RAND Corp sting 1998
Eli, my son, was born in 1992 with his eyes wide open. This was nearly nine months to the day after his Japanese mother and I honeymooned on a cruise ship along the Mexican Riviera. His eyes are still wide open. He is tall and slender with dark hair and plays baseball, paintball and Warcraft, among other strategy games, on his computer.In 1998 I received a telephone call from Fireman’s Fund that one of their insureds, RAND Corp. needed a worker’s compensation investigation done. I started my investigation business in 1990 and incorporated in 1992 with the name Chosa Investigation. Although I had almost a dozen employees I decided to do the investigation myself. In hindsight I suspect RAND may not even have been insured by FF.I arrived at RAND in Santa Monica for a scheduled appointment in late 1998 to determine whether or not an accident suffered by a security guard, due to a slip and fall, was compensible. I was somewhat apprehensive for two reasons, one, my previous exchange with VP Rich on the skunkworks newsgroup, and two, the accident had occurred some six months prior to the investigation request. CA law mandates a claims examiner establish liability within 60 days. Something felt wrong.
Upon announcing by identity at RAND’s reception desk a security guard introduced himself as my escort. He said he would find an office for me to interview the injured (who had returned to work) and a witness. After traipsing the hallways in the unsecured portion of the facility for ten minutes the guard announced he could not find an open office. We returned to the lobby where he asked me to wait and he departed. When he returned he told me he had found a free office and he asked me to follow him.
We entered a highly secured area behind double locked cardkey access doors. A quarter of the way down a hallway he opened an office door and invited me in. It was a large office with a desk at the rear and a table and chairs in the center of the room. The guard told me to have a seat and he would retrieve the interviewees. He closed the door behind him when he left.
I glanced around the room and on the south wall I saw a ten foot long blackboard. Hand written on the blackboard was a complete nuclear defense scenario, missile launches, use of B2 bombers, submarines, etc. My mind raced with paranoia. The guard had to know I had a camera and a tape recorder. I avoided looking at the blackboard as the time slowed to seconds of awareness, the ten minutes it took for him to return with the interviewees seemed like an hour.
The interviews were done as quickly as possible, without taking individual statements as is normally done in such investigations. I departed the facility without taking photos of the accident scene and with undue hast. On my way back to my office in Pasadena I made a stop to hit a few golf balls at a nearby driving range to steady my nerves. When I returned to my vehicle I found it had been broken into and my briefcase was gone.
I telephone the South Pasadena PD. A report was filed. I stressed the seriousness of the situation, that my briefcase contained names, dates of birth and social security numbers of RAND security personnel. For those who don’t know, RAND is a think tank begun in 1948 under the initial supervision of Gen. Curtis LeMay to conduct research for the Air Force, most top secret. They developed such concepts as the “first strike scenario.”
A week and a half later I received a telephone call from the South Pasadena PD that a anonymous caller informed them my briefcase could be found in a park next to a trash can. They picked it up and had it at the station. I immediately drove there and retrieved it and heaved a sigh of relief when I found all my papers were there. But the papers had been shuffled. Notes I had taken from research I’d regarding nuclear propulsion had been pulled out of one of the sleeves and placed on top. I could only think to myself they must have thought I was some kind of spy. I later explained this to the Central District Justice Department in Los Angeles to the heads of the civil and criminal divisions in 2000. But what I did not say was that this story really began in March 1995 at Area 51 in Nevada.
Least anyone should doubt my story I will provide url’s, whats left anyway after they destroyed a ten year old database on the east coast that I posted to as well as postings elsewhere, to substantiate my claims. Additionally, the police report in South Pasadena should still be there and other related documents pertinent to this story-articles of incorporation, etc.
