From KALLISTE@delphi.comMon Oct 21 20:10:02 1996
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 19:14:51 -0500 (EST)
From: KALLISTE@delphi.com
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Subject: Earl Brian Convicted in California
Earl Brian Convicted in California
by J. Orlin Grabbe
Earl Brian, the man who marketed the stolen
PROMIS software all over the world, has been convicted
of financial fraud. I reported on Brian's indictment in "Part
27: Allegations Regarding Vince Foster, the NSA, and
Banking Transactions Spying."
Brian was convicted on 10 out of 13 counts on
which he was tried. This occurred despite the efforts of
convicted felon, and former Justice Department attorney,
Webster Hubbell. Hubbell placed his man in the local
U.S. attorney's office. This attorney was supposed to
ensure that Brian did not get convicted on any of the
charges. But the jury did their job, and the Justice
Department thus screwed-up their intended screw-up. And
Brian is going to jail.
Each count carries a minimum 9 years in prison, so
the 53-year old Brian is facing 90 years in prison. He is
also under indictment in Canada.
Think what this means. Faced with the prospect of
spending the rest of his life in prison, Brian will
undoubtedly want to cut a deal. If he cuts a deal, he will
necessarily testify against former Attorney General Ed
Meese, as well as Los Angeles mafia mogul George
Pender.
If Meese and Pender then try to cut deals, they will
testify against George Bush. This will mean the end of
George Bush's drug-and-arms dealing career. George
Bush, who recently threw his support to Bob Dole, will go
the way of Bill Clinton and other dodo birds--as well he
should.
There is a curious thing about this case. The court
is not releasing any information on which counts Brian was
convicted. The court is apparently under political pressure
to make the convictions go away. That's why you haven't
heard about it on some of the media Brian once owned,
such as CNBC. (Brian was the previous owner of
Financial News Network, which was merged into the
present network. *Come on Bill Griffeth and Sue Herera!
Give us the news about your former boss! Hell, I used to
watch you guys on channel 64 in Philadelphia.*)
Brian marketed the PROMIS software--which was
stolen by "trickery, deceit, and fraud," according to federal
bankruptcy Judge George Bason--to intelligence
organizations around the world. This included Israel and
Iraq, the latter deal facilitated by arms dealer Carlos
Cardoen.
He also made a sale of PROMIS to the government
of Brazil. In the deposition of Charles Hayes, (*Inslaw and
Hamilton versus the United States of America*, United
States Court of Federal Claims, Congressional Reference
No. 95-338X) is the following exchange:
Q. Do you have any documents in your possession that
pertain to computer software called FOIMS? . . .
A. . . . What you call FOIMS is PROMIS Enhanced
software, whether you like it or not. . . . Now, whether it's
called FOIMS, TECS or whatever it's called, to me it--you
can take a Chevrolet emblem off of a Chevrolet car,
ma'am, and you can put Ford on it, but its still Chevrolet.
. . .
Q. Do you know Doctor Earl Brian?
A. I met Earl Brian, yes, ma'am.
Q. When did you meet him?
A. In Brazil.
Q. When?
A. In the '80's.
Q. What did Doctor Brian look like?
A. Big tall fellow. Got a big foot on him too.
Q. How did you meet him?
A. He was selling some software.
Q. In Brazil?
A. Yes, ma'am.
Q. And what type of software was that?
A. PROMIS.
Q. So Doctor Brian was selling PROMIS in Brazil?
A. Uh huh (affirmative response).
Q. Who was he trying to sell it to?
A. Brazilian government. . . .
Q. So you--the reason you know it was PROMIS was
because Doctor Brian said it was PROMIS?
A. In front of everybody there, yes, ma'am.
Q. Did he say it was INSLAW's PROMIS?
A. No.
Q. Are you aware of any other companies that developed
a product called PROMIS?
A. For reasons of national security right now, I will not
answer that.
Q. I am not talking about government programs.
A. What did I just say, ma'am?
Q. I'm talking about private companies.
A. Well, sometimes private companies, you might not
believe this, Ms. Cook, that you think are private is owned
by the United States government. Either that or my daddy
or somebody told me awful wrong.
Q. So did you sign an agreement with Doctor Brian not to
disclose anything about this?
A. No, ma'am, I signed no agreements at any time. Didn't
ever, and never will as long as the day I live, sign a
contract or anything else with Mr. Earl Brian.
Q. Which Brailian government agencies did he try to sell
PROMIS to?
A. Well, you don't sell it to agencies. They are not like
over here, ma'am, they don't have agencies over there.
Brazil and the United States is totally different. And in
Brazil you sell to the government, and they figure out
which agencies get it.
That Earl W. Brian may have been fraudulently
selling software becomes plausible when you realize he
has just been convicted on ten counts of financial fraud.
The California indictment of Brian was announced in
September 1995, more than a year after the indictment was
handed down in June 1994. The time delay was
apparently part of the handwork of Web Hubbell's man in
the local office of the U.S. attorney.
Now the court doesn't want to tell anyone what
Brian was actually convicted of. But you can get the idea
from the original indictment. (*United States of America vs.
Earl W. Brian and John F. Berentson*, United States
District Court for the Central District of California, June
1994 Grand Jury).
The indictment concerned ten of millions of dollars
of fraudulent lease transactions, while Earl Brian was
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of
three separate companies: Infotechology, Financial News
Network (FNN), and United Press International (UPI).
The indictment claims that Brian and his co-
conspirators engaged in some trick financing (worthy of
Billy Sol Estes). In 1988 FNN (now CNBC) was losing
money, so to hide that fact from its lending banks and from
the investing public, Brian generated some extra "income"
through false charges.
First FNN charged UPI $29 million to use a
technology called the "vertical blanking interval". Next
FNN charged another Infotechnology-related company
called Institutional Research Network (IRN) millions of
dollars (above actual costs) for a news product called
FNN:PRO. Payments for these charges topped up FNN's
income nicely.
But since neither UPI nor IRN had money to pay
for these charges, the money had to come from somewhere
else. The money came from leasing and finance
companies, who bought broadcast and communications
equipment from two affiliates of FNN,
Telecommunications Industries and Micro Research
Industries. (The equipment either did not exist or was sold
to more than one leasing company at the same time, or
was previously sold to customers of the FNN subsidiary
Data Broadcasting Company.) The purchase price of the
non-existent equipment was paid to FNN, who then made
lease payments to the leasing and finance companies.
The indictment says that Brian also siphoned off
$300,000 of the lease money to himself, by submitting a
"bill" to FNN from another company he controlled, called
Alton, Inc.
Charles Hayes gave Earl Brian the nickname
"Cash" while Brian was in Brazil. The appellation appears
appropriate.
October 21, 1996
Web Page: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/