Jailhouse
Letter from
Ed Steele Explains
How He Was Framed
Free-speech
attorney says
murder-for-hire charges trumped up
By Pat Shannan
 |
. After
being held incommunicado for nearly a month, Idaho attorney
Edgar Steele was finally able to get a letter out of the
Spokane County Jail, where he is being held on shaky federal
charges of “murder for hire.” He maintains
that a confidential informant (CI) in the feds’
employ lied to the authorities regarding the alleged plot
in order to cover up the theft of tens of thousands of
dollars in silver coins the CI had stolen from Steele
sometime earlier.
 In
addition to being an outspoken foe of the Israeli state
and the Anti-Defamation League, Steele has spent the last
half of his law career defending — often pro
bono — the politically incorrect and especially
those charged with “hate crimes,” thereby
creating a case history that evidently has made him a
federal target.
Larry
Fairfax, 49, is the CI who claims Steele offered him $25,000
to kill Mrs. Steele and her mother.
Her mother resides in Oregon.
This
writer has learned that Fairfax has been a long- time
informant used by the FBI to gather information in both
drug and “hate crime” cases. Steele had been
under surveillance for several months. Fairfax had been
Steele’s handyman, doing home repairs.
Following
a June 11 arrest, federal agents destroyed the Steele
home, ripping up floorboards and tearing out wall partitions,
before hauling away a large amount of silver, gold and
other valuables.
Ingri
Cassell, widow of Idaho Observer publisher Don
Harkins and longtime Steele family friend, experienced
several failed attempts to visit or receive a collect
phone call from Steele before finally receiving a letter
from him on July 9. In the following letter, Steele’s
explanation of likely events behind the scenes, coupled
with the known facts, begins to make sense of the bizarre
and dubious accusations of a month earlier:
Dear Ingri,
Thank
you for your letter.
All
calls out are almost non-existent. I was look- ing forward
to seeing you and [Dr.Allen Banks] yesterday. I suppose
they just turned you away? I haven’t had a single
visitor here so far and only barely been allowed to
see my public defender. I’m not allowed to call
my lawyer even until next week. I am in max security,
full lockdown, solitary confinement.Worse even than
the treatment accorded Matt Hale. Most of [my] mail
is returned to senders — usually because of their
using letters instead of full first and last names in
the review [sic] in the return address.
OK.
I am innocent, for what that is worth in Amerika today.
Here is what happened:
My
hillbilly handyman stumbled across a stash of silver
bullion in one of my outbuildings—then searched
and found two others (at $15,000 and $45,000 total).
Knowing I would discover the theft [and] know it was
him, he tried to kill me with two pipe bombs he placed
on the cars he knew I drove. They both failed to go
off. Cyndi left town with one before he removed it,
which led to the discovery of the car bomb on our Mitsubishi
SUV.
This
guy had offered to be a hit man before, more than once,
but I dismissed him as a harmless buffoon. I had told
him of the ADL [and] its hatred for me. This murder-for-hire
plot is beyond my hillbilly hit man, so I assume he
went to the ADL, which either fabricated tapes that
he played for the FBI recorder or produced a mimic of
me to make the tapes for the FBI on the spot. Regardless,
I have been framed and set-up! [By the way], the ADL
was quoted extensively in the government’s opening
papers in court.
I
haven’t heard from my wife or son and fear they
have been convinced by the U.S. attorney prosecutor
of my guilt. I feel totally abandoned. What can you
and others do? Ingri, I honestly don’t know. Obviously,
this is going to trial. I may well be convicted, which
will be the same as a death sentence at this stage in
my life. I am so depressed. I never expected them to
come after me like this.
You
may share this with others . . . with my address so
they can write me — please write me — but
tell them to put their full names and addresses [as
a clear return address] on the envelopes. [The address
is: Edgar Steele #361857, Spokane County Jail, W. 1100
Mallon, Spokane,Wash. 99260-0320.]
It
was Ms. Cassell’s flurry of letters and phone calls
to sheriffs, judges and congressmen the previous 30 days
that pressured the authorities into later relenting and
allowing Steele to have visitors and make collect phone
calls. However, because of the pending charges, his wife
and children still are not allowed to visit.
Ms.
Cassell and Banks were finally able to visit him on July
13, at which time Steele told them of the “bone
chilling” effect he felt when listening to one of
the tapes allegedly recorded secretly by Fairfax. Steele
said he became physically ill as he heard “someone
else speaking but using my voice.”
For
more than a decade, scientist George Papcun, by taking
just a 10-minute digital recording of anyone’s voice,
has shown how to clone speech patterns and develop an
accurate facsimile.
Dr.
Don Nicoloff, a multi-talented musician and audio recording
engineer who professes expertise in detecting fraudulent
recordings, says that the creation of fictitious audio
recordings has become very sophisticated, yet the technologies
currently used have limitations. Those limitations center
on the formation of digital samples from an analog recording,
and tampering is not difficult to detect.
“Every
sound which can be recorded,” reports Nicoloff,
“including the voices of Edgar Steele and Larry
Fairfax, has its own, unique signature. Those unique signatures
are called ‘formants.’ Formants are distinguishable
to a trained ear, especially when they have been manipulated.
Formants can also be identified and analyzed as waveforms
on a computer screen or oscilloscope. Placing a formant
into a given sound field causes the formant to modulate
when the sound field has been altered, manipulated, or
is absent. Changes in room ambience and/or recording methods
are very apparent.”
Voice-altering
software is sold for as little as $29.95. Voice synthesis
software, which can actually create or mimic voice patterns,
is significantly more expensive, but is widely available
to public and private entities.
 Pat
Shannon is a contributing editor to American
Free Press newspaper. He is also the author
of several videos and books including One
in a Million: An IRS Travesty and I
Rode With Tupper, detailing Shannan’s
experiences with Tupper Saussy when the American
dissident was on the run in the 1980s. Both
are available from FIRST AMEND-MENT BOOKS for
$25 each. |
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(Issue #31, August 2, 2010, AMERICAN
FREE PRESS)
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