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?
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Update: SEC IG looks into United Airlines bankruptcy
David
Kotz, inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission,
acknowledged that the agency did not respond appropriately to
allegations made in November 2007 by former pilot Dan Hanley that
United Airlines violated the Sarbanes-Oxley Act during its post-9/11
Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The law was passed after financial
shenanigans by Enron management cratered the energy company.
In a Nov. 3 letter, Kotz told Hanley, now head of the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association (www.airline-whistleblower.com/)
that after reviewing his complaint, “we did not believe that sufficient
action was taken by the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy.”
Kotz said he was referring the matter directly to SEC Enforcement
Division senior counsel Michelle Barrans for possible criminal action.
One of Hanley’s allegations was that the Department of Justice
worked out a deferred prosecution agreement with United management,
essentially giving them a pass on criminal charges and allowing them to
collect millions of dollars in exit bonuses while United vendors,
shareholders and employees – who lost their pensions – were hung out to
dry.
Hanley,
a veteran pilot who was forced out of his job after complaining about
lax safety at the airline, also alleges that the Chicago judge who
presided over the United Airline bankruptcy proceedings maintained a
$40 million bribery fund, part of which was held in a land trust in
Arizona under his initials.
