diff --git a/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md b/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md index 3433d33a..ccdaa868 100644 --- a/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md +++ b/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md @@ -1,9 +1,86 @@ -- 2026-09-22T1524 · [[_manifest]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Mike Harari]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[_manifest]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Project Abbreviation]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[INSLAW]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Morwenstow]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Pine Gap]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Menwith Hill]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Allan R. Tessler]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Hassan Yassin]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Rafael Eitan]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Earl Brian]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Harry Jones]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Anthony Pasciuto]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Thomas Stanton]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Nancy Hamilton]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Cornelius Blackshear]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Gregory McKain]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Charles Docter]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[William White]] +- 2026-09-22T1647 · [[Philip White]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Simeon]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Hadron]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Paul Wormeli]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Daniel Tessler]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Lowell Jensen]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Patricia Cloherty]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Nicholas Davies]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[PROMIS]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Sean McDade]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Los Alamos]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Degem]] +- 2026-09-22T1642 · [[Robert Maxwell]] +- 2026-09-22T1638 · [[Ora Group]] +- 2026-09-22T1638 · [[Accumenics]] +- 2026-09-22T1638 · [[Allen and Company]] +- 2026-09-22T1637 · [[Hambro International Equity Partners]] +- 2026-09-22T1637 · [[Patricof and Company]] +- 2026-09-22T1637 · [[53rd Street Ventures]] +- 2026-09-22T1634 · [[Alan Standorf]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Department of Justice]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Ronald LeGrand]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[John Keeney]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Robert Byrd]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[James H. Critchfield]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Kim Roosevelt]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Diana, Princess of Wales]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Samira Khashoggi Fayed]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Mohammed Al-Fayed]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Dodi Fayed]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Imelda Marcos]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Ferdinand Marcos]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Lee Rawls]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Christine Odell Cook Miller]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Mark M. Richard]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Anthony Moscato]] +- 2026-09-22T1633 · [[Royce Lamberth]] +- 2026-09-22T1632 · [[_NOTES_A_primary_record]] +- 2026-09-22T1632 · [[_NOTES_C_money_israel]] +- 2026-09-22T1631 · [[_NOTES_D_foreign_technical]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[U.S. Attorney's office]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[Scott Weekly]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[Bill Hamilton]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[Roger Whelan]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[Office of Special Investigations]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[MOC - PROMIS Scandal]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[KEY INDIVIDUALS]] +- 2026-09-22T1626 · [[Danny Casolaro]] +- 2026-09-22T1625 · [[Garby Leon]] +- 2026-09-22T1622 · [[KEY CONCEPTS AND TECH]] +- 2026-09-22T1622 · [[IBM]] +- 2026-09-22T1621 · [[Wackenhut Corporation]] +- 2026-09-22T1621 · [[Gerard John Schaefer]] +- 2026-09-22T1617 · [[_NOTES_B_doj_redlinks]] +- 2026-09-22T1554 · [[_NOTES_Gerard_John_Schaefer]] +- 2026-09-22T1545 · [[IN FOCUS]] - 2026-09-22T1524 · [[NSC-68]] - 2026-09-22T1524 · [[League for Spiritual Discovery]] - 2026-09-22T1524 · [[DATAVIEW - MOC - Business & Finance]] - 2026-09-22T1523 · [[key_figures_candidates]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[KEY INDIVIDUALS]] - 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Hungarian Revolution]] - 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Marshall Plan]] - 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Red Army Faction]] @@ -21,80 +98,3 @@ - 2026-09-22T1523 · [[William Odom]] - 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Shippi Strang]] - 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Ronald Hadley Stark]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Ron Robertson]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Maria Sabina]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Major Stone]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Jim Salyer]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Jake Stewart]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Harry Soyster]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Garrison Rapmund]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Ed Rogers]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Don Porter]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Commander Narut]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Claiborne Pell]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Sheikh Mussa Sadr]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Sheffield Nelson]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Romeo]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Roderick Sinclair]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Roberto]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Robert Piest]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Ralph Olberg]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Paul Paige]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Muammar Qaddafi]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Michael Salcido]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Michael Dennis Rohan]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Marshall Riconosciuto]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Mark Stebbins]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Leon Siff]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Kay Ritter]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Joseph O'Toole]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Joseph F. Preloznik]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[John Szyc]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[John Schoolmeister]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Joe Peeples]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Jill Robinson]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[James Riady]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Grigori Rasputin]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Glen R. Shockley]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Gerald Richards]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Rafael Cordova]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Peter Glencross]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Peter Bradford]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Pesach Ben-Or]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Paul Berkowitz]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Maurice Ghanem]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Luis D. Elizondo III]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Lothar Glandorf]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Karl Baarslag]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Joseph Cuellar]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[John Wayne Gacy]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[John Di Giorgio]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[John Butkovich]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[James V. Desarno, Jr.]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Harold Geneen]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Gourdji]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Fred Ghanem]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Frank Chevrier]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Edward Gerrity]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Eddy Erdelatz]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Donald A. Bejcek]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Dean Corll]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[David Owen Brooks]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[David Cram]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Dave Beavers]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Chou En-lai]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Bo Gritz]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Alan Bond]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Adel Mohammad Atamna]] -- 2026-09-22T1523 · [[Abdelaziz Bouteflika]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[New Jersey]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[Middle East]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[White House]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[Iron Gates]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[2025 Kyiv SBU Assassination]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[2025 Antioch High School Shooting]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[Project Camelot]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[Alliance for Progress]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[CIAA]] -- 2026-09-22T1519 · [[White Phoenix]] diff --git a/00 - META/IN FOCUS.md b/00 - META/IN FOCUS.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..93b65995 --- /dev/null +++ b/00 - META/IN FOCUS.md @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +--- +tags: + - META +--- +# In Focus + +Wikilinks listed here are pinned to the front of the homepage "In focus" section, in order, before the automatic picks (pages with the most edits and edited linkers in the last 30 days). Leave empty for a fully automatic selection. Up to three are used. + diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Charles Docter.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Charles Docter.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..cdea44a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Charles Docter.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +category: "PROMIS Scandal" +tags: + - Person + - CharlesDocter + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - Bankruptcy +alias: + - Charles A. Docter + - Charles Deeter +summary: "INSLAW's bankruptcy counsel who told the House Judiciary Committee that in July 1987 the former bankruptcy judge Roger Whelan threatened to organize opposition to Judge Bason's reappointment over an unpaid fee petition." +location: "Washington, D.C." +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Charles A. Docter, of the Washington firm Docter, Docter and Salus, was bankruptcy counsel to [[INSLAW]] as debtor in possession in its Chapter 11 case in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia]], No. 85-00070, alongside [[Charles R. Work]] of McDermott, Will and Emery. His partner Stanley Salus handled the company's complaint to the United States Trustee, [[William White]], after the [[Jack Rugh]] telephone call to [[Gregory McKain]] in February 1985.[^1] + +### The Whelan Conversation + +Docter told the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] that in July 1987, two months before Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] ruled that the [[Department of Justice]] had taken [[PROMIS]] by fraud, [[Roger Whelan]], the bankruptcy judge Bason had succeeded and by then a practicing attorney with a fee application pending before Bason in the [[United Press International|UPI]] bankruptcy, came to his office and threatened to oppose Bason's reappointment because Bason had not ruled on the petition, saying that Senior District Judge Irwin Gasch would organize the opposition. Docter told Bason of the conversation and recommended that he act promptly; Bason ruled on the fee application on July 17, 1987. Docter gave his account to the committee in private session. When the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] sought more, "Docter referred us to his testimony before the House Committee, but refused to provide us any additional information." Whelan denied to Bua that he had ever spoken to Docter about the UPI case or tried to pressure Bason, while acknowledging his friendship with Gasch and his frustration at the delay. Bua wrote that he had "not attempted to resolve this seeming disagreement," which bore only tangentially on whether the department had influenced the merit selection panel, but added that "the possibility of concerted opposition to Bason by district court judges or others might explain why he was not reappointed." The panel, chaired by Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]], had received the transcript of Bason's ruling from [[Royce Lamberth]].[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 169-170, 211-214. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport (which spells the name Docter throughout; "Deeter" in later accounts is a transcription error). The firm's role as counsel of record appears in the reporter listings for *In re INSLAW, Inc.,* 97 B.R. 685 and 106 B.R. 331 (Bankr. D.D.C. 1989), not examined. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Cornelius Blackshear.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Cornelius Blackshear.md index cb5c4567..0f331b56 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Cornelius Blackshear.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Cornelius Blackshear.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ summary: "Cornelius Blackshear was a U.S." Cornelius Blackshear was a U.S. Trustee in the Southern District of New York who later became a U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge for the Southern District of New York. He became a key figure in the allegations surrounding the attempted conversion of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s bankruptcy case and a subsequent alleged cover-up. -Blackshear initially testified in a deposition on March 25, 1987, that [[Philip White]], the U.S. Trustee for the District of Columbia, had told him that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), had tried to pressure White to convert [[INSLAW]]'s Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation and to have [[Harry Jones]] assigned to White to effect the conversion. Blackshear also stated that Stanton had never contacted him about detailing Jones, but he thought Stanton might have approached Jones directly. This testimony supported Inslaw's primary allegation of a plot to liquidate the company. However, after speaking with White, Blackshear realized he was mistaken and had confused Inslaw with the UPI case, about which White had told him the IRS had pressured him to join a motion to convert. Blackshear then prepared and signed an affidavit recanting his deposition testimony, stating that he had confused the cases. He also gave a second deposition repeating his new recollections. During the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation, Blackshear essentially repeated his recanting statements, maintaining that White had not told him Stanton pressured him to convert Inslaw, and that he had confused Inslaw with UPI. He did, however, disagree with White regarding a conversation about the possible assignment of Harry Jones to Washington, believing White had told him Stanton planned to bring Jones to Washington, while White maintained Blackshear told this to White. Blackshear also denied discussing with [[Anthony Pasciuto]] at a social gathering that he was sorry for his conduct or had given false testimony in his recantation to avoid hurting people.[^1] +Blackshear initially testified in a deposition on March 25, 1987, that [[William White]], the U.S. Trustee for the District of Columbia, had told him that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), had tried to pressure White to convert [[INSLAW]]'s Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation and to have [[Harry Jones]] assigned to White to effect the conversion. Blackshear also stated that Stanton had never contacted him about detailing Jones, but he thought Stanton might have approached Jones directly. This testimony supported Inslaw's primary allegation of a plot to liquidate the company. However, after speaking with White, Blackshear realized he was mistaken and had confused Inslaw with the UPI case, about which White had told him the IRS had pressured him to join a motion to convert. Blackshear then prepared and signed an affidavit recanting his deposition testimony, stating that he had confused the cases. He also gave a second deposition repeating his new recollections. During the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation, Blackshear essentially repeated his recanting statements, maintaining that White had not told him Stanton pressured him to convert Inslaw, and that he had confused Inslaw with UPI. He did, however, disagree with White regarding a conversation about the possible assignment of Harry Jones to Washington, believing White had told him Stanton planned to bring Jones to Washington, while White maintained Blackshear told this to White. Blackshear also denied discussing with [[Anthony Pasciuto]] at a social gathering that he was sorry for his conduct or had given false testimony in his recantation to avoid hurting people.[^1] Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, chose to believe Blackshear's original testimony and found his recantation to be the result of an "honest mistake." However, several years later, in January 1991, Bason filed a complaint against Blackshear with the Judicial Council of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, stating that he now believed Blackshear recanted not due to an honest mistake but because he made a conscious choice to testify falsely. The OPR, however, credited Blackshear's recantation, noting that he had no apparent motive to lie about the matter. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) found Blackshear's recantation implausible, noting that he had stated on four occasions prior to his recantation that White told him about pressure from Stanton to convert the Inslaw case. The PSI also found no evidence to support Blackshear's explanation that he had confused Inslaw with the UPI case. The Special Counsel's investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Blackshear lied when he recanted his deposition testimony. The report acknowledged the confusion arising from Blackshear's various statements but attributed it to poor memory rather than intentional misstatements. The Special Counsel found no reason why Blackshear, a sitting bankruptcy judge, would commit perjury and jeopardize his career.[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md index 2527c469..673d33f7 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Danny Casolaro.md @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ The theory held that a core group of intelligence operatives, arms dealers, and His primary source was [[Michael Riconosciuto]], a computer scientist and self-described CIA contractor who claimed he had modified PROMIS software at the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation|Cabazon]]-[[Wackenhut Corporation|Wackenhut]] joint venture in Indio, California, and that [[Earl Brian]] had distributed the modified software internationally with DOJ cooperation. Casolaro began interviewing Riconosciuto before Riconosciuto's March 1991 arrest on methamphetamine charges.[^1] Other key contacts included [[Robert Booth Nichols]], an international operative with alleged ties to the [[NSC]], organized crime, and the [[Yakuza]], with whom Casolaro spent hundreds of hours on the phone.[^1] -Casolaro's investigation also touched the Wackenhut-Cabazon weapons venture, [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] "Old Boy" networks involved in drug trafficking since the 1950s, the death of journalist and BCCI investigator Alan Standorf, and alleged connections between former DOJ official [[Michael Abbell]] and the [[Cali Drug Cartel]].[^1][^3] Shortly before his death, Riconosciuto had passed Casolaro a lead about Abbell's Cali connections, warning it might be dangerous. Hamilton, pressed for time, turned the lead over to Casolaro.[^1] +Casolaro's investigation also touched the Wackenhut-Cabazon weapons venture, [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] "Old Boy" networks involved in drug trafficking since the 1950s, the death of the Army signals-intelligence officer and BCCI source [[Alan Standorf]], and alleged connections between former DOJ official [[Michael Abbell]] and the [[Cali Drug Cartel]].[^1][^3] Shortly before his death, Riconosciuto had passed Casolaro a lead about Abbell's Cali connections, warning it might be dangerous. Hamilton, pressed for time, turned the lead over to Casolaro.[^1] ### Final Days diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dodi Fayed.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dodi Fayed.md index c69dc15b..69f23fcc 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dodi Fayed.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dodi Fayed.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Business & Finance" tags: - Person - - PROMIS summary: "Egyptian multi-millionaire film producer and son of Mohammed Al-Fayed, romantically involved with Princess Diana; died with her in a 1997 Paris car crash." born: 1955-04-15 died: 1997-08-31 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md index 1f4bf7fa..1c35968b 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md @@ -51,7 +51,11 @@ The Bua Report found no credible evidence to support the Iran trip allegation. E Both Brian and Videnieks categorically denied ever meeting one another or meeting Riconosciuto, denied having visited Indio, California, and denied any involvement in the alleged PROMIS distribution. The Bua Report found both men to be credible witnesses and concluded there was "overwhelming" evidence of no connection between Brian and anything related to INSLAW or PROMIS. Bua found Riconosciuto's account a "tale of total fiction woven against the background of accurate historical facts" and Ben-Menashe's affidavits contradicted by his own subsequent testimony to Bua investigators.[^2] -Brian was never charged with any crime in connection with the PROMIS affair. +Brian was never charged with any crime in connection with the PROMIS affair. His libel suit against [[Elliot Richardson]] over the former attorney general's New York Times article of October 21, 1991, "A High-Tech Watergate," which accused him of taking part in an illegal conspiracy, was dismissed; the New York Court of Appeals held on November 29, 1995, that because Richardson had disclosed at the outset that he was INSLAW's own lawyer, because the article's "predominant tone" was "rife with rumor, speculation and seemingly tenuous inferences," and because its purpose was to call for an independent investigation, "a reasonable reader would understand the statements... as mere allegations to be investigated rather than as facts."[^5] + +### Financial News Network and UPI + +In July 1993 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Brian and three others with fraudulently inflating the revenue and earnings of the Financial News Network, the Los Angeles cable channel controlled with United Press International by his holding company Infotechnology, Inc.; he settled without admitting or denying the charges and consented to a permanent injunction. A federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned a 24-count indictment in June 1994, unsealed on September 5, 1995, charging Brian, then Infotechnology's chairman, and its chief operating officer John F. Berentson with lying to obtain 56 million dollars in loans from Security Pacific and Toronto-Dominion in 1989 by falsifying FNN's books through fictitious equipment leases and inter-company billings; FNN's chief financial officer C. Steven Bolen and Gary A. Prince pleaded guilty and cooperated. FNN, which lost 72.4 million dollars in fiscal 1990, and UPI, whose management rights Infotechnology had bought in February 1988, both entered Chapter 11 in 1991. On October 17, 1996, after a four-month trial in Los Angeles, a jury convicted Brian on ten counts including conspiracy and bank and securities fraud, deadlocking on the rest; he was ordered to report to prison on August 18 of the following year to serve a term reported as four and a half years, and appealed. Hadron continued as a public company, was renamed Analex Corporation in 2002 and ceased reporting in 2007.[^6] ### Footnotes @@ -59,3 +63,5 @@ Brian was never charged with any crime in connection with the PROMIS affair. [^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993. [^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. [^4]: U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. *The Inslaw Affair.* September 1989. +[^5]: *Brian v. Richardson,* 87 N.Y.2d 46, 660 N.E.2d 1126 (N.Y. 1995). https://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/I95_0246.htm +[^6]: "Former UPI execs charged with fraud," United Press International, September 6, 1995. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/09/06/Former-UPI-execs-charged-with-fraud/3824810360000/ ; Gersh, Debra, "SEC Accuses Former UPI Chief of Fraud," *Editor & Publisher,* July 10, 1993 (headline and date only); Fricker, Richard L., "Earl Brian: Reagan's 'Scandal Man' Off to Jail," *The Consortium,* 1997. https://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile11.html ; Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR filing history for Hadron, Inc., CIK 0000044800. Fricker gives the reporting date as "Aug. 18" without a year; the sentencing order and the disposition of the appeal were not located. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George Francis Bason, Jr..md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George Francis Bason, Jr..md index 3476b3e0..921b871c 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George Francis Bason, Jr..md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George Francis Bason, Jr..md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ George Francis Bason Jr. was appointed to the Bankruptcy Court for the District ### The Independent Handling Proceeding (June 1987) -In June 1987, after INSLAW filed for independent handling of its bankruptcy case on the grounds that the DOJ could not be trusted to administer it fairly, Bason found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means." The ruling was based partly on testimony from Anthony Pasciuto, Deputy Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees, who initially stated that DOJ Director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee [[Edward White]] to force the company into liquidation. Bason also found that Stanton had struck a bargain with [[C. Madison Brewer]] to achieve this conversion.[^1] +In June 1987, after INSLAW filed for independent handling of its bankruptcy case on the grounds that the DOJ could not be trusted to administer it fairly, Bason found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means." The ruling was based partly on testimony from Anthony Pasciuto, Deputy Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees, who initially stated that DOJ Director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee [[William White]] to force the company into liquidation. Bason also found that Stanton had struck a bargain with [[C. Madison Brewer]] to achieve this conversion.[^1] ### The Adversary Proceeding (September 1987) diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James H. Critchfield.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James H. Critchfield.md index e0c0c62c..0e6c0555 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James H. Critchfield.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James H. Critchfield.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Intelligence & Government" tags: - Person - - PROMIS - CIA summary: "CIA officer who developed contacts with international arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi, factotum for the House of Saud." born: 1917-01-30 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Mohammed Al-Fayed.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Mohammed Al-Fayed.md index efe9e77d..bd4da317 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Mohammed Al-Fayed.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Mohammed Al-Fayed.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Business & Finance" tags: - Person - - PROMIS summary: "Father of Dodi Fayed and husband of Samira Khashoggi Fayed, connected to the PROMIS investigation through his son's death." born: 1929-01-27 died: 2023-08-30 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas Davies.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas Davies.md index 0b528924..ea36fda3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas Davies.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nicholas Davies.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Nicholas Davies was a British journalist who joined [[Mirror Group]] Newspapers In 1991, investigative journalist [[Seymour Hersh]] published *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy,* which included allegations based primarily on accounts by Israeli intelligence operative [[Ari Ben-Menashe]]. Hersh alleged that Davies had been recruited as a [[Mossad]] asset in the early 1980s through contacts in London and a subsequent visit to Israel.[^2] -Ben-Menashe stated that Davies and he became business partners in an international arms firm, Ora Limited, operating out of Davies's home in London beginning in 1983. The firm allegedly functioned to facilitate the flow of Israeli arms to Iran during the [[Iran-Iraq War]], a channel that ran parallel to the operations later associated with the [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. Ben-Menashe claimed Davies made more than $1.5 million from a single arms transaction.[^2] +Ben-Menashe stated that Davies and he became business partners in an international arms firm, [[Ora Group|Ora Limited]], operating out of Davies's home in London beginning in 1983. The firm allegedly functioned to facilitate the flow of Israeli arms to Iran during the [[Iran-Iraq War]], a channel that ran parallel to the operations later associated with the [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. Ben-Menashe claimed Davies made more than $1.5 million from a single arms transaction.[^2] The most specific allegation was that Davies passed [[Mordecai Vanunu|Mordechai Vanunu]]'s location to Mossad operatives, enabling the 1986 honey-trap operation in Rome that led to Vanunu's abduction and return to Israel for trial on nuclear secrets charges.[^3] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Patricia Cloherty.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Patricia Cloherty.md index 358c9d97..b1472247 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Patricia Cloherty.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Patricia Cloherty.md @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ summary: "Patricia Cloherty worked for Patricof and Company in New York from abo Patricia Cloherty worked for [[Patricof and Company]] in New York from about 1970 until 1977, when she was appointed by President [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] to be Deputy Administrator of the [[Small Business Administration]] (SBA). After leaving the SBA around 1980, she worked at Tessler & Cloherty, Inc., an investment management company she ran with her husband, [[Daniel Tessler]]. In February 1988, Cloherty returned to Patricof and Company. -Cloherty's involvement with [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] began in 1984 when she and her husband took over management of 53rd Street Ventures, which had a small investment in [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]. [[Bill Hamilton]]'s affidavit alleged that Cloherty told [[Richard D'Amore]] that she "knew all about" [[Earl Brian]]'s role in the Inslaw matter. However, Cloherty denied ever making such a statement to D'Amore or anyone else. She maintained that she knows nothing about Earl Brian's connection, if any, to Inslaw. She stated that she knows Earl Brian, having met him in the 1980s when they both served on the board of the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies. In 1990, Brian contacted Patricof and Company with a deal proposal regarding UPI, but Cloherty did not meet with him directly, and the firm decided not to pursue the deal. Cloherty stated she has never heard of and has had no involvement with Hadron or Simeon, and does not know [[Dominic Laiti]], [[Edwin Meese]], or [[Lowell Jensen]]. She denied discussing 53rd Street Ventures' investment in Inslaw with Brian, Jensen, Meese, Laiti, or any officials from the DOJ or the Reagan or Bush administrations. The Special Counsel's investigation found no credible evidence to support Hamilton's claims regarding Cloherty's knowledge of a conspiracy.[^1] +Cloherty's involvement with [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] began in 1984 when she and her husband took over management of [[53rd Street Ventures]], which had a small investment in [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]. [[Bill Hamilton]]'s affidavit alleged that Cloherty told [[Richard D'Amore]] that she "knew all about" [[Earl Brian]]'s role in the Inslaw matter. However, Cloherty denied ever making such a statement to D'Amore or anyone else. She maintained that she knows nothing about Earl Brian's connection, if any, to Inslaw. She stated that she knows Earl Brian, having met him in the 1980s when they both served on the board of the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies. In 1990, Brian contacted Patricof and Company with a deal proposal regarding UPI, but Cloherty did not meet with him directly, and the firm decided not to pursue the deal. Cloherty stated she has never heard of and has had no involvement with Hadron or Simeon, and does not know [[Dominic Laiti]], [[Edwin Meese]], or [[Lowell Jensen]]. She denied discussing 53rd Street Ventures' investment in Inslaw with Brian, Jensen, Meese, Laiti, or any officials from the DOJ or the Reagan or Bush administrations. The Special Counsel's investigation found no credible evidence to support Hamilton's claims regarding Cloherty's knowledge of a conspiracy.[^1] ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Rafael Eitan.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Rafael Eitan.md index 6f35ee16..f90394c7 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Rafael Eitan.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Rafael Eitan.md @@ -40,9 +40,19 @@ Eitan stated regarding PROMIS: "We can use that program to stamp out terrorism b Distribution of the backdoored software was handled in part through British media mogul [[Robert Maxwell]], who used his Israeli computer company [[Degem]] and a network of international holdings as vehicles for sales to intelligence and law enforcement agencies worldwide.[^2] Eitan's involvement in what became known as the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] was never formally adjudicated; U.S. government investigations, including the [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua Report]] (1993), found no credible evidence that enhanced PROMIS was distributed internationally.[^4] +### Dr. Ben Orr + +The documentary trace of an Israeli visitor to the [[Department of Justice]] is two memoranda of [[Jack Rugh]], the department's deputy project manager on the [[INSLAW]] contract. On May 6, 1983, Rugh wrote that "Brick Brewer recently instructed me to make a copy of an LEAA version of PROMIS available to Dr. Ben Orr, a representative of the Government of Israel. Dr. Orr called me to discuss that request... I have made a copy of the LEM DEC version of PROMIS and will provide it, along with the corresponding documentation, to Dr. Orr before he leaves the United States for Israel on May 16," and on May 12 he recorded delivery of the materials to [[C. Madison Brewer]] for transmittal. The version so recorded was the public-domain [[LEAA]] one. Eitan, in the account he gave Thomas and Dillon, was Dr. Orr, travelling on a forged passport in the identity of a real retired prosecutor, "Dr Benjamin Orr, an assistant public prosecutor in the Ministry of Justice in Tel Aviv," who first flew to the United States on December 19, 1982, met Brewer, and returned in February 1983 to be shown the enhanced PROMIS at INSLAW's own offices by [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]], after which Brewer handed him a tape from an office cupboard; Hamilton is quoted recalling eyes "like a computer, tracking everything."[^5] + +### Later Career + +Eitan founded the Pensioners' Party, Gil, which won seven Knesset seats in March 2006 and joined [[Ehud Olmert]]'s coalition, in which he served as minister for pensioner affairs; in October 2008 he told a German magazine that Iran's president should be kidnapped and tried at The Hague. Of the Eichmann capture he told Gordon Thomas that "almost every published fact about the capture of Eichmann is pure bullshit. I know because I personally am the man who captured him."[^6] + ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 21. [^2]: Thomas, Gordon. *Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.* St. Martin's Press, 1999. [^3]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992. -[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993. \ No newline at end of file +[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993. +[^5]: House Report 102-857, September 10, 1992, reproducing Rugh's memoranda of May 6 and 12, 1983, which do not identify Dr. Orr; Thomas, Gordon, and Martin Dillon, *Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy,* Carroll and Graf, 2002. https://archive.org/details/robert-maxwell-israels-superspy-2002 The February 1983 visit in the book and the May 1983 transfer in the memoranda are not the same transaction, and no record reconciles them. +[^6]: Thomas, Gordon. *Gideon's Spies,* 2009 edition. https://archive.org/details/gideons-spies diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byrd.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byrd.md index f3d01655..0bc32595 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byrd.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Robert Byrd.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Political Figure" tags: - Person - - PROMIS - CIA summary: "Powerful West Virginia Democratic Senator whose executive assistant was Barbara Videnieks, wife of PROMIS figure Peter Videnieks." born: 1917-11-20 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Samira Khashoggi Fayed.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Samira Khashoggi Fayed.md index 79d92c87..a2f5ffd8 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Samira Khashoggi Fayed.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Samira Khashoggi Fayed.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Historical Figure" tags: - Person - - PROMIS summary: "Sister of Adnan Khashoggi and mother of Dodi Fayed, connected to the Khashoggi family's arms dealing network." born: 1935 died: 1986 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Anthony Moscato.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Anthony Moscato.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6ec3c290 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Anthony Moscato.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Person + - AnthonyMoscato + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - DOJ + - EOUSA +alias: + - Anthony C. Moscato + - Tony Moscato +summary: "Career Justice Department administrator, acting director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys during the Bua inquiry, whom Bill Hamilton accused of helping deny Judge Bason's reappointment; he told the special counsel he had nothing to do with it." +born: 1945-09-04 +died: 2026-06-12 +location: "Fairfax, Virginia" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Anthony Charles Moscato (September 4, 1945, [[New York City]], to June 12, 2026, Fairfax, [[Virginia]]) spent his career in the administrative offices of the [[Department of Justice]]. Raised in Washington Heights, he took a degree in government at [[Columbia University]] in 1967 and a law degree at [[George Washington University]] in 1970, joined the department's Tax Division as a trial attorney in 1976, and moved the next year to the Justice Management Division as special assistant to the assistant attorney general for administration. Over the following two decades he served as deputy assistant attorney general for administration, acting inspector general of the department, director of the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] and director of the [[Executive Office for Immigration Review]]. In 1999 the attorney general named him a member of the Board of Immigration Appeals, from which he retired in 2006.[^1] + +### The Bason Allegation + +His name entered the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]] through [[Bill Hamilton]], who told the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] that a former department security officer, [[Garnett Taylor]], knew that "Anthony Moscato, who is now Acting Director of EOUSA, played an affirmative role on behalf of DOJ in denying Judge Bason's reappointment," and asked that Taylor be subpoenaed before a grand jury. [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]], the bankruptcy judge who had found in 1987 that the department took [[INSLAW]]'s [[PROMIS]] software by fraud, was not reappointed by the merit selection panel of the district court chaired by Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]]. Bua's report records Moscato's answer: "he had nothing whatsoever to do with the selection of bankruptcy judges. He convincingly stated that he is not familiar with Judge Norma Johnson, did not know that she chaired a selection panel, and did not even know there was a Merit Selection Panel. He stated that he spoke to no one about Bason's qualifications for reappointment. He cannot explain why his and Garnett Taylor's names would be used in the same sentence as Bankruptcy Judge Bason. Taylor and he are not even social friends, much less confidants." At the time of the 1987 non-reappointment he held other administrative posts in the department; the transcript of Bason's ruling had reached the panel from [[Royce Lamberth]], then chief of the civil division of the [[U.S. Attorney's office]].[^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: "Anthony (Tony) Charles Moscato," obituary, Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home, June 2026. https://www.fairfaxmemorialfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Anthony-Charles-Moscato?obId=48707990 +[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 185-186 (the report's own pagination). https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Bill Hamilton.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Bill Hamilton.md index ebcffa1d..d051bae1 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Bill Hamilton.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Bill Hamilton.md @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ In 1973, Hamilton and his wife Nancy founded [[INSLAW]] (the Institute for Law a ### The DOJ Contract and Bankruptcy -In March 1982, INSLAW signed a $10 million, three-year contract with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ's]] Executive Office for United States Attorneys to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. From the contract's earliest days, Hamilton and [[C. Madison Brewer]], the DOJ's project manager, were in conflict: Hamilton alleged Brewer obstructed INSLAW's proprietary rights claims and engineered advance payment disputes to force the company into financial distress. When INSLAW ran out of funds to sustain litigation against the DOJ while fighting to protect its software rights, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 1985.[^2] +In March 1982, INSLAW signed a $10 million, three-year contract with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ's]] [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. From the contract's earliest days, Hamilton and [[C. Madison Brewer]], the DOJ's project manager, were in conflict: Hamilton alleged Brewer obstructed INSLAW's proprietary rights claims and engineered advance payment disputes to force the company into financial distress. When INSLAW ran out of funds to sustain litigation against the DOJ while fighting to protect its software rights, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 1985.[^2] Hamilton and Nancy Hamilton sued the DOJ for non-payment on a version of PROMIS called Modification 12 and for the alleged unauthorized distribution of the enhanced software beyond the contract's authorized sites. In September 1987, [[Bankruptcy Judge George F. Bason]] ruled in their favor, finding DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit" and awarding approximately $6.8 million in damages. The ruling was affirmed by the district court but reversed on jurisdictional grounds by the Court of Appeals in May 1991.[^2] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Christine Odell Cook Miller.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Christine Odell Cook Miller.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f82c485d --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Christine Odell Cook Miller.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Person + - ChristineMiller + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - CourtOfFederalClaims + - Judiciary +alias: + - Christine Cook Nettesheim + - Christine Miller + - Judge Christine Miller + - Judge Nettesheim +summary: "Judge of the Court of Federal Claims who, as hearing officer on the Senate's 1995 referral of INSLAW's claims, ruled on July 31, 1997, that every version of PROMIS was in the public domain and INSLAW was owed nothing, ending the affair in the courts." +born: 1944 +location: "Oakland, California" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Christine Odell Cook Miller (born 1944, Oakland, [[California]]), who served under the name Christine Cook Nettesheim until September 10, 1994, is a judge of the [[United States Court of Federal Claims]]. She took a degree at [[Stanford University]] in 1966 and a law degree at the University of Utah in 1969, clerked for Judge David T. Lewis of the Tenth Circuit, was a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the [[Department of Justice]] from 1970 to 1972 and at the [[Federal Trade Commission]] from 1972 to 1974, practiced in Washington, and served as special counsel to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and assistant general counsel of the U.S. Railway Association. [[Ronald Reagan]] nominated her to the Claims Court on November 23, 1982; the Senate confirmed her on December 10. [[Bill Clinton]] gave her a recess appointment to the same seat on December 10, 1997, and the Senate confirmed her again on February 3, 1998. She took senior status on February 4, 2013, and retired on March 1.[^1] + +### The INSLAW Referral + +In May 1995 the Senate referred [[INSLAW]]'s remaining claims against the government to the Court of Federal Claims for an advisory opinion, after the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]]'s 1992 report had endorsed Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]]'s finding that the department took [[PROMIS]] by fraud and the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] had rejected it in 1993. As hearing officer, Miller ruled on July 31, 1997, that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been entitled to use the software as it wished, so that INSLAW was owed no compensation. A three-judge review panel of the court upheld the ruling in August 1998. The Justice Department announced the decision in a press release.[^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, "U.S. Court of Federal Claims: Miller, Christine Odell Cook," Biographical Directory. https://www.fjc.gov/history/courts/u.s.-court-federal-claims-miller-christine-odell-cook +[^2]: See [[INSLAW]] and [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] and the Department of Justice press release of August 1997 cited there; the opinion of July 31, 1997, was not examined. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ferdinand Marcos.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ferdinand Marcos.md index db9f8c58..1cb628c5 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ferdinand Marcos.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ferdinand Marcos.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Political Figure" tags: - Person - - PROMIS summary: "Exiled President of the Philippines whose stolen fortune was reportedly laundered through Robert Booth Nichols via networks connected to the PROMIS scandal." born: 1917-09-11 died: 1989-09-28 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Garby Leon.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Garby Leon.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f9c0be31 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Garby Leon.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +category: "Authors & Journalists" +tags: + - Person + - GarbyLeon + - Casolaro + - Wilcher + - PROMIS + - Hollywood +summary: "Hollywood development executive at Joel Silver Productions and Columbia who wrote to Janet Reno in July 1993 demanding an inquiry into Paul Wilcher's death as a parallel to Casolaro's, and who prompted and assisted Cheri Seymour's investigation of the Octopus." +location: "Los Angeles, California" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Garby Leon, born in [[New York City]], took a degree at Marlboro College and a doctorate at [[Harvard University]], was a conscientious objector during the [[Vietnam War]] and active in the antiwar movement, and went into the film business. He was director of development at [[Joel Silver Productions]] at Warner Brothers in Burbank, where he oversaw more than seventy projects, and by July 1993 was at Columbia Pictures in the Thalberg Building at Culver City. He was a frequent telephone and mail correspondent of [[Paul Wilcher]], the Washington lawyer who in May 1993 hand-delivered a hundred-page letter to Attorney General [[Janet Reno]] alleging cover-ups by the [[Department of Justice]] and who was found dead in his apartment in June.[^1] + +### The Letter to Reno + +On July 14, 1993, Leon wrote to Reno that Wilcher's case "deserves your most serious attention." He drew the parallels with [[Danny Casolaro]], found dead in a Martinsburg hotel in August 1991 while investigating the [[PROMIS]] affair and what he called [[The Octopus]]: both men had been investigating illegal government activity, both had said they feared for their lives, both were found dead in strange circumstances with records missing and their bodies altered. He questioned the reported presence of [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] and [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] personnel at the death scene, objected that Wilcher's body had been cremated "without fingerprint or dental x-ray matching," and wrote: "I don't believe he died of natural causes." Of Wilcher he said he was "not a perfect person" but "a man of unusual energy and altruism," a former seminarian who had considered the priesthood before the law. [[Sarah McClendon]] wrote to Reno in the same terms.[^1][^2] + +### The Last Circle + +Leon spent the following year pressing the California journalist [[Cheri Seymour]] to write up her investigation of Casolaro's death and the Octopus, and worked with her on it; she thanked him, "formerly Director of Development at Joel Silver Productions," for prompting a first draft in 1994 and for "countless tasks" during their joint investigation, and he appears as a subject in her book.[^3] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Leon, Garby. Letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, July 14, 1993, with the biographical note attached, reproduced at http://www.pinknoiz.com/covert/wilcher.html +[^2]: See [[Paul Wilcher]] and [[Janet Reno]] and the sources cited there. +[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal,* TrineDay, 2010, acknowledgments (as described in later accounts; the text was not examined). diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Gregory McKain.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Gregory McKain.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ee83a866 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Gregory McKain.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +category: "PROMIS Scandal" +tags: + - Person + - GregoryMcKain + - PROMIS + - INSLAW +alias: + - Greg McKain +summary: "INSLAW programmer whom Jack Rugh of the Justice Department telephoned in February 1985 with a job offer and the word that the trustees expected INSLAW to be liquidated within sixty days, the call Judge Bason treated as evidence of a plan to convert the bankruptcy." +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Gregory McKain was a programmer at [[INSLAW]] who had worked on [[PROMIS]] from the start of the company's contract with the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]]. On February 21, 1985, shortly after INSLAW filed under Chapter 11, [[Jack Rugh]], the deputy project manager who had, in the words of the special counsel's report, "been very impressed for some time with McKain's work and had discussed with McKain on several occasions the possibility of McKain working for DOJ," telephoned to ask whether he would be interested in joining the [[Department of Justice]]. According to McKain's testimony, Rugh told him during the call that the department had talked to the trustees, who said INSLAW would not survive Chapter 11 and would probably be in Chapter 7 within thirty to sixty days.[^1] + +McKain reported the conversation to [[Bill Hamilton]], who was upset by it and had INSLAW's bankruptcy counsel, Stanley Salus of the firm of [[Charles Docter]], take it up with the United States Trustee, [[William White]], who assured them his office acted independently of the department. Rugh's account differed: he said he had offered only his personal opinion that INSLAW would end in liquidation. Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]], in his 1988 findings, treated the call as part of the department's effort to force the company into liquidation and noted its business consequences, INSLAW's officers having had to spend time calming McKain and other employees who feared for their jobs and to incur legal fees investigating the claim. The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] wrote in 1993: "Arguably there is no more reason to think that Rugh is lying about this than there is to think that McKain is... It is equally possible, of course, that Mr. McKain simply misunderstood what Mr. Rugh had said. In the end, McKain's testimony provides some support to the conversion theory, but not enough to satisfy us that the theory is true." White later asked that a confidentiality order be worded to protect him from the kind of criticism INSLAW's counsel had made after the Rugh-McKain call.[^1][^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 211-214. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport +[^2]: *In re INSLAW, Inc.,* 88 B.R. 484 (Bankr. D.D.C. 1988). The opinion was not examined; the statements that McKain had worked on PROMIS from the start and Bason's findings on the call's business consequences rest on a reporter summary of it. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Harry Jones.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Harry Jones.md index d880931f..5cccb2ff 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Harry Jones.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Harry Jones.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -category: "Belgium Scandals" +category: "PROMIS Scandal" tags: - Person - Belgium @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "Harry Jones was an Assistant U.S." Harry Jones was an Assistant U.S. Trustee in the Southern District of New York. He became involved in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] allegations concerning the attempted conversion of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s bankruptcy case. -[[Anthony Pasciuto]] alleged that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), tried to detail Jones to [[Philip White]]'s office in Washington D.C. to work on converting the Inslaw case from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. [[Cornelius Blackshear]] initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure to have Jones assigned to the case. Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, concluded that Stanton sought to have Jones detailed to accomplish the conversion when White resisted Stanton's pressure. The Special Counsel's investigation found that Stanton did consider transferring Jones to assist in the Inslaw matter, but denied that Jones was to be assigned to effect a conversion. Stanton testified he wanted Jones to set up the creditors' committee and conduct the first meeting of creditors due to the matter's likely publicity, and that Blackshear had told him his office was too busy to spare Jones. Jones himself testified that he was never requested by anyone, including Stanton, to go to Washington to work on the [[INSLAW]] case. The Special Counsel's investigation found no evidence to the contrary and concluded that the inference that Jones was to be used to file a baseless motion to convert was unreasonable, given Jones's reputation for integrity and expertise in bankruptcy matters.[^1] +[[Anthony Pasciuto]] alleged that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), tried to detail Jones to [[William White]]'s office in Washington D.C. to work on converting the Inslaw case from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. [[Cornelius Blackshear]] initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure to have Jones assigned to the case. Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, concluded that Stanton sought to have Jones detailed to accomplish the conversion when White resisted Stanton's pressure. The Special Counsel's investigation found that Stanton did consider transferring Jones to assist in the Inslaw matter, but denied that Jones was to be assigned to effect a conversion. Stanton testified he wanted Jones to set up the creditors' committee and conduct the first meeting of creditors due to the matter's likely publicity, and that Blackshear had told him his office was too busy to spare Jones. Jones himself testified that he was never requested by anyone, including Stanton, to go to Washington to work on the [[INSLAW]] case. The Special Counsel's investigation found no evidence to the contrary and concluded that the inference that Jones was to be used to file a baseless motion to convert was unreasonable, given Jones's reputation for integrity and expertise in bankruptcy matters.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Imelda Marcos.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Imelda Marcos.md index 80bc3da8..024bd8d3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Imelda Marcos.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Imelda Marcos.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Political Figure" tags: - Person - - PROMIS summary: "Widow of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos who was acquitted with Adnan Khashoggi of racketeering and fraud charges in 1990." born: 1929-07-02 location: "Manila, Philippines" diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Keeney.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Keeney.md index 6eb8ca8a..9ff470a1 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Keeney.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Keeney.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ summary: "John Keeney was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Crim John Keeney was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. He was implicated in allegations surrounding the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]]. -According to a source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], Keeney, along with [[Mark Richards]] and [[Philip White]], knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s alleged malfeasance in the Inslaw matter. The source believed that while Richards and White were "pretty upset" about it, they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath, and that they would not commit perjury.[^1] +According to a source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], Keeney, along with [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]] and [[Philip White]], knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s alleged malfeasance in the Inslaw matter. The source believed that while Richard and White were "pretty upset" about it, they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath, and that they would not commit perjury.[^1] However, when interviewed by the Special Counsel, John Keeney stated that he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Lowell Jensen generally, or of the type of wrongdoing described in the Hamilton affidavit specifically. The Special Counsel's investigation found no credible evidence to support the allegations against Keeney or any connection between him and a conspiracy related to [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] or [[PROMIS]].[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Lowell Jensen.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Lowell Jensen.md index 8b98ef9d..52a199ef 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Lowell Jensen.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Lowell Jensen.md @@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ The House Judiciary Committee's September 1992 report (House Report 102-857), pr ### Bua Report Findings -Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]], appointed in November 1991, found no credible evidence supporting any of these allegations. Jensen, by then a sitting federal district judge, denied engineering contract disputes with INSLAW or directing any DOJ action to harm the company. He denied any financial interest in Brian-controlled entities including Biotech, Hadron, Accumenics, and Simeon, and denied ever being promised stock in any computer-related company. He stated he had been genuinely interested in modernizing DOJ through information technology, specifically recalling "Project Eagle," a multi-million dollar initiative to automate DOJ's litigating divisions, but denied any role in awarding Project Eagle contracts, noting that the Request for Proposals was issued in May 1986 and he was appointed to the bench the following June.[^2] +Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]], appointed in November 1991, found no credible evidence supporting any of these allegations. Jensen, by then a sitting federal district judge, denied engineering contract disputes with INSLAW or directing any DOJ action to harm the company. He denied any financial interest in Brian-controlled entities including Biotech, Hadron, [[Accumenics]], and Simeon, and denied ever being promised stock in any computer-related company. He stated he had been genuinely interested in modernizing DOJ through information technology, specifically recalling "Project Eagle," a multi-million dollar initiative to automate DOJ's litigating divisions, but denied any role in awarding Project Eagle contracts, noting that the Request for Proposals was issued in May 1986 and he was appointed to the bench the following June.[^2] The Bua Report found Jensen to be a credible witness and concluded there was no evidence to support the claim that he acted out of bias toward INSLAW or in coordination with Brian.[^2] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7d99b488 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mike Harari.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +category: "Intelligence & Government" +tags: + - Person + - MikeHarari + - Mossad + - Panama + - Noriega + - Contras + - PROMIS + - Israel +alias: + - Michael Harari + - Michael Harare +summary: "Mossad operations chief who led the Lillehammer team in 1973, then ran arms, and by the testimony of Noriega's former consul drugs, through Panama in the 1980s as Noriega's associate, and whom Ari Ben-Menashe names as Pesach Ben-Or's partner in the Guatemalan PROMIS sale." +born: 1927-02-18 +died: 2014-09-21 +location: "Tel Aviv, Israel" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Mike Harari (February 18, 1927, Tel Aviv, to September 21, 2014) was the [[Mossad]] officer who ran its special operations section in the years after the Munich massacre and who led the team that killed Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter mistaken for the Black September planner Ali Hassan Salameh, at Lillehammer, [[Norway]], in July 1973. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] writes that Harari "had just left Israel because of his failure in the 'Moroccan Waiter Affair'" when he joined the private arms network that [[Ariel Sharon]] ran in Central America from the late 1970s, and that he "was a close associate of Panama's military intelligence chief, [[Manuel Noriega]]." By 1981, in Ben-Menashe's account, "Sharon and Harari were running what Harari described as more of a CIA network than an Israeli operation," supplying the [[Contras]] and financing itself, "according to Harari," by "transporting cocaine from South America to the United States via Central America," with Noriega "a major player."[^1] + +### Panama + +In February 1988 [[Jose Blandon]], Noriega's former consul general in New York, told the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations under Senator [[John Kerry]] that "Michael Harare" had "close contacts with Noriega and was Panama's honorary consul in Tel Aviv," and that his network did "business with Noriega in Panama for a series of companies for arms contraband, smuggling to supply arms to Central America and to the counterrevolution, the Nicaragua counterrevolution." Asked by Kerry what "other things" the network handled, Blandon answered, "Drugs," and confirmed "a direct linkage" between "the Harare network and these airstrips, in which guns would go in one shipment and drugs would come out in another." "The Harare network is a network that was established with Israeli citizens, Panamanians and U.S. citizens for arms supply purposes," he said. The Israeli embassy spokesman Yosef Gal replied that Harari was "acting as a private citizen" and that Israel "had no knowledge of his activities." Harari was not named in the Miami and Tampa indictments of Noriega that month, left [[Panama]] at the time of the American invasion of December 1989 and returned to [[Israel]].[^2][^3] + +### PROMIS + +Ben-Menashe's account of the sale of a modified [[PROMIS]] to [[Guatemala]] states that "the price Israel had to pay for this agreement was that the [[Eagle]] company, run by [[Pesach Ben-Or]] in Guatemala and his associate Mike Harari in Panama, and overseen by Ariel Sharon, would continue selling weapons to the Guatemalan government." The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] found Ben-Menashe's PROMIS affidavits contradicted by his later testimony, and no official inquiry examined Harari's part. He received the Mossad chief's medal of distinction in 2007 and was the subject of a 2014 Hebrew biography by Aaron J. Klein.[^1][^3] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network,* Sheridan Square, 1992, chs. "The First Billion" and "Promis." https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe +[^2]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* February 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian The printed subcommittee report, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,* December 1988, was not examined. +[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993. Harari's birth and death dates, the Lillehammer role, his absence from the 1988 Noriega indictments, his departure from Panama in December 1989, the 2007 medal and the Klein biography are as given in obituary and press summaries not examined in full. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nancy Hamilton.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nancy Hamilton.md index d2432b44..7ad55074 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nancy Hamilton.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nancy Hamilton.md @@ -11,6 +11,11 @@ location: "St. Louis, Missouri, USA" --- Nancy Burke Hamilton was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She married [[Bill Hamilton]] in 1963. Together they founded the [[INSLAW|Institute for Law and Social Research]] (ILSR), the non-profit predecessor to [[INSLAW|INSLAW, Inc.]], and were joint owners of INSLAW, Inc. when it was incorporated in Delaware in January 1981. She is listed alongside Bill Hamilton as a co-owner and co-plaintiff throughout INSLAW's decade-long litigation against the [[Department of Justice]] over the theft and misappropriation of the [[PROMIS]] software.[^1] +### Testimony + +On March 17, 1987, [[Anthony Pasciuto]], deputy director of the Executive Office for United States Trustees, met privately with the Hamiltons and, by her testimony, told them that his director [[Thomas Stanton]] had pressured the United States Trustee [[William White]] to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 case into a Chapter 7 liquidation and had tried to detail the New York trustee's attorney [[Harry Jones]] to the case to effect it; the account became the basis of Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]]'s finding of June 1987 that the [[Department of Justice]] had tried "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" to convert the case. She testified with her husband before the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]]'s subcommittee under [[Jack Brooks]] on December 5, 1990, at its hearing on the department's "repeated refusal" to give the committee access to its documents, alongside [[Elliot Richardson]], and was co-author of INSLAW's Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report and its addendum of February 1994. The couple's daughter [[Patricia Hamilton]], INSLAW's sales manager for Canada, swore the February 1991 affidavit that opened the Canadian thread of the affair.[^1][^2] + ### Footnotes [^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992. +[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993, and *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994; Hamilton, Patricia C., affidavit, February 1991, Exhibit 1, *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States,* Adv. Proc. No. 86-0069 (Bankr. D.D.C.). See [[Project Abbreviation]]. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Maxwell.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Maxwell.md index 089be479..1df17880 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Maxwell.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert Maxwell.md @@ -68,9 +68,9 @@ Allegations that Maxwell worked for Israeli intelligence were aired publicly in The most detailed espionage account came from [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a self-described former employee of the Israeli [[Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)|Military Intelligence Directorate]], who claimed in his 1992 book [[Profits of War]] that Maxwell and Davies were long-time [[Mossad]] assets, and that Davies had tipped him to Vanunu's 1986 approach to the [[Sunday Mirror]] over the photographs Vanunu had taken at [[Dimona]], introducing him to Vanunu's intermediary [[Oscar Guerrero]]; Vanunu was subsequently lured from London to [[Rome]], seized by Israeli operatives, and convicted in Israel.[^10][^22] His maternal relationship to the prime minister's office began, by his own account, through a meeting arranged with [[Yitzhak Shamir]] in the early 1960s.[^10] -The Welsh author Gordon Thomas, in [[Gideon's Spies]] (1999) and the later book Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy (2002), drew partly on Ben-Menashe and on the Israeli operative [[Rafi Eitan]] to allege that Maxwell helped distribute a version of the [[PROMIS]] case-management software that Israeli technicians had fitted with a hidden "trapdoor," enabling Israel to monitor the foreign agencies that bought it, marketing it through the Tel Aviv firm [[Degem Computers]].[^9][^23] In these accounts Maxwell received a flat fee of about 8 million dollars plus a percentage of revenues, and the agencies said to have received the software through his network included those of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Jordan, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Nicaragua, with an abridged version said to have been sold to [[Credit Suisse]] in 1985 and a Soviet sale in the late 1980s facilitated by the lifting of [[IBM]] export restrictions.[^10][^9] INSLAW separately alleged that Maxwell contributed 600,000 dollars from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to secure the removal of its lead litigation counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]], and that the former senator [[John Tower]] had approached Maxwell in 1984 on behalf of a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-connected group to formalize his role as the PROMIS marketing intermediary; the [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua Report]] found no credible evidence for these claims.[^10][^25] +The Welsh author Gordon Thomas, in [[Gideon's Spies]] (1999) and the later book Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy (2002), drew partly on Ben-Menashe and on the Israeli operative [[Rafi Eitan]] to allege that Maxwell helped distribute a version of the [[PROMIS]] case-management software that Israeli technicians had fitted with a hidden "trapdoor," enabling Israel to monitor the foreign agencies that bought it, marketing it through the Tel Aviv firm [[Degem|Degem Computers]].[^9][^23] In these accounts Maxwell received a flat fee of about 8 million dollars plus a percentage of revenues, and the agencies said to have received the software through his network included those of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Jordan, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Nicaragua, with an abridged version said to have been sold to [[Credit Suisse]] in 1985 and a Soviet sale in the late 1980s facilitated by the lifting of [[IBM]] export restrictions.[^10][^9] INSLAW separately alleged that Maxwell contributed 600,000 dollars from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to secure the removal of its lead litigation counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]], and that the former senator [[John Tower]] had approached Maxwell in 1984 on behalf of a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-connected group to formalize his role as the PROMIS marketing intermediary; the [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua Report]] found no credible evidence for these claims.[^10][^25] -Ben-Menashe's reliability has been repeatedly questioned, including by a 1993 congressional task force, and no declassified record has substantiated the PROMIS-distribution or recruitment allegations; an Israeli prime minister's spokesman dismissed Thomas's claims as "unmitigated drivel."[^9][^11] Maxwell was also long rumored to have had contacts with British intelligence and, given his Eastern European origins and trading ties, with the Soviet [[KGB]], though these characterizations rest on journalistic sourcing rather than disclosed files, and no archive of any of the three services has been released that confirms a formal agent relationship.[^2][^9] +Ben-Menashe's reliability has been repeatedly questioned, including by a 1993 congressional task force, and no declassified record has substantiated the PROMIS-distribution or recruitment allegations; an Israeli prime minister's spokesman dismissed Thomas's claims as "unmitigated drivel."[^9][^11] In February 1994 INSLAW argued that twenty pages the FBI had released under the Freedom of Information Act showed its Albuquerque office had run a foreign counterintelligence investigation of Maxwell and one of his companies, and that this must concern a PROMIS sale to a defense installation in [[New Mexico]]; the Justice Department's reviewers, having read the unredacted documents, called the inference "a remarkable leap" and wrote that "none of the documents in question even mentioned INSLAW or PROMIS... In short, there is nothing of which we are aware that links Mr. Maxwell to PROMIS."[^26] Maxwell was also long rumored to have had contacts with British intelligence and, given his Eastern European origins and trading ties, with the Soviet [[KGB]], though these characterizations rest on journalistic sourcing rather than disclosed files, and no archive of any of the three services has been released that confirms a formal agent relationship.[^2][^9] ### Murder Allegations @@ -109,3 +109,4 @@ Herzog eulogized him with the words, "He scaled the heights of human endeavor. K [^23]: Thomas, Gordon, and Martin Dillon. *Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul.* Carroll & Graf, 2002. [^24]: Ostrovsky, Victor. *The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda.* HarperCollins, 1994, on the alleged Mossad motive to eliminate Maxwell as a collapsing liability. [^25]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, on the rejection of the Leigh Ratiner and PROMIS-distribution allegations and the proximity of the Casolaro and Maxwell deaths. +[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.,* September 27, 1994, section on the INSLAW addendum of February 1994. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald LeGrand.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald LeGrand.md index 27111e47..202b522b 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald LeGrand.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ronald LeGrand.md @@ -10,11 +10,11 @@ summary: "Ronald LeGrand was the Chief Investigator for the Senate Judiciary Com --- Ronald LeGrand was the Chief Investigator for the Senate Judiciary Committee. In late April 1988, he telephoned [[Bill Hamilton]], president of [[INSLAW]], to request a full briefing on the disputes between Inslaw and the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. Hamilton and his [[Nancy Hamilton|wife]] subsequently briefed LeGrand at Inslaw on the morning of May 11. Two days later, LeGrand telephoned Hamilton with information from a trusted senior [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] career official. This source, who had been in the Criminal Division of the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] since the [[Watergate scandal]] under President [[Richard Nixon]], told LeGrand to convey to the Hamiltons that "What you think happened, did happen. You are not crazy. But you do not know squat about how dirty the [[INSLAW]] case really is. If you ever learn even half of it, you will be sickened. [[INSLAW]] is a lot dirtier for the [[Department of Justice|Department of Justice]], in its breadth and depth, than [[Watergate]]. The [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] has been compromised at every level on the [[INSLAW]] case."[^1] -The source also stated that [[Lowell Jensen]] engineered Inslaw's problems and relied on [[Miles Matthews]], [[James Knapp]], and [[James Johnston]]. Miles Matthews allegedly stated in the presence of LeGrand's source that "Lowell [Jensen] wants to get INSLAW out of the way and give the business to friends." The source further indicated that [[John Keeney]], [[Mark Richards]], and [[Philip White]] knew "all about" Jensen's malfeasance, and that while Richards and White were "pretty upset," they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath. The source also believed that documents related to Project Eagle were shredded inside the DOJ, but suggested Inslaw should subpoena paperwork prepared by a Jensen subordinate regarding the purchase of large quantities of computer hardware for which senior DOJ career staff saw no justification.[^2] +The source also stated that [[Lowell Jensen]] engineered Inslaw's problems and relied on [[Miles Matthews]], [[James Knapp]], and [[James Johnston]]. Miles Matthews allegedly stated in the presence of LeGrand's source that "Lowell [Jensen] wants to get INSLAW out of the way and give the business to friends." The source further indicated that [[John Keeney]], [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]], and [[Philip White]] knew "all about" Jensen's malfeasance, and that while Richard and White were "pretty upset," they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath. The source also believed that documents related to Project Eagle were shredded inside the DOJ, but suggested Inslaw should subpoena paperwork prepared by a Jensen subordinate regarding the purchase of large quantities of computer hardware for which senior DOJ career staff saw no justification.[^2] The source also informed [[INSLAW]] through LeGrand that the Criminal Division had served as the nerve center for the scheme to drive [[INSLAW]] out of business by engineering sham contract disputes. LeGrand's communication was a significant turning point for the Hamiltons, as it provided internal corroboration of their suspicions regarding the theft of the [[PROMIS]] software.[^1] However, the Special Counsel's investigation found that LeGrand provided little corroboration of Hamilton's allegations during a sworn statement to House investigators. -LeGrand informed House investigators and the Special Counsel that, as far as he knew, none of the information provided to him by his source was obtained first-hand. The Special Counsel interviewed LeGrand's source, a long-time career employee of the Department of Justice, who stated that he had no first-hand knowledge of any misconduct by anyone in relation to PROMIS or Inslaw, and had not heard any credible rumors about such misconduct. This source indicated that the subject of Inslaw came up during a friendly conversation with LeGrand in 1987 or 1988. He suggested contacting Miles Matthews because Matthews was responsible for procurement in the Criminal Division and the source disliked or distrusted him. The source denied ever mentioning Jensen, Richards, White, Johnston, or Knapp to LeGrand, and did not believe any of these individuals would be involved in any type of cover-up. Furthermore, the source denied that any statements attributed to him in Hamilton's affidavit were accurate, and he never said or believed any of the comments attributed to him, never had reason to believe that identified DOJ officials were involved in wrongdoing, or that Project Eagle documents were improperly shredded. The Special Counsel's investigation ultimately found no credible evidence of a conspiracy involving Jensen or other senior DOJ officials.[^2] +LeGrand informed House investigators and the Special Counsel that, as far as he knew, none of the information provided to him by his source was obtained first-hand. The Special Counsel interviewed LeGrand's source, a long-time career employee of the Department of Justice, who stated that he had no first-hand knowledge of any misconduct by anyone in relation to PROMIS or Inslaw, and had not heard any credible rumors about such misconduct. This source indicated that the subject of Inslaw came up during a friendly conversation with LeGrand in 1987 or 1988. He suggested contacting Miles Matthews because Matthews was responsible for procurement in the Criminal Division and the source disliked or distrusted him. The source denied ever mentioning Jensen, Richard, White, Johnston, or Knapp to LeGrand, and did not believe any of these individuals would be involved in any type of cover-up. Furthermore, the source denied that any statements attributed to him in Hamilton's affidavit were accurate, and he never said or believed any of the comments attributed to him, never had reason to believe that identified DOJ officials were involved in wrongdoing, or that Project Eagle documents were improperly shredded. The Special Counsel's investigation ultimately found no credible evidence of a conspiracy involving Jensen or other senior DOJ officials.[^2] --- ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Royce Lamberth.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Royce Lamberth.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3fbf2d81 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Royce Lamberth.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Person + - RoyceLamberth + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - FISACourt + - DOJ + - Judiciary +alias: + - Royce C. Lamberth + - Judge Lamberth +summary: "Chief of the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington who, weeks before taking the federal bench in 1987, delivered Judge Bason's INSLAW ruling to the judge chairing the panel on Bason's reappointment; later presiding judge of the FISA court." +born: 1943 +location: "San Antonio, Texas" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Royce C. Lamberth (born 1943, San Antonio, [[Texas]]) is a judge of the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]], appointed by [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1987 after thirteen years in the [[U.S. Attorney's office]] for the District, where from 1978 he was chief of the civil division. He took his law degree at the [[University of Texas School of Law]] in 1967 and served as a captain in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps until 1974. He presided over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 1995 to 2002, was chief judge of the district court from 2008 to 2013, and took senior status on July 15, 2013.[^1] + +### The Bason Reappointment + +On September 28, 1987, Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] ruled from the bench that the [[Department of Justice]] had taken [[INSLAW]]'s [[PROMIS]] software "by trickery, fraud, and deceit." Bason's term was then before a merit selection panel of the district court chaired by Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]], which did not recommend his reappointment. Johnson told the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] that she had received a transcript of Bason's oral ruling from Lamberth, "who at the time was the Chief of the Civil Division for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia"; she had at first failed to recall the contact. Bua's report noted that when Lamberth brought the ruling to Johnson's attention he was still employed at the U.S. Attorney's office but "had, in fact, already been nominated to the federal bench," Reagan having named him on March 19, 1987, "and was sworn in shortly thereafter, on November 16, 1987." The Senate had confirmed him on November 13. Bua concluded that no Justice Department official had improperly influenced the selection panel, that the contact was the only evidence found of any department contact with the reappointment process, and that the episode did not call Johnson's credibility into doubt.[^1][^2] + +### Later Career + +Lamberth's [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] service ran from 1995 to 2002, the last years as presiding judge. As chief judge from 2008 he sat on the Judicial Conference of the United States. After taking senior status he also sat by designation in the Western District of Texas at San Antonio.[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, "Lamberth, Royce C.," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/lamberth-royce-c +[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 156-157, 165-166 (the report's own pagination). https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Sean McDade.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Sean McDade.md index d8b2a7cb..23d361ed 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Sean McDade.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Sean McDade.md @@ -16,8 +16,9 @@ McDade spent three days photocopying thousands of supporting documents to *The L McDade also described [[Scott Lawrence]]'s deep-cover drug investigation, code-named [[THE INDO-CHINA PROJECT]], on the Maine/Canadian border. Lawrence's investigation was abruptly shut down after he and his supervisor, [[John (Tim) Kelly]], requested to impanel grand juries to depose [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] officials.[1] -McDade found himself a target of [[ECHELON]] technology during his investigation in the [[United States]], forcing him to take extraordinary measures to communicate with [[Sue Todd]] and [[Cheri Seymour]]. He stated that the [[NSA|NSA]] was spying on [[Canada|Canadian]] citizens while [[Canada]] spied on [[United States|American]] citizens, both using [[ECHELON]] and trading data. Although he reportedly left the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] after his investigation was exposed in the *Toronto Star* in August 2000, [[Sue Todd]] indicated he ultimately returned to police work in his hometown.[1] +McDade found himself a target of [[ECHELON]] technology during his investigation in the [[United States]], forcing him to take extraordinary measures to communicate with [[Sue Todd]] and [[Cheri Seymour]]. He stated that the [[NSA|NSA]] was spying on [[Canada|Canadian]] citizens while [[Canada]] spied on [[United States|American]] citizens, both using [[ECHELON]] and trading data. The RCMP's spokesman Staff Sergeant Mike Gaudet said on August 25, 2000, that the inquiry had produced "absolutely nothing to date to indicate national security has been compromised in any way," and CSIS's Dan Lambert that the service had reviewed the matter in 1991 and never held a copy of the software;[2] the public record of the affair, from the 1991 origin to the 2000 disclosure, is on the [[Project Abbreviation]] page. Although he reportedly left the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] after his investigation was exposed in the *Toronto Star* in August 2000, [[Sue Todd]] indicated he ultimately returned to police work in his hometown.[1] --- ### Footnotes -[1] Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. \ No newline at end of file +[1] Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. +[2] Sallot, Jeff. "Mounties probe software allegations," *The Globe and Mail,* August 26, 2000. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Alan Standorf.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Alan Standorf.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..1bd554ff --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Alan Standorf.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +category: "PROMIS Scandal" +tags: + - Person + - AlanStandorf + - NSA + - Casolaro + - PROMIS + - BCCI + - SuspiciousDeath +alias: + - Alan David Standorf +summary: "Civilian analyst at Vint Hill Farms Station, the Army-run NSA post in Virginia, found beaten to death in his car at Washington National Airport in January 1991, whom Bill Turner named as a source of the BCCI and PROMIS documents in Danny Casolaro's missing briefcase." +died: 1991-01 +location: "Vint Hill Farms Station, Virginia" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Alan Standorf was a civilian employee, described by the airport detectives who investigated his death as "a low-level analyst," at [[Vint Hill Farms Station]], the military reservation outside Warrenton, [[Virginia]], "which is run by the army for the [[National Security Agency]]." He died of a blow to the head around January 3, 1991; his body, wrapped in his coat, was found stuffed in the back seat of his car at Washington National Airport on January 28. He had withdrawn 500 dollars from a cash machine shortly before he died, no money was found with the body, and a handgun was missing. Because he worked at a restricted facility, an Army intelligence investigator spent two days with the detectives of the National Airport Authority going over the evidence, and an Army intelligence officer looked for any sign that the death was related to his work; finding no suspect, the detectives took the case for a robbery with the body dumped at the airport.[^1] + +### The Casolaro Connection + +[[Danny Casolaro]] was found dead in a Martinsburg, [[West Virginia]], hotel on August 10, 1991, without the briefcase of documents he had been carrying. [[Bill Turner]], the former Hughes Aircraft employee who had met him the day before, said the briefcase held material Casolaro had "received from Alan Standorf" together with documents "concerning modified PROMIS software sales to Canada, Australia, and Israel," and it was Turner, the Village Voice reported, who was "the source of the rumor" that reached the airport detectives that Casolaro had been investigating Standorf's death. On September 4, 1991, the two detectives came to the Martinsburg police station while Casolaro's son, sister and a family friend were there to collect his car, and told the family they were investigating Standorf's murder. When the two police forces met, "they realized that neither one had any evidence linking Casolaro and Standorf"; the story that a business card of one had been found on the other's body was false. Later accounts describe Standorf as a first lieutenant in electronic intelligence and say [[Michael Riconosciuto]] introduced him to Casolaro in 1990 as a source on the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] and [[PROMIS]].[^1][^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Ridgeway, James, and Doug Vaughan. "The Last Days of Danny Casolaro: Murder or Suicide," *The Village Voice,* October 15, 1991, pp. 31-43, part 1, as reprinted at https://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=218&t=2794 +[^2]: "Son of Slain Journalist Who Exposed Web of CIA Corruption Calling For New Murder Investigation," *CovertAction Magazine,* September 4, 2023 (which gives January 31, 1991, as the date the body was found). https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/09/04/son-of-slain-journalist-who-exposed-web-of-cia-corruption-calling-for-new-murder-investigation/ The rank, the Riconosciuto introduction and the BCCI documents are as given in later accounts not examined. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Anthony Pasciuto.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Anthony Pasciuto.md index ed6aa3bf..6a81972f 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Anthony Pasciuto.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Anthony Pasciuto.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -category: "Belgium Scandals" +category: "PROMIS Scandal" tags: - Person - Belgium @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "Anthony Pasciuto was the Deputy Director of the Executive Office of U. Anthony Pasciuto was the Deputy Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST) within the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. He became a central figure in [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s allegations of a plot to convert its bankruptcy to a liquidation and a subsequent cover-up. -Inslaw's primary allegation stemmed from a private conversation [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]] had with Pasciuto in March 1987. According to Nancy Hamilton's later testimony, Pasciuto told them that the Director of EOUST, [[Thomas Stanton]], had pressured the U.S. Trustee assigned to the [[INSLAW]] case, [[Philip White]], to convert the case to Chapter 7. Pasciuto also allegedly told the Hamiltons that Stanton had tried to detail a talented attorney from the U.S. Trustee's Office in the Southern District of New York, [[Harry Jones]], to Washington D.C., to work on converting the Inslaw case. This allegation was initially supported by the deposition testimony of [[Cornelius Blackshear]], then a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, who swore that White had told him Stanton wanted the Inslaw case converted and a particular attorney from Blackshear's office assigned to handle it.[^1] +Inslaw's primary allegation stemmed from a private conversation [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]] had with Pasciuto in March 1987. According to Nancy Hamilton's later testimony, Pasciuto told them that the Director of EOUST, [[Thomas Stanton]], had pressured the U.S. Trustee assigned to the [[INSLAW]] case, [[William White]], to convert the case to Chapter 7. Pasciuto also allegedly told the Hamiltons that Stanton had tried to detail a talented attorney from the U.S. Trustee's Office in the Southern District of New York, [[Harry Jones]], to Washington D.C., to work on converting the Inslaw case. This allegation was initially supported by the deposition testimony of [[Cornelius Blackshear]], then a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, who swore that White had told him Stanton wanted the Inslaw case converted and a particular attorney from Blackshear's office assigned to handle it.[^1] However, Pasciuto's testimony and statements were found to be highly unreliable by the Special Counsel's investigation. Pasciuto himself testified during the Independent Handling hearing that no one had ever told him Stanton pressured White to convert the case, and he had no personal knowledge of the subject. He admitted that if he did tell the Hamiltons of such pressure, it was because he was very upset and would have done anything, including exaggerating and making things up, to hurt Stanton, his boss, with whom he was having problems. Pasciuto later changed his story, claiming that his initial statements to the Hamiltons were true and that his trial testimony was influenced by pressure from the DOJ and the lack of corroboration from Blackshear and White.[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Gerard John Schaefer.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Gerard John Schaefer.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..89f69938 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Gerard John Schaefer.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +category: "Crime & Abuse Networks" +tags: + - Person + - GerardJohnSchaefer + - Florida + - SerialKiller + - Wackenhut + - MartinCounty +alias: + - Gerard Schaefer + - G.J. Schaefer + - Killer Cop + - Butcher of Blind Creek +summary: "Martin County, Florida, deputy sheriff convicted in 1973 of two murders and linked by recovered possessions to at least six missing women, and by one account a Wackenhut security guard in 1970." +born: 1946-03-26 +died: 1995-12-03 +location: "Fort Lauderdale, Florida" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Gerard John Schaefer (March 26, 1946, Neenah, Wisconsin, to December 3, 1995, Florida State Prison) was a [[Martin County, Florida|Martin County]] deputy sheriff convicted in September 1973 of the first-degree murders of Susan Place and Georgia Jessup, two teenagers whose remains were found on Hutchinson Island on April 1, 1973. A trunk and jewelry box seized from his mother's house in [[Fort Lauderdale]] held jewelry, teeth, identity documents and photographs belonging to or depicting other women who had disappeared in southern [[Florida]] between 1969 and 1973. He was never charged with those deaths. Within a month of joining the sheriff's office he abducted two hitchhikers, [[Nancy Trotter]] and Paula Sue Wells, handcuffed and gagged them and tied them to trees with nooses at their necks, then left; both escaped. Trotter and Wells told a state investigator the next day that he had talked of selling them into "white slavery" and had "started estimating how much he could get for us."[^1][^2][^3] + +### Teaching, Security Work and the Police + +Schaefer grew up in Nashville, Atlanta and, from 1960, Fort Lauderdale, graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in 1964, and took a degree at [[Florida Atlantic University]] in 1968; a university psychological evaluation that year found "impairment in reality testing." He student-taught geography at Plantation High School from September 23 to November 7, 1969, when he was dismissed after complaints from students and parents, and was let go from a second internship at Stranahan High School about seven weeks after it began on April 2, 1970. His first wife, Martha Fogg, divorced him on May 2, 1970, on grounds of extreme cruelty. He then travelled in Europe and North Africa, and on his return took work as a security guard, with the [[Wackenhut Corporation]] by one account and Florida Power & Light by another.[^1][^3][^4] + +Applying to the Wilton Manors police (the year is given as both 1970 and 1971), he claimed two years as a research assistant at the university and said he had recently returned from [[Morocco]]; the department did not check. He had already failed the [[Broward County Sheriff's Office|Broward County Sheriff's Department]] psychological test. Wilton Manors dismissed him after six months for what its chief, Bernard Scott, called "a lack of common sense," and Martin County hired him as a deputy in June 1972 on the strength of a forged Wilton Manors recommendation.[^1][^3] + +### Evidence, Trial and Prison + +Searches in April 1973 recovered a locket engraved "LEIGH" belonging to Leigh Hainline Bonadies, a teenage neighbor of Schaefer's missing since September 1969; two teeth and a gold shamrock pin of Carmen Hallock, who had vanished in December 1969, together with a story of Schaefer's about the hanging of a woman in a black chiffon dress, the outfit Hallock was last seen in; the driver's license of Barbara Wilcox and passport of Collette Goodenough, hitchhikers last seen in January 1973; a chain and Madonna pin of Mary Briscolina, 14, missing with Elsie Farmer, 13, since October 1972; teeth and bone attributed to at least eight people; and photographs of women hanged or mutilated whose subjects police could not identify, along with pictures of Schaefer in women's clothing simulating his own hanging. Among the papers was a letter dated July 20, 1971, from a correspondent he had met in Morocco in 1970, enclosing a large number of pictures, several of women mutilated with bladed weapons; by a later account the correspondent wrote from Brunswick East, Victoria, and had taken the pictures in a village in the Sahara after what he called a "wog massacre" of Europeans and Arabs. Georgia Jessup's suede purse was in the possession of Schaefer's second wife, Teresa Dean, who said he had given it to her; when he pressed her and her brother Henry Dean to discard it, Dean gave it to police. The trunk held items from "at least six other women and girls." The jury convicted him on September 27, 1973, after about five hours, and he received two concurrent life terms on October 4.[^1][^2][^3][^5] + +In prison he wrote the stories later published with [[Sondra London]] as Killer Fiction, described conversations with [[Ted Bundy]], whom he called "a tyro when he nabbed Ott and Naslund," and forged letters in the name of [[Ottis Toole]] to John Walsh, Sears and Florida newspapers on the promise of a book deal. He sued London three times, and also [[Michael Newton]], Colin Wilson, Robert Ressler and Patrick Kendrick, for calling him a serial killer; the suits against London were dismissed after she filed his handwritten confessions as an exhibit, the Seventh Circuit affirmed judgment for Newton in June 1995, and the Wilson court declared him libel-proof. He was found stabbed more than forty times in his cell on December 3, 1995. Vincent Faustino Rivera was convicted of the killing in 1999; the official account gave a quarrel over hot water, while letters from Danny Rolling to London describe Schaefer as a "manipulating SNITCH" whose cell had twice been set on fire.[^2][^3][^6][^7] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: "Crime: Bluebeard on the Beach," *Time,* May 28, 1973, p. 31 (the 1968 evaluation, the Broward rejection, Chief Scott, the trunk, and the arrest 22 days into the Martin County job). https://time.com/archive/6844470/crime-bluebeard-on-the-beach/ +[^2]: London, Sondra. "Killer Cop," introductory essay to Schaefer, G.J., as told to Sondra London, *Killer Fiction,* Feral House, 1997 (reissued 2011); reproduces the investigator Littman's interview of Trotter and Wells, Schaefer's Bundy letter, the litigation and Rolling's letters. Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20180514185819/http://sondralondon.com/tales/cop/index.htm +[^3]: "The Butcher of Blind Creek: Gerard John Schaefer," *CrimeCult,* November 16, 2024, a compilation drawing on *Palm Beach Post* coverage of May 1973 and Lane, Brian, *Real-Life Crimes,* Eaglemoss, 1992-93; the underlying clippings, on newspapers.com, were not examined. https://www.crimecult.com/p/gerard-john-schaefer +[^4]: The Wackenhut attribution is Lane, Brian, "Gerard Schaefer," *Real-Life Crimes,* Eaglemoss, London, 1992-93, p. 162, as cited in later accounts and not examined directly; the Crime Library profile of Schaefer, intermittently offline, gives the employer as "Florida Light and Power." No account describes his duties, names who hired him, or connects him to other Wackenhut personnel. +[^5]: The letter's date and the pictures of mutilated women are in the CrimeCult account. The Brunswick East origin, the Moroccan acquaintance of summer 1970 and the "village in the Sahara" after a "wog massacre" are given only in Kendrick, Patrick, *American Ripper: The Enigma of America's Serial Killer Cop,* BluewaterPress, 2020, pp. 224-225, as summarized in later accounts; the book was not available for examination, and the letter is not mentioned in London's essay or in any 1973 press account located. A count of 37 Polaroids is attributed to "'Grave' Site Probed for More Victims," *Fort Lauderdale News,* May 24, 1973, not examined. Kendrick's earlier *Extended Family* is a novel drawing on the case; "Up Close: Patrick Kendrick," *The Big Thrill,* August 2020. https://www.thebigthrill.org/2020/08/up-close-patrick-kendrick/ +[^6]: Gilmore, Tim. "Stalking Ottis Toole, chapter 109: Framing Ottis Toole," *Jax Psycho Geo,* correcting the account in Matthews, Joe, and Les Standiford, *Bringing Adam Home,* 2011. https://jaxpsychogeo.com/north/springfield-ottis-toole-house/ottis-toole/stalking-ottis-toole-chapter-109/ +[^7]: *Schaefer v. Newton,* 57 F.3d 1073 (7th Cir. 1995) (unpublished order affirming summary judgment; text not examined). The Rivera conviction and the hot-water account are in the CrimeCult compilation. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kim Roosevelt.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kim Roosevelt.md index 118982c0..1672409e 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kim Roosevelt.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kim Roosevelt.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Intelligence & Government" tags: - Person - - PROMIS - CIA summary: "CIA officer who developed intelligence contacts with international arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi, a key figure in the Saudi-Israeli-American arms network." born: 1916-02-16 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Rawls.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Rawls.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..999224c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Rawls.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Person + - LeeRawls + - DOJ + - BNL + - INSLAW + - Senate + - FBI +alias: + - W. Lee Rawls + - William Lee Rawls +summary: "Justice Department legislative affairs chief under Thornburgh who advised him how to thwart the House Banking Committee's BNL inquiry and corresponded with the House Judiciary Committee during its INSLAW investigation; later chief of staff to Senator Frist and to FBI Director Mueller." +died: 2010-12 +location: "Washington, D.C." +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +W. Lee Rawls (Newport, Rhode Island, to December 2010, aged 66) was the [[Department of Justice]]'s assistant attorney general for legislative affairs under [[Richard Thornburgh]], the department's liaison to Congress in the years when the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] under [[Jack Brooks]] was demanding [[INSLAW]] documents and the [[House Banking Committee]] under Henry Gonzalez was opening its inquiry into the [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]] loans to [[Iraq]]. A Princeton graduate of 1966 with a law degree from [[George Washington University]], he began as a legislative specialist at the Environmental Protection Agency, was chief of staff to Senator [[Pete Domenici]] by 1975, and served as staff director of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] before joining the department.[^1] + +### Thornburgh's Congress Man + +In 1990, as Gonzalez prepared a full-scale investigation of the Atlanta branch of BNL, Rawls wrote Thornburgh a briefing memorandum: "Our best attempt to thwart any further congressional inquiry by the House Banking Committee into this case is to have you contact Chairman Gonzalez directly." Gonzalez declined to take the attorney general's call, and Thornburgh wrote to him of his "profound disappointment." In May and July 1991 Rawls corresponded on the department's behalf with the House Judiciary Committee during its INSLAW investigation.[^2][^3] + +### Later Career + +Rawls was chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from 2003 to 2005 and then chief of staff and senior counsel to [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Director [[Robert Mueller]] until 2009. In private practice he was a partner at Vinson & Elkins and managing partner of the Washington office of Howard Baker's firm, Baker Donelson; he taught at the National Defense University and the College of William and Mary, was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and in 2009 published In Praise of Deadlock, a defense of the Senate filibuster. He died of acute leukemia in December 2010.[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: "W. Lee Rawls, Justice Department official and Senate aide," obituary, *The Washington Post,* December 2010; Princeton Alumni Weekly memorial, Class of 1966; "Lee Rawls, Former Chief of Staff to FBI Director Mueller, Dies," *Tickle the Wire,* December 2010. The three obituaries agree on the career; none was opened in full, and the biographical details rest on their summaries. +[^2]: Friedman, Alan. *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq,* Bantam, 1993, pp. 193-194. +[^3]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, correspondence of May and July 1991 (the letters' contents were not examined). https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Mark M. Richard.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Mark M. Richard.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7ecbdb01 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Mark M. Richard.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +category: "Law Enforcement & Legal" +tags: + - Person + - MarkRichard + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - DOJ + - Pollard + - IranContra +alias: + - Mark Richard + - Mark Richards +summary: "Deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division for twenty years, named by a Senate investigator's source as knowing of Lowell Jensen's conduct in the INSLAW matter and questioned by the Bua inquiry over the Office of Special Investigations; he called INSLAW's charges slanderous." +died: 2009-05-23 +location: "Washington, D.C." +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Mark M. Richard (died May 23, 2009, Charlottesville, [[Virginia]], aged 69) was a career prosecutor of the [[Department of Justice]] for forty years, serving sixteen attorneys general from Ramsey Clark to Alberto Gonzales. Born in New York and raised in Brooklyn, he worked as a probation officer, graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1967 and joined the department the same year, becoming chief of the fraud section. In 1979 he was made deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division, a post he held for twenty years. He had a hand in the inquiry into Carter's budget director Bert Lance, the Billy Carter Libya lobbying case, the [[Jonathan Pollard]] espionage prosecution, the federal intervention at Waco and the mid-1990s investigation of Democratic National Committee contributions. From 1999 to 2007 he was the department's representative to the [[European Union]], leading counterterrorism coordination after September 2001 and negotiating extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties. He received the Presidential Rank Award, two Attorney General's Exceptional Service Awards and the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] Director's Award; Attorney General Eric Holder spoke at his funeral, and the Criminal Division named a memorial award for him.[^1] + +### Pollard and Iran-Contra + +In 1986 [[Leonard Garment]] informed U.S. Attorney [[Joseph E. diGenova]] and Richard that he was withdrawing from the representation of the Israeli officer Aviem Sella in the Pollard matter. Richard's handwritten notes of a department briefing on the Iran-Contra figure [[Scott Weekly]] recorded: "Weekly posts on tape that he's tied into CIA and Hasenfus. Said he reports to people reporting to Bush."[^2][^3] + +### The INSLAW Inquiry + +A career department source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], chief investigator of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]], said that Richard, [[John Keeney]] and [[Philip White]] knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s conduct in the [[INSLAW]] matter and that Richard and White were "pretty upset" about it but would speak only under subpoena and oath. Interviewed by the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]], Richard said he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Jensen generally or of the kind described in [[Bill Hamilton]]'s affidavit, and Bua found no credible evidence for the allegation. INSLAW also suggested that the [[Office of Special Investigations]], the Nazi-hunting unit within the Criminal Division, was a covert intelligence arm distributing [[PROMIS]]. Bua's report records his reply: "Mr. Richard stated that INSLAW's charges are ridiculous. He said that OSI is only involved in its stated mission of locating and deporting Nazi war criminals and in related projects such as the analysis of Kurt Waldheim's role during World War II. He did, however, note that OSI does work with various intelligence agencies in fulfilling its mandate of locating war criminals. He categorically denied any involvement by OSI in covert operations, the dissemination of PROMIS or the death of Mr. Casolaro. He said that he considers these and other allegations made by INSLAW to be slanderous."[^4] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: "Mark M. Richard, Career Prosecutor With the Justice Department, Dies at 69," *The Washington Post,* June 3, 2009. Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20141225083941/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/03/AR2009060303700.html +[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option,* Random House, 1991, ch. 21. +[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance,* Seven Stories, 1998, ch. 19. +[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, p. 120 and the section on the Office of Special Investigations. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Mark Richards.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Mark Richards.md deleted file mode 100644 index aaa8779e..00000000 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Mark Richards.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,21 +0,0 @@ ---- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" -tags: - - Person - - PROMIS - - CIA - - DoJ - - Lawyer - - INSLAW -summary: "Mark Richards was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the DOJ." ---- - -Mark Richards was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. He was implicated in allegations surrounding the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]]. - -According to a source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], Richards, along with [[John Keeney]] and [[Philip White]], knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s alleged malfeasance in the Inslaw matter. The source believed that while Richards and White were "pretty upset" about it, they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath, and that they would not commit perjury.[^1] - -However, when interviewed by the Special Counsel, Mark Richards stated that he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Lowell Jensen generally, or of the type of wrongdoing described in the Hamilton affidavit specifically. The Special Counsel's investigation found no credible evidence to support the allegations against Richards or any connection between him and a conspiracy related to [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] or [[PROMIS]].[^1] - -### Footnotes - -[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Thomas Stanton.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Thomas Stanton.md index 2b598053..07fb1f9d 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Thomas Stanton.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Thomas Stanton.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -category: "Belgium Scandals" +category: "PROMIS Scandal" tags: - Person - Belgium @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "Thomas Stanton was the Director of the Executive Office of U.S." Thomas Stanton was the Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST) within the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. He became a central figure in [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s allegations of a plot to convert its bankruptcy to a liquidation and a subsequent cover-up. -According to [[Anthony Pasciuto]], then Deputy Director of EOUST, Stanton had pressured [[Philip White]], the U.S. Trustee assigned to the Inslaw case, to convert Inslaw's Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation. Pasciuto also alleged that Stanton tried to detail [[Harry Jones]], an attorney from the U.S. Trustee's Office, to Washington D.C. to work on converting the Inslaw case. [[Cornelius Blackshear]], then a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure. Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, concluded that Stanton struck a bargain with [[C. Madison Brewer]] to liquidate [[INSLAW]] to rid the DOJ of its contract problems, and that Stanton made this commitment to curry favor with the EOUSA and higher DOJ officials to secure support for making the temporary U.S. Trustee program permanent. Bason believed Stanton agreed to pressure White and, when White resisted, sought to detail Jones to accomplish the conversion. However, the Special Counsel's investigation found that Stanton and Brewer denied any such discussions, and that Stanton testified he only briefly considered transferring Jones to assist with the Inslaw matter due to its high-profile nature, not to effect a conversion.[^1] +According to [[Anthony Pasciuto]], then Deputy Director of EOUST, Stanton had pressured [[William White]], the U.S. Trustee assigned to the Inslaw case, to convert Inslaw's Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation. Pasciuto also alleged that Stanton tried to detail [[Harry Jones]], an attorney from the U.S. Trustee's Office, to Washington D.C. to work on converting the Inslaw case. [[Cornelius Blackshear]], then a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure. Bankruptcy Judge Bason, in his findings, concluded that Stanton struck a bargain with [[C. Madison Brewer]] to liquidate [[INSLAW]] to rid the DOJ of its contract problems, and that Stanton made this commitment to curry favor with the EOUSA and higher DOJ officials to secure support for making the temporary U.S. Trustee program permanent. Bason believed Stanton agreed to pressure White and, when White resisted, sought to detail Jones to accomplish the conversion. However, the Special Counsel's investigation found that Stanton and Brewer denied any such discussions, and that Stanton testified he only briefly considered transferring Jones to assist with the Inslaw matter due to its high-profile nature, not to effect a conversion.[^1] The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigated allegations against Stanton and others, concluding that Bankruptcy Judge Bason's findings on the Independent Handling proceeding were "clearly erroneous" and that there was no evidence that DOJ employees had tried to pressure White to convert Inslaw's case. OPR also found no evidence that DOJ officials had lied to cover up a conversion effort. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) also investigated the matter, finding "no proof that an effort to convert Inslaw's bankruptcy proceedings was conducted by individuals beyond those the Bankruptcy Court had found responsible." The PSI noted that Stanton urged special treatment for the Inslaw case because he saw it as a means of favorably impressing the DOJ and ensuring continued support for his office, which, while improper, did not equate to the conspiracy alleged by the Hamiltons. The Special Counsel's investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish that the DOJ and Stanton endeavored to have the Inslaw case converted or engaged in any cover-up. It noted that a scheme to convert Inslaw would have been self-defeating, as only the Bankruptcy Court could order conversion, and the facts of the Inslaw case would not have supported such a motion.[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Allan R. Tessler.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Allan R. Tessler.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5caf1dfd --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Allan R. Tessler.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +category: "Business & Finance" +tags: + - Person + - AllanTessler + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - SheaGould + - HudsonInstitute +alias: + - Alan Tessler + - Allan Tessler +summary: "Senior managing partner of the New York firm Shea and Gould whom Bill Hamilton's affidavit named as Earl Brian's and Hadron's merger lawyer and as a relative of INSLAW's investor Daniel Tessler, who denied any relation; later a merchant banker, L Brands director and Hudson Institute chairman." +location: "Jackson, Wyoming" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Allan R. Tessler, a Cornell graduate and editor of the Cornell Law Quarterly who served as a Navy lieutenant, began at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, was counsel to Spengler, Carlson, Gubar and Churchill, and became senior managing partner of [[Shea & Gould]], sitting on the New York firm's executive committee from 1976 to 1988. After the firm dissolved in 1994 he was chairman and chief executive of International Financial Group, a merchant bank, from 1987; co-chief executive and chairman of Data Broadcasting Corporation, later Interactive Data; chairman of Enhance Financial Services Group, an insurance holding company he co-founded that merged into Radian; and chairman and principal shareholder of Great Dane Holdings. He had earlier held senior posts at Ladenburg Thalmann, Devon Securities and Loeb Rhoades and been president of Slater Walker of America, Ameriscribe and Fifth Avenue Coach Lines. He was lead director and finance committee chairman of L Brands, a director of TD Ameritrade and of Interactive Data until November 2006, and chairman emeritus of the [[Hudson Institute]].[^1] + +### The INSLAW Affidavit + +[[Bill Hamilton]]'s affidavit in the [[INSLAW]] litigation alleged that [[Daniel Tessler]], the investment manager who with his wife [[Patricia Cloherty]] took over the [[53rd Street Ventures]] fund holding INSLAW stock in 1984, "is a relative of Alan Tessler, the senior partner in the New York City law firm of Shea and Gould responsible for [[Earl Brian|Brian]]'s and [[Hadron]]'s mergers and acquisitions work." Daniel Tessler told the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]]'s investigators that he "is not a relative of, and does not even know, Alan Tessler." Bua's report does not record an interview of Allan Tessler, and the statement that Shea and Gould handled Brian's and Hadron's merger work rests on the Hamilton affidavit alone; Tessler's tenure on the firm's executive committee does place him at Shea and Gould through the years in question.[^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Hudson Institute, "Allan R. Tessler, Chairman Emeritus," institutional biography, archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20211204105456/https://www.hudson.org/experts/679-allan-r-tessler-mdash-i-chairman-emeritus--i ; the executive committee dates are from a Cornell University Library finding aid for the Shea and Gould records, not examined. +[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 90-94 and addendum. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Daniel Tessler.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Daniel Tessler.md index b415106e..a95b0225 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Daniel Tessler.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Daniel Tessler.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Daniel Tessler managed a venture capital fund called [[53rd Street Ventures]], I [[Bill Hamilton]]'s affidavit claimed that in December 1984, shortly before Inslaw's Chapter 11 filing, Tessler came to Inslaw and attempted to induce the Hamiltons to turn over the voting rights of their controlling interest in Inslaw common stock. Hamilton alleged that Tessler stated neither 53rd Street Ventures nor [[Hambro Venture Capital]] would help Inslaw raise capital unless the Hamiltons surrendered their voting rights by the end of the business day. Hamilton's affidavit also suggested a relationship between [[Daniel Tessler]] and [[Alan Tessler]], a partner in a law firm representing [[Earl Brian]] and [[Hadron]], and that Daniel Tessler helped organize Hadron's efforts to "get" Inslaw.[^1] -Daniel Tessler denied these allegations. He stated that he and Cloherty looked into the Inslaw investment after taking over management and determined that Inslaw had serious operating difficulties, was heavily in debt, and could not meet its production obligations. He met with Hamilton in late 1984, and while Hamilton asked about additional investment, Tessler denied ever trying to induce the Hamiltons to turn over their voting rights or giving them an ultimatum. He maintained that he only discussed control in the context of future investments, explaining that investors were unlikely to invest if the company continued to be managed by the same people who led it into financial difficulties. Tessler stated he does not know Earl Brian, [[Edwin Meese]], [[Dominic Laiti]], or [[Lowell Jensen]], and denied any discussions or communications with them or any DOJ officials regarding Inslaw's investment or his conversations with Hamilton. He also denied any dealings with Hadron, Simeon, or Biotech, and denied being related to Alan Tessler or having dealings with Shea and Gould. Tessler stated that to his knowledge, his wife, [[Patricia Cloherty]], had no knowledge of Earl Brian or any connection between Brian and Inslaw, and never claimed to "know all about" Brian's role in the Inslaw matter.[^1] +Daniel Tessler denied these allegations. He stated that he and Cloherty looked into the Inslaw investment after taking over management and determined that Inslaw had serious operating difficulties, was heavily in debt, and could not meet its production obligations. He met with Hamilton in late 1984, and while Hamilton asked about additional investment, Tessler denied ever trying to induce the Hamiltons to turn over their voting rights or giving them an ultimatum. He maintained that he only discussed control in the context of future investments, explaining that investors were unlikely to invest if the company continued to be managed by the same people who led it into financial difficulties. Tessler stated he does not know Earl Brian, [[Edwin Meese]], [[Dominic Laiti]], or [[Lowell Jensen]], and denied any discussions or communications with them or any DOJ officials regarding Inslaw's investment or his conversations with Hamilton. He also denied any dealings with Hadron, Simeon, or Biotech, and denied being related to [[Allan R. Tessler|Alan Tessler]] or having dealings with Shea and Gould. Tessler stated that to his knowledge, his wife, [[Patricia Cloherty]], had no knowledge of Earl Brian or any connection between Brian and Inslaw, and never claimed to "know all about" Brian's role in the Inslaw matter.[^1] ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Diana, Princess of Wales.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Diana, Princess of Wales.md index 9a5162ec..1581773a 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Diana, Princess of Wales.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Diana, Princess of Wales.md @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ --- -category: "PROMIS Scandal" +category: "Historical Figure" tags: - Person - - PROMIS summary: "Princess of Wales whose 1997 death alongside Dodi Fayed is referenced in research tied to the PROMIS scandal and its web of interconnected intelligence figures." born: 1961-07-01 died: 1997-08-31 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Hassan Yassin.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Hassan Yassin.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..22f02bfe --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Hassan Yassin.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +category: "Business & Finance" +tags: + - Person + - HassanYassin + - SaudiArabia + - Khashoggi + - Washington +alias: + - Hassan Youssef Yassin +summary: "Son of King Abdulaziz's adviser Youssef Yassin, cousin of Adnan Khashoggi and associate of Kamal Adham, who headed the Saudi Information Office in Washington from 1972 to 1981 and died in May 2026." +died: 2026-05-17 +location: "Mecca, Saudi Arabia" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Hassan Yassin (Mecca, to May 17, 2026) was the son of Sheikh Youssef Yassin, political adviser to King Abdulaziz, the founder of [[Saudi Arabia]], and grew up, in the words of his obituary, "immersed in the details and inner workings of Saudi politics from an early age." Educated in Mecca and Taif and at Victoria College in Alexandria, he studied in the United States in the 1950s and worked under the oil ministers Abdullah Tariki and [[Ahmed Zaki Yamani]] from 1959 to 1967. From 1972 to 1981 he headed the Saudi Information Office in [[Washington, D.C.]], the kingdom's public diplomacy post in the capital during the oil embargo, the Yamani years and the first arms sales fights in Congress; he then served with the Arab League's observer delegation at the United Nations from 1981 to 1983, later advised a Saudi ambassador in Washington, and wrote a column for Arab News. Saudi officials mourning him called him "a national memory and a cultural treasure trove that accompanied our kings."[^1] + +He was a cousin of the arms dealer [[Adnan Khashoggi]] and was described, in the account of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] affair by Beaty and Gwynne, as a close business associate of [[Kamal Adham]], the head of Saudi intelligence and the bank's front man. No documented transaction connects him to [[Earl Brian]]'s [[Hadron]] or United Press International ventures; he does not appear in the House Judiciary Committee's report, the Bua report or [[Ari Ben-Menashe]]'s book.[^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Hassan, Rashid. "Testament to Saudi Arabia's modern history, Hassan Yassin dies," *Arab News,* May 18, 2026. https://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/testament-to-saudi-arabias-modern-history-hassan-yassin-dies-2644043 Victoria College is from an earlier Arab News profile not examined. +[^2]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne. *The Outlaw Bank,* Random House, 1993, p. 352, as cited on [[Adnan Khashoggi]]; House Report 102-857 and the Bua report, searched in full, contain no reference to him. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Paul Wormeli.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Paul Wormeli.md index be9e1cc7..6510a29c 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Paul Wormeli.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Paul Wormeli.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ summary: "Paul Wormeli was the Vice President in charge of Product Development f Paul Wormeli was the Vice President in charge of Product Development for [[Simeon]], Inc., a company that was purchased by Hadron in 1982. He remained with Simeon for two years after the acquisition. -Wormeli accompanied [[Dominic Laiti]] on a business trip to New York City in late 1983, which [[Bill Hamilton]] alleged was to raise capital to buy [[PROMIS]]. Wormeli confirmed that the trip was to raise money for Simeon and that he and Laiti met with [[Earl Brian]] and executives from Allen and Company, including [[Mark Kesselman]], to discuss funding. However, Wormeli stated that neither Laiti nor Brian ever discussed the acquisition of PROMIS or [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] with him, and that Laiti never mentioned PROMIS or Inslaw to him or at any of the New York meetings. Wormeli first became aware of Inslaw's problems with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]] from reading newspaper articles. While sympathetic to Hamilton's view, Wormeli maintained he had no knowledge of a connection between Hadron and Inslaw.[^1] +Wormeli accompanied [[Dominic Laiti]] on a business trip to New York City in late 1983, which [[Bill Hamilton]] alleged was to raise capital to buy [[PROMIS]]. Wormeli confirmed that the trip was to raise money for Simeon and that he and Laiti met with [[Earl Brian]] and executives from [[Allen and Company]], including [[Mark Kesselman]], to discuss funding. However, Wormeli stated that neither Laiti nor Brian ever discussed the acquisition of PROMIS or [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] with him, and that Laiti never mentioned PROMIS or Inslaw to him or at any of the New York meetings. Wormeli first became aware of Inslaw's problems with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]] from reading newspaper articles. While sympathetic to Hamilton's view, Wormeli maintained he had no knowledge of a connection between Hadron and Inslaw.[^1] The Special Counsel's investigation found that Wormeli's testimony did not support Hamilton's thesis that the New York trip was to raise money to buy PROMIS. The investigation concluded that there was no evidence from Wormeli or other interviewed individuals that Hadron or Simeon ever had any interest in obtaining Inslaw's software.[^1] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Philip White.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Philip White.md index a0ad6ab1..82f4a6b0 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Philip White.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Philip White.md @@ -1,18 +1,15 @@ --- -category: "Belgium Scandals" +category: "PROMIS Scandal" tags: - Person - - Belgium + - PROMIS + - DOJ summary: "Philip White was the Director of International Affairs for the Criminal Division of the DOJ." --- -Philip White was the Director of International Affairs for the Criminal Division of the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. He was implicated in allegations surrounding the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] and the attempted conversion of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]]'s bankruptcy case. +Philip White was the Director of International Affairs for the Criminal Division of the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]]. He was named in allegations surrounding the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]]; the United States Trustee on the [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] bankruptcy, [[William White]], is a different official. -According to a source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], White, along with [[John Keeney]] and [[Mark Richards]], knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s alleged malfeasance in the Inslaw matter. The source believed that while Richards and White were "pretty upset" about it, they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath, and that they would not commit perjury.[^1] - -White was also the U.S. Trustee assigned to the [[INSLAW]] bankruptcy case. [[Anthony Pasciuto]] alleged that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), pressured White to convert Inslaw's Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation. [[Cornelius Blackshear]], then a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure. White, however, denied that Stanton had tried to exert any pressure on him to convert Inslaw. He explained that he asked for specific language to be added to a confidentiality order to protect himself from criticism, such as that made by Inslaw's counsel following the [[Jack Rugh]]-[[Gregory McKain]] conversation, by ensuring only personnel in his office would be involved in the case. White's recollection was that Blackshear was mistaken and had confused Inslaw with the UPI case, about which White had told Blackshear that the IRS had pressured him to join a motion to convert.[^1] - -The Special Counsel's investigation found no credible evidence to support the allegations against White. When interviewed, White denied any wrongdoing or pressure from Stanton to convert the Inslaw case. The investigation concluded that White's testimony was consistent with that of most other witnesses, and that his explanation for the confidentiality order language was credible. The report also noted that White, being no longer in government, was less susceptible to pressure to tailor his testimony to suit the DOJ's position. The investigation found insufficient evidence to support a finding that the DOJ pressured the U.S. Trustee to convert the U.S. Trustee to convert the Inslaw Bankruptcy case or otherwise improperly interfere with it, or that the DOJ attempted a cover-up.[^1] +According to a source of [[Ronald LeGrand]], White, along with [[John Keeney]] and [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]], knew "all about" [[Lowell Jensen]]'s alleged malfeasance in the Inslaw matter. The source believed that while Richard and White were "pretty upset" about it, they would not disclose what they knew except under subpoena and oath, and that they would not commit perjury.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993. diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Roger Whelan.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Roger Whelan.md index 156f48d5..5b2b379e 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Roger Whelan.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Roger Whelan.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ Roger Whelan was the bankruptcy judge who preceded [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|J Whelan became involved in the controversy surrounding Judge Bason's non-reappointment. He was a practicing bankruptcy attorney and reportedly received complaints about Bason from several of his colleagues. These attorneys, according to Whelan, shared his view that Bason was pro-debtor and too slow in making decisions. Whelan reported these views to the Merit Selection Panel by telephone. The Special Counsel's investigation noted that Whelan's opposition to Bason's reappointment was significant, as it contributed to the perception that Judge Bason was a poor administrator. This perception, whether accurate or not, was made known to the Panel at least by Whelan and almost certainly by others.[^1] -[[Charles Deeter]], an attorney for [[INSLAW|Inslaw]], reported to the House Committee on the Judiciary that in July 1987, Whelan had threatened to oppose Bason's reappointment because Bason had not ruled on a fee petition filed by Whelan. Deeter alleged that Whelan told him that Senior District Court Judge Irwin Gasch would organize the opposition to Bason's reappointment. Whelan acknowledged that he represented a party in the UPI case and was frustrated by Judge Bason's delay in ruling on an application he had filed. He also acknowledged being a friend of Senior Judge Gasch. However, he denied ever speaking with Charles Deeter about the UPI case or trying indirectly to pressure Judge Bason to rule on his application for compensation in that case. The Special Counsel's investigation did not attempt to resolve this disagreement but noted that the possibility of concerted opposition to Bason by district court judges or others might explain why he was not reappointed.[^1] +[[Charles Docter]], an attorney for [[INSLAW|Inslaw]], reported to the House Committee on the Judiciary that in July 1987, Whelan had threatened to oppose Bason's reappointment because Bason had not ruled on a fee petition filed by Whelan. Docter alleged that Whelan told him that Senior District Court Judge Irwin Gasch would organize the opposition to Bason's reappointment. Whelan acknowledged that he represented a party in the UPI case and was frustrated by Judge Bason's delay in ruling on an application he had filed. He also acknowledged being a friend of Senior Judge Gasch. However, he denied ever speaking with Charles Docter about the UPI case or trying indirectly to pressure Judge Bason to rule on his application for compensation in that case. The Special Counsel's investigation did not attempt to resolve this disagreement but noted that the possibility of concerted opposition to Bason by district court judges or others might explain why he was not reappointed.[^1] ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Scott Weekly.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Scott Weekly.md index de4ddcae..6cccfe90 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Scott Weekly.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Scott Weekly.md @@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ In early 1986, Weekly and Gritz were recruited to train Afghan Mujahedeen fighte ### The Tapes and Bush Connection -Justice Department official Mark Richard's handwritten notes of a briefing on Weekly's case recorded: "Weekly posts on tape that he's tied into CIA and Hasenfus. Said he reports to people reporting to Bush." The tapes of Weekly's intercontinental telephone conversations were obtained by the Justice Department but do not appear to have been turned over to Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. Weekly was convicted of transporting explosives and sentenced to five years. After fourteen months, a hearing revealed he had been working for the U.S. government. His probation required him to report any future contact with the State Department, Defense Department, CIA, or any intelligence agency.[^1] +Justice Department official [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]]'s handwritten notes of a briefing on Weekly's case recorded: "Weekly posts on tape that he's tied into CIA and Hasenfus. Said he reports to people reporting to Bush." The tapes of Weekly's intercontinental telephone conversations were obtained by the Justice Department but do not appear to have been turned over to Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. Weekly was convicted of transporting explosives and sentenced to five years. After fourteen months, a hearing revealed he had been working for the U.S. government. His probation required him to report any future contact with the State Department, Defense Department, CIA, or any intelligence agency.[^1] ### Footnotes diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/William White.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/William White.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5164df04 --- /dev/null +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/William White.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +category: "PROMIS Scandal" +tags: + - Person + - WilliamWhite + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - USTrustee +alias: + - Edward White +summary: "United States Trustee for the District of Columbia on the INSLAW bankruptcy whom Anthony Pasciuto said Thomas Stanton pressured to convert the case to liquidation, a claim White denied and Bua found unsupported; distinct from the Criminal Division's Philip White." +location: "Washington, D.C." +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +William White was the United States Trustee for the District of Columbia assigned to the [[INSLAW]] bankruptcy case, filed under Chapter 11 in February 1985. [[Anthony Pasciuto]] alleged that [[Thomas Stanton]], Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees (EOUST), pressured White to convert Inslaw's Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation. [[Cornelius Blackshear]], then a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, initially testified that White had told him of Stanton's pressure. White, however, denied that Stanton had tried to exert any pressure on him to convert Inslaw. He explained that he asked for specific language to be added to a confidentiality order to protect himself from criticism, such as that made by Inslaw's counsel following the [[Jack Rugh]]-[[Gregory McKain]] conversation of February 1985, by ensuring only personnel in his office would be involved in the case. White's recollection was that Blackshear was mistaken and had confused Inslaw with the UPI case, about which White had told Blackshear that the IRS had pressured him to join a motion to convert.[^1] Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] found in June 1987, on [[Anthony Pasciuto]]'s account as relayed by [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]], that the [[Department of Justice]] had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" tried to convert the case, and that Stanton had also sought to detail the New York trustee's attorney [[Harry Jones]] to White's office for the purpose. Some later accounts call him Edward White; the special counsel's report names him William White, and the LeGrand source's "Philip White" is a different official, the Criminal Division's [[Philip White]].[^1] + +The Special Counsel's investigation found no credible evidence to support the allegations against White. When interviewed, White denied any wrongdoing or pressure from Stanton to convert the Inslaw case. The investigation concluded that White's testimony was consistent with that of most other witnesses, and that his explanation for the confidentiality order language was credible. The report also noted that White, being no longer in government, was less susceptible to pressure to tailor his testimony to suit the DOJ's position. The investigation found insufficient evidence to support a finding that the DOJ pressured the U.S. Trustee to convert the U.S. Trustee to convert the Inslaw Bankruptcy case or otherwise improperly interfere with it, or that the DOJ attempted a cover-up.[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, sections on the alleged conversion of the bankruptcy. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/KEY INDIVIDUALS.md b/10 - PEOPLE/KEY INDIVIDUALS.md index 07b5926e..fa2adb40 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/KEY INDIVIDUALS.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/KEY INDIVIDUALS.md @@ -925,7 +925,7 @@ Master index of the people pages, generated from each page's `category` and `sum | [[Marilyn Jacobs]] | Marilyn Jacobs was the secretary to Lowell Jensen at the DOJ. | | [[Marilyn Titus]] | Marilyn Titus worked for Simeon from September 1982 until January 1984, and then for Hadron for four years after leaving Simeon. | | [[Mark Nichols]] | Administrator of the Cabazon Tribal Council who inherited the position from his brother John Paul Nichols in 1989. | -| [[Mark Richards]] | Mark Richards was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the DOJ. | +| [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]] | Mark Richards was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the DOJ. | | [[Marshall Riconosciuto]] | In 1981, Hercules Research Corporation developed a small electronic power supply designed to feed 30,000 volts of electricity to a METC (Modular Energy Transfer Catalyzer) unit, which could significantly reduce heating and cooling times in | | [[Mason O. Lidell Jr.]] | After entering the apartment and getting a brief glance at the body and the apartment, Lidell was ordered to leave. | | [[Matthew Kevin Gannon]] | Senior MC-10 intelligence cell member killed on Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland after returning from a Beirut mission. | diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/MOC - PROMIS Scandal.md b/10 - PEOPLE/MOC - PROMIS Scandal.md index 8f45fd3b..03daf686 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/MOC - PROMIS Scandal.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/MOC - PROMIS Scandal.md @@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ Central figures in the PROMIS/INSLAW software scandal and related investigations | [[Marilyn Jacobs]] | Marilyn Jacobs was the secretary to Lowell Jensen at the DOJ. | | [[Marilyn Titus]] | Marilyn Titus worked for Simeon from September 1982 until January 1984, and then for Hadron for four years after leaving Simeon. | | [[Mark Nichols]] | Administrator of the Cabazon Tribal Council who inherited the position from his brother John Paul Nichols in 1989. | -| [[Mark Richards]] | Mark Richards was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the DOJ. | +| [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]] | Mark Richards was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the DOJ. | | [[Matthew Kevin Gannon]] | Senior MC-10 intelligence cell member killed on Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland after returning from a Beirut mission. | | [[Meyer Lansky]] | Prominent Florida mobster whose Fremont Hotel in Las Vegas was financed through Jimmy Hoffa loans and linked to Bobby Baker networks. | | [[Michael Riconosciuto]] | From 1981 to 1984, Riconosciuto served as the Director of Research for a joint venture between Wackenhut Corporation and the Cabazon Indian tribe near Indio, California. | diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Royal Canadian Mounted Police.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Royal Canadian Mounted Police.md index cb3a3f57..404c5b6e 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Royal Canadian Mounted Police.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Royal Canadian Mounted Police.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ summary: "The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is Canada's national police force, w start: 1920 location: "Ottawa, Canada" --- -The [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] is [[Canada]]'s national police force, which became significantly involved in the investigation of the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]]. In February 2000, [[Sean McDade]], an [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] national security investigator, secretly entered the [[United States]] to investigate evidence that the [[Canadian Government]] was using a modified version of the [[PROMIS]] computer software, which purportedly allowed the [[United States|U.S.]] to eavesdrop on [[Canada|Canadian]] intelligence secrets through a "back-door." His investigation was code-named Project Abbreviation, and his email handle, "simorp," was [[PROMIS]] spelled backward.[1] +The [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] is [[Canada]]'s national police force, which became significantly involved in the investigation of the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]]. In February 2000, [[Sean McDade]], an [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] national security investigator, secretly entered the [[United States]] to investigate evidence that the [[Canadian Government]] was using a modified version of the [[PROMIS]] computer software, which purportedly allowed the [[United States|U.S.]] to eavesdrop on [[Canada|Canadian]] intelligence secrets through a "back-door." His investigation was code-named [[Project Abbreviation]], and his email handle, "simorp," was [[PROMIS]] spelled backward.[1] The [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] probe, code-named Project Abbreviation, was authorized at the highest levels of the organization and was well-funded. The investigation was prompted by the discovery of an invoice for the purchase of [[PROMIS]] from Strategic Software Planning in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which contradicted earlier denials by [[Canada|Canadian]] authorities regarding the Hamiltons' claims about the pirated software. [[Sean McDade]]'s investigation reportedly traced banking transactions that supported the claim that high-ranking [[Canadian Government|Canadian]] officials might have unlawfully purchased the software from officials in the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]]-[[George H.W. Bush|Bush]] administration.[1] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md index 2bb1411c..89fbf257 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Department of Justice.md @@ -6,37 +6,46 @@ aliases: - Justice Department - U.S. Department of Justice created: 2026-05-17 -updated: 2026-05-17 +updated: 2026-09-22 tags: - Organization - USGovernment - LawEnforcement + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - BCCI + - BNL - TheFinders - CIA - DarkAllianceInvestigation category: "U.S. Government" -summary: "U.S. federal law enforcement and legal agency whose prosecution of the INSLAW-PROMIS case, 1982 drug trafficking exemption for CIA assets, and 1993 internal inquiry into CIA involvement with The Finders make it a central subject of this vault." +summary: "The federal department of prosecutors, the FBI, the DEA and the U.S. Attorneys, in the vault the defendant in the INSLAW case, the obstructor found by the BCCI and BNL inquiries, the CIA's partner in the 1954 and 1982 understandings on prosecution, and the investigator of The Finders." start: 1870-07-01 location: "Washington, D.C." --- -The Department of Justice launched an internal inquiry in 1993 into CIA involvement with [[The Finders]] and a potential FBI coverup of the group's operations. The inquiry was initiated after the Department received a copy of the U.S. Customs memo compiled by Special Agent [[Ramon J. Martinez]] on the raids of The Finders properties in February 1987.[^1] +The Department of Justice, established in 1870 under the Attorney General, contains the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], the [[DEA]], the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] and the ninety-odd [[U.S. Attorney's office|United States Attorneys]], the Criminal, Civil and Civil Rights Divisions, the [[Office of Special Investigations]], the Office of Legal Counsel, the [[Office of Professional Responsibility]] and, until 1982, the [[LEAA]], whose grants funded the case-tracking software that became [[PROMIS]].[^1] -The inquiry focused on multiple intelligence connections: [[Marion Pettie]]'s late wife [[Isabelle Pettie]] had been a CIA employee, one of his sons had worked for [[Air America]], and [[Future Enterprises]] had provided software training for CIA employees. The investigation's findings were not publicly released in full.[^1] +### INSLAW and PROMIS -### Dark Alliance Investigation +In March 1982 the Executive Office for United States Attorneys contracted with [[INSLAW]], the company of [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]], to install PROMIS in the largest U.S. Attorneys' offices; within a month the department's project manager [[C. Madison Brewer]] and contracting officer [[Peter Videnieks]] were disputing INSLAW's proprietary claims, payments were withheld, and in 1985 the company entered Chapter 11. Deputy Attorney General [[Arnold Burns]] told the Office of Professional Responsibility in 1986 that INSLAW's claim was "legitimate" and that the government "would probably lose the case in court," yet the litigation continued. On September 28, 1987, Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] found that the department had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit"; the district court affirmed in 1988 and the D.C. Circuit reversed on jurisdiction in 1991. Bason was not reappointed, the transcript of his ruling having reached the selection panel's chair, Judge [[Norma H. Johnson]], from the U.S. Attorney's civil chief [[Royce Lamberth]]. [[Elliot Richardson]], retained by INSLAW, called the affair "a high-tech Watergate." The [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] under [[Jack Brooks]] opened its investigation in 1989 and reported in September 1992 "strong evidence" that the department "acted willfully and fraudulently"; INSLAW alleged that [[Earl Brian]], a friend of Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]], had been given the software to sell to foreign intelligence services, and a document on department letterhead dated May 14, 1985, and signed by [[William Bradford Reynolds]] was later produced as a plan to distribute a modified PROMIS in the [[Middle East]]. [[Ronald LeGrand]] of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] relayed a career department source's judgment that INSLAW "is a lot dirtier for the Department of Justice, in its breadth and depth, than Watergate." Attorney General [[William Barr]] appointed [[Nicholas J. Bua]] special counsel in 1991; his report of March 1993 found no credible evidence of wrongdoing, and Attorney General [[Janet Reno]]'s review of September 1994 concurred, after Associate Attorney General [[Webster Hubbell]] had announced a nationwide investigation of [[Danny Casolaro]]'s death. The Senate referred INSLAW's claims to the [[United States Court of Federal Claims]], where Judge [[Christine Odell Cook Miller]] ruled in July 1997 that every version of PROMIS was in the public domain. [[Rafael Eitan]] of [[LAKAM]] is said to have acquired a copy through back-channel contacts with the department in the early 1980s, and the department's own successor system, the Integrated Case Management System, employed one of PROMIS's original designers, [[Dennis W. Wright]].[^2] -In early 1982, CIA director [[William J. Casey]] and Attorney General [[William French Smith]] signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding that exempted the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] from reporting drug crimes committed by its non-employees, including agents, assets, and non-staff employees. Drug offenses were specifically removed from the list of crimes the CIA was required to report. The agreement remained in effect from 1982 to 1995. CIA Inspector General [[Fred Hitz]] testified that "the period of 1982 to 1995 was one in which there was no official requirement to report on allegations of drug trafficking with respect to non-employees of the agency."[^2] +### The CIA and Prosecution -### Protection of Danilo Blandón +In 1954 the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] "pointed out to the Department of Justice that, in many cases involving CIA, prosecution would require public disclosure of sensitive Agency operations and procedures"; under the understanding that resulted, described in the [[Rockefeller Commission 1975|Rockefeller Commission]] report, the agency's general counsel [[Lawrence Houston]] recorded that if prosecution "would be precluded by the need to reveal sensitive information, then the Agency should so indicate in its files and not refer the case to the Department of Justice." In early 1982 Director [[William J. Casey]] and Attorney General [[William French Smith]] signed a memorandum of understanding under which crimes by people "acting for" an intelligence agency no longer had to be reported, and drug offenses were specifically removed from the list; it remained in force until 1995, and the CIA inspector general [[Fred Hitz]] testified that in those years "there was no official requirement to report on allegations of drug trafficking with respect to non-employees of the agency." In that period the department reduced [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]]'s sentence from life to about twenty-eight months, dropped the charges against his wife and released him as a "full-time paid informant" on the motions of Assistant U.S. Attorney [[LJ Oneale]], who then prosecuted [[Ricky Ross]] in [[San Diego]] and moved to bar any mention of the CIA at trial: "This matter, if true, would be classified." A former assistant U.S. attorney, [[Eric Swenson]], said [[Norwin Meneses]]'s work with the [[Contras]] was known to the department because he had reported it himself. After 2002 the Office of Legal Counsel gave the CIA its authorizations for "enhanced interrogation techniques." Department lawyer Walter May told a court in the 1970s that [[Hal Hendrix]] of ITT had informed the CIA of his intent to withhold his agency contacts from a Senate committee; the department investigated [[Harold Geneen]], Edward Gerrity and [[Robert Berrellez]] for perjury in 1977 and examined [[Edward Korry]]'s charges of false testimony about [[Chile]].[^3] -The Justice Department accorded [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] extraordinary treatment, reducing his sentence from life to approximately twenty-eight months, dropping charges against his wife [[Chepita Blandon|Chepita]], and releasing him as a full-time paid informant. Assistant U.S. Attorney [[LJ Oneale]] filed motions to have Blandón's sentence secretly reduced twice.[^3] +### BCCI and BNL -O'Neale prosecuted [[Ricky Ross]] in [[San Diego]], filing a motion to prevent any mention of the CIA at trial, writing: "This matter, if true, would be classified." O'Neale admitted he had never checked with the CIA about Blandón's connections but insisted there was "absolutely no connection" between Blandón and the agency.[^4] +The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown report]] on the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] concluded that the department had obstructed the investigation. [[Charles Saphos]], chief of the Criminal Division's narcotics section, wrote to Florida's comptroller [[Gerald Lewis]] asking that the bank be allowed to stay open; Manhattan District Attorney [[Robert Morgenthau]] accused federal authorities of hindering his inquiry; Customs Commissioner [[William von Raab]] testified that the department had denied knowledge of the Ali Mirza tapes; the criminal division under [[Robert Mueller]] indicted [[Swaleh Naqvi]], [[Ghaith R. Pharaon]] and [[David L. Paul]] over CenTrust and the Independence Bank in 1991 and 1992. In the [[BNL Scandal]], the Atlanta bank's officers believed in March 1990 that the department had taken the case away from the local U.S. Attorney; Attorney General [[Richard Thornburgh]]'s legislative chief [[Lee Rawls]] advised him on "our best attempt to thwart any further congressional inquiry by the [[House Banking Committee]]" of [[Henry B. Gonzalez]], and Judge Marvin Shoob publicly criticized the department's handling of the case.[^4] + +### Letelier, The Finders and After + +Assistant U.S. Attorney [[Eugene Propper]] prosecuted the [[Orlando Letelier]] murder, and the department sent [[Michael Townley]]'s confessions to Chile with its request for the extradition of [[Manuel Contreras]] and [[Pedro Espinoza]]. [[Walter Sheridan]] had worked under Robert Kennedy at the department before his NBC assignment on [[Jim Garrison]]; Houston recorded of the agency's handling of the Clay Shaw trial that "the Department of Justice has seen and agrees." [[Michael Abbell]], director of the Criminal Division's Office of International Affairs from 1979 to 1982, went on to represent the [[Cali Drug Cartel]]. In 1993 the department opened an inquiry into CIA involvement with [[The Finders]] after receiving the Customs memorandum of Special Agent [[Ramon J. Martinez]] on the 1987 raids; [[Marion Pettie]]'s late wife [[Isabelle Pettie]] had worked for the agency, a son for [[Air America]], and [[Future Enterprises]] had trained agency employees; the findings were never released in full. The Criminal Division's [[Mark M. Richard]] told the Bua inquiry that the Office of Special Investigations worked with intelligence agencies only to locate war criminals. In the 2020s the National Security Division returned no documents on [[Rinaldo Nazzaro]]'s contracting, a State Department source called him a department "matter," and the department disclosed a payment to an informant in the [[2023 Baltimore Power Grid Conspiracy]] six weeks after [[Brandon Russell]]'s conviction.[^5] ### Footnotes -[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar. -[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Epilogue: "The damage that has been done" -[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 24: "They're gonna forget I was a drug dealer" -[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 26: "That matter, if true, would be classified" +[^1]: Justice System Improvement Act of 1979, Public Law 96-157; the organizational entries in the *United States Government Manual.* +[^2]: As cited on the linked pages: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992; U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993, and the department's review of September 27, 1994; Richardson, Elliot, "A High-Tech Watergate," *New York Times,* October 21, 1991; Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle,* TrineDay, 2010; Thomas, Gordon, *Gideon's Spies,* St. Martin's, 1999; Federal Judicial Center, *1990 Annual Report;* Webb, Gary, *Dark Alliance,* Seven Stories, 1998, ch. 6; and the pages linked. +[^3]: As cited on the linked pages: Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, *Report to the President,* June 1975; Webb, *Dark Alliance,* chs. 1, 24, 26 and epilogue; Associated Press, "CIA Knew of False Testimony," and "2 ITT Men Charged with Senate Lies," March 21, 1978, CIA Reading Room; Trento, Joseph, "JFK Began Chile Bribes, Envoy Says," *Sunday News Journal,* November 28, 1976. +[^4]: As cited on the linked pages: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne, *The Outlaw Bank,* Random House, 1993; Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, *The BCCI Affair,* 1992; Gonzalez, Henry B., "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal" and "Continuing Saga of Attempts to Thwart BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* 1992-93; Friedman, Alan, *Spider's Web,* Bantam, 1993, pp. 193-194. +[^5]: As cited on the linked pages: Kornbluh, Peter, ed., "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," National Security Archive; Holland, Max, "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination," *Studies in Intelligence,* 2001; Houston, Lawrence R., memorandum, "Clay L. Shaw's Trial and the Central Intelligence Agency"; Dovey, S., *Eye of the Chickenhawk,* 2023; Wilson, Jason, *VICE News,* 2021, and MuckRock FOIA logs; *The Daily Record,* May 2, 2025. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Executive Office for United States Attorneys.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Executive Office for United States Attorneys.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..31489279 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Executive Office for United States Attorneys.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +category: "U.S. Government" +tags: + - Organization + - EOUSA + - DOJ + - PROMIS + - INSLAW +alias: + - EOUSA + - Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys +summary: "The Justice Department office that supervises the U.S. Attorneys, which signed INSLAW's 1982 PROMIS contract and whose project staff, Brewer, Videnieks and Rugh, ran the dispute that Judge Bason found was a scheme to take the software by fraud." +start: 1953 +location: "Washington, D.C." +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +The Executive Office for United States Attorneys is the [[Department of Justice]] office, established by Attorney General Order No. 8-53 of April 6, 1953, under Herbert Brownell, that provides executive assistance and supervision to the [[U.S. Attorney's office|United States Attorneys]] in the federal districts. It evaluates their performance, coordinates them with other agencies, maintains the United States Attorneys' Manual, runs their legal training, supports the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, sets policy for collecting criminal fines, handles their budgets, Freedom of Information Act responses, congressional liaison, facilities and security. James R. Browning organized the office as its first chief in 1953. Its directors in the years of the INSLAW dispute were William P. Tyson, from 1977 to 1987, Laurence S. McWhorter, from 1987 to 1992, and [[Anthony Moscato]], acting director and then director from 1992 to 1994, followed by Carol DiBattiste.[^1] + +### The PROMIS Contract + +In March 1982 [[INSLAW]] signed a three-year, ten-million-dollar contract with the office to install [[PROMIS]], the case-tracking system it had developed with [[LEAA]] funds, in the twenty largest U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processing versions in 74 smaller ones. The office's project manager was [[C. Madison Brewer]], a former INSLAW employee dismissed by [[Bill Hamilton]]; its contracting officer was [[Peter Videnieks]], and Brewer's deputy and technical representative was [[Jack Rugh]]. Within a month of the signing the office and INSLAW were disputing whether the enhanced PROMIS delivered under the contract was proprietary, and in 1983 the office withheld payments and in 1985 INSLAW entered Chapter 11. In September 1987 Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|George Bason]] found that the department had taken the software "by trickery, fraud, and deceit," a finding the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] endorsed in 1992 and the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] rejected in 1993. In February 1985, days after the bankruptcy filing, Rugh telephoned the INSLAW programmer [[Gregory McKain]] to offer him a job and, by McKain's account, told him the department had learned from the trustees that INSLAW would be in liquidation within sixty days. The office's later director Moscato was accused by Hamilton of helping to deny Bason's reappointment, which he denied to Bua.[^2][^3] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993, p. 186 (Moscato "now Acting Director of EOUSA"). The 1953 order, the list of duties (Justice Manual, Title 3) and the succession of directors other than Moscato are as given in reference summaries of the office; the Justice Manual and the *United States Government Manual* entries were not examined. +[^2]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport +[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 185-186, 211-214. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Special Investigations.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Special Investigations.md index 0fa2b549..c720f210 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Special Investigations.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Office of Special Investigations.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ The Office of Special Investigations (OSI) is an organizational unit within the In February 1994, [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] alleged for the first time that OSI was, in fact, the DOJ's own covert intelligence agency, with functions unrelated to its stated mission. These allegations claimed that OSI was at the center of various conspiracies, including the illegal dissemination of the proprietary version of [[PROMIS]] and the murder of [[Danny Casolaro]]. Inslaw asserted that OSI's Nazi war criminal program was a front for this secret intelligence service. Inslaw also claimed to have obtained a "Criminal Division Vendor List," which, according to their intelligence community informants, was actually a list of commercial organizations and individuals serving as "cutouts" for this secret agency. These charges were repeated in an Inslaw press release.[^1] -The Special Counsel's investigation found these charges to be "fantasy" and "wholly unsubstantiated," lacking any credible corroborative evidence. The report noted that Inslaw relied solely on unnamed "reliable sources" and anonymous "senior Justice Department career officials," none of whom came forward for interviews. The Special Counsel interviewed [[Mark Richard]], Deputy Assistant Attorney General, whom Inslaw suggested oversaw OSI's covert operations. Richard stated that Inslaw's charges were "ridiculous" and that OSI was only involved in its stated mission and related projects. He categorically denied any involvement by OSI in covert operations, the dissemination of PROMIS, or the death of Mr. Casolaro, calling Inslaw's allegations slanderous. The investigation also found no evidence during its tenure that OSI engaged in the types of activities alleged by Inslaw.[^1] +The Special Counsel's investigation found these charges to be "fantasy" and "wholly unsubstantiated," lacking any credible corroborative evidence. The report noted that Inslaw relied solely on unnamed "reliable sources" and anonymous "senior Justice Department career officials," none of whom came forward for interviews. The Special Counsel interviewed [[Mark M. Richard|Mark Richard]], Deputy Assistant Attorney General, whom Inslaw suggested oversaw OSI's covert operations. Richard stated that Inslaw's charges were "ridiculous" and that OSI was only involved in its stated mission and related projects. He categorically denied any involvement by OSI in covert operations, the dissemination of PROMIS, or the death of Mr. Casolaro, calling Inslaw's allegations slanderous. The investigation also found no evidence during its tenure that OSI engaged in the types of activities alleged by Inslaw.[^1] Regarding the vendor list, the Special Counsel showed it to [[Robert Bratt]], Executive Officer for the Justice Department's Criminal Division. Bratt confirmed that the list was exactly what it purported to be: a list of vendors used by the Criminal Division for its automated procurement system, PROCURE. The Special Counsel concluded that the vendor list was nothing other than what it claimed to be, and that the theory that large companies like AT&T, Canon, IBM, and Xerox were fronts for OSI's covert operations was unsupported. The allegations concerning OSI's involvement in Danny Casolaro's death were also dismissed as absurd and lacking corroborating evidence, as the investigation found no credible evidence that Casolaro's death was anything other than a suicide.[^1] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md index 1effb60d..f50535ed 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/U.S. Attorney's office.md @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ The DC office became the first PROMIS site and served as the demonstration platf ### EOUSA Implementation Contract -The Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA), which administers support for all 94 U.S. Attorneys' Offices, was the entity that signed the March 1982 implementation contract with INSLAW, Inc. for installation of PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. The execution of that contract, and EOUSA's subsequent conduct toward INSLAW, became the central dispute in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]].[^1] +The [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] (EOUSA), which administers support for all 94 U.S. Attorneys' Offices, was the entity that signed the March 1982 implementation contract with INSLAW, Inc. for installation of PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. The execution of that contract, and EOUSA's subsequent conduct toward INSLAW, became the central dispute in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]].[^1] ### Footnotes diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/53rd Street Ventures.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/53rd Street Ventures.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7e06b1c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/53rd Street Ventures.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - 53rdStreetVentures + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - VentureCapital +alias: + - 53rd Street Ventures, Inc. +summary: "New York venture fund, managed first by Patricof and Company and from 1984 by Tessler and Cloherty, that put 100,000 dollars into INSLAW in 1982 and whose managers Bill Hamilton accused of pressing him to surrender voting control in December 1984." +start: 1976 +location: "New York City" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +53rd Street Ventures, Inc., was formed about 1976 as an investment company that took capital from shareholders and placed it in "high risk, high reward ventures." It was managed by [[Patricof and Company]], where the Israeli-born fund manager [[Jonathan Ben Cnaan]] handled several of the firm's funds and, around 1982, made the fund's investment of 100,000 dollars in [[INSLAW]], the software company of [[Bill Hamilton]] and [[Nancy Hamilton]], as a "follower" investor with no negotiating role; the stake was less than one percent of the fund's portfolio and gave it about 1.2 percent of INSLAW. In 1984 management of the fund passed to [[Tessler & Cloherty|Tessler and Cloherty, Inc.]], the firm of [[Daniel Tessler]] and his wife [[Patricia Cloherty]], who had left Patricof and Company for the Carter administration's Small Business Administration and returned to Patricof in February 1988.[^1] + +Tessler and Cloherty concluded that INSLAW "had serious operating difficulties," "could not meet its production obligations" and "was heavily in debt." Hamilton's affidavit in the INSLAW litigation alleged that in December 1984 Tessler tried to coerce the Hamiltons into surrendering voting control of their stock on the threat that neither 53rd Street Ventures nor [[Hambro International Equity Partners|Hambro]], the lead investor whose partner [[Richard D'Amore]] sat on INSLAW's board, would help the company raise capital otherwise, and that Cloherty had said she "knew all about" [[Earl Brian]]'s role. Tessler, Cloherty and D'Amore denied the accounts, Tessler adding that he was no relation of [[Allan R. Tessler]] of [[Shea & Gould]], whom Hamilton had described as Brian's merger lawyer, and the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] found the allegation not credible. INSLAW filed under Chapter 11 in February 1985.[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, pp. 90-94 and the interviews of Ben Cnaan, Tessler, Cloherty and D'Amore. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Accumenics.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Accumenics.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3a1e765a --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Accumenics.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - Accumenics + - Hadron + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - DOJ +alias: + - Accumenics Inc. +summary: "Litigation-support software company bought by Earl Brian's Hadron about 1983, alleged by Bill Hamilton to have received a 40-million-dollar Justice Department contract in October 1987 through the Meese associate James L. Byrnes, who told the Bua inquiry he knew nothing of it." +location: "Virginia" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Accumenics, Inc., a maker of litigation-support software, was acquired by [[Hadron]], the company controlled by [[Earl Brian]], together with SIMCON Inc., a police-software firm. In the telephone call of April 1983 that [[Bill Hamilton]] attributed to Hadron's chairman [[Dominic Laiti]], the purchases were explained as part of a strategy "to become the leading vendor in the United States of software for law enforcement and courts," the ambition behind Laiti's offer to buy [[INSLAW]] and its [[PROMIS]] software.[^1] + +Hamilton's affidavit in the INSLAW litigation alleged that [[James L. Byrnes]], a deputy assistant attorney general with "close ties to [[Edwin Meese|Meese]]," "spearheaded the award by DOJ in October 1987 to a Hadron subsidiary of a 40 million dollar computer services contract for litigation support" in the Land and Natural Resources Division. Byrnes told the investigators of the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] that he had transferred to that division in November 1987, a month after the alleged award, that he was unaware of any such contract and did not know whether one had ever been made, that he had no knowledge of or contact with Hadron, [[Simeon]] or Accumenics, and that his relationship with Meese was the ordinary one of a [[Department of Justice]] official. Bua's report treats the dollar figure and date as unconfirmed and the Byrnes connection as unsupported. The contract is distinct from Project Eagle, the department's litigation-automation program whose 30-million-dollar systems contract went to Tisoft, Inc., in January 1986, and which INSLAW separately theorized had been intended for Hadron.[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, and the department's review of September 27, 1994, on Project Eagle. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport No procurement record of the alleged 1987 award was located. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Allen and Company.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Allen and Company.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d9ebf6cc --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Allen and Company.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - AllenAndCompany + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - Hadron + - InvestmentBank +alias: + - Allen & Company + - Allen & Co. +summary: "Wall Street investment bank of Charles Allen where Hadron's Dominic Laiti and Simeon's Paul Wormeli went for capital in September 1983, and which bought 7.8 percent of SCT for an unnamed client before SCT's 1986 bid for INSLAW, the two facts on which INSLAW built its Earl Brian financing theory." +location: "New York City" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Allen and Company is the [[New York City]] investment bank of the Allen family. In September 1983 [[Dominic Laiti]], chairman of [[Hadron]], the company controlled by [[Earl Brian]], and [[Paul Wormeli]], vice president of its public-safety software subsidiary [[Simeon]], went to New York to raise capital for Simeon and met at the bank's offices with the executive [[Mark Kesselman]] and "a young man whose last name was Allen." Kesselman later visited Simeon's Northern Virginia offices; he told the investigators of the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] that he had been asked by [[Charles Allen]] to assist Allen's nephew [[Nathaniel Kramer]] in the analysis, and that he left the firm in February 1984. [[Bill Hamilton]] of [[INSLAW]] held that the trip's purpose was the acquisition of INSLAW and its [[PROMIS]] software; Bua's investigators concluded the thesis was "incorrect."[^1] + +About 1985 or 1986 the bank bought 7.8 percent of the stock of [[SCT|Systems and Computer Technology]] on behalf of an unnamed third party. INSLAW cited the purchase, in its rebuttal to Bua's report, as evidence that Brian was secretly behind SCT's attempted hostile purchase of INSLAW in 1986. The Justice Department's 1994 review rejected the inference as unsupported and noted that on INSLAW's own theory Brian by then already controlled the enhanced PROMIS and was selling it abroad, leaving him no motive to buy the company. Neither the Bua report nor the House Judiciary Committee's report connects the bank to the financing of Brian's later Infotechnology, Financial News Network and United Press International ventures, which collapsed in 1991.[^1][^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, interviews of Dominic Laiti, Paul Wormeli and Mark Kesselman. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport +[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of the United States Department of Justice on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.,* September 27, 1994 (bound with the Bua report in the archive.org item). diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Degem.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Degem.md index c4f781f6..a2e72c73 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Degem.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Degem.md @@ -8,6 +8,9 @@ tags: category: "Private Organization" created: 2024-04-25 updated: 2026-05-01 +alias: + - Degem Computers + - Degem Systems summary: "Degem was an Israeli-controlled computer company with operations in Israel, Guatemala, and Transkei, alleged to have been the primary vehicle through which Robert Maxwell distributed backdoored PROMIS software to foreign governments worldwide." location: "Israel" --- diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hadron.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hadron.md index bef8028e..1c213cec 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hadron.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hadron.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Hamilton further alleged that a 1983 Hadron fundraising trip to New York, involv Hamilton claimed that [[Edward Hurley]], a Hadron Vice President, stated in June 1985 that Hadron wanted to acquire INSLAW's "court software." An INSLAW employee, Theresa Bousquin, confirmed Hurley's general interest but stated his remark was made in passing and did not indicate an active acquisition effort. The Special Counsel found Hamilton's characterization inaccurate.[^2] -Hamilton alleged that [[James L. Byrnes]], a Deputy Assistant Attorney General with ties to [[Edwin Meese]], spearheaded the award of a $40 million computer services contract to Accumenics, a Hadron subsidiary, in October 1987. Byrnes denied any knowledge of such a contract or any contact with Hadron or its subsidiaries. The Special Counsel found no evidence supporting this allegation.[^2] +Hamilton alleged that [[James L. Byrnes]], a Deputy Assistant Attorney General with ties to [[Edwin Meese]], spearheaded the award of a $40 million computer services contract to [[Accumenics]], a Hadron subsidiary, in October 1987. Byrnes denied any knowledge of such a contract or any contact with Hadron or its subsidiaries. The Special Counsel found no evidence supporting this allegation.[^2] INSLAW alleged a connection between [[Peter Videnieks]], DOJ's PROMIS contracting officer, and Hadron, claiming Videnieks had administered Customs Service contracts with Hadron. While a witness suggested a possible meeting between Videnieks and Laiti, Videnieks denied being the contracting officer for any Hadron contract or meeting Hadron management. The Special Counsel found no evidence of a conspiracy, concluding any connection was "tenuous and insignificant."[^2] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hambro International Equity Partners.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hambro International Equity Partners.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bf388c94 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Hambro International Equity Partners.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - Hambro + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - VentureCapital + - Boston +alias: + - Hambro Venture Capital + - Hambro International + - Hambro +summary: "Boston venture firm that invested about 400,000 dollars in INSLAW in 1983 as lead investor, placing its partner Richard D'Amore on the board, and that Bill Hamilton said joined 53rd Street Ventures in threatening to withhold financing unless he ceded voting control." +location: "Boston, Massachusetts" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Hambro International Equity Partners, a [[Boston]] venture capital company "in the business of investing in existing businesses," invested approximately 400,000 dollars in [[INSLAW]] in 1983. As lead investor it placed its partner [[Richard D'Amore]] on the company's board of directors, and in 1984 its Ed Goodman asked [[Daniel Tessler]] of [[Tessler & Cloherty|Tessler and Cloherty]], who had that year taken over management of the [[53rd Street Ventures]] fund with its smaller INSLAW stake, to meet [[Bill Hamilton]] about INSLAW's cash-flow problems.[^1] + +Hamilton's affidavit in the INSLAW litigation alleged that in December 1984 Tessler threatened that neither 53rd Street Ventures nor Hambro would help the company raise capital unless the Hamiltons surrendered voting control of their stock, and that [[Patricia Cloherty]] had said she "knew all about" [[Earl Brian]]'s role in the company's troubles. D'Amore told the investigators of the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] that he had never heard Cloherty say any such thing and knew of no role played by Brian; Tessler and Cloherty denied the ultimatum, and Bua found the allegation not credible. INSLAW entered Chapter 11 in February 1985. The vault's pages refer to the firm as Hambro Venture Capital and as Hambro International Equity Partners; the special counsel's report uses the latter name and the shorter "Hambro International."[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, interviews of Richard D'Amore and Daniel Tessler. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport The firm's relation to Hambros Bank of London, founded 1839 and sold to Société Générale in 1998, is as given in reference summaries and was not verified against a primary record. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md index 23e13f4f..3e7e6ab3 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/IBM.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ location: "Armonk, New York, USA" International Business Machines, or IBM as it’s commonly known, is a multinational tech and research company headquartered in Armonk, New York. It was founded in 1911. The company specializes in computers and computing technologies and has close ties with governments around the world (most infamously with Nazi Germany as part of the Holocaust). -In 1969, IBM invented the [[Relational Database|relational database]]. During the 1960’s and 70’s, IBM was a major provider of mainframe and later minicomputers. These large, powerful (for the time), and expensive machines were used by organizations like the [[LEAA]] or countries like [[Canada]] to run software including [[PROMIS]]. +In 1969, IBM invented the relational database. During the 1960’s and 70’s, IBM was a major provider of mainframe and later minicomputers. These large, powerful (for the time), and expensive machines were used by organizations like the [[LEAA]] or countries like [[Canada]] to run software including [[PROMIS]]. Richard L. Garwin, a prominent scientist, was associated with IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He was a member of an ad hoc panel of distinguished scientists tasked with studying the VELA data related to a probable nuclear explosion in the South Indian Ocean in 1979. Garwin was known for his independence as a government consultant.[^1] diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/INSLAW.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/INSLAW.md index 81a1b627..654e1dea 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/INSLAW.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/INSLAW.md @@ -42,15 +42,15 @@ INSLAW's lead litigation counsel, Leigh Ratiner of the Washington firm Dickstein ### Bankruptcy and Litigation History -Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]] presided over two landmark proceedings in the INSLAW case. In June 1987, he found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means," based in part on testimony from DOJ official Anthony Pasciuto, who stated that DOJ director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee Edward White to force the company into liquidation. In September 1987, after a two-week liability trial, Bason ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit," awarding approximately $6.8 million in damages and attorneys' fees.[^1] +Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]] presided over two landmark proceedings in the INSLAW case. In June 1987, he found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means," based in part on testimony from DOJ official Anthony Pasciuto, who stated that DOJ director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee Edward White to force the company into liquidation. In September 1987, after a two-week liability trial, Bason ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit," with damages later computed at about 6.8 million dollars and attorneys' fees.[^1] -The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed Bason's ruling in November 1989, with Judge William Bryant finding "convincing, perhaps compelling support" for the bankruptcy court's conclusions. The Court of Appeals reversed all lower court rulings in May 1991 on jurisdictional grounds, finding the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction because DOJ held PROMIS under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing. The Supreme Court declined review.[^2] +Senior District Judge [[William Bryant, Jr.|William Bryant]] of the district court affirmed Bason's ruling on November 22, 1989, finding "convincing, perhaps compelling support" for the bankruptcy court's conclusions and reducing the damages by 655,200 dollars. The D.C. Circuit reversed on May 7, 1991, on jurisdictional grounds, finding the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction because DOJ held PROMIS under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing. The Supreme Court declined review.[^2] The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) issued a report in September 1989 finding "no proof" that [[Lowell Jensen]] and [[Edwin Meese]] had conspired to ruin INSLAW or steal its software. The Senate report nonetheless found that DOJ official Thomas Stanton had improperly sought special handling for INSLAW's bankruptcy and criticized the Department for placing Brewer in charge of the implementation contract given his prior employment by INSLAW.[^3] The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative [[Jack Brooks]], conducted a three-year investigation from 1989 to 1992. Its September 1992 report (House Report 102-857) found "strong evidence...that the Department of Justice 'acted willfully and fraudulently,' and 'took, converted and stole,' Inslaw's Enhanced PROMIS by 'trickery fraud and deceit.'" A key basis for this conclusion was testimony from Deputy Attorney General [[Arnold Burns]], who had told DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility in 1986 that INSLAW's proprietary rights claim was "legitimate" and that the government "would probably lose the case in court on this issue," yet DOJ continued litigating against INSLAW for another decade.[^1] -Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] issued a 267-page report in March 1993 finding no credible evidence that any DOJ official had committed criminal wrongdoing in connection with the INSLAW matter. The Senate subsequently referred INSLAW's remaining claims to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in May 1995. Judge Christine Miller ruled on July 31, 1997, that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been entitled to use the software as it wished. A three-judge Review Panel upheld that ruling in August 1998. INSLAW received no compensation from the federal government.[^2][^6] +Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] issued a 267-page report in March 1993 finding no credible evidence that any DOJ official had committed criminal wrongdoing in connection with the INSLAW matter. The Senate subsequently referred INSLAW's remaining claims to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in May 1995. Judge [[Christine Odell Cook Miller|Christine Miller]] ruled on July 31, 1997, that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been entitled to use the software as it wished. A three-judge Review Panel upheld that ruling in August 1998. INSLAW received no compensation from the federal government.[^2][^6] ### FBI Systems Analysis diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Ora Group.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Ora Group.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2afe36e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Ora Group.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - OraGroup + - BenMenashe + - IranIsrael + - ArmsTrade + - PROMIS + - Likud +alias: + - Ora Limited + - Ora +summary: "The holding company that, in Ari Ben-Menashe's account, the Israeli Joint Committee created about 1981 to hold the slush fund of its arms sales to Iran, run in London through Nicholas Davies as Ora Limited, and through which he says 600,000 dollars went to Earl Brian's Hadron for INSLAW's law firm." +start: 1981 +location: "Tel Aviv and London" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +The Ora Group exists in the record almost entirely through [[Ari Ben-Menashe]]. In his account, the Israeli Joint Committee that ran the arms channel to [[Iran]] after 1980 needed "a flagship to hold the slush fund" that was accumulating from a covert procurement office on John Street in [[New York City]], which shipped American electronics under end-user certificates for [[Israel]] and diverted them to Iran. "When the Joint Committee was trying to decide what to call this mother company, the name 'Ora' came to my mind," he writes; the name means light in Hebrew, and was that of a woman in his Tel Aviv office. "Thus was born the Ora Group, which was to handle billions of dollars in the next few years." Israel's arms companies "were all run under our mother company, Ora"; Bank Melli of Iran would issue a letter of credit on behalf of one of them, guaranteed through the foreign transfers department of the National Westminster Bank in [[London]]; where Israel sold American weapons on the Americans' behalf, the money went to a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] account at the International Bank of Luxembourg, and when funds were needed for [[Yitzhak Shamir]]'s Likud, "Maxwell's companies were used to bring the money out again" to accounts in Luxembourg and Geneva.[^1] + +### London + +The Daily Mirror's foreign editor [[Nicholas Davies]] "was called in only if we needed to use our 'London office,'" Ben-Menashe writes; when a request came from the Iranians, Davies "would call dealers or the supplier and introduce himself as a representative of the Ora Group, an Israeli company based in London," as in a 1983 sale of 4,000 TOW missiles. [[Rupert Allason]]'s parliamentary motion of 1991 named the company as [[Ora Limited]], incorporated at 41 Becmead Avenue and 1 Trafalgar Avenue, London; Ben-Menashe's book uses only "the Ora Group." A 1985 deal for the [[Contras]] brokered through [[GeoMiliTech]], the Washington company of General [[John Singlaub]] and Barbara Studley, is itemized in the book at 3,242,000 dollars paid to Ora, against 5 million dollars that he says the company's own books showed received from the American side.[^1] + +### PROMIS + +Ben-Menashe writes that he saw a cable to the Joint Committee from the United States requesting "a 600,000 dollar transfer from the Israeli slush fund" to [[Earl Brian]]'s [[Hadron]], to be forwarded to [[Leonard Garment]]'s firm [[Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin|Dickstein Shapiro]] "to be used to get one of the [[INSLAW|Inslaw]] lawyers, Leigh Ratiner, off the case." The special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] wrote that "we see no reason to reopen our investigation because of this implausible claim"; the bankruptcy court had found INSLAW's related charge that the firm was pressured to abandon it "built upon supposition, suspicion and uncorroborated hearsay." A second witness, the Canadian former stockbroker [[John A. Belton]], told the Justice Department's 1994 reviewers, without producing documents, that "ORA is allegedly the Israeli half of a multi-billion dollar slush fund made up of Israeli and U.S. funds" used to finance arms sales to [[Iraq]], and that "Trans World Arms in Montreal and ORA" had sold [[PROMIS]] to a nuclear facility in [[New Mexico]] in 1983; the reviewers found him "unbelievable."[^1][^2] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network,* Sheridan Square, 1992, ch. 8, "The Ora Group," and ch. 9, "Promis." https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe ; Allason's motion as quoted on [[Nicholas Davies]]. +[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993, and *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, section on John A. Belton. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport ; *In re Inslaw, Inc.,* 97 B.R. 685 (Bankr. D.D.C. 1989), as quoted in the Bua report. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Patricof and Company.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Patricof and Company.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..428440f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Patricof and Company.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +category: "Private Organization" +tags: + - Organization + - Patricof + - PROMIS + - INSLAW + - VentureCapital +alias: + - Allen Patricof and Associates + - Patricof & Co. + - APA +summary: "New York venture capital firm, formally Allen Patricof and Associates, that managed the 53rd Street Ventures fund and through it made a 100,000-dollar investment in INSLAW about 1982; the firm where Patricia Cloherty worked before and after her government service." +location: "New York City" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Patricof and Company, formally Allen Patricof and Associates and known in the special counsel's report as APA, was a New York venture capital firm that managed several funds, among them [[53rd Street Ventures]], formed about 1976. [[Jonathan Ben Cnaan]], a native of [[Israel]] employed at the firm from 1981 to 1987, managed the funds and about 1982 made the firm's first investment in [[INSLAW]], 100,000 dollars through 53rd Street Ventures, describing himself to the investigators of [[Nicholas J. Bua]] as a "follower" investor with no active role in the negotiations. [[Patricia Cloherty]] worked at the firm from about 1970 to 1977, left for the Small Business Administration under [[Jimmy Carter]], ran [[Tessler & Cloherty|Tessler and Cloherty]] with her husband [[Daniel Tessler]] through the 1980s, during which that firm took over the 53rd Street fund in 1984, and returned to Patricof and Company in February 1988. Neither the House Judiciary Committee nor Bua found any wrongdoing by the firm, which entered the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|INSLAW affair]] only through its stake in the company and the handoff of the fund to the Tesslers, whose dealings with [[Bill Hamilton]] in December 1984 became the subject of his affidavit.[^1] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, interviews of Jonathan Ben Cnaan, Daniel Tessler and Patricia Cloherty. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport The identity of the firm's founder with the venture capitalist Alan J. Patricof is inferred from the firm's name and was not separately verified. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Simeon.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Simeon.md index a8699e8a..160131af 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Simeon.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Simeon.md @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ Simeon appears in the [[PROMIS]] scandal through allegations made by [[Bill Hami Hamilton alleged that a 1983 fundraising trip to New York City by [[Dominic Laiti]] (Hadron's president) and Wormeli was undertaken for the purpose of raising capital to purchase the PROMIS court management software from INSLAW. Hamilton claimed that Titus had told him this was the purpose of the trip. -Both Wormeli and Titus contradicted Hamilton's account under questioning by investigators. Wormeli confirmed the New York trip took place and that he and Laiti met with [[Earl Brian]] and executives from Allen and Company (including Mark Kesselman) to discuss funding. However, Wormeli stated that neither Laiti nor Brian ever discussed the acquisition of PROMIS or INSLAW with him, and that Laiti never mentioned PROMIS at any of the meetings. Titus denied ever telling Hamilton that the trip's purpose was to acquire PROMIS, and stated she was not present at or party to any conversations about acquiring INSLAW's software or any unethical or illegal activities to obtain it. She noted that the only court-related software company Simeon/Hadron had discussed acquiring was a Southern California company called Responsive Design.[^1] +Both Wormeli and Titus contradicted Hamilton's account under questioning by investigators. Wormeli confirmed the New York trip took place and that he and Laiti met with [[Earl Brian]] and executives from [[Allen and Company]] (including Mark Kesselman) to discuss funding. However, Wormeli stated that neither Laiti nor Brian ever discussed the acquisition of PROMIS or INSLAW with him, and that Laiti never mentioned PROMIS at any of the meetings. Titus denied ever telling Hamilton that the trip's purpose was to acquire PROMIS, and stated she was not present at or party to any conversations about acquiring INSLAW's software or any unethical or illegal activities to obtain it. She noted that the only court-related software company Simeon/Hadron had discussed acquiring was a Southern California company called Responsive Design.[^1] The [[Department of Justice]] Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua, in his 1993 report on the INSLAW allegations, concluded that the evidence from Titus, Wormeli, and other interviewed witnesses did not support Hamilton's thesis and that there was no evidence Hadron or Simeon ever had any interest in obtaining INSLAW's PROMIS software. diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Wackenhut Corporation.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Wackenhut Corporation.md index d16d576b..1575f496 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Wackenhut Corporation.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Wackenhut Corporation.md @@ -73,6 +73,10 @@ The retired FBI agent [[William Hinshaw]] told Connolly: "It is known throughout The [[Philadelphia]] filmmaker [[R.C. Horsch]] said in a recorded interview that after leaving high school in 1961 he worked freelance for Wackenhut, "a security firm staffed by FBI agents," until about 1965. "I bugged telephones and committed burglaries for them," he said. "The burglaries were mostly to install electronics or bug telephones or just things like burglarizing a potential client to demonstrate that their security was not up to par." He said one regular client, introduced as "Mr. Smith," was [[Howard Hunt|E. Howard Hunt]] of the CIA, and described jobs at the [[Fairchild Hiller]] plant in [[Hagerstown, Maryland]], in [[Trenton, New Jersey]], and in Philadelphia. Horsch was convicted in later years of forgery, counterfeiting, and passport fraud.[^19] +### Schaefer + +[[Gerard John Schaefer]], the Martin County deputy convicted of two murders in 1973, worked as a security guard in Florida in 1970, between his dismissal from two teaching posts and his entry into the Wilton Manors police, for Wackenhut by one account and Florida Power & Light by another.[^30] + ### Florida, 1967 On January 13, 1967, FBI headquarters instructed its Florida offices to give Kirk's investigators nothing: "The Bureau does not recognize the Wackenhut Corporation as a properly constituted law enforcement agency." The order was repeated by telephone on April 3, after Kirk had seen the attorney general. [[Hank Messick]], the Miami Herald crime reporter whose articles had led to the indictment of two county sheriffs in 1966, and to whom the bureau had itself been passing leads, joined Wackenhut that December and left after six weeks. "I quit the Wackenhut Corp. because I have reluctantly concluded a cruel hoax is being perpetrated upon the people of Florida," he said. He objected that the company kept as a private client Sir [[Stafford Sands]], the former Bahamian minister with gambling interests, while it was supposed to be pursuing [[Meyer Lansky]]. Wackenhut replied: "I do not find it necessary to dignify Mr. Messick's remarks with a reply." In September 1967 the Miami office reported the reaction of an informant inside the [[Bonanno crime family|Bonanno family]] to press reports that a "contract" had been let on the Dade County state attorney, Richard Gerstein, a tip that "had been 'leaked' to the press by GERSTEIN'S office, which had received the tip from a Wackenhut Detective Agency source." The informant "stated that this was the biggest laugh to hit Miami in some time, in that GERSTEIN was, and still is, 'their' number one connection in the Miami area." He said: "Them guys, including Wackenhut, and all the locals haven't yet come close to us. The only people who have the proper line on us are those in the FBI."[^20] A former Wackenhut detective, [[Norman Casper]], later worked as an informant for the [[Internal Revenue Service]] against the [[Castle Bank and Trust|Castle Bank]] in the [[Bahamas]].[^21] @@ -162,3 +166,4 @@ The Wackenhut/Cabazon Joint Venture was terminated on October 1, 1984, following [^27]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Intelligence Division, informative note, April 14, 1967, JFK record 124-10369-10048; Assassination Records Review Board, public hearing transcript, testimony of James DiEugenio, p. 89; FBI Miami, memorandum of May 10, 1967, headquarters file 62-109060, section 129, p. 166. [^28]: Osborn, Howard J. Memorandum for the record, November 8, 1967, JFK record 104-10133-10076. [^29]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992. +[^30]: Lane, Brian. "Gerard Schaefer," *Real-Life Crimes,* Eaglemoss, 1992-93, p. 162, as cited in later accounts and not examined; the Crime Library profile gives "Florida Light and Power." No account describes his duties or names who hired him. See [[Gerard John Schaefer]]. diff --git a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/SOFTWARE_PROJECTS/PROMIS.md b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/SOFTWARE_PROJECTS/PROMIS.md index e22a63b7..aaec4c85 100644 --- a/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/SOFTWARE_PROJECTS/PROMIS.md +++ b/30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/SOFTWARE_PROJECTS/PROMIS.md @@ -70,11 +70,11 @@ The critical legal distinction in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] turned on whet The specific version delivered under Modification 12 on April 20, 1983, ran on a VAX minicomputer and is sometimes referred to as "VAX PROMIS." A Prime computer port was completed in August 1983 and installed across 20 U.S. Attorneys' offices. These VAX and Prime implementations were the versions at issue in the bankruptcy court litigation and in allegations that DOJ distributed enhanced PROMIS beyond the authorized 94 U.S. Attorneys' offices.[^1] ### Theft and Misappropriation by the U.S. Justice Department -In March 1982, INSLAW signed a $10 million, three-year contract with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ's]] Executive Office for United States Attorneys to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. From the outset, disputes arose over proprietary rights: INSLAW claimed the delivered software incorporated enhancements developed at private expense after May 1981, while DOJ insisted the contract entitled it to unlimited rights over everything delivered. Contract administrator [[Peter Videnieks]] and project manager [[C. Madison Brewer]] - the latter a former general counsel of INSLAW's predecessor organization - took consistently adversarial positions on INSLAW's proprietary claims.[^1] +In March 1982, INSLAW signed a $10 million, three-year contract with the [[Department of Justice|DOJ's]] [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones. From the outset, disputes arose over proprietary rights: INSLAW claimed the delivered software incorporated enhancements developed at private expense after May 1981, while DOJ insisted the contract entitled it to unlimited rights over everything delivered. Contract administrator [[Peter Videnieks]] and project manager [[C. Madison Brewer]] - the latter a former general counsel of INSLAW's predecessor organization - took consistently adversarial positions on INSLAW's proprietary claims.[^1] DOJ withheld advance payments citing an unauthorized pledge of government invoices to a bank, a dispute INSLAW characterized as pretextual. Under financial duress, INSLAW filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 1985. The bankruptcy proceedings became a second front of litigation: INSLAW alleged that senior DOJ officials, including [[Lowell Jensen]] and acting under direction ultimately traceable to [[Edwin Meese]] and [[Earl Brian]], engineered the advance payment disputes specifically to drive the company into insolvency and enable the acquisition of its software at bankruptcy auction prices. -Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]] ruled in September 1987 that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit." The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed this ruling in 1989. The Court of Appeals reversed it in 1991 on jurisdictional grounds; the Supreme Court declined review. Full legal history is documented at INSLAW and PROMIS Software Scandal.[^1][^2] +Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason, Jr.]] ruled in September 1987 that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit." The district court affirmed this ruling in November 1989. The D.C. Circuit reversed it in May 1991 on jurisdictional grounds; the Supreme Court declined review. Full legal history is documented at INSLAW and PROMIS Software Scandal.[^1][^2] ### Danny Casolaro and "The Octopus" @@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ The witnesses central to the foreign-distribution claims were assessed as unreli ### Later Developments -In September 1987, Bankruptcy Judge George Francis Bason, Jr. ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole" INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS. That ruling was affirmed by the D.C. Circuit Court in November 1989 but reversed on jurisdictional grounds by the Court of Appeals in May 1991. Bason had awarded INSLAW about 6.8 million dollars in damages, and he was not reappointed to the bankruptcy bench after his rulings against the department, an outcome the Hamiltons and congressional investigators viewed with suspicion; the district judge [[William Bryant]], upholding the findings in 1989, had described the support for them as convincing, perhaps compelling. +In September 1987, Bankruptcy Judge George Francis Bason, Jr. ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole" INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS. That ruling was affirmed by the district court in November 1989 but reversed on jurisdictional grounds by the D.C. Circuit in May 1991. Bason's opinion of January 25, 1988, deferred damages for later determination; the award subsequently computed, given as about 6.8 million dollars, was reduced by 655,200 dollars on appeal, and he was not reappointed to the bankruptcy bench after his rulings against the department, an outcome the Hamiltons and congressional investigators viewed with suspicion; the district judge [[William Bryant]], upholding the findings in 1989, had described the support for them as convincing, perhaps compelling. The House Judiciary Committee launched a three-year investigation from 1989 to 1992, producing House Report 102-857 on September 10, 1992, which found "strong evidence" of DOJ theft and raised "serious concerns" about a high-level conspiracy. The report was unclassified and publicly available. Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]], appointed in November 1991, issued a 267-page report in March 1993 finding no credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing by any DOJ official. The Senate referred INSLAW's remaining claims to the Court of Federal Claims, which ruled in 1997-1998 that all PROMIS versions were in the public domain. diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/PROMIS Software Scandal.md b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/PROMIS Software Scandal.md index 48b64002..3837cee7 100644 --- a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/PROMIS Software Scandal.md +++ b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/PROMIS Software Scandal.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ The INSLAW Affair centers on [[INSLAW]], a Washington, D.C. software company own ### The 1982 Contract and the Proprietary Rights Dispute -In March 1982, INSLAW signed a three-year, $10 million contract with the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones.[^2] The contract specified installation of a public-domain version of PROMIS, but INSLAW argued the delivered software incorporated proprietary enhancements developed at private expense after May 1981. These enhancements, and who owned them, became the central dispute. +In March 1982, INSLAW signed a three-year, $10 million contract with the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]] (EOUSA) to install PROMIS in 20 large U.S. Attorneys' offices and word-processor systems in 74 smaller ones.[^2] The contract specified installation of a public-domain version of PROMIS, but INSLAW argued the delivered software incorporated proprietary enhancements developed at private expense after May 1981. These enhancements, and who owned them, became the central dispute. [[C. Madison Brewer]], appointed as the EOUSA's PROMIS project manager, quickly became the focal point of INSLAW's complaints. Brewer had previously served as general counsel for INSLAW's predecessor organization, the non-profit Institute for Law and Social Research. [[George Francis Bason, Jr.|Bankruptcy Judge Bason]] later found that Brewer had developed "an intense and abiding hatred" for INSLAW president Bill Hamilton and used his position "to vent his spleen," taking administrative actions designed to harm the company.[^1] At an April 19, 1982 meeting, Brewer called a Hamilton memorandum "scurrilous" and persistently opposed escrow arrangements that would have preserved INSLAW's proprietary rights pending a contractual resolution.[^2] @@ -32,9 +32,9 @@ In April 1983, contracting officer [[Peter Videnieks]] negotiated Modification 1 ### Bankruptcy Court Proceedings -Bankruptcy Judge Bason presided over two landmark proceedings. In June 1987, he found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means," based partly on testimony from DOJ official Anthony Pasciuto, who initially stated that DOJ director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee [[Edward White]] to force the company into liquidation.[^1] In September 1987, after a two-week liability trial, Bason ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit," awarding approximately $6.8 million in damages.[^1] +Bankruptcy Judge Bason presided over two landmark proceedings. In June 1987, he found that DOJ had "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" attempted to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization into a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means," based partly on testimony from DOJ official Anthony Pasciuto, who initially stated that DOJ director Thomas Stanton had pressured U.S. Trustee [[William White]] to force the company into liquidation.[^1] In September 1987, after a two-week liability trial, Bason ruled that DOJ had "taken, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit," with damages later computed at about 6.8 million dollars.[^1] -The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed Bason's ruling in November 1989, with Judge [[William Bryant, Jr.|William Bryant]] finding "convincing, perhaps compelling support" for the bankruptcy court's conclusions.[^1] The Court of Appeals reversed all lower court rulings in May 1991 on jurisdictional grounds, vacating Bason's findings. The Supreme Court declined to hear INSLAW's appeal. +Senior District Judge [[William Bryant, Jr.|William Bryant]] affirmed Bason's ruling on November 22, 1989, after reviewing "all of the volumes of transcripts... the more than 1,200 pages of briefs and supporting appendices," finding "convincing, perhaps compelling support for the findings set forth by the bankruptcy court" and that "the cold record adequately supports his findings under any standard of review," while reducing the damages by 655,200 dollars.[^1][^8] The D.C. Circuit reversed on May 7, 1991, on jurisdictional grounds, holding that the automatic stay "does not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing, even if that use may ultimately prove to violate the bankrupt's rights," and declined to disturb the findings of fraud, which "if it occurred, is inexcusable"; rehearing was denied on July 12, 1991, and the Supreme Court declined to hear INSLAW's appeal.[^8] Bason's non-reappointment in 1988, when his four-year term expired after he sought early renewal, generated additional allegations that DOJ had improperly influenced the selection committee that chose his successor. The Bua Report found no credible evidence supporting this charge.[^2] @@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ A distinct body of allegations, separate from the Brian conspiracy theory, held British media proprietor [[Robert Maxwell]], who had maintained intelligence relationships with Mossad since his association with [[Yitzhak Shamir]] in the early 1960s, allegedly served as the primary commercial distributor for the modified software through his Israeli company [[Degem]] and a network of international holdings. According to accounts drawing on Israeli intelligence sources, Maxwell sold PROMIS-derived software to agencies in Britain, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Jordan, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, and numerous other countries, with total sales alleged to exceed $500 million.[^5][^6] INSLAW alleged that Maxwell had contributed $600,000 from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to have INSLAW's lead counsel dismissed, preventing the company from fully litigating its proprietary claims against the U.S. government.[^1] -The Bua Report found "no credible evidence" supporting any of these international distribution allegations and concluded that only public-domain versions of PROMIS had been distributed abroad.[^2] The September 1994 DOJ review by Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer reached identical conclusions.[^7] +The House report itself never adopts the back door as a finding: it records that "the Hamiltons claim the modification of Enhanced PROMIS was an essential element of the enterprise, because the software was subsequently distributed by Dr. Brian to intelligence agencies internationally with a 'back door' software routine," and elsewhere that the modifications "possibly allowed for the creation of a 'back door,'" attributing the claim to the affidavits of Ben-Menashe and Riconosciuto; Riconosciuto's own affidavit of March 21, 1991, speaks of "modification" and "implementation," not of a back door. The Canadian thread, from the 1991 inventory error that put INSLAW and the committee on the trail of the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] to the RCMP's own [[Project Abbreviation]] of 2000, is set out on its own page. The Bua Report found "no credible evidence" supporting any of these international distribution allegations and concluded that only public-domain versions of PROMIS had been distributed abroad.[^2] The September 1994 DOJ review by Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer reached identical conclusions.[^7] ### Danny Casolaro and The Octopus @@ -74,9 +74,13 @@ On August 10, 1991, Casolaro was found dead in his bathtub at the Sheraton Hotel The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report noted that Casolaro had "encountered dangerous individuals associated with organized crime and the world of covert intelligence operations" and called for further investigation into the circumstances of his death. The committee found no evidence that DOJ had influenced the local investigation.[^1] FBI task force members privately "questioned the conclusion of suicide" and recommended further investigation, but documents remain partially withheld from public release.[^4] +### Hanssen and bin Laden + +On June 14, 2001, the Washington Times reported that "accused spy [[Robert Hanssen]] gave secret U.S. software to his Russian handlers that later went to terrorist Osama bin Laden," the software "believed to be an upgraded version of a program known as 'Promis,'" sold on, unnamed officials said, for 2 million dollars; the same sources said the FBI's [[FOIMS]] and COINS systems, which the criminal complaint against Hanssen showed he had used extensively, "are believed to be upgraded versions of the Promis software program." [[Bill Hamilton]] told the paper that government sources had told INSLAW a modified PROMIS had been the "standard on-line database software" of the intelligence agencies since the mid-1980s. On October 16, 2001, Fox News reported that Hanssen had been "tasked with helping allies like Germany and England with the installation and use of their versions of the Promis program," that "Germany stopped using Promis software just last week," that Britain had begun closing it down and Canada had investigated tampering, and that "all we can get from the U.S. government is that they are no longer using Promis software"; FBI and Justice Department spokesmen said only that the department "has discontinued use of the program." In January 2003 Hamilton asked the national commission on the September 11 attacks to consider whether the department's misappropriation of PROMIS was "linked indirectly to pre-September 11 performance problems of U.S. intelligence," and said FBI Director [[Robert Mueller]] had acknowledged to INSLAW's lawyer [[C. Boyden Gray]] in late 2001 that the bureau's system was based on "the Inslaw software," a statement reported only through Hamilton; by then the government's position was a denial that it had used PROMIS or that Hanssen had delivered it. The Justice Department inspector general's 2003 review of the Hanssen case, which examines his use of the FBI's Automated Case Support system at length, does not mention PROMIS or FOIMS.[^9] + ### Court of Federal Claims and Final Resolution -In May 1995, the U.S. Senate referred INSLAW's claims to the Court of Federal Claims. Hearing Officer Judge Christine Miller ruled on July 31, 1997 that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been free to use the software as it wished. A three-judge Review Panel upheld this decision in August 1998 and notified the Senate accordingly. INSLAW received no compensation.[^1] +In May 1995, the U.S. Senate referred INSLAW's claims to the Court of Federal Claims. Hearing Officer Judge [[Christine Odell Cook Miller|Christine Miller]] ruled on July 31, 1997 that all versions of PROMIS were in the public domain and that the government had always been free to use the software as it wished. A three-judge Review Panel upheld this decision in August 1998 and notified the Senate accordingly. INSLAW received no compensation.[^1] Bill Hamilton continued to maintain that PROMIS was fraudulently stolen and distributed internationally. The full scope of the international distribution allegations, particularly those concerning Rafael Eitan, Robert Maxwell, and the embedded backdoor, has never been conclusively resolved in any formal proceeding. @@ -89,3 +93,5 @@ Bill Hamilton continued to maintain that PROMIS was fraudulently stolen and dist [^5]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992. [^6]: Thomas, Gordon. *Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.* St. Martin's Press, 1999. [^7]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Review of the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.* Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer, September 1994. +[^8]: *United States v. INSLAW, Inc.,* 113 B.R. 802 (D.D.C. 1989); *In re INSLAW, Inc.,* 932 F.2d 1467 (D.C. Cir. 1991), rehearing denied July 12, 1991. +[^9]: "Software likely in hands of terrorist," *The Washington Times,* June 14, 2001 (byline not shown in the archived copy; attributed elsewhere to Jerry Seper), archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20190328003123/https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/jun/14/20010614-023749-9383r/ ; Fox News, *Special Report with Brit Hume,* October 16, 2001, Carl Cameron segment, transcript as reproduced at Boing Boing, October 17, 2001, and in Ruppert, Michael C., "Bin Laden's Magic Carpet," *From The Wilderness,* October 26, 2001 (the spokesmen's statements appear only in the latter); "Firm says stolen software helped bin Laden plot 9/11," *The Washington Times,* January 6, 2003, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20170329002654/http://www.washingtontimes.com:80/news/2003/jan/6/20030106-083824-4351r/ ; U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *A Review of the FBI's Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen,* August 2003, unclassified summary. diff --git a/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Project Abbreviation.md b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Project Abbreviation.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..86baa94d --- /dev/null +++ b/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Project Abbreviation.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +category: "Intelligence Scandal" +tags: + - Event + - ProjectAbbreviation + - PROMIS + - RCMP + - CSIS + - Canada + - INSLAW +alias: + - PROMIS in Canada + - RCMP PROMIS investigation +summary: "The RCMP's 1999-2000 national security inquiry, run by Sean McDade, into whether a trap-doored PROMIS ran in Canadian agencies, disclosed by the Toronto Star in August 2000, nine years after a CWARC inventory error had first set INSLAW and the House Judiciary Committee on the Canadian trail." +start: 1990-11 +end: 2000-09 +location: "Ottawa" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Project Abbreviation was the code name of a [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] national security investigation, conducted through 1999 and 2000 by the investigator [[Sean McDade]], whose email handle was "simorp," into whether software used by Canadian federal agencies, including the RCMP itself and the [[Canadian Security Intelligence Service|CSIS]], was a version of [[INSLAW]]'s [[PROMIS]] fitted with a "trap door" giving American and Israeli intelligence access to Canadian data. The Toronto Star disclosed it on August 25, 2000; Reuters reported the same day that "Canadian police are investigating whether U.S. and Israeli spies used rigged computer software to hack into Canada's top secret intelligence files," and that the Mounties "had interviewed a number of people linked to the Promis affair." The same day the RCMP spokesman Staff Sergeant Mike Gaudet told the Globe and Mail that the inquiry, under way for "several months," had produced "absolutely nothing to date to indicate national security has been compromised in any way," adding that the force had to investigate every allegation of the kind. The CSIS spokesman Dan Lambert said the service had conducted "its own in-depth review in 1991 and found that it had no copies of Promis, bootlegged or otherwise, and never had." A later report that the RCMP closed the file on September 16, 2000, with a statement that it had never held any version of the software rests on secondary accounts.[^1][^2] + +### The 1991 Origin + +The Canadian trail began with a survey. On November 5, 1990, Marc Valois of the federal Department of Communications telephoned [[Patricia Hamilton]], the Hamiltons' daughter and INSLAW's sales manager for Canada, to say that INSLAW's PROMIS was "currently operating in agencies and departments of the Federal Government of Canada" at "more than 900 locations," and in January 1991 the Canadian Workplace Automation Research Centre sent INSLAW vendor questionnaires on the same premise. In Montreal on January 30, 1991, Denis LaChance of the department told her the RCMP was running the software at 900 locations; an RCMP officer at headquarters in [[Ottawa]] told her on February 1 that he knew of no PROMIS in the force and to disregard the letters. INSLAW, which swore it had never sold PROMIS to any Canadian agency, filed her affidavit in the bankruptcy court in February 1991. Chairman [[Jack Brooks]] of the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] asked the Canadian embassy for access to the officials; the embassy's Jonathan Fried, reluctant "having been burned" before, allowed interviews on March 22 or 23, 1991, only with government counsel present, not under oath, and on condition the men never became public witnesses. Valois and LaChance then said they had identified the software wrongly: the "PROMIS" in Canadian use was a project-management package of the same name sold by the Strategic Software Planning Corporation of Massimo Grimaldi, who swore he had sold a few copies to Public Works Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency in May 1986; the RCMP had not been part of the survey. On December 4, 1991, the Canadian ambassador wrote that "the RCMP and CSIS report they do not use any case management software." The committee called the letter "conclusory" and wrote in 1992 that "without direct access to RCMP, CSIS and other Canadian officials, the committee has been effectively thwarted in its attempt to support or reject the contention that INSLAW software was transferred to the Canadian Government." The Justice Department's 1994 review traced the error to "a college student working on the inventory" and concluded that "the 'PROMIS' program in use by certain Canadian agencies is not a version of INSLAW's PROMIS but rather a totally different program developed by a different company."[^3][^4] + +### The 2000 Investigation + +McDade's inquiry, authorized at the top of the force, took him secretly into the United States in February 2000, to [[Cheri Seymour]] and the Hercules, California, detective [[Sue Todd]], to the files behind Seymour's book on [[Danny Casolaro]], and to former investigators of the PROMIS and Cabazon matters, and back to a "war room" in Ottawa; the account of the investigation from his side is on his page. [[Michael Riconosciuto]]'s affidavit of March 21, 1991, had sworn that "some of the modifications that I made were specifically designed to facilitate the implementation of PROMIS within two agencies of the Government of Canada: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS)," and that "the proprietary version of PROMIS, as modified by me, was, in fact, implemented in both"; the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] had found him "totally unreliable." A second Canadian witness, the former Nesbitt Thomson broker [[John A. Belton]], told the department's 1994 reviewers that CSIS had bought 10 to 12 million dollars of PROMIS in 1984 and that [[Earl Brian]] had sold it to the Bank of Montreal for 2 million dollars in May 1987, without producing any document; they found him "unbelievable." Fourteen months after the Star's disclosure, on October 16, 2001, Fox News reported that "Canada has actually investigated potential tampering with its Promis programs" as a live example in its story on [[Robert Hanssen]] and Osama bin Laden. The Canadian government's Access to Information index lists a request for RCMP records "mentioning 'PROMIS,' 'INSLAW,' 'PROJECT ABBREVIATION,' or 'PROMIS software' and by RCMP investigator Sean McDade" from 1991 to 2001.[^1][^4][^5] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Reuters, "Canada investigating computer hacking by U.S. and Israel spies," CNN.com, August 25, 2000; Sallot, Jeff, "Mounties probe software allegations," *The Globe and Mail,* August 26, 2000. +[^2]: The September 16, 2000, closure is reported in Ruppert, Michael C., "Bin Laden's Magic Carpet," *From The Wilderness,* October 26, 2001, citing the Toronto Star; the Star's own texts of August 25 and September 16, 2000, were not examined. Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle,* TrineDay, 2010, for McDade's side. +[^3]: Hamilton, Patricia C., affidavit, February 1991, Exhibit 1, *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States,* Adv. Proc. No. 86-0069 (Bankr. D.D.C.), archive.org item "INSLAW-Canada"; House Judiciary Committee investigative file "INSLAW - Canada (HOUSE)," memorandum of Ned M. Friece and interviews of March 23, 1991, archive.org item "INSLAW-CanadaHOUSE" (the House report gives the interview date as March 22). +[^4]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, section on Canada; U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, "The Alleged Distribution of Enhanced PROMIS to Canada" and the Belton interview. +[^5]: Riconosciuto's affidavit as reproduced in U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993, pp. 44-45; Fox News, *Special Report with Brit Hume,* October 16, 2001, Carl Cameron segment, transcript as reproduced at Boing Boing, October 17, 2001; Government of Canada, Open Government, Access to Information summary d596fa1b822b7eed3421bcabd4cf9fd5 (not opened). diff --git a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INFORMATION_SYSTEMS_&_SOFTWARE/Relational Database.md b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INFORMATION_SYSTEMS_&_SOFTWARE/Relational Database.md deleted file mode 100644 index 8f10ffc2..00000000 --- a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/INFORMATION_SYSTEMS_&_SOFTWARE/Relational Database.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9 +0,0 @@ ---- -tags: - - Technology - - Software - - Database -category: "Information System" -summary: "A relational database is a data storage system organizing information into structured tables with defined relationships, the architecture underlying PROMIS and the INSLAW case management software at the center of the PROMIS Software Scandal." ---- -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/KEY CONCEPTS AND TECH.md b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/KEY CONCEPTS AND TECH.md index 45ba6c4d..c6ef1f1a 100644 --- a/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/KEY CONCEPTS AND TECH.md +++ b/50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/KEY CONCEPTS AND TECH.md @@ -178,7 +178,6 @@ Software systems, databases, and information management technologies. | --- | --- | | [[FOIMS]] | Field Office Information Management System (FOIMS) is a computer program developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. | | [[JIS]] | The Jail Information System (JIS) was developed through a grant to the AJI (AJI) from the U.S. Department of Justice, LEAA (LEAA), Office of Criminal Justice Programs' The development of JIS was an outgrowth of the need perceived during AJI's... | -| [[Relational Database]] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database | ## Drugs & Trafficking Narcotics, drug trafficking networks, and substance-related concepts. diff --git a/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Los Alamos.md b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Los Alamos.md index e695eac1..bb03b75d 100644 --- a/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Los Alamos.md +++ b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Los Alamos.md @@ -33,7 +33,12 @@ Several figures who appear in this vault worked at or had connections to Los Ala - [[Harold M. Agnew]], Los Alamos director from 1970 to 1979, served on the Nuclear Intelligence Panel and was critical of the suppression of findings from the [[Vela Incident]] satellite detection of an apparent nuclear test off [[South Africa]] - [[Carl E. Duckett]], CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology, received intelligence contributed from Los Alamos through the CIA's Office of Science and Technology on nuclear matters[^2] +### PROMIS + +The laboratory enters the [[PROMIS Software Scandal|PROMIS]] literature twice. [[John A. Belton]], a former Canadian stockbroker, told the Justice Department's reviewers in 1994 that "Trans World Arms in Montreal and ORA," the [[Ora Group]] of [[Ari Ben-Menashe]]'s account, had sold PROMIS in 1983 to "a Nuclear Regulatory Commission facility in New Mexico" that he believed was Los Alamos, on the word of an unnamed source and without producing any document; the reviewers found him "unbelievable." The [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] investigator [[Sean McDade]] said in 2000 that a meeting of allied intelligence chiefs on the year-2000 computer problem had been held at the laboratory in December 1999, and that a source had suggested [[Mossad]] might have a two-way back door into the shared system reaching "top U.S. weapons secrets at Los Alamos and other installations." Neither the House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report nor the 1993 Bua report mentions the laboratory.[^3] + ### Footnotes [^1]: "Los Alamos National Laboratory," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/topic/Los-Alamos-National-Laboratory [^2]: Herken, Gregg. *Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller.* Henry Holt, 2002. +[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report on the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc.,* September 27, 1994, interview of John A. Belton; Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle,* TrineDay, 2010, as cited on [[Sean McDade]]. diff --git a/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Menwith Hill.md b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Menwith Hill.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..423f9773 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Menwith Hill.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +category: "Military Installation" +tags: + - Place + - MenwithHill + - NSA + - GCHQ + - ECHELON + - SIGINT + - UnitedKingdom +alias: + - RAF Menwith Hill + - Menwith Hill Station +summary: "The NSA's largest field station, on the Yorkshire moors near Harrogate, ground station for the CHALET and VORTEX signals satellites and a node of ECHELON, where the Lockheed software manager Margaret Newsham said she listened to intercepted telephone calls in the early 1980s." +location: "North Yorkshire, England" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Menwith Hill, in North Yorkshire near Harrogate, is "NSA's largest field station in the world," in the words of Duncan Campbell's 1999 report to the European Parliament, "responsible for operating over 250 classified projects" under three directorates. It became the ground station for the CHALET, VORTEX and MERCURY series of signals intelligence satellites, chosen "under NSA project P-285" and launched in June 1978 and October 1979, with the STEEPLEBUSH operations centre built to process their take; after 1985 its mission expanded to the [[Middle East]], it was commended for support to naval operations in the Gulf in 1987 and 1988 and to Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1991, and by the late 1990s it was, in Campbell's account, "the major US site for Comint collection against its major ally, [[Israel]]," staffed with Hebrew, Arabic and Farsi linguists; ground links for a new satellite class, RUTLEY, were added in 1994 and 1995. "A senior UK Liaison Officer and staff from [[GCHQ]] work at Menwith Hill NSA station and assist in tasking and operating the satellites." Nicky Hager, who counted 22 satellite terminals and over two hectares of buildings, called it "undoubtedly the largest station" of its kind in the [[ECHELON]] network, alongside [[Pine Gap]] and Bad Aibling.[^1][^2] + +### Newsham + +[[Margaret Newsham]], a Lockheed Space and Missiles contract employee who was "software manager for more than a dozen VAX computers at Menwith Hill which operate as part of the ECHELON system" until the mid-1980s, told congressional staff that she had listened through earphones to monitored telephone calls at the station; her account followed a July 1988 story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer alleging that the calls of Senator Strom Thurmond had been intercepted. [[Sean McDade]], the Canadian investigator of the [[PROMIS]] affair, said he was a target of ECHELON while working in the United States in 2000.[^2][^3] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Campbell, Duncan. *Interception Capabilities 2000,* report to the European Parliament's STOA panel, April 1999, paras. 8, 38-39, 42, 44. https://irp.fas.org/eprint/ic2000/ic2000.htm +[^2]: Hager, Nicky. *Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network,* Craig Potton, 1996, chs. 2-3. https://archive.org/details/hager-nicky-secret-power_202012 +[^3]: House Report 102-857 (1992) and the Bua report (1993), searched in full, contain no reference to the station; Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle,* TrineDay, 2010, as cited on [[Sean McDade]]. diff --git a/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Morwenstow.md b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Morwenstow.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..23774045 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Morwenstow.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +category: "Military Installation" +tags: + - Place + - Morwenstow + - GCHQ + - NSA + - ECHELON + - SIGINT + - UnitedKingdom +alias: + - GCHQ Bude + - GCHQ Composite Signals Organisation Station Morwenstow +summary: "GCHQ's satellite interception station on the Cornish cliffs north of Bude, built in 1971 with two 30-metre dishes against the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Intelsats, the first ground station of the ECHELON system." +location: "Cornwall, England" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Morwenstow, on the north Cornish coast fifteen kilometres up the cliffs from the town of Bude, from which it takes its informal name, was the first station built for the systematic interception of international commercial satellite traffic. "Systematic collection of COMSAT ILC communications began in 1971," Duncan Campbell wrote in his 1999 report to the European Parliament. "Two ground stations were built for this purpose. The first at Morwenstow, Cornwall, England had two 30-metre antennae. One intercepted communications from the Atlantic Ocean Intelsat; the other the Indian Ocean Intelsat." The station, run by [[GCHQ]] and worked jointly with the [[National Security Agency|NSA]], expanded with the rest of the [[ECHELON]] network between 1985 and 1995. Nicky Hager's gazetteer of 1996 counted nine or ten dishes and "extensive operations buildings," visible from the road at Morwenstow or from the cliff path of the South West Peninsula walkway.[^1][^2] + +Its sister stations in the network are [[Menwith Hill]] and [[Pine Gap]].[^3] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Campbell, Duncan. *Interception Capabilities 2000,* report to the European Parliament's STOA panel, April 1999, paras. 45-46. https://irp.fas.org/eprint/ic2000/ic2000.htm +[^2]: Hager, Nicky. *Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network,* Craig Potton, 1996, gazetteer entry. https://archive.org/details/hager-nicky-secret-power_202012 +[^3]: House Report 102-857 (1992) and the Bua report (1993), searched in full. diff --git a/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Pine Gap.md b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Pine Gap.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0bbf2725 --- /dev/null +++ b/60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Pine Gap.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +category: "Military Installation" +tags: + - Place + - PineGap + - CIA + - NSA + - ECHELON + - SIGINT + - Australia +alias: + - Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap +summary: "The CIA's satellite ground station in central Australia near Alice Springs, controlling the RHYOLITE, AQUACADE, MAGNUM and ORION signals satellites, and one of the four main stations of the ECHELON network." +location: "Northern Territory, Australia" +created: 2026-09-22 +updated: 2026-09-22 +--- + +Pine Gap, a "remote ground station in central [[Australia]]" near Alice Springs, was built to operate the second class of American signals intelligence satellite, developed by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and "initially known as RHYOLITE and later AQUACADE," whose successors were named MAGNUM and then ORION; their targets, in Duncan Campbell's 1999 account to the European Parliament, "include telemetry, VHF radio, cellular mobile phones, paging signals, and mobile data links." Campbell listed it with Buckley Field in Colorado, [[Menwith Hill]] in England and Bad Aibling in Germany as one of the four principal ground stations for American signals satellites; Nicky Hager, writing from New Zealand in 1996, described "the controversial Pine Gap base in central Australia" as "a major ground station for spy satellites" feeding, with Menwith Hill and Bad Aibling, "into the global network" of [[ECHELON]].[^1][^2] + +The allegation carried by [[Sean McDade]]'s Canadian inquiry into [[PROMIS]] of a shared allied system with a "two-way" back door concerned a meeting at [[Los Alamos]], not the Australian station.[^3] + +### Footnotes + +[^1]: Campbell, Duncan. *Interception Capabilities 2000,* report to the European Parliament's STOA panel, April 1999, paras. 40, 42. https://irp.fas.org/eprint/ic2000/ic2000.htm +[^2]: Hager, Nicky. *Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network,* Craig Potton, 1996, chs. 2-3. https://archive.org/details/hager-nicky-secret-power_202012 +[^3]: House Report 102-857 (1992) and the Bua report (1993), searched in full; Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle,* TrineDay, 2010, as cited on [[Sean McDade]].