Posted on 03/20/2002 7:52:49 AM PST by Nita Nupress
Un-friggin-believable.
MAIL ON SUNDAY
June 10, 2001
SECTION: Pg. 54
He helped Lee Clegg to freedom now Father Fred aims to clear the name of the nurse accused of killing The Gilded Lily's billionaire husband
BYLINE: Sharon Churcher
Ensconced in the 18th Century grandeur of her mansion on London's Eaton Square, Lily Safra has ascended to the very pinnacle of high society with flawless speed. Less than two years ago, this British railwayman's daughter was living in semi-reclusion with her eccentric, albeit exceedingly wealthy fourth husband, Edmond Safra an elderly financier legendary for his dislike of ostentation. All that changed, however, with his death in December 1999 in a mysterious fire that engulfed his Monte Carlo penthouse.
Safra is estimated to have left his elegant blonde wife, nicknamed 'The Gilded Lily', at least GBP 2 billion, and as one of the world's wealthiest women she has recently announced the donation of a beautiful fountain named after her husband to that most quintessentially British of institutions, Somerset House.
Her parties are graced by the great and the good, including Margaret Thatcher, and her social circle includes Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. But from a small terraced home in Eastbourne, a former padre to the SAS and Parachute Regiment has launched an extraordinary investigation to expose what he believes are the true facts about the death of Edmond Safra.
The official explanation is that the fire was started by former Green Beret Ted Maher, who was employed as a nurse by the 67-year-old banker. In a signed confession, Maher says he knifed himself in the stomach to make it look as if he had been ambushed by two intruders while heroically attempting to protect Safra from the flames.
According to the Rev Major 'Father Fred' Preston, however, there really were intruders in the apartment. They stabbed Maher, he says, then assassinated Safra, whose fortune had just been multiplied many times over by a GBP 6.16 billion deal to sell his Republic National Bank of New York to Britain's HSBC.
Moreover, the priest says his inquiries, which he is conducting with a bizarre assortment of other amateur sleuths including celebrity American crime writer Dominick Dunne and two former Metropolitan Police officers, suggest Lily may have known of an alleged ploy by Monaco police to coerce the admission from Maher.
He adds: 'The authorities didn't want a long, drawn-out case that would have challenged Monaco's image as a fairyland, which I believe may be why they framed an innocent man. I'm not doing this because I want to be an amateur detective. As a priest, it is my pastoral duty to right injustice and to attempt to represent the truth.' To Mrs Safra's many admirers and team of advisers, this is 'harassment and provably unfounded speculation'. It may be a mistake, however, to dismiss the 69-year-old Church of England clergyman so lightly.
An interrogation expert, Father Fred points out when we meet in a Washington DC hotel that he has scored one major coup already as a gumshoe. With three other old soldiers, he masterminded the campaign that culminated in paratrooper Private Lee Clegg being cleared last year of deliberately murdering a joyrider shot when her car smashed through an Ulster checkpoint.
Now retired, he became fascinated by the death of Safra when he was on a temporary church assignment last year in Monaco, where his duties included visiting English-speaking prisoners at the local jail. It was there that he met Maher and became convinced of his innocence.
He says: 'Ted was trained to kill: that's what makes the allegations against him so laughable. As a former member of the Green Berets an American special forces unit who is also a highly trained nurse, he would have known a hundred neater ways of attacking Safra than this amateurish and bungled effort.' Maher initially moved to the Safra household because a nursing strike was imminent at the New York hospital where he cared for premature babies. The new GBP 400a-shift position was welcome since he and his wife Heidi were deeply in debt after adopting one of their three children. He joined a team of eight nurses taking turns to look after the billionaire, who was suffering from Parkinson's disease, and had been there for just under four months when tragedy struck.
When he first met Maher, Father Fred was prepared to accept his guilt. 'But as we stood before the altar, God spoke to me very clearly and said, "This man is innocent. There is nothing for him to confess." That was when I decided to do everything in my power to discover the real facts. It is transparently clear he does not have the character of a murderer. One theory I am exploring is that the killers could have been bodyguards for Safra at some point.' The son of a Brixton docker, Father Fred was 19 when he converted to Christianity. During his Army service he was decorated after dashing into a hail of machinegun fire to rescue a captain downed in an ambush by guerrillas north of Aden. In 1972 he was made an MBE for helping survivors of a landslide in Hong Kong. His wife, Doris, has been travelling in America with him, trying to drum up support for Maher.
He continues: 'It is ridiculous to claim Edmond Safra died from smoke inhalation. Two former London Fire Brigade officers tell me it would have been impossible for a lethal volume of smoke to have been drawn from the fire Ted allegedly started into the bathroom where Safra was found.' But claims which contradict the official autopsy are dismissed by Lily's aides as 'a lie'. They first appeared in a Vanity Fair article by Dominick Dunne, who has exposed a series of alleged abuses of the justice system by the rich and powerful, including O. J. Simpson and two scions of the Kennedys.
Father Fred and Dunne have since met and swapped information.
Dunne has subsequently published two more articles questioning not only the cause of Edmond's death but 65-year-old Lily's background. The fourth is scheduled for July, although Lily's advisers are trying to block publication in Britain.
Dunne claims the widow, whose father prospered building railway carriages in Brazil, has been described to him as 'a lady with a past'. Her second husband, Brazilian industrialist Freddy Monteverde, left her an estimated GBP 153 million after committing suicide.
According to Father Fred, 43-year-old Maher is an unsophisticated man, an easy 'patsy' for the police. 'The authorities claim he was under the influence of drugs when he started the fire, but tests found no signs of drugs in his body,' he says. The priest shows me a report that indeed appears to contradict the authorities, who, 18 months after Safra's death, have yet to bring Maher to trial.
Father Fred points to vivid closeups of the stab wounds on Maher's abdomen.
'A professional soldier and nurse such as he is would have drawn blood on the fleshy part of his thigh or the upper hipbone if he was staging this,' he says. 'To go into the bowel at the angle and depth of the wounds on Ted was extremely painful and dangerous. It's a part of the anatomy which is meat and drink to germs and it is a miracle he didn't die of infection. So why don't they investigate the many people who had real reasons to want Safra dead?'
Safra was a man with enemies. He earned part of his fortune as a Swiss banker offering numbered accounts reputedly popular with criminals and the CIA. Then his Republic Bank of New York collaborated with the FBI to expose the Russian Mafia's international money-laundering operation. His private army included 11 bodyguards armed with machineguns, many of them veterans of the Israeli security service Mossad.
The fact that none of them was on duty the night he died raises further suspicions. But perhaps more sinister was the fate allegedly awaiting Maher's wife, Heidi, when she flew to Monaco from New York after being informed by Lily's secretary that her husband had been stabbed.
Mrs Maher says in court papers that two limos and several Safra staff members greeted her at Nice airport, saying they would take her to the hospital. Instead, she claims, the car was diverted and she was grabbed by three policemen who took away her passport.
'They used it to pressure Ted into a confession, saying they were holding Heidi,' Father Fred says. 'I am told he was tied to a bed for three days and the police said neither of them would see their children again if he did not sign the confession.
This is just one question that must be answered.' In America, Mrs Maher has taken the first step in a potential damages suit against Lily, who was served with a writ notifying her of the claims while leaving a dinner in New York hosted by a former aide to Baroness Thatcher, Robert Higdon.
Meanwhile, Father Fred is contemplating his own approach to Lily.
'I am thinking of sending her a letter and reminding her of the verse in the scriptures that says, "To those to whom much has been given, much shall be asked," ' he says. 'It's a verse that reminds us there is a hell.
For Lily Safra's own sake, as well as Ted Maher's, I really think that if she knows anything about this case, she should be open about it.'
MONACO,
FREE TED MAHER NOW!!!!!!
(If you would like to added or removed from my Ted Maher ping list, please let me know. FReepmail is best. Thanks.)
MONACO: It's nearly July 4th. Give American Ted Maher back his independence and let him come home!
MONACO, FREE TED MAHER NOW!!!!!!
Phil's note: Lily retains Stanley Cohen who successfully defended Natasha Kagalovsky in the BNY matter. Anne Williamson replied to my email query that she knew Ted was a scapegoat from the moment she picked the newspaper off her doormat; that the laundering benefited the Clintons, Rubin, Summers, the Harvard Econ faculty and a half dozen bright and shining Russian reformers.
Has Dirty Money Polluted BNY?
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
Kelly Patricia O'Meara
05/07/2001
Insight Magazine
Page 16
(Copyright 2001)
Last year Thomas Renyi , chairman of the board and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Bank of New York (BNY) received more than $20 million in salary and other compensation for his management of the nation's oldest financial institution. This represents a more than 50 percent increase from what Renyi received in 1999 - the year in which he was called to testify before the House Banking and Financial Services Committee regarding allegations that BNY was involved in laundering at least $7 billion from what law-enforcement officials have described as dubious financial institutions and other entities in the former Soviet Union.
In the course of his testimony, Renyi told federal lawmakers that he was "dismayed" by the "suggestions in the press that the Bank of New York has been involved in or been used as a vehicle for money laundering or other illicit activities." The BNY chairman/ CEO then purred that he wanted to "set the record straight."
Rather than firmly state that the bank had no knowledge of and did not participate in any illegal activity, Renyi told committee members in carefully worded testimony that "no charges have been filed against the Bank of New York. No relevant authorities have asserted that the Bank of New York has engaged in money laundering or violated any other law." In fact, in the six pages of testimony read to lawmakers, not once did Renyi deny the allegations.
In September 2000 - the same year Renyi enjoyed a nearly $8 million increase from his previous year's compensation - Renyi and the BNY board of directors were sued by shareholders in both state and federal court for "systemic wrongdoing that occurred within the bank for over six years."
The New York law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York charging that, "at least as early as 1993, Renyi actively conspired, directly participated in and personally profited from schemes to illegally divert and steal Russian assets."
The federal lawsuit further contends that "the conduct of the board represents a wholesale abandonment of the critical management- oversight function directors are obligated to ensure. Despite facts brought to the board's attention, and despite its independent obligation to do so, the board failed to ensure the effective implementation of the most basic systems designed to ferret out the wrongdoing involved. The board recklessly permitted the endemic misconduct described herein to continue despite its clear and unequivocal power and obligation to halt it. Multiple internal reports were made regarding the wrongdoing, but no effective action was ever taken. By the end of 1997, the Bank had earned over $1 billion from wire-transfer processing fees, and the wrongdoing arising from the bank's Eastern European division continued unchecked."
New York attorney Richard Brualdi also filed a derivative lawsuit against Renyi and the board of directors in the Supreme Court of the state of New York on behalf of shareholders of BNY and the Bank of New York Co. Inc., charging that "the defendants have breached their fiduciary duties of due care and loyalty by inter alia participating directly, by conspiracy or by aiding and abetting one another."
Whether money was laundered through BNY is not in question. Lucy Edwards, former vice president of the Eastern European division of BNY, and her husband, Peter Berlin, pleaded guilty last year to money laundering and facilitating the movement of billions of dollars out of Russia through accounts with BNY.
The New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell is the lead counsel for the investment bank of Goldman Sachs - which Robert Rubin cochaired before becoming secretary of the Treasury in 1995 during the major Russian money laundering - representing that company and BNY in the lawsuits. Sullivan & Cromwell, however, deferred to a BNY spokesman, who insisted upon not being identified, before claiming to Insight that "the charges have no basis in fact and the bank will defend itself vigorously."
Brualdi and Mel Weiss, the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs in the state and federal civil lawsuits, say they are confident the facts will expose the board's wrongdoing. "We had to satisfy ourselves [that the facts are straight], and we would not have made the allegations if we did not think they were credible," explains Weiss. "All you have to do is look at his [ Renyi 's] testimony before Congress and then tell me if he's credible."
While neither of the law firms representing the shareholders is eager to discuss their cases in detail, Brualdi's take on the lawsuit is not unlike that of Weiss. "The Bank of New York," Brualdi explains, "will tell you he [ Renyi ] is doing a great job as CEO, but we think the facts will establish that he either knew or should have known that there was money being laundered."
The attorney continues: "We will show at trial that this has caused the bank embarrassment - diminished the bank's reputation around the world - and I think we can establish that [some] people don't want to do business with it because of what has occurred. The evidence will show that the bank was significantly harmed and that millions of dollars have been spent responding to various investigations."
Asked how it is possible that Renyi claims to have had no knowledge of the billions of dollars being run through the bank, Brualdi said with a laugh, "Why Renyi didn't know or should have known is the $10 billion question."
Anne Williamson, author of The Contagion: The Betrayal of Liberty, Russia and the United States in the 1990s and an expert on Russian economic reform and Western aid, testified before the House Banking and Financial Services Committee in September 1999. She alleges that BNY "is a looting operation. The shareholders are happy with making money and they don't want to bring attention to this problem. I was living in Moscow and I saw what was going on. Many people were telling them [BNY] that the banks were crooked, but BNY wanted the money. That country is falling apart. You can't loot a country for 15 years and not have the infrastructure collapse. It's still going on and there is going to be a terrible result in the future that we're all going to have to deal with."
Williamson continues: "Clinton's policy was a disaster over there. Hundreds of billions of dollars were taken out of Russia, and they were stealing from their own people. It was our people who were misdirecting the International Monetary Fund [IMF] money. So now you have a country in a real mess and it will ultimately fall on the shoulders of the taxpayers. The real question is where were the overseers? I contend that they were making money just like Renyi . I've been saying since 1997 that they should be indicted. Where is the Justice Department?"
So why isn't the Justice Department involved? "I talked to people at Justice long ago," says Williamson, "and one guy told me, `Look, the Department of Justice has been corrupted and the Clintons knew what they were doing when they fired all the U.S. attorneys. They will never file anything that makes the Clintons look bad.'" Williamson concludes: "The issue is that BNY knew about the [money] laundering. But there is so much money moving through the system that no one can police it if the banks don't cooperate."
Williamson raises an important point. While there are hundreds of laws in place, and new ones being enacted each year, in an effort to rein in illegal banking transactions, the focus is on the banking practices of average depositors. But who watches the bankers? Who makes sure the bankers are not facilitating the money laundering?
A Treasury official at the Virginia-based Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network (FinCen) who asked not to be identified tells Insight that "banks and other financial institutions are supposed to file currency-transaction reports or suspicious-activity reports with FinCen. But FinCen isn't law enforcement; it is only the repository of information." Asked if FinCen could provide specific information about the number of suspicious-activity reports filed by BNY for specific dates, the official explains they are "protected by privacy and we can't release that information."
An officer at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, who also asked not to be identified, explains that "we have some regulation and supervision, but it's kind of an umbrella system. In terms of supervision, we don't have people out pursuing individual bank accounts, we don't do forensic audits and we don't monitor activity day to day. It's a variety of regulators who oversee the banks. It's a collective responsibility to make sure the banks are safe and it's our job to ensure that the controls are in place." Precisely how and what entity makes sure the controls are in place apparently is too difficult to explain.
Even Congress, which has oversight of the banking industry, is speechless on this issue. According to Peggy Peterson, a spokeswoman for House Banking and Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley of Ohio, the committee cannot comment on a pending lawsuit. Never mind that the committee already has held hearings on the issue and taken sworn testimony from BNY chairman Renyi about the alleged money laundering.
Although it has been established in court that at least two officers connected to BNY were involved in money-laundering schemes, no evidence has been made public that the bank's board, including Chairman Renyi , participated or had knowledge of the illegal activities. However, based on Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents, Renyi 's compensation sharply increased during the height of the Russian financial crisis.
For instance, in 1991 BNY was recovering from losses on bad loans; the net income for the bank was a dismal $134 million. Renyi 's compensation reflected the bank's poor profit performance and he received no bonus. However, in 1997, the peak period of the laundering of Russian money, Renyi 's compensation jumped from a little more than $3 million to $10.4 million.
In 2000, say critics, when it seemed the bank successfully had weathered the storm without serious enforcement action by regulators, Renyi appears to have been rewarded for his efforts with an increase in his compensation to just under $21 million, a raise of more than 50 percent. Furthermore, the most recent proxy from the company shows that BNY stock, during the prior five-year period, substantially outperformed both its peer group of larger banks and the S&P 500 (see chart, left).
So BNY, a relatively small bank compared to peer rivals Chase Manhattan, Citibank and J.P. Morgan, outperformed them significantly at the very time BNY is alleged to have participated in laundering billions of dollars from financial institutions in Russia. Additionally, BNY's increased prosperity and performance, as well as the chairman/CEO's ballooning compensation, also coincided with huge increases in BNY's interest-bearing foreign deposits.
As reported in Insight (see "Dirty Dollars," May 15, 2000), SEC documents show that between 1993 and 1999, BNY's average foreign interest-bearing deposits increased from $7.9 billion to $20.2 billion. It was the only category to show substantial increases. Although Renyi assured Congress under oath - and penalty of perjury - that neither the bank nor any of its customers have "lost any money as a result of the activities in question," his testimony did not detail the remarkable performance and profits BNY enjoyed during the period in question. And no one on the committee asked how it was done. Critics are convinced that pending lawsuits will reveal some surprising answers.
All copyrighted material reproduced on pages of American Russian Law Institute site is intended for non- commercial educational and research purposes only
Mrs. Maher, have you talked to Father Fred? He sounds sincere....and a faithful Father on a mission is a powerful ally. Even the press is beginning to pay attention, it seems. Tell Ted prayers are being said. I know God works in his own time....but He is good.
There's a former Army Airborne Chaplain - Chaplain (Ltc) Merlin R. Carothers - who spent some time in prison and wrote some wonderful books full of hope and common sense to keep spirits up while under seige. Especially comforting, imho, Prison to Praise.... additional spiritual weapons (along with Father Fred and our prayers) for Ted's current war.
Subject: Ted Maher case
Dear Congresswoman Kelly and Ms. Coleman,
Your efforts on behalf of Ted Maher have been unfailing in the face of inertia, incompetence and resistance.
A growing circle of concerned Americans is aware of your perseverance and is cheering you on.
To the swelling ranks of those studying the case, it is clear that Ted Maher was intentionally and cruelly framed, and an illegal and absurdly implausible false confession got from him.
I stipulate that Ted has been ill-served by Georges Blot and Donald Manasse, as the most cursory review of the events of the last two and one half years will show. These pretend-defenders have been slavish in protecting the interests of the official straitjacket, and desultory in fulfilling their ethical duty to their client.
The intervention of Michael Griffith is to be applauded by those with Ted's interests at heart, and roundly hissed by the Monaco food chain.
The publicity and public pleading of Dominick Dunne has raised a banner for justice in this case as the writer has done famously in others, most recently that of Martha Moxley against another powerful dynasty.
Without doubt the forces enlisted by the widow Safra (Cohen-Monteverde-et al) with the new billions obtained from the suspicious death of Edmond Safra are considerable. Yet the forces coming to the aid of Ted Maher are growing at every hour.
It must be kept firmly in mind that the Geneva chief prosecutor said Edmond Safra was killed for cooperating with the FBI regarding the laundering of $4.8 billion in IMF loans to Russia through Republic Bank. When Republic was the focus of congressional investigation by Jim Leach's Banking Committee, Ted was being maneuvered into the mark's position and Anne Williamson was testifying to congress.
Anne Williamson, author of Contagion and a foremost authority on Russian financial scandal, told me she knew from the first that Ted was a scapegoat.
That so much delay and suppression of evidence, extortion, lies, libel and deceit has been utilized is a testimony to Ted's innocence and integrity, as well as to the importance of his remaining Monaco's patsy.
Through your continued pursuit of truth and justice, the evil will unravel, and an honorable veteran, loyal husband, loving father and caring and accomplished medical professional will be rightfully freed.
Amidst the pressured and unappreciated bustle of official Washington weigh the growing appreciation of your efforts by the watchers.
God Speed and thank you for all you do,
Phil Dragoo
phildragoo@att.net
505-473-0235
310 Airport Road #311
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507
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