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18 KiB

Raw Blame History

Methamphetamine Production and Government Involvement

Kalka estimated he produced 8,000 pounds of drugs worth $10 million, using ingredients that federal agents had allegedly arranged for him to buy. He became involved in methamphetamine production after a chemist friend asked him to find Phenylacetic acid, a key precursor. Despite the chemical not being illegal, its purchase was scrutinized by the government.¹ Federal law later brought the chemical under control. A November 1, 1989 hearing of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control listed phenylacetic acid among the precursor chemicals regulated under the Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act of 1988.² The current federal list of List I chemicals includes it.³ A letter of September 1, 1989 from the Chemical Manufacturers Association to the Drug Enforcement Administration asked for guidance on implementing the act's final rule, published at 54 Fed. Reg. 31657 (August 1, 1989).⁴

A contact, Paul Palmer, who had become a government informant after being busted for selling precursors, arranged for Kalka to obtain a semi-truck load of the chemical.¹

Michael Riconosciuto was introduced to Kalka by Palmer and helped Kalka find Methylamine, the last ingredient needed for methamphetamine. In a statement printed in the November 1, 1989 hearing record, the Chemical Manufacturers Association reviewed methylamine "due to its possible future listing as a CDTA chemical by DEA."⁵ Riconosciuto claimed he was working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of the sting operation and was authorized to supply Kalka with the final ingredient. The plan to bust Kalka and his subordinates reportedly failed when Kalka diverted the truck carrying the chemicals away from federal agents. Kalka wondered why the FBI did not track him down once the methamphetamine began hitting the streets, suggesting the agency stumbled upon his enterprise during another undercover operation.¹

Cheri Seymour's notes of an interview with Peter Zokosky record that Zokosky played a tape on which Riconosciuto narrated. The tape referred to the murder of Paul Morasca in San Francisco and Mary Quick in Fresno. It said that Kalka handled an LSD operation in Fresno and that alleged drug traffickers worked with him, and that at some point Barnes became involved in the investigation.⁶ Zokosky described Riconosciuto as unreliable, a pathological liar with grains of truth in his accounts.⁶

A letter dated April 13, 1982, signed by Riconosciuto's then-wife Phyllis Riconosciuto and by Jimmy Hughes, engaged Hughes and a second man to provide bodyguard services for Riconosciuto on April 14, 15 and 16 for a flat fee of $1,300, to fly with him to Fresno while he put his affairs in order "until he goes into protective custody with the FBI at the Oakland [California] office." The letter stated that Riconosciuto was to meet Robert Barnes, an FBI special agent, and that the two men could return to Palm Springs once Barnes assumed protection of him.⁷ Seymour places the letter in the period when Riconosciuto worked with Dr. John Philip Nichols, whom she describes as administrator at the Cabazon Indian Reservation and a partner at the time in the Wackenhut Corporation joint venture on the reservation.⁸ Seymour also connects the date of the letter to Riconosciuto's claim that he had worked undercover, on loan from the FBI, for the Fresno prosecutor Brian Leighton, who prosecuted 29 members of the drug and arms group The Company, and she quotes a San Francisco Chronicle article of April 28, 1982 by Bill Wallace headed "Story of Spies, Stolen Arms and Drugs."⁷

In a statement dated February 16, 1984, Riconosciuto wrote that Nichols directed him to have Philip Arthur Thompson recover "[all] of Kalka’s assets." He wrote that Jim De Silva, who had control of the assets, agreed to release them and gave the location of the vehicles, which were in the Oakland area. The vehicles held a semi-truck loaded with amphetamine production chemicals and a red Datsun with a portable refrigerator containing acid. He added that Nichols complained that "PAT had made off with everything."⁹

Accounts in the Casolaro Papers

In a transcribed interview with Ted Gunderson, a retired FBI special agent in charge, Riconosciuto said that in December 1981 word reached him "through the Wackenhut structure" that an attempt would be made on his life, and that he later learned Kalka had paid the Hells Angels a quarter of a million dollars to kill him. He said Kalka "was just horrified by the fact that I was with Paul Morasca." He said Kalka was "a fugitive from justice" who had been hiding in Colorado when Morasca gathered the company's raw materials, which Riconosciuto described as twelve hundred fifty-five-gallon drums of monomethylamine and close to half a million pounds of phenylacetic acid, collected through DeSilva. Riconosciuto said he gave the location to Barnes and a second FBI agent, that Barnes was interested in Kalka and not in Thompson or Morasca, and that the materials were removed shortly afterward, after DeSilva was beaten and told them where they were. He added that he had persuaded Kalka that a tracking device might be hidden in the phenylacetic acid, that Kalka had all of it screened, and that during the screening he introduced a heavy-metal micro-tagging material into it; he said Paul Palmer of Zero Waste wanted the fiber drums returned.¹⁰

An INSLAW memorandum to the record dated July 18, 1990, drawing on that interview, stated that Riconosciuto had initially intended to use the Los Angeles attorney Harland Braun in negotiations with Stephen Trott in the spring of 1982, but that Braun had a conflict because he represented Kalka, "allegedly one of the leaders in illegal drug trafficking against whom Riconosciuto was about to become a cooperative witness." Braun referred him to Donald Wager. The memorandum added that Riconosciuto had told the authors Pizzo and Fricker in December 1987 that Braun represented the Central Intelligence Agency in the Los Angeles area.¹¹

In a letter of October 6, 1983 to Judge Victor Dahman of the Madera County Justice Court, Gunderson wrote that Paul Morasca had been working with federal and San Bernardino authorities to expose and prosecute Kalka, Al Holbert and a third man, and that after Morasca's death large quantities of drugs and chemicals disappeared from their San Francisco location once the location had been given to San Francisco authorities by informants. He listed 940 pounds of pure methamphetamine, 35,000 pounds of phenylacetic acid and 100 fifty-five-gallon drums of 40 percent monomethylamine, which he stated Kalka, Holbert and the third man had bought in 1980 from Zero Waste Inc. of Oakland and Ark Distribution Company of Contra Costa and had placed in the Fresno and Madera area. Gunderson also wrote that he had been told the "Kalka group" was concerned that a witness was cooperating with him, and that he had information that the group had committed 18 murders since January 1982.¹²

Arrest and Sentencing

The Oakland Tribune reported that an Oakland businessman named Ben Kalka, 36, previously convicted twice on drug sale charges, was given the maximum term of four years in prison in Alameda County Superior Court after his arrest on August 28 at his Oakland hills home with two pounds of cocaine and $77,000 in cash. The article stated that he earned about $50,000 a year from a business restoring antique motorcycles for use in Hollywood films.¹³

Todd's Conclusions

Sue Todd concluded that Kalka was an undercover operative and that the entire drug operation was sanctioned by the United States, as Kalka had been arrested multiple times, but the FBI always took possession of him away from the arresting officers.¹ Seymour reports that Todd interviewed Barnes in 2000, and that Barnes confirmed he had been the "handler" for both Riconosciuto and Thompson in a large drug sting in San Francisco.¹⁴

Connections and Allegations

Kalka's business ties with Riconosciuto at R & R Research and the laboratory facilities at Hercules, California, were documented in David Mayer's attorney/client files. Nichols, administrator at the Cabazon Indian Reservation, also met with Riconosciuto at the Hercules plant. Investigators uncovered evidence of a chemical or drug operation at the Hercules plant that contaminated the entire property.¹

Kalka was close to Al Holbert, a former Israel intelligence agent, and Morasca, who was murdered in San Francisco during the time these sting operations were underway. The Morasca homicide file (Case No. 82-1052505) reportedly contained over a thousand pages dating to the early 1980s and referenced the Fred Alvarez murders, according to Seymour.¹⁵

Riconosciuto claimed that the precursors Kalka used were provided by the U.S. government and that a chemical company was cooperating with the FBI by reporting all chemicals Riconosciuto ordered for his companies, which he then provided to Kalka. The money from these operations was reportedly laundered through Liechtenstein and other countries.¹

Federal Prosecution and Release

The federal case United States v. Kalka, No. 3:89-cr-00603, was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on October 26, 1989 and terminated on June 17, 1993, according to the docket index.¹⁶ Seymour cites the same number as the "Di Giorgio Extradition File," captioned United States v. John Di Giorgio.¹⁵ Seymour wrote that at a news conference on November 17, 1989, Attorney General John Van de Kamp of California described the case as the "biggest methamphetamine seizure in the world," displaying 1,022 pounds of methamphetamine and $1 million in cash.¹ The precursors supplied to Kalka were reportedly part of a "reverse sting" operation headed by Barnes.¹

A 1992 report of the House Committee on the Judiciary on the INSLAW matter recorded that Riconosciuto, after his 1991 arrest, "has been convicted of the drug related charges," and that the Department of Justice declined the committee's requests on the ground that his prosecution was an ongoing investigation.¹⁷ A 1997 hearing officer's report in a congressional reference proceeding described Riconosciuto as "convicted of manufacturing and selling methamphetamine" when discussing the sources relied on by Bill Hamilton.¹⁸ The federal case against Riconosciuto, United States v. Riconosciuto, No. 3:91-cr-01034, was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington on April 1, 1991.¹⁹

Kalka was released from prison in April 2000 after his lawyer, Chris Cannon, struck a deal that overturned his sentence, contingent upon Kalka signing a letter stating he did not obtain his precursors from the U.S. government. This letter was reportedly written by William Shockley, a United States Attorney in San Francisco, and found by Detective Todd in the Di Giorgio Extradition File.¹ The Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator lists Ben Kalka's actual release date as April 20, 2000, from the Federal Correctional Institution Edgefield federal facility.²⁰

A California state prisoner named Benio Kalka was sentenced to four years' imprisonment on November 1, 1985, and arrived at the Department of Corrections reception center at Vacaville. In 1989 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of his habeas petition, which concerned work-time credits.²¹ Benio Kalka may be the Ben Kalka sentenced to four years in Alameda County; the term and the Northern California courts match, and neither record carries a shared identifier.

Footnotes

Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. ↩︎
U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, hearing on the flow of precursor chemicals and assault weapons from the United States, November 1, 1989 (SCNAC-101-1-18; Government Printing Office, 1990), Attachment 4, "Legitimate Uses for Precursor and Essential Chemicals Regulated by the Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act," printed p. 196; hearing title "The Flow of Precursor Chemicals and Assault Weapons from the United States into the Andean Nations." https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/128172NCJRS.pdf ↩︎
21 C.F.R. § 1310.02, List I chemicals, entry for phenylacetic acid, its esters and its salts (DEA chemical code 8791). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/1310.02 ↩︎
Chemical Manufacturers Association, letter from Robert A. Roland to DEA Administrator John C. Lawn, September 1, 1989, printed as Attachment 5 in the hearing cited in note 2, pp. 198-199. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/128172NCJRS.pdf ↩︎
Chemical Manufacturers Association statement, printed in the hearing cited in note 2, p. 189. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/128172NCJRS.pdf ↩︎
Seymour, The Last Circle, p. 340 (interview with Peter Zokosky and an audio tape of Michael Riconosciuto narrating) and p. 344 (Zokosky's assessment of Riconosciuto). ↩︎
Seymour, The Last Circle, pp. 404-405, on the letter of April 13, 1982 concerning Riconosciuto's meeting with Robert Barnes and protective custody, and on the Chronicle article of April 28, 1982 and Riconosciuto's claimed work for Brian Leighton. ↩︎
Seymour, The Last Circle, p. 405, on Nichols as administrator at the Cabazon Indian Reservation in 1982. ↩︎
Seymour, The Last Circle, pp. 344-345, reproducing Riconosciuto's statement of February 16, 1984. ↩︎
Transcript of a recorded interview of Michael Riconosciuto by Ted Gunderson, Casolaro papers, Folder 7 (Acc. 5516), transcript pages concerning Kalka, Barnes, DeSilva and phenyl acetic acid; cited in the INSLAW memorandum to the record of July 18, 1990 (note 21). https://archive.org/details/ddosecrets_casolaro_files ↩︎
INSLAW, Inc., Memorandum to the Record, July 18, 1990, pp. 7-8, Casolaro papers, "Inslaw - Press Releases." https://archive.org/details/ddosecrets_casolaro_files ↩︎
Ted Gunderson, letter to Judge Victor Dahman, Justice Court, Madera County, October 6, 1983, pp. 1-2, with enclosures, Casolaro papers, "Misc Docs." https://archive.org/details/ddosecrets_casolaro_files ↩︎
"Businessman gets four-year cocaine term," Oakland Tribune, clipping in the Casolaro papers, "Misc Docs." https://archive.org/details/ddosecrets_casolaro_files ↩︎
Seymour, The Last Circle, p. 405, account of Detective Sue Todd's 2000 interview with Robert Barnes. ↩︎
Seymour, The Last Circle, p. 400, on the Paul Morasca Homicide Investigation File (Case No. 82-1052505) and the Di Giorgio Extradition File (Case No. CR89-0603 VRW). ↩︎
United States v. Kalka, No. 3:89-cr-00603 (N.D. Cal.), docket record filed October 26, 1989, terminated June 17, 1993. CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/26558922/united-states-v-kalka/ ↩︎
U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report, H. Rept. 102-857 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, September 10, 1992), p. 101. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport ↩︎
INSLAW, Inc. v. United States, 39 Fed. Cl. 307 (1997), congressional reference proceeding, hearing officer's report (Miller, H.O.) on the sources relied on by Hamilton. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/6763932/inslaw-inc-v-united-states/ ↩︎
United States v. Riconosciuto, No. 3:91-cr-01034 (W.D. Wash.), docket record filed April 1, 1991, including a judgment on revocation (Doc. 220) filed August 18, 2017. CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6144038/united-states-v-riconosciuto/ ↩︎
Federal Bureau of Prisons, Inmate Locator, record for Ben Kalka (Edgefield facility, release date 04/20/2000). https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ ↩︎
Benio Kalka v. Dan Vasquez, 867 F.2d 546 (9th Cir. 1989), No. 87-2405, decided February 3, 1989. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/867/867.F2d.546.87-2405.html ↩︎

18 KiB Raw Blame History Unescape Escape