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

vault backup: 2026-09-22 19:06:17

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-09-22 19:06:17 -04:00
parent 6ecc95bb99
commit bdd3b6bbfb
No known key found for this signature in database
317 changed files with 1836 additions and 923 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

6
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Earl Brian.md
View file

@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ died: 2020-11-02
location: "California"
summary: "Earl Brian was a California physician, businessman, and Reagan cabinet official who served alongside Edwin Meese and was named by INSLAW, Michael Riconosciuto, and the House Judiciary Committee as the alleged central figure in the theft and international distribution of the PROMIS software."
---
Earl W. Brian was a physician, businessman, and California government official who served in Governor [[Ronald Reagan|Ronald Reagan's]] state cabinet alongside [[Edwin Meese]]. Brian co-founded Biotech Capital Corporation and held a controlling interest in [[Hadron]], a technology and information services company. He later founded Infotechnology, Inc. He had served in Vietnam, where his background in the Phoenix Program reportedly brought him into contact with intelligence networks that would intersect with his later activities.[^1]
Earl W. Brian was a physician, businessman, and California government official who served in Governor [[Ronald Reagan|Ronald Reagan's]] state cabinet alongside [[Edwin Meese]]. Brian co-founded Biotech Capital Corporation and held a controlling interest in [[Hadron]], a technology and information services company. He later founded Infotechnology, Inc. He had served in Vietnam, where his background in the [[Phoenix Program]] reportedly brought him into contact with intelligence networks that would intersect with his later activities.[^1]
Brian's relationship with Meese predated their time in state government. Both men moved from Sacramento to Washington when Reagan won the presidency in 1980: Meese as presidential counselor and later Attorney General, and Brian as a businessman positioned to benefit from DOJ technology contracts. In 1985, Meese's wife purchased stock in a Brian-controlled company.[^1]
@ -51,11 +51,11 @@ The Bua Report found no credible evidence to support the Iran trip allegation. E
Both Brian and Videnieks categorically denied ever meeting one another or meeting Riconosciuto, denied having visited Indio, California, and denied any involvement in the alleged PROMIS distribution. The Bua Report found both men to be credible witnesses and concluded there was "overwhelming" evidence of no connection between Brian and anything related to INSLAW or PROMIS. Bua found Riconosciuto's account a "tale of total fiction woven against the background of accurate historical facts" and Ben-Menashe's affidavits contradicted by his own subsequent testimony to Bua investigators.[^2]
Brian was never charged with any crime in connection with the PROMIS affair. His libel suit against [[Elliot Richardson]] over the former attorney general's New York Times article of October 21, 1991, "A High-Tech Watergate," which accused him of taking part in an illegal conspiracy, was dismissed; the New York Court of Appeals held on November 29, 1995, that because Richardson had disclosed at the outset that he was INSLAW's own lawyer, because the article's "predominant tone" was "rife with rumor, speculation and seemingly tenuous inferences," and because its purpose was to call for an independent investigation, "a reasonable reader would understand the statements... as mere allegations to be investigated rather than as facts."[^5]
Brian was never charged with any crime in connection with the PROMIS affair. His libel suit against [[Elliot Richardson]] over the former attorney general's [[New York Times]] article of October 21, 1991, "A High-Tech Watergate," which accused him of taking part in an illegal conspiracy, was dismissed; the New York Court of Appeals held on November 29, 1995, that because Richardson had disclosed at the outset that he was INSLAW's own lawyer, because the article's "predominant tone" was "rife with rumor, speculation and seemingly tenuous inferences," and because its purpose was to call for an independent investigation, "a reasonable reader would understand the statements... as mere allegations to be investigated rather than as facts."[^5]
### Financial News Network and UPI
In July 1993 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Brian and three others with fraudulently inflating the revenue and earnings of the [[Financial News Network]], the Los Angeles cable channel controlled with [[United Press International]] by his holding company Infotechnology, Inc.; he settled without admitting or denying the charges and consented to a permanent injunction. A federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned a 24-count indictment in June 1994, unsealed on September 5, 1995, charging Brian, then Infotechnology's chairman, and its chief operating officer John F. Berentson with lying to obtain 56 million dollars in loans from Security Pacific and Toronto-Dominion in 1989 by falsifying FNN's books through fictitious equipment leases and inter-company billings; FNN's chief financial officer C. Steven Bolen and Gary A. Prince pleaded guilty and cooperated. FNN, which lost 72.4 million dollars in fiscal 1990, and UPI, whose management rights Infotechnology had bought in February 1988, both entered Chapter 11 in 1991. On October 17, 1996, after a four-month trial in Los Angeles, a jury convicted Brian on ten counts including conspiracy and bank and securities fraud, deadlocking on the rest; he was ordered to report to prison on August 18 of the following year to serve a term reported as four and a half years, and appealed. On October 3, 2000, he moved to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the Central District of California; the motion, assigned to Judge Ronald S. W. Lew, was closed on February 22, 2001.[^7] Hadron continued as a public company, was renamed Analex Corporation in 2002 and ceased reporting in 2007.[^6]
In July 1993 the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] charged Brian and three others with fraudulently inflating the revenue and earnings of the [[Financial News Network]], the [[Los Angeles]] cable channel controlled with [[United Press International]] by his holding company Infotechnology, Inc.; he settled without admitting or denying the charges and consented to a permanent injunction. A federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned a 24-count indictment in June 1994, unsealed on September 5, 1995, charging Brian, then Infotechnology's chairman, and its chief operating officer John F. Berentson with lying to obtain 56 million dollars in loans from Security Pacific and Toronto-Dominion in 1989 by falsifying FNN's books through fictitious equipment leases and inter-company billings; FNN's chief financial officer C. Steven Bolen and Gary A. Prince pleaded guilty and cooperated. FNN, which lost 72.4 million dollars in fiscal 1990, and UPI, whose management rights Infotechnology had bought in February 1988, both entered Chapter 11 in 1991. On October 17, 1996, after a four-month trial in Los Angeles, a jury convicted Brian on ten counts including conspiracy and bank and securities fraud, deadlocking on the rest; he was ordered to report to prison on August 18 of the following year to serve a term reported as four and a half years, and appealed. On October 3, 2000, he moved to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the Central District of California; the motion, assigned to Judge Ronald S. W. Lew, was closed on February 22, 2001.[^7] Hadron continued as a public company, was renamed Analex Corporation in 2002 and ceased reporting in 2007.[^6]
### Footnotes