disinfozone/The_Info_Web
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

vault backup: 2026-10-15 18:00:57

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-10-15 18:00:57 -04:00
parent ead29ac3e3
commit 837c566626
No known key found for this signature in database
65 changed files with 2818 additions and 1075 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

10
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Robert Booth Nichols.md
View file

@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ relations:
role: "director, senior vice president, chairman of the investment committee, per Seymour"
fn: 4
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-10-08
updated: 2026-10-15
---
Robert Booth Nichols was born in the [[United States]] on March 3, 1943.[^1] He was a principal source for the journalist [[Danny Casolaro]] in the investigation Casolaro called [[The Octopus]], and the subject of a [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] organized-crime investigation from 1987.[^2][^3]
@ -66,9 +66,11 @@ Nichols testified in 1993, in his suit against the Los Angeles Police Department
Telephone records show that Casolaro and Nichols "spoke regularly and at length" in the last months of Casolaro's life, and the two had dinner at a restaurant in Virginia in the early summer of 1991. Nichols told committee investigators he had been "a sounding board" for Casolaro and would not give a sworn statement.[^3] On September 30, 1991, he told Detective Sergeant Swartwood of the Martinsburg police that he thought Casolaro had been murdered and that Riconosciuto "was probably involved in some way." Bua's report noted a January 1993 *Spy* article suggesting that Nichols had Casolaro killed for fear of being exposed as a would-be FBI informant against the Mafia, and found "no evidence that he had anything to do with Mr. Casolaro's death. Furthermore, he was in London on the day that Mr. Casolaro died."[^8] According to Seymour, Nichols had warned Casolaro to drop the investigation and went to Martinsburg to press him in person, Casolaro had confronted him shortly before his death about [[Michael Abbell]] and the Cali cartel, and Nichols later wrote a manuscript, "Danny Casolaro's Octopus."[^4]
In a telephone interview with the FBI on January 11, 1994, Nichols said that when Casolaro drove him to [[Dulles International Airport]] in the summer of 1991, Casolaro was on the telephone there with [[Joseph Cuellar]], trying to have Cuellar introduce him to Peter Videnieks. Nichols also said that Casolaro described his first meeting with Cuellar as strange, because Cuellar had initiated the conversation at a bar in Northern Virginia.[^11] The 1994 Justice Department review states that Casolaro met Cuellar "by chance" at "The Sign of the Whale" in Arlington, Virginia, and that Cuellar had gone there to meet friends celebrating his return from [[Operation Desert Storm]].[^12]
### The Bayou Fee
In the spring of 2004 Nichols offered [[Samuel Israel III]], manager of the Bayou hedge funds, access to what British investigators later described as programs with "all of the hallmarks of fraudulent prime bank note programs." After more than 150 million dollars of Bayou money passed through a London account of the "Humanitarian Coalition Aid Foundation" and back in April 2004, Nichols and Israel signed a "Financial and Security Consultancy Agreement" on July 11, 2004, and on July 19 Israel wired ten million dollars to accounts in Germany, Liechtenstein, Singapore and the [[United Kingdom]] in the name of or controlled by Nichols, about eight million of which ended in a London account in the names of Nichols and his wife, Ellen. The Bayou funds' liquidating entity sued the couple in 2008 to recover the fee as a fraudulent transfer; they answered that he had received it "for value, in good faith and without knowledge of the alleged voidability of the transfer." Nichols was deposed on video at the [[U.S. Attorney's office]] in Manhattan on December 16, 2008, and the case was closed on April 28, 2010.[^1][^11] At the time his address was in Honolulu.[^1]
In the spring of 2004 Nichols offered [[Samuel Israel III]], manager of the Bayou hedge funds, access to what British investigators later described as programs with "all of the hallmarks of fraudulent prime bank note programs." After more than 150 million dollars of Bayou money passed through a London account of the "Humanitarian Coalition Aid Foundation" and back in April 2004, Nichols and Israel signed a "Financial and Security Consultancy Agreement" on July 11, 2004, and on July 19 Israel wired ten million dollars to accounts in Germany, Liechtenstein, Singapore and the [[United Kingdom]] in the name of or controlled by Nichols, about eight million of which ended in a London account in the names of Nichols and his wife, Ellen. The Bayou funds' liquidating entity sued the couple in 2008 to recover the fee as a fraudulent transfer; they answered that he had received it "for value, in good faith and without knowledge of the alleged voidability of the transfer." Nichols was deposed on video at the [[U.S. Attorney's office]] in Manhattan on December 16, 2008, and the case was closed on April 28, 2010.[^1][^13] At the time his address was in Honolulu.[^1]
### Footnotes
@ -82,4 +84,6 @@ In the spring of 2004 Nichols offered [[Samuel Israel III]], manager of the Bayo
[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993 (Riconosciuto's credibility), and section "Involvement of Robert Booth Nichols," pp. 157-159 and note 58 (p. 159), citing *Booth Nichols v. City of Los Angeles,* No. NCC 31322B, trial transcript, March 11, 1993. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^9]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010, chapter 22.
[^10]: Connolly, John. "The Story That Killed Danny Casolaro." *Spy,* January 1993. https://archive.org/details/SpyMagazine
[^11]: Nichols, Robert Booth. Videotaped deposition, December 16, 2008, *United States v. Samuel Israel III,* 05 Cr. 1039 (S.D.N.Y.), and *Bayou Management, LLC v. Nichols.* https://archive.org/details/robert-booth-nichols ; docket, *Bayou Management, LLC v. Nichols,* 1:08-cv-06036 (S.D.N.Y.), filed July 2, 2008, terminated April 28, 2010, CourtListener.
[^11]: Federal Bureau of Investigation memorandum summarizing a telephone interview with Robert Booth Nichols conducted January 11, 1994, DOCID 70098626, release pp. 113-114. https://archive.org/details/JohnC.DwyerNotesOnInslaw
[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice. Review of the *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, September 27, 1994, pp. 160-161. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^13]: Nichols, Robert Booth. Videotaped deposition, December 16, 2008, *United States v. Samuel Israel III,* 05 Cr. 1039 (S.D.N.Y.), and *Bayou Management, LLC v. Nichols.* https://archive.org/details/robert-booth-nichols ; docket, *Bayou Management, LLC v. Nichols,* 1:08-cv-06036 (S.D.N.Y.), filed July 2, 2008, terminated April 28, 2010, CourtListener.