A
call for reason and fairness in the case of
U.S. vs. Walter Anderson
"The
trouble with political jokes is that very often they get elected." – Will
Rogers
|
A
call for reason and fairness in the case of |
"The
trouble with political jokes is that very often they get elected." – Will
Rogers |
|
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|
Galactech Offices Closing |
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by
Walt Anderson
On Friday June 30th, 2006, My office in Galactech Corporation, in Washington DC will be closing. The strangest thing is I have never even been to this office or sat in my on desk there. This was not my choice. On February 26th, 2005, when I returned to Washington DC from a short business trip to Europe, I was taken directly into custody at the Dulles International Airport, in relation to a US federal “Tax Fraud”. I was not allowed to go to my home or office since that time. Each week after that time, I assumed that my lawyers would arrange for me to be released prior to my trial, just like any other defendant. The weeks (and months) went by, and I am still being held. Pre-trial release in these cases is considered the norm in the US, especially for people who have a significant personal and business connections, which I have in the Washington DC area. Prior to this investigation, I had no criminal history and have never violated any court order. I had also been aware of the investigation for 3 years prior to being charged and had continued my normal personal and business activities. I had to assume that I would be released prior to my trial. The prosecutor on my case had different ideas. During the investigation for 3 years prior to my indictment I had hired legal counsel to prepare to fight any potential charges in court. At my arraignment the prosecutor claimed that I intended to flee the country and said that I had “no connection” to the United States and nothing to keep me here. The prosecutor made these and other dishonest comments in a courtroom where my parents, business associates and numerous friends were actually present. This obvious and blatant lie was accepted by the magistrate along with numerous claims by the prosecutor which she must have known were false. At the time this ordeal began, my office was in Georgetown in the Northwest part of Washington DC. I had planned to renew the lease for another 2 years and had been assured by our landlord, a not-for-profit organization, that they did not need the space and would renew the lease. After my indictment and all the bad publicity about my case, the landlord changed their mind. Our landlord relies on the US government for a significant portion of their grants and approvals. I am sure they also did not appreciate the public spectacle of 20 heavily armed agents in black uniforms (reminiscent of the Nazi SS) searching our offices for an entire day. Since our lease was not renewed, we had to find a place to move. Since I was unavailable to take care of this, Donna Kurcina-Dow, my associate, had to take this on. Donna is the real hero of this story, as she had to take over a significant amount of my work, assist me in locating thousands of documents for my legal case as well as organizing and moving the office of Galactech Corporation, all in a very short time. This was an almost impossible task, but she was able to move the offices a few blocks away to 19th & K Street, also in the Northwest of the city. I had a desk and office waiting for me at these new offices. I have worked with Donna Kurcina-Dow since 1980, at Danskjold Reed, a telecommunications engineering and consulting company, which I founded with another partner. When I founded Mid Atlantic Telecom in 1983, I asked Donna to be the 1st employee. Mid Atlantic operated successfully for 10 years. Mid Atlantic was merged in 1993 to a publicly traded corporation called Frontier Communications. After the merger, Donna remained working with Frontier, the surviving corporation. After the sale of Mid Atlantic I spent much of my time in Europe as the President of Esprit Telecom, a company founded in 1992 to take advantage of telecom competition in the European Union countries. I also was becoming busier managing the investment activities of Gold & Appel Transfer, a venture capital/business development company owned by the Smaller World Trust. In in early 1997, I realized that need some help to manage all these activities. I asked Donna to leave Frontier and work with me to help manage Esprit Telecom and Gold & Appel investment activities. To facilitate this, I set up Entrée International, in Washington DC, to act as the “Chairman’s Office” of Esprit Telecom (which went public in February of 1997) and the to provide consulting, management, investment oversight for Gold & Appel. Donna helped set up the Entrée International offices and helped to support the management of a number of corporate and investment activities. Entrée also provided all the management for FINDS (Foundation for the International Non-government Development of Space) a US based Not-For-Profit organization. This included managing FINDS endowment, accounting/tax, business activities and the distribution of the grants approved by FINDS Board of Directors. Entrée also provided business and financial management for Red Tulip LLC in relation to their renovation of Historic Building in New York City. In 2003, I transitioned the Entrée management activities into Galactech Corporation. Donna continued to perform the same duties for Galactech. The Smaller World Trust, Which was the ultimate beneficial owner of the investment fund “Gold & Appel”, restructured the investment funds into 3 industry related investment groups (Comverge Limited – for Telecom related investments, Iceberg Transport S.A. – for Water Storage and Transportation related investments, Space Incorporated S.A – for Space and Aerospace related investments). Galactech supervised these changes. Entrée and Galactech Corporation managed activities with just myself and Donna and a some help from outside contractors which in other venture capital organization were managed by up to 4 to 5 full time employees. The growth of the assets was very substantial for a number of years. The telecom/dot.com meltdown also created challenges of time and logistics. Galactech ran out of funds at the end of June 30th, 2006. Donna operated the office until it closed. The Smaller World Foundation investment funds owe Galactech money for past management activities, but these funds were blocked due to a civil litigation which was helped by the Federal Prosecutors. The Prosecutors want to limit my access to funds and have in some case tried to intimidate witnesses and others who wished to provide assistance me. Due to the prosecutions efforts, I was never actually was able to ever visit my “new” offices before they closed. I am still in the DC Jail under very tortuous conditions. Since My incarceration, I have had to give up various responsibilities to others. Jean Claude Chalmet, the chairman of Aquarius Holding, the Water and Transportation company, agreed to take over as manager of the Smaller World Foundation and the related investment funds, Jim Muncy of the Space Frontier Foundation, agreed to take over as the Director of FINDS and Phil Braden, Previously the President of Orbital Recovery Limited (UK) took over as the President and Chairman of Orbital Recovery Corporation (the parent corporation), a company which I founded in 2002 to extend the life of high value geo-sats. Donna has helped coordinate this transition. Each of these new managers needed to have access to document and records and the corporate history. I also needed to locate documents and records that were related to my legal case. Donna consolidated and organized all the records which were still available. This required scanning over one hundred thousand documents and creating a massive digital file. This immense task was completed before the office was closed down. The situation created by the Federal Prosecutors was extremely unpleasant. It is not easy to do your job when your employer is in jail, the prosecutors want to question you and you do not know if armed troops will break down the door to take away all your files (for the 3rd time). Donna amazingly continued to work through this difficult situation and kept the office in operation. Her efforts have made a big difference and the digital archive she has left will serve my associates as well as my legal counsel. I am sad today to see the end of operations at Galactech. I do not like to fail and the closing of the office is my failure. I realize I am in an impossible situation. Once I was incarcerated and funds were blocked through sleazy and dishonest tactics, I could not continue to do my job and I could not effectively support the activities of my office. For Donna, closing Galactech must have been a very difficult job. Imagine having to “fire” yourself. It will be more difficult for me to keep in touch with professional associates, pursue my legal case and perform other business functions now that the office is closed. The efforts of my associates, especially Donna Kurcina-Dow over the last 16 months, has really made a difference and helped me a lot. I want to thank her for exceptional efforts under difficult circumstances. Due to this help, I am more prepared to prove my innocence and the companies I was associated with have a good chance of continued success.
I can still
be reached at: Walt
Anderson
[WEBMASTER'S NOTE: All articles submitted by Walt Anderson are handwritten by him, and either mailed to me directly, or transcribed by a volunteer third party, then e-mailed to me for placement in a web template. These articles are only spell-checked and style-edited. They are never edited for content - these are Walt's own words, and are respected as such.]
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