Episode 59 The Death Of Danny Casaloro Part 1 The Inslaw/PROMIS scandal

Transcript

welcome I am your host and this is allowance questions podcast [Music] hello everyone and welcome to another episode of my new podcast and answered questions where every week we'll Endeavor to discuss a mysterious unsolved case that is many lingering unanswered questions so I hope you enjoy and as always leave me some feedback on what you think about the show and rate it as well now on to the show this week we'll be talking about Danny casellaro so Joseph Daniel cassellero born June 16th of 1947 and who died on August 10th of 1991 was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was founded in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheridan Hotel in Martinsburg West Virginia his risk was slashed 10 to 12 times and the medical examiner ruled the death of suicide his death became controversial because his note suggested that 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 DC in the 1980s these included the case about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the justice department of stealing its work product which we're going to go into 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 now castellero'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 would have happened to him while in Martinsburg it would not be an accident they also cited as well-known squeamishness and fear of blood tests and stated they found it incomprehensible that if we were going to commit suicide he would do so by cutting his wrists a dozen times a fact I agree with a number of law enforcement officials also argued that his death deserve 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 given all the evidence it's come out since his day death in West Virginia authorities are investigating the mysterious death of a journalist and possible connections to the BCCI Bank Scandal and the weapons for Iran case Wyatt Andrews tells us that puzzling Tale freelance journalist Danny casellaro told friends he was on to the political conspiracy of the century he was meeting a source in West Virginia he was about to discover all instead his body was discovered in a hotel room with 12 slashes in his wrist but when the local authorities ruled at suicide the family said no way the housekeeper had taken calls threatening his life and I pick it up telephone I say hello and he say to me you son of a [ __ ] who's death despite that sounding straight from the movies the medical examiner today held to the suicide finding saying cassellero apparently was alone there were no other contusions lacerations or other trauma to the body that would indicate a struggle in my heart I remember Danny telling us if I'm in an accident don't believe it casolero was probing a conspiracy he called The Octopus which involved the Iranian hostage crisis the Iran Contra affair with believe it or not all funds channeled through BCCI the international bank charged with everything from money laundering to fraud against law good afternoon the Common Thread within octopus is the infamous in-slaw Affair when a Court ruled the Reagan justice department stole valuable law enforcement software from the insaw corporation casillaro's theory is that right-wing zealots sold the software for profit the money went to Iranian officials who supposedly delayed the release of the American hostages back in 1981 the so-called October surprise and later went to the back Channel funding of the contras it's wild but so many affidavits partly supporting each thread of the theory have been filed in the in-slaw case that inslaw's lawyer former Attorney General Elliot Richardson believes casellero was close to something and now we have who was the death of Daniel casellaro what I think is is a new and even more compelling reason for a a full investigation unknown to his family casellaro suffered from Ms there was no publisher as yet committed to print his story he was deeply in debt and yet either way suicide or murder investigators from both the house and the Senate are in line to see casellaro's notes Wyatt Andrews CBS News Washington now we're going to get into his early life and career so cassellero was born into a Catholic Family in McLean Virginia he was the son of an obstetrician in the second of six children one of his siblings fell ill and died shortly after birth a youngest Sister Lisa died of a drug overdose in San Francisco's height Ashbury in 1971. casillero attended Providence College until 1968 he married Tyrrell Pace a former Miss Virginia the couple had a son Trey and divorced after 10 years with castellero granted legal custody of his son he owned a four hundred thousand dollar home on three acres of land Kessler's interests included amateur boxing writing poems and short stories and raising purebred 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 vayate although 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 in Co two 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 castellero sold the company in 1989 however Kessler wasn't the best businessman it didn't do as well from the sale as he had hoped the buyer as I understand it was a sharp negotiator and Danny couldn't compete with that so he got a lot less for the business than he wanted and lost money on the deal kesslero worked for the new owners for a brief period but left he had difficulty adjusting to being an employee and was forced out which I can understand because you're going from being somebody who owned the company and got to be the one that told you what to do to then be an employee that got told what to do so it's kind of going from like riches to rags kind of thing it's like you own a billion dollar company and then it goes bankrupt overnight you've just lost everything so I can understand how Castillo would have felt going from being the boss to an employee it would not have been a very nice demotion so I can understand that he would have had a lot of difficulty adjusting from being the one that gave the orders to being the one that took the orders so I can understand that very very well how Kessler must have felt 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 Booth Nichols who after hearing about Danny's money troubles offered him financial assistance in return for a 25 stake in his house and first write a refusal if he sold it which to me seems like a hell of a risky Endeavor because a writer first refusal is a contractual right to enter into a business transaction with a personal company before anyone else can if the party with this right declines to enter into a transaction the obliga is free to entertain other offers this is a popular Clause among lessees of real estate because it gives him preference to the properties in which they occupy however it may limit what the owner could receive from interested parties competing for the property I mean this to me is a very high risk deal to make with someone you only just met and barely know another interesting fact to point out is that within a year before he died castellero 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 now just to get back to this bit about the 25 stake with Robert Booth Nichols there is one other point I wanted to make as well as I understand it Danica solero came from quite a rich family I wouldn't say that there were billionaires but from what I can understand his father and brother ought said that when Danny would need money he could always borrow it from them and they wouldn't ask any questions and there were normally no problems so the thing I find really interesting is the fact that Danny felt that he had to go to somebody that he barely knew that he met during the course of his investigation and asked him for financial assistance and then just offered up his house and 25 of it with writer first refusal just for some Financial advice from a stranger that he barely knows to me that's kind of a little bit strange especially if you've got the brother and the father who say well look he could get money from us and we wouldn't ask questions but yet Danny felt that he had to go and Source outside help for his financial concerns it seems just a little bit weird to me because I I don't really know that I if I was in a financial situation where I was in trouble would go to an outside Source unless there was a really valid reason too like if I couldn't go to family if I couldn't go to friends then I would just you choose some random stranger that seems to know what they're talking about I don't know if it just it's a little funny to me that Danny would decide to jump straight into bed with a stranger about his financial affairs I don't know to me something about that just doesn't sit well with me I don't know whether it's I don't know whether Danny had a reason to do that but it didn't sound like Danny had the same money troubles that that I or someone else like me would have like it seems to me as if Danny didn't really know what he was doing with this man it could very well be that Danny had a valid reason I just don't know what it is and that's kind of the point I'm making here is it kind of seems weird that he goes to a random person instead of family for his money troubles in 1990 he decided to take up journalism again and soon after took an interest in the insular case of which his I.T context had made him aware of it's a story you will only see on NewsChannel 3 at 11. the Department of Justice officials were involved in a criminal conspiracy to force himself a small computer company out of business a top-secret government computer program comes back to haunt the U.S tonight you'll see how that program is now being connected to multiple local murder cases it's 11 o'clock time for news now from the desert's News Leader kesq NewsChannel 3 HD at 11. hello I'm Tamara Damonte and I'm John White there are new developments tonight and a year-long news channel 3 investigation the Riverside County Sheriff's Department is looking into possible connections between a triple murder back in 1981 and a murder-suicide in 2005 that claimed Six Lives it's a story you will only see right here on NewsChannel 3 at 11 the reporter Nathan Baca John Tammer we have internal documents from the Cold Case division of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department showing the depth of the investigation we will not reveal the investigator's identity at this time since the documents show their lives may be in danger now we are learning the murders may be a cover-up for one of the federal government's most secret computer programs promise is the name of one of the government's most secret computer database programs computer programmer Michael rakanoshudo wrote in this affidavit that major modifications to the program were made here in Indio on July 1st 1981 Fred Alvarez his girlfriend Patty Castro and friend Ralph Boger were shot to death here on Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage there was a house here that has since been bulldozed nobody was ever arrested for the shooting family friends say Cabazon band of mission Indians Vice chairman Fred Alvarez was going to blow the whistle on this documents from the early 1980s showing a Business Partnership between defense contractor wackenhut services and Cabazon manager John Philip Nichols to form Cabazon arms one of their alleged projects was the promise computer program database and pattern recognition software was a new source of information and Power in the early 1980s it starts when the program's designers innslaw Corporation accused the U.S justice department of stealing the software for their own foreign policy purposes this programmer testified he altered the program to create what's called a back door to allow government spying this happened while working on Cabazon Indian Sovereign land well the parties that were involved in the distribution of this software were involved in covert operations and they were involved in Nicaragua and Central America and they were involved in operations in the Middle East this U.S justice department Memo from 1985 shows the promise software was being sold to Middle Eastern Arms dealers and wanted no paperwork or Customs inspections to interfere [Music] and Unsolved Mysteries gone on the case when the last journalists to investigate this spy Scandal was found dead in his hotel room Danny casellaro's wrists were slashed in 1991. it was ruled a suicide but his reporter notes disappeared and the book on the conspiracy he was to title Indio was never finished Congressional hearings were held in 1992.

he describes a committee's investigation into serious allegations at high level the Department of Justice officials were involved in a criminal conspiracy to force ins law a small computer company out of business the hearings ended inconclusively the promise software was allegedly altered on tribal land in India with a lack of federal oversight and just like Microsoft Windows the database program kept up with the times upgraded several times over the years but promise came back to haunt America in ways never imagined now a disturbing indication that Robert Hansen the FBI man accused of spying for the Russians and what officials said at the time of his arrest was a massive security breach ended up helping Usama Bin Laden as correspondent Carl Cameron reports Hanson sold the Russians an extremely sensitive piece of U.S technology and the indications are that they in turn sold it to Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network from an office in India to foreign capitals all over the world several murder investigations are connected to this spy Scandal whether answers can still be found 27 years later remains in the hands of the sheriff's Cold Case Squad the internal documents we've obtained and confidential interviews we've done reveal the Riverside County Sheriff's Cold Case Squad is investigating whether D.A investigator David McGowan was on this 27 year old murder case before his 2005 death we are still looking into whether they've concluded that angle of their questioning now if you have missed any part of this 31-part exclusive investigation more than one year in the making log on to our website at kesq.com on the right hand side click on special reports and then the icon that says inside the DA's office and DHS please John Tammer we are looking into more answers and right now the Cabazon band of mission Indians still have not responded to our questions at this point okay you're part 31 of this investigation where is it going next the next part we look forward to doing is revealing a little more of the confidential information the internal documents very chilling information where a detective is basically saying that they cannot look uh their wife in the eyes and tell her that they are willing to risk the life of their family by pursuing this case so they're basically asking to get off the case a lot more on that coming up very soon why won't the DA's office say whether or not David McGowan was looking into this their official stance is that David McGowan was not looking into this that is their official stance according to their spokespeople but at this point there have been a lot of questions that have been asked friends and partners of uh David McGowan have been asked questions about what cases he was working on before the 2005 deaths okay thank you Nathan thank you now we're going to get into the insulin case so Ron Rosenbaum wrote that the inslow story Allah alone is enough to drive a sane man to Madness quote if they ever make a movie of the insular suit he wrote it would be called Mr and Mrs Smith go to Washington and meet Franz Kafka Enzo's founder William a Hamilton in a previous position with the U.S justice department had helped develop a program called Promise short for prosecutors management information system now promises I understand it was designed to organize the paperwork generated by law enforcement and the courts after he left the Justice Department Hamilton allege that the government had stolen promise 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 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 for both Hamilton and later for castellero was Michael reconashuto described by Rosenbaum as a rogue scientist weapons designer Platinum Miner and alleged Crystal myth manufacturer Recon ashuto had been introduced to a friend of castelleros by Jeff Steinberg a long time top aide in the larouche organization Recon of pseudo told Hamilton that he and Earl Brian a director of hard on Inc government consulting firm had paid 14 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 promise system according to reconnaissuto Brian a close friend with an attorney general Ed Messi had denied any involvement in either October surprise or the insular case well the parties that were involved in the distribution of this software were involved in covert operations and they were involved in Nicaragua and Central America and they were involved in operations in the Middle East and yes I have direct knowledge of funds from the sale of this product being used to finance those operations in addition to the selegation Recon shooter also claimed in a March 21st 1991 affidavit submitted to the court in the Enzo case that he had modified enslow's software at the Justice departments for his so that it could be sold to dozens of foreign governments with a secret back door which allowed Outsiders to access computer systems using promise these modifications allegedly took place at the Cabazon Indian reservation near Indo California because the reservation was Sovereign territory where enforcement of U.S law law was sometimes problematic reconnaissito further claimed that he had worked on weapons programs there for the wacken Hut Corporation such as a powerful fuel air explosive on March 29th of 1991 eight days after submitting the affidavit reconnaissito was arrested for and later convicted of Distributing methamphetamine and methadone charges that he said were a setup to keep him from telling his story now I will touch on that a little bit later I actually do agree that I reckon that rickon a shooter was definitely set up Michael Rick on a shooter again I'll touch on this later in the podcast was definitely a very interesting individual basically he made all his claims that I think about 90 of them weren't able to be backed up I mean he made claims especially in the book by the late Jim Keith and Ken Thomas Danny castellero and the octopus in the book it stated that Michael Ray conniff should have made a number of very interesting claims one of them being that he had been at the live or top 7 alien and that he'd also had a passport that would have linked him to the uh October surprise Theory the problem is every time that he was asked show evidence and I'll go into a lot of this later on the podcast I'm foreshadowing a little bit but basically he made all these claims he even got Danny casolero wound up into it and Dany actually served as I think he spent 10 days serving as an investigator for Michael Ray Connor's pseudo during his court trial he made all these claims none of some of which he was able to back up none of which was ever really able to be proven I mean when I said some of it was able to be backed up I mean it was true that he'd worked here and there he made an argon later he done all these things the more extravagant claims he made I believe none of them have ever really been proven like he was there for the autopsy of an alien he had this passport allegedly that linked him to the 1980s October surprise Theory problem was he was never able to produce any evidence of a lot of what he had to say like for example he never was able to produce the passport that he allegedly claimed would have proven the October surprise theory he said that he had a tape in which he was threatened by Justice Department officials if he testified in the case on the side of the uh the Hamiltons for Enzo however he told castellera about this and as detailed in the book The Octopus by Jim Keith or the late Jim Keith I should say he was never able to prove this Danny went in search of the tape because Michael Ray Connor shudo said two of the tapes were taken and destroyed but he made a third copy of the tape or a room at third copy and he threw it out the car window and already gave it to somebody or there were various different theories on what exactly happened to the tape Danny went in search of the tape and was never able to find it he went as Danny claimed he went on a wild goose chase and down a rabbit hole that led nowhere really so while I believe that what reconnaissito said is true and actually did happen the problem is verifying it because you can't just believe what somebody says without the evidence and unfortunately for Castle cassellero unfortunately for reconnaissito and unfortunately for Bill and Nancy Hamilton none of what reconna Judo said was ever really able to be backed up at all which was the problem I'm I'm sure I'm convinced that what Recon of shooter sits true absolutely convinced but the problem is proving it I have no doubt that everything he said is true maybe the alien autopsy not so much but nothing would surprise me if that turned out to be true later down the track however what I'm saying is is that I think that there is some validity to his story I think that he did put a back door in there I think he did do some dodgy things on the Cabazon Indian Reservation problem is there's no proof to back it up there's what he tells us but there's nothing to back it up with unfortunately so that's that's been the major problem in the case is not being able to back up what he says now we get into the insular case so ins law Inc is a Washington DC based information technology company that markets case management software for corporate and government users now indalor is well known for developing promise in early case management software system it is also known for a lawsuit that are brought against the United States Department of Justice in 1986 over promise innslaught won damages and bankruptcy court but those were overturned on appeal the suit resulted in Civil Justice Department internal reviews two Congressional investigations the appointment of a special counsel by Attorney General William P Barr and a link through 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 ins law in 1998. during the 12-year long legal proceedings insular 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 government and involvement in a murder these accusations were eventually rejected by the special counsel and the court of federal claims now we'll get into a bit of a history of Inns law so ins law began as a non-profit organization called 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 assisted Administration leaa The Institute developed a program at called Promise an acronym for prosecutors management information system for use in law enforcement record keeping in 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 of 1981 Hamilton established the for-profit Inns law transferring the institute's assets over to the new Corporation promise software was originally written in Cobalt for use use on mainframe computers later aversion 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 attorney's office of the District of Columbia and state and local law enforcement both the Mainframe and 16-bit mini computer versions of Promise were developed under leaa contracts and in later litigation both indoor and doj and Department of Justice eventually agreed that the early version of Promise was in the public domain meaning that neither The Institute nor its successor had exclusive rights to it in 1979 the doj contracted with the Institute to do a pilot project that installed versions of Promise in four U.S attorney's 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 promise systems and issued a request for proposals RFP to install the mini computer version of Promise in the 20 largest United States attorney's officers this contract usually called The implementation contract in later litigation also included developing and installing word processor versions of promise at 74 smaller offices the now for profit insular responded to the RFP and in March of 1982 was awarded the three-year 10 million dollar contract by the Contracting division the executive office of United States attorneys eousa the contract however did not go smoothly just disputes between EO USA and ins law began soon after its execution a key dispute over proprietary rights had to be solved by a bilateral change to the original contract eousa also determined that insulin wasn't violations of the term of an advance payment clause in the contract this clauses I understand it was important to insula'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 promise in any of the offices covered by the contract as a stop Gap measure indalor provided promise on a timeshare basis through a vax computer in Virginia allowing the officers to access promise on the inslaw vacs through remote terminals until the needed equipment was installed on site eousa claimed that Insel had overcharged for this service and withheld payments the doj ultimately acquired Prime computers and indelible began installing promise on these in the second year of the contract in August of 1983 the word processor promises to relation however continued to have problems and in February of 1984. the doj canceled this portion of the contract following this cancellation the financial condition of insular worsened and the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in February of 1985.

the implementation contract called for the installation of the mini computer version of Promise plus some later modifications that had also been funded by aliaa contracts and like the mini computer version were in the public domain in addition the contract data rights Clause gave the government unlimited rights and 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 Promise which it called Promise 82 or enhanced promise the issue came up early in the implementation contract it was resolved by an exchange of letters in which the doj signed off on the issue after insular ensured the doj that promise 82 contained enhancements undertaken by ins law at private expense after the cessation of Lea's funding the issue arose again in December of 1982 when the OJ invoked its contract rights to recall all the promised programs in documentation being provided under the contract the reason the doj gave for this request in later litigation was that it was concerned about inslow's financial condition at that point doj had access to promise only through the vax time sharing agreement within's law if Finn's law failed doj would be left without a copy of the software and data it was entitled to under the contract inslaw responded in February of 1983 that it was willing to provide the computer tapes and documents for promised but that the tapes it had were for the vax version of promise and include a proprietary enhancements before providing the tapes innselor wrote insular in the Department of Justice will have to reach an agreement on the inclusion or exclusion of the features end quote the doj response to inslaw was to emphasize that the implementation contract called for a version of Promise in which the government had unlimited rights to ask for information about the enhancements ins law claimed as proprietary insular agreed to provide this information but noted that it would be difficult to remove the enhancements from the time sharing version of promise and offered to provide the vax version of promise if the doj would agree to limit the distribution in March of 1983 the doj again informed insulator the implementation contract required insul to produce software in which the government had unlimited rights and the delivery of software with restrictions would not satisfy the contract now we get into indelor's bankruptcy case and this is where things take a very Sinister but yet interesting turn after enzlaw filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in February of 1985 there were still disputes over implementation contract payments and as a result the doj was listed as one of inzor's creditors at the same time the doj continued its office automation program and in place of the originally planned word processor versions of promise it installed the version ported to Prime mini computers and 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 2.9 Million Dollars which inslow said was a license fees for the software doj self-installed inslaw also fault claims for services performed during the contract for a total of 4.1 million dollars the doj Contracting officer Peter vildanex vidanix denied all these claims insular appealed the denial of the service fees to the justice of Transportation Board of contract appeals dot BCA for the data rights claim however inslaught took a different approach in June of 1986 it filed an adversary Hearing in the bankruptcy court claiming the doj's actions violated the automatic stay provision of the bankruptcy code by interfering with the company's rights to use its software inslaw's initial filing claimed that the contract disputes arose because of the doj officials who administered the contract were biased against Inns law the filing specifically mentioned promise project manager C medicine Brewer an associate attorney general D Lowell Jensen Brewer had previously been insula's general counsel but according to ins law had been terminated for cause ins law claimed that Brewer's dismissal caused him to be unreasonably biased against inslaught 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 insular claimed that this led him to be prejudiced against promise so that he so that he ignored the unreasonable bias of Brewer in February of 1987 Angela requested an independent handling hearing to force the doj to conduct adversary hearing independent of any Department of Justice officials involved in the allegations made in the hearing the bankruptcy court judge assigned to handle inslow's chapter 11 proceedings judge Joseph Basin agreed the request and scheduled the hearing for June prior to the hearing insul owners William and Nancy Hamilton spoke to Anthony prosciutto 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 prosciutto told the Hamiltons director of the eoust Thomas Stanton had pressured the U.S trustees assigned to the ins law case Edward White to convert Enzo's bankruptcy from chapter 11 reorganization of the company to chapter 7 liquidation The Hamiltons had inslaw's attorneys to pose the people whom Bushido had named one of them corroborated part of prosciutto'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 admitted it 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 insular's request prosciutto also retracted the part of his claims that hit that at this hearing and said that instead he did not use the word conversion judge Basin however chose to believe the original depositions of prosciutto and Blackshear and found that the doj unlawfully intentionally and willfully tried to convert insula's chapter 11 reorganization case to a chapter 7 liquidation without justification and by improper means in the ruling Basin was harshly critical of the testimony of several doj officials describing it as evasive and unbelievable 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 insular case except for information requests now we get on to the adversary hearing so insula's adversary hearing followed a month after the independent handling hearing the preceding lasted for two and a half weeks from Late July to August in a bench ruling on September 28th judge Basin found the doj project manager Brewer believing he had been wrongfully discharged by Mr Hamilton and inslaught and developed an intense and abiding hatred for Mr Hamilton and ends law and had used his position at doj to vent his spleen he also found that the doj took converted stole inslaw's enhanced promised by trickery fraud and deceit specifically he found that the doj had used the threat of terminating Advance payments to get a copy of the enhanced promise 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 base in a gang called the testimony of doj witnesses biased unbelievable and unreliable now this is where things get rather interesting and I think there's a Sinister aspect that is crept into this that was Judge Bay Jason was not reappointed to the bench so interestingly enough bankruptcy just caught judge Basin was a was appointed to the District of Columbia bankruptcy court in February of 1984 for a four-year term he sought reappointment in early 1987 but was informed in December that the court of appeals had chosen another candidate judge Basin 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 INS law after learning of this letter doj lawyers moved to recuse judge Basin from the insular case but the emotion was rejected and judge Basin remained on the case until the expiration of his term on February 8th of 1988 in early February judge Basin 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 basin's last actions in the case were to file a written ruling on insulin advisory hearing and to award damages and attorney fees to ins law after judge Basin left the bench the Angela bankruptcy was assigned to Baltimore bankruptcy judge James Schneider Schneider accepted insula's reorganization plan at the end of 1988 after a cash infusion from IBM doj filed an appeal of Judge basin's adversaries suit ruling in the District of Columbia Circuit Court in November of 1989 circuit court judge William Bryant upheld basin's ruling reviewing the case under the clear error standard for reversal Bryant wrote there is convincing perhaps compelling support for the findings set forth by the bankruptcy court end quote doj appealed the Circuit Court decision in May of 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 inslow's claims against doj it vacated a bankruptcy Court's rulings and dismissed indel's complaint insler appealed the decision to the Supreme Court which declined to hear the case now we get into the Civil investigations that were launched after this so inslow'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 and after the special counsel issued his report inslow responded with a link through a battle the doj then re-examined the special counsel's findings resulting in the release of the final Department review during these Federal investigations Isla began making allegations of a broad complex conspiracy to Steel promise involving many more people and many more claims in the bankruptcy proceedings have covered after judge basin'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 videnix and eoust director Thomas Stanton it also opened a separate investigation of eousd deputy director Anthony prosciutto opr recommend the prosciutto be terminated based on his hearing testimony that he 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 Enzo's bankruptcy or lie during the independent handling hearing after judge Basin issued his written ruling in January of 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 then we get to the Senate report so the first congressional investigation into the insular case came from the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations PSI psi's report was issued in the September of 1989 after a year and a half of Investigation during the investigation Angelo made a number of new allegations which take up most of the PSI report initial's new allegations describe the justice department dispute with inslow as part of a broad conspiracy to drive insul into bankruptcy so the that O'Brien the founder of Adventure Capital firm called biotech later info technology could acquire Enzo's assets including its software promise insular owner William Hamilton told PSI investigators that Brian had first attempted to acquire Lynn's law through a Computer Services Corporation he controlled called hard on Hamilton said that he rejected an offer from hard onto a quiet insul and that Brian had attempted to drive vinsloo into bankruptcy through his influence with attorney general Edward Messi both Missy and Brian had served in the cabinet of Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California and Mrs wife had later bought stock and Brian's company so that Missy was willing to do this Brian claimed the contract dispute with doj was contrived by Brian and Missy with the help of associate attorney general Jensen and promised project manager Brewer Hamilton also complained that a doj automation program project Eagle was part of a scheme to benefit Brian after he acquired promise and that an ATT subsidiary at T Information Systems had engaged with the doj in a conspiracy to interfere with inslaw's efforts to reorganize he also told Pierre sign investigators at the doj had undermined bankruptcy court judge basins of reappointment and had attempted to undermine insul's legal counsel in the bankruptcy suit Senate investigators however found no proof of any of these claims the report noted that the bankruptcy court ruling had not concluded that Jensen had engaged in a conspiracy against ins law and that their own investigation had found no proof that Jensen and Missy had conspired to ruinen's law or steal its product or that Brian or hard on were involved in a conspiracy to undermine Enzo and acquire its assets the report did re-examine the bankruptcy findings that the doj had pressured the United States trustee to recommend converting insula's bankruptcy from chapter 11 to chapter 7 and found that eoust director Thomas Stanton had improperly tried to get special counseling for innslaw'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 innslaw within the doj or a conspiracy between doj officials and outside parties to force Enzo into bankruptcy for personal benefit however it criticized doj for hiring a former ins law employee Brewer to oversee indoor's contract with eousa and for failing to show standard procedures in handling insula'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 now we get to the house report on on the subject so following the PSI report the house Judiciary Committee began another investigation into the dispute by the time the report was released in September of 1992 insula's bankruptcy suit had been first upheld in the DC Circuit Court then vacated by the DC 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 ins law enslaw's new evidence consisted of statements in affidavits from Witnesses supporting Enzo's previous claims the most important of these Witnesses was Michael Recon of shooto who sworn an affidavit for insul that businessman Earl Bryan had provided him with a copy of inslaw's enhanced promise supporting Enzo's earlier claims that Brian had been interested in acquiring and marketing the software a new allegation was also introduced to reconnaissance affidavit reconnaissuto swore that he had added modifications to enhance promise to support a plan for the implementation of Promise in law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide according to reconnaissuto Earl W Bryan was spearheading the plan for this worldwide use of the promised computer software another important witness was Erie Ben meneshi who also provided affidavits for INS law that Brian had brought both public domain and enhanced versions of promise to Israel and eventually sold the enhanced version to the Israeli government committee investigators interviewed Ben minishi in May of 1991 and he told them that Brian's sold enhanced promise to both Israeli intelligence and Singapore's Armed Forces receiving several million dollars in payment he also testified that Brian's Soul public domain versions to Iraq and Jordan on the issue of insula's Rights in advance promise that the house report found that there appears to be strong evidence supporting judge basin's finding that doj acted willfully and fraudulently when it took converted and style inzor's enhanced Promise by trickery fraud and deceit light judge Basin the report found that doj did not negotiate with insult 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 ins laws claim of proprietary rights was legitimate and that doj would probably lose a court on this issue house investigator found it incredible that doj would pursue litigation after such a determination and concluded this clearly raises respect that the department actions taken against insul in this matter represent an abusive power of shameful proportions end quote on the new allegations bought by ins law 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 insula's witnesses the report also discussed the case of Danica solura a freelance writer who became interested in the insul case in 20 and began his own investigation according to statements from Kessler'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 of 1991 castellero was found dead in a hotel room where he was staying the initial Coroner's report ruled his death to Suicide but casilarious family and friends was suspicious and a lengthy second autopsy was conducted this too ruled castellero's death to Suicide but house investigators noted that the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death have led some law enforcement professionals and others to believe that his deathbed may not have been a suicide and strongly urged further investigation the Democratic majority called upon attorney general dick thornbur to compensate insul immediately for the harm that the government had egregiously inflicted on Enzo the Republican minority dissented and the committee divided along party lines 21-13 now we get into the very very interesting and controversial boo report so in October of 1991 one William P Barr succeeded dick Thornburg as attorney general in November Barr appointed retired federal judge Nicholas J Booher as a special counsel to investigate the allegations in the ins law case Burr was granted authority to appoint his own staff and investigators to impale a grand jury and to issue subpoenas in March of 1993 he issued a 267-page report the report concluded there was no credible evidence to support Enzo's allegations at doj officials conspired to help O'Brien acquire promise software and that the evidence was overwhelming that there was no connection between Brian and promise it found the evidence woefully insufficient to support the claim that doj obtained enhanced promise through fraud trickery and deceit or that doj illegally distributed promise Insight or outside of doj it found no credible evidence that doj had influenced the selection process that replaced judge Basin it found insufficient evidence to confirm the allegation that doj employees sought to influence the conversion of inslow'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 kisselo's death and that the physical evidence strongly supported the autopsy findings of suicide Boo's report came to a number of conclusions that contradicted earlier proceedings in investigations judge Basin had found that doj's claim it was concerned about Enzo's Financial condition when it requested a copy of Promise was a false pretext Bill rejected this finding as just plain wrong the house reported cited Deputy attorney general Burns's statement as evidence that doj knew that it did not have a valid defense to insul's claims bua found this interpretation entirely unwarranted boo is particularly critical of several of inslaw's witnesses he found that Michael Ray Connor Shooter had given inconsistent accounts and statements to the Hamiltons his affidavit and his testimony at his 1992 trial for manufacturing methamphetamine boo a compared Recon of shudo's story about promise to a historical novel a tale of total fiction woven against the background of accurate historical facts end quote Bill also found Erie Ben minishi's affidavits for insul inconsistent with his latest statements to bua in which Ben minishi said that he had no knowledge of the transfer of insular's proprietary software by O'Brien or doj and denied that he'd ever said this elsewhere Ben minishi said that others simply assumed that he was referring in his previous statements to insul's promise 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 and caught and came to the attention of the public end quote boa also noted that the house October surprise task force had examined Ben ministry's October surprise allegations and found them totally lacking in credibility demonstratively false from beginning to end Rudder with inconsistencies and factual misstatements and a total fabrication he specifically observed that the task force found no evidence to substantiate Ben minishi's October surprise allegations about O'Brien then we come to the doj review so inslow responded to the boor Report with 130 page rebuttal and another set of new allegations in an addendum these allegations included the claim that the doj's off office of special investigations was a front for the Justice Department's own covert intelligence service end quote and that another Undeclared mission of the Justice Department's covert agents was to ensure that the investigative journalist Danny Kessler remained silent about the role of the justice department in the ins law Scandal by murdering him in West Virginia in August of 1991 end quote by this time Janet Reno had it had succeeded barra's attorney general after Bill Clinton's election as president Reno then asked for a review of Buddha's Report with recommendations on appropriate actions in September of 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 still computer software developed by ins law Inc or that the company is entitled to additional government payments the review also reaffirmed the earlier police findings that casillario's death was a suicide which I don't agree with and rejected Enzo's claims that OSI agents had murdered casillar as fantasy with no corroborative evidence they that it's even marginally credible in May of 1995 the United States Senate asked the U.S court of federal claims to determine if the United States Odin's law compensation for the government use of promise on July 31st of 1997 judge Christine Miller the hearing officer for the U.S court of federal claims ruled that all of the versions of Promise were in the public domain and that the government had therefore always been free to do whatever it wished with promise the following year the Appellate Authority a three-jud review panel of the same court upheld Miller's ruling and in August of 1998 and formed the Senate of its findings a 1990 book by the British journalist Gordon Thomas titled Gideon's Spies The Secret history of the Mossad repeated the claims of Erie Ben Ministry that Israeli intelligence created and marketed a Trojan Horse version of Promise 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 the brief in former FBI agent Robert Hansen is claiming that the convicted spider had stolen copies of a promised derivative for a Soviet KGB handlers however later reports and studies of Hansen's activities have not repeated these claims now we get into what the actual promise software was so promise which was prosecutors management information system was a case management software developed by Inns law 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 officers in tracking in 1982 by which time insle became a for-profit entity inzazor received a 10 million contract by the justice department to develop an improved promise application for the U.S attorney's officers having previously developed a 16-bit version of Promise innslaw developed a 32-bit version for various operating systems specifically vax VMS Unix OS 400 and in the 1990s windows in t The Hamiltons and the justice department engaged in an unusually bitter contract dispute over the software and ins law entered bankruptcy the Hamilton suit the federal government alleging that the justice department had dishonestly conspired to drive insula out of business through trickery fraud and Deceit by withholding payments to insular and then pirating the software a bankruptcy court and federal district court agreed with Hamilton's although these rulings were later vacated by court of appeals for jurisdictional reasons Hamilton's and others asserted that the justice department had done so in order to modify promise originally created to manage legal cases to become a monitoring software for intelligence operations affidavits created over the course of the insular Affairs stated that promise was given or sold at a profit to Israel and as many as 80 other countries by Dr Earl W Bryan a man with close personal and business ties to then President Ronald Reagan and then Presidential counsel Edwin Messi in September of 1992 a house Judiciary Committee report raised serious concerns at Justice Department officials had schemed to destroy innslaw and co-opt the rights to its promise 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 an investigation in 1989 the rep portfolio to 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 promised by trickery fraud and deceit a book written in 1997 by fabariso Calvi and Theory fitzer claimed that the National Security Agency NSA had been seeding computers abroad with promise embedded Smart Systems management automated reasoning tools chips codenamed Petrie capable of covertly downloading data and transmitting it using electrical wiring as an antenna to a U.S intelligence satellite as part of an Espionage operation in the early 1980s manchur gubernet and Adnan kugoshi both had facilitated the transaction of Promise software to Khalid bin maffles a prominent Saudi billionaire I do apologize if I get these names wrong I have no idea exactly how to pronounce these names so I do apologize the media Mogul and alleged Israeli Spyro but Maxwell was involved in selling the promise software and Bill and Nancy Hamilton also discovered that the Canadian government had acquired promise despite the fact that they did not sell it to Canada my understanding of how that worked was the rscmp the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP approached insul asking for instructions on how to use this software because apparently they weren't given one and the Hamiltons then kind of had to raise their eyebrows of that and say well we never sold it to Canada how did you get your hands in our software and that created a whole big new storm of [ __ ] because then they started asking questions well how come you've got our software if we never gave it to you so that started a whole new realm of problems for insul and for the Department of Justice now we're going to talk more about Michael reconnaissuto so Michael rayconoshuto is an electronics and computer expert who was arrested in early 1991. shortly after providing insular Inc with an affidavit in support of their lawsuit against the U.S Department of Justice Recon ishudo professed a defense center on the the insular Fair a legal case in which the US government was charged with illegal use of computer software reconnaissito claimed to have reprogrammed inslaw's case management program promise with a secret backdoor to allow clandest and tracking of individuals reconnaissudo stated that he'd been threatened with prosecution by Justice Department official Recon a shooter provided an affidavit detailing threats to a house slick committee investigating the insular Affair now as I understand at the justice department approached him and they gave him a choice they said you can either join us or you can join ins law they said that if Margaret kanoshudo explained it that they said well if you join us apparently we kind of shooter was going through a very harsh bankrupt a very harsh child custody battle with a former partner of his and they said to him well look if you join us against dinslore and you promise not to say anything or defend ensler again against us we're going to help you out in this custody dispute and everything will go your way meaning that they would make sure that reconna shoot her for helping them would get custody of his children and his partner would lose so they were going to try and throw they were are going to in a way make things go in his favor they were going to do some dodgy Shady Shenanigans behind the scenes and push things in his favor because he helped them kind of like a you scratch my back I'll scratch yours if he didn't reconnaissito claimed that they were gonna they were gonna throw the book at him they were going to do whatever they could to ruin his life they even threatened to as I understand it get him involved and prosecute him along with his father in some business dealings that his father was involved in it's never really clear exactly what business dealings his father was involved in but apparently there were some dodgy dealings that his father was involved with and Rick on a shooter was going to be prosecuted along with him in those dodgy dealings so that's what was meant by When Ross reconna should have said it had been threatened with prosecution now we get into reconnaissito's early life so Recon ashuto 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 Recon a shooter was employed as an engineer to mine in Maricopa California Hercules properties limited had raised financing and purchased a 167 acre contaminated waste disposal site which had once been a portion of a 1 300 acre TNT and fertilizer manufacturer known as Hercules powderworks now we get into some of the allegations that he's made so we start off with the October surprise Recon of shooter stated in 1993 that he had knowledge of the October surprise conspiracy allegations then it was the Cabazon murders and Nathan backer's Emmy award-winning series The Octopus murder's featured documents from The Archives of Michael Recon of shudo these documents have been the subject of interest for recently reopened Cold Case homicide investigations then we get into the insular Affair so in early 1991 Recon ashuto filed an affidavit before a house Judiciary Committee investigating the bankruptcy case of insular Inc versus United States government reconnaissura was called to testify before Congress regarding the modification of Promise a case management software program that had been developed for the Department of Justice by Washington dc-based inslaw Inc reconnaissura declared that he had been under the direction of Earl Bryan who was in a controlling shareholder and director of hard on Inc hard on was a competitor to insloy and was also a government consulting firm with several contracts with the Department of Defense and the CIA within eight days of the this declaration Recon shooter was arrested for conspiracy to manufacture conspiracy to distribute possession with intent to distribute and with distribution a total of 10 counts related to methamphetamine and methadone now during his trial reconna should have accused The Drug Enforcement Administration DEA are stealing two copies of his tape reconnaissance also stated that he himself had disposed of a third tape that being the tape that I talked about before where he had had an insurance tape where basically he was threatened and it would have proven his case however apparently two of the tapes were stolen and he disposed of a third tape however when Danny castellero tried to find that he wasn't able to find the tape I did speak about that before in addition to his claims of a government frame up related to ins law Recon a shooter 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 number of the does hazardous spill Response Team asserted that the hiberium levels on the property were unlikely to be the result of and she does work barium does have specialized usage for Metallurgy with regards to processing of Platinum Group Metals it is investigations of the allegations surrounding the insular case special counsels Nicholas J Booher was particularly critical as I said before as several of insula's witnesses he particularly found that Recon ashudo had given inconsistent accounts and statements to the Hamiltons his affidavit and in testimony at his 1992 trial for manufacturing methamphetamine I mean boa compared reconushudo's story about promise to a historical novel a tale of total fiction woven against the background of accurate historical facts another interesting point that was that while in jail investigators for the intelligence committee for the House of Representatives met with reconnaiss shooter and took six hours of depositions from him asked him for proof to back up his claims Recon a shooter had marked on his paper attorney-client privilege so that the guards couldn't open them but they disregarded this and opened the contents and refused to forward it instead according to reports they contacted the NSA who collected the material to review it it remains unknown to this day what happened in the material or what the contents of the documents was a lot of people were skeptical to reconnaissito and his wild claims because he couldn't back up a lot of what he was saying for example he claimed he'd been present at the autopsy of an alien and that he knew that 911 was gonna 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 this claim he couldn't in the summer of 1990 casalira arranged to meet Bill Hamilton expressing an interest in pursuing the ins law story Hamilton gave Kessler a 12-page memo reconnaissor had written detailing his allegations Rosenbaum writes that and I quote the moment he got his hands on that maddening memo with its Maze of Illusion in reality was the moment dany'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 and Dragons with this that memo as his guide and Recon Michael reconashuto as his dungeon master next we shall delve into the Myriad of strange deaths that have plagued this k over the years so stay tuned for part two [Music]