Danny casolaro
Joseph Daniel Casolaro born June 16, 1947 and died August 10, 1991 was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was found dead in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, his wrists slashed 10–12 times. The medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.
His death became controversial because his notes suggested he was in Martinsburg to meet a source about a story he called "the Octopus". This centered on a sprawling collaboration involving an international cabal, and primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and around Washington, D.C. in the 1980s:
the Inslaw case about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product.
the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis Iran deliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election.
the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
And Iran–Contra.
Casolaro's family argued that he had been murdered; that before he left for Martinsburg, he had apparently told his brother that he had been frequently receiving harassing phone calls late at night; that some of them were threatening; and that if something were to happen to him while in Martinsburg, it would not be an accident. They also cited his well-known squeamishness and fear of blood tests, and stated they found it incomprehensible that if he were going to commit suicide, he would do so by cutting his wrists a dozen times. A number of law-enforcement officials also argued that his death deserved further scrutiny, and his notes were passed by his family to ABC News and Time magazine, both of which investigated the case, but no evidence of murder was ever found. Which I find extremely hard to believe.
Early life and career
Casolaro was born into a Catholic family in McLean, Virginia, the son of an obstetrician, and the second of six children. One of his siblings fell ill and died shortly after birth. A younger sister, Lisa, died of a drug overdose in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury in 1971. Casolaro attended Providence College until 1968. He married Terrill Pace, a former Miss Virginia. The couple had a son, Trey, and divorced after ten years, with Casolaro granted legal custody of his son. He owned a $400,000 home on 3 acres of land.
Casolaro's interests included amateur boxing, writing poems and short stories, and raising pure bred Arabian horses. He also dabbled in journalism, looking into issues such as the Soviet naval presence in Cuba, the Castro intelligence network, and Chinese communist smuggling of opium into the U.S. according to his own curriculum vitae (though it remains unclear how much he had published). At the time of his death, he had written and published one novel, The Ice King, with Whitmore Publishing Co.
Towards the end of the 1970s, he dropped his interest in journalism and acquired a series of computer-industry trade publications, which he began selling towards the end of the 1980s.
Casolaro sold the company in 1989. Casolaro "wasn't the best businessman" and didn't do as well from the sale as he had hoped. The buyer was "a sharp negotiator. Danny couldn't compete with that,” so he got a lot less for the business than he wanted and lost money on the deal. Casolaro worked for the new owners for a brief period but left. he had difficulty adjusting to being an employee and was forced out.
Danny did have money troubles and was always in some kind of debt. At one point he was introduced to a guy by the name of Robert both Nichols who after hearing about Danny’s money troubles offered him financial assistance in return for a 25% stake in his house and right of first refusal if he sold it.
Which to me seems like a hell of a risky endeavour because a right of first refusal is a contractual right to enter into a business transaction with a person or company before anyone else can. If the party with this right declines to enter into a transaction, the obligor is free to entertain other offers. This is a popular clause among lessees of real estate because it gives them preference to the properties in which they occupy. However, it may limit what the owner could receive from interested parties competing for the property. This to me is a very high risk deal to make with someone you only just met and barely know.
Another interesting fact people point out is that, within a year before he died, Casolaro learned that he had multiple sclerosis. It was still in the very early stages, starting with some general weakness, some double vision. He also kept it hidden and only told a few people.
In early 1990, he decided to take up journalism again and, soon after, took an interest in the Inslaw case, of which his IT contacts had made him aware.
Inslaw case
Ron Rosenbaum wrote that the Inslaw story alone is enough to drive a sane man to madness. "If they ever make a movie of the Inslaw suit," he wrote, "it could be called Mrs. and Mrs. Smith Go to Washington and Meet Franz Kafka." Inslaw's founder, William A. Hamilton, in a previous position with the U.S. Justice Department, had helped develop a program called PROMIS, short for Prosecutor's Management Information System. PROMIS was designed to organize the paperwork generated by law enforcement and the courts. After he left the Justice Dept, Hamilton alleged that the government had stolen PROMIS and had distributed it illegally, robbing him of millions of dollars. The department denied this, insisting that they owned it because Hamilton had developed it while working for them. As a result of this dispute, Hamilton and the department had been in litigation since 1983. A federal bankruptcy judge ruled in 1988 that the department had indeed taken the software by "trickery, fraud, and deceit", a decision upheld by a federal district court in 1988, but overturned on appeal in 1991.
A conspiracy theory developed around the case, with allegations that "back doors" had been inserted into the software so that whomever the Justice Department had sold it to could be spied upon. The major source on the conspiracy-theory aspect of the case, both for Hamilton and, later, for Casolaro, was Michael Riconosciuto, described by Rosenbaum as a "rogue scientist/weapons designer/platinum miner/ and alleged crystal-meth manufacturer". Riconoscuito had been introduced to a friend of Casolaro's by Jeff Steinberg, a longtime top aide in the LaRouche organization.
Riconosciuto told Bill Hamilton that he and Earl Brian, a director of Hadron, Inc., a government consulting firm, had paid $40 million to Iranian officials in 1980 to persuade them not to release the American hostages before the conclusion of the presidential election that saw Ronald Reagan elected president of the United States; this is the claim now known as the "October Surprise". In exchange for his helping the Reagan administration, Brian was allegedly allowed to profit from the illegal distribution of the PROMIS system, according to Riconoscuito. Brian, a close friend of then-Attorney General Ed Meese, has denied any involvement in either October Surprise or the Inslaw case.
In addition to this allegation, Riconosciuto also claimed — in a March 21, 1991 affidavit submitted to the court in the Inslaw case — that he had modified Inslaw's software at the Justice Department's behest so that it could be sold to dozens of foreign governments with a secret "back door", which allowed outsiders to access computer systems using PROMIS. These modifications allegedly took place at the Cabazon Indian Reservation near Indio, California. Because the reservation was sovereign territory where enforcement of U.S. law was sometimes problematic, Riconosciuto further claimed that he had worked on weapons programs there for the Wackenhut Corporation, such as a powerful "fuel air explosive". On March 29, 1991, eight days after submitting the affidavit, Riconosciuto was arrested for, and later convicted of, distributing methamphetamine and methadone, charges that he said were a set-up to keep him from telling his story.
Inslaw
Inslaw, Inc. is a Washington, D.C. based information technology company that markets case management software for corporate and government users.
Inslaw is known for developing Promis, an early case management software system. It is also known for a lawsuit that it brought against the United States Department of Justice in 1986 over Promis. Inslaw won damages in bankruptcy court, but these were overturned on appeal. The suit resulted in several Justice Department internal reviews, two Congressional investigations, the appointment of a special counsel by Attorney General William P. Barr, and a lengthy review of the special counsel's report under Attorney General Janet Reno. Inslaw's claims were finally referred by Congress to the Court of Federal Claims in 1995, and the dispute ended with the Court's ruling against Inslaw in 1998.
During the 12-year long legal proceedings, Inslaw accused the Department of Justice of conspiring to steal its software, attempting to drive it into Chapter 7 liquidation, using the stolen software for covert intelligence operations against foreign governments, and involvement in a murder. These accusations were eventually rejected by the special counsel and the Court of Federal Claims.
History of Inslaw
Inslaw began as a non-profit organization called the Institute for Law and Social Research. The Institute was founded in 1973 by William A. Hamilton to develop case management software for law enforcement office automation. Funded by grants and contracts from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), the Institute developed a program it called "Promis", an acronym for Prosecutors' Management Information System, for use in law enforcement record keeping and case-monitoring activities. When Congress voted to abolish the LEAA in 1980, Hamilton decided to continue operating as a for-profit corporation and market the software to current and new users. In January 1981 Hamilton established the for-profit Inslaw, transferring the Institute's assets over to the new corporation.
Development of Promis
Promis software was originally written in COBOL for use on mainframe computers; later a version was developed to run on 16 bit mini-computers such as the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11. The primary users of this early version of the software were the United States Attorneys Office of the District of Columbia, and state and local law enforcement. Both the mainframe and 16 bit mini-computer versions of Promis were developed under LEAA contracts, and in later litigation, both Inslaw and DOJ eventually agreed that the early version of Promis was in the public domain, meaning that neither the Institute nor its successor had exclusive rights to it.
The Promis implementation contract
In 1979, the DOJ contracted with the Institute to do a pilot project that installed versions of Promis in four US Attorneys offices; two using the mini-computer version, and the other two a "word-processor" version which the Institute was developing. Encouraged by the results, the Department decided in 1981 to go ahead with a full implementation of locally based Promis systems, and issued a request for proposals (RFP) to install the mini-computer version of Promis in the 20 largest United States Attorneys offices. This contract, usually called the "implementation contract" in later litigation, also included developing and installing "word-processor" versions of Promis at 74 smaller offices. The now for-profit Inslaw responded to the RFP, and in March 1982 was awarded the three year $10m contract by the contracting division, the Executive Office of United States Attorneys (EOUSA).
Contract disputes and Inslaw bankruptcy
The contract did not go smoothly. Disputes between EOUSA and Inslaw began soon after its execution. A key dispute over proprietary rights had to be solved by a bi-lateral change to the original contract. EOUSA also determined that Inslaw was in violation of the terms of an "advance payment" clause in the contract. This clause was important to Inslaw's financing and became the subject of months of negotiations. There were also disputes over service fees. During the first year of the contract, the DOJ did not have the hardware to run Promis in any of the offices covered by the contract. As a stopgap measure, Inslaw provided Promis on a time-share basis through a VAX computer in Virginia, allowing the offices to access Promis on the Inslaw VAX through remote terminals, until the needed equipment was installed on-site. EOUSA claimed that Inslaw had overcharged for this service and withheld payments.
The DOJ ultimately acquired Prime computers, and Inslaw began installing Promis on these in the second year of the contract, in August 1983. The "word-processor" Promis installation, however, continued to have problems, and in February 1984 the DOJ cancelled this portion of the contract. Following this cancellation, the financial condition of Inslaw worsened, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 1985.
Proprietary rights dispute
The implementation contract called for the installation of the mini-computer version of Promis, plus some later modifications that had also been funded by LEAA contracts and like the mini-computer version were in the public domain. In addition, the contract data rights clause "gave the government unlimited rights in any technical data and computer software delivered under the contract." This presented a potential conflict with Inslaw's plans to market a commercial version of Promis which it called "Promis 82" or "Enhanced Promis." The issue came up early in the implementation contract, but was resolved by an exchange of letters in which DOJ signed off on the issue after Inslaw assured the DOJ that Promis 82 contained "enhancements undertaken by Inslaw at private expense after the cessation of LEAA funding."
The issue arose again in December 1982 when the DOJ invoked its contract rights to request all the PROMIS programs and documentation being provided under the contract. The reason the DOJ gave for this request in later litigation was that it was concerned about Inslaw's financial condition. At that point, DOJ had access to Promis only through the VAX time-sharing arrangement with Inslaw; if Inslaw failed, DOJ would be left without a copy of the software and data it was entitled to under the contract. Inslaw responded in February 1983 that it was willing to provide the computer tapes and documents for Promis, but that the tapes it had were for the VAX version of Promis, and included proprietary enhancements. Before providing the tapes, Inslaw wrote, "Inslaw and the Department of Justice will have to reach an agreement on the inclusion or exclusion" of the features.
The DOJ response to Inslaw was to emphasize that the implementation contract called for a version of PROMIS in which the government had unlimited rights and to ask for information about the enhancements Inslaw claimed as proprietary. Inslaw agreed to provide this information, but noted that it would be difficult to remove the enhancements from the time-sharing version of Promis and offered to provide the VAX version of Promis if the DOJ would agree to limit their distribution. In March 1983, the DOJ again informed Inslaw that the implementation contract required Inslaw to produce software in which the government had unlimited rights, and that delivery of software with restrictions would not satisfy the contract.
Inslaw's bankruptcy case
After Inslaw filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 1985, there were still disputes over implementation contract payments, and as a result the DOJ was listed as one of Inslaw's creditors. At the same time, the DOJ continued its office automation program and, in place of the originally planned "word-processor" version of Promis, it installed the version ported to Prime mini-computers in at least 23 more offices. When Inslaw learned of the installations, it notified EOUSA that this was in violation of Modification 12 and filed a claim for $2.9m, which Inslaw said was the license fees for the software DOJ self-installed. Inslaw also filed claims for services performed during the contract, for a total of $4.1m. The DOJ contracting officer, Peter Videnieks, denied all these claims.
Inslaw appealed the denial of the service fees to the Department of Transportation Board of Contract Appeals (DOTBCA). For the data rights claim, however, Inslaw took a different approach. In June 1986 it filed an adversary hearing in the Bankruptcy Court, claiming that DOJ's actions violated the automatic stay provision of the bankruptcy code by interfering with the company's rights to its software.
Inslaw's initial filing claimed that the contract disputes arose because the DOJ officials who administered the contract were biased against Inslaw. The filing specifically mentioned Promis project manager, C. Madison Brewer, and Associate Attorney General, D. Lowell Jensen. Brewer had previously been Inslaw's general counsel, but according to Inslaw had been terminated for cause. Inslaw claimed that Brewer's dismissal caused him to be unreasonably biased against Inslaw and owner William Hamilton. Jensen was a member of the project oversight committee at the time of the contract. He had helped to develop another competing case management software system several years earlier, and Inslaw claimed that this led him to be prejudiced against Promis, so that he ignored the unreasonable bias of Brewer.
"Independent handling" proceeding
In February 1987, Inslaw requested an "independent handling hearing", to force the DOJ to conduct the adversary hearing "independent of any Department of Justice officials involved in the allegations made" in the hearing. The bankruptcy court judge assigned to handle Inslaw's Chapter 11 proceedings, Judge George F. Bason, granted the request, and scheduled the hearing for June.
Prior to the hearing, Inslaw owners William and Nancy Hamilton spoke to Anthony Pasciuto, then the Deputy Director of the Executive Office of the United States Trustees (EOUST), a DOJ component responsible for overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases. Pasciuto told the Hamiltons that the Director of the EOUST, Thomas Stanton, had pressured the U.S. Trustee assigned to the Inslaw case, Edward White, to convert Inslaw's bankruptcy from chapter 11 (reorganization of the company), to chapter 7 (liquidation). The Hamiltons had Inslaw's attorneys depose the people whom Pasciuto had named. One of them corroborated part of Pasciuto's claims: Cornelius Blackshear, then a U. S. Trustee in New York, swore in his deposition testimony that he was aware of pressure to convert the bankruptcy. Two days later, however, Blackshear submitted an affidavit recanting his testimony, saying that he had mistakenly recalled an instance of pressure from another case.
Blackshear repeated his retraction at the June hearing on Inslaw's request. Pasciuto also retracted part of his claims at this hearing, and said instead that he did not use the word "conversion." Judge Bason, however, chose to believe the original depositions of Pasciuto and Blackshear, and found that the DOJ, "unlawfully, intentionally and willfully" tried to convert INSLAW's Chapter 11 reorganization case to a Chapter 7 liquidation "without justification and by improper means." In the ruling, Bason was harshly critical of the testimony of several DOJ officials, describing it as "evasive and unbelieveable," or "simply on its face unbelievable." He enjoined the DOJ and the EOUST from contacting anyone in the U.S. Trustee's office handling the Inslaw case except for information requests.
Adversary proceeding
Inslaw's adversary proceeding followed a month after the "independent handling hearing." The proceeding lasted for two and half weeks, from late July to August. In a bench ruling on September 28, Judge Bason found that DOJ project manager Brewer, "believing he had been wrongfully discharged by Mr. Hamilton and INSLAW, developed an intense and abiding hatred for Mr. Hamilton and INSLAW," and had used his position at DOJ to "vent his spleen." He also found that the DOJ "took, converted, stole, INSLAW's enhanced PROMIS by trickery, fraud, and deceit." Specifically, he found that DOJ had used the threat of terminating "advance payments" to get a copy of the enhanced Promis that it was not entitled to, and that it had negotiated modification 12 of the contract in bad faith, never intending to meet its commitment under the modification. In his ruling, Judge Bason again called the testimony of DOJ witnesses "biased", "unbelievable", and "unreliable."
Judge Bason not reappointed
Bankruptcy Court Judge Bason was appointed to the District of Columbia Bankruptcy Court in February 1984 for a four-year term. He sought re-appointment early in 1987, but was informed in December that the Court of Appeals had chosen another candidate. Judge Bason then suggested in a letter to the Court of Appeals that DOJ might have improperly influenced the selection process because of his bench ruling for Inslaw. After learning of this letter, DOJ lawyers moved to recuse Judge Bason from the Inslaw case, but their motion was rejected, and Judge Bason remained on the case until the expiration of his term on February 8, 1988.In early February, Judge Bason filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the judge the Court of Appeals had selected for the District of Columbia Bankruptcy Court from taking office, but the suit was rejected. Bason's last actions in the case were to file a written ruling on Inslaw's adversary proceeding, and to award damages and attorneys fees to Inslaw.
Appeals of the bankruptcy suit
After Judge Bason left the bench, the Inslaw bankruptcy was assigned to Baltimore bankruptcy judge James Schneider. Schneider accepted Inslaw's reorganization plan at the end of 1988 after a cash infusion from IBM. In the meanwhile, DOJ filed an appeal of Judge Bason's adversary suit ruling in the District of Columbia Circuit Court. In November 1989, Circuit Court Judge William Bryant upheld Bason's ruling. Reviewing the case under the "clear error" standard for reversal, Bryant wrote: "[T]here is convincing, perhaps compelling support for the findings set forth by the bankruptcy court."
DOJ appealed the Circuit Court decision and in May 1991, the Court of Appeals found the DOJ had not violated the automatic stay provisions of the bankruptcy code and that the Bankruptcy Court therefore lacked jurisdiction over Inslaw's claims against DOJ. It vacated the Bankruptcy Court's rulings and dismissed Inslaw's complaint. Inslaw appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
Federal investigations
Inslaw's allegations against the Justice Department led to a number of investigations, including internal Department probes and Congressional investigations by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) and the House Judiciary Committee. The DOJ eventually appointed a special counsel to investigate. After the special counsel issued his report, Inslaw responded with a lengthy rebuttal. The DOJ then re-examined the special counsel's findings, resulting in the release of a final Department review.
During these federal investigations, Inslaw began making allegations of a broad, complex conspiracy to steal Promis, involving many more people and many more claims than the bankruptcy proceedings had covered.
Justice Department investigations
After Judge Bason's June 1987 bench ruling found several DOJ officials' testimony "unbelievable", DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) opened an investigation of DOJ staff who testified at the hearing, including C. Madison Brewer, Peter Videnieks, and EOUST director Thomas Stanton. It also opened a separate investigation of EOUST deputy director Anthony Pasciuto. OPR recommended Pasciuto be terminated, based on his hearing testimony that he had made false statements to the Hamiltons, but in its final report it found no evidence that the other officials investigated had applied pressure to convert Inslaw's bankruptcy or lied during the independent handling hearing. After Judge Bason issued his written ruling in January 1988, Inslaw's attorneys also complained to the DOJ's Public Integrity Section that Judge Blackshear and U.S. Trustee Edward White had committed perjury. Public Integrity opened an investigation that ultimately found perjury cases could not be proven, and recommended declining prosecution
The Senate report
The first Congressional investigation into the Inslaw case came from the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). PSI's report was issued in September 1989, after a year and a half of investigation. During the investigation, Inslaw made a number of new allegations, which take up most of the PSI report.
New allegations
Inslaw's new allegations described the Justice Department dispute with Inslaw as part of a broad conspiracy to drive Inslaw into bankruptcy so that Earl Brian, the founder of a venture capital firm called Biotech (later Infotechnology), could acquire Inslaw's assets, including its software Promis. Inslaw owner William Hamilton told PSI investigators that Brian had first attempted to acquire Inslaw through a computer services corporation he controlled, called Hadron. Hamilton said that he rejected an offer from Hadron to acquire Inslaw, and that Brian then attempted to drive Inslaw into bankruptcy through his influence with Attorney General Edwin Meese.
Both Meese and Brian had served in the cabinet of Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California, and Meese's wife had later bought stock in Brian's company, so that Meese was willing to do this, Hamilton claimed. The contract dispute with DOJ was contrived by Brian and Meese with the help of Associate Attorney General Jensen, and Promis project manager Brewer.
Hamilton also complained that a DOJ automation program, 'Project Eagle', was part of a scheme to benefit Brian after he acquired Promis, and that an AT&T subsidiary, AT&T Information Systems, had engaged with the DOJ in a conspiracy to interfere with Inslaw's efforts to reorganize. He also told PSI investigators that the DOJ had undermined Bankruptcy Court Judge Bason's reappointment, and had attempted to undermine Inslaw's lead counsel in the bankruptcy suit.
Report findings
Senate investigators found no proof for any of these claims. Their report noted that the bankruptcy court ruling had not concluded that Jensen had engaged in a conspiracy against Inslaw and that their own investigation had found no proof that Jensen and Meese had conspired to ruin Inslaw or steal its product, or that Brian or Hadron were involved in a conspiracy to undermine Inslaw and acquire its assets.
The report did re-examine the bankruptcy finding that the DOJ had pressured the United States Trustee to recommend converting Inslaw's bankruptcy from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, and found that EOUST director Thomas Stanton had improperly tried to get special handling for Inslaw's bankruptcy. He did this, the report stated, in order to gain support for the EOUST from the DOJ.
The report concluded that the Subcommittee found no proof for a broad conspiracy against Inslaw within the DOJ, or a conspiracy between DOJ officials and outside parties to force Inslaw into bankruptcy for personal benefit. However, it criticized DOJ for hiring a former Inslaw employee (Brewer) to oversee Inslaw's contract with EOUSA, and for failing to follow standard procedures in handling Inslaw's complaints. It also criticized the DOJ for a lack of cooperation with the Subcommittee, which delayed the investigation and undercut the Subcommittee's ability to interview Department employees.
The House report
Following the PSI report, the House Judiciary Committee began another investigation into the dispute. By the time the report was released in September 1992, Inslaw's bankruptcy suit had been first upheld in the D.C. Circuit Court, then vacated by the D.C. Appeals court. The House report thus took a different approach to several of the legal issues that the Senate report had discussed. Like the Senate report, much of the House report dealt with new evidence and new allegations from Inslaw.
New allegations
Inslaw's new evidence consisted of statements and affidavits from witnesses supporting Inslaw's previous claims. The most important of these witnesses was Michael Riconosciuto, who swore in an affidavit for Inslaw that businessman Earl Brian had provided him with a copy of Inslaw's enhanced Promis, supporting Inslaw's earlier claims that Brian had been interested in acquiring and marketing the software. A new allegation was also introduced in Riconosciuto's affidavit: Riconosciuto swore that he added modifications to enhanced Promis "to support a plan for the implementation of PROMIS in law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide." According to Riconosciuto, "Earl W. Brian was spearheading the plan for this worldwide use of the PROMIS computer software."
Another important witness was Ari Ben-Menashe, who also provided affidavits for Inslaw that Brian had brought both public domain and enhanced versions of Promis to Israel, and eventually sold the enhanced version to the Israeli government. Committee investigators interviewed Ben-Menashe in May 1991, and he told them that Brian sold enhanced Promis to both Israeli intelligence and Singapore's armed forces, receiving several million dollars in payment. He also testified that Brian sold public domain versions to Iraq and Jordan.
Report findings
On the issue of Inslaw's rights in "enhanced Promis", the House report found that "There appears to be strong evidence" supporting Judge Bason's finding that DOJ "acted willfully and fraudulently" when it "took, converted and stole" INSLAW's Enhanced PROMIS by "trickery, fraud and deceit."
Like Judge Bason, the report found that DOJ did not negotiate with Inslaw in good faith, citing a statement by Deputy Attorney General Arnold Burns as "one of the most damaging statements received by the committee.” According to the report, Burns told OPR investigators that Department attorneys informed him in 1986 that INSLAW's claim of proprietary rights was legitimate and that DOJ would probably lose in court on this issue. House Investigator found it "incredible" that DOJ would pursue litigation after such a determination, and concluded "This clearly raises the specter that the Department actions taken against INSLAW in this matter represent an abuse of power of shameful proportions."
On the new allegations brought by Inslaw, although the Committee conducted extensive investigations, the report did not make any factual findings on the allegations, it did conclude that further investigation was warranted into the statements and claims of Inslaw's witnesses.
The report also discussed the case of Danny Casolaro, a free-lance writer who became interested in the Inslaw case in 1990, and began his own investigation. According to statements from Casolaro's friends and family, the scope of his investigation eventually expanded to include a number of scandals of the time, including the Iran-Contra affair, the October Surprise conspiracy claims, and the BCCI banking scandal. In August 1991, Casolaro was found dead in a hotel room where he was staying. The initial coroner's report ruled his death suicide, but Casolaro's family and friends were suspicious, and a lengthy second autopsy was conducted. This too ruled Casolaro's death a suicide, but House investigators noted that "The suspicious circumstances surrounding his death have led some law enforcement professionals and others to believe that his death may not have been a suicide," and strongly urged further investigation.
The Democratic majority called upon Attorney General Dick Thornburgh to compensate Inslaw immediately for the harm that the government had "egregiously" inflicted on Inslaw. The Republican minority dissented and the committee divided along party lines 21–13.
Bua report
In October 1991 William P. Barr succeeded Dick Thornburgh as Attorney General. In November, Barr appointed retired federal judge Nicholas J. Bua as a Special Counsel to investigate the allegations in the Inslaw case. Bua was granted authority to appoint his own staff and investigators, to impanel a grand jury, and to issue subpoenas. In March 1993 he issued a 267-page report.
The report concluded that there was no credible evidence to support Inslaw's allegations that DOJ officials conspired to help Earl Brian acquire Promis software, and that the evidence was overwhelming that there was no connection between Brian and Promis. It found the evidence "woefully insufficient" to support the claim that DOJ obtained enhanced PROMIS through "fraud, trickery, and deceit," or that DOJ illegally distributed PROMIS inside or outside of DOJ. It found no credible evidence that DOJ had influenced the selection process that replaced Judge Bason. It found "insufficient evidence" to confirm the allegation that DOJ employees sought to influence the conversion of Inslaw's bankruptcy or commit perjury to conceal the attempt to do so. Finally, it concluded that the DOJ had not sought to influence the investigation of Danny Casolaro's death, and that the physical evidence strongly supported the autopsy finding of suicide.
Bua's report came to a number of conclusions that contradicted earlier proceedings and investigations. Judge Bason had found that DOJ's claim it was concerned about Inslaw's financial condition when it requested a copy of Promis was a false pretext. Bua rejected this finding as "just plain wrong." The House report had cited Deputy Attorney General Burns' statements as evidence that DOJ knew it did not have a valid defense to Inslaw's claims. Bua found this interpretation "entirely unwarranted."
Bua was particularly critical of several of Inslaw's witnesses. He found that Michael Riconosciuto had given inconsistent accounts in statements to the Hamiltons, his affidavit, and in testimony at his 1992 trial for manufacturing methamphetamine. Bua compared Riconosciuto's story about Promis to "a historical novel; a tale of total fiction woven against the background of accurate historical facts."
Bua found Ari Ben-Menashe's affidavits for Inslaw inconsistent with his later statements to Bua, in which Ben-Menashe said that he had "no knowledge of the transfer of Inslaw's proprietary software by Earl Brian or DOJ" and denied that he had ever said this elsewhere. Ben-Menashe said that others simply assumed that he was referring in his previous statements to Inslaw's Promis, but acknowledged that one reason he failed to clarify this was because he was going to publish a book and "he wanted to make sure that his affidavit was filed in court and came to the attention of the public."
Bua also noted that the House October Surprise Task Force had examined Ben-Menashe's October Surprise allegations and found them "totally lacking in credibility," "demonstrably false from beginning to end," "riddled with inconsistencies and factual misstatements," and "a total fabrication." He specifically observed that the Task Force found no evidence to substantiate Ben-Menashe's October Surprise allegations about Earl Brian.
DOJ review
Inslaw responded to the Bua report with a 130-page Rebuttal, and another set of new allegations in an Addendum. These allegations included the claim that the DOJ's Office of Special Investigations was "a front for the Justice Department's own covert intelligence service" and that "another undeclared mission of the Justice Department's covert agents was to insure that investigative journalist Danny Casolaro remained silent about the role of the Justice Department in the INSLAW scandal by murdering him in west Virginia in August 1991."
By this time, Janet Reno had succeeded Barr as Attorney General after Bill Clinton's election as president. Reno then asked for a review of Bua's report with recommendations on appropriate actions. In September 1994, the Department released a 187-page review (written by Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer) which concluded that "there is no credible evidence that Department officials conspired to steal computer software developed by Inslaw, Inc. or that the company is entitled to additional government payments." The review also reaffirmed the earlier police findings that Casolaro's death was a suicide and rejected Inslaw's claim that OSI agents had murdered Casolaro as "fantasy," with "no corroborative evidence that is even marginally credible."
Court of Federal Claims trial and ruling
In May 1995, the United States Senate asked the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to determine if the United States owed Inslaw compensation for the government's use of Promis. On July 31, 1997, Judge Christine Miller, the hearing officer for the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that all of the versions of Promis were in the public domain and that the government had therefore always been free to do whatever it wished with Promis. The following year, the appellate authority, a three-judge Review Panel of the same court, upheld Miller's ruling and in August 1998 informed the Senate of its findings.
Later developments
A 1999 book by the British journalist Gordon Thomas, titled Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, repeated the claims of Ari Ben-Menashe that Israeli intelligence created and marketed a Trojan horse version of Promis in order to spy on intelligence agencies in other countries.
In 2001, the Washington Times and Fox News each quoted federal law enforcement officials familiar with debriefing former FBI Agent Robert Hanssen as claiming that the convicted spy had stolen copies of a Promis-derivative for his Soviet KGB handlers. Later reports and studies of Hanssen's activities have not repeated these claims.
PROMIS (software)
PROMIS (Prosecutors Management Information System) was a case management software developed by Inslaw (formerly the Institute for Law and Social Research), a non-profit organization established in 1973 by Bill and Nancy Hamilton. The software program was developed with aid from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration to aid prosecutors' offices in tracking; in 1982 (by which time Inslaw became a for-profit entity) Inslaw received a $10 million contract by the Justice Department to develop an improved PROMIS application for U.S. attorneys' offices. Having previously developed a 16-bit version of PROMIS, Inslaw developed a 32-bit version, for various operating systems, specifically VAX/VMS, Unix, OS/400, and (in the 1990s) Windows NT.
The Hamiltons and the Justice Department engaged in an "unusually bitter contract dispute" over the software, and Inslaw entered bankruptcy. The Hamiltons sued the federal government, alleging that the Justice Department had dishonestly conspired to "drive Inslaw out of business 'through trickery, fraud and deceit'" by withholding payments to Inslaw and then pirating the software. A bankruptcy court and federal district court agreed with the Hamiltons, although these rulings were later vacated by a court of appeals for jurisdictional reasons. Hamilton and others asserted that the Justice Department had done so in order to modify PROMIS, originally created to manage legal cases, to become a monitoring software for intelligence operations. Affidavits created over the course of the Inslaw affair stated that "PROMIS was then given or sold at a profit to Israel and as many as 80 other countries by Dr. Earl W. Brian, a man with close personal and business ties to then-President Ronald Reagan and then-Presidential counsel Edwin Meese."
In September 1992, a House Judiciary Committee report raised "serious concerns" that Justice Department officials had schemed "to destroy Inslaw and co-opt the rights to its PROMIS software" and had misappropriated the software. The report was the outgrowth of a three-year investigation led by Jack Brooks, the committee's chairman, who had launched in investigation in 1989. The report faulted the Justice Department for a lack of cooperation in the investigation and found that "There appears to be strong evidence, as indicated by the findings in two Federal Court proceedings as well as by the committee investigation, that the Department of Justice 'acted willfully and fraudulently,' and 'took, converted and stole,' Inslaw's Enhanced PROMIS by 'trickery fraud and deceit.'"
A book written in 1997 by Fabrizio Calvi and Thierry Pfister claimed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been "seeding computers abroad with PROMIS-embedded SMART (Systems Management Automated Reasoning Tools) chips, code-named Petrie, capable of covertly downloading data and transmitting it, using electrical wiring as an antenna, to U.S. intelligence satellites" as part of an espionage operation.
In the early 1980s, Manucher Ghorbanifar and Adnan Khashoggi both had facilitated the transaction of PROMIS software to Khalid bin Mahfouz, a prominent Saudi billionaire.
The media mogul and alleged Israeli spy Robert Maxwell was involved in selling the PROMIS software.
Bill and Nancy also discovered that the Canadian government had acquired "PROMIS", despite the fact that they did not sell it to Canada.
Michael Riconosciuto
Michael James Riconosciuto is an electronics and computer expert who was arrested in early 1991, shortly after providing Inslaw, Inc. with an affidavit in support of their lawsuit against the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Riconosciuto professed a defense centered on the Inslaw Affair (a legal case in which the U.S. Government was charged with illegal use of computer software). Riconosciuto claimed to have reprogrammed Inslaw's case-management program (Promis) with a secret "back-door" to allow clandestine tracking of individuals. Riconosciuto stated that he had been threatened with prosecution by a justice department official. Riconosciuto provided an affidavit detailing threats to a House Select Committee investigating the Inslaw Affair.
Early life
Riconoscuito has demonstrated some technical and scientific talents. As a teenager, he constructed a working argon laser, a feat that earned him an invitation to Stanford University as a research assistant.
Riconosciuto was employed as an engineer at a mine in Maricopa, California. Hercules Properties, Ltd. had raised financing and purchased a 167-acre (0.68 km2) contaminated waste-disposal site which had once been a portion of a 1,300-acre (5.3 km2) TNT and fertilizer manufacturer known as Hercules Powder Works.
Allegations
"October Surprise"
Riconosciuto stated in 1993 that he had knowledge of the October Surprise conspiracy allegations.
Cabazon murders
Nathan Baca's Emmy winning series "The Octopus Murders" featured documents from the archives of Michael Riconosciuto. These documents have been the subject of interest for recently reopened cold case homicide investigations.
Inslaw Affair
In early 1991, Riconosciuto filed an affidavit before a House judiciary committee investigating the bankruptcy case of Inslaw Inc. v. United States Government. Riconosciuto was called to testify before Congress regarding the modification of PROMIS, a case-management software program that had been developed for the Department of Justice by Washington, D.C.-based Inslaw Inc. Riconosciuto declared that he had been under the direction of Earl Brian, who was then a controlling shareholder and director of Hadron, Inc. Hadron was a competitor to Inslaw and was also a government consulting firm with "several contracts with the Department of Defense and the CIA."
Within eight days of this declaration, Riconosciuto was arrested for conspiracy to manufacture, conspiracy to distribute, possession with intent to distribute, and with distribution—a total of ten counts related to methamphetamine and methadone.
During his trial, Riconosciuto accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of stealing two copies of his tape. Riconosciuto also stated that he himself had disposed of a third tape.
In addition to his claims of a government "frame up" related to Inslaw, Riconosciuto maintained that the chemical laboratory on his property was in use for the extraction of precious metals such as platinum in a highly specialized mining operation.
No drug-lab contamination was found at the laboratory site and a member of the DOE's Hazardous Spill Response Team asserted that high barium levels on the property were unlikely to be the result of Riconosciuto's work. Barium does have specialized usage for metallurgy with regards to the processing of platinum group metals.
In his investigation of the allegations surrounding the Inslaw case, Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua was particularly critical of several of Inslaw's witnesses. He found that Riconosciuto had given inconsistent accounts in statements to the Hamiltons, his affidavit, and in testimony at his 1992 trial for manufacturing methamphetamine. Bua compared Riconosciuto's story about Promis to "a historical novel; a tale of total fiction woven against the background of accurate historical facts.".
Another interesting point was that while in jail investigators for the intelligence committee for the house of representatives met with Riconosciuto and took six hours of depositions from him and asked him for proof to back up his claims. Riconosciuto had marked on his paper attorney client privilege so that the guards couldn’t open it but they disregarded this and open the contents and refused to forward it they instead according to reports contacted the NSA who collected the material to review it. It remains unknown what happened to this material or what the contents of the documents was.
A lot of people were sceptical of Riconosciuto and his wild claims because he couldn’t back up a lot of what he was saying for example he claimed he had been present at the autopsy of an alien and that he knew that 911 was going to happen and tried to give out warnings before it did. Another big claim was that he knew about the October surprise but when asked for his passport to back up his claim he couldn’t.
In the summer of 1990, Casolaro arranged to meet Bill Hamilton, expressing an interest in pursuing the Inslaw story. Hamilton gave Casolaro a 12-page memo Riconoscuito had written detailing his allegations. Rosenbaum writes that, "The moment he got his hands on that maddening memo, with its maze of illusion and reality, was the moment Danny's life changed and he began his descent into the obsession that would lead to his death. He was slowly, then rapidly, sucked into a kind of covert-ops version of Dungeons & Dragons, with that memo as his guide and Michael Riconosciuto as his Dungeon Master."
Next we shall delve into the myriad of strange deaths that have plagued this case over the years.
what makes this case positively spooky is that there were a lot of strange deaths that were linked to Inslaw and those who were investigating it. Some of the investigators were following some of the same leads that Danny himself was following. The mysterious deaths include:
Alan Stabdorf: Alan David Standorf was a former civilian employee of Vint Hill Farms Station, working on NSA Signals intelligence.
Standorf's job was to oversee security measures at Vint Hill, which was described by police sources as a "listening post" that would monitor radio communications from around the world.
In the beginning of 1991 Casolaro was investigating the Inslaw case almost frantically. One of his contacts, supplied by Riconsociuto, was Alan Standorf, who worked at the secret military electronic listening post at Vint Hill Farm, near Manassas, Virginia. Standorf supplied Casolaro with classified information and, in order to quickly return the materials to avoid detection, Casolaro set up high speed commercial duplicating and collating equipment in room 900 at the nearby Hilton Hotel.
Standorf was found dead at a Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Airport in his car in January 1991. Standorf's body, with no visible wounds, was found the night of Jan. 3 under clothing and luggage on the back floor of his small car,
Standorf's car had been on a short-term parking lot at Metropolitan Washington National Airport since Jan. 3, said David Hess, spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airport police.
Standorf's estimated death was 3 January 1991 and cause of death was ruled as "blunt force trauma to the back of the head".
Dr. Stephen Sheehy of the Medical Examiner's Office in Northern Virginia confirmed information the family was given -- that Standorf died of a blunt force blow to the back of the head around Jan. 3.
Standorf was alleged to have leaked classified NSA documents relating to the PROMIS intelligence software (similar to PRISM) to investigative journalist Danny Casolaro.
It got a lot weirder because After Danny's death, when Art Weinfield accompanied Casolaro's sister Mary Ellen and son Trey to the Martinsburg police station to recover Danny's car, they ran into detectives who identified themselves as working for the National Airport Authority in D.C. The detectives explained that they were looking into possible connections between Danny's death and Standorf's, a "low-level" civilian NSA employee at the restricted Vint Hill military facility. Standorf was killed by a blow to the head in early January; if not for the sake of stealing the $500 he had just retrieved from an ATM, then his body was made to look that way. It had been discovered at National Airport in late January, wrapped in his coat in the back seat of his car, money missing. The detectives explained that army intelligence officers joined their investigation of the case twice before an anonymous caller mentioned the link to Casolaro. While the detectives never came up with evidence connecting the two cases, according to Ridgeway and Vaughan, they did discover that their anonymous tip came from one of Casolaro's last informants, Bill Turner.
After Casolaro's death, Bill tried to synthesize the information that Danny had given him. But Bill was being stonewalled wherever he turned. He managed to contact some of Danny's sources but got nothing, they would barely acknowledge Danny's existence. The massive amount of investigative work and notes—Bill had no hope of recreating it, didn't have the know-how or stomach for retracing his steps.
Bill wasn't buying the suicide verdict—Casolaro had primed him before he was found dead that if he did indeed die, that it was at the hands of those he was investigating. He told an investigator this. The man just nodded his head, eyes glossed over, taking no notes.
Days before he died, Casolaro called his friend Bill, lied to him. I'm writing an article for Time about the whole matter. It's going to be big.The whole thing, it's going to be out there, it's going to be revealed to everyone and that's that. What whole thing, Bill asked. But Casolaro dodged—Bill always knew him as vague, circling. Time Warner, they're footing the whole thing. Jack Anderson is working with me on it. Big advances. I'm just finishing up details and, man, this's going to change things. He was a bit frantic, like he'd had too much caffeine, like he was running out of time.
After Casolaro's death, Bill made some calls, found out the whole thing was bogus. No article for Time, no financing, nothing. Bill has always found this puzzling—Casolaro was given to exaggeration, a bit overecstatic about conspiracy details he uncovered, but he wasn't one to lie about something as concrete as an article deal.why casolaro lied about this has never been explained.
The other interesting fact about Danny having sources inside government agencies was that in Martinsburg witnesses claimed they had seen Danny’s car parked behind an IRS building which was made even more interesting because Riconosciuto later told NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries who was doing a piece about this case that Danny had an inside source in the IRS’s computer data centre that was giving him hard copy printouts of its information on certain specific targets Danny was after.
Fearful that he might be the next target of the Octopus, Bill Turner got himself arrested in late September on a bank-robbery charge. (A similar strategy had been used by a spook named Richard Case Nagell when he realized he was entangled in the conspiracy to kill JFK. In September 1963 Nagell shot up a bank in San Antonio, was arrested and thereby removed as a player. Less than an hour and a half after a bank robbery in the rural town of Gore, police picked up Turner and matched him with images from the bank's security camera.
Jonathan Moyle: Jonathan Moyle was a 28-year-old editor of the magazine 'Defence Helicopter World' and former RAF helicopter pilot, was found dead in room 1406 of Santiago's Hotel Carrera on 31. March 1990. His purpose in Santiago was to attend a Chilean sponsored defence conference.
He was found hanging in a wardrobe with a pillow case over his head. But a needle mark on his leg and blood on the bed were not considered in the first police analysis. There was also evidence of possible asphyxiation and the presence of a strong sedative in his system.
There was evidence that moyle and casolaro were probing different leads but that their investigations involved some of the same people. Casaloro knew about mays death and also learned about Ng’s death shortly after it took place but still he perused on in his investigation.
Moyle was interested in a Bell Helicopter for civil use that the Chilean company Industrias Cardoen was converting to multi-use, especially for Third World conditions and economies. At that time, just before the Gulf War (the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops began 2. August 1990), Iraq was a potential customer for the helicopter.
Moyle's death was considered initially by the Chilean and British authorities as suicide or death in some sort of "bizarre sex game". But in December 1991, after pressure from the Moyle family, a judicial investigation in Chile concluded he had been assassinated, but as the police couldn't identify any suspect they halted the manhunt.
The United Kingdom inquest also into the death of Moyle, opened in Exeter in November 1990. It was adjourned by forensic doctor Richard Van Oppen after a pathologist said the autopsy could not be completed due to the fact that vital organs had been removed. In 1998 the reconvened inquest found that he had been unlawfully killed and the authorities later apologised to the family for spreading the allegation of suicide.
Excerpts from an apparently "un-redacted" version of a CIA report entitled Project Babylon, published in 2013 by the British magazine Lobster and in May 2014 by the newspaper Tribune, blame the murder of Jonathan Moyle on a British government agent, the late Stephan Adolphus Kock. The "un-redacted" CIA report states: "Meantime, as we co-ordinated an MI6 set-up, alleged nuclear capacitors shipped from US by Euromac for Iraq was [sic] seized at Heathrow Airport, it led to the arrest of CEO Ali Daghir and Jeanine Speckman, Kock found that defence journalist, Jonathan Moyle, possessed evidence of UK covert deals. Consequently, Kock and [a third named agent] eliminated him in Santiago, Chile."
The dead man's father, retired teacher Tony Moyle, said that the motive for the murder lay in Moyle's uncovering of information regarding arms shipments from Chile to Iraq.
The family's claim of a concealment has been supported by a book "The Valkyrie Operation" on Moyle's death written by Wensley Clarkson. The author alleges that Moyle was killed by local hitmen hired by arms dealer Carlos Cardoen, who denies he had any participation in Moyle's death.
In late 1997 a Santiago Court of Appeal reopened the investigation into Jonathan Moyle's death following representations from a lawyer representing the family.
The Editor of Lobster provided additional insight and context to the affair in a speech to the Centre for Security Analysis in London on 8 November 2000 and published in the summer 2001 edition of Lobster - issue 41. Explaining how the SIS's are "so awful to work for", he continued:
Take Jonathan Moyle, a not very bright, gung-ho Queen and country man. Young Moyle, while at University at Aberystwyth, was a Special Branch snitch who thought it his patriotic duty to tell the local SB who was smoking dope. On graduating he became an agent for - well, MI6 probably, though who knows? Moyle ended up being murdered in Chile. According to the book about him, Moyle wasn't very subtle as an intelligence asset and was poking around the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen - one of Mark Thatcher's friends - while Cardoen was doing a big helicopter deal with the Iraqis. This was in the run-up to the American attack on Iraq. Moyle ended up dead in a wardrobe in Chile and what does the local FCO guy do? Tells the media that Moyle was the victim of an auto-erotic accident: strangled himself while having a wank.
Alan May: Alan Michael May was a Nixon Campaign aide who, 4 days after interviewing Riconosciuto On June 19, 1991,died in his home in San Francisco. Riconosciuto claimed that May had been involved in the October Surprise. May had reportedly been involved with Michael Riconosciuto and the movement of $40 million in bribe money to the Iranians, in the operation known as the "October Surprise.” What was interesting about his death is it was originally ruled a heart attack but when an autposy was performed it was discovered that he had polypharmaceuticals, which is a mixture of different types of medication, in his body. It is known that if you mix some medication together it will cause heart attacks which is why I think this “heart attack” was forcibly induced.
Anson Ng: Anson Ng was a reporter for the financial times of London who was pursuing Jimmy Hughes the Wackenhut security guard who was apparently central to the Alvarez murder case. He traced him to south America in an attempt to get an interview however while in Guatemala during July 1991 Ng was murdered by a single bullet to the chest and his death was ruled a suicide. Strangely the Guatemalan government was asked to retrieve Ng’s floppy discs and personal paper regarding his investigation. They did and turned them over to an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency. In a press conference 3 weeks later senator Alan Cranston requested that these items be returned but they never were.
Dennis H. Eisman the “Fatal Vision Lawyer”: Eisman was a lawyer for Riconoscuito he was known as the fatal vision layer due to his involvement in the infamous and controversial trial of Jeffrey Mcdonald. Eisman and his former law partner, Bernard L. Segal, represented Green Beret Army surgeon Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, who was accused in 1970 of brutally murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Eisman and Segal represented McDonald during Army hearings that resulted in the dismissal of military charges, Segal said.
McDonald was convicted in U.S. District Court of the murders in 1980 and is serving three life prison terms. He has appealed his case three times to the U.S. Supreme Court and has recently requested a new trial.
Eisman helped Segal prepare one of the three Supreme Court appeals and also worked with a team of attorneys to reopen the case a few years ago, Segal said.
″He was very deeply committed to Dr. McDonald. He believed very deeply in Dr. McDonald, and he believed as I did that Dr. McDonald was unjustly accused and made every effort to give him a new trial,″ Segal said.
McDonald has repeatedly claimed drug-crazed intruders attacked him and murdered his wife and daughters.
The McDonald case led to the book ″Fatal Vision″ by Joe McGinnis, who concluded McDonald had committed the murders. A television movie was based on the book.
Eisman was found dead in his gray sports car in a downtown parking garage shortly after 8:30 a.m. a Walther handgun, registered to Eisman, was found at the scene.
William Gilbert, chief investigator at the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office then stated that Dennis H. Eisman shot himself once in the chest while sitting in his parked car.
Gilbert said he based his ruling on the results of his own investigation and that of police.
Eisman was a high-profile lawyer whose clients included drug dealers and organized crime figures. His chauffeured limousine carried vanity plates reading ″ACQUIT-U.″
An associate and friend said allegations that Eisman was involved in handling funds generated through sales of cocaine and marijuana were ″absolute nonsense.″
″There’s no way that Dennis ever did anything illegal or improper in his life,″ Elliott Tolan, a lawyer who shared Eisman’s office, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
But sources said federal prosecutors were ready to bring Eisman into court this week and were seeking his cooperation in surrendering for arraignment.
According to one source, an indictment naming Eisman was scheduled to be returned Wednesday.
Tolan said Eisman was ″concerned, but not despondent″ after learning he was about to be indicted on federal money-laundering charges.
″I can’t believe he would take his own life, it just wasn’t his style not to fight back,″ said fellow defense attorney Charles Peruto Sr.
Assistant U.S. attorney Paul Sarmousakis declined to comment, but said that six of 10 people already charged have pleaded guilty and that the investigation, which began in 1985, is continuing.
Others close to the case said some of those who admitted guilt had implicated Eisman.
Eisman was also in contact with Danny casolaro and was planning a trip to Washington to defend Riconosciuto and also to speak with a witness who had claims of threats his client Riconosciuto. However he died before he could make the trip and the indictments never appeared.
When Riconosciuto found out about Eismans death he made a phone call to Virginia McCullough who stated that Riconosciuto was very panicky in jail and also stated that “they’ve killed my attorney” and also asked her to phone James Guthrie who was also working on his case to warn him which she did and Guthrie told her that he was out and left.
Fred Alvarez: In early 1981, Fred Alvarez, a tribal vice president with the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, started complained that money from the tribe’s casino was being skimmed. Witness statements and other evidence reveals that John P. Nichols Sr., who had, in addition to his claims of a CIA affiliation, long-established ties to organized crime, confessed to ordering the hit that resulted in the deaths of the Alvarez and the others in response. Subsequent investigations have linked their deaths to a network of corruption that included organized crime, arms trafficking, partnerships with Wackenhut private security, and the government-backed modification and distribution of stolen software. According to a previous FBI release, the matter was brought to the attention of the Bureau by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Linda Streeter-Dukic, Alvarez' sister, described early relations of Alvarez and the inner circle around Nichols as being amicable, but says that when he started objecting to some of the schemes coming down from Nichols and the other tribe leaders, they began to send him on business trips. One trip was to Denver, In June 1981, to attend a conference. Streeter says that while in Denver Alvarez was offered a large amount of money to carry drugs back to Indio, but had turned the offer down.
On the morning of July 1, 1981, three bodies were discovered behind a shabby, concrete ranch house on Bob Hope Drive, a main drag in a sand-swept stretch of California's scorching Coachella Valley. The corpses were sprawled in a semicircle, on chairs and beds that had been dragged into the backyard. Each of the victims—the house's owner, Fred Alvarez, his girlfriend, Patricia Castro, and a guest named Ralph Boger—had been killed by a single .38-caliber gunshot to the head.
Police surmised that Alvarez and his friends had been planning to sleep outdoors to escape the heat of the house, which had no air-conditioning, and were surprised in the dark by one or more assailants. There were few clues and no witnesses left at the scene; the crime had all the hallmarks of a professional hit.
Suggestions have been made that the investigation of the deaths by the police was slipshod and hurried. Police familiar with the case note the friendship of Nichols with one of the investigating detectives. One police investigator believed he was removed from the case because of pressure put on his superiors from the outside. When the investigator pursued further on his own, he received death threats, one from a crossbow-wielding man. Fearing for his family, the man gave up and moved out of town.
Larry guerrin: Larry was a private investigator who had been hired to, it is said, gather some type evidence for Riconosciuto relating to the Inslaw case. However there is no information in relation to exactly what he was investigating for Riconosciuto or the circumstances surrounding his death, other than he was killed “under suspicious and mysterious circumstances” in Mason County, Washington, in February 1987.
David Meyer: On February 6, 1989, in the San Francisco Bay area, attorney David Meyer died from a gunshot wound. The next day he was to have appeared in District Court, defending clients who were reportedly tied in with CIA drug trafficking activities. An activist, Meyer sought to expose links between Iran-Contra, the Justice Department, the CIA, and others.
Dexter Jaccobson: Attorney Dexter Jacobson was killed on August 14, 1990, just before he was to present evidence of rampant Chapter 11 judicial corruption to the FBI.
Gary Pinnell: Attorney Gary Ray Pinnell was killed on February 11, 1991, just before he, too, was to present [evidence of] Chapter 11 corruption to the FBI.
Gail and Ian Spiro: On November 1, 1992, the bodies of Gail Spiro and her three children were found in their Rancho Santa Fe, California, home. Death resulted from gunshot wounds to the head. Three days later, the body of Gail's husband, Ian Spiro, was found dead in the front seat of his Ford Explorer in the remote California desert. Authorities said the cause of death was cyanide poisoning, and then ruled Ian Spiro had murdered his wife and children and then taken his own life. Spiro reportedly had connections to the CIA, and had been involved in various operations. He was helping Michael Riconosciuto collect documents to present to a federal grand jury conducting hearings into Inslaw when he died.
Jose Aguilar: Jose Aguilar, a tree trimmer who occasionally worked at the Spiro home, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head on November 14, 1992.
Peter Sandvugen: Peter Sandvugen, who was helping Michael Riconosciuto defend himself against the Justice Department, was found dead on December 2, 1992. Sandvugen was reportedly part of a special CIA team during the '80s; the circumstance of his death raised questions, as the gun he always carried was found without the ammo clip.
John Crawford: in April of 1993 John Crawford died of a heart attack in tacoma Washington.
Vali Delahanty: Vali Delahanty disappeared on August 18, 1992 as she was trying to warn Michael Riconosciuto about a plan by DEA and Justice Dept. officials to set him up on a drug charge. The skeletal remains of her body were discovered in a ravine at Lake Bay, Washington on April 13, 1993. Her death prevented her from testifying on Bhalf of Riconosciuto.... Her friend Debbie Baker reported to author Rodney Stich that Vali had called her shortly before her disappearance and stated that she had very sensitive information concerning the Inslaw matter.
Barry kusnick: Barry kusnick was said to have modified the PROMIS software with something known as Brainstorm which was supposed to allow PROMIS to deduce from personality characteristics the potential actions of the person being traced. His body has never been found and after his disappearance his family members had a hard time getting his business partner to acknowledge knowing him.
Paul Morasca: Paul Morasca roommate of Michael Riconosciuto murdered in 1982 in their apartment. Found hog-tied by a telephone cord noosed around his neck and his curled legs, Morasca, had strangled slowly as his legs uncurled.
Mary Quick: Three days after Paul Morasca's murder, a woman named Mary Quick--63 years old, a school teacher and Women's Auxiliary president of Fresno's American Legion--was headed toward Legion Post 509 when she was killed by a single gunshot to the head, an apparent unrelated mugging. A year after the murder, however, police learned that Riconosciuto claimed a business association with Mary Quick's nephew, Brian Weiss. Police sources told the San Francisco Examiner that Weiss gave his aunt a bank card with secret account numbers, perhaps the same access codes that may have led to Paul Morasca's murder. According to the police, "She had no connection (to any of the principals) and could be trusted. Mary Quick was to be instructed to give information only to Paul (Morasca) or Michael Riconosciuto. She was not aware of what the computer card was for and had never received the card." Riconosciuto claimed that Mary Quick's murderers were probably trying to recover the card. (Littman and Taylor).
Abbie Hoffman: Most interesting of all the mysterious deaths connected to Inslaw, however, was that of 1960s political activist Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman wrote an early piece on the October Surprise for Playboy magazine and shortly thereafter was involved in a suspicious automobile accident. Most regarded his death on April 12, 1989 as the suicide it was reported as, caused perhaps in part due to depression he suffered from the continued pain resulting from that accident. Others, however, suspected foul play in Hoffman's death, notably David Dellinger, a fellow member of the Chicago 8. Dellinger's suspicions even led him to attempt to retrieve the coroner's report for examination, but he was stopped by a threatened court battle. "They basically would not allow that to go to court," Dellinger concluded, "but [Abbie's] son Andrew and Abbie's first wife Sheila, are convinced he was killed.”
Paul Wilcher: A month after the Bua report was released, the body of investigator and attorney Paul Wilcher was found under mysterious circumstances. Wilcher was seeking to expose Iran-Contra, the October Surprise, BCCI, and the Inslaw scandals. At the time of his death, he was investigating gun-running out of Mena, Ark. Shortly before his death, he wrote a 105-page letter to Attorney General Janet Reno describing evidence that he allegedly had concerning the aforementioned scandals. The first page of his letter stated in part: "The lives of key participants, other witnesses, and even myself, are now in grave danger as a result of my passing this information on to you. If you let this information fall into the hands of the wrong persons... some or all of those who know the truth... could well be silenced in the very near future.”
Wilcher's body was found in his Washington, D.C. home on July 23, 1993. The coroner's report, made after the autopsy, could not find or didn't report the cause of death.
Research
Shortly before his death, Casolaro told people that he was nearly ready to reveal a wide-ranging conspiracy involving the Inslaw case, Iran-Contra, the alleged October Surprise conspiracy, and the closure of BCCI. David Corn writes in The Nation that the papers Casolaro left behind reveal few clues, except that he was in over his head, but was tenacious.
His papers included old clippings, handwritten notes that were hard to read, and the names of former CIA officers and arms dealers. Corn writes that the notes show Casolaro was influenced by the Christic Institute and that he had pursued material fed to him by a reporter who worked for Lyndon LaRouche. Richard Fricker writes in Wired that Casolaro had been led into a "Bermuda Triangle of spooks, guns, drugs and organized crime.”
Several events Danny was investigating included the The October Surprise conspiracy theory which refers to an alleged plot to influence the outcome of the 1980 United States presidential election, contested between Democratic incumbent president Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, former California governor Ronald Reagan.
One of the leading national issues during 1980 was the release of 66 Americans being held hostage in Iran since November 4, 1979. Reagan won the election. On the day of his inauguration—in fact, minutes after he concluded his 20-minute inaugural address—the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the release of the hostages. The timing gave rise to an allegation that representatives of Reagan's presidential campaign had conspired with Iran to delay the release until after the election to thwart President Jimmy Carter from pulling off an "October surprise".
According to the allegation, the Reagan Administration subsequently rewarded Iran for its participation in the plot by supplying Iran with weapons via Israel and by unblocking Iranian government monetary assets in U.S. banks.
After twelve years of varying media attention, both houses of the United States Congress held separate inquiries and concluded that credible evidence supporting the allegation was absent or insufficient.
Nevertheless, several individuals—most notably, former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr, former naval intelligence officer and U.S. National Security Council member Gary Sick, and Barbara Honegger, a former campaign staffer and White House analyst for Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bush—have stood by the allegation.
He was also investigating The Iran–Contra affair which was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration. Between 1981 and 1986, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Islamist Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, a right-wing rebel group, in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.
The official justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an operation to free seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, a Islamist paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The idea to exchange arms for hostages was proposed by Manucher Ghorbanifar, an expatriate Iranian arms dealer. Some within the Reagan administration hoped the sales would influence Iran to get Hezbollah to release the hostages.
In late 1985, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council diverted a portion of the proceeds from the Iranian weapon sales to fund the Contras, a group of anti-Sandinista rebels, in their insurgency against the socialist government of Nicaragua. North later claimed that Ghorbanifar had given him the idea for diverting profits from TOW and HAWK missile sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan Contras. While President Ronald Reagan was a vocal supporter of the Contra cause, the evidence is disputed as to whether he personally authorized the diversion of funds to the Contras. Handwritten notes taken by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on 7 December 1985 indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of HAWK and TOW missiles to "moderate elements" within that country. Weinberger wrote that Reagan said "he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charge [sic] that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages.'" After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages. The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the affair were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials. On 4 March 1987, Reagan made a further nationally televised address, taking full responsibility for the affair and stating that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages".
The affair was investigated by the U.S. Congress and by the three-person, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither investigation found evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs. Additionally, United States Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Walsh was appointed Independent Counsel in December 1986 to investigate possible criminal actions by officials involved in the scheme. In the end, several dozen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal.
The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been Vice President at the time of the affair. Former Independent Council Walsh noted that in issuing the pardons, Bush appeared to have been preempting being implicated himself by evidence that came to light during the Weinberger trial, and noted that there was a pattern of "deception and obstruction" by Bush, Weinberger and other senior Reagan administration officials. Walsh submitted his final report on August 4, 1993, and later wrote an account of his experiences as counsel, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.
Danny was also looking into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was an international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The bank was registered in Luxembourg with head offices in Karachi and London. A decade after opening, BCCI had over 400 branches in 78 countries and assets in excess of US$20 billion, making it the seventh largest private bank in the world.
BCCI came under the scrutiny of financial regulators and intelligence agencies in the 1980s, due to concerns that it was poorly regulated. Subsequent investigations revealed that it was involved in massive money laundering and other financial crimes, and had illegally gained the controlling interest in a major American bank. BCCI became the focus of a massive regulatory battle in 1991, and, on 5 July of that year, customs and bank regulators in seven countries raided and locked down records of its branch offices[4] during Operation C-Chase.
Investigators in the United States and the UK determined that BCCI had been "set up deliberately to avoid centralized regulatory review, and operated extensively in bank secrecy jurisdictions. Its affairs were extraordinarily complex. Its officers were sophisticated international bankers whose apparent objective was to keep their affairs secret, to commit fraud on a massive scale, and to avoid detection".
The liquidators, Deloitte & Touche, filed a lawsuit against the bank's auditors, Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young, which was settled for $175 million in 1998. By 2013, Deloitte & Touche claimed to have recovered about 75% of the creditors' lost money.
Danny was hoping to turn all this research into a book titled the aptly named Behold A Pale Horse however he had a lot of trouble getting any publishers interested in his book.
The story began with Inslaw's allegation that the Justice Department had stolen software from it. Casolaro began to develop his "octopus" conspiracy theory about a crime cabal with global reach. Friends say he devoted most of his time to the story.
Casolaro is not the only writer who became intrigued by the notion of a massive conspiracy. Another pursuing a similar story reports that Casolaro called him in early June and, perhaps to scare him off, said he had a book and even a movie deal wrapped up.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, according to Roger Donald, the top editor at Little, Brown books, to whom Casolaro submitted his proposal. "I'll tell you this," Donald says. "Anybody who killed him over that manuscript made a mistake. That was not a book that was going to be published.”
Six to nine months ago, Donald says, he met with Casolaro but found that his book proposal was hyperbolic and "very unprofessional." A couple of weeks before his death, Casolaro called and said, "I've really got the whole thing together now," the editor says. But Casolaro's revised proposal showed no improvement, Donald says.
"My final remark to him was, 'I could write this outline. I could say, there have been the following crimes, and list them.' ... Maybe he was onto something, but he sure as hell couldn't express it.”
Final days
On August 5, 1991, Casolaro phoned Bill McCoy, a retired CID officer to tell him that Time magazine had assigned him an article about the Octopus. He further claimed to be working with reporter Jack Anderson, and that publishers Little, Brown and Time Warner had offered to finance the effort. All of these claims were later shown to be false: Little and Brown, for example, had rejected his Octopus manuscript over a month earlier.
On the same day, Casolaro's friend Ben Mason agreed to talk to Casolaro about his finances. A few days later, Casolaro showed Mason a 22-point outline for his book and expressed frustration at having been tied up with a literary agent who was unable to sell it for the last eighteen months. He also allegedly complained about his sleep being disturbed for the previous three months by calls during the night.
The following day, a neighbor of Casolaro's and long-time housekeeper, Olga, helped Casolaro pack a black leather tote. She remembers him packing a thick sheaf of papers into a dark brown or black briefcase. Casolaro said he was leaving for several days to visit Martinsburg, West Virginia, to meet a source who promised to provide an important missing piece to his story. This was the last time Olga saw him.
Olga told The Village Voice that she answered several threatening telephone calls at Casolaro's home that day. She said that one man called at about 9:00 a.m. and said, "I will cut his body and throw it to the sharks". Less than an hour later, a different man said: "Drop dead." There was a third call, but Olga remembered only that no one spoke and that she heard music as though a radio were playing. A fourth call was the same as the third, and a fifth call, this one silent, came later that night.
Last known sightings
According to The Village Voice, Casolaro's whereabouts between late in the day of August 8 and the afternoon of August 9 are unknown. The day before he died, according to The Martinsburg Morning Journal, he ate at a Pizza Hut, where he told the waitress he liked her eyes and quoted The Great Gatsby to her. He met Honeywell engineer William Richard Turner at the Sheraton at about 2:30 p.m. on August 9. Turner says he gave Casolaro some documents, and that they spoke for a few minutes. Witnesses reported that Casolaro spent the next few hours at a Martinsburg restaurant. A bartender there told police that he had seemed lonely and depressed. The police further learned that Casolaro was seen at Heatherfields, the cocktail lounge at the Sheraton, at around 5 p.m. with a man described by a waitress as "maybe Arab or Iranian."
At about 5:30 p.m. that night, Casolaro happened to meet Mike Looney who rented the room next to Casolaro's room 517. They chatted on two occasions—first at about 5:30 p.m. and then again at about 8:00 p.m. Looney later explained, "[Casolaro] said he was there to meet an important source who was going to give him what he needed to solve the case." According to Looney, Casolaro claimed that his source was scheduled to arrive by 9:00 p.m. Around that time, Casolaro left Looney, explaining that he had to make a telephone call. He returned a few minutes later and said that his source might have "blown him off." Casolaro and Looney talked until about 9:30 p.m. At about 10:00 p.m., Casolaro bought coffee at a nearby convenience store. That was the last time anyone reported seeing him alive.
Death
At about noon on August 10, 1991, housekeeping staff discovered Casolaro naked in the bathtub of room 517. His wrists had been slashed deeply. There were three or four wounds on his right wrist and seven or eight on his left. Some of them so deep they hit the tendon and oddly enough there were no sign of any hesitation marks. Blood was splattered on the bathroom wall and floor; and according to Ridgeway and Vaughn, "the scene was so gruesome that one of the housekeepers fainted when she saw it."
Under Casolaro's body, paramedics found an empty Milwaukee beer can, two white plastic liner-trash bags, and a single edge razor blade. There was also a half-empty wine bottle nearby. There was also a shoelace wrapped around his neck. Ridgeway and Vaughan write that nothing was placed in the bathtub drain to prevent debris from draining away, and none of the bathwater was saved. Other than the gruesome scene, the hotel room was clean and orderly.
There was a legal pad and a pen present on the desk; a single page had been torn from the pad, and a message written on it: "To those who I love the most: Please forgive me for the worst possible thing I could have done. Most of all I'm sorry to my son. I know deep down inside that God will let me in.”
Which was interesting because his family stated that Danny was an atheist. So why would an atheist write a very generic suicide note stating that his son shouldn’t worry about him getting into heaven. If you're an atheist you wouldn’t be worried about heaven. Its a very contradictory piece of evidence.
Based on the note, the absence of a struggle, no sign of a forced entry, and the presence of alcohol, police judged the case a straightforward suicide. After inspecting the scene, they found four more razor blades in their envelopes in a small package. Police interviews further revealed that no one had seen nor heard anything suspicious. The Martinsburg police contacted authorities in Fairfax, Virginia, who said they would notify Casolaro's family.
For unknown reasons, his family was not notified of his death for two days. They're convinced that he was murdered.
When Danny's brother, Tony, contacted the police, he was stunned to learn about the 2 days without notification. He asked about Danny's papers, his investigation, and his overall life; the officer did not know about any of it.
The papers that he had with him included hundreds of notes and documents from his year-long investigation.
The day before his death, Danny met with another source, William Turner, who was a former employee of a major defense contractor. According to him, he handed over paperwork describing corruption that Danny believed was tied to "The Octopus". The next day, Danny was dead and William's document were missing, along with the rest of Danny's papers. They have never been found. Danny also had from reports, what was described as an accordion file this also was never found. The police searched nearby dumpsters, canines covered a mile long stretch of nearby highway. Nothing.
Tony claimed that Danny had been embalmed without the family's permission. Which is illegal as the family must give permission for this to be done.
Danny's family also noted that he was afraid of blood tests and needles, so they felt that it would be unlikely that he would commit suicide by slashing his wrists. Wendy Weaver, who dated Casolaro for seven years and at one time lived with him, concurs. "Danny hated the sight of blood," she says matter-of-factly. "Additionally, he didn't like to be seen naked. To be found in a tub, naked -- that's not Danny.”
Casolaro suffered many odd coincidences. Which seemed to accelerate in his last weeks. For example An FBI agent knocked on his door who claimed he was looking for a man named Clifford. Casaloro told him he had the wrong house.
In a restaurant, he started talking to a guy nearby, who just happened to be Special Forces, a fact that he was willing to make public.
He was in a hotel in Richmond and, in the lounge, there was a guy that looked just like him. His double. The guy was even wearing the same color shirt.
He was in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, discovered the guy in front of him also had the last name Casolaro (no relation though). Not a common name. The guy seemed to shrug it off, say, that's sure funny.
He was in a supermarket checkout line, a guy comes up to him, puts his arm around him. Said his name was hector and asked how he was doing? Casolaro replied back “Hector?”, he said “Yeah, come on, Hector Cesario, don't play games, my man”. Danny told him he must have him confused with someone else. And told him what his real name was. Danny Casolaro. The guy stepped back, looked him up and down, shrugged his shoulders then said “Man, I'm sorry, I thought you were Hector.” He then disappeared into the produce section.
A week before his death, Danny told Tony that he had been receiving frequent death threats. He also said that don't believe a suicide. I won't kill myself. If I die, it's because they killed me. They're calling me and threatening me. Odd calls in the middle of the night for months. I can't sleep. I'm getting too close. I'm going to expose them once and for all. I'm working on the details. Slit wrists, hanging in the shower, a balcony jump—don't believe it, it's not me. If you hear I'm dead, it was no accident. My sister Lisa killed herself and it devastated the whole family—I could never do that. A running car in a closed garage, pill overdose, driving off a cliff—I didn't do it. If you find a note, I didn't write it.
Police investigation
The first autopsy was performed on Casolaro's body at the University of Virginia on August 14, 1991. The coroner determined that blood loss was the cause of death, and that death had occurred from one to four hours before the body was discovered, or roughly between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on August 10.
The autopsy confirmed that bleeding from the wrist cuts were the cause of his death. It also suggested that he was not alone at the time. Specifically, there was a bruise on his arm and head. Also, the tips of three of his fingernails were missing. One medical examiner said, no person could've withstood the pain of the deep incisions and continued.
Danny's family learned that his hotel room was cleaned by a professional cleaning crew the day after his death. They inadvertently discarded important evidence. Interestingly, one of them remembered seeing two bloody towels in the bathroom; it appeared that someone had tried to clean the blood off the floor prior to when the professional crew arrived. several towels were found on the bathroom, looked as if they had been used to wipe up blood, someone doing so using their foot, according to one of the housekeeping heads at the hotel. The blood smeared in a trail, leading to the disposed towels. These towels were thrown away.
Casolaro was in contact with an FBI agent in the weeks prior to his death. FBI field agent Thomas Gates told the committee that Casolaro sounded very "upbeat" and not like someone contemplating suicide.
Casolaro had a phone book containing Gates's telephone number, which was never located during the police investigation, a fact Gates found unsettling.
During the four weeks they talked, Gates also learned that Casolaro's primary source on the Inslaw affair was an individual Gates had accused of maintaining ties to organized crime in an affidavit he had presented to a federal court. Casolaro's colleagues say this individual had subtly warned Casolaro about risks involved with his probe. Thus, when Gates learned of Casolaro's death, it set off an alarm.
The day after Casolaro's body was found, Village Voice editor Dan Bischoff received an anonymous telephone call alerting him to Casolaro's death.
By Tuesday, August 13, Ridgeway and Vaughan wrote, the "rumors were flying, ... and by the next day, the crazies started coming out of the woodwork. There were vague unsubstantiated rumors that the Mafia was somehow involved, and the wildest story even suggested that the undertaker was an employee of the CIA, hired to clean up after an agency assassination." Even at the funeral, they write, the family felt "engulfed by mysteries".
The questions still kept coming For example why did Casolaro put a rolled-up note in his boot that cited key figures from his research?
Another unanswered question is why have family members never been allowed to independently verify the handwriting on Casolaro's suicide note along with 65 pieces of other evidence?
Even in death mystery still plagued Dannys life. As the ceremony drew to a close at his funeral, a highly decorated military officer in U.S. Army dress reportedly arrived in a limousine. Accompanied by another man in plain clothes, the military man approached the coffin just before it was lowered into the ground, laid a medal on the lid, and saluted. No one recognised either man and, to this day, they have never been identified. When the family looked into this, it turned out that the only known government agency that put medals on top of coffins is the NSA (National Security Agency). As far as I’m aware Danny had nothing to do with that agency apart from his connection Alan Standorf who it is alleged gave Danny classified NSA documents relating to Inslaw and who also worked for them at vint hill. He was found dead under extremely suspicious and mysterious circumstances some six to eight months prior to Danny’s death in august 1991 on or around January 3rd 1991.
Further, Casolaro was known to have complained numerous times about threatening or unsettling phone calls directed at him, often occurring late at night, including those received by his housekeeper during his absences from his home.
After Casolaro's death was reported by several mainstream news organisations, police re-examined room 517. The adjacent rooms had been rented the evening of Casolaro's death — one by Mike Looney, the other by an unnamed family. No one reported hearing anything unusual either on the night of August 9 or the morning of August 10. In January 1992, about five months after Casolaro's death, Dr. Frost of the Virginia state medical examiner's office performed another autopsy; he returned a second suicide verdict, citing blood loss as the cause of death. Frost said there was evidence of the early stages of multiple sclerosis, but the degree of severity was probably minor. Toxicology analysis uncovered traces of several drugs: antidepressants, acetaminophen, and alcohol. He wrote: "There was nothing present in any way that could have incapacitated Casolaro so he would have been incapable of struggling against an assailant, let alone been sufficient to kill him."
Ron Rosenbaum, a journalist acquaintance of Casolaro's, speculated in Vanity Fair that Casolaro may have intended his suicide to appear to be murder triggered by his research, in order to have others look into the story after his death.
Later investigations showed that the FBI misled Congress about investigating Casolaro's death. Members of an FBI task force looking into Casolaro's death "questioned the conclusion of suicide" and recommended further investigation. This level of doubt "was especially significant, because even at that time (December 1992), it was understood that to express those views risked one's career.” FBI documents show that some files on Casolaro are being withheld from public release, which is contradicted by the FBI saying the files are missing entirely.
So the question remains did Danny casolaro kill himself or was he murdered because of what he was investigating?
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Casolaro
https://en.everybodywiki.com/Alan_Standorf
https://apnews.com/article/ffd0fe0e598edd37ca34ade0bc99f3e0
https://apnews.com/article/abe1342751e16f525d57ca79083357ad
https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1991-02-07-2786588-story.html
https://en.everybodywiki.com/Alan_Standorf
https://www.wired.com/2011/02/ff-octopus-conspiracy/
https://aishamusic.wordpress.com/category/larry-guerrin/
https://preterhuman.net/docs/Conspiracy_Nation_--_Vol._3_Num._14
http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/ARKANCID.html
https://alt.military.narkive.com/sSfNo1Ya/is-bush-most-dangerous-man-that-has-ever-lived-on-the-planet
https://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=218&t=2679&start=20
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/08/31/what-killed-danny-casolaro/ea110460-d4d0-4052-a84c-3660b6989ebe/
http://fictionaut.com/stories/christian-bell--3/danny-casolaro-64-stories-part-1
http://fictionaut.com/stories/christian-bell--3/danny-casolaro-64-stories-part-2
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