connected.
They accepted the deal and soon regretted it, even though information he provided led to the arrests of seven supposedly high level Mexican police officers and drug smugglers in the sting he orchestrated in 1990. After their trial, the government released a memorandum that a Drug Enforcement Administration official had written.
It showed that Wheeler not only had lied constantly about his actions in the sting but had committed at least as many crimes during the sting as those people he had set up. The memo said he was out of the control of agents throughout the sting. The memo bolstered the statements of the defendants, who had argued in court that they were not drug dealers, only opportunistic individuals who were willing to accept the millions of dollars that Wheeler had offered them for protecting a drug enterprise. The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals found in the governments case that millions of dollars are talked about but not one speck of cocaine shows up at any time and not one sample is gathered by the government and nothing really is seen except, surprise, surprise, that which Mr. Wheeler says he saw...The court reversed every case in which Wheeler testified, saying the memorandum about his misconduct was plainly material...and should have been turned over to defense attorneys. It showed how Wheeler was in a position to manipulate the [U.S. Bureau of] Customs, the DEA, the defendants and the evidence. Wheeler was never charged.
Smuggler sells out his lawyer to strike a deal November 24, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Charles Goldman smuggled drugs a lot of them and he was facing serious prison time when federal agents proposed a deal. They would offer leniency if Goldman would testify against his own lawyer and a South Florida police officer on charges that they had avoided paying taxes on illicit drug income. Since the charges involved tax evasion, Goldman worked closely with an Internal Revenue Service agent, Synda Smith, 38. Attorney David Arnold and Opa Locka Police Officer Armando Coto received 15-year prison terms in February 1993, based largely on Goldmans testimony.
What they didn�t know, and what they�re citing in their request for new trials, is that Goldman and Smith had sex several times while they were conferring about his testimony. The two conducted the affair in a prosecutors lounge at the courthouse, which is known as the Igloo because of the frigid conditions that the air conditioning system creates there.
Evidently, these Arctic conditions were no impediment to Agent Smith and Mr. Goldman, said defense lawyer Michael Tarre in court papers. Smith later admitted the affair to federal investigators. Arnold and Coto say Smiths liaison with Goldman tainted his testimony, that Goldman embellished his story in return for Smiths favors.
They also say prosecutors knew of the relationship but didn�t tell defense attorneys, as discovery rules require. That knowledge might have seriously damaged Goldmans testimony, they said. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and ordered a new trial. In the meantime, Goldman has been released from prison because of his help; his sentence was cut by more than half. Smith has left her job at the IRS.
An insurance claim made the farmer a federal target; and on November 24, 1998, Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer James Catton helped farm 20,000 acres of land in central Illinois. In 1989, he filed a $250,000 crop insurance claim after a drought destroyed his seed corn crop.
Federal agriculture officials said he lied about the drought damage and charged him with trying to defraud the government, which could have resulted in a 20-year prison sentence. A crop-estimating expert provided key testimony in Catton�s trial, saying a neighboring farm suffered no such drought damage. It wasn�t until after Catton was convicted that he discovered the expert had never contacted the neighboring farm; he simply used yield information that a Department of Agriculture inspector had provided.
Worse, Catton learned that the Agriculture Department had approved a crop insurance claim based on drought for that neighboring farm. Prosecutors knew these facts but didn�t turn them over, as discovery rules require. We thought this concealment [was] so material in a close case that, in conjunction with the prosecutors having in closing arguments misrepresented a key part of Catton�s testimony, it entitled Catton to a new trial, the court ruled. So federal prosecutors tried Catton again. The jury deadlocked, 11-1, in favor of acquittal. Catton said that, in August, prosecutors pushed him to plead guilty to a lesser charge. He refused. Prosecutors say they will try him a third time. In the meantime, he has lost his farm to bankruptcy.
The damage of lies and the Zeal for convictions leads government agents and courts to accept tainted tips, testimony.� On November 29, 1998, Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer showed that the bullet that tore into Don Carlson�s thigh sent him sprawling across the hallway floor.
After he fired two shots at his front door in a vain attempt to stop the intruders, he dropped the gun. Carlson made it to his bedroom, punching 9-1-1 into a portable telephone as the men stormed into his house. He fell into a corner. Twice more he was shot, in the back. One bullet splintered and collapsed a lung. �Don�t move, or I�ll shoot you again,� a man yelled. Carlson didn�t know it, but the man who shouted at him was a federal agent.
Selling lies By �jumping on the bus,� prisoners earn time off sentences at others� expense, reported on� November 30, 1998, Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer; The business served a small but eager clientele. From an office in Atlanta, Kevin Pappas, a former drug smuggler, sold prisoners confidential information gleaned from the files of federal law enforcement officers or, in some instances, from the case files of other convicts. By memorizing confidential data from those files, the prisoners could testify to events that only an insider might know and help prosecutors win an indictment or a conviction.
Well-heeled prisoners paid Pappas as much as $225,000 for the confidential files, and in exchange for their testimony, prosecutors would ask judges to reduce the prison terms of these new-found witnesses. Pappas and Robert Fierer, an Atlanta lawyer, called their company Conviction Consultants Inc., but a group of defense lawyers in Georgia had another name for it: �Rent-a-rat.� Federal agents shut down the operation last year.
Pappas and Fierer pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and income tax evasion in connection with the scheme. Pappas struck a deal and became a witness for the government against his former partner. He has not been sentenced, but Fierer was given a 21/2-year term in prison. So far, federal authorities haven�t explained how Pappas gained access to confidential government files. Pappas and Fierer aren�t alone.
A two-year Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigation found that inmates in federal prisons routinely buy, sell, steal and concoct testimony then share their perjury with federal authorities in exchange for a reduction in their sentences. Often, these inmates testify against people they�ve never met. They corroborate crimes they�ve never witnessed. Prosecutors win cases. Convicts win early freedom. The accused loses. Federal agents and prosecutors have been accused of helping move the scheme along by providing convicts some of the information. For years, inmates have warned federal authorities about the practice. One inmate, Ramon Castellanos, offered to go undercover to trap those who buy and sell testimony.
Another, Ramiro Molina, wrote the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Attorney General Janet Reno and even President Clinton. �What�s become of innocent until proven guilty?� Molina wondered in one of those letters. �What has happened to the truth in justice? What are we doing with the law, bending it to be convenient and to whatever advantage necessary?� In the meantime, testimony continues to be bought, sold, stolen.
In South Florida, the scam has become so prevalent that prisoners there have crafted a name for it: �Montate en la guagua.� �Get on the bus,� or, as inmates call it, �jump on the bus.� Getting nowhere When Molina was arrested for his role in a major drug-smuggling operation between Colombia and South Florida, he figured he had one way out: cooperate with the U.S. government. Long before anyone on the outside knew he had been arrested in a 17,000-pound marijuana venture, he asked to speak with federal agents and prosecutors.
Authorities put him in touch with Special Agent Henry Cuervo of the DEA, and Molina implicated others in the drug-smuggling ring. For his cooperation, Molinas sentence was dramatically reduced; even though he faced a life term, he ended up being sentenced to about eight years. His statements were true, and prosecutors embraced them as such, Molina said. But while in prison, Molina saw firsthand how some convicts make a living off perjured testimony, and he became the first inmate to expose the scheme in open court. Neither the U.S. Attorney General nor federal prosecutors answered written questions about the jump on the bus scheme for this story.
Molina described how individuals had paid for information so they could jump on the bus and testify in the drug case against Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and against two other accused cocaine smugglers, Salvatore Magluta and Willy Falcone. In the case involving Magluta and Falcone, the largest federal cocaine case ever tried, Molina said another drug baron, Jorge Morales, invited him to memorize a package of evidence so he could offer testimony. Molina passed, but he later decided if he wanted to get out of jail, he had no choice but to go along with the scheme in another case, he said.
That case involved the Mayas drug-smuggling clan of Colombia, one of the largest such organizations ever. This time, an inmate named Hector Lopez was the middle man, Molina said.� Lopez provided me with vital inside information that came from agent [Henry] Cuervo from DEA files for me to go to the grand jury on the Mayas case, Molina told a judge and others in sworn statements obtained by the Post-Gazette. Lopez wrote me a month before in a letter that told me exactly what to say, Molina told federal authorities.
He said Lopez also provided the information to an inmate named Francisco Mesa, who eventually testified before the grand jury with the same perjured testimony. In July 1994, Francisco Mesa told me that he never knew the Mayas, Molina said. I can no longer cover up this wrongdoing...It is in my best interest to cooperate in the war against drugs, but two wrongs cant make a right. Inmate Pedro Diaz Yera corroborated Molinas account.
Yera also implicated Lopez and Cuervo, the DEA agent, in letters he wrote to politicians and judges. As a result of Molinas information, he and Yera met with Nelson Barbosa, a special agent with the FBI. They told Barbosa about what they say was Lopezs and Cuervos role in jump on the bus schemes. Both men said Barbosa never contacted them again.
On March 25, 1995, they spoke to another FBI agent, Steven Kling, of Miami. We told him the same things we had relayed to Agent Barbosa, Molina said. He told me he would get back in touch with us within two to three days. That was more than three years ago. The two are still waiting. Buying time Luis Orlando Lopez was a player. When federal agents broke up a major cocaine ring in 1991, Lopez, who is no relation to Hector Lopez, was carrying 114 kilograms of cocaine and a small cache of weapons in his car. Lopez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to about 27 years in the Federal Correctional Institution at Miami. Then, he stumbled upon his ticket to freedom.
In exchange for his cooperation, he discovered that his prison term could be reduced dramatically. Lopez turned to Reuben Oliva, a Miami attorney whose law practice specializes in negotiating deals for those who provide substantial assistance to prosecutors in exchange for sentence reductions. During a court hearing, Oliva pointed out that Lopez provided critical information to four federal agencies, helping them win guilty pleas against arms dealers, fugitives, hit men and drug traffickers.
His cooperation has resulted in the arrest of 13 persons, and he has provided information regarding two others, Oliva said. He has provided information regarding state and federal fugitives, arms dealers, narcotics traffickers, violent organized crime members, and he has done so at great risk to himself and his family. Because of the help Lopez provided, a Florida federal judge, in December 1996, reduced his sentence by 12 years. Lopez will be eligible for parole next year. Case closed. But there was a problem. The crimes committed by eight of the men whom he testified against took place while Lopez was in prison.
How, then, could he have helped prosecutors? The answer is simple, said Oliva. Federal prosecutors allowed Lopezs brother to gather evidence outside the walls of prison. The prosecutors then credited Luis Lopez with providing them with substantial assistance that helped him win his sentence reduction. That part of the story was never put on the court record, even when the judge asked a prosecutor how an imprisoned man such as Lopez could know so much.
In a letter to the U.S. Attorney General and to Lopezs judge, inmate Ramon Castellanos wrote that Lopez told him he�d paid $60,000 to another inmate, a government informant with a pipeline inside the federal bureaucracy, for confidential information gleaned from federal agents who needed additional witnesses to buttress their cases. Castellanos said that Lopez then gave the information to his brother, who gathered corroboration on the outside, but Castellanos said he has a government memo that proves at least some of the information Lopez provided was bogus.
The memo in support of yet another sentence reduction states that another man, Orlando Marrero, provided information about a federal case that was identical to what Lopez provided.� Oliva said Castellanos account concerning Lopez is generally accurate, but he said he does not believe Lopez paid money to anyone for information. I do not believe Luis or his family have that kind of money, said Oliva. Lopez did not respond to a written request for an interview.
Neither the Justice Department nor the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida responded to written questions the newspaper posed about concerns raised in this series. In his letters, Castellanos provided documents concerning nine other jump on the bus cases that he said he had firsthand knowledge about. In each of those cases, inmates gave prosecutors bogus information in exchange for reductions in their sentences, he said. Castellanos, who is serving a 30-year sentence for cocaine distribution, said a sentence reduction is not the reason he has come forward.
Let there be no mistake about the motivation behind this complaint. I am not seeking a sentence reduction. I am seeking a balance of justice, he wrote. Im not an angel, only a human being who�s made a mistake and is capable of paying the price. However, other similarly suited individuals with cartel connections and the aid of DEA and U.S. Customs are circumventing and manipulating the U.S.� justice system.
The big guys are still dealing their way out of prison while the little guy serves full-term sentences, Castellanos wrote. In an interview earlier this year, Castellanos said he has provided specific instances of this scam to FBI agents from South Florida. He told them that he would go undercover to expose this process. He said he was interviewed twice about it in the past year. The agents haven�t contacted him in months, and Castellanos said he doubts they ever will.� Outside help The federal government was also aware of the activities of Pappas and Fierer. Pappas had been out of jail for only seven months when he established Conviction Consultants Inc. in the offices of Fierers downtown Atlanta law office, and from October 1995 to February 1996, investigators were secretly recording some of their conversations about jump on the bus schemes after an imprisoned man in Kentucky tipped off the agents.
During its investigation, the government uncovered several instances involving perjured testimony before indicting Pappas and Fierer. According to that indictment, Bruce Young, a convict from Nashville, Tenn., paid $25,000 to Fierer and Pappas in September 1995. After that, Fierer wrote a letter to a prosecutor in Tennessee saying he had an informant who had some affection for Bruce Young and wanted to help. According to the indictment, in a recorded conversation a few months later, Pappas told Young: You sat in jail and didn�t do anything except pay money to buy freedom.
The government also recorded conversations between Pappas and inmate Peter Taylor, who was serving a 13-year sentence in Miami for smuggling marijuana. Pappas told Taylor that a facade had to be created to make prosecutors believe Taylor knew an informer whom he was going to join in testifying in a case against another. According to the indictment, Pappas encouraged Taylor to tell a prosecutor he and the informer were lifelong friends or something.
In February 1996, Fierer told Taylor the entire deal would cost him $250,000: $150,000 for the consulting company, $75,000 for Fierer and $25,000 in expenses. Rodney Gaddis also sought Pappas help. Pappas contacted Gaddis, a convicted bank robber, and told him he had found an informant willing to provide exculpatory information about Gaddis. He told Gaddis to tell federal prosecutors that he had known the informant for nine years and that he looked like Howdy Doody. Gaddis and the man, however, had never met.
Jumping lessons Richard Diaz, a former Miami police officer turned defense lawyer, said he has seen firsthand how jump on the bus scams work. As an example, he cited the case against Magluta and Falcone, two men who were charged in the largest cocaine smuggling case to be brought in South Florida. Diaz, who worked on a related case, said federal agents and prosecutors were offering deals throughout the South Florida penal system to anyone who would testify against Magluta and Falcone.
Jurors, however, acquitted the two men because the jurors said they didn�t believe much of the testimony, even though the jury foreman has now been accused of accepting a $500,000 bribe to fix the case. Diaz and others said the government offered the same types of inducements to anyone who could testify against Noriega.
It was common knowledge in the south Florida jails that anyone who had information to provide regarding General Noriega would be looked upon very favorably, said Frank Rubino, one of the cadre of lawyers who represented Noriega in his drug case, which ended with a conviction and 20-year prison term.
From abundant sources the information comes from a variety of sources. With help, some secure evidence, transcripts, indictments and other materials from cases then memorize that information before approaching a prosecutor willing to make a deal. Some get together with informants looking for others to corroborate their testimony. Others simply make it up.
In many cases, prosecutors help the convicts along by telling potential witnesses precisely what they want to hear if the inmate expects to get a deal, Diaz said. Informers quickly pick up on the basic facts. If I did something like that, I could lose my [law license], Diaz said. Its like putting the cheese in front of the rat.
One way to curtail jump on the bus schemes would be to administer polygraph tests to all witnesses. Justice Department rules require polygraph tests for witnesses who are promised leniency, but defense attorneys say they are seldom given. Even though lawyers and inmates have alerted federal prosecutors and agents about schemes related to jump on the bus, very little has been done. Diaz said that if the government acknowledged these abuses of the system, a large body of cases would end up being reversed.� It is easy to take the position that they don�t know anything about this, he said. It is easy to turn the cheek and deliberately look away from it.
�Inmate exploited prosecutors need for witnesses says,� Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer; Inmates inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Miami had written letters of warning to federal authorities. Jose Goyriena, who was serving a 27-year prison sentence, had been bragging to them about jumping on the bus. He had obtained information from other convicts and government informants about crimes he knew nothing about.
Then he memorized that information and offered it as testimony to federal prosecutors, the inmates said. Despite the letters warning of Goyrienas� scheme, prosecutors let him testify again and again. He even offered to provide the same information for a price to anyone interested in joining him.� With Goyrienas� help, prosecutors sent four men to prison for life. They also won indictments against several others, who later pleaded guilty. In return, prosecutors promised that Goyrienas� sentence for cocaine-smuggling would be reduced by at least 10 years and that they would seize only a small portion of the millions of dollars in assets he�d acquired through smuggling.
Because of his capacity to lie, and the fact the government has used this bogus testimony in many cases, Goyrienas� name has appeared elsewhere in the Post-Gazette series including a story about government misconduct in the trial of Peter Hidalgo, which appeared Nov. 24.
In the trials of Hidalgo, Andres Campillo and Joseph Olivera, lawyers for Hidalgo and Olivera protested that Goyriena did not know their clients. Campillo admitted that Goyriena had done some construction work for him, but he denied any involvement with drugs. Goyrienas� lies didn�t catch up with him until he was ready to testify in the one case that he hoped would finally spring him for good.
Prosecutors planned to use Goyrienas� testimony against drug baron Castor Gonzalez, but didn�t need it when Gonzales pleaded guilty. Richard Diaz, a former Miami police officer who later became a criminal defense lawyer, learned that Goyriena had been offering to sell information he obtained to other inmates. Even though he had nothing to do with the Gonzalez case, Diaz filed a motion to make sure the judge took a close look at Goyrienas� actions before allowing him to testify or granting him further sentence reductions.
In that motion, Diaz included four sworn and notarized affidavits in which inmates at the Federal Detention Center at Miami and the Federal Correctional Institution at Miami said Goyriena offered to sell them information so that they, too, could testify against Gonzalez and have their sentences reduced. Blas Duran, an inmate at FDC-Miami, said Goyriena, known in prison as El Gorrion, told him in January or February 1997 that the only way Duran could get out of jail early was to jump on the bus. I told him that I did not know what he meant by that, Duran wrote in a sworn affidavit. Gorrion told me that what he meant was that I could buy information from him or anybody else offering information for sale and provide the information to the respective government prosecutor, demand, and most probably receive, a reduction in my sentence.
Another convict, Victor Gomez, said he heard an inmate offering Goyriena information. Goyriena then planned to give that information to prosecutors, even though he had no direct, indirect or personal knowledge that [the defendant] had ever done anything illegal, Gomez said. A fourth inmate, Rafael Martinez, swore to the same set of materials. Diaz said shortly after he filed his motion about Goyriena, he learned that Goyriena had failed two polygraph tests administered by the government. While Goyriena told inmates he was looking forward to freedom for his work, the government put on hold its motion for sentence reduction because of the fallout that began with Diazs motion. Appeals from others he helped convict are pending.
Feds finally use safeguards but only to protect their own November 30, 1998 By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer There is a system in place to keep prisoners from trading lies for leniency. They are supposed to be given polygraph tests to determine if they are telling the truth. But that safeguard is often ignored. Gilberto Martinez proved the system can work _ at least if the target of the lies is a federal agent.
In early 1995, Martinez was arrested, convicted and sentenced to a federal prison for drug-trafficking. Like many other inmates, once he was in prison, Martinez found a way he could help the government and, in the process, make himself some extra money. Authorities said it was a classic case of jumping on the bus.� Usually, the scam involves inmates who fabricate testimony against suspected drug dealers or other common criminals, and some prosecutors, eager for witnesses who will corroborate a crime, ignore safeguards such as polygraph tests that help ensure a witnesses credibility. Martinez made a mistake. He tried to set up one of the governments agents.
The scheme behind bars began in October 1997, when Martinez contacted a U.S. Customs Service internal affairs officer to say a fellow inmate, Narcisco Rodriguez, had information about a corrupt agent. Rodriguez told internal affairs officers that he had paid $28,000 in bribes to the agent who was never identified in court papers. In return, the agent had guaranteed that Rodriguezs brother, Luis Rodriguez, would have his sentence reduced for cooperating with the federal government, Narcisco Rodriguez said. To test the veracity of their accounts, customs officials administered polygraph tests to Luis and Narcisco Rodriguez.
Both men showed strong deception, according to an affidavit. There was no dirty agent, Martinez finally admitted. He planned to pocket the $28,000 himself. Martinez, a former boxing promoter, pleaded guilty in the scheme and had 11/2 years added to his prison sentence. There were other repercussions. According to court documents, Martinezs admission has raised questions about his earlier testimony that helped federal prosecutors convict a former Miami Beach mayor of corruption and helped snare some Metro Dade County police officers who were charged with stealing drugs. Both are appealing their convictions, basing their appeals on the prospect that Martinez might have lied. If he hadn�t tried to finger a federal agent, Martinezs veracity as a witness might never have been questioned.
A crowd on this bus according to Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer; Federal prosecutors wanted to make sure Israel Abel didn�t get off the hook. Abel said that among the dozens of witnesses who testified against him at his 1992 Miami drug smuggling trial were several people he�d never laid eyes on. They were there to jump on the bus, earning sentence reductions by testifying about things they�d never seen having to do with a person they�d never met, he said.
It wasn�t until several years after Abel was sentenced to life in prison that he learned where the witnesses had come from. Abels family found in a court record a copy of a letter that a government informant named Jorge Machado had written to his sentencing judge. Abel knew Machado but not most of the others whom Machado lined up to testify. In his letter, Machado apologized to the judge for being a cocaine smuggler, lamented that he�d spent 34 months in prison and told him he was actively pursuing cases that could help him win a sentence reduction.
In support of his plea, Machado provided a summary of his cooperation. I have recruited [confidential informants] in four different cases, wrote Machado, even though, as he pointed out, he�d only been a gopher for drug barons and would know little about a smuggling rings inner workings. In the governments case against Abel, I recruited the following people: Joaquin Guzman, Jorege Cardenas, Jose Ledo, Carlos De La Torre, Carlos Betancourt. Mr. Betancourt recruited Mr. Catano. The letter went on to list people Abel says he�s never met.
During his trial, Abels lawyers had no reason to believe Machado or any of the other witnesses were phony and so the lawyers never questioned them about how they came to testify. They wouldn�t find out until much later. Abel, who has been imprisoned for seven years, hopes one day to be able to point that out in an evidentiary hearing, if one is granted, to show that many of these witnesses were nothing more than liars trying to buy their way out of jail.
Switching sides Federal agents sometimes fall prey to the lurid lifestyles of their informants and on December 1, 1998� Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer states; It was May 22, 1992. FBI agent Christopher Favo was briefing his boss, Special Agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who headed the task force trying to end Brooklyn�s Colombo crime family war. Two men loyal to the Colombo faction led by Victor J. Orena had been gunned down on a Brooklyn Street the night before, Favo announced. DeVecchio�s reaction was not what Favo expected.
The man charged with stopping the violence cheered for the shootings. �He slapped his hand on the desk and he said, �We�re going to win this thing,� � Favo would recall two years later. �And he seemed excited about it. �He seemed like he didn�t know we were the FBI. It was like a line had been blurred . . . over who we were and what this was...He was compromised. He had lost track of who he was.�
The Post-Gazette�s two-year investigation found that federal agents are often placed in positions where they can lose track and end up compromised. Agents sometimes must make deals with the devil � criminal informants; to fight crime. The temptations to become partners with these criminals can be great. And the safeguards to prevent their defections are few.
Questionable Ally:� No one mentioned Gregory Scarpa Sr. by name when Favo and DeVecchio talked that morning. Scarpa, a gangster who�s lust for murder earned him the nickname �Killing Machine� in New York�s tabloids, had sided with the Carmine Persico faction against Orena in the bloody Colombo crime family fight.
But Scarpa was also a government informant; common in federal law enforcement. Agents use them to get inside information about criminal conduct. Sometimes these informants are paid money. Sometimes their reward is leniency if they happen to be facing a prison term. For three decades, Scarpa had been an informant for the FBI. His relationship with DeVecchio, which lasted at least a decade, went beyond any accepted FBI practice, fellow agents have testified. DeVecchio not only ignored Scarpa�s day-to-day criminal activities, he was accused of assisting in the Mafia killer�s success.
Accusations against DeVecchio, made in sworn statements by other FBI agents, cooperating FBI witnesses, government documents and court testimony, include: Giving Scarpa the names of other FBI snitches, so Scarpa could put them in harm�s way while shielding his own illegal operations. Telling Scarpa where the FBI was placing wiretaps so he could avoid them. Informing Scarpa of pending indictments against his associates; in one instance, allowing Scarpa to help his son disappear before the younger Scarpa could be arrested.
Handing over the addresses of Scarpa�s enemies in the Colombo crime family war so that he could track them down and kill them. Fabricating evidence against Orena and other Scarpa adversaries so they would be sent to prison. DeVecchio has admitted accepting gifts from Scarpa. But he steadfastly has denied any other wrongdoing.
In several recent court cases, he took the Fifth Amendment rather than discuss his relationship with Scarpa. Yet the files and first-hand reports of other agents detailing his actions have resulted in more than a dozen New York mobsters being acquitted after juries learned the FBI had conspired with criminals to commit crimes. Orena wasn�t so lucky. He was sentenced to life in prison before the Scarpa-DeVecchio relationship was uncovered. His attorneys efforts in getting him a new trial have so far failed. And what of the Justice Departments probe into the actions of its rogue agent? The agencies investigation exonerated DeVecchio.
The Post-Gazettes two-year investigation into misconduct by federal law enforcement officials found the kid glove treatment of DeVecchio is not unusual. The Justice Department did not respond to questions the newspaper posed about concerns raised in this story. Making converts Informants are supposed to help federal agents arrest criminals. But too often, these informants create new criminals out of those very agents.
Former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Celerino Castillo III says he knows why. The government has come to rely on informants to make cases more and more often, he said. And these informants have power and material possessions and money temptations they gladly use in their efforts to compromise an agent.
The safeguards that are supposed to help prevent it often are ignored. You know, there�s an old saying: Tell me who you hang out with, and Ill tell you who you are, said Castillo, of McAllen, Texas, who worked mostly undercover for the DEA for 12 years. Mike Levine agrees. The upstate New York man spent 25 years as a DEA agent, the final 10 as a supervisor.
As a street agent and as a supervisor, one of the biggest problems was agents falling in love with informants, he said. They literally become part of the crime. Its just a flat out conspiracy. [Agents] tell informants, if you come in with a good case, you get away with murder...literally. And [informants] know what�s going on.
They know if they dangle a good case in front of a gullible agent or an agent whose morality is not such that it gets in the way of his ambition, that agent starts to overlook what the informant does. Compounding the problem, Castillo said, is a mentality within federal law enforcement that will forgive almost any conduct as long as agents produce. Undercover agents especially are often left to their own devices by supervisors suits, Castillo and Levine call them who have little experience but a driving interest in moving up the career ladder by not making waves, Castillo said. There�s a great disrespect and fear of management at DEA, Levine said. Most management don�t really know anything about drug cases. They are bureaucrats with no real-world experience.
Levine said DEA operations manuals order supervisors to review undercover investigations with agents at least once a month. Other federal agencies have similar requirements. That doesn�t happen often, especially in deep undercover operations, he said. Unrestricted secrecy is unlimited corruption, he said. Ego also drives misconduct, Levine said. The individual agent who gets himself in league with the bad guys, like DeVecchio, listens to this guy tell him, Im going to make you famous. You�re going to have a book deal, a movie deal.
It reaches the point that even a murder can be overlooked: Levine said, since its rationalized as one bad guy killing another. The media�s fascination with big crimes feeds the process, he said. Prosecutors have careers made by media, Levine said. Early on in the War on Drugs...that manifested itself when literally every Spanish-speaking person you busted would eventually have a link to the Medellin cartel. Agents would see...the hype, media would gobble it up.
Before you knew it, [agents] started lying or hyping their own cases. What quickly happened was that if you made a top media case, or made the big guys look good, you got rewards yourself. And then there�s money. Castillo fought in Vietnam and began his career in law enforcement as a Texas cop. In 1980, he joined the DEA and worked in New York, Peru and Guatemala, where he was in charge of anti-drug operations centered in El Salvador from 1985 to 1990.
As part of his job, Castillo said, he sometimes handed checks to snitches for more than $100,000, even as he earned less than $40,000 a year. Agents often work long hours at low pay in dangerous surroundings for little appreciation and can rationalize that accepting a gift or a loan from an informant is OK. Before you know it, he is compromised, Castillo said. Castillo said he finally quit his DEA job in disgust in 1992. He now writes and teaches law enforcement classes to high schoolers. He believes agents simply become expendable. He�s seen case after case where agents who may have worked for years undercover get little help readjusting to the real world when they�re reassigned. Basically, I realized they could care less about me. Levine said a solution to the problem of keeping agents on the right side of the law would be for the Justice Department to come down hard on those caught in an illegal activity. It wont happen, he said, for one simple reason: They�d have to go after themselves. People are going to ask them How did that happen? How did you let that happen? You�re the supervisor.
Unwanted information Geovanni Casallas has seen that government reluctance up close. He is serving 24 years at the Federal Correctional Institution at Bradford, Pa., and, like most convicted drug smugglers, got the chance to cut his sentence by snitching on others in the drug trade. Casallas had good information. When he was arrested in 1991, he was working for two men on the southern U.S. border whose crimes included arranging for the theft of an airplane to smuggle drugs; overseeing the transport of hundreds of pounds of illegal drugs into the United States; and splitting both drugs and money from those shipments among themselves and others.
The government turned down his information. Not only that, prosecutors warned his lawyer that if Casallas pursued the charges, they might be inclined to indict his wife, who was with him when he was arrested, and eliminate any reduction in sentence that Casallas might otherwise be promised. For in this case, one of the men Casallas fingered was a government informant who had lured Casallas into the drug deal.
The other was an agent for the DEA, who also was based in Texas. Investigating its own in this case would do more than harm the informer and the agent, the Post-Gazette found. If they were found guilty of the charges made by Casallas, dozens of cases in which they participated or testified might face reversals in court. Casallas finally agreed not to press his charges against the informant and agent, to spare his wife from indictment.
Casallas pleaded guilty and accepted a federally mandated 24-year prison term. But once in prison, he found he couldn�t in good conscience allow what he considers a travesty of justice. He sent a sworn affidavit detailing what he knew to U.S. Attorney Gaynelle Griffin Jones of Houston in February 1995. He got no satisfaction.
Finally, after five years in prison, he asked a federal judge for a writ of mandamus, which asked that an investigation be undertaken into his allegations. The judge granted his request and ordered federal prosecutors to conduct a grand jury investigation. They did. But they never called Casallas the person who was an eyewitness to the misconduct to testify. The investigation was concluded in a few months and no action was taken.
Agents Ignored: Such inaction is just as common for those who spot misconduct from the inside. FBI Special Agent Jerome R. Sullivan pleaded guilty last year to being a spy for associates of New York�s Gambino crime family. Sullivan had been party to some spectacular successes for the FBI. He said he was driven to criminal actions by stress, alcohol and gambling addictions caused by almost 20 years of undercover work.
How Sullivans actions could have escaped the notice of supervisors and colleagues for so long has never been made clear. Sullivan skimmed almost $200,000 that was supposed to fund an undercover money-laundering investigation directed at members of Colombias Cali cartel. He wrote bogus memoranda and fake expense reports to cover the criminal activity; kept $100,000 from another money-laundering scheme; stole $100,000 from a raid at a check-cashing business; and pocketed money from the sale of un-stamped cigarettes he seized from a member of organized crime.
He said he even scammed a judge to win the release from prison of organized crime figure Daniel Fat Danny Laratro. Sullivan told the judge Laratro had provided substantial assistance to the government in cases against several key figures in New York�s Lucchese crime family, which was trying to gain access to the garbage business in Florida. U.S. District Judge Stanley Marcus reduced Laratros five-year sentence to three years time he�d already served.
Of course, Laratro had given the government no help. But he helped Sullivan in a big way arranging for his $100,000 gambling debt with Lucchese-connected bookmakers to be forgiven. Laratro also promised to provide Sullivan with more than $200,000 to start up a business after he retired from his government job. Sullivan pleaded guilty to a 10-count indictment and will soon be sentenced.
His lawyers have argued that because of job-related stress and full cooperation, he deserves no more than a few years in prison. Well-placed friends Its not always just a rogue agent who trades sides. Several agents in Bostons FBI office seemed beholden to lifelong gangster James Whitey Bulger. Bulger was known as an untouchable in Massachusetts the crime boss who always managed to avoid federal wiretaps, warrants and racketeering charges that landed many of his associates in prison. Massachusetts residents figured Bulgers brother, William, former president of the Massachusetts Senate and current president of the University of Massachusetts, was privy to inside information that helped safeguard his brother.
But it was Whitey Bulgers work as an FBI informant between 1971 and 1990 that helped keep him out of prison. Unbeknownst to his criminal colleagues, Bulger provided critical information to FBI agents that led to the indictments of many leading members of La Cosa Nostra in Boston. In return, the FBI protected Bulger from arrest while he operated his illegal loan-sharking and drug distribution businesses in South Boston, where he protected his enterprise through brutal assaults and murders. Someone finally pierced Bulgers immunity.
In January 1995, Bulger and five others were indicted on racketeering charges by a federal grand jury. The indictment suggested Bulger was responsible for the deaths of at least four people, dating to the 1960s. Curiously, five days before Bulgers indictment, he disappeared. FBI agents have denied any connection, but lawyers and judges have publicly questioned the strange circumstances surrounding the Bulger investigation and his timely disappearance. Bulger has never been found.
FBI Agent John Morris, who headed the FBIs organized crime unit in the city, admitted he allowed Bulger and his associate, Stephen Flemmi, to commit crimes over a period of 20 years. In exchange, they provided the agency with information that helped set up the arrests of several gangsters. Morris also admitted on the witness stand that he had accepted gifts from Bulger and Flemmi, including French wine and almost $6,000, including $1,000 he used to take his girlfriend with him to a 1992 Drug Enforcement Administration convention in Georgia.
In return, Morris said, he shielded Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution because they were his most important secret informers he characterized them as the most prized informants in New England history. It was part of an FBI policy in Boston albeit an unwritten one that protected such high-ranking gangsters in exchange for the information they could provide on lesser known thugs that agents could then arrest. Morris denies he tolerated murders by Bulger.
Yet he admitted he and other agents did little when an informant told them Flemmi and Bulger had offered him money to murder an Oklahoma businessman who had crossed the pair in a South Florida Jai Alai venture. The businessman was later murdered. The case has never been solved. The biggest fallout in the Bulger case may be yet to come.
The FBI kept secret the fact Bulger was the source of information agents used to get wiretaps from federal judges for the telephones of dozens of gangsters many of whom were then convicted of crimes based on that evidence. In one instance, the FBI learned through Bulger that a mafia swearing-in ceremony was being held outside of Boston, so secret cameras were installed to record it. Those tapes caused a sensation across the country.
Since federal judges weren�t told Bulger was the source of information for many of the wiretap requests, the evidence obtained from those taps could be thrown out through appeals. And since federal agents did not disclose their close relationship with Bulger when they testified in these trials, that also could be the basis of successful appeals.
Last summer, the FBI announced a $250,000 reward for Bulgers arrest. Court records show that at about the same time agents had spotted Bulgers car in a suburb of New York City. Bulger never returned to the car.
Choosing sides It was the first week of December 1991, and Vinnie Fusaro was stringing Christmas lights outside his home in Brooklyn. Gregory Scarpa Sr. was one of several passengers in a car that drove slowly by. In a sworn statement given two years later to the FBI when Scarpa was already in prison and near death a government informant named Larry Mazza gave this account of what happened next: Scarpa had his window open and his rifle ready as the car approached Fusaros Brooklyn home.� Scarpa fired three shots, killing Fusaro.
A month later, he gunned down Nicholas Grancio. Both Fusaro and Grancio were middle-aged, small-time hoodlums whom Scarpa believed were Orena loyalists in the battle for control of the Colombo crime family. During this time and throughout the Colombo crime family war DeVecchio would call or meet with Scarpa almost every day during the Colombo crime family war, agents and the documents said.
Based on that, Orenas attorneys believe DeVecchio was aware that Scarpa committed the murders. Despite the knowledge that Greg Scarpa killed Grancio, and was believed to be actively prosecuting the war, the FBI did nothing to monitor or curtail Scarpas irrepressible violence, or otherwise reign him in, Orenas attorneys would write later.
He was not arrested, or interrogated, for this crime. At no time did the FBI seek a search warrant for Scarpas home to determine if Scarpa possessed the gun that killed Grancio...After Grancio was killed, Scarpa remained utterly free and unfettered to kill again and so he did. DeVecchio has denied having any knowledge at the time of Scarpas role in these murders, but there was no doubt DeVecchio and Scarpa were close.
They even had a code. When DeVecchio had to call Scarpa, he would sometimes refer to himself as Mr. Dello or Mr. Della. In turn, Scarpa would call himself 34 and refer to his FBI contact as the girlfriend. No one outside the FBI knew about this cozy relationship, though a lot of people had their suspicions. Attorneys for Victor Orena were certainly curious. Orena faced a nine-count racketeering indictment in late 1991, charging him with murder, murder conspiracy, firearms possession, extortion and loan sharking all stemming from his fight with the Colombo family faction that included Gregory Scarpa Sr. Orenas attorneys believed most of the evidence had been fabricated by Scarpa, with the aid of DeVecchio.
Before Orenas trial, they asked the FBI to turn over everything they had about Scarpa, since it was their belief he had started the internecine war and caused most of the bloodshed. Federal prosecutors eventually turned over only 77 pages of documents about Scarpas work with DeVecchio, although in subsequent cases, thousands more would be released.
There wasn�t a single word about the gunmen who had tried but failed to kill Scarpa in 1991, precipitating the mob war that followed. Orenas attorneys believe they know why. Their theory is the attack was staged, and Scarpa then used it as an excuse to declare war on Orena and his loyalists. When the lawyers tried to find the forensic evidence that should have been gathered at the scene, they found the shell casings were missing; the photographs were missing; and there was no report filed on interviews with Scarpa. As aspects of the relationship became known, DeVecchio admitted to his superiors that Scarpa would bring him gifts. When Cabbage Patch Dolls were popular but scarce, Scarpa gave a few to DeVecchio for his children. He gave him fine wine, pasta and other homemade Italian dishes during the holidays. Orenas attorneys were unable to make their case without the thousands of pages of information about Scarpa and DeVecchio they suspected were in FBI files but were unable to obtain. Orena was convicted on the charges in 1992.
The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals turned down his appeal based on prosecutorial misconduct and other issues as has the U.S. Supreme Court. He still hopes he can persuade a judge through a writ of habeas corpus petition that the actions of the government have sent him to prison illegally. While Orena remains in prison, more than a dozen other men involved in the Colombo crime family war have either been acquitted or had their cases dismissed because of the Scarpa-DeVecchio connection.
DeVecchio has retired from the FBI. Scarpa died in 1994 of AIDS transmitted by a blood transfusion during stomach surgery in 1986. He was 65. The FBI had known for years he was in poor health. Yet no federal official ever questioned him about the issues raised by his relationship with the FBI during the Colombo Family crime war.
Last month, his son, Gregory Scarpa Jr., testified in New York during his own racketeering case that DeVecchio had given his father carte blanche to commit crimes, including five murders, so long as he kept working as a government informant. Scarpa Jr., 47, is arguing that he received that same protection from the government.
DeVecchio, who was granted immunity in the case in exchange for testimony, disputed that. Scarpa Jr., already doing a 25-year sentence for drug smuggling, was convicted in October on conspiracy charges. He has not yet been sentenced.
A Troubling Pioneer: On December 1, 1998, Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer; Its not the kind of first that would be fondly remembered. Daniel Mitrione, an FBI agent in the bureaus South Florida offices from the mid-1970s to early 1985, was the first FBI agent ever charged with joining a Colombia-to-U.S. drug-smuggling ring a ring he was duty bound to try to shut down. His penalty was mild. He agreed to testify against other smugglers.
In return, he served three years in a monastery for wayward priests federal authorities knew his life would be worthless in prison. He also turned over almost $1 million in illegally gained assets, a modest amount compared to the amount of drugs brought in by dealers that included a number of men from the Pittsburgh area. Indicted in the same drug conspiracy were the rings Florida leader, Hilmer Sandini, several South American drug smugglers, and some of the largest drug dealers Western Pennsylvania has ever known, including Eugene Gesuale. Vincent Ciraollo of Deerfield Beach, Fla., was a minor target by comparison. He served six years on drug charges stemming from the conspiracy indictments and insists he was innocent of the crime.
One of the governments key contentions at Ciraollos trial was that he�d planted a bomb under Sandinis car to keep him from testifying. Ciraollo insisted he not only hadn�t planted the bomb on the car, but he�d actually disarmed it after noticing wires dangling from the car saving Sandinis life. Further, during pre-trial motions when Mitrione was exposed as an undercover agent, Ciraollo heard that Mitrione had planted the bomb. He had good reason: Sandini would be the key witness detailing Mitriones betrayal of the FBI. But no mention of that fact was allowed at Ciraollos trial. Prosecutors argued the allegation was nothing more than a rumor. After his conviction, Ciraollo requested files on the FBIs investigation through a Freedom of Information Act request.
It was more than five years before he got an answer, well after he�d been released from prison. Included was an FBI Criminal Investigative Division Informative Note written two days before Ciraollo and the others were indicted. It stated the FBI in South Florida had extensive information indicating Mitrione had placed the bomb on Sandinis car and characterized his actions as an attempted homicide. No one turned that letter over to Ciraollos defense lawyers, as court rules require. Instead, prosecutors tried to pin the bombing on Ciraollo. The reason the information wasn�t given to Ciraollo, said Leon Rodriguez, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, was that the memo about the letter was never sent to the Pittsburgh office. He said it was cabled from Miami to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and was never made available to prosecutors in Pittsburgh. Mitrione was never charged in the attempted homicide.
Unique Way of Solving A Mystery: On December 1, 1998, Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer;� When three civil rights workers were reported missing and probably murdered near Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sought out an unusual person for help. Gregory Scarpa Sr. was an up-and-coming New York City mobster whose reputation as a ruthless hitman would eventually earn him the nickname The Killing Machine.
Scarpa agreed to travel secretly to Mississippi after FBI agents had spent several fruitless months searching for the bodies of the three young men, and their killers. When he arrived, FBI agents told him that an appliance store owner in Philadelphia, Miss., reportedly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, had information on where the three civil rights workers were buried, but he refused to talk.
Conventional interview techniques had failed. So Scarpa decided to buy a TV. When he stopped by the appliance store at closing time to pick it up, HE THREW THE STORES OWNER INTO THE TRUNK OF HIS CAR. He then took him to a shack and alternately beat him and threatened him for three days. Finally, Scarpa placed a revolver in the mans mouth, and assured him that he�d blow his head off if he didn�t disclose where the bodies were buried.
The man talked. A team of FBI agents using bulldozers dug up the decomposing bodies beneath 17 feet of red Mississippi clay in an earthen dam.� Seven men were eventually charged with federal civil rights violations related to the murder. This bizarre chapter in American crime-fighting didn�t end with the arrests. Scarpa returned to his life of crime in New York City and eventually initiated a killing spree in a fight for control of the infamous Colombo crime family in 1992. Court papers related to that war show that, from the time he left Mississippi, Scarpa maintained his close ties with the FBI.
Surprise response to newspaper ads was reported on December 1, 1998; By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer.� This was no average street dealer. The Philadelphia drug dealer took his cue from mail order catalogs. He mailed letters to known drug suppliers in the Philadelphia area, identifying himself only as Salvatore. The letters quoted his price $75,000 per kilogram of heroin.� When FBI agents in Philadelphia heard about the mysterious mail-order drug dealer, they jumped, figuring that if they tracked him down, he could lead them to a major heroin trafficker.
After a two-month investigation in 1994, agents learned that Salvatore was actually one of their own, an FBI special agent who stole about 100 pounds of heroin from his bureaus evidence room. Kenneth R. Withers, 33, a seven-year veteran, was charged in June 1994 with theft and trafficking violations. He is still awaiting trial.
Giving In to the Temptation as reported on December 1, 1998, By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer. Rene De La Cova was a highly respected supervisor with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 1994, working undercover in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Five years earlier, it was De La Cova who had been selected to serve an arrest warrant on Manuel Noriega after American forces invaded Panama. De La Cova and his partners routinely investigated and arrested people who might bring in more money in a month or a week, or a day than the agents earned in year. Or five years.
In a 1994 operation, De La Cova and his partners were working under cover and had agreed to launder $3 million for a Houston drug operation. Once they got the money, they began arranging for the drug dealers arrest. Then De La Cova got a late-night call. There was another $700,000 to launder, a drug dealer told him.� Could he do it? De La Cova should have obtained authorization to continue the investigation. Instead, he flew to Houston without telling anyone. He stuffed the money into his luggage, flew back to Miami, and stashed some of the cash in safety deposit boxes. The rest went into stock brokerage houses and banks across the country.
De La Cova got caught. Just how isn�t clear a judge sealed his case file shortly after he pleaded guilty in 1995. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Under federal sentencing guidelines, someone convicted of engaging in a drug-or money-laundering conspiracy involving that much money would normally face more than 20 years in prison. Still, De La Covas arrest ruined not only his career, but his wives.� Theresa De La Cova, a nine-year DEA investigator, resigned after her husbands arrest.
Agents can�t keep hands off drug evidence reported Bill Moushey on December 1, 1998, Post-Gazette Staff Writer.� When federal agents broke the Blue Thunder heroin ring in New York City, they snared 34 men suspected of reaping millions in drug profits between 1986-1991. Yet it turns out the biggest crooks included at least two agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who were involved in the arrests. As members of a multi-agency task force, the agents, through illegal arrests and seizures, succeeded in enriching their own lives while destroying the lives of innocent people.
Prosecutors withheld information on the investigation of the agents during the trials of several targets of the Blue Thunder probe violating the defendants rights to information for their defense. For example, Alfred Bottone was charged with being one of the leaders of the heroin conspiracy, but he never learned during his trial that the very officers who investigated him were being investigated themselves. In fact, one of the agents would eventually end up in the same prison as Bottone, who is serving a life sentence.
Sammy Shalikar and his brother-in-law also were nailed by the Blue Thunder task force. They�d both fled Iran in 1979 and founded Gallery 2000, a successful jewelry store in the Bronx. On June 22, 1992, drug task force officers used false evidence to obtain a search warrant for Shalikar Great Neck, Long Island, home and his jewelry store, where several bags of jewelry and cash were seized. The task force officers found no drugs.
Shalikar and his brother-in-law were charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine based on the testimony of a government informant who later would be proven a liar. Shalikar spent six months in jail on Rikers Island as the case wound its way through the federal court system in Manhattan. Finally, U.S. District Court Judge Pierre Leval dismissed all charges against Shalikar and his brother-in-law. It was a scandalous and terrible event when misconduct by law enforcement officers results in the filing of false charges, Leval wrote in 1993.
But that wasn�t the worst of it. Shalikar eventually learned that the task force officers who arrested him had themselves been under investigation for theft. One of the task force members, Robert Robles, admitted that he and his partner, Joseph Termani, sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry that was seized from Gallery 2000 during the raid.
Shalikar and his brother-in-law lost their store to bankruptcy. Termani confessed to the thefts after he was confronted by Robles and others involved in the sale of heroin they stole and sold in another case this one related to Bottone. Five years after being sentenced, Bottone says the same misconduct that led to Shalikar arrest was also present in his Blue Thunder trial, yet he says no one wants to listen because he has a criminal record. Bottone figures if his appeal is ever heard, the evidence will show that all three agents who caused his imprisonment were corrupted long before his case began. And that prosecutors never gave him the opportunity to use that information to raise questions about their credibility on the witness stand.
The standards of criminal liability for police are very high. Hence, not only does it have to be proven whether the officer used unreasonable force, but also whether he intended to use it. In many cases, the intention to use excessive force is difficult to prove.
The Justice Department has the power to investigate entire police departments for patterns and practices of misconduct and can require certain practices to be changed. In New York City, the Justice Department intervened only after the Abner Louima case.
Concerning Killings By The Police:
The violations of the right to life as a result of excessive use of force by law enforcement officials is extensive and legislators should put a stop to it. While acknowledging that the police face extremely difficult situations in their daily work, authorities have an obligation to ensure that the police respect the right to life.
Preliminary recommendations to the Government of the United States include the following:
(a) All alleged violations of the right to life should be investigated, police officials responsible brought to justice and compensation provided to the victims. Further, measures should be taken to prevent recurrence of these violations;
(b) Patterns of use of lethal force should be systematically investigated by the Justice Department; (c) Training on international standards on law enforcement and human rights should be included in police academies. This is particularly relevant because the United States has taken a leading role in training police forces in other countries;
(d) Independent organs, outside the police departments, should be put in place to investigate all allegations of violations of the right to life promptly and impartially, in accordance with principle 9 of the Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions;
(e) In order to avoid conflict of interest with the local district attorney's office, special prosecutors should be appointed more frequently in order to conduct investigations into allegations of violations of the right to life, to identify perpetrators and bring them to justice.