Have any criminal court cases been dropped due to loss of evidence in the WTC7 collapse?
WTC 1, 2 &7 housed the following government agencies (among many others)
Inland Revenue Service (IRS)
Department of Defense (DOD)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
US Secret Service (USSS)
Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC)
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
US Customs & Immigration Service (now called ICE)
Cases that were affected (as noted by several publications) were the:
- Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter IPO fraud cases
- case against Enron
- case against WorldCom
All being investigated by the SEC, and of a very sensitive political nature to those in power at the time.
Searching through Lexis Nexis what I can't find were any court cases (criminal or otherwise) that were affected due to a loss of evidence contained
within the federal evidence lockers of any of the above named agencies. Particularly to the more mundane cases investigated by the Secret Service such
as computer hacking, counterfeiting, and credit card fraud, or the SEC cases involving small security frauds.
Even the Sean "Puffy" Combs case was claimed to have lost material evidence in the collapse (handgun used in a shooting) yet the case proceeded and
a conviction of the driver was secured. How was the gun, held in evidence at the WTC, which was allegedly lost in the collapse, able to be presented
during the case? Wouldn't the case have been tossed without this piece of evidence?
An article on
"D-Day: NY Sanitation Workers' Challenge of a
Lifetime" mentions this about a search for missing evidence:
"Officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Secret Service and Customs, which had WTC offices, also are searching for
valuable evidence lost when the towers disintegrated.."
Evidence lockers hold key pieces of material evidence that MUST be presented to secure a conviction. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me a simple
matter for a defese attorney to move for dismissal when the evidence goes missing (tragic as the situation that caused there loss may be). Yet I
can't find more than just a handful of cases that were affected, outside of those high-profile ones mentioned above.
Does this indicate the agencies above were successful in recovering the contents of their evidence lockers? If this
were the case then how does
one explain the complete inability on the part of investigators to recover ANY significant pieces of the aircraft used in the attack?
“The United States government alleges that 4 registered Boeing commercial passenger aircraft were used in the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks, yet has failed to produce any physical evidence collected from the 3 9/11 crash scenes positively tied to these federally registered United
and American airlines aircraft.”
1. Infowars article February 26, 2008: 9/11 Aircraft ‘Black Box’ Serial Numbers Mysteriously Absent
Infowars reported that the government officially could not account for any wreckage that conclusively belonged to any of the purported
flights.
2. Infowars article March 18, 2008: F.B.I. Elaborates On Reportedly Absent 9/11 Aircraft Wreckage Recovery & Identification Records.
Yet, handily enough, a
passport belonging to one of the hijackers is recovered
several blocks away from the crash site, in undamaged condition.
Does it seem too calculated, that evidence the government desired to keep or display should be recovered, while evidence held by these agencies that
was damaging to the politically connected should be lost?
I'm not familiar with the 9/11 movement so this is my first real foray into the area, but this subject of lost evidence from these agencies has been
bugging me for a long time. I have a close friend who was convicted (late 2002) by the SEC for fraud related to a bond he was marketing, which cost
him close to $2M in fines and restitution. Not a big case, almost routine for the SEC in NY I suppose. His case began in 2001, and was delayed due to
the attacks. The evidence was being held by the SEC at WTC7. He had been taken there in the early phases (prior to the attacks obviously) for
interviews and dispositions. After the attacks it was like nothing ever happened. His case proceeded and the SEC never had a hiccup with the evidence.
Of course, without knowing the chain or custody of the evidence it's impossible to say where it was truly being held, maybe a prosecutor had it in
their office, etc. I suppose you can't pass any judgment based on this one anecdotal situation, but it did create a sense of something not being
right, like it was all being manipulated behind the scenes.
Key evidence held at WTC7 damaging to the government? Lost (sorry, charlie)
Key evidence required by the government to secure a conviction in cases it prosecuted? Found
We were doing our best to keep an eye on all the cases that were resumed by the SEC following the attacks to see how they proceeded when supposedly
all the evidence it held was destroyed in the collapse. Most of this evidence would have been paper or digital files, so it wasn't something durable
enough to withstand the heat/flames of the collapse. But as we watched these cases unfold throughout 2002/03 there seemed to be no lack of convictions
due to loss of evidence in any case. I even broadened my review to include the more criminal cases of the USSS and Customs agency. USSS cases in
particular were very involved and were heavily reliant on evidence. Again, no lack of convictions due to loss of evidence, no cases dropped. I'm sure
I missed something since Lexis Nexis only summarizes the more important or relevant cases.
I'm curious, but anyone here familiar with this aspect of 9/11?
[edit] hmm, meant to post this in "skunk works" since this is a bit of a work in progress, but maybe it's better here in 9/11?
[edit on 9-9-2009 by Blackmarketeer]