Dixie Mafia

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George H.W. Bush in 1983 with Bill Clinton and George Wallace at a lobster bake at his house

History

Iran-Contra affair

Main article: Iran-Contra

Many connections to Iran-Contra: see Barry Seal's smuggling into Mena AK and other Southern locations, Sally Denton's The Bluegrass Conspiracy about Kentucky, and John Caylor's claims about Enterprise AL

Electronic vote rigging

A purported informant close to the John McCain campaign in 2008 told litigants in the King Lincoln case that the GOP's election rigging enterprise had a technical base in Chattanooga TN with SmarTech and further stated "Don't get fixated on Ohio, this scheme has ties to Enterprise, Alabama".[1]

Notable operations

Notable members

Alabama

  • George Wallace - Alabama governor and 1968 presidential candidate (with running mate Curtis LeMay); had some link to the Process Church
  • Henry Caylor - police chief of Enterprise AL
  • Jeff Sessions - US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama (1981-1993); Alabama attorney general (1995-1997); US Senator from Alabama (1997-2017); US Attorney General (2017-2018)
  • Mark Fuller - private practice attorney and Doss Aviation businessman (1985-1996); Alabama 12th Circuit District Attorney (1996-2002); Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama (2002-2015) who oversaw the Don Siegelman prosecution
  • William Pryor - Alabama attorney general (1997-2004) who prevented a hand count in the 2002 Alabama general election; Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (2004-present)
  • Bowen Ballard - former US Air Force officer who was assistant to the Commander of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base; businessman and real estate agent in Destin FL
  • Karl Rove - political consultant and election manipulation operative

Arkansas

Florida

Georgia

Kentucky

Louisiana

  • Carlos Marcello
  • Don Meteric - the pseudonym given by Max Call to a recruiter for the Hand of Death cult, who was in the auto transport business and had an office in Shreveport LA

Mississippi

  • Pete Halat
  • Kirksey Nix

North Carolina

Tennessee

  • Jack Ray - board chairman of the Bank of Putnam County (reportedly involved in money laundering in Cookeville TN)
  • W.T. Ray Jr. - a so-called "Cement Czar" who was the president of Builders Supply Company of Cookeville and also served on the board of the Bank of Putnam County with his brother Jack Ray; a friend of Fleet White Sr. in Aspen CO
  • Jeff Averbeck - owner of SmarTech, a Chattanooga technology company involved in election manipulation
  • John L. Ryder - Memphis attorney, lawyer on the Shelby County Election Commission who fought Bev Harris's election integrity efforts, and general counsel for the Republican National Committee (RNC) since 2013

Texas

West Virginia

Political connections

Interest organizations

Corrupted agencies

Iran-Contra

Main article: Iran-Contra

Human trafficking

Related article: Valdosta sex ring allegations

Corporate connections

See also

References

  1. ↑ Alleged revelations to Brett Kimberlin from an anonymous tipster in the McCain campaign aware of the election fraud

External links

  • John Caylor about the Dixie Mafia and Enterprise AL
    • New York Times, "U.S. SAYS COPTER DID NOT AID REBELS", 1984/01/14: "United States diplomats and leaders of United States-backed guerrillas fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista Government said today that the American military helicopter that went down near the Nicaragua-Honduras border Wednesday was not in any way connected to the anti-Sandinista insurgency. But they had different explanations of what the helicopter was doing in the area, which has been the scene of heavy fighting in the past. The helicopter pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Jeffery C. Schwab of Joliet, Ill., was killed, reportedly by gunfire from Nicaragua after making an emergency landing only a few hundred feet inside Honduras. [...] The two other soldiers aboard were not injured. They were identified today as Capt. Christopher B. Maitin, 27 years old, and Capt. Robert R. Green, 39, both attached to the Army's 46th Engineer Battalion. The battalion is based in Fort Rucker, Ala., and has been stationed at the Honduran town of San Lorenzo while participating in the Big Pine II United States-Honduras military maneuvers."
    • Beth Lyman story
      • Daniel Hopsicker, "Greetings from Enterprise, Alabama!", 1998/02/01: "Beth Lyman is the estranged wife of a man [named John Collins] whom she says, in testimony to a federal grand jury, is a drug pilot at a CIA proprietary airline, Tepper Aviation, run by a man who is a close friend of notorious CIA killer-cum-drug- kingpin, Felix Rodriguez. [...] Tiny Enterprise, Alabama, located near the Florida state line, has the busiest airport in the world--4500 sorties per day. [...] Oliver North's Enterprise (see accompanying story) was likely named after the very real town of Enterprise, Alabama, a place notorious both for having hosted Tom Posey's CMA contra training camp as well as a hunting camp frequented by prominent members of the Medellin cartel, including Carlos Ledher, whom Barry Seal flew in in the middle 80's, according to law enforcement sources within the Alabama Bureau of Investigations. [...] The letter from Beth rang a strong chord with us--especially after it mentioned the activities of a current sitting Senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions, whose actions while a US Attorney in Mobile, revealed in official court documents, protected the sanctioned traffic in narcotics through that section of the country."
      • 2019/07/12 filing by John Caylor to intervene in the murder trial of Coley McCraney opposing the media gag order: "On May 21, 1998, City of Dothan vs Mary Elizabeth Lyman, Beth Lyman was arrested for Attempted Burglary in Case NO: CC- 1998-000617.00. Mrs. Lyman had friended me through my mother Nellie Ruth Caylor at Enterprise to seek federal criminal prosecution guidance and help after her arrest.

        Mrs. Lyman’s soon to be ex-husband Scott Lyman whose apartment she burglarized at Dothan during December 1997 was a USAF Pilot on Fort Rucker payroll flying C-130 Cargo Airplanes to Collins Sign Company at Napier Field, Alabama. The cargo on his shipments from China were Child Porn Master Video Tapes and Master Stills for duplication and national distribution at Movie Gallery, HQ at Dothan, Alabama, other items she mentioned were illegal exotic drugs from Southeast Asia and talk of Human Trafficking.

        Mrs. Lyman downloaded over 350 child porn photos from her husband’s computer all imported by him and the USAF to Napier Field. She intended to end the criminal network exposing them to Dothan Police and was promptly arrested for Burglary. I personally viewed the stills of 6-year-old to 14-year-old Chinese Female and Male Children engaging in sexual acts with older men.

        After her arrest Alabama Bureau of Investigation narcotics agents were in physical custody of those photographs. I again saw many of those same photographs as a documented South Alabama Narcotics Intelligence operative of SANIP whose headquarters is in Mobile, Alabama. No Criminal or Civil case was ever instigated against Scott Lyman, USAF, Movie Gallery and their associates by the State of Alabama or the United States."
    • John Caylor, "Enterprise, Alabama - a 1st person account of life under cartel occupation", 1999/01/07 (link on Daniel Hopsicker website)
    • John Caylor, "Inside the Dixie Mafia: Politics of Death", 2004 (original article)
    • John Caylor, "The Dixie Mafia’s Contract On America", 2007/12/17 (archived copy from .com website)
    • Background and credibility of John Caylor
      • Enterprise AL police chief Henry Caylor (father of John Caylor)
        • Dothan Eagle, "Courtesy Of Chief In Enterprise Pays", 1957/11/13: "The sound of a "beep, beep" motorcycle horn or the slight increase of engine revolutions just around the corner is the introduction citizens of Enterprise get from their new acting police chief, Henry B. Caylor. [...] Caylor is the leader of the eight-man police department recognized for their courtesy. That is one of the reasons Caylor, at age 30, is the chief. He succeeded the late Thais Ellis, who served the city just as diligently until his death several weeks ago. Caylor started his law enforcement career under Ellis in 1953. Three years later he was promoted to night captain. Before joining the department, he served in the Navy during World War II, most of the time aboard a battleship in the South Pacific. After his discharge, he workedfor the Sessions Company in Enterprise four years. A native of Coffee County, he is a son of Mrs. Ruth Caylor. During his time as a police man, he set a record for the department. [...] His interest in the youth program is sparked by his wife, the former Nellie Ruth Whigham of Enterprise and their two sons, John 9, and Mitchell H., 6."
        • Dothan Eagle, "Caylor New Chief For Enterprise", 1957/12/05: "Henry Caylor has been named permanent police chief here in action by the City Council this week. The decision was unanimous. Caylor has been serving as acting chief since the death of Chief Thais Ellis about one month ago. Caylor, age 30, is a native of Coffee County. He joined the police force in 1953. Three years later he was promoted to night captain. A World War II veteran, he is married to the former Nellie Ruth Whigham of Enterprise and has two sons, John, 9, and Mitchell H., 6. Mayor M. N. Brown said he was "glad to see that the council saw fit to make him chief -- it was unanimous.""
        • Dothan Eagle, "Religion Working For Police Chief", 1960/02/02: "Police Chief H. B. Caylor is wearing a pair of rose-colored glasses these days, and he would like to outfit each member of his department with them. He feels that every one -- policemen, taxpayers and criminals alike -- would benefit, for the colored lenses are part of the new religious concept of police work which has struck this town."
        • Enterprise Ledger, "Police Arrest Check Artists, Purse Snatcher", 1960/02/25: "If others have checks signed by the above name, they are urged to contact [Chief] Caylor or [County Deputy Sheriff] Ralph Sparks at once."
        • Florala News, announcement, 1962/10/25: "HONORABLE ED BROGDEN was named chairman of the Alabama Policeman's Association Orphanage Committee Monday by Association President Jeff Mosley. Other members of the committee are Chief of Police R. B. Moyer of Cullman, Chief of Police E. B. Stafford of Greenville and Chief of Police Henry Caylor of Enterprise."
          • Alabama Supreme Court, Luker v. City of Brantley, appeal decision, 1987/01/09: "Joe C. Cassady and Joe C. Cassady, Jr., of Cassady, Fuller & Marsh, Enterprise, for City of Brantley. [...] In December 1983, James Luker, as administrator of his daughter's estate, filed a wrongful death action in Crenshaw Circuit Court. In this action, he named as defendants: Nicholas Clague, the owner of the automobile Patrick had been driving; Patrick; the City of Brantley; and the City of Luverne. The complaint was later amended so that it also included as defendants Brantley police officers Curtis Armstrong, James Ennis, and C. Collins Davis; the chief of police of the City of Brantley, Ralph Hamlis; and the chief of police of the City of Luverne, Jeff Mosley."
        • Enterprise Ledger, "Negro confesses to eight counts after capture inside Smith Bros.", 1963/11/28: "Eight counts of breaking and entering have been placed against Shelly Davis, Jr., 18, Negro, of 200 Johns Street. Police Chief Henry Caylor said Davis was caught early Tuesday morning and has confessed to the eight charges. Caylor said investigations are continuing on two others. When asked if he had committed all this things, Davis said, "Yes, I do all them things except the two he (Caylor) said investigation wasn't complete on." [...] Chief Caylor said Davis will be turned over to county authorities. Officers involved in the arrest were Caylor, Hughes, Douglas Burris and Wayne Herring."
      • Pensacola News Journal, "It's not too late" by John Burt Caylor of Panama City Beach, 1992/02/03: "The "Topsail Hill" case in Pensacola is one of hundreds of S&L cases we tried to tell you about. "Topsail Hill" is the grand finale of the S&L scenario, complete with organized crime figures, Iran-Contra players, top political leaders and high level cover-ups that extend into the U.S. Justice Department. In 1990, we tried to tell you that shadow government players waged a terror campaign against the federal court system. Their successful terror campaign was aimed at forcing early retirements and resignations from federal benches, further stacking the deck against your life, liberty and property."
      • Letter from South Alabama Narcotics Intelligence Program (SANIP) director William J. Warner on 1993/01/04 recommending John Burt Caylor for US government employment due to his assistance with drug trafficking investigations in Florida and Alabama
        • South Alabama Narcotics Intelligence Program, "TRENDS IN THE TRAFFIC", 1992/10/01 (text version): "South Alabama Narcotics Intelligence Program (SANIP) was initiated on July 1, 1992. The primary goal is to establish an intelligence program to collect, analyze, coordinate and distribute narcotic related information provided by local, state and federal enforcement agencies. This will encompass identification of major drug traffickers and organizations, assist in seizing drugs and assets, and aid in major investigations to immobilize major drug organizations."
  • William G. Harrison background
    • PBS, "The Last Frontier", 2003/06/06: "The Governor, whose former real estate company recently sold a one-third interest to St. Joe, has been one of the airport's biggest cheerleaders. He recently traveled to Panama City to promote the idea for which he's already budgeted $10 million of state funding. But Governor Bush is not the only influential person paying attention to the airport. The man St. Joe hired as their lobbyist is William Harrison. He was also the local chairman of both Jeb and George W. Bush's last campaigns through the Panhandle."
  • Charles Hilton background (a.k.a. Charles L. Hilton)
    • 850 Business Magazine, "The Man Behind The Power", 2008/10/06: "He is one of the most powerful and influential men in the Panhandle. A leader and visionary, L. Charles “Charlie” Hilton Jr. came from nothing and created an empire. [...] He practiced law with former Florida Senate President Dempsey Barron, who died in 2001, and was partners in business with former House Speaker Allan Bense. As CEO of Hilton Enterprises in Panama City, Hilton developed hotels, apartments and commercial buildings in addition to his asphalt company, GAC Contractors. As a passionate conservative who believes in limited government, Hilton was a founding member of the political organization Club for Growth [...] Some are irked by Hilton’s influence."
  • Earl Durden background (a.k.a. Earl K. Durden or K. Earl Durden)
    • Obituary for Earl Kedrick Durden: "Kedrick Earl Durden, 73, of Panama City Beach, Fla., passed away Sunday, April 25, 2010 in his home surrounded by his family. Mr. Durden was born Sept. 29, 1936, in Hartford, Ala. [...] From 1975 to 1980, Mr. Durden began a very successful transportation consulting practice. His clients included DuPont, Jim Walters Corp., Lundy-Thagard Oil Co. and Green Bay Packaging Corp.. [...] Mr. Durden moved from Dothan to Panama City in 1988. [...] He was a past chairman of the Florida Transportation Commission and served as a commission member for eight years. During his tenure, Mr. Durden was largely credited with securing the funding for the new Hathaway Bridge and the four-laning of State 79 and State 77. [...] During his time in Panama City, Mr. Durden was a member of the Florida Base Relocation Appointment Committee, served on the Bay County Economic Development Alliance, chaired the K-12 grade Sub-Committee of the Florida State University-Panama City Presidential Blue Ribbon Committee, was on the board of the Florida Council of 100, a director of the James Madison Institute, and director and past chairman of the Florida Justice Reform Institute. [...] Honorary pallbearers are Charles Hilton, Charles Whitehead, former Speaker, Allan Bense, Lowell ""Jake"" Jacobsen, Leo N. Crowley, James F. Kress, Mack Dove, Burl Lane, Frank Harrell, Bob Sandage, Edwin Clark, Cecil Bowden (deceased), Euell Benton (deceased), C.F. Fisher, III, Sen. Don Gaetz, Rep. Jimmy Patronis, Rep. Marti Coley, Gov. Jeb Bush, U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, Gov. Charlie Crist, Floyd Skinner and Corby Myers."
    • Panama City Living, "WATERFRONT LIVING: VILLA CHIMERA, THE DURDEN RESIDENCE", 2018/05/09: "Karen Durden, the perfect host, greets visitors with her typical large warm smile and innate class. This estate, she explains, is a dream fulfilled by her late husband Earl Durden. One of Northwest Florida’s most prominent businessmen, K. Earl Durden was an icon in the railroad industry. He is best known in Panama City, his chosen hometown, as the owner/operator of the Bay Line Railroad. He owned 16 railroads across the country. Florida Trend Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential persons in Florida. Among many other notable achievements and positions, Earl Durden was a former chairman of the Florida Transportation Commission and longtime chairman of The American Short Line and Regional Rail Road Association."
  • Bowen Ballard background
    • US Air Force biography of MAJOR GENERAL A. BOWEN BALLARD: "Retired April 01,2003 [Since January 1999] Maj. Gen. A. Bowen Ballard is mobilization assistant to the Commander, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. He assists in the formulation of policies for the general operation of Air University and its special projects. He advises the commander in Reserve activities and mobilization plans, and performs specific responsibilities in a staff officer capacity. [...] Prior to his current assignment, he was mobilization assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Services, Fort George G. Meade, Md. In his civilian occupation, he is chief executive officer of a real estate corporation and director of a commercial bank. The general maintains a civilian pilot's license with more than 6,000 flying hours."
    • Identity Ventures in Destin FL
  • John Caylor, "Meadow Girls Gone Wild" - more on Dixie Mafia kingpins (such as Charles L. Hitlon and Earl K. Durden, both of whom are said to be Club for Growth members) and the Iran-Contra connection
  • Michelle Loon comments on BradBlog in 2008 about the Dixie Mafia
  • Roger Shuler, "Why Is Karl Rove Planning to Visit the Backwoods of Alabama?", 2011/07/25: "Rove made his national name in Alabama by joining with Bill Canary and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to essentially buy state-court seats for "pro business" judges. [...] The location of Rove's upcoming speech should raise eyebrows for anyone who has followed the Don Siegelman case. "An Evening With Karl Rove" will be August 18 at the civic center in Enterprise, Alabama. [...] Enterprise, to be sure, is a bit off the beaten path. A town of about 26,000 hardy souls, it is in Coffee County in southeast Alabama, just above the Florida line. Why would one of the biggest names in Republican politics pay a visit to such an out-of-the-way place? Perhaps we should note that the event is sponsored by the Coffee County Republican Committee and follow up with these questions: Who used to be Coffee County's representative on the GOP's executive committee? Who used to be the elected district attorney for Coffee County before moving on to greener pastures during the George W. Bush administration? The answer to both of those questions is Mark Fuller, now chief U.S. judge for the Middle District of Alabama. Fuller has served in that position since Bush appointed him in 2002--while Rove served as chief White House adviser."
  • John Caylor, "CONFUSION TO THE ENEMY: HOW AMERICANS WERE DUPED INTO PLOT TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY", 2018
    • "Their acts caused the near collapse of the American economy 3 times since 1982. In the 90's President George H.W. Bush being an asset and key player in the conspiracy developed and implemented the "Thousand Points of Light Program for charities and church groups to take over "America's War on Poverty" The plan by Bush was aimed at creating class and economic warfare in the United States and has resulted in creation of hundreds of thousands of (501 c.) corporations like South Alabama Community Foundation embezzling direct government grants doling the money out to favored local individuals and their families."
    • "The KGB and their agents doled out private contracts to guard America's military bases to their members starting at DSI Security of Dothan, Alabama a firm tightly connected to Mafia members, sponsored by Herbert Meisler from Ukraine and to Paragon Security a company which protects the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, CIA, Social Security Administration at the front door.

      Paragon's ownership was unknown to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in 2013. The CEO was the former Secret Service Director under President George Bush II. During 2013 at Sacramento, CA. I was arrested by Homeland Security for spying on Paragon Security and taking photos of their operations. I discovered that Paragon Security was a Russian Mafia front based in the Isle of Jersey."
    • "Federal Judge [Lynn Carlton] Higby allowed $1 Billion Drug smuggling seizure from Operation Sunburn to be stolen by Democrats and funded People's First Savings & Loan at Panama City, FL. The operation and network was turned over to Reagan, Bush and CIA during 1981 when Cliff the legal mastermind and my father's partner fled to Colombia where he was hidden by Pablo Escobar and the Ocha family. Cliff was put into the federal witness program and had his name changed to Clifford Brown Sommers."
    • "[Thomas] Bledsoe is a director of (CIA's Tepper Aviation) at Crestview, Florida financed by the Israeli government military to export weapons to African revolutions using (19 C-130 cargo planes), importing blood diamonds to Israel and exporting Cocaine back into the United States from Colombia distributed by the Alabama truckers association which Bledsoe and United States Attorney at Montgomery Laura Canary's husband Bill Canary were overseeing."
    • "The DIA's Experimental Child Psychiatry operations went public statewide in Alabama in some Southeast Alabama locations It is known as Wiregrass Mental Health run by area Mayors. It is also contracted out to Spectracare, Inc. a DIA/KGB Operation taking people's children under court order and placing them into other environments. The Alabama DHR's attorney's are the same attorney's that protect child prostitution drug smuggling and distribution networks in Alabama. On August 1, 1999 two Dothan teenage girls were found shot to death Inside the trunk of J.B. Beasley's automobile, Spectracare was involved in the death and it was hushed up."
    • "During 2007-08 I moved to the area at Seaside in order to study the people and spy on Republican Party strategist Karl Rove. Rove was Bush's White House Chief of Staff. Karl and wife Darby were deeded a house at Rosemary Beach by the CIA land company which came in and setup townhouses at Inlet Beach during the early 80's as a DIA and Russian Mafia joint venture linked directly to President Donald Trump through BayRock Group's attorney Robert Wolfe of New York and Miami. Trump has much to worry about when FINCEN starts nailing down the financial transactions in proving conspiracies you must follow the money. The company's name was changed to Rosemary Beach Land Company.

      Robert Wolfe is also the attorney for Shores of Panama at Panama City Beach, Florida and BayRock Group. Shores of Panama is located at the old Pineapple Willey's motel site which was often used by gangs to manufacture Meth. Shores of Panama was built by the Russian Mafia and the Tennessee Mafia it is linked to the DIA rendition flights and tied to Daphne, Alabama builder developer Breland."
    • "The fraudulent land deal was put together in part by Herbert Barr of Barr, Wilkerson, Bowden & Brunson CPA's for the Mafia "The Boys" at Enterprise, Alabama my hometown and Panama City, Florida. The Barr CPA firm also handled all regional cash business concerns as well as the Smolian-Davis Seaside reality company. A short time later after the Topsail Hill deal Barr's firm handled all CPA work for Sheldon Adlleson's Casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada and the Gay Casinos at Macau, China."
    • "The above corporate investor and officer show important people some unwittingly used by the KGB and Russian Mafia's plan to destroy America. Central Bank of Alabama was sister bank to Colonial Bank and the former President Wallace Nall was a general partner to Herbert Meisler whose family was from the Ukraine. Meisler was partners to Nall and others at Edgewater Beach Resort on Panama City Beach where Tump met wife Marla Maples."
    • "Sessions and Ballard are pals and reportedly Ballard taught Sessions how to fly an airplane. They both are as silent parters in drug smuggling and money laundering. This series will furnish documents and evidence of that relationship and the family ties between them."
    • "During the late 80's [alleged paymaster for Panama City FBI agent Joseph Tierney and Southern Elegance casino ship leaser Jimmy] Maulden brought the "Eurojet Casino Gambling Ship" to Biloxi, MS and was heatedly opposed by Margaret Sherry a council-woman and her husband Judge Vincent Sherry of the Second Mississippi District Circuit Court, who were found dead in their home on Sept. 16, 1987. Each had been shot in the head four times. There was no sign of forced entry to the house. Several seemingly promising leads led the authorities to mob figures who refused to talk. Newly acquired information is the "closed case", is about to be reopened due to discovery of new evidence in the untimely deaths of Sherry's court bailiff and his son, both relatives of Frank McKeithen from Vernon, Florida area."
    • "Frank along with current Bay Sheriff Tommy Ford has much to lose if evidence proves they were part of the cover-up and I suspect my arrest was an attempt to murder me in custody. McClellan's sister Virginia Beard reached out to me years ago in the 90's for her brother while he was in an Alabama prison on an unrelated gun charge."
    • "Danny McClellan's sister Virginia Beard confided to me that Danny was working through Collins Sign Company at Napier Field, Alabama and admitted to her he killed the McRae's and was paid by the CIA/DIA through the Dixie Mafia to murder them. We both decided he would never make it to the gate of the prison if he talked."
    • "I have identified Meisler, of Mobile to the FBI as the Head of the Snake, I set up and maintained his business computers and accounting system at Edgewater Beach Resort on Panama City Beach in the 80's where President Donald Trump later met his wife Marla Maples working front desk for Herbert Meisler."
    • "Meisler gave then Governor Bob Graham a condo unit (not a time-share) as well as Bay County Sheriff Guy Tunnell who later became Florida Department of Law Enforcement Director. Tom Creekmore the property manager used to brag to me that they were the Mafia and they gave the politicians big money and they owned them."
    • "Oj and Paula Barbieri in happier days before he cut Nicole's head off as she lays in far right background and shown as the pretty blonde at right."
    • "I came to realize the FBI's counter-Intelligence with-held wiretap information from me. In early 1989, Danny McClellan was working for the FBI robbing banks in the Carolina's and involved with a Mafia stolen credit card ring."
  • John Caylor, "PART II: CONFUSION TO THE ENEMY: HOW AMERICANS WERE DUPED INTO PLOT TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY", 2018
    • AFOSI "REPORT OF INVESTIGATIVE ACTIVITY" for activity 05816041950904 on 2004/07/07 - says that "[REDACTED] owned a plane with a hired pilot [REDACTED] (NFI), who often flew attorneys and JEB BUSH, the Governor of Florida" (presumably referring to the aforementioned Panama City FL attorney who managed affairs for Aztec, likely William G. Harrison)
    • "Former Bay County Sheriff LaVelle Pitts a member introduced me to Defense Intelligence Agency people running the child human trafficking network in the late 80's, some were his detectives."
    • "In the 80's Pitts introduced me to Allan "Frog" Johnson top photos as his best detective and Frog's 14 year old girlfriend. Frog a former BCSO and State Attorney investigator under Leo Jones and Martha (Sister) Blackmon Milligan ran the kiddie trafficking network and fronted all strip joints in South Alabama and North Florida.

      Johnson was famous for Owning Show-N-Tail an adult bar on Thomas Drive protected by law enforcement and the Bay County Ministerial Alliance fronted by the late the J.W. Hunt of Springfield Assembly of God an evangelist-Mafia associate with 3,000 international churches engaged in money-laundering represented by Mafia attorney and former Bay Circuit Judge Richard Albritton.

      Since Johnson's demise the current Show-N-Tail is owned in part by a former Tennessee BATF federal agent and current Outlaws Motorcycle Gang member James McGlockin with the building leased by former Memphis, TN Baptist minister Dennis Pledger. Pledger a First Baptist Panama City member also owns signal Hill Golf Course."
      • WTVY, "Man Wanted for Three Murders Arrested in Troy", 2014/07/22: "[Bay County businessman Allen] Johnson is well known as the owner of the Toy Box and Show-N-Tail adult clubs. He also worked as an investigator with the Bay County Sheriff’s office in the 1960’s and 70’s, but left to open his adult businesses. The Show-N-Tail burned down in 2006, and after years of legal issues, the former strip club reopened as a bikini nightclub in 2012 in Panama City Beach."
      • Panama City News Herald, obituary for Allen S. Johnson, 2014/07/24: "Allen S. Johnson, 66, of Panama City, passed away Monday, July 21, 2014 at his home. Allen was a native of Panama City, and a 1966 graduate of Bay High School, where he excelled in football. He attended Marion Military Academy on a football scholarship, and was captain of the football team. While at Marion, he was named best private in his brigade and NCO of the year while a freshman. He then played for Arkansas State, the University of Florida, Florida State, and Mississippi College. After graduation, he joined the Florida Department of Law Enforcement where he worked until joining the Bay County Sheriff's Department as an investigator, working until his retirement. While at the Bay County Sheriff's Department, Allen, also known as Frog, made the first marijuana arrest in Panama City. After his law enforcement career, Allen was a business owner and supporter of the Florida Sheriff's Youth Ranch and the Wounded Warriors Program. An avid sportsman and outdoorsman, Allen loved deer and dove hunting, and enjoyed spending time with his hunting buddies. [...] Serving as pallbearers are Bill Harris, Tom Willoughby , Jimmy Cauley, Alvin Hill, Andy McKenzie, and Sonny McArthur. Serving as honorary pallbearers are John Spivey, Dale Smith, Mike Riley, Johnny McDaniels, Mike "Caz" Cazalas, and all past and present Bay County Sheriff Deputies."
    • "A 2008 surveillance photo shows Frog sitting at a nightly meeting with convicted child pornographer Scott Amburg a partner meeting at Outback restaurant at Panama City, Fl."
      • FDLE information on sex offender Scott Cem Amberg - DOC number is Q08878; aliases are Scott C Amberg and Scott Amberg; address is in Panama City FL; offenses (for which he was convicted on 2000/07/05) are POSS OF PHOTO/PICTURE SHOWING SEXUAL PERFORMANCE BY A CHILD; F.S. 827.071(5) (PRINCIPAL) and PROV.OBSCENE MAT.MINOR; F.S. 847.0133 (PRINCIPAL)
      • MyLife info on Scott Amberg of Lynn Haven FL - previous cities are Panama City FL, Minneapolis MN, and Wheeling IL; he is said to be vice president at South Coast Financial CORP.
    • "During 2014 Johnson was assassinated by Derrick Ray Thompson a network member and close associate with 2 bullets behind the ear as part of a cleanup operation due to the FBI's penetration of the highly protected KGB Mafia network, part of Robert Mueller's current Russian Investigation."
      • Pensacola News Journal, "SRSO: Thompson confessed to three homicides", 2014/07/21: "Derrick Ray Thompson, 41, was wanted in Bay County for the murder of Allen Johnson, a Panama City business owner who was shot and killed in his home Monday afternoon. Thompson was also a person of interest in deaths of a Milton couple, Steven and Debra Zackowski, who were found shot to death in their home Sunday morning. Troy police officers located Thompson around 5 a.m. this morning. He was reportedly driving Johnson's silver Toyota, and he had several handguns and a rifle in the vehicle with him, Troy Police Department Lt. Brian Weed said. The property where Thompson was captured reportedly belonged to an acquaintance whom Thompson had previously worked for and hunted with, Weed said. Thompson also had reportedly been an acquaintance of Johnson and had been working as a handyman for Steven Zackowski just prior to his death."
      • Troy Messenger, "UPDATE: Murder suspect caught in Troy", 2014/07/22: "A Pensacola, Fla., man wanted in connection with three murders in Florida was captured without incident early Tuesday in Troy and has confessed to the deaths, authorities said. Derrick Ray Thompson, 41, was arrested at a residence on County Road 1165, known as Good Hope Road, shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday. [...] “We received a call from the officials in Florida (on Monday) that he might be here,” said Lt. Bryan Weed of the Troy Police Department. [...] It was later Monday afternoon when the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Pike County Sheriff’s Office and alerted officials to the possibility the suspect could be headed to Pike County. Thompson had frequented the Pike County property where he was later found, having both performed work at the camp and hunted on the property. “And within 12 hours of that alert, he was in custody,” Thomas said. The property, which was owned by a Mobile man, is 200 acres of land used most often for hunting. Neighbors had spotted a silver truck entering and exiting the gated property and knew it was typically vacant this time of year."
      • Northwest Florida Daily News, "News of arrest, confession shocks Derrick Thompson’s business associates", 2014/07/22: "Derrick Thompson was the stereotypical salesman. Short and round, he was affable, engaging and never grumpy. “Always outgoing. He shook your hand and asked you how business was,” said Don Joiner, a vice president with Gulf Coast Electric in Destin. Good at what he did too, said Jeff Linn, president of Gulf Coast Electric. [...] Joiner and Linn had known Thompson, whose sales specialty was electric supplies, for years. Both expressed shock at the news of his arrest and confession to the fatal shootings of three Northwest Florida residents. [...] Thompson was arrested early Tuesday at a hunting camp near Troy, Ala. Shortly thereafter, according to lawmen, he confessed to the weekend shootings of Steven and Debra Zackowski in Milton and Monday’s killing of bar owner Allen Johnson near Panama City. [...] Thompson,who held an important sales job as a regional representative of Atlanta-based firm until at least a couple weeks before the killing spree, also was working with [Aaron] Johnson on a side job in the capacity of an electrical contractor. [...] Joiner, with Gulf Coast Electric, said he saw Thompson just “two or three weeks” before the killing spree and was handed a Bishop & Brogdon business card. “He seemed fine to me. Same as he did when I saw him more frequently,” Joiner said. When reached for comment Tuesday, a woman who answered the phone at the Atlanta office of Bishop & Brogdon claimed the company had no sales office or representative in Pensacola and that she wasn’t familiar with the name of Derrick Thompson. Thompson said on the social media site Linked-In he had left Surge Suppression Inc. in July 2013 to take the sales representative job with Bishop & Brogdon. Surge Suppression Inc. is perhaps the largest surge suppression business in the country, according to Joiner, with Disney World numbering among its clients. Surge Suppression Inc. officials on Tuesday were putting together a statement regarding Thompson’s employment, a company official said" - note that Surge Suppression Inc. was run by Travis Lee Sanders, an influential Destin FL businessman and pedophile
      • Northwest Florida Daily News, "Thompson gets life in Milton couple’s slaying", 2017/12/15: "[Derrick Ray Thompson] was convicted last week of two counts of first-degree murder for the July 2014 killings of Milton residents Steven Zackowski, 60, and Debra Zackowski, 59, at the outset of a plot to further his prescription pill addiction. Thompson still faces a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the death of former Bay County Sheriff’s Office narcotics officer and nightclub owner Allen Johnson, 66, in which Bay County prosecutors intend to pursue capital punishment. [...] During the course of the trial, prosecutors used Thompson’s confession to all three homicides as a key piece of evidence. He allegedly made the statement after a manhunt ended in his capture outside a Troy, Ala., hunting lodge the day after police discovered Johnson slain inside his Lynn Haven home. [...] He then admitted to shooting Steven Zackowski once in the back of the head before forcing Zackowski’s wife to lead him to a safe where their pills were kept. Authorities found Debra Zackowski shot to death in a closet. Thompson told authorities he then took the couple’s truck to Johnson’s Lynn Haven home, where he shot him in the back of the head. The truck Thompson was believed to be driving after the first killings also was found at the scene as he fled in Johnson’s vehicle toward Alabama. Thompson had done electrical work for the Zackowskis and had been a friend of Johnson."
    • Photo of airplane with tail number N420HL
    • "Johnson owned a 12-seat Cessna aircraft shown above he used to transport children who were sold making trips to the Virgin Islands. The airplane has been parked at Brooksville, Florida since before Johnson was assassinated with a bullet behind the ear in 2014. Johnson's lawyer was Thomas Hogan from Brooksville the same lawyer John T. Moorman and Sheriff John Short used for Alamo Title and Sunburst Nudist Resorts."
      • St. Petersburg Times, "Criminal record follows grant contender", 2004/03/23: "Travis Lee Sanders, head of TVSS Manufacturing Inc., has a record dating back to the 1970s and has run afoul of the law in several states, including Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida, records show. He has been arrested for assault, writing bad checks, theft by deception, patronizing a prostitute, trafficking in stolen goods and sexual battery on a minor, records show. [...] He said TVSS, which is to make and sell surge suppressors, will create immediate employment opportunities and tax revenue for Hernando County. "My personal issues have nothing to do with the history of the company and its capabilities," said Sanders, who operates two surge suppressor-related businesses in Destin. Today, the County Commission will decide whether to allow Sanders' TVSS to locate in Hernando. Sanders was steered to the county by business partner and longtime friend Brooksville attorney Tom Hogan Jr. as a way to fulfill the terms of a federal grant that was awarded to Hernando in 2000. [...] Sanders declined to discuss his past entanglements with the law or his current business relationships with Hogan, although he said the attorney had no ownership interest in TVSS. Hogan, however, serves as registered agent for the company, which was formed in February. In 1989, Sanders, now 55, was arrested for sexual battery on a child and possession of child pornography. According to news reports at the time, the arrest came after Okaloosa County authorities found that Sanders had videotaped several of his sexual encounters, including one with a 14-year-old girl. [...] "I'm aware of his criminal record, of his past," Hogan said. "That is many years ago." Hogan said Sanders has been a "productive citizen" during the almost 10 years they have known each other and that he "deserves some sort of a chance and has earned some credibility.""
      • Tampa Bay Times, "IRS says Brooksville lawyer owes millions in taxes on offshore earnings", 2016/06/08: "Brooksville lawyer Tom Hogan Jr. and a longtime business partner, R. Victor Taglia, are fighting off claims that they owe a total of about $20 million in taxes on more than $50 million dollars the Internal Revenue Service says was funneled through a "tax avoidance scheme" in the U.S. Virgin Islands more than a decade ago. The cases, filed in little-known U.S. Tax Court earlier this year, hinge on whether the two men were "bona fide" residents of the Virgin Islands in 2002, 2003 and 2004. [...] Also at issue is whether the Virgin Islands company that Hogan and Taglia helped form in 2001, Madison Associates LLC, offered a legitimate business service or merely "a prepackaged tax-avoidance strategy," as the IRS stated in a related case. [...] If the judge rules that the two men were not residents of the Virgin Islands, Hogan, a high-profile Hernando County lawyer whose firm represents the city of Brooksville, will owe as much as $10 million in unpaid federal taxes for the three years, and Taglia, a Palm Harbor accountant, will be on the hook for up to $10.9 million. [...] The clearest picture of how the IRS believes Madison avoided U.S. taxes can be found in a 2015 case against another longtime Hogan associate, now-deceased Destin businessman Travis Sanders. [...] Hogan recruited Sanders — a business associate close enough that Hogan serves as the representative of Sanders' estate — as a partner in Madison in 2002, the brief said. That year, Sanders funneled the $1.2 million profit his Florida-based surge-suppression companies earned through Madison, according to the IRS brief. [...] According to his law firm's website, Hogan served on the 5th Judicial Circuit's Judicial Nominating Committee from 2002 to 2006, a position that requires residency in the circuit. And in the early 2000s, Hogan was one of three well-connected Brooksville business partners who developed an industrial park near Interstate 75 with the help of a $750,000 grant intended to provide jobs for low-income workers. Under pressure to find tenants for the vacant park in 2004, he recruited Sanders, whom the county soon rejected because of his criminal record, including a 1989 no-contest plea on a child pornography charge that stemmed from filming himself having sex with a 14-year-old girl."
      • Northwest Florida Daily News, obituary for Travis Lee Sanders, 2012/11/17: "Travis Lee Sanders, age 64, of Troy, Ala., formerly of Destin, Fla., passed away Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, at his home in Troy. [...] Travis was born in Albertville Ala., and raised in McComb, Miss. He was the founder and president of Surge Suppression Incorporated, a worldwide company headquartered in Destin, and a loving father of two. Travis had an extremely nurturing and giving spirit and was an avid lover of animals, deep sea fishing and cruising on his boat in the Caribbean Islands. He had an ever-growing love for his new home in Troy and will be profoundly missed by his family and friends."
      • TODO: investigate whether Travis L. Sanders along with Michael J. Zampieri a.k.a. Michael Zampieri a.k.a. Mike Zampieri a.k.a. Michael Zamperi owned the Troy AL hunting lodge where Derrick Ray Thompson fled to after killing Frog Johnson
      • TODO: has Surge Suppression come up anywhere else before (e.g. related to Bowen Ballard)?
    • "Enterprise, Alabama General Mark McQueen new Panama City Manager, former NATO General and business partner to Ronnie Gilley fresh from federal prison and William Harrsion of Aztec Environmental."
    • "United States 11th Circuit Appeals Judge Bill Pryor was groomed for his job by the DIA-KGB Network. Pryor was the Attorney General of Alabama who ruled against Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's Election Contest. Bill Pryor also covered up Election Fraud by ESS, Inc the late 90's "first-trial-run" of electronic voting machines in the United States held at Enterprise and Coffee County, Alabama."
    • "Col. Steve Fega above prosecuted Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to keep him out of future Presidential Elections. Attended Party at Rosemary Beach hosted by Karl and Darby Rove to celebrate Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's conviction early 2007."
    • "Russian Mafia Connections in North West Florida to Renegade CIA General Bowen Ballard the Traitor network follows. Ballard is buddies with the Saudi's, ISIS, Israel and China, the man who established the Muslim Brotherhood at Panama City in the early 80's operating as AKBAR Clinic at Springfield."
    • "Raymond Lemme, top right active U.S. Air Force Reservist and Florida Department of Transportation OSI Investigator was murdered investigating Chinese - NASA, DOT whistle-blower complaint. It was believed when I wrote this story and conducted interviews that some members of his team members were actually foreign agents as Supervisor Robert Clift 2nd from left front row stated he was with United States Air-Force and stationed at Colorado Springs, CO yet he could not describe the area which I am very familiar with as Lt. General Larry Flemming was Commander there at one time, Four Star General Carl Peterson and I were friends also and Carl wrote articles for me at Insider-Magazine.com."
    • "According to trusted sources Blackwater did the inventory at Minot AFB, perhaps the nukes went over the Canadian border in trucks and out the port of Vancouver, CA"
    • "During October 2004 that grand jury was disbanded on orders of President George Bush. Gregory Miller the United States Attorney resigned over the incident that if left alone would have netted, Panama City Business people, Charles Faircloth, Jerry Lewis, Lewis family, Mary Sitmam, William Harrison, Jimmy and Debbie Livingston $5 Billion in government contracts on USAF Bases using illegal aliens smuggled into the United States many with Spanish Surnames and passports but who were from Pakistan."

Drug trafficking

  • See the Drug trafficking page for several of these cases, including the Mena airport smuggling and the "Bluegrass conspiracy"
  • Operation Sunburn marijuana importation from Colombia - ringleader was Cliff Wentworth, who Caylor claimed was part of the Enterprise AL scene
    • Miami Herald, "How a Suntan Salesman Made It Big", 1980/03/20 (pages 12 part 1, 12 part 2): "His name is Clyde Walton Cobb, but everyone calls him Bill. State agents think he’s a big-time smuggler. Cobb says he's just an honest businessman [...] A few years ago, he was kiting checks around North Florida. Then he moved to the Keys to sell suntan oil and got fired — twice. Friends who remember Cobb chugging around Key West in a dilapidated red Volkswagen thought he was broke — until Cobb was robbed of more than $1 million cash. [...] Lots of people want to know where he got all his money. The IRS has examined the salesman’s business records, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has intercepted his telephone calls and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pensacola has hauled him in front of a federal grand jury. Investigators suspect the enterprising Cobb, 36, of being the broker in a smuggling ring that uses Key West fishing boats to run hundreds of tons of marijuana from Colombia to Florida’s northwest coast."
      • "He managed to stay out of trouble with the law after he moved out of the Panhandle — until he got robbed of a fortune in Dade County. It happened April 9, 1978. [...] The “Case of the $1.5 Million” was turned over to Dick Sharpstein, then a prosecutor for the Dade state attorney’s office. “A strange strange case," Sharpstein recalled. Strange because the victim had no interest in pressing charges against the robbers. [...] A week after the big robbery, Cobb and his attorney Clifford Wentworth chartered the Coco Chanel, a luxurious 137-foot Feadship for a cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Key West. The yacht left Port Everglades April 16."
      • "Word of the amazing $1.5-million robbery in Dade County reached the Maryland State Police, who were investigating a big smuggling ring with South Florida connections. Sgt. Fred Settle said he knew where Cobb’s money came from. "I saw them put the suitcases on the Lear jet” at a Baltimore-area airport, he said. He told Florida drug authorities about it. A few weeks later the Maryland State Police concluded their investigation with the arrests of 17 persons and the seizure of two tons of grass and $1.5 million cash. Cobb was not charged. Police would later testify that several of those defendants delivered suitcases full of cash to a Florida-bound Lear jet and that those suitcases were delivered to Bill Cobb shortly before he was robbed."
      • "Acting on more information from Maryland detectives, police from several Florida agencies raided a warehouse on Capitol Circle in Tallahassee April 27, 1978. They found approximately 40 tons of baled Colombian marijuana, the biggest inland seizure in state history. One of the men arrested in Tallahassee was Thomas Edward Alexander. Alexander was a visitor to Bill Cobb's Golden Beach house a few hours before the $1.5-million robbery, police say."
      • "State agents who were tracking Cobb also found his name in some US Customs files. The case began with a suspicious shrimp boat and a cardboard box full of cash. The shrimper was the Navigator, which ran aground Jan. 31, 1978 at Navarre Beach near Pensacola. It was registered to Alfredo Vasquez, a Key West policeman now under federal indictment on smuggling charges. [...] A man who rowed out to the shrimper came back and got in a new black Ford van. The van, sources say, was purchased by Bill Cobb in Snead, Fla."
      • "On July 22, 1978, law-enforcement agencies raided a tobacco barn in Gadsden County near the Georgia border. Stashed inside was nearly 7000 pounds of marijuana. Six persons were arrested there and two more were followed to a Tallahassee motel. Their names were Jose Luis Acosta and Luis Bosch. [...] [Police] found a ledger book. Inside were numerous entries dating to 1977. Agents believed each entry marked payments for deliveries of marijuana shipments to out-of-state buyers. Some amounts were listed under the caption Entregada a Bill. [...] The FDLE suspected “Bill” was Bill Cobb. The cash payments were enormous. For example, between March 25 and April 21, 1978, the ledger showed 17 deliveries to “Bill” totaling about $152 million."
      • "As a result of the wiretaps on Cobb’s telephones, FDLE agents began monitoring the office telephones of Manuel W. James, the prominent Key West defense lawyer and stepson of the city police chief. Manny James and Bill Cobb became friends some time after Cobb left Hawaiian Tropic."
    • United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida (Pensacola Division), UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. MANUEL ERIC VILLANUEVA a/k/a Eddie, JOSE LUIS ACOSTA a/k/a The Hose, ANTONIO E. BASCARO a/k/a Tony, MANUEL W. JAMES a/k/a Manny James a/k/a The President, GUSTAVO J. FERNANDEZ a/k/a Papito, CLIFFORD B. WENTWORTH a/k/a Cliff, CARLTON C. REEVES a/k/a CC, JAMES L. SELLERS, JOHN M. ARANEO a/k/a M and M a/k/a Michael, PATRICK C. WALDROP a/k/a Slim a/k/a A and P, RUSSELL HOBSON, and RENE BENITEZ, indictment, 1981/09/03
    • The Daily Register (Shrewsbury NJ), "$300 million marijuana smuggling ring smashed", 1981/09/24: "The investigation began in 1978 after a shrimp boat ran aground in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida Panhandle after a marijuana shipment was unloaded, said James W. York, commissioner of Florida's Department of Law Enforcement. [...] Since 1978, authorities have made related drug busts in Panama City, Fla., and Savannah, Ga. The largest occurred in 1978, when agents found 70,000 pounds of marijuana in a Tallahassee warehouse. Shrimpers in the Florida Keys were hired to haul some of the illicit weed. York said. [...] Two defense lawyers from southern Florida were named in the indictments. One of the lawyers, Manuel Winston James, is a former city attorney of Key West as well as the step-son of that city's police chief. [...] Among parcels [used to launder the drug profits] are the 23.5-acre Safe Harbor Marina in Key West, valued at more than $3 million: a 690-acre farm near Cottondale in Jackson County, and the Aucilla River Fish Camp in Taylor County, south of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle. Geeker said marijuana has been unloaded at the camp. [...] In custody yesterday were James L Sellers, a Pensacola truck driver: Manuel Eric Villanueva, and Antonio E. Bascaro, both of Miami."
    • Fort Walton Beach Playground Daily News, "Lawyer surrenders to agents in marijuana smuggling case", 1981/09/25: "Agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement went to the office and home of Fort Lauderdale attorney Clifford B Wentworth on Wednesday with an arrest warrant, but could not locate him. Wentworth was still at large Thursday evening, said FDLE special agent Scott Daniels in Miami. [...] Daniels said Wentworth was one of six ringleaders in the smuggling operation and faces a bond of $20 million set by U.S. District Judge Lynn Higby in Pensacola. The smuggling ring bought $10 million worth of Florida real estate with its profits, according to U.S. Attorney Nicholas P. Geeker of Pensacola. Geeker said he will seek the return of about 20 parcels of land which he said were bought with smuggling profits. Also indicted but still at large Thursday, the FDLE said, were Gustavo J. Fernandez of Key West; Carlton C. Reeves of Milton; Russell Hobson of Satellite Beach; John M. Araneo of Fort Lauderdale and Patrick Waldrop of Birmingham, Ala. Two other men, Rene Benitez of Colombia and Jose Luis Acosta of Miami, were believed to be in South America. Already in custody were James L. Sellers of Pensacola; Manuel E. Villanueva and Antonio E. Bascaro. both of Miami."
    • Fort Myers News-Press, "5 indicted in Operation Sunburn are still in hiding, prosecutor says", 1981/10/14: "On Tuesday, Geeker said these men were at large: * Clifford B. Wentworth, 38, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who allegedly registered aircraft, motor vehicles and titles under fake names or third parties to protect members of the smuggling conspiracy. Wentworth also is accused of arranging schemes to launder profits from marijuana ventures, according to the indictment * Patrick "Slim" Waldrop, 28, of Birmingham, Ala. He allegedly was a distributor of the illegal weed. * Rene Benitez, 39, of Colombia. Anti-drug agents admit that Benitez, believed to be in South America, will be difficult to locate. Federal Investigators say he served as a go-between for Colombian marijuana suppliers and stateside buyers. * Jose Luis "The Hose" Acosta, 29, of Miami. He allegedly served at the executive level of the group indicted In Operation Sunburn and helped plan dope shipments from Colombia. Geeker said Acosta is probably in South America. * John Michael Araneo, 38, of Fort Lauderdale. He allegedly was a marijuana distributor. The other seven men indicted after a lengthy investigation were arrested or have surrendered. Five of the suspects have pleaded Innocent to federal conspiracy charges: Manuel "Manny" James of Key West, Russell Hobson of Satellite Beach, Carlton C. Reeves of Milton, James L. Sellers of Pensacola and Antonio Bascaro of Miami. James is a lawyer and the stepson of Key West's police chief."
    • New York Times, "Drug Smugglers Get to Keep Homes Bought With Profits", 1982/03/28: "PANAMA CITY, Fla., March 27 (AP) - A jury decided today to allow two men convicted in a huge marijuana-smuggling operation to keep the expensive homes the Government said they purchased with drug profits. The jurors said they would not take away the $450,000 Miami residence of Manuel Eric Villanueva or two homes in Golden Beach owned by Antonio B. Bascaro. The two men were among six convicted Friday night of drug conspiracy. The Government said the group had imported more than 600,000 pounds of marijuana from Colombia since 1977."
    • Selma Times-Journal, "Jury confiscates some property from convict", 1982/03/28: "For nearly three weeks, the panel heard testimony about the operation, which got its name from the suntan-oil business of an admitted leader of the ring, C.W. "Bill" Cobb."
    • Panama City News Herald, "Juror says 'Sunburn' verdicts were tough", 1982/03/29: "When federal jurors in the Operation Sunburn drug smuggling trial met behind closed doors to consider their verdict, they didn’t know what to make of defendant Manuel W. "Manny” James. "We were all aware of the fact that we d have trouble with James, so we saved him for last,” juror Charles Ray said after the trial. Deciding whether James, a well-known Key West lawyer, was part of an international smuggling ring was just one of several tough decisions jurors had to make. During the three-week trial, government prosecutors, led by U.S. Attorney Nickolas Geeker of Pensacola, argued the defendants smuggled more than 600,000 pounds of Colombian pot into Northwest Florida and Georgia from 1977 to 1961. [...] James was convicted on a single conspiracy count, but acquitted on nine other, more serious charges. He faces a possible sentence of five years in prison and a $15,000 fine. [...] "No one was timid about expressing their opinions,” said Ray, a retired Air Force master sergeant from Panama City."
    • Wilmington News Journal, "CIA-trained Cubans reported running drugs", 1982/05/31 (FOIA copy on CIA website): "One of the Operation Sunburn defendants, Antonio "Tony" Bascaro of Miami, was trained by the CIA as a pilot for secret flights over Cuba in 1961. Gustavo “Papito” Fernandez of Key West, used his CIA past as evidence of his character during defense testimony in the Sunburn trial. He was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Fernandez's 20-man infiltration squad, recruited in 1960, was one of the CIA’s first in Florida, according to Lynch. At least one-fifth of the members of Fernandez's unit have since been jailed on charges ranging from drug smuggling to terrorism and murder."
    • United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, no. 82-5547: United States v. Antonio E. Bascaro, Patrick M. Waldrop, Russell Hobson, Iii, Manuel Eric Villanueva, Gustavo J. Fernandez, Manuel W. James, United States of America, Cross-Appellee v. Manuel W. James, Cross-Appellant, appeal decision, 1984/12/06: "Joining appellant Hobson in his brief to this court is G. Robert Blakey, a professor of law at Notre Dame and a principal drafter of the RICO statute. Professor Blakey argues that marijuana offenses do not qualify as racketeering activity under RICO, because Congress did not intend the phrase "narcotic or other dangerous drugs" to include marijuana offenses. In support of his position, he points out that proposed drafts of the Act, listing marijuana in addition to narcotic and other dangerous drugs, were considered but ultimately rejected, and that in the federal wiretap statute, which Professor Blakey also had a hand in drafting, wiretaps were authorized for suspected offenses involving "narcotic drugs, marihuana, or other dangerous drugs." 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2516(e) (emphasis supplied). Since Congress separately listed marijuana alongside narcotic or other dangerous drugs in the wiretap statute, its failure to do so in the RICO statute, the argument goes, reflects a congressional intent to exclude marijuana offenses from coverage under the Act." - note that Bob Blakey is the one who took over the HSCA and steered it away from pursuing CIA involvement
    • Orlando Sentinel, "MILLIONS UNACCOUNTED FOR AFTER DRUG SMUGGLING PROBE ENDS", 1985/08/16: "In the investigation dubbed Operation Sunburn more than 25 people were convicted of using shrimp boats and airplanes to haul 1.2 million pounds of marijuana from Colombia to Florida between 1977 and 1981. The government seized $10 million in assets, but some of the people arrested said they collected between $200 million and $300 million. Authorities involved in the case believe millions of dollars have been put into Latin American banks, The Pensacola News Journal reported. Most speculation centers on Clyde Cobb, 41, of Pensacola, who pleaded guilty in a bargain with prosecutors and became the government's star witness. Cobb, who is free on parole, works at a tire and service center and Sunbelt Consolidated Marketing, state records show. [...] James Shellow of Milwaukee, a lawyer representing two other men convicted in the Sunburn case, has sought new trials for his clients based on Cobb's plea bargain. Shellow said he has documents indicating authorities allowed Cobb to keep some of his illegal profits. He said the Internal Revenue Service allowed Cobb to pay off tax debts with $1.5 million in drug profits. The IRS returned $750,000 to Cobb and put the rest of the money in an escrow account, Shellow said."
    • Sun Sentinel, "RACE DRIVERS CHARGED IN DRUG CASE", 1986/03/11: "In addition to fraud and income tax evasion, Bill Whittington, 37, was charged with one count of conspiracy to smuggle "multi-ton quantities of marijuana" into the United States from March 1977 to August 1981. [...] A second association with drug smuggling surfaced later that year when it was disclosed that the cars Bill and Don Whittington drove in their inaugural appearance at Indianapolis in 1980 were sponsored by C.W. Cobb, a Fort Lauderdale suntan lotion distributor who was later convicted of running a $300 million pot smuggling ring uncovered during a federal probe dubbed "Operation Sunburn.""
      • "Veteran race car drivers Bill and Don Whittington of Fort Lauderdale, who gained international acclaim when they won the prestigous 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979, have been charged with defrauding the U.S. government of millions of dollars in taxes derived from the profits of a large-scale marijuana-smuggling ring. Also charged was Gary R. Levitz, 47, of Fort Lauderdale, the son of the founder of the Levitz furniture chain, according to federal information filed Monday in Fort Lauderdale by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lurana S. Snow. [...] Both brothers are longtime Fort Lauderdale residents who built a $16 million empire that included a 2.8 mile Georgia road racing track, fixed-based aviation operations at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and Fort Collins, Colo., a 110-acre Georgia mobile home park, a Vail, Colo., penthouse, a Lear jet, race cars and General RV, a huge recreational vehicle dealership at 1881 State Road 84, according to a 1982 financial statement submitted to the City of Fort Lauderdale. [...] Levitz has been described by federal authorites as a personal friend of the Whittingtons. He operated Levitz Aviation, a fixed-based operation located near the Whittingtons' aircraft company at Executive Airport."
      • "The brothers grabbed racing headlines again in 1982, when along with brother Dale Whittington, who is not implicated in the case, the trio made racing history after all three qualified to race in the Indianapolis 500. That race also brought the first allegations that Bill and Don Whittington were involved in drug smuggling activities following the attempted murder of a Georgia man on an isolated stretch of State Road 84. The victim, admitted cocaine dealer Allen Chafin of Athens, Ga., was shot five times during a wild exchange of gunfire but managed to escape. He later told Broward sheriff's investigators that his attacker's last words were "what we're giving you, the Whittingtons are next.""
      • 2009/02/20 post by johnymac on an Autosport forum thread about "Racing and drug-related busts": "A friend of mine worked for a Indiana distributor of hawwian tropic suntan lotion company in 1980.The company sponsored if I remember right Tim richmond that year at indy.Some how and I do not remember how we got hooked up with a future Whittington Bros. sponsor ,Sun System. I am pretty sure that was the name of the company. It was a suntan oil company.As it was we were offered a job in the wharehouse for this company in Fort Lauderdale Fl.Cool we packed it up and moved.Our first week on the job was are last.The Drug Enforcment Agency interviewed us, and suggested we my want to get another job. Back home again in Indiana.Its 29 years latter now and some of the stuff I have been reading on the net has made me curious.I read were a person by the name of Bill Cobb(william Clyde cobb) had been arrested for being the main dude in smuggling 1000s of lbs.kilos of weed into the usa. He turned snitch and was put into the federal witness protection program.The DEA had a name for this investigation it was called Operation Sunburn.I think the guy who owned sun system was this Bill Cobb.I learned he was a suntan oil salesman, and the operation sunburn, it kind of makes sense.If this Bill Cobb guy is who I think he his, then all this stuff I have been reeding gets real wierd.Wierd like Oliver North, Iran Contra afiar, Bushs Slick Wily,wierd.I know half the **** you hear is bull **** and the other half is a lie. But you never know.Does any one out there know any thing about this Sun System company and who owned it? THANKS LOOK FORWARD TO ANY COMMENTS."
      • Sun Sentinel, "AUTO RACING FACES PROBLEM OF DRUG MONEY FINANCING", 1986/03/23: "Davie's Randy Lanier is also in an awkward position, having teamed with Bill Whittington to win the 1984 IMSA championship. But even during their association, Lanier said, "I didn't even know Bill was in trouble." "We heard rumors for years," Lanier, 31, said. "It's unfortunate, but I don't think less of him as a person. "I hope people will take me on my driving skills, not whom I associate with." Although federal authorities said Bill Whittington ran a $73 million marijuana smuggling operation, Lanier said he knew of no drug money being invested in Blue Thunder Racing's operation when they won the title, "not to my knowledge. If it was, I didn't see it.""
      • Daily Oklahoman, "Lanier Role In Drug Ring Downplayed", 1988/06/30: "Authorities contend Lanier headed a ring that smuggled thousands of pounds of marijuana into the United States between 1980 and 1987, but Ritchie said prosecution witnesses exaggerated Lanier's role in the operation. [...] "Proof will show the federal government has entered into an unholy alliance with a bunch of dope smugglers, which encouraged them to minimize their roles," Ritchie said, adding, "they have gone and told the government some things that aren't true to make Randy's role appear larger." Also charged with Lanier is Benjamin Barry Kramer, a former standout power boat racer from Miami, Eugene Albert Fischer of Coral Gables, Fla. and Kay Dee Bell of Redwood City, Calif. The indictments were returned against the defendants in Illinois beginning in January 1987 and much of the investigation was coordinated in Southern Illinois. More than 36 people are on trial or have pleaded guilty in the case."
      • Jalopnik, "The Man Who Turned Speedboats Full Of Weed Into Indy 500 Glory", 2014/10/22: "In 1984, Blue Thunder Racing appeared seemingly out of thin air. Despite having no major corporate sponsors, Lanier founded his own racing team with Fort Lauderdale brothers Bill and Dale Whittington. Bill Whittington and another of his brothers would eventually meet the same fate as Lanier: prison for marijuana smuggling. [...] The same year Lanier was named Rookie of the Year at the Indy 500, Bill Whittington and his brother Don Whittington were indicted in federal court on charges of conspiracy to import marijuana, tax fraud and income tax evasion. (Dale Whittington was not implicated in that case.) According to a Sun Sentinel article at the time, the brothers were accused of running an operation that smuggled massive quantities of marijuana into the U.S., something that netted them as much as $73 million a year. [...] In October 1986, 11 people were charged in a Miami federal court by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for engaging in what investigators said was “a major drug and money laundering organization.” The indictments centered around three people: Lanier, champion power boat racer Benjamin Barry Kramer, and Benjamin Kramer’s father, Jack Kramer. (Coincidentally, Jack Kramer was related by marriage to famed mob accountant Meyer Lansky.) The group was accused of bringing more than 100,000 pounds of marijuana into South Florida between September 1983 and June 1985, according to news reports at the time. [...] According to FBI agents, the operation worked in three parts: Benjamin Kramer, the ringleader, arranged for the purchase of marijuana in Colombia; another party brought it to the U.S. via the barges; and Lanier worked with a network of distributors to sell the drugs. [...] FBI officials at the time said the group had access to tugboats and barges, which were loaded up with marijuana and then secretly sailed to the U.S. (It’s not clear how the pot-laden boats escaped Customs investigations.) The boats entered ports in New York, New Orleans and San Francisco."
    • United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Kerry J. Nahoom, Defendant-appellant, appeal decision, 1986/06/17: "On December 20, 1984, appellant Kerry Nahoom was indicted by a federal grand jury on three counts. [...] Clifford Wentworth, who represented William Clyde Cobb, the alleged ringleader of Operation Sunburn, retained Nahoom with regard to the Operation Sunburn investigation. Cobb and Wentworth apparently continued to smuggle marijuana, though on a smaller scale, after Nahoom began his representation of Wentworth. The government alleges it is at this point that Nahoom became involved in the operation. [...] Both Wentworth and Cobb testified that Nahoom introduced Tom Brzosca to them to act as the pilot in the smaller drug smuggling operation. [...] Considerable evidence was introduced that Brzosca in fact conducted a number of these flights. Cobb and Wentworth testified that part of Wentworth's responsibility was to hold and invest the millions of dollars in cash received from Operation Sunburn. [...] during the course of the government's cross-examination of appellant, Nahoom described, in some detail and without prompting, threats allegedly made to Brenda Wentworth by government agents. Following this testimony the government conducted a limited cross-examination in which it asked Nahoom whether he was aware that Brenda Wentworth had been placed by the government in the Witness Protection Program."
    • Conjuring Justice, "Judicial Collusion", 2014/02/26: "It never ceases to amaze me the legal improprieties surroundings the Billings murders. Judge Nicholas Geeker, former federal prosecutor, who investigated and helped prosecute Operation Sunburn, a major drug operation in the early 1980's, blatantly violated code of ethics he is obliged to keep. In Donnie Stallworth's 2nd trial, when Rakeem Florence and Frederick Thornton were cracking under the pressure of being on the stand, Geeker sent the jury out and called the prosecutors to the side, ex parte. Geeker advised prosecutors that in order to win the case, they would have to establish that everyone told the same story without having time to collaborate because they were all arrested. He continued to tell them that is the key to winning their case against Stallworth. [...] Just think about this, you have a judge who was a federal prosecutor who opted out of trying a Columbian cartel he had investigated and nabbed over the course of several years, being the one to bring down innocent men not to tangle with that cartel again. Judge Geeker left his position in South Florida at the height of the trials and incarcerations that he commandeered."
    • NBC, "How a Cuban Exile Became One of America's Oldest Pot Prisoners", 2016/11/05: "One morning in 1977, Antonio Bascaro, a swashbuckling Cuban pilot who’d once trained with the CIA in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, stopped inside a Little Havana jewelry store that served as a crossroads with the city’s criminal underworld. The shop’s owner, a fellow Bay of Pigs exile, was a friend from their CIA days whose customers included some of the city’s flashiest drug dealers. One of them needed help checking up on boats he used to smuggle weed. The friend thought Bascaro, who’d flown reconnaissance missions for the Cuban navy, could help. Later, over dinner, the young man, also a Cuban émigré but two decades younger, invited him to join their operation. [...] Jose Luis Acosta has an explanation. The charismatic young kingpin who recruited Bascaro was also sentenced to 60 years, but he got out in 1994 after serving a little more than 12. [...] [After the Bay of Pigs invasion failed,] His Bay of Pigs contacts in Miami invited him to join them for other covert operations, but he declined, telling them to let him know if they ever planned to take back Cuba. He kept in touch with some of them, including Guillermo Tabraue, who’d served as the exiles’ liaison with the CIA and was now the owner of a thriving Little Havana jewelry store. By 1977, Miami had become the drug capital of the Western Hemisphere, a hub for smugglers and money launderers. Many drug dealers — and city cops — shopped at the store. [...] Acosta’s operation brought together a motley assortment of players that included Colombian suppliers, Cuban emigres, rural haulers, corrupt lawyers and a suntan lotion distributor."
  • Key West Police Department circa 1984
    • New York Times, "Key West Police Department Called a 'Criminal Enterprise'", 1984/07/01: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation, charging that the Key West Police Department was a criminal enterprise, arrested three high-ranking officers and several other people Friday on racketeering and drug charges. Joseph Corless, the agent in charge of the Miami F.B.I. office, said Miguel Brito-Williams was the key cocaine distributor who operated under the protection of three members of this island city's Police Department: Deputy Chief Raymond Casamayor, Lieut. Russell Barker, who heads the detective division, and Sgt. Carroll Key."
    • Associated Press, "Convict 11, Including 3 Former Police Officials, in Drug Scheme", 1985/05/30: "Prosecutors had told the jurors, who found two defendants innocent, that the three police officials provided protection and intelligence information to help cocaine smugglers. Former Assistant Police Chief Raymond Casamayor was convicted of conspiracy to racketeer, racketeering and conspiracy to possess drugs with intention of selling it. He also was convicted of six counts of income tax evasion, and faces up to 60 years in prison. A former police detective and a former lieutenant also were convicted at the end of the 11-week trial. Key West Police Chief Larry Rodriguez, called an unindicted co-conspirator by the grand jury that indicted the 14 defendants in June, refused comment on the verdicts. [...] Convicted on conspiracy to racketeer charges were: former police detective Carroll Key, former Lt. Russell Barker, prominent Key West attorney Michael Cates, his wife Janet Cates, Michael Clark, Carol Hardin, Artie Brito, Miguel Brito-Williams, John Roberts, Boots Clark and Antonio Diaz. All but Ms. Hardin also were found guilty of racketeering. All but Key and Barker were convicted on charges of conspiracy to possess drugs. [...] The chief prosecution witness was Hector Serrano, an admitted smuggler who testified about the defendants’ connections with his cocaine ring. The indictment accused Casamayor of intimidating and bribing witnesses in drug investigations, and of demanding a $40,000 payoff from suspected marijuana smugglers."
  • Trial of James Charles Elmore in Panama City FL - which Barry Seal was allegedly going to testify in shortly before his murder
    • James Charles Elmore background
      • Montgomery Advertiser, "Two UA students Held in Drug Case", 1976/04/18: "Authorities have confiscated 90 pounds of marijuana and charged two University of Alabama students with possession of the drug. Officers said the students, Bruce Calvin Benton of Sylacauga and James Charles Elmore of Dothan, both 21, were held under $5,000 bonds after their Friday night arrests. Authorities said the marijuana had a street sales value of more than $36,000 and was the largest haul since some 100 pounds of marijuana was confiscated in a raid two years ago."
  • Doss Aviation activities
    • Wayne Madsen, ""Loyal Bushie" US Judge who jailed former Alabama Democratic Gov. involved in drug smuggling", 2007/07/12 (John Caylor copy)
      • "WMR has obtained records from our colleague John Caylor in Alabama that show Judge Mark E. Fuller, a longtime GOP operative and friend of Rove, was deeply involved in the transport of cocaine and other contraband during the Iran-contra days of the 1980s.

        Fuller's name shows up as a corporate officer of Doss Aviation of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a company that has been linked by Caylor, a one time Drug Enforcement Administration investigator, to drug smuggling by top GOP official in Alabama and Florida."
      • "Bert Barr, listed as Doss' registered agent, was Fuller's law firm partner in Enterprise. Fuller also inherited Cargo International, another drug running firm, from Wentworth."
      • "What we have discovered is that Judge Fuller inherited an extensive aircraft and money laundering network from one Clifford Wentworth who was busted for drug trafficking in the Drug Enforcement Administration's 1981-1984 Operation Sunburn in 1984. In a deal worked out between then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, who was in charge of Ronald Reagan's "War on Drugs," Wentworth was sentenced by U.S. Judge for the Northern District of Florida Maurice Paul to 20 years in prison and a $25,000 fine with all but six months suspended. Wentworth, who served his short prison term at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, agreed to turn his entire air drug smuggling and money laundering operation over to Barry Seal, a contract CIA pilot, and the business network operated out of Enterprise, Alabama by current U.S. Judge Fuller. Wentworth was then ordered into the federal witness protection program and he continues to provide lucrative real estate and other services for top GOP officials in Florida and elsewhere. Seal was gunned down gangland-style at a halfway house in Baton Rouge after his conviction and agreement to turn state's evidence against the Medellin cartel and his U.S. government handlers, one of whom reportedly included Vice President Bush."
  • Operation Cobra - involved Bay of Pigs fighter and CIA veteran Guillermo Tabraue; links to police corruption in the Miami area including the aforementioned Key West Police Department
    • Associated Press, "Feds: 10-Year Drug Ring Bribed Police, Killed Informant", 1987/12/16: "Federal agents have broken a ruthless pot-smuggling ring that killed an informant and cut up his body, bribed Miami and Key West police and trafficked a half-million pounds of marijuana, authorities said Wednesday. [...] The ring operated for at least 10 years, smuggling $79 million worth of pot and some cocaine into Louisiana and Florida, said Richard Gregorie, chief assistant U.S. attorney here. [...] Mario Tabraue and his father, Guillermo, headed a group which authorities said had been purused by four police agencies during the decade. [...] Both also face confiscation of their property, including Mario Tabraue’s Miami jewelry store, which was allegedly used as a front to distribute the marijuana. The case was called ″Operation Cobra″ because the younger Tabraue ran an exotic pet store and ranch, where he kept a giraffe, a cheetah and rare birds. [...] In July 1980, members of the group apparently became aware that Larry Nash was an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. They allegedly took him for a ride in Mario Tabraue’s car and shot him twice with a .380 Baretta. [...] The ring paid bribes totaling $150,000 to former Key West Deputy Police Chief Lt. Raymond Casamayor and other Monroe County officials, the indictment said. Casamayor is serving a 30-year prison sentence in a separate case. The indictment also charges that from the fall of 1977 until at least the end of 1979 Mario Tabraue had Miami police officers collecting, counting and disbursing large amounts of cash made from the ring. [...] One 15-count indictment charges the Tabraues and Francisco Quintana, allegedly his main supplier, with conspiracy to possess and distribute marijuana and cocaine, possession of drugs with intent to distribute them, and racketeering. [...] Their operation imported brought 500,000 pounds of marijuana and 95 kilograms of cocaine through Louisiana, the Florida Panhandle, the Naples area, the Keys and Dade County, the indictment charges. In two separate but related indictments, a federal grand jury charged Orlando Cicilia, Randy Chatfield, Phillip Epstein and Raymond Van Nostrand with racketeering in connection with the Tabraue operation."
    • Washington City Paper Vol. 9 No. 50, "Kid Who Sold Crack to the President" by J Morley, 1989/12 - abstract includes the following: "Stanley Sporkin, the judge in the case, refused to set bail for Keith Jackson, labeling him a threat to the community. This is the same Stanley Sporkin who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the mid-1980's and implemented the executive branch policy of protecting selected drug entrepreneurs who were paid CIA informants. Two such entrepreneurs, A.J. Maillis and Guillermo Tabraue, were released and received a plea bargain deal to a significantly lesser charge."
    • From p.29 of Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated Edition by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall (1998):

          As for Tabraue, the DEA increased his informant payments to compensate him for the lost bail money. He made as much as $1,400 a week for his work. Tabraue and various relatives went on to become class I traffickers on their own, even while working for the DEA. According to charges filed a decade late, Tabraue's syndicate earned 879 million from importing marijuana and cocaine between 1976 and 1987. It imported no less than 500,000 pounds of marijuana and 95 kg of cocaine in that period and enjoyed protection from the deputy police chief of Key West and various Miami police officers. When prosecutors learned, to their amazement, that Tabraue had begun trafficking under government protection, the judge declared a mistrial. Tabraue later pleaded guilty to income tax evasion.
          Both Tabraue and Hernandez Rumbaut got their start in the drug trade under the wing of Bay of Pigs veteran and anti-Castro activist Jose Medardo Alvero Cruz, whose pioneering use of "mother ships" to offload large volumes of marijuana was "something he picked up from the CIA," according to Graydon Lynch. Alvero Cruz also employed Morales to handle collections and security. One exile active in the Contra support effort told federal investigators in 1984 that Myer, Cruz had "provided large sums of money to the anti-Castro cause."
       
    • Columbia Journalism Review, "Darts and Laurels: Univision, The Miami Herald, and Marco Rubio, the GOP's rising star", 2012/01-02: "The ring’s kingpin, who had helped hack a federal informant to death in 1980, was sentenced to a hundred years in prison. He was released in 2000 after serving twelve years and doing some informing to the feds himself. Also released in 2000, after serving twelve years of a twenty-five-year sentence, was a second-tier associate named Orlando Cicilia. At the time of his arrest, Cicilia’s brother-in-law was a high-school student named Marco Rubio. Twenty-four years later, Rubio is a prominent Florida senator [...] Then, in July, Univision exposed Cicilia’s drug bust in a report broadcast in English and Spanish. [...] Reyes came across the information of the past conviction while checking the background of Cicilia’s son, Orlando Cicilia Jr, who, according to reporting by the Herald in 2010, was one of several of Rubio’s relatives to have received payment from his political committee that was incorrectly reported to the IRS. Reyes also learned that Cicilia now co-owns Rubio’s mother’s home, which is where he lives with his wife, Barbara. [...] The Herald’s story opened with allegations by Rubio’s staff and unnamed “Univision insiders” that during the July phone call, Lee had offered to soften or spike the story about Rubio’s brother-in-law if Rubio would appear on Al Punto, which is hosted by Jorge Ramos. While the story reports Lee’s denial of having offered a quid pro quo, the rest of the piece attempts to build the case that he did. [...] But the Herald didn’t make its case."
    • Mother Jones, "This Former Cocaine Kingpin Is Lobbying Congress to Let Him Keep His Cheetahs (and Liger)", 2014/05/07: "In 1987, Tabraue was taken down in Operation Cobra. According to federal prosecutors, Tabraue had been the “chairman of the board” of a cocaine and marijuana trafficking network worth $75 million. At one point, investigators charged, he had stored 10,000 pounds of marijuana at the Parrot Jungle, a Miami-Dade tourist attraction owned by a friend. [...] (Also nabbed in the operation was Orlando Cicilia, brother-in-law of GOP Sen. Marco Rubio; Cicilia was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement.) Prosecutors alleged that Tabraue and his father, Guillermo, a Bay of Pigs veteran who ran a jewelry store in Miami’s Little Havana, had masterminded the entire network. But Guillermo’s charges were reduced to tax evasion, after a witness testified that Guillermo had been an informant for the CIA."
    • Washington Post, "How Rubio helped his ex-con brother-in-law acquire a real estate license", 2015/12/30: "When Marco Rubio was majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives, he used his official position to urge state regulators to grant a real estate license to his brother-in-law, a convicted cocaine trafficker who had been released from prison 20 months earlier, according to records obtained by The Washington Post. In July 2002, Rubio sent a letter on his official statehouse stationery to the Florida Division of Real Estate, recommending Orlando Cicilia “for licensure without reservation.” [...] Rubio did not disclose in the letter that Cicilia was married to his sister, Barbara, or that the former cocaine dealer was living at the time in the same West Miami home as Rubio’s parents. He wrote that he had known Cicilia “for over 25 years,” without elaborating. [...] Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group in Washington, said Rubio’s role concerned her. [...] By not disclosing his relationship, Rubio withheld a key piece of information from the real estate board, Brian added. [...] By 2002 — when Cicilia applied for his real estate license — Rubio was accumulating significant power in Tallahassee. He had been tapped as majority whip, and he added to his growing portfolio when he was named chairman of the prominent Task Force on Florida’s Tax Structure. Later that year, he was selected as House majority leader, a position that put him on the fast track to become speaker of the House. [...] [Felons' real estate] applications are considered on a “case-by-case basis” by seven members of the Florida Real Estate Commission, who are appointed by the governor. The governor, at that time, was Rubio’s political mentor, Jeb Bush — who is now running against the Florida senator for the Republican presidential nomination. The budget of the agency is controlled by the Florida legislature, where Rubio wielded considerable influence" - worth asking what Rubio's connection was to Tom Feeney at this time, since Feeney was state House speaker while Rubio was the majority whip

Alabama mercenaries

  • Walker County AL reputation as a hitman capital
    • TODO: document this
    • Paul Candler, the ringleader in the Yosemite murders, jumped bail to Walker County shortly after the killings. Stephen Sanzeri and Rick Janes, the bounty hunters sent to track him down, were told by local law enforcement of the county's reputation as "the hit capital of the United States" when they arrived. Sanzeri would later find that Candler had likely been a hitman for the corrupt Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, sent to murder investigator Orb Hatton who was looking into their involvement in meth trafficking (more about this in The Last Circle by Cheri Seymour). Another odd coincidence was the fact that Francis Carrington, the father of Yosemite victim Carole Sund, owned a strip mall in Fultondale AL, a city in neighboring Jefferson County AL where Candler hid out during his time in Alabama.
  • Carrie Lawson abduction - in 1991 from Jasper AL
    • Leigh Bratina, "Where is Carrie Lawson?", 2008/01/23 - has many interesting comments
      • Anonymous, 2009/08/25: "One thing that always baffled me was why Bland would kill himself without revealing the location of her body or details of what happened. Some theories were that Bland was killed by someone trying to keep him quiet or maybe he didn't know the location of the body.

        About 10 years ago, I met a member of Bland's immediate family to which I asked these questions. They assured me that he did kill himself based on the reading of his suicide note. They also stated that the Bland family had been threatened by law enforcement to keep quiet about the case. The threat used was to prosecute Bland's wife on charges of bugging her husband's telephone when she suspected him of cheating on her."
      • Anonymous, 2009/09/11: "There were so many glitches in the investigation, most of them had to do with Earl. A couple of months after the disappearrance, I had a dream that the family was being interviewed and they were all standing together. In my dream, Earl was standing with Carrie's parents looking at the camera and there was blood all over him. Everyone should know that Earl quickly remarried- not what I would consider the grieving young widower."
      • MaxShelby, 2010/08/07: "I just stumbled on this blog and have read previous stories about Carrie.
        Weren't both of the kidnappers Drummond employees? There is a mountain of intrigue and sordid activity that surrounds the Drummonds.
        Is it possible Carrie may have been working on a case and gotten close to exposing something "someone" didn't want exposed? What I have heard is it involved a missing girl who was connected to powerful men."
      • Anonymous, 2011/12/08: "It was rumored around Walker County that Carrie wanted to reopen a case upon passing the bar exam. this case involved the bombing death of a young lady in Jasper ... I have kept up with the case over the years but it seems that with Bland's death and the lady in prison staying quiet it will never be solved... Remember the family in your prayers.."
      • Anonymous, 2013/07/08: "I was once told that she was working for the d.a. and a young girl came and talked to her about her involvement in a prostitution ring with some higher up men of walker county and a disbarred attorney now. and that she is buried in a pillar on corridor x. the disbarred attorney was also the holder of the ransom monies....."
      • Anonymous, 2013/11/20: "I was just a kid when this happened but I remember hearing a conversation between some teachers at school that she was looking into the disappearance of Becky Ferguson and had found some new information. (Odd that both disappearances happened in September). I'm not sure how true that is, but it looks like I am not the only one who heard that it was related to that case or at the very least related to a case and not "random"."
      • Anonymous, 2014/01/03: "Anonymous....I was a neighbor of Carrie when she was kidnapped and also owned a beauty salon. Jerry's daughter was a friend and client and expressed how her father was so ill he could not have acted alone and was forced to do what he did; however, I also heard lots of "tales" about this crime right from my salon. One that I will never forget. A young woman sat in the salon one day talking about how she was going to write a book and had accumulated lots of evidence. Her sister was my client. Her story was that Carrie had uncovered a lot of information on the crime in Walker County. She had uncovered information relating to other women that had come up missing, one the Ferguson woman and the other other the woman who was blown up at the Walker Baptist Hospital. It seems, as she realted, that there's a huge undercover prostitution and drug ring in Walker County, run by a group if "powerful people." They continue to sit on the bench, and have state political ties. As she unfolded this story, her sister feared she too would go missing as with other women, like Carrie who "knew too much." It has long been said that women have to keep their mouth shut in Walker County. Lots of convenient mistakes were made during the search for Carrie, and many theories continue, but as is known, Jasper was known for hire to kill, leaving one to wonder why so much corruption continues in this small town of Alabama and yet never solved....Jerry Bland was a very small man and his daughter expressed that he did not kill himself. She told how he talked to the family and was very scared and knew that he would be killed. She waited two years before she came back to the salon and told me how she did not want to embarrass me. She said when she walked down the street people would walk up to her and curse her and spit in her face.... It is a known fact that powerful men run this little town. It was told there was a restaurant in Coke Oven that held a "back room" for gambling and prostition years ago.........it was told the Ferguson girl wanted out of this arena, but she instead came up missing from her Cadillac that was found on Airport Road. I am sure this case will never be solved unless the FBI cracks the gut of the involvement that surrounds these missing women. The new book that Joy Cagle has just released, "Presumption of Death," puts the blame on those she felt were directly involved with Carries unfortunate disappearance. And for Jerry's precious daughter, she was the one that was executed by the people. Everytime I see a case "reopened" I think of Carrie and hope that some day someone wil pick up on where she left off and solve this mystery......"
      • Anonymous, 2014/05/07: "Does anyone know the name of the woman who went missing right after Carrie disappeared? It was near Walker/Winston."
      • Anonymous, 2014/10/26: "'We" have let Carrie down. She fought against injustice, but didn't realize what, and who, she was up against. There has not yet been an ending to her story. She is still missing, twenty-three years later. Her family has no closure. The accomplice is in prison, and although she played a part, there are many others who never paid the price for their actions. They were protected, and that is a travesty. By the way-I don't believe that the convenient audio tape that was turned into police had been recorded in case Karen got cold feet, though it came in handy later, unfortunately for Karen. The reason they recorded her & Bland's conversation was in case they needed 'proof' later that Carrie was not the only target of the kidnappers. It was their get-out-of-jail-free card, and it worked. In the end, Bland was as much a pansy as Karen, and more than one family was torn apart in the process. I hope one day the feds do what they should have done twenty-three years ago, or twenty-six-actually- they could have stopped everything that happened when Becky Ferguson disappeared."
      • Anonymous, 2014/10/26: "By the way (again), in response to one of the June 11 posts "They asked Karen what she was wearing. It didn't match Carries clothing. The FBI kept asking over and over when, where, why they changed her."...my assumption is this...the FBI would have received the description of her clothing from Earl-no one else knew what she left the house in-except the kidnapper, right? If the clothing that Carrie wore when Karen saw her didn't match the description that they had, it's not a big leap as to why!"
      • Anonymous, 2015/11/27: "I lived in Jasper at the time and met the chief administrator of the hospital at a party. I mentioned this case to him and told him something about the case that I had heard from an acquaintance from the DA's office. His response was to inform me that he knew a hit man and that I should stop asking questions. He was quite serious. I had heard of the women who mysteriously disappeared, so I left it alone. But have never forgotten about Carrie. I hope the truth comes out someday."
      • Anonymous, 2016/02/11: "My uncle worked on Carrie Lawsons case. He was interviewed on Dateline NBC, & 48 hours. He actually found her, & knew what happened to her. He was threatened, at the time he announced he was going to have the mine dug out, & bring her home. His own son, was killed on vacation, & he was threatened. He told Carries parents, he had been to where she was, & the reason she was killed. She knew too much. She had evidence of underground crime rings in Walker county, that led to 3 other states. Suffice it to say, she will never be returned to her family. She was married to the mob, only she didn't know it when she married him."
      • Anonymous, 2017/03/28: "Follow up to my comment - PW [Pat Willingham] worked for Drummond in the 80s and that's how he got on the hospital board. After falling out with Drummond,he stayed on at the hospital and "worked" with Carrie's and Earl's (former) attorney bosses to sell the hospital - lots of money up for grabs...dirty dirty dirty business"
    • WIAT, "Missing Mysteries: Sister of Carrie Lawson still has questions after 1991 kidnapping", 2019/03/27: "As CBS 42 takes a look at missing person cases in central Alabama, the sister of Carrie Lawson says she still has questions after Lawson was kidnapped almost 28 years ago. She was kidnapped from her Jasper home in 1991. [...] Lawson had recently graduated from law school and accepted a job in Jasper. Investigators said she and her husband were approached by their car at gunpoint and that Lawson was forced to tie her husband’s hands before she was taken. [...] “We were always a family of 4 missing 1 person,“ said Margaret Kubiszyn, Lawson’s sister. [...] A 49-year-old man named Jerry Bland was developed as a suspect, but officers said he shot and killed himself as they closed in during the investigation. Bland’s cousin, Karen Lancaster McPherson was sentenced to life in prison for kidnappings. Even after the investigation, Kubiszyn has more questions than answers. “We never believed that Jerry Bland was the only one involved. We are not 100 percent sure he killed himself, there are just so many questions that remain,“ said Kubiszyn. Kubiszyn’s father hired private detectives to try to locate Lawson. He also spoke to McPherson after her sentencing in hopes of finding his daughter’s body. “She sat there for 4 or 5 hours talking to my dad about things that he thought might be true about other people that might be involved and things and he sent the tapes to the FBI and they immediately said she is lying.“ said Kubiszyn."
    • Cleveland Daily Banner, "Ga. podcaster seeks answers in Cleveland cold case", 2019/07/17: "It was Sept. 11, 1991, when Cleveland-born Carrie Lawson, 25, got a call at her home in Jasper, Alabama, saying her father-in-law was ill and she needed to rush to the hospital. She and her husband of nearly two years, Earl Lawson, went to the car parked in the garage only to be confronted by a masked gunman. He ordered Lawson to tie up her husband on the ground, forced her into their car and drove away. The next two days led the family on what Georgia native Kristi Bryant describes as a “wild goose chase,” in her crime podcast Southern Gone. [...] It was Sept. 11, 1991, when Cleveland-born Carrie Lawson, 25, got a call at her home in Jasper, Alabama, saying her father-in-law was ill and she needed to rush to the hospital. She and her husband of nearly two years, Earl Lawson, went to the car parked in the garage only to be confronted by a masked gunman. He ordered Lawson to tie up her husband on the ground, forced her into their car and drove away. The next two days led the family on what Georgia native Kristi Bryant describes as a “wild goose chase,” in her crime podcast Southern Gone. [...] Bryant said her interest was piqued both by the severity of McPherson’s sentence and Earl Lawson’s willingness to remarry not too long after his wife was officially declared dead. A missing person is typically presumed dead seven years after they’ve gone missing, a decision made by a judge who can then order a death certificate. “That doesn’t feel right to me,” she said in the episode. [...] She also explains Earl Lawson was not investigated by the FBI. She theorized it may have been due to his connections in Jasper and that he may have hired Bland. [...] The podcaster said she and her team have already faced threats and been made aware of the potential dangers if they were to dive deeper into Lawson’s case. [...] [Lawson's sister Margaret Smith] said involvement with Lawson’s Jasper law firm couldn’t be ruled out. She recalled a time when her sister said her husband alledgedly came home with money from the law firm, money he said couldn’t be deposited in the bank, and other “odd” circumstances related to the firm."
    • The woman variously referred to as "No7ThirdPlace", "I KNOW", and "Nancy" who claimed to have written the ransom note in the JonBenet Ramsey murder came from Walker County AL. According to her, she was friends with Jasper AL resident Carrie Smith Lawson before her 1991 abduction, and was befriended afterwards by a man named Jim and his wife Mary who claimed to be writing a book on the Carrie Lawson kidnapping. Mary enlisted "I Know" to transcribe a ransom note in 1995 that was purportedly for her book, but "I Know" later found to her surprise that the note she wrote ended up being the ransom note found at the Ramsey home. She indicated that a larger group of people, split between Alabama and Colorado, were involved in murdering JonBenet, a group which included John Mark Karr. Regarding the Lawson abduction, "I Know" believed that the official suspects Karen McPherson and Jerry Bland were not the only culprits, that Bland did not commit suicide, and that Jim and Mary were likely involved.
  • Frank Camper mercenary camp in Hueytown AL (in neighboring Jefferson County AL)
    • People, "Two Suspected Sikh Terrorists Honed Their Combat Skills at An Alabama War School", 1985/08/05
      • "The four Sikh extremists paid for their commando training with a credit card and then arrived at the Mercenary School in Jefferson County, Ala. last November wearing maroon turbans, gray suits and buttons that read, “Sikhs Seek Justice.” Frank Camper, 38, owner of the combat-training school, helped them purchase fatigues, and soon they were out in the woods, firing automatic weapons, practicing hand-to-hand combat and learning to use explosives."
      • "[...] On May 3 a warrant was issued for the arrest of one of them, Lal Singh, for conspiring with two fellow Sikhs to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during the Premier’s trip to the United States last month. The next day four Sikhs, including Mercenary School graduate Sukwinder Singh, were arrested in New Orleans and later indicted for plotting to kill a visiting Indian government official. And now, Lal Singh, who is still at large, is wanted for questioning in connection with the June 23 suspected bombing of Air-India Flight 182, [...]"
      • "[...] “I train people in combat. People I have trained are fighting in many parts of the world—Lebanon, South Africa, the Philippines and Central America. They pick their own sides. I don’t instruct in politics or doctrine.”"
      • "[...] freelance soldiers trained by Camper have patrolled with the Nicaraguan contras. James B. Adair, a contributing editor of Eagle, a magazine for mercenaries, confirms that two former Mercenary School instructors and several graduates accompanied him on a guerrilla raid into Nicaragua last February. “They [Camper’s alumni] seemed to know what they were doing,” Adair says. “So I’d say the training was pretty effective.”"
      • "[...] Camper also points out that he cooperated with the FBI in the investigation and arrest of the Sikhs captured in New Orleans. That case fits a familiar pattern: Frank Camper has a history of association with gunrunners and would-be gunmen and a history of informing law enforcement agencies about such men’s activities."
      • "Far more bizarre was the case of Robert Lee Lisenby. Vietnam veteran, right-wing extremist and self-described professional hit man, Lisenby taught at the Mercenary School in 1981. In March of that year Lisenby and Camper were arrested for trespassing while leading students on a training mission near a nuclear power plant in Florida. A month later Camper and Lisenby were arrested in Miami in a car containing a bomb, a pistol and a machine gun equipped with a silencer. Lisenby pleaded guilty to various weapons charges and served 18 months in federal prison. Camper—who had informed the FBI about Lisenby’s mission—was released, without charges.

        “He called the FBI and had me arrested,” says Lisenby, who was released from prison in 1982 and is now working at a furniture factory in North Carolina. Lisenby claims that he was hired by one drug dealer to kill another and had asked his friend Camper to assist him. “I told him clearly that it involved taking somebody out and he said that was no problem. I paid his way down and I paid him a considerable amount of money and he called the FBI.” Lisenby suspects that Camper similarly encouraged—and informed on—the Sikhs. “Anybody who goes to that school is watched closely,” he says. “It’s just a front. If you go to that school and do something illegal, the FBI will know about it.” Lisenby also suggests that informing on the kind of people who go to mercenary schools is not a practice that will lead to a long life. “If he’s not careful, Mr. Camper will find himself six feet under,” he says."
      • "[...] With Camper fact and fiction tend to blur. Some facts are verifiable: Camper is a Vietnam veteran (Spec/4), a licensed gun dealer, the author of two pulp adventure novels and the operator of the school. Beyond that, his background becomes vague. He claims that during the early ’70s he infiltrated leftist groups for the FBI, but the Bureau will neither confirm nor deny that. He also claims that he trained Arab troops in Saudi Arabia in 1979 and 1980 but, according to the records of Saudi Arabian Airlines, he was working for them as a mechanic. He says he has trained Panamanian antiterrorist troops both in Panama and in Alabama. He claims to have carried out cloak-and-dagger missions in Guatemala and El Salvador in recent years, but those tales are impossible to verify."
      • "Frank Camper tells a lot of exciting adventure stories—all of them starring Frank Camper—but not everyone believes them. Tom Posey, head of the Alabama-based Civilian Military Assistance, which sends supplies and American military trainers to the contra guerrillas in Nicaragua, is highly skeptical: “You shouldn’t believe 99 percent of what Camper tells you.”"
      • "But Camper does have his defenders, including Jim Shults, editor-in-chief of Gung-Ho, another mercenary magazine. “He’s been around,” says Shults. “He’s not BS-ing. He’s been in Guatemala. He’s been in Salvador a couple, three times. He’s been back and forth to Panama a few times.”"
      • "Camper says that he founded the school because he was dissatisfied with U.S. Army training in commando techniques. “I wanted to train mercenary soldiers in international weapons and combat techniques and do it far better than the U.S. Army Ranger school did,” he says. “We lost the war in Vietnam. Maybe I keep fighting these wars because we lost our war there. Maybe if we had won, I could have stopped.”"
    • Los Angeles Times, "Mercenary Offers Tales of Secret U.S. Missions at Firebombing Trial", 1986/11/09: "Camper, who attracted worldwide attention last year as the owner of a controversial mercenary training school in Alabama, is standing trial in federal court here for allegedly firebombing two cars in San Bernardino County. The firebombing, federal prosecutors allege, was part of a bungled plot hatched by two private-school owners from Dana Point to harass ex-employees. Camper and his Hueytown, Ala., training camp stepped into the media spotlight after FBI agents confirmed that information he provided led to the arrest of a group of Sikh extremists plotting to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. [...] A Vietnam veteran, Camper claims to have worked as an undercover agent for the U.S. government since he was discharged by the Army in 1969. And he maintained in an interview last week that he actually was on a secret government mission when he was hired by Charlotte Wyckoff and Elizabeth Hamilton to teach their former employees a lesson. [...] When he is not in court, Camper spends the time in his cell writing books in longhand. A spokeswoman for Dell Publishing Co. Inc. in New York City confirmed that he has a contract with the company. His first book, titled “The Professional,” is due out next spring. “I’m a writer,” said Camper, adding that he planned to retire from the mercenary business this year. He took a break once before, in 1974, and worked for three years as a mechanic for a Porsche racing team based in Jacksonville, Fla. [...] When they entered guilty pleas last month, Wyckoff and Hamilton testified that they hired Camper to harass six former employees from their chain of private schools in Orange and San Bernardino counties. Camper insists he does not work for individuals, only governments or organizations, including the Palestine Liberation Organization. [...] When he was not teaching, Camper claims to have worked on numerous undercover missions for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the FBI. “The agencies hire individuals to do jobs they cannot conveniently or legally do,” Camper said. [...] When asked what a mercenary does to relax, Camper said he enjoys going to amusement parks, especially Disney World and Disneyland. In fact, two days before the alleged firebombings, Camper said, he and his friends spent the day at Disneyland."
    • Los Angeles Times, "Ex-Teacher Is Given 2 Years in Bombings", 1987/06/09: "A Dana Point teacher who was part owner of a chain of private schools was sentenced Monday to two years in federal prison for hiring a band of Alabama mercenaries to harass two former employees who she believed had vandalized her schools. The mercenaries blew up cars in San Bernardino County in August, 1985, belonging to former employees Robyn Rishoff of Etiwanda and Harriet Russo of Ontario. Because Charlotte Ruth Wyckoff, 52, already had served nearly a year in jail awaiting sentencing, she will serve only an additional year in custody. She pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to the bombings. [...] Wyckoff and a partner, Elizabeth Leta Hamilton, 39, who was sentenced earlier to seven years in prison, owned a chain of seven private schools known as the California Learning Centers in Orange and San Bernardino counties. After several of their schools were vandalized, Wyckoff and Hamilton contacted Franklin J. Camper, who owned a mercenary-training camp in Alabama. They asked him to come to California to provide “unconventional security” for themselves and their schools, Wyckoff said at the hearing at which she pleaded guilty. Last week, Camper was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role in the bombings. Camper associate William Hedgcorth, 23, was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy and arson, and Camper’s girlfriend, Lee Ann Faulk, 28, was acquitted of conspiracy charges. [...] Stotler also sentenced two other defendants in the case Monday. Paul Johnson, 43, of Birmingham, Ala., was given two years in prison, and James Cuneo, 23, of Long Island, N.Y., was sentenced to 18 months. Johnson and Cuneo once worked as instructors at Camper’s mercenary camp. They were accused of participating in the actual bombings. [...] Cuneo pleaded for mercy Monday, saying he came under Camper’s spellbinding influence when he was a misguided youth of 17. “When I met Frank Camper, I was very irresponsible,” Cuneo said, his voice breaking. “I had no direction in my life. I was in a fantasy world looking for shortcuts to being a man. [...] Camper contended that he was a patriot who ran his mercenary camp as a cover for super-secret U.S. government operations."
    • Orlando Sentinel, "SENATE PANEL TESTIMONY A MIX OF DRUGS, TERRORISM, FOREIGN INTRIGUE", 1988/07/17: "-- Frank Camper, onetime mercenary guru, government informant and now federal inmate, testified that U.S. military intelligence agents in Alabama tried to buy 2,000 Chinese anti-tank missiles in 1984. One meeting occurred in the Birmingham FBI office a year before the Reagan administration began sending 1,500 similar missiles to Iran in a bid to win freedom for hostages in Lebanon.

      -- Camper told of working in Panama with an elite commando squad loyal to Noriega and whose members were involved in narcotics trafficking. He said he reported this to U.S. intelligence.

      -- Camper, a Vietnam veteran whose activities as an informant began with an FBI operation in 1970, described a meeting in which Panamanian officers and an unidentifed American pilot wearing a U.S. military-style flight suit discussed the American's drug flights from Colombia to Contra airstrips.

      -- In another meeting, Camper said a Medellin Cartel drug kingpin patted his wallet and said he "had Noriega right here."

      -- The subcommittee released a December 1984 report Camper sent to military intelligence concerning a plan dubbed Operation Pegasus. Camper said American mercenaries and Contras would infiltrate Nicaragua to gather intelligence and attack military, economic and "Sandinista leadership" targets.

      Camper wrote that another American willing to keep U.S. intelligence informed of the group's activities risked "possible arrest, torture or death" for "treason against the FDN," at the time the largest Contra army. Camper's report also mentioned Contra supporter Tom Posey of Alabama and Mario Calero, the Contra logisitics chief in New Orleans. Both were indicted last week in Miami on charges of violating the Neutrality Act.

      -- Camper is serving a 14-year sentence for federal weapons, conspiracy and racketeering violations related to a California bombing. At his mercenary school in Alabama, which he operated from 1981 to 1986, Camper said he routinely apprised authorities of "students" inclined to use their skills in illegal activities."
    • Frank Camper book list - includes THE MK/ULTRA SECRET (1997) which claims that Lee Harvey Oswald was under mind control

Florida/Georgia polluters

Many of these articles are written by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), specifically the Florida branch of PEER

  • Florida PEER, "PETITION FOR A WRITTEN DIRECTION TO THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT TO INVESTIGATE MISCONDUCT IN BAY COUNTY, FLORIDA RELATING TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF LAND DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED PROCESSES, AND FOR OTHER RELIEF", 2001/02/06: "Petitioner, PUBLIC EMPLOYEES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY (PEER), by and through counsel, respectfully petitions the Honorable Jeb Bush, Governor of the State of Florida, for a written direction to the Florida Department Of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to investigate misconduct in Bay County, Florida relating to local government regulation of land development and related processes, and for other relief, on the following grounds:"
  • FDEP corruption
    • Rosalie Shaffer, "Inside the Pipeline Cover-Up", 2005/02/04: "Major, politically sensitive DEP decisions are not made by the field manager; they come down from above. While Northwest Florida District Manager Mary Jean Yon certainly desired to please a person who could possibly have her removed, undoubtedly Governor Jeb Bush ordered Struhs to instruct the Northwest Florida District Office to issue the permit for rock mattress protection for the Bay County raw sewage pipeline, rather than require this line to be properly buried. The state allowed politics to overrule science and expert technical advice, in order to please key supporters in Bay County.

      And it’s not happening just here in Bay County. Political influence is being used all over the state to permit projects that would normally be denied, and to stave off enforcement actions. According to recently published reports, DEP staff reviewing the Scripps project in West Palm Beach, a project strongly favored by the Governor and his developer friends, were warned that if they did anything to hold up the project (such as telling the truth) they would receive “the highest possible disciplinary action.” (Boca News, December 11, 2004). And firing state employees has gotten easier in recent years. In 2001 Bush pushed through a bill called “Service First” that stripped away civil service protection for most state employees, allowing them to be fired without cause.

      In 1999 the Anderson Columbia Company, known for its history of environmental violations, got DEP to reverse its decision not to allow it to build a polluting cement kiln on pristine Ichetucknee River, a river that Jeb Bush had vowed to protect. Two days after the sweetheart deal was sealed, the company donated $150,000 to state and national Republican Party campaign fund accounts."
    • Florida PEER, "Environmental Promotion Tied to Campaign Contributions Florida DEP Dropped Enforcement Actions After Handpicked Supervisor Promoted", 2005/05/03: "“Politics are polluting Florida’s environmental agency,” stated Florida PEER Director Jerry Phillips, a former enforcement attorney for Florida DEP, noting that under “reforms” enacted at the request of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, top agency officials now have almost unlimited discretion in hiring and firing supervisors and managers. “Campaign contributions appear to be the coin of the realm inside state government.” [...] Prior to his being approved for this promotion, DEP administrators asked Hernandez to interview with William Gerald Harrison, Jr. over lunch. Harrison is a prominent Panama City attorney, a registered lobbyist for the St. Joe Company, a member of Governor Jeb Bush’s 1998-1999 transition team and a member of President George W. Bush’s transition team in 2000-2001. Harrison was also on the Board of Directors for Big Wheel Recycling, Inc., a Bay County landfill operator under investigation by Hernandez’s predecessor who resigned in December 2002."
    • Florida PEER, "THE SYSTEMATIC DISMANTLING OF THE ASBESTOS PROGRAM IN FLORIDA", 2005/08/11
    • John Caylor, "Florida Investigators Ignore Criminal Activities of Top Environmental Regulators", 2005/11/28: "The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Office of Executive Investigations signed off, without a criminal investigation, allegations by federal criminal investigators and state employees that, Mary Jean Yon, Director of Waste Management, aided and abetted companies involved in trafficking of toxic and hazardous waste. Mrs. Yon is the Florida's top regulatory officer presiding over hazardous and solid waste and was formerly the Director of the Northwest Florida District of the Department of Environmental Regulation. The FDLE Office of Executive Investigations, an arm of the Governors office, received the criminal complaint on March 2, 2005 and 1 day later on March 3, dismissed allegations made by Special Agent Paul Bouffard of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigation Division located at Tampa. Guy Tunnel the former Sheriff of Bay County is now FDLE Director. The complaint labeled as highly criminal in nature by FDLE Special Agent Terry Rhodes of the Clearwater field office was then forwarded for administrative review to Pinky Hall the Inspector General for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. At the DEP, the criminal complaint, including allegations made by the supervisor of Panama City field office, Henry Hernandez, was immediately dropped without investigation."
  • Big Wheel Recycling and Aztec Environmental
  • Coggins Farms - see the Valdosta sex ring allegations page
  • "The Dixie Mafia - Cronies, Killers, Dealers, & Traitors", 2007/10/16 (updated 2008/05/05) - article on Aztec/Big Wheel, related cases, Siegelman prosecution, firing of US attorney Greg Miller, and suspicious deaths of investigators and US attorneys

Election fraud

Child abuse

  • West Virginia elite pedophile rings - strong connections to Robert Byrd and Michigan pedophile islands such as Mackinac Island
  • J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett murder - in 1999 in Dothan AL
    • 2019/07/12 filing by John Caylor to intervene in the murder trial of Coley McCraney opposing the media gag order: "I firmly believe based upon extensive facts and knowledge prior to July 31, 1999, continuing afterward that both J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hewlett were targeted victims of R.I.C.O. 18 U.S.C. Murder due to their intimate knowledge of the illegal Paramilitary Cabal whom they both had developed personal knowledge by their own investigation. Their deaths were not a random crime of opportunity but were cold calculated perfectly planned murder. Profiler’s look at victims in sex crimes, study their backgrounds to uncover intended purpose and possible motives for their murders."
  • Jessica Dishon murder - in 1999 in Bullitt County KY
    • Associated Press, "Possible New Suspects In Dishon Case Deny Involvement", 2002/10/15: "Two men accused of being with a Bullitt County teen the night before she disappeared have denied any involvement in her death three years ago. James Coulter and Jason Dunford, both 22, told The Courier-Journal that while Coulter sold illegal drugs to Jessica Dishon earlier that day, they didn't see her after that. Dishon's partially clothed body was found in September 1999 in woods about seven miles from her home, 17 days after she disappeared. She had been beaten and strangled. Jason Krages, a friend of Dishon's, has told police that Coulter and Dunford were at a party with Dishon just hours before she disappeared. And when he saw the men the next day, Krages told police, Coulter's arm and Dunford's face were scratched. Police interviewed Dunford on Monday at the Bullitt County Sheriff's Department. He was arrested Sunday on outstanding drug possession and theft warrants after being stopped while driving with a suspended license. Coulter, in a phone interview with the newspaper, said Krages' accusations were "pretty much all false." "I just barely knew the girl," Coulter said. "I met her two or three times." [...] Krages' accusations, which were discovered three months ago in a police videotape that had been misplaced, led to a delay in the trial of David "Bucky" Brooks."
    • Louisville Courier-Journal, "Brooks' attorney says investigators ignored other suspects in Dishon slaying" by Jason Riley, 2003/01/24 (pages 1, 4)
    • Louisville Courier-Journal, "Dishon investigation was rocky from start, trial shows" by Jason Riley, 2003/02/03 (pages 1, 7)
    • Louisville Courier-Journal, "Charges dismissed in Dishon slaying" by Brian Moore and Jason Riley, 2003/09/06 (pages 1, 4)
    • Louisville Courier-Journal, "W. Ky. crash kills man with link to Dishon case" by Brandy Warren, 2006/04/06 - name is Jason Dunford
    • BBV forum post about Dave and Kathy Greenwell's experience in a suspect 2006 election against Donnie Tinnell
      • "In 1999, Dave Greenwell was the first deputy on the scene of the heartbreaking abduction of a teenage girl. Seventeen-year-old Jessica Dishon's parents had come home to find her car in the driveway, with her keys, purse, and cell phone still sitting in the car, along with one shoe. Jessica was nowhere to be found. Alarmed, Jessica's parents called the sheriff's office. Then-deputy Greenwell arrived, took photos, and sized up the situation as a possible abduction. Twice, Greenwell requested an investigator; both times the assigned official refused to come.(2)"
      • "Neither the sheriff nor the prosecutor did much to secure the Dishon crime scene. Greenwell called in the investigators; none came; yellow crime scene tape was reportedly put around the neighbor's car instead of Jessica's. During the 72 hours that the investigator was refusing to come to the scene, the forensic evidence was contaminated. At one point a reporter had sat in the front of the car to shoot a newscast. Onlookers touched the car. Greenwell had taken several photographs, which he submitted into evidence. Those photos disappeared, along with the notes written by another investigator (Jim Adams).(2)"
      • "Three separate witnesses testified that they had seen Jessica Dishon with two young men in a black Camaro.(4) The young men were identified as "persons of interest" but were never charged. The items in the Camaro were never sent to the crime lab for testing. One of the young men has since died in a car accident.(5)

        Instead, a man named "Bucky" Brooks whose IQ hovers around 70 was accused of the crime. During the year Bucky Brooks was held in prison, Dave Greenwell's crime scene photos disappeared, a videotaped statement by a witness was lost, and the original notes by investigator Jim Adams vanished.(2) The case against Bucky Brooks was dismissed after some illegal testimony wasn entered into the record.(4)"
      • "From BBV admin: They may try to go after Bucky Brooks again, on the theory that double jeopardy does not attach since it was a mistrial. Have been informed now by two sources in Bullitt county that one or both of the young men in the black Camaro who were not investigated were nephews of Sheriff Paul Parsley, who presided over the investigation. I have not had the opportunity to get the paperwork on that."
      • "Bev, Just a couple of corrections. Jessica was found in the flats off of stringer lane. this is close to the salt river, but she was not found in the river. Also the 2 boys in the camaro were Paul Parsley's brother inlaw's nephews. not an actual blood relative of Mr Parsley."
    • WLKY, "Raw interview: Bullitt County sheriff discusses Dishon indictment", 2013/10/02
    • WDRB, "Court records: Stanley Dishon strangled niece Jessica with a scarf", 2014/01/03: "After Stanley Dishon drove to the home of his 17-year-old niece, Jessica Dishon, on Sept. 10, 1999, to confront her, the two argued and he chased her around the yard, choking the teen before she fell, according to recently released court records. Stanley Dishon then went inside the teen's home, grabbed a scarf and subsequently strangled her, according to the records released this week in his murder case. [...] The timeline states that Stanley Dishon drove to Bullitt Central High School to find Jessica "to confront her over all of his anger." Her vehicle was not there, so Stanley Dishon drove to her home on Deatsville Road, according to the timeline, where the two got into an argument before he began to choke her. She fell down and he went into the home to get a scarf and strangled her. [...] The evidence released also includes the investigation into two men, James Coulter and Jason Dunford, who were seen with Jessica the night before she disappeared. In 2005, for example, a witness told investigators that Jessica was killed because she owed Dunford money. On Jan. 15, 2013, Mike Dishon, Jessica's father, called Hunt asking that she look further into Coulter and Dunford, according to the records. But Hunt wrote that Dunford and Coulter had already been cleared by the FBI and follow-up interviews with detectives."
    • WDRB, "New investigation in Dishon murder will have to overcome past problems", 2014/01/10: "After the mistrial, Commonwealth's Attorney Mike Mann said there was simply not enough evidence against Brooks to warrant another trial. During Brook's trial, one of his attorneys, Vince Yustas, argued that the Sheriff's Department mishandled and lost evidence and investigators focused solely on Brooks from the beginning. Yustas has since passed away. And Brooks' attorneys pointed the finger at two other men, alleged to have been seen with Jessica in a black Camaro shortly before and after she disappeared. Several witnesses during the trial identified the men, Jason Dunford and James Coulter, as being with Jessica the night before her disappearance and in the following days. The evidence released last week has even more information on Dunford and Coulter that was revealed in the years after the Brooks trial."
    • WDRB 41, "Stanley Dishon pleads guilty in 1999 death of Jessica Dishon", 2015/01/22: "After a mysterious and sometimes torturous 15-year odyssey, the 1999 murder of Bullitt County teen Jessica Dishon ended quickly and quietly Thursday, when her uncle -- Stanley Dishon -- softly confessed that he was responsible for her death. [...] In a quiet voice, Stanley Dishon told Nelson Circuit Court Judge Charles Simms III that he was guilty of killing Jessica as well as incest, sodomy and rape charges in four other cases. [...] [An] inmate would go on to give three interviews to investigators about Stanley Dishon confessing to killing his niece because he was jealous she had a boyfriend and that he feared she was going to reveal his sexual abuse. That interview led to another inmate who provided similar details. Also, family members of Stanley Dishon described his odd behavior around the time the teen was killed and investigators say they caught Dishon in several lies during an interview in which he denied having anything to do with the murder. Stanley Dishon also has a criminal history of sexually abusing young girls."
  • Bibb County AL pedophilia within law enforcement
    • Tuscaloosa News, "Woodstock settles sexual assault lawsuit", 2004/08/14: "In the initial complaints, five Bibb County women sought a combined $13 million in damages and demanded the court order retraining and counseling of all Woodstock Police Department officers in order to avoid similar future incidents. In the complaints, Chief Len Price, his cousin Officer Jimmy Price and former officer Paul Wray are alleged to have solicited sex acts from women as young as 15 years old while on duty and in uniform. Those sex acts, according to the complaints, were sometimes solicited in exchange for the dismissal of criminal and traffic charges. The trio also was to have allegedly sexually molested women while performing job duties, such as frisking. The alleged acts took place between 2001 and 2003."
    • AL.com, "Former Bibb County deputy sheriff found guilty of sexually exploiting women during traffic stops", 2015/12/18: "A former deputy sheriff was convicted of sexually exploiting women during traffic stops after a trial in Bibb County this week. Ervin Lee Heard, 44, of Centreville, was found guilty on charges of custodial sexual misconduct, first degree sexual abuse, second degree human trafficking, intimidating a witness, unlawful imprisonment and harassing communications. His sentencing is set for May 23. Heard, then a supervisor with the sheriff's office, and another former deputy were charged in December 2013 after an investigation was launched in July of that year. He faced a 20-count indictment. Ralph Burnell Jr., then the warden for the Bibb County Jail, also was indicted on charges of intimidating a witness, obstructing government operations and tampering with physical evidence. His trial is set for August 2016. [...] Charges against both were filed after a juvenile victim made a complaint that led to an investigation by the 4th Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office."
    • WIAT, "2015 kidnapping, rape victim files suit against estate of late Bibb County sheriff Keith Hannah, alleged abductor’s employer", 2017/10/30: "A complaint filed in the United States District Court on behalf of Tammy Murphy Carpenter and her sister Kandi Murphy’s estate seeking compensatory and punitive damages names late Bibb County Sheriff Keith Hannah’s estate and a Bibb County family that employed Carpenter’s alleged abductor. Sheriff Keith Hannah committed suicide and was found dead in November of 2016 at his office at the jail. The complaint claims Hannah, his chief investigator Keith Crofford, local businessman Harold Randolph, his son Jeffrey, and the Randolph’s companies are responsible for what happened to Tammy Carpenter and her sister Kandi Murphy in July 2015 when Carpenter was allegedly abducted and raped by her ex-boyfriend John Hubbard after he reportedly shot her sister to death in front of her kids at Carpenter’s home. [...] Carpenter’s lawsuit claims Randolph was close friends with Hubbard, as well as close friends with Hannah, and that the businessman communicated on a daily basis with the sheriff, as well as supported him politically. The suit alleges “Randolph and Hannah conspired and agreed to protect Hubbard from criminal charges and arrest.”"
  • Al Zimmerman - Florida DCF spokesman
    • Sun Sentinel, "DCF spokesman faces child pornography charges", 2008/02/02
    • Tampa Bay Times, "DCF had no hint of spokesman's troubled history", 2008/02/03 (original link which now 404s, archive on 2018/01/03)
    • Rigorous Intuition thread on Zimmerman's charges: pages 1, 2
    • According to an allegation elsewhere on the Rigorous Intuition forum, Zimmerman may have been involved with Camp Caribou in Maine: "I had remembered that Al Zimmerman, the Florida DCF spokesman arrested on child pornography charges last month, had a link on his myspace page to a webpage for alums of a camp in Maine. I seem to remember that it was camp Caribou, although I could be completely misremembering at this point. His myspace page was taken down shortly after his arrest, but I remembered that one of the papers covering the story had archived his myspace page. I was unable to find it and confirm what the camp referenced on his myspace page was."
    • Topix post makes more claims about Zimmerman's Myspace page - age is listed as 4 years younger than his actual age; heroes are "Me, Myself, and I"; religion is Protestant
    • Raw Story, "How well did Florida Gov. know alleged child porn peddler?", 2008/02/08 (original link, now 404s): "But buried in news accounts of the case was a curious detail: the official in question had listed the state's current Republican Governor, Charlie Crist, as a reference when he applied for his post in 2005. [...] While the news prompted state officials to say they were reviewing the personnel files of state employees for red flags, Zimmerman appeared to have come highly recommended when he was appointed to his post in 2005. Among the five references he listed, one of them was Crist, then the state Attorney General under Gov. Jeb Bush. Crist's office has implied that the governor had little direct connection to Zimmerman, and that the listing of top state officials as references was a routine matter. [...] But according to some earlier accounts, Crist was directly aware of Zimmerman and his work as on-air talent for a Tampa-area TV station. [...] As a reporter, Zimmerman also made waves. According to the Tampa Tribune, a report that Zimmerman completed called "Perverts in the Park" provoked controversy when it aired in Texas in 1996. The TV report focused on a public restroom in a park in San Antonio where gay men met for trysts. And when the news item was broadcast, Zimmerman forgot to digitally blur explicit sexual images recorded with a hidden camera. It also appears that Zimmerman may have contemplated a career in online pornography as far back as the 1990s. News reports indicate that he and his brother bought the URL, "boxersorbriefs.com," but never began using it."
    • boxersorbriefs.com website
      • WHOIS information for boxersorbriefs.com - indicates that the domain has been consistently owned since 1998/12/25
      • Florida corporation info on BOXERSORBRIEFS.COM, INC. - formed on 1999/01/04; dissolved on 2001/09/21 for lack of annual report; FEI/EIN number was 65-0885372; principal address and mailing address were both 816 MICHIGAN AVENUE MIAMI BEACH, FL 33139; registered agent was ZIMMERMAN, ROBERT LJR of 816 MICHIGAN AVENUE MIAMI BEACH, FL 33139; directors were ZIMMERMAN, ROBERT LJR and ZIMMERMAN, ALBERT A, both associated with the same address as the company itself
      • Florida corporation info on BOXERSORBRIEFS.COM FOUNDATION, INC. - formed on 1999/12/21; dissolved in 2000/09/22 for lack of annual report; principal address and mailing address were both 816 MICHIGAN AVENUE MIAMI BEACH, FL 33139; registered agent was AMERICAN INFORMATION SERVICES, INC. of ONE S.E. 3RD AVE., 28TH FLOOR MIAMI, FL 33131; no officers or directors listed
      • Florida corporation info on BOXERSORBRIEFS, INC. - formed on 2015/03/03; dissolved on 2018/09/28 for lack of annual report; FEI/EIN number was 47-3331189; principal address and mailing address were both 1000 VENETIAN WAY #1303 MIAMI, FL 33139; registered agent was ZIMMERMAN, ROBERT L of 1000 VENETIAN WAY #1303 MIAMI, FL 33139; president and treasurer were both Zimmerman
    • Robert Zimmerman background - appears to be the brother of Al Zimmerman, and the lead in their shared business ventures
      • 2014/05/08 statement of Robert Zimmerman to the Miami City Commission: "My name is Robert Zimmerman. I am the President of the 1000 Venetian Way Condominium, Inc. I represent 300 residents of the City of Miami who believe the current proposal will be extremely detrimental not only to our neighborhood but also to the entire population of the Downtown Miami and Venetian Causeway neighborhoods. I speak officially for my Association and, I am also in contact with several other homeowners' groups who share our concerns.

        We are concerned about all of the issues that Mr. Herbits and others have raised here -lack of current traffic analysis, public subsidies to a private developer, impacts on public safety and evacuation resources and other concerns. I would like to focus on the environmental issues raised by this project."
      • Florida corporation info on DADE CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT INC. - formed on 2004/08/23; dissolved on 2005/09/16 for lack of annual report; principal address and mailing address were both 1000 VENETIAN WAY 904 MIAMI, FL 33139; registered agent was HERBITS, STEPHEN E of 1000 VENETIAN WAY 904 MIAMI, FL 33139; president was HERBITS, STEPHEN E of 1000 VENETIAN WAY, #904 MIAMI, FL 33139, treasurer was GORDICH, HELENMARIE of 1000 VENETIAN WAY, #2102 MIAMI, FL 33139, and secretary was ZIMMERMAN, ROBERT of 1000 VENETIAN WAY, #1303 MIAMI, FL 33139
      • Stephen Herbits background
        • Wikipedia page on Stephen Herbits: "Stephen E. Herbits (born March 13, 1942) is an American businessman, former consultant to several Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of Defense, advisor to the Edgar M. Bronfman family, executive vice president and corporate officer of the Seagram Company, advisor to the President's Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets, and secretary general of the World Jewish Congress. He was the youngest person to be appointed commissioner on the Gates Commission (All-Volunteer Armed Force). Herbits' career has specialized in "fixing" institutions – governmental, business, and not-for-profit – with strategic planning and management consulting."
  • Alleged pedophilia within the Alabama judiciary
    • Montgomery Advertiser, "Judge charged with sex abuse", 2011/09/09: "The Baldwin County Sheriffs Office is investigating a sexual abuse case involving Foley Municipal Court Magistrate Joseph Frederick Bischoff. The 64-year-old Bischoff surrendered Tuesday after being accused of inappropriately touching a girl under the age of 16. Bischoff has been charged with second-degree sexual abuse. He was released on $6,000 bond and resigned from his magistrate position. WALA-TV reported authorities said the child was a family friend of Bischoff."
    • John Caylor response to the 2013 Bill Pryor gay porn story: "It has been made known to me by inside sources at the F.B.I. that the bureau has been conducting a pedophile investigation of the federal and state court system in Alabama for about 3 years. In 2011 they arrested a Baldwin County Juvy judge in Bay Minette. The investigation traces back to a Destin, Florida Church Retreat for children and as many already know that Destin, Fl is home to the boys from Saudi Arabia and the CIA's General Bowen Ballard it is also the place where the Muslim Brotherhood was started by AHMED ELKADI and moved to Panama City in the early 80's. Several current federal judges - Virginia Smith "AKA Ginny Grande" in Mobile and Kristi Dubose are reported to be Lesbians.

      I personally know that Judge Grande had explicit sexual relations with Donna Caylor my last wife that they arranged for me to marry and then toss me in jail at the U.S. border for 8 months for getting too close to all this and keeping me on ice while the Bingo Trial at Montgomery was in process. . It has long tentacles and involves using various churches youth programs to "GROOM" selected and promising young children into government service to be manipulated by a foreign power which I believe to be China, Saudi Arabia and Israel."
      • Ahmed Elkadi leadership of the US branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Florida
        • Chicago Tribune, "A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America", 2004/09/19: "Leading the U.S. Brotherhood during much of this period was Ahmed Elkadi, an Egyptian-born surgeon and a former personal physician to Saudi Arabia's King Faisal. He headed the group from 1984 to 1994 but abruptly lost his leadership position. [...] Former leader Elkadi, who has been questioned at length by federal authorities about the inner workings of the Brotherhood, says the group has served Muslims in the United States well. He personally helped establish an Islamic community in the Florida Panhandle, with a mosque, school and health clinic. [...] Once one of America's most influential Muslims, Elkadi now spends most of his days in front of the TV in his two-bedroom condominium in Sterling, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington. [...] After moving to Panama City, Fla., in 1979, he borrowed $2.4 million from a Luxembourg bank managed by his father-in-law, Abu Saud, the early Brotherhood leader, and built a large Islamic medical center just outside of town, real estate records show."
  • Seminole FL pedophile James Rybicki - let off due to the corrupt actions of a Pinellas County FL detective
    • WFLA, "Seminole man charged with taking sexually explicit pictures of child", 2016/12/13: "An investigation into James Rybicki, 60, started in August 2016 after a complaint the suspect had “approached a different 10 year old girl and tried convincing her to model bathing suits so he could take pictures of her.” “Rybicki told the girl to keep the conversation a secret,” a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said. She instead went to the authorities. Detectives said Rybicki approached two other girls between the ages of 10 and 16 and tried to talk them into posing for pictures while wearing bathing suits. The 10-year-old went to the residence. The victim, who is now 13 years old, is not the same child who triggered the investigation. This girl told detectives she went to Rybicki’s house and he took “inappropriate photographs of her in bikini style bathing suits,” the sheriff’s office spokesperson said. [...] Detectives said they found a photo of the victim on one of the suspect’s devices. All of the girls detectives spoke with knew Rybicki, according to the sheriff’s office. Rybicki is charged with promoting a sexual performance by a child, possession of child pornography, two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and being a felon in possession of ammunition. He was convicted in 2001 of lewd and lascivious conduct for taking inappropriate sexual pictures of a young girl, detectives said."
    • Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, "Detectives Arrest Seminole Man After He Took Sexually Explicit Photographs Of Girl Under 12 Years of Age", 2016/12/13 (updated 2016/12/15): "Detectives assigned to the Crimes Against Children Unit have arrested, 60-year-old James Rybicki, after they recovered new video evidence depicting the same 10-year-old victim being recorded at Rybicki’s residence, without her knowledge. The video depicts the victim changing into bikini style bathing suits and shows Rybicki taking sexually explicit photographs of the victim. At one point during the video, Rybicki is seen touching the victim inappropriately. Detectives say that the video was taken from a hidden camera that Rybicki kept inside his residence. Rybicki was out of jail on a $60,000 bond when detectives arrested him at his home, at about 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 14, 2016. Rybicki was charged with one count of Lewd and Lascivious Molestation and one count of Video Voyeurism. Rybicki was transported back to the Pinellas County Jail where he is being held with no bond. [...] James E. Rybicki (Arrested) DOD: 08/09/1956 13766 Dominica Drive, Seminole"
    • Tampa Bay Times, "Pinellas prosecutors drop charges in tainted child porn case", 2019/11/27: "The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office dropped child pornography and molestation charges against a man whose home was searched based on false statements by law enforcement. Executive Assistant State Attorney Kendall Davidson filed documents Tuesday afternoon saying his office would no longer pursue the following charges against James Rybicki: two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation; and one count each of video voyeurism, possession of child pornography and promoting a sexual performance by a child. [...] The filings come after a judge issued a ruling this month saying that prosecutors and a Pinellas County Sheriff’s detective engaged in a “ruse” to get a warrant to search Rybicki’s home. They pretended to pursue one crime — false imprisonment — to get into the home and look for evidence of other crimes, the judge said, violating Rybicki’s constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure. “Had it not contained false statements and not omitted certain material facts, no reasonably prudent judge or magistrate would have signed the warrant,” Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge William Burgess III wrote, referencing the investigators’ warrant application. [...] Davidson stands by the actions of his prosecutors and said he didn’t know why the judge rebuked them in his order. The blame falls on the detective, he said, who they had no reason not to believe based on what he wrote in the warrant application. [...] The detective, Michael Alvarez, could not be reached for comment. Alvarez left the agency two years ago and currently works for the Ann Arbor Police Department in Michigan."
    • Tampa Bay Times, "Pinellas sheriff’s detective in tainted child porn case quits Michigan police job", 2020/01/16: "Michael Alvarez resigned from the agency Jan. 10, said Ann Arbor police Lt. Renée Bush in a statement issued Thursday. Alvarez had been on paid administrative leave since November, when the Tampa Bay Times reported on a judge’s ruling that Alvarez and Pinellas-Pasco prosecutors had lied to obtain a search warrant. The case has since been dismissed. Ann Arbor police opened an internal investigation into the incident. The agency declined to say what will happen to that investigation now that Alvarez is gone. [...] The resignation is the latest in an unusual saga that resulted in an accused child molester, James Rybicki, going free. [...] Alvarez, who the judge named in his ruling, left the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in May 2017 and took a job as a patrol officer in Ann Arbor soon after. Had Alvarez been in Pinellas at the time of the judge’s ruling, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said he would have arrested him on a perjury charge. But because he is out of the Sheriff’s Office’s jurisdiction, the sheriff said he would refer the case to the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office to decide whether to prosecute the former detective."
  • Child molestation by Kentucky lawmaker Dan Johnson
    • Louisville Metro Police Department documents for case 13-0242
    • Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, "The Pope's Long Con", 2017/12/11: "Danielle Elmore, now in her mid-20s, was underage when she attended some of these parties. She considered herself a regular at the church and the bar. “Yes, there’s times when it got crazy,” Elmore said. She recalls feeling uncomfortable when a boozy Johnson would sometimes kiss her and other young women on the lips. Elmore knew something wasn’t right. But she didn’t know that the liquor and partying would serve as a backdrop to something much more serious: alleged molestation in Pope’s House. [...] Often, weekends meant parties at the Pope’s House. Sometimes there’d be concerts. Other times just booze and camaraderie. Some of the antics — the scantily clad women, the dancing on the bar, the body shots, the costumes — have been documented in pictures posted to Johnson’s Facebook page."
    • Lexington Herald Leader, "Rep. Dan Johnson’s seamy past unveiled", 2019/12/12 (updated 2019/12/14): "But the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting has, in a thoroughly reported account, revealed much more about Johnson, who calls himself “bishop” and “pope” in his role of the presiding minister at the Heart of Fire Church. [...] Now 21, Maranda Richmond says she attended Johnson’s church and was a friend of his daughter. After a wild, boozy New Year’s Eve party — heavy drinking parties including juveniles appear to be a regular part of the “worship” at Heart of Fire — she stayed over with Johnson’s daughter only to wake up in the wee hours with Johnson kneeling over her. She says he kissed her, fondled her, forced his hands under her pants and penetrated her with his finger. Richmond filed a police complaint but Johnson was never interviewed and the case was closed. [...] Alcoholic Beverage Control officers have cited Johnson and the church three times for selling alcohol without a license. These sales happened at regular weekend church parties. KyCIR described them as “Bikers, booze and, occasionally, bare breasts ... a costume party featuring zombie nuns in short skirts.” [...] Gov. Matt Bevin, who has called on any public official who has settled a sexual harassment suit to resign, refused to comment on “all this nonsense,” about Johnson, saying, “let’s wait until we get all the facts.”"
    • WDRB 41, "Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson dies of self-inflicted gunshot wound in Mt. Washington", 2017/12/13: "Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson, who was under investigation for alleged sexual molestation, has committed suicide. Bullitt County Sheriff Donnie Tinnell said Johnson shot himself on a bridge on Greenwell Ford Road in Mt. Washington, and the gun was recovered. [...] According to court documents obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the alleged molestation took place on New Year's Eve in 2012. The alleged victim, who was 17 at the time, told authorities that she was staying in a living area of the Heart of Fire City Church where Johnson was pastor, when Johnson, who had been drinking a lot, approached her, kissed her and fondled her under her clothes. Gov. Matt Bevin tweeted a statement Wednesday night, saying his "heart breaks for (Johnson's) family.""
  • A & J Lab Collections run by Brandy Murrah - falsified drug tests for the Department of Human Resources that led to children being removed from their parents
    • WSFA, "Mom says test results from forgery suspect’s lab impacted custody battle", 2019/05/28: "As Ozark police continue to investigate reports of falsified drug and paternity cases involving a company contracted by the Department of Human Resources, families are coming forward with claims forged documents impacted their homes. Jennifer Seavers is one of them. [...] Seavers says she used the Department of Human Resource’s Pike County drug testing vendor, Brandy Murrah of A & J Lab Collections, as part of her custody battle for her youngest girls, Madilyn and Jennifer Grace. Seavers said Murrah provided false positive drug tests, which prompted a judge to order restrictions on her access to her children - further complicating the custody battle. [...] “My mother, brother, and me started doing our own research and investigating,” Seavers said. And the results Seavers said she found were shocking but confirmed her suspicions. “Started calling places - the address she had on the paperwork belonged to an aerospace building. We talked to the doctor [who approved the original test] and they had never read or seen my reports,” Seavers said. [...] Murrah has been arrested by Ozark police and charged with two counts of forgery for falsified documents after the doctor filed a complaint. Dale County’s district attorney confirmed they’re looking into more forgery charges along with theft and perjury allegations. The police department confirmed they are working with other jurisdictions as part of this investigation. Murrah’s attorney confirmed his client has worked in several counties across the state. [...] Her family is now taking legal action against DHR, Brandy Murrah and her company, A & J Lab Collections. Seavers is working with Attorney Troy King out of Montgomery to file a lawsuit. [...] Court records confirm Murrah pleaded guilty to fraud in 2013, according to District Attorney Kirke Adams. King and Seavers question how she was able to work for DHR. [...] King believes thousands of tests were completed and thousands of families may be impacted - either through custody cases, paternity cases or jobs lost through drug tests."
  • Matt Bevin pardon of child rapist Micah Schoettle
    • WCPO, "Bevin pardons convicted child rapist from Kenton County", 2019/12/12: "Because of a pardon handed down by Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin this week, a man convicted of raping a child in Kenton County walked out of prison a free man on Wednesday. Officials say he will not have to register as a sex offender, and he can even apply to have the conviction wiped from his record. Instead of serving the 23-year sentence a Kenton County jury recommended, 41-year-old Micah Schoettle is free after less than 18 months behind bars. [...] In the pardon, Bevin wrote that the case relied on more testimony than physical evidence, and he did not believe the victim’s accusations were true, the Associated Press reports. "[Bevin has] met my daughter, and now he's saying that my daughter is a liar ... Shame on him. Shame on him," she said. [...] [Commonwealth's Attorney Rob] Sanders said the governor's office never contacted prosecutors, victims or local law enforcement about clemency for Schoettle. "It shocks the conscience," Sanders said. "It's offensive, it's mind-boggling how any governor could be this irresponsible. It's an abomination of the criminal justice system.""
    • Family background of Micah Schoettle
      • BloodHorse, "Former Kentucky Racing Commissioner Durr Dead", 2007/05/23: "Former Kentucky Horse Racing Commission member Robert C. Durr died of cardiac arrest May 21 at St. Elizabeth Medical Center near Edgewood, Ky. He was 88. Durr was appointed to the state regulatory body by former Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. in 1980 and served until 1992. He entered the Thoroughbred industry in 1970. [...] According to a report in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Durr was born May 14, 1919 in Atwood, Ky., before establishing a highway construction company called the R.C. Durr Company in the 1940s. He later branched into banking, helping to found Boone State Bank - subsequently acquired by Fifth Third - and the Bank of Boone County. In 1993, he set up the R.C. Durr Foundation, which donates money to local and state charity efforts. He was married to the late Katherine Ballinger, who died in 1992 for 46 years. He married his current wife, Deborah Jo, in 2002. Durr is survived by a stepson, Micah Schoettle; stepdaughter, Trinity Schafstall; and two step-grandchildren."
      • R.C. Durr Foundation about page for R.C. Durr: "R. C. Durr served on the board of directors of Covington Trust and Banking Company, was one of the founders of Boone State Bank, continued to serve on the board after it was acquired by Fifth Third Bank, and then helped found The Bank of Kentucky where he served as Chairman. Governor John Y. Brown, Jr. appointed him to serve on the Kentucky State Racing Commission in 1980 and he served through several governors’ terms until 1992. He was President of the Kentucky Association of Highway Contractors, President of the Kentucky Chapter of the American Road Builders Association and President of the Kentucky Highway Division of the Associated General Contractors of America. He served on the Northern Kentucky University Foundation board and helped found the Northern Kentucky Industrial Park."
    • Other suspect pardons by Bevin
      • Louisville Courier Journal, "Kentucky governor pardons convicted killer whose brother hosted campaign fundraiser for him", 2019/12/13: "The family of a man pardoned by Gov. Matt Bevin for a homicide and other crimes in a fatal 2014 Knox County home invasion raised $21,500 at a political fundraiser last year to retire debt from Bevin’s 2015 gubernatorial campaign. The brother and sister-in-law of offender Patrick Brian Baker also gave $4,000 to Bevin’s campaign on the day of the fundraiser, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance database. A photo of Bevin attending the July 26, 2018, fundraiser at the home of Eric and Kathryn Baker in Corbin was published six days later in a local paper, the News Journal. Commonwealth’s Attorney Jackie Steele, who prosecuted Patrick Baker and other defendants for the 2014 death of Donald Mills, told The Courier Journal on Wednesday that it would be an “understatement to say I am aggrieved” by Bevin’s pardon. [...] Steele, who, like Bevin, is a Republican, also cited the fact that two of Baker’s co-defendants are still in prison. "What makes Mr. Baker any different than the other two?" he asked. [...] Steele said in an email that Baker was the most culpable of the defendants because “he was the one who shot Mr. Mills.”"

Russian mob crime

  • Gambling industry
    • Tuscaloosa News, "Russian lottery turns to Tuscaloosa for help", 2005/02/22: "Several Alabamians, including gambling magnate Milton McGregor of Montgomery and Tuscaloosa businessman Robert M. Sigler, are involved in the startup of the first national lottery in Russia, a country of 150 million. Sigler, 38, a University of Alabama graduate who grew up in Tuscaloosa, McGregor, the owner of dog tracks in Shorter and Birmingham, and Montgomery physician David Thrasher are principals in a group that put together $300 million for the lottery that could start in October. Sigler is chairman of Global Trust Partners that provided the financing for the All Russian Electronic Lottery System. He's also president and founder of Crimsonica Group, a financial and strategic professional services company. McGregor and Thrasher are board members of Global Trust Partners. [...] Sigler, whose father is a University of Alabama professor, graduated from UA and started working in accounting and then moved into regulated industries such as investment banking. He earned an MBA from Harvard and was a money manager while dabbling in international investments, particularly Japanese and German. Sigler said he spends half his time in Las Vegas, where he started Paragon Gaming with a Nevada family. It was in Las Vegas, he said, that he hooked up with a former Nevada Gaming Commission member who had experience in international regulations. "This was the road to Russia," Sigler said. In November 2004, the Russian parliament passed a law establishing a national lottery, and it was signed by President Vladimir Putin."
    • Roger Shuler, "International Gambling Operations Have Roots in Alabama", 2011/03/22: "For a state that supposedly is "anti gambling," Alabama sure has a tendency to export gaming ventures to other states--and even other countries. A plan to start a Russian lottery was developed in Alabama, under a group called Global Trust Partners. That effort faltered and spawned a number of lawsuits, including a major one now unfolding in New York. (More on that in a moment.) But that has not stopped Alabamians from becoming engaged in international gaming activities. The latest such effort comes in Canada. A mega gaming resort is planned for Vancouver, British Columbia, and many local citizens want no part of the operation. The opponents have solid grounds for concern, reports investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, because the facility has ties to some shadowy figures in Alabama. Such operations, Madsen writes, have connections to unlawful transactions involving big oil and defense contractors."
    • Roger Shuler, "From Tuscaloosa to Las Vegas to Russia, Rob Riley's connections to gambling industry run far and wide", 2014/11/20: "Rob Riley's interest in gambling seems to flow from his friendship with Robert Sigler, which started when both were students at the University of Alabama. Sigler went on to head Tuscaloosa-based parent company Crimsonica and Paragon Gaming, a Las Vegas company that started in 2000 to help Indian tribes develop casino gambling on reservations. Public records show that Rob Riley was an attorney, board member, and registered agent for Crimsonica until at least May 2005. All of this from the son of a governor who once called electronic-bingo machines a "cancer" in Alabama."
    • Roger Shuler, "Milton McGregor, Alabama's King of Gambling, is gone, but his battle against deep-seated political corruption will continue through the example he set", 2018/03/28: "As the owner of VictoryLand casino, McGregor was the target of corrupt state and federal efforts to shutter his business -- most famously from former Gov. Bob Riley and his oily son, Rob, often with back-stabbing assistance from current U.S. Sen. and phony Democrat Doug Jones. In one of the most shameful episodes of the Obama years, beat federal charges in a criminal case that produced zero convictions."
    • Roger Shuler, "What happened to almost $40 million Alabama investors gave for a Russian lottery; did it wind up in an offshore account or maybe a Riley office building?", 2018/09/19: "Alabama investors, including the late VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor lost almost $40 million on a proposed Russian-lottery scheme that Rob Riley and his gaming partner, Robert Sigler, cooked up, according to a state political insider. Also, the insider says the Riley family and associates still could face criminal prosecution in the matter. McGregor lost about $26 million, and Montgomery lawyer Tommy Gallion (and several of his friends) lost about $10 million, according to whistle blower, oppo researcher and retired attorney Jill Simpson."

Other curiosities

  • Human compromise operations
    • John Caylor comment on 2013/09/19: "In the late 80's Guy Tunnell was Sheriff of Bay County Florida and one of his top commanders came to me and said look - we have pen registers in one of our rooms in CID and two guys sit there all day and listen to and identify business owners and power brokers call and talk to their little afternoon whores and make arrangements for a little nooky. We get dispatched to survey this and take some long distance photos and the Sheriff calls them in for a shakedown on money and support your local sheriff talk."
  • Gulf Power Company (subsidiary of Southern Company) fraud
    • Murder of Robert McRae and Kathryn McRae - in Graceville FL in 1989; happens to be in Jackson County FL, which was the location of the abusive Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys and had as sheriff John McDaniel, whose father was seemingly killed in a Hand of Death hit by Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole; being investigated by former Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen
      • Panama City News Herald, "McKeithen, cold case team re-examining 1989 McRae murders", 2017/07/09
        • "A cold, dry, dawn fell on the rural pastures of Graceville the morning of Jan. 29, 1989. As the sunlight burned through an overcast sky that Sunday, two neighborhood children ventured to what locals coined “the McRae mansion” only to find two ski masks in the backyard, sending a clear message something was amiss at the prominent family’s property. [...] As that 1989 morning turned to afternoon, the blue and white Graceville patrol cars amassed out front of the sprawling brick façade of the home belonging to Robert McRae, 72, and his wife, Kathryn, 70. Inside, police would find the couple in the kitchen. Kathryn had been thumb-cuffed with her hands behind her back. She and Robert had each been shot once in the back of the head. [...] Robbery soon was ruled out as the primary motive as the homicide investigation that continues to this day was set in motion."
        • "Several different theories have been explored over the years, including a broad conspiracy theory involving Gulf Power, the multibillion-dollar subsidiary of the Southern Co. Robert McRae was a former director of Gulf Power. He had been summoned to testify before a federal grand jury at the time of his death in connection with allegations the company had been involved in a multimillion-dollar tax fraud scheme and making illegal political donations. The theory intensified after April 1989, when a plane containing two pilots and the director of Gulf Power’s government affairs, Jacob F. Horton, caught fire and crashed after it took off from Pensacola en route to Southern Co.’s headquarters in Atlanta to discuss the grand jury investigation. After the crash, which killed all three passengers, an anonymous call came in to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office switchboards. “Yeah, you can stop investigating Gulf Power now,” the gravelly voice relayed over the line. “We took care of that for them today.”"
        • "Two hundred miles north and months after the McRae murders and the plane crash, volunteer firefighters arrived Oct. 15, 1989, to a fully involved house fire in McCalla, Alabama. After dousing the fire, officials found inside the wealthy Worthy couple, Acie, 67, and Carolyn, 54. It wasn’t until the autopsy the next day that authorities learned the two had each been shot in the head with a 9-mm handgun before the fire ever started. [...] While the McRaes both had died from gunshot wounds from a .25-caliber firearm, an officer gathering evidence outside their home found a fired but almost undamaged 9-mm projectile in the driveway. As they are fired, all bullets are left with unique markings from the gun barrel from which they came. The markings from the mystery bullet and those recovered from the bodies of the Worthys were identical, McKeithen said. “That bullet has been checked numerous times,” he said. “From that we started looking at who of the people of interest could have been at both places.” [...] McKeithen said one man who was a self-proclaimed contract killer emerged as a frontrunner in the suspect pool. He, however, died in the early 1990s."
      • Tuscaloosa News, "30 years later, killing of Acie and Carolyn Worthy still unsolved", 2018/10/17: "Just about every seasoned homicide investigator has one unsolved case that haunts him throughout his career. For Chief Loyd Baker, the double slaying of Acie and Carolyn Worthy 25 years ago is that case. [...] Baker immediately started investigating suspects in Tuscaloosa County. He was eventually contacted by Florida investigators working the cases in Graceville. He won’t reveal details, but he said that evidence does positively link the two crimes. During the investigation, he was able to link a one-time suspect to a murder-for-hire case in Louisiana and a murder in California. “We’ve been looking for people with ties to Tuscaloosa County and Graceville, Fla.,” Baker said. He said he believes the Worthys’ deaths were planned at last a year before. In May 1988, Carolyn was returning from a Wednesday night church service when a masked man armed with a gun confronted her. She also had a handgun, and after a brief standoff, she escaped and filed an attempted robbery report with the Sheriff’s Office. Later that month, two girls riding a motorcycle in the area of the Worthy home saw a man watching the house. He was wearing camouflage and holding a scope. He left the area when he saw the girls, and they called police, Baker said. More than a year later, in June 1989, an arson fire damaged the Worthys’ home that was under construction. No arrests were ever made in that case. They were killed four months later."
      • Hitman suspect Daniel Loyd McClellan a.k.a. Danny McClellan
        • Panama City News Herald, "Concealed firearm", 1989/09/14: "Bond was set at $3,500 Wednsday for a Montgomery, Ala., man charged with carrying a concealed firearm. Daniel Loyd McClellan, 50, was arrested at 4:14 a.m. Wednesday by Panama City police. According to court records, McClellan was a passanger in a car stopped by a patrolmen reponding to a report that a man was carrying a concealed firearm. McClellan is a self-employed land developer."
        • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, no. CR 92-591: Daniel Loyd McCLELLAN v. STATE, appeal decision, 1993/08/13: "The appellant was charged with the receipt of 13 firearms, two walkie talkies, and one rifle scope all of which had been stolen from Richard Money. The appellant's defense was that he was working with the police in Panama City, Florida, as an informant and that he intended to take the stolen property, which was seized from the trunk of the automobile in which the appellant was riding, to the Panama City police. The appellant *1028 claimed that Paul Winterman, an investigator for the Panama City Police Department, was the primary investigator regarding this property. However, in his statements made after his arrest in Alabama, the appellant told the deputies from the Houston County Sheriff's Office that he was working as part of an undercover operation for Frank McKeithen, a captain with the Bay County Sheriff's Department in Panama City, Florida. At trial, Captain McKeithen admitted that the appellant had been one of his informants but denied any knowledge of the alleged undercover operation the appellant claimed to have been involved in. The appellant did not mention Winterman in any of the several statements that he made after his arrest."
    • Plane crash death of senior vice president Jake Horton
      • Pensacola News Journal, "FBI warns Levin of hit plot", 1989/05/03 (pages 1, 12): "[Pensacola attorney Fred] Levin said Tuesday that Special Agent Fred McFaul of Pensacola told him last Friday that the FBI in Atlanta received information from a usually reliable informant that "a hit was out on Fred Levin." Levin is scheduled to answer the federal grand jury's questions about a conversation he had with Gulf Power Senior Vice President Jacob F. "Jake" Horton on April 10, hours before Horton died in a corporate airplane crash. [...] Capt. Pete Bell of the Pensacola Police Department said a police sergeant met with Levin and the FBI Friday. He said the FBI is the agency mainly responsible for investigating the threat, but the police are assisting and watching Levin's home carefully. [...] Gulf Power spokesman Carter Haynes said the utility will allow Levin to talk to the grand jury and the FBI about the conversation but not to anyone else. Levin quit as a utility attorney last week, saying he felt the company abandoned Horton as the grand jury investigation intensified, then released negative information on him after he died. [...] The Escambia County Sheriffs Department has a fourth bird left at Levin's home. Levin has said he thinks the birds are warnings that he shouldn't "sing" to authorities about his last conversation with Horton."
      • Pensacola News Journal, "Widow defends Jake Horton", 1989/05/06 (pages 1, 4): "Horton, the utility's senior vice president, died when a Southern Company plane crashed into an apartment complex April 10 minutes after taking off from Pensacola Regional Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board and FBI still don't know why the plane crashed but do know that an' unexplained fire broke out in the passenger cabin. [...] Hours before the crash, Gulf Power officials told Horton an internal audit committee had recommended an end his dismissal because of accounting irregularities. The recommendation came amid a federal grand jury probe into allegations of tax fraud at Gulf Power. Horton believed the grand jury, meeting in Atlanta, had targeted him for indictment, former Gulf Power attorney Fred Levin said. Mrs. Horton said she suspects there's "something bad going on" with Gulf Power, but she has no idea what. She said her husband didn't want to be accused of things he didn't do.""
      • Palm Beach Post, "Executive's death rattles Pensacola", 1989/05/07 (pages 1, 18): "That the problems at Gulf Power should so thoroughly affect the city is indicative of how much clout the company wields. An employer of 1,600 people, with glass-and-brick headquarters overlooking Pensacola Bay, Gulf Power has been a guiding force in the city since it was established in 1940. [...] And Horton, senior vice president and public persona for the company, was one of the city's top power brokers. "If you wanted something done in this city, you went to Jake," Gulf Power spokesman Carter Haynes said. "Be it money, manpower or publicity, he could get it for you. He was the point man for a dozen different causes." Horton, 57, was a former president of the Chamber of Commerce. He organized money drives for the United Way and the Boy Scouts. He was active in downtown redevelopment and nearly every civic organization in the city. Sen. W.D. Childers, D-Pensacola, and former Gov. Reubin Askew were pallbearers at his funeral. [...] He was going to Atlanta, but he didn't say why. An hour later, in a drizzling fain, he boarded the Atlanta-bound company plane and died in a fiery crash 90 seconds after takeoff. [...] Three hours after the crash, the anonymous calls came: one to the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, the other to the Pensacola Airport control tower. Each time, a male voice said roughly the same thing: "Yeah, you can stop investigating Gulf Power now. We took care of that for them this afternoon." [...] In the most recent twist, a former Gulf Power attorney who is scheduled to testify before the grand jury Thursday has discovered four dead canaries on the doorsteps of his office and two homes. [...] Frederic Levin, who spoke to Horton the morning he was killed, has hired two bodyguards and is under police surveillance until he testifies. He said Thursday that he was told by an FBI agent that a "hit" was out on him. "I know that if they really want you, they'll get you," he said. "I've got an idea of who they are, but I'm not sure. All I know is, I've got a wife and four kids. Sure, I'm spooked.""
      • Pensacola News Journal, "Horton's plane crash not an engine failure", 1989/05/16
      • Pensacola News Journal, "IRS probes Gulf Power demotion", 1989/06/16 (pages 1, 12): "The Internal Revenue Service is investigating allegations that a former Gulf Power Co. security chief was demoted because executives thought he helped federal authorities investigate the utility. Investigator Thomas Baker, Gulf Power's former manager of corporate security, told the utility's audit committee last October that a grand jury in Pensacola had subpoenaed him to testify about his demotion that month. [...] Baker blamed Southern Company President Edward Addison, former Gulf Power Senior Vice President Jacob F. "Jake" Horton, and fellow security offi cers Danny Fortson and Joe Kirk for the claims he assisted federal authorities. [...] [Gulf Power president Douglas] McCrary came to Gulf Power in 1983 after former Gulf Power president Addison was promoted to president of the Southern Company, Gulf Power's parent. McCrary hired Baker, a 14-year Southern Company employee working in Mississippi, to head an investigation into allegations of corporate theft raised by ex-Gulf Power supervisor Kyle Croft. McCrary fired Croft for stealing materials from Gulf Power. Croft claimed Addison, Horton and other executives forced him to steal on their behalf."
      • Tampa Tribune, "Official killed in crash tried to hide finances, report says", 1989/06/16: "Baker gave the information about senior vice president Jacob Horton to the utility's audit committee last fall in a 37-page, hand-written report, the Pensacola News Journal reported in Thursday editions. [...] Baker's report indicated that Horton was upset that Gulf president Douglas McCrary had discovered Horton had arranged for the utility to reimburse a company supplier for a $1,000 political contribution. [...] Baker also wrote that Internal Revenue Service agents "were and still are after" Horton; state Sen. W.D. Childers, D-Pensacola, a close friend of Horton; Ed Addison, Southern Co. president; and Alvin Vogtle, a former Southern president. The IRS and federal grand juries have been investigating allegations of tax fraud and illegal political contributions by Gulf officials and employees for more than three years. [...] Last year, Baker wrote, "Horton told me that he was the most powerful man in Pensacola, the most powerful man in Florida, that he was Gulf Power and could run me out of town at any given time." Baker subsequently was demoted and transferred to Fort Walton Beach in a move that he claimed was a result of his investigation of Horton, Addison, who is a former Gulf president, and other utility officials. The report also states Horton told Baker to urge McCrary to pay off fired Gulf supervisor Kyle Croft to stop making allegations of wrong-doing against company officials to federal investigators."
      • New York Times, "Florida Mystery Is Fueled By Intrigues and 4 Deaths", 1989/06/18: "What has evolved into the story of a plane crash and dead birds and speculation about possible murder began relatively blandly as a tax case last August, when the United States Attorney in Atlanta, Robert L. Barr Jr., convened a grand jury to investigate the Southern Company, which through subsidiaries provides power to 11 million customers in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and northern Florida. [...] The grand jury is studying information supplied by an employee of one subsidiary, Georgia Power, who acted as an undercover informer. Investigators say he taped conversations with executives in which they said the company was avoiding more than $25 million in Federal taxes by keeping false accounts of spare parts and claiming deductions for more parts than it really used. [...] The grand jury is also looking at campaign contributions. Among the allegations are that employees were pressured to contribute to specific candidates and that the utility masked contributions by funneling them through subcontractors. [...] In 1983 Mr. McCrary was installed as Gulf's president and began to crack down on wrongdoing. Kyle L. Croft, who oversaw general services like maintenance and grounds upkeep, was dismissed for theft. [...] His allegations supported by some other employees, Mr. Croft set off the initial investigation of Gulf by going to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition, he says he personally delivered satchels of cash, at the request of top Gulf executives. He said he delivered one in 1982 to Mr. Horton, the vice president who was to die in the plane crash. [...] Friends of Mr. Horton say they believe the utility was trying to make him a scapegoat."
      • Tampa Bay Times, "Mechanical failure ruled out in Gulf Power plane crash", 1989/08/08
      • Pensacola News Journal, "INVESTIGATION CHRONOLOGY", 1989/11/01
  • Oklahoman, "City Native Accused in Scam Ad From Prison Said to Have Reaped Millions", 1990/08/11: "Kirksey M. Nix Jr., who is serving a life sentence for murder in Louisiana, has been accused of bilking as many as 2,000 homosexuals out of millions of dollars in a behind-bars scam, authorities said Friday. A Louisiana district attorney said Nix, 46, reputedly a onetime member of the "Dixie Mafia," was indicted on 37 counts of conspiracy to commit theft. The indictment says the scam was operated from inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Nix and 14 co-defendants were running personal ads "in gay magazines and other publications," and "correspondence was initiated leading to telephone calls that led to squeezing money out of the victims," 20th Judicial District Attorney Hal Ware said. Authorities said that through a series of letters and phone calls, inmates established a rapport with their victims. Inmates sometimes disguised their voices as that of young boys. They conned their victims into sending money to pay for visits to sick relatives, to pay off "crooked" lawyers or to buy food once they were released from prison, Ware said. Between 300 and 2,000 victims lost millions of dollars in the scam, Ware said."
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