Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 31

("Quid coniuratio est?")

SHERMAN SKOLNICK INTERVIEW

Sherman Skolnick was interviewed on Radio Free America (Shortwave, 5.810 mHz, mon-fri, 9 pm cst) on September 2, 1994. Mr. Skolnick is a veteran investigative reporter from Chicago and founder of the "Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts" in that city. Following is my transcription of that interview. Host/Interviewer is Tom Valentine.

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SKOLNICK

Right.

VALENTINE

Yes. We don't want to forget that one. We want the listeners to all get that, those 3 letters, 4 letters, that's a 4 letter word: BCCI.

SKOLNICK

Right. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International. That's a secret. By the way, I don't want to digress, but we did a program recently on television for an hour, pointing out that BCCI, contrary to what the press says, has not gone under! They are operating under another name and they're buying out banks in Chicago through their holding company, Pinnacle Bank Group, which is tied in with Jimmy Carter's people which is where that BCCI started from in the beginning! Bert Lance and those people.

And by the way, one of the reasons for what we believe is the murder of Vincent Foster, jr., is that he and his law partner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, arranged secretly for BCCI to have a great presence in the United States. And evidently, Danny Casolaro was on to that.

But getting back to Elliott Richardson's additional rebuttal to Bua's grand jury report -- He said there's a secret unit in the Justice Department, and as a front, they're operating through 100 commercial companies, as a front. But their main business is to go around murdering witnesses!

Now that is very interesting...

VALENTINE

It is, because you said that many years ago.

SKOLNICK

Yeah! And we brought a federal lawsuit against Bua, and his colleagues in the courthouse bottled us up and wouldn't allow any hearing. But we contended that there were, at that time, which is the fall of '93, of '92, that there were 40, over 40 grand jury witnesses murdered!

So I mean, what kind of a report could he [Bua] issue to the grand jury if over 40 witnesses were murdered! I mean, the thing is... It's outrageous! And...

VALENTINE

Well it was a farce!

SKOLNICK

Right! And we made it all a matter of record.

Now what's interesting now is, in Chicago, the papers here have been covering an embezzlement scandal. The federally funded Chicago Housing Authority [CHA], which builds buildings for poor people to live in, you know?

VALENTINE

The famous Robert Taylor Homes, Cabrini Green, and so forth.

SKOLNICK

Right! Their pension fund, the CHA pension fund, has been embezzled out of $12 million. That's been contended day after day in the Tribune and the Sun-Times and so on.

What's interesting is, we found out that there's a grand jury in another part of the country looking into a tremendous scam involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And what do ya know?? The pension fund scam here, of the Chicago Housing Authority, is a part of it. And this other grand jury is hearing testimony that Nicholas J. Bua is involved.

VALENTINE

Huh! O.K. My guest is Sherman Skolnick. And you just heard it: right now, somewhere in the U.S., is a grand jury, and our judge is involved.

We shall return. I'm Tom Valentine. This is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

All right. Sherman Skolnick of the Committee to Clean Up the Courts in Chicago is my guest. And Sherman, tell everyone (before we get back to this very exciting news item about Judge Bua being somehow part of this pension fund rip-off, or at least being alleged that at a grand jury hearing), um, tell us about your telephone message service first. 'Cause a lot of people want to hear what you've got to say, and you change those messages several times a week.

SKOLNICK

Right. We have a recorded, 5 minute message, which is a regular phone call -- it's not an expensive call. You can call it at night, for example, when it's cheaper. And it's 731-1100. And that's Chicago, which is area code 312. 731-1100, in Chicago.

VALENTINE

Right. You call up Chicago, area 312, 731-1100, any time of day, around the clock, and you can listen to a recorded message. How long is it usually, Sherman?

SKOLNICK

Five minutes, and we change it 3 times a week. We've got listeners [laughs] all the way from Hawaii to Maine to Puerto Rico to Canada. It's a regular phone call, and we've been running it...

VALENTINE

Now you coulda run this as a 900 number years ago and probably done all right. But you've kept it cheap for the folks.

SKOLNICK

Right. It's a regular... It's just a regular long-distance call.

VALENTINE

Very good.

SKOLNICK

Now our current message is about Bua. But now here's the point! In this pension fund case, people far away are being arrested, with international connections. For example, there's a story in the Tribune, August 26th, that mentions that there was a character arrested in Fort Lauderdale [CN -- apparently named Mr. Polichemi], who's got a $5 million home there, with banking connections all over the world, including in Luxembourg. And that he is reportedly involved in this pension fund rip-off in Chicago.

But, what the Tribune and the rest of 'em do not mention is that there's a grand jury outside of Chicago which is looking into this and that apparently, Mr. Polichemi reportedly is in some way connected with Bua! -- the former federal district judge who went on to be the special counsel to the Inslaw grand jury.

Other things that the out-of-town grand jury reportedly is hearing is that Bua originally was installed on the federal bench through a shadowy character in California named George K. Pender -- that's P-e-n-d-e-r.

VALENTINE

That's a Reagan "Kitchen Cabinet" guy!

SKOLNICK

Right. And Pender, according to documents that we [CCCC] have, ran a company... He was the president, chairman, and director of a company in Santa Monica, California, named First Intercontinental Development Corp. And according to documents from that company, here are the ones that were directors of Pender's company. (And Pender is the one that's reportedly been in with Bua.)

A director was Robert A. Maheu(sp?) [pronounced MAY-hoo], former chief executive for Howard Hughes' operations. And Maheu has been accused, in various books, as being a long-time CIA operative, reportedly supervising assassins -- such as Chicago gangsters.

VALENTINE

Yes, that's been reported in many books.

SKOLNICK

Another senior vice-president, director, and chairman of the investment committee of that company, was Robert Booth Nickols(sp?) [pronounced NIK-kuls], who was Riconosciuto's former business partner.

VALENTINE

Yeah! And a major Inslaw player and possibly the man behind the killing of Casolaro!

SKOLNICK

Right. And Robert Booth Nickols uh, we confronted his former business partner, Riconosciuto, who went straight into orbit when he realized that we found out that Nickols apparently was implicated in the New York World Trade Center bombing.

VALENTINE

Who went through the roof? Mike Riconosciuto?

SKOLNICK

Yes.

VALENTINE

Oh-oh. Must have touched a nerve, huh?!

SKOLNICK

We spent four-and-a-half months interviewing him and he usually kept his cool. But when we confronted him about Nickols being possibly involved... Well, we reached him on the phone, actually, after that World Trade Center bombing, and he shouted at us that we must get off that case!

So we think there's a connection there.

[...to be continued...]

I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."

Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."