Corruption

Feb. 18, 2013

To avoid race riots and the resulting negative impact on tourism, a succession of Bermudian government administrations has whitewashed the assassinations of Bermuda’s governor and police chief in the early 1970s by a radical black-power group known as the Black Beret Cadre.

by Mel Ayton

During 1972 and 1973 the North Atlantic British colony of Bermuda, which had become a playground for vacationing Americans, was suddenly thrust into a climate of fear when a spate of murders, including political assassinations, occurred. Bermuda became the only British territory ever to have the Queen’s representative murdered in cold blood and the first nation to suffer the violent effects of the importation of 1960s’ American Black Power militancy.

The tragic events of the early 1970s had been viewed by many Bermudian politicians as a stain upon Bermuda’s reputation as a haven for travellers and an island of tranquillity. This attitude prompted them to ignore the Black Power connection to the assassinations lest further investigations stir up trouble between the races and provoke island-wide riots. Political leaders were also afraid that the truth about the murders and the instability of its political system, which the killings exposed, would damage Bermuda’s tourist industry which was its principle source of income.

Additionally, political leaders were embarrassed that a militant Marxist revolutionary organization, the Black Beret Cadre, which had been widely supported by many young Bermudians, was connected to the killings. The Black Berets, usually never attaining a membership of more than 100, modelled themselves on the American Black Panthers. In fact, many of its members had close connections with Black Panthers in the United States. Although two black Bermudians allied with the Berets were tried and executed for the murders, the weak response of the government in establishing a wider conspiracy effectively swept the whole affair under the carpet.

Feb. 4, 2013

Lt. William Calley

Mini-My Lai massacres happened nearly every day in Vietnam, and thousands of war crimes were committed there by both sides in the conflict. In 1971, while the war was still raging, dozens of former American soldiers and Marines stepped forward to confess to the crimes they’d witnessed or participated in. Their harrowing testimony was part of the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a truth commission sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

by David Robb

Lt. William Calley was the only American ever convicted of a war crime in Vietnam. He is infamous for having led the 105 men of Charlie Company on a rampage through the village of My Lai, massacring more than 400 unarmed civilians, many of them women and children. Babies were bayoneted; teenage girls were raped in front of their parents and grandparents and then shot as they begged for mercy. Dozens of people were herded into an irrigation ditch and mowed down with automatic weapons. Many of the dead had been beaten and tortured first, and some of the bodies were found mutilated.

Testimony from his military trial revealed that Calley himself had killed more than 20 unarmed civilians, including a 2-year-old child, who Calley caught trying to escape the carnage. Calley grabbed the little boy by the arm, swung him into a ditch and dispatched him with a single shot. One of his men later testified that while he was standing guard over a group of more than 25 villagers, Lt. Calley approached him and ordered him to shoot them all. When he refused, Calley backed up a few steps and sprayed the wailing people with machinegun fire.

One soldier was so sickened by the slaughter that he shot himself in the foot to avoid taking part. He was the only American casualty that day.

But mini-My Lai massacres happened nearly every day in Vietnam, and thousands of war crimes were committed there by both sides in the conflict. In 1971, while the war was still raging, dozens of former American soldiers and Marines stepped forward to confess to the crimes they’d witnessed or participated in. Their harrowing testimony was part of the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a truth commission sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, held in Detroit Michigan from Jan. 31 – Feb. 2, 1971.

Dec. 25, 2012

Emory University Medical School

Back in 1999, Dr. James Murtagh, a member of the faculty at the Emory University Medical School, had the temerity to cooperate with a National Institute of Health investigation of widespread grant fraud being perpetrated by his employer. Emory retaliated, ousting Dr. Murtagh and making his life as miserable as it can.

 by Michael Volpe

Emory University in Atlanta is a relatively small university with a very prominent reputation. It’s often referred to, along with Duke and Davidson and a few others, as being part of the “Ivy League of the South.” Because of Emory’s superior academic qualifications, its graduates dominate the ranks of the employed of most of Atlanta’s media, courts, business, and political worlds. But under this veneer of respectability that Emory projects, a great deal has been and continues to be amiss in its Medical School, particularly its dealings with Grady Hospital, one of the largest public care facilities for the poor in the world.

Emory’s treatment of Medical School faculty member Dr. James Murtagh has opened up a Pandora’s Box of ills. Rather than deal with the many issues of fraud and conflict of interest uncovered over the last 13 years by the National Institute of Health and other government agencies, Emory has persisted in stonewalling instead of reforming.

When Dr. James Murtagh first began cooperating with investigators from the National Institute of Health in 1999, he never imagined that the consequences of that would still be playing out in an Atlanta courtroom more than 13 years later.

Oct. 22, 2012

When roofer Gerald Beloin blew the whistle on a multi-million dollar roofing scam in New Hampshire in 2002, he became a target for government retaliation rather than a hero. Well into 2013 he is still paying the price for his temerity.         

by Michael Volpe

A roofer by trade, when Gerald Beloin came across a roofing scam in 2002 he subsequently discovered corruption at almost all levers of Hillsborough County government. At the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office he encountered grave indifference. The attorney general then was Kelly Ayotte, who is now a U.S. senator from the Granite State. 

Beloin said that in 2002, while preparing to bid on a job on the roof on his daughter’s school in Groffstown, not far from Manchester, he discovered that the roof was made of a material called tectum decking. Beloin felt this made the roof a ticking time bomb for caving in because of tectum’s sensitivity to moisture.

Beloin said he kept investigating and found that his competitors’ bids were far more expensive than necessary. On his website, he pointed to a Lowe’s roofing project in nearby Gilford, New Hampshire which he said cost a fraction of the bid on his daughter’s school. That project was 170,000 square feet and it cost $6 million. Meanwhile, the winning bid on his daughter’s school was $12 million and that project was for 25,000 square feet. Beloin’s own bid on that job was just under $5 million.

Sept. 3, 2012

Joan Webster

On Saturday November 28, 1981, Joan Webster, a 25-year-old Harvard graduate student, landed at Logan Airport in Boston aboard Eastern flight #960. Shortly after retrieving a suitcase from the luggage carousel, she disappeared.

by Eve Carson

Joan Webster, a 25-year-old, second-year student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, had everything going for her as she flew back to Boston after spending Thanksgiving with her parents in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Just before she took the holiday break, her presentation of an 11-week auditorium project had been rewarded with high accolades from her teacher and classmates.

At Harvard, she was the dorm proctor at Perkins Hall. Smart, popular, attractive, she was available to anyone who needed her help and friendship. A quote tacked on her dorm room wall read, “It costs so much to be a full human being.”

Her flight aboard Eastern # 960 and several other flights arrived at Logan Airport around 10 p.m. on Saturday, November 28, 1981. As Joan went to retrieve her one stowed suitcase, many passengers crowded around the only luggage carousel in use that night. Shortly after retrieving her suitcase, Joan Webster disappeared.

Aug. 29, 2012

Pat Tillman

Pat Tillman was an incredible recruiting asset for the military in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001.  The popular Californian was an academic and athletic standout in high school and at Arizona State University.  Motivated by intense patriotism, Tillman gave up a lucrative professional football career and joined the Army Rangers.
by Don Fulsom

A Sports Illustrated All-Pro safety for the Arizona Cardinals in 2000, Tillman enlisted in the elite military squadron at the end of the 2001 season.  Just wed to his high school sweetheart, he turned down a three-year $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to help avenge the surprise air assaults on his homeland.

On April 22,  2004, at age 27, Cpl. Tillman was killed in action in a canyon in eastern Afghanistan.  Apparently, his death was a not-uncommon “fog of war” tragedy caused by “friendly fire.” The entire rear of Tillman’s movie-star handsome head was blown out by a burst of three tightly placed bullets to his forehead from an M-16-type rifle.  The fatal shots were fired from a scant 10 yards away.

Initially, however, Pentagon officials refused to disclose that U.S. bullets had killed the Army’s No. 1 “poster boy.” The story the Army put out claimed Tillman was fatally wounded during an ambush by as many as one-dozen Taliban insurgents. 

They knew better.  Documents obtained by The Washington Post in 2005 say the first Army investigator on the scene determined “within days” that his fellow Rangers killed Tillman in an act of “gross negligence.”  The documents also show that top Army officials—including the theater commander, General John Abizaid—were almost immediately informed that Tillman’s death was fratricide.

Aug 13, 2012

The statue of Lady Justice at Dublin Castle

Justice on Trial is a landmark study of prosecutorial misconduct conducted by the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law and released in October of 2010.

In 2007, a California Court of Appeal set aside the murder conviction of Mark Sodersten because a Tulare County deputy district attorney had improperly withheld from the defense audiotapes of his interviews with a key witness.

The Appeals court personally listened to the tapes and concluded they contained dramatic evidence pointing to Sodersten’s innocence. Based on this finding, the court vacated his conviction. “This case,” the court declared, “raises the one issue that is the most feared aspect of our system—that an innocent man might be convicted.”

For Sodersten, however, the ruling came too late. He had died in prison six months earlier, after spending 22 years behind bars. The prosecution had sought the death penalty, but the jury sentenced him to life without parole.

The ruling was one of 707 cases of prosecutorial misconduct uncovered in a year-long investigation by the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) at Santa Clara University School of Law.

The investigation, made public October 4, 2010  is the most in-depth statewide review of prosecutorial misconduct in the United States.