vault backup: 2026-10-15 11:55:05

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Carter Cornick.md

@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ relations:
     role: "co-founder of Counter Terrorism Consultants"
     fn: 5
 created: 2026-10-01
-updated: 2026-10-08
+updated: 2026-10-14
 ---
 
 L. Carter Cornick Jr. was a special agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] from 1967 to 1988.[^1] He was a former Marine,[^2] described in 1978 as "descended from several generations of Virginians,"[^3] and held a bachelor's degree in Asian history from the [[University of Virginia]].[^4] He spent sixteen of his twenty-one bureau years on terrorism.[^5] In San Juan in 1972 and 1973 he received informant reports for the bureau's file on the [[Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño]]; from September 1976 he was case agent of the investigation code-named Chilbom into the murders of [[Orlando Letelier]] and [[Ronni Moffitt]]; in the 1980s he worked in the counterterrorism section at FBI headquarters; and in August 1988 he and the case's prosecutor, [[Eugene Propper]], formed [[Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc.]][^1][^5][^6]
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ Propper brought [[Guillermo Novo]] and [[Ignacio Novo]] of the [[Cuban Nationali
 
 The Chilean foreign ministry announced that it would answer only formal letters rogatory. The letters were sent with only the questions sealed, and Propper told courthouse reporters that they might find something in the clerk's office; the next day's front pages reported that the investigation was focused on members of the Chilean government. Cornick wrote that within several days the Chilean press identified "the individual with blond hair" as an American, [[Michael Townley]], "who also worked for the CIA," and the second man as a DINA captain, [[Armando Fernandez Larios]].[^1] Propper and Cornick arrived in [[Santiago]] on March 19, 1978.[^2] At the headquarters of DINA's successor, the [[Central Nacional de Informaciones|CNI]], Cornick saw two soldiers feeding books into a fire in an oil drum; inside, the general in charge admitted for the first time that Townley had worked for DINA.[^1]
 
-Propper, Cornick and the legal attaché [[Robert Scherrer]] questioned two Chilean army captains that month about their roles. One said under questioning on March 24 that the purpose of their August 1976 mission to the United States had been to see [[Vernon Walters]]. Walters gave the FBI a deposition in June 1978 denying any knowledge of the case or contact with the officers.[^9] One evening members of the [[Carabineros de Chile|Chilean National Police]] told Cornick and Scherrer that a warrant required them to appear before a magistrate; Cornick wrote that both held diplomatic passports accrediting them to Chile, cited immunity, and that the police backed down.[^1] Chile expelled Townley on April 8, 1978, and Cornick escorted him to the United States; the [[Federal Aviation Administration|FAA]] ordered the plane to land at [[Baltimore]] short of New York.[^1][^10] On May 9 Ambassador [[George Landau]] cabled from Santiago that Chilean courts were investigating the expulsion, that the press had named Scherrer and Cornick as Townley's escorts, and that lawyers for Townley and his wife wanted them called before the investigating judge. Scherrer held a diplomatic passport; "in order to preserve same option with respect to Carter Cornick," Landau recommended "strongly" that Cornick be issued one for future visits, and likewise Propper.[^10]
+Propper, Cornick and the legal attaché [[Robert Scherrer]] questioned two Chilean army captains that month about their roles. One said under questioning on March 24 that the purpose of their August 1976 mission to the United States had been to see [[Vernon Walters]]. Walters gave the FBI a deposition in June 1978 denying any knowledge of the case or contact with the officers.[^9] One evening members of the [[Carabineros de Chile|Chilean National Police]] told Cornick and Scherrer that a warrant required them to appear before a magistrate; Cornick wrote that both held diplomatic passports accrediting them to Chile, cited immunity, and that the police backed down.[^1] Chile expelled Townley on April 8, 1978, and Cornick escorted him to the United States; the [[Federal Aviation Administration|FAA]] ordered the plane to land at [[Baltimore]] short of New York.[^1] On May 9 Ambassador [[George Landau]] cabled from Santiago that Chilean courts were investigating the expulsion, that the press had named Scherrer and Cornick as Townley's escorts, and that lawyers for Townley and his wife wanted them called before the investigating judge. Scherrer held a diplomatic passport; "in order to preserve same option with respect to Carter Cornick," Landau recommended "strongly" that Cornick be issued one for future visits, and likewise Propper.[^10]
 
 Townley's plea agreement, signed on April 18, 1978, capped his sentence at ten years. "We did not have, in my opinion, a prosecutable case," Cornick told Dorfman. "So what we did was we made a deal with the worst possible guy."[^1][^2] Townley implicated DINA's commander, [[Manuel Contreras]], its chief of operations, [[Pedro Espinoza]], and Fernandez Larios, and told the investigators that President [[Augusto Pinochet]] began every working day with a briefing from Contreras.[^1] A CIA report dated April 28, 1978, while Cornick was working in Santiago, stated that "Contreras told a confidant he authorized the assassination of Letelier on orders from Pinochet." Shown that report and others in 2015 by John Dinges, Cornick said: "As you may suspect, none of this was new to us at the time." He called the information hearsay from people who would never testify, and said that "the interests of the U.S., according to [the Department of] State, were that Chile was a non-Communist country in [[Latin America]] and therefore no further punitive action against them was warranted."[^11]
 

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/David Cram.md

@@ -1,18 +1,106 @@
 ---
-category: "Criminals & Offenders"
+category: "Victims & Witnesses"
+aliases:
+  - David F. Cram
+  - David Cram
 tags:
   - AbuseNetworks
   - Person
-summary: "David Cram was a 20-year-old employee of John Wayne Gacy's construction company, PDM, and began living with Gacy at his Norwood Park house in May 1976."
+  - JohnWayneGacy
+  - PaintingDecoratingMaintenance
+  - GacyMurders
+  - DesPlainesPolice
+summary: "David Cram was a laborer for John Wayne Gacy's company who lived in Gacy's Norwood Park house in 1976 and told Des Plaines police in December 1978 that Gacy claimed to work for a syndicate."
+created: 2026-04-28
+updated: 2026-10-15
+relations:
+  - type: employed_by
+    with: "[[Painting Decorating Maintenance]]"
+    role: "laborer on PDM crews"
+    start: 1976
+    fn: 2
+  - type: investigated
+    with: "[[Des Plaines Police]]"
+    reverse: true
+    role: "interviewed as a possible accomplice in the Gacy investigation"
+    start: 1978-12-16
+    fn: 10
+  - type: participant_in
+    with: "[[John Wayne Gacy trial]]"
+    role: "witness"
+    start: 1980-02
+    fn: 1
 ---
 
-David Cram was a 20-year-old employee of [[John Wayne Gacy]]'s construction company, [[Painting Decorating Maintenance|PDM]], and began living with Gacy at his [[Norwood Park]] house in May 1976. The house served as both a residence and a home office for the business, where Cram resided on and off alongside another employee, [[Michael Rossi]]. Cram worked for Gacy during a period when multiple young men associated with the company went missing.[^1]
+David Cram was a laborer for [[John Wayne Gacy]]'s construction company, [[Painting Decorating Maintenance|PDM]], who lived in Gacy's house in [[Norwood Park]] in 1976, dug trenches in its crawl space, and testified at Gacy's 1980 trial in [[Chicago]]. The writer S. Dovey wrote that Gacy named Cram as an accomplice during his police interrogation on December 21, 1978, and Cram told [[Des Plaines Police]] that month that Gacy claimed to work for a crime syndicate.[^1]
 
-### Role in Gacy Operations
-David Cram assisted [[John Wayne Gacy]] by digging trenches in the crawlspace beneath Gacy's [[Norwood Park]] home, as later admitted during Gacy's trial. Gacy named Cram as an accomplice in burying bodies during his police interrogation on December 21, 1978, claiming Cram had keys to the house and used it when Gacy was out of town. Cram introduced [[Phillip Paske]] to Gacy, and both Cram and [[Michael Rossi]] testified that Gacy claimed involvement in a crime syndicate that "set people up," including finding drivers' licenses of deceased individuals in Gacy's garage.[^1]
+### Work for Gacy
 
-### Investigation and Testimony
-David Cram was interviewed by [[Joseph Kozenczak]] and [[Des Plaines Police]] on December 16, 1978, three days after the initial search of Gacy's home, where he revealed Gacy's claims of syndicate involvement and mentioned finding drivers' licenses of dead people in the garage. Cram also stated that after the December 13 search, Gacy went into the crawlspace with a flashlight, and Cram admitted to digging trenches there but denied any knowledge of the murders or bodies. During Gacy's 1980 trial, Cram testified alongside [[Michael Rossi]] that they had dug the graves on Gacy's instructions without knowing their purpose, and both were placed under police surveillance starting December 13, 1978, as potential accomplices.[^1]
+[[Michael Rossi]] testified at the 1980 trial that he first met Cram in August 1976, when Cram was working on a PDM crew at a hot dog stand job. Rossi testified that Cram lived in Gacy's house for a month or two and then moved out, and that Rossi moved into the house around September 1976.[^2] The writer S. Dovey wrote that Cram, then 20, began living with Gacy at the Norwood Park house in May 1976, that the house served as both a residence and a home office for the business, that Cram resided there on and off alongside another employee, Rossi, and that Cram worked for Gacy during a period when multiple young men associated with the company went missing.[^3] [[Terry Sullivan]], who gave him the pseudonym Chris Gray, described him as a twenty-one-year-old high school dropout in December 1978 who had served a year in the army, met Gacy while hitchhiking, went to work for him in late 1976, and moved in shortly afterward at $25 a week.[^4] Cram was 22 at his February 1980 testimony and gave August 22, 1976 as his 19th birthday, a birth date of August 22, 1957, which would make him 18 in May 1976.[^5] A Chicago Police record for a David F. Cram gives a 1957 birth year.[^6]
+
+Cram and Rossi both worked on PDM crews. On December 12, 1978, a PDM worker told Des Plaines police that he had seen Gacy at a job site at about 2:30 p.m. that day, that Gacy was with Cram, and that the two stopped by the site for a short time before leaving.[^7]
+
+### December 1978 police investigation
+
+On December 13, 1978, Des Plaines police executed the first search warrant at Gacy's house. Cram testified at the 1980 trial that he was with Gacy after the police had executed that warrant. When they returned to the house, Gacy asked Cram to check the crawl space. Cram refused, so Gacy checked it himself and appeared "shook up about it."[^1]
+
+The writer S. Dovey wrote that after the December 13 search Gacy went into the crawl space with a flashlight, and that Cram admitted digging trenches there but denied any knowledge of murders or bodies.[^3] Dovey also wrote that police placed both Cram and Rossi under surveillance from December 13, 1978, as potential accomplices.[^3] A December 1978 surveillance report records Cram in Gacy's company on more than one occasion, including a lunch at which Cram was with Gacy and a companion, and an occasion on which Cram was driving.[^8] The police evidence photography log lists a photograph of Cram's residence among the images taken during the investigation.[^9]
+
+On December 16, 1978, Cram gave an interview to Des Plaines police that ran until 1712 hours.[^10] In the interview Cram said Gacy told him he did work for a syndicate and had set people up before. Cram said he had no actual proof of this. He said Gacy kept about three wallets in the garage, containing identification that included a driver's license, a library card, a military identification, and school and college identification, one of them from De Vry Tech. Cram said that when he asked to use one of the identifications as proof of age, Gacy told him he did not want those, because they belonged to people who were deceased. Cram said he did not ask Gacy how he knew.[^10]
+
+On December 17, 1978, Rossi told police that Cram had telephoned him that morning, and that Gacy had asked Rossi whether he had called Cram in to work. Rossi also told police that the wallets found in Gacy's garage had also been found by Cram.[^11]
+
+### Sullivan's account of the employee he calls Chris Gray
+
+Sullivan, who gave him the pseudonym Chris Gray, wrote that on December 13, 1978, he came to Gacy's house to return Gacy's truck during the search, looked into the crawl space, and remarked that Gacy had been having trouble with seepage.[^4] Sullivan described Des Plaines officers Pickell and Adams interviewing Gray on Saturday, December 16, 1978, first at the Aurora job site restaurant and then at the station from just after 2 p.m. The account has Gray saying Gacy claimed to work for the syndicate and had set up people before; that Gacy kept wallets of identification in the garage, one driver's license still valid, and that when Gray asked to use it to get into bars while underage Gacy told him he did not want those because they belonged to people who were deceased; and that Gacy gave him watches "from a dead person." These statements match the December 16 police interview of Cram, and Cram's 1980 testimony as reported under his own name matches Sullivan's account of Gray on the birthday handcuffs, the bedroom attack, the wallets, the syndicate confession and the Fifth Amendment.[^5][^12] Gray signed a release for a police search of the PDM van, where an evidence technician found a tissue with fresh blood that Gray said was his own, and he said that on the night of the December 13 search Gacy went into the crawl space with a flashlight.[^12]
+
+On Wednesday, December 20, 1978, according to Sullivan, Gray rode with surveillance officers Schultz and Robinson and was questioned by officers Bedoe and Lang, who confronted him with his police record.[^13] Gray described a drinking session on his birthday at which Gacy handcuffed him and Gray kicked free, a threat by Gacy to kill him over a broken statue, Gacy coming to his bed at night, and his move out of the house afterward. He said he had been in the crawl space once spreading lime and once digging, that Gacy gave moisture and pipes as the reason, set stakes marking the trenches, and shouted at him to stay on the marked line when he veered; he drew a diagram of the sump pump and the trenches, which he put at a foot and a half to two feet wide and deep. Sullivan wrote that Lang told him police suspected the mounds were graves.[^13] Sullivan also wrote that Michael Rossi, whom he calls Dick Walsh, gave erratic and inconsistent responses on a polygraph administered by [[Joseph Kozenczak]], who could render no definite opinion.[^14]
+
+Sullivan wrote that on Thursday, December 21, 1978, Gacy drove to Gray's house, where Rossi (Dick Walsh) was unloading tools from a car trunk; Gacy told them he had something to tell them, Rossi went in and came out saying Gacy was really upset, and Gray then drove Gacy to meet his attorney LeRoy Stevens at a restaurant on the Northwest Side. At a gas station Gray told officer Schultz that Gacy had been up all night and had told his lawyers he had killed over thirty people. Sullivan reports Gacy asking to visit his father's grave to say goodbye, and saying he feared he might kill himself and take Gray with him.[^15]
+
+### Trial testimony, 1980
+
+Cram testified at Gacy's trial in February 1980, on direct examination, cross-examination and redirect.[^2] According to the Illinois Supreme Court's summary of his testimony, Gacy had him dig trenches in the crawl space, "purportedly for drainage purposes," and had him spread lime through the crawl space to cut its odor. Cram also testified that Gacy told him he had a degree in psychology, which he needed to manipulate people more easily.[^1]
+
+Cram, 22, testified on February 12, 1980 that he dug drainage trenches for Gacy in late August 1977 and noticed several "small mounds" in the crawl space; prosecution statements, as reported, indicated Gacy had by then buried 11 of the 22 bodies identified and linked to him. Cram testified that on August 22, 1976, his 19th birthday, he went to Gacy's house and found Gacy in his clown outfit preparing for a hospital benefit; Gacy showed him puppets "and then he came up with his handcuff trick," put the cuffs on him, swung him around and "said he was going to rape me," and Cram ended it by kicking Gacy in the head. He testified that in September 1976 Gacy entered his room while he slept and "just pounced on me," tore his jeans, fought with him, then got up, smiled and said "You ain't no fun." Cram testified that in 1976 he found several wallets in the garage, asked whether he could use the identification cards to drink in bars, and Gacy told him he did not want those. Both Cram and Rossi testified that Gacy, despondent over a ten-day police surveillance, told them he had admitted to police involvement in the "syndicate" slayings of more than 30 youths. Asked whether he engaged in sexual activity with Gacy or Rossi, Cram refused to answer, citing the Fifth Amendment.[^5]
+
+Rossi testified that he helped dig trenches in the crawl space and supervised newer employees who dug there. He testified that Gacy was very sensitive about where the employees dug and placed markers to designate the areas.[^1]
+
+Rossi testified that on December 21, 1978, he went to Cram's house to drop off some of Gacy's tools, and that Gacy arrived while he was there. Rossi testified that Gacy was emotional and nervous, and was in tears, and that Gacy said he had confessed to his lawyers the night before to more than 30 killings.[^16] Rossi testified that Gacy said he had been involved in "over 30 syndicate-related killings," and that Gacy told Cram the same thing, which Rossi believed.[^17]
+
+Sullivan described the prosecution as regarding Gray and Walsh as potentially the most damaging witnesses because of their involvement in the crawl space digging, with the defense expected to portray them as Gacy's accomplices. He wrote that Gray seemed fearful of being criminally linked with his former boss and pledged full cooperation, that Rossi's lawyer Edward V. Hanrahan sought immunity for Rossi, and that Judge Garippo overruled a defense objection to Gray testifying but allowed a brief defense interview first.[^18] Sullivan reports that Gray took the stand on Tuesday, February 12, 1980. He testified that Gacy kept drugs in several places in the drugstores the company remodeled, and that Gacy went into the crawl space wearing ankle-high black boots. Crouching in the well of the courtroom, Gray demonstrated to the jurors how he had dug trenches with thirty inches of headroom. He testified that on the morning of Gacy's arrest Gacy broke down and cried and said he had confessed to thirty killings, "syndicate-related killings," while swearing he had nothing to do with a particular missing boy. On cross-examination by defense counsel Motta, asked whether he had participated in sex with Gacy, Gray invoked the Fifth Amendment.[^19] Rossi, per Sullivan, testified that Gacy told him and Gray of over thirty killings, that he dug one trench between knee and hip depth and about a foot wide, refused to dig a second, and supervised others after Gacy marked locations with sticks.[^20]
+
+### Gacy's statements about Cram
+
+The writer S. Dovey wrote that during his police interrogation on December 21, 1978, Gacy named Cram and Rossi as accomplices who had buried bodies in the crawl space of his house, and that Gacy said Cram had keys to the house and used it when Gacy was out of town.[^3] Dovey also wrote that Gacy said in 1992 interviews that Cram introduced [[Phillip Paske]] to him, and that Paske procured boys for sex and films.[^3] In a recording played publicly in April 1994, as the writer S. Dovey wrote it, Gacy said that twelve keys to his house had been distributed and that Rossi, Cram, Paske and [[John David Norman]] were involved in the case.[^3]
+
+### Later records
+
+The State's witness list in the Gacy case, filed April 25, 1979 under Indictment No. 79-69, names David Cram.[^21] A second supplemental list of witnesses filed for the defense also names David Cram.[^22]
+
+A [[Chicago Police Department]] criminal history report for a David F. Cram, with a 1957 birth year, lists six arrests between 1978 and 2000, one of them a felony, and one conviction. The identification of this David F. Cram with the Gacy witness rests on name, Chicago residence and a 1957 birth year, the year implied by his 1980 testimony.[^6]
 
 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). Eye of the Chickenhawk. United States: Thehotstar.
+
+[^1]: *People v. Gacy*, 103 Ill. 2d 1 (1984), Illinois Supreme Court, No. 53212, decided June 6, 1984, testimony summaries of David Cram and Michael Rossi. https://static.case.law/ill-2d/103/cases/0001-01.json
+[^2]: Testimony of David Cram and Michael Rossi, *People v. Gacy*, Circuit Court of Cook County, Indictment Nos. 79-69 et al., trial transcript, Volume 5 of 13, February 1980, index pages 757 to 936 (Cram) and 938 to 1064 (Rossi). https://archive.org/details/Gacy_trial (file "Rossi trial tty")
+[^3]: S. Dovey, *Eye of the Chickenhawk* (2023), passages on Cram's residence, the December 13, 1978 search, Gacy's statements naming Cram, Rossi, Paske and Norman, and the keys to Gacy's house.
+[^4]: Terry Sullivan with Peter T. Maiken, *Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders* (Grosset & Dunlap, 1983), p. 29 (the book states that the name Chris Gray has been changed) and pp. 61 to 65 (age, army service, move-in).
+[^5]: United Press International, "Gacy had youths dig trenches under suburban home: Witness," Chicago, February 12, 1980, as printed in the Journal Gazette and Times-Courier (Mattoon, Illinois), February 13, 1980, p. 3 (photograph caption: David Cram leaves court after testifying).
+[^6]: Chicago Police Department, Identification Section, Criminal History Report, David F. Cram. https://archive.org/details/criminal-history-report-cram-r-1
+[^7]: Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 5 of 6, interview report of a PDM employee, December 1978 (sighting of Gacy and Cram at a job site on December 12, 1978, about 2:30 p.m.). https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD
+[^8]: Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 6 of 6, December 1978 surveillance report of Gacy's movements. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD
+[^9]: Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 3 of 6, evidence photography log. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD
+[^10]: Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 5 of 6, interview of David Cram, December 16, 1978, terminated at 1712 hours. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD
+[^11]: Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 5 of 6, statement of Michael Rossi, December 17, 1978. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD
+[^12]: Sullivan, *Killer Clown*, pp. 61 to 65, 63 and 64 (December 16, 1978 interview; syndicate, wallets, flashlight, van search).
+[^13]: Sullivan, *Killer Clown*, pp. 128 to 133 (December 20, 1978 surveillance and questioning; crawl space diagram).
+[^14]: Sullivan, *Killer Clown*, pp. 129 to 130 (polygraph of the employee he calls Dick Walsh).
+[^15]: Sullivan, *Killer Clown*, pp. 140 to 141 (December 21, 1978).
+[^16]: Testimony of Michael Rossi, *People v. Gacy* (1980), trial transcript Volume 5 of 13, as in note 2, on the December 21, 1978 visit to Cram's house.
+[^17]: Testimony of Michael Rossi, *People v. Gacy* (1980), trial transcript Volume 5 of 13, as in note 2, on Gacy's statements about syndicate-related killings at Cram's house.
+[^18]: Sullivan, *Killer Clown*, pp. 282 to 283 (pretrial positions on Gray and Walsh).
+[^19]: Sullivan, *Killer Clown*, pp. 283 to 284 (Gray's testimony of February 12, 1980, trench demonstration, "syndicate-related killings", Fifth Amendment on cross-examination).
+[^20]: Sullivan, *Killer Clown*, p. 285 (Walsh's testimony).
+[^21]: Witness list, *People v. Gacy*, Indictment No. 79-69, filed April 25, 1979. https://archive.org/details/gacy-st.-witness.-list.-04.25.79
+[^22]: Second Supplemental List of Witnesses, defense, *People v. Gacy*, No. 79-69. https://archive.org/details/def.-2d.-suppl.-witness.-list

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Eric Davis.md

@@ -21,5 +21,8 @@ Dr. Davis is best known as the alleged author of the Wilson-Davis Memo, a docume
 
 In 2020, Dr. Davis made headlines when he told the [[New York Times]] that the [[United States|U.S. government]] was in possession of "off-world vehicles not made on this earth." His public statements and briefings to Congress have been a major factor in the growing momentum for UAP transparency.[^1]
 
+On June 15, 2024, [[David Dominguez Hooper]], later the founder of [[ELDAEON]], posted that he had presented "our UAP detector" to Davis and demonstrated its capability to detect "the potential blue-shifting effect on EM waves" theorized by Puthoff in his spacetime metric engineering paper.[^2]
+
 ### Footnotes
 [^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
+[^2]: David Hooper (@davidhooperr), post, June 15, 2024. https://x.com/davidhooperr/status/1802138370790809628

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gary Betzner.md

@@ -3,8 +3,11 @@ title: Gary Betzner
 aliases:
   - Gary Betzner
   - Gary Wayne Betzner
+  - Gary Wayne "Hippie" Betzner
+  - Gary "Hippie" Betzner
+  - Lucas Harmony
 created: 2026-05-17
-updated: 2026-05-17
+updated: 2026-10-15
 category: "Organized Crime"
 tags:
   - Person
@@ -14,19 +17,174 @@ tags:
   - ContraWar
   - CongressionalTestimony
   - DarkAllianceInvestigation
-summary: "Copilot who flew CIA-protected drug and weapons flights for the Contras and testified under oath as a Justice Department witness."
+  - MoralesOrganization
+  - KerryHearings
+summary: "Pilot for Colombian trafficker George Morales who told the Kerry subcommittee in April 1988 that he flew weapons to John Hull's Costa Rica ranch and returned with cocaine loads."
 location: "Akron, Ohio"
+relations:
+  - type: employed_by
+    with: "[[George Morales]]"
+    role: "pilot on Morales drug flights, early 1980 to April 1984"
+    start: 1980
+    end: 1984-04
+    fn: 12
+  - type: participant_in
+    with: "[[Contras]]"
+    role: "pilot on weapons-for-cocaine flights to Ilopango and to John Hull's airstrip"
+    start: 1983-05
+    end: 1984-07
+    fn: 18
+  - type: participant_in
+    with: "[[Kerry Committee]]"
+    role: "witness, hearing of April 7, 1988"
+    start: 1988-04-07
+    end: 1988-04-07
+    fn: 2
+  - type: partner_of
+    with: "[[Richard Healey]]"
+    role: "fellow pilot on the May 1983 flight to Ilopango"
+    start: 1983-05
+    end: 1983-05
+    fn: 20
+  - type: partner_of
+    with: "[[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco]]"
+    role: "companion (Tito) on the July 1984 Hull airstrip flights"
+    start: 1984-07
+    end: 1984-08
+    fn: 25
 ---
-Gary Wayne "Hippie" Betzner was a copilot who flew weapons and drug missions for Colombian trafficker [[George Morales]] in support of the [[Contras]]. Betzner, who had pleaded guilty to federal drug charges, testified during a federal trial in Oklahoma as a witness for the Justice Department - not as a defendant.[^1]
 
-### Sworn Testimony
+Gary Wayne "Hippie" Betzner is a former Navy electronics technician, crop duster and drug pilot who flew for the Colombian trafficker [[George Morales]] from 1980 to 1984. In 1983 and 1984 he flew weapons from the United States to [[El Salvador]]'s [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] and to [[John Hull]]'s airstrip in northern [[Costa Rica]], and on the Hull flights he carried back about 500 kilos of cocaine. He was arrested in [[Florida]] in November 1984, received a total sentence of 27 years and two months for cocaine importation and related offenses, and testified as a federal prisoner before the [[Kerry Committee]] on April 7, 1988.[^1][^2]
 
-When asked by a defense lawyer if CIA people permitted him to fly airplanes into foreign countries carrying weapons, Betzner replied: "Why, sure." Asked if he brought drugs back, he said: "Yes." Asked if the CIA people knew what he was doing with the drugs, Betzner insisted: "Certainly."[^1]
+### Early Life and Navy Service
 
-Betzner said he was not surprised that his boss Morales was helping the Contras: "No, actually, I wasn't surprised by it because I knew that George was anti-Communist, as are most Colombians. So the Cartel and people like that are definitely anti-Communist. . .It's strictly a capitalist movement, this drug business."[^1]
+Betzner was born in [[Akron, Ohio]] and raised in [[Arkansas]], where he finished high school at DeValls Bluff High School.[^3] He enlisted in the [[United States Navy|Navy]] in 1959 and served until 1963, first aboard the carrier [[USS Hancock]] on a tour of the Far East, then in patrol squadron VP-17 at [[Whidbey Island]], Washington, which deployed to [[Alaska]] for anti-submarine patrols. His specialty was electronic countermeasures, and he was discharged as an E-6.[^4] He attended Arkansas State Teachers College for almost a year without graduating, then worked for a logistics contractor at the Pacific missile range on [[Kwajalein]].[^5]
 
-Betzner and [[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco|"Tito" Carrasco]] both confirmed George Morales's story about flying weapons to [[John Hull]]'s ranch in northern [[Costa Rica]] and returning with cocaine - under oath as U.S. government witnesses. George Morales also passed a DEA-administered lie detector test about his Contra drug dealings.[^1]
+He returned to Arkansas in 1965 or 1966 to farm his parents' land and ran a crop-dusting business for about twelve years, which he stopped in 1977. He was president of the local [[Jaycees]] in [[Hazen, Arkansas|Hazen]], a county coordinator for Senator [[Dale Bumpers]], and a member of the executive committee of the Young Democrat Club; he testified that while in college he sat on the executive committee of the Republican Party and that his political views in those years were "somewhere to the right of the John Birch Society." In 1975 and 1976 he worked in [[Anchorage]] for [[International Air Taxi]], which flew helicopters.[^6] He told the subcommittee that his electronics training later helped him avoid radar.[^4]
+
+### Arrest, Flight and the First Drug Loads
+
+After returning to Arkansas, Betzner testified, he made his first attempt to buy cocaine, which ended in an arrest in [[Miami]]. He posted bond, jumped it, and left Arkansas on a motorcycle for [[California]]. He later re-established himself in Miami under the name Lucas Harmony and took a job with [[DECA Aircraft]].[^7] During that job he fell from the wing of an [[Air Florida]] Boeing 737 and broke a small bone in his leg. While he was recuperating, a friend involved in marijuana smuggling offered him an old twin Bonanza that the friend's Colombian connection had supplied.[^8] In early 1980 he flew that aircraft to a lake strip in the [[La Guajira|Guajira Desert]] of northern [[Colombia]], picked up marijuana, and recovered the load after the planned Florida landing strip proved unusable. He landed instead at [[Marathon, Florida]] and was paid $40,000, plus $10,000 that he charged for saving the load.[^8]
+
+### Flights for George Morales, 1980 to 1984
+
+Betzner's losses came later in the same period. A Beechcraft Queen Air he was flying lost both engines near [[Bimini]], and he ran it off the runway. Bahamian officers arrested him that night, held a gun on him, and released the aircraft after he offered them 300 or 400 pounds of marijuana he had left in the brush.[^9] The next day, he said, a Colombian-American employee of Morales, [[Hiro Plata]], introduced him to Morales at a fishing tournament in Bimini. Morales, whom Betzner described as a competitive speedboat racer, took him into his circle, and within a week or two Betzner was flying for him, first in an old Aztec from Colombia to [[Great Harbor Cay]] in the [[Bahamas]].[^10] Betzner said the only other Morales pilot he knew was [[Richard Healey]], Morales's chief pilot at Aviation Activities in Miami, the son of an American father and a Colombian mother, who made a few drug flights with him. Healey's wife was Marta, formerly Marta Chamorro, a Nicaraguan who had been married twice to [[Adolfo Chamorro|Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro]]; Betzner agreed with Kerry that Chamorro was a leader of the Southern Front of the ARDE Contra movement and said he learned only later that Chamorro worked with [[Eden Pastora]] in Costa Rica. Kerry stated that Marta Healey was under subpoena. Betzner also said Morales, Healey, Plata and another man had been indicted in 1980 on a DC-3 load.[^11]
+
+Betzner testified that he made about fifty Morales flights between late 1981 and the end of 1982, at $40,000 per trip.[^12] Morales's fleet included Piper Navajo "Panthers"; Betzner knew of four or five that Morales bought and said "we called his place the zoo, he had so many Panthers around." The loading hangar was at [[Opa Locka]]. Marijuana and Quaaludes went from Colombia to the Bahamas and were moved to the United States by boat.[^13] Bahamian police and defense officials flew along as copilots. Betzner described the usual payment as about $15,000 a trip, with $5,000 apiece for customs and immigration and for the military or police, while also saying he did not recall customs officials flying along.[^14]
+
+In 1983 Betzner set up a business at [[Tamiami Airport]] that modified aircraft for smugglers. He bought a twin Comanche from [[Air America]] in [[Pennsylvania]] and operated it from [[Lakeland, Florida|Lakeland]].[^15] He testified that Morales gave him a transponder code, 1301, that permitted him to overfly [[Cuba]], and that he landed in [[Havana]] once as a trick.[^16]
+
+### The Ilopango Flight of May 1983
+
+In May 1983 Healey asked Betzner to fly a DC-3 to Ilopango for a fee Betzner recalled as about $300,000, which the two split two to one in Betzner's favor. The aircraft was already loaded with about forty M-79 grenade launchers at Opa Locka. The pair landed without flight-plan clearance at the [[Boca Chica]] naval air station in the Florida Keys, where they took on ship mines. At Ilopango, Betzner delivered a tube of maps and a manila envelope to an American who identified himself only as "Chris." Five or six men in uniform unloaded the grenade launchers and mines by hand into a large green military truck. The aircraft then flew to [[Riohacha|Ria Hacha]], Colombia, where it loaded marijuana, which Betzner later learned weighed 6,009 pounds, and returned to Great Harbor Cay. Betzner said he was paid $200,000 for the flight.[^17][^18]
+
+Betzner testified that Morales had bought six or eight Brazilian-registered DC-3s and sold them while using some, and that the aircraft carried a sticker that he thought might have come from [[U.S. Customs]], the [[DEA]] or the [[Federal Aviation Administration]], and that the aircraft had been grounded at one point, so someone had to arrange its release.[^19] The subcommittee report identifies Healey as the co-pilot on the flight.[^20]
+
+### Retirement and the Morales Contra Deal
+
+After a load was lost in [[Glades County, Florida|Glades County]], Florida, in April 1984, Betzner retired a second time and went to [[Hawaii]] until July. Morales telephoned him there and said Betzner could be "very beneficial" in helping him get out from under an indictment. Morales then told him, Betzner testified, "that he had made a deal with [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] to supply them with money and with assistance, and that he wanted me to fly some guns and ammunition and stuff like that down to the Contras and bring some contraband back." Betzner said he did not want to do it, but "I always loved and respected George because he took me in and he trusted me when I was like an orphan," and he agreed. Asked whether this was the first time he had heard Morales mention the CIA or the Contras, he said it was, adding that he had suspected Morales had connections with some government officials.[^21][^22][^23]
+
+### Hull's Airstrip, July and August 1984
+
+In July 1984 Betzner flew a Cessna 402B from [[Fort Lauderdale]] at about midnight, with a companion he called Tito, a young Colombian whom Morales trusted and who had flown with Betzner several times for Morales. Webb identifies Morales's pilot "Tito" [[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco|Carrasco]] as a flyer into Hull's ranch and calls Betzner Carrasco's copilot. The cargo included an M-60 machine gun, M-16s and C-4 explosive. He landed at Hull's airstrip at about 7 a.m. Hull met him there, and Betzner watched as the weapons were offloaded into a truck. Betzner testified that Morales told him before the flight that he would be bringing cocaine back and that "there would be no problems, everything is covered and you won't have any problems," which Betzner understood to mean that Customs or the DEA would not bother him if they followed him in.[^24] He described Hull as an older man of about sixty to sixty-five, bald and from [[Indiana]], and said he had since seen Hull's photographs. Hull stayed at the strip while Betzner loaded about seventeen duffel bags and five or six boxes of cocaine. Betzner said he flew the cocaine to Lakeland, where it was offloaded into a van that Tito drove to Miami, and that he kept twenty kilos for himself.[^25]
+
+About ten days later Betzner flew a Panther from the Morales hangar at Opa Locka, departing near midnight with Tito. The cargo was small arms and possibly land mines. He landed at a strip called Los Llanos, about ten miles from Hull's ranch and near four [[Voice of America]] towers, where Hull and two Latin men were waiting. Betzner testified that about 500 kilos of cocaine in fifteen or seventeen duffel bags was handed to him from the compartment of a fuel truck and that he stacked the bags in the aircraft. He said this was the last flight he made for Morales and that he was paid $360,000 for it.[^26]
+
+Betzner's account of Hull's airstrip conflicts with Hull's. Betzner testified that the strip was "a little over 3,000 feet long" and ran along a river.[^27] Hull told investigators that his grass strip had only about 1,600 usable feet, with hills at one end and a river at the other, and that a Cessna 402B loaded as Betzner described would have been about 800 pounds over its gross weight for a takeoff from a grass strip.[^28]
+
+### Arrest and Sentence, November 1984
+
+Betzner flew a Panther with a load of cocaine from Colombia to [[Lake City, Florida|Lake City]], Florida, on November 13 and 14, 1984. He got away from the airport and was apprehended in the city. He testified that AWACS tracking on that last trip made him suspect an informant, and that the informant was his associate Henry (Enrique) Lopez, a former partner of the DEA informant known as Kojak, who he said had worked with Morales and Hiro Plata. He was indicted on four counts of cocaine importation and received fifteen years plus ten years of special parole. After he pleaded guilty in Miami to the earlier charge and the bond jump, a consecutive sentence was added, for a total of 27 years and two months.[^29]
+
+### Testimony to the Kerry Subcommittee, April 1988
+
+Betzner testified on April 7, 1988, as a federal prisoner accompanied by counsel [[Sheldon Yavitz]], who told the subcommittee he had represented Betzner since 1984. Chairman [[John Kerry]] administered the oath.[^30] Kerry warned that the testimony was given under penalty of perjury, and asked whether Betzner was prepared to say things he had not said publicly. Betzner said yes, and said he had had no contact with the subcommittee about parole.[^30]
+
+The subcommittee's report says five witnesses testified that Hull was involved in cocaine trafficking: [[Floyd Carlton]], [[Werner Lotz]], [[Jose Blandon]], Morales and Betzner. It adds that Betzner "was the only witness who testified that he was actually present to witness cocaine being loaded onto planes headed for the United States in Hull's presence."[^31]
+
+Asked whether he wished to change anything in his testimony, he said: "No, sir. None whatsoever. I wish I would have been in a situation where I could have kept notes and times and dates and places."[^32] Asked whether he had been personally supportive of the Contras, he said: "Well, I was sympathetic for the Contras; yes."[^33] He described the methods he used to avoid detection, including flying below radar coverage and under shipping lanes, painting his aircraft dark green, tinting its windows and removing its tail numbers.[^34]
+
+Asked about Barry Seal, Betzner said he met [[Barry Seal]] in Nassau, in Miami and at Air America in Pennsylvania, and that he thought Seal "was playing both sides," involved "with the CIA or DEA, but CIA was the indication that I got."[^35] Asked about a story of a cocaine load that Hull allegedly took from a sunken plane, and of a kidnapping of one of Hull's children to recover it, Betzner said he had heard it in passing conversation after his arrest, while in custody.[^36]
+
+### Oklahoma Testimony and the Abello Silva Trial
+
+[[Gary Webb]] reported that Betzner gave sworn testimony as a witness for the [[Department of Justice]], not as a defendant, at a federal trial in [[Oklahoma]]. Webb identified the case as United States v. Jose Rafael Abello Silva, 87 CR 140B, in the Northern District of Oklahoma, in 1990.[^1] In the passages Webb quotes from that transcript, a defense lawyer asked whether "these CIA people" permitted him to fly airplanes into foreign countries carrying weapons, and Betzner answered: "Why, sure." Asked whether he brought drugs back, he answered "Yes." Asked whether the CIA people knew what he was doing with the drugs, he answered: "Certainly."[^1]
+
+Webb also quotes Betzner on why he was not surprised that Morales was helping the Contras: "No, actually, I wasn't surprised by it because I knew that George was anti-Communist, as are most Colombians. So the Cartel and people like that are definitely anti-Communist. . . It's strictly a capitalist movement, this drug business."[^1] The same answer, with "cartel" in lower case, appears in the April 1988 Senate transcript.[^37] Webb wrote that Betzner and "Tito" Carrasco both confirmed George Morales's story about flying weapons to Hull's ranch in northern Costa Rica and returning with cocaine, under oath as U.S. government witnesses.[^1]
+
+An [[Associated Press]] report of May 20, 1990, says a federal court in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma|Tulsa]] convicted Jose Abello Silva, a Colombian reputed to be a figure in the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cocaine cartel]], on two drug-conspiracy counts. Prosecutors called 23 witnesses, many of them convicted drug smugglers who said he supervised shipments from Colombian airstrips through the Bahamas. The AP account names none of the witnesses.[^38]
+
+### Press Reports and Committee Inquiries, 1987 and 1988
+
+The [[Tampa Tribune]] reported on September 3, 1987 that investigators of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, whose counsel was Hayden Gregory and whose chairman was Representative [[William Hughes]] (D-NJ), had interviewed both Betzner and Morales. Hughes said: "Some of the information we've received, and I'm not limiting myself to Betzner and Morales, seems to be of some substance and other is unsubstantiated." The paper reported that Morales said a Cessna 404 Titan had been bought for the Contras and turned over to Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro, and that Federal Aviation Administration records showed the aircraft purchased through the broker Dennis Martin by a Costa Rican company, Cultivos Experimentales, which listed Chamorro as vice-president; the transfer was in October 1984, about three months after the date on which Betzner and Morales said they used the plane to carry arms for drugs.[^39]
+
+[[Jack Blum]], counsel to the Senate subcommittee, told the Tribune that the Senate committee had heard Betzner and Morales describe landing in Lakeland with cocaine. Blum said Betzner "could be telling the truth" but that the committee had decided not to pursue his allegations because his credibility "could be easily attacked."[^39]
+
+The Associated Press reported from the April 7, 1988 hearing that Betzner "said he flew weapons to Costa Rica for the Contras and picked up cocaine to be taken back to the United States" and that Kerry said the testimony "makes it very clear that narcotics dollars were involved in the Contra support process."[^40] The Florida Times-Union version added that Betzner went to Hawaii and returned to Miami three months later when the trafficker he worked for was arrested, and that Morales told him that if he helped fly arms to the Contras there was a chance Morales could use contacts with CIA officials to work a plea bargain. The AP quoted Betzner: "I didn't want to do it, but I love and trusted George. He took me in when I was, well, like an orphan."[^41]
+
+### Broadcasts and Hull's Response, 1987 to 1989
+
+On April 6, 1987, the [[CBS]] program West 57th Street broadcast Betzner's statement: "I took two loads, small aircraft loads of weapons to John Hull's ranch in Costa Rica and returned back to Florida with approximately a thousand kilos of cocaine."[^42] On the same program Betzner said he had returned with "500 each trip," that personnel working for Hull "would load the aircraft," and that Hull "physically saw the bags" of cocaine. He described a whistle used to signal the strip before landing. Of the second trip he said: "I didn't go back into John Hull's place. I went into another strip that was maybe 10 or 15 miles east of the place, but a little better strip." Hull denied the allegations, saying "There's never been any drug movement through this zone or through any of our farms," and that there was no air-to-ground communication at his strips.[^42]
+
+On January 13, 1989, the Associated Press reported: "Convicted cocaine pilot Gary Betzner has testified that Hull once met his plane when it landed on the ranch to exchange Contra arms for Colombian cocaine."[^43] Hull responded that Betzner's allegations were "not true, not true! He made it up. He was coached."[^43] On March 7, 1989, a Costa Rican judge charged Hull with "hostile acts" and "drug trafficking." The reporting the Inspector General cites adds, on Betzner's account, that about 1,000 kilograms had once been transported from the ranch to Florida.[^43]
+
+### Government Knowledge and Responses
+
+The subcommittee placed in the record a letter from the Customs Service, written to [[Ralph Martin]] at the Department of Justice's public integrity section, reporting that the [[Treasury Enforcement Communications System]] had been checked against names from the subcommittee's 1986 report. The letter stated that "the name John Hull resulted in 293 possible matches." Kerry told the hearing that Hull continued to operate with impunity after that finding.[^44]
+
+The [[United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida|U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida]] opened an investigation of Hull in the spring of 1985. [[Jeffrey Feldman]], an assistant U.S. attorney, and two FBI agents went to Costa Rica in late March 1985 to examine Neutrality Act violations by participants in the Contra resupply network.[^45]
+
+The [[CIA Inspector General]] reports that [[Alan Fiers]] briefed Kerry on October 15, 1986, and that on July 31, 1987, Fiers briefed the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] on Morales's claim that Hull's airstrip was used to load and unload drugs.[^46] [[William Webster|DCI William Webster]] wrote to Kerry on December 22, 1987, that he had directed officials to conduct "an in-depth review" of Hull. The Inspector General found no information that the review was conducted.[^47]
+
+The DEA gave Morales a lengthy polygraph examination in November 1988 on his testimony before the subcommittee, and the subcommittee's report states that he was "considered truthful."[^48] Webb wrote that Morales also passed a DEA-administered lie detector test about his Contra drug dealings.[^1]
 
 ### Footnotes
 
-[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction"
+[^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), chapter 11, "They were looking in the other direction," and chapter notes, which state that quotations from Carrasco and Betzner are taken from a transcript of their sworn testimony and identify United States v. Jose Rafael Abello Silva, 87 CR 140B, N.D. Okla., 1990. https://archive.org/details/dark-alliance-the-cia-the-conas-and-the-crack-cocaine-explosion-gary-webb
+[^2]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Hearings*, S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3 (April 4 to 7, 1988), testimony of Gary Betzner, April 7, 1988, pp. 240 to 274. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005
+[^3]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 240 to 241 (birthplace, parents, high school).
+[^4]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 241 to 243 (Navy service, USS Hancock, VP-17, electronic countermeasures, discharge as E-6, and the radar testimony at pp. 273 to 274).
+[^5]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 242 to 243 (Arkansas State Teachers College, Global Associates at Kwajalein).
+[^6]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 242 to 243 (farm return, crop dusting until 1977, Jaycees in Hazen, International Air Taxi in Alaska), and p. 272 (Bumpers, Young Democrats, Republican committee, "somewhere to the right of the John Birch Society").
+[^7]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 243 (first purchase and Miami arrest, bond jump, motorcycle, Lucas Harmony identity, DECA Aircraft).
+[^8]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 244 to 245 (the Air Florida fall, the Bonanza, the Guajira strip, the landing at Marathon, and the $40,000 and $10,000 payments).
+[^9]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 247 to 248 (the Queen Air loss, the Bimini arrest and the offer of marijuana for the aircraft).
+[^10]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 248 to 250 (Hiro Plata, the Bimini introduction to Morales, the first Morales flight in the Aztec to Great Harbor Cay).
+[^11]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 251 and 254 (Healey as chief pilot at Aviation Activities, Marta Healey formerly Chamorro, Adolfo Chamorro and the Southern Front of ARDE, Kerry's statement on the subpoena, the 1980 indictment with Healey and Plata).
+[^12]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 250 and 253 (about fifty flights for Morales; "late 1981 to the end of 1982"; $40,000 a trip).
+[^13]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 250 to 252 (Panthers, "the zoo," marijuana and Quaaludes by boat).
+[^14]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 252 to 253 (Bahamian officials as copilots, payments of about $15,000 a trip).
+[^15]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 254 to 255 (the Tamiami business, the twin Comanche bought from Air America, Lakeland operations).
+[^16]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 254 (transponder code 1301, the Havana landing).
+[^17]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 255 to 258 (the Ilopango flight, the May 1983 DC-3, the grenade launchers, the Boca Chica landing, the mines, the "Chris" envelope, the offload by men in uniform).
+[^18]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 258 to 259 (the Ria Hacha load of 6,009 pounds, the $200,000 payment); S. Prt. 100-165, p. 56 (DC-3 flight to Ilopango; marijuana load flown to Great Harbor Cay).
+[^19]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 256, 258 to 259 (Brazilian DC-3s, aircraft sticker, grounding and release).
+[^20]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 56 (Richard Healey as co-pilot, DC-3 flight to Ilopango). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
+[^21]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 260 to 261 (the April 1984 loss in Glades County, retirement to Hawaii, the July 1984 telephone call).
+[^22]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 261 to 262 (Morales's account of the Contra deal, "that he had made a deal with CIA to supply them with money and with assistance").
+[^23]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 261 to 262 (the "orphan" answer; first mention of the CIA and the Contras by Morales).
+[^24]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 265 (Morales's assurances; "everything is covered"; Customs or DEA "wouldn't bother me").
+[^25]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 262 to 265 (the July 1984 Cessna 402B flight from Fort Lauderdale, the Hull airstrip, the offload and load, the Lakeland offload, the twenty kilos).
+[^26]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 267 to 269 and 271 (the Panther flight to Los Llanos, the fuel-truck load, the $360,000 payment as the last Morales flight).
+[^27]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 263 (the strip described as "a little over 3,000 feet long" and along the river).
+[^28]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States* (96-0143-IG), Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on John Hull (Hull's account of the 1,600 usable feet and the 800 pounds over gross weight). https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
+[^29]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 271 and 274 (Lake City arrest, four counts, fifteen years plus ten years special parole, the Miami plea and the consecutive sentence, 27 years and two months).
+[^30]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 240, 244 and 260 (oath, counsel Sheldon Yavitz, perjury warning, questions on parole and undisclosed testimony).
+[^31]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 55 (five witnesses on Hull's cocaine trafficking; Betzner as the only witness present for a loading in Hull's presence). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
+[^32]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 272 to 273 (closing opportunity to revise testimony).
+[^33]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 272 to 273 (Contra sympathies).
+[^34]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 273 to 274 (detection avoidance, dark green paint, tinted windows, removed tail numbers, flying under shipping lanes).
+[^35]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 265 to 266 (Barry Seal in Nassau, Miami and Pennsylvania; "CIA was the indication that I got").
+[^36]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 269 to 270 (Betzner's account of the Hull passing conversation, the sunken plane and the kidnapping, and the Customs letter that follows at pp. 270 to 271).
+[^37]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 265 (Betzner on Morales's anti-Communism and the drug business).
+[^38]: "Reputed Cartel Figure Convicted In Tulsa," Associated Press, May 20, 1990, *Seattle Times* archive. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19900520/1072717/reputed-cartel-figure-convicted-in-tulsa
+[^39]: "Committee probes smugglers' claims," *Tampa Tribune*, September 3, 1987, p. 1B (continued inside).
+[^40]: "Drug smuggler donated $$$," Associated Press, *Gettysburg Times*, April 8, 1988, p. 5.
+[^41]: "Smuggler recalls drugs-for-weapons deal," Associated Press, *Florida Times-Union*, April 8, 1988, p. A-1.
+[^42]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), quoting the CBS West 57th Street broadcast of April 6, 1987 and Hull's denial on the same program. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
+[^43]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, passages quoting the Associated Press story of January 13, 1989, Hull's response, and the March 7, 1989 Costa Rican reporting. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
+[^44]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 270 to 271 (Kerry's statement and the Customs letter from Raphael Lopez to Ralph Martin, Department of Justice public integrity attorney, with the TECS query of 21 matches and 293 matches for John Hull).
+[^45]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 56 (investigation of Hull by the U.S. Attorney, Southern District of Florida, spring 1985), citing the Iran-Contra deposition of Jeffrey Feldman.
+[^46]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, passages on the Fiers briefing of October 15, 1986 and the July 31, 1987 briefing to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, quoting the SSCI transcript. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
+[^47]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, passage on the December 22, 1987 Webster letter to Kerry and the "in-depth review." https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
+[^48]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 54 and note 93 (Morales section, DEA polygraph of November 1988, citing a January 1989 letter from DEA Administrator John C. Lawn to Kerry). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gudrun Ensslin.md

@@ -1,43 +1,192 @@
----
+---
 created: 2026-05-15
-updated: 2026-05-15
+updated: 2026-10-15
 title: Gudrun Ensslin
 aliases:
   - Gudrun Ensslin
+  - Gudrun Enßlin
 tags:
   - Person
   - Germany
   - Terrorism
   - RedArmyFaction
+  - Stammheim
+  - 1960s
   - 1970s
 category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
-summary: "Gudrun Ensslin was a co-founder of the Red Army Faction and the romantic partner of Andreas Baader who provided much of the ideological seriousness of the group's founding generation, was convicted at Stammheim, and was found dead by hanging in her cell on October 18, 1977 on the same night as Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe."
+summary: "Gudrun Ensslin co-founded the Red Army Faction, was convicted at Stammheim for the 1972 bombings, and was found hanged in her cell in 1977, officially a suicide disputed by family and counsel."
 born: 1940-08-15
 died: 1977-10-18
 location: "Stuttgart-Stammheim Prison, West Germany"
+relations:
+  - type: founded
+    with: "[[Red Army Faction]]"
+    start: 1970
+    role: co-founder
+    fn: 1
+  - type: partner_of
+    with: "[[Andreas Baader]]"
+    start: 1967
+    end: 1977
+    role: romantic partner and fellow co-founder
+    fn: 3
+  - type: partner_of
+    with: "[[Bernward Vesper]]"
+    start: 1962
+    end: 1968
+    role: partner and fiance
+    fn: 5
+  - type: funded
+    with: "[[Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 1964
+    end: 1968
+    role: doctoral study at the Freie Universitat Berlin
+    fn: 1
+  - type: represented
+    with: "[[Otto Schily]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 1975
+    end: 1977
+    role: defence counsel
+    fn: 1
+  - type: prosecuted
+    with: "[[Higher Regional Court Stuttgart]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 1975
+    end: 1977
+    role: defendant in the Stammheim trial (file 2 StE (OLG Stgt) 1/74)
+    fn: 19
+  - type: subject_of
+    with: "[[Landtag of Baden-Württemberg]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 1977
+    end: 1978
+    role: death inquiry committee (Drucksache 7/3200)
+    fn: 29
+  - type: relative_of
+    with: "[[Helmut Ensslin]]"
+    role: father
+    fn: 1
+  - type: relative_of
+    with: "[[Felix Ensslin]]"
+    start: 1967
+    role: son
+    fn: 1
 ---
 
-Gudrun Ensslin (August 15, 1940 - October 18, 1977) was a West German activist and co-founder of the [[Red Army Faction]] who, with [[Andreas Baader]] and [[Ulrike Meinhof]], constituted the founding leadership of the organization. The daughter of a Protestant pastor and a product of the West German student movement, Ensslin provided the ideological commitment and political seriousness that complemented Baader's operational drive. She was arrested in 1972, tried at [[Stuttgart]]-Stammheim Prison, convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, and found dead by hanging in her cell on October 18, 1977 - the same night Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead - following the West German government's successful rescue of Lufthansa Flight 181 hostages in [[Mogadishu]], [[Somalia]].[^1]
+Gudrun Ensslin (born August 15, 1940, in Bartholomä; died October 18, 1977, at [[Stuttgart-Stammheim Prison]]) was a [[West Germany|West German]] student activist and co-founder of the [[Red Army Faction]] (RAF) with [[Andreas Baader]] and [[Ulrike Meinhof]].[^1][^2] The daughter of a Protestant pastor, she left university without a degree and was drawn into the militant milieu by the student protests of 1967 and 1968. The Frankfurt court psychiatrist [[Reinhard Redhardt]] called her the "backbone of the group."[^3] She was convicted in 1977 as a co-perpetrator of the group's May 1972 bombings and was found hanged in her cell on the morning of October 18, 1977, hours after [[GSG 9]] stormed the hijacked [[Lufthansa Flight 181]] at [[Mogadishu]], [[Somalia]].[^2][^4]
 
-### Background and Radicalization
+### Early life and education
 
-Ensslin was born in Bartholomae in [[West Germany|Baden-Wurttemberg]], the sixth of seven children of a Protestant pastor. She studied German literature and education at the University of Tubingen and the Free University of [[Berlin]], graduating with distinction and beginning doctoral work in German literature. Her academic credentials and intellectual background distinguished her within the RAF's founding circle.
+Ensslin was born in [[Bartholomä]], in the former district of Schwäbisch Gmünd in [[Württemberg]], the fourth of seven children of the Protestant pastor [[Helmut Ensslin]] (1909 to 1984), who was born in [[Ulm]].[^1][^5] Her father was pastor in Bartholomä from 1936 to 1948, moved to [[Tuttlingen]] in 1948, and from 1958 worked in [[Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt]].[^1][^5] In June 1958 she went for a year to the [[Warren High School]] in [[Warren, Pennsylvania]], as an exchange student of the International Christian Youth Exchange, and lived with a host family of the local Methodist congregation.[^1][^5]
 
-She became politically active in the student movement of the late 1960s and met [[Andreas Baader]] in 1967. The relationship between Baader and Ensslin was the personal core around which the early RAF was organized. Ensslin's religious upbringing was reflected in the absolutism of her political commitment: she increasingly characterized West German society as irredeemably fascist and conventional political opposition as futile.[^1]
+She took the Abitur in March 1960 at the Königin-Katharina-Stift in [[Stuttgart]] and from 1960 to 1963 studied German, English and philosophy at the University of [[Tübingen]], without a degree.[^1][^5] At Tübingen she attended a colloquium on contemporary literature given by [[Walter Jens]].[^5] Her application for a scholarship from the [[Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes]] was at first unsuccessful. From 1963 to 1964 she trained at the [[Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd]] and passed the state examination for primary-school teachers in March 1964.[^1][^5] From the summer of 1964 she studied at the [[Freie Universität Berlin]] and prepared a doctoral thesis on the writer [[Hans Henny Jahnn]] with a scholarship from the Studienstiftung. She did not complete the thesis.[^1][^5]
 
-### Frankfurt Arson and Imprisonment
+In 1963 she and [[Bernward Vesper]] (1938 to 1971), her partner and later fiance, founded the [[Verlag studio neue literatur]] in Tübingen, which published two books, and in 1964 she co-edited the anthology "Gegen den Tod. Stimmen gegen die Atombombe" as its first volume.[^1][^5] Ensslin also handled distribution of the collected works of [[Will Vesper]] (1882 to 1962), Bernward's father, a National Socialist literary functionary.[^1][^5] The poet [[Günter Maschke]], who contributed to the press as a young author, later said that the two mostly sold the old Vesper's books, among other things through advertisements in the Deutsche National- und Soldatenzeitung.[^5] She translated English texts for Vesper's [[Voltaire Flugschriften]] pamphlet series.[^1] The partnership is dated 1962 to 1968.[^1]
 
-In April 1968, Ensslin and Baader set fire to two Frankfurt department stores as a protest against the [[Vietnam War]] - an act Ensslin framed in explicitly moral terms as a necessary response to the violence of capitalism and American imperialism. They were arrested, tried, and convicted of arson. Ensslin's statement at trial - "You can't talk with the people who made Auschwitz" - became a defining formulation of the RAF's radicalism.
+A son, [[Felix Ensslin]], was born on May 13, 1967.[^1][^2] In a report to the Studienstiftung she wrote that he was born "a little early, so very small and delicate."[^5] Ensslin ended the engagement with Vesper two months before the birth and left their shared flat in January 1968. She refused to consent when Vesper wished to adopt the child. Vesper died on May 14, 1971, in Hamburg, eleven days after naming the boy his sole heir.[^5] Felix Ensslin, later a curator and professor, co-edited a volume of his mother's letters, published as "Zieht den Trennungsstrich, jede Minute" (2005).[^6]
 
-Released pending appeal in 1969, she and Baader used the time to build the network of contacts that would become the RAF. Following Baader's prison break in May 1970, both went underground.[^1]
+### Berlin and the student movement
 
-### RAF Operations and Arrest
+In 1965 the couple went to West [[Berlin]]. During the 1965 Bundestag campaign Ensslin worked through the [[Wahlkontor Deutscher Schriftsteller]] for the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD), compiling campaign material in an unused office of [[Egon Bahr]] while Vesper wrote speeches for the Berlin senator [[Karl Schiller]].[^5] The formation of the Grand Coalition in 1966 was, in her father's description, "the great shock" for the campaign volunteers. Ensslin later said that the SPD leaders were "prisoners of the system," who had to take account of the economic and extra-parliamentary powers in the background.[^5] From 1967 she took part in the [[Außerparlamentarische Opposition]] (APO).[^1] She increasingly characterized West German society as irredeemably fascist and conventional political opposition as futile.[^7] She and Baader first met in the autumn of 1967.[^3]
 
-Ensslin played a central role in the RAF's operations including the 1972 bombing campaign. She was arrested on June 7, 1972, in Hamburg, found in a boutique where she was shopping. The circumstances of her arrest - found in a high-street shop - were used to mock the RAF's stated rejection of consumer society.
+The killing of [[Benno Ohnesorg]] at a demonstration in Berlin on June 2, 1967, against the visit of the [[Shah of Iran]] is the event the Neue Deutsche Biographie names as the start of her rapid radicalization.[^1] The judgment identifies the shooter as the policeman [[Karl-Heinz Kurras]], who shot Ohnesorg in a courtyard.[^8] Kurras was acquitted in November 1967 and again at a retrial in 1970. Reporting on the Stasi records in May 2009, [[Time]] said that Kurras had been "an active Stasi agent" who spied for the Stasi "under the cover name of Otto Bohl," and that the Stasi file described the shooting as an "unlucky accident."[^9] After Ohnesorg's death she reported to the Studienstiftung that apart from her child the months since June had been almost entirely taken up by events at the university and in West Berlin, and that she had taken part "actively in numerous actions."[^5]
 
-The Stammheim trial lasted from 1975 to 1977. Ensslin, along with Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe, was convicted in April 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment. She was found dead in her cell on the night of October 18, 1977, hanging from window bars. The official ruling was suicide, disputed by RAF supporters on the same grounds they contested Baader's death: that the maximum-security facility made access to the means of hanging impossible without guard knowledge.[^2]
+On the evening of June 2, 1967, according to the account [[Stefan Aust]] gave in his book on the RAF, a group of shocked demonstrators met at the SDS centre on the [[Kurfürstendamm]] and argued about the shooting. In the discussion, Ensslin said: "This is the generation of Auschwitz; one cannot argue with them."[^10][^11] The 2008 article by [[Christian Schneider]] in [[Vorgänge]] repeats this version under Aust's name and notes that Ensslin's authorship of the statement is now disputed, while the fear that the argument expressed is not in dispute.[^10]
+
+### The Frankfurt arsons
+
+On April 2, 1968, Ensslin, Baader, [[Thorwald Proll]] and [[Horst Söhnlein]] set fires in two Frankfurt department stores, the Kaufhof on the Zeil and the M. Schneider store.[^1][^12] The judgment records considerable property damage and no injuries, and records that the arsons were motivated by a campaign of [[Kommune 1]], whose members used a 1967 fire in a [[Brussels]] department store, which killed more than 200 people, to criticize the [[Vietnam War]].[^12] The trial at the [[Frankfurt Regional Court]] opened in October 1968, with the Berlin law professor [[Ernst Heinitz]], her friend since her Berlin years, as her defence counsel. On October 31, 1968, the court sentenced each of the four to three years' Zuchthaus for endangering human life by arson.[^1][^5][^12]
+
+Ulrike Meinhof, who reported on the trial for the magazine [[konkret]], criticized the arson in her column. She wrote that an attack of this kind on the capitalist consumer world does "not lift that consumer world off its hinges, does not even injure it."[^13] Ensslin was released from pretrial detention on June 13, 1969. The [[Federal Court of Justice]] rejected the appeal in November 1969, and she fled to [[Paris]] and Italy. She returned to West Berlin in February 1970 and lived underground.[^1] The accounts of Aust and of the historian [[Jeremy Varon]] hold that during the release pending appeal in 1969 she and Baader built the network of contacts that became the RAF.[^7]
+
+### Underground and the liberation of Baader
+
+On May 14, 1970, Ensslin took part in the liberation of Baader from custody in Berlin. The judgment describes the operation as carried out by a group around Ensslin and Meinhof.[^1][^2] From June to August 1970 she trained in weapons and explosives at an [[Al Fatah]] training camp in [[Jordan]]. From 1970 to 1972 she took part in bank robberies, car thefts, burglaries, explosive attacks and the group's "May offensive" (Mai-Offensive).[^1] The police who pursued the group believed that Meinhof supplied the theory while Ensslin gave practical help, arranging lodgings, managing the cash box and assisting the preparation of group operations.[^5]
+
+### The 1972 bombings and arrest
+
+The judgment records six explosive attacks in 1972, in [[Frankfurt]], [[Augsburg]], [[Munich]], [[Karlsruhe]], [[Hamburg]] and [[Heidelberg]], and attributes them to the three defendants as originators.[^14] On May 11, 1972, three devices exploded at the headquarters of the 5th US Corps in Frankfurt, and one person was killed. On May 24, 1972, bombs in two vehicles at the US Army headquarters in Heidelberg killed three American soldiers.[^14] The RAF declaration of May 25, 1972, justified the Heidelberg attack with the words "That is genocide, that would be the 'final solution,' that is Auschwitz"; the judgment attributes the declaration to the RAF, not to Ensslin personally.[^14]
+
+On Wednesday, June 7, 1972, Ensslin was arrested in Hamburg. The court places her in the Linette fashion boutique on the Jungfernstieg at about 1 p.m. She had taken off her suede jacket at the back of the shop while trying on a sweater. A member of staff noticed an unusual weight in the jacket, suspected a firearm and called the police. When an officer entered the shop at about 1:30 p.m., Ensslin turned toward him and reached into the right outer pocket of her jacket for a .38 Special revolver loaded with hollow-point ammunition. The court found that she intended to shoot him and accepted that his death was likely.[^15] A police patrol car stopped near the shop at 1:26 p.m., and a second officer standing behind her seized her as she turned. Her handbag held a second pistol, a Belgian 9 mm FN, 830 marks, and an identity card in the name of Margarethe Reins together with a Hamburg address, where police then detained five members of a commune who were soon released. She was flown by police helicopter to Essen.[^5]
+
+Der Spiegel reported that a leading investigator told it: "My impression is that she provoked her arrest herself," and that former friends of hers suspected she had "deliberately set out to be recognized." The magazine added that Baader had been arrested six days earlier with [[Holger Meins]] and [[Jan-Carl Raspe]] in Frankfurt and that her handbag contained newspaper clippings on his arrest and wounding.[^5]
+
+The judgment quotes a note, attributed by the court to Ensslin and written in [[Essen]] prison, that describes the shop: "the idea was other clothes, a taxi into the city, covering the trail," and that otherwise "a saleswoman would now be dead (hostage)."[^16] The circumstances of her arrest, in a high-street shop, were used to mock the RAF's stated rejection of consumer society.[^17] Ensslin was held in the Essen prison until February 1974.[^18]
+
+### Stammheim trial
+
+The trial at Stammheim opened on May 21, 1975, before the [[Higher Regional Court Stuttgart]] (file 2 StE (OLG Stgt) 1/74) and ended with the judgment of April 28, 1977.[^1][^2] The court found the three defendants jointly guilty of three murders combined with six attempted murders, and of a further murder combined with one attempted murder. It also found them guilty of attempted murders and explosions in the other attacks. Ensslin was separately convicted of one attempted murder combined with resistance to officers. The court found that the three had formed a criminal association, and it sentenced each of them to life imprisonment.[^19] For the completed murders in Frankfurt and Heidelberg, the court imposed two life sentences.[^20]
+
+In her statement of May 4, 1976, Ensslin accepted responsibility for the attacks without qualification. The judgment quotes her: "Put simply, we are also responsible for the attacks on the CIA headquarters and the headquarters of the 5th US Corps in Frankfurt and on the US headquarters in Heidelberg, insofar as we were organized in the RAF since 1970, fought in it and took part in shaping its politics and structure."[^21]
+
+The court identified notes signed "Smutje" as Ensslin's and found that she organized the group's work from prison. One draft, it found, was to be put to Ulrike Meinhof and Baader for approval.[^22] Her defence counsel [[Otto Schily]] filed an appeal after the judgment.[^1] According to the reporting of the time, the Baden-Württemberg Justice Minister [[Traugott Bender]] and the Interior Minister [[Karl Schiess]] had defence conversations with RAF defendants secretly overheard in April 1975 and around the turn of 1976 to 1977, contrary to law and the constitution; Bender later called the admission of the unlawful action a "psychological-cosmetic" matter. The senate chairmanship went to Judge [[Theodor Prinzing]] in 1974 after a rotation of posts between the Higher Regional Court and the state ministry of justice.[^23]
+
+### The last weeks of 1977
+
+On September 30, 1977, the [[Bundestag]] passed the Contact Ban Act (Kontaktsperregesetz), which allowed authorities to cut all contact between prisoners linked to terrorist groups and the outside world, after the kidnapping of the employers' president [[Hanns Martin Schleyer]]. The anonymous 1978 leaflet on the events of October 18, 1977 reproduces the text of the law and the restrictions imposed at Stammheim.[^24]
+
+On October 9, 1977, a [[Federal Criminal Police Office]] (BKA) official spoke with Ensslin at Stammheim. The government's documentation on the terror attacks, as described by Der Spiegel, showed that the isolated prisoner knew exactly of a seven-minute conversation the official had held with Baader the day before. In the individual talks all three prisoners told him that they wished to take the decision out of Chancellor [[Helmut Schmidt]]'s hands, "as a decision about us" (Ensslin).[^25]
+
+Der Spiegel reported that in the days before her death she telephoned Bonn offices and tried to win the head of the [[Federal Chancellery (Germany)|Chancellery]], [[Manfred Schüler]], or the minister of state [[Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski]], for a "political conversation" in the prison, without result. On the evening before her death she received the two prison chaplains, evangelical and Catholic, for a conversation of an hour and a half that the clergy described as not a pastoral talk. The chaplains wrote afterwards to her parents that she had asked them to see that three letters addressed to the head of the Chancellery, kept in her cell in a folder marked "Anwalt," reached him.[^3]
+
+According to the same report, the letters could not be found: no one at the Chancellery, the BKA, the Federal Ministry of Justice or the Stuttgart prosecutor's office said they had seen them, and a prosecutor at the scene first confirmed the seizure of a letter and then called it a mistake. Officials of the Chancellery were convinced that Ensslin had misled the chaplains to stage mysterious circumstances of death. The magazine also reported that she had written to her court-appointed counsel [[Manfred Künzel]] months before: "I am certain that we will be liquidated in the shadow of Buback's end."[^3]
+
+### Deaths at Stammheim
+
+On October 18, 1977, the GSG 9 unit stormed the hijacked aircraft at Mogadishu. Raspe was found with a head wound in his cell at about 7:40 a.m., during the distribution of food, and died in the Katharinenhospital at 9:40 a.m.; Baader was found dead in his cell, a pistol beside him; Ensslin was found hanged at the window grille in cell 720; [[Irmgard Möller]], the surviving defendant, was found with knife wounds and survived.[^4][^26][^27] A witness report reproduced by [[Karl-Heinz Weidenhammer]] in his 1988 documentary describes her body as "hanging dead from the window grille."[^27]
+
+The autopsy was performed in Tübingen in the presence of three experts from Liège, Vienna and Zurich. The protocol of Ensslin's body, reproduced in the Weidenhammer documentary, records all typical signs of death by hanging: a ligature mark on the neck, asphyxial haemorrhages under the eyelid lining and the lining of the heart, and the tip of the tongue caught between the jaws. Its secondary injuries, the protocol says, "are not suspicious of the action of another's hand."[^3][^28]
+
+Der Spiegel wrote that Ensslin was last checked at 4 p.m. on the previous afternoon, that the cell doors of the wing had been fitted with foam-rubber sound insulation, that the prison doctor, the prison director and the security officer did not enter her cell when it was opened but pronounced "death by suicide" from the threshold, and that she "possibly" was still alive. In her cell the cable on which she hung had been left behind when electrical appliances were collected after the contact ban took effect.[^3] A week later the magazine reported that, according to the prosecutors, the two guards on the floor had not, as first assumed, been in the glass "cockpit" at the end of the corridor but in the watch officers' room behind double doors on the same floor.[^23]
+
+### Official findings and dissent
+
+The Baden-Württemberg state government's preliminary report of October 26, 1977 stated, in section 5, that "on the basis of the investigation results to date as assessed by the public prosecutor, there is no indication that the deaths of the prisoners Baader, Ensslin and Raspe, or the injuries to the prisoner Möller, were caused by the fault of others."[^24] The [[Landtag of Baden-Württemberg]] committee of inquiry heard evidence in 19 sessions on the basis of 53 evidentiary orders, and, according to the state government's later account, came unanimously to the conviction that the prisoners had killed themselves (Landtag Drucksache 7/3200, p. 47 f.).[^29] According to Weidenhammer, the trace-evaluation report of February 28, 1978 was prepared after the Landtag committee had ended its work, and Prosecutor Christ signed the closing decision on April 18, 1978. The Neue Deutsche Biographie states that the allegation that the three deaths were not suicides "is regarded as refuted."[^1][^30]
+
+Her death was disputed by RAF supporters on the same grounds they contested Baader's death: that the maximum-security facility made access to the means of hanging impossible without guard knowledge.[^17] The surviving prisoner Möller's criminal complaint, filed through her lawyers, quotes her: "at no time was there an agreement between Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Karl Raspe, Andreas Baader and me to commit suicide together."[^24] Der Spiegel reported that Möller told her lawyer that around 4:30 a.m. she had heard "bangs and squeaking," called through the door to Raspe and received a calming reply, and that doctors found no sedatives in her blood and urine and found longitudinal cuts on both wrists from a round-tipped serrated knife and four stabs into the left breast.[^23] Schily, Ensslin's counsel, recalled the earlier eavesdropping affair in Stammheim, in which a "separate access" to the special floor had come into view, and said that it was "not outside the conceivable" that an intelligence service had had a hand in it this time as well.[^3]
+
+Weidenhammer, who was defence counsel for Raspe, argues that the cord used for the hanging was a loudspeaker cable from Ensslin's cell. The trace report of February 28, 1978 stated that the two loudspeaker boxes in her cell were connected by a green electric cable which, "at least in outward appearance, also constitutes the hanging instrument." No criminal-technical comparison of the cable ends was carried out, and Weidenhammer records that the investigator's request for a prosecutorial order for one was never issued.[^31] Weidenhammer also wrote that the [[Federal Intelligence Service]] (BND) installed listening devices in the high-security wing, that the [[Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz|Verfassungsschutz]] and the BND had worked on the seventh floor without control since March 1975, and that on the official version the prisoners would have agreed on their suicides under the supervision of the intelligence services.[^32]
+
+Helmut Ensslin openly doubted the official account of collective suicide. He wished to preach at his daughter's funeral, and the [[Evangelical Church in Württemberg]] (Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat) did not grant the request. Minister-President [[Hans Filbinger]] pressed for only the Swabian Ensslin to be buried in Stuttgart, while Mayor [[Manfred Rommel]] permitted a common grave for the three at the [[Dornhaldenfriedhof]]. The funeral took place on October 27, 1977. According to the Stuttgarter Zeitung, the father was urged to stop making accusations about the deaths of the three prisoners.[^4] Filbinger attributed the failures at Stammheim to the federal government, the [[Federal Public Prosecutor General|Federal Prosecutor's Office]] and the lawyers; Justice Minister Bender had resigned.[^23]
+
+### State informants in the Berlin milieu
+
+[[Wolfgang Kraushaar]]'s 2005 book on the bomb intended for the Jewish community house in Berlin in November 1969 describes [[Peter Urbach]] as a West Berlin Verfassungsschutz informant from 1967. The book describes Urbach as a locksmith and agent provocateur who supplied militant circles of the APO with weapons and drugs of every kind. Kraushaar argues that the bomb came from the state office's stocks. In the book, Urbach, asked about the role of the state, told the Kommune member [[Rainer Langhans]]: "Rainer, if you only knew."[^33]
 
 ### Footnotes
 
-[^1]: Aust, Stefan. *The Baader-Meinhof Complex.* Bodley Head, 2008. Varon, Jeremy. *Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies.* University of California Press, 2004.
-[^2]: Peters, Butz. *Red Army Faction: A Documentary History.* PM Press, 2011. Colvin, Sarah. *Ulrike Meinhof and West German Terrorism: Language, Violence, and Identity.* Camden House, 2009.
+[^1]: "Ensslin, Gudrun," Neue Deutsche Biographie, Deutsche Biographie online, https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz136461.html. Lebenslauf and Genealogie sections; Helmut Ensslin (1909 to 1984), born in Ulm; "Felix Robert Ensslin geb. 13.5.1967"; "Mitgründerin mit Bernward Vesper (1938-1971) Verlag studio neue literatur"; "Promotionsstudium, gefördert von der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (ohne Abschluss)"; "Ensslins Wahlverteidiger Otto Schily ... legte Revision ein"; death described as "gilt als widerlegt" for the claim of non-suicide.
+[^2]: Urteil des Oberlandesgerichts Stuttgart vom 28. April 1977, Az. 2 StE (OLG Stgt) 1/74, in: Das Stammheim-Protokoll. Die Gesamtedition, ed. Jeßberger et al. (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2021), https://www.stammheim-prozess.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/OLG-Stuttgart-Urteil-vom-28.4.1977-2-StE-174-Text.pdf. Personal details on p. 1 ("Gudrun Enßlin, geb. am 15. August 1940 in Bartholomä, Krs. Schwäbisch Gmünd"); biography on p. 307 ("ist 1940 in Sankt Bartholomä im Kreis Schwäbisch Gmünd geboren"; "Im Mai 1967 gebar sie einen Sohn"). Printed pages are cited.
+[^3]: "Dunkle Geschichte hinter dem Finstern," Der Spiegel 44/1977 (October 24, 1977), https://www.spiegel.de/politik/dunkle-geschichte-hinter-dem-finstern-a-0a67c661-0002-0001-0000-000040749081. German: "Fähig, elementar zu hassen" and "Rückgrat der Gruppe" (Redhardt); "Im Herbst 1967 waren sich Gudrun Ensslin und Andreas Baader zum erstenmal begegnet"; "Leiche wies alle typischen Zeichen für Erhängungstod auf, insbesondere eine Speichelabrinnspur vom Mund, zwischen den Kiefern eingeklemmte Zunge und Bruch der Kehlkopfknorpelhörner"; the three letters "in einer Mappe mit der Aufschrift »Anwalt«"; "Ich bin sicher, daß wir im Schatten von Bubacks Ende liquidiert werden"; Schily: "nicht außerhalb des Denkbaren" that "auch diesmal ein Geheimdienst die Hand im Spiel gehabt haben könnte"; "Tod durch Selbstmord" as "Ferndiagnose von der Schwelle." The magazine's inference that she possibly was still alive ("womöglich noch am Leben") is the magazine's own.
+[^4]: Stuttgarter Zeitung, "Deutscher Herbst 1977: Endstation Dornhaldenfriedhof," https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.deutscher-herbst-1977-endstation-dornhaldenfriedhof.81fada0e-072e-473a-b8a1-edfd4345c65f.html. German: "Gudrun Ensslin erhängt sich in Zelle 720 ... mit einem Lautsprecherkabel am Fenstergitter"; "an der behördlichen Kollektivselbstmorddarstellung offen zweifelt"; "würde gerne selbst bei der Beerdigung seiner Tochter Gudrun und deren RAF-Genossen predigen"; "diesen Wunsch erfüllt ihm der Evangelische Oberkirchenrat nicht"; "nachdrücklich aufgefordert, keine Verdächtigungen und Vermutungen mehr über den Tod der drei Terroristen zu äußern"; Filbinger's wish that only Ensslin be buried in Stuttgart and Rommel's permission of a common grave. Funeral October 27, 1977, 10 a.m.
+[^5]: "Ein Seitenweg," Der Spiegel 25/1972 (June 11, 1972), https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ein-seitenweg-a-79ee5520-0002-0001-0000-000042928464. German: "kam als viertes von sieben Kindern im schwäbischen Bartholomä ... zur Welt"; Warren High School, June 1958, "Internationalen christlichen Jugendaustausches"; Tübingen, Walter Jens colloquium; Studio Neue Literatur with Vesper; "Gegen den Tod. Stimmen gegen die Atombombe" (1964); Maschke: "Die haben immer nur Bücher von dem alten Vesper verkloppt, unter anderem mit Inseraten in der »Deutschen National- und Soldatenzeitung«"; Wahlkontor 1965; Vesper's death on 14 May 1971; "Am 13. Mai (1967) wurde mein Sohn Felix geboren; ein wenig früh, also sehr klein und zart"; "Gudrun Ensslin ... ›Der spinnt doch‹" (engagement ended two months before the birth); "aktiv an zahlreichen Aktionen, deren Vorbereitung und Auswertung teilgenommen"; Heinitz "verteidigte" her in the Frankfurt trial; the arrest: "Es war 13.26 ... Streifenwagen"; "eine zweite Pistole, eine belgische Neun-Millimeter-Hochleistungswaffe vom Typ FN, einen Personalausweis, ausgestellt auf den Namen Margarethe Reins ... Hochallee 21 ... fünf Kommune-Mitglieder festgenommen, aber bald wieder freigelassen"; "830 Mark"; "Mein Eindruck ist, daß sie ihre Festnahme selber provoziert hat"; "bewußt darauf angelegt, erkannt zu werden"; the SPD leaders "Gefangene des Systems"; "der große Schock" (Helmut Ensslin). The article gives the Freie Universität move as 1965; the Neue Deutsche Biographie gives the summer of 1964, which the text follows.
+[^6]: Gudrun Ensslin, "Zieht den Trennungsstrich, jede Minute" (Hamburg: Konkret Literatur Verlag, 2005), co-edited by Felix Ensslin.
+[^7]: Stefan Aust, Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1985); Jeremy Varon, Bringing the War Home (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). Sole source for the passage so cited.
+[^8]: Judgment (note 2), footnote 26: "Ohnesorg wurde dabei auf einem Hinterhof von dem Polizisten Karl-Heinz Kurras erschossen."
+[^9]: Tristana Moore, "German Policeman Unmasked as Stasi Spy," Time, May 28, 2009, https://time.com/archive/6946824/german-policeman-unmasked-as-stasi-spy/. Quoted phrases in English: "an active Stasi agent"; "under the cover name of Otto Bohl"; "unlucky accident."
+[^10]: Christian Schneider, "Der Feind in mir. Die Wiederkehr von Auschwitz - der Mythos der RAF," Vorgänge 181 (Heft 1/2008), pp. 23-29, Humanistische Union, https://www.humanistische-union.de/publikationen/vorgaenge/181-vorgaenge/publikation/der-feind-in-mir/. German: "Dies ist die Generation von Auschwitz - mit denen kann man nicht argumentieren. Die Sprecherin hieß Gudrun Ensslin." Footnote 4: "So die Version von Stefan Aust. Ensslins Autorschaft wird inzwischen in Zweifel gezogen. Unstrittig bleiben indes die damalige Aktualität der 'Argumentationsfigur' und der Angstaffekt."
+[^11]: Stefan Aust, Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1985), account of the evening of June 2, 1967, as cited in Schneider (note 10). Sole source for the passage so cited.
+[^12]: Judgment (note 2), footnote 200, p. 137. German: "Am 2. April 1968 verübten Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll und Horst Söhnlein Brandanschläge auf Kaufhäuser in Frankfurt am Main, bei denen zwar erhebliche Sachschäden entstanden, aber keine Menschen verletzt wurden." "Motiviert wurden sie durch eine Kampagne der Kommune I, die eine Brandtragödie mit mehr als 200 Toten in einem Brüsseler Kaufhaus im Jahr 1967 für Kritik am Vietnamkrieg nutzte." Sentence on the verdict: "Mit Urteil vom 31.10.1968 wurden sie zu Haftstrafen in Höhe von je drei Jahren verurteilt." The judgment's biography (p. 307) gives the verdict year as 1969 in one place.
+[^13]: Ulrike Meinhof, Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar (1980), p. 153, as quoted in the judgment (note 2), footnote 200. German: "Gegen Warenhausbrandstiftung im besonderen spricht, daß dieser Angriff auf die kapitalistische Konsumwelt [...] eben diese Konsumwelt nicht aus den Angeln hebt, sie nicht einmal verletzt [...]."
+[^14]: Judgment (note 2), footnote 32: the RAF declaration of May 25, 1972 justified the Heidelberg attack "am Tag zuvor" (the day before), and the note reprints the declaration's passage "Das ist Genozid, Völkermord, das wäre die ‚Endlösung‘, das ist Auschwitz." The declaration is printed in ID-Verlag (ed.), Rote Armee Fraktion. Texte und Materialien (1997), p. 147 f. The six attacks and the Frankfurt and Heidelberg casualties are in the judgment's findings on the 1972 attacks.
+[^15]: Judgment (note 2), pp. 85-87. German: "Sie wollte mit dem darin befindlichen, mit Hohlspitzmunition geladenen Revolver, Kaliber 38 Spezial, auf Millhahn schießen, wobei sie dessen dann naheliegenden Tod in Kauf nahm." The judgment spells the arrest date "7. Juli 1972" once (p. 85) and "7. Juni 1972" elsewhere (for example p. 149 and footnote 81).
+[^16]: Judgment (note 2), pp. 151-152. German: "aber da war die Idee andere Klamotten, mit d. Taxi in die Innenstadt, Spur verwischen, Unsicherheit ... sonst wäre jetzt eine Verkäuferin tot (Geisel), ich und vielleicht zwei ..." The court attributes the note to Ensslin on the basis of a typewriter analysis and its correspondence with the arrest in the boutique.
+[^17]: Peters, Butz. *Red Army Faction: A Documentary History.* PM Press, 2011. Colvin, Sarah. *Ulrike Meinhof and West German Terrorism: Language, Violence, and Identity.* Camden House, 2009. Sole source for the passages so cited.
+[^18]: Judgment (note 2), pp. 149-150, footnote 81: "Gudrun Ensslin wurde am 7. Juni 1972 in Hamburg festgenommen und war bis Februar 1974 in der JVA Essen."
+[^19]: Judgment (note 2), tenor, pp. 2-3: "1. Die Angeklagten Andreas Baader, Gudrun Enßlin und Jan-Carl Raspe sind schuldig ... a) 3 tateinheitliche Morde in Tateinheit mit 6 versuchten Morden, b) einen weiteren Mord in Tateinheit mit einem versuchten Mord ... 2. c) die Angeklagte Enßlin eines versuchten Mordes, d) in den Fällen a) bis c) jeweils in Tateinheit mit Widerstand gegen Vollstreckungsbeamte ... 3. ... eine kriminelle Vereinigung gebildet zu haben. 4. Jeder der drei Angeklagten wird zu einer lebenslangen Freiheitsstrafe verurteilt."
+[^20]: Judgment (note 2), p. 308: "Gegen die drei Angeklagten ... sind für die vollendeten Morde in Frankfurt und in Heidelberg zwei lebenslange Freiheitsstrafen verhängt worden (§ 211 StGB)."
+[^21]: Judgment (note 2), p. 91. German: "Hier nochmal einfach: Wir sind auch verantwortlich für die Angriffe auf das CIA-Hauptquartier und das Hauptquartier des 5. US-Corps in Frankfurt/Main und auf das US-Hauptquartier in Heidelberg, insofern, wie wir in der RAF seit 70 organisiert waren, in ihr gekämpft haben und am Prozeß der Konzeption ihrer Politik und Struktur beteiligt waren."
+[^22]: Judgment (note 2), p. 182. German: "'Smutje' (=Ensslin) schreibt also an dem Entwurf einer Abhandlung über die Massenlinie, der dann 'theres' (= Meinhof) und Andreas (= Baader) zur Zustimmung vorgelegt wird."
+[^23]: "Licht in jede Ritze," Der Spiegel 45/1977 (October 31, 1977), https://www.spiegel.de/politik/licht-in-jede-ritze-a-b5b97cff-0002-0001-0000-000040749000. German: "Zusammen mit Duzfreund Schiess ließ Bender im April 1975 und um die Jahreswende 1976/77 entgegen Gesetz und Verfassung Gespräche zwischen RAF-Angeklagten und ihren Verteidigern heimlich belauschen"; Bender's admission as "psychologisch-kosmetischen Entspannungsangelegenheit"; Prinzing's senate chair created by a "Personal-Ringeispiel" in 1974; Möller to her lawyer: "Knallen und Quietschen"; no residues of sedatives in blood and urine; "Längsschnitte von einem an der Spitze abgerundeten Messer mit Wellenschliff" on both wrists and four stabs "in die linke Brust"; the guards "im Wachtmeisterzimmer hinter Doppeltüren"; Filbinger's allocation of blame; Bender's resignation.
+[^24]: Anonymous leaflet, "Kontaktsperre und die Ereignisse in Stammheim am 18.10.77" (1978), https://socialhistoryportal.org/sites/default/files/raf/0019780200_0.pdf. The leaflet states that the Bundestag passed the Kontaktsperregesetz on September 30, 1977, quotes the Baden-Württemberg state government's "Vorläufiger Bericht über die Ereignisse vom 18. Oktober 1977 in der Vollzugsanstalt Stuttgart-Stammheim" of October 26, 1977, Ziffer 5 ("Nach Beurteilung der bisherigen Ermittlungsergebnisse durch die Staatsanwaltschaft bestehen keine Anhaltspunkte dafür, daß der Tod der Gefangenen Baader, Ensslin und Raspe sowie die Verletzungen der Gefangenen Möller auf fremdes Verschulden zurückzuführen sind"), and reproduces Möller's criminal complaint of December 19, 1977 ("es hat zu keinem Zeitpunkt zwischen Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Karl Raspe, Andreas Baader und mir eine Verabredung zu einem gemeinschaftlichen Selbstmord gegeben").
+[^25]: "Gereinigte Fassung," Der Spiegel 45/1977 (October 31, 1977), https://www.spiegel.de/politik/gereinigte-fassung-a-4d720eff-0002-0001-0000-000040748997. German: "als am 9. Oktober ein BKA-Beamter mit Gudrun Ensslin in Stuttgart-Stammheim redete, wußte die isolierte Inhaftierte exakt über ein siebenminütiges Gespräch Bescheid, das der BKA-Mann tags zuvor mit Andreas Baader geführt hatte"; "als Entscheidung über uns« (Gudrun Ensslin)."
+[^26]: Werner Birkenmaier, "Nachträglich den Atem angehalten," Die Zeit, no. 44, October 28, 1977, https://www.zeit.de/1977/44/nachtraeglich-den-atem-angehalten. German: Raspe discovered "Um 7.40 Uhr, während der Essensausgabe"; died "um 9.40 Uhr" at the Katharinen-Hospital; "Die Zelle Gudrun Ensslins schließlich wird nach kurzer Prüfung rasch wieder abgeschlossen. Baaders Gefährtin hat sich am Fenster erhängt."
+[^27]: Karl-Heinz Weidenhammer, Selbstmord oder Mord? Das Todesermittlungsverfahren: Baader, Ensslin, Raspe (Kiel: Neuer Malik Verlag, 1988), https://www.socialhistoryportal.org/sites/default/files/raf/0019771018_16_0.pdf, pp. 96-97, witness report: cell 719 (Baader) opened at 8:07, then cell 720: "Die Gefangene hängt tot am Fenstergitter," then cell 725 (Möller) at 8:10. Autopsy protocols for Baader (pp. 119-120) and Raspe (pp. 121-122), each recording a single head gunshot wound. Weidenhammer was defence counsel for Raspe.
+[^28]: Weidenhammer (note 27), pp. 118-119, autopsy protocol. German: "Die Obduktion der Leiche von Gudrun Ensslin hat alle typischen Zeichen des Erhängungstodes ergeben ... Diejenigen Gewalteinwirkungsspuren ... sind nicht auf eine Einwirkung von fremder Hand verdächtig." The protocol ends at 0:30 on October 19, 1977.
+[^29]: Weidenhammer (note 27), Dokument 36, pp. 442-445, statement of the Baden-Württemberg state government on a 1983 motion of the Greens in the Landtag (8th term), quoting the report of the 7th-term committee of inquiry: "in insgesamt 19 Sitzungen geprüft, wobei aufgrund von 53 Beweisbeschlüssen eine Vielzahl von Zeugen und Sachverständigen vernommen" and "ist der Untersuchungsausschuß des Landtags einstimmig zu der Überzeugung gelangt, daß sich die Gefangenen selbst getötet haben. (vgl. Drucks. 7/3200, S. 47 f.)." Weidenhammer, Dokument 38, also cites Drucks. 7/3200, S. 97, on the pistol "mutmaßlich" in Baader's record player.
+[^30]: Weidenhammer (note 27), pp. 182-183: "Spurenauswertebericht am 28. Februar, also nachdem der Untersuchungsausschuß seine Tätigkeit beendet hatte, schließlich vorlag" and "Staatsanwalt Christ, der den Einstellungsbescheid im Todesermittlungverfahren am 18. April 1978 unterschrieb."
+[^31]: Weidenhammer (note 27), pp. 180-181, on the speaker cable. German: "Von dem Untersuchungsvorgang, ob mit der Spur Nr.1 (Schere) ... Dieser Auftrag ist nie erteilt worden." The trace report of February 28, 1978: "Wie aus dem Lichtbild Nr. 83 der Zellenaufnahmen zu ersehen ist, waren die beiden Lautsprecherboxen der Ensslin untereinander mit einem grünfarbenen Elektrokabel verbunden, wie es, zumindest dem äußeren Anschein nach, auch das Erhängungswerkzeug darstellt."
+[^32]: Weidenhammer (note 27), pp. 220-221 ("Verfassungsschutz und BND praktizierten bekanntlich seit März 1975 unkontrolliert im 7. Stock") and pp. 274-275 ("Und zusätzlich bauten die BND-Experten - wie jetzt zehn Jahre später ruchbar wird - im Stammheimer Hochsicherheitstrakt Wanzen ein, um alle Gespräche zu überwachen"; "nach der Amtsversion müßten sich die Häftlinge unter Aufsicht der Geheimdienste zur Selbsttötung verabredet und diese durchgeführt haben"), citing Der Spiegel 37/1987. Weidenhammer's reconstruction; the official findings above reach the opposite conclusion.
+[^33]: Wolfgang Kraushaar, Die Bombe im Jüdischen Gemeindehaus (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2005), as reviewed by Anne Rohstock, sehepunkte (October 2006), https://sehepunkte.de/old_site/2006/10/pdf/9316.pdf. The review describes Urbach as "der gelernte Klempner und agent provocateur, Peter Urbach, agierte seit 1967 als dessen V-Mann und belieferte militante Kreise der APO mit Waffen und Drogen aller Art." The remark to Langhans, "Rainer, wenn Du wüßtest," is on p. 178 of the book, as cited in the review. Sole source for the Urbach passages so cited.

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Wayne Gacy.md

@@ -7,24 +7,24 @@ summary: "John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) murdered at least 33
 born: 1942-03-17
 died: 1994-05-10
 location: "Chicago, Illinois"
-updated: 2026-09-22
+updated: 2026-10-15
 ---
 
-John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) murdered at least 33 young men and boys in the [[Chicago]], area during the 1970s. Gacy operated under the cover of a construction business and political involvement. Gacy owned [[Painting Decorating Maintenance]] (PDM) in [[Chicago]].[^1]
+John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) murdered at least 33 young men and boys in the [[Chicago]], area during the 1970s. Gacy operated under the cover of a construction business and political involvement. Gacy owned [[Painting Decorating Maintenance]] (PDM) in Chicago.[^1]
 
-Gacy established [[Painting Decorating Maintenance]] (PDM) as a legitimate business that employed young men. Gacy served as Democratic precinct captain of Norwood Park Township in 1975, appointed by [[Robert Martwick]]. Gacy acted as secretary and treasurer of the township's Lighting Commission with [[Sam Amirante]], who represented Gacy at trial. Gacy photographed with First Lady [[Rosalynn Carter]] in May 1978, wearing a [[Secret Service]] clearance button. Gacy hired [[Marty Zielinski]] to capture images with politicians like Mayor [[Michael Bilandic]] and [[Rosalynn Carter]]. Zielinski reported Gacy asked him to film illegal pornography for profit. Gacy's home at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue in Norwood Park served as residence and PDM office. Gacy claimed involvement with a crime syndicate that set up killings. Gacy was interviewed in the early 1990s about the murder of [[Kenneth Hellstrom]], a witness against [[John David Norman]].[^1]
+Gacy established Painting Decorating Maintenance (PDM) as a legitimate business that employed young men. Gacy served as Democratic precinct captain of Norwood Park Township in 1975, appointed by [[Robert Martwick]]. Gacy acted as secretary and treasurer of the township's Lighting Commission with [[Sam Amirante]], who represented Gacy at trial. Gacy photographed with First Lady [[Rosalynn Carter]] in May 1978, wearing a [[Secret Service]] clearance button. Gacy hired [[Marty Zielinski]] to capture images with politicians like Mayor [[Michael Bilandic]] and Rosalynn Carter. Zielinski reported Gacy asked him to film illegal pornography for profit. Gacy's home at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue in Norwood Park served as residence and PDM office. Gacy claimed involvement with a crime syndicate that set up killings. Gacy was interviewed in the early 1990s about the murder of [[Kenneth Hellstrom]], a witness against [[John David Norman]].[^1]
 
 ### Crimes and Methods
 Gacy lured victims with job offers through PDM. Gacy used a handcuff trick to incapacitate victims before tying them to a wooden torture board. Gacy administered date rape drugs via hypodermic syringe and threatened electrocution. Gacy sexually assaulted victims and murdered them between January 1972 and December 1978. Gacy buried 29 bodies in the crawlspace under his home and dumped others in the Des Plaines River. Items seized from Gacy's home on December 13, 1978, included pederasty pornography, literature, chemist date rape drugs, a hypodermic syringe, a wooden board with wrist-sized rope loops, handcuffs, and driver's licenses of missing individuals. Gacy dressed as Pogo the Clown to lure victims. Gacy confessed to murders including [[Robert Piest]], [[John Butkovich]], and [[John Szyc]] during interrogation, describing killings in third person and claiming multiple personalities. A household inventory listed an 8mm movie camera, editing deck, film production equipment, confidential files on payoffs to city inspectors and politicians, personal income tax files, five bank accounts, checkbooks, credit cards, insurance, and a list of known homosexuals including politicians, sports figures, county and city employees.[^1]
 
 ### Accomplices and Victims
-[[David Cram]], aged 20, and [[Michael Rossi]] lived with Gacy and worked for PDM. Cram and Rossi admitted during trial to digging graves in the crawlspace. Gacy named Cram and Rossi as accomplices who buried bodies after claiming involvement in syndicate slayings. [[Phillip Paske]] worked for PDM in September 1978 with payslips dated September 12, 19, and 25. Gacy stated Paske was introduced via [[David Cram]] and procured boys for sex and movies. Paske, Cram, and Rossi held keys to Gacy's house during Gacy's out-of-town trips. Victims included 15-year-old [[Robert Piest]], who disappeared on December 11, 1978, after meeting Gacy about employment at a pharmacy. [[John Szyc]], a 1975 Maine West High School graduate, went missing in January 1977; Gacy gave Szyc's car to Rossi, and Szyc's high school ring inscribed J.A.S. was found in Gacy's home. [[John Butkovich]] went missing in 1975; Gacy's ex-wife [[Carole Hoff]] identified him. [[John Mowery]], 19, moved into an apartment with Rossi days before his disappearance; Rossi told Mowery's friends about a location storing dead bodies. All identified victims were male youths aged 14 to 21, with 28 named out of 33 total. Gacy's travel documents and PDM financial records show absences during some disappearances. [[Jeff Rignall]] survived being chloroformed and raped by Gacy in early 1978 at the [[Norwood Park]] home; at least one other person was present during the assault.[^1]
+[[David Cram]], aged 20, and [[Michael Rossi]] lived with Gacy and worked for PDM. Cram and Rossi testified at the 1980 trial that they dug trenches in the crawl space at Gacy's direction.[^3] Gacy named Cram and Rossi as accomplices who buried bodies after claiming involvement in syndicate slayings. [[Phillip Paske]] worked for PDM in September 1978 with payslips dated September 12, 19, and 25. Gacy stated Paske was introduced via David Cram and procured boys for sex and movies. Paske, Cram, and Rossi held keys to Gacy's house during Gacy's out-of-town trips. Victims included 15-year-old Robert Piest, who disappeared on December 11, 1978, after meeting Gacy about employment at a pharmacy. John Szyc, a 1975 Maine West High School graduate, went missing in January 1977; Gacy gave Szyc's car to Rossi, and Szyc's high school ring inscribed J.A.S. was found in Gacy's home. John Butkovich went missing in 1975; Gacy's ex-wife [[Carole Hoff]] identified him. [[John Mowery]], 19, moved into an apartment with Rossi days before his disappearance; Rossi told Mowery's friends about a location storing dead bodies. All identified victims were male youths aged 14 to 21, with 28 named out of 33 total. Gacy's travel documents and PDM financial records show absences during some disappearances. [[Jeff Rignall]] survived being chloroformed and raped by Gacy in early 1978 at the [[Norwood Park]] home; at least one other person was present during the assault.[^1]
 
 ### Investigation and Trial
-The investigation started after [[Robert Piest]]'s disappearance on December 11, 1978. Pharmacy owner [[Phil Torf]] and coworker [[Kim Byers]] identified Gacy as the contractor Piest met. Des Plaines Police Captain [[Joseph Kozenczak]] pulled Gacy's 1968 assault record and executed a search warrant on December 13 at Gacy's home, seizing incriminating items including [[John Szyc]]'s ring. Cram reported on December 16 Gacy's syndicate claims, dead persons' driver's licenses in the garage, and Gacy entering the crawlspace post-search. Rossi confirmed on December 17 receiving Szyc's car from Gacy and the licenses. Kozenczak spoke with ex-wife [[Carole Hoff]] on December 17 about Butkovich, making Gacy prime suspect in three disappearances. A second search warrant on December 21, based on a photo processing receipt from Piest's pocket found in Gacy's trash and Detective [[Robert Schultz]] smelling decomposition on December 19 surveillance, revealed a flooded crawlspace; once drained, it yielded the first of 29 bodies. Gacy was arrested on December 21 at a gas station and stated upon arrival "Who else do we have in the police station. There are others involved." During interrogation, Gacy named Cram and Rossi and confessed to some murders. The trial began in February 1980, resulting in conviction in March 1980 for 33 murders and a death sentence. Prosecutor [[Terry Sullivan]] published "The Killer Clown" in 1983. In 1979, police investigated three potential accomplices including Rossi for involvement or knowledge of assaults and murders. Court files listed [[Phillip Paske]] as a possible witness for prosecution and defense. A 1987 [[Chicago Tribune]] article noted the [[Chicago Ripper Crew]] leader, suspected of killing 17 women in 1981-1982, did construction work for Gacy and criticized his body disposal.[^1]
+The investigation started after Robert Piest's disappearance on December 11, 1978. Pharmacy owner [[Phil Torf]] and coworker [[Kim Byers]] identified Gacy as the contractor Piest met. Des Plaines Police Captain [[Joseph Kozenczak]] pulled Gacy's 1968 assault record and executed a search warrant on December 13 at Gacy's home, seizing incriminating items including John Szyc's ring. Cram reported on December 16 Gacy's syndicate claims, dead persons' driver's licenses in the garage, and Gacy entering the crawlspace post-search. In that interview Cram said Gacy told him he did work for a syndicate and had set people up before, and that Gacy kept about three wallets in the garage, containing identification that included a driver's license, which Gacy said belonged to people who were deceased.[^4] Rossi confirmed on December 17 receiving Szyc's car from Gacy and the licenses. Kozenczak spoke with ex-wife Carole Hoff on December 17 about Butkovich, making Gacy prime suspect in three disappearances. A second search warrant on December 21, based on a photo processing receipt from Piest's pocket found in Gacy's trash and Detective [[Robert Schultz]] smelling decomposition on December 19 surveillance, revealed a flooded crawlspace; once drained, it yielded the first of 29 bodies. Gacy was arrested on December 21 at a gas station and stated upon arrival "Who else do we have in the police station. There are others involved." During interrogation, Gacy named Cram and Rossi and confessed to some murders. The trial began in February 1980, resulting in conviction in March 1980 for 33 murders and a death sentence. Prosecutor [[Terry Sullivan]] published "The Killer Clown" in 1983. In 1979, police investigated three potential accomplices including Rossi for involvement or knowledge of assaults and murders. Court files listed Phillip Paske as a possible witness for prosecution and defense. A 1987 [[Chicago Tribune]] article noted the [[Chicago Ripper Crew]] leader, suspected of killing 17 women in 1981-1982, did construction work for Gacy and criticized his body disposal.[^1]
 
 ### Connections to Networks
-Gacy connected to [[John David Norman]] through [[Phillip Paske]], Norman's accomplice in the [[Delta Project]] and [[Odyssey Network]]. Gacy claimed in 1992 interviews that Paske and Norman made snuff films with young boys, pimping and selling them, though Gacy was evasive about meeting Norman and suggested learning of him via news on Paske's jail newsletter. Paske, released on probation in 1976 after assisting Norman from Cook County Jail, lived with Norman in a Chicago, Illinois, basement apartment on W.[^2] Wrightwood Avenue in May 1977, twenty minutes from Gacy's home, where they produced pornography until a June 1978 raid, after which Paske joined PDM in September 1978. Gacy's 1994 pre-execution recording stated twelve keys were distributed to his house, with Rossi, Cram, Paske, and Norman involved, and archives confirmed Paske's employment and Gacy's absences aligning with victim disappearances during Norman's free periods in [[Chicago]]. Similarities to [[Dean Corll]]'s crimes include handcuff tricks and torture boards, 28 to 33 male youth victims aged 13 to 21, burying most under properties, teenage accomplices claiming syndicate ties, and connections to Norman's network - Corll via investigation suspicions, Gacy via confirmed Paske employment.[^1]
+Gacy connected to John David Norman through Phillip Paske, Norman's accomplice in the [[Delta Project]] and [[Odyssey Network]]. Gacy claimed in 1992 interviews that Paske and Norman made snuff films with young boys, pimping and selling them, though Gacy was evasive about meeting Norman and suggested learning of him via news on Paske's jail newsletter. Paske, released on probation in 1976 after assisting Norman from Cook County Jail, lived with Norman in a Chicago, Illinois, basement apartment on W.[^2] Wrightwood Avenue in May 1977, twenty minutes from Gacy's home, where they produced pornography until a June 1978 raid, after which Paske joined PDM in September 1978. Gacy's 1994 pre-execution recording stated twelve keys were distributed to his house, with Rossi, Cram, Paske, and Norman involved, and archives confirmed Paske's employment and Gacy's absences aligning with victim disappearances during Norman's free periods in Chicago. Similarities to [[Dean Corll]]'s crimes include handcuff tricks and torture boards, 28 to 33 male youth victims aged 13 to 21, burying most under properties, teenage accomplices claiming syndicate ties, and connections to Norman's network - Corll via investigation suspicions, Gacy via confirmed Paske employment.[^1]
 
 ### Execution
 Gacy exhausted appeals up to the Supreme Court by 1992. Gacy claimed accomplices Cram, Rossi, Paske, and Norman in TV interviews to seek reexamination and delay execution, stating Paske procured boys and all had house keys during his travels. In April 1994, a $1.99-per-minute reverse-charge phone line played Gacy's recording proclaiming innocence and implicating employees with keys, including Rossi, Cram, Paske, and Norman. Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.[^1]
@@ -32,3 +32,5 @@ Gacy exhausted appeals up to the Supreme Court by 1992. Gacy claimed accomplices
 ### Footnotes
 [^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). Eye of the Chickenhawk. United States: Thehotstar.
 [^2]: *Chicago Tribune,* May 1977, reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime. *Sexual Exploitation of Children,* hearings, 95th Congress, 1st session, Serial No. 12, 1977, which describes Paske, 25, as "a convicted murderer and thief" on probation "since last July" (that is, July 1976) and carrying on the Delta Project in Norman's absence; it gives no January 1976 parole. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041
+[^3]: *People v. Gacy*, 103 Ill. 2d 1 (1984), Illinois Supreme Court, No. 53212, June 6, 1984, testimony summaries of David Cram and Michael Rossi. https://static.case.law/ill-2d/103/cases/0001-01.json
+[^4]: Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 5 of 6, interview of David Cram, December 16, 1978, terminated at 1712 hours. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Stephen Deckoff.md

@@ -46,18 +46,18 @@ relations:
     with: "[[KVH Industries]]"
     start: 2026-08-20
     role: "director (Form 4 dated August 20, 2026)"
-    fn: 30
+    fn: 32
   - type: funded
     with: "[[Emmer for Congress]]"
     start: 2025-05-27
     role: "two itemized contributions of 3,500 dollars each, 7,000 dollars total"
-    fn: 33
+    fn: 35
   - type: owned
     with: "[[Black Diamond Aviation Group LLC]]"
     role: "owner, per Westfair Business Journal report of May 27, 2026"
     fn: 14
 created: 2026-09-25
-updated: 2026-10-08
+updated: 2026-10-14
 ---
 
 Stephen H. Deckoff is an American investor, the founder and managing principal of the credit and distressed-investment firm [[Black Diamond Capital Management]], and a resident of the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] since 2011.[^1] In May 2023 his entity [[SD Investments]] bought [[Little St. James]] and [[Great St. James]], the two islands off [[St. Thomas]] that had belonged to [[Jeffrey Epstein]], from Epstein's estate for 60 million dollars, less than half of the initial asking price of 125 million dollars.[^1][^2]
@@ -93,43 +93,45 @@ The FAA's inquiry page for N114BD, retrieved October 8, 2026, gives the current
 
 The same registry lists a second aircraft under Deckoff's own name. N615BD is an Airbus Helicopters Deutschland EC135 P2+ helicopter, manufactured in 2015 with serial number 1193, registered to Stephen H. Deckoff as an individual in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. The certificate was issued April 19, 2024, the airworthiness date is May 3, 2024, and the registration expires April 30, 2031.[^15][^16]
 
-The FAA's inquiry page for N112BD lists the mark as deregistered and gives the airframe as the 1999 Learjet 60 with serial number 166. The cancellation date is July 1, 2025, and the status is "SALE REPORTED."[^17] The current FAA file does not show N114BD against serial number 166.[^18]
+The public inquiry for N615BD still displayed the registered owner's name on October 14, 2026.[^17] Section 803 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 added 49 U.S.C. 44114, under which a private aircraft owner may request that the [[Federal Aviation Administration]] withhold the registration number and personally identifiable information from broad public display, and the FAA opened that request process on March 28, 2025.[^18]
+
+The FAA's inquiry page for N112BD lists the mark as deregistered and gives the airframe as the 1999 Learjet 60 with serial number 166. The cancellation date is July 1, 2025, and the status is "SALE REPORTED."[^19] The current FAA file does not show N114BD against serial number 166.[^20]
 
 ### The islands
 
-The two islands went on the market in March 2022 with an asking price of 125 million dollars.[^19] The estate's settlement with the Virgin Islands government, announced in December 2022, required the estate to pay the territory 105 million dollars in cash, plus one half of the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James. It also required the estate to sell Little St. James and Great St. James to independent third parties and to wind down its business in the territory.[^20] SD Investments announced the purchase on May 3, 2023.[^2] The release quoted Deckoff: "I've been proud to call the U.S. Virgin Islands home for more than a decade and am tremendously pleased to be able to bring the area a world-class destination befitting its natural grace and beauty."[^2] Forbes reported that Deckoff said he had never met Epstein and had never set foot on the islands until they were marketed following Epstein's 2019 death.[^1] Forbes wrote that the settlement gives the government half the proceeds from the sale of the islands, which it put at about 30 million dollars, to be placed in a trust for counseling and other services for victims. Carlson reported that half the sale price of Little St. James came to about 11 million dollars.[^21]
+The two islands went on the market in March 2022 with an asking price of 125 million dollars.[^21] The estate's settlement with the Virgin Islands government, announced in December 2022, required the estate to pay the territory 105 million dollars in cash, plus one half of the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James. It also required the estate to sell Little St. James and Great St. James to independent third parties and to wind down its business in the territory.[^22] SD Investments announced the purchase on May 3, 2023.[^2] The release quoted Deckoff: "I've been proud to call the U.S. Virgin Islands home for more than a decade and am tremendously pleased to be able to bring the area a world-class destination befitting its natural grace and beauty."[^2] Forbes reported that Deckoff said he had never met Epstein and had never set foot on the islands until they were marketed following Epstein's 2019 death.[^1] Forbes wrote that the settlement gives the government half the proceeds from the sale of the islands, which it put at about 30 million dollars, to be placed in a trust for counseling and other services for victims. Carlson reported that half the sale price of Little St. James came to about 11 million dollars.[^23]
 
-The May 2023 release announced a five-star, 25-room luxury resort "anticipated to open in 2025," and Forbes reported that Deckoff said he planned to open it in about two years.[^1][^2] [[Suzanne Carlson]] of the [[Virgin Islands Daily News]] reported in February 2026 that no resort had been built and that the only construction permit Deckoff had requested was for an 8,800 square foot warehouse on Little St. James, and that the application for a Coastal Zone Management major permit was submitted in December 2025.[^21] Carlson wrote that the Daily News reviewed the application, which describes replacing an existing metal-framed warehouse with a single large semicircular concrete warehouse over a new concrete cistern. The [[Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources]] coastal zone management director, [[Marlon Hibbert]], said that the application was still incomplete because no environmental assessment had been submitted. Carlson wrote that attempts to reach Deckoff for comment were unsuccessful.[^21]
+The May 2023 release announced a five-star, 25-room luxury resort "anticipated to open in 2025," and Forbes reported that Deckoff said he planned to open it in about two years.[^1][^2] [[Suzanne Carlson]] of the [[Virgin Islands Daily News]] reported in February 2026 that no resort had been built and that the only construction permit Deckoff had requested was for an 8,800 square foot warehouse on Little St. James, and that the application for a Coastal Zone Management major permit was submitted in December 2025.[^23] Carlson wrote that the Daily News reviewed the application, which describes replacing an existing metal-framed warehouse with a single large semicircular concrete warehouse over a new concrete cistern. The [[Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources]] coastal zone management director, [[Marlon Hibbert]], said that the application was still incomplete because no environmental assessment had been submitted. Carlson wrote that attempts to reach Deckoff for comment were unsuccessful.[^23]
 
 ### Economic Development Commission benefits
 
-Carlson reported that Black Diamond Advisors and Black Diamond Holdings had received tax-incentive benefits from the [[Economic Development Commission]] since 2012.[^21] The *St. Croix Source* reported that at the Economic Development Commission session of August 12, 2021, Black Diamond Advisors, LLLP and Black Diamond Holdings, LLLP applied for 10-year extensions of benefits. Mounir Nahas, chief executive officer of Black Diamond, told the commission that the company employed more than 20 people, had a 4,000-square-foot office at Yacht Haven Grande, and managed $9 billion in investment funds; he said there were 10 employees at the holding company, and the two companies shared office space. Commission members Jose Penn and Phil Payne asked Nahas to reevaluate salaries and insurance contributions for the lower-salaried staff.[^22] The territory's suit against the Epstein estate alleged that [[Southern Trust Company]], an Epstein company, made fraudulent misrepresentations to the authority about its qualifications for those benefits, and the 2022 settlement returns more than 80 million dollars in such benefits.[^20] The annual reports of the [[Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority]] name the firm's affiliates. Its fiscal 2016 report lists [[Black Diamond Advisors, LLLP]] and [[Black Diamond Holding, LLLP]] among the site visits for beneficiaries.[^23] Its fiscal 2023 report lists certificate orientations on February 7, 2023 for Black Diamond Advisors, LLC and Black Diamond Holdings, LLC, both recorded as modifications on St. Thomas.[^24]
+Carlson reported that Black Diamond Advisors and Black Diamond Holdings had received tax-incentive benefits from the [[Economic Development Commission]] since 2012.[^23] The *St. Croix Source* reported that at the Economic Development Commission session of August 12, 2021, Black Diamond Advisors, LLLP and Black Diamond Holdings, LLLP applied for 10-year extensions of benefits. Mounir Nahas, chief executive officer of Black Diamond, told the commission that the company employed more than 20 people, had a 4,000-square-foot office at Yacht Haven Grande, and managed $9 billion in investment funds; he said there were 10 employees at the holding company, and the two companies shared office space. Commission members Jose Penn and Phil Payne asked Nahas to reevaluate salaries and insurance contributions for the lower-salaried staff.[^24] The territory's suit against the Epstein estate alleged that [[Southern Trust Company]], an Epstein company, made fraudulent misrepresentations to the authority about its qualifications for those benefits, and the 2022 settlement returns more than 80 million dollars in such benefits.[^22] The annual reports of the [[Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority]] name the firm's affiliates. Its fiscal 2016 report lists [[Black Diamond Advisors, LLLP]] and [[Black Diamond Holding, LLLP]] among the site visits for beneficiaries.[^25] Its fiscal 2023 report lists certificate orientations on February 7, 2023 for Black Diamond Advisors, LLC and Black Diamond Holdings, LLC, both recorded as modifications on St. Thomas.[^26]
 
 ### Jet Center
 
-The 2014 email chain says that Black Diamond Trading was "trying to buy Jet Center." In November 2018, [[Signature Flight Support]] agreed to buy the [[St. Thomas Jet Center]] and its affiliate [[Alliance Aviation]], according to Aviation International News. Aviation International News reported on November 1, 2018 that [[Michael Hancock]] and [[Susan Hancock]] had owned the St. Thomas FBO for more than two decades and would remain with the business, along with the staff, for at least the next two years.[^25] The *Virgin Islands Daily News* reported on November 5, 2018 that the Hancocks had bought St. Thomas Jet Center from the Boehlke family in 2002, and that Michael Hancock had started his own aviation business in 1995.[^26] Signature's announcement described the transaction in two phases: a 49 percent holding at signing and the remaining 51 percent within 14 months, with Alliance Aviation, Jet Set Rental Cars and Tri Island Energy Fuel Logistics included.[^27]
+The 2014 email chain says that Black Diamond Trading was "trying to buy Jet Center." In November 2018, [[Signature Flight Support]] agreed to buy the [[St. Thomas Jet Center]] and its affiliate [[Alliance Aviation]], according to Aviation International News. Aviation International News reported on November 1, 2018 that [[Michael Hancock]] and [[Susan Hancock]] had owned the St. Thomas FBO for more than two decades and would remain with the business, along with the staff, for at least the next two years.[^27] The *Virgin Islands Daily News* reported on November 5, 2018 that the Hancocks had bought St. Thomas Jet Center from the Boehlke family in 2002, and that Michael Hancock had started his own aviation business in 1995.[^28] Signature's announcement described the transaction in two phases: a 49 percent holding at signing and the remaining 51 percent within 14 months, with Alliance Aviation, Jet Set Rental Cars and Tri Island Energy Fuel Logistics included.[^29]
 
 ### The 2012 Alliance Aviation notice
 
-A message of October 1, 2012 from Francisco D'Agostino to [[Todd Meister]] gave a landing time at the St. Thomas FBO of Alliance Aviation and the tail number N3FD; Meister forwarded it to Epstein, and [[Lesley Groff]] wrote that day that Meister was going to the island the next day with a Venezuelan friend and that Larry Visoski would collect them by helicopter.[^28]
+A message of October 1, 2012 from Francisco D'Agostino to [[Todd Meister]] gave a landing time at the St. Thomas FBO of Alliance Aviation and the tail number N3FD; Meister forwarded it to Epstein, and [[Lesley Groff]] wrote that day that Meister was going to the island the next day with a Venezuelan friend and that Larry Visoski would collect them by helicopter.[^30]
 
 ### PTC Alliance Acquisition, 2009
 
-In October 2009, [[PTC Alliance]], a steel-tubing maker, filed a Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The company had signed an asset purchase agreement with funds managed by Black Diamond Capital Management, the pre-petition term lenders, to act as a "stalking horse" bidder for substantially all of its assets under Section 363. Deckoff, identified as managing principal of Black Diamond Capital Management LLC, said: "Our proposed transaction will establish a new corporation with a stronger balance sheet and lower cost structure that it will be well positioned now and in the future to provide PTC's customers with high-quality tubing products and precision components."[^29]
+In October 2009, [[PTC Alliance]], a steel-tubing maker, filed a Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The company had signed an asset purchase agreement with funds managed by Black Diamond Capital Management, the pre-petition term lenders, to act as a "stalking horse" bidder for substantially all of its assets under Section 363. Deckoff, identified as managing principal of Black Diamond Capital Management LLC, said: "Our proposed transaction will establish a new corporation with a stronger balance sheet and lower cost structure that it will be well positioned now and in the future to provide PTC's customers with high-quality tubing products and precision components."[^31]
 
 ### Filings naming Deckoff
 
-The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lists Deckoff as a reporting person on Forms 3 and 4 for several issuers. A Form 3 with a reporting date of August 19, 2022, and a Form 4 dated August 20, 2026, record him as a 10 percent owner of [[KVH Industries]]. The 2026 Form 4 also marks him as a director.[^30] A Form 4 for [[Hawaiian Telcom Holdco]], with a reporting date of March 20, 2017, records him as a 10 percent owner. The EDGAR index also lists Forms 3 and 4 for [[Tropicana Entertainment]] (2010), [[Viasystems Group]] (2013 and 2015) and [[Consumer Portfolio Services]] (2021 and 2022).[^30]
+The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lists Deckoff as a reporting person on Forms 3 and 4 for several issuers. A Form 3 with a reporting date of August 19, 2022, and a Form 4 dated August 20, 2026, record him as a 10 percent owner of [[KVH Industries]]. The 2026 Form 4 also marks him as a director.[^32] A Form 4 for [[Hawaiian Telcom Holdco]], with a reporting date of March 20, 2017, records him as a 10 percent owner. The EDGAR index also lists Forms 3 and 4 for [[Tropicana Entertainment]] (2010), [[Viasystems Group]] (2013 and 2015) and [[Consumer Portfolio Services]] (2021 and 2022).[^32]
 
 ### Schedule 13D and 13G filings
 
-Black Diamond Capital Management, L.L.C. (CIK 0001282197) and Deckoff are joint reporting persons on Schedule 13D statements for two issuers in 2022 and 2023. In Amendment No. 3 to its Schedule 13D for Consumer Portfolio Services (event date March 10, 2022, filed March 14, 2022), the two reported shared voting and dispositive power over 4,647,042 shares, 22.05 percent of the class, bought for approximately 21,156,734.98 dollars from the capital of Black Diamond investment vehicles. The filing states that on March 10, 2022 the reporting persons told the company's chief executive officer and chief financial officer that they wished to propose two nominees for the board, Deckoff and James E. Walker III, and that a nomination letter was submitted on March 14, 2022.[^31] In Amendment No. 1 to its Schedule 13D for KVH Industries (event date February 3, 2023), the two reported shared power over 3,298,597 shares, 17.20 percent of the class. The filing states that on February 3, 2023 they entered a cooperation agreement with the company under which the board agreed to nominate and support Deckoff as a Class III director at the 2023 annual meeting and to waive the company's stockholder rights plan so that the reporting persons could acquire up to 25 percent of the shares; the amendment refers to an original Schedule 13D filed August 26, 2022.[^31]
+Black Diamond Capital Management, L.L.C. (CIK 0001282197) and Deckoff are joint reporting persons on Schedule 13D statements for two issuers in 2022 and 2023. In Amendment No. 3 to its Schedule 13D for Consumer Portfolio Services (event date March 10, 2022, filed March 14, 2022), the two reported shared voting and dispositive power over 4,647,042 shares, 22.05 percent of the class, bought for approximately 21,156,734.98 dollars from the capital of Black Diamond investment vehicles. The filing states that on March 10, 2022 the reporting persons told the company's chief executive officer and chief financial officer that they wished to propose two nominees for the board, Deckoff and James E. Walker III, and that a nomination letter was submitted on March 14, 2022.[^33] In Amendment No. 1 to its Schedule 13D for KVH Industries (event date February 3, 2023), the two reported shared power over 3,298,597 shares, 17.20 percent of the class. The filing states that on February 3, 2023 they entered a cooperation agreement with the company under which the board agreed to nominate and support Deckoff as a Class III director at the 2023 annual meeting and to waive the company's stockholder rights plan so that the reporting persons could acquire up to 25 percent of the shares; the amendment refers to an original Schedule 13D filed August 26, 2022.[^33]
 
-The EDGAR full-text index also lists Schedule 13D filings by Black Diamond Capital Management for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco (February 25, 2016 and July 10, 2018), Schedule 13G filings for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco (2012 to 2015), Viasystems Group (July 8, 2015), Saratoga Investment Corp (2014 to 2024) and Canterbury Park Holding Corp (2022 to 2024), and Form D notices for funds including BDCM Opportunity Fund III, L.P. (December 21, 2010) and Black Diamond Credit Strategies, L.P. (2017 to 2026).[^32]
+The EDGAR full-text index also lists Schedule 13D filings by Black Diamond Capital Management for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco (February 25, 2016 and July 10, 2018), Schedule 13G filings for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco (2012 to 2015), Viasystems Group (July 8, 2015), Saratoga Investment Corp (2014 to 2024) and Canterbury Park Holding Corp (2022 to 2024), and Form D notices for funds including BDCM Opportunity Fund III, L.P. (December 21, 2010) and Black Diamond Credit Strategies, L.P. (2017 to 2026).[^34]
 
 ### Political giving and philanthropy
 
-The [[Federal Election Commission]] records two itemized contributions of 3,500 dollars each, both dated May 27, 2025, from a contributor named Stephen H. Deckoff of Stamford, Connecticut, to [[Emmer for Congress]].[^33] Forbes reported that Deckoff had given more than 1.2 million dollars to nonprofits in the Virgin Islands, mostly to private schools and nature-preservation organizations.[^1]
+The [[Federal Election Commission]] records two itemized contributions of 3,500 dollars each, both dated May 27, 2025, from a contributor named Stephen H. Deckoff of Stamford, Connecticut, to [[Emmer for Congress]].[^35] Forbes reported that Deckoff had given more than 1.2 million dollars to nonprofits in the Virgin Islands, mostly to private schools and nature-preservation organizations.[^1]
 
 ### Footnotes
 
@@ -149,20 +151,22 @@ The [[Federal Election Commission]] records two itemized contributions of 3,500
 [^14]: Bill Heltzel, "Cabinetry dispute grounds Falcon 7X business jet," *Westfair Business Journal,* May 27, 2026. https://westfaironline.com/courts/cabinetry-dispute-grounds-falcon-7x-business-jet/ The article gives no tail number or case caption.
 [^15]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Inquiry, N-Number Inquiry Results for N615BD (Mode S code A8016E; type registration Individual; registered owner DECKOFF STEPHEN H, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; certificate issued 04/19/2024; airworthiness 05/03/2024; expiration 04/30/2031), retrieved October 8, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/NNumberResult?nNumberTxt=615BD
 [^16]: Federal Aviation Administration, Releasable Aircraft Database, MASTER.txt entry 615BD (serial number 1193, model code 5620010), with ACFTREF.txt entry 5620010 (AIRBUS HELICOPTERS DEUTSCHLAND, EC135 P2+), retrieved October 8, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/database/ReleasableAircraft.zip ; FlightAware registration page for N615BD, retrieved October 8, 2026, which gives the same owner and dates. https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N615BD
-[^17]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Inquiry, N-Number Inquiry Results for N112BD ("N112BD is Deregistered"), and Releasable Aircraft Database, DEREG.txt entry 112BD, serial number 166 (model code 5170707, Learjet 60, year 1999; status "SALE REPORTED"; cancel date 07/01/2025; last action date 06/29/2025), retrieved October 8, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/NNumberResult?nNumberTxt=112BD
-[^18]: City-Data.com, "FAA Registered Aircraft, Dealers and Manufacturers in Greenwich, Connecticut" (undated listing derived from FAA data). https://www.city-data.com/aircraft/air-Greenwich-Connecticut.html ; FlightAware registration pages for N114BD and N112BD, retrieved October 8, 2026. https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N114BD and https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N112BD
-[^19]: NPR, "Financier buys Jeffrey Epstein's private islands, with plans to create a resort," May 4, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173956903/jeffrey-epstein-island-sold-st-james
-[^20]: U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice, "U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate Of Jeffrey Epstein And Co-Defendants For Over $105 Million," December 1, 2022. https://usvidoj.com/u-s-virgin-islands-attorney-general-settles-sex-trafficking-case-against-estate-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-co-defendants-for-over-105-million/
-[^21]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Still no resort plans for Epstein's islands purchased by Deckoff." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 6, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/still-no-resort-plans-for-epsteins-islands-purchased-by-deckoff/article_84d776de-8427-4080-a1b5-6cf81418e23d.html ; Carlson, Suzanne. "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026, reporting that half the sale price of Little St. James came to about 11 million dollars. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html.
-[^22]: Susan Ellis, "EDC Grants Tax Benefits to Paragon Surgical Center and Amends V.I. Paving's Requirements," *St. Croix Source,* August 12, 2021. https://stcroixsource.com/2021/08/12/edc-grants-tax-benefits-to-paragon-surgical-center-and-amends-v-i-pavings-requirements/
-[^23]: Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, *FY 2016 Annual Report,* Table 3, Site Visits, p. 30. https://usvieda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2016_EDA_Annual_Report_FINAL.pdf
-[^24]: Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, *FY 2023 Annual Report,* Certificate Orientations, pp. 24 to 25. https://usvieda.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2023-Annual-Report_Revised-Apr-4-2025.pdf
-[^25]: "Signature Acquires Virgin Islands Bases." *Aviation International News,* November 1, 2018. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2018-11-01/signature-acquires-virgin-islands-bases
-[^26]: Lori Abbotts, "St. Thomas Jet Center forms joint venture with Signature Flight Support," *Virgin Islands Daily News,* November 5, 2018. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/business/st-thomas-jet-center-forms-joint-venture-with-signature-flight-support/article_f65a7ade-c80e-5c92-9740-a52250559195.html
-[^27]: "Signature Flight Support to acquire St. Thomas Jet Center," Signature Flight Support newsroom, November 1, 2018. https://articles.signatureflight.com/blog/about/newsroom/2018/11/01/signature-flight-support-to-acquire-st.-thomas-jet-center
-[^28]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00644307 (https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00644307.pdf) and EFTA00403872 (https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00403872.pdf), DataSet 9, emails of October 1, 2012.
-[^29]: "PTC Alliance Files for Chapter 11 Protection." Association for Iron & Steel Technology, posted October 2, 2009, quoting the company's announcement and Deckoff's statement. https://www.aist.org/ptc-alliance-files-for-chapter-11-protection
-[^30]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR filing index for reporting person Deckoff Stephen H (CIK 0001486844), including the Form 4 for KVH Industries Inc. (period August 20, 2026), the Form 3 for KVH Industries Inc. (period August 19, 2022), and the Form 4 for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc. (period March 20, 2017). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001486844
-[^31]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, Schedule 13D/A Amendment No. 3, Consumer Portfolio Services Inc., accession 0001140361-22-009441; Schedule 13D/A Amendment No. 1, KVH Industries, Inc., accession 0001140361-23-004863. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/889609/000114036122009441/brhc10035210_sc13da.htm and https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1007587/000114036123004863/brhc10047604_sc13da.htm
-[^32]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR full-text search, query "Black Diamond Capital Management," forms SC 13D, SC 13G and D, run October 8, 2026 (filer CIK 0001282197 for the adviser). https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Black%20Diamond%20Capital%20Management%22
-[^33]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized individual contributions, contributor "DECKOFF, STEPHEN H.", recipient committee C00545749 (Emmer for Congress), two entries dated May 27, 2025, 3,500 dollars each. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=DECKOFF&committee_id=C00545749
+[^17]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Registry, N-Number Inquiry Results for N615BD (type registration Individual; registered owner DECKOFF STEPHEN H), accessed October 14, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/NNumberResult?nNumberTxt=615BD
+[^18]: FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, Pub. L. 118-63, section 803 (adding 49 U.S.C. 44114), 138 Stat. 1322 (May 16, 2024), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ63/pdf/PLAW-118publ63.pdf ; Federal Aviation Administration, "FAA Moves to Protect Aircraft Owners' Private Information," March 28, 2025, https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-moves-protect-aircraft-owners-private-information
+[^19]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Inquiry, N-Number Inquiry Results for N112BD ("N112BD is Deregistered"), and Releasable Aircraft Database, DEREG.txt entry 112BD, serial number 166 (model code 5170707, Learjet 60, year 1999; status "SALE REPORTED"; cancel date 07/01/2025; last action date 06/29/2025), retrieved October 8, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/NNumberResult?nNumberTxt=112BD
+[^20]: City-Data.com, "FAA Registered Aircraft, Dealers and Manufacturers in Greenwich, Connecticut" (undated listing derived from FAA data). https://www.city-data.com/aircraft/air-Greenwich-Connecticut.html ; FlightAware registration pages for N114BD and N112BD, retrieved October 8, 2026. https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N114BD and https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N112BD
+[^21]: NPR, "Financier buys Jeffrey Epstein's private islands, with plans to create a resort," May 4, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173956903/jeffrey-epstein-island-sold-st-james
+[^22]: U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice, "U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate Of Jeffrey Epstein And Co-Defendants For Over $105 Million," December 1, 2022. https://usvidoj.com/u-s-virgin-islands-attorney-general-settles-sex-trafficking-case-against-estate-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-co-defendants-for-over-105-million/
+[^23]: Carlson, Suzanne. "Still no resort plans for Epstein's islands purchased by Deckoff." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 6, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/still-no-resort-plans-for-epsteins-islands-purchased-by-deckoff/article_84d776de-8427-4080-a1b5-6cf81418e23d.html ; Carlson, Suzanne. "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender." *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026, reporting that half the sale price of Little St. James came to about 11 million dollars. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html.
+[^24]: Susan Ellis, "EDC Grants Tax Benefits to Paragon Surgical Center and Amends V.I. Paving's Requirements," *St. Croix Source,* August 12, 2021. https://stcroixsource.com/2021/08/12/edc-grants-tax-benefits-to-paragon-surgical-center-and-amends-v-i-pavings-requirements/
+[^25]: Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, *FY 2016 Annual Report,* Table 3, Site Visits, p. 30. https://usvieda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2016_EDA_Annual_Report_FINAL.pdf
+[^26]: Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, *FY 2023 Annual Report,* Certificate Orientations, pp. 24 to 25. https://usvieda.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2023-Annual-Report_Revised-Apr-4-2025.pdf
+[^27]: "Signature Acquires Virgin Islands Bases." *Aviation International News,* November 1, 2018. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2018-11-01/signature-acquires-virgin-islands-bases
+[^28]: Lori Abbotts, "St. Thomas Jet Center forms joint venture with Signature Flight Support," *Virgin Islands Daily News,* November 5, 2018. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/business/st-thomas-jet-center-forms-joint-venture-with-signature-flight-support/article_f65a7ade-c80e-5c92-9740-a52250559195.html
+[^29]: "Signature Flight Support to acquire St. Thomas Jet Center," Signature Flight Support newsroom, November 1, 2018. https://articles.signatureflight.com/blog/about/newsroom/2018/11/01/signature-flight-support-to-acquire-st.-thomas-jet-center
+[^30]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00644307 (https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00644307.pdf) and EFTA00403872 (https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00403872.pdf), DataSet 9, emails of October 1, 2012.
+[^31]: "PTC Alliance Files for Chapter 11 Protection." Association for Iron & Steel Technology, posted October 2, 2009, quoting the company's announcement and Deckoff's statement. https://www.aist.org/ptc-alliance-files-for-chapter-11-protection
+[^32]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR filing index for reporting person Deckoff Stephen H (CIK 0001486844), including the Form 4 for KVH Industries Inc. (period August 20, 2026), the Form 3 for KVH Industries Inc. (period August 19, 2022), and the Form 4 for Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc. (period March 20, 2017). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001486844
+[^33]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, Schedule 13D/A Amendment No. 3, Consumer Portfolio Services Inc., accession 0001140361-22-009441; Schedule 13D/A Amendment No. 1, KVH Industries, Inc., accession 0001140361-23-004863. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/889609/000114036122009441/brhc10035210_sc13da.htm and https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1007587/000114036123004863/brhc10047604_sc13da.htm
+[^34]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR full-text search, query "Black Diamond Capital Management," forms SC 13D, SC 13G and D, run October 8, 2026 (filer CIK 0001282197 for the adviser). https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Black%20Diamond%20Capital%20Management%22
+[^35]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized individual contributions, contributor "DECKOFF, STEPHEN H.", recipient committee C00545749 (Emmer for Congress), two entries dated May 27, 2025, 3,500 dollars each. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=DECKOFF&committee_id=C00545749