All Charges Dismissed
Is Agent Ravenelle Another Schlaff Or Even Connolly?
by Charles C. Bonniwell
Just when people thought the Authentic Persian & Oriental Rug development controversy could not get any stranger, it has. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) demanded that the Office of Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler dismiss all charges and quash all warrants against the phony private investigator from Tennessee, Charles Johnson “for reasons that cannot be disclosed.” (See FBI letter on page 4.)
FBI Viewing Average Citizens As Criminals
Johnson allegedly stalked, harassed and intimidated the City of Glendale City Clerk and anyone who had made comments or sent a letter to the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle critical of Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi or his M.A.K. Investment Group, LLC’s redevelopment of 3.8 acres of land along Colorado Boulevard. Johnson had never registered as a private investigator in Colorado nor in his home state of Tennessee. Failure to obtain a private investigator license in Colorado is a Class 2 misdemeanor. Police found on Johnson current driver’s licenses from three different states — Florida, Hawaii and Tennessee — which is a crime in many jurisdictions.
Bizarrely, after being arrested Johnson called back the arresting officers and taunted them and asserted that he was going to file a civil rights complaint with the FBI. Days later the Glendale Police Department received a call from the FBI saying that a complaint had been filed and they were immediately going to begin an investigation and not even wait to see if Johnson was, in fact, found guilty. The FBI did not say what the complaint was based on and never disputed that Johnson appeared to have engaged in criminal conduct.
Strange FBI Interviews
FBI Special Agent Kimberly Milka then starting contacting persons who filed complaints against Johnson including Glendale City Clerk Sherry Frame and Richard Witholder who wrote a letter modestly critical of Kheirkhahi’s proposed development to the Chronicle. Milka insisted that they provide an interview with the FBI. Apparently the interviews were strange affairs having nothing to do with Johnson but instead the interviewee’s opinion on whether Johnson’s arrest should have been on the front page of the Chronicle and whether the articles concerning the proposed development were fair and balanced.
Milka apparently asked Witholder, did he know who the “secret buyer” Glendale had for the M.A.K. property was, which confused Witholder since his only connection with Glendale was he wrote a letter to the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in opposition to the proposed development.
Deputy City Manager Chuck Line was shocked to learn from the Chronicle that the FBI was spreading a false claim from the wealthy rug merchants that there was a “secret buyer” associated with Glendale for their land. “There is no secret buyer and never has been,” stated Line, and “we are no longer interested in buying their land and have told them so.”
City Clerk Sherry Frame stated in a telephone interview with Fox31 News that Special Agent Milka said that the FBI was regularly monitoring The Peter Boyles Show on 710 KNUS Radio. The Special Agent wanted to know why the show falsely claimed that Johnson had broken into Frame’s residence. Frame corrected the government agent saying she had recently listened to a podcast of the show and what was said was correct, i.e. that Johnson had repeatedly attempted to gain entry into the apartment complex where she lived by incessantly ringing her apartment complex number that transferred to her cell phone.
Legal experts indicate that both Frame and Witholder were both potential key witnesses in the Arapahoe County case, and if anyone else had engaged in the conduct of Special Agent Milka, that such person would likely be charged with obstruction of justice and witness tampering by the D.A.
District Attorney Brauchler Praised
Civil libertarians have praised Brauchler for demanding that the FBI produce a letter from the Denver Special Agent in Charge, Thomas P. Ravenelle, and attach the letter to the Motion to Dismiss to the court which made it public record. A district attorney has almost total discretion in such matters and could have hidden the FBI’s invo
More concerning to some is the fact that apparent FBI informant Charles Johnson and FBI Special Agent Milka were clearly violating the 1st Amendment rights of the citizens like Witholder who simply wrote letters to a newspaper on a matter of public concern. Some of the victims of the FBI’s actions have wondered when it is the FBI violating your rights, who do you get to complain to?
Free To Kill
For experienced Cherry Creek Valley hands the case seemed to have echoes of the Scott Lee Kimball debacle of seven years ago involving the Denver FBI which effectively destroyed its reputation locally. While the Chronicle wrote extensively on the case, perhaps the best full summarization of the case is located on the Boulder Daily Camera website under the title “Scott Lee Kimball — Free to Kill.”
In December 2002 Kimball was released from jail for various crimes, including forgery, to be an active informant on a drug bust. Instead he went on a four year killing spree murdering at least four women and his uncle with the active assistance or criminal negligence of FBI Special Agent Carle Schlaff.
Kimball was only caught due to the incredible persistence of family members of the women probably tortured and murdered by Kimball and the work of Lafayette Police Officer Gary Thatcher.
“The Cleaner”
Schlaff was replaced on the case by Jonathan Grusing when it became clear that local law enforcement was on to the fact that Kimball was murdering people with the aid and assistance of the FBI. Most of the victims’ families viewed Grusing
Jonathan Grusing, a special agent with the FBI, poses at the Safe Streets Task Force office in Denver.
Photo by Marty Caivano/Camera/Feb. 19, 2010
as a hero, at least as compared to Schlaff, but others dubbed him “The Cleaner” after the Harvey Keitel character in the movie Pulp Fiction. The Cleaner in the movie was sent in to erase all indicia of the crimes and any connection to the Mob. Some viewed Grusing in a similar manner, erasing all evidence of FBI crimes as related to the murders by Scott Lee Kimball.
If that was the role of Grusing, he was very successful as no actions were brought against any person in the Denver FBI office for the murders, unlike the case in Boston where the Whitey Bulger murders resulted in FBI agent John Connolly being sent to prison for 40 years.
Incredibly, Special Agent Grusing is apparently also involved in the Glendale matter with knowledgeable individuals saying that Grusing and Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi are “thick as thieves” and are in regular contact with each other.
The Ribeau Analysis
Some have surmised that Kheirkhahi may be a federal confidential informant himself against the Islamic Republic of Iran where he often travels and has extensive business contacts. In addition, Mike Ribeau, a former Homeland Security agent who heads up ISL Consultants and was at one time embedded with the FBI, believes that the FBI is engaged in a bigger investigation, and that the Johnson affair is causing problems. He surmises that the FBI is attempting to claim that Glendale officials, by not automatically approving the vague and inchoate development suggestions of Kheirkhahi, are violating the civil rights of the rug merchants.
He points to the Obama Administration’s recent effort to override local zoning laws in suburban communities to provide a massive influx of low income individuals and foreign born immigrants. The mere fact that Glendale residents and neighborhood groups throughout Denver are opposed to the massive condo project on Colorado Boulevard is perhaps, for the FBI, proof positive that Glendale officials are engaging in criminal Islamophobia notwithstanding the fact that oppo
sition has nothing to do with religion.
Other experts consulted by the Chronicle found Ribeau’s analysis “highly plausible.” If the Ribeau analysis is correct, then Glendale and surrounding Denver neighborhoods are in for a long, hot summer with the incredibly wealthy rug merchants with potentially unlimited funds coming in from Iran and their expensive, high-powered law firms teaming up with the power of the U.S. federal government to quash any and all local opposition to anything that Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi wishes to impose directly or indirectly. For some, it could be a scary time to be a resident of the Cherry Creek Valley where the normal rights of American citizens may potentially no longer be of very much importance to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
