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Date sent: Mon, 10 May 1999 19:26:58 +0100
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From: Ashley Rye <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: IUFO: Wackenhut, Part 2
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Danny Casolaro's body was found at 12:30 p.m. in a bloodfilled bath tub by
a hotel maid who called the Martinsburg police. The body contained three
deep cuts on the right wrist and seven on the left wrist, made by a single
edge razor blade, the kind used to scrape windows or open packages.At
the
bottom of the bathwater was an empty Milwaukee beer can, a paper glass
coaster, the razor blade and two white plastic trash bags, the kind used
in wastepaper baskets.On the desk in the hotel room was an empty mead
composition notebook with one page torn out and a suicide note which
read:
"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."
There were no other papers, folders, documents of any sort, nor any
briefcase found in the room. Danny's wallet was intact,
stuffed with credit cards.The body was removed from the tub by Lieutenant
Dave Brining from the Martinsburg fire department, and his wife, Sandra, a
nurse who works in the hospital emergency room. The couple, who often
moonlighted as coroners, took the body to the Brown Funeral Home where
they conducted an examination.Charles Brown then decided to embalm the
body that night and go home, rather than come back to work the next day,
Sunday.
No one in Danny Casolaro's family had been notified of his death at that
time, nor had they requested the body be embalmed.When Casolaro's
family
learned of the death, they insisted it was not a suicide and called for an
autopsy and an investigation. Though the body had already been embalmed,
an autopsy was performed at the West Virginia University Hospital by a Dr.
Frost. The findings indicated that no struggle had taken place because
there were no recent bruises on the body. The drugs found in Casolaro's
urine, blood and tissue samples were in minute amounts but they were also
unexplainable by his brother, Tony, who is a medical doctor.
According to Tony Casolaro, Danny did not take drugs or have any
prescriptions for the drug traces of Hydrocodone and
Tricyclic antidepressant that were found in the body. No pill boxes or
written prescriptions were found. Dr. Casolaro searched through his
brother's Blue Cross records and found no record of the prescriptions or
doctor visits.
During the autopsy of the body, Dr. Frost had found lesions within the
brain which were characteristic of Multiple Sclerosis. It was possible
that Danny was having blurring of vision, but Dr. Frost downplayed the
possibility that this contributed to any suicide. Of particular interest,
was Frost's observation that the deep razor wounds on Danny's wrists were
inflicted "without any hesitation marks." However, the lack of hesitation
did not indicate one way or the other whether they were or were not
selfinflicted.Investigators and police never found Danny's missing
briefcase.
On August 6, 1991, Casolaro's housekeeper, Olga, helped Danny pack a black
leather tote bag. She remembered he also packed a thick sheaf of papers
into a dark brown or black briefcase. She asked him what he had put into
the briefcase and he replied, "I have all my papers ..." He had been
typing for two days, and as he left the house, he said, "Wish me luck.
I'll see you in a couple of days."
By August 9th, Casolaro's friends were alarmed. Noone had heard from him
and Olga was receiving threatening phone calls at Danny's home. On
Saturday, August 10th, Olga received another call, a man's voice said,
"You son of a bitch. You're dead."After learning of Danny's death, Olga
recalled seeing Danny sitting in the kitchen on August 5th with a "heavy
man ... wearing a dark suit. He was a dark man with black hair he turned
towards the door, I saw he was darkskinned. I told police maybe he could
be from India."
At 3:00 p.m. on Friday, the day before Danny's death, Bill Turner, a
friend and confidante, met Danny in the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel
to deliver some papers to him. The papers allegedly consisted of two
sealed packages which Turner had been keeping in his safe at home for
Danny, and a packet of Hughes Aircraft papers which belonged to Turner.
Danny had appeard exhuberant to most of his friends before his death,
noting that he was about to "wrap up" his investigation of The Octopus.
Casolaro was trying to prove that the alleged theft of the Inslaw computer
program, PROMISE, was related to the October Surprise scandal, the
IranContra affair and the collapse of BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce
International).
Turner later admitted to police that he had indeed met with Danny on
August 9th, but at that time he refused to specify what time and would not
describe what was in the papers he delivered to Danny. I later learned
that Turner had been investigating discrepancies involving his former
employer, Hughes Aircraft Company. The documents he had delivered from his
safe to Danny had been sealed, with Casolaro's name written across the
seal, and he claimed not to have known what they contained.Nevertheless,
it is feasible to assume that Turner may have known who Danny was
preparing to meet that evening at the Martinsburg Hotel because, for
reasons of his own, Turner apparently wanted Danny to show the Hughes
Aircraft documents to whoever he was meeting with.
Turner later noted to reporters that he was "scared shitless" about
information he had seen connecting Ollie North and BCCI. "I
saw papers from Danny that connected back through the Keating Five and
Silverado [the failed Denver S & L where Neil Bush had been an officer],"
he said.
To his friend, Ben Mason, Danny showed a 22point outline for his book.
Included in the information he shared with Mason were papers referring to
IranContra arms deals. Photocopies of checks made out for $1 million and
$4 million drawn on BCCI accounts held for Adnan Khashoggi, and
international arms merchant and factotum for the House of Saud, and by
Manucher Ghorbanifar, an arms dealer and IranContra middleman, were
presented.
"The last sheet," noted Mason, "was a passport of some guy named Ibrahim."
Casolaro had emphasized that Ibrahim had made a big deal of showing him
(Casolaro) his "Egyptian" passport."Ibrahim" was obviously the informant
whom Olga, Casolaro's housekeeper, had seen sitting in the kitchen with
Danny on August 5th. Hassan Ali Ibrahim Ali, born in 1928, was later
identified as the manager of Sitico, an alleged Iraqi front company for
arms purchases. Casolaro had obtained these papers from Bob Bickel, who in
turn obtained them from October Surprise source Richard Brenneke.
Ari BenMenasche, a self proclaimed Israeli military intelligence officer,
was responsible for the tipoff to an obscure Lebanese magazine about what
later became known as the IranContra scandal. After Casolaro's death,
Menasche called Bill Hamilton, the president of Inslaw Company and creator
of the PROMISE software. (Hamilton had been in daily contact with Casolaro
until about a week prior to his death).
Menasche claimed that two FBI agents from Lexington, Kentucky, had
embarked on a trip to Martinsburg to meet Casolaroas part of their
investigation of the sale of the PROMISE software to Israel and other
intelligence agencies.Ben Menasche told Hamilton that one of the FBI
agents, E.B. Cartinhour, was disaffected because his superiors had refused
to indict high Reagan officials for their role in the October Surprise.
Ben Menasche claimed the agents were prepared to give Casolaro proof that
the FBI was illegally using PROMISE software.
It is highly unlikely that the two FBI agents were enroute to Martinsburg
to GIVE anything to Casolaro, but they may well have been on their way to
obtain HIS documents and those belonging to Bill Turner. If, in fact,
Danny had disclosed to any one of the many "sources" he had developed
during his investigation, that he was turning over his documents to the
Lexington FBI, that may well have alarmed a few of them.
Casolaro was also investigating Colonel Bo Gritz's expose of CIA drug
trafficking, and had requested to meet with a former police officer who
had information on Laotian warlord Kuhn Sa's Golden Triangle drug trade
proposal to the U.S. He had learned through a Sacramento Bee newspaper
article, dated June 2, 1990 that Patrick Moriarty, the Red Devil fireworks
magnate convicted of laundering political contributions and bribing city
officials in Sacramento, had been subpoenaed to testify on behalf of Gritz
at his trial in Las Vegas where he was tried for using a false passport.
Gritz was acquitted of the charges.
Moriarty's lawyer, Jan Lawrence Handzlik, told the Bee that Moriarty had
paid Gritz to make business trips to China, Singapore and other parts of
Asia. Gritz said his business trip to Asia in July 1989 was for the
purpose of negotiating an oil interest that he and Moriarty had set up
between the People's Republic of China and Indonesia.
It is noteworthy that Patrick Moriarty is the longtime (30 years) partner
of Marshall Riconosciuto, Michael Riconosciuto's father. They owned
several California businesses together, two of which were Hercules
Research Corporation, of which Michael was a partner, and Pyrotronics
Corporation.
******
Casolaro at one time considered the title of "Indio" for the book he was
writing about "The Octopus." His death occurred just days before he
planned to visit the Cabazon Indian reservation near Indio, California.
Though his notes did not divulge what role the Cabazons may have had in
the conspiracy, Casolaro listed Dr. John Phillip Nichols, the Cabazon
administrator, as a former CIA agent.
A source of information which Danny may have read is entitled, "DARK
VICTORY, Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob," by
Dan E. Moldea. Moldea named this unholy alliance "The Octopus" in his
book.
Numerous publications reporting on Casolaro's death corroborated that one
of his sources included Michael Riconosciuto, a "44yearold former hightech
scientist who had connections with Wackenhut Corporation ..." What brought
Casolaro to Riconosciuto was an affidavit signed by Riconosciuto claiming
that when he worked on the WackenhutCabazon project, he was given a copy
of the Inslaw software by Earl Brian for modification. Riconosciuto also
swore that Peter Videnieks, a Justice Department official associated with
the Inslaw contract, had visited the WackenhutCabazon project with Earl
Brian.
Earl Brian was a businessman and Edwin Meese crony who served in Governor
Ronald Reagan's cabinet in California.The $6 million in software stolen
from William and Nancy Hamilton, coowners of Inslaw Company, was allegedly
sold by the Justice Department through Earl Brian to raise offthebooks
money for covert government operations.
On May 18, 1990, Riconosciuto had called the Hamiltons and informed them
that the Inslaw case was connected to the October Surprise affair.
Riconosciuto claimed that he and Earl Brian had traveled to Iran in 1980
and paid $40 million to Iranian officials to persuade them NOT to release
the hostages before the presidential election in which Reagan became
president of the United States.
Riconosciuto's information created a domino effect in Washington D.C.,
opening numerous investigations and causing a media blitz. At that time,
Casolaro headed the Hamilton's private investigation of the theft of their
software and he had regular communication with Riconosciuto.
Former U.S. Attorney General Elliott Richardson, the Hamilton's attorney,
subsequently sent Riconosciuto an affidavit to sign, to be filed by Inslaw
in federal court in connection with Inslaw's pending Motion for Limited
Discovery. The affidavit, Case No. 8500070, entered into court records,
resulted in Riconosciuto's arrest within days. It read as follows:
"I Michael J. Riconosciuto, being duly sworn, do hereby state as follows:
"(1) During the early 1980's, I served as the Director of Research for a
joint venture between the Wackenhut Corporation of Coral Gables, Florida,
and the Cabazon Band of Indians of Indio, California. The joint venture
was located on the Cabazon reservation.
"(2) The WackenhutCabazon joint venture sought to develop and/or
manufacture certain materials that are used in military and
national security operations, including night vision goggles, machine
guns, fuelair explosives, and biological and chemical warfare weapons.
"(3) The Cabazon Band of Indians are a sovereign nation. The sovereign
immunity that is accorded the Cabazons as a consequence of this fact made
it feasible to pursue on the reservation the development and/or
manufacture of materials whose development or manufacture would be subject
to stringent controls off the reservation. As a minority group, the
Cabazon Indians also provided the Wackenhut Corporation with an enhanced
ability to obtain federal contracts through the 8A Set Aside Program, and
in connection with Governmentowned contractoroperated (GOCO) facilities.
"(4) The WackenhutCabazon joint venture was intended to support the needs
of a number of foreign governments and forces, including forces and
governments in Central America and the Middle East. The Contras in
Nicaragua represented one of the most important priorities for the joint
venture.
"(5) The WackenhutCabazon joint venture maintained close liaison with
certain elements of the United States Government, including
representatives of intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies.
"(6) Among the frequent visitors to the WackenhutCabazon joint venture
were Peter Videnieks of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington,
D.C., and a close associate of Videnieks by the name of Earl W. Brian.
Brian is a private businessman who lives in Maryland and who has
maintained close ties with the U.S. intelligence community for many years.
"(7) In connection with my work for Wackenhut, I engaged in some software
development and modification work in 1983 and 1984 on the proprietary
PROMIS computer software product. The copy of PROMIS on which I worked
came from the U.S. Department of Justice. Earl W. Brian made it available
to me through Wackenhut after acquiring it from Peter Videnieks, who was
then a Department of Justice contracting official with responsibility for
the PROMISE software. I performed the modifications to PROMIS in Indio,
California; Silver Spring, Maryland; and Miami, Florida.
"(8) The purpose of the PROMISE software modifications that I made in 1983
and 1984 was to support a plan for the implementation of PROMIS in law
enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide. Earl W. Brian was
spearheading the plan for this worldwide use of the PROMISE computer
software.
"(9) Some of the modifications that I made were specifically designed to
facilitate the implementation of PROMIS within two agencies of the
Government of Canada; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the
Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). Earl W. Brian would
check with me from time to time to make certain that the work would be
completed in time to satisfy the schedule for the RCMP and CSIS
implementations of PROMIS.
"(10) The proprietary version of PROMIS, as modified by me, was, in fact,
implemented in both the RCMP and the CSIS in Canada. It was my
understanding that Earl W. Brian had sold this version of PROMIS to the
Government of Canada.
"(11) In February 1991, I had a telephone conversation with Peter
Videnieks, then still employed by the U.S. Department of
Justice. Videnicks attempted during this telephone conversation to
persuade me not to cooperate with an independent investigation of the
government's piracy of Inslaw's proprietary PROMIS software being
conducted by the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of
Representatives.
"(12) Videnieks stated that I would be rewarded for a decision not to
cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee investigation. Videnieks
forecasted an immediate and favorable resolution of a protracted child
custody dispute being prosecuted against my wife by her former husband, if
I were to decide not to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee
investigation.
"(13) Videnieks also outlined specific punishments that I could expect to
receive from the U.S. Department of Justice if I cooperate with the House
Judiciary Committee's investigation.
"(14) One punishment that Videnieks outlined was the future inclusion of
me and my father in a criminal prosecution of certain business associates
of mine in Orange County, California, in connection with the operation of
a savings and loan institution in Orange County. By way of underscoring
his power to influence such decisions at the U.S. Department of Justice,
Videnieks informed me of the indictment of these business associates prior
to the time when that indictment was unsealed and made public.
"(15) Another punishment that Videnieks threatened against me if I
cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee is
prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice for perjury. Videnieks
warned me that credible witnesses would come forward to contradict any
damaging claims that I made in testimony before the House Judiciary
Committee, and that I would subsequently be prosecuted for perjury by the
U.S. Department of Justice for my testimony before the House Judiciary
Committee."
It is noteworthy that in January, 1992 when I obtained boxes of Michael
Riconosciuto's hidden documents, included in those documents were
handwritten pages of telephone numbers belonging to various Washington
D.C. dignitaries. One number, "(202) 4260789" was listed as belonging to
"PV," but it was no longer in service.
******
Danny Casolaro was, of course, intent on interviewing Peter Videnieks. A
strange coincidence occurred during the week prior to his death. While
sitting in a pub, having a beer, a man named Joseph Cuellar approached him
and they began talking. At some point during the conversation, Danny
disclosed the contents of his investigation and expressed a desire to
interview Peter Videnieks.
To Danny's astonishment, Cuellar, claiming to be a Special Forces
operative, said he could arrange a rendevous between Peter
Videnieks and Casolaro. Cuellar's connection to Peter Videnieks allegedly
came through Videnieks' wife, Barbara, who was the executive assistant to
the powerful West Virginia Democratic Senator, Robert Byrd. Byrd played a
major role in the effort to have the CIA move some of its administrative
offices to Charlestown, 20 miles from Martinsburg, on the Virginia border.
It was apparently through Barbara Videnieks that Cuellar intended to
arrange the interview.
Casolaro confided to friends that he was unnerved by this supposedly
chance meeting. He met with Cuellar at other times that week, but it is
unknown whether he ever spoke with Videnieks. To date, that question
remains unanswered.
Significantly, Elliot Richardson, the respected former U.S. Attorney
General representing Inslaw, called for the appointment of
a special counsel to look into the death of Casolaro.
Ash's mural gallery:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/3517/Ash/index.html
-> Send "subscribe iufo " to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-> Posted by: Ashley Rye <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Wingate
California Director
SKYWATCH INTERNATIONAL
ANOMALOUS IMAGES AND UFO FILES
http://www.anomalous-images.com
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