Posted on 12/21/2003 5:12:15 PM PST by quidnunc
Whether or not to place The Guardian in the "major" category has always been open for debate.
LIBOLA:A Nasty Virus that causes LIBERAL SHI* to ooze out all your pores and orfices. ;-)
I think that may be hemorrhagic fever.
Today's Hit the Nail Precisely on the Head Award Nominee
Better: Today's Hit the Nail Precisely WITH your Head Award Nominee.
Putin has a policy of 'state capitalism', i.e. fascism/socialism, government is controlling most of the media... they do not have a free market, extreme or otherwise.
So how can a person write something like this? Oh, they planned an article to attack capitalism before they decided how, no doubt.
what a scam, that newspaper should be shut down.
...because Africans are too simple and childlike to figure out on their own that fools are easily separated from their money.
Polly Toynbee: stupid and racist.
Chicago Tribune
December 19, 1988 Monday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION
SECTION: TEMPO; Pg. 1; ZONE: C
LENGTH: 2656 words
HEADLINE: KNIGHTS OF CHONDA-ZA A SEX KINGDOM'S MAIL-ORDER FANTASIES END UP IN A VERY REAL COURT
BYLINE: By Wes Smith, Chicago Tribune.
DATELINE: PEORIA
BODY:
A crusade for justice brought the loyalist Harem Lords, Temple Masters and Knights of Chonda-Za from all corners of the land to a solemn federal courtroom here in a trial that ended last week after four weeks of jousting. It was what prosecutors termed, in serious understatement, "a very unusual case."
The crusaders engaged in battle with the forces of the government in Peoria in defending the honor of their Mother Maria and her Angels of Love, including all Temple Maidens, Forbidden Nymphets and "absolutely uninhibited" Exoticas.
Under siege by the federal prosecutors were the knights and their champions, Donald Lowry, 59, and his assistant Pamala St. Charles, 25, both of the Quad Cities area in western Illinois.
Prosecutors charged that Lowry operated a sleaze-by-mail scam that played upon the loneliness of socially deprived men and women around the country. Lowry's Church of Love, or Col International, collected more than $4.5 million in donations and payments from 31,000 members nationwide in 20 years of operation.
Lowry and St. Charles faced charges of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conducting financial transactions with the proceeds of fraud. The federal jury found Lowry guilty on 19 of 20 counts and St. Charles guilty on 7 counts last Friday in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm, who set a sentencing hearing for April 7.
Lowry faces a maximum 125 years in prison and $5.2 million in fines. St. Charles, who was with Lowry's operation for only a few years, could receive as many as 65 years in prison and $2.2 million in fines, although those familiar with the case say it is doubtful that she will be imprisoned for her role.
Both were allowed to go free on bond until the sentencing hearing.
The defendants, prosecutors said, created an intricate fantasy world populated by beautiful young women who were portrayed as both pure and angelic even though they wrote letters rank with raunchy language and images.
According to the fantasy spun in newsletters, love letters and brochures, these virginal yet incredibly lusty Angels of Love dwelled nubilely in the Land of Chonda-Za (a play on "Shangri-La"): a remote paradise retreat located, of course, near Rock Island and Hillsdale.
There, the frisky Angels frolicked nude and busied themselves between trips to the grocery by thinking of sex in the elevated manner of 12-year-old boys and by writing letters, for a fee, in the literary style of truck-stop johns. The correspondence occasionally included more troubling inferences of pedophilia and rape. They sent nude and seminude photographs of themselves, also for a price.
The members, in turn, could buy their way up in rank in this fantasy kingdom, aspiring to the highest levels of Harem Lord and Temple Master in what Lowry termed "the ultimate ego trip."
In truth, prosecutors said, the Angels usually were either pure fiction or practicing prostitutes, and the Harem Lords, Temple Masters and Knights of Chonda-Za were poor, lonely mopes being played for suckers.
"Donald Lowry and Pamala St. Charles were smart," one of the prosecutors said after the trial. "They are con artists. Their letters were full of lies. They are wordsmiths and manipulators."
Their victims, the prosecutors said, "were sick with the illness of loneliness."
And yet, in defense of their Mother Maria and the Church of Love, a dozen or so paid-up members of the International Order of the Knights of Chonda-Za trekked to the Peoria trial, laden with mementos of their beloved Angels. They carried photographs of them in their wallets, love letters from them in their coat pockets and Mystic Marriage certificates issued by the Church of Love in their suitcases.
"I told the postal inspector he ruined my life when he stopped the Angels' letters. I liked to write them letters and receive them," said George Kulpaca, 67, of Oxnard, Calif., who said he gave up his social life to care for his parents and relied on the Col to relieve his loneliness. He also gave more than $25,000 to the organization between 1981 and 1986. "I never belonged to another group that gave you more for your money," he said while waiting to testify for the defense.
One after another of the loyalists offered heartfelt testimony during the weeks of the trial, either under oath or in coffee shops near the federal courthouse. Most of them were single. Many were unemployed or retired. And they carried their loneliness and social ineptitude like a coat of arms.
"The word 'lonely' was an understatement in my case," said one of their numbers, Scott Denning, 35, of Fall River, Mass. "I was lost and confused. Drinking was my major problem. I used drugs and gave suicide serious thought. The Col gave me peace and tranquility, and the letters I wrote fulfilled a great creative need."
"If I ever do have a tombstone, on it you can put my birth date, my date of death and that date-Oct, 3, 1984-the day I joined the Col," he said.
Another of these lonely knights, Joseph Enriquez, 35, of Dalhart, Tex., was running his family's restaurant, where he had worked since age 5, when he answered the Col International four years ago. (Lowry used mailing lists from lonely-hearts clubs, men's magazines and other sources to lure potential members.)
"I was going through a rough time. My mom had passed away. I was more or less demoralized. I was depressed. It was more or less the chance to get the inspiration to continue," he said.
The steamy letters so eagerly received by the paid subscribers from their Angels actually were written by Lowry, a skinny, bald-domed itinerant English teacher who owned and operated Lydian Manor Publishing Co. print shop in the Quad Cities, whose payroll included some of the Angels.
Lowry, who has declared personal and corporate bankruptcy, used money sent by the Col members to pay some of the make-believe Angels to have sex with him and to keep them in apartments and automobiles, according to court testimony in the trial, which garnered the attention of the national and international media, including the Wall Street Journal, National Enquirer and People and Mademoiselle magazines.
Lowry used funds from his mail-order operation to dabble also in the high-end automobile market, buying and trading in Rolls-Royces, Jaguars, Lincolns, Cadillacs, Mercedeses and antique sports cars, he said in court testimony.
He paid himself an annual salary of about $90,000, and his wife, Esther, also known as "the Archangel" and "Mother Maria," usually took home just $20,000 or so. (The Archangel trade pays less than job printing.)
The Col was not a scam but a social service agency, according to Lowry's defense testimony. It offered a hot line in which "specially trained girls would help men over rough spots" and issued information on such topics as AIDS, etiquette and brides from the Philippines. Book exchanges and car- pooling by members also were encouraged, he testified.
Another sideline involved the marketing of tapes by a heavenly country- western group made up of Lowry's ladies, "Vicky and her Band of Angels." They sang to raise money for the Land of Chonda-Za, according to testimony.
Lowry's publishing company, which did job printing for at least one local police department, was active in the community, he said. It participated in missing-children campaigns and antidrug programs. Presidential wife Nancy Reagan sent a letter of her own to Lowry-though not on the hot-pink stationery favored by his Angels-thanking him for his "Say No to Drugs" efforts, he testified.
Lowry, St. Charles and those who came to testify in their defense have maintained that Col gave people what they paid for-a relief from loneliness and insecurity-with a money-back guarantee on all items, including the nudie coffee mugs and red pubic-hair key chains.
The striking St. Charles, who had her name legally changed from Ortiz, joined up with Lowry's operation just as a joint investigation by Moline police, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. postal authorities was getting underway under the direction of the U.S. attorney in Springfield, J. William Roberts, investigators said.
"In a short time, she had almost completely taken over the operation," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Tate Chambers, who prosecuted the case and said that St. Charles had taken part in Lowry's attempts to cover up his fraud and money-laundering operation.
Upon joining the Col, St. Charles put together a new organization, called the International Order of Knights of Chonda-Za, and had solicited more than $100,000 in loans from its members in the last year, she testified.
"She said in a detention hearing that she was still getting 12 to 15 letters a day from members, and those letters contain donations," Chambers said.
Late last week, as the trial went into its final hours, a group of about 20 Knights staged an elaborate ceremony in the federal courthouse and presented St. Charles with a dozen roses in tribute, Chambers said.
"She is a very savvy 25-year-old," he said.
A "Gathering" of more than 50 members held at the Westin Hotel near O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in 1986 featured, among other things, a mock version of "The Dating Game" in which members bereft of social graces were given advice on how to deal with women. Members paid about $300 each to receive such tips as "You're your own worst enemy" and to meet Mother Maria, the overseer of the Angels of Love.
The defense portrayed the mail-order operation as an innocent lonely- hearts club that endeavored to gently bolster the low self-images of its clientele by lavishing them through the mails with the affections of "All- American girls," some of whom were from the Philippines.
Lowry, who wore cheap suits and an intellectual arrogance, brandished his language skills throughout the trial and occasionally betrayed a contempt for the intelligence of the clients he claimed to be serving. He said that gifts they sent to their Angels were often worthless articles of clothing or junk furniture that had to be sold off in garage sales.
Yet he testified that the mail-order fantasy he wrought from 1966 to 1986 was no more fraudulent in its intent than the tales of, say, Santa Claus or that sultry vixen Little Red Riding Hood.
"If you write a story such as Little Red Riding Hood, you are not lying, you are creating a story," said Lowry, who also compared his work to that of historical novelists such as Gore Vidal and his "Lincoln" and to the tales of Sherlock Holmes.
"But Sherlock Holmes didn't ask anybody for money, did he?" countered Chambers.
The mail-order fantasies did not attempt to delude anyone that the "fabulous Angels" and the "Land of Chonda-Za" actually existed, Lowry maintained. The Angels were a sort of "fantasy therapy" for lonely people, he said.
"It was pure, wholesome and decent fantasy. It was based on the principle that the illusion of romance is better than no romance at all. Some people will believe what they want to believe no matter what you tell them," Lowry testified. "I always believed the fantasy aspect to be harmless."
But it was not harmless, according to prosecutors who summoned a number of disgruntled former members to counter the defense of the Knights and Lowry. Among those who had their fantasies burst by U.S. postal inspectors and federal agents:
- George C. Seeger, 73, a retired industrial designer and widower from Skokie, testified that he sent $32,000 to the Church of Love so he could retire someday in the Land of Chonda-Za. He admired the goals and the "natural" lifestyle.
- Kenneth Blanchard, 39, of Griswold, Ia., contributed $3,000 in "love offerings." Blanchard testified that he believed in Mother Maria and her Angels and their curing powers, particularly their ability to form a "Circle of Love" in which energy was sent out to a member via their thought waves.
- Robert McDonald, 56, a University of Wisconsin janitor, sent $9,000 and named the organization as beneficiary of his will. He planned to retire to Chonda-Za with his favorite, Angel Vanessa, as his Temple Bride. He kept a photo of Angel Vanessa atop his television set at home. He once sent his Angel a space heater because she had complained of the cold. He also donated money for a garden fund and asked only that a row of potatoes be named after him.
- Illinois State University philosophy professor Louis Andrade sent $900 to help finance Chonda-Za, he said. William LeRand, 60, of San Francisco, sent about $2,000 for the same cause.
The defendant presented evidence that he did search out or attempt to buy land for the Chonda-Za site on several occasions, including sites in Ohio, Arkansas, Nevada and Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
At one point, the Col was close to completing a purchase deal for a former orphanage in Andover, Ill., south of Moline, he said. But when the owners of the 15-acre site, Lutheran Social Services in Chicago, learned who they were dealing with, they backed out, Lowry testified.
"I guess they didn't want to deal with hardened criminals like ourselves," he said sarcastically.
("Some people in the community were concerned and our attorney investigated, and so we said 'uh-uh,' " explained Gail Anderson associate director of public relations for Lutheran Social Services of Illinois.)
Lowry admitted to soliciting money under false pretenses from his clients by sending out requests for donations to buy sewing machines, clothing and gardening materials for the nonexistent retreat and the fantasy Angels. But he said he developed this "rationale of need" merely to protect the egos of clients.
"Back in the '70s, our members said they liked the letters but didn't like the idea of having to pay a girl to write a love letter," Lowry testified. "It didn't help their egos."
One of Lowry's most audacious schemes capitalized on an automobile accident involving one of his favorite employees, Susan Rasso, the model for "Angel Susan Valencia," according to court testimony.
The real Susan stole a car while doing drugs and hit a tree, according to Lowry's testimony. Her injuries put her in the hospital and out of service. But Angel Susan had always been a favorite among members, and Lowry decided to elaborate a bit on her misfortune.
He sent out a notice to his members that Angel Susan had been driving to Mexico to visit her sick mother when her car was struck by a drunk driver. She was "scarred very badly" and in intensive care, members were told. To heighten "shock value," Lowry added a bit of bruising verite to the notice, he said.
He went to the hospital and took photographs of the truly battered body of the real Susan. He then mailed the photographs out, saying they were taken by a doctor in Mexico City. He added a plea for money to help pay Angel Susan's medical bills and to send Mother Maria to Mexico to visit her.
But that was not all. For an additional sum, members were told, they would receive color photographs of Angel Susan's naked body as it looked before the accident or, in Lowry's words, "totally intact."
The ruse resulted in "better than average" contributions, Lowry testified. He also admitted that Rasso was treated as an indigent patient at a local hospital and that none of her medical bills was paid for by his organization.
Under cross-examination during the trial, Lowry said that he had paid Susan Rasso $100 to $250 to have sex with him on "four or five or six occasions" and that he also had provided her with clothes, a car and a furnished apartment.
He defended his scheme to make money from Rasso's misfortune by noting that the mailings sent out about her contained warnings about driving while drinking.
And the pictures of her injuries, he said, "were also helpful in explaining the scars she would have in later photos."
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS 4
PHOTO: Members Jerry Kelderhause and Joseph Enriquez, with defendant Pamala St. Charles and members Scott Denning and Rose Coglaiti and defendant Donald Lowry: Despite the trial, some members defended the concept to the end. Photo by Eric Behrens.
PHOTO: St. Charles looking like one of those angels.
PHOTO: True fan George Kulpaca, with St. Charles, testified for the defense. Photo by Eric Behrens.
PHOTO: An Angels of Love emblem.
LOAD-DATE: October 25, 1993
"I may be a gullible idiot but it's all Bush's fault that I was a sucker in this obvious scam!"
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