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From: dave@ratmandu.corp.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy
Subject: the INSLAW case:  Murder in the Martinsburg Sheraton?
Keywords: when justice is denied one citizen, everyone is in danger
Message-ID: <1991Oct15.160108.29321@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 15 Oct 91 16:01:08 GMT
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Lines: 195


        The House Judiciary Committee has been investigating the scandal
     since August 1989.  After months of foot-dragging, Attorney General
     Richard Thornburgh, under subpoena by the committee, finally
     released Inslaw-related files.  However, according to a source in
     the House, 15 to 20 files are missing.
        "Washington Post" columnist Mary McGrory is one of the few
     mainstream journalists to give the Inslaw case serious attention.
     She wrote on August 18, "The man who could have resolved the Inslaw
     case, Dick Thornburgh, resigned as attorney general on the day the
     West Virginia police came forward with their autopsy [on Casolaro].
     . . .  What was merely sinister has now turned deadly.  Thornburgh
     calls Inslaw `a little contract dispute' and refused to testify
     about it to the House Judiciary Committee.  Richardson thinks it
     could be `dirtier than Watergate,' and, as a victim of the scandal,
     he should know.  Thornburgh's conduct is the most powerful reason
     for believing that Danny Casolaro really saw an octopus before he
     died."


from "The First Stone" column of the Sept. 4-10 1991 issue of "In These
Times":
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                     Murder in the Martinsburg Sheraton?
                              By Joel Bleifuss


     For more than a year, Danny Casolaro, a Washington D.C.-based
     freelance investigator, had been sorting through a web of intrigue-
     -the S&L debacle, BCCI, Iran-Contra, the contra-connected Wackenhut
     Corp., the Wackenhut-connected Inslaw case, and the Inslaw-connected
     "October Surprise."
        According to one of his close friends, who asked not to be named,
     Casolaro began receiving death threats eight or nine months ago.
     "Brother, just make it quick," Casolaro is reported to have told one
     of these midnight callers.  The last threat came on Monday, August
     5, according to his brother, Anthony.
        How quick death came we may never know.  On Saturday, August 10,
     Casolaro was found dead in Room 517 of the Martinsburg, W. Va.,
     Sheraton.  His body was discovered with 12 incisions in his arms in
     a bathtub of bloody water 17 hours after he had called his mother's
     house at 6 p.m. Friday to say he was heading home but that he would
     not make it to his niece's birthday party.  On the following Monday
     Martinsburg authorities notified the family of Casolaro's death, but
     by then the body had been embalmed and the motel room had been
     sanitized by a cleaning contractor.  Officials are calling the
     incident an "unattended death" while they continue their
     investigation.  Family and friends say that suicide is out of the
     question.  They maintain that Casolaro was not a depressive type,
     and that while he did have financial problems, he did not dwell on
     them.
        According to family and friends, before leaving for Martinsburg,
     Casolaro had been ecstatic.  The pieces of the puzzle were finally
     fitting together.  He had told them he was going to West Virginia to
     meet a source who was to help him nail down a last piece of evidence
     in his investigation into the Inslaw software-theft case.
        Those close to Casolaro want many questions answered.  Where is
     his ever-present briefcase?  It was not in motel room.  Where is his
     tape deck?  It is missing.  Where were his notes and the outline of
     his proposed book, "Behold a Pale Horse," which he had shown to
     friends days before his death?  The documents were not to found in
     the Sheraton motel room or in the four boxes of his papers that the
     family turned over to ABC News.  Why did authorities wait so long to
     notify the family of his death?  His driver's license said he lived
     in Falls Church, Va., and all the Casolaros listed in the 703 area
     code are his relatives.  Why was his body embalmed before the family
     was notified?  West Virginia law requires family approval prior to
     embalming.  Who was the man who telephoned Casolaro's house on
     Saturday evening?  When a housekeeper picked up the phone, a voice
     said, "You're dead, you bastard."

     MOTIVE FOR MURDER?  What was Casolaro investigating that could have
     put his life in such danger?  David MacMichael is a former CIA
     analyst who now directs the Washington office of the Association of
     National Security Alumni, a watchdog group.  MacMichael had talked
     to Casolaro on the phone on Thursday, the day he left for
     Martinsburg.  Casolaro had made an appointment to meet with him.
        Says MacMichael, "Providing the death was not a suicide, one can
     examine three scenarios."  First, Casolaro was developing a theory
     that a group of former intelligence officers were members of a for-
     profit cabal that Casolaro called "The Octopus."  According to his
     theory, over the past 25 years The Octopus had its tentacles in a
     number of international scandals.  MacMichael doesn't think such a
     far-fetched-sounding theory would get Casolaro killed.  "If you
     published their names, pictures and documents, what kind of book
     would you have?" asks MacMichael.  It would be dismissed, according
     to MacMichael, like "a UFO crank book."
        Second, Casolaro was looking into the October Surprise, the
     alleged deal between the 1980 Reagan presidential campaign and
     Iranians.  That his death would be connected to this investigation
     is "nonsense" says MacMichael, who explains that many journalists
     are now investigating the 1980 deal, making it unlikely that
     Casolaro had information significant enough to endanger his life.
        Which leads to the third scenario, that Casolaro was on his way
     to collect the final evidence needed to wrap up his investigation of
     a scandal that, as MacMichael put it, involves "real crimes, real
     people and real money"--the Inslaw case.  (See "In These Times," May
     29 ["Software Pirates" posted on-line previously].)

     INSLAW MEETS THE LAW:  For eight years, Inslaw Inc, has been
     battling the Justice Department for possession of Promis, an
     innovative case-management software program developed by company
     owner Bill Hamilton.  In 1986 Inslaw filed suit against the
     department in federal court, claiming the department had stolen the
     program.
        In September 1987, Judge George Bason, the federal bankruptcy
     judge from Washington, D.C., ruled, "The Department of Justice took,
     converted, stole Inslaw's enhanced Promis by trickery, fraud and
     deceit."  He also charged, "The failure even to begin in investigate
     [these charges] is outrageous and indefensible and constitutes an
     institutional decision by the Department of Justice at the highest
     level simply to ignore charges of impropriety."
        The Justice Department appealed the ruling, and in November 1989,
     Judge William B. Bryant of the U.S. District Court in Washington
     affirmed the lower court's decision.  He ruled, "The government
     acted willfully and fraudulently to obtain property that it was not
     entitled to under contract.
        The Justice Department then appealed Bryant's ruling to the U.S.
     Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.  On May 7 that court
     overturned the previous court decisions, saying the federal
     bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.  However, the
     Court of Appeals left the findings of fact undisturbed.
        Earlier this year, the case took a new twist.  Inslaw went public
     with allegations that the Reagan Justice Department, after it had
     stolen the Promis software, turned it over to Earl Brian, a friend
     of both former President Ronald Reagan and former Attorney General
     Edwin Meese.  In 1974, Brian left then-California Gov. Reagan's
     cabinet.
        Inslaw alleges that its software was given to Brian as a payback
     for Brian's help in arranging the arms-and-hostages deal between the
     1980 Reagan-Bush campaign and representatives of the Ayatollah
     Ruhollah Khomeini (see "In These Times," July 24, 1987, Oct. 12,
     1988, and April 27, 1991).  According to Inslaw owner Bill Hamilton,
     Brian, who runs United Press International, allegedly then marketed
     Promis to the intelligence agencies of Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Canada,
     South Korea, Libya, Great Britain, Germany, France, Australia,
     Thailand, Japan, Chile, Guatemala and Brazil.  According to Inslaw's
     scenario, once the software was in use by foreign intelligence
     services, the U.S. National Security Agency would then be able to
     infiltrate the computerized intelligence files of these countries.
     Modifications on the pirated software were allegedly carried out by
     the Wackenhut Corp. of Coral Gables, Fla.

     WHERE IS JUSTICE?:  Inslaw's attorney, Elliot Richardson, the Nixon
     attorney general who resigned rather than participate in the
     Watergate cover-up, has long asked for the appointment of a special
     prosecutor to investigate the Justice Department's handling of the
     case.  But to no avail.
        The House Judiciary Committee has been investigating the scandal
     since August 1989.  After months of foot-dragging, Attorney General
     Richard Thornburgh, under subpoena by the committee, finally
     released Inslaw-related files.  However, according to a source in
     the House, 15 to 20 files are missing.
        "Washington Post" columnist Mary McGrory is one of the few
     mainstream journalists to give the Inslaw case serious attention.
     She wrote on August 18, "The man who could have resolved the Inslaw
     case, Dick Thornburgh, resigned as attorney general on the day the
     West Virginia police came forward with their autopsy [on Casolaro].
     Excess was the hallmark of the Thornburgh's farewell ceremony:  an
     honor guard, a trooping of the colors, superlatives form
     subordinates.  William P. Barr, his deputy and possible successor,
     spoke of Thornburgh's `leadership, integrity, professionalism and
     fairness'--none of which Thornburgh displayed in his handling of
     Inslaw.  What was merely sinister has now turned deadly.  Thornburgh
     calls Inslaw `a little contract dispute' and refused to testify
     about it to the House Judiciary Committee.  Richardson thinks it
     could be `dirtier than Watergate,' and, as a victim of the scandal,
     he should know.  Thornburgh's conduct is the most powerful reason
     for believing that Danny Casolaro really saw an octopus before he
     died."
        And in the wake of Casolaro's death, Richardson has repeated his
     call for a special prosecutor.  He told the "Boston Globe"'s John
     Aloysius Farrell, "It's hard to come up with any reason for his
     death other than he was deliberately murdered because he was close
     to uncovering sinister elements in what he called `The Octopus.'
     This simply strengthens the case for an in-depth, hard-hitting,
     thorough investigation."
        But will there be one?  The FBI is treating the death lightly.
     According to a spokesman in the Pittsburgh office, which has
     jurisdiction over West Virginia, "There is no federal investigative
     interest in the matter."
        As for former Attorney General Thornburgh, he is now running for
     the Senate in Pennsylvania. If Justice is served, perhaps he will
     also run for cover.


--
                                             daveus rattus

                                   yer friendly neighborhood ratman

                              KOYAANISQATSI

   ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language)  n.  1. crazy life.  2. life
       in turmoil.  3. life out of balance.  4. life disintegrating.
         5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.