Pat Shannan
Cary Gagan - >"THEY LET IT HAPPEN"
Thu Mar 11 23:36:27 2004
64.140.158.69

"THEY LET IT HAPPEN"

Fed Informant Documents Treason in OKC Bombing
by Pat Shannan

As a self-confessed "international importer and domestic transporter," Cary Gagan, 54, admits that he is "no choir boy." But neither is he a cold-blooded killer, he is quick to add. As a government informant with an immunity grant, he took every step he could to help the federal government stop the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, of which he had solid prior knowledge, but "they let it happen," says Gagan. "They" were the FBI, the United States Attorney, and many agents of the U. S. Marshals Service.

On March 13th, Mr. Gagan gave a two-hour deposition before a newly formed citizen's committee known as the Oklahomans for Truth. A court stenographer and videographer were present.

Upon viewing the tape, Denver Whistle Blower Stewart Webb said, "These well documented charges amount to no less than treasonous acts by those sworn to `defend and protect against all enemies foreign and domestic.' These people should be tried and, if found guilty, swiftly executed."

Prosecutors would later make a big noise about the ANFO bomb being built at Geary Lake State Park in Kansas. (Count 35 of the eventual indictment reads: "On or about April 18, 1995, at Geary Lake State Park in Kansas, McVEIGH and NICHOLS constructed an explosive truck bomb with barrels filled with a mixture of ammonium nitrate, fuel and other explosives placed in the cargo compartment of the rental truck.") But it is Cary Gagan's testimony that he, under instructions from a federal agent, delivered a mixer and what he believes to have been bombing materials to a service station in Dwight, Kansas on April 10th, nine days prior to the Murrah explosions.

A former acquaintance who happened to be in the right place at the right time - this time in March of 1994 - Gagan had again met two Middle Easterners named "Omar" and "Ahmad" for whom he had once performed some undercover favors while they all were involved in international "importing." In September, Omar, Ahmad, and a third, yet un-named conspirator paid Cary Gagan $250,000 to haul 15-20 timers and detonators across the border from Mexico. Six months into this new relationship, Gagan saw the blueprints of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City spread out on the motel room desk and listened to a discussion "in either Arabic or another foreign language." Gagan speaks only English, but by this time realized that an attack was about to occur sometime in the near future.

On September 14, 1994, immediately after receiving the suitcase full of cash, Gagan went to the U. S. Marshals and obtained a grant of immunity from the United States Attorney, Henry Solano. He was allowed to keep the money and the immunity from prosecution was supposed to be in exchange for keeping the authorities informed. It may be the only grant of immunity in a domestic terrorism case in the history of America. The Justice Department would later regret having issued it and still has not washed the egg from its own face for doing so. But Cary Gagan went to work as a federal informant, thinking he would be able to prevent the upcoming terrorism. An opportunist, he was aware of federal statutes providing for between $500,000 and $2,000,000 in reward money for preventing an act of domestic terrorism.

Over the course of the next six months, Gagan was perplexed by the lack of interest in the information he was providing. No one was returning his phone calls - not the U. S. Attorney, not the Marshals, not the FBI. Nor could he understand why he was never polygraphed, a standard operating procedure for law enforcement officials before issuing immunity to informants.

"Even my attorney told me before I went in the first time, `Gagan, they're going to polygraph you,' and I said, `Fine, let's get after it. Let's just do it.' But they never did, and they're supposed to."

(After the building was blown out, Brig. Gen. Ben Patron and other demolition experts showed with graphic evidence beyond a reasonable doubt how the building was blown from the inside. At least four charges were detonated at strategic columns on the third floor level, dumping the higher floors into the second floor nursery. Gen. Partin emphatically asserts, "This is not conjecture, and it is not a theory. This is the way it the building came down." Gagan's testimony finally fingers a potential source.)

Next, the federales labeled Gagan as a "mental case," but even in this alleged state of dementia, he has litigated and prevailed over the Colorado Attorney General in recent court cases. Once, when he was in custody in a separate case, he was relegated to the funny farm for thirty days observation and tests. The results showed that he was of above average intelligence with no paranoia, etc., and capable of speaking for himself in courtroom argument. Indeed, he was. According to Gagan, the Attorney General had altered trial transcripts before passing the case on to the Appellate Court. The U. S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction in favor of Gagan on these grounds, but no disciplinary action was taken against the prosecutors, who settled with him out of court.

OKLAHOMANS FOR TRUTH

In October of 1995, grand jury member Hoppy Heidelberg was removed from duty without cause by Federal Judge David Russell. Of course, Heidelberg and all close observers knew the real cause was Heidelberg's persistence in asking too many sensitive questions about the Oklahoma City bombing case. He had sat on that jury since the previous January, three months prior to the explosions at Murrah.

Frustrated at the U. S. Attorney's reluctance to pursue anything which did not point toward the guilt of Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols, Heidelberg had written a letter to Judge Russell outlining what was being ignored and should be investigated by that grand jury.

"I thought it was the grand jury's job to investigate, but I was learning more about this case from reading the newspaper and watching television than I was from sitting in on the closed sessions on the panel," Heidelberg says from his horse ranch today.

"Defiant Grand Juror Pulled From Okla. City Bombing Case," barked the front page of USA Today. Following Heidelberg's 2-page letter citing 11 pivotal points of neglected investigation, Judge Russell responded with one curt paragraph: "Effective immediately, you are dismissed from the grand jury. Your obligation of secrecy continues. Any disclosure of matters that occurred before the grand jury constitutes a contempt of court. Each violation of the obligation of secrecy may be punished cumulatively. Sincerely, David L. Russell, United States District Judge."

When it became evident that the second impaneled grand jury in OKC was going to be another whitewash, the non-profit corporation named "Oklahomans for Truth Committee" was formed by Heidelberg, who was now more "defiant" than ever to get to the truth. In the fall of last year, he also ran an ill-financed campaign for governor, in hopes of meeting Gov. Frank Keating in debate, but it was not to be. On election day, Heidelberg's vote count was insignificant.

Only hours after the Murrah explosions, Gov. Keating was seen on national television announcing the fact that unexploded bombs had been discovered and were hauled from the Murrah Building for examination. He confidently assured Americans that all of these bombs carry "signatures" and as soon as the experts could examine them, "We will know exactly who is responsible for this." He has never mentioned this in a public statement again.

Later, when confronted with the evidence that the bombs could not have been ANFO, Keating responded to a reporter, "I really don't care if the bomb was fertilizer or not, it's irrelevant to me!" (With reference to the murdered Branch Davidians in Waco, Keating is reported to have also insensitively stated, "If you expect me to feel sorry for those people, I'm not. Those people, including the 17 children, got everything they deserved." Reported by Louis O'Neal from conversation in the Governor's office.)

This very important point is not irrelevant to Hoppy Heidelberg and the Oklahomans for Truth. If the bomb was not fertilizer - and experts continue to point out that it certainly was not - then the conviction and death sentence of Tim McVeigh is a travesty of justice. But Keating, formerly an FBI agent, federal prosecutor, and high-ranking BATF official in Washington, has been mending public relations fences for the government ever since his slip of the tongue on April 19th 1995. The same man who publicly announced that "this was a very sophisticated operation by a very sophisticated group of people," soon was cheering the convictions of two very unsophisticated farm boys. "These two bottom-crawlers pulled this off and there is nothing more to be said - except that they should be convicted and executed as quickly as possible." (Los Angeles Times, 1/28/96, 15 months before the trial McVeigh trial began.)

At a self-aggrandizing moment, when asked about how the nation may be viewing Oklahoma since the bombings, Keating cites a statement by Army General Norman Schwartzkopf, while they were on a hunting trip together.

"You know," said the General, "I've been in big wars and little wars, big tragedies and little tragedies, and big operations and little operations, but I have not seen anything handled with the professionalism, the skill of the community, and the tremendous efficiency of this city."

Keating's history of such delusions of grandeur has former State Rep. Charles Key, Hoppy Heidelberg and others wondering 1] if such a conversation really took place; 2] if Schwartzkopf would remember it, and 3] if it really did, just what those two might have been smoking on their hunting trip that afternoon.

On March 13, 1999, Oklahomans for the Truth Committee took the depositions of Cary James Gagan of Denver, Colorado and Jane Graham of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Graham was the HUD employee and union president who noticed some suspicious characters in the Murrah Building both days and minutes prior to the tragedy. It was two years later before she saw the same people on a video copy of TV news stories. Her story was chronicled by Media Bypass and other publications in 1998.

Jane Graham, 55, worked for HUD on the 7th floor of the Murrah Building. She was also president of the employees union. At a few minutes before nine o'clock that fateful morning, she took the elevator to the 9th floor to participate in a computer seminar. Her sworn testimony confirms that of hundreds of others who heard and/or saw two distinct explosions.

At 9:02 a.m. she had just sat down and turned on her computer when she felt a rumble for several seconds. Initially thinking it was an earthquake, she sat frozen until a fellow worker announced, "That's a bomb! Get under your desk!" Mrs. Graham quickly complied before a second explosion ripped up through the center of the building "like a rocket being launched" and the ceiling came tumbling down on top of them. She estimates there was a time span of something less than ten seconds between the two.

But Jane Graham had seen more in the days and hours prior to the tragedy, and she had attempted on several occasions to give her information to the FBI. But because she was certain that her suspects were neither Tim McVeigh nor Terry Nichols, nobody was interested. District Attorney Robert Macy would later decide that Mrs. Graham's testimony was not worthy of an audience with his grand jury.

On the Friday prior to the April 19th bombings, Mrs. Graham had noticed several suspicious looking men in the basement parking area. They were examining blueprints but quickly stashed them in the backseat of their car after realizing someone was watching. Coffee room conversation with some other women had alerted her that the FBI had gotten warning of an impending attack on a federal building, and for this reason she was somewhat wary. She has since identified one of the men as Andreas Strassmeir, the infamous "Andy the German" from Elohim City.

On Tuesday, the day before the tragedy, Mrs. Graham noticed two men on the first floor who were dressed in GSA blue uniforms. They stood out in her mind because she thought she knew all of the GSA workmen but did not recognize these two. She is certain that they were not in the basement group she saw the previous week. At 8:15 a.m. the next morning, she saw the same men on the first floor hurrying for an exit at the west end. Less than an hour later, the building erupted.

A year and a half later, Jane Graham was watching a newly released video entitled "Cover-up in Oklahoma" (available through M/B fulfillment center) which used actual news clips of the early hours following the explosions to point out the discrepancies in the government's story. Midway through the tape, she yelled to her host, "Waitaminnit! Back that up." She had recognized the same two men she had seen twice in GSA blues. This time they were in street clothes and wandering hurriedly away from the debris of the Murrah Building in the background. She alerted the FBI once again, and once again they were not interested. She has spent the past 18 months attempting, without success, to identitify the two mystery men. One is a large man with a beard, the other is of average height with a pocked face.

Cary Gagan has identified the pock-faced man as the same one he saw at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on 4/13/95 and later in Denver. However, he does not know his name. Considering the testimony of both Graham and Gagan, coupled with the on-the-scene video evidence, both of these mysterious men appear to be real players and suspects.

We have strong documentation that what Cary Gagan says is true. Comparing the video copy of his deposition session with at least ten conversations with him since, we find he does not waver. He has not changed his story concerning his alerting of the authorities and granted immunity since we first heard of him in 1995. He does not recite by rote, as his wording varies with each incident but the facts don't change. We must remember that U. S. Attorney Henry Solano believed Gagan to be credible enough in 1994 to grant him immunity from prosecution in order to allow him to infiltrate the terrorist group and carry out his (otherwise) criminal acts of participation.

When Gagan's story first appeared in Media Bypass, it was distorted because of Solano's chicanery, according to Gagan, and these allegations appear to be true. When Gagan's note to the marshals, dated April 6, 1995, was changed to reflect April 1st, Gagan knew it to be deception on the part of Solano. Close examination of the note, faxed to Media Bypass from the U. S. Attorney's office, shows that the loop of the "6" has been apparently whited-out in order to indicate a "1."

Why April 1st? Gagan says that would be because in 1995, that date fell on a Saturday, and it would have been impossible for him to have delivered the message and gained a signature from anyone of authority on a Saturday at the U. S. Courthouse in Denver -- thereby distorting and rendering his story dubious. However, Solano's futile and childish attempt at deception was strongly overridden by the testimony and taxicab records of William Bayers, as well as the video surveillance camera which recorded his entrance on the sixth of April not the first.

Although the U. S. Marshal's office denied ever received the written warning, Bayers had obtained the signature of Marshal Sharon Hoff on the 6th day of April. She happened to be the same marshal to whom Gagan had delivered his previous papers on March 27th, and the men noted at the time that the signatures matched. Henry Solano is no longer Denver's U. S. Attorney and has since been elevated to the position of Solicitor General of the Labor Department in Washington, D. C., according to Gagan.

On August 24, 1995, the same day Solano faxed Gagan's handwritten note to Myers and Media Bypass, Cary Gagan was grabbed and beaten by three Middle Easterners who said they were "Soldiers of Allah." He was hospitalized with a severe concus


 

• (Cont'd) Cary Gagan - August 24, 1995, — Pat Shannan, Thu Mar 11 23:42