The Opperman Report'

There's a script circulating in Hollywood about the night of June 12, 1994. It begins in the affluent Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The narrator, an ex-con from Miami named Charlie, approaches a cottage-style mansion on Rockingham Avenue and sees O.J. Simpson chipping golf balls on the lawn behind the gate.

The man calls out "Juice!" and Simpson welcomes him through the gate.

Simpson's happy to see his friend, but Charlie's here on business. He says "Joey" sent him to collect cocaine debts, many of them related to the celebrity football player's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and more so, her best friend, Faye Resnick.

Simpson reacts with fury to being squeezed for money, and the target of that anger is Brown. He's scheduled to leave for the airport in less than an hour for a flight to Chicago, but Simpson decides he's going to confront his ex-wife at her home on Bundy Drive.
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With Charlie in tow, he drives his white Ford Bronco to the alley behind Brown's home, where blood is soon spilled in great quantity.

The premise might sound preposterous. The history of that terrible night has long been seared into America's consciousness. There wasn't some Miami mob grunt with O.J. Simpson the night Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were brutally knifed to death. The Los Angeles Police Department and District Attorney's Office couldn't have missed that Simpson had an accomplice, could they?

Charlie is based on a real Miamian, Charles "Charlie" Ehrlich, an ex-drug trafficker and longtime manager at Dean's Gold, a glitzy strip club on 163rd Street and Biscayne Boulevard in North Miami Beach. If fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth, then the script, titled Juiced, after Simpson's nickname, may shed new light on the events of that gruesome night. Or it could be an elaborate ploy to profit off one of the most notorious crimes in history.

Fact or fiction, it's one of those outlandish tales where the deeper you dig, the less crazy it seems.

Charlie
Denizens of Dean's Gold might notice a roundish, 67-year-old bald guy walking around the place like he owns it. Charles Ehrlich doesn't own the club, but he's helped run it for years.


These days, Ehrlich is head of marketing and promotion, routinely posing for social-media photos. He cozies up to exotic dancers at the bar. He flashes his grin in the parking lot with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Rob Corddry after the pair shot some scenes for an episode of the HBO show Ballerz. He shares a laugh with Dennis Rodman.

In older photos that have nothing to do with Dean's, Ehrlich smiles with his longtime friend O.J. Simpson. While his presence on the night of the murders is open for debate, he was definitely with Simpson during the sports-memorabilia robbery in Las Vegas in 2007 that landed the former football star in prison for nine years. Ehrlich was also convicted in the case but did no jail time. He still sounds defensive about it.
"O.J. did nine years for something he should have done six months for," he says.

As for his own involvement, he says he was present during the impromptu hotel-room heist only because Simpson was a friend and asked him to come along.

"I made a mistake," Ehrlich says. "I never should have been in that room. Hindsight is 20/20. It was dumb. It was stupid. I never should have been there."

He told a similar story during interviews with CNN, ABC, and other news outlets when Simpson was up for parole and eventually freed in 2017.

"If it's believed" — "it" being the 'Juiced' version of the murder — "it immediately puts [Charlie] in prison. There's no statute of limitations on murder. Hence our dilemma."
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But when it comes to the reason for this phone call — the night of June 12, 1994 — Ehrlich clams up tighter than a cherrystone.

"I don't want to go there, no disrespect," he says. "I don't want to talk about the past. That's the past. I don't want to go there."

Yet Juiced, a copy of which New Times obtained from a self-described whistleblower, is filled with information about Ehrlich's past. The script recounts a childhood in Manhattan with a stepfather tied to mobster Meyer Lansky and the underworld. After some trouble with police as a teen, he's exiled to Miami, where he quickly becomes involved in the drug trade, gets the street name "Charlie Tuna" and eventually serves time in prison before going to LA.

The script's author is a Los Angeles film producer named Erik Laibe. Reached by phone, Laibe says he optioned the story from Ehrlich about five years ago and owns the story rights for the next five years as well. He says he's still "vetting" Ehrlich's claims. He declined to speak in any detail with New Times, warning of an intellectual-property lawsuit if the paper reported on the script.

"It's an interesting mental exercise," says Laibe of trying to determine Erhlich's involvement, or lack thereof, in the murders. "What the truth is — who knows?"

Laibe points out the obvious: If Ehrlich truly was involved, he could face serious legal exposure.

"What is Charlie's motivation in all of this? Money," Laibe posits with certainty. "If it's believed" — "it" being the Juiced version of the murder — "it immediately puts [Charlie] in prison. There's no statute of limitations on murder. Hence our dilemma."

In Laibe's view, Ehrlich's presence at the murder scene with O.J. "would be the biggest embarrassment to the LAPD and District Attorney's Office in the last 50 years."

The whistleblower says it was the public import of the case that helped motivate the release of the script to New Times.

"You have to look at this story through the eyes of the victims and their families," says the source, who spoke on the condition that their name not be published. "They have a right to know, and a need to know, and there's a public-safety issue."
O.J. Simpson (left) and Charles Ehrlich (seated) in court for a preliminary hearing in Las Vegas in 2007 - PHOTO BY STEVE MARCUS/GETTY IMAGES
O.J. Simpson (left) and Charles Ehrlich (seated) in court for a preliminary hearing in Las Vegas in 2007
Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images
The story of Ehrlich's life in crime is a slippery one, but parts of it are verifiable. In the script, Charlie is busted for running a cocaine operation in Atlanta. That happened to Ehrlich in 1987. The prosecutor was a young DA named Nancy Grace. The future Court TV star wrote about Ehrlich's case in her 2005 book Objection! describing him as a "major drug distributor in the city."

"When the police searched Charlie Tuna's apartment, things got even worse. They discovered that the place was wired, so he'd know if someone got in. Cops found a silencer in the closet," wrote Grace. "...This was a bad guy, and he has to be stopped from poisoning the streets of the city."

Grace won a conviction; Charlie was sent to prison. In the script, Charlie says he served seven-and-a-half years of a 27-year sentence. Upon his release in the early '90s, Charlie describes meeting with a mobster pal named Joey Ippolito, who tells him he's expanding his cocaine trafficking operation and needs someone to help him do it. Charlie jumps at the chance, but there's a catch: He'll have to relocate to Los Angeles.

The Script
In the script, Charlie describes how he helped Ippolito move cocaine from Miami to the West Coast and facilitate sales to wealthy clientele in LA.

"[D]ealing with the rich and famous moves a lot of product," Charlie narrates.

The real-life Joey Ippolito — or Joey Ipp, as he was known — was indeed operating a major cocaine organization in Los Angeles at the time. In 1993 Ippolito was convicted in an FBI investigation called Operation Lasima (short for "Los Angeles Sicilian Mafia") and sentenced to ten years in prison.

Yet Joey Ipp wasn't behind bars on the night of June 12, 1994. A month earlier, under mysterious circumstances, he was able to "walk away" from a federal prison camp in Pensacola, according to published reports.

It's clear that Ippolito had ties to Simpson. The Boston Herald reported after the murders that the feds were aware of a relationship between Ippolito and Al Cowlings, Simpson's close friend and the driver of the white Bronco in the infamous slow-speed police chase that preceded Simpson's arrest. From the beginning, some suspected the murders may have been cocaine-related. During the trial, lead defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran posited a theory, without mentioning Ippolito by name, that Brown may have been killed by drug dealers in order to frighten her friend Faye Resnick, who was admittedly addicted to cocaine at that time. But the overwhelming DNA evidence of Simpson's own culpability in the murder made such speculation seem immaterial.

In the script, Charlie meets Simpson at the Rockingham estate while working for Ippolito and the two become friends. In the narration, Charlie says Ippolito uses O.J. for "contacts" and that while Simpson isn't a drug dealer, Ippolito "takes care of him for let's just say facilitating deals."

"I don't want to go there, no disrespect. I don't want to talk about the past. That's the past. I don't want to go there."
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The script has Charlie going to Simpson's house on June 12, 1994, to squeeze him for cocaine debts, sending the former NFL great into a rage.

"If it's about paying, the complication is that bitch Faye [Resnick]," the script has Simpson saying.

As his anger builds, O.J. tells Charlie the two of them are going to drive the Bronco to Nicole's condo and "putting this on her." Cut to Nicole's house: two bodies, a "pool of dark liquid," and a bloody O.J. stripping off his clothes and handing them and the knife to a "mystery man."

Charlie the narrator says he'll never reveal whether he is the mystery man, saying only, "

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We are here to unite against gentrification, rent increases and negligent landlords in St. Petersburg, FL.
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @SPTenantsUnion
Twitter: @SPTenantsU

Event by St. Petersburg Tenants Union and The Party for Socialism and Liberation - Florida
1300 22nd St S, St Petersburg, FL 33712-2744, United States
Public · Anyone on or off Facebook
Sept 25th 12 noon
Tampa Bay — Join us this Saturday, September 25th at 12:00 pm to rally in protest of Tampa Bay evictions. As rents continue to skyrocket in the Tampa Bay Area, families continue to get evicted with no moratorium to keep people in their homes, no cancellation of rent debt from the pandemic, and extremely low wages. Join Tampa Bay PSL, St. Petersburg Tenants’ Union, and Tampa Tenants Union to participate in a nationwide weekend of action to demand:
- Congress, pass an indefinite moratorium on evictions that covers 100% of the country
- Authorities at all levels dramatically speed up the distribution of already-allocated renter relief funds, and allow for them to be used for hotels as directed by the Treasury department
- Congress, cancel the rent and mortgage debt accumulated during the pandemic
- Jane Castor end her genocidal crime-free housing program.
- Local municipalities declare a state of emergency on housing, which would permit them to enact rent control in Florida
Congress has the authority and resources to end the eviction crisis completely. Congress must enact an indefinite nationwide eviction moratorium and cancel the rent debt. This can be accomplished without needing the support of a single Republican politician and would be protected from a court challenge. These demands are the bare minimum. We must work under the principle that housing is a human right, and we must relentlessly push for universal housing for the people of St. Petersburg.

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If Madeleine was never abducted, if she died on May 3rd, why was it reported as an abduction?

Despite the absence of a trial, what we have now is a fairly precise version of events from the McCanns themselves, a by-product of their relentless PR. We also know the original lead investigator, Goncalo Amaral’s, counter-narrative, now a legally defensible matter of public record.

The questions that arise from these opposing narratives are dead simple:

Which narrative is more credible?

Which narrator is more credible?

What was the motive behind all the publicity? Neither Madeleine nor her abductor ultimately benefited from the ongoing media barrage, so who did?

True crime maestro, Nick van der Leek, plumbs quagmires of confusion and a thicket of thorny inconsistencies to probe what lies beneath: the psychologies. What is the significance of "doctors" as suspects? Did it matter or mean anything that the McCanns and their cabal of friends in the Algarve were mostly doctors?

Peeling away the gossamer threads, over the course of just four days [April 29th – May 2nd], van der Leek intuits that very little was routine: not the weather, not where meals were eaten, not where or when they slept and not what they did as a family. But what were their routines when it came to other, murkier things, like sleeping patterns, cell phones and sedatives?

Drawing intangibles out of the darkness, van der Leek sews the vexing loose ends from several conflicting stories into a definite - if not definitive - end-result.

2 years ago #doubt:, #madeleine, #mccann, #mystery, #opperman, #report, #spreaker, #the

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Alan Vinnicombe The Armchair Detective : Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

2 years ago #:, #alan, #alan vinnicombe, #armchair, #detective, #disappearance, #ed, #maddy, #madeleine, #mccann, #of, #opperman, #report, #spreaker, #the, #vinnicombe

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Info
Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches / L.A. Secret Police. Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network

There have always been mail-order brides in America—but we haven’t always thought about them in the same ways. In Buying a Bride, Marcia A. Zug starts with the so-called “Tobacco Wives” of the Jamestown colony and moves all the way forward to today’s modern same-sex mail-order grooms to explore the advantages and disadvantages of mail-order marriage. It’s a history of deception, physical abuse, and failed unions. It’s also the story of how mail-order marriage can offer women surprising and empowering opportunities.

Drawing on a forgotten trove of colorful mail-order marriage court cases, Zug explores the many troubling legal issues that arise in mail-order marriage: domestic abuse and murder, breach of contract, fraud (especially relating to immigration), and human trafficking and prostitution. She tells the story of how mail-order marriage lost the benign reputation it enjoyed in the Civil War era to become more and more reviled over time, and she argues compellingly that it does not entirely deserve its current reputation. While it is a common misperception that women turn to mail-order marriage as a desperate last resort, most mail-order brides are enticed rather than coerced. Since the first mail-order brides arrived on American shores in 1619, mail-order marriage has enabled women to improve both their marital prospects and their legal, political, and social freedoms. Buying A Bride uncovers this history and shows us how mail-order marriage empowers women and should be protected and even encouraged.

L.A. Secret Police. Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network

L.A. Secret Police. Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller. This incredible non-fiction book rips the lid off the LAPD and exposes the reader to its dark underbelly of corruption during the reign of Chief Daryl Gates. L.A. cops ruined lives and reputations, inflicted mindless brutality, committed murder and engaged in massive cover-ups. In Los Angeles, police corruption was much more than unmarked envelopes stuffed with cash. It was a total corruption of power. For decades LAPD engaged in massive illegal spying and lied about it. Its spying targets included politicians, movie stars, professional athletes, news reporters and anyone wielding power or those of interest to Daryl Gates. Incredibly, the spying targets included a Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a Secretary of Defense, a current Governor and the President of the United States. It all happened in Los Angeles.

Detective Rothmiller is the modern-day Frank Serpico; he exposed the tentacles of corruption which reached to the highest levels within the LAPD and Washington D.C. It wasn’t long after that an assassin attempted to take his life. It was apparent to many that powerful forces wanted him silenced. Incredibly, in this book Detective Rothmiller names names! See why this book changed the LAPD and is required reading at many universities. As former Assistant United States Attorney Marvin Rudnick said, “Rothmiller was in a position to know. He did very sensitive work.”

Every book has an ending. However, the ending of this book will shock you. Within the new epilogue is a multi-page essay written especially for this updated book by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston. In it he describes his personal experience as a target of Daryl Gates illegal intelligence operations while he served as a Los Angeles Times reporter. You’ll also read the challenge posed by detective Rothmiller to the LAPD. A challenge LAPD has refused to answer.

Since releasing this updated eBook, Detective Rothmiller has been interviewed dozens of times by the national media regarding current NSA domestic spying and the 2013 murderous rampage of former LAPD cop Christopher Dorner. In late 2013 Detective Rothmiller was interviewed for a major television documentary which will expose corruption and major crimes committed at the highest levels. The documentary is scheduled for release in 2016.

2 years ago #/, #a, #an, #bride:, #buying, #elite, #engaging, #history, #inside, #l.a., #lapd, #mail-order, #matches, #network", #of, #police., #secret, #spy, #the

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Seducing and Killing Nazis: Hannie, Truus and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of WWII

This is the astonishing true story of three teenage Dutch girls, Hannie Schaft and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, that has inspired many throughout the world.When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in World War II, these girls took up arms against the enemy by seducing high-ranking Nazi officers, luring them into the woods and killing them. They provided Jewish children with safe houses and gathered vital intelligence for the resistance. They did what they did "because it had to be done." Above all, they tried to remain human in inhuman circumstances. Hannie Schaft was executed by the Nazis three weeks before the end of the war and became the icon of female Dutch resistance. Truus and Freddie Oversteegen survived the war, but were forever haunted by the demons of their past.

about 1 year ago

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n 1992, nine-year-old Katie Beers was kidnapped by a family friend and locked in an underground box for 17 days. Katie has now come forward to tell the story that created a national media storm as reporters uncovered the truth about her pre-kidnapping life of neglect and sexual abuse and the details of her rescue. She shares how this experience and the recent death of her kidnapper, John Esposito, has affected her life. Despite the horrible reality of Katie's days of being chained in darkness, the kidnapping was, in fact, the climactic end of a tragic childhood and the beginning of a new life.
Katie breaks her silence and reveals her inspiring healing process to the journalist who covered the story of the disappearance more than twenty years ago. Buried Memories is the only source that includes the complete details of her traumatic childhood, transcriptions of recordings from Esposito, a first-hand account of how Katie felt after Esposito's death in 2013, and Katie's hopeful view of the future as she looks back into her dark past.

2 years ago #a, #and, #buried, #ed, #girl, #her, #memories:, #of, #opperman, #spreaker, #story, #survival, #vulnerable

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