The Info Web

#INSLAW

99 entries

People (77)

  • Alan Patricof New York venture capitalist who founded Patricof & Co. Ventures, later Apax Partners, the firm whose 53rd Street Ventures fund invested in INSLAW about 1982.
  • Allan R. Tessler Senior managing partner of the New York firm Shea and Gould whom Bill Hamilton's affidavit named as Earl Brian's and Hadron's merger lawyer and as a relative of INSLAW's investor Daniel Tessler, who denied any relation; later a merchant banker, L Brands director and Hudson Institute chairman.
  • Alvin Ash Alvin Wilson Ash (1921-2019) was a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who, as a civilian programmer and systems analyst at Computer Usage Company, helped develop PROMIS for the DC U.S. Attorney's Office, subsequently worked at the LEAA within the Department of Justice, sat on the INSLAW advisory board, and was a close personal friend of Bill Hamilton.
  • Anthony Moscato Career Justice Department administrator, acting director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys during the Bua inquiry, whom Bill Hamilton accused of helping deny Judge Bason's reappointment; he told the special counsel he had nothing to do with it.
  • Ari Ben-Menashe Ari Ben-Menashe is an Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian who describes himself as a former military-intelligence official and became a recurring source for claims about U.S.-Israeli arms dealing, the October Surprise, PROMIS, Robert Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein, claims repeatedly found uncorroborated and, by a congressional task force, not credible.
  • Arnold Burns Arnold Burns served as Deputy Attorney General under Edwin Meese and was the senior DOJ official whose private admission to investigators that INSLAW's proprietary rights claim was legitimate became a central finding of the House Judiciary Committee's 1992 INSLAW investigation.
  • Bill Hamilton William A. Hamilton is a former NSA analyst who developed the PROMIS case management software and, as founder of INSLAW, led a decade-long legal battle against the Department of Justice over its alleged theft and international distribution of the software.
  • C. Boyden Gray Individual asked to represent INSLAW in the PROMIS software case after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
  • C. Madison Brewer C. Madison 'Brick' Brewer was the DOJ project manager for the INSLAW PROMIS implementation contract, whose prior employment as general counsel for INSLAW's predecessor organization became central to allegations that his administration of the contract was driven by personal vendetta against Bill Hamilton.
  • Charles Docter INSLAW's bankruptcy counsel who told the House Judiciary Committee that in July 1987 the former bankruptcy judge Roger Whelan threatened to organize opposition to Judge Bason's reappointment over an unpaid fee petition.
  • 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.
  • Charles R. Work Charles R. Work was Deputy Chief of the DC U.S. Attorney's Office Superior Court Division who co-directed the original PROMIS design team with Joan E. Jacoby and project manager Bill Hamilton in 1969, then served as Deputy Administrator of LEAA from 1973 to 1975 where he continued funding INSLAW and PROMIS expansion.
  • Charles Trombetta Charles Trombetta was identified by Lois Battistoni as an individual who might have information about the DOJ and Inslaw.
  • Christine Odell Cook Miller Judge of the Court of Federal Claims who, as hearing officer on the Senate's 1995 referral of INSLAW's claims, ruled on July 31, 1997, that every version of PROMIS was in the public domain and INSLAW was owed nothing, ending the affair in the courts.
  • Cornelius Blackshear Cornelius Blackshear was a U.S.
  • Daniel Murphy In early 1991, INSLAW Counsel Elliot Richardson asked Murphy to review the plausibility of claims about the covert dissemination of PROMIS for intelligence-tracking applications and to give his opinion on whether the claimed intelligence uses could explain Richard Thornburgh's inexplicable failure t
  • Daniel Tessler Daniel Tessler managed a venture capital fund called 53rd Street Ventures, Inc., which was formed around 1976 as an investment company.
  • Dean C. Merrill Dean C. Merrill co-founded the Institute for Law and Social Research (ILSR) with Bill Hamilton on October 15, 1973, and served as a Vice President of INSLAW, Inc. through at least April 1982, having also been a member of the original 1969 team that designed the PROMIS software under the direction of Joan E. Jacoby and Charles R. Work.
  • Dennis W. Wright Dennis W. Wright was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team who went on to work for INSLAW directly by 1974, and by 1990 was a Senior Research Computer Scientist in the DOJ's ICMS Re-engineering project within the Division of Innovations and Systems Development.
  • Dominic Laiti Dominic Laiti was the Chairman of Hadron, Inc., a company that became central to Inslaw's allegations of a conspiracy to steal its PROMIS software.
  • Edward Hurley Edward Hurley was a Vice President at Hadron, Inc., in charge of its criminal justice systems work.
  • Elliot Richardson Elliot Richardson served as U.S. Attorney General under Nixon before resigning during the Saturday Night Massacre, and later became INSLAW's lead outside counsel, declaring the PROMIS conspiracy 'far more sinister than anything revealed in Watergate' and publicly stating his belief that Danny Casolaro was murdered.
  • Floyd Bankson Floyd Bankson was a system engineer in the Criminal Division of the DOJ, involved with the implementation of Project Eagle.
  • Frederick G. Watts Frederick G. Watts was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team; no further biographical details have been identified.
  • Garnett Taylor Garnett Taylor was a former security officer at the DOJ.
  • George Francis Bason, Jr. George Francis Bason Jr. was the D.C. Bankruptcy Court judge who ruled in 1987 that the DOJ stole INSLAW's PROMIS software by trickery, fraud, and deceit, and whose non-reappointment generated allegations of DOJ retaliation.
  • Gregory McKain INSLAW programmer whom Jack Rugh of the Justice Department telephoned in February 1985 with a job offer and the word that the trustees expected INSLAW to be liquidated within sixty days, the call Judge Bason treated as evidence of a plan to convert the bankruptcy.
  • Harold H. Titus Jr. Harold H. Titus Jr. served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia following Thomas A. Flannery and, in February 1973, made the decision to upgrade PROMIS to a real-time online system capable of tracking more than 160 variables per case.
  • Jack Brooks Jack Brooks (1922-2012) was a Texas Democrat who represented the Beaumont area in Congress for 42 years, chaired the House Judiciary Committee from 1989 to 1995, and presided over the three-year INSLAW investigation that produced House Report 102-857 (September 1992), which found that the Department of Justice had stolen PROMIS software and named Edwin Meese and Richard Thornburgh as having obstructed the inquiry.
  • Jack Rugh Jack Rugh was a figure in the PROMIS Software Scandal, primarily involved in the administration of the Inslaw contract with the DOJ.
  • James Johnston James Johnston was the Director of Contract Administration in the Justice Management Division of the DOJ.
  • James Knapp James Knapp was a non-career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the DOJ.
  • James M. Etheridge James M. Etheridge served as assistant director for computer systems in the Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia during the original 1969 PROMIS design effort, became acting director of that office in 1970, and served as Deputy Director of the National Center for Prosecution Management from 1974.
  • Janet Reno Wilcher was interviewed by Carl Stern, Reno's public relations man, regarding the contents of the letter.
  • Janis Sposato Janis Sposato was an Administrative Officer at the DOJ.
  • Joan E. Jacoby Joan E. Jacoby was Director of the Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia who co-led the 1969 team that designed PROMIS alongside Charles R. Work and project manager Bill Hamilton, and later directed national prosecution research programs at the National Center for Prosecution Management and the Bureau of Social Science Research.
  • John A. Beltori Individual identified by INSLAW as a witness providing circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy by Earl Brian and DOJ to steal PROMIS software.
  • John Keeney John Keeney was a career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the DOJ.
  • John L. Gizzarelli John L. Gizzarelli, Jr., was a Navy cryptologic officer who worked on the 1969 PROMIS design team under Charles R. Work, Joan E. Jacoby, and Bill Hamilton, subsequently attended Georgetown Law School, served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for DC, and served as general counsel at INSLAW in 1973.
  • John M. Middleton John M. Middleton was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team under Joan E. Jacoby, Charles R. Work, and Bill Hamilton; his subsequent career is difficult to trace due to the commonality of the name.
  • John Otto John Otto was the former Acting Director of the FBI.
  • Jonathan Ben Cnaan Jonathan Ben Cnaan was an account executive with 53rd Street Ventures, a New York City venture capital firm that held a small equity investment in Inslaw.
  • Joyce H. Deroy Joyce H. Deroy was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team who subsequently joined INSLAW as a systems analyst engaged in programming and data analysis, contributed research to the PROMIS Research Project under LEAA grants in the 1970s, and by 1996 was serving as acting executive director of university computing at American University.
  • Lee Rawls Justice Department legislative affairs chief under Thornburgh who advised him how to thwart the House Banking Committee's BNL inquiry and corresponded with the House Judiciary Committee during its INSLAW investigation; later chief of staff to Senator Frist and to FBI Director Mueller.
  • Leonard Garment Leonard Garment was a prominent Washington attorney, former Nixon White House Counsel, and partner at Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, whose meeting with Deputy Attorney General Arnold Burns preceded the dismissal of INSLAW's lead litigation counsel from that firm.
  • Lois Battistoni Lois Battistoni was a former administrative employee of the DOJ Criminal Division.
  • Lowell Jensen Alameda County district attorney, then associate and deputy attorney general under Edwin Meese, named by INSLAW and the House Judiciary Committee as a central figure in the taking of the PROMIS software.
  • Marilyn Jacobs Marilyn Jacobs was the secretary to Lowell Jensen at the DOJ.
  • Marilyn Titus Marilyn Titus worked for Simeon from September 1982 until January 1984, and then for Hadron for four years after leaving Simeon.
  • Mark M. Richard Deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division for twenty years, named by a Senate investigator's source as knowing of Lowell Jensen's conduct in the INSLAW matter and questioned by the Bua inquiry over the Office of Special Investigations; he called INSLAW's charges slanderous.
  • Miles Matthews Miles Matthews was the Executive Officer of the Criminal Division within the DOJ.
  • Nancy Hamilton Nancy Burke Hamilton co-founded INSLAW, Inc. with her husband Bill Hamilton and co-owned the company throughout its PROMIS software litigation against the U.S. Department of Justice.
  • Nicholas J. Bua Special Counsel appointed in 1991 to investigate the Inslaw/PROMIS allegations, whose 1993 report found no credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
  • Patricia Cloherty Patricia Cloherty worked for Patricof and Company in New York from about 1970 until 1977, when she was appointed by President Carter to be Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA).
  • Patricia Wald Patricia Wald was the Chief Judge of the U.S.
  • Paul Wilcher On or about May 21, 1993, Wilcher hand-delivered a 100-page letter to Janet Reno, the Attorney General, claiming that holdover DOJ employees from the Reagan-Bush era were responsible for a number of government cover-ups, unbeknownst to the Attorney General and President Bill Clinton.
  • Peter Videnieks Peter Videnieks was the DOJ contracting officer who administered the INSLAW-PROMIS implementation contract, negotiated Modification 12 in April 1983, and became a central figure in allegations that the government deliberately defrauded INSLAW of its proprietary software.
  • Richard D'Amore Richard D'Amore is a partner in Hambro International Equity Partners ('Hambro'), a venture capital company based in Boston, Massachusetts, that invests in existing businesses.
  • Robert Bratt Robert Bratt was the Executive Officer for the DOJ's Criminal Division.
  • Robert H. Cain Robert H. Cain was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team and later joined INSLAW; no additional biographical details have been identified.
  • Robert Hanssen Robert Philip Hanssen (1944-2023) was an FBI supervisory agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence from 1979 to 2001, betraying approximately 50 human assets and thousands of pages of classified material before pleading guilty to 15 espionage counts in 2001.
  • Robert Whitaker Robert Whitaker was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team who appears to have been an executive officer within the DC Department of Corrections in 1969-1970; further identification is complicated by the commonality of the name.
  • Robert Whitely Robert Whitely was the DOJ's auditor on the Inslaw contract.
  • Ronald LeGrand Ronald LeGrand was the Chief Investigator for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
  • Royce Lamberth Chief of the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington who, weeks before taking the federal bench in 1987, delivered Judge Bason's INSLAW ruling to the judge chairing the panel on Bason's reappointment; later presiding judge of the FISA court.
  • Sandra Spooner Sandra Spooner was the Deputy Director of the Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, within the DOJ.
  • Sidney H. Brounstein Sidney H. Brounstein was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team, a Peat Marwick consultant who had previously worked in IBM's Federal Systems Division, and subsequently Vice President of INSLAW, Inc.; he died June 7, 2017, at age 88.
  • Soo Lee Soo Lee was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team and by 1974 was a management analyst for the Office of Criminal Justice Plans and Analysis of the DC government; further identification is complicated by the commonality of the name.
  • Stanley H. Turner Stanley H. Turner held a doctorate and served as Assistant Director for Research and Analysis at the Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia under Joan E. Jacoby, and was a member of the original 1969 PROMIS design team.
  • Terry D. Miller In January 1991, Miller sent a letter to FBI Director William Sessions, stating his belief that FOIMS was stolen.
  • Thomas A. Flannery Thomas A. Flannery was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1967 to 1970 who, in 1969, directed the commissioning of the computer-based case management system that became PROMIS, and subsequently served as a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia from 1970 until his death in 1993, including as Chief Judge from 1977.
  • Thomas Olmstead Olmstead questioned Peter Videnieks during the trial about his knowledge of the Wackenhut Corporation-Cabazon Indian Reservation joint venture, his relationship with Earl Brian, and his involvement with Hadron Company.
  • William Barr Former CIA employee who became Attorney General in 1991 and again in 2019; he appointed the INSLAW and BNL special counsels and urged the Iran-Contra pardons of 1992.
  • William Bradford Reynolds William Bradford Reynolds served as Reagan's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights from 1981 to 1988 and in 2005 authenticated a May 16, 1985 letter he had signed directing U.S. Attorney William F. Weld that PROMIS software equipped with a surveillance back door was to be distributed to a Saudi sheikh via arms dealers Manucher Ghorbanifar, Adnan Khashoggi, and Richard Armitage, with funds routed through Credit Suisse and the National Commercial Bank.
  • William Bryant, Jr. Senior U.S. District Court Judge who affirmed the bankruptcy court's findings in the INSLAW case, ruling DOJ performed its contract in a hostile environment.
  • William Sessions William Sessions was the Director of the FBI.
  • William White United States Trustee for the District of Columbia on the INSLAW bankruptcy whom Anthony Pasciuto said Thomas Stanton pressured to convert the case to liquidation, a claim White denied and Bua found unsupported; distinct from the Criminal Division's Philip White.

Organizations (17)

  • 53rd Street Ventures New York venture fund, managed first by Patricof and Company and from 1984 by Tessler and Cloherty, that put 100,000 dollars into INSLAW in 1982 and whose managers Bill Hamilton accused of pressing him to surrender voting control in December 1984.
  • Accumenics Litigation-support software company bought by Earl Brian's Hadron about 1983, alleged by Bill Hamilton to have received a 40-million-dollar Justice Department contract in October 1987 through the Meese associate James L. Byrnes, who told the Bua inquiry he knew nothing of it.
  • Allen and Company Wall Street investment bank of Charles Allen where Hadron's Dominic Laiti and Simeon's Paul Wormeli went for capital in September 1983, and which bought 7.8 percent of SCT for an unnamed client before SCT's 1986 bid for INSLAW, the two facts on which INSLAW built its Earl Brian financing theory.
  • Department of Justice The federal department of prosecutors, the FBI, the DEA and the U.S. Attorneys, in the vault the defendant in the INSLAW case, the obstructor found by the BCCI and BNL inquiries, the CIA's partner in the 1954 and 1982 understandings on prosecution, and the investigator of The Finders.
  • Executive Office for United States Attorneys The Justice Department office that supervises the U.S. Attorneys, which signed INSLAW's 1982 PROMIS contract and whose project staff, Brewer, Videnieks and Rugh, ran the dispute that Judge Bason found was a scheme to take the software by fraud.
  • Hadron Hadron, Inc. was a Washington-area technology and information services company in which Earl Brian held a controlling interest, and which INSLAW alleged was positioned to acquire INSLAW's assets and software contracts as the intended beneficiary of the DOJ's alleged scheme to destroy the company.
  • Hambro International Equity Partners Boston venture firm that invested about 400,000 dollars in INSLAW in 1983 as lead investor, placing its partner Richard D'Amore on the board, and that Bill Hamilton said joined 53rd Street Ventures in threatening to withhold financing unless he ceded voting control.
  • House Committee on the Judiciary Standing committee of the House since 1813, overseeing the Justice Department, whose 1992 report under Jack Brooks found strong evidence the department stole INSLAW's PROMIS and sought an independent counsel.
  • INSLAW INSLAW, Inc. is a Washington-area software company that developed the PROMIS case management system and became the center of a major legal and political scandal after alleging the U.S. Department of Justice stole its proprietary software and drove the company into bankruptcy.
  • LEAA The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration was a federal agency created by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 that provided hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for law enforcement and judicial assistance programs, including the original PROMIS case management software.
  • National Center for Prosecution Management The National Center for Prosecution Management was a nonprofit corporation established by the Department of Justice with LEAA funding in December 1971 to provide technical and management assistance to prosecutors nationwide, promote adoption of the PROMIS software system, and conduct research on the prosecution function, with Joan E. Jacoby as its first Executive Director.
  • Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia The Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia was a DC government research unit whose Director, Joan E. Jacoby, co-led the 1969 team that commissioned and designed the PROMIS software under a $60,000 LEAA grant, and later administered the National Center for Prosecution Management.
  • Patricof and Company New York venture capital firm, formally Allen Patricof and Associates, that managed the 53rd Street Ventures fund and through it made a 100,000-dollar investment in INSLAW about 1982; the firm where Patricia Cloherty worked before and after her government service.
  • Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. was the international accounting firm that held the original 1969 LEAA grant to design PROMIS - with Bill Hamilton serving as project manager - before successive mergers in 1978 and 1986 transformed it into KPMG.
  • Senate Judiciary Committee Standing Senate committee since 1816, overseeing the Justice Department and FBI and judicial nominations, whose chief investigator relayed a career official's INSLAW allegations to the company in 1988.
  • Simeon Simeon, Inc. was a small software and technology company acquired by Hadron, Inc. in 1982, after which it operated as a Hadron subsidiary; it appears in this vault as part of the PROMIS scandal cluster through allegations by INSLAW founder Bill Hamilton that a 1983 fundraising trip by Hadron principals Paul Wormeli and Dominic Laiti was intended to raise capital to acquire PROMIS software - allegations that both Wormeli and Hamilton's own witness Marilyn Titus denied.
  • U.S. Attorney's office The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia was the original client for the PROMIS case management software, commissioning the system in 1969 under U.S. Attorney Thomas A. Flannery and deploying it January 1, 1971; the EOUSA later signed the March 1982 implementation contract with INSLAW that became the central dispute in the PROMIS Software Scandal.

Programs (2)

  • Project Eagle Multi-million-dollar Justice Department procurement of the mid-1980s to automate its litigating divisions, which INSLAW alleged was meant to carry PROMIS for companies tied to Earl Brian.
  • PROMIS PROMIS (Prosecutor's Management Information System) was a case management software developed by INSLAW beginning in 1971 that became the center of a major legal and intelligence scandal after the U.S. Justice Department allegedly stole the proprietary version and distributed it internationally with a hidden surveillance backdoor.

Events (3)

  • October Surprise The October Surprise allegation holds that William J. Casey and other figures in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign secretly negotiated with Iranian representatives to delay the release of 52 American hostages past Election Day in exchange for promises of arms and release of frozen Iranian assets, with the hostages released minutes after Reagan was sworn in on January 20, 1981.
  • Project Abbreviation RCMP national security inquiry of 1999 and 2000, run by Sean McDade, into whether a trap-doored PROMIS ran in Canadian agencies; the RCMP said in 2024 that no records exist.
  • PROMIS Software Scandal The INSLAW Affair was a legal and political scandal over allegations that the U.S. Department of Justice stole the PROMIS case management software from its developer and distributed it internationally with a surveillance backdoor.