Ron The Cop

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

June 25th, 2008

Wright seeks FTC complaint against Cowles Co

 [Ed note:  Edited from original that was mailed to include HTML links]

June 22, 2008

Tracy Thorleifson, Senior Counsel
Federal Trade Commission
915 Second Avenue, Suite 2896
Seattle, Washington 98174

Dear Tracy,

I left you a voice mail last week regarding an investigation I’ve been doing in Spokane. This involves the Cowles Co “stranglehold/company town nature” it maintains on this town. Currently the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle has two cases now under review by two AUSAs since the US Attorney in Spokane was forced to recuse himself. One is the River Park Square (RPS) bond fraud (a $100M swindle) and the death of Ms. Jo Savage in the RPS parking garage. Former Sheriff Bamonte and I both believe the death of Savage was a negligent homicide amounting to First-Degree Manslaughter under WA law from the negligence of the owners to do ordinary maintenance after repeated warnings (Read “Girl from Hotsprings” left side rail on www.camasmagazine.com). Both of these cases have Cowles Co involvement. I believe that because of McDevitt’s involvement with the law firm of Preston & Gates this is the reason why no federal case ever gained any traction into the criminal activity of the Cowles Co. McDevitt was heavily involved in this bond fraud (Read “McDevitt’s fingerprints” in the Camas Magazine’s archives) The IRS had a strong criminal case but fell on its sword and got their back taxes through a secret deal with Preston & Gates but never pursued it criminal prosecution. Why?

The Cowles Co also owns the paper of record in town, The Spokesman-Review (S-R). I just sent a complaint letter to US Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan regarding my opinion that the S-R is nothing more than an instrumentality of this ongoing criminal enterprise/conspiracy to conceal its criminal activity. This is done by its active self-censorship of its own stories and through its intimidation/extortion of the other media in town that it doesn’t own. I believe the Cowles Co was responsible for the cancellation of the Mark Fuhrman Radio Show as it was exposing very damning information directly adverse to its interests. There is prior MO by the Cowles Co to silence a TV reporter that was doing hard hitting reports. I’m in the process/preparing filing a FCC complaint regarding the Cowles cross-media ownership in Spokane that it wields as a lethal weapon. As I mentioned in my letter to US Attorney Sullivan I’m also considering filing a FTC complaint regarding the antitrust, unfair business practices, and predatory business practices by the Cowles Co to maintain its unfair competitive advantage in this market to commit and conceal its criminal activity.

Hopefully the US Attorney is now looking seriously at these cases. I don’t think the FBI is doing much yet as it’s waiting for marching orders from Seattle. As in the Mitch Gold [*] case we jointly worked, the involvement of the FTC was the critical factor in getting the FBI to finally take out Gold’s organization. I tried to shop the Gold case to the FBI Cobra Task Force in Orange County but they were turning a deaf ear. It wasn’t until I discovered that the FTC had an active case, gave you my information, and with your efforts were able to cause the FBI to seriously look at the Gold organization. Perhaps the FTC can also play a similar role in this case to excise this evil from our midst. As I said in my letter to US Sullivan:

The local and state criminal justice resources for a number of reasons can’t or won’t excise this evil incestuous, insidious and malignant ongoing criminal enterprise from our midst. The full resources of the federal government are what are needed to dislodge this ongoing criminal enterprise/conspiracy to restore a normal civil culture, business environment, and political/governmental environment in Spokane.

I’m including my letter to US Attorney Sullivan on the enclosed CD in MS Word .doc format that has HTML links to the source documents I reference. Further I’m including the collective works of Tim Connor and Larry Shook award winning investigative journalists of the Camas Magazine. They have been on this story for over seven years. I’m also including the Fancher Report written in the 70’s that is as true today as it was then as to the ruthless nature of the Cowles Co over the last 100 years. Tim Connor recently wrote an excellent primer on the RPS bond fraud that in part laundered a $20M HUD loan into the project without the usual open letter of credit by the developer. See Pieces of Sunshine he wrote for the Center for Justice, Spokane, WA (http://cforjustice.org/2008/06/20/pieces-of-sunshine/ See attached PDF but go to the original for HTML to source documents) The Fancher Report is THE source document for any FTC complaint. The Cowles Co was able to use its political influence to remove it from the FCC’s divestiture list then to force divestiture of the S-R and/or KHQ-TV. The Cowles Co needs to be forced to divest its stranglehold on the media in Spokane from its other business interests. Because of its criminal activity in public/private development projects there is an inherent conflict of interest by its self-censorship and/or squelching of news adverse to its business interests.

In my letter to US Attorney Sullivan I cite two instances where the Cowles Co wielded its power to squash adverse news. Further its my opinion Cowles Co fingers were in the works to silence Mark Fuhrman. Since my letter I now have two more sources where the Cowles Company eliminated alternative newspapers by predatory marketing tactics. Here’s one. I can’t reveal the source yet for the same reasons that Fancher encountered when he did his report.

The above is a poor resolution of one of the covers of the “Spokane Natural” , an underground “hippie” newspaper in Spokane from June ’67 until 1971 when Cowles squeezed out their advertisers by telling them if they bought ads or did interviews from me . . . the Review would not run their ads or their promos. This cut out WWP, the Crescent, The Bon Marche, and every hotel and restaurant, auto repair, print shop and dentist in town. We were left with a couple head shops and a few independent clothing stores that were small and wanted our “hip” audience. They could not carry the paper for long.

That cut off our blood, since subscriptions never cover the cost of ink, paper and staff.

We . . . did a photo-essay on riverfront properties in 1969 with shit coming out of all the mostly Cowles owned properties along the Spokane River through downtown. The outfalls were spectacular at low water flow in late summer, right after the dinner rush, around 7 pm. Water coming out of pipes from all over, shit, foam, towels, toilet paper, you name it, I took the pictures of the flowing pipes standing in the nearly dry river bed, with the building and businesses in the background. We ran it.

Within one year . . . my boss and friend was hassled and shut down.

I know this is not your area of specialty but could you share this information with others in your office that this is their specialty? Is this a case that the FTC would be interested in pursuing? What do I need to do to finesse this information that would increase the likelihood that the FTC would take on this case. What would I have to do to file a formal complaint?
Sincerely,

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)

[*]

Fraudulent Fundraising Operation Banned from Future Fundraising and Telemarketing Activities

Defendants Were Part of the FTC’s “Operation Missed Giving” Sweep

Network of Deception (Orange Co Register – Note: Read “Inside a Boiler Room” and Right side rail “Raid Report”. The detective mentioned is none other than infamous Ron the Cop)

June 22nd, 2008

Inland Empire Paper objects to new discharge deadline (A Cowles Company)

 HT Becky Kramer of the Spokesman-Review

See my email I sent to S-R Reporter Beck Kramer :

 A very good article on the significance of the IEP, the Spokane River, and the Rathdrum Aquifer and the number of diverse special interests all competing to make money including the Cowles Co.  Between you and Jonathan Brunt the ghost of “Oliver Staley” must be walking the halls of the S-R newsroom.  I’m really surprised that some of your quotes did not get cut by editors.  The key is how to equitably share the costs of sanitary sewers among all who discharge into the river.  In the past in my opinion some of these entities have unfairly transferred this burden for infrastructure to the public.

You may be interested in this latest email I sent to S-R Editor Steve Smith about following the S-R new code of ethics re conflict of interests with its owners in stories it runs.

Read my comment re the Spokane Valley re “Sewer Wars.”  You might want to re the article by that name by Larry Shook that I linked to.

Ron the Cop

S-R Editor Steve Smith rails about Tim Connor & Larry Shook – maliciously?

Inland Empire Paper objects to new discharge deadline

Document: E-mail string among officials about discharge limits (PDF)

An ambitious plan to clean up the Spokane River is drawing fire from Inland Empire Paper Co., which says it won’t be able to meet strict new wastewater discharge limits by the state’s 10-year deadline.

The newsprint plant’s objections concern other parties at the negotiating table, who fear this late development could derail the long-awaited cleanup.

Inland Empire Paper sells newsprint to customers across the West. It is owned by Cowles Co., which publishes The Spokesman-Review.

The plant was counting on innovative treatment technology and a 20-year timeline to reduce discharges of phosphorus and other compounds that contribute to algae blooms and oxygen-deficient dead zones in Long Lake, Inland Empire President Wayne Andresen said Friday.

Read More 

June 20th, 2008

An Excellent Primer on the RPS Bond Fraud – Spokane, WA

HT Center for Justice, Spokane, WA

Award winning investigative reporter Tim Connor of Camas Magazine wrote this article about the recent convening of the State’s Sunshine Committee in Spokane.  Connor testified before the Committee on his personnel experiences in seeking documents regarding the RPS bond fraud.  This is an excellent read that serves as a primer on how the fraud was perpetrated by those involved.
Ron the Cop

*****

Pieces of Sunshine

River Park Square souvenirs for Washington’s “Blue Ribbon Committee” on public records exemptions.

By Tim Connor

One of the more colorful inter-generational touchstones in my family is a salty Texan who passed away just a few years ago. His name was Chuck Cole and he was a fixture at Washington State University’s Murrow School of Communications long enough to shove both my uncle and me into our careers as journalists.

Professor Cole posed as a curmudgeon. But at heart he savored good reporting and, without betraying any notion that he could be easily impressed, he loved good reporters. He tried to teach his students to write well and quickly, get their facts straight, and do interviews without embarrassing themselves.

His specialty was public affairs journalism, the grinding art of reporting on government.

Journalism bends toward the “he said, she said” form. But Chuck Cole wanted us deeply engaged in the essence of the craft. Don’t be satisfied with official explanations, he insisted, find and write the truth. He taught this in the way football coaches exhort offensive linemen on hot August afternoons and I will not distract you, here, with his mild profanities. His basic admonition was that there’s often a world of difference between the reality that presents itself in press releases and the actual truth of the matter. And when it comes to covering government, there’s nothing as useless to a reader and a voter as a reporter who is content to be just a good stenographer.

There was an empty seat next to mine a week ago Tuesday, and I wished he could have filled it.

I was at Spokane Falls Community College, to offer testimony for the so-called “Sunshine Committee.”

I now work for the Center for Justice, I explained, but I was there to speak for myself, as the lead reporter on Camas Magazine’s burrowing investigation (2000 thru 2004) into the River Park Square fiasco.

Three days before the Sunshine Committee came to town I made a decision: I would try to show more than tell. Rather than making just another impassioned plea for open government, I would share some of the nitty-gritty details of how lawyers working for the City of Spokane had tried to exploit a serious crack in the state’s public records law, and explain how this effort cost Spokane taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

There were a couple reasons for this, but the main reason is that absent specifics, the opposing sides in this argument tend to talk past one another. Each has a legitimate point to make. Yet, frankly, my side has been losing the argument because public agencies and their lawyers (no surprise here) are better positioned to effect public policy than are journalists.

The other reason, of course, is that I’m just one of those people who won’t shut up about the River Park Square debacle and what it demonstrates about a peculiar sort of corruption to which Spokane seems especially vulnerable. On this, I would note, the federal Internal Revenue Service seems to agree with me. Spokane’s public records problems (it lost two cases and settled a third) were an extension of what the IRS, four years ago, termed the “particular relationship” that the city had with Cowles family companies in which “public deception” was used to disguise the city’s complicity in the “extremely flawed” RPS transaction.

There are devils in the details of how open government closes down to protect public officials from the public. Working with lawyers at the Center for Justice and a Seattle law firm, we had captured several on paper. Like a kid with fireflies in a mayonnaise jar, I wanted to show them to the Sunshine Committee.

The Sunshine Committee exists because of Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna. To his credit, McKenna took notice that when voters created the state’s public records law by initiative in 1972, there were only ten exemptions to the requirement to produce requested records. Today, there are more than 300, so many that no one is actually sure just how many ways an agency can get around producing a requested document. McKenna found that unsettling and he went to the legislature to request a “Blue Ribbon” committee that would meet regularly to examine the proliferating exemptions, and make recommendations on which to eliminate or modify. The committee was formed last year and is chaired by Seattle City Attorney Thomas Carr.

Read More 

June 19th, 2008

BREAKING – Complaint filed with US Attorney’s Office re Spokesman-Review & RPS Bond Fraud

To All:

A new day is dawning in Spokane as a free people struggle to be free.  The truth seeks to be free.

This is a case of media malfeasance where a regional paper in my opinion has become an instrumentality in an ongoing criminal enterprise/conspiracy to conceal its criminal acts from public scrutiny. This criminal enterprise/conspiracy has successfully plundered the public treasury of $100 millions of dollars through successive quasi public/private projects in Spokane. If the public was informed it would hold its elected/appointed accountable.

This letter was faxed off yesterday to US Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan in Seattle as well as to his two Assistant US Attorneys.  Sullivan’s Office is currently reviewing the documents of the RPS bond fraud that former councilperson Cherie Rodgers and award winning investigative reporter Tim Connor gave to US Attorney Jim McDevitt in Spokane.  McDevitt had to recuse himself because of his prior involvement with the firm of Preston & Gates.  The Seattle Office is also reviewing the Jo Savage manslaughter complaint made by former Sheriff Bamonte.
You can download my letter to US Attorney Sullivan and read it with HTML links to referenced source documents:

Sullivan Complaint Letter

Ron the Cop

*****
June 17, 2008

Jeffrey C. Sullivan, US Attorney
United States Attorney’s Office
700 Stewart St., Suite 5220
Seattle, WA  98101-1271

Re:  The RPS Bond Fraud & Jo Savage Manslaughter cases in Spokane, WA.

Summary:

The RPS Bond Fraud & Jo Savage Manslaughter cases in Spokane, WA, have been reassigned to your office for review since the recusal of US Attorney Jim McDevitt. I believe based on my training, education, and investigative experience that these are part of an ongoing criminal enterprise/conspiracy in Spokane.   There is group of individuals at different times have acted individually and or in concert together to commit criminal acts with the knowledge and approval of this group headed by the Cowles Co. This criminal enterprise/conspiracy has successfully plundered the public treasury of $100 millions of dollars through successive quasi public/private projects in Spokane. The Cowles Co, its surrogates, have systemically co-opted and or corrupted governmental officials both elected and appointed including the sitting US Attorney for the Eastern District of WA, Jim McDevitt.  The normal political and governmental controls have failed because of being so thoroughly co-opted and/or corrupted by this incestuous, insidious, and malignant ongoing criminal enterprise/conspiracy.

Further The Spokesman-Review (S-R), which is owned by the Cowles Co, is an instrumentality of this ongoing criminal enterprise/conspiracy to conceal its criminal activity from public scrutiny. There is an inherent conflict of interest between the Spokesman-Review which it owns and the Cowles Co business and real estate interests. This is done by the S-R’s active self-censorship of stories and censorship of comments in the S-R blogs that would be highly detrimental to this ongoing criminal enterprise.  This is uncharacteristic of a paper of record that normally would be a driving force of public opinion. The Cowles Co has also subverted the fundamental regulatory scheme of the public airwaves by FCC that it holds in trust for the public to ensure diversity of programming content especially in local news production.  The public once so educated and so informed would hold their elected/appointed officials accountable for their criminal acts. In this letter I’m enclosing direct evidence that goes to the heart of the S-R being an instrumentality of this ongoing criminal enterprise/conspiracy.

Read More

June 10th, 2008

UPDATE – Challenge to S-R Brunt for follow-up story on Lewis documents

SEE RELATED POST:

S-R – ‘Counsel’s RPS strategy faces criticism’ by Jonathan Brunt

SENT BY
Certified US Mail

[Note: Original sent my email on 06-09-08. This is a MS Word Doc. Slight changes have been made for format readability. Several slight grammar tense errors as well as typos have been corrected. Instead excerpts I have attached the entire Camas Magazine articles I referenced as PDFs. These PDFs do not have active HTML links. Go to the originals at Camas Magazine’s archives for the HTML links to other referenced Camas documents]

June 9, 2008

Jonathan Brunt, Reporter
Spokesman-Review
999 West Riverside Ave.
Spokane, WA 99201

Re: ‘City’s RPS strategy faces familiar critic’ by Jonathan Brunt

Dear Mr. Brunt:

Whether you realize it or not your article has opened the door to unraveling this Gordian Knot of the RPS bond fraud by an ongoing criminal enterprise headed by the Cowles Co e.g., Betsy Cowles, that uses the S-R as a cover for its criminal actions. I see where the S-R has printed a correction regarding Mayor Verner ‘s statement as to the, “. . . guarantee [of] payment of the federally backed loan,” and not as originally reported, “. . . Cowles Co. to guarantee payment on the bonds.”

Mr. Brunt the issues surrounding the collaterializing of the RPS HUD loan are the key to unraveling this fraud. As I provided you the information regarding the recently disclosed O. Yale Lewis documents, I have more information that will help you set the record straight on the RPS HUD Loan fraud. As I previously wrote in an email, I would also strongly encouraged a read of Attorney Mark Schwartz’s letter at the end of these released documents as to Laurel Siddoway’s claim of innocence in the RPS “bailout” settlement. In my opinion this bailout was a compounding of the first fraud. Further as I wrote to City Clerk Terry Pfister it is my strong belief that the public has the right to know the substance of what is contained in these Lewis documents currently being withheld on the basis of an attorney/client privilege as proffered by the City Attorney.

As I explained in my email to Ms. Pfister:

Dear Ms. Pfister,

Thank you for your update regarding my PDR for the Lewis documents. I see that S-R Reporter Brunt received his copies re his PDR on the Lewis documents and they are now posted on the S-R website. I’m assuming these are all the Lewis documents that are available for release. If not please let me know and I will come into your office to review them. I do know that there was a letter sent to several of the council members by the City Attorney Office regarding the release of these documents. I requested this letter and I don’t see where it is among the redacted documents.

Of course I differ re the determination of the City Attorney to withhold these redacted documents as a matter of attorney/client privilege. If the Spokesman-Review does not pursue them I may initiate legal action to obtain them. In my opinion the citizens of Spokane are the “true” clients. The withholding of these documents interferes with the citizens’ ability to hold their governmental accountable for potentially criminal acts. In reality former Mayor Talbott, former City Councilperson Cherie Rodgers, and Attorney O. Yale Lewis will not sue if these documents are disclosed. The only ones likely to support their withholding from public disclosure are the ones that have potential criminal liability in the apparent ongoing criminal conspiracy regarding the RPS bond fraud. This includes Ms. Laurel Siddoway who is captioned in many of these documents. This is especially apparent in the now released letter from Attorney Mark Schwartz. In my discussions with Mayor Talbott, Mr. Lewis was retained to unravel the RPS bond fraud and to make whole the citizens of Spokane. Mr. Lewis’ charge was not to provide criminal defense for city officials or their contract employees that were complicit in this fraud. In my opinion the interest of the publics’ right to know to hold their government accountable when there is reasonable cause to believe that they were defrauded in the RPS project in an ongoing criminal conspiracy, trumps any potential attorney/client privilege in documents in the possession of and paid for with taxpayer funds of those complicit in the fraud. The citizens of Spokane after all are now saddled with a new indebtedness of approaching $100M.

Please kindly forward my email to the City Council and the City Attorney.

The S-R has never reported the following information which goes to the very heart of the RPS bond fraud and the collateralizing of the RPS HUD loan. See the following excerpts from Camas Magazine reporting regarding “Inside Job: The Paper Trail” (07-15-2002). I specifically call your attention to the “confidential” memo from City Attorneys Jim Sloane and Stan Schwartz, – “Confidential, 6-page memo from city attorneys Jim Sloane and Stan Schwartz to Mayor Jack Geraghty and city council.” I would also call your attention to, “Stan Schwartz confirms to HUD that Cowles Guaranty only comes into play after all CDBG funds are spent.”

You can term it anyway you like but Mr. Schwartz mislead the Council with regard to collateralizing of this loan. Mr. Schwartz omitted from his presentation to the Council that the City’s CDBG annual allocation of $4.5M per year would come first before any Cowles Guaranty would kick in on any loan default. It is interesting to note as a tangential matter that Mr. Schwartz is now representing the Cowles Co real estate interests in the Spokane Valley and has been retained by the City in its condemnation action against Glenn Cloninger’s property across from the Convention Center. How coincidental. In my opinion there is nothing that happens in this town that is coincidental. Watch the videos of this Council meeting on the Camas website and decide whether Mr. Schwartz mislead, misrepresented, or in fact lied to the Council based on his previous confidential memo with Mr. Sloane to the Council.

And lastly Mr. Brunt I direct you to this article by Camas Magazine, “The Missing Man” [See selected excerpts attached]. In this article it clearly shows the specific intent and cavalier and brazen attitude of Betsy Cowles. It is as if she believed the public treasury was her own personal checkbook in her memo which has been called the “divide and conquer” memo. In this memo she demonstrates the extent to which she would go to conceal these secret negotiations from the public that she was indeed “robbing” them. The RPS bond issuance was a fraud through and through by the players involved as evidenced by this memo and other Camas documents that stand alone on their face. The IRS in as much said this was a fraud in its ruling disallowing the tax-exempt status of the RPS bonds as I described in my latest letter to S-R Editor Steve Smith:

. . . My operating hypothesis is based in part on my read of the IRS ruling disallowing the tax-exempt status of the first RPS bonds and as reported by Camas Magazine in ‘The Casino was Rigged‘. Based on the IRS report I don’t know why the IRS didn’t pursue criminal fraud charges against those involved. My speculation based on my experience is that IRS knew that pursuing such a criminal case was a losing cause based on the relationship of the current US Attorney for the Eastern District of WA, Jim McDevitt, and his previous personal relationship with the RPS bond fraud and with his former colleague Attorney Michael Ormsby at the law firm of Preston & Gates.

I asked independent investigative reporter Larry Shook of Camas Magazine to provide an analysis of your article in light of his own research. Shook’s complete reply is attached. Here are key excerpts:

My view is that the story in question leaves unreported one of the most significant aspects of the RPS controversy. Namely, the documented conspiracy between City of Spokane officials and the Cowles family to keep secret the refusal of the Cowles family to meet federal guidelines in providing collateral for the $23 million HUD loan. As evidence of this conspiracy, please see the memo that Cowles Publishing Co. chairwoman and RPS president Betsy Cowles wrote to RPS project manager Bob Robideaux on 3/9/95. In it you’ll note Ms. Cowles’s acknowledgement that there will be no letter of credit. You’ll also note her stated intention to keep secret her plan to use the $23 million HUD loan to subsidize construction of the new Nordstrom building. You’ll find this memo linked to the story “Missing Man” at http://www.camasmagazine.com. . .

“The evidence is clear that both Betsy Cowles and her brother Stacey, the newspaper’s publisher, were deeply involved in trying to maneuver the River Park Square garage deal through city hall at the time [an important] October 23, 1996 story was published. Behind the scenes at the same time Boggs’s story was being purged of the unwelcome Walker cost estimates, the Spokane city council was reeling from the sticker shock caused by the Cowleses’s asking price.

“That hidden drama is recounted in a memo Stacey Cowles wrote to his sister on the same day, October 23rd. In the memo Stacey Cowles relayed political intelligence on the council’s deliberations that had been gathered by ‘Karen’—probably Karen Valvano, then-president of the Downtown Spokane Partnership. Mr. Cowles was chairman of the DSP’s board of directors.

“Laurent Poole did an incredible amount of damage,” Mr. Cowles wrote. Poole, an executive with the Sabey Company, had recently made a presentation to council members. The Sabey Company then operated the Northtown Mall and was complaining, among other things, that the proposed RPS garage deal was an unfair and unwise public subsidy to a competitor. . .

Clearly, this may be important evidence of the ongoing conspiracy you allege. That The Spokesman-Review has never reported on this (and a great deal of other) damning evidence lends further credence to your charges both of the newspaper’s role in this conspiracy and the self-censorship Spokesman-Review personnel impose upon themselves in ignoring and even suppressing aspects of the RPS saga that incriminate their owners. That the 6/7/08 story perpetuated suppression about the Cowles HUD collateral appears to satisfy at least one textbook example of self-censorship. . .

Whether federal criminal investigators will ever subject this evidence to meaningful scrutiny remains to be seen. Given the damning conclusions reached by the IRS concerning RPS (please see “The Casino was Rigged” at http://www.camasmagazine.com), so far government at all levels is at least as implicated in the aura of self-censorship surrounding RPS as Cowles employees are themselves, in my opinion.

As in my first letter to S-R Editor Steve Smith I painstakingly detailed the elements of a criminal conspiracy and put him on notice regarding his character assassination of me:

Investigative reporters and criminal investigators share many common tools and techniques. In one way we differ is the manner we pose probative questions to potential witnesses and suspects. We all seek the truth and ultimately serve the public. I won’t restate my operating hypothesis outlined in the Brunt email but I will say from my review of the Camas Magazine documents there is a clear pattern and practice in a series of public/private projects in Downtown Spokane where “tainted” public financing was used to enrich the pockets of a few individuals at the expense of the public. Based on my training, education, and investigative experience this is an ongoing criminal enterprise where individuals at different times have acted together in concert to commit criminal acts and/or individually carried out with the knowledge and approval of this group. This by definition, Mr. Smith, is a criminal conspiracy.

In my review of the circumstances and evidence I believe there is reasonable cause to believe a similar MO is apparent in the STA Transit Plaza Project. I don’t know who burned out whom in the Zukor Building arson fire or in the District 81 Building arson fire but some of the same individuals clearly economically benefited from these fires. Generally if anyone aides, abets the principals in the commission of these acts, with criminal knowledge personally benefits, conceals information and/or impedes the investigation is criminally liable. As a criminal investigator I most assuredly would be asking probative questions to seek the truth. I would in a heartbeat use as a “hammer” as any cop would who wasn’t green behind the ears, that Captain Hanna was killed fighting the Zukor Building fire. I would make it very clear this was an arson/murder fire and further ANY involvement could bring criminal liability for murder under the general felony/murder rule. This applies as well to the Savage death in the RPS Parking Garage that both former Sheriff Bamonte and I believe was a negligent homicide arising to the level of a first-degree manslaughter in Washington.

Other than Mr. Smith’s being totally incompetent and or totally oblivious to the canons of “journalism of verification” as I rather doubt, there is little else to infer than he’s part and parcel of this ongoing criminal enterprise. He continues to marginalize and dismiss the collective of works of Tim Connor and Larry Shook. He regularly impugns publicly as captured in the latest S-R Ombudsman’s Column my character and professional integrity. This is now done with malicious intent to harm after warned by Tim Connor as Mr. Smith wrote:

I suppose I might misremember, and if that is the case, I do apologize. I certainly had no intention of libeling them.

Insulting them, marginalizing them, ridiculing them, well yes, that is often my intention with Connor/Shook.

Mr. Brunt I see this as important “new” news that has never before been reported by the S-R. Will you ask the probative questions? Will you report it? And more importantly if you are not allowed to report this “new information” that is so adverse and damning to the core interests of the Cowles Co, this will be a further affirmation of my operating hypothesis regarding the S-R being part of this ongoing criminal enterprise:

. . . S-R is nothing more than an instrumentality of the Cowles Co’s ongoing criminal enterprise to cover it’s criminal activity. This is done by it’s active self-censorship of stories and censorship of comments in S-R blogs. This information is highly detrimental to the owners that would otherwise inform the public. The public once alerted, educated and informed would hold their elected/appointed officials accountable for their criminal acts who have been systemically co-opted/corrupted by this ongoing criminal conspiracy

As I expressed in my latest letter to S-R Editor Mr. Smith this is not my opinion alone but is shared by Spokane veteran KXLY radio icon Mike Fitzsimmons:

We know firsthand in Spokane about what can happen. The River Park Square story in Spokane, was deliberately and unethically under-reported by the Spokesman Review and one television station in our community, to protect the family that owned the mall and the media outlets. Imagine what might have been possible had this local media powerhouse controlled many more sources. The public might not have learned about this fiasco at all.

I look forward to reading your follow-up story. I trust Mr. Cowles, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Graham will abide by the S-R’s new Code of Ethics and obtain an outside editor to handle this developing story because of the very apparent Cowles Co conflict of interest.

Sincerely,

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)

Attachments:

Camas Magazine Excerpts: “Inside Job . . . “ & “Missing Man
Email from Larry Shook

cc:
Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, County of Spokane, WA
Mayor Mary Verner, City of Spokane, WA
City Council, City of Spokane, WA
US Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan, Seattle, WA
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt Hermanns, Seattle, WA
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Westinghouse, Seattle, WA
Agent Frank Harvill, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Spokane, WA
Sgt. Ken Wade, Washington State Patrol, Spokane, WA
Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, City of Spokane, WA
Acting City Attorney Pat Dalton, City of Spokane, WA
Sheriff Bamonte (Retired), Spokane, WA
Breean Beggs, Center for Justice, Spokane, WA
Cherie Rodgers (Former Councilperson), Spokane, WA
Larry Shook, Spokane, WA
Mayor John Talbott (Former), Spokane, WA

June 9th, 2008

S-R – ‘Counsel’s RPS strategy faces criticism’ by Jonathan Brunt

SCROLL FOR UPDATES:

S-R Jonathan Brunt’s B-1 “above the fold” article ran in Saturday’s S-R [June 7, 2008] on the O. Yale Lewis documents. See the two emails below I’ve sent to him regarding his story.

Finally the door creaks open in Spokane on its “dark little secret.”

Ron the Cop

*****
Email I

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: rocketsbrain
Date: Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 6:24 AM
Subject: Great Work! Mr. Brunt – ‘Counsel’s RPS strategy faces criticism’
To: Jonathan Brunt

Mr. Brunt,

Hey a great job in getting a lot of stuff out in the open in one article. I hope we will see more refreshing articles in the near future. Perhaps a status check with the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle? I hope the S-R will continue to press for the remaining docs. I don’t buy the atty/client privilege. It’s a dodge to protect certain city officials and others from complicity in the RPS bond fraud and a ongoing criminal conspiracy. The people are the client here and deserve to see these documents to hold their elected/appointed official accountable for this bond fraud.

In my opinion Siddoway tanked an excellent bond fraud case that Gary Cerrani put together that the city bought out and should have pursued to trial. In my opinion so what if the LLC/foundation tanked. If fraud could be shown from the start or at least when the bond escrow was allowed to close without full disclosure of material facts to the institutional bond investors and the public, the the LLC could be pierced and all the assets of the developers to make the citizens whole again would be on the table.. While it’s a moot point re the public recovering from itself (The City) those who City officials were criminally involved would have no grant of governmental immunity and would be personally liable for their criminal actions. You may know that Siddoway and her husband were large contributors to Powers campaign and the infamous Mr. Ormsby was Power’s campaign treasurer. I think it was more of a case of Powers firing Lewis because of what he found would be so damning to those who were involved in the RPS bond fraud.

Mind you the Siddoways are alleged to have pressured KXLY to get rid of former reporter Tom Grant who was biting hard on RPS. Siddoway is their first amendment counsel. General Manager Herling confirms that were taking a $100K hit not being on the Cowles’ “buy list.” See the response from Tom Grant below. Further I find the recent purchased of KGA and the axing of Mark Fuhrman Show to be very suspicious and have the same “fingerprints” and M/O. Read Mike Fitzsimmons comment in my letter to Mr. Smith re the S-R’s past coverage of RPS. It is my speculation that there is a Cowles “straw investor” in the Mapleton LLCs family tree and or other quid pro quo in exchange. I’m currently researching this angle. Perhaps you should ask Rebecca Mack what she knows? The coincidence here is just too convenient to be ignored as Mark Fuhrman was onto to the Lewis angle when he was canned. The light bulb went on for Mark the Monday before he was canned on Wednesday. It was first on the Fuhrman Show where Verner during the her campaign made the commitment to me ( a caller to the show) to consider bringing back O. Yale Lewis. In my investigative experience there are no “coincidences” in criminal conspiracies.

Just read the IRS ruling re the tax-exempt status of the first bonds in my recent response to Mr. Smith, this is the best explanation of the facts I’ve seen re the RPS bond fraud. They said, “The casino was rigged.” As I said I don’t know for the life of me why the IRS didn’t pursue the RPS case criminally to set a precedent in public corruption re these quasi public/private projects. In essence the players screwed the pooch. My speculation as I explained in my email to Mr. Smith is that McDevitt was the finger in the dike and the IRS new that pursuing it criminally would be a losing proposition. Perhaps you should ask them and also confirmed they got their back taxes through the back door from Preston and Gates.

Anyway a crack in the door into this Gordian knot. There is hope for the S-R after all. This was a breath of fresh air.

Ron Wright

Email from Grant after my interview with Herling:

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 5:55 AM,

Tom Grant  wrote:

My thoughts… On Fox. We knew KXLY and Fox were negotiating. Q6 was never in the picture, as far as we knew, until the moment they told us the news operations was being shut down.

Not only were Siddoways active in Powers’ campaign, Doug Siddoway clearly crossed the line when he advised me to drop a story both as a Powers worker and as our attorney. Doug also worked as KXLY attorney, on occassion.

While Herling may not have perceived any pressure from Siddoway regarding the RPS story, I did. At one point, shortly before I left KXLY, I was called into a meeting with Herling, Powers, the News Director, and the HR person. I can’t remember exactly what the meeting was about, except that when I saw them all there I felt a great deal of pressure that my reporting was causing problems.

I believe the Siddoways were influencing KXLY’s coverage of RPS after Powers took office. There is no question in my mind that management (Herling? Siddoway? The station GM? The News Director acting on his own?) decided not to cover RPS in any meaningful way after Powers took office.

Tom

Counsel’s RPS strategy faces criticism

Jonathan Brunt
Staff writer
June 7, 2008

Documents: Packet sent to mayor by Spokane’s former RPS attorney (PDF; 8 MB)• Related section: River Park Square development

The Seattle attorney who originally represented the city of Spokane in the contentious River Park Square issue is accusing his successor of misleading council members with a failed legal strategy that’s costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

O. Yale Lewis stopped representing the city in 2001 after a dispute over his fees.

Lewis mailed more than 50 documents to Spokane Mayor Mary Verner earlier this year on the matter and said he did so in response to a Web site maintained by the attorney who lead the case after Lewis, Laurel Siddoway.

Last month, Verner and former City Attorney Jim Craven flew to Seattle to meet with Lewis. Verner has declined to give details about the meeting.

[…]

*****
Email II

Mr. Brunt,

I just scanned the PDFs of the Lewis docs on the S-R server. This may well in fact save me the $28 or so to get them from my own copies of my piggyback PDR with the City:-).

Just in passing I think the billing dispute with Lewis is a over wrought. Seems to me the City got a very good deal considering what was at stake.

Also the very last letter in these files is very illustrative. I don’t know what Atty Mark Schwartz’s relationship is to this case. I don’t know what prompted his letter to former Mayor Powers. I see where he concurs with my position that Laurel Siddoway gutted an excellent civil fraud case when even the Washington Supreme Court unanimously held in favor of the “case in chief” of Lewis’s appellate filing that is essentially the civil fraud perpetuated by the “developers” and others et al.

I appreciate Mr. Smith has now realized the value of obtaining outside counsel re matters of RPS as Mr. Swinton was up to his “eyeballs” in this deal whether there was a true legal conflict of interest or not. He’s the primary mover of the “confidentiality” agreements. I hope you will avail yourself of this outside counsel. This counsel needs to advise you re the merit of Siddoway’s case once she in my opinion gutted the heart of the case and essentially rendered it moot which in effect CYA’d those government officials and others complicit in this fraud. Had these facts been exposed in a civil trial I don’t doubt that criminal indictments would have soon followed.

*****

UPDATE I:

My reply to City Clerk Terry Pfister re my PDR request for the Lewis docs:

Dear Ms. Pfister,

Thank you for your update regarding my PDR for the Lewis documents. I see that S-R Reporter Brunt received his copies re his PDR on the Lewis documents and they are now posted on the S-R website. I’m assuming these are all the Lewis documents that are available for release. If not please let me know and I will come into your office to review them. I do know that there was a letter sent to several of the council members by the City Attorney Office regarding the release of these documents. I requested this letter and I don’t see where it is among the redacted documents.

Of course I differ re the determination of the City Attorney to withhold these redacted documents as a matter of attorney/client privilege. If the Spokesman-Review does not pursue them I may initiate legal action to obtain them. In my opinion the citizens of Spokane are the “true” clients. The withholding of these documents interferes with the citizens’ ability to hold their governmental accountable for potentially criminal acts. In reality former Mayor Talbott, former City Councilperson Cherie Rodgers, and Attorney O. Yale Lewis will not sue if these documents are disclosed. The only ones likely to support their withholding from public disclosure are the ones that have potential criminal liability in the apparent ongoing criminal conspiracy regarding the RPS bond fraud. This includes Ms. Laurel Siddoway who is captioned in many of these documents. This is especially apparent in the now released letter from Attorney Mark Schwartz. In my discussions with Mayor Talbott, Mr. Lewis was retained to unravel the RPS bond fraud and to make whole the citizens of Spokane. Mr. Lewis’ charge was not to provide criminal defense for city officials or their contract employees that were complicit in this fraud. In my opinion the interest of the publics’ right to know to hold their government accountable when there is reasonable cause to believe that they were defrauded in the RPS project in an ongoing criminal conspiracy, trumps any potential attorney/client privilege in documents in the possession of and paid for with taxpayer funds of those complicit in the fraud. The citizens of Spokane after all are now saddled with a new indebtedness of approaching $100M.

Please kindly forward my email to the City Council and the City Attorney.

June 9th, 2008

UPDATE: Hey did I get “libeled” by Smith in print via the Ombudsman Tallent in today’s S-R?

SCROLL FOR UPDATES:

Just wondering? As in the banners of the Media Mythbusters site and blog say:

“When in doubt, tell the truth.” — Mark Twain

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” — John F. Kennedy


I guess S-R Ombudsman Dr. Becky Tallent failed to read my prior letter and current letter to S-R Editor Steve Smith cautioning him about his reckless and now malicious accusations against Tim Connor, Larry Shook and me. Dr. Tallent apparently was just parroting Mr. Smith’s accusations against us without verifying the sources and references. So much for the hallowed principal of the MSM – journalism of verification. This could put both of them in the hot seat with Stacey Cowles [Cowles Co and publisher of the S-R] if he has to break open his checkbook. Funny this is how David Laird described me in his “apology” thread referred to by Dr. Tallent:

I first met Rocketsbrain last week during the Gathering, and to be utterly candid, nothing prepared me for such a cogent, clear-eyed police investigator. Having served with some degree of dignity and irreverence on both sides of the Blue Line, I immediately knew here was an investigator of the first mark, a man in whom I could trust. That certain knowledge perhaps distorted my memory about the banishment, because to some degree, we have both lived in the same world of studying white collar crime for decades. I am hoping eventually that Rocketsbrain will be able to rejoin us, for I value his insight and acumen more than words can describe.


Ron the Cop

*****

Sunday, June 8, 2008

OMBUDSMAN: Faulty complaints stymie corrections

Becky Tallent
June 8, 2008

Accuracy is a two-way street.

During the past month, I have been asked to look into several issues involving reporting accuracy in The Spokesman-Review. What I have most often discovered is that the reader has either misread or misunderstood the context of the article. Because of this, the readers actually gave me inaccurate or incomplete information to check.

That is fine as long as we can get it straightened out. After all, that is a major part of what I do here: help you as readers understand issues plus the how and why things are done in newspapers.

 

But one case stands out, in part because it involves blogs, the bit of cyberspace where many people now receive much of their information. In Monday’s Community Comment blog, a banned blogger’s posting was accidentally admitted and then removed.First, how is a banned blogger accidentally admitted? David Laird, a reader who is the blog’s co-administrator, said he found a post in a “hidden” file within the blog’s system. As for how the post made it into the hidden file, Laird called it “a great mystery.”

“I didn’t know it had been marked hidden until some of the folks in the discussion happened to comment on it,” he said. “Since, at that point, I had not remembered that (the blogger) was banned, I immediately un-hid it and wrote a message to Steve (Smith, editor of The Spokesman-Review) and the IT guys asking why it was marked hidden. We still do not know who originally marked it.”

Very shortly thereafter, he was contacted by Smith, reminded that the blogger is banned and the post was removed. Laird said he is unsure who exactly removed the post, but it was gone not long after he had recovered it and placed it in the blog.

Despite the posts criticizing Laird for removing the message and even for his apology, the fact is the blogger was banned for repeated unsubstantiated allegations against the newspaper and the Cowles family, which owns it. The banned blogger’s sense of accuracy in the situation is put off balance by an apparent agenda against the newspaper and the Cowles family. Smith is absolutely correct: If any of us would make these same allegations against anyone, it would be considered libel (if in print) or slander (if verbal). As a result, the man has been banned from the paper’s various blogs. [Ed Note: See Smith’s actual comment in the blog thread below]

What is interesting in this case is that Laird took immediate action and wrote an apology to the site community, taking responsibility for restoring the post after it had been removed. Laird, his co-administrator Jeanie Buchanan and I are talking, working on communication and to prevent any future such gaffes on Community Comment.

What I admire about Laird’s and Buchanan’s actions is their rapid response in explaining what happened to their virtual community with a great deal of facts and detail one might not expect in most virtual communities. It was a fair and accurate explanation, despite criticism of Laird and The Spokesman-Review from at least two bloggers through posts on Tuesday and Wednesday in Community Comment.

That brings up the question about accuracy in blogs: When do we know if what a blogger is telling us is true or not? That’s the problem with cyberspace; accuracy may be in the mind of the blogger, but it may not be true or accurate in reality.

So what should readers do if they suspect any area (print or electronic) of The Spokesman-Review is not accurate? Smith said via e-mail that company policy is clear: We correct our mistakes as quickly as possible. Readers can contact Smith or Managing Editor Gary Graham by phone, e-mail or regular U.S. mail to complain about any inaccuracy.

“When we have verified that an error has made it into print, on the Web, etc., procedures call for us to make an immediate correction in Accuracy Watch and, sometimes, in another location,” such as the opinion page if the mistake is in an editorial, Smith said.

“Those responsible for the error fill out a tracking form that goes to Gary Graham,” he said. “The form helps us to track individuals who are making too many mistakes and also identify institutional problems that might be contributing to mistakes.”

Graham said the newspaper published 36 corrections in May, with eight situations involving misidentification, such as titles and relationships. While the May-to-May numbers show a drop (36 this year compared with 40 last year), he said the overall number of corrections is up slightly, 206 published corrections this year compared with 197 for the same time last year.

So, to paraphrase classic television: Keep those cards, letters and, now, e-mails coming in about accuracy. In addition, let’s all strive for more accuracy in our conversations with each other so we have a clear understanding of the issues at hand.

*****
Excepts of S-R Editor Smith]s comments in S-R’s Community Comment Blog:

I’ll speak to the RBT case specifically because it sparked this debate.

RBT was banned not because of his views re: RPS. He was given space on these blogs to express those views when the comments were relevant to any actual RPS discussion. He wasn’t even banned for hijacking non-RPS threads to vent his outrageous conspiracy theories.

I finally pulled the plug on him when he accused — and still maintains — the Cowles family of arson and murder for incidents that occurred some 30 years ago give or take. (At the time, Stacey Cowles would have been 12 years old, give or take.) Of course there is nothing behind these accusations, first aired publicly by the Connor/Shook duo and repeated by RBT as if they were his own.

If any of us had leveled such accusations against anyone in the community, it would be libel (in print) or slander (if verbalized). That was it for RBT.

[…]

Good afternoon,

Messrs. Connor and Shook take issue with my assertion that they aired publicly the belief that the Cowles family may have deliberately burned down two downtown properties, one fire leading to a firefighter’s death.

They believe I have libeled them.

I clearly recalled that they aired these views on the Fuhrman show in the weeks before Fuhrman was dumped, singly or together.

I suppose I might misremember, and if that is the case, I do apologize. I certainly had no intention of libeling them.

Insulting them, marginalizing them, ridiculing them, well yes, that is often my intention with Connor/Shook.

Now that I have apologized to them, how about my apologies for the slanders, libels, accusations, false assertions and accusations of ethical misdeeds that are part and parcel of their anti-Spokesman agenda.

Whoa, that isn’t going to happen. Apologies, for these two, go only one way.

steve

Posted by Steven A. Smith | 3 Jun 4:09 PM

*****
Award winning investigative reporter Tim Connor of Camas Magazine who Smith refers to above responded in this thread with this comment [Ed Note: Formating slightly adjusted for readability]:

So, this is what Mr. Shook and I get from the esteemed editor of the Spokesman-Review. An apology in the form of an assault weapon. It’s actually worse than the double-backhanded apology Smith bestowed on my friend and colleague Tom Grant last fall. Remember that one?

Posted by Steven A. Smith | 21 Nov 10:38 AM

Good morning,

I received the following from Tom Grant, former local TV reporter, Daily Planet editor and candidate for mayor (against Jim West).

He takes issue with my post characterizing his journalism career in Spokane. I won’t dispute his version of events. And I do apologize to Grant for any errors of fact. As I told Grant, his reputation in Spokane is not my business or concern. The conspiracy nuts who look for RPS behind every shrub are my business. One note, I didn’t mine any private data for info on Tom Grant’s application to KHQ. That was well-known in the broadcast community at the time.

The problem here is that Mr. Smith, as the editor of a good-sized American newspaper, is supposed to setting an example for his readers about how to engage in civil discussion. That’s what American journalism is supposed to be about. It’s why we have journalism ethics rules. It’s why we’re supposed to check facts before we publish. You know, just like it says in the SPJ Code ethics. So, now we have Mr. Smith lying about me based on his foggy recollection of what Mr. Shook and I, or Mr. Shook, or me, said on a radio last years. Well, I didn’t saying like what he attributed to me. It’s a lie and if need be, S-R contributer Rebecca Mack can easily attest to it. She was in the studio with me that day when I was on the Fuhrman show. Nothing like what Mr. Smith reported happened. It’s pure fiction.

But rather than do the honorable thing and admit his mistake and apologize, he jokes about it, and admits that he sees his purpose to continue to try to marginalize Mr. Shook and me.

But the rules of the trade for journalists are these. If you’re crack on somebody the way Mr. Smith cracked and me, Mr. Shook, and Mr. Grant, you’d better get facts straight. For the record, I have tried for four years to engage Mr. Smith in the facts of the River Park Square story. I’ve sent him countless original documents to support the facts in my RPS reporting. He has accused me, in the past, of falsifying facts in my work. That’s a very serious charge for any journalist to make about another journalist. You should be willing to back it up with facts. Mr. Smith isn’t willing to do so. He seems only willing to engage in character assassination and marginalization. He quite literally, over the past four years, has not assumed the burden of challenging a single fact in my Camas reporting.
I think as much as how he’s handled Mr. Grant, Mr. Shook and myself, Steve also revealed himself, brilliantly, in an interview that Bill Richards did when Richards was investigating the S-R’s RPS coverage. You can find my story on the interview, by going to the Camas Magazine website at www.camasmagazine.com. Look in the package of stories on the Washington News Council report (“The Verdict’) and open and read the piece entitled “Right in Your Face.” Much of that piece is a word for word transcript of Richard’s interview with Smith regarding how Smith handled the evidence that Betsy Cowles edited S-R copy on a key RPS garage story. It speaks volumes about Steve and just how indifferent he is to the facts.

Tim Connor

Posted by Tim Connor | 3 Jun 7:22 PM

UPDATE I:

Larry Shook of Camas Magazine sent this demand letter to Stacey Cowles as S-R Editor Steve Smith’s employer and publisher either to show where Mr. Shook has said what Mr. Smith has alleged or issue an immediate retraction and apology to him. I too was caught up in Mr. Smith’s recent accusations. Mr. Shook demanded an action by the end of the business day.


Ron the Cop

 

*****

From: Larry Shook <lwshook@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:47 AM
Subject: Immediate correction request
To: staceyc@spokesman.com
Cc: Steve Smith <SteveS@spokesman.com>

Dear Mr. Cowles: On 6/3/08 I sent Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith the two e-mails copied below. The first was sent at 11:57 a.m. and the second that evening at 7:22 p.m. Both of those e-mails were copied to you and others. Their purpose was to request a timely correction from Mr. Smith and The Spokesman-Review of libelous statements Mr. Smith published about me in a Spokesman-Review publication: namely Mr. Smith’s blog on The Spokesman-Review’s Internet platform. Because I have had no response from Mr. Smith to date to my requests for immediate corrective action, I assume he does not intend to comply.

Therefore, I now formally request that you, as Mr. Smith’s publisher and employer, immediately instruct him to immediately comply with the requests contained in the below e-mails. Timeliness is extremely important to me in this matter. I consider both myself and the community (because of the public interest value of my work) to have been seriously and intentionally injured by Mr. Smith’s attacks. Because of the importance I assign timeliness, I request that you let me hear from you by the end of this business day whether you intend to comply with the request that I hereby make of you.

Clearly, Mr. Cowles, I am trying to understand whether your newspaper editor’s admitted intent to libel me (“Insulting them, marginalizing them, ridiculing them, well yes, that is often my intention with Connor/Shook”) has been done with the active support of you and Cowles Publishing Co. or, if not, whether you will take the prompt corrective action I here request for the third time.

Thank you. Sincerely, Larry Shook

6/3/08 11:57 a.m. e-mail
Steve:

Ron Wright just forwarded me an e-mail exchange containing a recent blog posting of yours. In your blog you wrote:

“I finally pulled the plug on him [Wright] when he accused — and still maintains — the Cowles family of arson and murder for incidents that occurred some 30 years ago give or take. (At the time, Stacey Cowles would have been 12 years old, give or take.) Of course there is nothing behind these accusations, first aired publicly by the Connor/Shook duo and repeated by RBT as if they were his own.”

With that statement you appear to be accusing me of accusing “the Cowles family of arson and murder.” Are you? If so, please provide me with the basis for your assertion. I request you provide me with the specific statement of mine to which you refer.

If you have no specific statement in mind, please provide me with whatever specific factual basis supports your allegation. If you have neither, please retract this accusation on your blog site immediately and copy me with the retraction.

Thank you. Sincerely, Larry Shook

6/3/08 7:22 p.m. email
Steve: Ron Wright just forwarded the below blog posting to me, which you apparently published this afternoon.

“Good afternoon,

Messrs. Connor and Shook take issue with my assertion that they aired publicly the belief that the Cowles family may have deliberately burned down two downtown properties, one fire leading to a firefighter’s death.

They believe I have libeled them.

I clearly recalled that they aired these views on the Fuhrman show in the weeks before Fuhrman was dumped, singly or together.

I suppose I might misremember, and if that is the case, I do apologize. I certainly had no intention of libeling them.

Insulting them, marginalizing them, ridiculing them, well yes, that is often my intention with Connor/Shook.

Now that I have apologized to them, how about my apologies for the slanders, libels, accusations, false assertions and accusations of ethical misdeeds that are part and parcel of their anti-Spokesman agenda.

Whoa, that isn’t going to happen. Apologies, for these two, go only one way.

steve

Posted by Steven A. Smith”

This posting does not address my earlier request for retraction, which I now reiterate.I earlier wrote that “you appear to be accusing me of accusing the Cowles family of arson and murder. Are you? If so, please provide me with the basis for your assertion. I request you provide me with the specific statement of mine to which you refer.

“If you have no specific statement in mind, please provide me with whatever specific factual basis supports your allegation. If you have neither, please retract this accusation on your blog site immediately and copy me with the retraction.”

Not only do I not consider your latest posting a retraction, I consider it to contain a new libel. You now write: “Insulting them, marginalizing them, ridiculing them, well yes, that is often my intention with Connor/Shook.”

With that remarkable admission you appear to be confessing to actual malice.

You further accuse me of “slanders, libels, accusations, false assertions and accusations of ethical misdeeds.” If you have actual evidence of this misconduct you have a professional duty to publish it to substantiate your accusations. If you have no such evidence but publish your accusations for the purpose of insulting me, that is malicious conduct on your part that requires immediate redress.

Therefore, I now make two specific new requests of you.

1. Please obtain a transcript of the Fuhrman show in which you recall my accusing members of the Cowles family of murder and arson. Please post immediately the specific comments made by me upon which you base your accusation.

2. Please provide me with a list of the specific “slanders, libels, accusations, false assertions and accusations of ethical misdeeds” you accuse me of. If you cannot produce such list, please retract your accusations immediately.

I will just note that if I am guilty of misconduct as egregious as what you accuse me of–charging your employers with murder and arson, slandering, libeling and falsely accusing them, they will be as interested in the facts of this alleged misconduct as I am.

I think you will agree that arguing with someone who acknowledges that insult is his intent is a futile undertaking. On the other hand, I assure you I do feel a moral obligation to apologize for the misdeeds of which you accuse me, if you can show me specifically where I am guilty of them. I will also gladly correct any reporting errors which you apparently feel I have made. Obviously, however, I can’t do that without knowing exactly what you are talking about. Again, because you have published these accusations, I request that you publish your specific documentation of them or immediately publish your unqualified retraction of them. I consider you to be both legally and ethically bound to take these steps.

Please be clear about the formality of my requests. I’m not sure what, if any, legal and ethical sanctions you might face because of your conduct, but I do wish to make a clear record of it and my response. Sincerely, Larry Shook

 

*****

I was just copied with this reply to Mr. Shook from Mr. Smith at 4:36 PM 06-11-08, This battle has just been enjoined. I should note that S-R Attorney Duane Swinton is none other than the same attorney who is the subject of previous posts at FOF and also is complicit in the original RPS Bond Fraud:

 

BREAKING – Tim Connor appeals WSBA ruling on Duane Swinton

Ron the Cop

 

*****
Mr. Shook,

Your letter to Stacey was copied to me. Although he did not receive your e mail, I shared it with him and with our legal counsel.

I have previously responded to your concerns in a Community Comment post.

There is nothing more to be said or done.

I have taken the liberty of copying Stacey on this response as well as our lawyer, Duane Swinton.

Thanks for writing.

Steve Smith

 

June 6th, 2008

S-R Editor Steve Smith rails about Tim Connor & Larry Shook – maliciously?

FYI – This latest round started in a dust up at David Laird’s S-R Blog Community Comment.

UPDATE:  My previous letter to S-R Editor Steve Smith of April 11, 2008, can be found in this previous post:

UPDATE – S-R Editor Steve Smith bans RBT from all S-R Blogs

Ron the Cop

*****

Dear Mr. Cowles:

Please see my attached letter I just forwarded to Mr. Steve Smith, Editor of the Spokesman-Review. I’m just amused by Mr. Smith’s comments. I rather suspect that such comments by other S-R editors and reporters would result in a trip to the woodshed. Such shooting from the hip remarks would incur potential liability for libel suits that you would ultimately have to sign the check for.

Sincerely,

Ron Wright

*****

[Ed Note: This is slightly edited from the original that was posted earlier. A couple of spelling errors were corrected and dead HTML links were corrected]

ORIGINAL SENT BY
Certified US Mail

June 5, 2008

Steve Smith, Editor
Spokesman-Review
999 West Riverside Ave.
Spokane, WA 99201

Re: Your comments in S-R Blog “Community Comments” on June 3, 2008

Dear Mr. Smith:

I too take exception with your comments as have Tim Connor and Larry Shook. Mr. Smith It was refreshing for once you chose not to use your normal terms of endearment e.g., wackaloons, nutsos, crazies, and little green men, in referring to others and me who have contrary opinions to yours regarding the Cowles Co & RPS et al. As I emailed David Laird the host of Community Comment:

OK to be perfectly clear I didn’t accuse anyone of anything. I said, “. . . if the shoe fits – wear it.” I said as a career investigative professional I would sure use the murder of SFD Fire Captain Hanna as a hammer in asking probative questions that no one seems to be asking in this town other than a few whom Smith attempts to marginalize with his broad brush characterizations. Mr. Smith will not debate the facts or attempt to correct where Connor and Shook are in error


I told Mr. Laird I too would be sending you a letter to clarify where you have mischaracterized my previous comments in support of your recent remarks in the S-R Community Comment Blog thread:

. . . I finally pulled the plug on him when he accused — and still maintains — the Cowles family of arson and murder for incidents that occurred some 30 years ago give or take. (At the time, Stacey Cowles would have been 12 years old, give or take.) Of course there is nothing behind these accusations, first aired publicly by the Connor/Shook duo and repeated by RBT as if they were his own.


Mr. Smith may I remind you of my previous letter of April 11, 2008 where I sought to clarify your previous accusations about me:

We are under no obligation to provide space to someone who flatly and without the least bit of evidence, disregarding the laws of fairness, decency and common sense, accuses our owners of manslaughter, arson and murder and the rest of us of being accessories.


To be as factual as possible, neither Larry Shook nor Tim Connor to my knowledge have made any mention of arsons and murders as this relates to the Cowles family with the exception of the death of Jo Savage in the RPS parking garage. These arson fires were a tangential discussion that first arose on the Mark Fuhrman Radio Show. If my memory serves me correctly, it was a caller to the Fuhrman Show that first brought up the subject of the arson fire at the District 81 building. This caller was an employee of the school district and worked in this building. He was at the building the morning of the fire. He said there was a fire started in the basement as well as on an upper floor. It was later that on the air Mark Fuhrman asked Larry Shook about the District 81 fire. It was during this conversation Mr. Shook as an aside mentioned his personal knowledge of the arson fire at the Zukor Building (Note: Zukor clothing store in the Jamieson building). I can’t recall if Mr. Shook made any mention of SFD Captain Hanna who was killed fighting this fire or any linkage to the Cowles family. This is when I first learned of these fires and undertook my own independent research.

As Mr. Shook expressed in an email to me:

You’re tapping your training and experience as a law officer to serve as a proxy for the law here, just as the law contemplates citizens do. What you are doing is generous and noble, and the public is indebted to you. It’s especially important in this case, because a public safety officer–a fireman–died doing his job. Spokane owes it to Capt. Hanna, and to itself, to care about his death. Capt. Hanna was murdered. God help this community if that’s okay with it.


To be honest this does stick in my craw from where I’m from. In my experience the death of a police officer or a fireman would be an all out 24/7 investigation. During my police career at my department there were six officers murdered I personally knew let alone at surrounding agencies. There were no stones left unturned to find and hold those accountable who were responsible and those who aided and or abetted in these deaths. I find such a commitment strangely lacking in this town especially investigative reporting by the Spokesman-Review.

As you know both former Sheriff Bamonte and I concur upon the review of the Camas documentation believe the Savage death should be thoroughly investigated and if warranted, prosecuted as a negligent homicide. Under Washington State Law this would be First-Degree Manslaughter. The information contained in Sheriff Bamonte’s complaint was sufficient to warrant the review now underway by two Assistant US Attorneys in the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle. This occurred since the recusal of US Attorney Jim McDevitt and reassignment of these related cases to the Seattle Office. Sheriff Bamonte was recently contacted by federal investigators in response to his complaint.

Mr. Smith your most recent references of arson and murder are apparently from my comments and opinions from my own independent investigation and research of the STA Transit Plaza Project and the preceding arson/murder fire at the Zukor Bldg where the STA Transit Plaza now sits. It was during this research I confirmed the death of Captain Hanna in the Zukor arson fire as it was reported in the S-R from the archives of the Spokane Public Library. Captain Hanna’s death is also documented at the Spokane Fire Department’s web site under, “Line of duty Deaths.” I am also researching the arson fire of the District 81 School Administration Building where Nordstrom’s is now located at RPS. Mind you these two major fires occurred within a year’s time of each other. I have compiled the ownership title transfers on these properties before and after these fires. I’ve also compiled documentation that reveals the STA official build out costs of the STA Transit Plaza and the Assessor’s current value of this property and building are substantially different. Further from the recent public debate, it is apparent that the STA Transit Plaza was poorly located in the first place. Whether by coincidence or not some of these owners have associations with others who were involved in other “suspect” public projects in Downtown Spokane. I have filed several public document requests with the City of Spokane to review the police/fire investigative files on these fires and the Jo Savage death.

As I said in my last letter to you in clarification to your email banning me from all S-R Blogs:

If your were referring to my recent email to S-R Reporter Jonathan Brunt regarding the STA Transit Plaza and the Zukor Building arson/murder fires, I meant what I said, ” . . . if the shoe fits – wear it.” . . .

Investigative reporters and criminal investigators share many common tools and techniques. In one way we differ is the manner we pose probative questions to potential witnesses and suspects. We all seek the truth and ultimately serve the public. I won’t restate my operating hypothesis [* and reference link] outlined in the Brunt email but I will say from my review of the Camas Magazine documents there is a clear pattern and practice in a series of public/private projects in Downtown Spokane where “tainted” public financing was used to enrich the pockets of a few individuals at the expense of the public. Based on my training, education, and investigative experience this is an ongoing criminal enterprise where individuals at different times have acted together in concert to commit criminal acts and/or individually carried out with the knowledge and approval of this group. This by definition, Mr. Smith, is a criminal conspiracy.

In my review of the circumstances and evidence I believe there is reasonable cause to believe a similar MO is apparent in the STA Transit Plaza Project. I don’t know who burned out whom in the Zukor Building arson fire or in the District 81 Building arson fire but some of the same individuals clearly economically benefited from these fires. Generally if anyone aides, abets the principals in the commission of these acts, with criminal knowledge personally benefits, conceals information and/or impedes the investigation is criminally liable. As a criminal investigator I most assuredly would be asking probative questions to seek the truth. I would in a heartbeat use as a “hammer” as any cop would who wasn’t green behind the ears, that Captain Hanna was killed fighting the Zukor Building fire. I would make it very clear this was an arson/murder fire and further ANY involvement could bring criminal liability for murder under the general felony/murder rule. This applies as well to the Savage death in the RPS Parking Garage that both former Sheriff Bamonte and I believe was a negligent homicide arising to the level of a first-degree manslaughter in Washington.

[*] [Note: My operating hypothesis is based in part on my read of the IRS ruling disallowing the tax-exempt status of the first RPS bonds and as reported by Camas Magazine in ‘The Casino was Rigged‘. Based on the IRS report I don’t know why the IRS didn’t pursue criminal fraud charges against those involved. My speculation based on my experience is that IRS knew that pursuing such a criminal case was a losing cause based on the relationship of the current US Attorney for the Eastern District of WA, Jim McDevitt, and his previous personal relationship with the RPS bond fraud and with his former colleague Attorney Michael Ormsby at the law firm of Preston & Gates.

This is the same Michael Ormsby that the IRS took the unprecedented action of castigating publicly in implicating him in the RPS bond fraud as reported in Bond Buyer for, “. . . incompetence and disreputable conduct.” The Bond Buyer mistakenly reported though that the tax-exempt status of the RPS bonds was preserved in this settlement. In fact the tax-exempt status was disallowed and the IRS got its back taxes of some $8M through a secret deal with Preston & Gates.]


I’m sure both Mr. Connor, Mr. Shook and I would be very forthcoming to immediately correct any errors or misstatements of facts that we have made. Your attempts to discredit and to marginalize us, our credentials, credibility, veracity, and thereby our professional opinions would be better served if you would debate the facts.

It would be refreshing for once if you as the editor and as an advocate of “journalism of verification” of a major regional newspaper would debate the facts. Instead you attempt to marginalized those who would ask legitimate probative questions to hold their government accountable. Why Mr. Smith? In my opinion this is a fundamental responsibility of our free press as empowered by WE THE PEOPLE to hold those whom WE CHOOSE to govern accountable.

With this in mind when will the S-R be reporting the following stories:

The significance of the O. Yale Lewis Documents now in possession of the City of Spokane

Mayor Mary Verner recently met with Attorney O. Yale Lewis who was retained by former Mayor John Talbott to investigate the RPS bond fraud but was fired with the election of former Mayor Powers (Note: Michael Ormsby was his campaign treasurer)

Both the RPS cases et al and the Jo Savage manslaughter case are now under active review by the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle since their reassignment after the recusal of US Attorney Jim McDevitt which was the direct result of the Mark Fuhrman Radio Show.

Federal investigators have recently contacted former Sheriff Bamonte regarding his complaint regarding the death of Jo Savage in the RPS parking garage

A comprehensive story – more than the S-R’s brief mention of Tim Connor’s recent appeal of the WSBA’s initial ruling re S-R Attorney Duane Swinton. This would be informative to the readers regarding certain confidentially agreements that Mr. Swinton was apparently involved in that withheld certain material information from both the defrauded RPS institutional bond investors and the citizens of Spokane.

What does the STA plan to do with it’s rumored $58M cash reserve that it appears to be rolling over from year to year? Why was the STA’s Draft Transit Development Plan 2009-2015 pulled back from the public libraries before the last election? Why is the STA using Michael Ormsby even on a temporary basis in view of the IRS’s findings. Why haven’t we heard that the City of Spokane received a $260K grant from the state to study a rail trolley system in Downtown Spokane, the City has spent $160K of these funds to evaluate if the bridges can sustain the additional weight, and the remaining $100K will be used to educate the public on the need for the trolleys? I have nothing against light rail but the current gas powered trolleys are running near empty. Yes, rail trolleys would provide a nice added ambiance to Downtown Spokane. On the other hand the current ridership and density won’t sustain rail trolleys without heavy public subsidy. These trolleys would only benefit a few property owners at public expense.

Spokane Valley the new Chinatown” or perhaps “Sewer Wars in the Valley.” The Spokane Area has an unprecedented resource, the Rathdrum Aquifer. In the future clean water will become more important and more valuable than oil. The EPA has designated this aquifer as a “sole source” and has required sanitary sewers be installed to protect it. The game afoot now is who is going to pay for this sewer infrastructure and will those costs be equitably borne by developers and residents alike including the Cowles Co and its Inland Empire Paper plant?

Speaking of the Spokane Valley, why is the Chief of Police strongly discouraged from appearing on local talk shows to speak directly to the people. To me this flies in the face of community orientated policing philosophy. Is there a move afoot to create a new Spokane Valley PD perhaps against the wishes of the people who elected Sheriff Knezovich overwhelming in all precincts? Why?

I see that Dr. Kim Thorburn has announced her candidacy to run for County Commissioner against incumbent Todd Mielke. The apparent “bums rush” given Dr. Thorburn is what attracted my interest to Spokane politics in the first place since arriving here a year ago. I’m finding it hard to reconcile the “cover story” of the Board for her termination. While I don’t agree with her with some of her political views, I’ve learned from many sources they have found her to be the consummate public health professional. I’ve often wondered if the location of the public health building in the middle of Kendall Yards had more to do with her dismissal than anything of substance. There is a rumor circulating that there are “deep dark secrets” in her personnel file that would explain her dismissal. Further she was offered a “turn key” building by the project developers to move the public health building. I don’t know if these rumors are true. With my research so far on public development projects in this town I wouldn’t trust either developer promises as far as I could throw them. Perhaps Dr. Thorburn was seen as a “roadblock” to this project as she would have made sure the publics’ interest and equity were protected – a rare commodity in this town? I would like to be informed. Will someone ask the probative questions?


I as a reader of the Spokesman-Review, the paper of record for Spokane, I would be interested reading about these stories. Something tells me I will have to rely on the New/Alternative media to be informed. There is a common element in the under-reporting and or no coverage of these stories. The commonality is the Cowles Co and its associates. As Spokane veteran KXLY radio icon Mike Fitzsimmons recently observed in his blog:

The long-standing ban on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership was engineered with good reason. Too much influence over public opinion in any community is unhealthy, and in most U.S. communities, newspapers already have tremendous power to shape public viewpoints. We know firsthand in Spokane about what can happen. The River Park Square story in Spokane, was deliberately and unethically under-reported by the Spokesman Review and one television station in our community, to protect the family that owned the mall and the media outlets. Imagine what might have been possible had this local media powerhouse controlled many more sources. The public might not have learned about this fiasco at all.


And as I confirmed in a recent meeting with Steve Herling the General Manager of KXLY, they were not on the Cowles Co “buy list” when former KXLY Reporter Tom Grant was doing reporting on RPS. They were taking a significant hit in lost ad revenue. This was contained in a past email sent by Mr. Herling. Mr. Herling did say he was able to replace this lost ad revenue and that he did not feel pressured to remove Tom Grant. Mr. Herling said he didn’t consider this fair, but the Cowles Co was free to place its ads where it pleased just as he could refuse to run ads:

From: Steve Herling
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 2:34 PM
[…]
Subject: Re: Tom Grant

We do not agree with that assessment. RiverPark Square alone is testament to our ability to forgo ad dollars for truth. We have been off their “buy” list for over 2 years costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars because we supported the reporting, whether Tom Grant or any of our staff (yes there were other of our reporters on RPS than Tom). We never have shied from the truth for dollars and we’ve proven it. We have reported negative news about car dealers and taken the hit….Tom simply is uninformed about our busniness practices. We only spent $3,000 on the personal grooming consultant (TV is a visual medium and we want our people to look their best) not the $10,000. And that expenditure took nothing away from our journalism budget. We hope to have an exciting announcement soon of a replacement for Tom. It does make a difference to me if you watch. Remember KREM, KAYU and KHQ are getting all of the RiverPark Square advertising budget. If I lose you too I have really been penalized for doing the “right” thing.


You Sir, are in check again. I’m afraid your time is now limited as checkmate nears. In Alice’s world, Through the Looking Glass, or in the world of The Wizard of Oz, you have been unmasked either as the “Red Queen” or as the “little man” behind the curtain shouting in the megaphone. You Sir, are nothing more than a schoolyard bully tolerated by your handlers but I feel you are now more of a liability than an asset in protecting the family jewels.

Sincerely,

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)
Riverside PD, CA

CC:

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, County of Spokane, WA
Mayor Mary Verner, City of Spokane, WA
City Council, City of Spokane, WA
US Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan, Western District of Washington, Seattle, WA
Agent Frank Harvill, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Spokane, WA
Sgt. Ken Wade, Washington State Patrol, Spokane, WA
Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, City of Spokane, WA
Acting City Attorney Pat Dalton, City of Spokane, WA


June 4th, 2008

BREAKING – Tim Connor appeals WSBA ruling on Duane Swinton

Previous posts on this topic:

S-R Reports on WSBA initial ruling on Swinton bar complaint

BREAKING – Bar Investigator finds “insufficient evidence” that S-R attorney violated state ethics rules

Attorney Duane Swinton of the law firm of Witherspoon & Kelley represents the Cowles Co and acts as counsel for the Spokesman-Review which it owns. Mr. Swinton in the past found himself representing competing interests of the Cowles Co that were at odds with each other. The Washington News Council in their review of the S-R’s coverage of RPS found that there was a probable conflict of interest with the S-R and Mr. Swinton because of his representation of other Cowles Co interests. The WNC recommended that the S-R sever it’s relationship with Mr. Swinton.

Refreshingly S-R Editor Steve Smith recently has retained outside counsel to handle a RPS related public document request from the City of Spokane regarding documents forwarded to Mayor Mary Verner from Attorney O. Yale Lewis. S-R Reporter Jonathan Brunt filed a public document request with the City for these documents as have I too. The release of these documents is potentially being blocked by the City Attorney’s Office.

Tim Connor an award winning investigative journalist of Camas Magazine filed a conflict of interest complaint with the Washington State Bar Association against Mr. Swinton. The WSBA’s initial finding was that there was, “insufficient evidence that attorney violated state ethics rules,” while there may have been a journalistic conflict (See previous reports). In it’s ruling the WSBA held there was no conflict since Mr. Swinton was only representing one client – the Cowles Co.

Tim Connor has now filed an appeal of this ruling with the WSBA. I sent this breaking message to the FOF Yahoogroups email group from Tim Connor:

For those of you who are interested, I’m attaching the appeal (pdf file) that will go out tomorrow to the Washington State Bar Association regarding my ethics complaint against Duane Swinton. My main beef, as you’ll see, is that Randy Bietel, the WSBA investigator, just simply ignored the facts I presented that conflicted with his conclusion.

This request to review and reverse his finding will go to a WSBA review committee for consideration.

warm regards, Tim Connor

As I mentioned I had difficulty in posting his PDF file. Tim has since sent me an updated version that includes a paragraph that was left out in the original:

WSBA Swinton appeal by Tim Connor

This is a great piece of work by Conner. I concur that the Cowles Co and Mr. Swinton can’t have it both ways. They can’t ride the fence. My opinion is that Stacey Cowles knew all along what was going on as well as did Mr. Swinton. They’ve just since been CYA’g in different venues. They can’t seem to keep their stories straight. This is typical of crooks when they are lying. Connors has nailed Stacey Cowels and Duane Swinton in their vacillating back and forth on the fence.

In my opinion from my reading of the Camas Magazine documents and reporting there is a clear pattern and practice in actions by the Cowles Co and their operatives. These incidents need to be viewed collectively as a whole and not as isolated incidents. A number of individuals have acted in concert in the furtherance of an ongoing criminal conspiracy (Operating Hypothesis):

I believe based on my training, education, and investigative experience there is an ongoing criminal conspiracy in Spokane where a group of individuals at different times have acted individually and or in concert to commit criminal acts with the knowledge and approval of this group headed by the Cowles Co. The Cowles Co, its surrogates, have systemically co-opted and or corrupted governmental officials both elected and appointed including the sitting US Attorney for the Eastern District of WA. The normal political and governmental controls have failed because of being so thoroughly co-opted and/or corrupted by this incestuous, insidious, and malignant ongoing criminal enterprise . . .

. . . [the] S-R is nothing more than an instrumentality of the Cowles Co’s ongoing criminal enterprise to cover it’s criminal activity. This is done by it’s active self-censorship of stories and censorship of comments in S-R blogs. This information is highly detrimental to the owners that would otherwise inform the public. The public once alerted, educated and informed would hold their elected/appointed officials accountable for their criminal acts who have been systemically co-opted/corrupted by this ongoing criminal conspiracy.

Ron the Cop

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