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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Charlie Rose (NC).md

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+---
+category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Congress
+  - The_Finders
+  - North_Carolina
+  - Democrat
+summary: "Charles Grandison Rose III (1939-2012) was a Democratic congressman from North Carolina who served 24 years and, with Rep. Tom Lewis, received documents from Henry 'Skip' Clements in 1993 and helped pressure the DOJ to reopen the Finders investigation."
+born: 1939-08-10
+died: 2012-09-04
+location: "Fayetteville, North Carolina"
+---
+
+Charles Grandison Rose III (1939-2012) was a Democratic congressman who represented North Carolina's 7th congressional district (covering the Wilmington and Fayetteville areas) for twenty-four years, from 1973 to 1997. Along with Rep. [[Tom Lewis]] (R-FL), Rose received documents from private consultant [[Henry "Skip" Clements]] in October 1993 and applied congressional pressure that contributed to the Department of Justice reopening its inquiry into [[The Finders]] case.[^1][^2]
+
+### Background
+
+Rose died on September 4, 2012, at age 73. He was known informally as the "mayor of the Capitol" for his work as chairman of the House Administration Committee from 1991 to 1994, the period during which he engaged with the Finders reinvestigation. His committee assignments also included membership on the House Agriculture Committee and, at certain points during his tenure, the House Intelligence Committee. He chaired a 1991 House committee investigation into the Bush administration's role in selling military supplies to Iraq, indicating prior engagement with intelligence oversight matters.[^1]
+
+### Role in the Finders Reinvestigation
+
+Rose received Clements's materials in October 1993 and joined Lewis in applying pressure to the DOJ. The CIA's formal response to the congressional inquiry was dismissive: a CIA spokesman told Rose, "This story is a non-story. I think of it as a nothing-burger." Despite this characterization, the congressional pressure, combined with the prospect of a CBS 48 Hours segment, was sufficient to prompt the DOJ's October 26, 1993 memo from Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney to FBI Assistant Director Larry A. Potts tasking the FBI with a preliminary inquiry.[^2]
+
+No specific public statements by Rose on the Finders beyond the general congressional pressure documented in contemporaneous news accounts have been located in accessible sources. His congressional papers are held at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (Special Collections, dlib.uncp.edu/digital/collection/charlierose) and may contain correspondence or reports not yet examined in connection with this case.[^1]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Wikipedia, "Charlie Rose (politician)."
+[^2]: Witkin, Gordon, Peter Cary, and Angel Martinez. "Through a glass, very darkly: Cops, spies and a very odd investigation." U.S. News & World Report, December 27, 1993 / January 3, 1994. Also: FBI Vault, "The Finders," FOIA case number 1372462-0, vault.fbi.gov/the-finders.

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Douglas Ammerman.md

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+---
+category: "Other"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - The_Finders
+  - Washington_DC
+  - 1980s
+summary: "Douglas Edward Ammerman, age 27, was one of two Finders members arrested in Tallahassee, Florida on February 4, 1987 while transporting six malnourished children in a van. All charges against him were dropped in March 1987."
+location: "Washington, D.C."
+---
+
+Douglas Edward Ammerman, age 27 at the time of his arrest, was one of two members of [[The Finders]] detained by Tallahassee, Florida police on February 4, 1987, at Myers Park, while transporting six malnourished children in a van. He was charged with misdemeanor child abuse. All charges were dropped for lack of evidence on March 17-18, 1987.[^1][^2]
+
+### The Tallahassee Arrest
+
+Ammerman and [[James Michael Holwell]] were found with six children ranging in age from approximately two to seven years. The children were described by police and medical personnel as dirty, malnourished, unfamiliar with basic technology, and on a raw food diet dispensed only as behavioral reward. Both men were described by officers as well-dressed and declined to explain their relationship to the children in detail. They claimed they were transporting the children to a school for gifted students in Mexico.[^1]
+
+Investigators found in the van a TRS-80 computer, twenty floppy disks, a telephone connection device, and a Chinese-English dictionary. The van was registered to [[The Finders]]' warehouse at 1307 Fourth Street NE in Washington D.C., which led to the February 5-6 raids on the group's properties.[^1]
+
+Ammerman's brother David, who was not a Finders member, visited him in Leon County Jail and told TPD and FBI investigators that Douglas had visited their parents in Gainesville in January 1987, at which time he was accompanied by a boy he claimed was his own child.[^2]
+
+A TRS-80 message recovered during the investigation, attributed to [[Marion Pettie]], directed both Ammerman and Holwell that if questioned by police they should state they were heading to Mexico to start a school. This indicates Pettie was aware of the trip and had prepared specific cover instructions.[^2]
+
+### Legal Outcome
+
+Ammerman was charged with misdemeanor child abuse. Bond was set at $100,000 and reduced to $20,000 on February 19, 1987. All charges were dropped for lack of evidence. He and Holwell were released on March 17-18, 1987. The Washington Post confirmed the dismissal in its article "Two Finders Released," March 18, 1987.[^1][^2]
+
+No federal charges were filed. Ammerman does not appear in the 2019 FBI Vault document release as a subject of any continued investigation beyond the initial 1987 incident. He appears in supplemental Finders membership documents under the aliases "Kenny Rogers" and "Earnest Angel." No known public interviews or subsequent public appearances have been documented.[^2]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
+[^2]: FBI Vault, "The Finders," FOIA case number 1372462-0, vault.fbi.gov/the-finders (released November 2019). Also: Washington Post, "Two Finders Released," March 18, 1987. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1987/03/18/two-finders-released/35b2bc13-e56d-4c72-a587-97fe83f9b7da/.

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Henry Skip Clements.md

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+---
+category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - The_Finders
+  - Florida
+  - 1990s
+summary: "Henry T. 'Skip' Clements was a private consultant in Stuart, Florida who obtained copies of U.S. Customs Agent Ramon Martinez's 1987 reports on The Finders and brought them to Congress in October 1993, helping trigger the DOJ reinvestigation of the case."
+location: "Stuart, Florida"
+---
+
+Henry T. "Skip" Clements was a private consultant based in Stuart, Florida, who obtained copies of U.S. Customs Special Agent [[Ramon J. Martinez]]'s 1987 reports on [[The Finders]] and, in October 1993, provided them to U.S. Representatives [[Tom Lewis]] (R-FL) and [[Charlie Rose (NC)|Charlie Rose]] (D-NC). The congressional pressure that followed contributed to the Department of Justice reopening its inquiry into the case in late 1993.[^1][^2]
+
+### Background
+
+Clements operated Technology Strategic Planning, Inc., a Florida corporation (Document Number L63993, incorporated April 4, 1990, dissolved August 23, 1996). The company taught private sector clients how to prevent industrial espionage and was described in one contemporaneous account as being staffed by former intelligence employees.[^1]
+
+His involvement in child abuse investigations arose from personal circumstances: his child was among the victims at the Glendale Montessori School in Stuart, Florida, where owner James Toward pleaded guilty in 1989 (under an Alford plea) to child sexual abuse charges involving boys and received a twenty-seven year sentence. While investigating the Toward case and potential broader trafficking connections, Clements obtained a copy of Martinez's customs report documenting what investigators found during the February 1987 raids on [[The Finders]]' Washington D.C. properties, including the CIA interference claim. The specific means by which he obtained the documents has not been explained in any public source.[^1]
+
+### Congressional Contact
+
+In October 1993, Clements met with Rep. Tom Lewis, who represented a Florida district that included Stuart, and with Rep. Charlie Rose. Both men subsequently applied pressure to the Department of Justice. Lewis made public statements: "Could our own government have something to do with this Finders organization and turned their backs on these children?" An October 26, 1993 memo from Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney to FBI Assistant Director Larry A. Potts, tasking the FBI with a preliminary inquiry, was issued in the context of this congressional pressure. The prospect of a CBS 48 Hours segment on the case contributed additional impetus.[^1][^2]
+
+### Subsequent History
+
+After the DOJ inquiry concluded without charges in 1993-1994, Clements does not appear to have continued public activity on the Finders case. Florida business records show him associated with a subsequent Chinese citrus export venture that collapsed amid fraud, unrelated to his intelligence consulting work. He is described in a Florida Trend profile approximately dated to 2013 as still pursuing closure on that separate matter, at which point he was approximately 62 years old. No record of his testimony in any formal proceeding related to The Finders has been located.[^1]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Sword, Autumn. "Were 'The Finders' a CIA-Fronted Satanic Cult?" Skeptical Inquirer, February 28, 2023. https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/were-the-finders-a-cia-fronted-satanic-cult/. Also: OpenCorporates / Florida Division of Corporations, Technology Strategic Planning Inc., Document L63993. Florida Trend, "A Sense of Closure for Skip Clements," approximately 2013. https://www.floridatrend.com/article/16287/.
+[^2]: Witkin, Gordon, Peter Cary, and Angel Martinez. "Through a glass, very darkly: Cops, spies and a very odd investigation." U.S. News & World Report, December 27, 1993 / January 3, 1994.

10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John J. Cox.md

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+---
+category: "Intelligence & Government"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - The_Finders
+  - Washington_DC
+  - Computer_Operations
+  - 1970s
+  - 1980s
+summary: "John J. Cox was a former member of The Finders associated with General Scientific Corporation, a Rockville, Maryland firm that appears in the group's FBI Vault documents. The precise nature of Cox's role - whether he founded the company and trained Finders members, or whether the Finders attempted to infiltrate the company - is disputed between a 1990s investigative memo and MPD Intelligence documents."
+location: "Washington, D.C. area"
+---
+
+John J. Cox was a former member of [[The Finders]], the Washington D.C.-based communal group led by [[Marion Pettie]], associated with General Scientific Corporation of Rockville, Maryland. He appears in supplemental Finders membership documents listed as a former member, without aliases or further biographical detail. His name and the associated company name appear in the 2019 FBI Vault document release in connection with the group, but the nature of that connection is disputed between two sources that describe it in contradictory terms.[^1][^2]
+
+### The Two Competing Accounts
+
+An unsigned investigative memo of unknown provenance, circulated among researchers in the mid-1990s and described by journalist Wendell Minnick in the publication Unclassified (Winter 1995) as a document of "unknown origin" in which "some of the data has been independently verified," provides one version of Cox's relationship to The Finders. The memo states that in 1979 Pettie recruited Cox, described as "a computer specialist and founder of General Scientific, a computer firm specializing in classified defense contracts." According to this account, Cox trained several Finders members in computer programming and communications technologies, and took two or more of them to Costa Rica and Panama in 1980-81, where the group allegedly made contact with Costa Rican financial intermediaries and Cuban exile networks.[^3]
+
+MPD Intelligence documents included in the 2019 FBI Vault release offer a different framing, describing The Finders as having "attempted to infiltrate General Scientific Corporation, Rockville, Maryland." This version reverses the directional claim: rather than Cox recruiting Finders members through the company, it suggests the Finders approached the company from outside.[^1]
+
+These two accounts have not been reconciled in any accessible journalism or research. The "founder and recruiter" narrative derives entirely from the unsigned memo; the government record supports only an association between the group and the company name, with the MPD framing suggesting the Finders were the initiating party in whatever contact occurred.[^1][^3]
+
+### FBI Vault Documentation
+
+The December 1993 Secretary of State query generated during the DOJ reinvestigation listed "General Scientific Corporation, Rockville, Maryland" as item four among entity names associated with the Finders that the FBI asked the Maryland Secretary of State to search. This query, included in the 2019 FBI Vault release, confirms that federal investigators considered the company relevant to the case, without establishing what that relevance was.[^1]
+
+### What Remains Unestablished
+
+No accessible primary source has produced Cox's full middle name, birth or death dates, pre-Finders career history, or the specific nature and extent of any defense contracting work at General Scientific. The company may or may not be the same entity as a General Scientific Corporation incorporated in 1987 as a minority-owned government contractor focused on naval anti-submarine warfare and acoustic processors. No independent verification of the Costa Rica and Panama travel described in the unsigned memo has been produced. Cox has not given any known public interview, and his name does not appear in publicly accessible portions of the 2019 FBI Vault release beyond the corporate query.[^1][^3]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: FBI Vault, "The Finders," FOIA case number 1372462-0, vault.fbi.gov/the-finders (released November 2019), Secretary of State query document.
+[^2]: Finders supplemental membership document, circulated via alt.law-enforcement newsgroup (provenance uncertain).
+[^3]: Minnick, Wendell L. "The Finders: The CIA and the Cult of Marion David Pettie." Unclassified, No. 35, Winter 1995. Unsigned "Investigative Leads" memo, no author or date, mid-1990s circulation.