Corruption

J. Edgar Hoover and the Framing of the Omaha Two Sticky

Dec. 28, 2011


Ed Poindexter	Mondo we Langa

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, the leaders of the Omaha chapter of the Black Panther Party in the early 1970s, were framed for the murder of Omaha Police Officer Larry Minard as part of J. Edgar Hoover’s clandestine, illegal counterintelligence operation known as COINTELPRO that targeted Black Panther Party leaders all over the United States. Although neither man had any connection to the murder of the young officer, both remain imprisoned for life.

by Michael Richardson

The murder of Omaha, Nebraska policeman Larry Minard over 40 years ago and the COINTELPRO-inspired investigation that followed landed two Black Panther leaders – Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa – in prison for life. The scapegoats came to be known as the “Omaha Two.” In order to pin the police officer’s murder on the two leaders of Omaha’s Black Panther Party, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover gave a secret order to withhold a crime laboratory report on the identity of the anonymous caller that lured the 29-year-old policeman to his death.

Hoover directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to his death in 1972. He also directed a secret, illegal, counterintelligence operation within the FBI from 1956 to 1971, codenamed COINTELPRO that targeted radical groups such as the Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society, and the American Indian Movement. COINTELPRO’s stated aim was to destabilize these groups by either murdering their leaders or getting them convicted of felonies. (COINTELPRO is an acronym for Counterintelligence Program.)

The Suit Against Pope Benedict in the Pedophile Priest Scandal Sticky

May 14, 2010 Updated Sept. 19, 2011 and Feb.14, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

As the scandal over pedophile priests rocks Roman Catholic dioceses around the globe, a lawsuit filed April 10, 2010 in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee names Pope Benedict XVI as a defendant. And with good cause.

By Don Fulsom

Update: Pope Benedict XVI's startling decision to resign at the end of February 2013 may put him at even greater risk of prosecution. Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson notes that, in retirement, Benedict's absolute immunity from legal action as a head of state vanishes. "There are many victims of priests permitted by (then) Cardinal Ratzinger to stay in holy orders after their propensity to molest was known, and they would like to sue the ex-Pope for damages for negligence," Robertson writes in the British newspaper The Independent.

"If he steps outside the Vatican," Robertson adds, "a court may rule that (the victims) have a case." The legal expert contends Benedict's "command responsibility" goes back to 1981 – when, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he took over the Vatican body that punishes errant priests.

Another major critic of Benedict – the first pope to quit the papacy in nearly 600 years – describes the outgoing pontiff's record on sex abuse as "terrible." David Clohessy, executive director of the 12,000-member Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests, tells The Guardian: “He knows more about clergy sex crimes and cover-ups than anyone else in the Church, yet he has done precious little to protect children.”

For God’s Sake: The Assassination of Medgar Evers Sticky

Dec 14, 2009

Bryan de la Beckwith

It would take 31-years to bring white supremacist Bryan de la Beckwith to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers.

by Randy Radic

His name was Byron de la Beckwith, but his friends called him “Delay.” A descendant of Southern aristocracy, Byron de la Beckwith was born in Colusa, California in 1920. Delay was only 5 when his father died. The official cause of death was listed as “pneumonia and alcoholism.” After the funeral, Delay’s mother took him back home to Greenwood, Mississippi.

Delay’s mother was a Yerger, which meant she was a blue blood, descended from one of the South’s elite families. Susan Southworth Yerger was her given name. And in the glory days of the Confederacy, the Yergers moved only in the best social circles. Jefferson Davis’s wife was counted among the closest friends of the Yerger family.

Unfortunately, Delay’s mother suffered from what were politely called mental ailments. She was hospitalized frequently. And in the end, when Delay was 12 years old, she died of lung cancer at age 47.

Delay moved in with his uncle, William Yerger, who occupied the family’s estate, which had seen better days and had had quite a few less good days since then. And so had Uncle William, who was a little off-center. He spent most of his time fishing for catfish. According to Time magazine, more often than not, the catfish ended up in a dresser drawer, which was where Uncle William liked to put them. The stench must have been abominable.

The Firefighter Case: Part I Sticky

South Kanasa City Blast Site

Five innocent people were convicted in February 1997 in the deaths of six Kansas City firefighters in 1988. These two stories run a total length of 20,000 words, and won the Missouri Bar Association's annual "Excellence in Legal Journalism" award. On Oct. 30, 1998, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the appeal in the Kansas City Firefighters case. Read the full opinion here and our analysis of the opinion. On Oct. 4, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari in the case.

by J.J. Maloney

[Editor's Note: to read more about this case go to http://kcfirefighterscase.com ]

For many years Frank and Skip Sheppard were the Injun Joes of Marlborough - the down-on-its-heels neighborhood in southeast Kansas City where six firefighters were killed in an explosion Nov. 29, 1988. Like the character by that name in Tom Sawyer, they were perceived by many as evil characters in whose wake woe would surely follow.

These two brothers - large, forbidding Native Americans, scared people. When Skip Sheppard was in a car wreck that killed his fiancée and left him in a coma, some people said he deliberately drove in front of a truck to get rid of the fiancée.

So it's no surprise that Frank and Skip were among the early suspects in the firefighter case - and that Frank's girlfriend, Darlene Edwards, Frank's nephew Bryan Sheppard, and Bryan's best friend Richard Brown, would be included as well.

When the firefighter case had gone unsolved for eight years - and seemed incapable of being solved - these five became expendable.

The Great Pretender

March 28, 2013

Dr. Donald C. Arthur

Dr. Donald C. Arthur parlayed a number of bogus academic degrees into an extremely successful career in the U.S. Navy, rising all the way to surgeon general of the Navy. He even had the nerve to wear a combat action ribbon as part of his official uniform at his retirement in 2007 despite never having been involved in combat.

by Michael Volpe

The book Stolen Valor was released with some fanfare in 1998. It detailed a bevy of individuals who falsely claimed combat action, especially during the Vietnam War. Since then, the Stolen Valor team, led by B. G. Burkett, has gained a reputation for exposing hucksters who falsely claim to have been in combat. Those individuals include Brian Leonard Creekmur, who falsely claimed to be a Navy Seal and sniper. Another individual exposed by the Stolen Valor team was Bill Hillar. Hillar falsely claimed to be a Green Beret and wound up being sentenced to 21 months in prison as a result.

In 2005, the Stolen Valor team began investigating Dr. Donald C. Arthur, then the surgeon general of the U.S. Navy. That’s because Dr. Arthur was seen wearing a combat action ribbon as part of his official uniform at his retirement in 2007 even though there was no record he’d seen combat.

The Case Against Cardinal Donald Wuerl

March 11, 2013

Cardinal Donald Wuerl

Cardinal Donald Wuerl (Photo: World Tribune)

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of the Washington, D.C. Diocese, has an undeserved reputation as a “zero-tolerance” prelate when it comes to dealing with pedophile priests.

By Michael Volpe

As cardinals from around the world filed into the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday, March 12, 2013, to elect the successor to Saint Peter, a great deal of pre-conclave speculation focused on the possibility of the election of the first American pope in history. The names of three U.S. cardinals were mentioned in a report on NPR’s “Morning Edition” by political reporter Cokie Roberts: Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. Roberts cited Dolan for his telegenic, charismatic personality, O’Malley, a Capuchin Franciscan friar, for his down-to-earth humility, and Wuerl for his “management” expertise. There is a notion that the Vatican needs to undergo a sea change to regain its role as a moral authority, thus the focus on out-of-the-box thinking that might open the door at St. Peter’s to an American prelate. The odds against that happening are extremely long, but having Cardinal Wuerl in the mix may be a reflection of his “zero-tolerance” for pedophile priests that won him public acclaim during his years as a bishop.

The new Pope will also have to face the charges of mismanagement at the Vatican bank and somehow find a way to move beyond the devastating revelations about the bitter infighting in the Vatican’s central administration known as the Curia. This embarrassing episode was set off in early 2012 when the Pope’s butler leaked an enormous stash of papal documents to an Italian reporter that provided an unprecedented inside look at the dysfunctional workings of the Vatican. Known as VatiLeaks, the expose was, no doubt, among the factors that led to Pope Benedict’s stunning announcement in February that he would end his eight-year reign and become the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years.

But no matter what else the new Pope does, he must be able to move the Catholic Church beyond the priest sex-abuse scandals that have engulfed the church for the last three decades. Other issues are also important, but cleansing the clergy of pedophiles is the most basic challenge the new Pope must meet.

Bradley Manning: Patriot or Traitor?

March 11, 2013

Private First Class Bradley Manning

A whistleblower hero to some, a traitor to others, Private First Class Bradley Manning faces a life sentence for turning over hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and intelligence reports about the United States’ mission in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy Web site operated by Australian Julian Assange.

by Don Fulsom and Avi McClelland-Cohen

U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is cooling his heels in a military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he awaits a military trial for breaching national security by leaking classified war intelligence. The most serious charges are violating the Espionage Act and aiding the enemy.

Prosecutors preparing to try Manning say they will also introduce evidence showing that Osama Bin Laden himself requested some of the reports Manning is accused of leaking.

If convicted, the 25-year-old Manning—whose trial is set to begin in June 2013—could be imprisoned for the rest of his life.

An Army intelligence analyst, Manning was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 and accused of disclosing hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and intelligence reports—as well as one video of a military helicopter attack. Most of this information was furnished to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy Web site operated by Australian computer hacker Julian Assange.

In February 2013, Private Manning pleaded guilty to 10 charges related to the misuse of classified information. The Washington Post reports Manning is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison on those charges.