David C. Farmer, Successor-Trustee vs. Harmon
(Formerly Woo vs. Harmon & Nicholson vs. Harmon)
U.S. District Court For the District of Hawaii
—
DEFENDANT’S WITNESS
JULES B. KROLL
Address to be determined.
From SourceWatch:
Jules B. Kroll is Executive Chairman of the Board of Kroll, Inc. According to his
corporate biography, "Jules Kroll is the acknowledged founder of the modern corporate
investigative and security industry. More than 30 years ago, he created a new
professional service by matching sophisticated fact-gathering techniques to business
and financial decision-makers' needs for accurate information and by staffing his firm
with former prosecutors, law enforcement officials, management consultants, and
journalists....
"As executive chairman of the board of Kroll Inc., Mr. Kroll is responsible for the
strategic development of the world's premier risk consulting company. Kroll Associates,
which he founded in 1972 as a consultant to corporate purchasing departments, is now
a publicly-held, Nasdaq-traded corporation with more than 2,100 employees and offices
in more than 60 cities on six continents. Kroll's reputation for high-quality investigative
work was established on Wall Street in the 1980s and spread internationally in the
1990s as the firm successfully tracked down assets hidden by Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc'
Duvalier, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, and Saddam Hussein. Today, Kroll serves a
multinational client base of corporations, law firms, non-profit institutions, government
agencies and individuals, providing a wide range of risk consulting services which
include corporate restructuring, forensic accounting, data recovery and computer
forensics as well as investigations, intelligence and security....
“Mr. Kroll received a B.A. degree from Cornell University in 1963 and an LL.B degree
from Georgetown University Law Center in 1966. He was admitted to the New York Bar
in 1967 and began his career as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
"Mr. Kroll is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Georgetown University Law Center
and a director of Presidential Life Insurance Company. He previously served on the
Board of Regents of Georgetown University and the Board of Trustees of Cornell
University, and the Citizens Budget Commission of New York City."
~ ~ ~
November 29, 2004
Insurance Noir
Neil Weinberg and Michael Maiello, Forbes
Private eyes Jules Kroll and Mike Cherkasky made a fortune off others' misfortunes.
Never more so than in selling their firm to--and then taking over – Marsh & McLennan.
It was a nice present. After more than a decade of futile attempts to cash out of his
namesake investigative firm, Kroll Inc., Jules Kroll got what he wanted on his 63rd
birthday, May 18. Marsh & McLennan announced it was swooping in with $1.9 billion in
cash.
The buyout represented a 33% premium on Kroll's shares. It also meant a $117 million
payday for Chairman Jules Kroll and family, plus another $15 million for Chief
Executive Michael Cherkasky.
The partners touted the deal as a snug strategic fit. But behind the buyout is a
mysterious subplot worthy of a private-eye novel: Did Marsh Mac buy Kroll thinking it
was an insurance policy against an impending crackdown by New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer?
By early this year Marsh Mac was under the regulatory gun. Its Putnam Investments
unit had been nabbed for wrongful mutual fund trading by Spitzer. Its Mercer Consulting
unit was under Securities & Exchange Commission scrutiny for possible conflicts of
interest in its pension advisory arm.
On Feb. 2 Jeffrey Greenberg, then running Marsh Mac, rang up Jules Kroll and
proposed a buyout. Kroll, who did not respond to requests for comment, was the
godfather of crisis managers; his storied firm had handled everything from monitoring
the cleanup of the Los Angeles Police Department to uncovering Saddam Hussein's
stolen Kuwaiti riches. Marsh Mac and Kroll already had long-standing business ties.
Kroll had done many investigative assignments for Marsh Mac over the previous two
years. Kroll, in turn, had transferred its employees' 401(k) plans to Putnam in 2001
and had recently hired Mercer to do an executive compensation study.
Kroll also had Cherkasky, a former prosecutor in New York with professional and
personal ties to many regulators and law enforcement authorities--including Spitzer.
Cherkasky is Spitzer's tennis pal and former boss in the Manhattan district attorney's
office.
Jules Kroll agreed to consider a buyout "under the right circumstances." In mid-April
Marsh Mac offered $31 per Kroll share, half in stock. Then on Apr. 23 Spitzer hit Marsh
Mac with subpoenas seeking reams of information about its giant insurance brokerage.
Marsh Mac's crisis appears to have played into the hands of Kroll and Cherkasky. They
pushed a few days later for a fast close and better terms. Marsh Mac quickly agreed to
a beefed-up $37-per-share, all-cash deal, with a proviso that certain Kroll execs stick
around. Cherkasky's package included a $6.3 million retention bonus when the deal
closed.
He
says he made it clear he was not about to do Marsh Mac's bidding in
front of
Spitzer. "I said, ‘I don't do Spitzer,'" Cherkasky says. Greenberg
didn't expect him to, his
lawyer concurs. But a little insurance never hurts. When the attorney
general whacked
the firm with a civil fraud complaint Oct. 14, charging its insurance
brokerage with bid-rigging, it took Greenberg one day to install
Cherkasky as the unit's new chief executive
and Spitzer-handler.
With Spitzer pressure building, on Oct. 25 Greenberg resigned and Cherkasky took
over the entire company. Later that day Spitzer withdrew his threat to criminally
indict Marsh Mac, which could have been a corporate death sentence.
Cherkasky admits his Spitzer-handling skills are part of his appeal. But he says his ties
with Spitzer go only so far. "We're not going to pay one dollar less in restitution than if I
wasn't here. It's just not going to happen," he says. In any case, Marsh Mac investors
will need all the help they can get.
~ ~ ~
July 13, 2008
Jules Kroll: A Corporate Detective Is Saying
Farewell
By AMY ZIPKIN, MICHELLE LEDER, PHYLLIS KORKKI,
ELIZABETH OLSON, ERIC SYLVERS
ELIZABETH OLSON, ERIC SYLVERS
NYT/July 6, 2008
Jules B. Kroll has turned up in some of the most visible cases involving corporate
forensics.
Jules B. Kroll in 1994. Clients of his corporate intelligence company have including the
government of Kuwait. It hired the firm to find Saddam Hussein’s hidden assets.
It all started 36 years ago, after Mr. Kroll made a bid to become a councilman at large in
Queens but failed. Drawing on his background as a former assistant district attorney in
Manhattan and his experience in the family printing business, he began consulting for
corporate purchasing departments that were concerned about inefficiency or were
suspecting corruption.
Mr. Kroll and the firm that emerged, Kroll Inc., became pioneers in modern corporate
security and intelligence. Now, at age 67, Mr. Kroll is retiring from the company, which
was acquired by the Marsh & McLennan Companies in 2004.
He says his most memorable case was when the Kuwaiti government hired the firm to
look for Saddam Hussein’s hidden assets and arms procurement network after Iraq
invaded Kuwait in the early 1990s. Forty people worked full time for two years digging
into public filings as part of that effort, Mr. Kroll said.
His
firm also did work for the family of Roberto Calvi, a financier with
ties to the Vatican
who was found hanging from a London bridge in 1982. (First ruled a
suicide, the death
was later called a murder and remains unsolved.) Kroll also worked for a
government-appointed administrator in Italy after $5 billion assumed to
be in a bank account of the
dairy company Parmalat was found not to be in the account. (Parmalat
sued its banks;
the banks denied wrongdoing.)
Mr. Kroll said technology had made his work more accurate and efficient in recent
years. But, he added, people are crucial: “Technology is no substitute for a really good
source.”
AMY ZIP
Posted by Alex Constantine
~ ~ ~
NEW DISCOVERY (04-21-09): David Farmer’s undisclosed connections with AIPAC,
Jules Kroll, Jeff Greenberg, etc:
David C. Farmer, Successor-Trustee vs. Harmon
(Formerly Woo vs. Harmon & Nicholson vs. Harmon)
U.S. District Court For the District of Hawaii
—
DEFENDANT’S EXHIBIT
—
A few words of explanation:
In his "MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO DEBTOR'S MOTION FOR ORDER
TO DISAPPROVE APPOINTMENT OF DAVID C. FARMER AS SUCCESSOR
TRUSTEE", filed with the Court on August 24, 2007, the Trustee's attorney,
Steven Guttman, Esq., of the law firm, Kessner Umebayashi Bain & Matsunaga,
stated to the Court:
"... Harmon is once again attempting to create issues of conflict where none
exist by attempting to draw connections between phantom dots."...
Mr. Guttman does not elaborate beyond this simple statement of HIS PERSONAL
OPINION, as to WHICH of the thousands of connections I have cited that he
wishes the Court to accept, without question, as being merely "phantom dots". In
other court filings, Mr. Guttman has characterized my Motions as consisting of
"conspiracy theories" -- again with no specific references.
Despite these unnamed "phantom dots" and "conspiracy theories", the Court has
blithely and unquestionably gone along with Mr. Guttman's opinions and has
repeatedly denied ALL Motions that I have made. In fact, both Courts
involved have ruled that the Court Clerk shall not accept any future filings
from me without the Courts' prior approval - which it has repeatedly declined
to give.
Therefore, due to the fact that I continue to discover new, material FACTS almost
daily, I am preparing a set of NEW EXHIBITS in which I intend to document the
financial, professional, personal, and political connections between the many
various entities involved in this case.
~ o ~
The following is a listing of named witnesses in this case who have factual
connections with the subject entity. Each underlined name has been linked to a
detailed description of that witness to enable the reader to more easily
CONNECT THE DOTS TO...
LEARN MORE ABOUT AIPAC:
~ ~ ~
Jules Kroll is expected to testify regarding his knowledge of, and participation in, Marsh
& McLennan’s alleged practices of bribery, bid rigging, over-charging, kickbacks, and
other wrongful acts, in an alleged conspiracy with AIG, Ace, Allied World Assurance,
Chubb Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, XL, Zurich and other insurance, accounting,
and financial entities.
Jules Kroll is also expected to testify regarding his financial, business, and professional
relationships with Kroll Associates; Michael Cherkasey, Eliot Spitzer, AIPAC, the CIA,
George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John
McCain, Steve Case, Donna Tanoue, Robert Katz, Ron Rewald, Robert Calvi,
Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Goldman Sachs;
Sumitomo; Carlyle Group; Apollo Advisors; Investcorp; Henry Kissinger; Maurice “Hank”
Greenberg; Jeff Greenberg, Ace Greenberg, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, William
Simon, Robin Campaniano, Jack Abramoff, Norman Brownstein, Joshua Gotbaum, Jim
Nicholson, James Nicholson, Bank of Hawaii, Bank of Honolulu, Diane Plotts, Mark
Hemmeter, Bob Awana, Peter Savio, Central Pacific Bank, First Hawaiian Bank, Rocco
Sansone, Colbert Matsumoto, Linda Lingle, Ben Cayetano, Hawaii State Foundation on
Culture and The Arts, David C. Farmer, Sherry Broder, and others to be named upon
discovery.
Internet References:
TO GO TO THE WOO VS. HARMON WITNESS INDEX
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