Avery Sentanced--Kane Implicated

By The San Francisco Chronicle

A former San Francisco prosecutor who inherited a role overseeing a multimillion-dollar trust has been sentenced to an 8 1/2-year prison term and ordered to repay the $52 million in trust funds he misappropriated and spent in just six months in Alaska, authorities said.
Mark Avery, 48, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money-laundering charges in federal court in Alaska in March 2007. After repeated delays, he was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline and immediately sent to federal prison.
Avery, who has filed for bankruptcy protection and most recently was living with relatives in Vallejo, worked as a prosecutor in San Francisco before he was fired by then-incoming District Attorney Terence Hallinan in 1996.
His father, Luther Avery, was one of the nation's pre-eminent trust attorneys. When the elder Avery died in 2001, Mark Avery inherited his role in charge of a charitable trust run out of San Francisco on behalf of the late May Smith, a wealthy widow.
Avery illegally borrowed against the trust and spent the money on a ragtag fleet of vintage war machines, including World War II planes and a fleet of fighter jets in Alaska, prosecutors said.

His attorney said he fell under the influence of Robert "Commander" Kane, a swashbuckling figure who convinced Avery that the fleet would be useful to foreign clients fighting rebel armies.
The spending spree drew the attention of the FBI and Internal Revenue Service in Alaska, triggering the federal investigation. Smith suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died in 2006 without knowing what had happened.
Avery spent the trust money in six months, but his defense lawyer has said he always intended to pay it back.
"Mark did not approach his position as trustee with the idea that he was going to steal $52 million from it," attorney D. Scott Dattan said. "That was not his intention when his father died."
Avery faced a minimum of 14 years in custody under federal guidelines, but government prosecutors asked that he be sentenced to a shorter term because he was cooperating with a continuing investigation into the trust fraud.
Steve Skrocki, the federal prosecutor, said there was no evidence Avery considered the money he took to be a loan.
"He took the money and kept taking it until there was no more left," Skrocki said. "He didn't stop at $10 million. He took the entire $50 million and then some. And no one checked him on it."
Skrocki said Avery had betrayed Smith and her trust. "None of the things he did was for her benefit," the prosecutor said.

Rob Kane Disapeared?

Anchorage, AK-Jan. 29, 2008-Early this month I received a message that former Alaskan Rob Kane had been found dead in the Philippines by his wife Karen.

The message came from a contact of Kane's that I was familiar with, only by name. Other than that one message--no other contact has been possible.

According to the brief dispatch--he had been pushed, or jumped from a building--near or in the place that they were living on the island of Mindanao.

Neither e-mail, telephone, or Skype contact was ever returned by Kane, or his wife Karen.

My efforts to contact Kane have failed, but according to bloggers and newspaper reporters there was no story, or information about his death, or the death of a U.S. Citizen during that same time period.

The mystery of Rob Kane continues, this time with his disappearance--or death.

Stay tuned!

Kane Trial Information Sealed by CIPA Motion

Click on these to read:





Anchorage,AK-Oct, 23-Here art the motions and letters to seal information that the U.S. Attorney's office obtained from the intelligence community. If Kane was not an operative for a U.S government agency, or other worldwide organizations, then why was this case protected by the Classified Information Protection Act?

Please click on the images above to enlarge and read them.

Are we losing our "Freedom" here in the US?

Is martial law immanent in the U.S.?

Anchorage, AK-Oct. 20-I chatted yesterday with Rob Kane who is now living in the Philippines. He now has the time to take a close look at what happened during the Security Aviation investigations of 2006.

The subsequent trial where he was acquitted of possessing, ordering, and failing to register Soviet rocket launchers for L-39 jets was surely a sham, and left him with a stigma.

Despite the acquittal he can no longer travel, or work.

Although some might say that he never did work, others would argue, that's how it was supposed to look.

What a shame that after experiencing 32-days in jail, a trial, and being acquitted he is not a free man, and really he never was.

Neither are we.

Those of us who live in the U.S., pay in many forms for our birthright, some with their lives, others by taxes, most by supporting the very country where we were born in some indirect way by being a society of consumers.

To prove this point more information will be posted on this blog in the future. Should this blog disappear, or stop its postings...well you can guess what has happened to my freedom.

Please review the following posting, a transcript of a KTVA Channel 11 new story on Rob Kane's predicament.
http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0703/frontpage/911critique/talkback/1178027899/discussionitem_view

FBI lies, the twisted truth in hopes of a conviction

(Oct. 17) Anchorage, AK-Rob Kane is alive and well in the Philippines, but he is stuck.

If ever there was a man without a country, Kane fits the definition. You see, Kane can't come back to the U.S. even "if" he wanted to.

It seems that he has been flagged by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and is on a 'watch list.'

Even after being acquitted (in a two-week court case) he is paying the price for what looks like a war between U.S. departments that are seeking power over each other. Kind of a war-within-a-war between government agencies.

But how can this be?

Americans are not war like, we are politically correct...or are we?

For some unknown reason it appears as if the FBI sold Kane out, in a self imploding war between field offices, some who work in the U.S. and other that do not.

It seems that the agents that are so visible these days in Alaska, are looking for something more than fish, and moose, but some hide. And Rob Kane's hide was exposed for awhile during the first days of the Security Aviation investigations.

Not that the the Anchorage Daily News helped any... they were spoon fed information from the FBI and published forty some stories about Kane and Avery. Sort of like picking a scab, until it bleeds, they continued to beat the feds drum.

Not knowing, FBI agents examining the Security Aviation case involving Mark Avery tripped over Kane, blindly and tried to discredit him because he was in the way of their trumped up case.

It all started over a crash in Ketchikan, AK that killed a U.S. Custom's agent. What prompted this deal to go sour? Maybe it was knowledge that Kane had, that Security Aviation's competitors feared...and someone squealed to the Feds in jealousy.

To see and hear more about how our taxes are being used please look at these online YouTube videos from KTVA Channel 11 News in Anchorage:

A pilot dies while repossessing Security Aviation L-39s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EGH8UCv7Jo

Omissions by the FBI in search warrants..an agent lies to the court and says "I am taking that company down" and he did!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtoN6DTXV0&mode=related&search=FBI%20LIES%20TO%20JUDGE%20AND%20PILOT%20DIES%20SPY%20ALASKA

FBI goes after Rob Kane, during a witch hunt for a murdered woman who is alive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5OtDdeXk8g&mode=related&search=FBI%20LIES%20TO%20JUDGE%20AND%20PILOT%20DIES%20SPY%20ALASKA

Only an investigation into the actions of the FBI will help control this from happening needlessly again.

OIG Spokesperson Acknowledges Complaint in Kane Case

OIG Mouthpiece Says Complaint Will be Confirmed in Writing...Finally!


Oct. 16-Anchorage, AK-After months of waiting to hear that the Office of the Inspector General had received a complaint about irregularities in the case and investigation of Rob Kane and Security Aviation, today bore some fruit.

"You will be receiving something in writing by investigations," said Cynthia Schnedar OIG media relations spokesperson and Counsellor to the Inspector General in the Washington D.C., Office of the Inspector General.

"Por Fin"-as my wife would say, finally some consistency in a world of lies and deceit. But, I won't be holding my breath for anything soon, based on previous promises. In fact my plan is to call every office of the OIG until someone has a slip of tongue.

Why this crusade, some are asking?

Well if it can happen to Rob Kane, who had worked for the U.S. Government, although in a "somewhat" darkly lit roll, a travesty could happen to anyone, including the President of the United States.

Lies by FBI agents, trumped up evidence, (Soviet Rocket launchers on an L-39...gimme a break dudes) this needs to stop, and cease now!

To make my case about this the OIG is right now investigating other cases of improprieties by the FBI.

The funny thing is that she made the exact same statement to me, " I will neither confirm or deny that an investigation is on going,"

Read this for more background from Wired:

"The Justice Department's Inspector General and the FBI are investigating an office that sent fake, emergency letters to telecoms requesting phone records, according to the Inspector Generals office. That office lacked the authority to request the records and did not apply for the subpoenas promised in the letters.That information largely confirms a a Wired News story from last week, which revealed that top FBI officials told privacy groups that a criminal investigation of the office was underway and that individuals had been granted immunity.If the investigation looks into possible criminal violations of fraud statutes or a violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, it would mark the first known investigation of government employees for violations of the Patriot Act.Cynthia Schnedar, the Counsel to the Inspector General, confirmed Thursday that a joint investigation was being conducted by the Inspector General and the FBI. She declined to specify if the investigation was criminal or administrative, saying the office's policy is not to characterize investigations.As to whether individuals in the Communications Analysis Unit had been granted immunity, Schnedar also declined to comment, saying "I can't talk about ongoing investigations."For the full Wired blog entry go to: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/inspector-gener.html

Complaint filed with Office of Inspector General falls on deaf ears

Complaint filed on Aug. 16 lost, found, never received...send again!

Another Kane deception...?

(Anchorage, AK) Oct. 15-A barrage of phone calls to the Office of the Inspector General has produced nothing in the way of acknowledgement from this U.S. Government oversight agency about a complaint filed two months ago.

The complaint was coupled with questions about the Security Aviation case and the surrounding "odd" developments filed on Aug. 16, 2007 that has never been officially recognized to the sender.After a year-and-half of covering the "Security Aviation" case for the Alaska Journal of Commerce, I filed a complaint about investigations, events, and procedures surrounding this odd case.

The upshot is that events produced a court case acquittal for Rob Kane, and an admission of guilt by Mark Avery who claims to have stolen $52 million from the May Smith Trust Fund during events surrounding his activities at Anchorage based, Security Aviation in 2005.

The first round of OIG submissions started on Aug. 16th, was done by fax from the office of the Journal of Commerce. Days later I called the OIG "hot-line" in Washington, D.C. and was told that in fact no fax from me had been received.

My next move was to send it from my home fax so that I could personally hear, and see the fax data sucked into the whirlpool of the OIG's complaint office for myself. It went through without delay.

A week later I called and talked to an OIG agent who then told me that my fax/complaint had been received but he was forwarding it to a "field office" where my questions would be addressed. Also noting that I would receive a letter of receipt within 14-days of their receipt.

The letter never came.

So a month later I called and talked to OIG media relations spokesperson and Counsellor to the Inspector General, Cynthia Schnedar, who said she had no knowledge of the complaint, there was no record of the complaint, and that I needed to send it to her at a different fax number.
I did this the middle of September.

Having no notice that OIG had received the fax I called back again. I was told that Ms. Schneider would return my phone call.

She never called.

After a third try it was time to take things a step higher to the OIG oversight division.

Knowing that my efforts here-to-fore had not worked, I thought that perhaps a Freedom of Information Act request acknowledging that OIG had received my fax would garner a response.

A FOIA was filed on Sept. 19.Still nothing to date.

Seven days later I called the oversight division and spoke with an agent who said that she would try to find the complaint and asked for the names, and numbers where the faxes were sent. She also added that she would report this to the proper people to move things along.

I called last week Oct. 8, and the OIG secretary for Schneder said that the complaint had been received, and that Ms. Schnedar would call me back the next day about it.

No call from Schneider ever came.

Still nothing, and this is the middle of October.

What gives? An investigation that will slam the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's office, or an excuse that mice ate the complaint?Today I re-called Cynthia Schnedar who was going into an interview, and did not have the time to talk to me, her secretary asked if she could call me back tomorrow.

This is the third time I was asked politely to wait for her call."I am inclined to say NO, I would prefer to talk to her right now," was my response.

After a hold--pause, the secretary receptionist came back on and said that Ms. Schnedar could not talk to me and did I request that she return the call tomorrow? "Sure, I will give it another try," I said.

If corruption is the basis for cases investigated by the FBI, and turned over the U.S. Attorney's Office who then railroads cases into court with missing evidence, lies and trumped up evidence, who is metering these guys anyway?

Can they act like Nazi SS, or KGB officer now that we are all under the shadow of the Patriot Act?I am a tax paying U.S. citizen who just happens to also be a messenger of facts as a journalist, and right now it looks like our government has no legal guidelines.

A free ride to railroad us into oblivion.Is this a free country, where now we even have to pay for water to live, what's next the air we breath?

It appears to me that our rights as citizens to demand control over the very government we elect has been lost, or maybe misfiled, or in a trash can in the mail room, or lost in the voicemail system, or.....censored.