By John Kaminski
7-11-10
Controversial Patriot writer and lawyer Edgar J. Steele, already jailed on suspicious charges that he tried to kill his wife with a pipe bomb, has been mysteriously removed from from a Spokane, Washington detention facility and taken to an undisclosed location, according to close friends of the Steele family.
In a letter to his friend Ingri Cassell, Steele wrote that the charges of attempted murder are preposterous and blamed his hired handyman - Larry Fairfax, a known FBI informant - for trying to cover up his own theft of silver bullion from Steele's property by trying to kill both Steele and his wife.
As the enclosed letter reproduced below indicates, Steele has been held virtually incommunicado after an initial court hearing June 11 determined he was trying to intimidate witnesses - in this case his wife and son - by instructing them on how to respond to FBI interrogation. Steele also claimed that tape recordings introduced as evidence were not authentic and had been doctored by the FBI in its attempt to authenticate the trumped-up charges.
Steele, 64, has a worldwide audience of tens of thousands of Patriot aficionados accumulated both from his noble record of public actions as well as his Conspiracy Pen Pal website. All these folks are nervously awaiting word of his condition and legal status.
Steele has suffered a recent heart attack and had other medical problems after which his close knit family nursed him back to health. Some observers feel that the heart attack was induced by forces unknown. His friend Dr. Allen Banks described it like this: "Basically the top of his heart blew off. Ed told me it felt like something had 'gone off' on his chest." Steele also had three other surgeries in recent months, as well as chronic nosebleeds that remain unexplained.
Steele most recently published a book titled "Defensive Racism," and is perhaps best known for his defense of the Church of the Aryan Nations in a sensational 2000 court trial which he ultimately lost. Friends speculated on why Steele would have been the focus of such intense federal interest at this time, and both Banks and Cassell indicated that it might have been because Steele was working on a new book about Israeli international slavery practices and its ties to several European governments.
As to whether the government's charges are legitimate, Steele's many friends and readers all suspect a government witchhunt on the order of what happened to Randy Weaver, George Hansen and Gordon Kahl. Weaver was set up by a government informant in 1992 in which his son and wife were killed, better known as the Ruby Ridge incident. Hansen was the Idaho congressman who tried to start an investigation of the IRS, but then was arrested on a pretense and shuttled around the country so his friends couldn't find him. And Kahl, another tax protester, was murdered by federal agents in a particularly grisly incident in 1983 after his decades of principled patriotic tax protests.
Steele's friend Dr. Banks put it this way. "This whole thing isn't logical. Ed is a very intelligent man. Intelligent men don't hire their plumber to kill their wife and mother in law. Plus, he has been quite ill over the past year."
The likelihood of the government's charges being true are "close to zero," said Banks, who is chairman of the Bonner Country Republican Party. "The likelihood of the government's charges against being false are close to 100 percent," Banks added.
Although Steele has been denied phone privileges while in custody in Spokane, and he has been prevented from seeing most of the letters of support that have been sent to him, at least one did slip through, and Steele managed to get a response to the sender, Ingri Cassell, widow of the late Don Harkins, founder of the now-defunct newspaper, The Idaho Observer. Cassell is also the founder of the Vaccine Liberation website.
Steele's message to Cassell, the only known communication to the outside world since his arrest, is here reprinted in its entirety.
Dear Ingri,
Thank you for your letter.
All calls out are almost nonexistent. I was looking forward to seeing you and Al 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 mail is returned to senders - usually because of their using letters instead of full first and last names in the review 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 (@ $15,000 & $45,000 total). Knowing I would discover the theft & 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 & its hatred for me. This murder-for-hire plot is beyond my hillbilly hitman, 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! BTW, 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 of my life. I am So depressed. I never expected them to come after me like this.
You may share this with others, even posting it on UNN and SF (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). [Note: at this time, we do not know his whereabouts. His address is/was - from the return on my envelope from him -
Edgar Steele #361857 Spokane County Jail W. 1100 Mallon Spokane, Wash. 99260-0320
Love, Edgar
When asked why Steele would have anything to do with Fairfax, a known drug informant in the northern Idaho area, Dr. Banks added a little more detail about the man known only as "Larry the Plumber" to Steele's closest friends.
"Ed had him build a new garage with secret compartments, so obviously Larry would have known where they were."
Ingri Cassell, well known in Idaho Republican and health circles, told of her conversations with Edgar's wife Cyndi.
"For the record, I have been following the Edgar Steele fiasco since he was arrested on June 11, 2010 and kidnapped from his home in Sagle, Idaho. For a mainstream canned report, here is a link -
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/06/12/1227921/n-idaho-attorney-charged-in-murder.html
"Although I had a flurry of other activities I was committed to at the time, I managed to visit with his wife, Cyndi Steele, for two hours on June 21. I wrote Edgar Steele a letter on July 1, 2010 requesting that he call me collect. That never happened, nor the anticipated visit since I was told that he was allowed only one visitor a week and it is a big trip to make only to be turned down.
"Since I had another appointment in Spokane on July 7, I went to the Spokane County Jail and was told that he was in the custody of the U.S. Marshals, was not allowed visitors and could not even make a collect call. At this point I was concerned that he never received my letter.
"On the following day I heard from a friend who lives in Spokane and has tried diligently to visit Edgar Steele. When she went to the jail on July 8, she was told that he had been moved 30 minutes ago to an undisclosed location. And then I received the following letter today, July 9. Following this letter is a letter I am sending to our Idaho state representatives that represent the people in the District where Edgar and Cyndi Steele once lived. Cyndi is so traumatized by this ordeal that she is no longer living in her home, and is in a safe house with friends -- the Steele's former home is in shambles from the raid with floor boards and walls ripped apart... and many of their valuables stolen."
But the current story does not end there. On the day of Steele's most recent "disappearance," Cassell reports that federal agents went to Steele's house and tore it apart, removing books and papers, computers, and lots of valuable silver.
Cassell reported the event in a letter to three Idaho state lawmakers, Sen. Sen. Keough, and Reps. Eskridge Eric Anderson. The text of the letter follows:
"On June 11, 2010, a resident of Sagle, Idaho for 20 years was arrested by Idaho State Police and an agent of the FBI with the assistance of a Bonner County deputy. Edgar is well-known as a defender of politically unpopular opinion, acting as a pro-bono attorney for the politically incorrect and a man who admittedly pushes the limits of free speech.
"He was preparing to go to Spokane on June 11 with a trailer to pick up some lumber for a building project and had asked his friend Allen Banks to join him on the drive into Spokane as he has recently been in very poor health. When Dr. Banks arrived at Edgar's home, he was barred access to the house by Idaho State Police officers, but could hear talking from inside prior to Edgar emerging from the house in handcuffs and being placed in the back of one of the ISP vehicles and driven away. He later witnessed eleven cars carrying agents of the FBI at the house, conducting a search, removing precious metals and other personal items.
"Allen had no idea what was going on other than an FBI agent coming out of the house momentarily, at the time of Edgar's arrest, to declare that he had all he needed on tape and that he was convinced of Edgar's guilt.
"On that same day, The Idaho Statesman and Coeur d'Alene Press printed stories vilifying Edgar's character and claiming that he had hired his handyman to kill his wife and mother-in-law. These stories continued for the following days claiming that the handyman decided to reveal the plot to the FBI on the previous Wednesday before any harm could be done.
"There are a number of holes in this story which any child could describe. For example, the "handyman", Larry Fairfax, has been a federal drug informant in this area for many years. His prior membership in Aryan Nations suggests that he was a federal informant during those years.
"Based upon his history it is not unreasonable to assume that he is still a paid federal informant placed at the Steele household to defame this politically unpopular Sagle resident. The claim that Edgar wanted the life insurance money from the death of his wife also doesn't hold up - enough personal wealth was removed from the Steele residence by the FBI that the life insurance policy angle does not seem believable.
"Strangely, when the informant handyman 'came clean' he failed to mention the pipe bombs he had placed on the Steele vehicles. These were later discovered during a routine oil change. The story and the details of the "plot" so far revealed are bizarre enough that many believe the case to be a complete fabrication, not unlike those fabricated by the Soviet era thugs of the KGB. If such a story can be fabricated to destroy a politically incorrect resident of Sagle, what can these same federal police officials concoct to destroy one of us? There are so many problems with this story that many of us have grave concerns for our safety as Idaho and Bonner County residents.
"While first confined at the Kootenai County Jail, Edgar, an Idaho resident, is now held in another state - Washington. I went to the Spokane County Jail on Wednesday to visit Edgar Steele. The woman at the desk told me that he is not allowed ANY visitors other than his attorney, he cannot make collect phone calls, and he is in custody of the U.S. Marshal Service.
"However, when I called the U.S. Marshal office in Spokane, I was told that Edgar is not in their system. I was referred to the FBI which only was available as a recording. I left a message on a recorder. Another friend went to the Spokane County Jail on Thursday (7-8-10) and was told that he ( Steele) had been moved a half hour earlier to an undisclosed location.
"This is beginning to resemble the George Hansen case where Idaho Congressman George Hansen was kept for nearly two years without trial, moved from one federal detention facility to another just ahead of his friends who were frantically trying to locate him so they could obtain his release. His crime? Allegedly he was being held without trial for errantly filing some congressional disclosure forms. His real crime? Asking for a congressional investigation of the IRS.
"Edgar's wife, Cyndi Steele, and his children, Nicole, Rex and Kelsey, are not allowed any communication with him. Cyndi is not living in their home anymore - too traumatic to live in a home that has been left ripped up (floor boards/walls) after the removal of valuables and other personal belongings.
"She is in shock trying to avoid the media circus and has been unavailable except to close friends. I happened to arrange a meeting with her for two hours on June 21 after she had watched two of three video/audio tapes. Apparently Edgar had been videotaped over a nearly six month period, with agents invading her property while she lived and slept there, without her knowledge. What she shared with me in detail makes me more convinced than ever of this man's innocence. You see, my late husband and I had been at social gatherings with Edgar and Cindy and had been in their home on several occasions, both of us considering Edgar and Cyndi to be our friends. Not only that, but at least an investigator working on this case, Tim Schwering of the Federal Public Defenders Office has also noted that there is something terribly wrong about this case. Please feel free to call me.
"I am deeply concerned and need to know what you can do to intervene to make sure that Edgar is safe, protected and that his right to due process is restored."
So here once again we have the ruthless power of federal law enforcement coming down on Patriots who are fighting for everyone's liberty by breaking the laws they are supposed to uphold and enforce. Steele's abduction by law enforcement is not only in the sinister tradition of government coverups on display during the Waco massacre, the Oklahoma City bombing and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11, all of which were followed by massive stonewalling and spin.
The longer Edgar Steele's whereabouts remain unknown, the less likely this Patriot freedom fighter's chances for survival seem to be. Perhaps the only thing that can save Steele at the point is a massive public outcry at the injustice being done to someone is merely trying to tell the truth about the nasty and immoral things our government is doing in our names.
To this end, concerned supporters of Steele and liberty-loving members of the public at large are urged to deluge the following agencies with telephone calls of protest.
U.S. Marshal's office, Coeur d'Alene: 208-667-6840; Spokane 509-353-2999. FBI Spokane 509-747-5195; Coeur d'Alene: 208-664-5128. Idaho State Police, region 1: 208-769-1433. Idaho Attorney General: Lawrence Wasdin, 208-334-2400. Bonner (Idaho) County Sheriff: 208-263-8417.
John Kaminski is a writer who used to live on the Gulf Coast of Florida, but is now elsewhere, at an undisclosed location, and worried that if one person can be made to disappear by federal agents who disagree with a person's political perspective, then no one in this country is safe from a law enforcement tyranny that makes a mockery of the phrase "liberty and justice for all." http://johnkaminski.info/
pseudoskylax@gmail.com
http://johnkaminski.info/
