Dear Friends, Patriots & Warriors of Truth:
Who is Gilman Louie? And what is the Maxwell Curse?
In an article published by the New York Post, on Sunday, February 25th, the unhappy business history of the heirs of British media baron Robert Maxwell was laid out in some detail. Once upon a time, right before his untimely and mysterious death in 1991, Maxwell's empire included 40,000 employees working in twenty-nine different countries, and he owned both the London Daily Mirror and the New York Daily News. His publishing house was Macmillan.
According to the posting which describes the formation and change of names for the "venture capital" group, In-Q-Tel, their leader -- a Chinese-American fellow named Gilman Louie -- was once partly funded by Robert Maxwell. In fact, it was Maxwell money that allowed Louie to combine his start-up company Nexa with another gaming operation: why the death of Maxwell in 1991 was bad for Louie is not indicated in the short summary given. But he soon was on the rebound and making money in video games.
The five children of Robert Maxwell have been less than stellar in their business ventures, as noted in the Post article: twin sisters Isabel and Caroline, now 49, were not implicated in the "looting" of the Daily Mirror's pension fund, and they relocated to Silicon Valley early in the 1990s. Their brothers Kevin and Ian were left to fight for their financial lives in British courts, where they were successful in staying out of jail.
The sisters, reports the Post, helped develop the search engine "Magellan" in 1993, which they sold to Excite for more than $6 million. How they gained the expertise to create such software is not detailed in the Post article (by Paul Tharp). After a fallow period without any great successes, the two sisters parted company and Isabel joined Commtouch Software Ltd., as its president in 1997. For much of the past two years Commtouch shares, on the NASDAQ, were trading in the $32 range, although it did spike at more than $60 one year ago.
Immediately following that short spike in value, the shares of Commtouch went into a nose-dive, correcting briefly in the middle of last summer, and have now levelled off at EIGHTY ONE CENTS. Not a $1.81, which would be sufficient to keep them from being delisted on the exchange, but $.8125 as of yesterday.
After doing the shimmy to escape from the wrath of the British pensioners, Kevin Maxwell and one of his co-defendants -- Larry Trachtenberg -- "eventually got a major stake in Telemonde Inc. ... a global telecommunications company based in the Bahamas."
The Post reports that while this brother was at Telemonde, he was paying the other brother, Ian Maxwell, a consulting fee of $230,000 year: and what has been the net result?
"Since he took control of Telemonde, its stock has crashed from the $6 range to a measly 23 cents a share on the Over The Counter Bulletin Board." Tharp also notes that this group led by Kevin Maxwell defaulted on $84 million in debt and that the Swiss firm Gestibroker sold its entire stake (well before the final collapse of the price), on November 6th of last year, the anniversary of Robert Maxwell's death.
Finally, the youngest sibling -- Ghislaine Maxwell -- also went west and "married a rising star of Silicon Valley, David Hayden. She helped him charm venture capitalists and run the new e-mail provider he founded in San Francisco, Critical Path." Ghislaine Maxwell and Hayden then divorced and she moved to New York, according to Tharp. Critical Path is now on the critical list.
Having seemed to be stable in price at about $82 to $88 per share, Critical Path (CPTH) peaked at $116.50 about one year ago. The shares opened at $2.375 earlier today. What is truly frightening, is to look at the peaks and declines in a two-year chart for CPTH as compared to Commtouch Software (CTCH). The two stocks rise and fall nearly in lock-step, although the percent increases for Commtouch are larger.
Telemonde, Inc., opened today at FIFTEEN CENTS, or more specifically, it lost two cents to open at $.155. Curiously enough, about eight weeks ago Tourneaux Fund, located in the Bahamas, ponied up $40 million for Commtouch, according to an SEC filing. Then this troubled software company led my Isabel Maxwell turned around and spent $17 million to lease a new headquarters in Mountain View, California. This is the town, of course, where Clark G. Fiester lived and worked for many years, before he was appointed to a very sensitive post in the Pentagon.
Fiester, a personal friend of William Perry (who is also listed on the board of In-Q-Tel), was aboard a C-21 Lear Jet which was either shot down or sabotaged near Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, on April 17th, 1995, or just two days before the attack on the A.P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Computer industry expert Debra Von Trapp, in an interview given in May of 1995, insisted that Fiester and Major General Glenn A. Profitt II were murdered because they knew something important, either concerning the plot in Oklahoma City, or perhaps concerning the rogue operation which suborned White House telecommunications in 1993 and allowed the Japanese to read all of the E-mail traffic which passed between the Two Clintons, the Democratic National Committee and the District of Columbia's city government offices.
Furthermore, Fiester was not just some technie "nerd," he was a promiment member of the Old Crows: from their web-site --
"The Golden Gate Chapter (GGC) of the Association of Old Crows was formed in 1966 and has consistently been one of the most active chapters in the organization. Many industry leaders have served on the board of the GGC including RADM Julian Lake, USN (Ret); Gil Johnson, President of California Microwave; and the late Clark Fiester, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and Technology, among others."
After Robert Maxwell died, the Daily News in New York was taken over by Mortimer B. Zuckerman, and after an initial period of success, it has been plagued with quarrels among the top brass, editorial mistakes, and the defection of many good writers and editors. Its circulation has decined dramatically, while the New York Post -- its more conservative tabloid cousin -- has added a Sunday edition and acquired thousands of new subscribers. Even their fawning support of the Two Clintons, and serving the bastions of liberalism in New York City, and doting on the Hollywood aristocracy who maintain second homes in the Hamptons on Long Island, has not helped the Daily News. The Maxwell Curse seems to apply even as an Attainder of Blood in business!
So, the question redounds for The Q and for Rumor Mill News Agents -- how can any reasonable person have confidence in In-Q-Tel if a Maxwell protege -- Gilman Louie -- is at the helm?
Critical Path is in critical condition, being sued will-nilly; Commtouch Software has lost nearly all of its shareholders' value; and for Telemonde, it is quite literally true that one hundred shares of its stock could not support the price of two tickets to a evening showing of a movie at any theater in any major city in these United States!
Why then is this thing, this transparently fake venture capital group, of any importance? Will its investments enable us to ever know the truth about Oklahoma City and the bloody, secret trade war with Japan (1991-1995), the front operations of Aum Shinrikyo (the Buddhist doomsday cult which was blamed for using Sarin gas in Tokyo), or the murderous history of PROMIS and Inslaw?
In-Quiring Patriots want to know.
