Thoroughly enjoyed your blog, am now a big fan! I've been following this case closely since it broke in 2001 and your coverage has brought some great insight into the whole debacle.

I have become obsessed with you write ups refreshing my screen several times a day (or per hour) to see your latest. Thanks for the inside view.

Thanks for the blog...excellent coverage.

Add my thanks for the blog and appreciation for your lively writings!

Excellent coverage. It's the best example I've yet seen of the potential of a knowledgeable person to clearly and concisely convey the multiple aspects of a complicated issue via a blog. Good job, Frank and good job, Washington Post.

Thanks so much for your daily blog. I enjoyed you reporting and we will miss your coverage. I am pulling for the defense, which I know is not a very popular position, but you are one of the few journalists who were able to cover the trail and still remain objective. Great work. Hope you enjoyed your time in Houston. Come back and see us anytime.

I've become quite an obsessive fan of your daily musings and observations about the various egos and "extras" in the Enron drama, a uniquely American story, made, paid for and prosecuted in the good ole U.S. of A. You made me feel like I had a front row seat. Thanks for posting. And keep us posted. Man, what am I gonna do without my Ahrens-Enron fix????

I have enjoyed reading Mr. Ahrens' blog as well. The Houston Chronicle's business columnist also keeps a blog on the trial; you may want to check it out to ease your withdrawal symptoms.

Jeff, nice to read you're pulling for the defense. Is your unfamiliarity with the word "trial" related to that?

Excellent coverage! Thank you, Mr. Ahrens!

5 May, 2006

POLARIOID ACQUIRED WITH CASH EMBEZZLED
THROUGH OUR BANKRUPTCY COURTS

Attached please find a letter and various email exchanges between Minneapolis based author Richard Hettler and US Attorney General John Ashcroft's office. General Ashcroft, since leaving office as this nation's chief cop, founded The Ashcroft Group, LLC, a Washington, DC based lobbying firm. Ashcroft's firm is headquartered in the District of Columbia at 1399 New York Ave NW. Its telephone number is 202 942-0202.

Richard Hettler, in April of 2006, contacted General Ashcroft because of an article written by Ashcroft on judicial corruption in our national bankruptcy courts. Mr. Ashcroft, in his two page article, reported comments of his to the Second Global Forum on Fighting Corruption. Said article is attached hereto for the information of the reader.

Hettler is one of tens of thousands of victims of the US bankruptcy courts. Hettler has been trying to get his money and property returned to him now for 12 years but thus far has been unsuccessful because of judicial corruption commented upon by General Ashcroft in his article. Asking corrupt judges to act honorably and do what they have been entrusted to do consistent with their oath to uphold this country's constitution, is simply not in the cards. After Hettler reported the embezzlement of his life estate to General Ashcroft first in 2000, Ashcroft "fired" Minnesota US Trustee Barbara Stuart because of her described criminal behavior in conjunction with criminal judges who were subsequently identified as criminal by the Minneapolis FBI. Hettler, because of such corruption, has never been allowed to have his property and money returned to him after three (3) criminal bankruptcy judges banded together to take and liquidate Hettler's property because a bankruptcy debtor had fraudulently declared Hettler's property as her own on her bankruptcy schedules. Said criminal judges even filed or refused to return such property after the bankruptcy debtor confessed to what she and her cronies had done. One of her cronies was Minneapolis-headquartered Thomas Petters who put the bankruptcy debtor [his business associate] up to claiming Hettler's promissory Notes made by Petters on her bankruptcy schedules. All of this including the uncontested evidence was taken to the FBI, where after the FBI told Hettler and US Senator Mark Dayton in December of 2001 that there were many corrupt judges in the Minnesota district as there were criminal US trustee personnel as well. When the FBI made these comments, Hettler asked Minneapolis FBI Special Agent Dan Miller why, if they knew all of this, why they simply would not lock these judges up as well as the criminals who petitioned for relief in their courts. Miller told Hettler and Dayton that it wasn't easy to lock up a judge and that was that. Hettler had described in great detail how bankruptcy thugs had worked with corrupt judges to take millions of dollars from he and his deceased brother reporting also that this was not simply an isolated instance of how these thugs were destroying eh lives of innocent individuals who had never been brought under the jurisdiction of the offending courts. Not only had Hettler's property been admittedly and unlawfully claimed and liquidated, and his only involvement with Petters business associate Ruth Kahn was as her creditor. She, like Petters, had a long-term pattern of borrowing money from people and never rapaying them. Hettler related to the FBI that others known to him had advised that colleagues of theirs had been murdered by such bankruptcy thugs for challenging the actions of such corrupt judges. In one instance, they murdered a lawyer who was on his way to meet with Department of Justice officials to supply testimony on bankruptcy fraud in the San Francisco area. Ashcroft's article didn't therefore simply touch Hettler and his case- it touched numerous other venues where bankruptcy judges were left free to destroy the lives of innocent people and embezzle their property at will.

It is this perpetual tolerance for such criminal acts on the part of bankruptcy judges which has taken and continues to take millions of dollars from Hettler, Fingerhut, Stay healthy, and now most recently Polaroid Holding Company. Numerous reports on this and other swindles have been reported to the Justice Department, first on Ashcroft's watch, and now more recently the Gonzales Administration. The agencies' failure or refusal to act has left an indelible life scar on Hettler and the tens of thousands of senior citizen victims all over the world. This is why Congressmen Delahunt and Meehan initially took the lead in asking Polaroid to police its own actions by honoring the Polaroid pensions which of course Polaroid officials simply trashed because of failed follow-through by the Massachusetts delegation.

The vast majority of this travesty surfaced in 2001 after two US Senators [Paul Wellstone and thereafter Mark Dayton worked with Hettler to arrange a meeting with the Minneapolis FBI in December of 2001 which led to the FBI's assertion to Hettler and Dayton that it was well known that there are many corrupt judges and US Trustee personnel in the Minnesota District. After Hettler brought this to the attention of Ashcroft, Ashcroft "fired" Minnesota US Trustee Barbara Stuart but failed to follow-through by prosecuting Stuart as well as the band of thugs with whom she worked to pull of this massive swindle.

Because Ashcroft did nothing other than "fire" a criminal US Trustee, this left the Minnesota principal bankruptcy thug Thomas Petters free to embezzle millions from Hettler and free to continue his reign of terror by first purchasing Fingerhut with money and property embezzled from Hettler, to loan hundreds of millions of dollars in cash embezzled from Hettler to Stay healthy at 45% annual interest rates, to purchased lavish corporate toys including Petters own Boeing 727 aircraft also with swindled cash, and more recently to purchase Polaroid for $426 million, also in swindled cash.

Hettler was hopeful that General Ashcroft would recognize the damage he did by failing to act remedially on his noted corruption among his bankruptcy judges, which is why Hettler asked Ashcroft to meet with him and to further assist by recommending certain individuals or agencies who are equipped to handle the aftermath of such unprosecuted corruption.

Instead, Ashcroft told Hettler in a 5 May email [attached] that he is unable to assist in any respect and is not able to meet to further discuss matters.

Had Ashcroft followed through after he "fired" Minnesota US Trustee Barbara Stuart, all of the damage which thereafter followed by allowing the bankruptcy thugs to continue swindling people including Hettler and the tens of thousands of ex-employees of Polaroid would never have evolved. N stead, we were all left impoverished as reported by Time Magazine in its 10-31-05 article entitled "The Great Retirement Rip-off", in various issues of CFO Magazine, and in the various and numerous articles written about in the Boston Globe.

Hettler has given up on the courts because they are corrupt as Ashcroft has duly noted and now will move ahead with prosecuting those civily who have so egragiiously and baazelny took millions of dollars in proopertry from he and his deceased brother. This grand larcenty ciommittd by Petters and otheres with whom Petters corroborated to embezzle prioperty dfrom Hetler and th tens of thousands in the Massachusettes District can only be acted upon by criminal prosecutirs who thus far have chosen to look the other way and this now includes this natrionsl; apst chief cop, John Ashcroft. Hettelr;s caser has beeen refered ad nauseam by and to just abioutr every criminal inevfstiagtory agency I this cioynrty, but ahs remained uninvestuigated and prosecuted becase inevstiagting and prosecuting thiose who have ebeen allowed tro opull of these mukltiople swindles would indoct the many corrrpt judges who are aplparwentl I nsilated from attack and abiove the law notwithstanding th recient commernts by newly appoiunted Juistoc Alito to the US Supreme Court. So what are we left with- we are left with a nation of corporate criminals who prey on seniotr citizens to atkje theor mioney and property and when such senior citizen lenders complain of defauleterd payments by Petters, Petters and his army of lawyers march into court o prosecute such senior citizens for asking for redress. This actually happened to Hetelrl after he sufeeered a massisve hemnroragic stroke ovef ths 12 year proteacted matter. This is the end of civility which is precisely what the Ashcroft legacy has left us with.

The absolute worst criminal in this world is a corrupt judge- it's not Osama Bin Laden or a Ken Lay, it's an individual who is far worse than the worst vermin on earth. Corrupt judges are not thrown off the court or sent to jail, they are allowed to pontificate in perpetuity over their victims under a false cloak of propriety, while basking in the luxury of money which they took from their victims at the stroke of a pen, all under the eye of the FBI who opposes any action beiong sought to prosecute such criminal judges.

In these days of argued government corruption, people rarely talk about criminal judges as Ashcroft did, and when it happens, people have a tendency to simply "roll their eyes" in disbelief, but what makes Hettler's case different as the case with Polaroid, is that Hettler has supplied competent and uncontested evidence of such crimes, yet none of this has any influence on those who are supposed to protect us against corruption, now including General Ashcroft.

In Hettler's letter to Ashcroft, Hettler, anticipating that Ashcroft would refuse to act on his words, Hettler simply asked for a recommendation from Ashcroft on whom to take the matter but even that was refused by Ashcroft. Hettler wonders: is Ashcroft any better than those who he has adjudged corrupt? This will hopefully be sorted out by the many victims of Polaroid in Massachusetts who hopefully achieve redress from a national outcry for law and order.

Because Hettler's evidence is so compelling, Hettler recently went to Washington to meet with the entire Massachusetts delegation which earlier in 2002 and 2003 spearheaded an effort to "urge" Polaroid to honor its pension obligations to its many employees. This writing to Polaroid's General Counsel was signed by Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy, and the remaining ten (10) congressional members of the Massachusetts delegation. While in Washington, not one of these people would give Hettler the time of day but did say that they were aware of it- Congressman Markey told Hettler that "he was sorry". Hettler told Markey that he didn't come to Washington for an apology- he came to Washington to get his money and property returned and that apologies were a far cry from what was expected of him by those who had been so egregiously harmed by the fabricated bankruptcy of Polaroid and its later purchase by the Petters organization for $426 million in swindled cash. Congressional apologies unfortunately do not buy groceries nor do they pay the rent.

Hettler went to Washington to get his money back offering to appear before both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and further offering to lead a civil class action in behalf of himself and the tens of thousands of Polaroid who were left penniless because of corruption in our courts which General Ashcroft so accurately described. He made these offers because the courts are corrupt. Because so many of those who have been ripped off by the Petters assault upon Hettler and the tens of thousands crippled by him in Massachusetts, Hettler asked Governor Romney to assist and commission his Attorney General and US Attorney to examine the matter and to restore money essentially embezzled by Petters and others with who he orchestrated what Time Magazine has characterized as the Great Retirement Rip-off. Hopefully, the Governor will commission those within his state to investigate and prosecute those who General Ashcroft now chooses to aid and harbor.

Government corruption is a runaway train and will destroy the very fiber of our democracy if nothing is done about it. About the only thing that we can do is demand the necessary changes in Washington that will restore law and order to a country which now appears to be both morally and intellectually bankrupt.

Richard Hettler can be reached at msp3430@netzero.net

Thanks