Alex Jones, Kurt Nimmo, & Geraldo Rivera Try to Milk Dollars from Deceased DC Madam: The Ignorant Lying to the Ignorant

The J-7 mail archives --It's not-so-ironic that media exploiters like Larry Flynt and Geraldo Rivera are trying to stoke the fires of controversy by suggesting that Deborah Jeane Palfrey was murdered by some high level cabal. They're hardly alone. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry are acting as if they actually followed the story for longer than a week. But a conspiracy is a tempting scenario. The problem is, Jeane made a lot of contradictory statements to many different people about many things. Some were definite pronouncements, like the February 28th e-mail below this article.

I came into the picture around early-June of 2007 when Jeane wrote me a compliment about a May 6th article I wrote on her case. It was a casual analysis of her situation, and not necessarily very flattering towards her side of things. Interestingly, I write in the piece that "both sides are lying." Today, I see that Alex Jones's "Infowars" is speculating more wildly than I ever could, even with my own eyes and ears perpetually pointed towards the parapolitical (conspiracies). They aren't alone either, millions of very lonely and unimaginative people are following suit.

Literary curmudgeon Harlan Ellison once stated during the late-1990s that the Internet is the greatest purveyor of bad information ever conceived, and Kurt Nimmo's piece, "Geraldo Calls for Florida Gov[ernor] to Investigate Palfrey "Suicide" is a refreshing example of this "bad information." Besides its poor diction, it's clear that Nimmo is pulling just about everything out of his ass. Cobbling together a real hodge-podge of highly speculative connections and sources (namely citing individuals like Wayne Madsen as though they were credible), Nimmo goes as far as to create a peculiar irony within his meandering piece by citing the murder of AUSA Jonathan Luna in December of 2003 as an example of a questionable suicide--Palfrey began our correspondence with the strong-feeling that the genesis of her legal battle somehow began in the Luna case. I never saw the connection, but who knows? A barrage of FOIAs wouldn't necessarily clear any of this up either. Luna's murder remains unsolved.

The strange thing about Nimmo's shoddy article is that it doesn't match its headline, but that's something common in the mainstream media as well. Neither the parapolitical community or the mainstream media have had any real grasp on what this story might mean, but this writer has reached a few humble and reasonable conclusions: namely, that Jeane's Pamela Martin & Associates escort service was merely part of a very large infrastructure of the proffering of women, gifts, and money for the acquisition of coveted government contracts by lobbyists and contractors. Not conspiracy, but unspoken policy and tradition. Naturally, the FBI and other agencies are always watching these services, taking their notes, as in the case of the former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. His own name was selectively-leaked.

Something happened that made Jeane a liability by the Fall of 2006, and it was possibly exposure by honest federal investigators, or any number of scenarios. The timing of her charges before the 2006 midterms always seemed pregnant with possibilities, especially considering the politicos and D.C. big-shots subsequently outed by her were all Republicans. It's simply an unknown exactly what initiated the investigation. The government's prosecution isn't telling, and neither are the original investigators. As we know, the one person who might clarify some of this is now gone, though I can attest to the fact that she didn't appear to know the whole picture either.

During my research for the defense (under two defense teams, no-less), Jeane finally dropped a very big name indeed: convicted Poway defense contractor, Brent Wilkes. She told myself and my co-researcher to dig-up as much data as we could on him and his co-conspirators, to summarize it, and find any connections that we could to her situation. Later work had us searching through subpoenaed Verizon phone records that went much deeper into who held the more impenetrable numbers and/or cells already posted on the Internet. Remarkably, a lot of it did seem to fit, and noting the Smoking Gun's early questions directed at her in the Fall of 2006, the connection appeared solid. It was as if the federal investigators had scripted the interview questions for Bill Bastone, editor of the site. Jeane frequently voiced her contempt for him, and at one point he was on the subpoena list.

Ken Silverstein's articles on "Hookergate" and Shirlington Limousine (used by Wilkes to ferry prostitutes to former GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and others unknown) also seemed to corroborate Jeane's assertion that she had had telephone contact with Brent Wilkes on at least a few occasions. What she conveyed to us fit the facts, and even some of the time-line. But, every time I pushed her for proof, I got a wall of silence.

The Spitzer scandal was similar to Jeane's case in that it had all the same appearances of selective prosecution, but it gave her some very brief hope right before the trial. It was a hope that wasn't going to last:

Indeed, Spitzer was lucky, as only his career suffered sudden death. Debra Jeane Palfrey was not so lucky. Or was Jonathan Luna.

Luna, a Baltimore-based Assistant United States Attorney, apparently suffered the same fate as Palfrey, although his murder, also excused as a “suicide,” was far more grisly. At the time of his “suicide,” Luna was working under fired US attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who was investigating corruption charges against then-Republican Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich and his staff, the lot accused of engaging the services of Palfrey’s escorts. In addition to Ehrlich, Jack Abramoff, convicted of fraud in dealings with SunCruz Casinos, was under investigation at the time of Luna’s “suicide,” obviously a homicide.

It is said Luna stabbed himself 36 times with a penknife and subsequently drowned himself in a creek in Denver, Pennsylvania. ("Geraldo Calls for Florida Gov to Investigate Palfrey "Suicide,"' Infowars, 05.04.2008) http://www.infowars.com/?p=1914

It's obvious that Nimmo's unaware of the the possible connection between the Palfrey and Luna cases, though granted that there might be no connection whatsoever. It's known that the IRS office in Baltimore was part of the early-stages of the investigation into Palfrey at roughly the same time of the events that led-up to the murder of Jonathan Luna.

Palfrey told this writer on several occasions that she strongly suspected her problems came out of a plea deal by former convicted Baltimore Police Commissioner Ed Norris, and that it was somehow mixed-up with the Luna murder. She called it her "cesspool of muck" theory. That's right, even the subject herself was seeing conspiracies everywhere--then just as abruptly as they came along, drop them. We never found evidence of a tangible connection to the Luna case, and Norris didn't appear to be offering any corroboration. Though Norris was interviewed extensively by Rawstory, these interviews have failed to surface. It's the opinion of this writer that they weren't fruitful, though Palfrey stated that they had conducted twelve hours of them. The notion of a connection to the Luna case was dropped sometime after August of 2007 by Palfrey in her missives to myself, and didn't come up much after that, if at all. By December, the talk was of Brent Wilkes. By March, it was of John McCain, Dick Cheney, and even Fred Thompson, the names we can presume Larry Flynt is sitting-on right now. With Thompson, it's a foregone conclusion, and the proof will have to be rock-solid.

Additionally, it's the opinion of this author that Wayne Madsen has no Pentagon or CIA sources, or any sources within the government whatsoever in the "Cheney scoop"--it was likely Deborah Jeane Palfrey. As you can imagine, it's a real labyrinth. The Sphinx-like lady left quite a mess behind and took many secrets with her...or did she? Mr. Nimmo and Geraldo--like the graverobbers that they are--are really just grandstanding along with the other ghouls out there, speculating wildly about something they know nothing whatsoever about. Jeane forwarded this to me on March 17th of this year on Geraldo's credibility. She really nails it:

Bil… FYI – the Coast to Coast Radio interview went very well. I was on-air for about an hour and a half, with commercial breaks interspersed during the time, of course. However, I walked off the Geraldo set. I was sitting in the chair, “miked” with earpiece in-place, when I decided that I wasn’t going to participate in the circus Geraldo was making out of the entire Spitzer ordeal. The first guest, the ex-boyfriend of Spitzer’s escort was repeatedly called a pimp by Geraldo and she constantly was referred as a whore. When I heard that Heidi Fleiss was to follow the boyfriend, I “got” where Geraldo was going. In true primadonna style, I announced that I had no intention of participating in “something like this”, ripped the mike from my lapel – grabbed my purse and exited the building. -Jeane

And so, the lady speaks, once again, and her exploiters continue to attempt squeezing dollars out of her. If you believe Geraldo Rivera or Larry Flynt are anything but exploitative scum, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying. She's going to keep accusing the hypocritical for a very long time, despite her death. Alex Jones needs to exert some quality-control on his site, but he's hardly alone. Imagine how poor a job they and the mainstream media are all doing on all the other stories. It makes you think.

The Sergeant at Arms of the Senate Returns, This Time Over The Rougheads

Site Meter--To the Senator or Senators who tapped the office of the Sergeant at Arms to peruse the articles here: read well, you all have a lot of investigating and subpoenas to draw-up and issue. The public is tired of waiting--we want results, we want some people brought to justice. We're tired of the excuses, and we're not buying any more of them. This is not a threat, it's a warning.

The rule of law has been thrown into disregard, which is a very dangerous thing for any democracy. We know who many of these people are, so start investigating, and begin impeachment investigations and hearings now. And to the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate himself: Mr. Gainer, you need to begin investigating the fact that Sen. David Vitter violated terms of his seat on the Foreign Relations Committee by committing what could be repeated felonies while serving on said committee (and the Senate in-general). This fact has been uncovered by journalist and author, Bill Keisling (http://www.yardbird.com/).

Most of all: you need to subpoena Ronald Roughead, a retired U.S. Army Colonel. You need to ask him why he called the escort service of Pamela Martin & Associates, and if he's ever had contact with Shaha Ali Riza, Paul Wolfowitz, and if he had a security clearance at the time he called Ms. Palfrey, and why he was doing so. You should also ask Mr. Roughead--and perhaps his brother Gary, current CNO of the U.S. Navy--if he has ever had contact with Jack Abramoff, Edward T. Norris, Brent Wilkes, or individuals connected to them.

And while you're at it, you need to hold serious congressional hearings on the murder of Assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan P. Luna--you need to subpoena FBI Special Agent Steven Skinner and Thomas DiBiagio, as well as Ed Norris, and several other individuals. Get to work, there's a lot to be done.

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[Ed., 09.13.2008-I'm unconvinced of Keisling's assertions about Vitter's committe responsibilities at this writing. Yes, I believe that I was wrong in thinking it was a valid point.]

Our Wonderful Mainstream Media and the Guy Who Made it With a Chicken

"Yeah, I found his name and assumed it was the SAIC guy--though I did not confirm that. My question was, how significant is the fact that he called Jeane's service? I'm not out to out people for the sake of outing them. Why do you think he's important?" --David Corn, Editor of 'The Nation,' in an August 13th correspondence with the author. Mr. Corn has yet to get-back with the author after being e-mailed several articles on Col. Roughead.

"An editor should have a pimp for a brother, so he'd have someone to look up to." --The late old school journalist Gene Fowler (sometimes attributed to Herman J. Mankiewicz, co-author of Citizen Kane)

MEDIAUNIVERSE--Even if you only casually watch the news on television, or scan the dreck that editors allow to be published in our dying newspapers (dying for a good reason), most Americans understand that they're being fed a smidgen of what's really going on out there. This writer used to believe that it was bad--until he started researching and writing about the Palfrey case and numerous threads attached to it.

My conclusion? It's far worse than you can even begin to imagine. Our media--professionalized journalism--is utterly corrupt and hamstrung by careerism and ethical problems that would make Twain, Nietzsche, or H.L. Mencken alarmed. It's a scary realization to find that things are far worse than your wildest, most cynical suspicions, but it's true. But like Mencken, I can find some amusement in all of it too, the futility of...futility.

My evidence for the contention that the press is asleep, bought-off, lazy, lying, and corrupt are all contained within the articles found within this site. J-7 is no longer a "blog," that pejorative term the media loves to ascribe to all of us with an opinion and the ability to write adequately. It's an effective scimitar poised at-the-heart of the monied press, the corrupt politicians, and all the dubious individuals who protect privilege and unaccountable power. Real journalism isn't nice, isn't always friendly, and it's not supposed to be well-mannered towards the powerful, the corrupt. What's interesting is how afraid all of these professional journalists and McProgressive types are about the democratization of information and the media-in-general. What buffoons, those "booboises," but durned if they aren't entertaining.

The "Roughead" story is a perfect example of the media's complicity in covering-up for corrupt politicians and their handlers (like Ed Norris and Thomas DiBiagio, and that guy in the black hat, Jack Abramoff). Ed Norris is entertaining, he got a show, fancy that. Perhaps Mr. DiBiagio can have his own "Judge Judy" show in the future. Why not?

This site has contacted a stunning array of the mainstream press throughout the Western world, including Al-Jazeera, with virtually no replies on the Roughead lead. Only the Smoking Gun and Inside Edition replied ("Nice work on the records, by the way. Keep it up." from IE's producer, Ned Berkowitz. Thanks, Ned.), while news outlets like the Guardian have been curiously silent, as well as so-called "progressive" blogs like Huffington Post and Rawstory. They won't touch it. Nonetheless, Inside Edition doesn't appear to have done anything with the information at this writing.

Besides the standard stonewalling, the excuses I've gotten aren't valid--they don't want to cover this story for what appears to be selfish reasons. I'd love to be proven wrong, but that's the impression that's being projected. Many of the upper-tiers of the media are, after all, of the same classes as those found in the records. In some cases, they're the same people, and have no class. Perhaps many of them are scared to lose their jobs if they cover Ronald Roughead.The Washington Post is one of them, as is ABC--Col. Roughead's name was posted on one of their boards early-on at 'The Blotter,' though the author is unsure if it 'took.' A Google search will yield all of the posts on other sites by this writer. Get to work. The Roughead story is not new, and this writer has been attempting to get the word out since July 16th of 2007.

The Nation's David Corn informed this writer that he was already aware of the retired Colonel Roughead's name in the phone records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey (see above quote). His comments defy explanation at this point: a quick search of SAIC at a search engine (and a visit to their site, http://www.saic.com/) would have told him that many employee-shareholders retain high level security clearances as a reason for hiring them for a specific job (SAIC employs around 44,000 worldwide--almost sounds like a front company!). It doesn't take that much work to discover these things. SAIC was e-mailed to confirm if the Ron Roughead at 703-836-0522 in Alexandria, Virginia, was the same person. There were no-replies, but it is most certainly the same man. I'm not trying to out anyone for the sake of outing people either, Mr. Corn. That's why I've ignored the numbers of private individuals who are simply-put: doctors, landscapers, and a bunch of other little guys who aren't the Ron Rougheads of this world. They populate the records too, and you won't find them here. Mark Capansky is here because he interned for Pennysylvania Rep. Bob Goodlatte.

Security clearances would apply to Col. Roughead, as he was a Defense Attache during the 1990s and ran IMN (Iraqi Media Network) in Iraq during 2004-2005. He also investigated the embassy bombing in Kenya. What he sounds like is a propaganda/intel chief of some sort, though he could have been in some area of counterintelligence at certain points. He currently works for SAIC, the ninth largest defense contractor in the United States, with their snouts in many government troughs, spending our money.

When he testified before an intelligence committee on May 4th of 2006, he almost wasn't identified due to "security concerns." This alone should have told Corn what the significance of Ronald Roughead's name in the records means: at-minimum, people with such clearances are likely violating the terms of holding them by visiting an escort service. It's an illegal act, or it's not, and was committed while under the terms of a security clearance. That's just one significant fact, the meaning of the Roughead number in the records of Pamela Martin & Associates.

Someone in Col. Roughead's position isn't supposed to have sex with an escort where a transaction has occurred (the illegal act, if it did occur), and especially so when they're someone who has intelligence connections and clearances. What's unknown is whether Jeane Palfrey knew these illegal acts were being committed. Defendants are supposed to be coy, that's the point of our system of due process, but it should be noted that both sides--the government's prosecutors and the defense--are making discovery a "glacial" process. The public should consider the fact that Mr. Roughead called the number of Pamela Martin & Associates three-times on December 17th of 2005, since it's not impossible that he was procuring for someone else. Who were they? Was it himself? Was it for SAIC? Or was it a routine part of his position throughout his time in Washington D.C.? What was going on with these calls? If Mr. Roughead was on the government payroll when the calls were made, the problems (and questions) compound for him. The prosecution has said that "We're not concerned with the clients." Yet they are.

Then there is the issue of the Annapolis officer who worked for Palfrey--she's still working at the Naval Academy. Why? Did she discharge duties while working for Pamela Martin & Associates that were considered part of her work? I'm told she's a "supply officer." Was Ron Roughead procuring for his brother Gary, CNO of the United States Navy, the branch of the military that would be crucial to any attacks on Iran from the Persian Gulf and the rest of the region.

Annapolis football player, Mark Capansky (or his father who has the exact same name) is in the records for September 2005. Did any of these people ever encounter one another, or have any association with each other? Can't a person be discharged from the Navy for as little as having a sexual-relationship with a superior officer? If the "supply officer" engaged in prostitution--as she alleges she did--why then is the she still at Annapolis holding her job? This leads us to...

The "Honey Pot" (generally called "Honey Trap") thesis is only that--a theory, but a pregnant one. It could be true, but will it be found in the discovery process, and will Judge Kessler grant the ability for the declassification of documents involving Ms. Palfrey if they do in-fact exist? It's likely that some answers will be found at SAIC. There is smoke in the case of Shaha Ali Riza (also employee of SAIC, and possible MI6/SIS operative, she's a British national who had a State Dept. clearance) and Paul Wolfowitz, the scorned and humiliated former World Bank president--another one the press is standing down on--but it remains to be seen if an analog exists within Ms. Palfrey's legal predicament.

But the blackmail of national level politicians (possibly by the White House and the RNC) is almost certainly part of these continuum, if not the crucial aspect of what has to be the worst era of political corruption in the history of the United States. History--as they say--will not be kind in her judgement of those who allowed it to continue and fester for whatever selfish reasons they might have had.

The media is hoping the story of "Hookergate" will just go away, but rest assured it won't for years. It threatens too many privileged individuals, and the stakes are very high. What began as a routine case of destroying another woman in the nation's Capitol has begun a life-and-death struggle for those involved--Ms. Palfrey faces 55 years in a federal prison. Guilty or innocent, she will assuredly talk about things she has seen that will be extremely damaging to certain parties. Where are all the journalists investigating this? Sitting beside David Vitter, being ponderous and sad, one would assume. Remember that this is the same press that stood down and allowed the Bush administration to sell their war on a lie. Do you think they're going to aid in the cover-up of lobbyists and Congressmen procuring women for groping--maybe even sex? Let's be honest for a change: Washington D.C. is a whore monger's paradise, and the press is likely in an ongoing-relationship with the powerful to look-away. But enough about Fred Thompson and the press, let's look at Larry Flynt's place in this mess.

Besides the current Congress and the Bush administration, our press are a horrible embarrassment. Larry Flynt underscores this fact perfectly in his "outing" of sundry congressional types like David Vitter, Dan Burton--and coming soon--two presidential candidates, two major news anchors, and a whole gaggle of other politico morons and functionaries who will not walk-the-walk of what they preach for everyone else. If I had Mr. Moldea's resources, the job would be finished already, but perhaps Chicken Larry is waiting to strike at the right moment with the information. Looking at the approval ratings of Congress, one can safely assume that the public is pretty disgusted and hates the current political generation for what they are: hypocritical scumbags, keeping good company with our established press, our consolidated corporate media reality.

Because the media refuses to do any solid investigation into "Hookergate," they lose the de facto ability to control it, and because journalists and their editors refuse to investigate the story, and stories of the same nature that are always floating-around, we're left with Larry Flynt, a pornographer, to do the job. That should tell you everything about established media at this historical moment. It doesn't make Larry Flynt a "great American," he's just incidental to all of the corruption and the uncovering of it--and he's nearly alone in doing so with the kind of resources he's investing in the search for those misbehaving politicians. It's almost like something out the Threepenny Opera, and our human reality has begun to mock itself. Is satire dead?

It's a sign of how corrupt and weakened our national press have allowed themselves to become, but that would never have been possible without congressional approval of media consolidation. Why would they sell us all out? My guess is the bathroom needed new tiling, and certain needs in the bedroom weren't being met by the political marriage wives. It's a thought.Then, there's your usual crass careerism--or did I mention that already? Sometimes, Maslow's pyramid is just Maslow's pyramid, and everyone has some gaps in theirs. For some, it's unbearable, and they have their "moments of weakness," over-and-over again. Meanwhile, while our troops are dying in the dust along with Iraqis and Afghanis, the media is covering-up for this class of scum. What we get are more stories on O.J. and Anna Nicole Smith, just more shibboleths of distraction.

J-7, and sites like her, are doing the job of keeping such stories as "Hookergate" alive, just as others are keeping the stories behind 9/11, the fratricide of Patrick Tillman (a philosophical acolyte of Noam Chomsky), the run-up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Abramoff scandal, the stolen elections of 2000 & 2004, Enron, and so much more. I salute you all. As for those in the press who have done their best to do the same: I salute you.
When crooks have squeezed all they can from journalism, bleeding the established outlets of all their integrity, WE will be out here waiting patiently to take it all back. That could all be much sooner than you think. We're after the big Puritan fish, alright, and the witch trials and the dunking-stools are back. This time, we have a good chance of trumping them before they get completely out of hand. People have already died, like Brandy Britton, a victim of scarlet womanhood and an ancient patriarchy. She wasn't the first, and she won't be the last. The only reason anyone cares is because she was once a "somebody." Shame.

Riding the Privatization Wave: SAIC Scores Another Navy Contract

McLean,Virginia/San Diego, California/Norfolk,Virginia/Washington D.C.--J-7 doesn't contend that brother Ron and brother Gary Roughead had anything whatsoever to do with this contract:

Government contractor SAIC Inc. said Thursday it received a contract, worth more than $473 million if all options are exercised, to provide engineering and support services to the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego. The support includes command, control, communications, computers and intelligence programs for sea, land, air and foreign military sales, the company said. (AP, 08.16.2007)

Nothing here, move along. Nothing to do with Duke Cunningham or any related or similar activities here. You think SAIC services Saudi Arabia on anything? Sorry, you can't ask those questions. Keep your opinions and analysis to yourselves, leave it to the experts and professionalized journalists, they know best. They know what's proper and good for all of us.

And brother Ron's call to Pamela Martin & Associates in 2005--that had nothing to do with any defense contracts whatsoever, there's no possibility whatsoever that it resembles Cunningham's and Brent Wilkes's procurement of prostitutes for CIA contracts (spanning the years 2002-2005) in DC. No, let's just focus on the politicians while these folks get to hide in the shadows. And there's no connection that Wilkes worked out of San Diego, where SAIC's headquarters is, not even tangential. The press isn't ignoring these potential connections either, and are doing a fine job pulling it all together (snicker). We should know any day now, rather than decades later when it doesn't matter anymore. We can also rest assured that there were several other bidders in the contract that SAIC won (move along). And no, if you do a google search of "Brent Wilkes SAIC," you won't find any pertinent articles at all, none. And Duane P. Andrews probably doesn't figure into all of this either, nor his connections to Dick Cheney.

Also, Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo (former San Diego cop, now CIA spook and defendant) is not a procurer of prostitutes any more than Ed Norris (former convicted Baltimore Police Commissioner). And as we all know, SAIC never uses minorities in San Diego to sign-on as subcontractors to more easily procure a contract, not ever. It's a good thing the FBI pacified those folks in San Diego back in the late-1960s, early-70s (when SAIC was being founded), so they could exploit them to procure those coveted defense and intelligence contracts on-the-sly through loopholes. Thank you J. Edgar Hoover, thank you so very much.

AP, 08.16.2007: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/16/ap4026174.htmlhttp://dell.myway.com/

Nothing to do with SAIC or the Rougheads: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/wilkes.php

The American Prospect (nothing on SAIC or Duane P. Andrews here), 03.30.2007: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=12612

Another article that has nothing to do with SAIC and Cunningham's possible connections and similar MOs, 06.06.2006: http://www.sdreader.com/php/cityshow.php?id=20060607

Ed Norris: He won't talk (and neither will Rawstory)

WWW--It would behoove Ms. Alexandrovna and associates to publish her findings from Rawstory's twelve hours of interviews with the former Baltimore Police Commissioner (search this blog under his name for previous articles). You don't conduct that many "sittings" if the interviewee says nothing of value.

But let's be fair: If it's nothing, just a lot of self-serving garbage, fine, don't run it. If it is significant, then let it be part of the public record. Palfrey has communicated to this author that Norris has been trying to get his side of his predicament out to the press for awhile. He does have his own radio and television shows, after all.

Norris clearing the air might clarify areas of Deborah Jeane Palfrey's own predicament (she's parted-ways this week with her court appointed criminal representation, Preston Burton, over "irreconcilable differences" [Ed., 08.28.2008--Like the fact that she was probably suicidal.]). I'm unaware of anyone else who has gotten Edward T. Norris to talk as much as Rawstory. I'm assuming that they there were ostensibly about his own plea deal and the events surrounding his own legal predicament.

At some point, they hit-a-bump in some a priori assumptions, and had to scuttle the story. [Ed., 08.28.2008--Alexandrovna explained to me in an angry e-mail that Palfrey and her civil attorney had failed to meet her as planned by a prior-agreement. She also mentioned things that could be construed as a violation of a confidentiality agreement.] There is also another possibility that could run parallel with the aforementioned issues--that Rawstory cannot release the materials under a confidentiality agreement. There might also be fears on-his-part of government retaliation regarding his original plea deal. Was Palfrey part of this deal? She has made comments that it might, but has also mentioned that Norris would deny any involvement with her.
Where does Ed Norris fit-in in the saga of "Hookergate"? Does he fit-in at all, or is he just a red-herring? This writer would like to know, and he's sure that the public would too. Where does Norris fit-in with the murder of assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan Luna? Does he at all? Ms. Palfrey has contended there might be a connection between all-three. Do the interviews with Norris support any of this? Again, it's like a dialogue with the Sphinx.

What did Ed Norris say in those interviews? Surely, a journalist and their associates would not spend that much time if he hadn't said something important initially in the first hours of their conversations. The interviews should be turned-over to author Bill Keisling, and other interested researchers, it could be a motherlode of information. Of course, Mr. Norris could just start talking to other journalists, so it's on him as well.

If there's nothing in them, allay our fears, and be forthcoming about it. There was a time when this writer really felt Rawstory was doing their best--and they may be doing so regardless of my suspicions--but they've raised some flags. It could just be journalistic method on-their-part, or it could be something insignificant. My hope is that it's something insignificant, and perhaps Mr. Norris needs to contact Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to clarify things. There could be a lot her concerning the Bush Justice Department and so many other transgressions that they've commited in the name of upholding the law.

Former U.S. attorney Thomas DiBiagio might have to be subpoenaed as well, since he was involved in the prosecution of Mr. Norris. He was also acting U.S. attorney when one of his assistant U.S. attorneys--Jonathan Luna--was murdered. DiBiagio was also the first U.S. attorney fired by the Bush administration, since the number is really nine, not eight, as misreported by much of the mainstream media.

It's not hard to fathom why a defendant wouldn't be forthcoming about all the details of their case, regardless of their guilt or innocence. What's disappointing is that many in the press began with a presumption of guilt as soon as this story broke in October of 2006--just weeks-away from the U.S. attorney firings. We should be looking to see if there is any connection here with all of this.

Ask Ed: http://www.ednorris.com/

Ask Larisa: http://www.rawstory.com/ , then ask yourself.

A Spirited Conversation with author William Keisling Part II of II

"It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading some French memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle accidentally poisoned: The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you with impertinent details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bedroom candle-stand, a wax-light of my own making, for the one which I there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the coroner's verdict was, 'Death by the visitation of God.'" --Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Imp of the Perverse,' 1845.

 

The murder of Jonathan P. Luna is a sprawling case involving municipal, federal, and organized crime entities. It also reaches into the politics of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and without Bill Keisling's book, "The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna," we wouldn't know many of the problems with the government's story. Like the night ride of Paul Revere, Jonathan P. Luna is still warning us of the approaching threat...from his grave. We only need listen to hear his warning. He might be telling us where Special Agent Steven Skinner was that night.

Like the horror of a tale by Edgar Allan Poe, the murder was committed with extreme malice and some forethought. Whoever murdered assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan Luna in the first-days of December back in 2003 is still free, running around. A vicious murderer is free. Perhaps they're still murdering others out there as I write this, roaming the streets of Baltimore, and the mafia environs of Pennsylvania. In our second installment of this conversation, Mr. Keisling and I hit on a number of interesting themes related to the murder of Luna, as well as its cultural context.

One needn't wonder why modern horror arose in America when considering such crimes as the immolation of the Dawson family in Baltimore, or the discovery of the mutilated-corpse of Jonathan Luna, face down in a Pennsylvania stream, states-away from his office and home. Central to all of this is the trial of Walter Poindexter and Deon Smith, proprietors of Stash House records, and known heroin dealers. It was known during the trial of the two (on completely unrelated drug charges) by the U.S. attorney's office under Thomas DiBiagio, that Poindexter had likely murdered one Alvin Jones.

Special Agent Steve Skinner surely knew this was a fact, as the crime was drug-related, and required prosecution under federal law. This was Luna's stance, and no deals of immunity or skirting the crime in the trial were acceptable to the assistant U.S. attorney. Where was the "Safe Streets Task Force" when the Dawsons were calling 911? Watching Stash House's Poindexter and Smith, and chasing their informant Warren Grace around. Why weren't the Dawsons' 36 calls forwarded to the federal task force? There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding all of these events in Baltimore during the period surrounding the murders in Baltimore and Pennsylvania.

Matt Janovic: Does anybody know what the whereabouts of Special Agent Steve Skinner were on the night [and morning] of Luna's murder?

Bill Keisling: I think that's an important question. ...With a murder, you want to know [where everybody was]. Usually, a murder is a very simple crime with people right there, having committed it. You know, for example, a shooting at a Burger King or a dry cleaner's--you want to know who was there, what was everybody's alibi is, and so that's we have to do that with this case. ...

Matt Janovic: So this hasn't been adequately addressed by any investigation?

Bill Keisling: No, and what I'm trying to do is point people's attention to that very question. The family and the public needs to know where everybody was, and it's just unacceptable not to tell us. You know, again, if this was your family member you'd have a right to know where everybody was. ...You know what? We're going to find it out.

Matt Janovic: So, we don't even know where [informant] Warren Grace was that night, do we?

Bill Keisling: Well, a read of the records says that he was being ferried back-and-forth by agent Skinner and [Baltimore PD] Detective Tom Moody of the quote, unquote "Safe Streets Task Force"[to a Philadelphia jail]. And attorney Ravenell--one of the defense attorneys [for Smith & Poindexter]--wanted Skinner and Moody (this is the last day of Luna's life) to be removed from that duty. They wanted U.S. Marshals to be doing it. Where Grace was being kept was the Philadelphia Detention Center, away from Baltimore while he testified. And the presumption is that they were taking him back-and-forth to Philadelphia before-and-after the trial--that is when they weren't taking him for conjugal visits, and God knows what else...to Disneyland to do heroin... So, here you have Luna driving halfway to Philadelphia that night. Draw your own conclusions.

Matt Janovic: I noticed that, that in the [official] timeline his car avoids Philadelphia at some point.

Bill Keisling: It's like it's driving around Philadelphia--somebody doesn't want to be seen. ...Again, draw your own conclusion.

Matt Janovic: One of the things that I found very interesting in your book was that Special Agent Skinner seemed to know quite a bit about Luna's being in trouble, or subdued, on the day of his no-show at the Poindexter/Smith trial...

Bill Keisling: ...And that's a very important point. In the very last chapter of the book, called "No Man, No Problem," the court records of that are the most remarkable things I have ever read. It's [also] one of the best things I've ever written. There are a couple things: here they're saying that Luna didn't want to do this case. He says the plea deal is unlawful"because Poindexter has committed this drug-related murder [of Alvin Jones]. He says it's unlawful--repeatedly. [laughs] There are all-kinds of meetings and everything else.

The two really important things that happen on that day while Luna's laying face-dead in the stream: they're [federal attorneys and the FBI] up in his office trying to get that plea deal pasted together--so that's called a crime scene, they're violating the crime scene. This would be akin to if you or I and people we knew were in an office and one of their people goes missing. They would know, if they're up in the office, fooling around with those records, that they're going to be in trouble. Well, I think the Justice Department is in trouble, they violated that crime scene, and they're pretending not to know what a crime scene is. First point.

The second point is: as you point out, they're mysteriously telling the judge, "Oh, we're concerned about Luna," while they're up in his office doing this stuff. So, on the one-hand, they're pretending not to know that it's a crime scene, while on the other hand they're running around saying, "Oh, we've got to look for him, we're worried about him," when, as you know, the day before, Luna was late. I made the point that he could have been out skylarking, getting a cup of coffee. They're acting in a very strange way.

Matt Janovic: Has Skinner ever explained his behavior and this air of foreknowledge?

Bill Keisling: No, and we need to have congressional and public hearings about that.

Matt Janovic: One person who seemed to be prominent in the book [Midnight Ride] was the court stenographer. He seemed to be more concerned about the facts surrounding Luna's murder than the FBI.

Bill Keisling: Well, he liked Luna! That's the whole point: that everybody liked Luna, except these goons in the FBI. Who then put out this crap--these blatant falsehoods--to destroy his character [after his murder]. In New York City, we just had two policemen murdered in the line of duty, and you don't hear--I don't know of any other case where you have someone in law enforcement go down, and you have people putting-out what a bad guy he was....except in Luna's case.

Matt Janovic: ...Do you think that a part of Baltimore's problems emanate from organized crime domains in Pennsylvania?

Bill Keisling: Oh certainly. Historically, Baltimore was always a pick-up area between New York, Jersey, Philadelphia, and Pa. mobsters. They always have their own home grown stuff, but it was always fought over. One of the things that's documented in the book is where there's Justice Department figures that there are 50-60 thousand heroin addicts within Baltimore, and another 50-60 thousand addicts in the outlying areas. So, you have around 120,000 heroin addicts, and you do the math...that's a billion dollar industry [per-year].

Matt Janovic: It's massive.

Bill Keisling: It's massive, and obviously it's [the] mob, and obviously for it to continue, it's police corruption.

Matt Janovic: Yeah, it couldn't continue any other way.

Bill Keisling: Again, look at the Warren Grace case. You have an informant dealing heroin, and they know it. They catch him with heroin the same day the Dawson house [burned-down].

Matt Janovic: Do you think that that they [the Baltimore FBI and U.S. attorneys office] were concerned about that serendipitous moment?

Bill Keisling: I think it's what I say in the book--normally, this stuff goes on all the time. The Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post are in the tank, nobody cares, so they figure, "Who's going to give-a-hang?" And what happened when the Dawson house burned down is that suddenly a lot of people cared. Luna was left holding the bag, and he couldn't have liked it. He grew up in that sort of an environment, he wanted to help people like that, and instead he sees that he works with people who are dealing heroin that are protecting perpetrators.

Matt Janovic: I can't imagine he would have done nothing about it.

Bill Keisling: I can imagine that there could be U.S. attorneys and assistants who don't care about that sort of thing. But it seems from Luna's victimology, that he would be the one who would be most likely to care about that sort of thing.

Matt Janovic: Right, he had direct experience with it [drug-related crime] in his childhood [in the Bronx].

Bill Keisling: Yeah, and I find it impossible to believe that Jonathan wouldn't care about that. And again, in the book, his friend Dan Rivera says [paraphrase], "Did you stop to think that all the loopy-things he's doing during the trial were intentionally to get the judge to order an investigation of Skinner?" ...

Matt Janovic: During your investigations, were you ever threatened?

Bill Keisling: Ohhhhh, just by family members who wanted me to do other things! ...My mentality has always been that, I 'd really rather write novels and that I'll probably get back to it. I just think that there's a role in society for writers to write about these things, and we have to do it. I've always been afraid of what happens when people don't do this. ...

Matt Janovic: Why do you think the FBI wanted to take-down Stash House records so badly, and allow an informant like Warren Grace to run around terrorizing his neighbors and deal drugs?

Bill Keisling: Well, the book gets into that. The court reporter makes the point that, here they have 100 hours of [surveillance] tape--this isn't 'Gone With the Wind.' ...You need 40 seconds of tape to have somebody taking the drugs and exchanging money for it, case closed. ...Here's what the public should understand: at the very time that the Dawsons were trying to get help (before they burned alive with their kids), the FBI's Safe Streets Task Force was trying to take over a rap music studio. That's what they were busy doing--dealing heroin and trying to take over a rap music studio...

Matt Janovic: But couldn't that have been [U.S. attorney Thomas] Dibiagio's fault?

Bill Keisling: Although he's in-charge, if you get into the history of the FBI, these guys pretty much do what they want. Relations [between the Baltimore U.S. attorneys' office and] with the Bureau weren't all that good. The point is, when the Dawson's home burned down, you have this guy who did it--Darrell Brooks--[and] you have DiBiagio coming-out saying this drug punk's going to be put away forever, but he doesn't mention the drug punks he's responsible for. I think they thought Smith and Poindexter would flip, that the FBI would be controlling Stash House records, and I think it was almost cynical and funny to them that you would have all these young rappers coming in and rapping their crimes into the FBI's microphone.

Matt Janovic: So, would they have just kept running it [Stash House records] as a business, as a front for years and years?

Bill Keisling: That's a good question, and I think the record shows that that's what happens.

Matt Janovic: ...I suppose this is getting into really arcane federal statutues, but what if they ran-a-profit?

Bill Keisling: [agreeing] What if they put-out good records? [laughter all-around]

Matt Janovic: What if they had a hit?

Bill Keisling: [laughing] I don't know Matt! [a hilarious conversation on "mother-approved" pornography ensues, as well as the bizarreness of what government-approved rap might be] ...the whole thing was incompetent: Skinner, Moody, the Safe Streets Task Force, the death of the Dawsons was an atrocity--the public should understand that family burned to death because these guys were dealing heroin, they didn't want to answer the phone, and they were trying to take over a rap music studio. What was going on, and what wasn't going-on?

Matt Janovic: One gets the feeling when reading 'The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna," that either not much has changed since Edgar Allan Poe lived there [Baltimore], or that things have come full-circle. Which do think might be the case?

Bill Keisling: Oh, I kinda like your idea that not much has changed. In the Poe case, actually he was found dying just a few-blocks away from that federal courthouse. Now the best guess is that he was a victim of a practice called "cooping" where you would take unsuspecting people and give them liquor and put different clothes on them and march them around to the polling places. The polling place bar where he was found outside of, a week-or-so before (he couldn't have known), but it was charged that that practice was going on there. It was a sheriff's election. I think Edgar Allan Poe might be the most important writer America has produced.

Matt Janovic: Absolutely. I have to ask a question [relating to the case of] Ms. Palfrey. It's interesting that in both cases--that of [former Baltimore Police Commissioner] Ed Norris and Ms. Palfrey, that you have involvement of the IRS, harrassment of said defendent's families, use of "cooperating witnesses" (or "confidential informants")--but in Palfrey's case, FBI investigators are curiously absent. Why do you think that is?

Bill Keisling: I'm sure they're busy doing other things, huh? What I say in [Midnight Ride] is that you don't often see the FBI's fingerprints, they're more like little traces. You know what I mean?

Matt Janovic: Their role can sometimes be submerged.

Bill Keisling: Right. You can see little traces of it, almost like Luna's EZ pass. You see these little clues, and I think that's the way they like it.

Matt Janovic: What do you think is the significance of this new development with Luna's father contacting the Lancaster [Pennsylvania] county coroner?

Bill Keisling: Well I think his father has the right to that, and what happened here was this gadfly went and filed on his own behalf saying he was representing the friends and family, and it gave the courts the excuse to shut everybody out. But that said, I interviewed the undertaker, and I know what the wounds were, and they're pretty horrific. I think that there's disinformation that they put out--suicide, bogus information about Luna's alleged personal life...you put out stuff like that to distract people from what they should be looking at; and what we should be looking at is the Safe Streets Task Force, Skinner and Moody, their handling of Warren Grace, the deaths of the Dawsons--I think that's where we need to be turning our attention.

Now, where it really ties-in with Palfrey is, that in Pennsylvania, in a murder case, you don't release the autopsy report because you want to have information there that only the perpetrator would know about. So, it's a tool for law enforcement to keep certain cards close to the vest, so that you can identify the true perpetrator who would have information about this. That said, what's in-common between this case and Palfrey's is, the Justice Department isn't acting in good faith--as we saw with Vitter and Tobias--they're actually concealing law-breaking with their actions, and that's unacceptable. ...The public can take the truth, the public is smart [enough]. 

Part I:

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/07/spirited-conversation-with-author_30.html

End of Part II

Statement of intellectual ownership: All content in this interview (and all content on this site produced by the Editor), and its subsequent part are the intellectual property of Matt Janovic, sole proprietor of this website. Quotations of more than four lines requires written permission from the author.

A Spirited Conversation with author William Keisling on the Murder of Assistant US Attorney Jonathan Luna (and much more) Part I of II

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
 
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from "Paul Revere's Ride," 10th stanza.

It was on the cold day of December 4th, 2003 when Lancaster, Pennsylvania authorities found the mutilated-body of assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan P. Luna. He was supposed to be in the court of U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr., in a very troubling federal trial in which he appeared to be attempting to scuttle a corrupt investigation by the FBI. Why would he do this? He had good reason to: during the FBI's dubious investigation into a Baltimore rap label, a Black family named the Dawsons were burned-to-death at the end of October of 2002 after repeated calls (36, by most accounts) to the city's federal "Safe Streets Task Force."

For reasons that are unclear, the calls were never forwarded by members of the Baltimore PD to federal agents. It should be noted that the Safe Streets Task Force was populated by the very same investigators in the Stash House investigation, and members of the Baltimore PD. They were nowhere to be seen while the Dawsons were fighting-off drug dealers in their East Baltimore neighborhood. Not one of them has ever been held responsible for this negligence. 

Even worse, Special Agent Steven Skinner allowed the key informant in the Stash House case (one Warren Grace) to sell heroin and terrorize his neighbors, just like the murderer of the Dawsons, one Darrell Brooks. Both were repeat offenders. Grace was caught in a drug-transaction on the day the Dawsons were murdered by Brooks, possibly even being supplied the heroin by an FBI agent. While the feds were trying to take over a rap label, the Dawsons were frantically trying to contact them, were ignored, and died in flames. Roughly a year later, Jonathan Luna would join the Dawson family. In a very short time after his body was discovered in faraway Pennsylvania, Luna's character would be assassinated, probably by his killer (or killers). An air of institutionalized racism and neglect hangs over all these events, and our nation.

Federal law enforcement close to Luna's work on the Smith/Poindexter trial (the FBI wanted to own Stash House Records--what if they had a hit-single?) figure prominently on the suspects-list, which adds a certain irony to the fact that the case is no longer considered a federal one. It's great when one agrees with oneself. To-this-day no genuine suspects have been investigated, and nobody has been convicted. The press have been far-too-credulous in their trust of the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore, Maryland. At that time, the office was headed by one Thomas DiBiagio, now in private practice, a man who has made a lot of broken promises. I can only dimly remember the flash on the news (CNN) in December of 2003. There was an image of the crime scene that showed a car in a field and some crime scene tape-barriers. If the public had seen the condition of Luna, the outrage would have been everywhere, and palpable.

We never saw how despicable the crime really was: Luna's body was horribly-mutilated. He was stabbed at least 36-times, with a coup de gras through the back of his throat. His hands were shredded--cut to-the-bone, clearly illustrating that the assistant U.S. attorney suffered the tortures of the damned defending himself. Incredibly, the feds wanted to paint it as a suicide. Some in the media followed their lead, and still are. The FBI's role in all of this is unsettling, particularly in the case of Special Agent Steven Skinner. Skinner is still serving in Baltimore's FBI field office, probably falsifying more 302s (field reports from agents on cases and incidents).

Where was the "Safe Streets Task Force" when the Dawsons were calling 911? Watching Stash House's Poindexter and Smith, and chasing their informant Warren Grace around. He was out committing crimes just as the murderer of the Dawsons--one Darrell Brooks--was, and on the government's payroll. Why weren't the Dawsons' 36-calls forwarded to the federal task force? There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding all of these events in Baltimore during the period surrounding the murders in Baltimore and Pennsylvania.

The murder of Jonathan P. Luna is a sprawling case involving municipal, federal, and organized crime entities. It also reaches into the politics of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and without Bill Keisling's book, "The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna," we wouldn't know many of the problems with the government's story. Like the night ride of Paul Revere, Jonathan P. Luna is still warning us of the approaching threat...from his grave. We only need listen to hear his warning. He might be telling us where Special Agent Steven Skinner was that night.

Matt Janovic: For members of the public who maybe only heard of the murder of assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan Luna, what can you tell them about its significance?

Bill Keisling: Well, I think that the title, "The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna,"refers to is the midnight ride of Paul Revere. That it's a warning to the American public of a new level of corruption in American government. What they've done here is to manage to silence the press, they've eliminated public participation, and you don't read in the papers about how there's government corruption anymore--or court corruptions--not that the problems are solved. They've eliminated the criticism, and the checks-and-balances are rooted-out. What the Luna case appears to be is the case of a federal prosecutor who was murdered, and how they then destroyed his reputation so that the public might not even care about him. The truth comes out.

Matt Janovic: Do you think assistant U.S. attorney Luna was a hero, a villain--or maybe something in-between?

Bill Keisling: I think you have to look at it like this: while writing Midnight Ride, I had to study this book on "victimology"--I had to study victims and where they're coming from. Luna grew up in the Bronx in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, and they [drug dealers] were dealing drugs at his door, they were shooting through his apartment building door, and he generally wanted to help people. He was really remarkable. This isn't somebody whose daddy put him through school, he did it for himself. I think that he genuinely wanted to help people that find themselves in the inner city neglect that he grew-up in.

He joined the Bush Justice Department, and in his last case the FBI had an informant who--while on the government payroll--was dealing heroin, [and] was being sent in by the FBI to halfway houses to deal heroin. At the same time, the FBI was ignoring [the Dawsons]. They had this so-called "Safe Streets Task Force,"but they were dealing heroin. They weren't helping people like the Dawsons, who were burned out of their home. So, I think is that what he came to see was that in the Bush Justice Department--he couldn't see a hero, he couldn't see white hats because it was too compromised.

Matt Janovic: Are there other similar cases of murders of U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys going-on in the continental United States currently?

Bill Keisling: Oh yeah. The assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle [Tom Wales, who was murdered exactly one month after 9/11] who was shot from his basement window, and it appears to be connected to one case or another. The operative phrase that the Justice Department is using in both the Luna and Seattle assistant U.S. attorney is that it wasn't connected to their jobs, or the line-of-duty. But I don't think it's just the U.S. attorneys. You have the federal judge in Chicago who came home and found her family killed. ...The point is, in the United States, we used to have this idea that our law enforcement and our judges--that nothing was going to happen to them.

Matt Janovic: Things are happening to them.

Bill Keisling: But things are happening to them, and again, that's the point of Midnight Ride. It's a warning that it has risen to a point where where it's open season on judges and prosecutors--the next step is journalists and writers.

Matt Janovic: I think that's already begun...at least in Iraq. This is just for your opinion: who might be murdering them?

Bill Keisling: Well, I think that the body-of-evidence that's being developed--and I don't know who's murdering them--but I know one of the parties that have actively participated in mob murder is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I think that's what has come out in congressional hearings. Up in Boston, with Whitey Bulger...these guys were worshipped as the stars of the streets along with their informants. ...So, if your readers watch the Sopranos, they'll see that these agents are so tied-in with their informants, [and] there's no oversight.

You either turn your back, or pretend you don't know what's going-on, or you actively participate in it [the crimes], and you have the mob running the FBI. The FBI works both sides of the street, and the problem is, there's no oversight. They're not responsible to the Senate, they're not responsible to the American public. What your readers have to understand is that the FBI's informant program is their holy of holies.

They don't want to talk about it. This is breeding all-kinds of corruption. At the same time, what you have is the Justice Department not respecting the writers' and reporters' sources. Now, reporters are being jailed. What I think is that there needs to be oversight, and that whole [informant] program needs to go out the window. It's time for Americans to really focus on what's going-on and get involved here.

Matt Janovic: Do you believe the use of informants by the FBI has some overarching goals, or is federal law enforcement simply broken, or both?

Bill Keisling: What I try to point-out in the book is that there is a long history--not only in this country, but going back to Shakespeare's time, the Roman Empire, and Alexander the Great--of using informants and counterintelligence. There's definitely a role in that. I talk about how it saved us during the Revolutionary War, that General Washington was very adept at the use of informants and misinformation. He kept Cornwallis at-bay in Philadelphia, planting false information. ...He really was a hero. Washington had a prohibition against torture, but look what's going-on now. ...I'm a big defender of George Washington. The proof's in the pudding.

Matt Janovic: Why do you think FBI agent Steve Skinner is important in the context of Jonathan Luna's murder?

Bill Keisling: He's important because he mishandled Luna's last case, his informant Warren Grace was out dealing heroin, they [Safe Streets Task Force] were ignoring the calls of the Dawson family who needed help, he's dishonest, he likes to meet people in the dead of night, he scares people, we don't where Skinner was the night Luna was murdered--I just think he's a really important character in all this.

Matt Janovic: What's Warren Grace and Mr. Skinner doing these days?

Bill Keisling: Well, Warren Grace is in the hoosegow, and Skinner is still a Special Agent in Baltimore as far as I know. I think Skinner should get a new job--there's probably opportunities at McDonald's or Walmart. As for Warren Grace, you don't have to read the book too-carefully to see here's a guy who found himself in the driver's seat: he was driving the [Stash House Records] case, he was driving the investigation.

I think that whole case is a classic study of why there needs to be more oversight and reform. What happens is, Luna is just left holding the bag. You have this one guy who is up-against the Bureau and their corrupt practices, and I think they helped contribute to his death.
When I was researching this book, and writing it, I thought, "Oh my God, I can just imagine some moron like Ethan Brown [another investigative author on the Luna murder] coming up and trying to put Warren Grace back in the driver's seat of this case." Here he [Grace] was leading this investigation, leading the trial, and caused all this tragedy, and which moron is going to put Warren Grace back in-charge? But it wasn't going to be me! [laughter]

Matt Janovic: Do you think Ed Norris was ferrying prostitutes with the Baltimore Police Department's Executive Protection Unit [created, ostensibly, to protect the then Police Commissioner]?

Bill Keisling: I don't know! That's one of the things we have to find out. There's females 1-6--Ed tells me (I was on his show last year) that they were his "friends," so people need to look at the information on my site and decide for themselves [www.yardbird.com]. I think it's very troubling to have this sort of thing going-on with the head of a police department.

Matt Janovic: Is it true that you were the first to report the 36 stab-wounds on Jonathan Luna's body?

Bill Keisling: That was a count issued by the Lancaster county coroner. I was the first one to realize that the 36 wounds matched-up with...

Matt Janovic: The missing $36,0000 from [money stolen from evidence from a previous federal trial in Baltimore in a bank robbery case. Luna and an FBI agent were the last to handle the money...]...

Bill Keisling: Right, and the number of times the Dawsons tried to call for help [to the Safe Streets Task Force. Skinner was a lead member.]. That's called a crime signature, and you can't ignore something like that. ...So, why was he stabbed 36-times? Incidentally, the undertaker said she counted 32. What do I say in the book--who's counting? He was hurt. It looks like the coup de gras was the neck-wound, and probably with the others he was being held at knifepoint. The undertaker said that the wounds to his hands between his fingers cut to-the-bone. Luna was obviously trying to defend himself. ...The guy was taken out and tortured.

Matt Janovic: Not a suicide, definitely.

Bill Keisling: That's misinformation. ...If this was happening to me--while it was happening--the last thing I would want is for someone to think I did this to myself.

End of Part I

Statement of intellectual ownership: All content in this interview (and all content on this site produced by the Editor), and its subsequent part are the intellectual property of Matt Janovic, sole proprietor of this website. Quotations of more than four lines requires written permission from the author. (Transcript corrected and revised, 08.16.2007)

SUPREME COURT DENIES "DC MADAM" PALFREY STAY ON CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS: UNCONSTITUTIONAL? ILLEGAL DECISION? PARTISAN?

J-7--Today's newsletter from Ms. Palfrey has brought information on a setback in her case. Perhaps Justice Thomas's willingness to hear the motion was another CYA affair to hide some of his own partisanship (it didn't work). No, I don't think he covered himself, Scalia or even Roberts very well:

The United States Supreme Court denied my motion (Case #06A1110) to stay the criminal proceeding and return my case to the civil courts, this morning. The motion before the Supreme Court involved a time sensitive Congressional mandate, which clearly states that individuals who have had their property seized via the civil asset forfeiture process – as I have - are to receive a hearing within 30 days, once such a motion is made. In my situation, the motion was submitted twice to the lower District Court and ignored twice by the presiding judge, Judge Gladys Kessler. I now have gone well over 200 days, since last fall without any due process in the matter.

Based upon this morning’s decision, my civil attorney, Mr. Montgomery B. Sibley will be contacting post haste Senator Patrick Lehey, Chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee. [Ed.-my emphasis]

The game is to keep the game going for as long as possible [Ed., 07.03.2008--particularly in Palfrey's case, but the govt. also had motives in this direction.] This all has the (ear)marks of the Bush administration's attempts at subjugating the federal bureaucracy in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001. It appears all those anti-terrorism laws have allowed for unparalleled excesses and corruption.

Part of controlling the bureaucracy--obviously--is to remove "disloyal" elements, replacing them with one's own adherents. One could call it "seeding" the organs of government with your own agents (of change--thanks Regents!).

All roads appear to lead to Rome (the Bush administration). It's time that "journalists," bloggers, citizen journalists, and all interested media start asking Edward T. Norris and Thomas DiBiagio (the first U.S. Attorney fired in the ongoing-scandal) about what they think their place in all of this is. Ignore this at your peril.

This newest development can also be read @: www.deborahjeanepalfrey.com

Postscript, 07.03.2008: Ultimately, the client and counsel would subpoena Sen. Leahy, a nutty move that was discouraged by myself and others. It would prove to be a disastrous approach that yielded nothing and cut-off any potential for redress from the legislative branch.