UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA No. CR 92-72 CR-T-21(A) Date: August 28, 1996 AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF I, Rodney Stich, declare This Intervenor brief, declaration, and attached exhibit is a request for this court: * In its sentencing decision, to eliminate any incarceration for defendants Gene and Nancy Tatum. Or: * Grant to both Defendants, bail on their own recognizance, pending filing and hearing of an appeal, as provided by the Bail Reform Act of 1984 (Title 18 USC Section 1976, 1977). Further, for this court to: * Receive evidence of serious criminal activities being perpetrated against the United States. The responsibility of this court to receive under acceptable conditions reports and evidence of these federal crimes arises under the non-discretionary requirements of Title 18 USC Section 4 to provide a proper forum to receive such evidence. This evidence can be provided by the Defendants, primarily Defendant Chip Tatum, to provide in open hearings, testimony and evidence of criminal activities against the United States by federal employees and those acting on their behalf. Defendant Gene Tatum discovered these activities while in the employ of the United States as a military pilot and then as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. Evidence of these criminal activities, possessed by Gene Tatum, is related to the decision by Justice Department personnel to charge the defendants with federal offenses, and thereby silence or discredit his disclosure of such crimes. * The prior refusal of federal personnel, required by law to receive such evidence, made possible the continuation and enlargement of the practices and the infliction of great harm upon individual Americans, upon the nation’s national security, and conversion of government offices into criminal enterprises. This includes, for instance, the many airplane crashes due to the safety and criminal violations that Intervenor and other federal investigators sought to report; the expansion of the drug trafficking into the United States by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the military, aided and abetted by others. * Allow Intervenor, and a number of his former CIA and other deep-cover sources, to also provide evidence of criminal activities to a forum that will not continue the prior coverup and obstruction of justice. The people providing this testimony and evidence should be given protection against retaliation that could be expected from Justice Department employees, and provided with legal assistance to provide the evidence in the most suitable form and to protect the parties from retaliation. National security considerations require that this information be received, and that it be received in open hearings to avoid a coverup. The national interests, and national security, require an open hearing, and that the American public be allowed to hear the testimony and evidence. The history of judicial coverups and obstruction of justice demands that the evidence be provided under these conditions. Defendants have suffered unjust prosecution brought about by: Retaliation from government employees, primarily of the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the purpose of the retaliation was to discredit and silence the defendants as to their knowledge of criminal and subversive activities by people in control of the Central Intelligence Agency and those acting in concert with them. The defendants possess knowledge of extremely serious unlawful and even treasonous activities against the United States, being perpetrated, aided and abetted, by federal employees. Defendant Gene Tatum discovered these activities while performing official duties for the U.S. Army (as a helicopter pilot), and as an asset for the Central Intelligence Agency. · Defendants have provided to Intervenor facts and evidence describing the criminal activities that he witnessed while a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army and for the Central Intelligence Agency. This information coincides with what Intervenor has discovered, partly as a federal investigator, and then as a private investigator and himself a victim of retaliation and obstruction of justice by employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and people acting on their behalf. Defendants have suffered an unfair jury judgment brought about by: Inadequate legal counsel representation, including failure of legal counsel to call witnesses needed by the Defendants for their defense, despite Defendants request to have these witnesses called. Intervenor’s experience has shown that court-appointed public defenders will frequently sabotage their client’s defenses in highly-sensitive cases where Justice Department prosecutors and Central Intelligence Agency personnel wish to silence or discredit a potential whistleblower. Intervenor has repeatedly observed and discovered that this sabotaging of defendants by court-appointed attorneys is routine. Intervenor’s Qualifications Intervenor had been a federal inspector and investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration, during which time he discovered a pattern of criminal activities related to a series of fatal airline crashes. He established the existence of these crash-related misconduct by official government documents and during a four-month-long FAA hearing (EFAA20G). These federal activities were then followed by years of private investigative activities during which his discovery of criminal activities expanded into other areas. To this day, the effects of deeply ingrained corruption within the government of the United States, by federal employees, plays a tragic role in continuing airline crashes. · Intervenor seeks to meet his responsibilities under federal criminal statutes (including Title 18 USC Section 4) and as a citizen (under Title 28 USC Section 1361), by reporting these serious criminal activities to a federal tribunal that could reasonably be expected to provide a forum to introduce such evidence, and a means to have the guilty prosecuted and impeached. Intervenor has undertaken various steps to expose, report, and eliminate these criminal activities, and has encountered criminal retaliation from Justice Department employees and federal judges in the Ninth Circuit. Intervenor further seeks to reduce the harm inflicted upon two defendants who have been made to suffer in retaliation for refusing to carry out additional wrongful activities for the CIA, and in retaliation for warning that he would expose these wrongful acts. (Defendant Gene Tatum had already sought to report the criminal activities to his superiors in the U.S. Army and the CIA, without success.) · Starting while he was a federal investigator, Intervenor discovered throughout these many years of investigative work that employees of various divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice blocked the reporting of these crimes, making possible their continuation and enlargement, along with the consequences in preventable airline crashes and deaths, drug trafficking into the United States, and the infliction of other harm upon the security of the United States. Intervenor also discovered a pattern in which Justice Department employees/prosecutors fraudulently charged and prosecuted those who were either actively seeking to expose these crimes, or who might do so. Intervenor has published highly detailed and documented books seeking to make the American public aware of these serious offenses. These books include the third edition of Unfriendly Skies; the second edition of Defrauding America (to be shortly followed by an enlarged third edition); and Disavow, the story of a CIA proprietary in Hawaii and the Justice Department-CIA prosecution of the head of that operation when the cover was blown. Each of these highly detailed and documented books describe the criminal activities, and the criminal retaliation and obstruction of justice involving employees in control of the United States Department of Justice. A copy of the second edition of Defrauding America is included as Exhibit “A” with this amicus curiae brief, the purpose of which is to show the pattern of criminal and even treasonous activities by employees of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, and others. Intervenor has prepared an entire chapter that has been included in the third edition of Defrauding America that describes the criminal activities that Defendant Gene Tatum discovered while a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army and for the Central Intelligence Agency. Especially ominous are the involvement of a former U.S. Attorney General, members of the White House’s National Security Council, and associates of a former president and vice-president in drug smuggling and drug-money laundering, including associates of then-Governor Bill Clinton. The significance of the vast amount of data and evidence accumulated by Intervenor is that federal employees in control of the CIA and Justice Department are inflicting enormous harm upon the United States which can eventually bring down the government as we know it today. Support For Defendants Disclosures To Intervenor It is intervenor’s belief, based upon many years of investigative experience as a federal and then a private investigator, aided by years of close contact with numerous sources in the CIA and other covert agencies, that Defendant Chip Tatum: · Served as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army from approximately 1982 to 1986. In 1986, he was discharged from the U.S. Army, and then performed work for the Central Intelligence Agency after a process known as “sheep-dipping.” >From 1982 to 1986, Defendant Gene Tatum flew as a helicopter pilot, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with occasional temporary duty in Central and South America. During his Central America tours he carried many large white coolers from remote areas to paved landing sites, where military pilots in C-130s and civilian pilots in C-123s would take the coolers to Panama. These coolers were fraudulently marked “medical supplies.” Tatum accidentally discovered that the “medical supplies” were actually bags of cocaine. He occasionally made notations of these findings on the back of the flight plans filed in flight operations. He also reported these findings to military officers and to the National Security Council’s Oliver North while North was operating out of the White House in Washington. He also reported the drug trafficking to Joe Fernandez (CIA), Don Gregg (Vice President George Bush’s National Security advisor) who, in turn, said he would inform Dewey Clarridge. The significance of this information, supported by other information, is that endemic corruption by people in control of key entities in the United States are inflicting great harm upon the American people and national security. · During one helicopter trip, Defendant Tatum carried as passengers William Barr (before Barr became attorney general of the United States and head of the U.S. Department of Justice); Felix Rodriguez (aka Max Gomez, an aide to Vice President George Bush); Buddy Young (security advisor to then-governor Bill Clinton). The group then met with General Manuel Noriega (who had been flown to the meeting by Barry Seal in Seal’s Learjet). The purpose of the meeting, at which Tatum attended, was to determine where the money from the drug operations into the United States was being siphoned off (i.e. “stolen”). It was discovered that the drug money was being siphoned off on the Panama to Arkansas segment. · Tatum flew several army helicopter trips from Fort Campbell to Little Rock, Arkansas, with instructions from army and CIA superiors to deliver containers marked “medical supplies” to a Doctor Lasater. “Doctor Lasater” appeared several times, along with a Buddy Young (security aide to then-governor Bill Clinton) to take possession of the containers. The “doctor” title was a sham, as the so-called “doctor” was actually Dan Lasater, a known drug trafficker and business associate of then-governor Bill Clinton and present White House staff member, Patsy Thomasson. · Subsequently President Bill Clinton named Young to head a FEMA division after Clinton became president of the United States. Lasater’s top aide was Patsy Thomason, who is now head of administration at the White House under President Bill Clinton. · After seeking to report these criminal activities to his superiors in the military and the Central Intelligence Agency, and encountering reaction amounting to a coverup, Tatum then notified his handlers that he wanted out of the operation. He was warned that no one leaves the covert operation. Record of Retaliation Against Former Covert Operatives Or Potential Whistleblowers During Intervenor’s investigative activities, including while a federal investigator, he discovered that it was standard practice by Department of Justice employees to misuse their office to retaliate against people seeking to report any of the criminal activities described by Intervenor in the attached copy of Defrauding America. Intervenor has detailed and documented these findings in his two latest books, Unfriendly Skies (which details the fatal airline crashes associated with corruption that he and other inspectors discovered as part of their official duties), and Defrauding America (which enlarges upon what he initially discovered as a federal inspector and discovered as a private investigator and confidant to many former CIA and other deep-cover whistleblowers). These books were published for the sole purpose of circumventing the massive coverups, obstruction of justice, that have enabled an expansion of the crimes against the United States, and which have inflicted great harm upon national security. SUMMARY The immense harm that has already been inflicted upon the security of the United States, upon government institutions, and upon many innocent Americans, is of such enormous gravity that no responsible member of any government entity, including a federal judge, can ignore, without becoming himself or herself implicated. This amicus curiae filing, therefore, is not only to obtain relief for the Defendants, but for this court to exercise its responsibility and provide for the Defendants, Intervenor, and our former CIA and other deep-cover contacts, to provide evidence of serious criminal activities that are inflicting enormous harm upon the United States and its people. Attached to Intervenor’s declaration and amicus curiae brief is a declaration by Defendant Gene Tatum, describing several of the drug smuggling and drug money laundering activities that he observed as a military pilot and pilot in a CIA operation, and which he reported to his superiors. The reports were followed by a coverup and obstruction of justice, despite the national gravity of the criminal activities. The Defendants have been victimized in an attempt to silence or discredit them. At the very least, this court should order both of them released on their own recognizance until the termination of appeal and any other remedies that may exist under law. This declaration is made in the City of Walnut Creek, California, and is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. Executed this tenth day of August, 1996. Dated: August 18, 1996.
