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   From: DEMI_GOD_@SHAW.CA   
      
   The Billington Case   
      
   In May 1996, evidence was presented in federal court in Richmond, before   
   Judge Richard Williams, in the case of Michael Billington, one of the   
   LaRouche associates incarcerated in Virginia. Billington is serving 77 years   
   in prison, having been convicted in one of the most bizarre trials in the   
   nation's history. A summary look at the evidence presented in the Billington   
   case, while still only part of the story, illustrates the magnitude of the   
   injustice perpetrated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, in coordination with   
   the Bush machine.   
      
   Billington had been a co-defendant of LaRouche in the 1988 federal trials in   
   Boston, Mass. and Alexandria, Va., which were prosecuted by the   
   Bush/Kissinger task force. The Boston case ended in a mistrial, after   
   government prosecutors were caught concealing evidence of their own   
   misconduct. Among the documents concealed, was a May 1986 telex from   
   Iran-Contra defendant General Richard Secord to Bush flunky Oliver North,   
   discussing the gathering of information to be used against LaRouche. After   
   this memo surfaced, Judge Robert Keeton ordered a search of Vice President   
   George Bush's office, for documents relating to LaRouche. Shortly after this   
   order, the government took measures to shut down the trial.   
      
   After being dismissed, the jury in the Boston case let the local media know   
   what they thought of the government's case. Jury foreman Roman Daschewitz   
   told the Boston Herald that, based on the government's own evidence, jurors   
   had concluded that the government was the guilty party, and would have found   
   the defendants "Not Guilty" on all counts. In a later ruling, Judge Keeton   
   found the government guilty of "institutional and systemic prosecutorial   
   misconduct."   
      
   After this treatment in Boston, federal prosecutors brought new charges in   
   Alexandria, Va., against LaRouche, Billington, and five others. The   
   government alleged that LaRouche, Billington, and the others, had conspired   
   to borrow money from political supporters, for political purposes, with no   
   intention to repay the loans.   
      
   The charges were bogus. In fact, they were brought about by the government's   
   own actions. In April 1987, the U.S. government forced the companies which   
   had borrowed the money into involuntary bankruptcy. One year after the   
   LaRouche-Billington trial, and just days after Billington's conviction in   
   his Virginia State trial, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin V.?B. Bostetter ruled   
   that the government's actions were illegal and fraudulent, finding that   
   federal officials had acted in "objective bad faith," and by "a constructive   
   fraud on the court" when they illegally forced the involuntary bankruptcy as   
   part of the political prosecution of LaRouche and his associates.   
      
   After being falsely convicted in Alexandria, Billington was forced to go on   
   trial a second time by Virginia State authorities. The charges were   
   basically the same as in the federal case, but were brought under the rubric   
   of Virginia's law regulating securities dealers.   
      
   Never before had the Commonwealth of Virginia considered political loans, or   
   even corporate loans, "securities." In fact, only after Billington and 15   
   others were indicted, did the State Corporation Commission hold a hearing to   
   determine whether or not money borrowed from political supporters for   
   political purposes should be considered securities, and the political   
   organizers considered brokers. At that time, the head of the SCC, Elizabeth   
   Lacey, said, "This is a case of first impression." News media accounts   
   quoted prosecutors saying their case against Billington would go down the   
   tubes, if Lacey ruled the loans were not securities. Several weeks later,   
   Lacey went the government's way, and was later appointed to the Virginia   
   Supreme Court.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)