The State May Record This Call ... Page 3

SECTION TITLE: "The State may record this call, and may have recorded your telephone number."
DATE: Sunday, March 11, 2001, 5:30 PM
PLACE: My telephone in my home.

One day before Marty Frankel was formally charged in an arraignment hearing, he called me on the telephone. Marty's brother went to Connecticut to see Marty on March 10, 2001 just two days before this arraignment hearing. In a conversation between the two brothers, my name came up and it was at that time that Marty decided that it was time to call me, his old friend. On Sunday, March 11th, just as I was about to run out to meet some friends for dinner, Marty called.

I picked up the phone and heard these pre-recorded words.

"You have an out of state collect call from . . " the canned, yet soothing, MCI male voice stated in mock informality. Then I heard Marty's voice for the first time in almost ten years. He simply stated his name "Marty Frankel" Almost immediately, the recorded male voice rejoined: " . . .who is an inmate at a correctional facility. The State may record this call and may have recorded your telephone number", the canned male voice stated again, "Press '5' now to accept charges, or simply hang up to deny charges." Then there was a long litany of charges, surcharges and taxes that the male voice listed. Finally I heard the words "Your call is being connected. Thank you for using MCI."

After about nine letters to Marty Frankel in Germany, after one failed 'proxy visit' by Gerhard and his attorney, I was once again in direct contact with Marty Frankel, even if Marty and I had to guard our words while being monitored by that frightening institution that is called "the State".

In his first call to me, Marty described the horrible prison conditions that he endured at the Northern Correction Facility. In "Northern", when he first arrived in the USA, he was stripped of his clothing, denied his eyeglasses and put into a Plexiglas cell for observation like a lab animal (officials at Northern Correctional Institute claim that there is no Plexiglas cell in their prison). When one of the prison nurses came to the cell, Marty said that he complained that he was freezing, with no clothes and that he could not see without his eyeglasses. According to Marty, the nurse simply responded: "Prison is supposed to be HELL"(Call #17, April 7, 2001). Why was Marty treated like "Hanibal Lechter" (this is the Hollywood image that Marty's attorney, Jerry Donovan, conjured up and spouted to the press on the following day, March 12, 2001) ?? It's very simple. The US Marshals (who decide Marty's prison status and conditions) said that Marty Frankel was a suicide risk. So, everyone knows that suicidal people should be stripped naked, put in a freezing Plexiglas cell and denied the use of their eyeglasses. Yup, that's standard treatment for suicidal patients. That is, of course, if you are living in the Middle Ages and hope to exorcise some demons or something.

The simple fact is that Marty Frankel was being tortured. The rationale for this torture was to

(1) force him to reveal where some fictional pile of money was and

(2) to force him to capitulate to some draconian plea-bargain deal so that the prosecuting attorneys would not have to take Marty to a public trial (where he could call certain prominent witnesses who do not wish to be publicly associated with Marty's case) Some very rich people are very nervous about the idea that Marty Frankel will mention their names.

In Marty's very first call to me, he described the prison conditions at the Walker Reception Center, Special Management Unit. The shadow of the bogus 'escape attempt' in Hamburg still hovered over him and he was still treated as if he were some sort of high security escape risk. Marty was denied books. No one could send him books, newspapers or magazines. He was kept in isolation, locked up for 23 out of 24 hours per day. The whole concept of a formerly wealthy man falling so far into the pit of the correctional system, intrigued me, as if I were privy to a modern-day version of Dante's Inferno, a fantastical journey of a man who fell from Heaven into the bowels of Hell. The contrast, the stark reality of the conditions mixed with the residual illusions of an affluent man who never dreamt that the Bourgeois society he lived in could conceal such a dark side of depravity, peaked my political curiosity and stirred the muse of literary allusions within me. Beyond all that, I knew this man. He was a friend, and in my mind, an essentially good person.

Call #1, March 11, 2001

MARTY: "They're doing a good job of isolating me. They've got me in 'protective custody segregation' , which is like super isolation. This is one, this is one step down from SuperMax (prison conditions). I'm in a Maximum Security prison, this is Max. I'm serious, this is Max, right here, but not SuperMax."
PAVLITO: "Yeah"
MARTY: "That's where I was before (Marty was SuperMax at Northern Correctional Facility). This is the closet that you're gonna get to SuperMax, they tell me here."
PAVLITO: "Marty, Marty can you . . ."
MARTY: "It's like a miniature, well I shouldn't even say it, but I am serious. You have more freedom on Death Row, do you realize that? You have more freedom on Death Row that you do here."
PAVLITO: "Wow."
MARTY: "Twenty-three hours a day locked in. Twenty-four hours a day on Saturday. Can you believe this?"
PAVLITO: "I believe it."
MARTY: "Can you imagine sitting in cell, a little cell, which is like, I don't know, like five foot by eight feet. . . ."
PAVLITO: (interrupting) "Hey Marty! Marty, can I ask you a question?"
MARTY: (continuing his thoughts) " . . . and having nothing to read? Can you imagine that?"
PAVLITO: "Yeah, can I ask you a question? Did you receive about five or six letters from me when you were in Germany?"
MARTY: "I got all your letters."
PAVLITO: "You got all of them!"
MARTY: "Sorry that I didn't write back. I guess, I just, my head just wasn't into it. I should have written."
PAVLITO: "Because, well, I thought maybe you weren't getting . . ."
MARTY: "I got your letters. I really appreciated it. I . ., you know,. . .I appreciate everything you did. I was told by the Pastor (Rev. Aehim Strehcke) that Amy (Marty's sister) told people not to send mail to me."
PAVLITO: "That's not true!"
MARTY: "I was told by the Pastor that he begged Amy for money and Amy wouldn't send it."
PAVLITO: "That's not true either."
MARTY: "So, it's just, you gotta understand. All of these people are part of like a system."
PAVLITO: "I know it."
MARTY "Some of the people that say they're being nice . . ."
PAVLITO: "Uh huh!"
MARTY: " . . . are bastards. My brother said (paraphrasing his brother's words in a mocking tone of voice) 'Oh they can't all be mean. They can't all be sadistic. Oh you gotta have some nice people' (returning to his normal speaking voice) He doesn't get it. I mean, you know. You understand, from the political standpoint."
PAVLITO: "Yes I do."
MARTY: "You know what the game is."
PAVLITO: "I do know."
MARTY: "When you're in a place like this you have no rights. If they give you something, the only reason they give it to you, cause if they take it away from you then all the other prisoners . . ." (Marty is interrupted by a Beeping Sound)
MCI VOICE: BEEP BEEP "Your call will be terminated in two minutes."
MARTY: "What? Why?"
PAVLITO: "I don't know Marty. But . . ."
MARTY: "Why will my call be terminated in two minutes?"
PAVLITO: "I don't know, they run out of tape, I guess."

During this time, I had kept in communication with Gerhard in Hamburg, Germany. He was most interested in what was happening with Marty. These are subject lines from some of my e-mails to Gerhard.

March 5, 2001, 12:03 AM subject line: Betreff: Unmenschlich Gefängniszustände
(Translation: Inhuman prison conditions)

I was following news reports of Marty's experiences in Northern Correctional Institute where he was denied warm clothes, denied his eyeglasses and kept in conditions designed for "Hanibal Lechter".

March 11, 2001, 12:59 PM, subject line: Betreff: Noch kein Kontakt mit Marty
(Translation: Still no contact with Marty)

It was later, on that day, Sunday, March 11th at around 5:30 PM that Marty called me. It was the first time I talked to him in about ten years. Three days later, I wrote to Gerhard giving him the good news.

March 14, 2001, 9:37 AM, subject line: Betreff: Marty rief mich vom Gefängnis an
(Translation: Marty called me from prison)

Sometime in the first week of May, Marty Frankel was moved out of Maximum Security, Protective Custody Segregation. As of this writing, (May 20, 2001) he is an inmate in General Population at the Walker RSMU facility in Suffield Connecticut.

SECTION TITLE: "Rich, RICO and Frankel is not a law firm"
DATE: Sunday, April 1, 2001 and Saturday, April 7, 2001
PLACE: My telephone in my home.

On the surface, the case against Marty Frankel appears to be of a criminal nature alone. However, the massive media smear campaign against Marty, combined with the pressure and abuse of the SuperMax and Maximum Security prison conditions (justified by a bogus 'escape attempt' in Hamburg) gives clue to the political nature of the vendetta campaign against Marty Frankel. One only needs to ask how Marc Rich, also a so-called 'fugitive financier', would have been treated if he had been captured and returned to the United States as a prisoner. Would Marc Rich have been placed in SuperMax prison conditions? Would Marc Rich have been smeared in the press? In fact, has Marc Rich ever been smeared in the press even when he was still a fugitive-at-large? To gain a full understanding of political nature of the case against Marty Frankel, one has to take a look at the so-called Federal RICO Laws, the Racketeering In Corrupt Organizations Laws. These are very curious laws that allow the government to persecute anyone that they so chose based solely upon an accusation. The application of RICO makes it possible to deny the accused person any funds for legal representation, (by simply making the charge that the RICO statutes apply). But what exactly are the RICO statutes? How are they used, or how have they been used in the past? First let's see how these laws are being used against Marty Frankel and then we take a look at how Marc Rich used the RICO laws against the United Steel Workers of America.

On Sunday April 1, 2001, Marty Frankel called me and we discussed the Big Auction of Marty Frankel's fleet of luxury cars and the seizure, by the US government, of a large retainer for legal fees that he sent to the attorney of his choice. On Monday April 2, 2001, Willow Bay, a TV anchorperson on CNN, stated that: "The IRS is racing ahead of the legal system by displaying Martin Frankel's fleet of cars for auction, next Thursday (April 5, 2001 in Edison New Jersey)".

Call #12, Sunday, April 1, 2001

PAVLITO: ". . . also, do you know about this big auction on Thursday?"
MARTY: "Yeah, Yeah. Everybody has TV's here but me so they were all telling me about it. Yeah, they're selling a bunch of cars or something."
PAVLITO: "Yeah, they're gonna get six-hundred grand ($600,000.00) for, like twenty-one vehicles and motorcycles or something. And . . ."
MARTY: "That's all?"
PAVLITO: "Yeah, that's what I mean, somebody is making out like a . . . "
MARTY: " . . . like a bandit!"
PAVLITO: "That's right. Somebody is making out like a fat rat, aren't they?"
MARTY: "Any four of those cars costs six-hundred grand."
PALITO: "I know. Four of 'em. That's right, very good. See I didn't do all the math but I knew that something was not right. I am just real happy that you're free to call and I have been asking people why can't I hear from Marty and I thought they took away your privileges."
MARTY: "No, no, no. They didn't. What they did was, they locked everybody in for like days, though. They have these 'lock-downs' where they run for like, I dunno, three or four days, or whatever."
PAVLITO: "Uh Hmm."
MARTY: "And then they just lock everybody in their cells and they don't let anybody out for four days and they don't let anybody out, at all. Twenty-four hours a day. They have a little slot in the thing and they shove the food in. It's insane."
(The next segment of the conversation related to the bureaucratic details about putting the author on Marty's official visitor list so that money could be sent to Marty Frankel at Walker RSMU)
PAVLITO: "I got Treasury agents crawling all over my life right now."
(in this section, the author describes his experiences with IRS agents, Treasury agents, the FBI, lawyers and Federal Prosecutor Califano which will be expounded upon later)
MARTY: "The fact that they're still on you. It's a little depressing, in that, it's bad. It's, it's more of the same and I'm sorry for you. Ahhh! That's life with these people. I should have figured it."
PAVLITO: "Yeah."
MARTY: "You gotta under . . you gotta figure. I shouldn't say 'depressed'. I'm not depressed if they're listening in. It's 'disconcerting'. What it is, is, the last time I spoke to my attorney, he said that they still think that I have some money 'hidden somewhere.' So, what it is, is, and I don't know who said what. And you know what I thought later? I thought somebody was trying to frame me."
PAVLITO: "Uh hmm!"
MARTY: "Cause believe me, you gotta believe me on this one. I ain't got no money anywhere."
PAVLITO: "Oh, I believe you, Marty."
MARTY: "I wish I f+++ing did."
PAVLITO: "But you know what? After Thursday, you're gonna have some money. Six-hundred grand out of all of those vehicles."
MARTY: "That's not my money, that's their money."
PAVLITO: "No, it's yours because you haven't been convicted of anything, Marty."
MARTY: "Let me tell ya the way it works."
PAVLITO: "OK"
MARTY: "This is the United States of America. Everything that you always said was right."
PAVLITO "Yeah?"
MARTY: "And everything that I always said was wrong."
PAVLITO: "OK."
MARTY: "I know that now, OK?"
PAVLITO: "OK."
MARTY: "Everything that they taught me in Political Science school, at the University, is bullshit and was a lie. And everything you always said was right."
PAVLITO: "Huh, well, I'm on the scoreboard, right?"
MARTY: "And everybody in here knows it. You are not innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty, when they say you are guilty, you're guilty."
PAVLITO: "I know, but . ."
MARTY: "Maybe one out of a thousand people ever walks out of here. I have been accused, quote-unquote, of a, of being some 'super-master-mind' of some huge financial, like, 'crime-worse-than-murder'. In their eyes. I'm serious. If I had killed someone, well yeah, if I had killed somebody, I never would have been extradited (from Germany)."
PAVLITO: "Uh huh!"
MARTY: "Do you realize that? I wouldn't even be here. But even if you try attempted murder they don't even try to do to you what they're doing to me. No, you're not innocent until proven guilty."
(the author and Marty Frankel debate and discuss the author's idea to begin a campaign to go after the Big Auction money using lawyers and a publicity campaign.)
MARTY: "The laws are set up in a case, like a financial thing, where they can freeze any money. They can take anybody's money. Before, during or . . ."
PAVLITO: "They gotta let you have some money for the lawyer of your choice."
MARTY: "No, no actually you think they do, but they don't. They started this kind of war, I think it was like a war against drugs. They did it so that whenever the lawyers would get money from their clients, they'd charge the clients with 'Racketeering'. I think that's one of the charges, I know it's one of the charges they charged me with. It means like, the money, they can take it. When I went to Europe . . . right before that, I wired six- hundred grand or something to one attorney. And they (the government) took it."

Later in that call Marty said, "The last thing they would ever do is let me have a penny."

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