Charles Hayes

Charles Hayes was a salvage dealer from Nancy, Kentucky, who became involved in the PROMIS Software Scandal through his contact with Bill Hamilton.

Hayes is heavily relied upon by Inslaw for his statements regarding the alleged distribution of Inslaw's enhanced PROMIS software. He claimed to have purchased word processing equipment that contained Enhanced PROMIS from a local U.S. Attorney's office. He also told Bill Hamilton and Nancy Hamilton that he met with Earl Brian, Richard Secord, and Oliver North in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the mid-1980s, where those three individuals were allegedly purchasing weapons for the Contras in Nicaragua, and Brian was marketing Inslaw's PROMIS software to the government of Brazil.¹

The Special Counsel's investigation, however, found Hayes' claims to be unreliable. The House Committee, which also heard Hayes' accusations, noted that he failed to provide any documentation to corroborate his charges. Even Bill Hamilton reportedly regarded Hayes' claim about the local U.S. Attorney's office selling him surplus word processing equipment with enhanced PROMIS as "highly improbable." The Committee's examination of computer disks provided by Hayes, which he claimed contained enhanced PROMIS, revealed them to be nothing more than training programs for word processing equipment. Furthermore, Hayes' promises to provide information that would establish the use of enhanced PROMIS by the Canadian government were never fulfilled. The Special Counsel concluded that Hayes' allegations were not supported by credible evidence.¹