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To: PhiKapMom
Ron Brown ping
103 posted on 02/27/2004 11:12:28 PM PST by BurbankKarl
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To: BurbankKarl
Gets even stranger with the Ron Brown reference -- he was totestify about his dealings here in OK with Oklahoma Natural Gas after he came back from his trip to Europe where he was "killed" -- was involved with the Lum Family that got caught making illegal campaign contributions. Also the ONG deal involved Clintonites from AR and a murder of a Norman man named Miller. They think now his death could have been biological in nature because they could never pinpoint exactly what was wrong with him before he was "murdered" -- I refuse to say it was anything but murder from all I have read. Figure I might as well throw this on the thread since you mentioned Ron Brown -- the story from Newsmax has also been well documented here in OK:

Witness in Brown Case May Have Been Murdered

Oklahoma's chief medical examiner is exploring the possibility that a key government witness in the Independent Counsel's investigation of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown may have been murdered.

In 1997, Oklahoma businessman Ron Miller provided the government key evidence -- including audio tapes -- against Eugene and Nora Lum, two fund-raisers with close ties to Brown and the Clinton White House.

For more than two years Miller's death has been officially classified as "natural." But, last week, legal consultant Stephen Dresch persuaded the Oklahoma state medical examiner to reclassify Miller's cause of death as "unknown," saying that the available medical evidence was also "consistent with homicide."

Dresch is currently involved in a lawsuit stemming from the 1996 plane crash death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

Evidence provided by Miller to the independent counsel then probing Secretary Brown's business dealings helped prosecutors build a case against fund-raisers Eugene and Nora Lum. The Lums had given Brown's son Michael gifts of stock in their company, Dynamic Energy Resources, made him a board member and lavished him with six-figure consulting fees.

The Lums' daughter Trisha won a slot in the Commerce Department and even accompanied Brown on his 1994 trade mission to China. Suspicions that the Lums used Michael Brown to funnel money to his father were never proven.

Nora Lum made at least thirteen visits to the Clinton White House between 1993 and 1995.

Miller had owned Gage Corp., a company that was sold in 1993 to Dynamic Energy. Miller also audiotaped his telephone conversations with the Lums and provided federal probers with 165 cassette recordings believed to be crucial to their prosecution.

Dresch told NewsMax.com on Tuesday that Miller had taken elaborate steps to document his dealing with the Lums, bugging his own office and even his briefcase. "He realized he was in the middle of something big," Dresch explained.

Anticipating the Lums' indictment in May of 1997, Miller was elated that his evidence gathering had resulted in the first real prosecution of the 1996 campaign finance scandal. "I'm really glad to see it," the Oklahoma businessman told American Lawyer News Service. "It needs to be exposed to the light of day. It could focus light on a portion of the Lums' activities, and that would expand to shed light on the rest."

However, the Clinton Justice Department, which had taken over Independent Counsel Daniel Pearson's probe of Commerce Secretary Brown's activities after Brown's April 1996 death, brought no action against the Lums related to their ties to Brown, his son or the Commerce Department. The Oklahoma couple were instead charged only with making illegal campaign contributions to Senator Edward Kennedy and an Oklahoma Democratic House candidate.

Less than four months after the Lums pled guilty, Ron Miller was rushed to a Norman, Oklahoma hospital after becoming ill at home. Doctors were never able to determine the cause of his affliction. Miller died days later.

"He went from being healthy to dying in a week," J. Dell Gordon told the Associated Press at the time, explaining that Miller had just turned over "boxes of material" to congressional investigators.

Integris Baptist Medical Center, where Miller died in early October, 1997, turned the case over to the state medical examiner because hospital officials said the witness' death "was not fully explainable."

Dr. James Marvel, a local physician who has studied the evidence in Miller's death, told NewsMax.com on Wednesday that he suspected the Oklahoma businessman may have been poisioned.

"From the outside it certainly looks that way," Marvel said, adding, "I'd have to investigate further to see if this pattern fits into anything."

After examining Miller's autopsy report, Dr. Marvel noted that several of his vital organs, particularly his lungs, were much heavier than normal. "It tells me that he sustained serious physical insult to his lungs."

Marvel suggested that such an injury would be consistent with someone gradually overcome by an airborne toxin. "Whatever it was that killed Ron Miller entered through his lungs," said the Oklahoma doctor.

Revealing a new and disturbing aspect of the case, Dresch said that Miller had been the subject of death threats in the months before he died. NewsMax.com has obtained a copy of a Norman Police report that backs up this claim. Dated 1/14/97, the "Offense Report" reads in part:

"....suspect told Miller, 'You hadn't been shot at yet.' Mr. Miller said that the subjects he is dealing with have made a number of references to certain people wanting Mr. Miller dead. Mr. Miller said he recorded this telephone conversation."

The police report names Dallas businessman Donald Sweatman as the source of the most recent threats. Though Dresch said that local police took Miller's complaint seriously at the time, a criminal investigation was never opened.

The Miller tapes, which are still in the possession of the FBI, could have far reaching consequences if they ever see the light of day. It is believed that on one recording, Sweatman even implicates First Lady Hillary Clinton in the Lums' financial scheme:

"Apparently the assertion that Sweatman made (on tape) was that Hillary had been instrumental in arranging a $4.5 million loan to Dynamic Energy back in 1993, so (the Lums) could purchase Miller's Gage Corporation," Dresch told NewsMax.com.

Whether the new questions swirling around Ron Miller's mysterious death prompt congressional probers to act on the evidence he turned over remains to be seen.

For now, Norman, Oklahoma police are reviewing the case of the key fundraising witness' death with an eye towards opening a new investigation.









105 posted on 02/27/2004 11:27:59 PM PST by PhiKapMom (AOII Mom -- Support Bush-Cheney '04 -- Losing is not an Option!)
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