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LaRouche criminal trials

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Marvin Diode (talk | contribs) at 14:54, 6 July 2007 (consolidating references to raid in Leesburg). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

United States v. LaRouche refers to the prosecution and conviction of controversial American political activist Lyndon LaRouche and several of his associates on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. There were two trials, one in Boston and one in Alexandria; although there were some differences in the specific charges, both trials centered upon the charge that LaRouche and his associates conspired to solicit loans from their supporters, on behalf of the publishing companies and a science foundation they controlled, without intending to repay those loans. LaRouche was sentenced to a prison term of fifteen years which began in 1989. He was paroled in 1994 after serving five years.

According to LaRouche and his supporters, the trial was politically motivated.

Grand juries

A federal grand jury began investigating "an extensive nationwide pattern of credit card fraud" by LaRouche organizations in November 1984.[1] In January 1985 a grand jury subpoenaed documents from the National Democratic Policy Committee, and three other LaRouche organizations: Caucus Distributors Inc., Fusion Energy Foundation, and Campaigner Publications Inc. Seven weeks later, on March 29, 1985, a court held them to be in contempt and fined them $45,000 per day. A search warrant to obtain the documents was executed October 6 1986, by over 300 armed officers of the FBI, IRS, other federal agencies, and Virginia state authorities, who conducted a raid on the LaRouche headquarters near Leesburg, Virginia .[2] The fines for all the organizations eventually totalled over $20 million.[3]

Investigations by a separate federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia along with state agencies in New York, California, Minnesota, Illinois, and Washington. were also underway.[4] The FBI, IRS, and other federal agents and personnel were conducting their own investigations.

Boston trial

On October 6 1986, the same day as the Leesburg raid, the Boston grand jury handed down a 117-count indictment that named ten LaRouche associates, two corporations, and three campaign committees. They were charged with making unauthorized credit charges that defrauded $1 million from over 1,000 people. The charges included a scheme to raise funds by soliciting loans with no intention of repaying them. The National Caucus of Labor Committees was charged, along with others, of conspiring to obstruct justice. LaRouche was quoted in the indictment telling an associate that, in reaction to legal problems, "we are going to stall, tie them up in the courts...just keep stalling, stall and appeal, stall and appeal."[5] Three of the indicted associates remained at large for weeks, and investigators were given false information. (On February 16, 1987, the commonwealth of Virginia indicted 16 LaRouche associates on securities fraudand other felonies.[6])(On March 3, 1987, the state of New York indicted 15 LaRouche associates on grand larceny and securities fraud.[7]) On June 30, 1987 LaRouche was indicted on one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. The trial commenced in Boston on December 17 of that year, before Federal Judge Robert E. Keeton.

There were numerous revelations, including a search, authorized by Judge Keeton, of the personal files of Oliver North. According to the LaRouche organization, his search produced a May 1986 telex from Iran-Contra defendant General Richard Secord to North, discussing the gathering of information to be used against LaRouche.[8] After this memo surfaced, Judge Robert Keeton ordered a search of Vice President George Bush's office, for documents relating to LaRouche. The judge declared a mistrial on May 4, 1988, saying the unexpected length of the trial due to numerous delays made it unlikely that enough jurors would be left at the end to render a verdict.

Before disbanding, the jurors polled themselves and found all defendants, including LaRouche, "not guilty." According to the Boston Herald of May 5, 1988, one of the jurors described the poll: "It seemed some of the government's people caused the problem, adding that the evidence showed that people working on behalf of the government 'may have been involved in some of this fraud to discredit the campaign.'" The National Law Journal called the Boston mistrial a "stinging defeat" for the government; LaRouche commented, "I was cheated out of an acquittal." A retrial in Boston was scheduled, but a new case in Virginia came first.[9]"

Involuntary bankruptcy

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition on April 20 1987 for the purpose of collecting the $20 million owed for contempt of court fines from Caucus Distributors Inc., Fusion Energy Foundation, and Campaigner Publications Inc. In an unusual procedure, a secret ex parte hearing was held without notifying the three companies, and the companies were seized and padlocked before the bankruptcy came to trial. This action halted the publication of a weekly newspaper, New Solidarity, and a bi-monthly science magazine, Fusion. Civil libertarians outside the LaRouche group objected to the government seizure of LaRouche publications as abusive.[citation needed] At least one publication, Fusion, was reborn with a new name but the same editor and material.[10]

The attorneys who represented the LaRouche entities in the bankruptcy filed a brief claiming that the action was unprecedented and improper because it deviated from the standard rules of involuntary bankruptcy, and because members of the Alexandria prosecution team from the second criminal trial were involved in the planning and execution of the bankruptcy. [11]

On October 25, 1989, Judge Martin V.B. Bostetter dismissed the government's involuntary bankruptcy petition, finding that two of entities involved were nonprofit fund-raisers and therefore not subject to involuntary bankruptcy actions.[12] Bostetter said the government acted in "objective bad faith" and the bankruptcy was obtained by a "constructive fraud on the court.",[13] Appeals that went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court found that the matter of the involuntary bankruptcy would not change the outcome of LaRouche's convictions in a second trial held in Virginia.

The LaRouche organization asserts that it has proof, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that the purpose of the bankruptcy was not to collect fines, but rather to simply shut down the effected entities. [14]

Alexandria trial

On October 14, 1988, LaRouche and six associates were re-indicted, this time in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in whose district covered LaRouche resides. The court is known as the "Rocket Docket" because it speeds even complicated cases without delay.[15] The indictments included various conspiracy charges, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud. LaRouche was also charged with conspiring to hide his personal income since 1979, the last year he had filed a federal tax return. On December 16, 1988 a federal jury convicted LaRouche and his associates, and LaRouche was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, of which he served five before being paroled.

Motion in limine

Judge Albert V. Bryan granted a prosecution motion in limine, ruling that the defense would not be permitted to discuss, or even allude to, the fact that the indebted entities had been placed in involuntary bankruptcy. It also excuded certain other avenues which the prosecution had reason to expect that the defense would pursue.[16]

LaRouche's attorneys claimed on appeal that this prevented them from presenting their defense, that being that the LaRouche organization no longer controlled the indebted entities, and that the decision not to repay debts was made by government trustees. This appeal was rejected.

Voir dire

The defense made a motion for voir dire in the second trial; voir dire is not mandatory in federal court. The request was denied.[17] One of the numerous Amicus curiae briefs that were filed on appeal charges that unlike Judge Keeton, who devoted three weeks to jury selection, Alexandria Judge Albert V. Bryan spent two hours, and did not permit individual questioning of prospective jurors. The brief asserts that this contributed to the result that most jurors in the Alexandria trial were present or former government employees. Jury Foreman Buster Horton was the U.S. Department of Agriculture liaison to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).[18] This appeal was rejected.

The prosecution

The prosecution presented evidence that LaRouche and his staff solicited loans with false assurances to potential lenders and showed "reckless disregard" of the facts. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson presented evidence that LaRouche's organisation had solicited US$34 million in loans since 1983. In his opening statement to the trial, Robinson said, "Members of the jury, this case is about money. It's about how the defendants got money, and to a lesser extent, what they did with that money when they got it... The defendants, all seven of them, are charged in engaging in a scheme to defraud. That is, to obtain those loans by making false promises, false pretences, saying things to potential lenders which they knew weren't true." [19] LaRouche supporters claim the amount that was not repaid was $294,000, but according to testimony in the Virginia case, reported by the Washington Post (17 December 1988), the amount of funds not repaid by 1987 topped $25 million. The most important evidence was the testimony of lenders, many of them elderly retirees, who had lost thousands of dollars in loans to LaRouche that were never repaid. Several witnesses were LaRouche followers who testified under immunity from prosecution.

According to an article in the Washington Post:

  • Nine lenders, who said they were attracted by what was described as LaRouche's "war on drugs," testified that they gave a total of $661,300 to the organization and were repaid only about $10,000. Those loans are "just a very small portion of unrepaid borrowing" by the group, prosecutor Markham told the jury in his closing argument.
  • Of the $4 million collected for LaRouche's 1984 presidential campaign, only half was repaid, and by early 1987, $25 million of the $30 million collected for noncampaign purposes had not been repaid, according to testimony.[20]

LaRouche claimed he had no income, but in the 1980s LaRouche lived at a 172 acre (700,000 m²) Virginia estate with a pond and horse ring, owned by a LaRouche supporter. In all the LaRouche group spent over US$4 million on Virginia real estate during this period, according to trial testimony reported in the Washington Post (17 December 1988). In 1985, a judge in a separate case had described LaRouche's testimony about being almost penniless as "completely lacking in credibility".[21] In 1986, in the same case, LaRouche said that he did not know who had paid for his food, lodging, clothing, tranportation, bodyguards, or lawyers since 1973. The judge fined him for failing to answer.[22]

On December 16 1988,[23] LaRouche was convicted on eleven counts of conspiracy to commit loan fraud, and also of conspiracy to impede and obstruct the functions of the Internal Revenue Service, what is called a "Klein conspiracy".

Jury foreman Buster Horton told the Washington Post (17 December 1988) that it was the failure of LaRouche aides to repay loans that swayed the jury in the Virginia case, and that the jury "all agreed [LaRouche] was not on trial for his political beliefs. We did not convict him for that. He was convicted for those 13 counts he was on trial for."

LaRouche denied all the charges, calling them "an all-out frame-up by a state and federal task force," and said that the federal government was trying to kill him. "The purpose of this frame-up is not to send me to prison. It's to kill me." LaRouche said. "In prison it's fairly easy to kill me... If this sentence goes through, I'm dead."[5] While in prison he released claims that he was tortured prison as part an assassination attempt.[6] LaRouche was paroled, alive, in 1994 after serving five years of the 15-year sentence.

One of his cellmates during his incarceration was televangelist Jim Bakker. Bakker later devoted a chapter of his book, I Was Wrong, to his experience with LaRouche.[24]

Prosecution of LaRouche associates

LaRouche's chief fund-raiser, William Wertz, was convicted on ten mail fraud counts. LaRouche's legal adviser, Edward Spannaus, along with fundraising operatives Dennis Small, Paul Greenberg, and Joyce Rubinstein, were convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Michael Billington received a 77 year sentence for "conspiracy to fail to register as a securities broker." Billington served a total of ten years in prison before being released on parole. Spannaus served two and a half years. [25]

Appeals

Beginning as early as 1986, LaRouche-related lawyers made numerous appeals from court decisions. The appeal filed by the LaRouche defendants maintains that, due to the motion in limine that was granted by Judge Bryan in the Virginia case, the jury never heard the two central features of LaRouche's actual defense: first, the long history of "adversive government actions" against the LaRouche organization, and second, that the government,through the involuntary bankruptcy and related actions, had "intentionally... subverted their ability to raise funds and pay their debts."[26] In the book Railroad! the authors write that "...the judge invaded the province of the jury, preventing the jurors from hearing the facts which would enable them to competently determine the question of criminal intention."[27]

One of LaRouche's appeals attorneys was former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. In a 1995 letter to then-Attorney General Janet Reno he said that the case involved "a broader range of deliberate and systematic misconduct and abuse of power over a longer period of time in an effort to destroy a political movement and leader, than any other federal prosecution in my time or to my knowledge." He asserted that, "The government, ex parte, sought and received an order effectively closing the doors of these publishing businesses, all of which were involved in First Amendment activities, effectively preventing the further repayment of their debts." [28]

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the convictions on January 23 1990,[29] and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision five months later.[30]

Claims of LaRouche supporters

The convictions of LaRouche and his associates were a defining moment in the history of the LaRouche network. LaRouche supporters and others, including hundreds of elected officials from the US and other countries, insisted that LaRouche was jailed, not for any violation of the law, but for his beliefs (see attempts at exoneration.) LaRouche also alleged systematic government misconduct:

  • "The record shows, that for nearly thirty years, elements of the U.S. Department of Justice have been engaged in world-wide political targeting of me and my associates. This includes early 1970s operations run in conjunction with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger's U.S. State Department.1 During the last ten years or so of that period, some U.S. officials, and others, have challenged the relevant agencies with some of the evidence which shows, that those prosecutions and correlated harassment of me and my associates, had been clearly fraudulent, politically motivated targeting."[31]

LaRouche and his lawyers also asserted that the Anti-Defamation League sought to destroy his organization, and that the prosectution was the result of a conspiracy between the ADL, the government, and the media.[32][33] This claim stems from a series of meetings which LaRouche publications refer to as the "John Train Salon." [34]

Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte, Professor of Constitutional and International law at the University of Mainz in Germany, wrote the following on the case:

On closer examination of the behavior of the U.S. authorities toward LaRouche, there emerge strong parallels to the infamous Dreyfus Affair in France, which has gone down in history as a classical example of a political trial....Just as LaRouche was, the French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was deprived by the structure of the trial procedures, of any opportunity to prove his innocence, and facts critical for his defense were excluded from the trial.[35]

Attempts at exoneration

On November 8, 1991, Angelo Vidal d'Almeida Ribeiro, the Special Rapporteur for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, filed a request to the US Government based on a complaint that had been filed concerning the LaRouche case. The US government responded by saying that LaRouche had been given due process under the laws of the United States. The UN took no further action.[36]

The LaRouche organization organized several panels of sympathetic legal experts, elected officials and journalists from other countries, to have them review the case and issue their findings. These included the Curtis Clark Commission,[37] and the Mann-Chestnut hearings. [38]

On September 18, 1996, a full page advertisement appeared in the New Federalist, a LaRouche publication, as well as the Washington Post and Roll Call. Entitled "Officials Call for LaRouche's Exoneration," (see text), It featured signators including Arturo Frondizi, former President of Argentina; figures from the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement such as Amelia Boynton Robinson, James Bevel, and Rosa Parks; former Minnesota Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Eugene McCarthy; Mervyn M. Dymally, who chaired the Congressional Black Caucus; and artists such as classical vocalist William Warfield, and violinist Norbert Brainin, former 1st Violin of the Amadeus Quartet. LaRouche's Schiller Institute paid for the ad. Amelia Boynton Robinson was at that time a board member of the Institute; James Bevel and William Warfield went on to become active in various LaRouche organizations.

In testimony to submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 13, 1998, the LaRouche-affiliated Schiller Institute claimed that "[t]he inability to repay lenders and other crediters was the consequence of an unprecedented involuntary bankruptcy proceeding initiated by the Justice Department against those companies in 1987, initiated in an ex parte, in camera proceeding.[39]

Notes

  1. ^ "LaRouche Groups' Debt to U.S. Grows Daily", by Joel Brinkley, New York Times, May 19, 1986
  2. ^ http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/briefs/1989/sg890463.txt
  3. ^ LaRouche Groups to Appeal AP, March 5, 1987
  4. ^ "16 LaRouhe Aides Indicted for Fraud" February 18, 1987, New York Times
  5. ^ "U.S. Charges Aides to Larouche With Credit-Card Fraud Scheme", October 7, 1986, New York Times
  6. ^ "16 LaRouhe Aides Indicted for Fraud" February 18, 1987, New York Times
  7. ^ "12 Lyndon LaRouche Supporters Are Arrested on Fraud Charges", March 19, 1987, New York Times
  8. ^ {http://www.larouchepub.com/exon/exon_add4_virginia.html "It's Time for Truth-In-Justice in Virginia,"] undated, posted on Executive Intelligence Review website
  9. ^ "Fact #44: Plaintiffs are informed that the government wants to begin a trial of the Alexandria targets starting December 5 or 12 and try the Alexandria case before January 3, 1989, when the Boston retrial of LaRouche and Spannaus is scheduled to begin. Fact #45: The government has acknowledged that it does not have any statute of limitations problems; obviously, the sole reason the government wishes to rush this case to indictment and to trial is to get in front of the trial already scheduled by Judge Keeton in Boston." -- Plaintiffs' Application for a Temporary Restraining Order Civ. No. 88-2977 (filed against DOJ officials Richard Thornburgh, Henry Hudson and Kent Robinson)
  10. ^ The Scientist 1988, 2(2):1
  11. ^ "Fact #9: On or about June 22, 1987, the Alleged Debtors filed their answers to the involuntary petitions. In their answers: a) Caucus and Fusion denied that they were eligible to be debtors because of their eleemosynary status; b) all denied that they were not paying their debts as they became due; c) all asserted affirmatively that the petitions were defective because there were an insufficient number of petitioning creditors; d) all asserted affirmatively that the petitions arose out of a motive to assist the U.S. Government in its related criminal proceedings and thus were tainted with bad faith; and e) all asserted affirmatively that the petitions constituted prior restraints on the exercise of their right to freedom of speech in violation of the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution." -- Proposed Findings of Fact in cases 87-0795-A,87-0796-A,87-0797-A
  12. ^ Howe, Robert, "Ruling May Help Appeal, LaRouche Backers Say," Washington Post, October 28, 1989[1]
  13. ^ http://www.larouchepac.com/pages/z_other_files/larouche_case/0103-misconduct.htm
  14. ^ The FOIA search turned up a memo by James Reynolds of General Litigation and Legal Advice Section of the Department of Justice, in which he writes, "Benefit is that a trustee is immediately appointed. They are ordered to shut down the business immediately." "He's a Bad Guy, But We Can't Say Why!" Schiller Institute website
  15. ^ http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0206/p03s01-usju.html
  16. ^ Government's Motion In Limine, United States of America v. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. et al, Criminal No. 88-00243-A
  17. ^ "1. This is a case which has resulted in considerable publicity at both the local and national level... 2. The case involves defendants who have very strenuously expressed minority political opinion and the chance of prejudicial jurors as a result of these political briefs is substantial... According, the defendants move this court to allow them to file specific questions for the jury venire by Friday, November 18, 1988." -- Motion of the defendants for submission of questions to the jury venire, Criminal No. 88-00243-A
  18. ^ "And finally, permeating the proceedings was the District Court's own peculiar reluctance to credit appellants' concerns that their prosecution was politically motivated -- and, therefore, to take the necessary prophylactic steps at the stage of jury-selection to exclude improper political intervention or influence. All of these circumstances made it impossible for appellants' trial defense-team to discover enough about Horton to protest his seating on the jury." -- Brief Amici Curiae of Burton D. Linne, Jack O. Slater, and John C. Imlay IV
  19. ^ From court transcript, United States of America v. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. et al
  20. ^ LaRouche Convicted Of Mail Fraud, By Caryle Murphy, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, December 17, 1988; Page A01 [2]
  21. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E7DF1339F937A15751C0A963948260
  22. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DEFDB1E39F933A2575BC0A960948260
  23. ^ http://www.loudountimes.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=5798463&BRD=2553&PAG=461&dept_id=576934&rfi=8
  24. ^ Bakker, Jim, I Was Wrong, Thomas Nelson, 1996
  25. ^ http://www.loudountimes.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=5798463&BRD=2553&PAG=461&dept_id=576934&rfi=8
  26. ^ Brief for the appellants, No. 89-5518, May 25, 1989
  27. ^ Edward Spannaus, Railroad!, Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations, Washington, D.C., 1989, OCLC 23870104, p. 9
  28. ^ Clark, Ramsey. [3] "Open Letter to Janet Reno," posted on LaRouche presidential campaign website, 2004.
  29. ^ ["Appeals Court Upholds Convictions of LaRouche and Four Others" http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30615FE34540C708EDDA80894D8494D81], January 23, 1990, New York Times
  30. ^ "Supreme Court Upholds LaRouche Convictions", June 12, 1990, Washington Post
  31. ^ U.S.A. VS. LYNDON LAROUCHE, 'He's a Bad Guy, But We Can't Say Why' by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., February 15, 2000 [4]
  32. ^ "Lyndon LaRouche Leaves Prison to Testify for Fund-Raiser", Washington Post, Alison Howard, May 24, 1990
  33. ^ "Judge Rejects LaRouche Allegation", Washington Post, May 30, 1990
  34. ^ The John Train 'Salon' - The Evidence of Criminal Fraud Filed with the Fourth Circuit Court, LaRouche in 2004 website
  35. ^ This paragraph is excerpted from a longer essay by von der Hedydte, which appeared as a full page ad, sponsored by the LaRouche-affiliated Commission to investigate Human Rights Violations, in the Washington Times on March 1, 1990, and as a half-page ad in the Washington Post on March 3.
  36. ^ "IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECLARATION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF INTOLERANCE AND OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RELIGION OR BELIEF", United Nations Commission on Human Rights website, January 6, 1993
  37. ^ "SELECTED KEY FINDINGS OF EVIDENCE REVIEWED," LaRouche in 2004 website
  38. ^ Statement of Mann-Chestnut Commission, Schiller Institute press release, May 21, 1997
  39. ^ TESTIMONY OF THE SCHILLER INSTITUTE SUBMITTED TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, UNITED STATES SENATE, published in Executive Intelligence Review, July 31, 1998

External links

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