Seventy thousand executives cheated by their own government, not a word. From tens of millions of dollars per year to zero in an instant.
No warning, no admonishments. Nothing but approval from the government. In point of testimonialized fact, the U.S. Postal Inspector who'd committed millions of tax dollars investigating and prosecuting Who's Who Worldwide... repeatedly gave the publisher a clean bill of health, followed up by a similar finding by a federal district court judge. This case goes far beyond standard operating procedures.
To further demonstrate the governmental/judicial corruption present in this case, that same United States Postal Inspector, Martin Beigelman, who had supervised a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investigation of Who's Who Worldwide, and who had allegedly received a confession from one of the defendants, NEVER APPEARED AT TRIAL!! He remained, sans explanation, "unavailable" for days, weeks, and months of trial... magically re-appearing on CBS's 60 minutes in his new sinecure position in private industry, having bolted his government job without warning after something like eighteen years with the Postal Service. What an unpleasant stench wherever this man's name comes up. Yet again, the Court looked the other way at this bizarre turn of events, including Beigelman's non-appearance at trial.
He was repeatedly present during pre-trial hearings, where rules of evidence are far more relaxed than during a trial itself. He appeared at these pre-trial hearings, repeatedly perjured himself... then simply disappeared. The government claimed he was 'on assignment' too far away to be called for trial. Weeks and weeks and more weeks of trial came and went, with no Beigelman.
Not for the first or only time in the Who's Who Worldwide Registry trial, we observe the appearance of impropriety or worse:
The Court claimed as its basis for convicting one obviously innocent defendant, Rubin -- innocent based not only on evidence, as well by the exculpating testimony of every prosecution witness who was questioned about Mr. Rubin -- a confession allegedly given to Inspector Beigelman... although Beigelman never appeared at trial!! The witness, an IRS agent, claimed that he'd "overheard" Mr. Rubin confessing guilt to Beigelman.
No, there was no signed confession, or even a signed statement, no Miranda acknowledgement (or refusal), no recordings or signed statements; no, not even typed or handwritten notes that every good law enforcement agent is trained to maintain.
This IRS agent, offering the only evidence or testimony against Rubin... swore under oath that he remembered the confession verbatim, from years earlier. Still, the Court accepted Beigelman's non-appearance in the case, and believed this lone dissenting prosecution witness, NOT believing all the other prosecution witnesses regarding Rubin, convicting Rubin on this one undocumented, highly suspicious third-party claim alone. This can hardly sustain Judge Arthur Spatt's reputation in a positive way, calling into question either his competence or his willingness to be swayed by factors outside the courtroom.
