American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders
Part 1: How Netflix Blew it. Again
American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders Part 1
Netlfix has hit a home run ratings wise with its production--by Christian Hansen as writer, and Zachary Trietz as director--about the mysterious death of Danny Casolaro. They have titled the four part series American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders, which, as we shall see, is a questionable rubric.
The film has a headlong pace to it, and very soon we encounter the key event in the series. The discovery of the dead body of freelance journalist Danny Casolaro in a hotel room in Martinsburg, West Virginia. That was on August 10. 1991. His body was in the bathtub and the local coroner Sandra Brining determined there were 8 slashes on his left wrist and four on the right wrist. (Review of Special Counsel Nicholas Bua’s Report on Inslaw, dated September 7, 1994, hereafter referred to as Reno Report, p. 117). There were no apparent signs of struggle and no forced entry. None of the fixtures were broken or knocked over. (Reno Report, p. 114). There was no sign that anyone had gone through Danny’s belongings. Hair and fibre evidence seemed to indicate that no one but Danny was in the room. On the coffee table, there were five other blades of the same brand. (ibid, p. 115)
Brining, the local coroner, was sure Danny had taken his own life. Therefore the Martinsburg Police asked the Fairfax County police in Virginia—where Casolaro lived-- to notify next of kin at 3. 30 PM, before the embalming took place. But this assignment was mishandled in Virginia, and by 5 pm when the embalming started, there was no next of kin notified yet. (Reno Report, p. 120). But when they were notified they did demand a formal autopsy. The why was obvious.
II
Danny Casolaro had spent a bit over a year investigating what was then called the INSLAW Case. He had gone from an entrepreneur in computer magazines to becoming an ingenue investigative reporter. He could not have picked a worse topic to investigate than INSLAW. And the Trietz/Hansen film does not adequately explain why the case began as a whirlpool and turned into a maelstrom. One which I doubt any solo journalist could have deciphered and elucidated in an understandable way. Casolaro certainly could not. And the film -makers fall into the same trap that Danny did. Which guarantees that the viewer will not have a clear understanding of his failure. After reading nearly 500 pages of documents, I still do not understand it in all its manifold complexities. But I understand it more than Trietz/Hansen do and, unlike them, I have no agenda to apply..
Right at the start, the documentary presents the Bill Hamilton/INSLAW side of the story. Hamilton owned and ran INSLAW, which was a rather small, young company which was hired by Edwin Meese’s Justice Department. And so the film presents us with a kind of Hollywood Western scenario: INSLAW/Good Guys/White Hats –as opposed to Department of Justice/Bad Guys/Black Hats. And here lies a serious problem for the film, which Trietz and Hansen do not explain well. (Although they try and salvage the misplaced sympathy late in the film.)
They begin the contest between the two opposing forces saying that INSLAW had been hired to create a relational database to track cases electronically for the DOJ through a software called PROMIS. But like most renditions of the story which place this same spin on it, the film says that the DOJ stopped paying for it, and this drove INSLAW into bankruptcy court. Unfortunately, this is only half the story. And it’s the other half, which Treitz/Hansen leave out, that more fully explains what happened--but that would take the White Hat off of INSLAW.
As Special Counsel Nicholas Bua elucidates in his 267 page report, there were genuine disputes about the contract. These involved advance payments, the delivery of PROMIS software to the Department of Justice (DOJ), and if INSLAW used government money to develop an enhanced version of PROMIS. I could not locate these contractual disputes in the film. But they are crucial to understanding how the problems started and how it ended up as it did: in rather wild, bizarre accusations by INSLAW, which included the DOJ killing Casolaro. (See INSLAW addendum of 2/14/94, rebuttal to Bua Report). And INSLAW chose to go to bankruptcy court when there were other options available that would have allowed a fuller disclosure and adjudication of their claims. (Reno Report, pp. 175-81)
III
To begin with, Judge Nicholas Bua and his five assistants determined that one of the breaches in the contract was around the advanced payment arrangement. This had been agreed to in a letter dated February 19, 1982. (Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua’s Report of March 1993, p. 127; hereafter referred to as Bua Report) The Special Counsel determined that INSLAW was the only contract that DOJ had based on this arrangement. But the only way one could qualify for advance payments was if the company had no other source of income. But such was not the case because within two months of this letter INSLAW had applied for a line of credit. Six months after that INSLAW admitted it had violated the advance payment agreement. (ibid). It was for this reason that the DOJ terminated that arrangement.
DOJ also now requested a copy of PROMIS, instead of the time sharing arrangement over computers that they had with INSLAW. (Bua Report, p. 129). They feared for the future of the company and wanted a copy of the program to protect their interests in it. The testimony of auditor Robert Whitley proves this was a concern. (ibid, p. 132) Not only had they contracted out for millions, but INSLAW had developed the first version of PROMIS on a legal aid grant. Therefore that should have been in the public domain since the federal government had paid for it. The only copy they requested was the Pilot Project version with five enhancements. Which they were entitled to. (Bua Report, p. 133)
This now created a second problem for the company. INSLAW said they did not have one available. (Bua Report, p. 134). Bua concluded that DOJ’s demand was made for legitimate reasons. (Ibid, p. 136). And this ended up being a point of dispute between Bua and the bankruptcy judge George Bason. Because this is why INSLAW was using what they considered their proprietary version that was fully enhanced on the time share, telecommunications basis.
Because of all of this conflict INSLAW agreed to a modification of their original agreement. It was called Modification 12. The company would identify the enhancements made at private expense and DOJ would either request INSLAW to remove the enhancement or negotiate about including it. (Bua Report, p. 136) Pending resolution, DOJ would not distribute PROMIS beyond the offices covered by the contract. This led to a third problem: INSLAW kept such poor records that they could not definitely prove that they had created the fully enhanced proprietary version without government funding. (Ibid, pp. 139-40)
To ignore all of these disputes central to the legal proceedings is to, I think, distort what really happened. Yet, this is how Bill Hamilton put the story out there and, as we shall see, there will be much more. What I do not comprehend is why Trietz and Hansen felt they had to trace his footsteps.
IV
Without describing these disputes, thereby leaving the audience in the dark, the film jumps to the Bankruptcy Court proceedings under Bason, his later removal, and alleged attempts by a company named Hadron to take over INSLAW. I found this part of the film as unsatisfactory as the pretty much non-existent section on the contractual disputes.
There were three witnesses against reappointing Bason who appeared before a panel. Their chief complaint was that Bason was a poor administrator and too sympathetic to the debtor side of disputes. (Bua Report, pp. 166-68). Although they made a failed motion to have him recused, the DOJ did not appear as witnesses, and in fact they thought Bason would be reappointed. There were a total of 12 candidates for the position and they had to make it through two panels, the Merit Selection Panel and the Judicial Council. (Reno Report, pp. 99-100) Bason made the final cut of three candidates.
As per the alleged takeover attempt by Hadron, again this started with Hamilton. Yet every witness that was called on this denied that Hadron ever contemplated any such dealing. And every move Hamilton described, like a trip to New York to gain funding for it, turned out to be wrong. (Reno Report, p. 45) The other company Hamilton accused of takeover designs , 53rd Street Ventures, was also a false lead. And the witness Hamilton named as his source in that regard, again denied that he had ever talked to any high Reagan officials in order to obtain PROMIS. In fact he said that the allegations made about him were fabrications. (Reno Report, p. 48)
Bason’s 6.8 million dollar award to INSLAW was overturned on jurisdictional grounds for violating the Automatic Stay provisions of the bankruptcy code. So when the film asks “Why?” about these matters, the proper reply would be, “About what?”
But with these issues swept under the rug, the film now gets into the truly wild part of the story, via Michael Riconosciuto and Ari Ben-Menashe.