"According to some reports, the [Mena] airport, from 1981 to 1985, was a major transit point for the entrance of cocaine and heroin into the United States," Sherwood wrote. Three Colombians eventually were arrested and convicted of the murder. See Rafael L Mena's age, phone number, house address, email address, social media accounts, public records, and check for criminal records on Spokeo. He decided to talk about Mena. })(); Barry and his wife talked about going into witness protection, but like in the movie, he decided against it. Reprints and media inquiries: [emailprotected]. The real Barry Seal never had a brother-in-law who was killed by a car bomb. In fact, even the Wikipedia links Ive included in this paragraph are mostly lies. -Vulture.com, Yes. In another deposition in the Reed case, Russell Welch, an Arkansas state police investigator who has looked extensively at Mena, says that Young asked him in 1992 if Clintons name had ever come up in connection with Mena. "The original information dates back to the activities of a pilot, Barry Seal (now deceased), who is purported to have flown guns to South America from Mena and drugs back into the United States," according to the memo. Inside the plane, according to Brown, were another pilot and two beaners common laborers who looked like Central American Indians. -Daily Mail Online. Like in the American Made movie, Barry Seal was allowed to fly out of the country and return with illegal drugs that the feds made sure never reached their targets. Some facts, however, are indisputable. Doug Liman had previously modeled Chris Cooper's villain in The Bourne Identity after North, which reveals Liman's feelings about the controversial figure North. He suspected a CIA involvement, although his brother did not confirm it. Welsh said it had not, but Youngs concern was intriguing. As part of his reduced sentence, the judge had ordered Barry to spend his nights, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., at a Salvation Army halfway house for six months. Judicial Watch On Issue: The Battle for Election Integrity, Judicial Watch On Issue: Leading the Battle Against Illegal Immigration, Al Qaeda Plans Plane Attacks Using New Techniques and Tactics as Air Marshals Keep Getting Sent to Mexican Border, Biden staying at St. Croix villa of wealthy donors who got state dinner invite, Tom Fitton's Judicial Watch Weekly Update. A flamboyant businessman who continued to deal in aircraft, Seal lost several planes among assets seized in Louisiana and Arkansas in a jeopardy assessment by the Internal Revenue Service in a $29,487,718 tax lien placed against his property. Yes, at least according to his wife and others who knew him. Patterson was being deposed in a legal suit filed against Buddy Young, the former head of Clintons security detail, and another man by Terry reed, who says he trained Contra pilots, under Seals supervision, at Nella, Arkansas. The Louisiana attorney general would tell the Justice Department that Seal had "smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion in drugs into the U.S." When asked who his source was, Jacoby implied that it was "an aide in the White House" and that Oliver North had the most motivation to release the information. It was no coincidence when Donald TrumpappointedWilliam Barr as his Attorney General. The goal was to expose the involvement of the Nicaraguan Sandinista regime as a major supplier of cocaine from Colombia.". She is a brunette, not a blond like Sarah Wright's character in the movie. Images like the one earlier on this page show Medelln Cartel boss Pablo Escobar with Sandinista government officials and soldiers, who were loading cocaine onto Seal's plane, nicknamed the Fat Lady. alan dershowitz cost per hour; what is pak po chicken; sonamukhi powder benefits; Barry arrived that evening at approximately 6 p.m. and backed his white Cadillac into a parking space. "The aircraft flew with various cameras used to obtain photographic evidence of the Sandinistas in the act of smuggling narcotics," Sherwood wrote. "Despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, the cases were dropped," according to the report. : Then the plane dropped to what Brown calls an altitude a hell of a lot lower than what youd think youd fly. He suspected Seal was trying to evade radar. However, when a drug shipment was seized by the DEA, the Medellin Cartel blamed Seal for the loss. Brown was 28 years old in 1984. -Court DocumentsThe 2016 Bryan Cranston movie The Infiltrator also depicts Barry Seal's assassination, but it is historically inaccurate. In its review of the 2017 movie "American Made" -- about Seal -- the New York Times called it the Conspiratorial Industrial Complex. Brown and the co-pilot, who never exchanged any more than a few words, remained on board. The explosives were supposedly going to anti-Castro Cuban fighters. They referred him to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He had already been flying planes for nearly half his life, earning his student pilot's license at age 15 and pilot's license at 16. Follow him on Twitter @micah_morrison. He gathered information on Medellin cartel kingpins and participated in at least two drug runs to Nicaragua, where the Reagan administration was ramping up operations against the Sandinista government. Jul 04, 2022 12:40 P.M. Brown, a narcotics cop, got upset. Subsequently, the special prosecutor investigating Whitewater subpoenaed Brown to disclose what he knew about Clintons connections to David L. Hale. The White House saw the pictures as proof of the communist Sandinista government's corruption and believed that the photos would help to convince the public of the need to support and arm the rebels (Contras) in Nicaragua. (function() { Bushs Attorney General was William Barr. In her suit, Lisa, who is not depicted in the movie, also claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the script, including the fact that Barry had five children, not three, and that the movie falsely suggests he was an alcoholic and a reckless pilot. He didn't meet Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers in person until 1984, after his arrest when he was working as an informant for the DEA on an undercover operation. Brown recalls that on the morning of this particular flight, Seal had told him to drive to Mena Intermountain Regional Airport, a remote air strip near the Oklahoma border. During the past few years, the activity at the airstrip has aroused the interest of local law enforcement, who then attempted to conduct some investigations but were blocked by the U.S. Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. Suddenly, though, the Arkansas State Police were uncooperative. Lisa Seal Frigon, Barry's daughter from his first marriage, sued Universal, claiming that the studio should have purchased Barry's life rights from her, not his third wife Deborah who they paid $350,000. Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Brown? The CIAs inspector general investigated and released a terse statement saying no evidence has been found that the CIA was associated with money laundering, narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling or other illegal activities at or around Mena. There was, however, a classified two-week exercise and some contracting for routine aviation-related services.. It is believed that the Colombians put a hit out on Barry after they learned he was going to help the feds with the extradition of Jorge Ochoa from Spain, one of the heads of the Medelln Cartel. I understand that Fred Hitz or someone from his staff, along with other CIA officers will brief Congressman Leach on Friday 21 July in an attempt to address his concerns about these and other allegations. Goodwin told me and ABC that Brown had passed it. Browns break with Clinton came after Brown made what he says was his second flight from Mena to Central America. Seal's exploits brought him into close contact with infamous figures like Medelln cartel kingpins Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa and Panama dictator Manuel Noriega and he was . This draws the attention of the CIA. Seal flipped, becoming a valuable government informant. Last March, in a legally binding deposition, trooper Larry Patterson also said that Clinton knew about Mena. "I resigned from the office in November of 1985, and my successor took over the investigation. var sc_security="740aa5bc". Too many secrets have been kept for too long, she wrote, too much important history has been hidden, lost or destroyed. "I initiated a grand jury investigation in relation to money laundering through the Mena airport in 1985," Hutchinson said Friday. barry seal mena house address. Upset that he has lost his pension and healthcare at TWA, he embraces the idea of making $2,000 per kilo of cocaine smuggled into the United States. "The aircraft flew with various cameras used to obtain photographic evidence of the Sandinistas in the act of smuggling narcotics," Sherwood wrote. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. -TIME. apartments in dallas that allow airbnb Uncovering hot babes since 1919. "At the time Seal started cooperating with DEA Miami, he had an established base at Rich Mountain Aviation and had frequent contact with subjects," according to the document. Brown says he never saw the bags again. There is no information on Barry Seal's net worth, but it must have been substantial. Bush's anti-drug task force in hopes of convincing them of his value as an informant. var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; foundations, and corporations and are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. -Vulture. People in Mena say the drugs never got there, that the drugs were jettisoned over drop zones in the Louisiana swamps before Seal's planes made it back to Mena. Why arent these pilots who flew trafficked minors arrested and charged? She was an experienced writer and had prepared for the legal review. That charge could only have come from the man then Governor Clinton who knew that his former bodyguard had dealings with the CIA ten years ago. No. After a barrage of requests from different people and media outlets under the federal Freedom of Information Act, on Wednesday the FBI released more than 1,000 pages of its file on Seal: vault.fbi.gov/recently-added. The mysteries of Mena revolve around a drug-smuggling pilot named Barry Seal. Leveritt has written convincing book-length studies of the Memphis Three case and the deaths of teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives, the Arkansas boys on the tracks. In Whos Afraid of Barry Seal?, in the Arkansas Times, Leveritt wrote that secrets are still being carefully kept, especially in Arkansas. In advance of the recent Tom Cruise movie about Seal, American Made, an official associated with the Arkansas Studies Institute, an affiliate of the University of Arkansas and the Central Arkansas Libraryboth state institutionsconvinced Leveritt to write a book about Mena, as a tie-in to the movie. "Allegations later surfaced that many of the gun shipments sent to Nicaragua as part of the Iran-Contra Affair were sent from the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport. In 1981, Seal set up shop at Mena. It aborted the scheduled trial of Casper W. Weinberger which had been schedule to begin on January 5, 1993. Lasater went to jail for a cocaine connection, as did his friend, Roger Clinton, Bill Clintons brother. In 1983, the DEA arrested him on drug smuggling charges. In exploring the American Made true story, we discovered that Doug Liman's father, lawyer Arthur L. Liman, ran the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra. Judicial Watch: Fighting for Clean Elections. While the filmmakers were shooting the movie in South America, a local pilot who was working with them said that he had met Barry. Undercover cameras installed on Seal's plane captured photos on the tarmac of a Nicaraguan airport. FITTON: Heavy Lifting Needed By Congress on Corruption! Just prior to the movie's release, news broke that the family of deceased stunt pilot Alan Purwin was suing American Made's producers for wrongful death. In court documents, the family alleged that "lapses in planning, coordinating, scheduling, and flight safety" contributed to the fatal crash in the mountains of Colombia. For their efforts, their careers were crushed. In 1986, he was convicted of drug distribution, and lost his state securities license. Corporate Office Arcadia Inc. 2301 East Vernon Ave. Vernon, CA 90058. Current Address: HERA E Avalon Dr, Phoenix, AZ. Counterrevolutionaries, known as Contras, were battling the Sandinistas. 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