American Conspiracy Pt. 2: The Octopus Murders

Netflix Blows it. Again.

When Danny Casolaro sold Computer Age magazine he thought the purchaser would offer him a job and keep him on. This did not happen.  He now decided to turn to journalism.  As the Netflix film American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders notes, he began to talk a lot to Bill Hamilton about the INSLAW case. By the time this happened, around the spring of 1990, things had changed in the status of that case. Judge Bason had not been reappointed and in September of 1989 a Senate report had been issued after about 18 months of inquiry.  It was commissioned by Sam Nunn of Georgia.  (Senate Staff Report, p. 14)  This investigation interviewed over 50 subjects, reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documents, and served both document and deposition subpoenas.  That report disagreed with Judge Bason. They found no proof of  DOJ conspiracy to ruin INSLAW or to steal PROMIS. (ibid, p. 15, p. 50) I could not recall any mention of this report in the current Netflix film directed by Zachary Trietz and written by Christian Hansen.

It should be noted that, as time went on, Hamilton’s accusations expanded and widened.  For instance:  he said their attorney had been dismissed from his law firm due to pressure from the DOJ. The Senate report did not agree with that conclusion. (p. 30) But when Michael Riconosciuto entered the case, the conspiratorial web literally exploded into the stratosphere.  And make no mistake, after the two reverses noted above, Hamilton bought into Riconosciuto.  So did Casolaro.

                                                      I

Riconosciuto had been a drug manufacturer and distributor for many, many years leading up to his entry into the INSLAW affair. Reportedly, Riconosciuto called Bill Hamilton in May of 1990. And he now began to interweave tales about a man named Earl Brian, the October Surprise, sales of PROMIS to foreign countries, and weapons experiments at the Cabazon Indian Reservation in southern California.  Let us examine some of these charges to see the territory Casolaro was about to enter into.

Earl Brian graduated with a degree in medicine from Duke and joined the Army Medical Corps. He left the service and went to work in public health under Governor Ronald Reagan in California. After unsuccessfully running for office he entered into the business world. He founded his own company, Biotech Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in medical technology.  He then shifted into news and data services like Financial News Network and UPI.

Riconosciuto told both Hamilton and Casolaro that in return for helping arrange Reagan’s October Surprise, Brian got the rights to sell PROMIS abroad.  As we know, the Reagan October Surprise was to make sure that the Iranian revolutionaries kept their 52 American embassy hostages in country and not surrender them in any deal with President Carter before the election of 1980.  This author has read more than one book on the subject. The late Robert Parry was probably the foremost expert on the topic in America. Parry named three major figures involved:  campaign director William Casey, vice-presidential candidate George H. W. Bush, and French intelligence chief Alexandre de Marenches.  Parry’s two supporting players were NSC employees Donald Gregg and Robert Gates.  (See, for example, Trick or Treason and Secrecy and Privilege; you will not see Brian’s name in either index.)

As for the Cabazon Indian Reservation in Indio California, it turns out that Riconosciuto was at Indio, he did work with the shadowy figure of John Philip Nichols—who the film spends much time on—and that the tribe did enter into a business venture with the huge private investigative company Wackenhut, of which a demonstration of night vision glasses was seemingly a part.  But again, there are serious problems with Riconosciuto’s story.  There was no evidence there of any activities with PROMIS software, or even PROMIS being at Cabazon, so how could he have been working on it? In fact, the Special Counsel inquiry could not find a single witness who could even corroborate that Riconsciuto had access to computer equipment while there, much less that he was modifying it for Brian. (Bua Report, pp. 54-60)

Brian denied he was at Cabazon. Yet an earlier inquiry, led by congressman Jack Brooks in the House, relied on a police report to place Brian there for the night vision demonstration on September 10, 1981.  Nicholas Bua found the report which Brooks referred to.  There was a serious problem with this rather odd report: It was not typed up until ten years after the fact, that is in 1991.  And it was dictated by Michael Riconosciuto while he was in jail on drug charges. (Bua Report, p. 62) To an objective observer it would look like Riconosciuto was backdating a pretext to counterclaim against the drug charges. Further, Brian had an alibi for the date of this demonstration. (Ibid, p. 66)

                                              II

Then there is Riconsciuto’s story about the sale of PROMIS abroad by Earl Brian after Michael devised an alleged “trap door” to the software. This modification allowed the DOJ to spy on those foreign countries who purchased it. In the film, for example, Trietz and Hansen name Canada as one of these countries.

Which is another dubious claim. The tracking software used in Canada by two agencies was developed by a company called Strategic Software Planning Corporation (SSPC), based in Massachusetts. And it was purchased from them in the mid-eighties. The program was called Project Management Integrated System.  Because of the first letters, its nickname was PROMIS.  In an interview with the company’s executive officer, he certified that the SSPC had sold it to Canada. And  his company marketed it as SSP’s PROMIS. It is not at all the same software  as INSLAW’s. (Reno Report, p. 83)

Could Trietz and Hansen really not be aware of this?

Then there is the alleged sale to Israel.  Again, this was extensively investigated twice. The version given to Israel’s Justice Department  was the public domain INSLAW PROMIS. In fact it is so noted in the transfer notes. (Reno Report, p. 75) The Israeli in receipt of the software said while he was in the USA he happened to see PROMIS in action.  But when he brought PROMIS to the Justice Ministry in Israel, they decided not to use it. They wanted to use a domestically developed program that was tailored to their needs.  In fact, the original transfer software was recovered  and it was gone over by a computer scientist.  He determined that, in fact, it was the public domain version. (ibid, pp. 78-79)

The second claim by Hamilton on the Israel issue came though Ari Ben-Menashe who had worked for Israel’s military intelligence before quitting. When interviewed by the Special Counsel, Ben Menashe said that the software he knew about called PROMIS was not the INSLAW one.  He said that this one was created by the National Security Agency  and delivered by Brian way before INSLAW was even incorporated under that name. (Bua Report, p. 76). He added that he let Hamilton think it was INSLAW’s version and that he never affirmatively asserted that the software he was referring to was INSLAW’s PROMIS. Nicholas Bua explained this apparent paradox by saying Ben-Menashe  was preparing a book at the time and this would give that publication some notoriety. (ibid, p. 78). And, in this version, it was the Israelis, not Riconosciuto, who installed the “trap door.”

When Nicholas Bua asked for some supporting documents about these allegations, Ben-Menashe claimed he has them in safekeeping with a book publisher in Australia. Yet he failed to turn over any of these alleged documents to Bua. Even though the book was published a year before the Bua Report was released. (Bua Report, p. 78). Whatever one thinks of Ben-Menashe, he always insisted that he had no knowledge or information of distribution of PROMIS by the DOJ.

                                             III

In fact, Hamilton actually tried to say the FBI stole PROMIS.  Again, a computer scientist was brought it.  She tested both the Bureau’s FOIMS system against PROMIS.  They were not the same software at all. Then, a second computer scientist was brought in. He came to the same conclusion. (Reno Report, pp. 59-67)

So the whole wild concept that Riconsociuto was selling about Brian and the October Surprise and the awarding of PROMIS for it, this is not borne out by the record of multiple investigations--or by identifiable evidence, let alone proof. And these inquiries were conducted by at least  three bodies: one by Senator Sam Nunn, one by a Special Counsel who happened to be a lifelong Democratic judge and lawyer, and one was commissioned by Attorney General Janet Reno.  The film-makers ignore all of these reports, amounting to over 500 pages of research with documentation. 

Let us make a tally and show just how questionable the program is in light of the information they decided to ignore. First, the overall dramatic concept of making Bill Hamilton and INSLAW  a Gary Cooper like Good Guy figure out of a Hollywood western, this is simply not accurate.  INSLAW was in breach of their contract with DOJ, clear and simple—and in more than one way.  I could not find that important data in the film. 

Secondly, INSLAW did not have to adjudicate their claims in Bankruptcy Court; there were other options available to them for a fuller disclosure of their case.  For example they could have gone to the Department of Transportation Board of Contract Appeals (DOTBCA), which has jurisdiction over government claims against DOJ. (Reno Report, p. 174). INSLAW did submit a claim to that court but it never pursued it, letting it languish for months, actually years, on end. It then requested to withdraw the claims; a request that was granted by DOTBCA on November 9, 1992. That dismissal was applied with prejudice. Which is, in itself, quite telling. (ibid, p. 175)

The bankruptcy court judge, George Bason made a jurisdictional error. But as we have seen with later inquiries, he was also largely wrong on the facts.  Further, there was no credible evidence for an attempted takeover of INSLAW by Hadron. And DOJ did not maneuver to have Bason not reappointed.

If one adds up all of the above evidentiary problems from Part One with the further problems I have listed in Part 2—specifically the Riconsciuto tales about the October Surprise and backdating a police report by ten years--then I think one can make the case that the film has some serious lacunae in their presentation of the facts.

In Part 3, I will address the most sensational of these: the so -called Octopus Murders.