Wiki: Peter Videnieks

Peter Videnieks is a Commissioner with the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He was recently reappointed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a second two-year term expiring December 31, 2010.

Prior to his appointment, Videnieks served on the staff of Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV).

Biography

Videnieks' wife, Barbara Videnieks, also served on Senator Byrd's staff. During the early-1990s, she was Chief of Staff. On the evening of August 9, 1991, freelance writer Danny Casolaro intended to meet in Martinsburg, West Virginia, with two employees of Senator Byrd's staff. Barbara Videnieks was believed to be related to one of Casolaro's contacts.

Shortly before noon, the following day, Casolaro was found dead in his hotel bathtub, the apparent victim of a suspicious suicide. Casolaro had been researching material for Inslaw Inc. and that material had centered on Inslaw's arguments in a very contentious bankruptcy liquidation case against the United States Department of Justice.

Inslaw

Videnieks was the Contract Officer who oversaw Inslaw Inc.'s Promis contract for the Management Division of the United States Department of Justice. Prior to joining the DoJ, Videnieks had administered three contracts between the Customs Service and Hadron Inc. Hadron was a competitor to Inslaw, and was under the direction of controlling shareholder, Earl Brian, the former California health secretary under Gov. Ronald Reagan from 1971-3.

At the time of Inslaw's contracts with Justice, Brian had become a venture-capitalist with a suspected connection to Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey's covert intelligence operations. During investigations surrounding the Inslaw Affair, Brian was accused of receiving a stolen copy of Inslaw's Promis software from Videnieks.

In a court affidavit filed on March 21, 1991, by Michael Riconosciuto, on behalf of Inslaw's case, Riconosciuto claimed that "the Justice Department stole the Promis software as part of a payoff to Brian for helping to get some Iranian leaders to collude in the so-called October surprise." Moreover, Riconosciuto named both Brian and Videnieks as being "among the frequent visitors" to the Cabazon Indian Reservation in Indio, California, where the Cabazon Band of Indians had formed a joint venture with the Wackenhut Corporation of Coral Gables, Florida, to developed and market munitions "to support the needs of a number of foreign governments and forces, including forces and governments in Central America and the Middle East." By the early-1990s, the joint venture was rumored to be a California extension of the Iranian and Nicaraguan policy objectives of President Ronald Reagan's White House staff, more commonly known as the Iran Contra Affair.

Riconosciuto was a shady character with equally as shady contacts in black ops, according to the Executive Summary of the House Judiciary Investigation on Inslaw. He claimed to have been directed by Brian to reprogram Inslaw's software sometime between 1983–84 so that it could be sold to dozens of foreign governments with a secret "back door" which allowed outsiders to track individuals using the Promis software. Riconosciuto further claimed that Videnieks in a telephone conversation prior to Riconosciuto's filing of his affidavit threatened Riconosciuto's family with DoJ reprisals if Riconosciuto divulged any of this information in his initial interviews with House Judiciary investigators. Eight days after he filed his affidavit, Riconosciuto was arrested on serious drug charges, then later convicted, and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Soon afterwards, Riconosciuto's wife was arrested on child custody charges; she eventually lost custody of their children. During Riconosciuto's Tacoma, Washington, trial in which Riconosciuto claimed that he had been "set up" by the government on fraudulent drug charges, Videnieks denied ever having known Riconosciuto.

To this day, there has never been any reliable or conclusive documentation in support of Riconosciuto's allegations. Riconosciuto claimed to have made three tape recordings of their telephone conversation; however no tapes to corrobrate Riconosciuto's claims have ever surfaced. Additionally, in House Judiciary investigations into the Inslaw Affair both Brian and Videnieks "denied under oath even knowing each other" though the House Judiciary investigating committee received information from Margaret Wiencek and John Schoolmeester in apparent contradiction to both Brian and Videnieks.

Other

Videnieks has been an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revenue officer. (One of two Enterprise Computing Centers for the IRS is located in Martinsburg, West Virginia.)..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Videnieks

CNN Report - The Inslaw Case

A Current Affair - Inslaw

The Octopus: Murder, Espionage and Treason

Wiki: Danny Casolaro

Joseph Daniel Casolaro (June 16, 1947 – August 10, 1991) was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was found dead in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, his wrists slashed 10–12 times. A note was found, and the medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.[1]

His death became controversial because his notes suggested he was in Martinsburg to meet a source about a story he called "the Octopus." This centered around a sprawling collaboration involving an international cabal, and primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and near Washington, D.C. in the 1980s—the Inslaw case, about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product; the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis, Irandeliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election; the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International; and Iran-Contra.[2]

Casolaro's family argued that he had been murdered; that before he left for Martinsburg, he had apparently told his brother that he had been frequently receiving harassing phone calls late at night; that some of them were threatening; and that if something were to happen to him while in Martinsburg, it would not be an accident. They also cited his well-known squeamishness and fear of blood tests, and stated they found it incomprehensible that if he were going to commit suicide, he would do so by cutting his wrists a dozen times [3] A number of law-enforcement officials also argued that his death deserved further scrutiny, and his notes were passed by his family to ABC News and Time Magazine, both of which investigated the case, but no evidence of murder was ever found.[4][5]..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Casolaro

Danny Casolaro-Unsolved Mysteries part 1 - YouTube

via youtube.com