DOJ Perseonnel--Greatest Threat to Americans

The following are excerpts from the book, America's Corrupt War on Drugs--and the People, authored by Captain Rodney Stich, one of over 20 books in the Defrauding America book series.

DOJ Personnel—
Greatest Threat to Americans

The greatest threat to the people of the United States is the deep-seated culture of the lawyers in the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). It adversely affects national security and the lives of America’s people. No form of reorganization will correct this problem without exposing the pattern of criminal and even subversive activities that I and my dozens of government insiders discovered during hundreds of years of cumulative experience.

Forget everything you were taught or felt about integrity, honesty, guilt or innocence in the FBI and others divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice. Forget everything you may have heard about people sentenced to prison deserving what they got. The integrity of many who have been sentenced to federal prison is far greater than many Justice Department prosecutors whose misconduct constitute major crimes and punishable if they were ordinary citizens..

Deeply Embedded Justice Department Culture

The Justice Department culture is political, corrupt, and extremely dangerous to the people. The people in control of the awesome Justice Department power are responsible for human tragedies far beyond anyone’s comprehension. The Justice Department, under the U.S. Attorney General, includes the Solicitor General, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. attorneys, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), U.S. Marshals (USMS), and Bureau of Prisons (BP).

Justice Department is a political animal and covers up for the crimes of presidents who appointed many of its top officials and covers up for the president’s allies. The crimes of Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the October Surprise and Contra gun and drug smuggling activities were covered up and not prosecuted. The crimes of federal judges and top government officials are routinely covered up. The consequence has been great harm to national security and the lives of countless numbers of people.

In 1989, when U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese was testifying in a criminal trial, he was asked, “Is it not true that your focus was not the focus of an attorney general wearing the attorney general’s hat but basically to gather information to protect the President and deal with the political problem brewing in Congress? Meese replied, “Yes.” As usual, the Justice Department’s 1986 probe into the sale of arms to Iran was not to find the facts but to protect President Reagan who appointed him. This is the normal Justice Department obstruction of justice, which is fed to the public by a compliant media that also aids and abets the obstruction of justice.

When the Justice Department investigates itself or political allies, it usually selects “investigators” who are politically appointed staff members. It diffuses congressional investigations by stating the matters are under Justice Department investigation—which never comes to fruition and eventually the matter passes on.

Since attorney generals are political appointees it would be unrealistic in light of the complicity of the government and media checks and balances to expect them to honestly investigate the corrupt activities of the people who are responsible for their high position!

The prosecutor in the Justice Department has more control over the amount of human tragedies that the government can inflict upon America’s men, women, and families. He can file false charges, pay for informants to provide perjured testimony, release to the media information about people or corporations being investigated, interview friends and neighbors seeking information, determine who to be arrested and who to be protected, use one-sided information to get a grand jury to indict a person or corporation,

There is a reported 3,000 plus criminal offenses on the books which can be used as a tool by the Justice Department to silence any criticism or exposure of high-level corruption in government.

Under the creative Justice Department, almost any act can be made into a criminal act, including the conspiracy statute and the mail and wire fraud statutes. Prosecutors have a virtual unlimited authority to determine who will or will not be investigated, who will or will not be called before a grand jury, who will or will not be publicly investigated. Prosecutors will frequently ignore serious criminal activities for political considerations or favoritism.

Raw Power That Controls Media and Corporate Silence

Any corporation, including broadcast and print media, can be seriously harmed and even put out of business by a unit of government that is easily controlled by the Justice Department lawyers. The great number of regulations affecting a corporation can be the basis for false or even real but minor charges, putting them at risk. An airline, for instance, with thousands of records and hundreds of requirements, can easily be charged with record violations and fined huge amounts of money. Or put out of business. The public perceives such charges as indicative of serious safety problems when the same violations of the thousands of required records could be found at any airline and are often of minor consequence.

Members of Congress are especially prone to misuse of Justice Department power. Leaks to the press that a particular member of Congress is being investigated can have a devastating influence on his reelection. The influence would be even worse if false charges were filed against the member of Congress. With the vast amount of political donations that is a part of their daily life, it is not difficult to find a basis for conducting an investigation.

Organized Crime in the U.S. Justice Department

“Organized Crime in the U.S. Justice Dept” was the heading in the Forum section of the Sacramento Bee on October 27, 1991, accurately reflecting the decades of criminality in the most misnamed agency of the federal government: “Indications...point to a widespread conspiracy implicating government officials in the theft of Inslaw’s technology” Inslaw, bad as it was, constituted only the tip of the iceberg. Inslaw is described in detail in Defrauding America, and consisted of Justice Department attorneys forcing a company into bankruptcy so they could steal its computer software called PROMIS. The attorneys had an interest in a company that would be bidding on a lucrative government contract worth a half-billion dollars to install a computer program in Department of Justice offices. (The Inslaw matter is described in great detail in the book, Defrauding America.)

DOJ Blocked Every Effort to Halt
Crash-Related Corruption in the Aviation Field

For 30 years, Justice Department attorneys blocked every attempt I and other government agents made to report high-level government corruption that we discovered as part of our official duties. If my reports, or those by other government agents, of criminal activities had received the reaction required by law, there would not have been the extent of government corruption that now exists (and which is largely unknown to the majority of the public).

Responsibilities of Justice Department Employees

Under federal law, the responsibility for ensuring that the laws of the United States are properly enforced belongs to the United States Department of Justice, which is under the control of the U.S. Attorney General, and in turn, the President of the United States. In practice, the politically appointed Attorney General routinely has used the Justice Department to cover up corrupt and criminal acts involving high-level government personnel or corrupt covert activities of the CIA and other covert agencies—including CIA drug trafficking.

These problems occurred during the Reagan and Bush administrations and were especially prominent during the Clinton presidency, as Attorney General Janet Reno protected him and the Democratic Party. Occasionally the checks and balances work as intended, and the person in that position of trust goes to prison. Attorney General John Mitchell, for instance, went to prison, as did Webster Hubbell and other attorney generals. Subsequent attorney generals have committed federal offenses involving far more serious crimes, and were never prosecuted or called to task by the poorly functioning checks and balances in government and the media.

Responsible for Protecting the Civil Rights of American Citizens-

Within the U.S. Department of Justice are numerous divisions, each of which has similar cultures and standards as the politically appointed Attorney General. These include the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), responsible for investigating crimes; the Criminal Division, responsible for prosecuting federal crimes; the U.S. Trustee, responsible for preventing fraud in the bankruptcy courts, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), responsible for drug-related matters.

Growth Industry: Putting Americans in Prison-

The putting-people-in-prison phenomenon has resulted in many growth industries, all of which require an increasing number of people to be incarcerated. These growth industries include, for instance:

• Massive increase in the number of government agents and government informants. They need to justify their pay and position, and are looking for technical violations to put people in prison, or setting up criminal operations to bring in victims or people against whom they can make false accusations.

• Building of prisons, including private prisons that will need an increasing number of inmates to justify expansion.

• Managing and staffing prisons.

• Prison industries, such as the federal UNICOR program, that pay prisoners from 20 cents to a dollar an hour to produce goods that are sold to other government agencies and the private sector.

• Lawyers and law firms supported by the ever revolving mass of humanity seeking defense against charges that are often sham or greatly exaggerated.

  Feel-Good, Self-Serving Legislation That

  Incarcerates Americans in Wholesale Numbers

  The start of the population transfer into prisons came when members of congress, seeking to gain political advantage at the polls, legislated draconian prison sentences for anyone even remotely involved with drugs—or not involved at all. By legislating laws on the pretense of fighting the so-called war-on-drugs and other crimes, they argue that they are tough on crime. Contradicting their tough-on-crime rhetoric is the fact that they have covered up crimes far more serious involving misconduct by government personnel, including the decades of CIA drug trafficking into the United States.

  The tactic of gaining votes through appearing tough on crime is nothing new. A similar demagoguery was used with the race card and continues to be used, long after its justification was gone, and despite the fact that it generates hostility between the races that would not otherwise exist. President Clinton was especially adept at this, focusing special benefits on special groups to gain their votes, and at the same time receive protection against prosecution.

  Politicians Charging Each Other with Softness on Crime

  In the 1984 elections, Republican politicians accused Democratic politicians of being soft on crime, gaining an advantage. In 1986, Democrats got back by suddenly pushing through draconian legislation that has inflicted incalculable human suffering on many of the same people they claimed to be protecting. Massachusetts Representative Tip O’Neill pushed through a bill that became known as the Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Law that required federal judges to sentence defendants to the term specified by a guideline, leaving the judge virtually no discretion for mitigating circumstances.

  Following the summer recess, O’Neill and fellow Democrats rushed the legislation through so as to get credit during the November elections for being tough on crime. There were virtually no hearings and no experts called. In less than a month after O’Neill conceived the vote-getting idea, the committees wrote the legislation, without any significant input from law enforcement people, the Bureau of Prisons, or civil rights groups. The bill passed both houses in time for the politicians to take credit for their tough-on-crime legislation to profit at the November elections.

  As it turned out, most major drug kingpins and major drug traffickers have remained free, especially those with CIA connections, while the average “Joe” or “Jane” has been sent to prison for years, decades, or life, with a relatively small amount of drugs. Or no drugs!

  Federalization of Criminal Offenses

  In a pattern of constant demagoguery, members of Congress passed legislation making state offenses, often relatively minor ones, into federal crimes. This legislation makes members of Congress look, to the naive public, tough on crime, while simultaneously contributing to one of America’s fastest growth indus-tries, putting unprecedented numbers of men and women in prison.

  What makes this preposterous to anyone close to the scene is that members of Congress have a long record of criminal cover-ups of many corrupt high-level government personnel and corrupt covert activities, as described in each of my books. Speaking about this federalization of state offenses, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist said (January 7, 1999) the “pressure in Congress is to appear responsive to every highly publicized societal ill,” and that “Federal courts were not created to adjudicate local crimes that can and should be handled by state courts.”

  Draconian Prison Sentences Mandated by Members of Congress

  Let’s look at the prison sentences imposed by members of Congress for possession of drugs. The length of prison sentence is based upon the amount of drugs stated in the charges filed by the prosecutor. For one gram of LSD, the mandatory minimum sentence is five years without possibility of parole. What is one gram? A gram is about the weight of one M&M candy. Five years in prison, a family put into poverty, a family destroyed—for that!

  The people responsible for those atrocities are the bribe-taking members of Congress and Department of Justice personnel.

Tons of Cocaine—Go Free; But M&M Quantity—Years in Prison

Consider this contradiction: Tons of cocaine were brought into the United States by and with the knowledge of government personnel as part of the Nicaraguan operation, and no one was charged with drug offenses. But for plain Joe or Jane, with an M&M size quantity, years in prison. This surely must be another version of affirmative action!

Criticized by Knowledgeable Experts

Despite being criticized by experts in this area, despite the great injustices, despite the family tragedies arising from the legislation that they enacted, members of Congress refuse to change. The U.S. Sentencing Commis-sion, responsible for making recommendations relating to the mandatory minimum sentencing law, has repeatedly since the early 1990s criticized the draconian sentences required by this legislation. Judges, attorneys, and even many prosecutors have criticized the harshness of the legislation. But members of Congress receive praise from the ill-informed public for feel-good legislation touted as being tough on crime.

Determining Length of Prison Removed from Judges to Prosecutors

As a result of the Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Act, judges lost their authority to determine the length of sentence, which is now determined by the imagination used by the prosecutor in filing charges. Even though the minimum sentencing law determines the minimum prison sentence for each offense, the prosecutor, by using his fertile imagination—and a rubberstamp jury—can determine how long the person will be in prison.

Federal Judge Declares Unconstitutional Feel-Good Legislation

U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet in New York declared the Mandatory Sentencing Law unconstitutional in a 1988 case. But the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling. Judge Sweet described his anguish at having to sentence a 17-year-old, who had virtually no involvement with drugs, to a ten-year prison sentence. Sweet felt that dealing with the drug problem in a criminal way is wrong, adding that if it is treated in that way, at least it should be fair.

Quitting the Bench Because of the Law’s Inhumanity

Sweet lamented how some judges had simply quit the bench, refusing to be a part of the inhumanity. He described how he frequently wrote to the Senate and House judiciary committees describing the inhumane result of the mandatory minimum sentencing and conspiracy laws, without any reaction. He explained that the judge is limited to trying to have trial procedures handled fairly, and very few judges have the integrity to insure that occurs. Most are former Justice Depart-ment attorneys and protective of Justice Department culture.

Crying When They Carry Out Congressional Sentences

Instances have occurred when judges, disturbed by the draconian sentences legislated by members of Congress, must sentence often-innocent people or those with minor drug offenses, to long prison sentences. One judge cried and said, “I don’t want to do that. I didn’t want to give this young man 30 years, but I have no choice, this is the law.” Unfortunately, most judges don’t care.

To make a successful prosecution more attractive for the prosecutor’s career, he or she can have a paid witness increase the amount of drugs that he falsely states he saw in your possession, or which he claims you had told him. If the witness simply testifies that he saw drugs in your possession, the prison sentence may only be five or ten years. But if the witness testifies that he saw a kilo of cocaine or crack cocaine, or ten kilos, whatever, your sentence will be increased. The only difference between a defendant (and this could be you), receivi-ng five years in prison or a life sentence, is how much the government-paid witness will exaggerate his testimony.

Outrageous Prison Sentences and World’s Greatest Incarceration

America reportedly has the greatest percentage of its population in prison of any country in the world. This record has been brought about by legislation passed by members of congress, seeking votes through feel-good legislation approved by a naive public.

Vicious criminals, killers, such as the darling of America’s sport fanatics, O.J. Simpson, go free, while honest people go to prison for decades, or even life. Talk about a sick society!

“The Greatest Tragedy of My Professional Life.”

Former counsel to the House committee on the Judiciary, Eric E. Sterling, played a role in the passage of the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. As president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington, DC and co-chairman of the American Bar Association, Committee on Criminal Justice, he stated:

The work that I was involved in, in enacting these mandatory sentences, is probably the greatest tragedy of my professional life. There have been literally thousands of instances of injustice where minor co-conspirators in cases have been given the sentences that Congress intended for the highest kingpins. None of us envisioned that the Justice Department would so profoundly misuse this statute. Families are wrecked, children are orphaned, and the taxpayers are paying a fortune for excessive punishment. It is such a waste of human life. It’s awful.

Political Chicanery for Political Career Enhancement

Sterling described the political benefits discussed behind the scenes that led to the massive human tragedies that have occurred following the drug legislation. In describing how these laws came about, Sterling said:

These laws came about in an incredible conjunction between politics and hysteria. It was 1986, Tip O’Neill comes back from the July 4th district recess and everybody’s talking about the death of the Boston Celtics pick, Len Bias [who drugged himself to death]. That’s all his constituents are talking to him about. And he has the insight, “Drugs, it’s drugs. I can take this issue into the election.” He calls the Democratic leadership together in the House of Representatives and says, “I want a drug bill, I want it in four weeks.” And it set off kind of a stampede.

[Rush to put America’s men and women in prison]

Everybody started trying to get out front on the drug issue.... I mean, every committee...not just the Judiciary Committee—Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means, Agriculture, Armed Services. Everybody’s got a piece of this out there, fighting to get their face on television, talking about the drug problem. And these mandatories came in the last couple days before the Congressional recess, before they were all going to race out of town and tell the voters about what they’re doing to fight the war on drugs. No hearings, no consideration by the federal judges, no input from the Bureau of Prisons.

Even the DEA didn’t testify. The whole thing is kind of cobbled together with chewing gum and baling wire. Numbers are picked out of air. And we see what these consequences are of that kind of legislating. Ten-year mandatory minimum, routine sentences are 15, 20, 30 years, without parole. Then you have conspiracy, and suddenly, you have people facing 50 years, people facing either life in virtual terms or as a real sentence. That’s what’s happening. Fifteen thousand federal drug cases a year. Bulk of them mandatory minimum cases. Most of them minor offenders. Only ten percent of all the federal drug cases are high-level traffickers.

[Drugless drug prison sentence]

You wonder, who’s asleep at the switch at the Justice Department? What you have is conviction on the basis of [perjured] testimony. You have drugless drug cases. You don’t need powder, all you need is the witness to say, “I saw a kilo.” People are amazed. “Well, aren’t there drugs?” There don’t have to be drugs. All there have to be are witnesses who say, “I saw the drugs,” or, “He said there were drugs.” That’s what you need.

When asked, “Couldn’t you guess this would happen?” he responded:

I don’t think any of us fully anticipated what these numbers would generate. DEA agents and assistant U.S. attorneys are misusing this statute, with the complicity of their managers in the Department of Justice, to engage in what now has really become a pattern and practice of racial discrimination in almost overwhelmingly prosecuting people of color for tiny amounts of drugs and sending them away for kingpin sentences.

Why are they doing it?

They’re doing it because it’s easy. These cases are the easiest cases to prosecute. They’re cut and dried. The lawyers are public defenders. There’s not any kind of real defense....These are little cases. However, it’s good training for young ambitious attorneys who want to acquire jury experience. For DEA agents, this is safe. I mean when DEA agents go to Colombia or Mexico, their life is in danger. Going after some poor schnook who’s the corner crack dealer, that doesn’t threaten their lives. The statistics look good.

[Mandatory minimum sentencing legislation]

No one ever thought at all about what the implications were of applying conspiracy. No one envisioned that by applying the statute to anyone in a conspiracy, no matter how low they were in the conspiratorial chain, that they would get the maximum that could be imposed for the kingpin. Nobody figured that out as we were working on it in 1988. It was a total oversight. Now, of course, you can’t change it, because that’s soft on drugs.

The current sentencing situation is a sort of witch’s brew of three poisons put together making an abominable poison: mandatory minimums designed for kingpins with very long sentences; conspiracy bringing in the lowest level offenders who become eligible for those; and substantial assistance policies...that means telling a wild story to avoid spending almost life in prison without parole; there are many people who will do that. The incentive is, “I’ll tell any story I can.” They are people who are often very desperate. They realize, “If I can get five years instead of 30 years, if I tell a story against that other guy, tell me what I have to say, I’ll say it.”

[DOJ induced perjury is rampant]

The entire criminal justice system knows that perjury is the coin of the realm. In New York City, police officers call it “testalying.” In Los Angeles they call it “the liar’s club.” Everybody knows that lying takes place. The prosecutors don’t feel bad about it, this is simply part of the system. Police officers conform their testimony to what they know the courts expect to hear in order to get the results that they want, not on the basis of what the facts are.

[Meaningless jury instructions]

When a judge tells a witness, “Let me remind you, you’re under oath and if you lie under oath, you’ll be prosecuted for perjury,” this is a disclaimer. The judge in effect is washing his hands or her hands of any responsibility for the lie which is forthcoming. This is part of the ritual; it’s a ritual statement, it’s not a real statement. It’s like when you ask a defendant who’s pleading guilty if they understand what they are doing. They always say, yes. They’re supposed to. They often don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

Surely the DOJ would not be Prosecuting an Innocent Person!

Referring to the naiveté—or ignorance—of the average juror, Sterling said the average juror thinks, “If the government is trying to convict this dope dealer, well, this person is probably guilty, or why else would we be here?” He continued:

We believe in the presumption of innocence as a society. Once you get in the courtroom, that presumption is very, very thin. It’s not a whole lot of protection. And when you have a witness who says, “Yes, I am getting a deal, but I was there and this is what the defendant did,” jurors will say, “Even if I don’t believe all that he’s saying, I believe enough of it and that enough is proof beyond a reasonable doubt for me.”

Sterling added:

The war on drugs is one of the great evils of our times. We have federal judges who have resigned, federal judges who have wept on the bench. Senior federal judges who say, “We refuse as a matter of conscience any longer to take these kinds of cases.” Those are people at least who have the opportunity to step out. I had the opportunity to step out by leaving my job in the government and am now working to help expose what I think are these problems. When I meet with the family members of people serving these sentences, it is very hard. At times I am moved to tears when I sit across from someone whose loved one is serving a 30-year sentence for something that I played a role in getting enacted. It’s an awful feeling.

Prosecutors Prefer Dumb and Naive Jurors

It is generally realized that prosecutors don’t want informed people on the jury. The dumber they are, the less likely they will question the government’s prosecutor. Informed people can’t be manipulated as easily.

“The Public Doesn’t Know what the Laws Are”

Responding to a question of whether the public understands what is going on, Sterling replied:

The ignorance about what’s going on exists on a bunch of different levels. Number one, the offenders themselves are ignorant of what the penalties are that they could incur. Congress says, “We’re going to pass these tough laws to send a message to the criminals to stop.” But there’s a complete disconnection between what Congress hopes and what criminals actually understand. They don’t watch C-SPAN, they don’t read “Congressional Record.”

They simply don’t know. They’re astonished when they get punished. Congressmen also don’t know what the laws are. Many of them don’t even know that parole was abolished. The public doesn’t know what the laws are. The public still believes that people are getting slapped on the wrist. These are examples, which then allow a member of Congress to say with a straight face, “We need to get tougher.”

Alien to what Was Once the American Way of Life

Sterling, addressing the harm members of Congress and DOJ Attorneys have brought down upon the people, said:

The implications of the war on drugs, the sense of how alien it is to American values, the use of informants, paying informants....We have hundreds of thousands of informants. Informants can make a living professionally in their role as informants. This is simply an anathema to the way in which we think a free society ought to operate.

The role of wiretapping, of monitoring telephone conversations, of taping conversations. Defense lawyers now are afraid that their clients may be trying to entrap them. The government has said, “We believe we have the power to go to a man represented by an attorney and unbeknownst to that attorney, try to get that man to incriminate the attorney.” To think that we would undermine our legal system in this way is reminiscent of the Soviet Union.

[Hateful Society Bred By Congress and DOJ]

If we look at the way in which so much of our society functions today, it looks like the kind of highly regimented Soviet system that we were repulsed by in the early 1950s. Informants in the work place. Fear of having conversations with people. Fear of our children informing against us. Not knowing what the charges might be. Offenses for which bail is no longer available.

Army of Informants Looking for Victims—

Another Growth Industry

Government agencies, and especially the various divisions of the Department of Justice, have thousands of agents and informants who must find offenses committed by people. They search public and financial records looking for technical errors that they can charge as federal crimes—and the list is endless, including matters committed by almost any adult.

They set up elaborate pseudo criminal enterprises and look for people they can entice into them in such a way that criminal charges can be filed. The coalition of government agents, informants, and prosecutors are quite imaginative. Anyone trapped into one of them doesn’t stand much of a chance against this coalition with unlimited funds and juries that will believe virtually anything the “government” charges.

One example: a government informant may induce a “patsy” to assist him in undercover work, falsely encouraging him to assist in bringing about the arrest of alleged drug traffickers. The patsy is told to contact certain people—who are actually undercover government agents—and to gain their confidence by bragging about past drug trafficking activities. The patsy doing the bragging may never have been near drugs or involved in any drug offense, but he is told it is a chance to work for the government and be well paid.

Unknown to the patsy, he is telling these tall tales to government undercover agents who arrest him after his fabricated drug-trafficking statements are recorded. Based simply upon these statements—no drugs are involved—the patsy who is no match for this govern-ment conspiracy, is charged, tried, and then naive jurors find him guilty. Chalk up another “win” for the public and Congress’ tough-on-crime stance. The jurors have a “feel-good” attitude, and government agents receive bonuses. Oh yes, the patsy may get life in prison with no chance of parole.

Agents Transferred to Undesirable Locations if No Arrests

During an April 1999 phone call with a former ATF and DEA agent, Michael Don Stewart, he described the quota-system that requires ATF agents to fabricate cases against innocent people. “If you go two months without making an arrest, a search warrant, a seizure, or open or close an investigation, you are transferred to some place where they need you, and you don’t want to go, such as Detroit, East LA, little Cuba—Miami.”

I responded, “This practice encourages agents to file sham charges, doesn’t it.” Stewart replied, “You are exactly right; most people aren’t aware of that.” He said that agents, to avoid being transferred, look for technical paper violations to justify opening an investigation. The agents go to pawnshops, gun shops, and other places looking at records and seeking some technical mistake—no matter how innocent or minor—which permits them to conduct an investigation and make sham charges against the person.

Searching Records for Targets to Destroy

A practice similar to that had been described to me many years ago by CIA asset Gunther Russbacher. CIA and other government personnel examine financial records, looking for people and companies that can be forced into involuntary bankruptcy, where the rampant corruption in bankruptcy courts then seize and loot the assets. (See Defrauding America.)

Adding Conspiracy Laws to Feel-Good

Tough-On-Crime Self-Serving Legislation

Not to be outdone by the other political party, politicians pushed through—just before election time—another law showing them as being tough on crime: the drug conspiracy statute. The conspiracy statute greatly expanded the number of people ensnared by the draconian minimum sentencing law. Now, almost anyone can be sentenced to a long prison term—or even life without parole—no drugs even need be present to convict as a major drug kingpin.

In real life, as applied by Department of Justice prosecutors, men and women have been sent to prison with long prison sentences—even life in prison—who were guilty of no crime, and who are in prison because of the imaginative fertile imagination of career-obsessed attorneys in the United States Department of Justice. This law, as members of Congress knew, targets innocent people who have no connection to drugs, who had never entertained any drug-related thoughts, and to this day can’t understand why they are in prison.

American men and women in prison now exceed the combined population of Alaska and Wyoming. In 1998, for instance, a dozen European countries making up the European Union, whose population exceeds the United States’ by over 100 million, had only one third as many people in prison (San Francisco Examiner, May 10, 1999).

What This Country Needs is a Go-To-Prison Form of Monopoly

What this country needs is a game, something like “Monopoly,” showing all the ways that Congress and the Department of Justice employees can cause you to join the hundreds of thousands of others in prison in one of America’s great growth industries. It would be not only informative, but a teaching tool for how to stay out of prison!

The Catch-All Conspiracy Charge That Can Put YOU in Prison

Congress’ drug conspiracy laws have put more people in prison than any other statute. A man or woman doesn’t even need to possess drugs, handled any drugs, or played any role in any drug transaction. For the prosecutor and informant, the “beauty” of it is that they can send someone to prison for years or for life who doesn’t even know what he had done! The convicted and imprisoned defendant is often guilty of nothing except the fertile imagination of a Department of Justice prosecutor working with an informant who will fabricate whatever testimony is requested by the prosecutor.

A “Dry” Conspiracy

A “dry” conspiracy or “no drug conspiracy” is the name given to a conspiracy where there is no evidence of any drugs. All it requires for conviction is a government-paid witness testifying to something that he claims you said. You might have even been bragging, without ever having done anything you claim, but you end up with a long prison sentence.

Thousands of men and women are serving long prison sentences because they talked about importing or selling drugs or were present when others did, and which never occurred.

How DOJ Attorneys Improve Their Performance Record

The conspiracy legislation permits a prosecutor to sit behind his desk and let his imagination wonder. With a little mental calculation, he can concoct the type of conspiracy to charge against our Joe or Jane target, whi-ch needs no relationship to reality; great for attorneys! Almost any businessperson or someone active in the business world can be charged with some type of conspiracy. Anyone can be approached by a government informant and sucked into a conspiracy scheme concocted by your friendly government agents. No evidence is needed!

A Conspiracy of One—Another DOJ Trick to Imprison People

Attorneys in the Department of Justice have even expanded on the conspiracy statute. A conspiracy requires two or more persons. No problem; Justice Department prosecutors now charge single persons with a conspiracy when there is no other person involved.

Very Few Countries Have Conspiracy Laws

Former counsel to the U.S. House committee on the Judiciary, Eric E. Sterling, said that very few countries have conspiracy laws as exist in the United States because “they can be so badly abused.” He added:

Our conspiracy law is such that long after you’ve dropped out of the conspiracy, you’re still responsible for things that you may have done way in the past. The criminal organization marches forward. You’ve gone straight. But when the chain gets connected all the way to the back, you can still be held liable for things that you had no responsibility for and you could not foresee. It’s a terrible problem, the way in which conspiracy is being used in these cases.

Another Growth Industry—DOJ’s-Paid Perjurers

Perjury-for-sale is the type of growth industry that an insider could associate with the culture in the Department of Justice. This practice greatly increases the number of people sent to fill new prisons or crowd into old ones. DOJ prosecutors routinely compensate witnesses to testify before grand juries and trial juries as they want the witness to testify.

Some of them are paid on an occurrence basis. Others are on a monthly salary. Some are in prison, willing to say anything to bring about their release. Others may be charged with a criminal offense and are offered to have charges dropped for parroting what the prosecutor wants said. And they have another advantage: they have the Department of Justice protecting them against being charged for criminal perjury, regardless of the extent of their lying under oath.

The Liars Club

Another name for this group is “Liars Club. ” Some are professional perjurers who travel around the country testifying for DOJ prosecutors. The Liars Club includes prisoners, some with life sentences, who read newspap-ers to learn or fabricate facts about people recently arrested, most of whom they had never seen, heard of, or dealt with. Their exper-tise at fabricating testimony to use before grand juries and during trial is their greatest value.

“Jumping on the Bus”

A term defining the process is “jumping on the bus.” Prisoners obtain information from other prisoners—even buy the information—and then contact DOJ prosecutors and offer their services to testify against a person prosecutors want arrested, or who had just been arrested and is waiting for trial.

The best liars for DOJ prosecutors are prisoners and people charged with criminal offenses. The longer their sentences, the more willing they are to fabricate testimony exactly as requested by the DOJ attorneys. They also know the lingo and the ropes.

A release-from-prison promise in exchange for perjured testimony does not take into account the crime for which the person is in prison. He may be a brutal murderer, a major drug kingpin, and someone who will return to his prior crimes once he is released.

And even more bizarre, and there is no limit to the bizarre angles involved, the target against whom testimony is being “paid” may be guilty of a very low offense, or even no offense. One answer is that the new conviction increases the prosecutor’s conviction record; the hell with justice!

Working the System

The real hard-core incarcerated drug trafficker works the system. He thinks to himself, “What do I have to do to get out of prison?” He asks the prosecutor, “What do I have to say? Who do I have to testify against? How much drugs do I have to say that he discussed?” With the government backing the liar, most naive jurors believe the witness called by the government.

The liar is sitting with the government at his side. The government presents the liar in the court. Is the average juror going to doubt the integrity of the United States? [Forget Clinton for the moment!] Surely you can believe your own government! [Forget again the history of government lying for the past 50 years.]

Another problem facing the defendant is that judges will often bar a lawyer from presenting a certain defense, the very one most applicable to show the person’s innocence.

Major Drug Kingpins Get Released Through Fabricated Testimony

Often, a high-level drug kingpin will give testimony against a low-level participant in a drug operation—or someone totally innocent—and the drug kingpin gets released from prison. “Big fish” are given their freedom to provide testimony against minor offenders. It’s like the food chain; major drug dealers snitch on low-level dealers and go free, while innocent or low-level people end up with long prison sentences.

Like Crooked Cops Holding the People Hostage

Other criminal statutes are often simultaneously violated when this crime occurs, including falsely accusing a person of a crime, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice, among others. But who is going to prosecute the prosecutor? It’s like having a department of crooked cops holding the citizens hostage.

Worse Than Hitler’s Gestapo

When I was growing up in the late 1930s, as Hitler came to power, I remember the many media articles decrying the culture of informants or neighborhood spies that Adolph Hitler’s Gestapo used to get neighbors to spy on neighbors. The United States Congress and Department of Justice have gone far beyond what Hitler initiated. Now, family members testify against each other, children testify against their brothers or sisters, children testify against parents. This is what the attorneys in the Department of Justice have brought upon America as their slime permeates throughout government, industry, and society.

Encouraging Someone to Give False Testimony is a Crime

Under federal criminal statutes, the prosecutor is guilty of a crime if he procures another person to commit perjury. When a law-enforcement officer commits this crime, it is far worse than when done by someone else. The law says:

Title 18 U.S.C. § 1622. Subornation of perjury. Whoever procures another to commit any perjury is guilty of subornation of perjury, and shall be fined... or imprisoned...

The evidence is overwhelming that Justice Department attorneys responsible for prosecuting people for subornation of perjury routinely perpetrated this crime. They hold themselves above the law, with one standard for the people, and another for themselves.

Compensation for Testimony is a Federal Offense

Under federal criminal statute, Title 18 USC Section 201, it is a criminal offense for anyone to give any form of compensation to a person providing testimony, whether it is before the fact or after the fact. Title 18 USC § 201(c)(2) says:

Whoever...directly or indirectly, gives, offers or promises anything of value to any person, for or because of the testimony under oath or affirmation given or to be given by such person as a witness upon a trial, hearing, or other proceeding, before any court...authorized by the laws of the United States to hear evidence or take testimony...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both.

That statute does not require that the testimony be proven false; only that some type of compensation be promised for a witness’s testimony.

Section 201(b)(3) of the same Title addresses the matter of compensation given to influence the testimony. DOJ prosecutors have been violating both of these statutes for years and continue to do so.

American Bar Association Rules of Professional Conduct (Section 3.4(b) says: A lawyer shall not (b)... offer an inducement to a witness that is prohibited by law. The theory against paying for testimony was reflected in a Florida case (The Florida Bar v. Jackson, 490 So.2d 935 Fla. 1986):

The very heart of the judicial system lies in the integrity of the partici-pants....Justice must not be bought or sold. Attorneys have a solemn responsibility to assure that not even the taint of impropriety exists as to the procurement of testimony before courts of Justice. It is clear that the actions of the respondent in attempting to obtain compensation for the testimony of his clients...violates the very essence of the integrity of the judicial system and the disciplinary rule and the code of professional responsibility, the integration rules of the Florida Bar and the oath of his office.

In another example, the lawyer who paid $50 for a police officer to testify truthfully for his client was suspended from practice for 18 months. (In re Kien, 372 N.E.2nd 376 (111.1977))

Legal Challenge to DOJ Compensated Testimony

Such bribery is common and was challenged during a 1998 trial in Denver. DOJ prosecutors charged Sonya Singleton and Napoleon Douglas with money laundering and conspiracy offenses. Before trial, DOJ prosecutors offered to drop charges against Douglas if he testified against Singleton as they wanted him to testify. This offer was made despite the statute barring payment for testimony. With this compensation and freedom against perjury, Douglas accepted the prosecutor’s offer. Singleton was convicted solely on the basis of this compensated testimony.

It is possible neither one was guilty of the charges. But for one of them to be assured freedom from prison, maybe from a life-in-prison sentence, it paid Douglas to fabricate lies, especially when the prosecutor protected him against criminal perjury charges. It was another “he-said she-said” type of trial, with Douglas having the benefit of the government of the United States alongside him. The naive jurors received the impression that he was probably telling the truth, despite the fact that DOJ prosecutors routinely solicit and pay for perjured testimony.

Denver attorney John “Val” Wachtel appealed Singleton’s conviction based upon the fact that the sole witness against Singleton was paid to testify, and that this violated the clear wording of the federal statute. Three judges[1] in the Court of Appeals Panel at Denver heard the appeal.

OK for DOJ Prosecutors But Not for Defendants’ Lawyers

Justice Department prosecutors argued that it was legal for them to pay or compensate people for testimony during grand jury and trial jury proceedings even though it was not legal for defense lawyers to do so. The prosecutor has the advantage of being able to free a prisoner or drop charges; the defense lawyers cannot do that. The DOJ attorneys argued that Title 18 USC § 3553(e) permitted them to request a reduction of sentence or dropping of charges for those who provide testimony that prosecutors wanted. That section says:

Upon motion of the Government, the court shall have the authority to impose a sentence below a level established by statute as a minimum sentence so as to reflect a defendant’s substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense. Further, USSG § 5K1.1 provides for reduction of sentence.

They also sought support in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure Rule 35(b):

The court, on motion of the Government made within one year after the imposition of the sentence, may reduce a sentence to reflect a defendant’s subsequent, substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense...

The three-judge Court of Appeals decision denied the government’s position, holding that assistance did not include purchasing testimony. They held that reduction in sentence could be provided for information, but not for sworn testimony:

Each of these provisions of law authorizes only that substantial assistance can be rewarded after it is rendered; none authorized the government to make a deal for testimony before it is given, as the government did with Mr. Douglas. [The paid witness against Singleton.] However § 201(c)(2) prohibits even the rewarding of testimony after it is given; it prohibits anything of value to be given, offered or promised because of “testimony” given. 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(2). The sentencing provisions may thus appear to conflict by authorizing something of value (a motion for and grant of sentence reduction) to be given because of testimony rendered.

We believe the statutes can be read together in this way: in light of § 201(c)(2), “substantial assistance” does not include testimony. Congress enacted the sentencing provisions against the backdrop of its general prohibition against giving anything of value for or because of testimony... Our reading of the statutes will not impair the substantial assistance provisions, because a defendant can substantially assist an investigation or prosecution in myriad ways other than by testifying.... In the circumstances before us, the appropriate remedy for the testimony obtained in violation of § 201(c)(2) is suppression of its use in Ms. Singleton’s trial.

The appeal panel held that the statute’s plain words barring any type of compensa-tion for testimony meant what it said, and applied both to government agents and the public. The Court of Appeals decision reversed the conviction of Singleton, requiring the prosecutor to retry the case without using compensation-tainted testimony. (U.S. v. Singleton, 144 F.3d 1343 (1998)) The decision made sense.

A similar district court decision was made in Miami on August 4, 1998 by U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch in the case of U.S. v. Lowery. In that decision, Judge Zloch held that the deal for a co-defendant’s testimony gave him “every reason to fabricate, falsify or exaggerate his testimony in an attempt to curry favor.”

Motion for EnBanc Rehearing by All 12 Judges

After the three-judge Court of Appeals panel overturned the Singleton dismissal, Department of Justice attorneys filed a rarely used motion for the entire 12-judge Court of Appeals to hear the matter en banc, which it did. On January 8, 1999, the 10th circuit Court of Appeals rendered a decision overturning its three-judge panel, holding that the word, “Whoever,” in Title 18 USC § 210 applied only to the public and did not apply to DOJ prosecutors!

Therefore, DOJ prosecutors continue paying compensation to their witnesses, even though the statute clearly prohibited it. Defense attorneys were barred from doing the same, and innocent people could continue to be imprisoned in this manner. (Many of the Court of Appeals judges were former Department of Justice attorneys.)

Forfeiture Laws, Another Feel-Good Self-Serving
Tough-On-Crime Legislation That Boomeranged on the Public

Another feel-good legislation passed by members of Congress that destroys previous constitutional safeguards is the forfeiture statute. Members of Congress passed the forfeiture statute in 1976 and broadened it in 1984, making it possible to take anyone’s property without charges and without a hearing. The wording appeared innocent enough, as it states the right to seize “all real property which is used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part, to commit, or to facilitate the commission of a violation of the act.” However, as usually occurs, the application of that statute is outrageously unconstitutional, and as usual, no reaction from the victimized public.

As applied, the seizure laws inflict serious financial losses upon people who are innocent of any crime, who are often never charged, or the seizure of assets whose values are often totally out-of-proportion to the real or imaginary offense. The seizure of assets has been expanded to include those who have never been charged with any offense and who don’t get the property back. Rather clever, don’t you think!

Property that had been loaned, or rented to someone else, may be seized for an offense that the owner could not foresee or have any control over. An example of this occurred to an elderly couple in their eighties, whose home in Hamden, Connecticut was seized and sold because a grandson staying in the house had marijuana and cocaine in his possession.

For some people, the loss of the asset may be that person’s primary asset. The property may have been accidentally seized, or seized without justification. The value of the property seized could be totally out of proportion to the offense. An aircraft worth many million of dollar can be seized and forfeited if a few marijuana seeds are found—or planted by government agents or informants.

A couple of drinks before or with a meal may have raised your blood alcohol level to the legal level of as low as .08. In some jurisdictions, this relatively low blood-alcohol level results in seizure of your car. For some people barely surviving financially, this seizure can be catastrophic.

Many asset seizures can occur from even minor technical violations, and the list of offenses is growing as government personnel continue to take away rights that had existed for the first 200 years of this country’s existence. A passive public makes this possible.

Representative Henry Hyde wrote a book about the constitutional outrages arising under the forfeiture statute in which he wrote:

Federal and state officials now have the power to seize your business, bank account, records and personal property, all without indictment, hearing or trial. Everything you have can be taken away at the whim of one or two federal or state officials operating in secret. The more they seize, the more they get for their own official use.”

License to Steal Approved by Supreme Court Justices

“License to Steal” was the heading on an article in San Francisco’s legal newspaper, Daily Journal on March 18, 1996. The subtitle said, “In Supreme Court Ruling, Rights of the Innocent Are Forfeited.” The article made reference to the Supreme Court’s March 1996 decision upholding the right of government agencies seizing property from innocent people. The article stated in part:

The U.S. Supreme Court has given its stamp of approval to states that steal property from innocent people. Such a forfeiture doesn’t violate the constitutional protections of due process, the high court said... Chief Justice William Rehnquist...writes opinions as if he were writing algebraic formulas—they make no reference to the lives they affect...The high court just issued Michigan and other states a license for theft...Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a concurring opinion that in effect apologizes for the decision—yet supports it.

A Wall Street Journal article on December 29, 1997, titled, “The Dangerous Expansion of Forfeiture Laws,” stated:

Asset forfeiture laws have been spreading like a computer virus through the nation’s statute books.... more than 100 federal laws authorize federal agents to confiscate private property allegedly involved in violations of statutes on wildlife, gambling, narcotics, immigration, money laundering, etc. The vast expansion of government’s forfeiture power epitomizes the demise of property rights in modern America.

Federal agents can confiscate private property with no court order and no proof of legal violations. Law-enforcement officials love forfeiture laws because a hefty percentage of the takings often go directly to their coffers.

A federal appeals court complained in 1992: “We continue to be enormously troubled by the government’s increasing and virtually unchecked use of the civil forfeiture statutes and the disregard for due process that is buried in those statutes.”

A September 1992 Justice Department newsletter noted: “Like children in a candy shop, the law enforcement community chose all manner and method of seizing and forfeiting property, gorging ourselves in an effort which soon came to resemble one designed to raise revenues.”

[Innocence is Irrelevant in Forfeiture Of Property]

In many forfeiture cases, innocence is irrelevant. The Supreme Court further tilted the legal playing field against ordinary people last year in a decision in a case involving the innocent co-owner of confiscated property. John Bennis stopped on his way home from work to dally with a prostitute in his Plymouth; Detroit police descended on the scene and seized the car, whose co-owner was Mr. Bennis’s wife, Tina. The court ruled 5-4 that the seizure did not violate the wife’s constitutional rights even through she clearly was not complicit in her husband’s illicit behavior.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote: “The government may not be required to compensate an owner for property which it has already lawfully acquired under the exercise of government authority.” By asserting that the government had already “lawfully acquired” the Bennises’ car simply because it had a law authorizing seizure of the car, Justice Rehnquist basically granted government unlimited power to steal: If it wants to “lawfully acquire” private property without compensation, all it needs to do is write more confiscatory laws.

The article, written by James Bovard, author of Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, described how Justice Department employees strip a defendant of the funds needed to defend herself or herself. Referring to a bill pushed by Representative Henry Hyde, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee,

The new bill greatly expands the power of the prosecutor to seize people’s assets before trial (thereby potentially crippling a person’s ability to hire defense counsel), makes it much more difficult for citizens to get summary judgments against wrongful seizures, and greatly increases the number of crimes for which government can seize a person’s or a corporation’s assets.... “Virtually any business that has any substantive inventory and is extensively regulated by the government is in danger of having its goods seized—even for non-criminal regulatory infractions.”

Your Property is Seized, Now What?

After seizure, government employees don’t have to tell you how to get it back. And major steps must be taken to even try to get it back. The time limit for taking these steps is usually very short, sometimes only ten days after seizure, before the average person even recognizes what happened. Then, the person must find an attorney to take the case, have the money to pay the attorney, and post a bond. Many people cannot meet these requirements, or find the legal costs too expensive to bother.

Who Benefits by Seizing Your Property?

In many cases, property seized by a government agency remains the property of that agency. Government agents sometimes occupy homes that are seized. Cars or airplanes that are seized are often used by the seizing agency. Or the proceeds from the sale of the assets go to the seizing agency. Where govern-ment informants are involved, they get a percentage of the asset value. The more assets that a person has, the greater the incentive for government agents and government informants to file sham charges and seize the assets. Even though innocent, failure or inability to promptly take the necessary legal steps means the assets are lost. The following cases are examples of people who suffered the consequences of the tough-on-crime legislation that can happen to almost any man or women in the United States, including you.

Make A Casual Drug-Related Remark—Go to Prison!

Someone in your group says, maybe in jest, “Let’s get some cocaine and sell it; we’ll make a lot of money.” Nothi-ng else may ever be said or done. But by being present when that statement was made, criminal charges can be filed against you or anyone else who was present. The person being charged may not have done a thing after that statement was made. The charge is conspiracy to engage in drug trafficking. Your length of imprisonment depends upon how boastful the drug statement was.

The person making that casual statement may be a government informant and looking for a target—it could be you. The next step, a paramilitary group breaks down the door to your home several days later, with guns drawn, hollering obscenities, slams you and your wife to the floor, holds a large-caliber gun to your heads that could at any moment accidentally—or purposely—discharge. After you are arrested, your assets are seized. If you have a business, that is shut down. If you have a job, you lose it. If your wife is also charged, your children may end up in foster homes. Surprise; this is part of Congress’ tough-on-crime laws that the public was demanding.

These attacks clearly violate Fourth Amendment protection which states: “The rights of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” But this protection is brutally and openly violated every day of the week as paramilitary forces break down the doors of homes and threaten and even kill innocent people. But the people don’t rise up in protest. How pathetic of them!

Exercise Your Legal and Constitutional Defenses and
Be Charged with Obstruction of Justice

Your assets are seized, so you have to rely upon a government-provided attorney—who doesn’t want to offend the government people who hired him—and he raises a lackluster defense; or is incompetent. A naive jury believes the prosecutor and believes the “government” would not make these charges against you if they were not true. It finds you guilty. In addition, since you were uncooperative by insisting on a trial, the judge adds years to your sentence for alleged “obstruction of justice” or perjury.

The jurors usually have no idea what their guilty decision means for the defendant in length of imprisonment. Maybe you are lucky, and it may only be ten or twenty years. Your children are placed in foster homes. Think it can’t happen to you? Think again; many others felt the same way. You become another victim who ignored warnings about government corruption. You are partly to blame for what has happened to you and your family!

Offer Merchandise for Sale—Go to Prison

How many people would suspect that offering merchandise—a car or real estate—for instance, could result in a long prison term? Tens of thousands of government agents and informants are looking for victims to carry out this next trick. Let’s look at a few examples. Understanding how this is done can save you from a prison sentence

In 1989, German citizen Helmut Groebe, wanted for crimes in four countries, was hired by Department of Justice personnel as an informant. At that time, he had defrauded his new wife, defrauded several other women, and even defrauded his daughter and her husband by stripping their company of its assets. Just the type of person compatible with DOJ culture!

Because of his criminal convictions in other countries, Groebe was not eligible for citizenship in the United States. DOJ personnel offered him citizenship in the United States and then set him loose to prey upon individual Americans. DOJ personnel eventually paid him over $600,000 for perjured testimony that was used against the Groebe-DOJ victims.

Wolfgang von Schlieffen —one of the victims of this DOJ-inspired conspiracy—told me what happened during a 1996 correspondence while he was in prison. Groebe, looking for his next victim or prey, contacted Von Schlieffen, who owned a car dealership in Miami. Groebe, knowing that Wolfgang had a Rolls Royce car and a condominium for sale, falsely told Wolfgang that he had two friends interested in buying in his automobile showroom the condominium that Wolfgang had for sale. This was a Justice Department-approved lie.

During a meeting to close the deal, Wolfgang concentrated on describing the car. The pseudo buyers periodically interjected that they were drug dealers. Not being familiar with this Justice Department scam, Wolfgang didn’t know he was being set up for prison.

A tape of the conversation showed Wolfgang telling them he had no interest in drugs and what they were doing was wrong, that this meeting concerned a car deal. Caught off-guard and not familiar with this common Justice Department entrapment scam, Wolfgang didn’t know he was in a trap. The government agents put $10,000 on the table as a down payment, and when Wolfgang picked it up, government agents pulled out their guns and arrested him.

DOJ prosecutors charged Wolfgang with conspiracy to launder drug money through the sale of the car and the condominium. He was guilty of nothing except being the prey in another Justice Department scam, far worse than a financial scam that merely strips a victim of money.

During the subsequent trial, the unsophisticated jurors believed the charges by the prosecutor and the perjured testimony of the professional con artist, finding Wolfgang guilty. The years of work acquiring a business were all lost. Groebe, who had a history of swindling innocent people, was paid a tidy sum by the Department of Justice for carrying out this fraud.

“How could something like this occur in America?”

From prison, after losing his business, his assets, his freedom, and his good name, Wolfgang wrote, “How could something like this occur in America?” He didn’t know the America that once existed is now in an advanced stage of corruption, with the DOJ culture spreading like a cancer through government and society.

After Wolfgang was released, he filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department on the basis of the false charges. Justice Department prosecutors turned around and filed other criminal charges against Wolfgang, and he ended up back in prison. What a system!

Groebe and DOJ Preying on a Lonely Widow

During the trial against Wolfgang, DOJ prosecutors withheld from the defense several important facts about Groebe’s background. In one case, Groebe defrauded a woman, Elena Abuawad, who he had promised to marry. After defrauding her, he set her up for prison as part of a DOJ scheme by promising to repay her in cash. She was trying to sell a condominium, and Groebe said he had someone who would buy it, and the purchase price would be paid in cash.

DEA Special Agent Lucas, along with several other DEA agents, all part of the scheme against this lady—unsophisticated in the undercover tricks of the Department of Justice—then arrived to pay her cash. Lucas casually told her the money came from drug deals; the legal implications of that statement were far beyond her understanding—as it would be to 99 percent of the public. That statement didn’t mean anything to her. She knew nothing about drugs, and was simply trying to sell a piece of real estate.

Within minutes, the DEA agents arrested her, handcuffed her, and put her in a jail cell. DOJ prosecutors then charged this twice-defrauded woman with a drug-related conspiracy, using the con artist that defrauded her earlier to carry out the scam! She had no criminal record and probably never would have thought of doing anything illegal. The only participants were government agents and the professional con artist hired and paid by the government agents who set up and carried out the s-cheme.

Would you, your wife, or your parents, have been sophisticated enough and quick-witted enough to have known what to do if such a statement was casually made out of the blue?

Again, a dim-witted jury held her guilty while approving the conduct of the Justice Department-con artist conspiracy.

“I was in love,” the Victimized Widow Later Said

The woman later said: “I was in love. I wanted to get married, and I wanted to have a home again. If he asked me to do something, I was going to do it because I didn’t want to lose him.” The woman’s attorney later filed an appeal, stating in it:

It is difficult to imagine misconduct more egregious, more immoral, more unfair or more improper than that of the government using and paying an informant to falsely profess his love to a woman with no prior criminal record, to violate her person by making love to her, under the pretense that he has romantic feelings for her to become involved in a criminal offense by playing on and with her emotions and taking advantage of her psychological vulnerability.

America’s Gun Owners Beware—Prison May Be Your Next Stop

Millions of gun owners who purchased guns that were legal at the time of purchase can end up in prison and be financially destroyed, solely at the whim of a bureaucrat from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) or Justice Department. I first heard from W.J. Chip Stewart in 1997, whose home was Springdale, Arkansas, after he had been charged with a federal offense by the ATF for having in his possession two semi-automatic handguns. They were legal to own when he purchased them, a small 22 caliber and a 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol made by the Holmes Firearms Company, similar to those owned by millions of other people. ATF bureaucrats decided, after many of these guns were sold, that the widely sold semi-automatic guns could be converted by a gunsmith to become an automatic weapon and were therefore illegal.

Government agents had gotten Stewart’s name from the gun manufacturers’ registration records. ATF agents notified Stewart that the (legally purchased) guns were now unlawful. Stewart voluntarily turned the guns over to them. Eight months later, Justice Department prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment against him.

Stewart, who owned an auto wrecking business and was a permanent member of the community, could have been served peacefully with the warrant for his arrest. Instead, sixteen heavily armed ATF and FBI agents and local sheriff’s department personnel converged upon his home, breaking down the door. Fortunately for Stewart, he wasn’t home. Otherwise, he could have met the deadly fate of Scott, the Weavers, the Branch Davidians, or the many others who were killed by the “brave” men of ATF and FBI.

ATF and Justice Department attorneys, assisted by the typical naive jurors, unsophisticated to the corrupt culture in the Department of Justice, caused Stewart to be sentenced to federal prison for twenty-seven months. As a result of his imprisonment, Stewart lost his business, his wife (who didn’t wish to be inconvenienced by his imprisonment), his credit worthiness, and his money.

Imprisoning a Doctor on Perjured Testimony

In 1997 I started receiving information from a physician who had been targeted in a similar gun-charge. Dr. Jed Cserna was an MD with a private practice in Ely, Nevada, and a Lt. Colonel in the Idaho National Guard, with 16 years of military service behind him. His problems started in Ely, Nevada, where he was a physician. Cserna told me that while he was treating a patient, Doris Gratzer, she told him, “If I’m ever shot, Steve [her husband] did it.” Dr. Cserna told this to the hospital staff and they said that she always had problems, and this occasion was no different than others. A week later, she was found dead, killed by a bullet wound to the head.

Cserna said her husband, Steve Gratzer, was influential in the town, especially with the sheriff, who was responsible for conducting an investigation into his wife’s killing. Cserna was now a danger to Gratzer. According to Cserna, false statements were made by a government informant seeking to justify his informant’s pay and for government payments that resulted in a raid by ATF agent Doreen on his doctor’s office. His home was broken into and possessions disappeared. Participating in the ATF raid was the sheriff who he referred to as Burnie (Ronero), who would soon participate in sham charges filed against the doctor.

Government agents arrested Cserna a short time later and charged him with possession of a machine gun and a short-barreled rifle. The guns in question were an AR-15 that was not an automatic, and a Uzi 9 mm that had been sold to him with a folding stock and various barrels. He had used both guns two and three times a week at the local police firing range and was never questioned about their legality.

Inflammatory Statement by DOJ Prosecutor

Witnesses testified that the guns were legal and in common use by gun hobbyists. By misrepresenting the facts, the prosecutor convinced a jury that the doctor did in fact commit a federal offense and that it was their duty to find him guilty. Inflaming the jury in his closing argument, the prosecutor said, just before the jurors recessed, “Either this gun nut will take his machine gun and kill you and your kids or he’ll sell it to someone who will.”

The jury came back in 21 minutes with a guilty verdict. With that verdict, Dr. Cserna, an MD who spent nearly ten years to get his license and who had devoted long hours to his medical practice in a small town, lost his right to practice medicine in the United States.

DOJ Retaliation Because of Refusing Ruby Ridge Participati-on?

Cserna told me about an event that happened in Idaho while he was the physician assigned to the Idaho National Guard air wing. During the Ruby Ridge attack that killed Mrs. Weaver and her son, ATF agents had gone to the Idaho National Guard base and told the Commander of the helicopter division, “We are ordering you to activate your choppers to go north and strafe Ruby Ridge.” The Colonel refused, stating, “This is against the law, the constitution, and finally, Randy Weaver is an Idaho Citizen, Either you get out or I’ll have you thrown out.”

According to Cserna, the ATF wanted to take out their frustration on any high-ranking Idaho Guard member. Everyone of rank who lived in Idaho was fairly well secure in the state, but he, a Lt. Colonel with the Idaho National Guard, lived in Nevada, and didn’t have the long-standing connections the other officers had. Cserna thought this could have played a role in why the ATF then went after him. The charges against Cserna were similar to what I learned over the years from other gun owners who were also falsely charged under similar circumstances. Cserna’s evidence relating to Doris Gratzer’s murder was blocked by filing false charges against him.

“I was guilty of believing in the United States”

Upon release from prison in 1998, Cserna left the United States and settled in Switzerland. In one of his letters he wrote, “I was guilty, not of the charges, but instead, of believing in the United States.” Decades earlier I first learned the frustration of the corroding of quality of life in California by the legal and judicial fraternity, and how I thought about what a group, in control, can do to corrupt an area. The same legal and judicial fraternities are now corrupting life on a national scale. Over the years a number of my sources have left the United States because of this same pattern of corruption by people who have taken over key offices in the U.S.

Tsunami Expert Set Up as Patsy: Goes to Prison

George Pararas-Carayannis was known for his expertise on major tidal waves known as tsunami that are triggered by earthquakes. He was director of the Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii. He also had a small jewelry store as a side business to his government job. He would shortly be one of the thousands of victims of Department of Justice fraud who was put in prison without having committed any offense except to fall victim to a DOJ-con artist conspiracy.

Federal agents had earlier arrested a Canadian, Lauri McEwen, in Honolulu on drug charges, and offered to drop charges if she could get evidence against others. McEwen carried out the fraudulent sting operation by becoming friendly with Pararas, falsely representing herself as an interior decorator and head of an escort service.

The young and attractive McEwen, wearing stunning clothes, feigned a love interest in Pararas. After getting into his confidence, she asked Pararas to run credit card charges from her “escort” business through his credit card machine at the jewelry store. He made no money out of it and was simply doing a favor for someone he thought was his girl friend. He promptly turned the money over to her after it was credited to his account.

Federal prosecutors then accused Pararas of money laundering resulting from processing money from a prostitution ring through his merchant credit card account. When Carayannis next saw his lady friend, she no longer had the low-cut dresses and loving smile.

Federal prosecutors offered to reduce the charges if he pled guilty to one of them. He refused. He wasn’t guilty of anything. Fighting the power of the government with its unlimited funds and ability to intimidate jurors, Carayannis lost everything after a jury decided he was guilty and the judge sentenced him to three years in prison. As a result of the false charges, he was fired from his government job in 1995. He later said, “I had faith in this system. I thought with this kind of evidence and due process, I would be acquitted.” Having already suffered several heart attacks, prison was difficult for him.

Apply for Loan--Be Charged with Drug Money Laundering

Beryle Johnston, from Papillion, Nebraska, was offered a deal by undercover government agents to refinance his farm. They instructed him to meet the lenders in Florida to complete the transaction. During the discussion, government informant Jerry Woody told Johnston that the people putting up the money for the loan were members of the Cali Cartel. That did it. Johnson, like most people, didn’t know the significance of that DOJ statement, that it was a standard trick used by Department of Justice attorneys to destroy another victim. He did not know the legal ramifications. What came next? You guessed it; DOJ prosecutors charged him with drug money laundering.

During the trial, FBI agents perjured themselves, falsely stating that Woody owned a bank and had handled billions of dollars. The truth was, Woody didn’t have any bank. He didn’t have any money. He was living off his girlfriend’s credit cards. The government agents knew this. Based upon this DOJ fraud and perjury, a jury convicted Johnston. Woody later admitted his testimony was perjured. But it was too late to save Johnston or the farm the government seized. And the legal and judicial system has made government agents immune from suit to where neither they—nor the government—could be sued for their criminal misconduct.

Hire A Lobbyist—Go to Prison

Lobbyists and bribery go hand in hand when dealing with members of Congress. But it is a different scenario for non-government small fry, even when they are innocent. For example, William Moore’s company developed an optical scanning device that he tried to sell to the U.S. Postal Service. He publicly criticized the postal service for sticking to an inferior product. A government undercover agent advised Moore to seek a lobbyist to promote his device with the postal service. He hired lobbyist John R. Gnau, Jr., who, unknown to him, had been passing bribes with William Spartin to a member of the Postal Service’s board of governors, Peter E. Voss. All three of them were being investigated by the DOJ. All of this was unknown to Moore.

Tearing Up Immunity Agreement for Refusing to Lie

DOJ employees had made a written agreement with Spartin that if he cooperated in the prosecution of Gnau and Moore he would not be prosecuted. Spartin was willing to testify about Gnau’s bribing, but said that Moore knew nothing about it. For refusing to commit the requested crime of perjury, the DOJ prosecutor tore up the immunity agreement and said he would prosecute Spartin.

Spartin’s attorney then asked the prosecutor for another chance, after which Spartin “refreshed” his memory and stated that Moore did know about the bribes, which everyone knew was a lie. The prosecutor then marched Spartin into the grand jury room and asked Spartin if he had told postal inspectors that Moore knew about the bribes. Spartin replied in the affirmative. The corrupt prosecutor never told the jurors that Spartin had said over a dozen times in earlier questioning that Moore did not know.

DOJ Requesting Others to Commit Perjury

That was not the end of the prosecutor’s misuse of prosecutorial power. He prepared a statement for one of Moore’s employees, Frank Bray, to sign, stating that Moore knew about the bribes. When the employee refused to sign, the DOJ prosecutor threatened to charge him with perjury.

Moore, one of America’s naive public, said: “I did not believe this could happen to somebody like me in America. I’m a patriot, businessman. I got to the pinnacle of my success and these guys used criminal statutes to bring me down when I hadn’t done anything.” Moore lost his company and was put into a state of poverty.

True to form, the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility held that the prosecutor’s conduct was accept-able. Robert Bennett, one of Moore’s attorneys (who later represented President Bill Clinton ) called the DOJ conduct “an outrageous and shameful exercise of prosecutorial power, frighteningly abused.”

Moore’s Attorney Sued the Government

Moore was fortunate in finding a law firm that was willing to sue the government on a contingency fee basis. The Cleveland firm of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue agreed to file suit on a contingency basis, filing the case in a Texas court seeking $30 million in damages. The lawsuit charged that the DOJ prosecutor Valder brought the suit because Moore had criticized the government. The lawsuit charged that the DOJ prosecutor and postal inspectors with multiple offenses: pressured witnesses to give perjured testimony; withheld evidence showing Moore’s innocence; provided false, misleading, or incomplete evidence to the grand jury, and concealed or destroyed exculpatory evidence. The lawsuit charged that the federal prosecutor told postal inspectors he didn’t care if Moore was guilty or not, and wanted to obtain a high-profile indictment to further his own career.

In response, the DOJ argued that the government was absolutely immune for its conduct, no matter how illegal or corrupt. This argument was upheld by the judge protecting the system, who probably also wanted to protect the concurrent judicial immunity that was part of the government-immunity doctrine.

I think back to how I offended powerful people in government. First, as an FAA inspector I tried to expose a pattern of criminal misconduct at United Airlines and within the FAA related to a series of fatal airline crashes. Later, as I sought to expose other criminality documented in my other books. Raw government power was criminally misused against me to silence me and to retaliate against me for exposing the crud.

Preying on Financially Strapped DeLorean

DOJ personnel use these corrupt schemes to prey on those vulnerable due to severe financial problems. They did this with financially ailing carmaker, John DeLorean. DeLorean had no interest in drugs, but government agents set up a scheme and then induced or pressured him to cooperate.

DOJ: Cooperate or your daughter’s head will be in a paper bag!

At one point, when DeLorean did not want to go along with the government’s scheme, one of the Justice Department’s agents seeking to induce him to continue, said, “John, I want you to understand something. If you don’t cooperate, your daughter’s head will be brought to you in a paper bag!” (Attorneys in the Department of Justice were never known to have any recognizable finesse.)

Fortunately for DeLorean during the 1986 trial, the jury recognized the scheme and acquitted him on the basis that he would not have considered committing a drug offense if government agents had not induced him into it. The jury felt that government agents went after a desperate man to commit an act that he would not otherwise have committed. Bravo for a rare intelligent jury!

Introduce Two People to Each Other—Go to Prison

For arranging a meeting between a drug supplier and a drug dealer, Clarence Aaron was arrested and sentenced to three consecutive life-in-prison sentences. Aaron had no drugs. He had no money. He simply arranged a meeting. For giving testimony against Aaron, DOJ prosecutors dropped charges against the people actually dealing in drugs. If DOJ prosecutors had filed charges against the actual drug traffickers and none testified for the government, they might have been acquitted. But by having the real drug traffickers testify against an innocent person, at least the Justice Department can get a guilty verdict from the jury in most cases.

Watch Your Friends

A drug sting instigated by a friend who faced federal prosecution for another drug offense caused an 18-year-old boy, Joey Settembrino —who had never committed an offense—to be sentenced to ten years in prison without parole. His friend had been arrested earlier, and the DOJ prosecutor offered reduction in charges if he would implicate others. Settembrino became the target. The friend asked Settembri-no to get him LSD, which was done, and a DEA agent was waiting to arrest him. The joint conspiracy using the DEA agent worked: Settembrino went to prison, the DEA agent got his reward, and the friend who was into drugs had charges dropped.

DOJ Paying Witnesses to Engage in a Conspiracy to Lie

DOJ agents paid former lobbyist Ron Cobb, who had been arrested on drug charges in 1989, $4000 a month and a $150,000 bonus if he could assist in targeting state legislators in South Carolina. Cobb then lied in an effort to bring about the conviction of several targeted legislators. Cobb lied to a federal grand jury with full knowledge of Justice Department prosecutors. U.S. District judge Falcon Hawkins dismissed the charges in 1997, stating:

The breadth and scope of the government’s misconduct and the involvement of the FBI during this entire incident was and is shocking. Most offensive to this court is that the government sat silent when it knew that its silence would not only fail the efforts of the defendants to fully develop defenses to which they were entitled, but would misrepresent facts to both the grand jury and the trial court, and mislead the court to such an extent as to affect its rulings. This silence is subornation of perjury.

Violate a Technical Business Requirement—Go to Prison

Anything placed in the mail invokes the mail fraud statute if any of the thousands of government technical requirements are violated. Eugene Kent learned about this the hard way. Mail fraud charges were filed against him for co-mingling money in a self-insurance fund his insurance company had set up for a number of South Dakota banks. No money was lost or misplaced; it was technical violation. Kent hadn’t done anything vicious or with the intent to defraud. Company funds were casually placed in the same account as the reserve funds. The jurors acquitted Kent of all charges except the mail fraud, and this opened the door for a prison sentence.

He might not have been indicted except for the fact that during grand jury testimony a government agent gave perjured testimony. The lying government agent did not suffer any consequences. When Kent later discovered this fact and filed a motion for a new trial, the judge refused to grant it, stating that the information withheld from him by the DOJ should have been raised during the trial. Kent went to prison, and this was followed by the usual financial and personal tragedies, including family breakup.

Employee Charged for Crimes Committed by Boss

Another way that your world can come tumbling down is to be an employee in a business where, unknown to you, there is drug activity. The boss is arrested and given a chance to implicate others, thereby giving the prosecutor a witness to back up the charges. Suddenly, you are charged with being a drug kingpin based upon the perjured testimony of the real drug kingpin!

Here is another example. Norberto Guerra and Ramon Jimenez worked on a boat that brought drugs into the United States. They suspected something like that was going on but had no role in it. DOJ prosecutors first charged their bosses—who were bringing in the drugs—with drug-related offenses. When the evidence against the real drug traffickers was difficult to track down, DOJ prosecutors made the real drug traffickers a deal. Justice Department prosecutors used the known perjured testimony of the actual drug traffickers—Raul Sanchez who brought tons of cocaine into the United States and also confessed to two murders, and convicted murderer, Leonardo Alvarez—against the two employees. They were charged with being the kingpins responsible for bringing almost four tons of cocaine into the United States.

DOJ Fraudulently Withholding Exculpatory Evidence

Despite repeated requests by defense attorneys to turn over information about their witnesses, the requests were improperly refused. DOJ attorneys fraudulently stated they had no information. Sanchez failed a lie-detector test, which was withheld from defense attorneys. It was later learned that DOJ agents and prosecutors had destroyed hundreds of pages relating to interviews and data on their key witness, Sanchez. During trial, Sanchez falsely stated that he had not received any promise of leniency in return for his testimony. That was perjury, and the DOJ personnel hearing it aided and abetted it by remaining silent.

Don’t Anger Department of Justice Employees

Lawyer Patrick Duffy said, as he defended archaeologist Peter Larson in South Dakota, “Don’t anger the Department of Justice.” Larson had obtained authorization from a property owner to search for what he found, the skeleton of a fossil. He had paid the ranch owner for the find and then donated it to the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. DOJ prosecutors then stepped in, claiming the person who gave Duffy permission to search for fossils had placed his property in trust with the federal government and the government agents now claimed the fossil belonged to the government. That fossil would never have been found except for the diggings by Duffy. Duffy appealed this claim to federal courts, without success. For having fought the matter in court—which Duffy warned could result in DOJ retaliation—DOJ prosecutors charged Larson with a federal offense that ended up with a two-year prison sentence. For a fossil!

Escort Service Owner Refuses to Conspire With
DEA—Goes to Prison for Ten Years

Robin Marie Head ran an “escort service” in Austin and Houston, Texas, the type found in large cities throughout the United States, which most police departments ignore. She was approached by ATF, DEA and FBI agents seeking to have her become an informant and give them the names of her clients. They wanted to blackmail political figures and judges, influence elections and court cases, and engage in extortion. The agents were particularly interested in obtaining information on critics of President Bill Clinton. Further, they wanted to become co-owners with her in her business.

Head told them the only way she could reveal the names would be through a court order. Angered at this defiance, federal agents started harassing her, making threatening phone calls, and finally after a year of this, federal agents charged her with operating an organized criminal activity (i.e., running an “escort service”).

Head said that they went after her son, and made life miserable for him. After she was sent to prison, her phone lines were taken over by government agents who lured her former customers to another escort service controlled by covert government agents.

Several of my deep-cover sources have told me over the years that many escort services (and adult movie or porn shops) are fronts for the CIA and other government agencies, and they particularly described their contacts with escort services in the San Francisco area and adult movie operations in San Diego.

Head described how undercover agencies “lure young naive females into doing overseas drug smuggling in order to bust them, thereby holding these young ladies under submission.”

She said one of the ATF agents, Mike Taylor, who was involved in the attack upon the Waco Davidian group, threatened her. She said her court-appointed attorney sabotaged her defense, warning her that he would file habitual criminal charges against her if she did not plead guilty. She said that her attorney repeatedly said, “I will see that you get the life sentence that you deserve.” She explained:

This is a very tight organization of old time good-old-boys. It is very elite and includes all the heavies and power people. They want more power; i.e. election fraud, more judicial control, etc. This clique is greedy and vile to the core. They will kill, or pay to have someone killed. This elite gang also includes attorney Richard Racehorse Haynes and the like. They are the backbone of Texas, true power, and they want more.

In describing the arrogance of the ATF agents, she described an incident in which they shot the owner of a topless club because he demanded they pay the $5 cover charge, and then put the owner in jail, which was followed by getting the IRS after him.

Government-Entrapped Victim Received Greater Sentence
Than Murderer Who Killed His Wife on Their Honeymoon

Out of a job, a government informant named Scott had been busted on drug charges. DOJ prosecutors offered him a reduction in sentence if he could find someone else to charge. Scott then pressured a friend, Staufer, to find LSD for him, something that Staufer had not done before. Staufer had no money to finance such a transaction, but government agents took care of that. At first, Staufer could not get enough LSD to satisfy the prosecutor who was seeking to send him to prison for a much longer term. The informant kept pressuring Staufer until he was able to find a supplier who would sell him the larger amount on consignment. Staufer was then arrested by the government agents who developed, funded, and coordinated the entire conspiracy.

A Los Angeles judge sentenced Michael Staufer to the mandatory 12-year prison sentence. The judge lamented that the Court of Appeals had just overturned a life sentence that he gave to a man who killed his wife by throwing her overboard on a honeymoon ship cruise. He was now required, by law passed by Congress, to give the 21-year old Staufer a longer sentence than the murderer received.

Casual Statement to FBI Agent on Beach—Go to Prison

U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniel-lo at San Francisco charged U.S. District Judge Robert P. Aguilar (June 1989) with misusing his judicial position in a racketeering enterprise (RICO) and obstructing justice. What were the charges based upon?

• He allegedly made false statements to an FBI agent while Aguilar was sitting on the beach in his swimsuit at Waikiki during a Hawaiian vacation.

• He gave legal advice to an attorney friend to use in defending Aguilar’s brother-in-law.

• He told his brother-in-law not to call him because the brother-in-law’s phone might be tapped.

  The real reason for prosecuting Aguilar for these relatively minor matters was that Aguilar often disagreed with the Justice Department prosecutors in judicial proceedings. Aguilar halted the deportation of refugees that Justice Department attorneys wanted deported. He also once engaged in a heated argument with U.S. Attorney Russoniello in open court, threatening Russoniello with contempt of court. No one was harmed by Aguilar’s acts and he made no money or profited in any way.

  Accountant Makes an Error on Your Tax Form: You Go to Prison

  Another judge targeted by Justice Department prosecutors (1986) was U.S. District Judge Harry Claiborne in Las Vegas. Prosecutors charged Claibor-ne with bribery and other offenses related to failure to properly show expenses on his income tax statement. Claiborne-‘s accountant had failed to list the profit made on one of several real estate transactions on Claiborne’s income tax report. Claiborne had rendered decisions unfavorable to the Justice Department in the past. This retaliatory prosecution removed Claiborne from a position where he could oppose DOJ prosecutors. It also sent a warning to other judges who might not be sufficiently cooperative with DOJ prosecutors.

  Justice Department prosecutors used Nevada brothel owner Joseph Conforte, who had been sentenced to prison, to testify against Claiborne. In return, DOJ prosecutors promised Conforte that charges would be dropped against him. Conforte had been sentenced for income tax evasion, compounded with bail-jumping charges for fleeing to Brazil where he was presently located. By giving false testimony, Conforte would have his prison sentence dropped, would retain his otherwise forfeitable assets, and be granted immunity for perjury.

  DOJ Threat Against Members of Congress

  The mere investigation by the FBI, DEA or any other division of the Department of Justice can cause a member of the U.S. Senate or House to lose an election. Justice Department employees can easily fabricate charges, especially conspiracy charges, which can be almost fabricated out of thin air, and your career is destroyed.

  Possibly the fear of what Justice Department employees can do was one of the reasons every member of Congress to whom I brought evidence of government corruption during the past 30 years refused to respond. But this was no excuse for aiding and abetting the criminal activities. They had a duty under federal criminal statutes and by their position to perform their congressional oversight duties or responsibilities. When they accepted their position, they assumed the responsibilities that went with the pay, the perks, and the prestige. If they were too cowardly to perform, they should have resigned. Dream on!

  Dangerous for Defense Lawyers to Vigorously
  Defend Clients Against the Justice Department

  In the San Francisco area, Justice Department prosecutor Anthony White, displeased with lawyer Clarence Hallinan’s vigorous defense of his clients against Justice Department charges, used one of Hallinan’s clients, Ciro Wayne Mancuso, to make false charges against the attorney. Mancuso had been convicted earlier of income tax fraud and fled to South America. Justice Department prosecutors offered Mancuso a deal: release from the prison sentence, dropping of forfeiture actions against $600,000 in a Swiss bank account, and Mancuso could keep over $4 million in property that would otherwise have been seized. In exchange, Mancuso would have to testify as DOJ prosecutors wanted him to testify, against Hallinan. An additional plus for Mancuso: DOJ would immunize him against the perjured testimony. He couldn’t lose.

  Jurors with Greater “Street Smarts” Than Most

  Fortunately, the jury in Reno had more street smarts than most jurors, especially middle class jurors who shield themselves from unpleasant realities. They didn’t believe the DOJ prosecutor, and they didn’t believe the DOJ’s paid witness. The jury found Hallinan not guilty (United States v. Hallinan, CRN-39-HDM Nevada). In 1996, Mancuso’s lawyers appealed his sentence claiming that DOJ’s prosecutor White had promised that he would not get any prison time if he testified against Hallinan.

  Apply for Loan, Embellish Details—Go to Prison

  Here is a trick by which Justice Department employees can prey on almost any adult and put almost anyone in prison. You submit a loan application and somewhere in the many details you exaggerate your income, your length of employment, your assets, or some other information. People are prosecuted and sentenced to prison on this minor matter all the time.

  It doesn’t matter that you have made your payments on time, that no one suffers any loss that the lender is happy, or even that the loan has already been paid off. Thousands of government agents and informants comb through records in financial institutions, in pawnshops, in gun shops, looking for technical violations with which they can charge some luckless man or woman with a federal crime. Any ambitious prosecutor, government agent, or informant, can go over old loan records and find where you or your wife, or anyone who co-signs with you, even your aged parents, exaggerated some part of your application, and charge all of you with offenses that can send each of you to prison. I’ve met people who suffered like that for the last 12 years.

  Let’s add a little more reality to the above scenario. You’ve already committed this “crime,” maybe 20 years ago. During the night, a paramilitary force breaks down the door to your home, the thugs terrorize your family, ransack your home, destroy furniture. If you happen to suspect they are criminals and appear with a gun, you may be shot dead. You are hauled off in chains, and your neighbors think you are guilty of some major crime; they think, surely the government wouldn’t do something like this if you weren’t guilty of a heinous offense! This is not far-fetched; I’ve met people who were sent to prison under these same conditions.

  Threatening an Aged Parent or Wife to Obtain Confession

  This culture preys on everyone. If you refuse to plead guilty, they have another trick to play on you. Your wife, mother, or some other member of your family is threatened with criminal charges if you don’t plead guilty. It doesn’t matter that you are innocent; that’s the last thought that would enter the minds of the Department of Justice gang. The “government” that you previously thought would never do such things has been doing them for years. Wake up; it happens all the time. And it happens because the uninformed and apathetic Americans let it happen.

  Refuse to Lie for DOJ Prosecutors—Go to Prison!

  A federal judge sentenced a young lady to federal prison (1989) for failure to remember details of stock transactions that happened several years earlier while she was a stockbroker for Drexel Burnham Lambert (which incidentally had CIA connections). Lisa Jones, a 24-year-old dropout and runaway who became financially successful at the Wall Street investment firm of Drexel, was one of the first witnesses called by Justice Department attorneys investigating insider trading and other security violations at Drexel. Her sense of honesty and integrity prevented her from fabricating the testimony requested by Justice Department attorneys. And for refusing to lie, she paid a heavy price.

  In retaliation for refusing to lie, Justice Department attorneys charged her with perjury and obstruction of justice, resulting in an eighteen-month prison sentence. She was paraded in chains from prison to prison, a standard humiliation inflicted by arrogant government personnel misusing the raw power of government. Prison transportation for a woman is especially hard, traveling in chains and the subject of leers and snide remarks by male inmates.

  After all this, Drexel’s attorneys sued the young lady for payment of legal fees that Drexel had agreed to pay. In response to Drexel’s claim that they would sue Ms. Jones for the amount of money that they had advanced, San Francisco attorney Daniel Bookin stated: “It is inconceivable to me that Drexel would sue Lisa after all that she’s gone through, and in view of her serious psychological problems. All issues of compassion and decency aside, however, one simple fact seems certain: Lisa has virtually no assets; she could not even begin to repay the cost of her legal representation.”

  Sacramento Real Estate Developer Refused to Lie: Goes To Prison

  Another example in the same judicial district: Justice Department prosecutors charged a Sacramento area real estate developer, Marcel Cordi, with a federal crime for refusing to falsely testify against a bank officer whom Justice Depart-ment prosecutors wanted to convict. Sacramento U.S. Attorney David Levi wanted Marcel to testify against a bank official and alter the facts in his testimony. Marcel was willing to testify, but would not lie to enable Justice Department prosecutors to falsely convict the person. In retaliation for refusing to commit perjury, U.S. Attorney Levi charged Marcel with fraud based upon an incorrect statement on a prior loan application relating to his length of employment.

  Contempt of Court for Reporting Government Corruption

  Levi charged me with contempt of court in 1987, retaliating against me for filing an action in the U.S. District Court at Sacramento seeking to report to a federal judge serious criminal activities that I and several of my CIA assets had discovered. This report to a federal judge (or other federal officer) is mandatory under the clearly worded requirements of federal criminal statute, Title 18 USC Section 4. Levi and Judge Milton Schwartz refus-ed to receive our evidence.

  In retaliation for seeking to make such reports, they charged me and prosecuted me for criminal contempt of court for seeking to present such evidence, based upon an earlier order that barred me from federal court for the remainder of my life: an obviously unlawful and unconstitutional order. In the process, they also violated the constitutional right to a jury trial which ended up in a Kangaroo Court trial and sentence. Details on this matter can be found in the third editions of Unfriendly Skies and Defrauding America.

  Levi’s conduct may have played a role in his appointment in 1992 to a federal judgeship, where he is now a U.S. District Judge in Sacramento. It is standard practice to appoint Justice Department officials who “cooperate” to the federal bench, increasing the probability of Justice Department prosecutors prevailing in court.

  Aircraft Broker Sells Airplane, Refused to Lie—Goes to Prison

  A Memphis aircraft broker sold an aircraft to a customer who later used it to fly drugs. The aircraft broker had no way of knowing the background of the buyer or how the plane was to be used—nor was he required to become an investigator. Later, when federal authorities arrested drug traffickers and were building a case against the suspects, they requested the aircraft broker to fabricate testimony to assist in obtaining convictions.

  The broker was willing to testify, but had enough integrity that he wasn’t going to lie. Justice Department attorneys retaliated, charging him with misprision of a felony (Title 18 USC Section 4) on the basis that he failed to report to federal authorities the aircraft was to be used in unlawful activities. (Strange, I was charged with contempt of court for reporting high-level government corruption that I sought to report under the same statute!)

  The aircraft broker was subsequently put on trial with 32 other defendants, some of whom were guilty of drug-related offenses. Without competent legal counsel to provide an adequate defense, and unsophisticated, lazy, or naive jurors who accepted the “government’s” charges as true, the aircraft broker was held guilty under the conspiracy statute and sentenced to five years in federal prison. He never committed a crime.

  He, and the others listed here, and the thousands of others not listed here who were innocent, provided figures showing the “success” of the Congressional legislation and the public’s “feel-good” response to crime.

  Suicide Induced by Federal Tactics

  There are other unfortunate consequences to these “feel-good” practices. When that broker was in a county jail near Memphis waiting for trial, he witnessed the fatal consequences of these outrages. His cellmate, Mike Scarlett from Texas, had been enticed by federal agents into making the controlled substance “speed.” Knowing that Scarlett was having serious financial problems supporting his family, he was excellent prey. Federal agents encouraged him to produce the drug, taught him how to produce it, financed the operation, and set him up with the equipment and a location.

  On the first day Scarlett started to make it, federal agents arrested him, charging him with manufacturing amphetamines that they had induced him to make—and which he would not have made without their coaxing, pressure, assistance, and equipment. He would never have committed the offense if government agents and informants hadn’t been it up.

  While in prison, Scarlett discovered that his wife was sleeping with one of the federal agents who set him up. The aircraft broker told me that Scarlett was very distraught-looking after phoning his wife. He described how the inmate wrote what was later discovered to be a suicide note. Scarlett hung a bed sheet over the prison bars, as if he wanted privacy for sleeping. Behind the sheet, Scarlett stepped onto the rim of the toilet and tied a strip torn from a bed sheet to a grill near the ceiling. Scarlett then stepped off of the toilet and hung himself.

  Forcing Wife into Sex to Avoid Federal Charges

  A DEA agent in Northern California reportedly forced a wife to have sex with him and then testify against her husband, according to an action filed in the U.S. District Court at San Francisco by attorney J. Tony Serra who specializes in cases involving the underdog. John Dalton was indicted in 1996 for involvement in a marijuana-related conspiracy in the heavy marijuana growing area of Northern California. Testifying against him was his wife, who reportedly had sex with DEA agent Mark Nelson. The DEA agent reportedly encouraged her to tape record her husband’s comments about marijuana while they were in bed together. The DEA agent reportedly threatened the woman with money laundering charges if she did not cooperate.

  Killing a Nearly Blind Ranche-r: “Success” in the Drug War

  A screaming paramilitary force burst into the home of a wealthy and nearly blind rancher, Donald Scott, near Malibu, California (October 2, 1992). Federal personnel had tried to buy the ranch to expand the adjacent Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area but Scott, a recluse, partially blinded by recent cataract surgery, didn’t want to sell. The multi-agency drug task force of over two dozen heavily armed California and federal agents[2]mounted a military-type assault upon Scott’s home late at night. They used the excuse that an informant said there was a field of marijuana spotted from a plane flying over the 200-acre property in the hills above Malibu called Trail’s End.

  Instead of going to the ranch in a peaceful manner with a search warrant, they conducted a commando-type raid, breaking into Scott‘s home while he was sleeping, and killed him as he came out of his bedroom. No marijuana plants or drugs were found on his property. There was no reason for this commando-type raid, as there was no need for the element of surprise. If Scott had actually been growing fields of marijuana, he could not suddenly dump it down the toilet. The peaceful serving of a search warrant was all that was necessary.

  Investigation showed that the real motive was not a search for drugs, but a desire to seize Scott‘s ranch under federal forfeiture laws. Scott’s wife had been a former drug user and if the slightest speck of drugs could be found on the property, the five million-dollar ranch could be seized under the draconian federal forfeiture laws.

  Subsequent investigation revealed that federal agents had obtained a property appraisal before invading Scott‘s home, showing the value of adjoining property and indicating the desire to seize the property. Federal personnel in charge of the raid advised the attacking agents to look for evidence of drugs so as to justify seizing the property. None of the killers were ever punished.

  Multiple Life Sentences for Someone who Never Saw any Drugs

  Peter Hidalgo escaped from Cuba to the United States in the late 1960s and become a boat builder and racer. He, his wife, and small daughter lived in a modest cottage and felt they were in paradise compared to what they left. But that would change in late 1992 as they joined the endless list of victims of Congress’ feel-good legislation and DOJ fraud.

  Hidalgo had not been part of any drug operation. He had no involvement with drugs. He knew nothing about them. Taped conversations showed his name never appeared in any government surveillance. Drug traffickers, who had already been arrested, were offered release if they implicated someone else. Through fabricated testimony, they testified that Hidalgo was the drug kingpin. Now, Justice Department prosecutors had people willing to testify, so a conviction was more certain and easier to obtain. The people used by DOJ prosecutors to testify against Hidalgo were major drug traffickers and killers. Hidalgo lived a modest life style raising a family.

  The Department of Justice reportedly paid one witness $500,000 to testify as the prosecutor wanted him to testify. Another witness against Hidalgo bragged to his cellmates that he had received a substantial reduction in his prison sentence in exchange for lying during trial. One witness, not happy with lying, told his sister he feared for his safety for not being willing to lie. He was found dead shortly thereafter, probably murdered to keep the DOJ scheme from being exposed.

  False Confidence in State of Denial Jurors

  Hidalgo felt confident that he would be found innocent. His name never appeared in any of the many taped telephone conversations, suggesting his innocence. But Hidalgo didn’t realize that it didn’t matter that DOJ prosecutors knew he was innocent; they would prosecute anyone to show another conviction on their record. In 1999, in Leavenworth federal prison, Hidalgo was reported to have said, “These people have broke me financially; they broke up my family. The only thing they won’t be able to break is my dignity and my principle. If they get me a new trial, I’m gonna show what the government has done, that it’s out of control.” Lots of luck, Hidalgo, you’ll need it!

  Sending Senior Citizen to Prison: $4 Million in Taxes Not Enough

  Justice Department prosecutors charged Leona Helmsley with evading income taxes and sentenced the 72-year-old woman to four years in federal prison, leaving behind her 81-year-old husband who, at his age, could be dead before her release date. Helmsley’s accountants had claimed as business expenses, charges that Justice Department attorneys considered not business related. Helmsley paid over $4 million federal income taxes in the disputed tax year, and the amount owed by the disputed charges was a very small percentage of that amount. Much of the media—who were simultaneously covering up for much of the corruption in government—jeered this lady.

  Seeking Incarceration for Playing Chess

  Justice Department prosecutors found time in December 1992 to investigate and indict[3] Bobby Fischer for playing a chess game in Yugoslavia, charging him with violating a presidential order barring business relations with communist countries. At the same time, government agents were engaging in all types of criminal activities: gun smuggling, undermining governments, smuggling drugs into the United States, and much more.

  Mother of Two Infants: Ten-Year Prison Sentence for Not Reporting One Side of Telephone Conversation Relating to Drugs

  On December 7, 1990, Judge Samuel Conti sentenced a young black girl from Oakland, California—the mother of two infants—to ten years in prison on a drug-related conspiracy charge. The young girl had a telephone conversation with another person concerning the sale of drugs. The conversation never went any further, but federal agents, monitoring the phone call, charged the girl with conspiracy to traffic in drugs. She was in tears when U.S. Marshals drove her back from the federal courthouse in San Francisco to the Dublin Federal Detention Center after Judge Conti sentenced her to ten years in a high security prison. As described in the latest edition of Defrauding America, this same judge played a major role in blocking my exposure of CIA drug trafficking and other criminal activities.

  Pushed Into Government Conspiracy—Go to Prison

  In one case, government agents pressured Lorenzo Naranjo for months to purchase cocaine that he would never have done. Naranjo finally succumbed to the pressure and obtained a small quantity. Because the DEA agent wanted the target to be charged with a greater offense, he pressured Naranjo to accept a gun in exchange for the cocaine. The law reads that if a gun is available during a drug offense, the penalty is doubled.

  The gun was not used in carrying out the offense, and would not have been there except for the action by the conspiring undercover agents. DOJ employees brought about the crime, provided the gun, and arguably, should have been charged with conspiracy, drug offenses, and the gun offense. Naranjo was charged and a jury convicted him. The DEA agent looked good. The prosecutor chalked up one more conviction. But for Naranjo, his wife, and children, the personal and financial tragedi-es destroyed the family and inflicted harm from which it will never recover.

  Guilty of Nothing—Ten Years in Prison for Mother Of Five

  A mother of five children in Texas drove her boyfriend’s van into Mexico and upon returning to the United States she was arrested at the border. Her boyfriend had hidden cocaine in her van without her knowledge. The jury, assuming that Justice Department officials would not prosecute an innocent woman, rendered a decision holding her guilty, causing her to receive a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence. She knew nothing about being used as a “mule.”

  Force Companies into Bankruptcy—Seize and Loot the Properties

  Brief reference is made here to a practice described in the third editions of Defrauding America and Unfriendly Skies. That is the practice of forcing companies and people with lots of assets into involuntary bankruptcy and then looting everything. The practice of targeting people and companies for the purpose of seizing their assets, by forcing them into bankruptcy, is widely used by CIA operatives who operate jointly with the corrupt attorneys, law firms, Justice Department trustees, and judges, and is rampant throughout the United States.

  Government Agents Report
  Government Corruption—Go to Prison

  All three of my books describe government agents who reported high-level government corruption and are then fraudulently charged with criminal offenses. These victims included agents of the FBI, CIA, DEA, INS, Customs, FAA, among others. The felonious retaliation carried out by Department of Justice attorneys against government inspectors and covert agents constitutes obstruction of justice, retaliation against witnesses, and other criminal offenses.

  DOJ Lying to Have Sister Testify Against Brother

  DOJ prosecutors charged James Rounsavall and his sister, Mary Ann Rounsavall, with drug-related offenses in 1994. DOJ prosecutor Bruce Gillen tried to get Mary Rounsavall to testify against her brother. When she wouldn’t, the prosecutor told her that her brother was dying and that he would be dead within a short time, so she might as well testify against him. Further, she would be recommended for a sentence reduction. Reluctantly, based upon her brother’s imminent death, she testified, using testimony given to her by the prosecutor. Her brother was then sentenced to life in prison, their assets seized, and the sentence reduction that she had been promised never came. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She later learned that her brother was not dying.

  Rancher Fills in Mosquito-Breeding Hole—Goes to Prison

  Justice Department prosecutors sent Allen Kafkaesque to prison for filling in a mosquito-breeding low spot on his 103-acre ranch. He allowed two loads of dirt to be dumped in the spot as a base for a shed. Federal officials then charged him with filling in “wetlands,” which has been made a crime by members of Congress seeking the votes from far-out environmentalists (probably trying to save from extinction some type of cockroach!). DOJ prosecutors sought to have him imprisoned for 27 to 33 months. When the judge reduced the sentence to six months, Justice Department prosecutors appealed, seeking to have Kafkaesque imprisoned for almost three years!

  Farmer Files a Crop-Loss Claim—Goes to Prison

  A farmer in Illinois, James Catton, filed a crop insurance claim following a very dry year in which his crops suffered heavy damage. The insurance provisions allowed this claim. A DOJ prosecutor charged Catton with fraud and at trial a government employee testified that the claim was fraudulent. After the trial, and after the jury convicted Catton, he learned that the government “expert” had never seen his farm—or the adjacent one which suffered the same damage and for which a similar claim had been paid during the same period. This critical information was withheld from the defense and from the jurors. The fraudulent prosecution caused Catton to lose his farm in bankruptcy.

  Another Conspiracy Sham—Dentist Ends Up in Prison

  In 1980, Dr. John W. Newton, a dentist, was arrested in front of his patients and charged with drug conspiracy. I received a call from a mother who told me how her dentist son was targeted by a DOJ informant. She explained that he had never been anywhere near drugs. Fortunately for him, the jurors were not rubber stamps for the prosecutor and handed down a not-guilty verdict. However, the dental board revoked his license, solely on the word of a government-paid informant in collusion with a DOJ prosecutor. For the next 15 years Newton worked at odd jobs to support his family, which went through terrible financial problems.

  In 1996, he managed to get his dental certification back. It was his mother, Margaret Newton, living in Apex, North Carolina, a feisty lady in her eight-ies who tried to wake up people to the threat posed by government agents, especially in the Department of Justice. She wrote to me stating, “Americans are too indifferent and too lazy to be concerned.” She was active in promoting the information written in Defrauding America. At 80 years of age, she had more courage and character than most people in the United States. A few people like her gave me the inspiration to continue the almost hopeless task of waking up even a small percentage of the American people.

  Government Targets Wife of CIA Asset Gunther Russbacher

  Rayelan Russbacher, while she was the wife of one of my key CIA sources, Gunther Russbacher, described how she was targeted in a drug-sting operation that would probably have succeeded if she hadn’t been far more sophisticated and aware of the Department of Justice fraud than most people.

  She had been very vocal as a speaker in helping to expose several major government scandals that are described in Defrauding America, starting with her exposure of the October Surprise scandal. She explained how the scam was carried out. Rayelan was called on the phone and asked to meet certain people at a nearby Denny’s restaurant who told her they had information about government misconduct that she would want.

  She met two men who, during the conversation offered to help her financially if she would sell something for them. She immediately sensed they were talking drugs. Outraged, she got up and with outrage said, “If you want me to sell drugs I’ll have nothing to do with it!” She got up from the booth and left the restaurant. If she had stayed, even out of politeness, and allowed the talk to go into drugs, she would probably have been arrested before leaving Denny’s on a drug conspiracy charge. It is that easy to prey on innocent people and put someone in prison in these United States!

  Consequen-ces of Abolishing Paid Testimony

  Justice Department prosecutors argued that barring the payment of compensation for testimony would hamper their attacks upon crime. Fewer people will be arrested and incarcerated. “Justification” for the billions of dollars spent in the war-on-drugs will be missing. Bulging government agencies such as the DEA and DOJ would not be justified. Paid informants could not be justified. Surely we can’t let that happen!

  Justice Be Dammed: The Goal is Conviction

  People not willing to give perjured testimony requested by Justice Department prosecutors often pay the consequences. In some cases the prosecutors have retaliated by using the perjured testimony of the original target against the person refusing to give perjured testimony. Innocence or guilt is of no concern; the prosecutor wants a record of convictions. Perjury is the driving force in many DOJ prosecutions.

  Jurors Often Don’t Know the Consequences of Their Decisions

  Another problem area is the jurors’ lack of understanding of the punishment a judge can, or must, hand down after the jury makes a guilty decision. If the jury holds the defendant innocent of all charges except conspiracy that makes possible, or requires, a prison term equal to all charges. Because of their ignorance, laziness, or naiveté, thousands of people go to prison for years or for life. Jurors often express surprise when they hear their guilty verdict resulted in a life-in-prison sentence.

  Juries of People with Inadequate Knowledge and Comprehension

  Federal grand juries usually consist of 23 people, often people with no understanding of what really goes on in the Justice Department and the criminal justice system. (The same applies to trial juries.) Their low level of understanding legal and criminal matters forces them to rubber-stamp whatever the prosecutor wants, and makes for the reputation that “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if requested by the prosecutor.”

  Wi-th one or more shills on the jury, the prosecutor can manipulate the jurors to do whatever the prosecutor wants. It takes only a simple majority to bring about an indictment against the person the U.S. attorney seeks to prosecute. Federal prosecutors have great power and can act irresponsibly knowing that they will not suffer any retaliation, as would be suffered by a citizen.

  Deputy Attorney General Arnold I. Burns, during President Reagan’s tenure, said, “The federal grand jury is no longer a protection of the person who is suspected of crime, it is a vicious tool. The grand jury process today is as far afield from what it was intended to be as it could possibly be.”

  Grand Juries are Prosecutors’ Tools

  Grand juries are not as grand as the title sounds. They are tools, often composed of legally unsophisticated people, manipulated by the politically-appointed prosecutors to hand down the indictments that the jurors often don’t understand but do what the prosecutors wants. A common reference to grand juries is that they will indict a ham sandwich if requested by the prosecutor.

  During grand jury hearings, where a person is asked to testify, he cannot have legal counsel in the room, cannot produce evidence showing his innocence, and does not have the right to cross-examine his accusers. The grand jury can take hearsay evidence. It is often used as a political tool, where Justice Department lawyers use known perjured testify for which they often pay with money, reduced sentences, get-out-of-jail promises, or agreement to drop charges. Another Supreme Court decision against individual protection was the decision[4] handed down on May 4, 1992, that upholds indictments by grand juries even if the prosecutor withheld from the jurors evidence that the person was innocent.

  Congress and DOJ Making Prisons into Future Burial Places

  Thousands of people—given life-in-prison sentences—compliments of Congress’ feel-good prison sentences and DOJ’s put-anyone-in-prison culture, will die in prison. This includes many people who never committed the crimes fabricated against them by DOJ attorneys. They don’t realize they are considered prey by DOJ and similar agencies.

  Judges Protecting DOJ Corruption

  Former New York State prosecutor Bennett Gershman, who taught law at Pace University in New York, wrote the 1997 book, “Prosecutorial Misconduct.” He wrote that federal judges had done nothing about the prosecutorial misconduct that continues to inflict such grave harm on people in all walks of life. “They are now simply a rubber stamp,” he said, asserting that federal prosecutors know that no matter how bad their misconduct, it is almost impossible for a criminal defendant to sue a federal officer or prosecutor, and this came about due to judicial decisions that subvert civil rights statutes. He said judges know what is going on and excuse their conduct by saying it was the jury’s decision, not the judge’s.

  Occasional Judicial Protest Against Prosecutorial Misconduct

  Occasionally, a judge will express concern about the abuses with DOJ use of purchased testimony. In one Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case at San Francisco, the three-judge panel said in their opinion:

  What we find most troubling about this case is not the assistant U.S. Attorney’s initial transgression, but that he seemed to be totally unaware he’d done anything at all wrong, and that there was no one in the United States Attorney’s office to set him straight. [Could it be that they were all corrupt!] Nor does the government’s considered response, filed after we pointed out the problem, inspire our confidence that this kind of thing won’t happen again.

  How can it be that a serious claim of prosecutorial miscon-duct remains unresolved--even unaddressed—until oral argument in the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals? Surely, when such a claim is raised, we can expect that someone in the United States Attorney’s office will take an independent, objective look at the issue. Yet, the United States attorney allowed the filing of a brief in our court that did not own up to the problem, a brief that itself skated perilously close to misrepresentation.

  Prosecutor’s Immunity from Civil Rights and Criminal Violations-

  Federal judges—many of them former DOJ prosecutors—have rendered decisions holding that federal prosecutors are immune from the consequences of their acts. This is not what the civil rights statutes say, which have priority over case law, but it is what federal judges have done to protect the system. The San Francisco area legal newspaper, Daily Journal, carried an article (September 22, 1994) stating in part:

  Prosecutorial misconduct is encouraged—if not indirectly condoned—by pervasive judicial abstention and “buck passing.” Although appellate courts sometimes threaten to dismiss a case based on prosecutorial misconduct, they rarely do so, either finding the wrongdoing “harm-less" or suggesting alternative remedies such as contempt.

  It is well-documented that in reality there often is no effective sanction for prosecutors who engage in unethical conduct.... This misconduct included violation of grand jury rules, violation of defendants’ Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, knowing presentation of false information to the grand jury, and mistreatment of witnesses. The report documents the fact that the Justice Department effectively ignored the courts’ findings of governmental abuse, and that not one of the individuals involved was sanctioned, thereby raising “serious questions regarding what the Department considers “prosecutorial misconduct.”

  There is virtually nothing that an aggrieved party [defendant] can do when a court declines to sanction unethical government conduct, because prosecutors are absolutely immune from suit. In Imbler v. Pactman, 424 U.S. 409, 431 (1976), the Supreme Court ruled that a Los Angeles deputy district attorney who intentionally suborns perjury cannot be sued by the defendant who is wrongfully convicted... leaves the genuinely wronged defendant without civil redress against a prosecutor whose malicious or dishonest action deprives him of liberty, the Supreme Court, quoting an earlier case, decided that it is “better to leave unredressed wrongs done by dishonest officers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the constant dread of retaliation.”

  Similar reasoning is used by judges to hold themselves immune from their wrongful and sometimes criminal acts. They argue that to hold judges liable for unlawful acts would dampen the judicial spirit. Federal statutes have priority over judge-made case law, and give citizens the right to sue anyone who violates their civil or constitutional rights. And in the English language, that includes judges.

  DOJ Prosecutors Grinding Up People

  Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said that the impact of prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence is especially bad because it impacts defendants who can’t pay for high priced lawyers to uncover withheld evidence. Both Gershman and Clark said that this prosecutorial misconduct has gotten worse over the years, which parallels the worsening government corruption that I have documented for the past 30 years. Clark said, “It is really tragic how we grind up poor people in these situations.”

  Misnamed Division—DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility

  Another misnamed government office, a division of the Department of Justice, is its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which has the responsibility of investigating misconduct in the Department of Justice. Instead of meeting the trust, it has functioned to cover up such misconduct, aiding and abetting it, and in some cases, it constitutes obstruction of justice. In any event, innocent people are continuing to be prey for corrupt Justice Department prosecutors.

  Extension of Legal Fraternity Culture into Prosecutor Role

  Decades of experience working with attorneys, in and out of government, part of it detailed and documented in my other books, makes if easy to understand how the sleaze in the legal fraternity surfaces in the prosecutor’s office. With an almost unlimited power to inflict harm upon people, the prosecutor’s position provides the power to satisfy the mentality of many attorneys.

  Among the Congressmen Openly Approving These Outrages

  Almost all members of Congress openly or tacitly approve the outrages described in this and my other books. Congressman Bill McCollum (R-Fl) said as he approved of these outrages: “I am much more concerned about the loss of life to drugs and to the crime that’s going on out there and the need to stop it and protect our innocents and our citizens than I am about anybody’s concern over [the abuses arising from] informants.” McCollum was one of the members of Congress covering up for the CIA drug trafficking and other high-level government crimes.

  I have no problem with the judicial system in regard to what we’re doing. We’re trying to lock up people, most of them very bad people who are causing a problem. Ninety-three percent of those who are in our state prisons for drug dealing are there because of violent offenses or they’re there for multiple offenses, and almost all of the people who are there in the system for cocaine trafficking are there for large quantities. So I think we’re doing the right thing by what we’re doing in our federal law enforcement system.

  There are very few people in jails today in the United States who didn’t deal in large quantities of the drugs. Occasionally you’ll run into somebody that’s in there on a conspiracy charge because that’s the easiest way to get them convicted, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t committed multiple offenses. They’re violent offenders with a long track record—look at their histories. There are very few people in there who did not have substantial drug trafficking histories before they were ever put away, and for those that are there, they’re there usually because the prosecutor has tried to get them to cooperate and they’ve refused to squeal on somebody who is higher up.

  Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala), former U.S. Attorney, said of the drug laws, and with a straight face: “I think what we tried to do is give the taxpayers the best return on their dollar. The prosecutors do a good job.”

  In response to the question, “Isn’t it a problem that conspiracy law allows innocent people to be convicted on testimony alone?”

  That’s a theoretical problem; that’s not reality. People do not testify against innocent people; they only testify against guilty people. I have not found that to be a problem. Innocent people are not getting convicted under this on any kind of routine basis.

  Double Standard Between the Public and Those in Power

  One of Senator Richard Shelby‘s constituents, Jerry Lundy, wrote a letter to the senator asking for his help on behalf of Lundy’s son who was sentenced to 30 years in prison on drug charges when the son never had any drugs, never was near any drugs, and sentenced solely on the purchased testimony coerced by DOJ prosecutors. That witness later recanted his testimony and made out an affidavit describing how he was coerced and threatened by DOJ prosecutors to provide the perjured testimony. The father was seeking the senator’s help. Senator Shelby responded with the standard form letter:

  We must take a strong stand against drugs, and I support strict punishment for individuals involved in the possession or distribution of illegal drugs. I believe that our nation’s drug problem is serious enough to warrant harsh sentences.

  But when it came to his own son, his position took a complete reversal. The senator’s son, Claude Shelby, was arrested upon arriving by plane at Atlanta’s Hartfield Airport with 13.8 grams of hashish. Shelby applied the proper pressure in the right places and instead of a long prison sentence, the charges were reduced to a simple misdemeanor and an order to pay a $500 administrative fine. Without the senator’s involvement, his son would probably be a prison inmate with a long prison sentence.

  Series of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Investigative Articles

  The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a ten-part series of articles written by investigative journalist Bill Moushey in November and December 1998 titled, “Win At All Costs—Government Misconduct in the Name of Expedient Justice.” The titles on these articles tell much about what was found during the two-year investigation. The paper wrote a synopsis of what was discovered during the past year and printed in the articles:

  About this series: Hundreds of times during the past 10 years, federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law. They lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, engaged in cover-ups, paid for perjury and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments, guilty pleas and convictions, a two-year Post-Gazette investigation found.

  Rarely were these federal officials punished for their misconduct. New laws and court rulings encourage federal law enforcement officers to press the boundaries of their power while providing few safeguards against abuse. Victims of this misconduct sometimes lost their jobs, assets and even families. Some remain in prison because prosecutors withheld favorable evidence or allowed fabricated testimony. Some criminals walk free as a reward for conspiring with the government in its effort to deny others their rights.

  Air Force Veteran Discovered America’s Domestic Enemies

  In the first article, Moushey describes the plight of Air Force veteran, Loren Pogue, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison on a drug conspiracy and money laundering charge. Pogue had never used drugs. He was never near them. He did not buy or sell them. It was another setup preying on people unaware of the scheming tactics by Justice Department attorneys.

  Pogue had sold land to a government informant who later testified that Pogue knew he was a drug smuggler, which was a lie. DOJ prosecutors then used the drug smuggler’s testimony to charge Pogue under the catchall feel-good drug conspira-cy and drug money laundering statutes. A jury found him guilty. But he was guilty of nothing!

  The government agents involved in the conspiracy—and a conspiracy is a federal crime—escaped punishment and received bonuses for their corrupt activities. Pogue, sentenced to prison at the age of 65, will probably die in prison, never again to see any of his 15 adopted children. Pogue is baffled that the government for whom he served in the military for 30 years would betray him like that.

  It is long overdue for millions of American vets to wake up to the threat from within that is inflicting more harm on people in the United States than any foreign country has ever done. It is time for them to start doing something helpful for the country rather than parading around in military gatherings or having reunions!

  Apply for Government Contract—Go to Prison

  In one of the cases described in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette series, FBI agent John Clifford, using the alias of Hal Francis, approached Dale Brown, a small manufacturer offering products for sale to the government in the space industry. The FBI agent told Brown that he had developed a product that NASA might want to buy which he described as an ultrasound device.

  The FBI’s scheme was to trap small business people seeking to sell products to the government space program. The FBI agent told Brown and several other manufacturers that the product was proven reliable and provided pictures and documents to support that statement. Everything looked professional and on the up-and-up.

  When Brown and several others entered into an agreement with the undercover FBI agent to promote the device, FBI agents filed charges against them for trying to sell a known phony device to the government. After indictments were handed down by the grand jury against the 15 defendants, FBI agents pressured all but two to plead guilty, warning them that if they tried to fight the charge they would end up with long prison terms, large fines, property seizures, and family humiliation.

  FBI Agent Francis testified that Brown (and the other defendant who fought the charge) knew that the device he was trying to sell to the government was phony and this amounted to fraud against NASA for trying to win contracts for a bogus product. The undercover agent paid Brown $500 for expenses to promote the product and then fraudulently claimed this was bribe money that Brown accepted.

  Serious Physical Consequences of False DOJ Charges

  In fighting the charges, Brown suffered a massive heart attack requiring complex surgery, and was on life-support system the day he was indicted by DOJ agents. Brown said, “I lost my fiancée, my health, my cars, my house, was forced into bankruptcy and underwent two open-heart surgeries, intestinal surgery and brain surgery because of a massive stroke due to the stress.” Quite a change from a former skydiver and athletic person. Brown explained, “The government agents intentionally and methodically drove our companies and personal bank accounts to zero and drove our reputation to ruin.”

  Brown filed a lawsuit against the government, which a federal judge promptly dismissed, claiming federal “law enforcement” officers are immune from civil lawsuits, despite the gravity or illegality of the actions perpetrated by the federal employees.

  DOJ Prosecutors Providing Perjured Testimony to Mob Figure

  The Pittsburgh Post-Dispatch described the case of crime figure John Pree who admitted, “FBI agents approached him and asked him to lie to help win indictments against more than a dozen reputed Detroit-area gangsters.” Pree described how government agents provided him information concerning several crimes and the murder of a Detroit gangster so that he could plead guilty to being part of them, bring about the conviction of others, and then he would quietly be released from prison shortly thereafter.

  Pree said government agents promised him a new identity, monthly compensations, and cash. He admitted he had never met some of the people with whom he was to have committed the crimes and against whom he would be testifying. Pree failed several polygraph tests given to him by DOJ employees before the trial, but they used him anyhow. During the trial, he failed to identify one of the defendants with whom he allegedly committed some of the crimes.

  DOJ Generating Crimes Where None Would Otherwise Exist

  The 1998 Pittsburgh Post Gazette articles described how government agents set up crime scenes that generate “crimes” when they otherwise would not exist. Government agents—under control of DOJ personnel—brought sham charges against innocent people and exaggerated charges against others. The series said, “Time after time, former criminals, con artists, dope smugglers, perjurers, and killers were employed to help catch suspects in exchange for reduced sentences or even six figure payoffs. With straight faces, prosecutors insist in court that none of these witnesses have an incentive to lie.”

  Human Tragedies from Lying Government Informants

  Paramilitary forces break into homes based upon false information given by government informants who must justify their compensation. This happened to Don Carlson in 1992 as a military-like force invaded his San Diego-area home after an informant, being paid $2000 a month, made up a story about drugs. When the agents stormed Carlson’s home in the middle of the night, he shot through the door, thinking they were criminals. The government agents shot back, shooting him in the back.

  The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article described what happened:

  That arrangement [between confidential informants] can prove slippery. This investigation found dozens of cases where agents became so close to their informers that they crossed the line—sometimes assisting them in their criminal activities or protecting them, or even joining them and sharing in the profits of their crimes.

  Released Murderers-Drug Traffickers Returning to Old Habits

  The one-year investigation by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette revealed criminals released from prison under the Witness Security Program have gone on to commit hundreds of crimes, many of them violent, and over 20 murders. The study showed that most criminals released from prison under this program revert to their old habits. And this includes murder.

  PBS Series Documented the Personal Tragedies

  In the latter part of 1998, PBS ran a television documentary entitled “Snitch,” describing the conspiracy between government agents and government informants. The human tragedies followed along the line exposed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series.

  District Attorneys Lie and Conceal Evidence to Win Cases

  A January 11, 1999, article in the Chicago Tribune was titled, “Study: DA’s Lie, Conceal Evidence to Win Cases” and stated:

  Of 381 verdicts overturned, 67 defendants had faced execution. With impunity, prosecutors across the country have violated their oaths and the law, committing the worst kinds of deception in the most serious of cases. They have prosecuted black men, hiding evidence the real killers were white. They have prosecuted a wife, hiding evidence her husband committed suicide. They have prosecuted parents, hiding evidence their daughter was killed by wild dogs. They do it to win. They do it because they won’t get punished. They have done it to defendants who came within hours of being executed, only to be exonerated.

  In the first study of its kind, a Chicago Tribune analysis of thousands of court records, appellate rulings and lawyer disciplinary records from across the United States has found repeated instances of prosecutors hiding evidence showing the defendant was innocent, allowing them to receive long prison sentences or even death sentences.

  National Law Journal Investigation

  An investigation continuing for almost a year, and reported in the National Law Journal (NLJ), stated:

  Abuses by informants and law enforcement threaten the rights and the safety of innocent people, as well as the integrity of the courts. The war on drugs is the engine driving this development. New forfeiture laws have made drug busts a law enforcement prize, generating lots of cash both to pay infor-mants and to increase their own operating budget. Mandatory sentencing laws and crushing prison terms adopted in the 1980s have created powerful incentives for criminals to go to any lengths to avoid jail.

  The NLJ study showed the federal government paid over $100 million a year to informants, making this a cottage industry exceeding the outrages inflicted by Adolf Hitler’s SS Guards. It was rare that Hitler’s informants were motivated by profit and lying, as exists in America today.

  Judicial Warning About DOJ Witnesses

  Judge Stephen S. Trott, a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, said during a lecture to federal prosecutors:

  Criminals are likely to say and do almost anything to get what they want, especially when what they want is to get out of trouble with the law. This willingness to do anything includes not only truthfully spilli-ng the beans on friends and relatives, but also lying, committing perjury, manufacturing evidence, soliciting others to corroborate their lies with more lies and double-crossing anyone with whom they come into contact....Career criminals acting as informants are remarkably manipulative and skillfully devious, playing on the investigators’ inexperience, laziness or unchecked ambition to generate cases that will get them off the hook.

  U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob in Atlanta said, “Informants are sometimes worse criminals than the defendants on trial.”

  Former veteran DEA agent Celerino Castillo said:

  Informers are running today’s drug investigations; not the agents. They are paid two or three times as much as the agents, and agents have become so dependent on informers that the agents are at their mercy....All of the federal law agencies, and DEA in particular, have been hiring agents out of college with no previous investigative experience. These are people who have never been street-trained on how to deal with informants. That’s where the problem is coming from.

  The federal agents have allowed the informants to take over investigations, and the agents don’t make a move without getting approval from their informants. Our rights as citizens and the United States Constitution are now in the hands of a group of about 15,000 wild out-of-control informants. If you get in their way, they will take you down, and the agents are ignorant enough or lazy enough to let them do it.

  Frontline Interviews

  The television program Frontline questioned U.S. Attorney J. Don Foster in the Southern District of Alabama, concerning the use of paid informants. Without batting an eye, the Justice Department prosecutor said he would continue to use purchased testimony as long as it was truthful. But prosecutors don’t care if the testimony is truthful. On the contrary, DOJ prosecutors often coach witnesses on what to say, making it clear that if they don’t make those statements under oath, they will not receive any compensation.

  When asked, “How do you know that they are testifying truthfully,” the prosecutor replied with a straight face: “We try to evaluate based on experience and based on careful examination, based on corroboration.” When asked, “Does the jury know that they are benefiting from their testimony,” the prosecutor answered, with tongue in cheek no doubt: “It’s hard to make up a story that fools twelve people.”

  As to the practice of allowing witnesses to share the same prison cell prior to testifying, so as to compare notes and synchronize their stories, the prosecutor responded: “If the judge tells them not to talk and they talk, they’re in violation of the judge’s order, and the judge does tell them not to talk with each other, does tell them not to tell each other what they have testified to.” Either Foster had been living on another planet since birth, or he is a gifted liar. My belief is the latter.

  Prisoners Seeking Release on Perjured Testimony are Honest?

  When the questioner asked in disbelief, “You count on this admonition,” Foster replied: “I think that’s a very important admonition. I think federal judges make an impact on witnesses. And witnesses try to do the right thing. And they try to obey the judge’s orders, I believe.”

  A particular case was mentioned, in which a person received a life sentence based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of a paid witness. The witness stated that he delivered nine kilograms of cocaine, with no evidence other than that. Based on this type of “evidence,” anyone in the United States can be imprisoned for life, on perjured and purchased testimony. It happens all the time!

  Informant Admits what Everyone Knows—They Lie for DOJ

  Appearing on a Frontline documentary was an informant using the alias, Tony, with his faced blacked out. He admitted lying to get out of prison. He admitted the Department of Justice prosecutor told him the testimony he would have to give against the defendant. He stated that when he initially refused to give the false testimony, the Justice Department arrested his mother and brother. After this was done, he then gave the perjured testimony that the prosecutor wanted him to give. Tony admitted the people he testified against were absolutely innocent. But he said, given the alternative of 30 years to life in prison, he was forced to do this, another crime that would not have been perpetrated if Department of Justice attorneys had not brought it about.

  Which of Two Defendants will Lie to Avoid Life in Prison?

  Another informant, Ronald Rankins, appeared on the show, describing how DOJ prosecutor Donna Barrows pressured him to give false testimony. He and his co-defendant, Algernon Lundy, were drug users, not dealers. During the part of the taping that was aired, Rankins said prosecutor Donna Barrows told him:

  One of you is going to receive a life sentence, Mr. Rankins. Now, it don’t matter to me which one of you receives a life sentence. I can assure you the federal government have a 98.6 conviction rate, and if I tell you you’re going to receive a life sentence, you can call your family and tell them to break you plate because you won’t be coming home again.

  Rankins asked, “Let me ask you a question. If you were faced with a life sentence right now, and they tell you, ‘Well, Miss Oprah, if you don’t testify on this guy, your next-door neighbor, that you saw him selling drugs, we’re going to make you part of this conspiracy, and give you a life sentence,’ what are you going to do? You going to take that life sentence?”

  Rankins gave false testimony against Lundy to avoid life in prison. Later, he wrote letters, claiming his testimony was coerced, to Attorney General Janet Reno, President Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, 60-Minutes, Hard Copy, New York Times, Mobile Press, and many others. None responded.

  Recanting Doesn’t Help

  Where informants have admitted, years later that they lied to bring about the imprisonment of someone still in prison, and who will remain there until he dies, judges and lawyers say, “Are you lying now, or did you lie then? Are you trying to help somebody get out of jail or help somebody with their appeals?” Recanting seldom helps the victim of earlier perjured testimony.

  Over $1 Million for Testimony

  A New York Times article on March 8, 1995, stated the FBI paid $1,056,000 to Emad Salem for his testimony against Sheik Omar Abdel who was charged with others in planning to bomb the Holland and Lincoln tunnels under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey and the United Nations building. (In other pages it is shown how Justice Department cover-up led to the bombing of the World Trade Center building and events that would happen on September 11, 2001.)

  Routine DOJ Practice of Releasing into Society Dangerous Killers

  DOJ personnel frequently release dangero-us killers into society, regardless of the threat they pose to people who may be their next victim. A Sacramento Bee article dated April 17, 1999, reported an El Dorado County grand jury near Sacra-mento indicting a former member of the federal witness protection program who had been living in Cameron Park under the name of Robert Rameses. The article said: “Rozier, an admitted seven-time murderer, was living under the name of Robert Rameses, the identity given him under the federal witness program.”

  19 Murders: DOJ Arranges Freedom and Money

  In the Gotti case, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull ” Gravano, guilty of over 19 cowardly murders, was given his freedom for providing testimony against John Gotti and allowed to keep over $8 million in illegally gained assets and government compensation. This tradeoff was a distorted use of the federal Witness Security Program, sometimes called the witness protection program. Wherev-er Gravano or many others like him live today, his neighbors—and he could be your neighbor—do not know about his past or when he will kill again.

  People in Phoenix, Arizona discovered they had a serial killer in their neighborhood. A June 26, 2001 article in the New York Times described how Gravano left the witness protection program in 1998 and established a Southwest chapter of La Cosa Nostra in Arizona that purchased Ecstasy pills from a Brooklyn supplier with ties to the Israeli mob. This large-scale operation based in Phoenix involved his entire family, including Gravano’s wife and daughter. Gravano was charged with federal crimes in New York and state crimes in Arizona. His wife and daughter were charged with Arizona offenses.

  Gravano pled guilty in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 20. 2001, to state drug and racketeering charges for his role as the mastermind of Arizona’s largest ecstasy drug ring, which included drug dealing, money laundering, participating in a criminal syndicate and weapons violations, and sentenced to 20 years without parole. A month earlier, he pled guilty in federal court at New York City for similar offenses. He would be serving his state sentence concurrent with his federal sentence. Gravano’s wife and two children were involved and made plea agreements in Maricopa County Superior Court.

  Releasing Mass Murderer for Assistance
  In Incarcerating Covert Government Agent

  In other pages I describe the Justice Department’s actions that brought about the release from prison of Jimmy Ellard, a partner with infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Ellard played a key figure in the placement of a bomb on a Colombian airliner that killed 110 people and had admitted bringing tons of cocaine into the United States. His release was based on testifying against Rodney Matthews, an undercover contract agent for U.S. Customs who had learned too much about the government’s involvement in drug trafficking and the diversion of drug money to a political party. Ellard became a darling to DOJ prosecutors and was paid for giving perjured testimony that blocked the exposure of high-level government corruption. This relationship reflects the low priority given by Justice Department personnel to those whose crimes result in catastrophic aviation disasters.

  Public Obsessed with Released “Child Abuse”
  Offenders and Indifferent to Murderers in Their Midst

  The public is obsessed with people released into their neighborhood who were once convicted of “child abuse,” which could be simply touching someone in the wrong place. The same people who are terrified of that person are oblivious to the murderers released into their midst under the government informant program.

  Blackmail Members of Congress to Block Corrective Actions

  It is well known that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was skilled at obtaining incriminating and embarrassing information on political figures, and had a file on almost every member of Congress. In From the Secret Files Of J. Edgar Hoover, author Athan Theoharis describes Hoover’s interest and ability in gathering scandalous information about prominent political figures. The CIA and other government agencies have similar activities to exert control over key politicians, media personnel, and publishers.

  Good People, Remaining Silent, Allow These Tragedies to Occur

  You say this can’t happen in the United States? Good people, remaining ignorant or too cowardly to speak out, allow—or cause—these tragedies to happen. Wake up; things have changed in America. It is happening, and it is getting worse. And it is getting worse because good people are not getting informed and not exercising a little courage. Good people, failing to speak out, made Adolf Hitler’s rise to power possible, and the horror that followed. Some form of that tragedy can and probably will happen to America, because of the endemic corruption, the endemic cover-ups, and the endemic indifference by the public.

  Consequences of Corruption, Fraud, and Public Indifference

  Another of the thousands who were either set up, or who played a minor peripheral role in drugs, was David Correa. He was the fall guy in the usual Justice Department trade of using testimony from major drug pushers for the easy prosecution of a peripheral one-time player.

  Correa‘s parents fled Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and was an engineer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He was a pilot for Eastern Airlines until the day of his arrest. (Remember Eastern Airlines top management who knew their airline was being used for drug trafficking and who never were prosecuted by federal prosecutors.)

  Correa told me he was set up by the Rickabough family from Altoona, Pennsylvania, who were reportedly involved in gambling, prostitution, drug trafficking, and stolen motorcycles. Correa said the group gave testimony against him in exchange for charges being dropped against them. They had a long criminal record and Correa had none. They went free and Correa received a life-in-prison sentence with no chance of parole.

  Former Airline Pilot Wanting to Die

  Correa wrote in an April 25, 1999, letter that he wanted to die—now! He said:

  It looks like I will die in prison. I and many like me, including people who are older than me who are also first time, non-violent drug violators with draconian sentences, would rather that the government kill us and get it over with, rather than endure all the mental cruelty of watching our families suffer. Allow us to die. We are not suicidal, but people like me are very tired of this way of being and if we are condemned to die in prison for no just reasons, then we choose to die now. We want to be able to choose our own method of expiration because we do not want to have to suffer any further! It’s been ten years in prison and I am just tired of this way of being with no hope of ever going home.

  This is the type of agony that many non-violent people, some found guilty with the perjured self-serving testimony of another, or the record-setting goal of an arrogant prosecutor, Combined this with Congress’ self-interest in appearing tough on crime and the public’s indifference to real injustices.

  Sordid FBI Culture Easier to Comprehend

  There is a much darker side to the FBI and Justice Department that may be easier for the average person to understand. Although aiding and abetting drug smuggling that undermines the national security is a serious offense, it doesn’t appear to be recognizable to many people. But certain FBI-related events publicized by several local media sources are more easily understood by the average person.

  FBI Protecting Mass Murderers

  During the past decade several reliable sources had described to me FBI involvement with organized crime figures and in assassinations. At the turn of the Century media attention focused on one long-standing FBI-organized crime liaison in Boston and covering the New England states. The evidence originally discovered and revealed by media sources showed a group of FBI agents working with and protecting mob figures against prosecution for multiple murders, drug trafficking, and other crimes.

  If it weren’t for these determined media people—primarily the Boston Globe and the Hartford Courant, the murderous liaison would probably still be functioning as it had for the past 20 years. Helping to expose these matters were two reporters for the Boston Globe, Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, who wrote the book, Black Mass : The Irish Mob, the FBI and a Devil’s Deal.

  The following is revealed by affidavits, testimony, court proceedings, and government records. A group of FBI agents misused their FBI positions to protect the powerful and murderous Boston-based crime group headed by James “Whitey” Bulger and his partner, Steven “The Rifleman” Flemmi.

  Under the pretext of using Bulger and Flemmi as confidential informants, FBI agents, and particularly FBI Agent John Connelly, protected the crime group against state and federal prosecution and provided them insider information about wiretaps and pending indictments so they could protect themselves. FBI agents knew that Bulger and Flemmi were committing murders, some of which occurred after FBI agents leaked information about FBI confidential informants to Bulger. Bulger was involved in numerous criminal activities and needed the FBI to protect him whenever a state or federal agency threatened him. For many years, the FBI provided him this protection, starting in the 1960s for Flemmi and in 1975 for Bulger.

  During this time, FBI agents socialized with Bulger and Flemmi, having dinner at each other’s homes, exchanging gifts, and in several cases, the FBI agents received cash from the crime group.

  The alleged purpose for this arrangement was for the FBI to receive valuable information from the Bulger gang. However, the information provided to the FBI by this relationship was relatively minor, while the benefit to the Bulger group was of immense value. The FBI provided information to the Bulger group about FBI informants, resulting in their deaths; provided the Bulger group with information about wiretaps placed upon their phones by state and federal agencies, and provided the Bulger group with information on pending indictments. Bulger was not only a living legend in Boston but also had strong political connections in Massachusetts. His younger brother, Bill Bulger, was powerful in the Massachusetts Senate, and later became president of the University of Massachusetts.

  Who Was Using Who?

  Bulger was the head of a powerful gangster group in New England. He had political connections. Bulger had no reason to be an FBI informant and the FBI surely knew this. Several reasons why Bulger may have gone through the motion of being an FBI informant:

• Provide information on his Mafia competition to the FBI that would bring about their arrest, making it possible for him to take over their racketeering activities.

• To obtain FBI protection of his own criminal activities. But this would require FBI agents knowing that this was occurring.

  Whatever the understanding was, the Bulger crime family was not an asset of the FBI as much as the FBI became an asset of the murderous crime group. The FBI-Bulger connection made Bulger the undisputed crime king in New England, without any significant competition, and using the FBI for protection against prosecution for the dozens of murders committed. It was not the FBI that used Bulger but rather, Bulger using the FBI and its resources to expand his criminal activities, including murders. The FBI was Bulger‘s enabler, paving the way for an already powerful murderous organized crime group to become even more powerful.

  With FBI assistance, the Bulger racketeering group became the most dominant, feared, and murderous in the New England area, dominating all segments of racketeering activities, including drug smuggling. Bulger used this FBI relationship to eliminate competition from the Italian crime group headed by Mafia boss Gennaro Angiulo, causing the Bulger group to take over their racketeering activities. During this period of FBI protection, the Bulger group committed over a dozen murders.

  Among the FBI agents providing U.S. government protection and money to the Bulger group was FBI agent John Connolly, who was shown in FBI records as being Bulger‘s handler. In actuality, Bulger was probably Connolly’s “handler.”

  FBI Blocking State Police Investigations

  When the Massachusetts state police sought to indict the Bulger and other members of his crime organization, FBI agents provided protection by informing Bulger of the investigation, removing their names from the indictments, and refusing to “cooperate” in joint task force investigations. This made possible the continuation of the murders, drug smuggling, and other racketeering activities.

  One Agent Exposing the Links, and High Level Cover-Up

  FBI Special Agent, Robert Fitzpatrick, repeatedly told his superiors that Bulger was committing murders and other crimes and should be terminated as an FBI informant. He also advised his bosses that FBI Special Agent John Connolly was passing confidential FBI information to Bulger and that this information assisted Bulger to avoid certain areas where telephone and other taps were in place, thereby obstructing justice. The decision was made at high FBI level to continue this relationship with Bulger, knowing that people were being murdered and that the racketeering activities were continuing to flourish.

  Example of Many Murders Made Possible by FBI Agents

  The FBI conduct made possible many murders committed by the Bulger group, two of which involved young women, Deborah Hussey and Debra Davis, who were killed by Bulger and his close aide, Stevie “The Rifleman” Flemmi.

  Flemmi was living with his common-law wife, Marion Hussey, starting this relationship when Deborah was only five years old. As Deborah grew older, Flemmi started a sexual relationship with her, in addition to what he had with her mother.

  When Deborah decided to end the sexual relationship, Flemmi and Bulger strangled her. Before disposing of the body, they cut off Deborah’s fingers and toes and knocked out all of her teeth, to prevent identification.

  While Flemmi had sexual relations with Marion Hussey and her daughter, he had a sexual relationship with Debra Davis. She had foolishly entered a relationship with Flemmi at the age of 18, lured partly by the gifts lavished upon her. Several years later, when she announced an intention to end the relationship, Bulger and Flemmi strangled her in a house owned by Flemmi’s mother. Flemmi and Bulger feared she would reveal what she learned about the criminal activities during her relationship with Flemmi. She was buried under a railroad trestle in Quincy, Massachusetts.

  As the information became known about Bulger and Flemmi’s activities with the FBI, the girls’ mothers filed civil actions against Flemmi and several FBI informants and agents. On February 26, 2001, Deborah’s mother, Marion Hussey, filed a lawsuit and on March 7, 2001, Olga Davis filed hers.

Protection from Other Government Levels

While these and other murders were occurring by the FBI-protected Bulger group, protection came also at the state level. Although it was common knowledge in the community that Flemmi and Bulger were murderers and protected by the FBI, William F. Weld, the U.S. attorney in Boston from 1981 to 1986, did nothing to interfere. Nor did he do anything when he subsequently became governor of Massachusetts. And this protective stance continued after Weld left the governorship and became assistant attorney general in Washington, D.C.

In 1984, while Weld was U.S. attorney, the DEA planned to use wiretaps against Flemmi and Bulger to obtain additional evidence of their drug crimes. The DEA asked Weld if the FBI wanted to get involved in a joint operation. Weld asked the head of the FBI Boston office, James Greenleaf, if he wanted to cooperate, and he refused. The DEA then proceeded without FBI assistance. Their subsequent wiretaps were rendered useless when someone in the FBI office tipped off Bulger and Flemmi about the location of the wiretaps and bugs.

This information was made known to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, making Hoover complicit in the murders made possible by FBI misconduct. In my book, Unfriendly Skies, I described writing to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover—while I was a federal agent for the Federal Aviation Administration —accusing him of criminal activities. A federal agent does not get away with such accusations unless they are true.

Media Attention Finally Forced Action

As the State of Massachusetts was about to hand down indictments against Bulger, Flemmi, and others, FBI Agent Connolly alerted Bugler, who then fled, along a female companion.

James Bulger was shown on the Internet web site of the Massachusetts State Police as being wanted by the State of Massachusetts and the DEA, offering one million dollars reward for information leading to the arrest of Bulger. The Internet site listed Bulger under Most Wanted, and “Wanted for 19 counts of murder.” The Internet site list his female companion for harboring a fugitive: Catherine Elizabeth Greig (aka Helen Marshall and Carol Shapeton).

Federal indictments were also handed down. FBI agent John Connolly was arrested on Christmas Eve, 1999, and charged with racketeering. The Hartford Courant ran a series of articles on the sordid relationship between FBI agents and the Bulger gang, while most of the national media kept the lid on the scandals.

Defense: Murders Perpetrated with FBI Permission

Defense lawyers for defendants Bulger and Flemmi argued before U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf that the charges should be dismissed because the government tacitly gave Flemmi and Bulger permission to commit the crimes they committed because they were acting as FBI informants. They also argued that the FBI knew of the crimes being committed and looked the other way.

FBI Aiding and Abetting Revealed in Testimony

In one of Flemmi’s affidavits, he stated that FBI agents had a practice of alerting him to avoid certain places where the FBI had placed bugs, FBI agents told him of impending indictments, and gave him the name of a Cosa Nostra FBI informant, which made it possible to murder the person. That statement was supported by John Morris, former supervisor of Boston’s Organized Crime Squad, who testified that he told FBI Agent Connolly about an informant who would be testifying against Bulger in the murder of a New England Jai Alai operator, Roger Wheeler. A short time later, the informant was killed.

Edward Brian Halloran had information to show that Bulger killed Wheeler, and asked the Boston FBI office to allow him to testify and to put him in the government’s witness protection program. Despite the fact that this information could solve one or more murders, the FBI refused. Halloran’s name was given to Bulger, and Holloran ended up dead shortly thereafter.

Former FBI agent John Morris, testifying under a grant of immunity, admitted taking cash on several occasions from two informants, totaling $7000, and that the money came from Bulger and Flemmi.

FBI Agent Connolly, who was Bulger‘s handler—or the other way a round—repeatedly refused to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Former FBI agent, Nick Gianturco, claimed it was a “mistake in judgment” to accept gifts and have frequent dinners at the home of Flemmi’s parents. (This is the resident where Debra Davis was murdered.)

Limited Media Publicity

The evidence showed a major scandal with national implications, but national media exposure was limited, and only a few local newspapers provided the public with details on this sordid FBI drama. A CBS 60 Minutes broadcast in April 2001, provided an abbreviated account, showing mob boss James J. “Whitey” Bulger, as being a paid FBI informant for over 20 years and protected against investigation and prosecution while he and his gang engaged in murders, drug dealings, and other crimes.

Another Tentacle of the Boston FBI Corruption

A May 4, 2001 headline said, “Man Imprisoned 30 Years for Crime FBI Knew He Didn’t Commit,” A hearing was held on May 4, 2001 before the House Government Reform Committee concerning the FBI’s involvement in covering up for several of their informants who were involved in a Boston murder and how the FBI withheld information so as to convict an innocent man and father of four of murder. Joe Salvati was sentenced to prison on the testimony of an FBI informant who lied, with the knowledge and approval of the FBI.

Due to the withholding of evidence, Salvati was sent to prison in 1967, where he remained for 30 years until a rare lawyer’s persistence produced documents withheld by the FBI and Boston police. It took years for Salvati’s lawyer, Victor Garo, to obtain documents proving FBI agents and Boston police prosecuted Salvati to protect the identities of several FBI informants who would possibly be exposed if the real murderer were identified. That newspaper article stated:

It took 26 years for Salvati‘s lawyer, Victor Garo, to uncover documents proving FBI agents and Boston police decided to prosecute Salvati to protect the identities of a few informants they believed would be endangered if the real murderer were identified.

Testifying before the committee, Garo said:

It was more important to the FBI that they protected their prized informants than it was for innocent people [to be sent to prison]. The truth be dammed. It didn’t matter the truth.

FBI Agent’s Arrogance

In response to a question from a committee member whether FBI Special Agent H. Paul Rico felt any remorse for his role in the case, he defiantly shouted, “What do you want, Tears? It’ll be probably a nice movie or something.”

Documents showed that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover knew of the misconduct and false testimony and refused to act.

Other Evidence of Widespread FBI Corruption

A June 20, 2001 Reuters article was titled, “FBI Agent Accused In Corruption Inquiry,” referring to an FBI agent in nearby Providence, Rhode Island, accepting expensive gifts from criminal elements. The article stated:

An F.B.I. agent has been suspended over accusations that he accepted gifts from a mob associate’s former wife … the Providence Journal reported today. The newspaper said the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that the special agent, David DiLustro, has been suspended with pay. The gifts Mr. DiLustro received included a bath house at an exclusive beach resort … The F.B.I. is investigating Mr. DiLustro’s relationship with Gail-Ann Calenda, who bribed city officials to get property-tax reductions in 1998. Two tax officers and a lawyer were convicted in the case. Mayor Vincent Cianci and five others have been indicted on corruption charges as a result of the inquiry.

FBI’s Fondness for Serial Killers

A case with some similarities, the FBI and Justice Department protected and provided a new life to Salvatore “Sammy the Bull ” Gravano, who admitted killing 19 people. He was given a “get-out-of-jail-card” and financially supported in the federal witness protection program. In 2001, he, his wife, and son, were sentenced for widespread selling of drugs in Arizona.

Immunity from Prosecution for Privileged Few

Many people in key industry or government positions involved in drugs were not prosecuted and sent to prison as tens of thousands of other less fortunate men and women whose lives were destroyed. Among this list of privileged people were many Hollywood performers, politicians such as young George Bush and Bill Clinton, and industry heavyweights such as John Tyson (who in 2000 took over from his father, Don Tyson, the position of chairman and chief executive of Tyson Foods).

Political connections, or money, played a role in many of these drug users not being prosecuted, and the country is not in a worse shape because of they not being prosecuted. John Tyson, for instance, would not have been able to hold his position as head of Tyson and its acquisition of the meatpacking corporation, IBP, if prosecutors had not deferred prosecution. In 2001, this former drug user controlled an estimated one-quarter of the nation’s meat supply. John Tyson admitted that he stopped abusing drugs and alcohol in 1990 according to a June 22, 2001, Wall Street Journal article. One of numerous police reports on John Tyson’s drug usage, in my possession, is shown here as an example.

In December 2001, President George Bush instructed Attorney General John Ashcroft to refuse to provide Congress information relating to an investigation of FBI misconduct in the Boston office.

President Bush‘s broad assertion of executive privilege to block a Congressional review of internal Justice Department documents pertaining to F.B.I. misuse of mob informants has inflamed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle—and properly so. One subpoena the administration denied was issued by the House Government Reform Committee to assist it in exploring charges that the F.B.I. had long protected two mob informants in New England even as the committed assorted crimes and caused an innocent man to go to jail for murder.

Endless Number of Tactics for Justice Department Lawyers
To Destroy People, Families, Businesses, Reputations

There are an endless number of ways in which Justice Department lawyers can destroy a person, or his family, or his business. Almost anyone has violated one or more of the thousands of government laws, or charges be fabricated indicating a violation. These tactics are often coordinated with federal judges, many of whom are former Justice Department prosecutors.

False drug charges, false or exaggerated statements on a loan application, filling in a low spot on your land, exercising rights that existed from the founding of the United States until the mid-twentieth century, and countless other ways that only a prosecuting lawyer can dream up.

Donate to Charity and End Up in Prison

Consider the following example of two men sentenced to prison at San Francisco in July 2001. They had donated boats to a charity under the IRS 501(c)(3) tax deduction program. The U.S. attorney in San Francisco charged Gregory Jampolsky, a Sausalito yacht broken, and Stanley Wild, a marine surveyor, with engaging in a conspiracy to defraud the United States.

They had donated boats to the Vallejo Foundation, a tax-deductible organization that provided maritime education to children. Justice Department prosecutors, looking for people to prosecute, charged that they claimed a value for tax deductible purposes that were higher than the boats were subsequently sold for by the Vallejo Foundation.

The fact that this is a standard practice, deducting the fair market value for an item donated, which may be higher than the charitable organization eventually sells the item for, didn’t phase these Justice Department personnel who routinely cover up for crimes on a national scale perpetrated by government personnel and in covert government operations. The prosecutor claimed that the purpose of the scheme was to obtain large tax deductions for the owners of the boat.