---
aliases:
  - Joseph Cuellar
  - Joe Cuellar
  - Joseph A. Cuellar
  - Joseph Cuéllar
  - Joe Cuéllar
category: "Military"
tags:
  - Person
  - PROMIS
  - TheOctopus
  - CasolaroDeath
  - ArmyReserve
  - DesertStorm
  - SouthernCommand
  - MartinsburgPoliceFile
summary: "Army Reserve major who met Danny Casolaro in a bar in May 1991, was asked to arrange a meeting with Peter Videnieks, and was compared to a Martinsburg witness sketch in a 2024 article."
updated: 2026-10-15
relations:
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[U.S. Army]]"
    role: "Army Reserve major"
    start: 1991
    fn: 4
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[United States Southern Command]]"
    role: "in-processing after Operation Desert Storm, per the 1994 review; office with the command in Arlington, February 1994"
    start: 1991-08
    fn: 7
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[Inter-American Defense Board]]"
    role: "Army Reserve major, adviser to the United States delegation, Council of Delegates"
    start: 1994-11
    fn: 30
  - type: participant_in
    with: "[[PROMIS Software Scandal]]"
    role: "contact of Casolaro during the INSLAW inquiry, interviewed by the 1994 review"
    start: 1991-05
    fn: 1
---
[[Joseph Cuellar]] is an [[U.S. Army|Army]] Reserve major who met [[Danny Casolaro]] in May 1991, during the last months of Casolaro's work on the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] and on what Casolaro called [[The Octopus]]. Casolaro later asked him to arrange a meeting with [[Peter Videnieks]]. The [[Department of Justice]]'s 1994 review found no evidence that Cuellar was involved in Casolaro's death; a 2024 article by [[Jeremy Kuzmarov]] in [[CovertAction Magazine]] compared a [[Martinsburg]] police witness sketch to him.[^1][^2] The filmmakers of [[American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders]], a 2024 [[Netflix]] docuseries made by [[Christian Hansen]] and [[Zachary Treitz]], suggested that he may have been the second man in the room.[^3]

### Meeting at the bar

According to the Justice Department's 1994 review of the report of [[Nicholas J. Bua]], Cuellar and Casolaro met in May 1991 at "The Sign of the Whale" bar in [[Arlington, Virginia]]. Cuellar had gone there expecting to meet friends who were celebrating his return from [[Operation Desert Storm]]. Casolaro was already seated at the bar, waiting for a friend, and struck up a conversation with him. Cuellar talked of his exploits in the Army special forces, and, according to Cuellar, Casolaro became fascinated. The two men talked on the telephone several times and saw each other at least twice more. Cuellar also began dating the woman Casolaro had been waiting to meet.[^4]

The review's own text describes Cuellar as "an Army Reserve Major named Joseph Cuellar, who is attached to the United States Southern Command." The review was ordered on November 1, 1993, and carried out by Assistant U.S. Attorney [[Steven E. Zipperstein]] with FBI Supervisory Special Agent [[Scott A. Erskine]], who gives the same account of the bar meeting.[^5] The review's appendix of persons interviewed lists Major Joseph Cuellar.[^6]

A [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] memorandum dated February 2, 1994, summarizes an interview with Cuellar the previous day at his office with the [[United States Southern Command]] in Arlington, Virginia. In that account, Casolaro and his companion introduced themselves to Cuellar and Casolaro began asking about his military work. When Cuellar said that he had served in the Special Forces and conducted special operations in military intelligence, Casolaro became infatuated with his knowledge of special operations, and the conversation continued until Cuellar's friends arrived.[^7] Cuellar told the agent that Casolaro called him on a number of occasions and that he agreed to meet Casolaro again at a restaurant in [[Alexandria, Virginia]]. He said he declined to give details of military operations because he could not discuss classified information. The memorandum records that Casolaro questioned him about the elements of government involved in "dirty operations" and likened the government to the film JFK. Cuellar said he cautioned Casolaro that former Special Forces members often embellished their accounts.[^7][^8]

In December 1993 a woman who had been with Casolaro recontacted investigators to add a detail: Cuellar had told them both that he was at the bar at the request of friends for a welcome-home luncheon, and the bartender passed him an envelope from those friends.[^9]

### Other accounts of the first contact

[[Cheri Seymour]] wrote in a condensed version of The Last Circle, provided to an investigative committee in October 1996, that during the week before Casolaro's death a man named Joseph Cuellar approached him in a pub where he was having a beer, that Cuellar claimed to be a Special Forces operative and said he could arrange a rendezvous between Videnieks and Casolaro, and that Casolaro confided to friends that he was unnerved by what she called this supposedly chance meeting. Seymour wrote that Cuellar's connection to Videnieks allegedly came through Videnieks's wife, [[Barbara Videnieks]], who was the executive assistant to Senator [[Robert Byrd]], that Byrd played a major role in the effort to move some CIA administrative offices to Charlestown, 20 miles from Martinsburg, and that Casolaro met Cuellar at other times that week.[^10] In the 2010 book edition she wrote that sources suggested Cuellar had been a major in an [[Army Intelligence Agency|Army intelligence]] unit and later went to work for a company that was a cutout for the [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]], and that an FBI agent reported Cuellar spoke Arabic fluently and had spent time in [[Iraq]].[^11]

Senator Byrd named his chief of staff on the Senate floor on March 20, 1991, in remarks thanking the staff who had worked on the two supplemental appropriations bills that included the Desert Shield and Desert Storm funding: "my chief of staff, Barbara Videnieks."[^12]

A memorandum submitted to the Justice Department on February 14, 1994 by INSLAW's lawyers and principals, including [[Elliot Richardson]], [[Bill Hamilton]] and Nancy Hamilton, as an addendum to INSLAW's 1993 rebuttal of the Bua report, stated that Casolaro had gone to Martinsburg for a final meeting with sources whom he described to an associate as a relative of Barbara Videnieks plus one other person from Byrd's office. It stated that Casolaro told [[Bill Turner]] that the Friday evening meeting in Martinsburg had been arranged by Cuellar, whom it described, according to Turner, as a U.S. Army Special Forces covert intelligence officer, and that Cuellar had a "purportedly chance encounter" with Casolaro in a pub near Casolaro's home less than one month before his death, in which Cuellar described himself as one of Videnieks's closest friends, offered to broker a meeting, and said that Videnieks had agreed to meet.[^13]

Jeremy Kuzmarov wrote in CovertAction Magazine in October 2024 that in the days before Casolaro's death Cuellar "happened to bump into Casolaro near his home in Fairfax, Virginia, and gave him his business card," and that Cuellar at the time "had been contracted to investigate the theft of INSLAW's software."[^2]

[[Kenn Thomas]] and [[Jim Keith]] wrote that the Hamiltons, whose firm was [[INSLAW]], believed that in the last days of Casolaro's life he was being tailed by a man named Joseph Cuellar, an Army special services officer and friend of Videnieks.[^14] In the same chapter they described a restaurant encounter in which a friend of Videnieks claimed Special Forces service and earlier work for a company connected to INSLAW, and was so forthcoming that he alarmed Casolaro's companions. They did not name that man.[^14]

Thomas and Keith also reported that [[Sarah McClendon]]'s notes recorded complaints by the Hamiltons that [[Webster Hubbell]] and the FBI investigator Erskine planned to release a report without interviewing important Casolaro associates or looking into incidents that included a threat against Casolaro made by a friend of Videnieks, Cuellar, who apparently was also trailing the writer.[^15]

[[Whitney Webb]] wrote in One Nation Under Blackmail that the person who had arranged Casolaro's final meeting before his death was a U.S. military intelligence officer named Joseph Cuellar, who before Casolaro's death had promised to arrange a meeting between Casolaro and Videnieks.[^16]

### Videnieks

In one conversation, Casolaro asked about the people in the Octopus story, and Cuellar said he knew Videnieks. Cuellar explained that a former fiancée had worked with Videnieks's wife in the Capitol Hill office of Senator Byrd. Both men told the reviewers that "their relationship was social," that they had double-dated with their partners several times, and that they saw less of each other after Cuellar broke up with his fiancée.[^4] The Zipperstein and Erskine text states: "As best as we can tell, there was nothing sinister about the fact that Cuellar knew Videnieks; it was, at most, a coincidence."[^5]

Casolaro then asked Cuellar repeatedly to arrange a meeting with Videnieks, so that he could ask about the allegation in the March 1991 affidavit of [[Michael Riconosciuto]] that Videnieks had threatened him. Cuellar called Videnieks, who refused.[^1] The Zipperstein and Erskine text records that Casolaro's notes reflect a telephone call he made to Videnieks on June 13, 1991. In that call Videnieks refused to talk and referred him to his lawyer, [[Charles Ruff]].[^17]

In the February 1994 interview, Cuellar said that Casolaro was persistent, that the woman he was dating at the time also telephoned him to press the request, and that he then contacted Videnieks and told him of Casolaro's interest. Videnieks, Cuellar said, indicated that he might meet Casolaro but was "done with that and there was no need to go into it anymore."[^8]

A work list of further steps in the same Justice Department file, which described itself as overinclusive, names Cuellar as item 16, "Joe Cuellar (source)," and Videnieks as item 17, "Peter Videnieks (possible source)," represented by counsel.[^18]

According to an FBI memorandum summarizing a telephone interview with [[Robert Booth Nichols]] on January 11, 1994, when Casolaro drove him to [[Dulles International Airport]] in the summer of 1991, Casolaro was on the telephone there with Cuellar, trying to have Cuellar introduce him to Videnieks. Nichols also told agents that Casolaro had described his first meeting with Cuellar as strange because Cuellar had initiated the conversation at a bar in Northern Virginia.[^19]

### Casolaro's last weeks

Cuellar told the reviewers that Casolaro confided in him near the end of his life. Casolaro, Cuellar said, had become so absorbed in the Octopus story that he had lost his perspective and could not arrange the material into a cohesive story, and he was in financial distress and close to losing his house.[^20] In the February 1994 interview Cuellar added that Casolaro's publisher was extremely upset with him, that Casolaro felt pressure to produce a book from his investigation, and that Cuellar had cautioned him against accepting what people involved in Special Operations told him.[^21]

A woman who was briefly involved with Cuellar after the bar meeting told the reviewers that, after Casolaro's death and as their relationship deteriorated, Cuellar made a veiled threat. She said he told her she was asking too many questions about Casolaro, that she had two children, and that she would not be doing them a favor if she wound up like Casolaro or another journalist who had been killed in [[Guatemala]]. Cuellar denied making those statements.[^1] INSLAW's February 1994 addendum quoted the warning as having been given to the woman who had been with Casolaro at the first meeting, in words or substance: "What Danny Casolaro was investigating is a business," and "Anyone who asks too many questions will end up dead."[^13]

### Findings on August 10, 1991

Casolaro's body was found in room 517 of the [[Sheraton Inn]] in Martinsburg, [[West Virginia]], on August 10, 1991. Local authorities ruled the death a suicide in 1991 and again on January 25, 1992, after over 1,000 man-hours of investigation. The [[House Judiciary Committee]]'s 1992 report recorded that it had not included the death in its formal INSLAW investigation and that the controversy over the death continued in the press.[^22] The March 1993 report of the Special Counsel, Bua, stated that Casolaro's death "was fully and fairly investigated" and that the local conclusion of suicide "was amply supported by the facts."[^23]

The 1994 review wrote that several people had suggested Cuellar was somehow involved in Casolaro's death. "We found no evidence supporting that hypothesis." The review stated that on August 10, 1991, Cuellar was in [[Washington, D.C.]], working on his "Outprocessing" from Desert Storm and his "in-processing" into the Southern Command, and that several witnesses had verified that he was in Washington that day.[^1] The review also said that it was unaware of any evidence linking Videnieks to the death.[^24]

The February 1994 FBI memorandum records Cuellar's own account of those weeks. He told the agent that three or four weeks before Casolaro's death he left for [[Panama]], learned of the death in a telephone call from the woman he had been dating, and returned from Panama to attend the funeral. He put the number of his meetings with Casolaro at three or four in all.[^8][^21]

Bill Hamilton, president of INSLAW, stated that he had received an affidavit from Turner on "highly classified computer printouts on off-shore accounts that he claimed Casolaro intended to use the night he died in a planned meeting with Peter Videnieks and Joseph Cuellar and others."[^11] A Justice Department copy of the review records the account that Turner gave the Hamiltons, who relayed it to the reviewers: Casolaro planned to meet in Martinsburg with Videnieks, Cuellar, an unidentified person from Byrd's office, an unidentified IRS employee and the attorney [[Robert Altman]]. The same passage records that a caller to the [[Unsolved Mysteries]] hotline reported seeing [[Clark Clifford]] and Altman driving in Martinsburg on the day of Casolaro's death in a late-model Chevrolet Caprice, and states: "We have no reason to believe either of these claims."[^25]

### Martinsburg police file and witness accounts

The Zipperstein and Erskine text records a detail from the hotel. At about 9:00 p.m. on August 9, 1991, a guest in an adjoining room saw someone matching Casolaro's general description enter room 517 with a key. The guest did not see the man's face, because his back was to her, and he was carrying a brown paper bag.[^26] The same text states that no one was seen entering or leaving Casolaro's room on the morning of August 10.[^27]

A March 14, 1994, letter from [[Charles R. Work]], counsel for Bill Hamilton and Nancy Hamilton of INSLAW, to [[John C. Dwyer]], written after a March 1 meeting attended by Zipperstein and Erskine, describes a different witness account. According to the letter, Erskine confirmed that a hotel maid had told Martinsburg police she saw a man leave Casolaro's room on the Saturday morning of the death, and that the police took a statement describing him as a man in his 30s with "an excellent sun tan," wearing a tee-shirt, dark slacks and deck shoes. The letter asked whether this was the man whom press accounts described Casolaro waiting for in the hotel bar on Thursday evening, a "dark-skinned man."[^28]

In October 2024, Kuzmarov published an article in CovertAction Magazine on the Martinsburg police report, which he wrote had recently been obtained by the Australian researcher [[Peter Osborne]] through a Freedom of Information Act request Osborne filed in 2004. The article said the report "includes a witness sketch of a man seen entering and leaving Danny Casolaro's room on the day he was found dead" and continued: "The man bears strong resemblance to Major Joseph Cuellar, a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and military intelligence Special Forces operative, who had long been a lead suspect in Casolaro's apparent murder." Kuzmarov added that the police file includes signed statements from a witness who saw a man other than Casolaro leaving the room with a key on the night before and the morning of Casolaro's death. A footnote to the article states that the sketch witness described the man leaving the room as wearing sports clothes that Cuellar was also known to wear.[^2]

Kuzmarov wrote that the Martinsburg police never interviewed Cuellar and that the Justice Department claimed not to be able to find him even though he worked with the U.S. Southern Command. The 1994 review records that Cuellar and Videnieks each spoke with its reviewers.[^4] Kuzmarov further wrote that [[Janet Reno]], John C. Dwyer and Zipperstein left the match between the sketch and Cuellar out of their investigation reports. He wrote that the producers of the Netflix series American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders, Christian Hansen and Zachary Treitz, received a copy of the Martinsburg report in 2014, and that the series presented Cuellar favorably on the basis of an interview with his son.[^2]

### Netflix series and later accounts

[[Fox News]] reported in March 2024 that Martinsburg police granted Hansen's public records request from 2013, and that among the paper documents in a box of evidence were statements from another woman in the hotel who said she saw a dark-haired man enter Casolaro's room on the evening of his death. According to Fox News, the detail had not appeared in news coverage or in FBI files. The filmmakers guessed, "based on circumstances and a composite sketch," that Cuellar, whom Fox News described as a former military intelligence official who spoke with Casolaro about his theories in a diner weeks before his death, may have been the second man in the room. In the documentary, Cuellar's son said that his father specialized in "psychological warfare." Treitz told the [[Daily Mirror]] that he was "haunted" after making the connection, and the two told [[GQ]] that neither had decided whether Casolaro was murdered or killed himself.[^3]

James Anthony DiEugenio, who wrote a critical review of the series in 2025, argued that the film's suggestion of a Cuellar sighting runs into an alibi: Cuellar was in Washington that day, at work on "outprocessing" from Desert Storm, and had several witnesses to back him up.[^29]

### Service record

The Justice Department's 1994 review records Cuellar as an Army Reserve major who was returning from Operation Desert Storm in May 1991 and was being processed into the Southern Command in August 1991.[^1][^4] The February 1994 memorandum identifies him as Major Joseph A. Cuellar and places his office with the United States Army Southern Command in Arlington, Virginia. In that interview he said that his work with the command required frequent travel, which kept him from talking at length with Casolaro.[^7][^8] The minutes of the Council of Delegates of the [[Inter-American Defense Board]] for November 3, 1994, record the chair's welcome to Major Joseph A. Cuellar, an Army Reserve officer, as an adviser to the United States delegation.[^30]

Kuzmarov reported that Cuellar was born in [[Los Angeles]] in 1954, took part in covert operations in [[Venezuela]], [[Bosnia]], [[Saudi Arabia]] and Africa, served in the [[Persian Gulf War]], and worked at [[NATO]] headquarters.[^2] A 1990 Defense Department booklet on Hispanic Americans in the armed forces lists Joseph Anthony Cuellar among the Hispanic graduates of the [[United States Military Academy]] in the Class of 1976.[^31] A Joseph A. Cuellar appears in the Senate's list of Army officers for permanent promotion to major and appointment into the Regular Army on July 21, 1986,[^32] and a Joseph A. Cuellar appears among Army Reserve officers nominated to the grade of colonel on October 26, 2000 and again on February 27, 2001.[^33][^34] The booklet gives the middle name Anthony and the class year; the nominations and the Defense Board minutes give the middle initial A and the grade. These entries match the name and grade or class only; the records found do not establish that the officer listed is the Joseph Cuellar of the Casolaro record.

Kuzmarov also quoted an October 11, 1991 letter from Don Walker, whom he identified as president of [[Business Risks International]], to Hamilton. The letter described Cuellar as an "intelligent and articulate individual" who "speaks several languages" and who had "extensive experience in U.S. army intelligence and the CIA." Kuzmarov described Business Risks International as a CIA front where Cuellar worked, and a footnote to the article states that Cuellar "is thought to have been a 'wet operative' ie. a CIA assassin."[^35] A Virginia registry entry lists a Business Risks International Inc. as an inactive foreign corporation (number F0506966), and entries under the same name appear in other states, including New Jersey, California and West Virginia.[^36]

### Footnotes

[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice. Review of the *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, September 27, 1994, p. 162. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^2]: Kuzmarov, Jeremy. "Witness Sketch of Man Seen Entering and Leaving Journalist's Room on the Day He Was Found Dead Resembles Former CIA Agent." *CovertAction Magazine*, October 16, 2024. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/10/16/witness-sketch-of-man-seen-entering-and-leaving-journalists-room-on-the-day-he-was-found-dead-resembles-former-cia-agent/
[^3]: Coulter, Christina. "'Octopus Murders' conspiracy puts spotlight on journalist's mysterious 'suicide'." *Fox News*, March 16, 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/us/octopus-murders-conspiracy-puts-spotlight-journalists-mysterious-suicide.print
[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice. Review of the *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, September 27, 1994, p. 161. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, review of the Casolaro matter by Steven E. Zipperstein and Scott A. Erskine, ordered November 1, 1993, as reproduced in a memorandum on the BCCI and INSLAW special prosecutor contacts, undated, [1994], release pp. 20, 42-43 (printed pp. 5, 26-27), DOCID 70002067. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-Casolaro
[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Casolaro review, appendix of persons interviewed, DOCID 70002071, release p. 2. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-CasolaroInterviews
[^7]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington Metropolitan Field Office, memorandum to Steven E. Zipperstein, Assistant United States Attorney, Los Angeles, February 2, 1994, "Casolaro Review," interview of Cuellar on February 1, 1994, release p. 106, DOCID 70098626. https://archive.org/details/JohnC.DwyerNotesOnInslaw
[^8]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington Metropolitan Field Office, memorandum to Steven E. Zipperstein, Assistant United States Attorney, Los Angeles, February 2, 1994, "Casolaro Review," interview of Cuellar on February 1, 1994, release p. 107, DOCID 70098626. https://archive.org/details/JohnC.DwyerNotesOnInslaw
[^9]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, memorandum recording a recontact by a woman who had been with Casolaro, December 16, 1993, DOCID 70098626, release p. 86. https://archive.org/details/JohnC.DwyerNotesOnInslaw
[^10]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle*, condensed version provided in October 1996 to an investigative committee, chapter 5, as posted online. https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/last_circle/5.htm
[^11]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
[^12]: *Congressional Record*, vol. 137, Senate, March 20, 1991, p. 6823, remarks of Senator Robert C. Byrd on the supplemental appropriations bills. https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_march-13-1991-march-21-1991_137-redacted
[^13]: Richardson, Elliot L., et al. *Addendum to INSLAW's Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report*, February 14, 1994, p. 24 and n.5. https://archive.org/details/AddendumToInslawsAnalysisAndRebuttalOfTheBuaReport
[^14]: Thomas, Kenn, and Jim Keith. *The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro.* Feral House, 2004, p. 102.
[^15]: Thomas, Kenn, and Jim Keith. *The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro.* Feral House, 2004, p. 132, reporting the notes of Sarah McClendon.
[^16]: Webb, Whitney Alyse. *One Nation Under Blackmail*, Vol. 1. TrineDay, 2022, p. 405. https://archive.org/details/one-nation-under-blackmail-vol.-2-whitney-alyse-webb
[^17]: U.S. Department of Justice, review of the Casolaro matter by Steven E. Zipperstein and Scott A. Erskine, ordered November 1, 1993, as reproduced in a memorandum on the BCCI and INSLAW special prosecutor contacts, undated, [1994], release p. 43 (printed p. 27), DOCID 70002067. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-Casolaro
[^18]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, undated "Casolaro Review" work list, DOCID 70098626, release pp. 44-45. The list describes itself as "overinclusive and does not reflect our views as to the importance of any of the listed items." https://archive.org/details/JohnC.DwyerNotesOnInslaw
[^19]: 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
[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice. Review of the *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, September 27, 1994, p. 162 n.51, Cuellar's account to the reviewers. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^21]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington Metropolitan Field Office, memorandum to Steven E. Zipperstein, Assistant United States Attorney, Los Angeles, February 2, 1994, "Casolaro Review," interview of Cuellar on February 1, 1994, release p. 108, DOCID 70098626. https://archive.org/details/JohnC.DwyerNotesOnInslaw
[^22]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992, pp. 69-72. https://archive.org/stream/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport/TheInslawAffair_djvu.txt
[^23]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, pp. 246-250 ("B. The Death of Joseph Daniel Casolaro"), quotation at p. 248. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport
[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice. Review of the *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua*, September 27, 1994, p. 160. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice, Casolaro review passage on William Turner's account and the hotline report, DOCID 70098622, release p. 108. https://archive.org/details/DOJReportOnDanielJCasolaro
[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice, review of the Casolaro matter by Steven E. Zipperstein and Scott A. Erskine, ordered November 1, 1993, as reproduced in a memorandum on the BCCI and INSLAW special prosecutor contacts, undated, [1994], release p. 70 (printed p. 54), DOCID 70002067. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-Casolaro
[^27]: U.S. Department of Justice, review of the Casolaro matter by Steven E. Zipperstein and Scott A. Erskine, ordered November 1, 1993, as reproduced in a memorandum on the BCCI and INSLAW special prosecutor contacts, undated, [1994], release p. 71 (printed p. 55), DOCID 70002067. https://archive.org/details/INSLAW-Casolaro
[^28]: Letter from Charles R. Work, McDermott, Will & Emery, counsel for William and Nancy Hamilton, to John C. Dwyer, Assistant Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, March 14, 1994, following a meeting of March 1, 1994. https://archive.org/details/MaidWitnessCasolaroDeath
[^29]: DiEugenio, James Anthony. "American Conspiracy Pt. 4: The Octopus Murders." Substack, 2025. https://jamesanthonydieugenio.substack.com/p/american-conspiracy-pt-4-the-octopus
[^30]: Inter-American Defense Board (Junta Interamericana de Defensa), Council of Delegates, minutes of Session 1052, November 3, 1994, document C-2869, section III.A.5. https://archive.org/details/test_0100unse
[^31]: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Manpower and Personnel Policy. *Hispanics in America's Defense*, 1990, section "The Military Academies and Hispanic Americans," United States Military Academy, Class of 1976. https://archive.org/details/hispanicsinameri00wash
[^32]: *Congressional Record*, vol. 132, Senate, July 21, 1986, p. 17142, Army nominations, "To be major." https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_july-15-28-1986_132-redacted
[^33]: *Congressional Record*, vol. 146, Senate, October 26, 2000, p. 24906, executive nominations received by the Senate, Army Reserve, "To be colonel." https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_october-25-2000-october-31-2000_146
[^34]: *Congressional Record*, vol. 147, Senate, February 27, 2001, p. 2324, executive nominations received by the Senate, Army Reserve, "To be colonel." https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_february-8-2001-march-7-2001_147
[^35]: Don Walker to William Hamilton, October 11, 1991, as quoted in Kuzmarov, *CovertAction Magazine*, October 16, 2024 (its note 3). https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/10/16/witness-sketch-of-man-seen-entering-and-leaving-journalists-room-on-the-day-he-was-found-dead-resembles-former-cia-agent/
[^36]: OpenCorporates, Business Risks International Inc., Virginia foreign corporation, company number F0506966. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_va/F0506966