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The charge of 'racketeering' raised against Marty Frankel has allowed the government to seize all property and funds that Marty could have used to pay for a quality attorney to defend him. Another famous fugitive financier named Marc Rich was also involved with the RICO laws, but not on the receiving end.

Mr. Rich, through his agents involved in the Ravenswood Aluminum Company (RAC) labor struggle of 1991-92, used the RICO laws against the United Steel Workers, Local 5668 in Ravenswood, West Virginia. Mr. Marc Rich, the ultimate owner of the RAC, locked out the union labor force and installed a 'scab' labor force. In the ensuing labor struggle, there were battles at the picket line. The RICO complaint filed on behalf of RAC listed some 726 incidents that supposedly violated the RICO laws. These incidents involved throwing mud or grease balls at 'scab' cars as they entered the RAC complex. In effect, Marc Rich, through his agents at RAC, was able to use and pay for any attorney of his choice to prosecute USWA Local 5668 without any of his property being seized by the Treasury Department under these same RICO laws now used against Marty Frankel. All this took place while a $750,000 reward was placed for the capture of Marc Rich. All this took place while formal charges stood against Marc Rich for

(1) Tax Fraud
(2) Conspiracy
(3) Criminal violation of trade embargos against Iran, the Soviet Union and South Africa, and last but not least . . .
(4) Racketeering!!

Thus, while the US government, with full knowledge that Mr. Rich himself was ostensibly in violation of RICO, allowed him, as the owner of RAC, to invoke RICO laws against an American labor union. None of Mr. Rich's property was seized and liquidated. None of the legal fee retainers sent to any of Marc Rich's attorneys were seized.

Why was Marc Rich treated with kid gloves (even though he was indicted under the RICO laws too) and why was Marty Frankel crushed under the iron heel of RICO and corporate media persecution?

There was no personal vendetta against Marc Rich. There were no highly placed US government officials who had an ax to grind against Mr. Rich as is now the case with Marty Frankel. On the other hand there are indeed some highly placed US government officials who have a personal vendetta against Marty Frankel. That is the ultimate reason why Marc Rich was pardoned by President Clinton (with no objections from the current president. See the Toledo Blade, February 14, 2001 "Bush, others cool to idea of probing Rich's pardon") and why Marty Frankel is treated like a Bosnian War Criminal, falsely accused of a bogus escape attempt, stripped of his clothes and eyeglasses in the Northern Correctional Institute, vilified and demonized in the press as the 'Darth Vader of the Financial World', and denied all access to fair legal representation of his choice.

(For those who are interested in more information about Marc Rich, let me recommend the book entitled Ravenswood by Tom Juravich and Kate Bronfenbrenner, available through Cornell University Press.)

The official line of the Bourgeois press is that Marc Rich has suffered enough (living openly in his mansion in Zug Switzerland), therefore he deserves to be pardoned. But Marty Frankel, this Darth Vader, this criminal genius, deserves to suffer, deserves to be denied money for an attorney and deserves a virtual life sentence of 400 years in prison for the financial crimes he is accused of. Here are Marty's own words on his public image as a criminal genius compared to the type of person he feels that he really is.

Call #12, Sunday, April 1, 2001

MARTY: "What strikes me as crazy, and I was talking to my lawyer, and he, he wrote me this big long letter and I read this and I thought, there's nothing I can do. My own lawyer is like yelling at me and saying, you know, saying . . . if I told the truth, in other words, if I say that I'm just a stupid idiot. And you know me. You know how f+++ing easily influenced I was and still probably am even after all this stuff. If I say exactly the type of person I am and what really happened, it's like, it's like that's as good as a negative. I'm supposed to act like I'm some big shot criminal or something, and, but it wasn't true."
PAVLITO: "I know that, Marty. People who know you, know that."
MARTY: "It's almost like, if the numbers were smaller, then nobody, then if I said what really happened and all this stuff, people would go, oh yeah that maybe makes sense. If people look at this big thing, they think, like I'm some kind of criminal genius or something."

(This next segment deals with Marty's concerns about being framed for having some fictional pile of money hidden somewhere)

PAVLITO: "You've been convicted in the court of public opinion. It doesn't matter what . . ."
MARTY: "I've been convicted in the court of public opinion a billion times."

Let's allow Marty Frankel to explain in his own words the nature of the vendetta and the level of involvement (of highly placed government officials) in his case. In this next segment, taken from a phone conversation from Saturday, April 7, 2001, the author refers to "The Village People" as a code name. This codename refers to the government, corporate and banking interests that have vested interests in development and outcome of the Frankel case. In this next segment, the author urges Marty NOT to make or entertain any plea-bargaining deals. I encouraged him to fight and not give up.

Call #13, Saturday, April 7, 2001

PAVLITO: "The last thing that 'The Village People' want is to have a trial. OK? The Village people don't want a trial because you can call witnesses."
MARTY: "You know who I can call as a witness? I shouldn't even say it over this phone."
PAVLITO: "Go ahead, say it."
MARTY: " . . . the highest people in the American Government."
PAVLITO: "I know."
MARTY: "For real. I have a reason. (laughing) So if they really want to start playing! Seriously!"
PAVLITO: "This is what I am saying, Marty."
MARTY: "Saying stuff like this will probably get me killed or something. Believe me they could come in my cell any time they want, give me a drug and f+++ing make me die of heart attack tomorrow. Seriously!"
PAVLITO: "I'll tell you one thing, Marty. If they do this . . ."
MARTY: "Police have beaten people up here and done all sorts of stuff. But it wasn't a high, high profile case like mine. The only thing I got going for me to protect me a little, is that I am so high profile."

When Marty Frankel referred to people at the highest levels of the American Government, we can safely assume he was talking about the George W. Bush administration.

I know this because in 1989-90, before Marty ever went to Greenwich Connecticut, Marty told me that he was making some charitable contributions either on behalf of or at the direction of George W. Bush, the son of then-President, George H. W. Bush. Marty told me this because he wanted me to know that he was well on his way to becoming a 'friend of the President', the then-President, George H. W. Bush. I, of course, was not impressed by this. Marty and I did not have similar views on the Bush administration of 1988 to 1992. Like our differences over the issues involving the Middle East, we had deep political divergences of opinion over President George H. W. Bush. Marty was involved in social climbing and evidently he saw some association with then-President Bush as a way to move into the higher social circles of the American class structure. I was more interested in protesting that class structure and opposing the policies of George H.W. Bush, protesting his bloody and criminal invasion of Panama and the Blood For Oil War, which most people proudly refer to as the Persian Gulf War of 1991. This deep difference of opinion between Marty Frankel and myself, led to harsh words and hard feelings between us during the so-called Gulf War. I assume that this is the reason why Marty dropped me from his life in 1991. Having someone like me (a leftist political and labor activist), as a personal friend, was probably seen as a liability, not an asset, for a social climber in the early 1990's. But now, in the extreme conditions of his imprisonment and social vilification, Marty now sees me as the only person, his only personal friend, who refuses to run away from him under the pressure of the smear campaign against him. Most people, including Marty's family, are not used to dirty political tricks, death threats, and smear campaigns spewed from the orifices of the corporate media. Thus, I know of none of his other personal or childhood friends who have come to his aid and defense as I have. For a leftist political activist (or even an environmental activist such as the Earth First activists who were wounded in a car bomb in Oakland on May 24, 1990), experiencing death threats, suffering public media smear campaigns and fighting RICO laws slapped against labor unions or labor leaders is simply a normal day in the movement. We are used to suffering legal and extra-legal repression from 'the best government that money can buy', the United States Government, a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America.

Beyond the concept of the Frankel case being related to highly placed officials in the US government, one must understand that there are some very wealthy billionaires involved in the Frankel case too. I know this from conversations from the late 1980's with Marty Frankel and it is indeed a fact that can be checked in the public records if you choose to inspect the SEC depositions relating to the Frankel Fund case from the early 1990's. In other words, some very wealthy people gave huge amounts of money to Marty Frankel. Dozens of Bourgeois journalists know this, but none have had the courage to print this in any major newspaper in the United States. Instead, we get an absurd public propaganda campaign telling the American people that Marty Frankel received some significant portion of millions of dollars raised for his hedge fund (Creative Partners), from a handful of factory workers at the Jeep plant in Toledo Ohio.

I challenge anyone to find more than four or five Jeep workers who ever gave any money to Marty Frankel. Furthermore, there is no one that I know of, from these Jeep workers, who ever gave more than ten to thirty thousand dollars to Marty Frankel. (For the record, I never gave/took any money to/from Marty Frankel. We occasionally bought each other's lunch at a delicatessen, however. Marty did give me a desk lamp which was worth about $100. That is the only thing of value Marty ever gave to me.) Somehow contributions from Jeep workers, simply do not add up to any significant portion the $3.7 million that Michael D. Sallah reported as being raised from Jeep workers (See the Toledo Blade, March 11, 2001 "Trail of Deceit Began In Toledo"). Who are the Big Money contributors, Mr. Sallah? There was no Big Money raised from Jeep workers. On the face of it, receiving millions of dollars (or any significant portion thereof) from a handful of factory workers and a few Owens Illinois executives, is absurd but a simple inspection of public records and SEC depositions (Frankel Fund case) proves it to be beyond absurdity.

Mike Sallah called me on Tuesday, May 15, 2001, how he got my phone number I do not know. He claims he got my name from the SEBA documents that Marini and Schade showed me in November 2000. Furthermore, Sallah's call to me over these SEBA documents came almost two years after Joe Kahn from the New York Times, mentioned that my name was on these SEBA documents. These SEBA documents were the leads that motivated Joe Kahn to call me for an interview. It would seem that the Blade is a little slow in their investigative journalism efforts. This May 15th phone call from Mr. Sallah is "off the record" but what Mike Sallah wrote in the Blade is not! Sallah's March 11th Blade article is very misleading for a purpose. It spares some of the wealthiest of families from public embarrassment. Knowing these simple facts, explains much about why there is a vendetta, (from the highest levels of the US government and from the highest strata of American class society), against Marty Frankel (while there is a pardon and a blissful forgiveness of Marc Rich, the attempted union buster, the racketeer who never had the RICO laws applied to his property in the USA.)

I submit that there are billionaires and government officials, not to mention a motley crew of bankers and sleepy, state insurance regulators that must be hidden and protected from public scrutiny. The game is not only to prosecute/persecute Marty Frankel as the 'Darth Vader of the Financial World', but also to protect the privacy, hide the idiocy and recover the property of these "Village People." It remains to be seen if Marty Frankel will ever really get his "day in court" or not.

SECTION TITLE: "Go After Everybody!"
DATE: Sunday, April 29, 2001
PLACE: Studios of WBGU college radio, Bowling Green, Ohio

Soon after Marty Frankel was returned to the United States from Germany, the news media reported that Marty, through his lawyer Jerry Donovan, complained that his prison conditions were inhumane. Almost immediately, a short but less-that-sweet letter appeared in the Toledo Blade, Reader's Forum. It was entitled: "Aw, Poor Marty!" The letter asked, in effect, how are we, as ordinary hard-working people supposed to care about a wealthy con-man who lived in lavish luxury and is now suffering for his crimes (even though he has had no trial to establish any guilt or innocence over any criminal indictments)? How can we relate to a wealthy man who had it so good while most of us have it so rough? That is the simplistic media formulation that we, as casual consumers of the Frankel story, are supposed to believe as the total picture. But the facts, the blatant and cold facts speak of a different reality. The media smear campaign is actually designed to protect (and reimburse) the established wealthy classes while persecuting some hard-working and honest people who had no relationship to Marty Frankel's business affairs. People, innocent people, are being swept up in the media and government witch-hunt for credible scapegoats and for any free money that can be appropriated as booty for the "Village People." My family, and I for example, seem to be designated as acceptable collateral scapegoats in the Frankel persecution campaign. What are we accused of? As of this writing I know of no formal charges but there is more to tell.

Before we go there, let's allow Marty to explain in his own words how the US Government has carried out their policy of 'Go after everybody!'. In this next transcript from Call #13, Saturday, April 7, 2001, Marty describes how the G-men crushed a simple, (although admittedly less-than-honest), man who once worked for him. At the beginning of the transcript, Marty and the author discuss, Mr. M. H. "Reese" Norris, the author's attorney at the time of this writing. Todd Bennet, who had no association with Marty Frankel's business affairs, a man who did odd jobs, such as shoveling the snow at Marty's house, now sits in prison, convicted of 'lying' to the Grand Inquisitors of the New American Police State. What is the official story about Todd Bennet? What does the government say that Todd Bennet did? Poor Mr. Bennet 'lied' about the location of some automobiles that ostensibly belonged to Marty Frankel. Several Bourgeois journalists that I have talked to, claim that Bennet sold the vehicles but as of yet, I know of no proof nor of any printed articles (in any of their Bourgeois newspapers) about this "sad sack", Todd Bennet. The Grand Inquisitors of the New American Police State, who convicted poor Mr. Bennet, apparently needed those vehicles liquidated immediately (so that the funds could be quickly turned over to the 'Village People" ). Why not let Marty explain it for us in his own words?

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