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The Last Circle - Intro
This is a story which will change the perceptions of people, and this is only the beginning of a much longer story.
INTRODUCTION
Regarding "The Last Circle"
The following condensed version of The Last Circle was provided in October 1996 to a secret Investigative Committee comprised of Congress people, lawyers and former POW's at their request. I originally contacted Congresswoman Maxine Waters in Washington D.C. and offered information relative to CIA drug trafficking, but was told the information was too complex and would I mind putting the information into a newspaper story, get it published and send it to her office?
I agreed and contacted a local newspaper reporter who, after reading portions of the material, decided it needed to be reviewed by individuals who had special knowledge of CIA drug trafficking, arms shipments, and biological warfare weapons.
After a brief meeting with these individuals, former Special Forces soldiers from the Vietnam era, they asked for copies of the manuscript, guaranteed an immediate congressional inquiry, and advised me NOT to place the information on the Internet as they feared the information could be, in their words, "taken as just another anti-government conspiracy."
I condensed the manuscript into the attached treatise, covering information relative to THEIR focus, and sent it to them along with key documents. Shortly afterward, they re-contacted me and set up elaborate security measures to insure my safety. As of this writing, I've had no need to institute those measures.
I have in my possession five boxes of documents, obtained from a convicted methamphetamine chemist whose closest friends were a 20-year CIA operative and a former FBI Senior-Agent-in-Charge of the Los Angeles and Washington D.C. bureaus. The labyrinthine involvements of these people and their corporate partners is revealed in this manuscript, along with information obtained by Washington D.C. journalist Danny Casolaro prior to his death in 1991.
A great deal of investigation still needs to be accomplished. I have neither the financial means nor the ability to obtain "evidence" for "prosecution." I am simply an investigative writer, placing this information into the public forum in hopes that someone, somewhere, will grasp the significance of the data and initiate a full-scale investigation with subsequent subpoena power.
With subpoena power, government agents can testify (some kept anonymous in this manuscript) who would otherwise lose their jobs and retirement if they came forward. Witnesses can be protected and/or provided immunity, and financial transactions of government and underworld figures can be scrutinized.
To date, I have not had more than one hour conversation with anyone associated with any Congressional investigation, and therefore am extremely limited in my ability to present the information I have. Much of what I learned during my five-year investigation cannot at this point be inserted into a manuscript. I must be assured the information and witnesses will be handled appropriately.
I personally do not believe the Department of Justice will ultimately "prosecute" this or any other drug trafficking case if it involves government officials. But I have made the effort to put forth enough information to generate interest and show good faith. I hope it will be of some value to the American public.
Please keep in mind as you read the attached pages that the complex corporate structures and technological projects described herein "may" have been nothing more than an elaborate smoke and mirrors cover for narcotics trafficking.
This aspect of my investigation was corroborated by several government investigators, one of whom was a House Judiciary investigator, who spent three years investigating the Inslaw stolen software case and said in response to my findings:
"There's some great information here. You did a very good investigative job, I have to commend you on that. I realize it's only a fraction of everything you have. What you have done, you have put the pieces of the whole thing together. Little bits and pieces of things that I have known about, that I had theorized about, you have found answers to those specific questions." (See Chapter 13 for entire conversation). That investigator is now in the White House Office of Drug Control Policy.
To those interested, nearly everything noted in the attached manuscript is supported by documents or tape recorded interviews. Some are extremely bulky and not quoted extensively in the manuscript, such as lengthy FBI wire tap summaries. However, any key documents mentioned in The Last Circle can be obtained by notifying JBC [at] BITTERROOT.NET. "This E - Mail address is a forwarding service for the author, the service has no information as to the author's physical location. Documents are NOT located at the service address. Document orders will be shipped directly by the author from another location. Cost of shipping and copying will be returned via E - Mail. Attached to each document is a cover page identifying the significance of the document and its relation to the manuscript. Hard copies of the manuscript can also be ordered.
I wish to thank Garby Leon, formerly Director of Development at Joel Silver Productions, Warner Bros. in Burbank, California for tirelessly prompting me to get a first draft of The Last Circle written in 1994 and helping me with countless tasks during our joint investigation of the death of Danny Casolaro.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LAST CIRCLE
Copyright ©1994 - All Rights Reserved
By Carol Marshall
NOTE:
This is a FIRST DRAFT, bare-bones, unpolished manuscript without prose, characterizations etc.
CHAPTER 1
For the deputies of the Mariposa Sheriff's Department, the awakening occurred on June 24, 1980, when deputy Ron Van Meter drowned in an alleged boating accident on Lake McClure. The search party consisted mainly of three divers, deputies Dave Beavers, Rod Cusic and Gary Estep. Although adjacent counties offered additional divers, sheriff Paul Paige refused outside help, even a minisubmarine offered by Beavers' associate.
In the shallow, placid waters of Lake McClure, Van Meter's body was not recovered that week, and indeed would not be found until ten years later, in September, 1990 when his torso, wrapped in a fish net and weighted down by various objects, including a fire extinguisher, washed ashore a few hundred yards from where Sergeant Roderick Sinclair's houseboat had once been moored.
Van Meter's widow, Leslie, had been at home baking cookies when she was notified of her husband's disappearance. She was an Indian girl who had no affinity with sheriff Paul Paige. The horror began for her that day also. Her home was ransacked and her husband's briefcase and diary were seized by the Mariposa Sheriff's department. Only she and a few deputies knew what Van Meter's diary contained. He'd told his wife he'd taken out a special life insurance policy two weeks before, but after the search that was missing also.
Leslie was taken to a psychiatric clinic for evaluation shortly after the incident.The story surfaced years later, one tiny bubble at a time. The selfinvolved little community of Mariposa did not cough up its secrets gladly. On March 23, 1984, Leslie Van Meter filed a Citizen's Complaint with the Mariposa County Sheriff's department alleging that the Sheriff's office had been negligent and unprofessional in their investigation of her husband's disappearance. His body had still not been found, despite private searches by Sergeant Beavers and other friends of the missing deputy. She wanted the case reopened.
Paul Paige was no longer sheriff, but newly elected Sheriff Ken Mattheys responded by reopening the investigation. Investigator Raymond Jenkins, a Merced College Police Chief, and retired FBI agent Tom Walsh from Merced, were notified by Sheriff Mattheys in October, 1984 that the Van Meter case had been reopened and he wanted their help in cleaning up the Sheriff's Department.
Their investigation led them straight to the doorstep of MCA Corporation (Music Corporation of America), parent company to Curry Company, the largest concessionaire in Yosemite National Park. A major drug network had surfaced in the park, compelling one park ranger, Paul Berkowitz, to go before the House Interior Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation to testify about drug distribution by Curry Company officials.
Ed Hardy, the president of Curry Company, was closely associated with Mariposa County officials, in particular, Mariposa District Attorney Bruce Eckerson, County Assessor Steve Dunbar, and Congressman Tony Coelho, whose district encompassed Mariposa and the Park. The annual camping trips that the three men took together was encouraged by the local townsfolk because most of Mariposa's tax base emanated from Curry Company.Coelho and Hardy were regular fixtures around town, seen at most of the social events. Coelho even cooked and served spaghetti dinners for the whole town annually at the Mariposa Fair Grounds, and purchased property in partnership with one member of the Mariposa Board of Supervisors. In fact, Mariposa was one of the first places he bid farewell to after resigning from Congress to avoid an investigation of his finances.
Meanwhile, investigator Raymond Jenkins had followed the drug trail from Yosemite back to the Mariposa airport, where sheriff's deputies were seen regularly loading and unloading packages from planes in the dead of night.
One Indian girl complained bitterly about deputies using the Sara Priest land allottment (reservation) to grow marijuana and operate methamphetamine labs. Jenkins, by now retired from the position of Police Chief of Merced College, was called in to interview the Indian girl. That same day, as a favor, he provided me with copies of his notes. I followed up with a tape recorded interview at her home in Bear valley. Her father and uncle operated a small auto dismantling business on the reservation in Midpines, and after locating them and gaining their confidence, the uncle drove me out to Whiskey Flats, the site of the marijuana and methamphetamine lab operations. That week I rented a horse and rode down into the rocky, isolated valley of Whiskey Flats. Brush and shrubbery tore at the saddle on the horse and at the end of the dirt path I encountered three snarling Rottweiler dogs who put the horse into a frenzied lather.
Nevertheless, I managed to photograph the irrigation system, artesian spring and pond from which the water was supplied as well as various points of identification for future reconnaisance. I later returned in a fourwheel drive pickup truck and managed to view the trailer and lab shack.
The tape recorded interview with the Indian girl, the photos and notes from my discovery were provided to the Stanislaus County Drug Task Force, but jurisdictionally, they couldn't enter Mariposa County without authority of the Mariposa Sheriff's department. It was a catch 22 situation. Ultimately I provided the same information anonymously to several related agencies. It was not until 1993 that the fields were eradicated, and 1994, before the labs were raided. However, no arrests of any deputies were ever forthcoming. In fact, no arrests occurred at all, except for a few nonEnglish speaking Mexican nationals who had handled the "cooking." The head of the Los Angeles Drug Enforcement Agency noted to a local newspaper that the meth lab was part of a large California drug network, but they were unable to identify the kingpins.
On July 6, 1985, Mrs. Van Meter filed a "Request for Official Inquiry" with the State of California Department of Boating and Waterways stating that no satisfactory investigation was ever conducted into the matter of her husband's disappearance.
That same month, shortly after a meeting at Lake McClure with Mrs. Van Meter, Sheriff Mattheys mysteriously resigned from his position at the Mariposa Sheriff's Department. Mattheys revealed to reporter Anthony Pirushki that he had been ordered by two county supervisors and the county's attorney "to stay away from the Van Meter investigation." But that was not the reason he resigned. The whole story would not surface until seven years later when a reporter for the Mariposa Guide interviewed him.
However, while still in office, Mattheys and his internal affairs investigators had learned the reason for Van Meter's disappearance. A few weeks prior to his death in 1980, Van Meter had driven to the Attorney General's office in Sacramento and reported drug dealing and other types of corruption within the Mariposa Sheriff's Department. This, according to his friends whom he had confided in, deputies Dave Beavers, a fifteen year veteran of the sheriff's department, and Rod Cusic, a seventeen year veteran. Both deputies were ultimately forced out of the department and retired on stress leave.
On that same day, reserve deputy Lucky Jordan had driven to the Fresno office of the FBI to report similar information. According to Jordan, they had split up and reported to separate agencies in the event "something" happened to one of them.The crux of the story was State Attorney General Van De Kamp's response to the requested investigaion by Ron Van Meter. When Ron returned home from Sacramento, he was confronted by Sheriff Paige. Paige had received a call from the Attorney General informing him of the visit and its contents, and the sheriff was livid about Van Meter's betrayal.Van Meter had been photographing and journalizing drug activity by deputies at Lake McClure. He was part of a California State Abatement Program which involved harvesting and eradicating marijuana fields in Yosemite National Park and adjacent counties. Instead, the harvested marijuana was being stored in abandoned cars and towed out of town by a local wrecker under contract with the sheriff's department. It was also being distributed at a hidden cove at Lake McClure.
On June 24, 1980, frustrated and angry at the Attorney General for betraying him, Van Meter had borrowed a boat and was on his way to arrest the deputies at Lake McClure himself. He never returned. The investigation of Van Meter's "accident" was initially handled by Sergeant Roderick Sinclair, who could not have known on that fateful day that in exactly three years, three months, and nineteen days, he would enter the Twilight Zone where his own private hell awaited him.
******
The first substantial hint that a tentacle of the Octopus had slithered into Mariposa County occurred on March 5, 1983 when a Mariposa County Sheriff's vehicle scouting Queen Elizabeth II's motorcade route rounded a curve in the Yosemite National Park foothills, crossed a highway and collided headon with a Secret Service car, killing three Secret Service agents. CHP (California Highway Patrol) Assistant Chief Richard Hanna reported that the collision occurred at 10:50 a.m. between Coulterville and La Grange on Highway 132 about 25 minutes ahead of Queen Elizabeth's motorcade.CHP Sergeant Bob Schilly reported that Mariposa County Sheriff's Sergeant Roderick Sinclair, 43, was driving with his partner, Deputy Rod McKean, 51, when "for some reason, [he didn't] know why," Sinclair crossed the center line and hit the second of the three Secret Service cars, which went tumbling down a 10foot embankment.
The three Secret Service agents killed in the collision were identified as George P. LaBarge, 41, Donald Robinson, 38, and Donald A. Bejcek, 29. Sinclair, who had sustained broken ribs and a fractured knee, was first stabilized at Fremont Hospital in Mariposa, then transported several days later to Modesto Memorial Hospital.
Years later, several nurses who had been present when Sinclair was brought into Fremont Hospital confided that Sinclair had been drugged on the day of "the Queen's accident" as it became known in Mariposa. For months Sinclair had been receiving huge daily shots of Demerol, "enough to kill most men," according to one billing clerk. Some former deputies who had feared punitive measures if they spoke up, later corroborated the story of the nurses.
Meanwhile, Assistant U.S. Attorney James White in Fresno ordered Dr. Arthur Dahlem's files seized to prove Sinclair's drug addiction. Sinclair's Mariposa doctor and close friend had been prescribing heavy sedatives to him for years. When White attempted to prosecute Sinclair for criminal negligence, he was called into chambers during the federal probe and told by U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Coyle to "drop the criminal investigation" because Sinclair's drug problem was not relevant to the prosecution and the drug records could not be used in court. Judge Coyle's reasoning was that no blood tests had been taken on Sinclair at the Fremont Hospital on the day of the accident, therefore no case could be made against him.
In fact, the blood tests HAD been taken, but later disappeared.A significant piece of information relative to Judge Coyle's background was passed to me during my investigation of the Queen's accident by retired FBI agent Thomas Walsh. Allegedly, the Judge was once the attorney of record for Curry Company (owned by MCA Corporation) in Yosemite National Park. I later learned, in 1992, that Robert Booth Nichols had strong ties to MCA Corporation through Eugene Giaquinto, president of MCA Corporation Home Entertainment Division. Giaquinto had been on the Board of Directors of Nichols' corporation, MIL, Inc. (Meridian International Logistics, Inc.) and also held 10,000 shares of stock in the holding corporation. MIL, Inc. was later investigated by the Los Angeles FBI for allegedly passing classified secrets to overseas affiliates in Japan and Australia. It is interesting to note, though unrelated, that shortly afterward, the Japanese purchased MCA Corporation, one of the largest corporate purchases to take place in American history.
Relative to the Queens accident, in the civil trial that followed the tragic accident, Judge Coyle ruled that both Sinclair and the deceased Secret Service agents were at fault. Mariposa County was ordered to pay 70 percent of the claim filed by the widows, and the Secret Service to pay 30 percent. The county's insurance company paid the claim, and ironically, Sinclair was subsequently promoted to Commander of the Mariposa Sheriff's Department where he is still employed as of this writing.
In an interview on March 7, 1988, at Yoshino's Restaurant in Fresno, former U.S. Attorney James White recalled that the original CHP report on the Queens accident was sent to the State Attorney General's office (Van De Kamp) in Sacramento. The report was first received by Arnold Overoye, who agreed with White that Sinclair should be prosecuted. But when the report crossed Van De Kamp's desk, he told Overoye and his assistant to discard it trash it.
Van De Kamp then appointed Bruce Eckerson, the Mariposa County District Attorney, to take charge of the investigation and submit a new report. Coincidentally, Bruce Eckerson's disclosure statements on file at the Mariposa County Courthouse indicated that he owned stock in MCA Entertainment Corporation. White added that ALL of the crack M.A.I.T.S. team CHP officers involved in the original investigation either resigned or were transferred (or fired) afterward. The CHP Commander and the Deputy Commander who supervised the M.A.I.T.S. investigation also resigned as did Assistant U.S. Attorney White himself after the coverup took place.
However, White noted that before he resigned, he quietly filed with Stephan LaPalm of the U.S. Attorney's office in Sacramento the transcripts of the trial and an affidavit which listed the "hallucinatory" drugs Sinclair had used prior to the accident. I privately continued with the Queen's accident investigation, interviewing deputies Dave Beavers and Rod Cusic who had been privy to Sinclair's drugged condition on the day of the accident.
Beavers, who was the first deputy to arrive on the scene, maintained four years later, in 1987, that he was cognizant of Sinclair's condition, but when he was questioned by James White he was NOT ASKED about the drugs. (James White had by then been ordered to drop the criminal investigation and stay away from the drug aspect of the case).
In January 1988, deputy Rod Cusic strode into the offices of the Mariposa Guide, a competitor newspaper to the Mariposa Gazette, and stated that he was "told by Rod Sinclair to lie to a Grand Jury" about Sinclair's drug addiction and the resulting Queen's accident. Cusic added that he officially disclosed this to the Fresno FBI on April 26, 1984 and again on October 9, 1987. In 1987, Cusic also noted that he witnessed a boobytrapped incendiary device explode at Rod Sinclair's home during a visit to his residence. Additionally, earlier on, Sinclair allegedly barricaded himself inside his home and boobytrapped the property, as witnessed by numerous deputies who tried to persuade him to come out.
While reviewing old newspaper clippings from the Mariposa Gazette, I discovered an odd sidebar to the story. In December, 1984, during the Queen's accident civil trial in Fresno, U.S. Attorney James White had introduced testimony that Sinclair's vehicle contained "a myriad of automatic weapons including a boobytrapped bomb" when the collision occurred on March 5, 1983. It was not until 1991 that I discovered the depth of the coverup.
A CBS television executive and a Secret Service agent who had ridden in the third car of the Queen's motorcade in 1983, arrived in Mariposa to enlist my help in putting the pieces of the puzzle together on the Queen's accident. The Secret Service agent's best friend had been the driver of the car in which all three agents were killed. I signed a contract with the television executive for the sale of the story then drove them to the site of the accident, then to the site of where the damaged vehicle was stored near Lake McClure. The Secret Service agent broke down at the sight of the vehicle, remembering the gruesome appearance of his dead friend in the front seat. He turned, tears welling in his eyes, and said, "His heart burst right through his chest and was laying in his lap when I found him."
Dave Beavers joined us the next day. As did former sheriff Ken Mattheys. Beavers did not know that the same Secret Service agent whom he was sitting with in the car was the man who had tried to pull Sinclair out of the sheriff's vehicle on the day of the accident. There had been a scuffle, Beavers insisting that Sinclair go to the hospital with "his own people," and the Secret Service ultimately conceding.The Secret Service agent reflected sadly that they didn't know to ask the hospital for blood tests on Sinclair that day, didn't know of his drug addiction. By the time the case went to court, the records at the hospital were gone.
Two weeks after the agent left Mariposa, I received a packet containing copies of Sinclair's drug records for three years prior to the accident. They were the same records that U.S. District Court Judge Robert Coyle had disallowed in the Queen's accident trial. But it was not until producer Don Thrasher, a tenyear veteran of ABC News "20/20," came to town, that I learned of Sinclair's background, or the extent of his addiction.
By chance, at a book signing engagement at B. Dalton Bookstore, I had mentioned to the manager, Shaula Brent, that my next book contained information about the Queens accident.Surprised, Shaula blurted out that she had worked at Fremont Hospital when Sinclair was brought in from the accident. Shaula recounted the following: Rod Sinclair was brought into Fremont Hospital and placed in a room with an armed "FBI" agent outside the door. Sinclair had been receiving huge shots of Demerol in the arm every day prior to the accident, by order of Dr. Arthur Dahlem. Shaula noted that Sinclair was a big man and the amount of Demerol he had been receiving would have killed most men. After the Queen's accident, all drugs were withdrawn from Sinclair, and employees, including Shaula, could hear him raving aloud for days from his hospital room. The employees at the hospital were instructed not to speak about or repeat what took place at the hospital while Sinclair was there.
Because Shaula and her friend, Barbara Locke, who also worked at the hospital, were suspicious about Sinclair's hospital records, they secretly took photostats of the records "before they were destroyed by the hospital." Blood HAD been drawn on Sinclair on the day of the Queen's accident, and he HAD been under the influence, according to Shaula. Shaula gave the names of six nurses who were witness to Sinclair's condition at the time he was brought into Fremont Hospital. When his body was finally drugfree, Sinclair was transported, against his wishes, to Modesto Hospital.
******
In January, 1992, the final pieces to the puzzle fell into place. Sinclair's background had been the key all along. Producer Don Thrasher had interviewed the Secret Service agent and, although the information he obtained would not be used in his production, he advised me to follow up. The Secret Service corraborated the following profile: Sinclair's father had been a military attache to General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. (I had privately mused how many of MacArthur's men later became arms of the Octopus). In Japan, after the war, Colonel Sinclair (sr.) supervised the training of selected Japanese in intelligence gathering operations.
According to the Secret Service, he was an "international figure," highly regarded in the intelligence community. Rod Sinclair, Jr. attended school in Japan during this time. He later reportedly worked in the Army C.I.D. in a nonmilitary or civilian capacity, allegedly receiving training at Fort Liggett in San Luis Obispo, a training center for military intelligence operations.
Could it have been possible for Colonel Sinclair, Sr. to have called upon old friends in high places to rescue his son, Rod, from the Queen's accident investigation? Did the Octopus have enough power to alter an investigation of the death of three Secret Service agents? According to the Secret Service agent in Los Angeles, it did. And he intended to tell the story after he retired.
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| Chapter 2 | Table of Contents |
Regarding "The Last Circle"
The following condensed version of The Last Circle was provided in October 1996 to a secret Investigative Committee comprised of Congress people, lawyers and former POW's at their request. I originally contacted Congresswoman Maxine Waters in Washington D.C. and offered information relative to CIA drug trafficking, but was told the information was too complex and would I mind putting the information into a newspaper story, get it published and send it to her office?
I agreed and contacted a local newspaper reporter who, after reading portions of the material, decided it needed to be reviewed by individuals who had special knowledge of CIA drug trafficking, arms shipments, and biological warfare weapons.
After a brief meeting with these individuals, former Special Forces soldiers from the Vietnam era, they asked for copies of the manuscript, guaranteed an immediate congressional inquiry, and advised me NOT to place the information on the Internet as they feared the information could be, in their words, "taken as just another anti-government conspiracy."
I condensed the manuscript into the attached treatise, covering information relative to THEIR focus, and sent it to them along with key documents. Shortly afterward, they re-contacted me and set up elaborate security measures to insure my safety. As of this writing, I've had no need to institute those measures.
I have in my possession five boxes of documents, obtained from a convicted methamphetamine chemist whose closest friends were a 20-year CIA operative and a former FBI Senior-Agent-in-Charge of the Los Angeles and Washington D.C. bureaus. The labyrinthine involvements of these people and their corporate partners is revealed in this manuscript, along with information obtained by Washington D.C. journalist Danny Casolaro prior to his death in 1991.
A great deal of investigation still needs to be accomplished. I have neither the financial means nor the ability to obtain "evidence" for "prosecution." I am simply an investigative writer, placing this information into the public forum in hopes that someone, somewhere, will grasp the significance of the data and initiate a full-scale investigation with subsequent subpoena power.
With subpoena power, government agents can testify (some kept anonymous in this manuscript) who would otherwise lose their jobs and retirement if they came forward. Witnesses can be protected and/or provided immunity, and financial transactions of government and underworld figures can be scrutinized.
To date, I have not had more than one hour conversation with anyone associated with any Congressional investigation, and therefore am extremely limited in my ability to present the information I have. Much of what I learned during my five-year investigation cannot at this point be inserted into a manuscript. I must be assured the information and witnesses will be handled appropriately.
I personally do not believe the Department of Justice will ultimately "prosecute" this or any other drug trafficking case if it involves government officials. But I have made the effort to put forth enough information to generate interest and show good faith. I hope it will be of some value to the American public.
Please keep in mind as you read the attached pages that the complex corporate structures and technological projects described herein "may" have been nothing more than an elaborate smoke and mirrors cover for narcotics trafficking.
This aspect of my investigation was corroborated by several government investigators, one of whom was a House Judiciary investigator, who spent three years investigating the Inslaw stolen software case and said in response to my findings:
"There's some great information here. You did a very good investigative job, I have to commend you on that. I realize it's only a fraction of everything you have. What you have done, you have put the pieces of the whole thing together. Little bits and pieces of things that I have known about, that I had theorized about, you have found answers to those specific questions." (See Chapter 13 for entire conversation). That investigator is now in the White House Office of Drug Control Policy.
To those interested, nearly everything noted in the attached manuscript is supported by documents or tape recorded interviews. Some are extremely bulky and not quoted extensively in the manuscript, such as lengthy FBI wire tap summaries. However, any key documents mentioned in The Last Circle can be obtained by notifying JBC [at] BITTERROOT.NET. "This E - Mail address is a forwarding service for the author, the service has no information as to the author's physical location. Documents are NOT located at the service address. Document orders will be shipped directly by the author from another location. Cost of shipping and copying will be returned via E - Mail. Attached to each document is a cover page identifying the significance of the document and its relation to the manuscript. Hard copies of the manuscript can also be ordered.
I wish to thank Garby Leon, formerly Director of Development at Joel Silver Productions, Warner Bros. in Burbank, California for tirelessly prompting me to get a first draft of The Last Circle written in 1994 and helping me with countless tasks during our joint investigation of the death of Danny Casolaro.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LAST CIRCLE
Copyright ©1994 - All Rights Reserved
By Carol Marshall
NOTE:
This is a FIRST DRAFT, bare-bones, unpolished manuscript without prose, characterizations etc.
CHAPTER 1
For the deputies of the Mariposa Sheriff's Department, the awakening occurred on June 24, 1980, when deputy Ron Van Meter drowned in an alleged boating accident on Lake McClure. The search party consisted mainly of three divers, deputies Dave Beavers, Rod Cusic and Gary Estep. Although adjacent counties offered additional divers, sheriff Paul Paige refused outside help, even a minisubmarine offered by Beavers' associate.
In the shallow, placid waters of Lake McClure, Van Meter's body was not recovered that week, and indeed would not be found until ten years later, in September, 1990 when his torso, wrapped in a fish net and weighted down by various objects, including a fire extinguisher, washed ashore a few hundred yards from where Sergeant Roderick Sinclair's houseboat had once been moored.
Van Meter's widow, Leslie, had been at home baking cookies when she was notified of her husband's disappearance. She was an Indian girl who had no affinity with sheriff Paul Paige. The horror began for her that day also. Her home was ransacked and her husband's briefcase and diary were seized by the Mariposa Sheriff's department. Only she and a few deputies knew what Van Meter's diary contained. He'd told his wife he'd taken out a special life insurance policy two weeks before, but after the search that was missing also.
Leslie was taken to a psychiatric clinic for evaluation shortly after the incident.The story surfaced years later, one tiny bubble at a time. The selfinvolved little community of Mariposa did not cough up its secrets gladly. On March 23, 1984, Leslie Van Meter filed a Citizen's Complaint with the Mariposa County Sheriff's department alleging that the Sheriff's office had been negligent and unprofessional in their investigation of her husband's disappearance. His body had still not been found, despite private searches by Sergeant Beavers and other friends of the missing deputy. She wanted the case reopened.
Paul Paige was no longer sheriff, but newly elected Sheriff Ken Mattheys responded by reopening the investigation. Investigator Raymond Jenkins, a Merced College Police Chief, and retired FBI agent Tom Walsh from Merced, were notified by Sheriff Mattheys in October, 1984 that the Van Meter case had been reopened and he wanted their help in cleaning up the Sheriff's Department.
Their investigation led them straight to the doorstep of MCA Corporation (Music Corporation of America), parent company to Curry Company, the largest concessionaire in Yosemite National Park. A major drug network had surfaced in the park, compelling one park ranger, Paul Berkowitz, to go before the House Interior Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation to testify about drug distribution by Curry Company officials.
Ed Hardy, the president of Curry Company, was closely associated with Mariposa County officials, in particular, Mariposa District Attorney Bruce Eckerson, County Assessor Steve Dunbar, and Congressman Tony Coelho, whose district encompassed Mariposa and the Park. The annual camping trips that the three men took together was encouraged by the local townsfolk because most of Mariposa's tax base emanated from Curry Company.Coelho and Hardy were regular fixtures around town, seen at most of the social events. Coelho even cooked and served spaghetti dinners for the whole town annually at the Mariposa Fair Grounds, and purchased property in partnership with one member of the Mariposa Board of Supervisors. In fact, Mariposa was one of the first places he bid farewell to after resigning from Congress to avoid an investigation of his finances.
Meanwhile, investigator Raymond Jenkins had followed the drug trail from Yosemite back to the Mariposa airport, where sheriff's deputies were seen regularly loading and unloading packages from planes in the dead of night.
One Indian girl complained bitterly about deputies using the Sara Priest land allottment (reservation) to grow marijuana and operate methamphetamine labs. Jenkins, by now retired from the position of Police Chief of Merced College, was called in to interview the Indian girl. That same day, as a favor, he provided me with copies of his notes. I followed up with a tape recorded interview at her home in Bear valley. Her father and uncle operated a small auto dismantling business on the reservation in Midpines, and after locating them and gaining their confidence, the uncle drove me out to Whiskey Flats, the site of the marijuana and methamphetamine lab operations. That week I rented a horse and rode down into the rocky, isolated valley of Whiskey Flats. Brush and shrubbery tore at the saddle on the horse and at the end of the dirt path I encountered three snarling Rottweiler dogs who put the horse into a frenzied lather.
Nevertheless, I managed to photograph the irrigation system, artesian spring and pond from which the water was supplied as well as various points of identification for future reconnaisance. I later returned in a fourwheel drive pickup truck and managed to view the trailer and lab shack.
The tape recorded interview with the Indian girl, the photos and notes from my discovery were provided to the Stanislaus County Drug Task Force, but jurisdictionally, they couldn't enter Mariposa County without authority of the Mariposa Sheriff's department. It was a catch 22 situation. Ultimately I provided the same information anonymously to several related agencies. It was not until 1993 that the fields were eradicated, and 1994, before the labs were raided. However, no arrests of any deputies were ever forthcoming. In fact, no arrests occurred at all, except for a few nonEnglish speaking Mexican nationals who had handled the "cooking." The head of the Los Angeles Drug Enforcement Agency noted to a local newspaper that the meth lab was part of a large California drug network, but they were unable to identify the kingpins.
On July 6, 1985, Mrs. Van Meter filed a "Request for Official Inquiry" with the State of California Department of Boating and Waterways stating that no satisfactory investigation was ever conducted into the matter of her husband's disappearance.
That same month, shortly after a meeting at Lake McClure with Mrs. Van Meter, Sheriff Mattheys mysteriously resigned from his position at the Mariposa Sheriff's Department. Mattheys revealed to reporter Anthony Pirushki that he had been ordered by two county supervisors and the county's attorney "to stay away from the Van Meter investigation." But that was not the reason he resigned. The whole story would not surface until seven years later when a reporter for the Mariposa Guide interviewed him.
However, while still in office, Mattheys and his internal affairs investigators had learned the reason for Van Meter's disappearance. A few weeks prior to his death in 1980, Van Meter had driven to the Attorney General's office in Sacramento and reported drug dealing and other types of corruption within the Mariposa Sheriff's Department. This, according to his friends whom he had confided in, deputies Dave Beavers, a fifteen year veteran of the sheriff's department, and Rod Cusic, a seventeen year veteran. Both deputies were ultimately forced out of the department and retired on stress leave.
On that same day, reserve deputy Lucky Jordan had driven to the Fresno office of the FBI to report similar information. According to Jordan, they had split up and reported to separate agencies in the event "something" happened to one of them.The crux of the story was State Attorney General Van De Kamp's response to the requested investigaion by Ron Van Meter. When Ron returned home from Sacramento, he was confronted by Sheriff Paige. Paige had received a call from the Attorney General informing him of the visit and its contents, and the sheriff was livid about Van Meter's betrayal.Van Meter had been photographing and journalizing drug activity by deputies at Lake McClure. He was part of a California State Abatement Program which involved harvesting and eradicating marijuana fields in Yosemite National Park and adjacent counties. Instead, the harvested marijuana was being stored in abandoned cars and towed out of town by a local wrecker under contract with the sheriff's department. It was also being distributed at a hidden cove at Lake McClure.
On June 24, 1980, frustrated and angry at the Attorney General for betraying him, Van Meter had borrowed a boat and was on his way to arrest the deputies at Lake McClure himself. He never returned. The investigation of Van Meter's "accident" was initially handled by Sergeant Roderick Sinclair, who could not have known on that fateful day that in exactly three years, three months, and nineteen days, he would enter the Twilight Zone where his own private hell awaited him.
******
The first substantial hint that a tentacle of the Octopus had slithered into Mariposa County occurred on March 5, 1983 when a Mariposa County Sheriff's vehicle scouting Queen Elizabeth II's motorcade route rounded a curve in the Yosemite National Park foothills, crossed a highway and collided headon with a Secret Service car, killing three Secret Service agents. CHP (California Highway Patrol) Assistant Chief Richard Hanna reported that the collision occurred at 10:50 a.m. between Coulterville and La Grange on Highway 132 about 25 minutes ahead of Queen Elizabeth's motorcade.CHP Sergeant Bob Schilly reported that Mariposa County Sheriff's Sergeant Roderick Sinclair, 43, was driving with his partner, Deputy Rod McKean, 51, when "for some reason, [he didn't] know why," Sinclair crossed the center line and hit the second of the three Secret Service cars, which went tumbling down a 10foot embankment.
The three Secret Service agents killed in the collision were identified as George P. LaBarge, 41, Donald Robinson, 38, and Donald A. Bejcek, 29. Sinclair, who had sustained broken ribs and a fractured knee, was first stabilized at Fremont Hospital in Mariposa, then transported several days later to Modesto Memorial Hospital.
Years later, several nurses who had been present when Sinclair was brought into Fremont Hospital confided that Sinclair had been drugged on the day of "the Queen's accident" as it became known in Mariposa. For months Sinclair had been receiving huge daily shots of Demerol, "enough to kill most men," according to one billing clerk. Some former deputies who had feared punitive measures if they spoke up, later corroborated the story of the nurses.
Meanwhile, Assistant U.S. Attorney James White in Fresno ordered Dr. Arthur Dahlem's files seized to prove Sinclair's drug addiction. Sinclair's Mariposa doctor and close friend had been prescribing heavy sedatives to him for years. When White attempted to prosecute Sinclair for criminal negligence, he was called into chambers during the federal probe and told by U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Coyle to "drop the criminal investigation" because Sinclair's drug problem was not relevant to the prosecution and the drug records could not be used in court. Judge Coyle's reasoning was that no blood tests had been taken on Sinclair at the Fremont Hospital on the day of the accident, therefore no case could be made against him.
In fact, the blood tests HAD been taken, but later disappeared.A significant piece of information relative to Judge Coyle's background was passed to me during my investigation of the Queen's accident by retired FBI agent Thomas Walsh. Allegedly, the Judge was once the attorney of record for Curry Company (owned by MCA Corporation) in Yosemite National Park. I later learned, in 1992, that Robert Booth Nichols had strong ties to MCA Corporation through Eugene Giaquinto, president of MCA Corporation Home Entertainment Division. Giaquinto had been on the Board of Directors of Nichols' corporation, MIL, Inc. (Meridian International Logistics, Inc.) and also held 10,000 shares of stock in the holding corporation. MIL, Inc. was later investigated by the Los Angeles FBI for allegedly passing classified secrets to overseas affiliates in Japan and Australia. It is interesting to note, though unrelated, that shortly afterward, the Japanese purchased MCA Corporation, one of the largest corporate purchases to take place in American history.
Relative to the Queens accident, in the civil trial that followed the tragic accident, Judge Coyle ruled that both Sinclair and the deceased Secret Service agents were at fault. Mariposa County was ordered to pay 70 percent of the claim filed by the widows, and the Secret Service to pay 30 percent. The county's insurance company paid the claim, and ironically, Sinclair was subsequently promoted to Commander of the Mariposa Sheriff's Department where he is still employed as of this writing.
In an interview on March 7, 1988, at Yoshino's Restaurant in Fresno, former U.S. Attorney James White recalled that the original CHP report on the Queens accident was sent to the State Attorney General's office (Van De Kamp) in Sacramento. The report was first received by Arnold Overoye, who agreed with White that Sinclair should be prosecuted. But when the report crossed Van De Kamp's desk, he told Overoye and his assistant to discard it trash it.
Van De Kamp then appointed Bruce Eckerson, the Mariposa County District Attorney, to take charge of the investigation and submit a new report. Coincidentally, Bruce Eckerson's disclosure statements on file at the Mariposa County Courthouse indicated that he owned stock in MCA Entertainment Corporation. White added that ALL of the crack M.A.I.T.S. team CHP officers involved in the original investigation either resigned or were transferred (or fired) afterward. The CHP Commander and the Deputy Commander who supervised the M.A.I.T.S. investigation also resigned as did Assistant U.S. Attorney White himself after the coverup took place.
However, White noted that before he resigned, he quietly filed with Stephan LaPalm of the U.S. Attorney's office in Sacramento the transcripts of the trial and an affidavit which listed the "hallucinatory" drugs Sinclair had used prior to the accident. I privately continued with the Queen's accident investigation, interviewing deputies Dave Beavers and Rod Cusic who had been privy to Sinclair's drugged condition on the day of the accident.
Beavers, who was the first deputy to arrive on the scene, maintained four years later, in 1987, that he was cognizant of Sinclair's condition, but when he was questioned by James White he was NOT ASKED about the drugs. (James White had by then been ordered to drop the criminal investigation and stay away from the drug aspect of the case).
In January 1988, deputy Rod Cusic strode into the offices of the Mariposa Guide, a competitor newspaper to the Mariposa Gazette, and stated that he was "told by Rod Sinclair to lie to a Grand Jury" about Sinclair's drug addiction and the resulting Queen's accident. Cusic added that he officially disclosed this to the Fresno FBI on April 26, 1984 and again on October 9, 1987. In 1987, Cusic also noted that he witnessed a boobytrapped incendiary device explode at Rod Sinclair's home during a visit to his residence. Additionally, earlier on, Sinclair allegedly barricaded himself inside his home and boobytrapped the property, as witnessed by numerous deputies who tried to persuade him to come out.
While reviewing old newspaper clippings from the Mariposa Gazette, I discovered an odd sidebar to the story. In December, 1984, during the Queen's accident civil trial in Fresno, U.S. Attorney James White had introduced testimony that Sinclair's vehicle contained "a myriad of automatic weapons including a boobytrapped bomb" when the collision occurred on March 5, 1983. It was not until 1991 that I discovered the depth of the coverup.
A CBS television executive and a Secret Service agent who had ridden in the third car of the Queen's motorcade in 1983, arrived in Mariposa to enlist my help in putting the pieces of the puzzle together on the Queen's accident. The Secret Service agent's best friend had been the driver of the car in which all three agents were killed. I signed a contract with the television executive for the sale of the story then drove them to the site of the accident, then to the site of where the damaged vehicle was stored near Lake McClure. The Secret Service agent broke down at the sight of the vehicle, remembering the gruesome appearance of his dead friend in the front seat. He turned, tears welling in his eyes, and said, "His heart burst right through his chest and was laying in his lap when I found him."
Dave Beavers joined us the next day. As did former sheriff Ken Mattheys. Beavers did not know that the same Secret Service agent whom he was sitting with in the car was the man who had tried to pull Sinclair out of the sheriff's vehicle on the day of the accident. There had been a scuffle, Beavers insisting that Sinclair go to the hospital with "his own people," and the Secret Service ultimately conceding.The Secret Service agent reflected sadly that they didn't know to ask the hospital for blood tests on Sinclair that day, didn't know of his drug addiction. By the time the case went to court, the records at the hospital were gone.
Two weeks after the agent left Mariposa, I received a packet containing copies of Sinclair's drug records for three years prior to the accident. They were the same records that U.S. District Court Judge Robert Coyle had disallowed in the Queen's accident trial. But it was not until producer Don Thrasher, a tenyear veteran of ABC News "20/20," came to town, that I learned of Sinclair's background, or the extent of his addiction.
By chance, at a book signing engagement at B. Dalton Bookstore, I had mentioned to the manager, Shaula Brent, that my next book contained information about the Queens accident.Surprised, Shaula blurted out that she had worked at Fremont Hospital when Sinclair was brought in from the accident. Shaula recounted the following: Rod Sinclair was brought into Fremont Hospital and placed in a room with an armed "FBI" agent outside the door. Sinclair had been receiving huge shots of Demerol in the arm every day prior to the accident, by order of Dr. Arthur Dahlem. Shaula noted that Sinclair was a big man and the amount of Demerol he had been receiving would have killed most men. After the Queen's accident, all drugs were withdrawn from Sinclair, and employees, including Shaula, could hear him raving aloud for days from his hospital room. The employees at the hospital were instructed not to speak about or repeat what took place at the hospital while Sinclair was there.
Because Shaula and her friend, Barbara Locke, who also worked at the hospital, were suspicious about Sinclair's hospital records, they secretly took photostats of the records "before they were destroyed by the hospital." Blood HAD been drawn on Sinclair on the day of the Queen's accident, and he HAD been under the influence, according to Shaula. Shaula gave the names of six nurses who were witness to Sinclair's condition at the time he was brought into Fremont Hospital. When his body was finally drugfree, Sinclair was transported, against his wishes, to Modesto Hospital.
******
In January, 1992, the final pieces to the puzzle fell into place. Sinclair's background had been the key all along. Producer Don Thrasher had interviewed the Secret Service agent and, although the information he obtained would not be used in his production, he advised me to follow up. The Secret Service corraborated the following profile: Sinclair's father had been a military attache to General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. (I had privately mused how many of MacArthur's men later became arms of the Octopus). In Japan, after the war, Colonel Sinclair (sr.) supervised the training of selected Japanese in intelligence gathering operations.
According to the Secret Service, he was an "international figure," highly regarded in the intelligence community. Rod Sinclair, Jr. attended school in Japan during this time. He later reportedly worked in the Army C.I.D. in a nonmilitary or civilian capacity, allegedly receiving training at Fort Liggett in San Luis Obispo, a training center for military intelligence operations.
Could it have been possible for Colonel Sinclair, Sr. to have called upon old friends in high places to rescue his son, Rod, from the Queen's accident investigation? Did the Octopus have enough power to alter an investigation of the death of three Secret Service agents? According to the Secret Service agent in Los Angeles, it did. And he intended to tell the story after he retired.
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| Chapter 2 | Table of Contents |
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By this time three consecutive grand jury foreman's had sought help from the Attorney General, to no avail. It came to pass that one of the deputies, Dave Beavers, was having trouble obtaining his "stress leave" pay and hired a Jackson, California lawyer to represent him in the case. The lawyer, Ben Wagner, not only interviewed Beavers, but began interviewing other deputies who corroborated Beavers' story. Most of them, thirteen in all, had at one time or another testified before the grand jury and subsequently been forced out of the department. Interestingly, none of the deputies knew "why" the others had been been placed on stress leave or resigned until Wagner finally assembled them together and the story was aired.
At that point some of the former grand jury members were called in to confirm the testimony of the individual deputies. Most refused to speak up, but a few corroborated the deputies' story. Ultimately, after numerous meetings, the group of deputies and grand jurors formed and later incorporated an organization they called D.I.G. (Decency in Government).
By now, Wagner was carrying a gun inside and out of Mariposa for the first time in his life and writing letters to the Attorney General, the FBI, and even President Ronald Reagan. One response was forthcoming, from a special agent at the Fresno Department of Justice, Division of Law Enforcement.This agent listened to Kay Ritter, a former grand jury foreman and several deputies after reviewing Wagner's evidence.
Wagner was contemplating a huge civil rights lawsuit against the county of Mariposa, but it was imperative that he first understand "why" the attorney general refused to help these people.When the special agent drove to Sacramento and reviewed the files within the attorney general's office emanating from Mariposa, and talked to some of the office staff there, he learned that everything pertaining to Mariposa was automatically "trashed" when it crossed the A/G's desk.
Disgusted, the agent called Ben Wagner and told him "Go ahead with the lawsuit." He had no idea why all the grand jury documents had been trashed, but he was convinced no help would be forthcoming from the attorney general's office.
On November 20, 1987, Wagner filed with the U.S. District Court in Fresno the first of two lawsuits, later revealed in a Sacramento newspaper to be the largest civil rights lawsuits ever recorded in California history. Newspaper reporters and television crews flocked to Wagner for interviews. In one instance, Wagner, former Sergeant Dave Beavers and others stood in front of the Fresno FBI building while being interviewed by Channel 3 Sacramento News.
On camera, without hesitation, Beavers recalled observing deputies carrying packages of drugs from the Gold Coin Saloon, a notorious drug hangout, and placing the packages in the trunk of their patrol car. A subsequent raid indicated the drugs had been stored by the owner in a historic underground tunnel once used by the infamous bandit, Juaquin Murietta, to escape the sheriff's posse.
Meanwhile, on February 10, 1988, attorney Wagner filed at the U.S. District Court in Sacramento a Writ of Mandamus against John Van De Camp, the State Attorney General; George Vinson, regional director of the Fresno FBI; George Deukemejian, then Governor of California, and David F. Levi, United States Attorney for refusing to investigate corruption in Mariposa County.
The citizens of Mariposa were choosing sides, writing letters to the editor, arguing amongst themselves, and being interviewed on the sidewalks by news media. D.I.G. was the talk of the town. On February 17, 1988, Capitol News Service in Sacramento ran a story entitled, "Law & Order Failing on Hill County," by Jerry Goldberg. The article noted that Capitol News Service had had discussions with several Attorney General staff members who "stonewalled questions about any investigation of charges or direct answers on the willingness of Van de Kamp to meet with the citizen's group [D.I.G.]."
Goldberg mentioned the "Queen's accident" in his article: "The Fresno case charges destruction of records on individuals [Commander Rod Sinclair] involved in the case. This includes possible information about the fatal accident which occurred in the area [of Mariposa County] when an escort vehicle involved in the visit of Queen Elizabeth in 1983 [crashed.]"
Goldberg went on to note that "several people had received threats about dangerous things happening to them if they continued to stand up to the sheriff and district attorney." A San Joaquin County official, who asked not to be named, told Goldberg that a key element to the problems in Mariposa County "related to the fatal accident which occurred to Queen Elizabeth's escort vehicle."
On February 19, 1988, Ben Wagner's wife, a legal secretary, sent a letter to President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The Wagners did not live in Mariposa County, indeed, lived far away in Jackson County, unfettered by corruption, yet they saw fit to take it upon themselves to write for help. That emotionally gripping letter was headed, "Restoring Equal Rights to the Citizens of Mariposa County." It read as follows:
"Dear President Reagan: I am writing to you not only as the wife of an attorney, but as a citizen of the United States. My initial concern is that you personally receive this letter and enclosures, as many residents of Mariposa County have literally placed their lives, and the lives of their families in jeopardy by coming forth to expose the local government corruption detailed herein.I understand that your time is at a premium, however, your immediate attention regarding these matters is of the utmost importance, and respectfully requested.
"In August, 1987, our office was approached by several exdeputies and individuals from Mariposa County requesting assistance in redressing unlawful and corrupt activities by officials and departments within their local government, and failure on the part of the State Attorney General John Van De Kamp, the Office of the Attorney General, and our Federal agencies, to investigate these alleged activities.
"What we found through our initial investigations and accumulation of evidence into these allegations was appalling. It took us time to realize that in fact, the Constitution of the United States had been suspended in this county.
"The organization, Decency in Government [D.I.G.], was formed, and on November 20, 1987, the first multimillion dollar Civil Rights suit was filed in Fresno. We felt media coverage would lay a solid ground of personal safety for other complaintants to come forth. This coverage proved to be successful, and on February 11, 1988, the second Civil Rights suit was filed, along with the filing of a Writ of Mandamus in Sacramento.
"I have enclosed copies of these suits, including several newspaper articles regarding the situation. Since 1979, many residents, including individuals, sheriff's deputies, groups, organizations, members of Grand Juries and Grand Juries have taken their complaints to the Office of the Attorney General, State Attorney General John Van De Kamp and Federal authorities for investigation.
"These agencies have continuously and blatantly failed to redress the grievances of these citizens. What appears to be a consistent procedure of one Arnold O. Overoye, of the State Attorney General's Office, is to refer the complaints directly back to the local agencies to whom the complaints were made.
"Over the years, this has perpetrated threats, intimidation and fear by these local officials to the complaining individuals. There has also been questions regarding the disappearance of citizens possessing incriminating evidence, and the incompletion or failure to investigate `homicides' and `suicides'.
"Further, it has recently come to our attention, that Mr. Overoye's `procedure,' and the inaction of State Attorney John Van De Camp and Federal agencies is not limited to Mariposa County, but in fact, expands to a number of foothill counties who are experiencing the same types of local corruption.
"The grievances of these citizens, as you will note in paragraph IV of the WRIT are: (1) Violation of Individual Civil Rights (2) Abuse of discretion in the prosecution of criminal complaints (3) Intentional obstruction of the due course of Justice (4) Malicious prosecution (5) Bribery (6) Intimidation of Grand Jury members and witnesses (7) The deprivation of property (8) Illegal and unlawful land transaction (9) The failure to arrest and prosecute those involved in illegal drug sales, including individuals employed by the County of Mariposa (10) Violation of Property Rights (11) Conspiracy to impede and obstruct criminal investigations (12) Homicide (13) Attempted homicide (14) Rape (15) Battery (16) Perjury.
"Why Mr. President, are we bound to the laws of this country, and our officials are not? Life in Mariposa is as if the citizens were being held in detention, and the local agencies, the criminals, were running the county.
"Needless to say, residents feel it is a way of life to literally arm themselves and their homes against their government! I have been in these people's homes, and have witnessed the arsenal of weapons they feel they must possess to protect themselves and their families.
"My husband must travel in, around and out of this county [Mariposa] with an armed escort. He is transported during `the midnight hours' to interview Plaintiffs and witnesses.
"I ask you, Mr. President, what country are we living in? We should certainly make sure that our backyard is clean before we boast to the Soviets regarding the Civil Rights of Americans.
"On January 19, 1988, my husband took two witnesses, Kay Ritter, a former Mariposa Grand Jury Forewoman and Robert Ashmore, an exdeputy, to Mr. [George] Vinson, the Regional Director of the FBI in Fresno. The testimony, both oral and documentary, took approximately 3 hours to present. To this date, the FBI has failed to redress the grievances of these complaintants, and Mr. Vinson did not even have the courtesy to return my husband's phone calls. It came to our understanding, through a reliable source, that Mr. Vinson felt the complaints had `no substance.'
"Mr. President, my husband has been a trial attorney for 14 years. He certainly wouldn't waste his time or expertise, or the time of these witnesses, if he felt there was `no substance' to the contents of their testimony.However, this attitude by Attorney General Van De Camp, his office, and Federal agencies is typical and consistent.
"Shortly after this incident, a major drug dealer contacted our office with valuable information detailing the sale of illegal drugs to county officials, and wanted information regarding the Federal Witness Program. Mr. Vinson, knowing this by telephone messages, again failed to return my husband's inquiries.
"There is evidence by another credible witness, who was informed by the FBI, that should they get involved now, it would be `bad publicity,' and `they have let the problems in Mariposa get too far out of hand.'
"You may wonder why my husband and I became dedicated to the citizens of this county. We certainly don't foresee large amounts of money at the end of this case. Our investment in time and expenditures exceeds $40,000 to date.What we do see are people, just like you and I, who have been suppressed by their own `elected ' officials, with no help or assistance from Attorney General Van De Kamp, his office, or Federal agencies. If someone doesn't help them, they will continue to live under these conditions, which I could never imagine would exist in America.
"My husband is not a righteous individual, nor is he perfect. None of us are you know. He also doesn't believe that he can solve the problems of the world. However, being an attorney, he is an officer of the Court, and he feels a professional obligation to uphold the laws of the State, and to maintain the freedom of the citizens of this country.
"This is, however, more than I can say about a number of `representatives' and officials, who have failed to perform their appointed duties of their office, and are paid by the taxpayers.Through my involvement in this case, I have found, to my repulsion, that my lifelong conception of our government's representation of the `people,' its vested authority and ability to uphold Civil Rights, and its duty to maintain the laws and the Constitution, has been only an shattering illusion.
"Our system has failed, Mr. President. And by its failure, has crushed and destroyed the lives of many innocent, lawabiding people. Why? There is an answer. And we will utilize every legal avenue to find it. We will not be discouraged, or give up in our effort to restore the Constitution of the United States in Mariposa County, and other foothill communities. We will continue until the answer is found. Even if it means presenting the problem to you, Mr. President, on the steps of the White House.
"Our best regards to Mrs. Reagan. Respectfully yours, Vivian L. Wagner."
******
Shortly before Ben Wagner's first scheduled appearance in U.S. District Court in Fresno on behalf of D.I.G. (Decency in Government), Wagner received an obscure response from "Chuck" at the Reagan White House. Wagner excitedly called Kay Ritter and Dave Beavers, myself and a few others to note that a meeting with "Chuck" was scheduled that week. It was to be a somewhat secret meeting as requested by the White House.
However, the day after meeting with "Chuck," Wagner unplugged his phone and walked out on his law practice and his home in Jackson, California, taking nothing with him except his clothes and his wife, never to be seen again. I was later told that Jerry Goldberg of Capitol News Service did the same, on the same day, and I was never able to locate either of them again.
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Chapter 3 | Chapter 1 | Table of Contents |
The last remnants of the D.I.G. group were beginning to call themselves "The Loser's Club," resembling forlorn characters out of a Stephen King novel. They had squared off against a labyrnthine evil so incomprehensible, they didn't know what they were fighting. It was time to bring in some outside help.
During a strategy meeting in Jackson, California, Ben Wagner had received an impressive 700 page report commissioned by the Tulare City Council. The report, compiled by Ted Gunderson, a former Los Angeles FBI agent, was indepth and straightforward about deputies receiving payoffs and distributing drugs in the small farmtown of Tulare. Wagner had given me a copy for my files.
On an impulse, I picked up the phone and called Gunderson's telephone number listed at the top of the attached resume. The resume was impressive. He'd worked as SAC (Senior Special Agent in Charge) at Los Angeles FBI headquarters, Washington D.C. headquarters and in Dallas, Texas. It would be two years before I would grasp the significance of the Dallas connection. After retiring from the FBI, he'd worked for F. Lee Baily, Esq., then formed his own investigative agency in Los Angeles county.
I left a message with the answering service and he returned the call a few days later. His voice was open, attentive, devoid of the bureaucratic hollowness I had come to expect from FBI agents. We talked briefly, mostly about the problem DIG was experiencing in Mariposa. I said I needed help, anticipating his next question. But none came forth. Instead, a clipped knowingness entered his tone, as if nothing more should be said on the phone. He agreed to meet with me at his home a few weeks later and we hung up.
Unknown to me at the time, I had taken a quantum leap in the direction of the Octopus when I contacted Ted Gunderson. The mystery of the Mariposa coverups would soon be divulged through an associate of his, a former member of "The Company" in nearby Fresno, California.
******
On November 30, 1991, Ted Gunderson opened the door at his Manhattan Beach home and ushered us into a small living room cluttered with toys. He made no explanation for the toys scattered around the floor and the couch, but offered coffee and donuts, then proceeded to eat most of the donuts himself. I had expected someone dripping with intrigue, instead he was classic in the sense of an investigator; rumpled shirt and slacks, nervous movements, distracted behavior. We sat on the couch bunched together amongst the toys. Gunderson pulled a kitchen chair up in front of us, leaned over and began stuffing his mouth with cheese and crackers, all the while talking, his body in perpetual motion. He was a big, handsome man with an aging face and tossled silver hair. He seemed entirely unaware of his appearance or the appearnce of his home, but his pale eyes were intelligent and probing. Intuitively, I knew he was more than he appeared to be.
A young woman, perhaps early thirties, entered the room brushing long blond hair, still wet from the shower. Her faded jeans and sundrenched appearance reminded me of friends I'd known growing up in Newport Beach. Gunderson introduced her as his "partner," as she seated herself silently on the floor next to him. The flush on her face brought a fleeting prescience to me that they had been making love shortly before the meeting.
Ray Jenkins recounted the Mariposa story for several hours, with the rest of us digressing to insert a fact here or there. The investigation had led beyond Mariposa into MCA Corporation, and various State and Federal levels of government. I noted that Danny Casolaro's research had started at the eastern end, in Washington D.C., yet he had been preparing to travel to California for the rest of the story, before his death three months earlier.
Gunderson listened carefully, occasionally interrupting to ask questions, then motioned us to follow him to the backyard. There we stood in a circle in the middle of his yard while he surveyed the area. Satisfied that he was not being watched, he agreed to come to Mariposa, with media, and perform a citizens arrest on the corrupt officials. He pulled a frazzled piece of paper from his pocket and gave me a list of telephone numbers to write down. They were numbers to telephone booths at various locations in the vicinity of his home. Each booth had been coded 1,2,3,4, or 5. He instructed that the next time I called him, he would give me the code number of the booth and a time to call. I would then call him at the designated booth.
Eight hours later, I handed him a copy of my first book, as a courtesy, then left Manhattan Beach loaded with newspaper clippings and documents, mostly relating to Casolaro's investigation of the Octopus. One packet was titled, "The Wonderful Weapons of Wackenhut," others related to the Inslaw affair, Iran/Contra and various savings and loan scandals.
In the van, reviewing the documents, I wondered what relationship they had to Mariposa County and why I was given the packet. The documents were far ranging, beyond anything I had heretofore imagined. But within days of my visit to Gunderson, I would be introduced to the Octopus.
******
The following morning, at 7:30 a.m., I received a collect call from a man who identified himself as Michael Riconosciuto (pronounced Riconoshooto). Riconosciuto, calling from the Pierce County jail in Tacoma, Washington, said he had been informed by Gunderson that I was investigating a corruption/drug ring in Mariposa County. For 45 minutes Riconosciuto related the names of those in charge of methamphetamine operations in Mariposa, Madera and Fresno counties.
A ton of methamphetamine had been seized in the area of my investigations, according to Riconosciuto. Richard Knozzi was a high level "cooker" and Jim DeSilva, Ben Kalka, and others were medium level distributors or lieutenants. Kalka was currently serving time in a Pleasanton prison; 900 pounds of methamphetamine had been seized under his control.
"Who's behind this ring?" I asked. Riconosciuto paused for a moment, then took a deep breath. "It's The Company. Arms get shipped to the Contras, the Afghanistan rebels [Mujahaden], the Middle East. You know, to fight the Soviet influence. But the Contras and the Mujahaden don't have money to pay for arms, so they pay with drugs, cocaine or heroin. The Company handles the drug end of it in the U.S ..."
"What's The Company ...?," I asked. Riconosciuto interrupted, "Wait a minute. It's a long story. You have to start at the beginning." Concerned that Riconosciuto might have to hang up, I hurriedly pushed for answers. "Arms for drugs, do you have proof?"
"Oh, yeah. It's a selfsupporting system, they don't have to go through Congress ..."
"Michael," I pressed, "who ships the arms?" Riconosciuto quieted for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "Let's start with Wackenhut. I didn't play ball with Wackenhut so they poisoned the well for me. I'm in jail because I worked for Wackenhut. The government has put together a very simple drug case against me ... as if that's what I'm about, just a druggie."
"Tell me about Wackenhut."
"It's a security corporation headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida. Wackenhut provides security for the Nevada nuclear test site, the Alaskan pipeline, Lawrence Livermore Labs, you know, all the high security government facilities in the U.S. They have about fifty thousand armed security guards that work for minimum wage or slightly above.
"On the other hand, on the Wackenhut board of directors, they have all the former heads of every government agency there ever was under Ronald Reagan and George Bush; FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service, etc.
"You know, they've got retired Admiral Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director; Clarence Kelley, former FBI director; Frank Carlucci, former CIA deputy director; James Rowley, former Secret Service director; Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, former acting chairman of President Bush's foreign intelligence advisory board and former CIA deputy director. Before his appointment as Reagan's CIA director, the late William Casey was Wackenhut's outside legal counsel ..."
I interrupted him, wanting to know where HE fit into the picture?
"Well, I served as Director of Research for the Wackenhut facility at the Cabazon Indian reservation in Indio, California. In 198384 I modified the PROMISE computer software to be used in law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide. A man named Earl Brian was spearheading a plan for worldwide use of the software, but essentially, the modified software was being pirated from the owners, Bill and Nancy Hamilton."
I asked, "So how did that cause your arrest?" Michael was articulate, but his story was becoming complicated. He continued. "I signed an affidavit for the Hamiltons stating that I had been responsible for the modification. The House Judiciary Committee on Inslaw was investigating the theft of the software and I was afraid I would be implicated since I had performed the modification. Nine days later, in an attempt to discredit my testimony, I was arrested for allegedly operating a drug lab."
I didn't want to push Riconosciuto on the subject of a drug lab at that point, but voiced my foremost concern. "Will the House Judiciary Committee be bringing you in to testify?"
"Eventually, yes."
"Are you in any danger where you are right now?" I was unaware at the time that Riconosciuto had been recruited at Stanford University into the CIA nearly twenty years earlier, and danger was a matter of fact in his life.
"Oh, you bet! Several of the jail guards here moonlight for Wackenhut here in Tacoma." Riconosciuto went on to discuss the Wackenhut setup. "Basically, what you have is a group of politically well connected people through Wackenhut who wanted to get juicy defense contracts when Ronald Reagan got elected president. And they did! They also preyed on high tech start up companies, many of them out of Silicon Valley in California.
"They saw technology that they wanted and they either forced the companies into bankruptcy or waited on the sidelines, like vultures, and picked them up for pennies after they were bankrupt."
I made profuse notes as Riconosciuto spoke, not knowing where he was leading, but assuming his narrative would eventually intersect with my investigation of government sanctioned drug operations. Finally it did. According to Riconosciuto, Wackenhut Corporation "made inroads" into the methamphetamine operation. A man named Richard Knozzi allegedly headed major government sanctioned meth laboratories in Fresno, Madera and Mariposa counties. A man named Al Holbert, a former Israeli intelligence officer with U.S. citizenship, was the liaison or connection between the Knozzi operation and the U.S. government.
In subsequent documents obtained from Michael's secret hiding place in the California desert, I located documents which indicated Michael had first been recruited into the CIA by Al Holbert. However, during this first of many phone conversations with Riconosciuto, I found myself searching for a beginning, something concrete to get a foothold. "Michael, is there any proof that you worked at Wackenhut?"
Michael responded diffidently. "CNN recently ran a piece, and they filmed a location shot from the parking lot of the casino. Then they aired another location shot on the [Cabazon] reservation of just an expanse of bare land, blue sky, sand and sagebrush. Then the narrator says, `Here on the Indian reservation is where Michael Riconosciuto claims to have modified the PROMISE software.' They didn't show the tribal office complex, they didn't show the industrial park. They showed a bare expanse of land, like I had a computer out in a teepee in the middle of the desert! The government is doing a character assassination on me. I'm fair game now that I'm in jail, because I've raised too many provocative questions, you know, and they're trying to relegate me to the area of delusion ..."
******
For three months Riconosciuto called daily from the Pierce County jail in Tacoma, Washington. At his request, I attached a tape recorder to my phone and unraveled a complicated web of illegal overseas arms shipments, espionage, CIA drug trafficking, biological warfare development, computer software theft, money laundering and corruption at the highest levels of government.
Throughout this time span, I also obtained every newspaper and magazine article I could lay my hands on relative to Riconosciuto's background and contacts. Riconosciuto had been communicating regularly with journalist Danny Casolaro prior to his death on August 10, 1991 when Danny's nude body was found in the bathtub of room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia. His wrists had been slashed ten or twelve times. No papers were found in his hotel room or in his car, though he was known to cart a briefcase and files everywhere he went. An XActo blade found in the bathtub was not sold locally and his briefcase is still missing to this day.Casolaro was working on a book entitled, "Behold a Pale Horse," which encompassed the October Surprise story, the Inslaw computer software case, the Iran/Contra affair, the B.C.C.I. scandal, and M.C.A. entertainment corporation, all overlapping and interconnecting into one network which he dubbed, "The Octopus."
He told friends that he "had traced the Inslaw and related stories back to a dirty CIA `Old Boy' network" that had begun working together in the 1950's around the Albania covert operations. These men had gotten into the illegal gun and drug trade back then and had continued in that business ever since.
Before his death, Danny had made plans to visit the Wackenhut Corporation in Indio, California, and even considered naming his book, "Indio."
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| Chapter 4 | Chapter 2 | Table of Contents |
The history of Wackenhut Corporation is best described from its own literature. An outdated letter of introduction typed on Wackenhut letterhead once sent to prospective clients provided me with the following profile: (Excerpted) "Wackenhut Corporation had its beginnings in 1954, when George R. Wackenhut and three other former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation formed a company in Miami, Special Agent Investigators, to provide investigative services to business and industry.
"The approach was so well received that a second company was formed in 1955 to apply the same philosophy to physical security problems. In 1958 the companies were combined under the name of Wackenhut Corporation, a Florida company. From the outset, George Wackenhut was President and chief executive officer of the enterprise. Wackenhut established its headquarters in Coral Gables, Florida in 1960, extending its physical security operations to the United States government through formation of a whollyowned subsidiary, Wackenhut Services, Incorporated. This was done in order to comply with federal statute prohibiting the government from contracting with companies which furnish investigative or detective services.
"In 1962, Wackenhut operations extended from Florida to California and Hawaii. On January 1, 1966, the company became international with offices in Caracas, Venezuela, through half ownership of an affiliate.
"The Wackenhut Corporation became public in 1966 with overthecounter stock sales and joined the American Stock Exchange in 1967. Through acquisitions of subsidiaries and affiliates, now totaling more than 20, and expansion of it contracts into numerous territories and foreign countries, the Wackenhut Corporation has grown into one of the world's largest security and investigative firms.
"In 1978 acquisition of NUSAC, a Virginia company providing technical and consulting services to the nuclear industry, brought Wackenhut into the fields of environment and energy management. In 1979, Wackenhut acquired Stellar Systems, Inc., a California company specializing in outdoor electronic security.
"The executive makeup of the company reflects the stress Mr. Wackenhut placed on professional leadership. The Wackenhut Corporation is guided by executives and managers with extensive backgrounds in the FBI and other military, governmental and private security and investigative fields.
"The principle business of the company is furnishing security and complete investigative services and systems to business, industry and professional clients, and to various agencies of the U.S. Government.
"Through a whollyowned subsidiary, Wackenhut Electronic Systems Corporation, the company develops and produces sophisticated computerized security systems to complement its guard services.
"Major clients of Wackenhut's investigative services are the insurance industry and financial interests. These services include insurance inspections, corporate acquisition surveys, personnel background reports, preemployment screening, polygraph examinations and general criminal, fraud and arson investigations.
"The wide variety of services offered by Wackenhut Corporation also includes guard and electronic security for banks, office buildings, apartments, industrial complexes and other physical structures; training programs in English and foreign languages to apply Wackenhut procedures to individual clients needs; fire, safety and protective patrols; rescue and first aid services; emergency support programs tailored to labormanagement disputes, and predeparture screening programs widely used by airports and airlines.
"The company now has some 20,000 employees and maintains close to 100 offices and facilities with operations spread across the United States and extending into Canada, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, the Middle East, Indonesia, Central and South America and the Caribbean."
******
On the surface, Wackenhut Corporation seemed innocous enough, but through documents later obtained from Michael Riconosciuto, I learned there was another, darker side to Wackenhut operations, at the Cabazon Indian reservation near Indio, California.
Because Indian reservations are sovereign nations and do not come under federal jurisdiction, Wackenhut International had formed a partnership and entered into a business venture with the Cabazon Indians to produce hightech arms and explosives for export to thirdworld countries. This maneuver was designed to evade congressional prohibitions against U.S. weapons being shipped to the Contras and middle eastern countries.
In the early 1980's, Dr. John Nichols, the Cabazon tribal administrator, obtained a department of Defense secret facility clearance for the reservation to conduct various research projects. Nichols then approached Wackenhut with an elaborate "joint venture" proposal to manufacture 120mm combustible cartridge cases, 9mm machine pistols, lasersighted assault weapons, sniper rifles and portable rocket systems on the Cabazon reservation and in Latin America. At one point, he even sought to develop biological weapons.
Again, through Michael Riconosciuto's files, I later obtained interoffice memorandums and correspondence relating to biological technology, but more on that in chapter 10. Meanwhile, in 1980, Dr. John Nichols obtained the blueprints to Crown Prince Fahd's palace in Tiaf, Saudi Arabia, and drafted a plan to provide security for the palace.
The Saudis were interested enough to conduct a background check on the Cabazons. Mohammad Jameel Hashem, consul of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., wrote former South Dakota Senator James Abourezk at his offices in Washington D.C. and noted, "According to our black list for companies, the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians/Cabazon Trading Company and Wackenhut International are not included." Translated, that meant that neither the Cabazons or Wackenhut were Jewishrun enterprises.
George Wackenhut's political leanings were once described in a book entitled, "The Age of Surveillance, The Aims and Methods of America's Political Intelligence System," by Frank J. Donner (Knopf, 1980), pp. 424425 as such: "The agency's [Wackenhut] professional concerns reflect the political values of its director, George Wackenhut. A rightist of the old blood, he selected as his directors an assortment of ultras prominent in the John Birch Society, the ASC, and other rightwing groups. The agency's monthly house organ, the `Wackenhut Security Review,' systematically decried the subversive inspiration in virtually all the protest movements of the sixties, from civil rights to peace. This vigilance earned the publication the accolade of rightwing organizations, inluding (in 1962) the George Washington Honor Medal and the Freedom Foundation Award at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; and (in 1965 and 1966) the Vigilant Patriots Award from the AllAmerican Conference to Combat Communism."
******
Of all the articles written about Wackenhut Corporation, probably the most provacative was written by John Connolly for SPY magazine, published in September 1992, pp. 4654. Connolly, a former New York police officer turned writer, began his story with the following introduction: "What? A big private company one with a board of former CIA, FBI and Pentagon officials; one in charge of protecting nuclearweapons facilities, nuclear reactors, the Alaskan oil pipeline and more than a dozen American embassies abroad; one with longstanding ties to a radical rightwing organization; one with 30,000 men and women under arms secretly helped Iraq in its effort to obtain sophisticated weapons? And fueled unrest in Venezuela? This is all the plot of a new bestselling thriller, right? Or the ravings of some overheated conspiracy buff, right? Right? WRONG."
Connolly highlighted George Wackenhut as a "hardline rightwinger" who was able to profit from his beliefs by building dossiers on Americans suspected of being Communists or leftleaning "subversives and sympathizers" and selling the information to interested parties. By 1965 , Wackenhut was boasting to potential investors that the company maintained files on 2.5 million suspected dissidents one in 46 American adults then living.
In 1966, after acquiring the private files of Karl Barslaag, a former staff member of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, Wackenhut could confidently maintain that with more than 4 million names, it had the largest privately held file on suspected dissidents in America.
Connolly wrote that it was not possible to overstate the special relationship that Wackenhut enjoys with the federal government. Richard Babayan, claiming to be a CIA contract employee, told SPY that "Wackenhut has been used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for years. When they [the CIA] need cover, Wackenhut is there to provide it for them."
Another CIA agent, Bruce Berckmans, who was assigned to the CIA station in Mexico City, but left the agency in January 1975 (putatively) to become a Wackenhut internationaloperations vice president, told SPY that he had seen a formal proposal submitted by George Wackenhut to the CIA offering Wackenhut offices throughout the world as fronts for CIA activities. In 1981, Berckmans joined with other senior Wackenhut executives to form the company's Special Projects Division. It was this division that linked up with exCIA man Dr. John Phillip Nichols, the Cabazon tribal administrator, in pursuit of a scheme to manufacture explosives, poison gas and biological weapons for export to the contras and other communist fighting rebels worldwide.
SPY also printed testimony from William Corbett, a terrorism expert who spent 18 years as a CIA analyst and is now an ABC News consultant in Europe. Said Corbett, "For years Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the DEA. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandestine operations."Additionally, Corbett said that Wackenhut supplied intelligence agencies with information, and it was compensated for this "in a quid pro quo arrangement" with government contracts worth billions of dollars over the years.
On page 51, in a box entitled, "Current and Former Wackenhut Directors," SPY published the following names: "John Ammarell, former FBI agent; Robert Chasen, former FBI agent; Clarence Kelly, former FBI director; Willis Hawkins, former assistant secretary of the Army; Paul X. Kelley, fourstar general (ret.), U.S. Marine Corps; Seth McKee, former commander in chief, North American Air Defense Command; Bernard Schriever, former member, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; Frank Carlucci, former Defense Secretary and former deputy CIA director; Joseph Carroll, former director, Defense Intelligence Agency; James Rawley, former director, U.S. Secret Service; Bobby Ray Inman, former deputy CIA director."
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|Chapter 5 | Chapter 3 | Table of Contents |
Danny Casolaro's body was found at 12:30 p.m. in a bloodfilled bath tub by a hotel maid who called the Martinsburg police. The body contained three deep cuts on the right wrist and seven on the left wrist, made by a single edge razor blade, the kind used to scrape windows or open packages.At the bottom of the bathwater was an empty Milwaukee beer can, a paper glass coaster, the razor blade and two white plastic trash bags, the kind used in wastepaper baskets.On the desk in the hotel room was an empty mead composition notebook with one page torn out and a suicide note which read: "To those who I love the most, please forgive me for the worst possible thing I could have done. Most of all, I'm sorry to my son. I know deep down inside that God will let me in."
There were no other papers, folders, documents of any sort, nor any briefcase found in the room. Danny's wallet was intact, stuffed with credit cards.The body was removed from the tub by Lieutenant Dave Brining from the Martinsburg fire department, and his wife, Sandra, a nurse who works in the hospital emergency room. The couple, who often moonlighted as coroners, took the body to the Brown Funeral Home where they conducted an examination.Charles Brown then decided to embalm the body that night and go home, rather than come back to work the next day, Sunday.
No one in Danny Casolaro's family had been notified of his death at that time, nor had they requested the body be embalmed.When Casolaro's family learned of the death, they insisted it was not a suicide and called for an autopsy and an investigation. Though the body had already been embalmed, an autopsy was performed at the West Virginia University Hospital by a Dr. Frost. The findings indicated that no struggle had taken place because there were no recent bruises on the body. The drugs found in Casolaro's urine, blood and tissue samples were in minute amounts but they were also unexplainable by his brother, Tony, who is a medical doctor.
According to Tony Casolaro, Danny did not take drugs or have any prescriptions for the drug traces of Hydrocodone and Tricyclic antidepressant that were found in the body. No pill boxes or written prescriptions were found. Dr. Casolaro searched through his brother's Blue Cross records and found no record of the prescriptions or doctor visits.
During the autopsy of the body, Dr. Frost had found lesions within the brain which were characteristic of Multiple Sclerosis. It was possible that Danny was having blurring of vision, but Dr. Frost downplayed the possibility that this contributed to any suicide. Of particular interest, was Frost's observation that the deep razor wounds on Danny's wrists were inflicted "without any hesitation marks." However, the lack of hesitation did not indicate one way or the other whether they were or were not selfinflicted.Investigators and police never found Danny's missing briefcase.
On August 6, 1991, Casolaro's housekeeper, Olga, helped Danny pack a black leather tote bag. She remembered he also packed a thick sheaf of papers into a dark brown or black briefcase. She asked him what he had put into the briefcase and he replied, "I have all my papers ..." He had been typing for two days, and as he left the house, he said, "Wish me luck. I'll see you in a couple of days."
By August 9th, Casolaro's friends were alarmed. Noone had heard from him and Olga was receiving threatening phone calls at Danny's home. On Saturday, August 10th, Olga received another call, a man's voice said, "You son of a bitch. You're dead."After learning of Danny's death, Olga recalled seeing Danny sitting in the kitchen on August 5th with a "heavy man ... wearing a dark suit. He was a dark man with black hair he turned towards the door, I saw he was darkskinned. I told police maybe he could be from India."
At 3:00 p.m. on Friday, the day before Danny's death, Bill Turner, a friend and confidante, met Danny in the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel to deliver some papers to him. The papers allegedly consisted of two sealed packages which Turner had been keeping in his safe at home for Danny, and a packet of Hughes Aircraft papers which belonged to Turner.
Danny had appeard exhuberant to most of his friends before his death, noting that he was about to "wrap up" his investigation of The Octopus. Casolaro was trying to prove that the alleged theft of the Inslaw computer program, PROMISE, was related to the October Surprise scandal, the IranContra affair and the collapse of BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International).
Turner later admitted to police that he had indeed met with Danny on August 9th, but at that time he refused to specify what time and would not describe what was in the papers he delivered to Danny. I later learned that Turner had been investigating discrepancies involving his former employer, Hughes Aircraft Company. The documents he had delivered from his safe to Danny had been sealed, with Casolaro's name written across the seal, and he claimed not to have known what they contained.Nevertheless, it is feasible to assume that Turner may have known who Danny was preparing to meet that evening at the Martinsburg Hotel because, for reasons of his own, Turner apparently wanted Danny to show the Hughes Aircraft documents to whoever he was meeting with.
Turner later noted to reporters that he was "scared shitless" about information he had seen connecting Ollie North and BCCI. "I saw papers from Danny that connected back through the Keating Five and Silverado [the failed Denver S & L where Neil Bush had been an officer]," he said.
To his friend, Ben Mason, Danny showed a 22point outline for his book. Included in the information he shared with Mason were papers referring to IranContra arms deals. Photocopies of checks made out for $1 million and $4 million drawn on BCCI accounts held for Adnan Khashoggi, and international arms merchant and factotum for the House of Saud, and by Manucher Ghorbanifar, an arms dealer and IranContra middleman, were presented.
"The last sheet," noted Mason, "was a passport of some guy named Ibrahim." Casolaro had emphasized that Ibrahim had made a big deal of showing him (Casolaro) his "Egyptian" passport."Ibrahim" was obviously the informant whom Olga, Casolaro's housekeeper, had seen sitting in the kitchen with Danny on August 5th. Hassan Ali Ibrahim Ali, born in 1928, was later identified as the manager of Sitico, an alleged Iraqi front company for arms purchases. Casolaro had obtained these papers from Bob Bickel, who in turn obtained them from October Surprise source Richard Brenneke.
Ari BenMenasche, a self proclaimed Israeli military intelligence officer, was responsible for the tipoff to an obscure Lebanese magazine about what later became known as the IranContra scandal. After Casolaro's death, Menasche called Bill Hamilton, the president of Inslaw Company and creator of the PROMISE software. (Hamilton had been in daily contact with Casolaro until about a week prior to his death).
Menasche claimed that two FBI agents from Lexington, Kentucky, had embarked on a trip to Martinsburg to meet Casolaro as part of their investigation of the sale of the PROMISE software to Israel and other intelligence agencies.Ben Menasche told Hamilton that one of the FBI agents, E.B. Cartinhour, was disaffected because his superiors had refused to indict high Reagan officials for their role in the October Surprise. Ben Menasche claimed the agents were prepared to give Casolaro proof that the FBI was illegally using PROMISE software.
It is highly unlikely that the two FBI agents were enroute to Martinsburg to GIVE anything to Casolaro, but they may well have been on their way to obtain HIS documents and those belonging to Bill Turner. If, in fact, Danny had disclosed to any one of the many "sources" he had developed during his investigation, that he was turning over his documents to the Lexington FBI, that may well have alarmed a few of them.
Casolaro was also investigating Colonel Bo Gritz's expose of CIA drug trafficking, and had requested to meet with a former police officer who had information on Laotian warlord Kuhn Sa's Golden Triangle drug trade proposal to the U.S. He had learned through a Sacramento Bee newspaper article, dated June 2, 1990 that Patrick Moriarty, the Red Devil fireworks magnate convicted of laundering political contributions and bribing city officials in Sacramento, had been subpoenaed to testify on behalf of Gritz at his trial in Las Vegas where he was tried for using a false passport. Gritz was acquitted of the charges.
Moriarty's lawyer, Jan Lawrence Handzlik, told the Bee that Moriarty had paid Gritz to make business trips to China, Singapore and other parts of Asia. Gritz said his business trip to Asia in July 1989 was for the purpose of negotiating an oil interest that he and Moriarty had set up between the People's Republic of China and Indonesia.
It is noteworthy that Patrick Moriarty is the longtime (30 years) partner of Marshall Riconosciuto, Michael Riconosciuto's father. They owned several California businesses together, two of which were Hercules Research Corporation, of which Michael was a partner, and Pyrotronics Corporation.
******
Casolaro at one time considered the title of "Indio" for the book he was writing about "The Octopus." His death occurred just days before he planned to visit the Cabazon Indian reservation near Indio, California. Though his notes did not divulge what role the Cabazons may have had in the conspiracy, Casolaro listed Dr. John Phillip Nichols, the Cabazon administrator, as a former CIA agent.
A source of information which Danny may have read is entitled, "DARK VICTORY, Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob," by Dan E. Moldea. Moldea named this unholy alliance "The Octopus" in his book.
Numerous publications reporting on Casolaro's death corroborated that one of his sources included Michael Riconosciuto, a "44yearold former hightech scientist who had connections with Wackenhut Corporation ..." What brought Casolaro to Riconosciuto was an affidavit signed by Riconosciuto claiming that when he worked on the WackenhutCabazon project, he was given a copy of the Inslaw software by Earl Brian for modification. Riconosciuto also swore that Peter Videnieks, a Justice Department official associated with the Inslaw contract, had visited the WackenhutCabazon project with Earl Brian.
Earl Brian was a businessman and Edwin Meese crony who served in Governor Ronald Reagan's cabinet in California.The $6 million in software stolen from William and Nancy Hamilton, coowners of Inslaw Company, was allegedly sold by the Justice Department through Earl Brian to raise offthebooks money for covert government operations.
On May 18, 1990, Riconosciuto had called the Hamiltons and informed them that the Inslaw case was connected to the October Surprise affair. Riconosciuto claimed that he and Earl Brian had traveled to Iran in 1980 and paid $40 million to Iranian officials to persuade them NOT to release the hostages before the presidential election in which Reagan became president of the United States.
Riconosciuto's information created a domino effect in Washington D.C., opening numerous investigations and causing a media blitz. At that time, Casolaro headed the Hamilton's private investigation of the theft of their software and he had regular communication with Riconosciuto.
Former U.S. Attorney General Elliott Richardson, the Hamilton's attorney, subsequently sent Riconosciuto an affidavit to sign, to be filed by Inslaw in federal court in connection with Inslaw's pending Motion for Limited Discovery. The affidavit, Case No. 8500070, entered into court records, resulted in Riconosciuto's arrest within days. It read as follows:
"I Michael J. Riconosciuto, being duly sworn, do hereby state as follows:
"(1) During the early 1980's, I served as the Director of Research for a joint venture between the Wackenhut Corporation of Coral Gables, Florida, and the Cabazon Band of Indians of Indio, California. The joint venture was located on the Cabazon reservation.
"(2) The WackenhutCabazon joint venture sought to develop and/or manufacture certain materials that are used in military and national security operations, including night vision goggles, machine guns, fuelair explosives, and biological and chemical warfare weapons.
"(3) The Cabazon Band of Indians are a sovereign nation. The sovereign immunity that is accorded the Cabazons as a consequence of this fact made it feasible to pursue on the reservation the development and/or manufacture of materials whose development or manufacture would be subject to stringent controls off the reservation. As a minority group, the Cabazon Indians also provided the Wackenhut Corporation with an enhanced ability to obtain federal contracts through the 8A Set Aside Program, and in connection with Governmentowned contractoroperated (GOCO) facilities.
"(4) The WackenhutCabazon joint venture was intended to support the needs of a number of foreign governments and forces, including forces and governments in Central America and the Middle East. The Contras in Nicaragua represented one of the most important priorities for the joint venture.
"(5) The WackenhutCabazon joint venture maintained close liaison with certain elements of the United States Government, including representatives of intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies.
"(6) Among the frequent visitors to the WackenhutCabazon joint venture were Peter Videnieks of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and a close associate of Videnieks by the name of Earl W. Brian. Brian is a private businessman who lives in Maryland and who has maintained close ties with the U.S. intelligence community for many years.
"(7) In connection with my work for Wackenhut, I engaged in some software development and modification work in 1983 and 1984 on the proprietary PROMIS computer software product. The copy of PROMIS on which I worked came from the U.S. Department of Justice. Earl W. Brian made it available to me through Wackenhut after acquiring it from Peter Videnieks, who was then a Department of Justice contracting official with responsibility for the PROMISE software. I performed the modifications to PROMIS in Indio, California; Silver Spring, Maryland; and Miami, Florida.
"(8) The purpose of the PROMISE software modifications that I made in 1983 and 1984 was to support a plan for the implementation of PROMIS in law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide. Earl W. Brian was spearheading the plan for this worldwide use of the PROMISE computer software.
"(9) Some of the modifications that I made were specifically designed to facilitate the implementation of PROMIS within two agencies of the Government of Canada; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). Earl W. Brian would check with me from time to time to make certain that the work would be completed in time to satisfy the schedule for the RCMP and CSIS implementations of PROMIS.
"(10) The proprietary version of PROMIS, as modified by me, was, in fact, implemented in both the RCMP and the CSIS in Canada. It was my understanding that Earl W. Brian had sold this version of PROMIS to the Government of Canada.
"(11) In February 1991, I had a telephone conversation with Peter Videnieks, then still employed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Videnicks attempted during this telephone conversation to persuade me not to cooperate with an independent investigation of the government's piracy of Inslaw's proprietary PROMIS software being conducted by the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives.
"(12) Videnieks stated that I would be rewarded for a decision not to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee investigation. Videnieks forecasted an immediate and favorable resolution of a protracted child custody dispute being prosecuted against my wife by her former husband, if I were to decide not to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee investigation.
"(13) Videnieks also outlined specific punishments that I could expect to receive from the U.S. Department of Justice if I cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee's investigation.
"(14) One punishment that Videnieks outlined was the future inclusion of me and my father in a criminal prosecution of certain business associates of mine in Orange County, California, in connection with the operation of a savings and loan institution in Orange County. By way of underscoring his power to influence such decisions at the U.S. Department of Justice, Videnieks informed me of the indictment of these business associates prior to the time when that indictment was unsealed and made public.
"(15) Another punishment that Videnieks threatened against me if I cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee is prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice for perjury. Videnieks warned me that credible witnesses would come forward to contradict any damaging claims that I made in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, and that I would subsequently be prosecuted for perjury by the U.S. Department of Justice for my testimony before the House Judiciary Committee."
It is noteworthy that in January, 1992 when I obtained boxes of Michael Riconosciuto's hidden documents, included in those documents were handwritten pages of telephone numbers belonging to various Washington D.C. dignitaries. One number, "(202) 4260789" was listed as belonging to "PV," but it was no longer in service.
******
Danny Casolaro was, of course, intent on interviewing Peter Videnieks. A strange coincidence occurred during the week prior to his death. While sitting in a pub, having a beer, a man named Joseph Cuellar approached him and they began talking. At some point during the conversation, Danny disclosed the contents of his investigation and expressed a desire to interview Peter Videnieks.
To Danny's astonishment, Cuellar, claiming to be a Special Forces operative, said he could arrange a rendevous between Peter Videnieks and Casolaro. Cuellar's connection to Peter Videnieks allegedly came through Videnieks' wife, Barbara, who was the executive assistant to the powerful West Virginia Democratic Senator, Robert Byrd. Byrd played a major role in the effort to have the CIA move some of its administrative offices to Charlestown, 20 miles from Martinsburg, on the Virginia border. It was apparently through Barbara Videnieks that Cuellar intended to arrange the interview.
Casolaro confided to friends that he was unnerved by this supposedly chance meeting. He met with Cuellar at other times that week, but it is unknown whether he ever spoke with Videnieks. To date, that question remains unanswered.
Significantly, Elliot Richardson, the respected former U.S. Attorney General representing Inslaw, called for the appointment of a special counsel to look into the death of Casolaro.
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| Chapter 4 |
Thursday, August 8: Casolaro called Danielle Stalling and asked her to set up appointments for him the next week with a former police officer, now employed as a private investigator, to learn more about the Laotian warlord Kuhn Sa's proposed Golden Triangle drug trade.
Friday, August 9: By now Hamilton was starting to worry. I talk to Danny everyday," Hamilton said. "I had never [gone without speaking to him for so long] before, so I called Bob Nichols in Los Angeles and asked whether he had heard from Danny recently."
Nichols told Hamilton "Yes," he had spoken with Danny late Monday night [August 5th] and he had been "euphoric." Nichols told Hamilton he (Nichols) was taking off for Europe that evening.
It was at that point that Olga, Danny's housekeeper, received four or five threatening phone calls. The first was about 9 a.m., a man's voice, in good English, said, "I will cut his [Danny's] body and throw it to the sharks."About a half hour later, another call came in. "Drop dead," the man's voice said.
Saturday, August 10: At 12:30 that afternoon, a maid knocked on the door of room 517 at the Sheraton Martinsburg Inn. Nobody answered, so she used her passkey to open the door; though it had both a security bolt and a chain lock on the inside, neither one was attached. When she glanced into the bathroom, she saw a lot of blood on the tile floor and screamed. Another hotel maid came into the bathroom and saw a man's nude body lying in the bloodfilled tub. There was blood not only on the tile floor but splattered up onto the wall above the tub as well. The police were called to the scene.
At 8:30 p.m. that night, unaware that Danny's body had been found, Olga, Danny's housekeeper, returned to Casolaro's house to look for him. The phone rang. A man's voice said, "You son of a bitch. You're dead." It was not until Monday, August 12, that authorities notified family and friends that Danny Casolaro was dead.
Had Danny in fact called Robert Booth Nichols on Monday, August 5th, and confronted him about his relationship with Mike Abbell? Had he told Nichols he planned to meet with FBI officials from Lexington, Kentucky? And what about FBI agent Thomas Gates, Nichols' antagonist? SPY magazine's article on Danny Casolaro indicated that he spoke with Gates three days before his death, relating a conversation in which Nichols had warned him to abandon the investigation.
Riconosciuto later conceded that he had tried repeatedly to reach Hamilton and Casolaro between August 5 and 10th to warn them NOT to mention Abbell or Rodriguez to Nichols, but it had been too late. Bill Hamilton told one investigator that he did NOT know WHY Riconosciuto was inquiring about Mike Abbell - until AFTER Danny's death.
Bob Bickel's confirmation that Danny WAS trailing Mike Abbell in the last days before his death indicate that Danny may have unknowingly stepped into the largest narcotics trafficking/intelligence operation the world.
******
Another indepth article came to my attention which further corroborated Danny's investigation of Gilberto Rodriguez. "The Strange Death of Danny Casolaro," by Ron Rosembaum in Vanity Fair's December 1991 issue included an interview with Michael Riconosciuto. According to Rosenbaum, Danny's investigations were taking him into areas that involved dangerous knowledge and dangerous characters. It was Danny's habit of "bouncing" Riconosciuto's stories off Robert Nichols that put him in peril, Riconosciuto told Rosenbaum. One of the things he reportedly "bounced" involved a major heroinrelated sting operation.
Another involved Riconosciuto's claim about an "effort by the Cali cocaine cartel to derail the extradition of an alleged Columbian kingpin called Gilberto."
Nichols "went ballistic," according to Riconosciuto, when Danny bounced the Gilberto (Rodriguez) matter off him. Riconosciuto said he tried to warn Danny. "I called from that day on it was on a late Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, all the way through the weekend when they found Danny [dead]," he said. "Every day I was calling the Hamiltons, asking if anybody had heard from Danny. And I was frantic."
Labeled by Rosenbaum as the "resident demon of the labyrinth," Riconosciuto said "Danny's theory was different from the typical megaconspiracy theory. Danny was dealing with real people and real crimes."
Rosenbaum asked Riconosciuto about the germ warfare technology he had found in Danny's notes. Riconosciuto admitted that he had learned about "horrible things" going on at the Cabazon Indian reservation but did not elaborate on the subject. Wrote Rosenbaum, "This is the labyrinth [that] Riconosciuto was leading Danny into the one he died in."
Just days before his death, Danny had planned to visit the reservation. In his notes were cryptic references to slowacting brain viruses like Mad Cow Disease, which could be used against targeted people by slipping the virus into meat pies. Riconosciuto told Rosenbaum that Danny was "concerned" that he may have been a target of this virus. "That was one of the reasons he [Danny] had such an obsession with this story. He felt he had been hit by these people."
Accordingly, Riconosciuto filled Danny's head with allegations of Robert Booth Nichols' sinister, international covertworld connections. He painted a picture linking Nichols to organized crime syndicates, the fearsome Japanese Yakuza, and various CIA and British intelligence plots emanating from Nichols' friendship with "a legendary Bondish Brit known as `Double Deuce' [Sir Denis Kendall]."
Riconosciuto said Nichols was the key to Danny's Octopus. But Danny was receiving warnings from Riconosciuto's counterpart as well. Robert Booth Nichols had flown to Washington D.C. from Puerto Rico to warn Danny to stay away from Riconosciuto.
Danny's girlfriend, Wendy Weaver, had been present at one of the meetings at the Four Seasons Hotel bar when Nichols issued the warning: "You don't know how bad this guy Riconosciuto is ... he might not get you today, he might not get you next month. He might get you two years from now. If you say anything against him he will kill you."
Nichols repeated the warning several times, said Weaver. "At least five times." Weaver described Nichols as "very charming, very handsome," but said "it [the meeting] was a weird night, so weird."
Another friend of Danny's met Nichols at a luncheon at Clyde's in Tysons Corner where Nichols allegedly informed them that he had just been asked to become "minister of state security" on the island of Dominica. Reportedly, the island was going to be transformed into a CIA base. The friend, who spoke to Rosenbaum on condition of anonymity, said Nichols was "very slick, very civilizedappearing" ... "oozing intrigue," but he added that he had never witnessed a performance like the one that ensued.
After lunch Danny had pulled his friend aside and showed him a purported FBI wiretap summary on Nichols. The summary was part of FBI agent Thomas Gates's affidavit in Nichols' slander suit against him. The summary linked Nichols to the Yakuza and to the Gambino crime family as a money launderer.
Danny's friend had been shocked. "You just put me in a meeting with this man and didn't tell me what the hell why didn't you tell me before?," he asked Danny. Danny said he wanted to see how Nichols would react. The friend told Rosenbaum, "In other words, he gaffed me with a hook and tossed me in the water to see if the Octopus would move!"
Danny HAD in fact been receiving death threats on the phone. One threat reported by his housekeeper, "You're dead, you son of a bitch," which came hours AFTER Danny's body had been found, ruled out Danny himself as a possible source of the threats. And his prophesy to his brother, Tony Casolaro, "If anything happens to me it won't be an accident," made it unmistakably clear that Danny did, indeed, feel threatened.
Nevertheless, Danny appeared upbeat to most of the people he talked to prior to his death. Dr. Tony Casolaro, a specialist in pulmonary medicine, told Vanity Fair that he didn't believe his brother committed suicide because Danny was so excited and upbeat about his investigation on that last Monday when he saw him.
The autopsy examination of Danny's brain had revealed possible symptoms of Multiple Schlerosis, but friends and family dismissed this as irrelevant because Danny had never complained of symptoms or, to their knowledge, known of the disease, if he had it.
Tony was also troubled by a number of facts, one of which was Danny's current papers and files which he took to West Virginia were missing from his motel room. His body had been embalmed even before family members were notified of the death, and the motel room had been commercially cleaned before any type of investigation, other than a cursory look at the death scene by police, could occur.
In his Vanity Fair article, Ron Rosenbaum wrote that he had obtained one of Casolaro's surviving notebooks and found mentioned under the heading of August 6, four days before Danny's death, the name "Gilberto." It read: "Bill Hamilton August 6. MR ... also brought up `Gilberto.'" Rosenbaum did not speculate publicly who Gilberto might be, but it was obviously Gilberto Rodriguez, head of the Cali Cartel, at that time deeply involved with Michael Abbell, formerly of the Department of Justice.
******
A dozen or so drafts of Casolaro's proposed manuscript along with notes and phone bills had been sent to the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri by his brother, Dr. Tony Casolaro.Tony Casolaro had sent the material to the University because, at one time, the IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) Association, headquartered at the University, had researched the fatal carbombing of reporter Don Bolles in Arizona.
Bolles had been researching a mobconnected gold smuggling operation in that state. Through Tracy Barnett at IRE, I learned that a graduate student at the University had been assigned to catalog all Danny's material for eventual insertion into a data base. In contacting the graduate student, who by then (September 1994) worked for ABC in Houston, Texas, I learned that few if any journalists had inquired about the notes.
But, interestingly, Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Zipperstein from Los Angeles, working for the Department of Justice, had requested copies of Danny's NOTES, but declined Danny's phone records. The graduate student noted that the notes and drafts of Danny's proposed manuscript focused on a Cabal of intelligence people who, originally consisting of numerous names, were subsequently narrowed down to about eight. One of those names was Glen Shockley. Shockley, of course, was listed on the Board of Directors of F.I.D.C.O. along with Robert Booth Nichols.
Shockley was also a corporate partner in Meridian International Logistics, headed by Nichols. Shockley was also a CIA contract employee (according to several sources) who allegedly "ran Jose Londono" of the Cali Cartel. This according to Riconosciuto's taped interview with government agents while negotiating for Witness Protection.
I purchased everything of any significance pertaining to Danny's writings and documents, including the FBI wire tap summaries which corroborated everything I had learned to date.
In reviewing the summaries, it became apparent that the FBI had inadvertently stumbled onto a CIA drug trafficking operation which included high ranking La Cosa Nostra figures, the Gambino crime family and the Japanese Yakuza.
One affidavit in support of an application to intercept wire communications over the telephone listed names of those to be intercepted: Robert Booth Nichols, Eugene Giaquinto (then President of MCA Corportion Entertainment Division, and corporate partner with Nichols in Meridian International Logistics), Angelo Commito, Edward Sciandra, Michael Del Gaizo, Joseph Garofalo, and others.
The purpose of the interceptions was to determine "source, type and quantity of narcotics/controlled substances, methods and means of delivery, and the source of funding for purchasing of narcotics/controlled substances."
The intercepted conversations read like a "Who's Who" of organized crime. It was also apparent that Eugene Giaquinto enjoyed a special relationship with John Gotti.
******
Ann Klenk, a long time friend of Danny Casolaro's and former associate of Washington D.C. columnist Jack Anderson, held all his personal notes which were not sent to the University. In a September 14, 1994 phone interview, she noted that the last time she talked to Danny, that last Monday before his death, he told her he'd cracked the Inslaw case.
I asked her, "Do you think he resolved that?"
Ann responded, "Oh, yes. I KNOW he did. He TOLD me he did. He said, `Ann, I broke Inslaw.' And I said, `Geez, Danny that's great!' But, I never asked him what he found because he was very despondent about it. He said, `You can have it. You and Jack [Anderson] can have the story. I don't even want it.'"
Ann said Danny was disgusted and related their last conversation: "I said, `Danny, you worked on this [so long] and now you don't want it?' He said, `It's just a little piece of the puzzle anyway.' See, Inslaw led him into this, but Danny quickly became more involved with the drug aspects ... with the CIA aspects, with the Wackenhut aspects."
I said, "I know what you mean, because I followed the same trail."
******
Danny's proposed drafts and notes obtained from Western Historical Manuscript Collection at University of Missouri revealed information never published in mainstream media. Typewritten and handwritten lists of contacts included names and telephone numbers of Ted Gunderson, Raymond Lavas, Robert Nichols, Peter Zokosky, Bob Bickel, Fahim Safar, Earl Brian, Peter Dale Scott, Art Welmus, John Vanderwerker, Jack Blum, Dr. Harry Fair, Bill Hamilton, Bob Parry, Bill McCoy, and numerous others.
Most of Danny's drafts focused on the Southeast Asian heroin connection, CIA drug money used to finance the Contras, and the ability of terrorists to send missiles containing dangerous chemicals and biological diseases into the U.S.
One typewritten draft, entitled, "Behold, A Pale Horse," described an "international cabal [in Southern California] whose freelance services covered parochial political intrigue, espionage, sophisticated weapon technologies that included biotoxins, drug trafficking, money laundering and murder-for-hire." According to Danny, the cabal continues today, "its origins spawned thirty years ago in the shadow of the Cold War."
Casolaro's June - July (1991) phone bills told a story of their own. Having followed Danny's investigative trail for three years, I had an entire directory of phone numbers relating to his inquiries. Most obvious were Danny's numerous calls prior to his death to Robert Booth Nichols in Los Angeles. Most of the calls from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles lasted an average of one to two hours, invariably in the wee hours of the morning 1:50 a.m., 12:36 a.m., 1:13 a.m., 12:18 a.m., etc.
It was also apparent that Danny was riding a seesaw with Nichols and Riconosciuto. He would talk to one, then the other, often on the same day, back and forth for months. Then suddenly, he cut off Riconosciuto and his calls to Nichols increased in frequency.
Other phone numbers matched those of Ted Gunderson, Alan Boyak, a lawyer in Utah, Bo Gritz, Heinrich Rupp and Chuck Hayes, a self-professed (on the Internet) CIA operative. Danny often called Hayes immediately after he spoke with Nichols. Oddly, Hayes never came forward during the official investigation of Danny's death to disclose the content of those conversations.
******
Within six months of Casolaro's death, Riconosciuto was again attempting to trade information in exchange for entry into a Witness Protection Program. But this time, instead of using Casolaro or Bill Hamilton, he was using me to make the contacts.
At Riconosciuto's request, I contacted a man whom I will identify as N.B. at the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms) in San Francisco. Michael had advised me to call this agent because the BATF was "Treasury Department" as was FinCen.
I set up the phone meeting and Riconosciuto called the San Francisco BATF collect, as scheduled. N.B. listened attentively to Michael, then ran a check on him through the departmental computer system. Shortly thereafter, I received an unnerving phone call.
N.B. advised me in strong terms to "get out of this" while I still could. He said I would end up getting subpoenaed as a witness if I didn't discontinue my investigation. He added that sometimes people got killed or committed suicide when they got involved with Michael Riconosciuto or Robert Booth Nichols.
N.B.'s computer inquiry had bounced back on him. His superior in the BATF had been notified by someone from another agency he didn't say who who had instructed N.B. that he was to have NO further contact with Michael Riconosciuto or me.
When I related this conversation to Michael, he indicated no surprise, but immediately wanted to be put back in touch with R.J. He needed someone in the government with access to his files to verify his credibility and get that information back to Tom Olmstead, his attorney. Regarding the computer inquiry, Riconosciuto explained as follows: "I know what's happening here. Tell R.J. if he uses FOIMS, Field Office Information Management System, and if he leaves an audit trail, he's going to be exposed. There are all sorts of different levels of flags on my name. Whenever the computer gets a hit, the issuing agency is notified as to who made the request and from where it came."
"Mike," I asked, "how can he get around that? I don't understand ..."
"Listen, whenever there's a hit on one of those flags, whether it's a want or [a] warrant, or whether it's simply an administrative interest, unbeknownst to the user who's making the request, his access is audited. Tell R.J. before he starts making inquiries, no matter how discreet he thinks they are, that he should have someone totally uncoupled from him to enter into FOIMS."
"Alright."
"Now," Michael continued, "if he goes into NCIC or NADDIS, ah, NCIC is the least dangerous as far as making inquiries, because NADDIS can track just like FOIMS ..."
"Alright."
"Now, on NCIC there is a `nonelectric' filing on me and he can make the request that way without alerting anyone. If he has trouble checking anything out, tell him I can help him along."
"He can't call you at the jail. How can he get in touch with you?"
"Through my attorney. The minute he [R.J.] gets a line on me, ask him to notify my attorney. Tell him he can check my attorney out through the government. Tom has excellent records with the government."
"Alright."
"Explain to R.J. that I know PROMISE, I know FOIMS inside out. I helped develop that internal tracking audit trail ..."
I had lost all hope of R.J. rescuing Michael Riconosciuto, and I think in his heart, Michael knew that too, but I passed the information along as requested. R.J. politely accepted the information as he always did, then I never heard from him again.
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