The State May Record This Call ... Page 2

Call #1: March 11, 2001

MARTY: " . . . I mean, I gotta thank you! You saved my life."
PAVLITO: "How did I save your life, Marty?"
MARTY: "When I was in Germany, they didn't feed you. I only had bread in the morning and bread at night. For lunch, they give like a bowl of rice and maybe pour some spinach on it." . . . "If they want to be mean, they'll take that away from you. But they have a system where they have a really good commissary. You could go and buy tuna fish, you could by eggs, get a can opener, you know you could buy all sorts of stuff like fruits, bananas, everything. You know what I mean?"
PAVLITO: "Um Hmm!"
MARTY: "You know! You could make a diet. So, because you sent money in. Because of your money, that little bit of money you sent in, I could spend maybe twenty five bucks a week. Also, a rabbai also put some money in too."
PAVLITO: "That was from us. That was from me, your sister and Ayesha"

In that time period from September of 1999 to March 2001, we know of only one letter that Marty Frankel ever wrote to anybody from the UHA prison in Hamburg. He wrote a letter to a woman named Ayesha, a former employee who also found a way to write to him in Hamburg. In that letter, Marty urged Ayesha to contact me, an old friend. Ayesha called Marty's family in Toledo and through Marty's sister (who knew me), Ayesha and I linked up.

Together we coordinated our actions to help Marty Frankel stand up to the worst crisis of his life. We simply did not believe the smear campaign against Marty. We knew the man and we were not afraid to dispute the lies, distortions and propaganda that were generally passed off as news. Also, Ayesha was helpful to me in understanding my eight-year blind spot when Marty Frankel had disappeared, when he and I were out of contact with each other. Marty chose to drop me from his life.
Ayesha knew all the cast of characters from the Greenwich Connecticut episode of Marty's life. I knew none of them because I last saw/talked-to Marty in 1991 and it was now 1999. It was Ayesha who told me that Marty's Russian girlfriend, Oksana, had been in contact with the IRS. According to Ayesha, Oksana's betrayal of Marty Frankel began the process of collapse of his setup in Greenwich Connecticut. Ayesha gave me a phone list for all of Marty's former employees. I called all the numbers, I even left a message in Russian at Oksana's voice mail service ( __, _ ____ ____ ___ ________ __-_______! Translation: Yes, I also know how to speak Russian). From this list of Marty's former employees that I obtained from Ayesha, I called as many people as I could reach. None of Marty's former Greenwich employees offered to help their old boss. None would contribute any money to help Marty survive in prison. Oksana never returned my call either.

Through the clergymen, the Christian and Jewish chaplains at UHA, Marty's sister established an unofficial line of communication that lasted from September 1999 until about June 2000. Then, for some reason, that line of communication was broken. So from about June 2000 until February 2001, none of Marty's family or friends knew of his condition. Not even Marty's German lawyers would return any calls to Marty's sister about his health, mental state nor general well being. I continued writing letters but never even knew if Marty was receiving them. We feared the worst and left messages with the German attorneys to that effect. The only response from the attorney's was that Marty would be returned to the United States soon and that there was no need to worry. We heard that message for eight months, nothing else.

Finally I decided to take matters into my own hands since Marty's sister had been unable to break the communication blockade. I contacted a friend of mine in Frankfurt, a union activist with connections all over Germany. I asked him to place me in contact with anyone who lived in Hamburg Germany. He did so, and I wrote an e-mail letter to this young man, a complete stranger, asking for his help, asking for him to attempt a visit with Marty Frankel. My e-mail was sent on February 19, 2001
The subject line of my e-mail was: Betreff: Ein amerikanisher Arbeiter bittet um Ihre Hilfe. ( Translation: An American worker asks for your help. )

To my amazement this young German man, who we shall call "Gerhard", quickly responded by February 21, 2001. He said that he had heard of me (from my political or trade union work, no doubt) and that he would only be too happy to help me get in contact with my American friend in the German UHA prison in Hamburg. Even better, this young man, Gerhard, obtained an attorney who also offered to make sure that the German authorities would not deny them a visit to Marty Frankel. When Gerhard and his attorney (name unknown at this time) went to UHA, the prison authorities refused to allow them to start the paperwork for a visit. Gerhard and his attorney were at UHA on February 27 during the day. The authorities at UHA claimed that Mr. Martin Frankel was not even in UHA and thus Gerhard and his attorney could not visit a man who was not in their prison facility.
Then, to my amazement, on February 28th, I received an e-mail message from Gerhard in which he explained that he had seen a news report on Hamburg television. This news report said that Marty Frankel had made a Fluchtversuch, an escape attempt from the UHA prison. I immediately called Marty's sister and she informed me that the news of this so-called "escape attempt" on the local TV in Toledo, Ohio. The news reports in Toledo said that Marty Frankel, with the help of an inmate accomplice, had tried to cut through a prison bar with a piece of wire. Knowing Marty as I do, I found this whole concept of an escape attempt as totally unbelievable and certainly false.

I wrote back to Gerhard on February 28th, the same night that the Fluchtversuch was reported on Hamburg TV. It is interesting to note that Hamburg TV never broadcast any video images of Frankel trying to cut through his bars. No TV stations in Hamburg have such a video in their possession.

The subject line of my e-mail was: Betreff: Sie liegen zu Ihnen !
(Translation: They are lying to you!)

Gerhard:
Es ist undenkbar, daß Marty einen Fluchtversuch machen würde .
( Translation: It is unthinkable that Marty would make an escape attempt.)

My suspicions were to be completely confirmed when Marty Frankel was returned to the United States. In Call #3, on March 17th, Marty would flatly deny that he ever made any attempt to escape from UHA in Hamburg, Germany. Yet the Toledo Blade dutifully reported the propaganda details of this fictional escape attempt in their March 1st, 2001 issue of their paper.

The Blade article, March 1, 2001, entitled, "Frankel fails in escape try, is relocated" said:

"Frankel, 46, attempted to cut through the bars of his cell Tuesday evening
(February 27th) using a piece of wire with the help of a fellow inmate, but police saw the attempt on a security camera and sounded the alarm. He was taken to another prison."

Let's be very different, very unique, as journalistic outlets go, and let's allow the accused man speak in his own defense. Here are some excerpts, in transcript form, from Marty's Call #3 that he placed to me on March 17, 2001.

Call #3, March 17, 2001

PAVLITO: "We're concerned about the man who supposedly helped you try to escape in Germany and there's some European journalists who want to know his name so that they can find out if he is being treated fairly or if he's being abused. Can you . . ."
MARTY: "It's all bullshit. The story is bullshit. What have you read about that?"
PAVLITO: "They said that you tried to escape. They have videotape of you trying to escape . . "
MARTY: "It's not true!"
PAVLITO: "It's not true? You never tried to escape?"
MARTY: "No, but the point is that the Germans can do anything. They're the really super high-tech people. Even my lawyer, my lawyer said that he wanted to get all the evidence and test it. He wanted to fight it. Then, the, the, I have two lawyers, and the lady lawyer said that they could fake videotape too."
PAVLITO: "But Marty, the reason I am saying this is, the reason you're being treated so badly is because they say that you are an escape risk, you're a suicide risk."
MARTY: "But that's all . . See here's the thing. I think that everybody here (at Walker RSMU) knows that that's not true. The suicide thing, they dealt with really quickly, they know that's not true. The Germans! Here's what happened. Someone said those things, basically three times. When I first arrived there (UHA in Hamburg Germany)."
PAVLITO: "Uh Huh!"
MARTY: "In the first two days, there, within the first day, well basically four times. In the first two days there, they said the same thing. They said he's a suicide risk and he's an 'escape guy' ."
PAVLITO: "Uh huh!"
MARTY: "But under their own system, they couldn't do anything because it wasn't true. If it were true they would do a whole lot of stuff to you. I never spent any time in any psychiatric facility. I never was disciplined in any way for any sort of escape
attempt. The Germans played a game with me."
PAVLITO: "OK"
MARTY: "I'm an American Jew. Read a book called The Odessa File."
PAVLITO: "OK"
MARTY: "Even in the 1970's the Nazis controlled the German, the Hamburg Police
Department."
PAVLITO: "You should tell," (Marty interrupts) "Listen! Listen! We have limited time. Question: Tell your lawyer to tell the press that there was no 'escape attempt'. They say that you took a piece of wire and that you were trying to saw a bar, right in front of a video camera"
MARTY: (laughing)
PAVLITO: "True or false?"
MARTY: "No, it's insane!"
PAVLITO "It's insane?"
MARTY: "Where have you read this?"
PAVLITO: "It's in the Blade. It's in the New York Times. It's all over! They are running a smear campaign on you, Marty, and I want to help sink the propaganda!"
(Other topics were discussed here but do not relate to the phony escape attempt and we delete them from this transcript at this time.)
PAVLITO: "Now, you did not try to escape from prison, the Untersuchungshaftanstalt?"
MARTY "No. Here's what happened. When they . . . from the very beginning they tried to do this, they tried to pin this on me. People came to me who were there and they said that they are going to try to make you go crazy. And I was two times, brought before psychiatrists or psychologists with no warning at all. The psychiatrists, this is all a game, the guards, these are Nazis, real Nazis! OK? They would play a game and I would talk to them, OK and that would be the end of it. The escape stuff, I had thirty, forty people come up to me in that prison, singing the same old tune. We're gonna do this, give us millions of dollars or give us this, thirty-five thousand or give us sixty-five thousand and we're going to get you out. And this was a non-stop thing. In the end it became almost like a joke with these people. I'd sit there politely, half of them merely wanted to rip me off, and the other half worked for the police. So they'd come in and say all of these crazy things while they had a thing with a belt, with a, with a thing on the end. I could tell you so many of the stories that they say. And I go, 'No, go away.' And I'd laugh. Finally at the end I just started laughing and joking. It was just a game."
PAVLITO: "But Marty, wait a minute. Listen! Time is short."
MARTY: "They pulled it on me at the very end. What they did to me at the very end, and my lawyers agree with me on this, everybody would if you . . . They hurt me probably more here, than they could there".
PAVLITO: "I know but I'm telling you to tell your lawyer to blow this 'escape attempt' wide open or you won't get new conditions. That is a fact. Now . . "
MARTY "Wait, wait! Time out. Where have you read that?"
PAVLITO: "This has been in the New York Times, the Greenwich Time, the Blade. There's a Blade story also that says that you got $3.7 million dollars from a handful of Jeep workers and a couple Owens Illinois people. And I don't know . . "
MARTY: "What?"
PAVLITO "Yes! They said that you got . . ."
MARTY: "And I still have this money somewhere?"
PAVLITO: "No, no. That, this is what you used to start buying insurance companies. That's what it, the Blade, this is by a guy, uh, named Sallah from the Toledo Blade. Now my . . ."
MARTY: "We had a hedge-fund."
PAVLITO: "Now, let me just. ."
MARTY: "Whatever, I don't know."
PAVLITO: "The point I am trying to make is that I want to make you aware of the propaganda and I want to help you sink it so that you can get some better conditions."
MARTY: "You know what the funny thing is? All the people in Toledo, they all made money. Not one, quote, little-person got hurt at all by anything I ever did. Except nobody cares about that."
PAVLITO: "It is important. It is important. That's a good thing to say."
MARTY: "You don't understand, it doesn't matter. It's almost like when you do something . . it doesn't matter. What I did was, I made many mistakes."

The curious thing about my suggestion that Marty's lawyer, Jeremiah "Jerry" Donovan should tell the press that there was no escape attempt, had actually already been done. The Bourgeois press simply refused to publicize the fact that Marty Frankel denied that he ever tried to escape from any prison anywhere. Marty Frankel, the man who is assumed to be guilty until proven innocent, could simply be convicted of any crime at any time by simply reporting the accusation in the press. No proof or evidence of any crime or infraction needed to be offered or even manufactured. The news media just knew that Marty was guilty of anything that any authority figures, either in Germany or anywhere else, said he was guilty of. Thus, by scrutinizing closely what they have done to Marty Frankel, we can see the awesome power of the Bourgeois press to prosecute a "guilt by accusation" campaign against anyone, from Wen Ho Lee, to you and me.

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