Freedom-Cry

I had never been in criminal court before.  The accusation under which I was convicted was a first time criminal charge.  As most Americans, I was ignorant of how our criminal justice system worked.  I thought that our judicial system protected the innocent until proven guilty.  I was wrong since the Ronald Reagan war on crime changed much of this system.  Reagan worked on the concept that we had to fight our enemies, the communists, criminals and druggies.  So the war on drugs was started in earnest, even while Reagan and his cohorts were financing the Contra War efforts with cocaine proceeds.

My story is that I was arrested in Miami for an an accusation of drug trafficking, specifically marijuana trafficking out of Southern Illinois.  I was given bail in Miami, meanwhile my shipping partner, George Brock was a fugitive.  He had warned me to flee the country also, however, I had told him that I was not guilty of what I was being accused of, therefore I had no reason to flee.  I found out that I was being accused of being a drug kingpin which seemed humorous since I didn’t use drugs and I didn’t buy or sell drugs.  My error had been my shipping partner of my towing and barge companies.  The government contended I was a drug king pin and a principal in a continuing criminal enterprise.

I contacted the only criminal attorney I knew, Bobby Kalina, who was the attorney of my shipping partner, George “Tommy” Brock.  He was out of New York and he got a friend of his, Nathan Diamond of Miami to represent me for release on bail.  I made bail in October 1987, but at my arraignment in Southern Illinois on December 17, 1987, my bail was revoked as the prosecution team feared I might flee.

I have been locked up since 1987.  I spent the whole year of 1988 in Benton, Illinois at trial.  No one in the trial had been in Southern Illinois but the government said that a truck driver from Southern Illinois knew the drug principals.  The case was the US government against the team of men they claimed made up the drug ring.  Ben Kramer was a principal member of this team, a man who George W. Bush Sr. wanted to send to prison forever for the death of Don Aronow.  Aronow was the maker of Cigarette boats, Donzis and other fast boats that the Bush family used in Maine, and a friend of the Bush family. A fight ensued about whether the South Florida court o/*r Southern Illinois court would prosecute Kramer first. The prosecution occurred first out of Southern Illinois and the murder charge would occur next.

There were no marijuana busts, no impoundment of marijuana carrying ships and no direct evidence.  The case was based on cooperating witnesses, snitches against the drug ring.  Ben Kramer, Randy Lanier, Eugene Fischer, and George Brock were the named principals.  Randy Lanier had thirty snitches testify against him.  Four of these witnesses said they knew of me or “Tommy”.  The main witness, a lieutenant of Lanier’s called Charles Podesta showed a payment book for marijuana sold.  It had a page for Randy Lanier, one for Ben Kramer and one for Tommy, but nothing for me, Eugene Fischer.

In fact, Podesta said he didn’t ever pay Gene or know if Gene was receiving money.  But Judge Foreman let this book and the prosecutor’s notation that Gene and Tommy were one and the same, be shown to the jury.  At the end of the fourteen week trial, the jury was hung five times as to my guilt but Judge Foreman made them go back until they came out with a verdict. 

Attorneys for all the defendants accused of being kingpins requested an instruction to the jury that they find unanimously as to the three predicate acts required for a CCE but the judge said this was not necessary.  Ten years later, the Supreme Court found that this type of instruction to the jury was required.  But ten years after this finding, I have been blocked from having my case reviewed on the findings of the Supreme Court because of procedural technicalities.  In other words, I am still living out my life sentence even though the jury did not find me guilty unanimously on the three continuing criminal enterprise findings.

I attempted to have the judge recused when cooperating witness Podesta told my attorney that the judge was in the pocket of the FBI agent Dueker.  Ten years later I found out that Judge Foreman’s best friend was being prosecuted by the FBI at the same time as we were and that there was a real conflict.  But after filing many motions and requests for judicial review, I have not succeeded.

Eight years after trial, I got notification from my brother, Fred (another business partner), that George Brock (Tommy) was secretly paying my attorneys.  I received further evidence in the form of an affidavit from Brock that he had paid my attorneys without my knowledge.  The problem with this was the continued connection to Brock while I was trying to disassociate myself from him.  When I submitted a motion showing this unknown sponsorship that was unsolicited, this motion was rejected by the court.

In 2006, I found out that Tommy was doing time on another unrelated drug offense in Australia.  The US government was trying to extradite him.  In 1996, the US government had tried to extradite Brock from Holland but the Dutch government refused because of the life sentence for a marijuana crime.  The use of marijuana is not illegal in Holland.  So Tommy then moved on to Australia as a free man and I have been standing in his place as the criminal in the case.

Both Kramer and Lanier had other trials apart from the continuing criminal enterprise.  In two RICO and money laundering trials in Miami and Fort Lauderdale against Kramer, there was extensive evidence presented of the continuing criminal enterprise and the principals.  There was a trio of Ben Kramer, Randy Lanier, and George Brock.  The testimony of Jack Kramer, Ben’s father, and Melvin Kessler, attorney for Ben Kramer, name the three as the Board of Directors of the continuing criminal enterprise with Ben as the Chair.  Evidence of this was the trust set up, named BTR Trust.  The principals of the trust set up the Bicycle Club in Los Angeles as a means of investment and money laundering.  I was not named because I was not part of this involvement.