Albert V. Carone, Alleged CIA Paymaster for New York Mob and Police Department
Contents
Intro: Why the Carone case is largely disinformation
The 1998 court testimony of Dee Ferdinand is quite interesting and to a large extent appears to be accurate. Going through the testimony, however, and doing a little follow-up checking, it is clear that this case involves disinformation, certainly when it comes to the specifics. A number of points:
- Dee-Ferdinand is trying to wrestle $38 million from the CIA and individuals as Iran Contra veteran Colonel Oliver North for allegedly having diverted or destroyed all the assets she should have inherited from her father, Colonel Albert Carone. One can't overlook the potential for personal gain here, on top of a sensational, rather convenient name that will draw attention, and the curious scenario.
- Throughout her testimony there are just so many big, recognizable names that have surfaced in various CIA drug trafficking scandals. I hardly had to look anyone up. This leaves one with the impression Ferdinand-Carone either has carried out research on CIA drug trafficking to augment her own testimony or she has been working with investigators in this area. Lo and behold, half-way through the testimony she explains to be in contact with CIA drug trafficking and 9/11 disinformer Michael Ruppert and Rodney Stich and that she has tried to interview alleged CIA pilot Gunther Russbacher on what he knew about her father.
- Ruppert had been put in touch with Ferdinand-Carone in 1993 through "liberal CIA" asset David MacMichael.
- In her 1998 court deposition Ferdinand claims that her father "got upset because there was some type of accident with Colonel [Richard] Malvesti that my father did not believe was an accident." Unfortunately, Malvesti died six months after the death of her father, respectively in July 1990 and and January 1990.
- Dee Ferdinand claims that Mossad agent and reported key Latin American drug trafficker Mike Harari tried to kidnap her in person, around the same time that her father was poisoned. This is directly in-line with the Cutolo affidavit, but also sounds suspicious because that would roughly be the same as Pablo Escobar, or one of his chief lieutenants, personally trying to kidnap and murder someone in the United States.
- Murder convict Bill Tyree, who also features in the questionable 1980 Cutolo affidavit, claimed he knew Albert Carone and "backed up" the claims of Dee Ferdinand-Carone.
- According to Bill Tyree, Carone had told him that he had been ordered to assassinate JFK at the Dallas Airport in Texas, but failed to get a decent shot and aborted, leaving the work to Lee Harvey Oswald (and co.).
- Dee-Ferdinand claimed that her father, somewhat against his will, had participated in the massacre of a Mexican village. However, she provided no names or other evidence to the court to back up this claim.
- There's no evidence that operations as AMADEUS, SANDMAN and RED MIST, as mentioned by Ferdinand-Carone and based on a fictional William Casey affidavit ever existed. The names also appear to be way too "cool" for general CIA use. Occasionally the CIA handed out "cool"-sounding code names, but three in a row - and without evidence of their existence? Hard to believe.
- According to the court, which rejected Ferdinand-Carone's case, the (bizarre) William Casey affidavit "only further verifies the fictitiousness of plaintiffs' claims. This document's frequent misspellings, absence of grammar, bizarre free-association, and flippant admission of criminal activity by high-ranking government officials, including Mr. Casey himself, establishes its own falsity and the patent absurdity of plaintiffs' claims."
- Looking at the Casey affidavit, Bill Colby's alleged "RED MIST" operation imported 1 million pounds of cocaine through Barry Seal at Mena, Arkansas in the 1976-1981 period. Apart from that this sounds as way to much to handle for this tiny airstrip, Barry Seal didn't start his drug trafficking at Mena until the early 1980s. Before that he was active in Louisiana.
While it is clear that good portions of the Carone case are accurate, it is also clear that some of the key claims are false. Together with the Cutolo affidavit that talks about operations WATCHTOWER and ORWELL, the Bill Tyree murder case, and Chip Tatum's PEGASUS operation, this information ultimately only serves to muddy the waters by forcing more credible cases to the background and replacing them with only semi-accurate and easy-to-dioscredit accounts such as these. Of course, Michael Ruppert promoted all this information when he emerged as a major CIA drug trafficking researcher in November 1996 by confronting CIA director John Deutch.
Certain key articles and other information of the Ferdinand-Carone case can be found on this page in order to make it much easier for readers to draw their own conclusions.
Michael Ruppert: Married to the Mob and the CIA
"The plaintiffs would have this court believe that Mr. Carone has played the role of Forrest Gump, popping up as a key player in virtually every government conspiracy theory promulgated over the last 50 years. This court simply cannot view any of the plaintiffs' claims as plausible, especially in light of the complete lack of even a scintilla of evidence except for one patently forged document and self-serving declarations. Accordingly, the court dismisses the case pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1)."
~ Ricardo M. Urbina, United States District Judge [full document]
Michael Ruppert
High Times
February 27, 2001
I first walked into this case in late 1993 when I got a call from former CIA case officer David MacMichael [note: investigator for the Christic Institute of Rockefeller disinformer Daniel Sheehan; member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which includes Pentagon no-planer Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, NSA defectors and the Rockefeller-allied "liberal CIA" asset Daniel Ellsberg]. As a matter of conscience, Dave had for many years been speaking out about illegal and inhumane operations being conducted by the CIA.
"Mike, there's a woman in New Mexico named Dee Ferdinand. She says that her father, a guy named Albert Carone, was a high-level agency operative. He was also NYPD. She says that he was also in the Mafia. He's been dead since '90 and every record about him has apparently been sanitized. The family's been denied benefits and had bank accounts stolen even though the daughter has records. She says her father knew Ollie North and George Bush personally. I think it's something you might want to look into." |
It bit me like a pit bull. I had just started writing about CIA operations again after a disastrous and painful experience as the Los Angeles County press spokesman for the Ross Perot presidential campaign of 1992. That had proven to be yet another case of unmet expectations in my quest to find an honorable man. I had also just spent months putting together a conference in Indiana for the families of what was to ultimately become 109 US servicemen who had been "suicided" or died under suspicious circumstances. In almost every case where I could get information, I had discovered that there was a connection between the deaths and covert operations. Quite often there were links, reported by the dead serviceman to his family, of drug smuggling or criminal activity on or around military bases where they served.
My then fiance, Mary, and I had brought many of these families together in a small town in Indiana in the fall of 1993. The ultimate pain for all of them was the discovery that there was no honor in their own government. The deaths of all of their sons, husbands and brothers had been dismissed as suicides or accidents. The cover-ups had been sloppy, arrogant and brutal in their apparent contempt for evidence. All of the families had vowed to do whatever it took to break the cases. None of them understood that they all would ultimately fail.
Now I was presented with a case where it had happened to someone on the inside--a bad guy. Would it be any different?
Mary and I packed our bags and flew to Albuquerque. My "cop instincts" had always served me well, and there was something about the demeanor of Desiree (Dee) Ferdinand, with her disarming Brooklyn accent reminiscent of Michelle Pfeiffer in Married to the Mob, that allowed me to instantly trust her. Her husband, Tommy Ferdinand, had struck me the same way. No b.s. and a sense of humor that I wish he still had today. I had told Dee up front where I was coming from. I didn't like bad guys. She had been just as up-front that she knew that her father was a crook, a drug dealer, a CIA operative, a bagman, a killer and an all-around not-very-nice person. But for her it was a matter of honor.
That, I understood.
MARRIED TO THE MOB AND THE CIA [cont.]
he Ferdinands rented a large ranch house in Corrales, just north of the city. On two acres Dee boarded and cared for six horses. She had a son, Vinnie, who was in his early twenties and going to college. Vinnie would soon become a Bernalillo County sheriff's deputy. She had a younger daughter, Nikki, who was still living at home. Also living at the house was Tommy's mother, Irene, and a not-too-friendly Rotweiler named Mikie which Mary instantly named "Cujo."
The hospitality was genuine New York Italian and the food was just as authentic. Over two and a half days we talked. I asked questions and looked at documents and papers retained by Dee Carone Ferdinand after the death of her father, Albert Vincent Carone, in January 1990.
HONOR, YES: HONEST, NO
In a videotaped deposition made in September 1998 as she and a former Green Beret named Bill Tyree brought suit against the CIA, Dee Ferdinand was asked to describe what kind of a man her father was. "He was known as man of great respect, a man of honor. That is not to say that he was honest. He wasn't. He did many bad things. But he lived by a code of honor. If he said something was so, you could take it to the bank."
Over the years I have talked to almost every family member who knew Big Al, including Dee's sister Carla and her husband John. Dee, Tommy, Carla, John, Irene and Vinnie had all seen Big Al in his Army uniform. Tommy and John told me how they had driven him at times to secure areas at LaGuardia or JFK airports, in full uniform, often with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. On other occasions he had been chauffeured in military vehicles. On one occasion Tommy had dropped him off at JFK inside a secure area, only to see the figure of Richard Nixon waiting for Carone in the open doorway of a nearby helicopter.
Over the course of two days I "debriefed" the family. Carone knew a great many people. He had served as an NYPD detective and bagman for the Genovese and Colombo families. He frequently took military leaves of absence to travel all over the world. The names of people he would later talk about, knowing of his imminent death, included Bill Casey, George Bush, Oliver North, Elliot Abrams, Richard Armitage (now deputy secretary of state to Colin Powell), Richard Secord, John Singlaub, Rafael "Chi Chi" Quintero, drug smuggler Barry Seal, Arkansas billionaire Jackson Stephens, Special Forces Colonel James "Bo" Gritz, General Richard Stillwell, Edwin Wilson, Robert Vesco and many more.
The paper exhibits were compelling and convincing. But I retained a healthy skepticism until I put Dee through a final test. I prepared list of names, some fake, some authentic. I asked Dee if her father had mentioned any of the names over the years. Without a single misstep she picked out almost every member of the board of directors of the Nugan Hand Bank, a legendary CIA drug bank that operated in Australia during the late 1970s and early '80s. She didn't fall for any of the falsified names. The real names included Edwin Black, General Leroy Manor and legendary CIA drug banker Paul Helliwell. [For an excellent history of the Nugan Hand affair, I recommend The Crime of Patriots by the late Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny.]
I had been thoroughly convinced that Al Carone was everything his daughter said he was. I told her that in my opinion, there was only one man who could help her. He had served as the CIA's chief of station in Laos during the Vietnam War. He had risen to oversee the agency's Western Hemisphere operations and the 1973 overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende. He had been the most powerful operations executive at the CIA before Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977. He had stayed with CIA until about 1980, and had retired under a cloud caused by the escapades of Edwin Wilson, one of his proteges who had been convicted of selling plastic explosives to Libya's Muammar Qaddafi.
Throughout his career, especially from the days in Southeast Asia when he ran the largest CIA operation in history, his name had been linked to heroin. His name also turned up during the Iran-Contra investigations of the 1980s, which saw an explosion in cocaine use from which America has not yet recovered. From the moment that I had learned that CIA was dealing drugs and had begun the investigations that would nearly cost me my life, I had been obsessed with this man. He was the man who had been in charge of CIA's covert operations when they had tried to recruit me in 1976.
"Dee, "I said. "As far as I know there is only one man who can help you. His name is Ted Shackley.
BIG AL's SCHOOLING
Al Carone, or "Big Al" as he was known, had been a de facto orphan in Brooklyn in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s. A street kid, left to roam while his mother "entertained" gentlemen at night, he had slept under stoops and in stairwells. He had been adopted by the legendary mobster Vito Genovese, who operated out of a nearby bar. Genovese fed the young street kid, sometimes let him sleep in the bar, and gave him quarters and dimes for running errands. It was here that Al Carone learned about loyalty and honor. There was no end to his love for "Don" Vito.
By the time World War II came around, little Al had become "Big Al," a lifelong bodybuilder and a "made" member of the family. He entered the Army and was quickly assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps. Dee said that all of the paperwork she possessed covered the fact that her father really had spent the entire war working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. This made immediate sense to me, because I had seen US government reports that Vito Genovese and his boss, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, had been used by the OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence throughout World War II, first to protect New York docks from sabotage, then to assist in the invasion of Italy and later to prevent Communists and Socialists from winning elections in postwar Italy. The latter activities, funded by Corsican heroin, were the genesis of the famed French Connection, which smuggled tons of heroin into New York City until the 1970s.
After the war in 1946, "Big Al" had joined the New York City police. Dee had photos of her father as a patrolman and later as a detective. Throughout his NYPD career, Carone had made the payoffs to make sure that the CIA's dope hit the streets safely. She had cancelled pay stubs, copies of pension records, a copy of his graduation roster from the police academy. Big Al had retired as a detective first grade in 1966. Yet, after her father's death, when she went to ask for death benefits, the NYPD had told her that Al Carone has never been a policeman.
I remember holding one of his passports in my hands and seeing the visa stamps for London, the Bahamas and New York City. I remember the travel records of one of his partners named James Strauss, showing massive expenditures for dozens of flights to all of the world's financial capitals, sometimes every other day, that a former FBI agent once told me, "could only have come from a GTR government travel account, because an airline would never allow a private business to run up that kind of a tab."
Most of all I remember holding his personal phone book, separated at the spine from years of use and finding entries for maybe a dozen known Mafia figures including "Boss of Bosses" Paul Castellano, Joe Perscillia, Matty "the Horse" Ianniello and many others. Also in the phone book, on a separate sheet of paper but in the same handwriting, was the Locust Valley, Long Island address and phone number for CIA Director William Casey.
Casey, said the entire Carone family, had been at the Ferdinand home for Vinnie's christening in the early ‘70s. When Dee was growing up, Casey and his wife had been frequent guests for dinner and social events. So had, on different occasions, Santo Trafficante, mob boss of South Florida, known as Uncle Sonny; Sam Giancana, known as Uncle Momo; and the short-lived boss of bosses Aniello Delacroce had been known as "Uncle Neal." Both Delacroce and Castellano died in New York mob hits.
MARRIED TO THE MOB AND THE CIA [cont.]
There were photographs of Carone in Army uniforms: one as a major, one as a full colonel. There were telegrams and letters referring to him by his military rank. And yet, after his death--which, as I read from the death certificate, was caused by "chemical toxicity of unknown etiology"--the US Army had insisted that he had never served in the military after 1946 and had never attained a rank higher than staff sergeant. He had been buried in a New Mexico military cemetery with that rank on his tombstone. This, said Dee, was not honorable.
But what had been done to Al Carone and his family had been more ruthless, systematic and well executed than anything I have seen before or since. Immediately after his death, both his personal and joint bank accounts held with Dee had disappeared. Even though Dee held passbooks and cancelled checks, the banks had insisted that the accounts never existed. Life-insurance policies which Dee and Tommy had given to a local attorney named Robert Fuentes--later discovered to have intelligence connections--disappeared. Carone's NYPD pension vanished. The state of New Mexico said that Al Carone had never had a driver's license. He lived there for 10 years. Coin collections and the contents of several storage facilities evaporated. Even the registration on his personal vehicle, which had always been registered in his name, was altered in state computers. When Dee went to check about having it transferred to her daughter, she found that the New Mexico DMV records showed that Dee had originally purchased the car in the early ‘80s.
Carone's death had been long, painful and expensive. He knew he was going to die after his own collision with a question of honor, yet he had said repeatedly to the entire family that when he died they all would be taken care of. For the Mafia there was no more important code of honor than taking care of the family. It was apparently different for the CIA, and Big Al Carone had planted his feet in too many worlds before his own death. And it seems, to this day, that the world of the CIA was the one that eliminated his life, and in them, and the interests they worked for, there was no honor at all.
Nobody ever doubted where Al Carone was coming from. "Civilians" were not to be hurt. People who got killed were players, and they knew that was part of the game. Although Carone taught torture and interrogation techniques and guerrilla warfare, he served mostly as a "paymaster," especially for assassinations and executions in the dark world of clandestine warfare. One assassination that Dee and Tommy would later discuss in their videotaped depositions was John F. Kennedy. Carone had revealed, before his death, that he had been in Dallas on November 22, 1963, that he had been positioned on a rooftop at the Love Field airport but could not get a clean shot. He was grateful for that. He had also delivered a cash payoff to Jack Ruby before the assassination.
Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, when there were drug missions to be financed, Al Carone delivered both the money and the orders. When someone needed to be killed, it was the same thing. Before his death, he talked openly of working with Oliver North, Richard Secord, Richard Armitage, Barry Seal and Elliot Abrams. He told his family that North, Secord, Abrams and Armitage were "assholes."
SEALING HIS FATE
Throughout the years Carone had also shown signs of compassion and his own code of honor. He often lamented the fate of the POWs and MIAs in Vietnam and, in the years before his death, spoke openly about how "the boys" had been sold out. He spoke on several occasions of a Green Beret named "Sandy" whom he had worked with. He said Sandy had been sold out, betrayed and framed for a murder he didn't commit because he had learned too much. Carone became obsessed with helping Sandy, and had spoken of delivering diaries to CIA headquarters that had been kept by his murdered wife that could have "brought down the government." Both Dee and Tommy had seen the diaries in Carone's briefcase before he had taken them to Langley, Virginia.
Carone was a good soldier. He did his job for years and kept his grumblings close to his vest. But things were falling apart. They had gotten out of hand. There were too many drugs, too much killing; too much corruption in Al Carone's scheme of things. It no longer served any greater purpose. There was no compass except greed.
In the summer of 1985 Al Carone and his buddy Jim Strauss--whose company had the voluminous airline bills--went on a mission to Mexico. That mission, as were many of the other activities of Al Carone, fell under the umbrella code name of Amadeus. Dee and Tommy had heard the name many times before, when answering phones or taking messages for Big Al. It was name that always made him jump. It was a name that they said connected directly to George Herbert Walker Bush.
Carone was gone for weeks. And when he returned from Mexico he was never the same. His heart was broken. He said that he and Strauss and the men who were with them had wiped out entire village which Dee and Tommy can only remember as Chiapatulla or Tapachulla. "We killed everything there," said Big Al, "men, women children, everything." It was wrong. He also spoke of how a narc and a pilot had been tortured and buried alive. He was referring to DEA Agent Kiki Camarena. It was shortly after that he started to get violently ill. Within 18 months or so, he had kidney failure. The doctors, and there were many, could not pinpoint the cause. He would tell Dee and Tommy, "I'm not long for this world. The suits are coming to get me."
He talked more openly in his last years. He voiced his concerns and became obsessed with the POWs, with Sandy and the "assholes" who had taken over the government. Before he died in 1990, he made his daughter promise not to bury him in his Army uniform. He was ashamed. "Burn it," he said.
THE BIGGEST BATTLES AND HEAVY LOSSES
Shortly after I left New Mexico, Dee Ferdinand went to a luncheon of former intelligence officers. There she met former Howard Hughes aide and lifelong CIA operative Robert Maheu. Maheu gave her Shackley's phone number.
Dee's first conversation with Shackley was not thrilling. Keeping his standard noncommittal posture, he denied knowing Al Carone. This was a position he changed in subsequent conversations with Dee over the years. He asked her what she wanted. The first thing she wanted was her father's headstone changed to reflect his rank of colonel.
It was changed within 10 days, and Dee took photographs of the new marker. She also "appropriated" a copy of the change order. The Army still--to this day--denies the rank.
After returning to Los Angeles, I wrote up a report of what I had learned. I sent it to a good friend, a retired Army Criminal Investigation Division warrant officer named Bill McCoy who lived in Alexandria, Virginia. McCoy was impressed and got Dee's phone number from me. That was the beginning of a tightly woven friendship that involved phone calls, sometimes five times a week, until McCoy's death in October 1997. "Mac," as we all called him, was a loveable giant, prone to wearing berets, who had his investigative fingers in almost every covert operation I had ever heard of.
There were many mysteries about McCoy that remain unsolved to this day. Not the least of which was why he spent two years keeping Dee from learning the identity of Bill Tyree, the former Green Beret who had been framed for his own wife's murder. Tyree, on the other hand, had only been told Dee's married name rather than her maiden name. In the meantime I, familiar with both cases, never knew what Mac was doing.
Mac was a father-like figure, a great cook and raconteur. I visited his home in Virginia many times in 1994 and 1995. While coordinating information on a number of investigations, he managed to keep Bill and Dee from connecting. In the meantime, as the Carone family were threatened, intimidated and plagued by all manner of terrifying events, Dee's resolve only deepened. She told me, with a conviction I still remember, "This is about honor. This is becoming a vendetta. All I want is what rightfully belonged to my father, nothing more."
MARRIED TO THE MOB AND THE CIA [cont.]
Her brother-in-law was shot at. Her son Vinnie narrowly escaped death in what appeared to be a staged traffic accident. Her fences were cut a half-dozen times and her horses scattered over the New Mexico countryside. Tommy, who held a civilian job at Kirtland Air Force Base, was shuffled to lower-paying assignments and eventually laid off. In 1997 Vinnie, then a sheriff's deputy working extradition cases, was sent on dangerous and solitary assignments. He was photographed in secure areas of government facilities.
Dee would talk to McCoy four or five times a week. I would talk to McCoy or Dee at least twice a week. Still, none of us knew that Sandy and Tyree were one and the same, even though McCoy was doing investigations on Tyree's case and he held all the pieces.
LACK OF HONOR
Things were complicated further in April 1995, when the Murrah Building was destroyed by a bomb blast in Oklahoma City. I was living near DC at the time, and Dee had called me within hours of the blast. She had called Shackley almost immediately. Then she called me. I gave her my word that I would not repeat what Shackley had said. According to Dee, Shackley said the act would be placed squarely at the feet of domestic terrorists. This, even as news reports were reporting only that Islamic terrorists were suspects.
Shortly thereafter, a journalist named David Hoffman, whom I had put in touch with Dee, got the same story from her on the strict condition that the conversation was off the record and confidential. Less than a year later he published a book in which he reported all of Dee's conversation with Shackley, and even embellished to the point of placing himself in Shackley's living room and describing him smoking a pipe, sitting in an overstuffed chair and "chortling" in satisfaction.
Dee, as a matter of honor, called Shackley as soon as she heard about the book. Because of that action or responsibility her relationship with him continued and, in fact, deepened.
BREAKTHROUGH TO DEFEAT
Bill McCoy died suddenly in October 1997. He was found sitting in his favorite easy chair, the victim of an apparent heart attack. Questions still linger among those of us who knew him.
It was around the time of Mac's death that Dee and Tyree connected. Dee learned that Billy was "Sandy" and Billy learned that Dee was the daughter of Big Al. Facilitated by Massachusetts attorney Ray Kohlman, who came to represent both of them, first Billy and then Dee filed suits against the government. Over the years, Billy placed collect calls from the Walpole state prison in Massachusetts that sometimes added between $500-800 a month to the Ferdinands' phone bills. This wore heavily on Tommy and his temper frequently got the better of him, especially as his hours were being cut back.
Dee was obsessed, and now she had a court case and searing documents that helped both her and Tyree. Affidavits long buried came to the surface, including one purportedly written by Bill Casey. Though filled with grammatical errors and misspellings, I was inclined to believe the document's authenticity. My reasons were simple and based upon my years of experience, I knew that intelligence agencies often wrote completely accurate documents and deliberately salted them with errors to later discredit them. The 1986 document had more credibility because, while completely vindicating Dee's assertions, it carefully laid all the blame in the CIA at the feet of people who were then or would soon be dead. It never once mentioned George Bush, and the document followed the long-cultivated CIA fallback position that drug dealing was all done to fight communism, and never once mentioned the billions of dollars that had flowed into American financial markets.
From 1998 until her case was finally dismissed, there were endless, draining, expensive, time-consuming legal moves, the kind I have witnessed in dozens of cases over the years. As time progressed, first Tyree's suit and then Dee's were dismissed. All of this happened and Dee and Bill Tyree spent more time talking to each other than any other living souls. They have never seen each other in person. For Tyree, locked up on a life sentence, this was not an issue. For Dee's family, especially Tommy, who was paying the phone bills, it was; especially as the family teetered from month to month, on the edge of eviction.
I have both and seen and lived this hellish existence in the search for justice and the redemption of honor. It eats everything.
Dee and Tommy were divorced last year, as the suit was finally thrown out by a court system that seemingly wouldn't know the rule of law, or honor, if it smacked it in the face. Dee now lives in a modest Albuquerque apartment and Tommy spends a lot of time riding his motorcycle. Tommy's mother will no longer speak to Dee. Vinnie, still a sheriff, has at times estranged himself from his mother in recent years. All of Dee's horses are gone and she holds down a job to pay the rent.
"It's over," she says with the same conviction I heard in 1993. "I will have nothing more to do with my father's case. They won. I have nothing more to give."
FINDING MEANING
Dee has had a number of conversations with Ted Shackley over the years and refuses to discuss details of any of them except to say that he was always helpful, always sympathetic and that he gave her advice that helped as she prepared and fought her case. "Of all the people I have spoken to who had something to do with this case, he's the only one who never lied to me."
When I asked how she could trust Shackley, she refused to discuss the matter any further. The conversations were private. It was a matter of honor.
One time, in tears, she recounted how Shackley had told her how proud he was of her as Big Al's daughter, and that she had fought as hard as possible to honor her father. He had told her that she had behaved as he would have wanted his own daughter to behave, and maybe that is what this story is all about.
Having lost all of her material possessions and her marriage, and having suffered for years in a losing and futile battle--the way all of these battles always end--Dee Carone Ferdinand has no doubt in her heart that she gave all she had to give. She sleeps soundly at night and there is something in her still that remains defiantly unbroken, as Al Carone's visions of total, unprincipled corruption come to full flower in the American government.
It was, after all, a matter of honor.
Court dismissal Carone-Ferdinand v. CIA
131 F.Supp.2d 232 (2001)
Desiree CARONE-FERDINAND et al., Plaintiffs, v. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY et al., Defendants.
United States District Court, District of Columbia.
February 27, 2001.
Raymond D. Kohlman, Attleboro, MA, Desiree Carone-Ferdinand, Thomas E. Ferdinand, Corrales, NM, for Plaintiffs.
G. Michael Harvey, Assistant United States Attorney, Washington, DC, Robert R. Fuentes, Fuentes & Associates, P.C., Rio Rancho, NM, for Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
GRANTING THE DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS
URBINA, District Judge.
I. INTRODUCTION
This case comes before the court on the defendants' motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs, Desiree Carone-Ferdinand and Thomas Ferdinand, seek $38 million from the Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") and the United States Army (collectively the "Federal Defendants"), Robert Fuentes, Oliver North, and James Robert Strauss for alleged theft of insurance policies, bank accounts, and other property. The plaintiffs claim that the defendants knowingly diverted the personal property of Albert V. Carone, Desiree Carone-Ferdinand's father, for their own or other persons' use through, inter alia, fraud, larceny, and embezzlement. Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that the defendants took these steps to cover up Mr. Carone's
II. BACKGROUND
The plaintiffs' allegations encompass events spanning the last 60 years, and involve organized crime families, two previous Directors of Central Intelligence ("DCI"), and three former United States Presidents. The plaintiffs claim that 10 years ago, the federal government killed Ms. Carone-Ferdinand's father and stole the property at issue in this lawsuit to cover up Mr. Carone's role in various government covert operations.
The plaintiffs paint a colorful portrait of Mr. Carone's past. According to the plaintiffs, Mr. Carone had a very diverse resume that included stints as, at various times, a "made" member of the Genovese Crime Family, a detective in the New York Police Department ("NYPD"), a Colonel in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence-Counter Intelligence Corps, and a CIA operative. See Compl. at 2-17.
As recounted in the complaint, the events leading up to the CIA's alleged misappropriation of the plaintiffs' property began during World War II. See id. At that time, a young go-getter and "charismatic patriot" named Albert Carone was working as an officer in the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor to the CIA) when he was introduced to Mr. William Colby and Mr. William Casey, both of whom would go on to serve as DCI. See Decl. of William J. Casey ("Casey Decl.") at 1-2. Duly impressed with Mr. Carone's charisma and patriotism, as well as his dual status as a member of the Genovese Crime family and an NYPD detective, the CIA allegedly recruited Mr. Carone to act as a liaison between the CIA and "certain Chinese and Italian businessmen in New York City." See Decl. of Albert V. Carone ("Carone Decl.") at 1.
The plaintiffs claim that for the next 40-odd years, Mr. Carone helped import cocaine into the United States on direct orders from the CIA. The profits from the cocaine sales were then laundered through organized crime operations, and were ultimately funneled to CIA-sanctioned, covert, anti-communist activities. One of the largest shipments that Mr. Carone allegedly facilitated was the importation of more than one million pounds of cocaine between 1976 and 1981. See Casey Decl. at 1-2. This cocaine was allegedly brought into the United States by way of Mena, Arkansas, population 5,475. See Casey Decl. at 2. Though one might think that the importation of more than $40 billion worth of cocaine into one municipal airport over a five-year period would arouse suspicion, law enforcement was kept at bay through the efforts of one William Jefferson Clinton. See Casey Decl. at 2. At the time in question, Mr. Clinton was the Attorney General of the State of Arkansas.
The complaint also indicates that Mr. Carone's duties were not only limited to drug trafficking. In one memorable assignment, Mr. Carone was ordered to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. See Supp. Aff. of Thomas E. Ferdinand ("Ferdinand Supp. Aff.") at 2. While Mr. Carone managed to situate himself on the roof of the "Dallas Airport," he was unable to complete his mission because other people accompanying the president were standing in the line of fire. See id.
According to the plaintiffs, Mr. Carone's affiliation with the CIA ended in 1985. See Decl. of Desiree Ferdinand ("Decl.D.Ferdinand") at 2. During a two-week trip to Chapatulla, Mexico with defendant Strauss, Mr. Carone "destroyed an entire village of men, women and children." See id. Apparently, after this incident (about which the plaintiffs offer no proof), Mr. Carone had a change of heart, and decided that he would no longer assist the CIA in its assassinations and drug
After Mr. Carone's death, Ms. Carone-Ferdinand was named executrix of Mr. Carone's estate. See Compl. at 2. The plaintiffs claim that they transmitted several life insurance policies, proof of joint ownership of several bank accounts, proceeds from the sale of a coin collection, and access to several storage units containing Mr. Carone's personal property to defendant Robert Fuentes, an attorney operating out of Rio Rancho, New Mexico. See Compl. at 14. According to the plaintiffs, shortly after they transferred the property to Mr. Fuentes, defendant James Robert Strauss, on orders from the CIA, approached defendant Fuentes, who then surrendered Mr. Carone's estate in exchange for a monetary reward. See id.
The plaintiffs claim that in 1996 they located a William M. Tyree, who verified much of Mr. Carone's story. See Ferdinand Supp. Aff. at 2. Additionally, after further inquiry, the plaintiffs allege that they were able to determine that the named defendants stole Mr. Carone's estate to cover up his role in the Iran-Contra affair and other classified operations. See Compl. at 16.
On February 29, 2000, the plaintiffs filed a six-count complaint alleging, inter alia, larceny, conversion of Mr. Carone's estate, and constitutional violations. The complaint also stated a claim of negligence against defendant Fuentes.
The defendants attack the complaint on a wide array of substantive and procedural grounds. The defendants move to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, under Rule 9(b) for failing to aver fraud with particularity, and under Rule 8(a) for failure to contain a short and plain statement of jurisdiction. In addition, the federal defendants argue that the plaintiffs' tort claims are barred by various provisions of the Federal Tort Claims Act, sovereign immunity, failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and applicable statutes of limitations. All defendants seek, in the alternative, a transfer to the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico.
For the reasons that follow, the court will grant the defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1).
III. ANALYSIS
A. Legal Standard
It is well-settled law that "the federal courts are without power to entertain claims otherwise within their jurisdiction if they are `so attenuated and unsubstantial [sic] as to be absolutely devoid of merit.'" Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-37, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974) (quoting Newburyport Water Co. v. Newburyport, 193 U.S. 561, 579, 24 S.Ct. 553, 48 L.Ed. 795 (1904)). This Circuit has stated that dismissal under 12(b)(1) is appropriate "when the complaint is `patently insubstantial' presenting no federal question suitable for decision." Best v. Kelly, 39 F.3d 328, 330 (D.C.Cir.1994) (quoting Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327 n. 6, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989)); accord O'Brien v. United States Dep't of Justice, 927 F.Supp. 382, 384 (D.Ariz. 1995); Shoemaker v. United States, 1997 WL 96543, *5 (S.D.N.Y.1997); O'Connor v. United States, 159 F.R.D. 22, 25 (D.Md. 1994). The D.C. Circuit explained that for claims to be considered patently insubstantial, they cannot merely be doubtful or questionable, but rather they have to be "essentially fictitious." See Best, 39 F.3d at 330. Examples of essentially fictitious claims are "bizarre conspiracy theories," "fantastic government manipulations of [one's] will or mind," and "any sort of supernatural intervention." See id.
B. The Court Will Dismiss the Complaint Pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1)
Under the factors laid out by the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit, the complaint cannot survive the defendants' motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1). Consequently, the court need not address the alternate defenses raised by the defendants. To support the allegations in their complaint, the plaintiffs have presented affidavits from Mr. Albert Carone, Mr. William Tyree, Mrs. Desiree Carone-Ferdinand, Mr. Thomas Ferdinand, Mr. William Casey, and a book excerpt that appears to be based largely upon declarations similar to those in Mrs. Carone-Ferdinand's affidavit.
When facts that form the basis of subject-matter jurisdiction are in controversy, a district court has authority to weigh the conflicting evidence to determine if subject-matter jurisdiction exists. See Ohio Nat'l Life Ins. Co. v. United States, 922 F.2d 320, 325 (6th Cir.1990); accord Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 412-13 (5th Cir.1981); Mortensen v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n, 549 F.2d 884, 891 (3d Cir.1977). After examining the plaintiffs' evidence in this case, the court finds that the plaintiffs' claims are "essentially fictitious." Thus, the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over the controversy.
On its face, the complaint appears to be the very type of "bizarre conspiracy theory" that the D.C. Circuit has said warrants dismissal under Rule 12(b)(1). For example, the declaration of former Director of Central Intelligence William Casey is so obviously false as to cast doubt on the plaintiffs' entire case. As the federal defendants aptly stated:
Plaintiffs' submission of an alleged declaration of now-deceased CIA Director William Casey — supposedly witnessed by a former President — only further verifies the fictitiousness of plaintiffs' claims. This document's frequent misspellings, absence of grammar, bizarre free-association, and flippant admission of criminal activity by high-ranking government officials, including Mr. Casey himself, establishes its own falsity and the patent absurdity of plaintiffs' claims.Federal Defendants' Motion to Dismiss or in the Alternative for Transfer ("Fed. Defs.' Mot.") at 10-11 (emphasis in the original).
In addition, the defendants have also submitted declarations from former CIA General Counsel David P. Doherty, who served as General Counsel at the time Director Casey allegedly made the declaration, and from the current Information Review Officer for the Director of Central Intelligence Area, Ms. Martha M. Lutz. Mr. Doherty stated that he had no recollection of the alleged Casey declaration, and that:
In the ordinary course of business during my tenure as CIA General Counsel, any official declaration by DCI Casey would have been prepared by the CIA's Office of General Counsel. A declaration by DCI Casey of this apparent significance and national security sensitivity — in which, on its face anyway, he freely acknowledges violations of law — should necessarily have come to my attention as the senior attorney in the Agency at that time ... Moreover, I have no recollection of Richard Nixon — in this context, presumably the former U.S. President — ever serving as a witness to any official declaration made by DCI Casey during my tenure as CIA General Counsel. I am confident that I would recall such a notable and memorable event had it ever occurred.Decl. of David P. Doherty ("Doherty Decl.") at 2-3. In her declaration, Ms. Lutz stated that after conducting a thorough search of the CIA's records, she found no such declaration from Director Casey, and that if the Casey Declaration were genuine, it almost certainly would have been located during the search. See
According to their declarations, the plaintiffs would have this court believe that Mr. Carone has played the role of Forrest Gump, popping up as a key player in virtually every prominent government conspiracy theory promulgated over the past 50 years. This court simply cannot view any of the plaintiffs' claims as plausible, especially in light of the complete lack of even a scintilla of evidence except for one patently forged document and self-serving declarations. While the complaint may be worth entering in a creative writing contest, it was not worth entering in a court of law. Accordingly, the court dismisses the case pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1).
IV. CONCLUSION
For all of these reasons, the court grants the defendants' motion to dismiss. An order directing the parties in a fashion consistent with this Memorandum Opinion is separately and contemporaneously issued this 27 day of February, 2001.
Bill Tyree's (strange) affidavit on Carone: alleged JFK assassnation involvement
My name is William M. Tyree. I am currently incarcerated within the Massachusetts Department of Correction, serving my 19th year of a First Degree Life Sentence. My last duty assignment was the 441st Military Intelligence Detachment, 10th Special Forces Group, Airborne, Fort Devens, Massachusets. During the peiod of time I was on active duty within the U.S. Army, I did know, and I did serve with the individual known as U.S. Army Colonel Albert V. Carone, who was a Military Intelligence - Counter Intelligence Officer. I worked with Colonel Carone on a variety of classified military operations that the U.S. Army and U.S. Government currently deny ever took place.
I was told many things by Colonel Carone prior to his death in January 1990, and the following things are some of the bits of information that Colonel Carone communicated to me:
Carone said he had taken money to a female named Ruth Paine in late 1956, on orders of a friend of his, William Casey. Carone knew William Casey through his connections to the Gambino and Genovese Crime Families, in which carone was a "made man," and worked as a New York City Detective "Bagman" delivering payoffs from the Mafia to various New York City Police Officers who were on the take.
Carone said that Ruth Paine was approached by the CIA, through William Casey to find and recruit an individual with communist ties and some type of anti-American background.
Carone said that three individuals were placed in the areas near where Ruth Paine lived and worked. They had been deposited so that Ruth Paine would find them.
Carone said this was done so that there was additional distance between the CIA, the individual and Ruth Paine.
Carone said when Ruth Paine found one of the three individuals she would in turn notify her CIA contact who was identified to me as George DeMohrenschildt, who in turn would contact his CIA supervisor, identified to me as George Bush.
Carone said that George Bush, of Zapata Business, was the same George Bush who was CIA Director and later Vice President of the United States.
Carone said that the individual located by Ruth Paine was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Carone said that at the time that Lee Harvey Oswald was recruited, it was not for any planned assassination. He was merely part of a controlled experiment conducted by CIA doctors.
Carone said that by the time the CIA finished its mind control experiments with Lee Harvey Oswald, the experiments would have made him capable of anything.
Carone told me that in 1963, he had been ordered to shoot down JFK at the Dallas Airport, in Texas. Carone said he had been given a bolt action rifle, Russian made, with a telescopic lens, but could not get a clear field of fire at JFK, and therefore, didn't want to upset the apple cart by taking a shot that might miss, and alert everyone that an attempt had been made on the life of JFK.
Carone said he went to Dallas in 1963 on orders from William Casey. That he had been joined there by several other U.S. Military personnel, all of whom had some part in the overall operation to kill JFK.
Carone said he had approached Jack Ruby prior to the murder of JFK, and Ruby was aware of what was going to happen to JFK, and was part of the overall plan to murder JFK.
I will testify to the contents of this affidavit in a court of law.
Background story to William Casey's (fake) affidavit
Excerpt from Eric Stacey's 2006 book 'Bagman: The Secret Life of Col. Albert V. Carone', pp. 81-82, 87:
EXT. RAY KOHLMAN'S OFFICE -- DAY: A Mailman stuffs envelopes into the mail box. ... A Secretary deposits mail on Kohlman's desk. Among the letters there is a large envelope.
INT. CARONE HOUSE -- DAY: Dee steps to the RINGING phone.
DEE: Hello.
KOHLMAN: Your case is getting stronger by the minute, Dee. I just received an affidavit from an anonymous source. Guess whose affidavit it is?
DEE: Tell me.
KOHLMAN: It looks like a sworn affidavit from William Casey. You're not going to believe who witnessed it.
DEE: Tell me.
KOHLMAN: Richard Nixon.
DEE: Isn't it strange that someone would just drop something like that in the mail to you?
KOHLMAN: There are a lot of people in positions of power who privately take issue with what The Company does. Your case is an opportunity to do something about it. ...
Now, Dee, with the sworn affidavits of William Tyree and Bill Casey, I think we're starting to build a case that holds water.
William Casey's (fake) 1986 affidavit
Taken from Eric Stacey's 2006 book 'Bagman: The Secret Life of Col. Albert V. Carone', pp. 82-87:
I, William J. Casey, declare: I have found that freedom is a priceless commodity that demands constant vigilance to guaranteed [sic] its longevity.
I was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in London, England, during World War II. During that time I befriended a young German soldier named Gunther [Russbacher]. I used Gunther and several other anti-Nazi German prisoners of war in OSS operations within Nazi Germany.
I knew this violated Geneva (War) Convention. I did not care. The Geneva Convention was but a set of rules governing man's atrocities committed in the name of political ideology. To wage war with rules is to prolong human suffering. Open warfare is the last resort of a civilized nation and must be used sparingly. Wars must be fought savagely utilizing all tools and tricks at hand. Gunther was a tool. Ignoring the Geneva Convention was the trick.
After I became Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) on January 28, 1981, I was approached and briefed by William Colby, former DCI. My history with Bill Colby is known. Colby notified me off the record of two operations he was still running in Latin America. Both operations were without the knowledge and consent of the United States Congress, President Ronald Reagan or even the United States intelligence apparatus. Colby identified the operations as "Red Mist" and "Sandman." Sandman entailed smaller operations.
I was told that Red Mist identified individuals and the build up of the communist threat in Latin America. Some intelligence collected in Red Mist was used in Task Force 157.
I was told that Sand was "the Phoenix program" of Latin America. It involved the assassination of the communist infrastructure throughout Latin America.
I was told that Colby authorized assets involved in Red Mist and Sandman to engage in narcotics trafficking to finance both operations. Colby engaged in similar operations that I know of in Vietnam for the same reason.
Colby candidly informed me that he had prepositioned more than one million pounds of cocaine in Panama between December 1, 1975 and April 1, 1976. This was done with the aid of our gallant ally, General Manuel Noriega.
The cocaine was transported into El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras between 1976 and 1981. Colby now sat in front of me with hat in hand and requested my help in the delivery of the cocaine to the American market.
I was told that Colby was using a mutual friend of ours, Colonel Albert Vincent Carone, United States Army, Military Intelligence, to field Red Mist and Sandman. Al Carone is a charismatic patriot that General Joseph W. Stilwell introduced to us in late 1945. Beisde the usual qualifications, Al Carone brought to the anti-communist effort a direct connection to his long time friend, Vito Genovese. Genovese was head of the gambling and narcotics for the controlling family in New York to which Al Carone was a made member. Carone is a friend of international fugitive, Robert Vesco. Carone has several anti-communist intelligence sources that include Maurita Lorenz, a friend of Fidel Castro. Al Carone is the younger brother of Doctor Pasquale Carone. Dr. Carone worked for Central Intelligence of other matters.
Colby told me that profits from the preposition cocaine would be laundered through Al Carone, the New York Mafia, and Robert Vesco, then redirected to the anti-comminist effort through Colby. After discussions with Al Carone, I made the decision to bring the prepositioned cocaine into Mena airport, Mena, Arkansas. Central Intelligence has used Mena airports on prior occasions. This time the cocaine is the tool. The trick was to ignore the law and avoid public scrutiny. We were helped in our effort by William J. Clinton, and William F. Weld.
By 1984 all the prepositioned cocaine had arrived at Mena airport, and additional cocaine sources were secured. Cocaine was being transshipped through Hanger Four and Five at Ilapango Airbase, El Salvador. My point man at Mena was Alder Berriman Seal. Barry Seal.
Bill Clinton has proved invaluable so far by containing the local law enforcement investigations into the intelligence activity at Mena. Bill Weld, an Assistant United States Attonery, was placed in charge of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. This was done so that Bill Weld could control investigations into Mena by federal law enforcement agencies. This placement of Weld has proved invaluable to date.
I ordered John Poindexter, Robert McFarland, and Oliver North to go outside the normal channels and use available assets, including the Mafia, to ensure the arrival of the cocaine into Mena airport.
The arrivals occurred in no small part through the efforts of personnel assigned to the National Security Agency, and Army Security Agency. The men and women of the NSA and ASA, blinded early warning defense satellites, and radar grids to enable the aircraft to land undetected at Mena airport. The NSA and ASA operations were "Sea Spray" and "Jade Bridge."
I have learned that the course of Democratic struggle for Nicaragua, and Latin America is beginning to swing in our direction. I attribute this success to Projects Red Mist and Sandman which Bill Colby had the insight, precision and spine to carry out. I take notice of the heroic efferts of Al Carone, Bill Clinton, Bill Weld, John Poindexter, Bud McFarland [Robert McFarlane] and Ollie North. Without these men, Red Mist and Sandman would not have appeared. ...
The trick is to understand that the drug user had the freedom to make a choice. They chose the drug. I chose to use their habit to finance the democracy that all Americans enjoy. ... For a change the drug user will contribute to society.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the above facts are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. Executive this 9th day of December 1986 in McLean, Virginia.
[Signature]
~ William J. Casey.
Dee Ferdinand court deposition/testimony
Your Honor, Ladies & Gentlemen, today is September 29, 1998.
The following deposition is being videotaped by Gary
Farnsworth of Audio Video Documentation Services,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 7167 Corrales Road, Corrales, NM
in the matter of :
_______________________________________________
William M. Tyree, Jr.,
Plaintiff
vs.
Central Intelligence Agency,
L. Scott Harshbarger,
A. Paul Celluci,
George Bush,
Dois Gene Tatum,
Defendants.
Case No. 98-CV-11829 JLT
Filed in The United States District Court, District of Mass.
This deposition has been noticed by the plaintiff. The deponent is Desiree A.
Ferdinand. The time is now 10:05 a.m.
Counsel will now identify himself for the record.
Raymond D. Kohlman of Attleboro, MA
Penelope J. Parigo, Notary Public, will now swear in the deponent.
Do you swear that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
DF: Yes I do.
RK: Good morning.
DF: Good morning.
RK: Are you okay?
DF: I'm fine.
RK: Okay, I would like you to look at this please and can you tell me what it is?
DF: It is my father's death certificate.
RK: When did your father die?
DF: January 7, 1990.
RK: Okay. How long had he lived here in New Mexico?
DF: Since 1980.
RK: Okay. What was your father doing at the time of his death?
DF: He was retired.
RK: What was his previous employment?
DF: He originally was with the military and then he went into New York City Police Department and did crossover work with Central Intelligence Agency and while he was with the military until his death, he was with Military Intelligence, Counter Intelligence Corps.
RK: So you stated that before he worked for the New York Police Department he was in the military?
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay. Was he buried in a military cemetery?
DF: Yes.
RK: Would you look at this please and then you can show it to the camera if you wish. What is that?
DF: It is his internment record at Santa Fe Veteran's Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
RK: Does that anywhere have his rank?
DF: Yes it does. It has his rank of Staff Sergeant, which is inaccurate.
RK: Okay. Now would you look at this please and show it to the camera?
DF: Okay.
RK: What is that?
DF: That is my father's headstone, which reads Albert V. Carone, Colonel, U.S. Army.
RK: So we went from Staff Sergeant to Colonel?
DF: Yes.
RK: At his death?
DF: My father was a full bird Colonel at the time of his death.
RK: Okay, in spite of the fact that the internment record stated Staff Sargeant?
DF: Yes.
RK: Can you explain what happened?
DF: When my father died in 1990 and he was buried, it took about a month for the headstone to be placed and when it was placed it was placed as Staff Sargeant. I went to the cemetery and I told them there was a mistake. They had turned around and told me I would have to notify the U.S. Army Personnel in St. Louis. I did that. St. Louis came back and told me there was no record of Albert V. Carone ever being in the military.
They sent me a letter, or Patricia Moore sent me a letter stating there was no record and he never existed. A disagreement occured that he was buried at Santa Fe National Cemetery and he was in the military. They had told me that that was not the case. In 1992, I started…well, from 1990, from that point on I started trying to put together the pieces of my father's military because I was in possession of a great deal of military records from the army. I wound up going to a retirement luncheon at Kirtland Airforce Base in Albuquerque for retired intelligence people and I brought a military picture of my father with me. A man that was there by the name of Robert Maheu stated that he recognized him from Washington and the Pentagon and told me that what I needed to do if he had been in Intelligence or worked with Central Intelligence Agency, which he did from 1966 on, that I needed to call Theodore Shackley.
RK: Okay. Had you ever heard that name before?
DF: Yes.
RK: How?
DF: My father.
RK: Okay. So Mr. Maheu said contact Mr. Shackley. Did you?
DF: Yes I did.
RK: And what did Mr. Shackley say?
DF: He originally stated that he would not confirm or deny ever knowing Colonel Carone. He asked me what I wanted. I told him that I wanted my father's headstone changed since at one time he had worked with my father with the Golden Triangle in Vietnam. He stated that he did not know what I was talking about and what did I really want from him? I told him that I wanted my father's headstone changed. I stated that if my father worked for them all those years and if he was in the military all of those years then he would be buried with his rank as he was buried with full military honors.
RK: Let me stop you for just a moment here. When you talked with Mr. Shackley did he refer to your father as Colonel Carone? Not Albert Carone?
DF: Yes he did. Colonel.
RK: Not Mr. Carone?
DF: No.
RK: Specifically stated Colonel?
DF: Colonel.
RK: Okay. Please continue.
DF: We ended the phone conversation and he told me that he would see what he could do but he could not promise me that he could do anything and he did not feel that he needed to help me in any way. Ten days to the date of my conversation with Theodore Shackley I received an interoffice memo stating that my father's headstone would be changed.
RK: Is this what you are referring to as the interoffice memo?
DF: Yes it is a routing and transmittal slip. It is sent to me and it states that "we are returning your father's military records. Headstone has already been ordered with Colonel on headstone. Thank you, Joseph Levato."
RK: Now at your father's death, he, let me refer to this. He authorized the document?
DF: Yes.
RK: Is that the document?
DF: Yes, it is my Power of Attorney.
RK: Okay. So in effect, you had control of all the property?
DF: Yes I did.
RK: Okay. Have you to this date received all the property?
DF: No.
RK: Now when I say received all the property, did your father indicate what he had?
DF: There were bank accounts. There were insurance policies. At my father's death, there were bankaccounts that I was on with my dad. They disappeared. My father's driver's license,there was no record of.
Social Security stated that there was never a man by the name of Albert Carone that existed. There was no military records that existed. My father's car he had left to my daughter. When I went to transfer the title into my daughter's name, which my father bought this car off of the floor brand new, the title was not in my father's name. It was in my name as the original buyer. Anything that was in my father's possession had disappeared.
RK: Okay. Again, to this date, have you received any property that belonged to your father at his death.
DF: No.
RK: When was your father's birth date?
DF: July 7, 1922.
RF: Okay. And his father's name?
DF: Vincent.
RF: And his mother's name?
DF: Angelina.
RK: And in New York City?
DF: Yes.
RK: How long did he live in New York City?
DF: Dad lived in Brooklyn until 1955 and then he moved to Wantaugh, Long Island until 1979. The latter part of 1979 and then he moved to Rio Rancho, New Mexico in 1980.
RK: Okay. Did he have a lot of brothers and sisters?
DF: He had a brother. There were three sisters and two other brothers. The only one that was alive was his brother Pat, Pasquale.
RK: Is Pasquale still alive?
DF: Yes.
RK: And where does Pasquale live?
DF: Bayport, Long Island.
RK: Is he employed?
DF: Semi.
RK: What does he do?
DF: He is a psychiatrist.
RK: Has he been a psychiatrist for as long as you have known him?
DF: Yes.
RK: Does he work at a hospital or….
DF: South Oaks Hospital in Massapequa, Long Island. He is a consultant and I think he still works possibly one day a week.
RK: Did he work anywhere else?
DF: He was the head psychiatrist for the New York City Police Department and also for the Diocese in Rockville Center Roman Catholic Church.
RK: So the Police Department, the church and the hospital?
DF: Yes. He also wrote two books. One on drugs, LSD, and another one on alcoholism.
RK: Would you please look at that?
DF: That is my father's brother, Pasquale.
RK: And this?
DF: My father's brother, Pasquale.
RK: The same gentleman?
DF: Yes.
RK: Would you show that to the camera?
DF: Sure.
RK: And when was that picture taken approximately?
DF: I do not know. From the wallpaper, it had to be in Wantaugh, Long Island because this was the house in Wantaugh. It was probably around the time of my son's first or second birthday around 1973 or 1974.
RK: I have this here. Would you look at that?
DF: Okay. Do you want me to show this to the camera?
RK: Sure. Now can you identify any of those persons?
DF: This man in the middle is my Uncle Gene. This is my grandfather, Vincent, on my mother's side and this is my Uncle Alex. This gentleman I do not know and this is a man that was known as Nelly.
RK: Okay. What did Nelly do?
DF: Every gentleman in this picture was associated with organized crime. My grandfather was a loan shark and racketeer.
RK: When you say organized crime, is there another name that it is known by?
DF: Cosa Nostra or Mafia.
RK: Okay. And you said all of the gentlemen there were associated?
DF: Yes.
RK: Was your father associated?
DF: Yes.
RK: How did that association begin?
DF: When my father was around six years old, my grandfather, Vincent, was involved in the import/export business of olive oil out of Cortone, Italy. My father's family owned a town or were the major landowners in Cortone. My grandfather had a great deal of money. He died when my father was about three years old. My grandmother lost all of what my grandfather had built up. She had a store. My grandmother wound up destitute and my father pretty much started living on his own at about six or seven years old because when my grandmother used to entertain gentlemen, she would lock my father out of the apartment and he would sleep on what was known as a stoop. In Brooklyn, they used to have the stairs going up. He started eating out of garbage cans and his father's Aunt Lizzie and a lot of the aunts would take care of him at times. There was a bar down the street, I don't remember the name of the bar. It was in the White Hook section of Brooklyn. There was a gentleman there by the name of Vito Genovese.
RK: Now, there are a lot of Genovese's in New York.
DF: Vito Genovese, the godfather of La Cosa Nostra back in the 30's and 40's. He was one of the heads of the La Cosa Nostra so what he would do is give my father sometimes five cents, sometimes ten cents, sometimes twenty-five cents to run either money or papers to different people. He used him as an errand boy.
There were many times that my father wound up sleeping in the bar at night. They would let him stay there. He kind of wound up under Vito Genovese's wing. When my father was between six and eight years old, he even got him a job singing for Prince Spaghetti on the radio doing commercials. So he wound up being brought up by Vito Genovese and his loyalty held no bounds to these people.
RK: And he continued this association with the Genovese family?
DF: Until Vito Genovese died.
RK: Did his association then change?
DF: It went to Joseph Colombo. My father knew the Gallo brothers, Joseph Gallo but I cannot remember his brother's name. The Mazzaratti family, the Colombo family. At the time that my father was in Brooklyn, he dealt a great deal with the main head which was Gambino himself, and he was very close to Joe Colombo, the Bonanno family, Joe Bonanno, and he was very close to Paulie Castelano.
RK: Okay. Did you know Mr. Castelano by any other name?
DF: Uncle Paul.
RK: Would you please look at this?
DF: Okay.
RK: Can you show the camera and identify those people?
DF: Yes, one is my husband, Thomas. The other one is a man by the name of Angelo Crocci.
RK: Was Mr. Crocci employed?
DF: Yes. Well he was self-employed.
RK: And what was his business?
DF: He had a bar and the bar was a front for racketeering and for running numbers and bookmaking.
RK: What does your husband do?
DF: He is in telephone communications.
RK: Thank you.
DF: This is my Uncle Jimmy Madeira. I refer to him as uncle but he was first cousin to my father. His nickname was the Fish. He worked as a longshoreman.
RK: Please show the camera.
DF: Sure.
RK: Was that his only job, longshoreman?
DF: Yes, but he had ties to organized crime from my dad. This is my godfather, Pete Porazzo. He was in the New York City Police Department and was a Sargeant with the New York City Police Department. He was involved with a man by the name of Bob Leuci and my father, as far as drug running, coming in through CIA into organized crime to put it on the street.. He was indicted, caught at Kennedy International Hotel. He was indicted. He was sent to South Oaks Hospital, which my Uncle Pat, Pasquale Carone, was head at the time. He wound up getting his entire retirement because Uncle Pat stated he was mentally ill. I cannot tell you the amount of kilos that he had of cocaine. There was cocaine and heroin involved and the payoff to him was ten thousand dollars.
RK: Do you know who gave him the money?
DF: No, I do not.
RK: Now you stated that your father was a New York Policeman?
DF: Yes.
RK: Your father was Italian, full Italian?
DF: Yes.
RK: Did your father speak Italian?
DF: No.
RK: Did your father speak any foreign languages?
DF: Yes. He spoke Japanese, he spoke Chinese, he spoke Korean and he spoke Vietnamese.
RK: Now your father was in the war, the Second World War?
DF: Yes.
RK: And continued his career until what date with the military?
DF: Probably 1986 or 1987.
RK: Do you know where he was stationed during the Second World War?
DF: South Pacific.
RK: Do you have any more specific locations?
DF: No, I just know he was in the South Pacific. But I also know that at one point he was in the European theatre. According to his military records, when he was supposed to be in the South Pacific, a lot of military records that I have of my dad, he was also in the United States at the same time so I really can't tell you where he was and what he was doing.
RK: But he was in the service?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: Could you tell me what that is?
DF: If is a wedding picture of my mom and dad with my Aunt Mary, who was my mother's aunt, and with my father's nephew, Louis Madera.
RK: Thank you.
DF: You’re welcome.
RK: Would you please look at this?
DF: Okay. My father's honorable discharge papers, a separation center from Ft. Dix on November 12, 1945 when he came back from the war.
RK: And what is on the other side?
DF: His name, his organization, his address, what his MO was.
RK: And what was his MO?
DF: Intelligence and CI. He went to school, according to these papers, for intelligence and espionage.
RK: Have you seen this before?
DF: Yes. These are part of my file. This is a copy of an original that I have of my dad's papers, Commissioned Officer School for Anti-Aircraft Training Center, Riverside, California.
RK: Would you look at that please?
DF: This is a breakdown of platoon leaders.
RK: Platoon leaders where?
DF: In New York.
RK: Does your father's name show up there?
DF: Yes it does. His unit commander was Major Paul Donnelly. The gentleman that he answered to was Captain Walter Copacz and then came my dad, and my father was the platoon leader.
RK: Did you meet any of those gentlemen?
DF: Oh yeah, Major Donnelly. I have never met Captain Copacz but I have spoken to him on numerous
occasions.
RK: Okay. Could you show them?
DF: Sure.
RK: Can you identify that?
DF: It is a letter from my cousin Louis, okay, to Brigadeer General James.T. Brown. I hereby certify that Albert Carone, a candidate for commission as second Lieutenant 23rd Regimen New York Guard has been well known to me personally for more than ten years. In my opinion, the moral character, personal habits and reputation of the candidate are excellent and he is very deserving of the commission of aforesaid. Respectfully yours, Louis Madera.
RK: And that was commission as an officer?
DF: Yes. May 1946.
RK: Now during this period of time, was your father employed other than in the service?
DF: In 1946 he went to New York City Police Department.
RK: Have you seen that before?
DF: Yes.
RK: Would you show the camera? What is that?
DF: I would say, it was for training at the Police Academy.
RK: What does that document indicate?
DF: That he went into the police department shield #3283.
RK: Can you find your father's name on that roll?
DF: Yes.
RK: Would you show the camera?
DF: Albert V. Carone, ninth from the top. These are the police department's order of retirement midnight December 31, 1966 Albert V. Carone, shield #3283, 81st Precinct, Bedford Stuyvesant, and he was appointed into the police department on September 21, 1946.
RK: Could you show that please? What other precincts do you know that he was assigned to?
DF: I think at one time my father was with the 42nd but my father mainly worked for the 19th division and I think the 21st division because my father had taken over the job of what is known as Bag Man, from a man by the name of Jimmy Reardon, also known as Squire Reardon. Bag Man was the man who got the payoffs for the police department to look the other way.
RK: And your father took that job over from Reardon?
DF: Yes.
RK: Do you know why he took it over from Reardon?
DF: No, I really don't. I just know that there was drugs with the families involved. The agency, the CIA, was bringing in drugs and dad was the liaison between organized crime families because my father was a made man with organized crime; he rode both sides of the fence. They used dad for it so dad used to take the payoffs from different people and there were certain people in the police department that were paid off to look the other way.
RK: How do you know that he played both sides of the fence?
DF: Because when I was growing up it was discussed in the house.
RK: Between who?
DF: My mom and dad. My sister and I would be there all the time. There would be other people that woul be there. You could not help but overhear what was going on. And yes we did have elephant ears as children.
RK: Would you please identify that.
DF: My father's telephone book.
RK: Would you show it to the camera?
DF: Sure.
RK: You don't have to open it up. At approximately what time did your father own that book?
DF: This book is ancient. This book was always in our house in 81 Leanne Terrace and 82 Leanne Terrace in Wantaugh.
RK: Have you read that book?
DF: Sure.
RK: So you have an idea of what is in it?
DF: Definitely.
RK: Can you give me an idea of the people who are in it? What kind of people?
DF: Okay. There are military people in here. There is attorneys that worked with the agency and also with organized crime. There are organized crime figures in here.
RK: And you received that book when?
DF: When my father died it was in his possessions.
RK: Would you look at that please?
DF: Headquarters Infantry School, Ft. Benning Georgia, Award Certificate for Master Sargeant Albert V. Carone. Do you want me to hold this up?
RK: Yes. And that was a completion certificate?
DF: Yes.
RK: And does it state what course he completed?
DF: Precommission extensive course of the only extension course program.
RK: So it was prior to his being commissioned?
DF: Yes. Army Intelligence School, Ft. Hollobird of Maryland. Sargeant Albert V. Carone has successfully completed the Army Counter Intelligence Corps investigations course from October 16, 1956 to October 26, 1956.
RK: Now do you know anything about Ft. Hollobird now?
DF: No.
RK: Your father never mentioned that? Now the date on that was, what was the last date on that please?
DF: October 26, 1956.
RK: And what was his rank?
DF: Sargeant.
RK: And what do you have before you?
DF: The people of the state of New York, New York National Guard.
RK: Does it give a rank?
DF: Second Lieutenant Infantry.
RK: Who is that for?
DF: My dad, Albert Vincent Carone.
RK: Would you show that to the camera please? So we have him flip-flopping back and forth?
DF: You could say that.
RK: From an enlisted person completing a precommission course in 1956 and being a Second Lieutenant prior to 1956?
DF: Right.
RK: Would you look at that please? What is that?
DF: Transfer to Reserve List; Grade of Second Lieutenant.
RK: What is the date?
DF: July 8, 1946.
RK: Now, do you know if your father received any promotions?
DF: Yes. Dad received promotions. We had a big party for him when he received his promotion to Major and it was about three or four months after he went to Pennsylvania to the War College.
RK: Do you remember the year?
DF: I think it was around 1968.
RK: Okay. Would you please look at that.
DF: This is my father.
RK: Could you show the camera? What is the rank for that picture?
DF: Major.
RK: Now is that an official photograph?
DF: Yes it is.
RK: Do you know where the full size of this photograph is?
DF: No, I don't.
RK: Do you happen to remember now, he was a Major here in this photograph, do you happen to remember his commanding officer?
DF: No.
RK: Do you recognize this?
DF: Yes, this is Colonel Buskirk. He lived here in Albuquerque.
RK: Is that one word…
DF: One word…Colonel Winfred Buskirk.
RK: What relationship did he have with your father?
DF: My father worked with Colonel Buskirk. He was CIC.
RK: Do you know what those letters stand for, CIC?
DF: Counter Intelligence Corps.
RK: Did he work with your father here in New Mexico?
DF: We came down to see Colonel Buskirk about four or five different occasions. He was really close with the Colonel. I know they worked together but I can't tell you where they worked. I just know we used to come down and visit him. Colonel Buskirk had come up to New York a couple of times to spend a week or two weeks with us at a time. He is deceased. Headquarters Counter Intelligence School, First Army Intelligence School at Ft. Slocum.
RK: Have you seen that document before?
DF: Yes. This is a copy of one of the originals that I hold.
RK: How did you get the original?
DF: Dad had a file and he kept a lot of his papers. I originally had all of his papers but my father had moved out of his home at 200 Wyoming Autumn and a lot of his papers from 1958, 1960 had disappeared with
his footlocker.
RK: From his home?
DF: Yes, from his garage.
RK: After his death?
DF: Yes.
RK: Did your father leave a will?
DF: No, excuse me, it was before his death.
RK: Where was your father at the time?
DF: He was living in apartments in Corales, New Mexico. He moved out of his home at 200 Wyoming
Autumn.
RK: Someone broke into the garage?
DF: I would tend to think so since I was the only one with the key and I did not take the footlocker.
RK: Did you talk to your father about that incident?
DF: Yes.
RK: And he did not give them to anybody, the documents.
DF: No.
RK: Was that the only break-in to his property?
DF: Yes.
RK: Now, upon your father's death, did he leave a will?
DF: Yes.
RK: And where was that will probated?
DF: Here in New Mexico District Court.
RK: Was an executor or executrix appointment?
DF: My sister and I were both made to share equally and if one chose to give up the responsibility of his estate the other one was to take over. My sister chose to give up anything to do with it, which put me in charge
of the estate.
RK: So you were in effect the executrix?
DF: Yes.
RK: What was your understanding of the duty of the executrix?
DF: Well, in all honesty when my father got sick, my father decided to have a Power of Attorney drawn up to act in his behalf in any way to make any decisions. So it really did not dawn on me what it was for me to do because I had been doing it for two years. I just knew that I had to do what I had to do to get his last wishes resolved.
RK: And those last wishes included what, as far as his property was concerned?
DF: I was to regain all of his property and my sister and I were to share in it equally.
RK: Have you attempted to do that?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: In 1990?
DF: Yes.
RK: 1991?
DF: Yes.
RK: 1994?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: And how did you do that?
DF: First I started contacting the military. They decided to tell me that all papers were burned. There was no record anywhere. Well there was no record but they chose to bury him at Santa Fe National Cemetery. So after I had that little mishap, I went and wrote to the Department of the U.S. Army, the Reserve and Personnel Center in St. Louis to which they came back and told me that there was no record whatsoever but if I wanted tosend them my records, that would be okay for them.
RK: Would you look at this please and show the camera?
DF: This is a letter from the Department of the Army signed by Chief of Inquiries, Patricia Moore..
RK: Now you have referred twice to the Department of the Army just recently. You also mentioned Patricia Moore so she apparently as of that particular date, which is what?
DF: November 26, 1991.
RK: So she in effect was a spokesman for the Department of the Army, was that your impression?
DF: Well, yeah, because she signed it Patricia Moore, Chief Inquiries.
DF: This is my letter to the Department of the Army Chief of Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts.
RK: What is the date of that letter?
DF: January 7, 1992.
RK: Now you just showed us an answer from the army dated November 1991 and the date of the letter you have in your hand is?
DF: January 7, 1992.
RK: Would you show the camera please? Did you do anything else in attempting to regain the property?
DF: I went to see the Senator, okay I will say this wrong, Senator Dominici.
RK: U.S. Senator?
DF: Yes, U.S. Senator.
RK: Did you vote for him?
DF: Not anymore.
RK: And basically what is that? That letter is from?
DF: The senator.
RK: And basically what does that letter state?
DF: This replies to your inquiry on behalf of Mrs. Desiree Ferdinand concerning the military service of her late father, Mr. Albert V. Carone. As Mrs. Ferdinand has previously informed Title 10 United States Code Section 1331-1337 authorized retired pay for reserved component military service. To be eligible for retired pay under this law, a reserve soldier or former reserve soldier must have completed a minimum of 20 qualifying years of service after July 1, 1949 qualifying years in which the reserved soldier earned at least 50 retirement points. Extensive search is conducted at the Center and at the National Archives and Records Administration failed to locate Mr. Carone's military personnel records.
RK: When did you say, to the best of your knowledge, your father left military service?
DF: 1985.
RK: And the National Records basically told you what?
DF: They don't have any record of him.
RK: Did they give any possible explanation?
DF: Document furnished by Mrs. Ferdinand dated March 12, 1970 is not an official promotion letter.
Retired benefits are not part of his estate according there are no provisions, can receive any retirement benefits based on her late father's military service. In an effort to verify Mr. Carone's military service from November 13, 1945 through February 4, 1957, a request was floated to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Indianapolis, Indiana requesting a search of their payroll. These searches take several months to complete and sometimes do not produce desired results. Upon receipt of additional documentation, further research will be conducted. The delay in furnishing a final reply is regretted.
RK: Any response desirable or not desirable?
DF: None.
RK: From personal records?
DF: None.
RK: Have they ever tried to explain why?
DF: No
RK: What other methods did you use to regain records or regain property?
DF: I went to Congressman Shift's office.
RK: And what happened there?
DF: They started working on things. His liaison by the name of Mary started trying to work on the file. Congressman Shift passed away.
RK: Was he succeeded in office?
DF: Yeah, a couple of months ago.
RK: Have you heard anything from the person who took Shift's place?
DF: No.
RK: Was there anything else that you did to try to collect the property or records, information?
DF: I went to different banks, the banks that I had accounts with on my father. They told me there was no record. I contacted Social Security. Finally after about two months, Social Security came back to me and said, oh we found Albert Carone. And then they came back with three different birth dates on him. So Social Security, he is back. Police Department, I wrote to Commissioner Brackston. I wrote to Mayor Guilliani and they decided to, first they had denied that he was ever with the police department and then after I became a real nudge about things, it took them about two years and I wound up with an insurance card from the police department, to my dad, stating that these were the new insurance cards so I called them and said he is deceased and you sent me insurance cards. You told me this man never existed. They said oh no, he exists. I said well he is dead and who is paying for his medical insurance and they told me the city of New York was. I told them well how, he is deceased. They asked me to return the insurance cards. I did not.
RK: They can't be used anyway.
DF: I still wasn't giving them back. A letter from John Higgins, who was my attorney at the time, to the Bank of America where I had my account with my dad.
RK: What were you using Mr. Higgins for?
DF: I went to John Higgins to have him probate the estate and to try to help me find dad's records and files because the previous attorney that I had used conveniently forgot to probate the estate and informed me that I could not have my father's files back. Then he informed me he gave them back, which he did not, so I took him to the Disciplinary Board of the State of New Mexico.
RK: That is Mr. Higgins?
DF: No, that is Mr. Robert Fuentes.
RK: What bank is that document to?
DF: Bank of America.
RK: Could you show that to the camera please. And have you either directly or through Mr. Higgins, received an answer from the Bank of America?
DF: No.
RK: Why did he send the letter to the Bank of America?
DF: Because I had an account with my father at Albuquerque Federal Bank, which was taken over by the Bank of America. It was bought out by the Bank of America.
RK: And as far as you know, they have not given you an answer as to what happened to that account?
DF: They said that the account never existed.
RK: Okay. Now how would I know the account existed?
DF: Because I have the canceled checks from the account.
RK: From which bank?
DF: Albuquerque Federal.
RK: Okay. And they are regular checks?
DF: Yes.
RK: Printed?
DF: Yes.
RK: With the account number?
DF: Yes.
RK: So if I had one of those checks, I could normally go to the bank and they could use the numbers to find whatever records they had?
DF: Exactly.
RK: Now, were they commercially printed checks?
DF: They were checks that were ordered through the bank.
RK: So the bank took your order for the checks with an application for the checks?
DF: No, it was a reorder form from the original checks that we had.
RK: Sent it to whatever printing company they used so it would have their number, their account number.
DF: Yes, exactly.
RK: And that account never existed?
DF: According to them.
RK: Now when Albuquerque Federal was purchased by Bank of America, was the checking account turned over to Bank of America?
DF: I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't know if it might have been a couple of weeks down the
road because we were told that when it was turning over we could still use the old checks and that they would be recognized.
RK: Do you have any checks with the Bank of America?
DF: No.
RK: Okay. So the only ones you have basically are Albuquerque Federal and whatever account those numbers fall?
DF: Yes. This is the letter from John Higgins to the CIA at Langley.
RK: Could you show that to the camera? Thank you. Basically what did Mr. Higgins ask for?
DF: Request the dates when her father, Albert V. Carone, worked for the CIA. Mrs. Ferdinand presented copies of the death certificate and letter of testamentary for your file. To date, my client has not had a response from you. I would appreciate you looking into this matter and advising me as to the status of Mrs. Ferdinand's request. It is hoped that it will not be necessary to subpoena your records in this matter. I you have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. John Higgins, Attorney-at-Law.
RK: And what was the date on that letter again please?
DF: September 30, 1992.
RK: Have you received anything from the CIA?
DF: Yes.
RK: And what was that?
DF: They have no record of Albert Carone.
RK: Now, when we say the CIA, can I presume that it means the Central Intelligence Agency?
DF: Yes.
RK: And what is that please?
DF: A letter from me to Freeman D. Clark, c/o the Pentagon in Washington.
RK: Now who is Mr. Clark?
DF: He had written a letter recommending my father for intelligence activities while my father was in the military. The exact words were that he was highly recommended for subversive of activities with the military.
RK: Now when you say he was highly recommended for subversive activities, was that to find subversive
activities or was that to cause subversive activities?
DF: I don't know.
RK: Thank you.
DF: You are welcome.
RK: Now would you look at that and show it to the camera please?
DF: This is my dad.
RK: And about what age was he when that picture was taken?
DF: It was taken in 1971….you do the math.
RK: Is that an official photograph?
DF: No, my mother was hounding my dad to have a picture taken for the family and he complained because his hair was not military cut and the official picture would have been taken in about a month or two. But he complied.
RK: To the best of your knowledge, was an official photograph similar to this photograph ever taken?
DF: Yes.
RK: And what is the rank of this particular photograph?
DF: Colonel.
RK: So somewhere there may be an official photograph of your father?
DF: There is, not maybe. There is an official photograph of my dad.
RK: As what rank?
DF: Colonel.
RK: Have you seen that photograph?
DF: Yes.
RK: Do you know where that photograph is now?
DF: No.
RK: When did you see that photograph?
DF: My mom used to have it in the house at 82 Leanne Terrace when they lived there in a frame.
RK: Do you know what happened to that photograph?
DF: No.
RK: So why did your mother want this photograph taken again?
DF: She was proud and she just wanted everybody to have a picture and she really didn’t like the way the official photographs, he always looked angry to tell you the truth, so she wanted an official one done. There was another one done of my dad in uniform with my mom but I don't know where that is.
RK: Now we have talked a little bit about the Carone family.
DF: Yes.
RK: And we have talked a little bit about organized crime families. To the best of your knowledge, how was your father perceived by the Carone family?
DF: Get in trouble and we can call Uncle Al, his nickname was Chensy, to both families. If there was a problem, call Uncle Al and he will take care of it.
RK: Now we had talked about various members of organized crime. Did they associate with your father much?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: Frequently?
DF: Yes.
RK: Monthly?
DF: More than monthly.
RK: Daily?
DF: Sometimes.
RK: What, if you know, what was their perception…..
DF: Honorable, I didn't say honest I said honorable.
RK: Do you know how long he kept this reputation with organized crime?
DF: Until the day he died.
RK: Now, have you met many of his associates in the military?
DF: Some.
RK: Was that frequent?
DF: Major Donnelly was frequent because Major Donnelly was a very close friend also of my dad's and his brother, Pat.
RK: Do you know or are there any indications you have of what Major Donnelly thought about your father?
DF: I had a discussion with Major Donnelly one day about my father's things. He asked me where my father's files, his journals, and his tapes were. I told him I was looking for certain files, tapes, and journals. He told me I needed to stop what I was doing and he told me the walls will keep on going up. I proceeded to tell Major Donnelly I will take them down. I have not spoken to him since.
RK: Do you remember when that conversation occurred approximately?
DF: Around 1992.
RK: And prior to that did you have any discussion or any other conversations with Major Donnelly?
DF: I had about four or five conversations with Major Donnelly.
RK: Did he mention anything about his feelings towards your father?
DF: No, but they were friends since we lived in Brooklyn so you have to go back at least 40 years. They were social friends also, not just through military.
RK: For the 40 years?
DF: Yeah.
RK: Okay. Now we have made reference to the Central Intelligence Agency. Do you know if your father had any or did you know the associates of your father as far as the Central Intelligence Agency was concerned?
DF: Some.
RK: Are there any names that immediately come to mind?
DF: William Casey.
RK: William Casey?
DF: And Oliver North. He just wasn't military intelligence. He worked with the CIA and Theodore Shackley.
RK: You had mentioned Mr. Shackley before.
DF: Yeah.
RK: Now William Casey, how did your father know Mr. Casey?
DF: Bill Casey had come to my father's home for my son's christening, which took place in 1973, March of 73 and they were social friends also. They would go out often. The Casey's would come to our home.
RK: In which state now?
DF: New York, Long Island.
RK: Did your father ever mention knowing Casey before New York?
DF: Before New York? No, the only thing I can tell you that he mentioned about Bill Casey is that they were in the military together. William Casey and my father.
RK: Which unit? You don't know? Okay.
DF: My father originally was with OSS in the military.
RK: Okay.
DF: Okay. I think he knew Mr. Casey from there because they used to discuss, sit down and I guess talk war stories about certain things.
RK: So, your impression is that your father and Bill Casey knew each other from the OSS days and they continued that relationship?
DF: Yes. He also knew General Richard Stilwell from way back when.
RK: One last thing, or several last things and then we will move on. Would you identify that please?
DF: Lieutenant Colonel Albert V. Carone, 82 Leanne Terrace, Wantaugh, New York. It is an envelope mailed from Washington in 1970.
RK: Is there any return address?
DF: No.
RK: Okay. But it is addressed to Colonel?
DF: Lieutenant Colonel.
RK: Lieutenant Colonel?
DF: Yeah.
RK: What is the address?
DF: 82 Leanne Terrace, Wantaugh, NY.
RK: Was that your father's home?
DF: Yeah.
RK: Thank you. And that piece?
DF: Mailgram, Western Union to Colonel Albert Carone, 83 Leanne Terrace, Wantaugh, NY 11793.
Congratulations, your promotion approved this date. Orders to follow your office. Will be at Dix month of
April. Hope to see you then. Signed, Stryker.
RK: Could you spell that name?
DF: Stryker.
RK: Could you show that to the camera?
DF: And it is dated February 18, 1975.
RK: Do you know or have you heard of anyone by the name of Stryker?
DF: I was told that Stryker was a gentleman that he had worked with as far as, I will use the expression, "Black Operations, Counter Intelligence". I think his first name, and I might be wrong, but I think it was Bill
Stryker.
RK: And who gave you this information?
DF: Dad.
RK: When did he give you this information?
DF: When he had gotten the Mailgram.
RK: What was that date?
DF: February 18, 1975.
RK: Thank you. Now you have written several affidavits, is that correct?
DF: Yes.
RK: And do you still hold that the statements you made in those affidavits are accurate?
DF: Definitely.
RK: Now in one of the affidavits dated 1998, do you remember that affidavit?
DF: Yes, it is my most recent one.
RK: Okay. You made several statements in that affidavit?
DF: Yes.
RK: And one of them if I may read it, "In 1966, my father started crossover work with the CIA through
MICIC." How do you know that?
DF: Dad discussed it with my mother.
RK: In 19….
DF: He started discussing it around 1967 and then the heavy discussion came about in 1968. I know it was 1968 because that was when I graduated from high school and that was when dad was never home.
RK: Now, you state that in this affidavit that he had several passports?
DF: Yes. I am only in possession of one. There were three others and I do not know where they are. At his death, they were still available to me but when his apartment was cleaned out and the woman he was living with, they no longer were in my possession.
RK: The woman he was living with, what was her name?
DF: Heddy Williams.
RK: Did she know you were in charge of the property?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: Did she consult you as far as getting rid of anything?
DF: No. It was more like I had to go there and take what was needed and she was supposed to hand over the rest of the passports and she did have other paperwork but she left town.
RK: What happened with the other passports and the rest of the paperwork?
DF: I cannot tell you that. They were in her possession.
RK: Would you look at that please and could you identify that?
DF: It is my father's passport.
RK: Could you show that to the camera?
DF: Sure.
RK: Is there a number somewhere that identifies that passport?
DF: Yes. On the top front page.
RK: Would you read that number?
DF: A634432.
RK: What was the issue date?
DF: Issue date March 13, 1980, expire date March 12, 1985. New application January 30, 1985.
RK: Now, in your search for information, records and property of your father…
DF: I contacted the State Department for the passport.
RK: What do you have in your hand again please?
DF: Passport, United States of America.
RK: And to the best of your knowledge, is that a valid passport?
DF: To the best of my knowledge, yes it is.
RK: Have you seen passports before?
DF: Yes.
RK: Does it look authentic?
DF: Yes.
RK: Issued by?
DF: Secretary of State of the United States of America.
RK: So when you contacted the State Department for any records….
DF: No record.
RK: They had no record of any passport?
DF: None.
RK: Including the passport you have in your hand?
DF: Exactly.
RK: Now your father apparently had some type of passport. Did your father do a lot of traveling?
DF: Extensive.
RK: When did he start traveling? Approximate years.
DF: As early as I could remember. He even traveled a great deal in the police department. He would be gone for 2-3 weeks at a time. He would be in England, he would be in Hong Kong, he would be in Hawaii, Germany, Spain.
RK: Now how did you know he went to these places?
DF: He said so.
RK: Before or after he went?
DF: Before.
RK: So he would tell you I am going to such and such a country?
DF: Yes, he would leave in military uniform most of the time and when he left a military car from Ft. Hamilton would pick him up. Many times when my dad left, he had an attaché case, which is in my possession
and it was always handcuffed to his left wrist.
RK: Which indicates what to you?
DF: It had to be something important.
RK: Now I am going to start asking you about several names.
DF: Okay.
RK: If you would be so kind as to tell me if you have heard of that name before.
DF: Okay.
RK: James Strauss?
DF: Yes, I have heard of James Strauss. I have met the man.
RK: And is he an associate of your father?
DF: Yes he was.
RK: I'm sorry, he was. In what capacity was he an associate?
DF: He stated that he worked with my father with the agency and the last mission they went on was in 1984/85 to a place called Tapechula, Mexico. It was around the time that a good friend of my father's by the name of Kiki Camarena, who was a DEA agent, was murdered.
RK: Okay. Now you say "he told me". Who told you?
DF: Well first dad had stated about a mission he had gone on. When he came home he was very depressed.
He said he could not do this work any longer and he said he was not long for this world, that the suits would be coming for him. I searched all over for Jim Strauss. He finally found me. He came to visit. He brought up the same mission and stated that dad did not have the stomach after that mission any longer and that was the last mission they were on together.
RK: Was that the last mission that you know of that your father went on?
DF: It was definitely the last mission. My father never left the state after that.
RK: Okay, the state of New Mexico?
DF: Yes.
RK: We are in New Mexico now?
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay. Do you know or have heard of the name Michael Harari?
DF: Yes.
RK: How did you first learn of that name?
DF: My father had to go to Kirtland Airforce Base one morning and my mom was still alive. He had to ask me to go pick up prescriptions for her because he needed to be at Kirtland. The reason why he needed to be at Kirtland was because he was meeting with a man by the name of Michael. He told me he would be home between 11 and 12 o'clock. Please pick up my mother's prescriptions. So I went to the drugstore, known as Walgreen's situated at Cores and Corrales Road in Corrales to pick up my mother's prescription and there was a gentleman who had followed me into the pharmacy. I am looking around waiting for the prescriptions. This gentleman was about 10-15 feet constantly behind me. In Walgreen's when a prescription is finished, they call out the name for you to come and pick it up if you tell them you are waiting. I was in there about 20 minutes.
As I was walking out of Walgreen's, this gentleman turned, he was behind me and I was walking out of Walgreen's and he said Dee and I turned around and said yes. He said to me Al's daughter? I said yes and I was trying to put this man like where he should be since he knew me and I didn't know him. He came over to me, took me by the arm and said to me, we need to speak to you. I asked him who he was. He did not acknowledge my question. I proceeded to curse very loudly. I had my mother-in-law with me. She got out of the car immediately and asked him what he was doing. The minute he saw her and people started to look, he dropped my arm and got into a 1984 tannish gold Torino. There was another gentleman in the car with him. I immediately took the prescriptions and went to my father's home. I told my father what happened. My father hit the roof, turned around and said, "What the hell do they want with you?" I said to my father, who wants with me, what is going on? My father refused, refused to answer me. In 1996, I was in communication with William Tyree and he decided to send me reading material, his reading material, his court case and there was a picture of the same gentleman that approached me at Walgreen's and it was Michael Harari.
RK: Who identified the picture as Michael Harari?
DF: Both my mother-in-law and myself. There was no name under that picture and it was like, Oh my God, this is the man who was in the parking lot of Walgreen's and then about 15-20 pages later there was another picture of him and his name was underneath the picture, it was like a newspaper clipping and it was Michael Harari.
RK: Do you remember what appeared to be a newspaper-clipping photo? Do you remember that? Do you remember it very well.
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay. Was there anyone else in that photograph?
DF: Absolutely not. It was just him.
RK: Now, you stated after the last Mexican trip, okay, your father never left the state again. Why was that?
DF: About a month and a half, no, the same evening that this happened with this gentleman, my father got violently sick. We thought that he had food poisoning and my husband rushed him to the hospital. They couldn't decide what is was. They didn't know if it was food poisoning. They ruled that out. Then they said maybe it was ulcers and gave him a bunch of different tests. They could not identify and from that point on, my father started getting very ill. He wound up with his kidneys failing. He wound up with the left side of his brain within a six month period atrophying so he was not physically capable of going anywhere because he wound up then having to go on kidney dialysis to keep him alive.
RK: Now, after mentioning the suits were coming after him and your meeting with Mr. Harari, did your father's attitude change?
DF: Very much so.
RK: What was his attitude prior to 1984 as far as his work was concerned?
DF: My father loved what he did whether it be right or wrong. The man loved what he did.
RK: And would he freely discuss it with family?
DF: Not all the time.
RK: Would he discuss it extensively with family?
DF: Not all the time. Anything that had to do with, let's say organized crime, was discussed in the house because the rule of the house was nothing that is ever said in this house leaves the front door. And that is how we were brought up so it didn’t seem unusual.
RK: What about his work with the police department?
DF: He used to talk about the police department a lot.
RK: And what about his work with the U.S. Government?
DF: No. Just where he was going, when he would be back. Never really questioned anything because he was always being picked up in military uniform. There were many times that he was in civilian, and there were two passports that dad used. One was not red, not maroon.
RK: Burgundy?
DF: Almost and it was under the name of Albert V. Rodgers and when he traveled as a civilian he used that passport. He also used the passport that I just showed quite often too.
RK: Now after 1984, how did his attitude towards his work change?
DF: He told me not to bury him in his military uniform under any conditions.
RK: Did he say why?
DF: He said that he knew that the suits had come to get him. He said that he was not long for this world and
that it just wasn't worth it. I had to promise him that I would not bury him in his military uniform. I asked him what he wanted done with it and he told me to burn it.
RK: Was there any other indication of his change in attitude towards his work?
DF: He just got very depressed. He told me that what he couldn't finish in his lifetime, that that was the reason why I had his Power of Attorney to start things because he wanted me to finish it in his death.
RK: Are you okay?
DF: I am fine.
RK: Let's get back to some names.
DF: Okay.
RK: Frank Tierri?
DF: Organized crime figure, I know the name.
RK: Was he known by any other names?
DF: Just to me Uncle Frankie.
RK: He showed up at the house?
DF: Yeah.
RK: Joe Pickles?
DF: Joe Pricilia, Uncle Joe.
RK: Do you know what Mr. Pickles did for a living?
DF: Yes. He was a Captain in the Joe Colombo family.
RK: Benny the Eggs?
DF: Benny the Eggs owned a restaurant by the name of the Tides. It was a nightclub in New York, excuse
me, New Jersey.
RK: New Jersey?
DF: Yeah.
RK: And other than the nightclub, do you know what else he did or his association with your father?
DF: Organized crime.
RK: Matty the Horse?
DF: Matty the Horse Iello. Matty the Horse was organized crime and he was a very large drug dealer.
RK: Now you had mentioned, I think you mentioned a person by the name of Paul Castalano?
DF: Uncle Paul, yes. He originally took over the families.
RK: Why don't we take a break now? The time is 11:31 A.M. we are off the record.
Tape II
RK: The time is 11:46 a.m. We are on the record.
RK: We had begun to talk about Paul Costellano. Did you know him by any other name?
DF: Uncle Paulie.
RK: Did he visit a lot?
DF: Yes.
RK: Was he employed?
DF: He was a businessman but he also took over the family from Mr. Gambino when Mr. Gambino died.
He was brother-in-law to Mr. Gambino.
RK: He freely associated with your father?
DF: Yes.
RK: And your father freely associated with him?
DF: Yes.
RK: They were good friends?
DF: Yes.
RK: You had mentioned a Jack or John Lustig?
DF: That is Inspector Jack Lustick. He was with New York City Police Department. My father answered to him and at the time, it was Captain Vincent Nardiello, but he was made an inspector also.
RK: Okay. Now you had mentioned Bob Leuci?
DF: Leuci. Prince of the City.
RK: And what was his association with your father?
DF: The trafficking of drugs within the department into the Mafia on to the streets.
RK: And what particular part did Mr. Leuci pay?
DF: Mr. Leuci was the main player in shaking down certain businesses and also delivering certain drugs to certain businesses in the Brooklyn Section, Bedford Stuyvesant, Manhattan. And my father used to talk about Bob Leuci a great deal. Pete Parazzo and Bob Leuci were part of the bust as far as Pete Parazzo went. Bob Leuci for no better word, to save his own rear end and take his retirement snitched out quite a few of the men in the police department.
RK: Was he ever indicted?
DF: No.
RK: Was he ever….
DF: He was moved to a different division.
RK: Okay. Now you had mentioned your father and Oliver North? May we presume that this is the Oliver North Marine Colonel?
DF: Yes, we can presume that.
RK: And how do you know your father knew Oliver North?
DF: When the hearings were going on for Iran Contra, my father had proceeded to make certain remarks concerning, as he referred to him as Ollie. When my father got really sick, dad started talking about certain things and one of the names that he had brought up to me was John Cathey, as I understood it the way he said the last name. He said to me, "find him and you will find the story". Well, I never did find him and one day I was talking to a gentleman by the name of Mike Rupert and I'm telling Mike the story and he calls me back about an hour later and he says to me, "do you realize the alias for Colonel Oliver North is John, (he had referred to him as Cathey, I think)? I proceeded to contact Colonel North. He refused to speak to me. I contacted him on about four or five different occasions. He would not, under any circumstances, speak to me.
RK: Now when you say you attempted to contact him, you attempted to contact him directly?
DF: Yes.
RK: How did you do that?
DF: I contacted the radio show that he had on the radio. They had given an 800 number. Because this day he was talking about drugs and how terrible they were so I decided I was going to call the radio show because if it was a live show, I had a couple of things to say to the man. I had to go through another party before I could speak to him directly on the radio and they had told me no. I had stated that I wanted to speak to him. They gave me two different numbers. One was to his, he was running for senator at the time, and if I remember correctly, the two girls I had spoke to Dede and Marsha. He refused to speak to me so again I made a phone call to Theodore Shackley and Mr. Shackley told me to call Colonel North and tell him that Mr. Shackley had told me to call, to which I did. He still would not speak to me but Marsha proceeded to tell me that he did not know Colonel Carone or Theodore Shackley so I called Theodore Shackley back and told him that I kind of thought that he thought a little bit too much of himself because Oliver North said he did not know Theodore Shackley to which Mr. Shackley said, "then you know what, that is the route you need to take and if he won't speak to you, then call his attorney". And he proceeded to give me the name of his attorney and phone number, which was a Mr. Sullivan at the time. I called Mr. Sullivan but he did not return my phone call.
RK: So your father identified Oliver North as an associate?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: Did he say anything about working directly with Oliver North?
DF: Yes. They were involved with drug running for the CIA in the South America Region.
RK: Did he mention any countries?
DF: No. He mentioned Mr. Noriega.
RK: Okay. So your father in effect put himself next to Colonel North?
DF: Pretty much so.
RK: And Colonel North to you has attempted to remove himself?
DF: Oh I would say.
RK: From your father.
Frank Nugan?
DF: Frank Nugan and Michael Hand, my father was good friends with. Nugan Hand Bank. It was a bank used in the Hong Kong area to launder different monies. There were General Leroy Manor was involved. General Stilwell was involved. A man by the name of Paul Helliwell was involved. It was an operation where drug monies in different accounts from certain people were absconded with. One through Nugan Hand bank and they were used for operations that were not sanctioned by the U.S. government, black operations.
RK: Okay. Now we are talking about a bank here correct?
DF: Yes.
RK: In Hong Kong?
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay. And your saying basically they took money…..
DF: To launder.
RK: From other people?
DF: And the drug monies that they used for cocaine trafficking.
RK: Now, how did you learn about this?
DF: Well, my father knew Frank Nugan and Michael Hand. I might get this mixed up but I think it is Michael Hand that he knew from like the Bronx area of New York. If I am not mistaken, he was in Special Forces or in the military at one time.
RK: Okay. So your father passed this information to you?
DF: Yes, when he got sick.
RK: Okay. So this would be after 1985?
DF: 1985/86.
RK: Did his attitude towards giving you this information increase?
DF: Yes because the sicker dad got, I guess the more he felt he had to clear his conscience because he said that there were some awful things done in the name of patriotism and I think dad had said that he was not long for this world because the suits had gotten to him and I think his conscience got to him.
RK: Did he say anything to indicate that to you?
DF: Yeah, he didn't have the stomach to do the work that they wanted him to do any longer and the reason for it was because of this village. They had taken out an entire village of men, women and children and they executed them and put them in a mass grave and put Lyme over them.
RK: Now which village is this?
DF: I think it was called Tapetula or Chapetula, I can't remember the exact pronunciation.
RK: In which country?
DF: Mexico.
RK: Did he mention anybody else who was with him?
DF: Jim Strauss. That is how I knew how to contact Jim Strauss.
RK: Donald Beasley?
DF: Part of the Nugan Hand Bank and he was also with the CIA.
RK: Had he worked with your father?
DF: I think he did because Mr. Beasley used to call the house on my father's private line. There were two telephones in our home. One phone we were forbidden to use because it was strictly for my father and that is the number that most of these people would call on.
RK: So if that phone rang, what would happen?
DF: We were allowed to answer it but we were forbidden to tell anyone where my father was if he wasn't there, only that my father would return the call within a certain amount of time.
RK: At any time did you answer the phone and the other person identifies themselves as Beasley?
DF: Yes, once. Mr. Beasley.
RK: Edwin Black?
DF: Edwin Black, Nugan Hand Bank.
RK: Were there any other associations?
DF: I do not know.
RK: George Farris?
DF: I do not know in what capacity Mr. Farris, I just know that my father knew him because he used to call
the home a lot.
RK: On the special phone?
DF: Yes.
RK: Did you ever answer the phone and speak with Mr. Farris?
DF: I answered the phone all the time when dad wasn't there because mom and dad both worked and my
sister was away at college.
RK: Okay. And how do you know it was Mr. Farris?
DF: He would identify.
RK: Leroy Manor?
DF: General Leroy Manor.
RK: Do you know which army?
DF: No, I do not.
RK: Do you know the association with your father?
DF: All that I know is that I always presumed it was military association and one time my father went with General Manner to the Canton Region of China or Hong Kong.
RK: Walter McDonald?
DF: I think that Mr. McDonald had taken a trip also with my dad to Hong Kong.
RK: Did your father mention that?
DF: He was meeting Mr. McDonald. We had to take him to the airport, Kennedy International Airport at one time, my mom and I took my dad.
RK: And you knew he was going on a trip?
DF: Yes.
RK: He went to the airport and he had mentioned where he was going?
DF: Hong Kong because every time dad went to Hong Kong he brought a bunch of things back. He would have silk suits made for himself in Hong Kong or we would get jewelry, jade.
RK: And at this particular time he mentioned that he was meeting Mr. McDonald or Mr. McDonald was going with him?
DF: They were going together.
RK: Okay. Brian Alexander?
DF: Brian Alexander was military if I am not mistaken. I might be wrong about that but I think he was military.
RK: Was he associated with your father?
DF: Yes. I do not know in what capacity only that the man would call.
RK: And you would be the only one home answering the phone and the person would say….
DF: Mr. Alexander for Al Carone.
RK: Rafael Contero?
DF: Chichi.
RK: And what was his association?
DF: Drugs.
RK: Was he military?
DF: I do not know. But my father always called him Chichi.
RK: Harry Wainwright?
DF: Harry Wainwright, Nugan Hand Bank.
RK: Now you had also mentioned an association with a bank, a Paul Helliwell?
DF: Hollywell. Paul Hollywell was very close to Michael Hand and Frank Nugan.
RK: Did he work with your father?
DF: Yes.
RK: Did he call the house?
DF: Yes and there was some type of connection between Mr. Hollywell, Mr. Casey and my father.
RK: Do you know who Mr. Hollywell worked for?
DF: No.
RK: Murray S. Riley?
DF: I do not know in what capacity my father knew Murray but I know that he knew Murray. There were a few occasions, I think there was one occasion that Mr. Riley had come to the house but when he came to the house, my father and Mr. Riley had gone outside to discuss things. They did not stay in the house. They went outside.
RK: In the front yard or the backyard?
DF: Front yard. They were leaning up against the car in the driveway. They were out there for a while.
RK: Do you remember if there were several occasions or was there one occasion?
DF: The one occasion I know about.
RK: Elliot Abrams?
DF: CIA.
RK: Do you know of Mr. Abrams in any other capacity?
DF: Only that my father worked either with him or for him.
RK: Did your father indicate…..
DF: I had never spoken to Mr. Abrams. I had never seen Mr. Abrams. When my father got sick, my father
told me to remember certain names and one of them was Elliot Abrams.
RK: And did your father at this time indicate a close association with Mr. Abrams?
DF: He just told me to remember the name.
RK: And he didn't tell you who he was?
DF: He told me "company man".
RK: Did he mention which company?
DF: No, but my father used to refer to the agency as the company.
RK: Which agency?
DF: Central Intelligence Agency.
RK: Richard Stilwell?
DF: General Richard Stilwell. My father worked with him in Asia. My father also did a lot of training of certain troops with General Richard Stilwell, guerrilla training.
RK: Training troops in guerrilla warfare? Is that what you mean?
DF: Yes.
RK: Now, your father told you this?
DF: Yeah.
RK: Did he tell you in what period of time?
DF: No.
RK: Did he tell you what country?
DF: I'm positive he said South East Asia.
RK: Did he narrow down the location any more?
DF: No.
RK: Gene Howard?
DF: Gene Howard was a connection to my father in Brooklyn and it was through a restaurant known as Forlini's that they would meet.
RK: Did your father indicate any other association with Mr. Howard?
DF: No. The only thing that I knew about Gene Howard was that he was in the same type of intelligence business that my father was and that there were many connections to organized crime with Gene Howard.
RK: And how did you know this? How did you find out about this?
DF: Dad discussed it. Dad told me himself.
RK: Did your father ever indicate any association with Spiro Agnew?
DF: Yeah. He met with Spiro Agnew at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington at one time.
RK: Do you know how many times?
DF: No.
RK: Here again, your father is telling you?
DF: My father had told me and then a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Rothstein had it corroborated through a witness who had seen my father with Spiro Agnew.
RK: You mentioned Jimmy Rothstein before I believe.
DF: Jimmy Rothstein was a member of the NYPD and I guess we can say at one time he was investigating organized crime at NYPD and dad was right smack in the middle of it.
RK: Was there any other association between Rothstein and your father?
DF: No.
RK: Is Mr. Rothstein alive?
DF: Yes.
RK: Do you have contact with Mr. Rothstein?
DF: Constantly.
RK: What is Mr. Rothstein's attitude towards your father?
DF: He did what he had to do but above everything he was an honorable man and his attitude about my dad he has told me stories about when he would be in Forlini's Restaurant and my father would come, that they would treat my father as he was a very very important man and very well respected amongst the organized crime family.
RK: Some people may not be familiar with the dual meaning.
DF: You kind of have to excuse me because that is what I was brought up in and I never thought it was odd
or different until later years.
RK: Not a problem.
DF: Okay.
RK: George Teesdale?
DF: George Teesdale had something to do, if my memory serves me correct, with, I don't know if he had something to do with pilots, planes, something to do with the agency as far as flights or planes.
RK: Military or civilian?
DF: CIA
RK: Now we had talked before about Bill Casey and you mentioned that he visited your house?
DF: Yes.
RK: Frequently?
DF: Maybe sometimes once a month. He came to see my father on a couple of occasions because there was business that needed to be discussed I guess. One time, Mr. Castalano was at the house with Mr. Casey and my father. They socialized together, my mom and dad and Mr. and Mrs. Casey.
RK: Okay. Excuse me just a minute now. So at the house, at your father's house in New York?
DF: Yes, 82 Leanne Terrace.
RK: Mr. Casey came there?
DF: Yes.
RK: Mr. Castalano came there?
DF: Yes.
RK: And how do you know this?
DF: I was there, I lived there.
RK: Do you remember how long Mr. Castalano, Mr. Casey and your father were at the house?
DF: No.
RK: Do you remember if they were in the same room?
DF: Definitely, sitting at the same table.
RK: Do you remember anybody else there?
DF: No.
RK: Okay. The time is now 12:10 p.m. This is the end of tape I. We are going off the record to change tapes.
Tape started here………
RK: Like partners?
DF: I can just tell you they were business associates.
RK: Frequent?
DF: Very.
RK: And how do you know this?
DF: Because my father would go away with Mr. Vesco on numerous occasions.
RK: How do you know it was with Mr. Vesco?
DF: Because Mr. Vesco would either come to the house or my father would meet him at Kennedy
International Airport. Sometimes Laguardia.
RK: Did you ever see Mr. Vesco?
DF: On two occasions.
RK: Or a person you assumed was Mr. Vesco? And where did you see him?
DF: 82 Leanne Terrace. At one time in Kennedy International Airport, no Laguardia Airport in New York.
RK: And he came to the house?
DF: Yes.
RK: And your father left the house? With Mr. Vesco and they went somewhere and subsequently your father came back?
DF: Yeah. Dad always came back.
RK: And then this would happen….
DF: On a couple of occasions. I think he went to England one time with Mr. Vesco.
RK: Do you have any idea what year that was?
DF: Okay, I was still at home. I left home in 1971. It would have to be probably towards the late 60's to
early 70's because I left in 71 when I got married.
RK: Okay. So there were two assassinations in 68. Were these occasions after the assassinations?
DF: What assassinations are we discussing?
RK: Well, Robert Kennedy was assassinated and Martin Luther King was assassinated in 68.
DF: After the assassinations.
RK: And you left the house in 71. So somewhere between 68 and 70?
DF: Somewhere between 68 and 71.
RK: Do you remember what time of the year it was?
DF: No. It would have to be summer or spring because I know it wasn't winter. I know definitely it wasn't winter.
RK: Were you in school?
DF: No. I graduated in 68.
RK: Did you work after graduation?
DF: Yes.
RK: And what were your hours of work?
DF: Nine to five.
RK: So it would have been before 9:00 in the morning, some morning?
RK: Now you had made mention that your father, after he became ill, wanted to clear up some business.
There was several things he wasn't happy with, he wasn't proud of and he told you this.
DF: One was MIAs in Vietnam. He was dealing with certain people that were looking for MIAs in Vietnam. He knew that there were MIAs in Vietnam. He went on a tangent one time about how we had sent these boys over there and that we had just left them there. Something to do with a deal that was made that our government did not keep the deal. He knew that there were boys still over there. He had mentioned Colonel Bo Gritz at this time and there was some type of association or group of people, I cannot remember the name, but my father had said something about going public at the time, or talking up about it also. He never did. He got too sick.
RK: So he knew Bo Gritz?
DF: Yes.
RK: Was that the only association he had with Bo Gritz that he mentioned to you?
DF: That is the only one I know of.
RK: Did he indicate anything else that he was trying to clean up?
DF: He was tired of the drug trafficking. He had made the remark that it had gone on for very long, that they stuck it in the black community because nobody would really give a damn about the Harlem and East Harlem area and that they realized that a lot of money could be made and who would listen to those people anyway.
RK: Now when you state the drug trade, did he mention anybody in particular?
DF: As far as the drug trade?
RK: Right.
DF: All I can tell you is that he had mentioned Ollie North. As far as the drug trade, Mr. Shackley was mentioned. Mr. Richard Armitage was mentioned also. I have never spoken to or met Mr. Armitage. Colonel North would not speak to me. I have spoken to Mr. Shackley.
RK: Now in your father's travel, we had mentioned Asia, Europe, the Bahamas. Did he ever go into South America?
DF: Yes. That is where he knew Colonel North from in dealings with Mr. Noriega and dealings with Mike, who I will presume is Mr. Harari for the simple reason that dad used to refer to Mike and used to refer to the Mossad at the same time and later on I found out that Mr. Harari, I will say had dealings with the Mossad.
RK: Any association that your father spoke of between him and Pablo Escabar?
DF: My father knew who Pablo Escabar was. He would discuss the, I will probably say this wrong, the Medellin Cartel and most of their drugs would come from them.
RK: Other than knowing of Mr. Escabar, did your father indicate any other relationship?
DF: No.
RK: Was there anything else in South America that your father was upset about?
DF: Not that I really know of. He was just really upset when I guess the drug trafficking was getting out of hand. They were using the drugs to buy guns, black operations were getting worse, “running amuck” was the expression.
RK: Now did your father mention any words or names or indicators for some of these operations he was involved in?
DF: No. The only time he had mentioned an operation by the name of Sandman. Okay. He had also mentioned an operation that was known as Amadeus and yet phone calls would come to the house when he was here in New Mexico and someone would say Amadeus and a lot of times he would call and say Amadeus and he would be out of the house within an hour of like a phone call coming in or him making a phone call. Sandman he had mentioned. There was another one…Tin Roof or Tin Shed, something like that. He had discussed South America. He had discussed something about how they were putting for planes to land.
RK: Flights?
DF: Beacons. Something that radar would not detect and they were making….why can't I think of this thing? For the runways. They were building runways but he never stated what it was called at any time and I know he had gone to South or Latin America for that.
RK: To in effect build runways?
DF: Yes. And something to do with beacons. Something about the planes so that they could not be detected coming in.
RK: Detected by who?
DF: I have no idea.
RK: Okay. Was there anything else about Sandman?
DF: Just that there was an operation Sandman. It was an assassination team for certain people that needed to be eliminated through the agency. He used to talk about a fellow by the name of Sandy, who was a Green Beret at the time, that he had been with him and worked with him.
RK: Had he worked with this Green Beret, Sandy, a lot?
DF: I think on numerous occasions he kind of liked him. He used to say that he was very good military material.
RK: Did he ever identify this Sandy by any other name?
DF: No. The only thing dad used to say was first of all he knew him. His father was in the military. Dad had worked with his father in something to do with forklifts and mustard gas. Okay. He knew him through that and I think it was around the late 70's dad would discuss this kid, Sandy, and that he had gotten himself in trouble and they were trumped up charges because of what this kid knew.
RK: Did your father mention where these charges were made?
DF: In the New England area.
RK: Was he any more specific about New England?
DF: It was the Green Beret out of Massachusetts. The Fort Devens area. A colonel my father knew, Colonel Cutolo. It had something to do with Colonel Cutolo.
RK: So now your father mentioned Colonel Cutolo in relationship to Sandy the Green Beret supposedly out of Fort Devens, Massachusetts.
DF: Yes.
RK: Did he say Cutolo was in Massachusetts?
DF: Yes.
RK: Did he know Cutolo from Massachusetts?
DF: He knew him from the military. They had worked together and he had originally had known Ed Cutolo I think from the Bronx area when they were kids. I think from the Bronx or somewhere in the New York area when they were kids.
RK: Above and beyond what your father said about Cutolo, are there any other indications that he knew
Cutolo?
DF: Well, I had wound up finding Cutolo's daughter, JJ. She was living here in Albuquerque and I had found her because at this point, things were getting a case of the crazies of looking for people that dad knew, trying to confirm, deny and JJ had come to the house and she had seen a picture of my dad and she identified my father. She had met my father on occasion. She knew who my dad was.
RK: Did she say where she met him?
DF: Fort Devens and she had met him one time in Florida someplace.
RK: So in effect you got the sense that Colonel Cutolo's daughter…..
DF: Oh definitely met my father. Definitely.
RK: Okay. Do you know if this Sandy, Green Beret from Massachusetts, is still alive?
DF: Yes he is.
RK: He is alive?
DF: Yes he is.
RK: And where does he reside?
DF: Walpole, South Walpole Prison.
RK: In what state?
DF: Massachusetts.
RK: How did you find out that Sandy was alive in Walpole, Massachusetts?
DF: I had been talking for a while to a gentleman by the name of Bill McCoy. Bill McCoy and I were having quite a few conversations and I kept on telling him that I had to find this guy, Sandy, who was framed for a murder because of what he knew as far as operations, Black operations.
RK: Excuse me. Let me interrupt you. How do you know he was framed because of his knowledge of…well first of all let's define what do you understand Black operations to mean?
DF: Illegal operations that are not sanctioned by the Congress.
RK: And where did you get this definition you are using?
DF: My dad.
RK: So your father would, one way or another, say that if it is a Black operation Congress doesn't know about it?
DF: Exactly.
RK: Okay. So how did you get the impression that Sandy was framed because of his knowledge of Black operations?
DF: I didn't get the impression, my father told me. When my father got really sick, he felt that he had to clear this kid's name.
RK: Okay. So your father got sick in ‘85 and your father passed away in ‘90. During that five year stretch, can you narrow down when he told you this?
DF: He stated in ‘85 that he had business that needed to be taken care of, that only he could take care of because it seems that there was some type of diaries that were in my father's possession at one time that my father had brought to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
RK: Did he say when he had these diaries? When they were in his possession?
DF: In the ‘70's.
RK: Did he indicate early ‘70's?
DF: No. It was the end of the ‘70's. Like ‘79, maybe going into ‘80. Maybe towards the end of ‘78, somewhere around there. It was the end of the ‘70's.
RK: Okay. So Mr. McCoy…let's get back to Mr. McCoy. You were having a conversation with Mr. McCoy?
DF: Quite a few conversations with Mr. McCoy.
RK: Okay. And how did Mr. McCoy lead you to Sandy?
DF: Okay. I was led….let's say Sandy was led to me. Sandy had called Bill McCoy to tell him that he needed to find JJ Cutolo and that she was in the Albuquerque area.
RK: Now how did you know that?
DF: Bill McCoy told me. He called me and said to me, "you're in Albuquerque, can you find JJ Cutolo?" and I said I will try. He had told me that she had worked for a radio station so I said okay, I will try to find JJ for you. It was ironic because I had been looking for any family members to do with Colonel Cutolo. I had asked Bill McCoy about speaking to Colonel Rowe's wife, Nick Rowe, and he told me that I couldn't because she was very afraid of what was going on since her husband's death and she refused to speak to anyone. To make a long story short, I picked up the phone and called information and found JJ Cutolo in Albuquerque and I told her that Bill McCoy needed to speak to her because a man by the name of Bill Tyree needed to speak to her.
I asked Bill McCoy who is William Tyree and he said to me, he is a Green Beret who is charged with the murder of his wife, Elaine.
RK: Okay.
DF: Bill McCoy did not want to put me and Bill Tyree together.
RK: Did he say why?
DF: No and Bill McCoy knew my father's whole story and it is odd because he would talk to Billy about Dee in Albuquerque but never mentioned Dee was Colonel Carone's daughter so Billy was discussing things with Bill McCoy on Colonel Carone but Bill McCoy never told him that he was talking to me.
RK: Is Mr. McCoy available to talk to?
DF: No, Bill McCoy is deceased. He died last year, October.
RK: October 1997?
DF: Yeah.
RK: So basically through Mr. McCoy, you have identified who Sandy is?
DF: I had told Bill I would not give him the information on JJ Cutolo unless I was able to speak with Bill Tyree so that was the deal and Bill Tyree wrote and asked me. In the meantime, Bill Tyree had gotten a newspaper called the Free American and there was the story of my dad in the Free American and my name was in there. Billy called Bill McCoy and they had been discussing Colonel Carone but McCoy never told him that Dee and Desiree Ferdinand in Albuquerque were the same so Billy wrote me a letter. Billy identified himself and then he asked me in this letter if I would possibly know him by his, I guess you would say code name or call name, or whatever and the name was Sandy, which I did not believe at the time because my father used to say the kid's name was Sandy because of his light colored hair and when I saw a picture of Bill Tyree it was a newspaper clipping and what I saw was black hair in this newspaper clipping until I spoke to his mother and asked her.
RK: Are you in contact with Mr. Tyree?
DF: Yes.
RK: Frequent?
DF: Yes.
RK: A few more names…..William Barr?
DF: I do not recognize that name.
RK: Buddy Young?
DF: No.
RK: Felix Rodriguez?
DF: Yes.
RK: And how do you know about Mr. Rodriguez?
DF: Because he did drug running activities and he was a CIA agent and he worked with my dad at times
and Felix Rodriguez also worked with Robert Vesco.
RK: When did your father tell you this?
DF: When he was dying, Felix Rodriguez and Robert Vesco, I think they went to Nassau. I think it was Nassau that they had met.
RK: Your father?
DF: Robert Vesco and Felix Rodriguez.
RK: Joe Fernandez?
DF: No.
RK: George Bayard?
DF: No.
RK: A.J. Baker?
DF: No.
RK: Now you had mentioned a Colonel Rowe?
DF: Nick Rowe.
RK: Do you know if he has a first name?
DF: Colonel Nicholas Rowe.
RK: Richard Malvesti?
DF: Yes. Military.
RK: Okay.
DF: My father had dealings with Colonel Nick Rowe in reference to missing in action and POWs and if I am not mistaken, I think my father had told me, I don't remember if it was when he got sick or before, that Colonel Rowe was a POW I think at one time.
RK: Richard C. Malvesti?
DF: Colonel Malvesti…I know that name because my father got upset because there was some type of accident with Colonel Malvesti that my father did not believe was an accident.
[ISGP Note: Colonel Richard Malvesti, a JSOC special forces, only died six months after her father died when his parachute failed]
RK: Had he indicated to you that he worked with Colonel Malvesti?
DF: Yes. As he had worked with Colonel Cutolo and Colonel Rowe.
RK: Did he indicate where?
DF: When you state A.J. Baker, are you referring to Colonel Baker because my father worked with a Colonel Baker also.
RK: But you have no idea of any other name other than Colonel?
DF: No. A Colonel Baker.
RK: Richard Cater?
DF: No.
RK: Ray Dote?
DF: No.
RK: Longhoffer?
DF: No.
RK: A pretty easy name to remember if you ever heard of it?
DF: I would remember that one.
RK: Duncan?
DF: What is the first name?
RK: There is only a rank.
DF: No.
RK: Robert Burdiz?
DF: No.
RK: James Steele?
DF: No.
RK: Charles Beckwith?
DF: Colonel?
RK: Yes.
DF: I know the name.
RK: How do you know the name?
DF: Through my father.
RK: Did he say anything about Colonel Beckwith?
DF: No.
RK: Did he say he ever worked with Colonel Beckwith?
DF: Yes.
RK: Did he say where?
DF: No. I know Colonel Beckwith had called the house on a couple of occasions, that is how I know it was
Colonel.
RK: William Wilson?
DF: Agency.
RK: Worked with your father?
DF: Yes, my father knew him.
RK: Did your father say where he worked?
DF: No.
RK: Charles McKee?
DF: No.
RK: Hunter Harris?
DF: No.
RK: Lloyd Vessey?
DF: Lloyd Vessey or Vesse? I know that name but I don't know why I know it.
RK: Earl Yates?
DF: No.
RK: Bobby Robison?
DF: No.
RK: Hiney Alderhalt?
DF: No. I would remember that one.
RK: Gayre?
DF: No.
RK: Doug Ryok?
DF: No.
RK: Gearhardt Hyatt?
DF: No.
RK: Alden Sibley?
DF: No.
RK: Anton Walker?
DF: No.
RK: Harding Issacson?
DF: If I am not mistaken, I will say no unless it is Colonel Issacson.
RK: What do you know about Colonel Issacson?
DF: Worked with my dad.
RK: And how do you know that?
DF: If I am not mistaken, Colonel Issacson had dealings with my father in China.
RK: And who told you that?
DF: My father.
RK: Do you have any idea what timeframe he mentioned this, before or after his illness?
DF: Ninety percent of anything to do with the military or central intelligence was after my father got sick.
RK: Crosber Avil?
DF: No.
RK: Williams Rigalo?
DF: No.
RK: Did your father mention any association with Manuel Noriega?
DF: Only that they were running drugs with Noriega and Noriega was being paid exorbitant amounts of money on a monthly basis.
RK: Did your father mention working directly with Noriega?
DF: He knew Manuel Noriega.
RK: Did he indicate to you that he knew Noriega well or just in passing?
DF: He knew Manuel Noriega and monies that went to Manuel Noriega my father paid to him for the agency.
RK: Your father wrote out a personal check?
DF: No, he was paymaster or a bag man, whatever you want to refer to it as far as NYPD but that is also what he did for Central Intelligence. You do a job and I will come and pay you.
RK: Ruth Paine?
DF: My father had dealings with a woman by the name of Ruth Paine.
RK: Did he tell you what kind of dealings?
DF: No, and that was in the 60's. I was young.
RK: Young when he told you?
DF: No, around the time of his dealings. Not around the time that he told me. I’ve aged. Ruth Paine. The ‘60's.
RK: Michael Paine?
DF: No.
RK: Dois Tatum?
DF: I know Mr. Tatum.
RK: How do you know Mr. Tatum?
DF: Because I contacted Mr. Tatum when I read the Pegasus file to see if he knew my father.
RK: Have you spoken to Mr. Tatum?
DF: Yes, on about three or four different occasions.
RK: Did Mr. Tatum indicate to you that he knew your father?
DF: Yes he did. He said that he was the pilot that brought my father from, I think it is Camp Drum in New York, to South America on a couple of different occasions and he also stated to me that he knew at one time he was witness to the fact of George Bush being with my father in South America.
RK: Did he indicate what time he saw George Bush and your father together?
DF: No he did not. I think he told me they were in the Honduras region. My father was passing himself off as George Bush's private doctor.
RK: Did you have any indication of anything else about Mr. Bush?
DF: I don't understand your question. They were running drugs.
RK: Mr. Bush?
DF: Yes.
RK: With the assistance of?
DF: Mr. North and quite a few others.
RK: Have you ever been able to identify Mr. Bush?
DF: Ex-president of the United States, George Bush.
RK: How do you know it was that George Bush?
DF: Because my father said at one time he was, number one the president of the United States is involved, and if all of this information came down it would bring down the Oval Office. Number two, he was involved with drug running because my father worked with him when he was with the CIA.
RK: Did your father indicate any other association with Mr. Bush?
DF: No.
RK: Mr. Tatum indicated to you that he saw Mr. Bush and your father in South America?
DF: Yes he did. He stated there were photos to prove what he was stating but I have not spoken to Mr. Tatum and I am not in receipt of the photos. The last time I spoke to Mr. Tatum was about I guess six months ago. He stated he had to get them because they were in a very safe place and I have not heard from him since.
If they were sent, I never received them.
RK: Okay. Did he indicate in what, if there was an official capacity to Mr. Bush or Mr. Bush's official capacity at the time he saw your father and Mr. Bush together?
DF: I do not know if it was the Fort Drum area. I would tend to think at that time my father was in New
York that he would have been with the CIA.
RK: Frank Terple?
DF: I know the name but I do not know from where.
RK: Ed Wilson?
DF: Yes. Edwin Wilson.
RK: How do you know the name?
DF: My father worked with Edwin Wilson, if it is the same person that you are asking me.
RK: In what capacity did your father and Mr. Wilson…
DF: Agency.
RK: Susan Wilson?
DF: No.
RK: Clauda Ross?
DF: No.
RK: Walter McDonald?
DF: No.
RK Morris Houghton?
DF: No.
RK: Alder Berrimen Seal?
DF: If it is Barry Seal that you are asking me about, my father worked very closely with Barry Seal.
RK: Where?
DF: Drug running.
RK: Do you have an idea of the year?
DF: No, I do not. I know my father told me that Barry Seal would be taken out. He would be eliminated
and he was. I don't know by whom.
RK: Did he say anything else about Mr. Seal?
DF: No.
RK: William Colby?
DF: Yes. My father worked with William Colby. He stated that Bill Colby used to do the work out of his desk drawer. He was not too organized.
RK: Did he indicate a long association with Mr. Colby?
DF: I do not know how long their association was.
RK: John Singlaub?
DF: General Singlaub. My father referred to as an asshole.
RK: Ray Klein?
DF: No.
RK: Howard Hunt?
DF: You are telling me Ray Klein and Howard Hunt. I do not know if my father knew them but I know those names but you know, in media, etc.
RK: Lucien Conein?
DF: No.
RK: Eugene Hasenfus?
DF: Yes.
RK: How do you know Mr. Hasenfus? Or know of?
DF: My father had stated about Eugene Hasenfus and supposedly Mr. Hasenfus was supposed to be taken out on a mission, a drug running mission. Well, we finally looked up Eugene Hassenfus. I have never spoken to Eugene, I have only spoken to Sally and Eugene, there was no way he was discussing anything. He refused.
RK: And who is Sally?
DF: His wife.
RK: Are they still married that you know of?
DF: I do not know. As of two years ago they still were.
RK: Alfred Hartman?
DF: No.
RK: Bruce Rappaport?
DF: No.
RK: Kathy Corrigan Dan?
DF: No.
RK: James Nugen?
DF: No.
RK: Mochtar Riady?
DF: Well I have heard the name but my father never mentioned him.
RK: Did your father ever mention Jackson Stevens?
DF: In reference to Mena, Arkansas, yes.
RK: And what did he say about Mr. Stevens?
DF: Derogatory and that he was the backing of most of the money for half of this stuff.
RK: Half of which stuff?
DF: A lot of drugs that were coming into Mena and that is where he knew Barry Seal from also, Mena, Arkansas.
RK: William Weld?
DF: No.
RK: James Catel?
DF: No.
RK: Now these diaries he had mentioned that he had, did he mention who they belong to?
DF: Sandy's wife.
RK: Did he mention any names?
DF: Sandy's wife, she had diaries.
RK: Was he more specific about that?
DF: The diaries could harm a lot of people in the military.
RK: Did he say how?
DF: Only that they can do harm to a lot of people within the military.
RK: Was he any more specific about identifying the diaries?
DF: In what sense?
RK: Color?
DF: Blue.
RK: He stated that they were blue?
DF: They were in his possession.
RK: Right. Did you see them or did he tell you they were blue?
DF: I saw the diaries.
RK: How do you know they were the diaries?
DF: He said that they were Sandy's diaries.
RK: So your father…..
DF: Sandy's wife's diaries. Let me straighten that out.
RK: Right. So your father identified them as Mrs. Tyree's diaries?
DF: Sandy's wife's diaries.
RK: So he only identified them as Sandy's wife?
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay. How many were there?
DF: I do not remember. I cannot tell you. There were a couple of them, I know that. And they were not the type of diary that kids have, you know that they have the lock on them or anything. They almost looked like a thin telephone book, memo type.
RK: Did you at any time that your father had them get an opportunity to look at them?
DF: No.
RK: So all you knew was that there were some diaries, they were blue, and they were identified as Sandy's wife's and that they were dangerous to military people. Did he mention any particular military people?
DF: No.
RK: Did he mention any location of the military people?
DF: No.
RK: William Jefferson Clinton?
DF: The President of the United States.
RK: The present president, yes. Did your father have any association with him?
DF: I don't know if he had association with him. All that I know is that there were dealings in Mena, Arkansas for drug running while he was governor.
RK: Did your father indicate that Governor Clinton knew about the drug running?
DF: Of course. Oh, I am sorry.
RK: Okay, that is fine. Did he say how he knew the governor knew, did he indicate how the governor would know about the drug running?
DF: Because there was a meeting at one time off record between Ollie North and George Bush and they had met Bill Clinton in Mena, Arkansas.
RK: So Oliver North and George Bush went to Mena, Arkansas and met with Governor Clinton.
DF: Exactly.
RK: How does your father know this?
DF: Because my father was in Mena.
RK: At the same meeting?
DF: I don't know if he was at the meeting but he was there.
RK: But he saw the three gentlemen together and doesn't know what they talked about?
DF: Never said.
RK: Southern Comfort?
DF: Good drink, I don't know.
RK: Angelo Regario?
DF: My cousin.
RK: And is Mr. Regario employed?
DF: Self-employed.
RK: And what does he do for a business?
DF: Fish at one time. I don't know what he does now okay. He was in the fish business, Fulton Fish Market.
RK: And was that his only job?
DF: He was affiliated with the Colombo family.
RK: Neal Delacroci?
DF: Angelo Delacroci's brother. Family. Fourth or fifth cousin.
RK: Blood family.
DF: Blood.
RK: Was he associated with the other family?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: Gunther Russbacher?
DF: Okay, I have heard of Gunther Russbacher through a gentleman by the name of Rodney Stich who stated that he knew my father, Gunther stated he knew my father and about my dad but Gunther has refused to speak to me at any time supposedly because he is very ill.
RK: Did your father ever mention him?
DF: No.
RK: Tomaso Buschetta?
DF: Buschetta, yes.
RK: And how do you know Tomaso?
DF: A family acquaintance. Organized crime.
RK: Richard Brenneke?
DF: Richard Brenneke. I have heard of him but I do not remember if it was through my father.
RK: Salvatore Reale?
DF: No.
RK: Did your father ever mention Task Force Bravo?
DF: Yeah, Task Force Bravo. Yes and I do not remember why, where or when but yes.
RK: Task Force 157?
DF: No.
RK: Enterprise?
DF: No.
RK: Claire Elroy George?
DF: No.
RK: Task Force 160?
DF: No, my father never mentioned anything to do with Task Force and numbers but I know Task Force
Bravo.
RK: Enrique Bermudes?
DF: No.
RK: Archer?
DF: Archer? No.
RK: Archer Teams?
DF: No.
RK: Scott Barnes?
DF: No.
RK: Now you mentioned that you had talked to or met with Richard Armitage?
DF: No, I have never spoken to Richard Armitage or met with him.
RK: I'm sorry. Do you know Mr. Armitage?
DF: No.
RK: Do you know of Mr. Armitage?
DF: Of him.
RK: How do you know of him?
DF: My father working with him as far as the Golden Triangle in Vietnam between 66 and I think 67, the same time with Theodore Shackley.
RK: Erich Von Marbod?
DF: No.
RK: Richard Allen?
DF: No.
RK: David Walker?
DF: I don't think so, no.
RK: James Sabow?
DF: Colonel Sabow.
RK: How do you know of Colonel Sabow?
DF: It is not through my father, it is through what happened with Colonel Sabow. Okay.
RK: Carl Jenkins?
DF: No.
RK: Mr. Sasaki?
DF: No.
RK: Monsignor John O'Brien?
DF: No.
RK: Jon Voight?
DF: The actor, Jon Voight? No.
RK: I don't believe so.
DF: No.
RK: Pasquale Carone?
DF: Yes.
RK: And how do you know Pasquale Carone?
DF: He is my father's brother.
RK: This was the same uncle who was the physician?
DF: Psychiatrist.
RK: Who is the psychiatrist. And do you speak with your uncle?
DF: No I don't.
RK: Now when your father became ill, being a psychiatrist, your uncle would have certain medical skills.
Was he involved in any treatment with your father?
DF: No, but he wanted to be.
RK: And he was not allowed?
DF: No.
RK: At whose desire?
DF: My father's but mine because I held the Power of Attorney.
RK: What did your father say about it?
DF: Not to trust his brother under any conditions.
RK: Have you had any dealings with your uncle?
DF: Quite a few.
RK: Excuse me?
DF: Quite a few.
RK: Quite a few. Does he know anything about the property you are seeking?
DF: Yes.
RK: Has he passed that information to you?
DF: About any property?
RK: Right.
DF: My uncle will not help me in any way. My uncle told me I am opening up a Pandora's box. My uncle
told me if I continued, I would be disowned by him. My uncle thinks I am totally crazy and that I need to be put
on Thorazine. He has stated that he would get medical care for me because I need to drop all of this nonsense
and it will only cause a problem within the family.
RK: So how does he know about the missing property?
DF: Because we spoke about it.
RK: And did you tell him?
DF: Of course I told him.
RK: Do you have an impression that he already knew about it?
DF: I have an impression that my Uncle Pat knows everything. My Uncle Pat, when he first came down he flew in from New York for three hours to see my father. The doctor at that time was the doctor, James Thesing, they had gotten in an argument. My Uncle Pat wanted the medical records. Dr. Thesing would not release them. My Uncle Pat told me not to listen to anything my father was discussing with me. He was disillusional and I needed to leave him to the state. My father proceeded to tell me not to trust his brother in any way and under no conditions let him succeed in what he was doing. My Uncle Pat came back on another visit, stayed for four hours on the second time and proceeded to discuss matters again. Dr. Ericson, which was another doctor, felt that he should be put on kidney dialysis. Dr. Thesing felt that it would not help under any conditions because there was chemical toxicity of unknown etiology involved with my father and he stated that kidney dialysis would not help my father because due to the chemical toxicity of unknown etiology my father's organs were starting to deteriorate. My Uncle Pat's attitude was let them do what they have to do with him, leave him to the state. He got back on his plane and he left.
RK: Have you talked to your uncle since then?
DF: Yes I have. I have had three different arguments with the man.
RK: Does the name George de Morenschildt seem familiar?
DF: No.
RK: There is another name….we have come up with some names that are pretty…..
RK: Daniel Arnold?
DF: No.
RK: Michael Vincent Menzi?
DF: Menzi? Yes, but I don't know from where.
RK: MacMichael?
DF: David MacMichael?
RK: David MacMichael.
DF: Yes.
RK: And how do you know of David MacMichael?
DF: Because when all of this happened with my father and things started disappearing, my father at one time had mentioned a gentleman by the name of Victor Marketti who is with the CIA. I called Mr. Marketti and he told me he couldn’t help me but he gave me the phone number to David McMichael. I spoke to David McMichael and he told me that it was a really touchy situation and that he could not help me. So it went down the line to everybody that I am now in contact with.
RK: Now, you stated your father was a bag man for the organized crime and then in fact was a bag man forCentral Intelligence?
DF: Yes.
RK: So, what did he do as a bagman?
DF: For which?
RK: Well, we know what he did for organized crime, let's say for the CIA.
DF: Okay, my father never referred to himself as a bagman for the CIA. He referred to himself as a paymaster and it seems that according to what my father told me while he was ill, that he went to pay operations, Black operations were paid through my father. If people needed to be hired, they were hired through my father. If people needed to be eliminated, he was then one who was the final, I guess, down the line, to give the order.
RK: Did he mention where he got the money?
DF: No.
RK: Any location?
DF: There were different banks that were involved.
RK: Did he mention those banks?
DF: Yes.
RK: Republic National Bank? He mentioned that?
DF: Yes.
RK: Concordia Federal?
DF: There are a couple of banks that he had mentioned and written down with the bank accounts on them, okay, but unless it is sitting in front of me, you know, Cayman Islands was a good one too.
RK: Bank of Zurich?
DF: Yes.
RK: Nat West?
DF: Definitely.
RK: Have you heard of…..
DF: Also the World Bank.
RK: The World Bank?
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay. Have you heard your father refer to a Mr. Pingeron?
DF: Pincheron. Now this is funny you should say that because Gunther Rossbacher came back and stated that one of my father's names that he went by was Pincheron.
RK: So your father used aliases? Was that what Mr. Rossbacher was referring to?
DF: Yes.
RK: Now you know that because of the conversation with Mr. Rossbacher?
DF: I never spoke to him. He spoke through Rodney Stich and Rodney Stich would call me.
RK: Okay, so Rodney would tell you. So you really don't know if your father used aliases or not?
DF: No, the only thing I can tell you is that Gunther went back to Rodney and told him that my father went by the name of Pincheron supposedly in the Chicago area.
RK: Just a couple of more things. So your father basically was involved with organized crime and assisted them in various and sundry crimes?
DF: Yes.
RK: He was a bagman?
DF: Yes he was.
RK: And the usual connotation of a bagman is….
DF: He paid people off.
RK: Paying off….
DF: To look the other way.
RK: The usual connotation is illegal?
DF: He paid certain people off in NYPD for the drugs that they were bringing in from South America through the Central Intelligence Agency to look the other way. He paid people off to do things in this country that they used the Mafia for at times that were working for the CIA to do criminal activities in this country.
RK: And he would hire those people?
DF: Certainly.
RK: And he would pay those people?
DF: Certainly.
RK: And he would fire those people/
DF: Certainly.
RK: In some manner.
DF: Exactly.
RK: And he was involved with drug running as a military officer?
DF: Yes.
RK: So, this person and I mean no disrespect, so this person….
DF: Was as dirty as the day is long.
RK: Okay. If he told me something, he said to me, "Mr. Kohlman, A is B." Why would I believe him?
DF: Because my father would not lie when he was telling someone something, maybe for operations but at the point in my father's life when he knew he was terminal and when he was dying, he needed to get it out because he said that things were running amuck and what they originally started out to do was not what it wound up to be, so if my father would look at you and say, "Mr. Kohlman, A is B, you can go to the bank on it."
RK: After 85. Now, in your search for records and property and so on and so forth, have you or do you know of any problems that you have had or that family members have had because of your search?
DF: Well, let me see. Mr. James Strauss himself came to see us. I told Mr. Strauss that I knew that the agency had eliminated my father. The man looked at me and he said, "well, can you bite the bullet and go on?"
The man also told me I could never play chess unless I knew how to play without the chessboard because I would be in checkmate at all times. He told me that my children could not be watched at all times. He told me if I win, I will lose. His exact words to me were, "when you win, you lose and when you lose, you lose."
RK: Okay. You have how many children?
DF: Two.
RK: And how old are they?
DF: I have a son who is 25 and a daughter who is 23. My son is with the Bernoleo County Sheriff's Department. He is in extradition. I guess it must have been in September of 1997 when he was at Albuquerque International Airport here in New Mexico. He pulled in with his police car to a restricted area. His partner noticed that someone was taking pictures of him in a restricted area with a zoom lens. They were oriental.
There were three. Albuquerque Airport police told them that they could not do anything because it was not illegal to take a picture of anyone whether they were in restricted area or not. I have been followed.
RK: Just a minute. So how do you know this incident occurred and…..let's take a break now.
RK: The time is now 1:19 p.m. We are now off the record.
RK: How do you know that incident occurred?
DF: Because my son called me. His partner at the time was a gentleman whose first name was Ruben, that was there. How do I know that occurred? I was told by my son and his partner.
RK: So if we were to speak to your son, what is your son's name?
DF: Vincent.
RK: Was he named after anybody?
DF: My father.
RK: Picked it out after his grandfather. So if we were to talk to Vincent, the stories would be pretty much
the same?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: And if we were to talk to his partner, what was his partner's name again please?
DF: I think he was with a gentleman by the name of Ruben at the time.
RK: And Ruben would pretty much substantiate Vincent's impression of what happened?
DF: Yes.
RK: Now you were stating that you were threatened? Was that your word?
DF: I have been followed. I took what Jim Strauss said to me as a threat that I cannot watch my children 24
hours a day. I have been followed. I have had my horses turned loose. Got my wire fencing totally cut.
RK: Okay, excuse me a minute. Not knowing much about horses, I do know that they appear to be a lot
smarter than people think. How do you know the wires were cut?
DF: Because you can see on the wire that they were clipped. On the wire fencing.
RK: Okay. Are your horses shoed? Do they have steel horseshoes or….
DF: No.
RK: Okay. Go ahead. Are there any other incidences?
DF: They have been let out twice. Boy, I just lost my train of thought. Police reports have been made.
They are documented with Corales Police Department. A threatening phone call came, Rose telegram, to call a certain number and it was addressed to my husband, Tom. When the number was called, if I am not mistaken, I think it was something to do with, I can't remember the wording on it but the police report would have it.
RK: And what date was that?
DF: It was Easter Sunday.
RK: What year?
DF: Last year, 1997. Okay, a threatening phone call.
RK: And what do you have in your hands please?
DF: Oh, I have the police report.
RK: And this is the police report you just were referring to?
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay, would you show that to the camera please? Now on the upper right hand, left hand…on the upper corner there is a date?
DF: 5/12/97.
RK: Was that the date you called in the report?
DF: Date reported was 5/14/97.
RK: Okay. And the date of the incident was?
DF: 5/12/97.
RK: Was there a time given for the incident, not the reporting of the incident but the incident? Was there a time?
DF: The Mailgram came on the 12th. I called on the 14th, I called even though it said for Tom to call.
RK: Okay.
DF: And I called in the morning. I think it was early in the morning.
RK: Okay, so this police report is on file?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: With the Corales Police Department/
DF: Yes.
RK: Okay. So if we were to go down there, we could get the original?
DF: Oh yes.
RK: Okay. Were there any other incidences?
DF: Mostly with the horses. My horses are constantly, all my gates being opened.
RK: If you would, keeping in mind my premise that horses are a lot smarter than people would like to think
they are. Couldn't the horses have opened the gates themselves?
DF: I tell you what, if they could I would be a very rich woman because they would be very well trained,
no. Sorry but no.
RK: Okay. All right. I want to thank you very much.
DF: Thank you.
This concludes the testimony of Desiree A. Ferdinand. The time is now 1:25 p.m. This is tape #2.
--- SORT OUT LATER ---
... suits would be coming for him... Harari attempted to kidnap her. Father became violently ill that evening. Brain athrophy, kidney failing. Eliminate.
John Cathey
Paul Hollywell Edwin Black. Elliott Abrams. Gorilla training/. Castalano. Vesco. bo gritz. making blacks addicts... another backfire. shackley, armitage in drug trade. medellin. sandman. amadeus. beacons. cutolo mccoy sandy
Felix Rodriguez -- vesco . fernandez... no. aj barker. nick rowe.
Richard C. Malvesti. Colonel Beckwith william wilson. tatum. bush. edwin wilson. barry seal. william colby. singlaub. ray klein. lucien coleman. alfred hartman. eugene hafenheus. Clinton. rodney Stich. gunther russbacher. richard brenneke... enrique bermudas. armitage 66-67. Pasquale Carone. Victor Marketti . bagman. Pincheron.
He paid certain people off in NYPD for the drugs that they were bringing in from South America
through the Central Intelligence Agency to look the other way. He paid people off to do things in this country
that they used the Mafia for at times that were working for the CIA to do criminal activities in this country. followed.
In 1996 Dee learned her father and Bill Tyree had known each other.