UPDATE: FBI, DOJ refuse to investigate charges of judicial corruption

UPDATE: FBI, DOJ refuse to investigate charges of judicial corruption

12/03/09 3:12 PM EST
Re: “SEC IG looks into United Airlines bankruptcy,” Nov. 24

For three years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice have refused to investigate material evidence of a nationwide criminal racket that has allegedly infiltrated state and federal courts and is unlawfully manipulating and exploiting litigants in bankruptcy, family and probate courts.

According to court documents filed in Chicago, the FBI and DOJ turned a blind eye to retaliation against citizens who attempted to expose the corruption, including “kidnapping of children, false incarceration after being ‘framed’ by criminal elements in civil and criminal authorities, impoverishment, coercion under duress, and serious physical injury up to and including death.”

The 2006 affidavit claims that “multiple judges and lawyers are aware of and/or involved in alleged criminal acts,” but have not reported wrongdoing to authorities in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. It specifically mentions four federal judges, including Eugene R. Wedoff, who was appointed chief bankruptcy judge of the Northern District of Illinois in 1986.

Judge Wedoff presided over the 2005 bankruptcy of United Airlines, in which 20 large unsecured creditors lost nearly $18 million. The airline also defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of pension obligations for over 134,000 United employees –the largest pension default in three decades – while its top executives walked off with millions in exit bonuses.

Dan Hanley, public spokesperson the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association (www.airline-whistleblowers.org) and a former United 777 captain who was forced out of his job, alleges that United management fraudulently withheld information from the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, which took over their pensions, and that PBGC never conducted the federally mandated analysis of the United pension fund before agreeing to its termination. The Securities and Exchange Commission has recently agreed to look into the matter.

The court affadavit also accuses Wedoff, who recently suffered a mysterious fractured skull, and other allegedly crooked judges of squirreling away $40 million in bribes at LaSalle National Bank in Chicago, Wells Fargo and Northern Trust Bank in Arizona. The affadavit further claims that payoffs to Wedoff eventually wound up in the ERW Living Trust, which purchased Lot 114 of Greenfield Place in Maricopa County, Arizona. The signature of ERW trustee “Richard E. Williams” is allegedly identical to Judge Wedoff’s.

The affidavit further charges that the criminal racketeering enterprise headquartered in Phoenix hacked into INSLAW, a court software program, and “through the systematic code-based creation of fraudulent documents and identity theft,” illegally hijacked it to funnel stolen private and government funds into two trusts – Omega and Anchor Pure Trusts – which ultimately dispersed the hot cash into personal trusts such as ERW, which then used fake mortgages for property that had already been bought with cash to further launder the money.

“Multiple lawyers of prominent law firms are allegedly members” of the racket, which uses phony federal marshal credentials to gain access to the Federal Court Building in Chicago, according to the affidavit.

Another signed affidavit, filed by court qualified document examiner Sidney Perceful, accused Wedoff of allowing a bankruptcy trustee to confiscate and destroy records and transfer “large sums of money” to his account at La Salle, which she called “highly irregular and illegal.”

These allegations, if true, point to a massive criminal infiltration of the federal court system. But so far, neither the FBI nor DOJ have bothered to look into them. The big unanswered question is: Why not?

Welcome to the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association!

Welcome, my friends and fellow airline industry whistleblowers!

I currently serve as the national public spokesperson for the grassroots' Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association' whose purpose is to serve our 'special interests', the millions who travel by commercial air and their safety and security concerns, and not those of corporate executives, Wall Street and K-Street lobbyist, and those in Washington, DC who do not serve our interests or share our concerns about the demise of employees within the airline industry. Our interests and concerns are true public air transportation safety and security and not the security of our stock portfolios or reelection to public office.

Our members include those dedicated safety and security professionals that serve our 'special interests' daily...airline aircrew members and employees, FAA and TSA employees, and all other honest citizens who support our courageous and noble efforts to make the skies safer and 'a more user friendly' work environment to our members.

We have a website that is loaded with information concerning the alleged United Airlines post-9/11 bankruptcy corruption and subsequent ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into purported white-collar criminality and other issues. Additionally, the site contains many useful links to other information available to whistleblowers who attempt to report wrongdoing within the workplace, but are somehow stiffled.

http://www.airline-whistleblowers.org

Our Whistleblowing Airline Employees Blog Spot may be accessed by clicking on the link below where you may provide your comments and chat with other airline employees around the world. There are also accessible links on the right hand side of the site that contain useful information also.

http://www.airline-whistleblower.com/

Our facebook cause named 'Stop Federal Suppression of Airline Employee Whistleblowers' connects our members together, but is also employed to promulgate very important information via cause bulletins that you will receive via email. Please take the time to join this important cause, as you can invite up to 60 of your airline facebook friends to join us also each day.

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/332892?m=18eac145

If you are not intimately familiar with facebook, please be advised that as you accept your airline friends to be your facebook friend, you can scroll down the left hand side of their wall and suggest up to 50 of your airline friends a day to be their facebook friends also. In this way, we can all globally expand our networks and become one big happy airline family sharing interesting stories and other information concerning problems in the industry that we each face...and then collectively help bring about a positive change!

Our association periodically airs our 'Whistleblowing Airline Employee Blog Talk Radio Program' online and the programs are archived for your future listening and to forward the links to these programs to other interested facebook friends. When aired, calls are received from listeners to voice their grievances or to ask questions of our interesting guests. To access past programs, please visit the site below. Then copy/paste the URL to the program to your facebook walls so that you may share this information with your friends too!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/daniel-hanley

Finally, we consult with various other professional and grassroots national efforts, whose websites are accessible on our website and blog. Please take the time to peruse each site, as they contain very important information. These organizations and links to their websites are located at the bottom of this page.

There have been countless cases of airline, FAA, and employee whistleblower abuse since 9/11 and it must be brought to public awareness by all available means in support of the DOT/FAA and DHS/TSA promises to make our skies the 'safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world'. Suppression of honest whistleblowers attempting to help rectify system errors is in diametric opposition to their stated goals and must be prevented at all costs...especiially within the airline industry.

All whistleblowers assume that they have laws and regulations to protect them, but more importantly, institutions of government support and protection to enforce them. It is only too late in many cases that the honest whistleblower realizes that neither exist after they have spoken out. The consequence is oft times the decimation of reputation, career, family, and/or fiancial ruination.

The phenomenal chilling impact that this has on other would-be whistleblowers who observe unsafe practices may in many cases impinge upon the desire to openly air their grievances, which is totally unacceptable in the airline work environment if we are truly to have the 'safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world'. Our association seeks to serve as a grassroots outlet for those individuals who may have been hampered in making reports while employing the normal communicative channels at their airline.

The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act is coming up for a vote in the senate soon. The House bill H1507 has already passed and includes provisions for jury trials, which enables discovery phase, for federal whistleblowers. The senate version, S372, is still being debated, but does not include this provision. What's more, if passed in its present form, it would be virtually impossible for any employee working in the Department of Justice and the intelligence services to ever blow the whistle on fraud, waste, and abuse issues or other criminal wrongdoing they observe.

Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are both politically working in earnest for passage of this important legislation in its original form and, as airline employees and whistleblowers, we must each do our part to prevent this, given past whistleblower abuses!

As aviation safety and security professionals, please join our cause, while asking your airline facebook friends to invite 'Daniel William Hanley' to be their friend. As our numbers grow, so too will the strength and volume of our collective voice. Our 'special interests', the airline passengers, expect this of us and we cannot let them down!

Thank you!


Captain Dan Hanley
National Public Spokesperson
Whistrleblowing Airline Employees Association
http://www.airline-whistleblowers.org/New_Standard_2.html

Affiliate Organizations/Contacts and their websites:

Government Accountability Project - Attorney Tom Devine, Legal Director
http://www.whistleblower.org/

National Whistleblower Center - Attorney Colapinto, General Counsel
http://www.whistleblowers.org/

Project on Government Oversight - Danielle Brian, Executive Director
http://www.pogo.org/

National Security Whistleblower Coalition - FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, President
http://nswbc.org/index.htm

FAA Whistleblowers Alliance - Gabe Bruno - Executive Director
http://www.faawhistleblowers.com/

Fleur De Lis Film Studios - BJ Davis, President
http://www.fleurdelisfilmstudios.com/

Forensic Fraud Research - Dr. Jan Schwartz, President
http://www.whitecollarcorruption.com/index.htm

Former McCook Metals, LLC CEO Michael W. Lynch - Associate

National Judicial Conduct and Disability Law Project, Inc. - Atty Zena Crenshaw, Executive Director
http://www.njcdlp.org/

POPULAR - Attorney Zena Crenshaw - Executive Director
http://www.popular4people.org/Association_Members.html

Medical Whistleblower - Dr. Janet Parker, Executive Director
http://medicalwhistleblower.viviti.com/

Global Cabin Air Quality Executive - Captain Tristan Lorraine, Chairman
http://www.gcaqe.org/default2.asp?active_page_id=53

Aerotoxic Association - Captain John Hoyte, Executive Director
http://www.aerotoxic.org/

Toxic Free Airlines - Flight Attendant Sue Dale, Executive Director
http://www.toxicfreeairlines.com/

FlyersRights.org - Kate Hanni, Executive Director

http://www.flyersrights.org/

OAK - Organizations Associating for the Kind of Change America Really Needs
http://oak4change.ning.com/page/goth-2010

SafeSkies.ca - Kirsten Stevenson, Executive Director
http://safeskies.ca/

Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform - David Hutton, Executive Director
http://fairwhistleblower.ca/

Chicago judge to decide if his own accuser goes to jail

Chicago judge to decide if his own accuser goes to jail

By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
03/26/10 3:24 PM EDT

How’s this for an eyeball-popping conflict of interest?

Chicago Circuit Court Judge Alexander White - the same judge accused of being on the take in a civil trial four years ago - is expected to rule today on whether his accuser has to serve the remaining 34 days of his sentence on criminal contempt of court charges in Cook County Jail.

Chicago businessman Michael Lynch, the former CEO of McCook Metals, is also a key witness in an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the United Airlines bankruptcy in Chicago, raising new questions about retaliation and witness tampering.

In a 2006 affadavit Lynch filed with the court, he claimed to have material evidence – including bank account numbers and trust documents – implicating federal Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eugene Wedoff, who presided over both the United and McCook cases, as well as six state judges (including Judge White), and a number of lawyers, businessmen and bankruptcy trustees. Two judges named in Lynch’s court filings abruptly retired soon afterwards.

Lynch was cited for criminal contempt for allegedly including “unsubstantiated and far-flung allegations that Judge White was a participant in an organized crime scheme in Arizona.” White currently presides over all judgment, eminent domain, quitclaim and lien cases in Cook County, which was recently chosen as the worst jurisdiction in the nation for judicial corruption in a survey of legal experts commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Lynch’s allegations are similar to those that sparked Operation Greylord, an FBI investigation of judicial corruption in Cook County during the 1980s that indicted 92 government officials, including 17 judges, on corruption charges. The now retired judge who originally cited Lynch for contempt accused him of “attacking the integrity of the court” after the businessman filed a pro se motion asking that another judge hear his case.

Lynch told The Examiner that a team of private investigators he hired determined that both Judge White and Judge Wedoff failed to report several blind trusts under management by third parties on their financial disclosure forms. Lynch says he provided copies of all evidence his team unearthed to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

The Illinois Supreme Court refused to hear Lynch’s appeal of the contempt finding. One of the Supreme Court justices is Anne Burke, wife of Daley family loyalist Alderman Ed Burke. In his 2004 book, “When Corruption was King,” former Mafia attorney Robert Cooley - whose hidden tape recordings helped launch Greylord - accused Burke and his wife of fixing two murder cases. Alderman Burke is also chairman of the Democratic Committee that appoints judges. A Jan. 22, 2008 Chicago Tribune article called the Burkes “the state’s richest political family,” with a combined political warchest of $8.3 million – an –eyebrow-raising amount of cash for an appointed judge and a city alderman.

On March 2, a three-judge appellate panel that includes Judge Mary Jane Thies, daughter of another former Cook County official, upheld Lynch’s contempt citation even though, he told The Examiner, a legally mandated sentencing hearing was never held.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/SharpSticks/Chicago-judge-to-decide-if-his-own-accuser-goes-to-jail-89284667.html#ixzz0jJwulPdJ