The FBI in San Francisco used a public relations program billed as "mosque outreach" to collect information on the religious views and practices of Muslims in Northern California and then shared the intelligence with other government agencies, according to FBI documents obtained by civil rights groups.

The heavily redacted documents, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, raise "grave constitutional concerns," said Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"In San Francisco, we have found that community outreach was being run out of the FBI’s intelligence division and was part of a secret and systematic intelligence gathering program,” conducted without any apparent evidence of wrongdoing," said Shamsi. "The bureau’s documentation of religious leaders' and congregants' beliefs and practices violates the Privacy Act, which Congress passed to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights."

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The Privacy Act limits sharing of personal information among government agencies and the length of time it can be retained. In this case, the information shared included religious beliefs and affiliations, which the ACLU argues is entirely out of bounds.

The ACLU is calling for the Department of Justice’s inspector general to investigate alleged violations of the Privacy Act in the San Francisco Division and determine the scope of such activity nationwide.

The FBI San Francisco defended its agents' actions, saying the information "was collected within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity."

The ACLU of Northern California filed the FOIA lawsuit with the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper, leading to the release of the FBI documents on Tuesday.

Meant to foster trust
The documents indicate that FBI was keeping records of conversations and activities within mosques and other Muslim organizations from 2004 through 2008, information that was provided by employees engaged in the outreach programs.

The announced intention of the FBI outreach programs is to foster trust between law enforcers and members of the Muslim community so they can work together to fight crime and avert terrorism.

An earlier ACLU report on community outreach prompted FBI national headquarters to issue a release stating that its policy requires separate operations and databases for intelligence gathering and community outreach programs.

A large proportion of the information was labeled "positive intelligence," which indicates that the FBI intends to keep it in its intelligence database, the ACLU report explained.

Many documents were marked "secret," even though they appeared to include only mundane information. Some documents were marked "disseminated outside," but did not specify the recipients.

Among the findings contained in the FBI documents:

• A 2005 FBI memorandum from a meeting with a congregant at Islamic Center of Santa Cruz, documented his name and religious affiliation and detailed other worshipers' financial contributions to the center and community support for Islam.
• The subject of a sermon and congregants' discussions about a property purchase for a new mosque were gathered by FBI agents during five visits to Seaside Mosque in 2005.
• Documents based on four "outreach" meetings between FBI personnel and representatives of the South Bay Islamic Association note discussions about the Hajj pilgrimage and "Islam in general."
• Documents based on FBI contacts with representatives of the Bay Area Cultural Connections — formerly the Turkish Center Musalla — describe the group’s mission and activities, and the ethnicity of its members. A memo indicates the FBI searched for the cell phone number of one participant in the meeting in the LexisNexis records database and Department of Motor Vehicle records, obtaining detailed information about him, including his date of birth, Social Security number, address and home telephone number.

There is no indication that the subjects were informed that the information was being collected or shared with other law enforcement agencies, the ACLU said.

The FBI in San Francisco declined a request for an interview, but released a statement by Assistant Director Michael Kortan. In addition to stating that the information gathering abided by laws and agency rules, it indicated that it had adjusted its outreach program since the period covered by the documents.

"Since that time, the FBI has formalized its community relations program to emphasize a greater distinction between outreach and operational activities," Kortan said.

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Outreach to 'generate goodwill'
"FBI San Francisco dedicated a full-time, non-agent employee to community outreach efforts in the fall of 2007," said a second statement from Stephanie Douglas, FBI special agent in charge. "The community outreach program is designed to generate goodwill and foster relationships with a wide-range of groups in the communities we serve."

But documents still under analysis by the ACLU indicate FBI San Francisco continued to mingle outreach and intelligence gathering through 2011, according to Shamsi.

The documents undermine trust for genuine outreach programs, said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that makes policy recommendations to lawmakers and leaders.

"I think the recent documents further underscore how well-intentioned community leaders who talk with the FBI are instead the targets of this broad, intelligence-gathering effort," she said. "It’s easy to see then how that community leader who had a conversation with an FBI agent finds himself being harassed when traveling or crossing borders."

"These documents are illustrating the actual experiences of American Muslims that we have been hearing for a number of years now," she added.  

The findings are the latest  from an ACLU examination of how the FBI has conducted surveillance in the wake of 9-11 and a campaign to expose cases that they say threaten civil liberties.

In FBI documents obtained through other Freedom of Information lawsuits, the rights groups has highlighted systematic surveillance of Muslim student organizations and individuals and what it considers anti-Muslim bias in training materials being used by the FBI —now the subject of internal FBI investigation, according to published reports.

'Count the mosques'
In a separate case, documents uncovered by The Associated Press revealed that the New York Police Department conducted an extensive surveillance campaign of the Muslim population there, keeping secret files on individuals, businesses, mosques and organizations. Those findings have provoked outrage from many Muslim and civil rights groups, which have called on the Obama administration to intervene.

Greater FBI scrutiny of Muslim communities goes back to shortly after the 9/11 attacks, when then FBI Director Robert Mueller instructed field offices across the country to "count the mosques" and set up investigative goals accordingly, according to an article by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff.

Rules governing FBI surveillance were relaxed in 2008 to give more leeway to FBI "assessments" — a stage of surveillance that takes place before the opening of a formal investigation. These more lenient standards, critics say, allow information gathering on individuals without probable cause.

Rights groups are asking the Department of Justice to restore stricter rules on surveillance and to prohibit racial and religious profiling in all cases.

"What we need is for the FBI to go back to the standards set after the Hoover-era abuses.… guidelines put in place that required the FBI to engage in surveillance only if there’s evidence of wrongdoing," said Khera of Muslim Advocates.

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Verizon and AT&T have agreed to stop “cramming” consumers' telephone bills with unauthorized third-party charges, Sen. Jay Rockefeller announced Wednesday. The move comes after a Senate investigation revealed last year that consumers were hit with $10 billion in fraudulent charges due to the practice over the past five years.

A TODAY show/msnbc.com investigation in July  revealed how extensive and frustrating cramming is, with maddening, mysterious $10 or $20 charges appearing every month on millions of Americans' phone bills.

The investigation relied on a report commissioned by Rockefeller that found that three telecom firms - -- Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink/Quest -- earned $650 million as their cut of cramming charges levied by third-parties since 2006.

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"AT&T made the right decision to end cramming by August," the West Virginia Democrat’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.  "Something had to be done.  And while the decisions of AT&T and Verizon are a step in the right direction, I still believe we need to pass a bill that bans this abusive practice once and for all.”

“AT&T has decided to discontinue most third-party billing on our customers’ landline accounts,” Michael Balmoris, an AT&T spokesman, said in a statement to msnbc.com. "We currently receive cramming complaints for only about one out of every thousand bills that contain third-party charges.  However, due to continued concern over the possibility of unauthorized charges, we have decided to take this additional step and eliminate third-party billing for most types of services.”

Verizon spokesman Bill Kula also confirmed the change, saying in an email: “On March 19, Verizon’s wireline business began notifying its billing aggregators (or “clearinghouses”) and carriers that it is going to cease providing third-party billing services for so-called 'miscellaneous' or 'enhanced' services. All billing of those services will be phased out by the end of 2012.  … Verizon wireline will continue to provide billing services for third party charges that generally relate to telecommunications or information services that use our network.”

Separately, Verizon earlier this month agreed to settle aclass-action lawsuit related to cramming, and agreed to refund 100 percent of victims' money for any unauthorized third-party charges consumers suffered from April 27, 2005, through Feb. 28, 2012.

Cramming has vexed consumers and generated mountains of complaints since 1995, when land line providers began making it easy for third-party firms to sell add-on services like voice mail through local phone bills. 

The problem is it's too easy for third parties to attach unwanted items to consumers' bills:  Previous investigations have found firms frequently trick consumers into signing up using sweepstakes entries or cashing small checks that also serve as authorization forms. In other cases, the third-party firms simply lie about getting authorization, a scam called “phantom billing.” Last year, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan testified that usage rates for the unwanted services could be as low as 1 percent.

"Committee staff has found hundreds of egregious examples of cramming," the Rockefeller report found. "Third-party vendors have enrolled deceased persons in their so-called services and charged family members' telephone bills for it. They have charged telephone lines dedicated to fire alarms, security systems, bank vaults, elevators and 911 systems. Senior citizens' telephones have been enrolled in web-hosting services, even though they have never used. A children‘s hospital was charged for a celebrity tracker e-mail service that provided daily celebrity news feeds, photo, and videos. A national bank‘s telephone lines were charged for credit protection plans."

Perhaps nothing illustrates how out of control cramming had become as well as AT&T's own victimization.

"Committee staff confirmed that third-party vendors associated with one hub company crammed at least 80 of AT&T‘s own telephone lines with charges for services such as voicemail, sometimes for periods as long as 18 months," the report said.

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The most important tool consumers have to fight against ID theft has been turned against them by hackers, msnbc.com has learned. Websites that offer consumers a chance to see their credit reports are being brazenly used by hackers to steal victims' information.

The prices of the reports rise and fall depending on the credit score of the victim. For consumers with credit scores in the 750s, report data might fetch $80; reports from victims with scores in the low 600s sell for about half that, according to "for sale" pages viewed by msnbc.com.

"It shows how people with good credit and a net worth now have a bull’s-eye on their backs," said Dan Clements, who operates the Internet security firm CloudEyez.com. Clements gave msnbc.com a virtual tour of the marketplaces, which he has been observing for months.

The most troubling part of these markets however – many hosted in the .su domain, which stands for the now-defunct Soviet Union – is the ready availability of credit reports and the hackers' bragging about how easy it is to infiltrate websites like AnnualCreditReport.com or CreditReport.com.

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"I'm selling super prime credit reports and scores which include all 3 bureaus and other information," brags one advertisement on one site. 

Clements helped msnbc.com view dozens of credit reports on the forum, many of which had CreditReport.com stamped across the first page. But others viewed by msnbc.com indicated they were stolen from AnnualCreditReport.com and Equifax.com. Clements said most other online credit report and some credit score suppliers were hit, too --  he shared a page showing a victim's score produced at CreditKarma.com.

"We really have no idea how many reports have been used or put up for sale in the 'libraries,'" said Clements, who also operates a consulting firm. 

The credit report trade shows why even simple credit card fraud – long considered a relatively benign form of ID theft – can escalate quickly into a full-blown identity nightmare. Criminals with stolen cards can obtain background reports, credit reports and ultimately open new accounts using the information gleaned about the victim, Clements said.

In one how-to posted on a bulletin board, a hacker describes one brute-force attack used to gain access to credit report websites. Most sites are protected by "challenge" questions such as, "Which bank holds the mortgage on your home?"  But there's a critical flaw, the hacker said:

"Normally all ... of them will ask you the same question," the hacker wrote.

Because the sites use the multiple choice format, it's easy to use the process of elimination and determine the correct answers, he claims.

The hacker explained that the trick is to open several credit report sites and keep trying random answers until one set works.

The recipe is highly detailed, including helpful tips such as, "Take a shot of screen to remember what answers you gave. After that click the submit button and see what it says."

A would-be credit report thief needs additional information to get credit report access, but that can often be gleaned by ordering background checks using the victim's stolen credit card. Reports stolen from Intellius.com and BeenVerified.com, which provide previous addresses and a host of other valuable information, also were found on the site.

One victim whose credit report was spotted on the site told msnbc.com that she found one instance of credit card fraud on her accounts around the time the data theft was first discovered by Clements. She now pays to maintain a credit freeze on her credit reports.

"You hear about this kind of thing all the time but you never think it will happen to you," said the victim, who requested that her name be withheld. "And when it happens, you think, 'Great. Now what do I do?'”

For years, consumers have been advised to visit AnnualCreditReport.com once each year to see their reports. Federal law requires the nation's three largest credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union – to maintain the site, under the direction of the Federal Trade Commission.

That's still good advice – looking at your credit report is the best way to detect identity theft. But the site is apparently both an ally and a foe now.

The FTC would not comment on hackers' use of AnnualCreditReport.com.

In the past, the FTC has sued companies for inadvertently selling credit report data to hackers, however. In 2011, the agency settled with Settlementone Credit Corp., ACRAnet Inc. and Fajilan Associates after those firms unknowingly sold reports to criminals. The three firms were ordered to submit to 20 years' worth of security audits.

Those firms prepare reports for car dealerships and other credit granters. Raiding consumer-facing sites like AnnualCreditReport.com is even more brazen, however.

CreditReport.com is operated by credit bureau Experian; that firm also provides credit reports to consumers as part of AnnualCreditReport.com.

"Experian is aware of schemes such as this to access reports illegally, and we have taken measures within our systems to mitigate the issue," said Experian in an e-mail to msnbc.com. "We are constantly evolving our systems to prevent fraud and criminal activity, but do not comment publicly on the specifics of our fraud prevention methods." 

Trans Union and Equifax, which also provide reports through AnnualCreditReport.com, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Kenneth Lin, CEO of CreditKarma.com, said the firm had received "a handful" of complaints about compromised accounts and worked quickly to shut down access. CreditKarma credit score reports show no account information or other personal data, so the security risk posed by an imposter getting a victim's score is minimal, he said.

"That's intentional. That's a security feature," he said. The site also uses more difficult challenge questions than AnnualCreditReport.com, Lin added.

Solving the problem of credit reports stolen through consumer websites is no small task. One irony of the hackers' ability to easily raid such sites is that many consumers report great frustration getting their own credit reports through AnnualCreditReport.com.  The challenge questions are sometimes so arcane – such as, "Which bank held your previous auto loan?" -- that legitimate consumers can't answer them easily.  

"But anyone who does any research can probably figure out what the answers are before you can," said Jay Foley, who runs IDTheftInfoSource.com. In other words, it's too easy for criminals to get credit reports, but it's too hard for consumers.

One of the websites where Clements observed the stolen card activity – kurupt.su – dropped mysteriously off the Web late last week. The site was well-known as a haunt for criminals and scam artists in the computer underground. But Clements says that will hardly put a dent in the stolen data trade.

"You currently can't stop this scam because the 'soft inquiry' of a consumer pulling their own report doesn't record in the majority of credit files," he said, explaining that a consumer would never know if a criminal pulled a copy of their report. "Unfortunately, it allows the bad guys, by impersonating you, to download your credit file and leave no tracks."

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Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was labeled a “likely pedophile” in 1998, when campus police investigated an incident in which he bear hugged a young boy in the showers at the university.

In an exclusive report for Today, NBC News National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff obtained the police file on the investigation. You can read all three files – the police report itself and assessments from two psychologists: Alycia A. Chambers, the therapist for one of Sandusky’s alleged victims, and  John Seasock, who had worked with the local Centre County Child and Youth Services, a local agency that had licensed Sandusky as a foster parent.

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Chambers issued the warning about Sandusky in a detailed report written after she interviewed the boy who was her client.

“My consultants agree that the incidents meet all of our definitions, based on experience and education, of a likely pedophile’s pattern of building trust and gradual introduction of physical touch, within a context of a ‘loving,’ ‘special’ relationship,” Chambers wrote in her report.

But Seasock, after meeting with the boy for an hour, concluded that no sexual offense had taken place nor was there “grooming” or “inappropriate sexual behavior” by Sandusky.

”All the interactions reported by (the boy) can be typically defined as normal between a healthy adult and a young adolescent male,” Seasock wrote in his report.

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in 'The Isikoff Files'

While the reports’ conclusions differed, one of the investigators on the 1998 case, Jerry Lauro, said he didn’t know that. Lauro, then with the state Department of Public Welfare and now retired, told NBC News he was never shown a copy of Chambers’ report and was stunned to learn of its conclusions.

“Wow!” he said when he was read Chambers’ conclusions by a NBC News correspondent. “This is the first I’ve heard of this. I had no idea . If I would have seen the report, I would certainly have done some things differently. Boy, this is a shock. “

Click here to watch the Today video piece, read Isikioff’s complete story and review the documents.

A reclusive Texas homebuilder who helped finance the “Swift Boat Veterans” attacks against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 contributed nearly half of the $6.4 million raised by a super PAC backing Mitt Romney last month. 

Bob Perry, owner of the Houston-area custom homebuilder Perry Homes and a longtime backer of conservative causes, gave $3 million last month to the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, according to a report filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. 

Perry has been a prolific donor to Republican candidates and causes this election cycle, having previously given $1 million to the same pro-Romney super PAC, as well as $100,000 to a super PAC that backed Texas Gov. Rick Perry and $2.5 million to American Crossroads, the Republican super PAC founded by Karl Rove.

Perry’s support is  the latest example of how a small group of extremely wealthy donors are accounting for the bulk of the financing in this year's Republican presidential contest.

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Perry, who helped fund the Swift Boat attacks against Massachusetts Sen. Kerry in 2004, which sought to discredit his military record and subsequent antiwar activities, almost never gives interviews or attends political fundraisers. But with his new seven-figure check, he has become part of an elite club of mega donors, along with Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who’s helped bankroll a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC; and Wyoming financier Foster Friess, a top supporter of the pro-Rick Santorum Red, White and Blue Fund. Those men, along with Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, are effectively helping to bankroll the barrage of attack ads that have been flooding the airwaves in the GOP primary states.

 

Restore Our Future -- the biggest of  the presidential super PACs -- has spent $35 million in this year's primary battle, almost all of it on negative ads slamming Romney's opponents. (The group reported it had $10.5 million in cash still on hand as of the end of February.) 

Other notable donations to the group last month include $500,000 checks from two other veteran GOP donors-- David Humphrey, CEO of TAMKO Building Products in Joplin, Mo., and Jerry Perenchio, a former Hollywood talent agent and former CEO of Univision -- as well as $100,000 from Simmons, a leveraged buyout kingpin who has already given $10 million to GOP super PACs this year, including groups backing Gingrich and Perry.

All told, Restore Our Future collected 15 checks of $100,000 or more last month and at least 31 out of its total of 100 donors came from financial institutions, including big hedge funds and private equity firms that have been the biggest single source of its funds. These included $100,000 from Henry Kravis, the co-CEO and chair of Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts (another $50,000 was contributed by KKR partner Marc Lipshultz); and  $100,000 from Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Chicago based Citadel hedge fund. Griffin recently told the Chicago Tribune he is "terrified" the country is headed in the wrong direction, and complaining that the financial markets have become a "hyper-regulated industry" that is "punishing savers." As for criticism that big donors like him are tilting the political process, Griffin said: "I think (the ultra-wealthy) actually have an insufficient influence. Those who have enjoyed the benefits of our system more than ever now owe a duty to protect the system that has created the greatest nation on this planet."

Restore Our Future’s FEC report shows the group, created and controlled by Romney allies and former Romney aides, spent $11.6 million in February on TV and Internet ads, the vast majority of them attacking Santorum and Gingrich, and on direct mail and phone outreach to voters.

In total, the group spent $12.2 million for the month, in which seven nominating contests were held, including an expensive, tightly fought battle in Michigan. According to the FEC report, Restore Our Future ended the month with more than $10 million remaining on hand.

NBC News’ Garrett Haake contributed to this report.

Speaking firms representing ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton have received federal subpoenas as part of an expanding investigation into the source of payments to former top government officials who have publicly advocated removing an Iranian dissident group from the State Department list of terrorist groups, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

The investigation, being conducted by the Treasury Department, is focused on whether the former officials may have received funding, directly or indirectly, from the People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, thereby violating longstanding federal law barring financial dealings with terrorist groups. The sources, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, said that speaking fees given to the former officials total hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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"This is about finding out where the money is coming from," an Obama administration official familiar with the probe said. "This has been a source of enormous concern for a long time now. You have to ask the question, whether this is a prima facie case of material support for terrorism."

Freeh and Shelton are among 40 former senior U.S. government officials who have participated in a public lobbying campaign – including appearing at overseas conferences and speaking at public rallies – aimed at persuading the U.S. government to remove the MEK from the terror list.

First-class flights
Many of the speakers have received fees of about $30,000 or more per talk and first-class flights to European capitals, according to two sources familiar with the arrangements.

Edward Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and ex-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, whose speaking firm also received a subpoena, has received $160,000 over the past year for appearing at about seven conferences and rallies, including some in Paris, Brussels and Geneva, according to his office. (Rendell is a contributor to MSNBC TV.)

The former officials have said they were told the fees came from wealthy American and foreign supporters of the MEK, not the group itself — and they resent any suggestion they are abetting a terrorist group. 

"We're all pretty miffed," Shelton told NBC News. "None of us involved in this would say a good word about anyone suspected of being a terrorist." But Shelton said that he's "pretty passionate" that the MEK represents a legitimate resistance group fighting to overthrow "America's number one enemy" — the Iranian government.

In a statement Friday, Hossein Abedini, a spokesman for the MEK,also  denied the group has ever “paid senior former U.S. officials or any other dignitary in the U.S.”

 “This is an utter lie and there is not even a scintilla of truth to it,” Abedini said. “The MEK, as the legitimate opposition to the clerical regime, enjoys international recognition in Europe and the U.S. The objective of this failed propaganda is to weaken the widespread public support of the members of Congress, officials and scores of U.S. generals for … revoking of the illegitimate and unjust terror listing of the MEK.”

Shelton said that he was informed by Keppler Speakers, the agency that handles his speaking engagements, that it had been subpoenaed for records of talks he has given over the past year at conferences and rallies sponsored by the MEK. He said Freeh told him that Greater Talent Network, the firm that handles the former FBI director's speaking engagements, also received a subpoena.

Freeh did not respond to requests for comment. (A Keppler executive also did not respond. Reached by phone, Tom Marcosson, an executive vice president of Greater Talent, declined to comment.)

But Rendell told NBC News that he received an email this week from Freeh's office alerting him and more than three dozen other former senior officials that subpoenas were being issued by the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control. The email asked that the former senior officials contact Freeh and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Freeh and Mukasey, who have been among the leaders in the campaign to "delist" the MEK, are hiring a lawyer to represent all former senior officials caught up in the investigation, the email from Freeh's office said, according to Rendell.

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John Sullivan, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said the department does not comment on "potential" investigations. But he added in an email: "The MEK is a designated terrorist group, therefore U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group. The Treasury Department takes sanctions enforcement seriously and routinely investigates potential violations of sanctions law."

It is unclear how far Treasury Department officials intend to push the probe — or why they chose to launch it now, more than a year after the lobbying campaign began. But NBC News has obtained one possible clue: A small Pennsylvania-based speakers firm called Speakers Access wrote an email in September inviting a Washington based national security expert to speak at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland "on behalf of our client, National Council of Resistance of Iran, Foreign Affairs Committee." The National Council of Resistance is considered by the Treasury Department to be one of the "aliases" of the MEK and is itself designated as a terror group. 

'Mistake'
The email was later turned over to the FBI and other U.S. officials. The Speakers Access executive who wrote the email, who asked not to be identified, said the email was a "mistake" and that the client was actually another organization — "the Committee for Human Rights in Iran," which is not on the terror list but which has the same contact in Paris as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The executive said Speakers Access has since ceased any dealings with either group and turned over all its records on the matter after receiving a Treasury Department subpoena months ago.

The investigation comes at a time of intense internal debate about the MEK, in part spurred by assertions it could prove a useful ally in pressuring the Iranian government to suspend its nuclear program. NBC News reported recently that MEK operatives, trained by the Israeli Mossad, are believed by some U.S. intelligence officials to have been involved in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists — a report that the group has denied as "absolutely false."

Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials say

U.S. officials say that the MEK has a long history of terrorist acts, including bombings and assassinations, against Iranian leaders during the 1980s and that at least six Americans died in such attacks. The group — which was once allied with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — is also viewed warily because of the slavish devotion of its followers to its Paris based leader, Maryan Rajavi.

"The MEK has a crazy edge to it," said Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center and an NBC News consultant. "It always struck me as a cult as much as a terrorist group."

But the group's supporters say it has long since publicly renounced violence and that Rajavi has proclaimed the group's adherence to democratic principles. "They want the mullahs out of Iran and they want to replace them with a constitution based on the Declaration of Independence," said Shelton.

The group has also generated sympathy over the plight of its followers at Camp Ashraf, a paramilitary camp on the Iran-Iraq border, where they have been detained – and until recently protected – by the U.S military since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials have been seeking the group's cooperation to resettle the estimated 2,500 remaining MEK members at Camp Ashraf to a new facility near the Baghdad airport, where they can be processed by the United Nations as refugees and resettled elsewhere.  

But the process has stalled – in part over disputes about the conditions of transfer – and MEK advocates say they fear the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, at Iran's urging, may move in to slaughter the group’s members. "This could be a humanitarian disaster," said Rendell.

Rendell said that there have been weekly conference calls among a "core group" of former U.S. senior officials participating in the lobbying campaign, organized by Freeh, to talk about ways to prod the State Department to remove the MEK from the terror list and protect its followers at Camp Ashraf. He identified this group as including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean and Mukasey — all of whom have publicly spoken out on behalf of the MEK and spoken at its rallies.

Officials act as middle men
These weekly conference calls have also turned into back channel negotiations over the Camp Ashraf issue. In recent weeks, Rendell said, State Department Ambassador Daniel Fried, the special envoy for detainee issues, has joined the phone calls, urging the pro-MEK "core" members to pass along messages to MEK leaders in Paris, Rendell said.

"The core group talks to Freeh every week," he said. "It's Ridge, myself, Dean, Freeh, Mukasey. Shelton has joined us on occasion. … We were the ones that Fried asked to communicate with the MEK, telling them, 'This is the best deal you're going to get.' He will say, 'Listen, you guys have to persuade the MEK to do this. Tell them, OK, tell Paris, they have to persuade the people to get on the buses (at Camp Ashraf.) We then communicate [with the MEK]."

Fried declined comment. But a senior State Department official confirmed his participation in the calls as a means of communicating with MEK leaders in Paris — something U.S. officials are barred from doing — in order to work out a "peaceful" resolution over the conflict over Camp Ashraf. 

Rendell said that he and other members of the core group have met with Rajavi in Paris and sent emails to her chief deputy, Farzin Hashemi, passing along Fried's messages. "The bottom line is, we all believe we are protecting people," he said.

But the bottom line for some U.S. officials is that the former government officials participating in the pro-MEK campaign are being paid handsomely for promoting a dubious cause sponsored by an officially designated terrorist group. Despite the public lobbying campaign, there is still deep suspicion about the MEK and its motives — and concerns that once its members leave Camp Ashraf, many of its followers will return to terrorism, said one senior official speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It's extraordinary that so many distinguished public servants would shill for a group that has American blood on its hands," the official said.

NEW YORK — The mystery itself is a masterpiece. A $10 million painting by Degas — a simple figure of a ballerina in a yellow and red tutu pointing her toe – vanished from the New York City apartments of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, and wound up, innocently enough, on the living room wall of Henry Bloch, a Kansas art collector better known as the "H" in the tax company H&R Block. How it got there is a multi-layered tale involving one of the more colorful transactions in the history of high-end art.

For readers who have been following the Clark mystery story on msnbc.com, this episode provides a new piece of evidence that could be important in the legal battle over her $400 million estate. Now we know that her longtime physician, as part of a settlement over the painting, signed a statement swearing to her competency, describing his then-102-year-old patient as "mentally and physically alert." This was in 2008, or three years after she signed a will cutting her family out of any inheritance and planning an art museum in her California home.

The circumstances in which the Degas ballerina disappeared from Clark’s Fifth Avenue apartments in the early 1990s remain unclear, but for the first time the story can be told of how it ended up in Bloch’s living room, above the sofa, between a Seurat and a Toulouse-Lautrec. And how Bloch was allowed to keep the painting even after the FBI came calling.

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When it was discovered in 2005 that Bloch and his wife had purchased a painting with a tainted past, a quiet dispute over its ownership erupted. It had been taken from Clark's apartment, but it also had been bought in good faith by the Blochs.

Valuing her privacy more than her possessions, Clark had told her attorney and the FBI in 1992 not to pursue the loss of the painting. She didn't list it on the international registry of stolen art. As a result, in a high-stakes legal version of the children's rhyme "finder's keepers, loser's weepers," she may have lost her claim to the painting. The Blochs' attorney argued that it now belonged to them. 

After well-mannered wrangling, Clark and Bloch reached a deal. Clark agreed to donate the painting to an art museum in Kansas City, Mo., the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, where Bloch had been a longtime trustee, chairman and benefactor, and where he and his wife had promised to donate all their art when they died. As part of the agreement, the heiress, not America's Tax Man, got the income tax deduction for the gift.

The handoff
To seal the deal, the ballerina needed to change hands. In October 2008, on a clear but crisp Monday at the Bloch home in Mission Hills, Kansas, a museum representative handed the ballerina in the gilded frame to Clark's attorney, who handed it back to the museum, and back onto the Blochs' wall it went. The museum had agreed to lend the painting back to the Blochs, and they will have it as long as they live, renewing the loan every year. Then it will go back to its owner, the Kansas City museum, with the rest of the Bloch collection of Impressionist masterpieces.

The parties signed a confidentiality agreement, keeping the whole business secret even from the staff of the museum. Only three of its 21 trustees were told.

When the museum announced in 2010 the promise by the Blochs to donate 30 Impressionist masterpieces at their death, the Degas dancer was featured in The Kansas City Star newspaper, although the museum at that point had already owned the painting for two years.

Last month, when asked about the ballerina, the museum public relations staff said emphatically that it was not owned by the museum.

'Stunning'
"This is a remarkably beautiful work by Degas. Everything about this work is stunning," wrote Joachim Pissarro, curator of the department of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, describing the gentle figure of a dancer in bold yellow and orange, set against brown floorboards and a green backdrop of foliage on a stage.

Edgar Degas, the reluctant Impressionist who preferred to be known as a Realist, painted the ballerina in France in 1879-1880, as his eyesight was failing. It's a seemingly simple work, 19 by 14½ inches, with pastel and gouache applied to paper. It's known as "Dancer Making Points," or in French, "Danseuse Faisant des Pointes."

The ballerina was sold at a gallery in Paris in 1927, then passed to the French collector Georges Lévy, who brought his collection to America in 1939-1940 to escape the Nazis. Huguette Clark or her mother bought it sometime before 1955.

The youngest daughter of the former U.S. Sen. William Andrews Clark, known as one of the Copper Kings of Montana, Huguette Marcelle Clark was born in Paris in 1906. In his day, her father could have bought up all the works of all the Impressionists with one week's income from his mines, but he mostly preferred older paintings.

In 1991, at age 84, Huguette Clark moved from her 42-room apartments on New York's Fifth Avenue, and would live the remaining 20 years of her life in hospital rooms. She left behind a Monet, a Renoir and many other treasures.

Documents and interviews show that it didn't take long for one treasure to go missing.

In 1992 or early 1993, her attorney, Donald Wallace, learned that the Degas ballerina was lost. There was talk that a member of the building staff had taken it, or that doormen had seen it next to a trash bin in the building. In any case, the ballerina was gone. Wallace informed his client, whom he never met face to face in 20 years of representation. Clark discouraged him from pursuing the matter, maintaining her longstanding policy of not doing anything that would generate publicity, even if it cost her millions.

But her attorney, or the building manager, called the FBI. Wallace explained that Clark saw no visitors, but the FBI agents barged into her hospital room anyway. She discouraged them from investigating. She didn't file an insurance claim. She didn't register the painting with the Art Loss Register, a company founded in 1991 that was becoming the de facto place to check for stolen art.

'Seemingly from a good family'
Later in 1993, a well-dressed man walked into the Peter Findlay Gallery, about a 15-minute stroll down Fifth Avenue from Clark's apartment.

"Many years ago," Findlay told msnbc.com in an email, "I had a gallery on Madison Avenue and sold good things of a European taste, particularly Impressionist works such as Degas, etc. Naturally people would stop in to look and to chat. Among them was a European gentleman, seemingly from a good family, who visited New York from time to time and would occasionally visit the gallery.

"At some point he told me that he had inherited a work by Degas that had been in his family for many years and asked if I would help him sell it. Eventually the work was brought to the gallery. It had the aura of a work that had been in a family for a long time."

At this time, Henry and Marion Bloch were shopping in New York for paintings. Henry and his brother, Richard, had founded a tax accounting firm in Kansas City in 1955, calling it H&R Block, changing the spelling slightly from their last name. They built a nationwide business after the Internal Revenue Service stopped helping people fill out their tax returns. Henry Bloch, 89 today, had been a navigator on American B-17 bombers during World War II, and by all accounts is a hard-working, humble man. He and Marion, who have been married for 60 years, built a collection of Impressionists, eventually acquiring works by Renoir, Monet, van Gogh.

To buy one of Degas' famous series of dance paintings, for an undisclosed price, the Blochs sold a lesser Degas, of three dancers. Bloch later told The Kansas City Times, "This was so much finer."

Findlay said he did everything he could to confirm the provenance of the painting, checking with the Art Loss Register. "I was shocked when I heard from the FBI that the Degas was stolen."

Christopher A. Marinello, executive director and general counsel for the Art Loss Register in London, said in an interview that buyers should do their own checks on the authenticity and good title of art. "It costs less than $100 to check the ownership of a $5 million painting. People will buy a used car and they'll take it around the corner and put it up on a lift and check it out, and they'll get a Carfax report. They'll spend millions on art, and do nothing."

The Blochs mostly kept their collection at home, but in the summer of 2007, the Degas held center stage at the Nelson-Atkins when the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection highlighted the opening of the Bloch Building, named for its benefactors. The exhibition was sponsored by the H&R Block Foundation. The museum displayed a close-up of the Degas ballerina as a signature image of the collection, and notecards with the image are still for sale today in the museum gift shop.

Two years earlier, the museum and the Blochs had learned from the FBI that the Degas ballerina might belong to someone else.

In 2005 an auction house in New York had noticed that a Degas owned by Clark (known then as "La Faisant des Pointes" or "Making Points") was apparently the same one sold to Henry Bloch.

"I believe I may have been first contacted in late 2005," Henry Bloch said in a written answer to questions from msnbc.com, "by the FBI, who indicated that they were conducting an art investigation and wanted to confirm their information that we had purchased the Degas." The FBI, Bloch said, "did not give any indication that it had been stolen and gave us assurances there was nothing to worry about. I nevertheless shared the inquiry with my attorney at the time who discussed it with the Director of the Nelson-Atkins. I do not believe I was contacted again by them until late 2007."

In late 2007, the Blochs received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office, asking them to turn the painting over to the federal court during the investigation. A round of meetings began with the FBI, the U.S. Attorney, and the attorney for Clark.

Nobody wanted a lawsuit
The attorney for the Blochs took the position that the painting was theirs, fair and square.

Attorney John R. Phillips represented both the Blochs and the Nelson-Atkins. "The law is clear that the Blochs were – and the Nelson-Atkins Museum now is – the rightful owner of the work," he said in written answers to msnbc.com.

The two sides couldn't agree whether the painting had actually been stolen. Clark's attorney argued that the FBI file clearly showed that the painting had been reported as stolen. The attorney for the Blochs argued that the FBI never concluded for sure whether the painting had been given away, lost or stolen.

Even if it had been stolen, the Bloch claim cited legal cases requiring diligence by the loser of property to try to recover it. The idea is that unreasonable and inexcusable delay puts an unfair burden on the later possessor of the property. The doctrine is called laches (from the Old French word for "slack"). Failing to exercise your rights can cause you to forfeit them. One of the well-known cases involved the artist Georgia O'Keefe, who never reported to police the loss of a painting. Moreover, a Kansas law (and the Degas ballerina was then in Kansas), called a statute of repose, sets a 10-year limit on a lawsuit to recover an item.

Most people in Clark's position would have fought for their property, and Clark, a painter herself, did want her Degas to be returned. Documents show that her attorney, Wallace "Wally" Bock, advised her that she had the option to sue for the painting or its value. But she abhorred lawsuits, and a 102-year-old recluse was never going to sit for a deposition.

The main goals for the Blochs were to keep possession of the painting during their lifetimes, and to make sure it then went to the Kansas City museum. Their attorney made a proposal: If Clark were to donate the painting to the Nelson-Atkins, the Blochs would give up ownership immediately, and cede possession after they died.

Before the handoff, Sotheby's appraised the painting at $10 million. Clark would be able to claim that amount as a charitable deduction on her income tax return.

On Oct. 7, 2008, in her recognizable handwriting, now a bit shaky, 102-year-old Huguette Clark signed a deed giving her ballerina to the Nelson-Atkins Museum. (Read the document in PDF form.)

'Mentally and physically alert'
There was one more hitch, which could play a large role in the court fight now beginning over Huguette Clark's $400 million estate. The museum would not accept the gift from the centenarian, particularly one whom they couldn't meet, unless Clark provided a doctor's statement affirming she was competent to make the gift.

On Oct. 10, 2008, Clark's longtime physician signed a sworn statement. The affidavit by internist Dr. Henry S. Singman began by explaining that he was semi-retired, and had only the one patient.

"I am and have been personal physician to Madame Clark, who resides at 907 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, since 1991. As such, and because of her advanced age, I visit her on an almost daily basis."

He said he had seen her just the day before. "At that time, and on all previous visits, I found her, although slightly hard of hearing, to be mentally and physically alert, able to read and comprehend written and printed material as well as verbal communications, competent to understand and execute documents and to sign her name thereto without assistance." (Read the document in PDF form.)

Huguette Clark died at age 104 in May 2011, having signed two wills in 2005, when she was 98. The first will left nearly everything to her family, the great-grandchildren from her father's first marriage. The second will, signed just six weeks later, was more detailed, excluding her family entirely, making plans for an art museum in her Santa Barbara oceanfront home, and leaving about $36 million to her nurse ($27 million after taxes), a $40 million Monet to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., with substantial gifts to a godchild, her doctor, her attorney, her accountant and others.

If Clark was mentally competent in 2008 to make a stunning act of generosity, ceding any claim to a $10 million painting that had been taken from her, then it may be harder for her family to prove that she was incompetent in 2005 to sign that second will.

The attorney for the family, John R. Morken, said he would first question Dr. Singman's independence. The doctor is not only a beneficiary in that second will, named to receive $100,000, but also received gifts from Clark of $60,000 to $115,000 a year in her last years, over and above his payment for medical services, similar to the large gifts she gave others in her tight circle. "Obviously he wouldn't say that she lacked capacity, or else these gifts would be invalid," Morken said yesterday. "All I can say is, I look forward to his deposition."

Singman also signed a similar statement of her competency in 1995, as required by one of her banks for a financial transaction, long before she signed a will. He declined to comment this week.

The family has made a second argument, contending that Clark was unduly influenced by the nurse, attorney and accountant to sign the second will. The attorney and accountant have said that it was drafted according to her explicit instructions.

"In this transaction," said Morken, the family attorney, "I would question what was told to her, whether she knew what she was giving up."

The temporary executor of her estate, the public administrator of the city of New York, has challenged certain gifts paid from Clark's accounts, including a $5 million gift to her nurse, but has not challenged the gift of the Degas. That silence could indicate that the executor found the gift to be well documented. The attorney for the public administrator, Peter Schram, declined to comment.

'Strict confidentiality'
On Oct. 27, 2008, the painting changed hands outside the Bloch home in Mission Hills, a suburb of Kansas City. The museum's director, Marc F. Wilson, now retired, was present for the round-robin hand-off, as was Phillips, the attorney for the Blochs and the museum. Clark was represented by her attorney, Bock, and accountant, Irving Kamsler. The 128-year-old painting was walked out to the car, handed around gently like a newborn baby, and back inside it went.

The U.S. Attorney's Office withdrew its subpoena. No one was charged with taking the painting. The FBI said this month that the case remains open.

The exchange was kept secret. The Blochs and Clark signed a confidentiality agreement. The museum told only three of its 21 trustees, the three who serve as an executive committee. Even the museum's curators of European paintings were not told. No entry for the painting was created in the museum's records.

"We have consistently worked to honor our donors’ wishes for privacy and to respect the strict confidentiality requested by Ms. Clark at the time of the gift to the museum," explained the new director of the Nelson-Atkins, Julián Zugazagoitia, who joined the museum in 2010, in written answers to msnbc.com.

Was the museum's decision to lend the painting back to the Blochs, secretly, the ethical choice? The Nelson-Atkins is open free to the public, which would be able to enjoy the Degas today, if the museum staff knew that it owned the painting.

If the Blochs had fought for ownership and won, the painting wouldn't have come to the museum any sooner, staying at the Bloch home as part of their collection until their deaths. If they had fought and lost, the painting would probably have remained hidden away in the Clark apartment until after she died in May 2011, and would be headed for her proposed art museum in California if her last will is upheld.

"Despite a highly unusual course of events," museum direcdtor Zugazagoitia wrote, "and thanks to Ms. Clark's role as an additional benefactor to the museum, Mr. Bloch has been steadfast in ensuring that the work ends up in the museum's collection for the benefit of the public. We are extremely grateful for the generosity of both the Blochs and Ms. Clark."

A memento
Before the transaction was concluded, Huguette Clark made two requests.

Though Clark gave the painting without restriction to the Nelson-Atkins, in a side letter she asked that her beloved Corcoran Gallery, where most of her father's art is on display, should be allowed to borrow the painting up to three times in 25 years. If it were shown there, she would receive credit by name. But in Kansas City, the painting is listed as an anonymous gift.

After the Degas was deeded to the museum, the heiress also asked for, and received, a full-size color photograph of her ballerina.

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Reporter Bill Dedman is writing a nonfiction book about the Clark family. If you have information, you can reach him at bill.dedman@msnbc.com.

Here's a video companion piece from KSHB in Kansas City:

 

Previous stories in the Huguette Clark mystery series on msnbc.com:

Archive of all stories, photos and videos.

Photo narrative, "The Clarks: An American story of wealth, scandal and mystery," Feb. 26, 2010.

Printable version of the photo narrative, Feb. 26, 2010.

Clark family notes and sources, Feb. 26, 2010.

Investigative report, part one, "At 104, the mysterious heiress Huguette Clark is alone now: Relatives are kept away. Only her accountant and attorney visit. Who protects HuguetteClark, with 3 empty homes and no heirs?" Aug. 19, 2010.

Investigative report, part two, "Who is watching Huguette Clark's millions? Reclusive heiress's assets are sold by two advisers, one an accountant with a felony conviction. Another elderly client signed over his property to the same accountant and attorney," Aug. 20, 2010.

"Criminal probe begins into the finances of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark: Manhattan DA's Elder Abuse Unit is on the case. The same unit prosecuted the Brooke Astor case; Clark has about four times the wealth," Aug. 24, 2010.

"Report sparks welfare check on heiress Huguette Clark," Aug. 25, 2010.

"Generosity of an heiress: four homes for a nurse, gifts for attorney's family," Sept. 1, 2010.

"Huguette Clark, the reclusive heiress, has signed a will, attorney says," Sept. 2, 2010.

"Family of copper heiress asks court to protect her from attorney, accountant," Sept. 3, 2010.

"Attorney for 104-year-old heiress defends his handling of her finances," Sept. 7, 2010.

"Judge leaves pair under investigation in control of heiress Huguette Clark's fortune," Sept. 9, 2010.

"Huguette Clark, the reclusive copper heiress, dies at 104," May 24, 2011.

"Family excluded from Huguette Clark burial," May 26, 2011.

"Heiress Huguette Clark's will leaves $1 million to advisers," June 22, 2011.

"The 1 percent of the 1 percent: How Huguette Clark's millions were spent," Nov. 19, 2011.

"A $400 miillion twist: Huguette Clark signed two wills, one to her family," Nov. 28, 2011.

"Tax fraud alleged in estate of heiress Huguette Clark; accountant resigns," Dec. 21, 2011.

"Nurse, in line to inherit millions, battles family of heiress Huguette Clark," Dec. 22, 2011.

"Judge bounces attorney and accountant from estate of heiress Huguette Clark," Dec. 23, 2011.

"Book coming on reclusive heiress Huguette Clark and her family," Feb. 3, 2012.

"You can move into heiress Huguette Clark's building, for $25 million," Feb. 6, 2012.

 "Family of heiress Huguette Clark claims fraud by nurse, attorney, accountant," Feb. 15, 2012.

 

 "Heiress Huguette Clark's apartments hit the market, listed at $55 million," March 9, 2012.

 

 "The jewels of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark go on auction," March 13, 2012.

 

The FBI mishandled its investigation of the travel of a Saudi prince and his companions out of Florida within days of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, new interviews, 9/11 Commission documents and FBI files reveal. And its detailed report on the matter, drawn up for members of Congress and President George W. Bush, was inaccurate.

The new reporting springs from suspicions that a well-connected Saudi living in Sarasota, Fla., may have associated with the 9/11 hijackers. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into 9/11, has suggested that the FBI’s investigation of the Sarasota matter “was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI. An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as fact.”

These concerns have led to a re-examination of the efforts to get out of the U.S. immediately following the 9/11 attacks by a Saudi royal, Prince Sultan bin Fahd, and several companions.  Their travel began in Tampa, a short drive from Sarasota.

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The review of how the FBI dealt with and reported on the travel of the Florida-based Saudis, and their subsequent departure from the United States with other Saudis, shows that the FBI failed to interview principal witnesses; relied on erroneous second-hand information; misinterpreted the orders under which the FAA managed the closure and subsequent reopening of U.S. airspace after the 9/11 attacks; misreported the means of travel; and even got Prince Sultan’s identity wrong.

The FAA grounded all flights less than an hour after the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on the World Trade Center, and reopened U.S. airspace to commercial and charter air traffic only at 11 a.m. ET on Sept. 13. By then, with Saudi-born Osama bin Laden fingered as the principal suspect in the attacks and 15 of the 19 hijackers identified as Saudi citizens, panicked Saudis were doing their utmost to get out of the country.

Sometime on the day following the attacks, Prince Sultan, a grandnephew of the late King Fahd and a student at the University of Tampa’s American Language Academy, began trying to leave Florida, according to 9/11 Commission files. He did so on the instructions of his uncle, Prince Ahmed bin Salman, a Saudi media baron and fabulously wealthy racehorse owner who was in Lexington, Ky. for the annual yearling sales. According to a Lexington police officer – his name is redacted in FBI documents –  who coordinated security for the younger prince’s travel from Tampa, Ahmed told Sultan to get to Lexington and join him on a flight out of the U.S. 

Reportedly scared by what he considered a hostile atmosphere in the wake of the attacks, Sultan requested and received a guard detail from the Tampa Police Department. A Tampa police officer, John Solomon, later told the 9/11 Commission that he contacted Dan Grossi, a former policeman turned private investigator, to accompany the Saudis on the planned flight to Lexington. Grossi, in turn, contracted retired FBI agent Emanuel “Manny” Perez, to partner with him on the assignment.

The closure of U.S. airspace, meanwhile, led briefly to talk of Prince Sultan and his companions instead making the 700-mile journey to Lexington by car. But an FAA Notice to Airmen – a “NOTAM” – that U.S. airspace would reopen to domestic commercial and charter flights at 11 a.m. ET on Sept. 13, cleared them to fly, FAA records show.

At about 4:30 p.m. that afternoon, Grossi met the prince and his party of four – later named as Fahad al-Zied, Ahmed al-Hazmi (the fact that this is the same last name as two of the 9-11 hijackers may well be mere coincidence) and Talal al-Mejrad, son of a Saudi army officer – at Raytheon Services, away from the main Tampa airport terminal. With the Saudis and the security men on board, a cream-colored Lear Jet supplied by the Fort Lauderdale charter company Hop-A-Jet lifted off at 4:37, FAA records and Tampa Airport data show.

Prince looked 'like a kid who was scared'
Perez, the security man, said that only on landing around 6 p.m. at Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport did he realize the flight had been very sensitive – that one of his passengers was a Saudi royal. They were greeted, he recalled in an interview, by a phalanx of security men and a flurry of hand-kissing for young Prince Sultan, who was then in his early 20s.

Lt. Mark Barnard of the Lexington Police Department, who worked liaison at the Kentucky end, would later tell the 9/11 Commission that the prince seemed to him just  “like a kid who was scared,” escorted the young Saudi and his companions to his uncle Prince Ahmed’s hotel, and the two princes and twelve companions left three days later aboard a chartered Boeing 727 en route to Saudi Arabia. 

Two years after 9/11, in a Vanity Fair story titled “Saving the Saudis,” author Craig Unger raised numerous questions about the role the FBI had played in facilitating that and various other flights involved in the panicky Saudi exodus from the United States. The article obscured the facts on the travel from Tampa, unfortunately, with a claim that the flight had been allowed to take place “when U.S. citizens were still restricted from flying.” In fact, as the FAA record makes clear, the flight took place several hours after the FAA had opened airspace to charter flights. 

In the wake of the Vanity Fair story, when U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and John Kyl raised questions, the FBI prepared a 40-page response for the senators and the White House addressing all Saudi travel out of the U.S. after 9/11. What it reported on the Tampa-Lexington flight, however, was not true.

Instead of just noting that the FAA record showed the travel occurred after U.S. airspace was reopened, the FBI said Sultan and his three companions “had arrived in Lexington from Tampa by car.”

“The four individuals,” the report went on, “had disobeyed the Prince [Ahmed] by traveling by car instead of by jet as the Prince had instructed them.” 

FBI insistent: 'No flights arrived'
The FBI insisted that “No flights arrived” in Lexington on the day in question. The assertion that there had been an incoming flight from Tampa, the FBI claimed, had been “perpetuated” by “hired security personnel” – a clear reference to the Saudis’ escorts, former policeman Grossi and former FBI agent Perez. “One of the members of the private protection detail,” the bureau’s response claimed, “had confidentially told FBI agents in Kentucky the truth about how they arrived in Lexington.” 

A 9/11 Commission analysis and FBI documents, however, show  that the FBI’s inquiry into the Tampa flight had relied on a lone source, a  Lexington police officer whose name is also redacted in the released documents. He had merely “hemmed and hawed” when an FBI agent doubted his belief that the Saudis had traveled by air – then suggested the men had in reality traveled by car. The police officer, however, had no first-hand knowledge of the event. The FBI did not at the time interview Grossi or Perez, the security escorts who had flown with the Saudis from Tampa. It interviewed Perez only years later and has never interviewed Grossi.

An FBI departmental memo dated 2003, meanwhile, shows why the bureau was reluctant to believe there had been a flight from Tampa. Having failed to check aviation records that would have shown when exactly the men had flown, it believed “such a flight on 9/13/2001 would have been in violation of the Federal Aviation Administration’s flight ban.”

As early as four days after the flight, however, the bureau had had good reason to realize that the flight had occurred. Other FBI documents, obtained by the public interest group Judicial Watch, make clear that one of the bureau’s own agents in Lexington had the information as early as Sept. 17. That fact, it seems, was filed and forgotten. 

The now-retired FBI special agent-in-charge in Tampa, Robert Chiaradio, did not respond to a request for an interview. His counterpart in Lexington, retired Supervisor Robert Foster, agreed last month to discuss these events by email. Of Prince Sultan and his party’s travel from Tampa, Foster said, “We didn’t question the passengers about how they arrived in Lexington.” His agents’ assignment, Foster said, was to identify each passenger leaving the U.S. and “determine if they were on any watch or no fly list prior to their boarding.” 

Watch lists aside, the security check was complicated, Foster wrote, because Prince Ahmed had “given an interview to a local TV station attesting to the fact that he was a cousin of Osama bin Laden.” There is no known evidence that Ahmed was in any way related to bin Laden, and no such interview has ever surfaced. If he did make that comment, however, one would have expected it to have alerted the FBI at both local and headquarters level. Apparently it did not. “We did not interview him,” Foster said in his email last month, “I did not investigate his claim to be related to bin Laden. … I did furnish this information to FBI HQ. I do not recall having discussions with FBI HQ regarding not allowing him to leave the U.S.” 

The 9/11 Commission later established that none of the 14 Saudis who left for home from Kentucky was interviewed by the FBI before they were allowed to depart. According to the files, moreover, the bureau did not even figure out who Prince Sultan actually was. A Tampa police document had his name correctly as “Sultan bin Fahd,” which  translates as “Sultan son of Fahd,” one of the king’s nephews. Yet FBI documents repeatedly described Sultan as the son of Prince Ahmed, who was his uncle.

Related stories:

Saudi who left Fla. before 9/11 considered bin Laden a 'hero,' informant told FBI in '04

Classified documents contradict FBI on post-9/11 probe of Saudis, ex-senator says

Asked to comment on the catalog of apparent errors and omissions reported in this article, FBI spokesperson Kathleen Wright said on Tuesday that the matter was complex and “would be reviewed  for consideration of a response.”

A senior bin Laden aide now in Guantanamo, Abu Zubaydah, is said by sources – including John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who led his capture, who said he got his information from CIA documents and colleagues –  to have stated under questioning that al-Qaida had been in contact with Prince Ahmed before 9/11. The prisoner, Kiriakou said, raised the names of Ahmed and two other royals as if to indicate “he had the support of the Saudi government.”

(Kiriakou was indicted in January, accused of disclosing classified information about Zubaydah to reporters. The complaint against Kiriakou also alleged that, when submitting the manuscript for his memoir, he lied to the CIA's Publication Review Board.)

There is a link, too, between Prince Sultan and the post-9/11 investigation in Sarasota. Esam Ghazzawi, a longtime adviser to Sultan’s father, Prince Fahd, owned the Sarasota home suspected of having been visited on multiple occasions by hijack leader Mohamed Atta and several of his accomplices. 

Prince Ahmed died aged 43 in July, 2002, in circumstances that remain unclear. Prince Fahd, 46, had pre-deceased him, dying seven weeks before 9/11. A 2009 report described Prince Sultan as having become chairman of Eirad, a Saudi holding company.

Robbyn Swan is co-author, with Anthony Summers, of "The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden."

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has seen two classified FBI documents that he says are at odds with the bureau’s public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota, Fla. 

“There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham said. 

“One document adds to the evidence that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI,” Graham said. “An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth.” 

Whether the 9/11 hijackers acted alone, or whether they had support within the U.S., remains an unanswered question -- one that began to be asked as soon as it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. It was underlined when Congress’s bipartisan inquiry released its public report in July 2003. The final 28 pages, regarding possible foreign support for the terrorists, were censored in their entirety -- on President George W. Bush’s instructions.

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Graham said the two classified FBI documents that he saw, dated 2002 and 2003, were prepared by an agent who participated in the Sarasota investigation. He said the agent suggested that another federal agency be asked to join the investigation, but that the idea was “rejected.”

Graham attempted in recent weeks to contact the agent, he said, only to find the man had been instructed by FBI headquarters not to talk. 

FBI: 'No credible evidence'
The FBI-led investigation a decade ago focused on Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, who moved out of their home in the upscale, gated community of Prestancia, near Sarasota, and left the country in the weeks before 9/11. The couple left behind three cars and numerous personal belongings, such as furnishings, clothes, medicine and food, according to law enforcement records. After the 9/11 attacks, a concerned neighbor contacted the FBI. 

Analysis of Prestancia gatehouse visitor logs and photographs of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home at 4224 Escondito Circle, according to a counterterrorism officer and former Prestancia administrator Larry Berberich. If that did occur, it will feed into suspicions that the hijackers had Saudi support -- a suspicion held by some official investigators but played down by the 9/11 Commission.

Al-Hijji, who now lives and works in London, recently called 9/11 “a crime against the USA and all humankind” and said he was “saddened and oppressed by these false allegations.” He also said it was “not true” that Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers visited him at his Sarasota home. 

The FBI has backed up al-Hijji. After initially declining to comment, the bureau confirmed that it did investigate but said it found nothing sinister. Agents, however, have refused to answer reporters’ specific questions about its investigation or its findings about the Prestancia gate records. 

The FBI reiterated its position in a Feb. 7 letter that denied a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records from its Sarasota probe. The denial said their release “could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 

“At no time during the course of its investigation of the attacks, known as the PENTTBOM investigation, did the FBI develop credible evidence that connected the address at 4224 Escondito Circle, Sarasota, Florida, to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” wrote records section chief David M. Hardy. 

Newly released Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents, however, state that an informant told the FBI in 2004 that al-Hijji had considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers. The informant, Wissam Hammoud, also said al-Hijji once introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah, an ex-Broward County resident and suspected al-Qaida operative on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. 

Last September, FBI spokesmen also disputed Graham’s assertion that Congress was never told about the Sarasota investigation. 

That prompted Graham to ask the FBI for assistance in locating in the National Archives the Sarasota-related files that were allegedly turned over to Congress. Instead, after what Graham said were two months in which the FBI was “either unwilling or unable” to help find the records, the bureau suddenly turned over two documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Graham once headed and where he still has access. It is those documents that Graham has said are inconsistent with the FBI denials. 

Meeting abruptly canceled
Graham shared this development with the Obama White House, which responded by setting up a meeting between Graham and FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce. According to the former senator, Joyce told Graham he “didn’t want to talk” about the Sarasota episode. Graham said he was assured, however, that he would shortly be shown material that supported the FBI’s denials, and a further meeting was arranged with an FBI aide. 

In December, Graham said, the scheduled meeting was abruptly canceled and he was told he would be allowed no further access to FBI information about Sarasota. 

Graham believes the joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks was not the only national investigative body kept in the dark about Sarasota. He said the co-chairs of the later 9/11 Commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have told him they also were unaware of it. 

Kean, a former New Jersey governor, told Graham the commission would have “worked it hard,” because the hypothesis that the hijackers completed the planning alone was “implausible,” the former senator said.

Kean did not return several phone messages seeking comment. But Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman, confirmed this month that he learned nothing about the Sarasota matter while serving as vice-chair of the 9/11 commission. 

Graham sees the information now emerging about Sarasota as ominously similar to discoveries his inquiry made in California. Leads there indicated that the first two hijackers to reach the U.S., Saudis Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, received help first from a diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and then from two other Saudis, one of whom helped al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi find a place to live. Multiple sources told investigators they believed both the latter Saudis had been Saudi government agents. 

Later, when 9/11 Commission staff gained limited access to these individuals in Saudi Arabia, the aides’ reaction was caustic. One memo described the testimony of one of them as “deceptive ... inconsistent ... implausible.” The testimony of another displayed an “utter lack of credibility,” it said. 

Graham is troubled by what he sees as FBI headquarters’ apparent effort to conceal information, including the fact that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi lived for months in California in the home of a paid FBI informant. Even when that emerged, the FBI denied his inquiry access to the informant. Graham wonders if that was merely because of the bureau’s embarrassment, or because the informant knew something that “would be even more damaging were it revealed.” 

The newly surfaced FDLE documents containing informant Hammoud’s troubling 2004 information about al-Hijji have reinforced Graham’s concerns because they conflict with the FBI’s public statements. 

Hammoud’s statement that al-Hijji introduced him to Saudi terror suspect Shukrijumah is consistent with the report that Prestancia gate logs showed Shukrijumah had visited the al-Hijji house – and buttresses longstanding official suspicion that he was linked to the hijackers. When Mohamed Atta visited a federal immigration office in Miami to discuss a visa problem in May 2001, a 9/11 Commission footnote reports, a man who closely resembled Shukrijumah accompanied him. 

Related story: Saudi who left Fla. before 9/11 considered bin Laden a 'hero,' informant told FBI in '04

Graham sees what he believes to be the suppression of evidence pointing to Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers as arising from the perceived advantages to the West, at the time and now, of keeping Saudi Arabia happy. 

In late December, the U.S. announced a new $30 billion defense deal with the Saudis. 

“This agreement serves to reinforce the strong enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro. “It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.” 

Graham said he was taken aback by that announcement.

“I think that in the period immediately after 9/11 the FBI was under instructions from the Bush White House not to discuss anything that could be embarrassing to the Saudis,” he said. “It is more inexplicable why the Obama administration has been reticent to pursue the question of Saudi involvement. For both administrations, there was and continues to be an obligation to inform the American people through truthful information.”                                                                                                                           

Anthony Summers is co-author, with Robbyn Swan, of “The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden.” Dan Christensen edits the Miami-area investigative Website Broward Bulldog, in which this article first appeared. 

Nitrate contamination in groundwater from fertilizer and animal manure is severe and getting worse for hundreds of thousands of residents in California’s Central Valley farming communities, according to a study released Tuesday by researchers at the University of California, Davis.

Nearly 10 percent of the 2.6 million people living in the Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley might be drinking nitrate-contaminated water, researchers found. And if nothing is done to stem the problem, the report warns, nearly 80 percent of residents could be at risk of health and financial problems by 2050.

High nitrate levels in drinking water have been linked to thyroid cancer, skin rashes, hair loss, birth defects and “blue baby syndrome,” a potentially fatal blood disorder in infants.

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The report is the most comprehensive assessment so far of nitrate contamination in California’s agricultural areas. 

The problem is much, much, much worse than we thought,” said Angela Schroeter, agricultural regulatory program manager for the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, a state water agency.

The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has produced several reports of its own that show “large-scale degradation” of drinking water aquifers due to nitrates from fertilizer. 

“If we don’t address this, we’re going to have a very serious issue in California,” Schroeter said.

Nitrates are odorless, tasteless compounds that form when nitrogen from ammonia and other sources mix with water. While nitrogen and nitrates occur naturally, the advent of synthetic fertilizer has coincided with a dramatic increase in nitrates in drinking water. 

Rural residents are at greater risk because they depend on private wells, which are often shallower and not monitored to the same degree as public water sources. Current contamination likely came from nitrates introduced into the soil decades ago. That means even if nitrates were dramatically reduced today, groundwater would still remain polluted for decades to come. 

According to the report, removing nitrates from large groundwater basins is extremely costly and not technically feasible. One relatively low-cost alternative is called “pump and fertilize:” Pulling nitrate-saturated water out of the ground and applying it to crops at the right time to ensure more complete nitrate uptake. 

Representatives of the California Farm Bureau Federation, the state’s largest agricultural association, would not comment on the report until it was released. But in a written statement, spokesman Dave Kranz said farmers and ranchers have worked on better nitrate management for years.  

“Clean drinking water is a high priority for everyone, especially people who live in rural areas,” Kranz said. “Most farmers live where they work and want to be certain that they, their families, their employees, and their neighbors have access to safe water.”   

Farmers and ranchers will continue to adapt to new information, technology and science to address nitrate problems, he said. But he said it’s important to “make sure nitrate management programs look at all possible sources to achieve the goal of safe drinking water.” 

The safety of groundwater, which is the largest source of drinking water, is managed through the state’s Clean Water Act. But each source of contamination is handled differently, says Schroeter of the Central Coast water board, and agriculture is more lightly regulated than other industries. 

'People were dying'
For the 250 people living in San Jerardo, a farmworker cooperative southeast of Salinas, the threat posed by nitrates is all too familiar. San Jerardo residents live in refurbished old barracks that have been converted into tidy homes.

Sonia Lopez moved into San Jerardo with her parents and five siblings in 1987. The four-bedroom, four-bathroom house was a big improvement over the two-bedroom apartment they once shared. “This was our American dream,” she said. 

But something went wrong about nine years ago. Her skin became red and itchy. Her eyes burned. Her hair started falling out. Her family had the same symptoms, and she learned other San Jerardo residents were afflicted, too. 

“I got very concerned because some of the residents started passing away from cancers,” she said. “People were dying, and we didn’t know who was going to be next.” 

While they did not find a cause for the cancers, Lopez and fellow resident Horacio Amezquita learned from health officials that nitrates in their well water had made their eyes red and their hair fall out. 

The community also learned that its water had been contaminated with nitrates since at least 1990; over the years, three wells had been drilled and eventually were found to be tainted. Drinking water regulations limit nitrates to less than 45 parts per million. One well measured 106 ppm, or more than double the limit. 

After repeatedly asking Monterey County officials to help, Lopez and Amezquita finally got a filtration system in 2006, and in 2010, the community connected to a new well two miles away that doesn’t need to be purified. The cost to Monterey County was about $5 million. San Jerardo residents used to pay about $25 a month for water; now, they pay as much as $130 a month. 

Lopez still worries about her health, and like the UC Davis researchers, she warns the nitrate problem will only get worse. 

“Our problem is going to be your problem,” she said. “It’s everyone’s problem. There are solutions, but we need the people in charge of our communities to do something about it.” 

UC Davis hydrologist Thomas Harter led the team of researchers from the Center for Watershed Sciences that prepared the report, which took 20 months to complete and involved 26 scientists. The report had been requested by the Legislature in 2008. 

Water-quality experts said the study provides a new and comprehensive look into the sources of the contamination, the chemicals in the water and the people affected.

Laurel Firestone, co-executive director of Tulare County’s Community Water Center, a nonprofit that helps communities with poor drinking water, said not only does the study show that the nitrate problem isn’t limited to a few isolated rural communities, but it also places responsibility squarely on agriculture’s shoulders. Firestone hopes there will now be the political will to tackle the issue. 

“This isn’t a new problem,” she said. “We’ve known it for decades, but we’ve failed to do anything about it.” 

Fertilizer fee suggested
The report lists a few potential solutions to help pay for the cleanup of contaminated water, including a fee on fertilizer sales and greater “mill fees” on the production of fertilizer. In California, farmers do not pay sales tax on fertilizer, while water districts and communities bear the cost of cleaning up tainted wells. 

Firestone said a fertilizer fee could be a powerful tool because there’s currently no disincentive to use fertilizer and few incentives to switch to safer agricultural practices. 

“I think it’s clear that to address this problem, we need agriculture to lead the way,” she said. 

Because of the might of the state’s agricultural industry, there has been little political will to tackle the nitrate problem. It will be up to the Legislature to decide how to respond to Harter’s report, but regulatory change might be coming as soon as this week. 

The Central Coast water board, one of several regional water agencies that enforce the state’s Clean Water Act, will hold a highly anticipated meeting on Wednesday to decide on new agricultural regulations aimed at reducing the release of nitrates, pesticides and other chemicals into aquifers, as well as creeks, rivers, lakes and the Pacific Ocean. 

“We justify these regulations based on very severe threats to water quality,” said Schroeter.  “We have the most toxic water in the state.” 

Despite the report’s grim news, water policy expert Jennifer Clary said she believes change is coming. She is a program manager for Clean Water Action, a national environmental advocacy group. She said the Central Coast water board’s plan would be a first step toward regulating groundwater contamination. 

While she said the proposed rules aren’t perfect, “It’s going to be better than nothing. You can’t continue with nothing.” 

Harter, the UC Davis researcher, said the study’s long-term projections for nitrate contamination reveal “just how extensive and interconnected these impacts are.” While his report outlined a number of policy choices, he doesn’t recommend one particular course of action. 

“We can certainly do better, but it’s going to take an investment that we will all have to share. … That’s a discussion I hope we have.” 

This article was produced by the Food & Environment Reporting Network, an independent and nonprofit investigative news organization.

A Saudi man who triggered an FBI investigation after he and his family left their Sarasota, Fla., area home and moved overseas two weeks before 9/11 considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers, an informant told the FBI in 2004. 

The informant also told authorities that the Saudi, Abdulazziz al-Hijji, once introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah -- another former Florida resident and suspected top al-Qaida operative who today has a $5 million bounty on his head. 

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The FBI and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office interviewed the informant, Wissam Taysir Hammoud, at the Hillsborough County Jail on April 7, 2004. The Miami-based investigative website Broward Bulldog obtained Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports about the interview and the investigation using the state’s public records law.

Hammoud, 46, who once owned a cell phone business in Sarasota, is serving 21 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2005 in federal court in Tampa to weapons violations and attempting to kill a federal agent and a witness in an earlier case against him. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons classifies him as an “International Terrorist Associate,” court records show.

Al-Hijji’s name made headlines in September 2011 when The Miami Herald reported on a counterterrorism source’s disclosure of a previously unknown FBI-led probe that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington -- one that pointed to a possible Saudi support operation for the hijackers in Florida. 

A decade after the nation’s worst terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, al-Hijji has now been found to be living in London, where he works for Aramco Overseas, the European subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company. His job title is career counselor. 

'I love the USA'
In an email to London’s Daily Telegraph, which worked on the story with these reporters, al-Hijji acknowledged Hammoud had been his friend, but strongly denied any involvement in the 9/11 plot. 

“I have neither relation nor association with any of those bad people/criminals and the awful crime they did. 9/11 is a crime against the USA and all humankind and I’m very saddened and oppressed by these false allegations,” al-Hijji said. “I love the USA, my kids were born there, I went to college and university there, I spent a good time of my life there and I love it.” 

Al-Hijji’s account is supported by the FBI, which has stated “At no time… did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers… and there was no connection to the 9/11 plot.” In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the FBI repeated this denial as recently as last month. 

In a brief interview outside his office, Al-Hijji also said he did not know Shukrijumah, the alleged al-Qaida operative. “The name doesn’t ring a bell,” he said. 

While living in Florida, al-Hijji attended Manatee Community College (now the State College of Florida Manatee-Sarasota) and, from January 2000 until April 2001, the University of South Florida. He earned a bachelor’s degree with a major in management information systems in August 2001. 

Hasty departure denied
In the weeks before 9/11, al-Hijji -- then 27 -- and his wife, Anoud, daughter of an adviser to a member of the Saudi royal family, departed their home at 4224 Escondito Circle in the upscale gated community of Prestancia and returned to Saudi Arabia.

They left behind three cars and “numerous personal belongings including food, medicine, bills, baby clothing, etc,” according to the Flordia Department of Law Enforcement documents, which state the family departed on Aug. 27, 2001. 

Al-Hijji denied having abandoned his home in haste, explaining: “No, no, no. Absolutely not true. We were trying to secure the (Aramco) job. It was a good opportunity.” He said his wife and children followed him out to Saudi Arabia a few weeks after he left Sarasota. 

After the 9/11 attacks, an alarmed neighbor contacted the FBI. When several weeks passed without action, Prestanica resident and administrator Larry Berberich alerted local law enforcement. Authorities, including the FBI, moved in. 

The investigation led to a stunning development, according to Berberich and a counterterrorism officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

“The car registration numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia community’s North Gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several of his fellow hijackers – and another Saudi terror suspect still at large – had visited 4224 Escondito Circle on multiple occasions,” the source said. 

The others included Marwan al-Shehhi, who plowed a United Airlines jet into the World Trade Center’s South Tower; Ziad Jarrah, who crashed another United jet into a Pennsylvania field; and Walid al-Shehri, who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. Also identified as having visited: Saudi-born fugitive Adnan Shukrijumah. 

The source said law enforcement “also conducted a link analysis that tracked phone calls – based on dates, times and length of phone conversations to and from the Escondito house – dating back more than a year before 9/11. And the phone traffic also connected with the 9/11 terrorists – though less directly than the gate logs did.” 

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who co-chaired Congress’s bipartisan joint inquiry into the 2001 terrorist attacks, called news of the Sarasota investigation the “most important” development on the background to the 9/11 plot in years. He added that Congress should have been told about it. 

Investigation found no links, FBI says
Soon after the story broke, however, the FBI poured cold water on it. It acknowledged that there had been an investigation, but said it found no connection to the 9/11 plot. It declined to explain. 

The FBI reiterated that position in a letter this month denying a Freedom of Information Act request for records of its investigation. 

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement records suggest such a finding may have been wrong.  One report indicates that what informant Hammoud said during the 2004 interview was treated seriously, “The following information, in particular the information by Wissam Hammoud, is being followed up on internationally,” it said. 

The FDLE reports buttress key elements of the story, while providing new details.

Hammoud, who said he met al-Hijji through relatives, said the two men worked out together at Shapes Fitness in Sarasota and played soccer at the local Islamic Society.

He told the FBI that al-Hijji was “very well-schooled in Islam” and that “Osama bin Laden was a hero of al-Hijji.” He added that al-Hijji showed him a “website containing information about bin Laden,” and spoke of “going to Afghanistan and becoming a freedom fighter.” Al-Hijji also tried to recruit him, Hammoud said. 

According to Hammoud, al-Hijji also talked of “taking flight training in Venice (Fla.)” He said he believed “al-Hijji had known some of the terrorists from the September 11, 2001 attacks” who were students at an airport there.

Hammoud said al-Hijji “entertained Saudis at his residence” at “parties,” but that he himself did not stay for because – unlike al-Hijji as he remembered him – he “did not drink or smoke cannabis.”

Hammoud also identified Shukrijumah, the alleged al-Qaida operative who also lived in Florida at the time, as a “friend” of al-Hijii’s whom he brought to a soccer game at the Sarasota mosque in 2000 or 2001.

Hammoud’s wife and sister-in-law confirmed during recent interviews that they too knew the al-Hijjis and were familiar with basic elements of Hammoud’s account.

Mrs. Hammoud, who asked that her full name not be used, said she got the impression from comments al-Hijji made that he was “anti-American.” Hammoud himself, speaking from prison in recent days, said al-Hijji “had a lot of hatred towards everyone in America.” He said he had thought al-Hijji was “nuts” when he asked him to go fight in Afghanistan.

A quiet family life asserted
Al-Hijji, while confirming he used to work out with Hammoud, described his life in Sarasota as quiet, centered on his wife and children. 

“My friends were very limited,” he explained. “Normally, I don’t hold parties in the house because I have little kids. I was not a frequent[er] to any bars.” 

Prison officials have put Hammoud under heightened security measures due to his classification as a terrorist associate. Court records state the classification is based on what authorities said was Hammoud’s “support and membership” in a “Palestinian-related terrorist organization.” 

Hammoud denies involvement with the group and has sought -- so far unsuccessfully -- a court order to overturn that classification. While representing himself, he filed documents that reveal a history of mental problems caused by a serious brain injury he suffered in a car accident in 1990. 

After Hammoud’s first conviction in 2002 for selling illegal weapons to an undercover federal agent, an FBI agent wrote: “Hammoud is now claiming diminished capacity because of an auto accident in an effort to be sentenced to less time. …There is speculation on the part of law enforcement that this was merely an attempt to gain sympathy from the sentencing judge.”

Hammoud was found to be competent by a judge before he was allowed to plead guilty to more serious charges arising from his 2004 arrest. The guilty plea and sentence were later upheld on appeal. 

Hammoud’s lawyer, Matthew Farmer, would not comment. But his appellate attorney, Tampa’s Bruce Howie, remembers his former client as “not delusional or wacky. ... I think he has his share of paranoia. But he’s not a liar. He didn’t make it up as he went along.” 

For his part, Hammoud has named several FBI agents that he claims to have dealt with while attempting to assist the government in its fight against terrorism. 

And Hammoud’s current attorney, Detroit’s Sanford Schulman, said FBI agents have met with Hammoud on multiple occasions. 

“There have been about 10 different agents, and that’s just the ones that I’ve been involved with. They were not two-minute meetings either,” said Schulman, who did not attend but was notified of the meetings.

Hammoud may have known more than is revealed in the new FDLE documents.  A Sarasota Herald-Tribune story about him based on an FBI agent’s affidavit filed at the time of Hammoud’s arrest in January 2004 has this ominous reference: 

“In September 2001, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement interviewed Hammoud because someone had anonymously called saying Hammoud had made a comment that the Oklahoma bombing was going to be small compared with what was coming.” 

In a recent email, Hammoud denied having made such a remark.

Anthony Summers is the co-author, with Robbyn Swan, of “The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden.” Dan Christensen edits the Broward Bulldog. This article first appeared in the Broward Bulldog.

Coming Tuesday:Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida says classified documents contradict FBI statements.

 

NEW YORK —The three New York City apartments owned by the mysterious heiress Huguette Clark have been listed for sale, with a total asking price of $55 million, even as the legal contest over her $400 million estate is just beginning.

"Butterfield 8 - the exchange number found on the old dial telephone - sets the tone for what this apartment represents: timeless grace; high style and prime location," the listing brokers wrote in their description, marketing the apartments as a time capsule from New York's Gilded Age. The apartments are listed by Brown Harris Stevens, an exclusive affiliate of Christie's International Real Estate.

The apartments will need significant work. They are described as "a diamond in the rough."

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The three apartments cost the reclusive heiress to a Montana copper fortune $28,500 a month in co-op fees, or $342,000 a year, while she lived for two decades in New York hospital rooms. Huguette Marcelle Clark has been the subject of a series of reports on msnbc.com about her vacant properties and the management of her fortune. When she died last May at age 104, she owned three apartments at 907 Fifth Avenue, at 72nd Street, overlooking Central Park's Conservatory Water, the sailboat pond where the mouse Stuart Little sailed in the E.B. White story, near the statute of Alice in Wonderland.

Her three apartments have a total of 42 rooms. Two of her apartments make up the entire eighth floor, or about 10,000 square feet, with another 5,000 square feet in an apartment that occupies half of the top floor, the 12th. (She also owned an oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara, Calif., with an estimated value of $100 milliion, and a country home in New Canaan, Conn., which has been on the market for $24 million.)

No photos of the inside of the apartments are available yet — they are still being cleared of her property, including her collections of dolls and fine paintings.

But floorplans were released by the brokers at Brown Harris Stevens. And the listings are here, for apartment 8E, apartment 8W, and apartment 12W.

Here are the three apartments:

 

Earlier estimates by real estate agents put the value of the apartments at about $70 million, $15 million more than they were listed for. The value of the two apartments on the 8th floor would increase, the brokers said, if the co-op board allowed them to be combined.

When the apartments sell, some of the money will be used to pay estate expenses, with the rest will be held for the eventual winner of the legal battle.

Clark signed two wills when she was 98. The first will left nearly everything to her family, the children of her father's first marriage. The second will, signed just six weeks later, was more detailed, excluding her family entirely and making plans for an art museum in her California oceanfront home (with $100 million in real estate, $100 million in artwork, and $10 million in cash), and leaving about $36 million to her nurse ($27 million after taxes), a $40 million Monet to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, with smaller gifts to a godchild, her doctor, her attorney, her accountant and others. The family has accused Clark's nurse, attorney and accountant of colluding, while the attorney and accountant have said that Clark's wishes were expressed specifically in the second will.

Clark and her mother moved into the building in 1927 or 1928 after the death of Huguette's father, the former Sen. William Andrews Clark, in 1925. The mother and daughter moved down Fifth Avenue from the family's enormous home, with 121 rooms at 962 Fifth Avenue, which was being demolished. Just a five-minute walk away, the Italian palazzo-style apartment building at 907 Fifth Avenue was designed by renowned architect J.E.R. Carpenter.

It had the most expensive apartments in the city when it opened in 1915. The head of Standard Oil, Herbert L. Pratt, rented the entire 12th floor. As The New York Times tells it, the architect, "Mr. Carpenter, who was described as 'the father of the modern large apartment' in New York City, was one of the building’s first residents. In the 1920s, he lived alongside oil barons, a tinplate king, a president of the New York Stock Exchange, and a Russian prince." After Pratt moved out, the Clark mother and daughter moved into the 12th floor. The mother later moved to the 8th floor. After she died in 1963, Huguette Clark moved down to 8, leaving 12 for storage of her dollhouses and other furnishings.

Guests enter the limestone building through a canopy-protected doorway on 72nd Street into a lobby with a coffered ceiling and a striking stone staircase. Amenities include full-time doormen, a full gymnasium and a landscaped rooftop garden.

Photos of other apartments in the building are availble in a previous story, You can move into heiress Huguette Clark's building, for $25 million.

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Reporter Bill Dedman is continuing to report on the Clark story, and is writing a nonfiction book about the Clark family. If you have information, you can reach him at bill.dedman@msnbc.com.

Previous stories in the Huguette Clark mystery series on msnbc.com:

Archive of all stories, photos and videos.

Photo narrative, "The Clarks: An American story of wealth, scandal and mystery," Feb. 26, 2010.

Printable version of the photo narrative, Feb. 26, 2010.

Clark family notes and sources, Feb. 26, 2010.

Investigative report, part one, "At 104, the mysterious heiress Huguette Clark is alone now: Relatives are kept away. Only her accountant and attorney visit. Who protects HuguetteClark, with 3 empty homes and no heirs?" Aug. 19, 2010.

Investigative report, part two, "Who is watching Huguette Clark's millions? Reclusive heiress's assets are sold by two advisers, one an accountant with a felony conviction. Another elderly client signed over his property to the same accountant and attorney," Aug. 20, 2010.

"Criminal probe begins into the finances of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark: Manhattan DA's Elder Abuse Unit is on the case. The same unit prosecuted the Brooke Astor case; Clark has about four times the wealth," Aug. 24, 2010.

"Report sparks welfare check on heiress Huguette Clark," Aug. 25, 2010.

"Generosity of an heiress: four homes for a nurse, gifts for attorney's family," Sept. 1, 2010.

"Huguette Clark, the reclusive heiress, has signed a will, attorney says," Sept. 2, 2010.

"Family of copper heiress asks court to protect her from attorney, accountant," Sept. 3, 2010.

"Attorney for 104-year-old heiress defends his handling of her finances," Sept. 7, 2010.

"Judge leaves pair under investigation in control of heiress Huguette Clark's fortune," Sept. 9, 2010.

"Huguette Clark, the reclusive copper heiress, dies at 104," May 24, 2011.

"Family excluded from Huguette Clark burial," May 26, 2011.

"Heiress Huguette Clark's will leaves $1 million to advisers," June 22, 2011.

"The 1 percent of the 1 percent: How Huguette Clark's millions were spent," Nov. 19, 2011.

"A $400 miillion twist: Huguette Clark signed two wills, one to her family," Nov. 28, 2011.

"Tax fraud alleged in estate of heiress Huguette Clark; accountant resigns," Dec. 21, 2011.

"Nurse, in line to inherit millions, battles family of heiress Huguette Clark," Dec. 22, 2011.

"Judge bounces attorney and accountant from estate of heiress Huguette Clark," Dec. 23, 2011.

"Book coming on reclusive heiress Huguette Clark and her family," Feb. 3, 2012.

"You can move into heiress Huguette Clark's building, for $25 million," Feb. 6, 2012.

 "Family of heiress Huguette Clark claims fraud by nurse, attorney, accountant," Feb. 15, 2012.

 

What would you do if you found a smartphone on the subway or at a coffee shop? If you're like most Americans, you'd rummage through the phone looking for photos, emails and even private banking information. And the chances are only 50-50 that you would try to return the phone.

Computer security firm Symantec Corp. recently conducted an elaborate, first-of-its-kind study on lost smartphones and shared the results exclusively with TODAY and msnbc.com. The company set a trap for human nature, then sat back and watched. The results were not pretty.  

Symantec researchers intentionally lost 50 smartphones in cities around the U.S. and in Canada. They were left on newspaper boxes, park benches, elevators and other places that passers-by would quickly spot them. But these weren't just any phones -- they were loaded with tracking and logging software so Symantec employees could physically track them and keep track of everything the finders did with the gadgets.

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To spice up the test, the phones had an obvious file named "contacts," making it easy for any finder to connect with the phone's rightful owner.   But the phones also offered tempting files, with names like "banking information," and "HR files."  

 

Some 43 percent of finders clicked on an app labeled "online banking." And 53 percent clicked on a filed named "HR salaries." A file named "saved passwords" was opened by 57 percent of finders. Social networking tools and personal e-mail were checked by 60 percent. And a folder labeled "private photos" tempted 72 percent.

Collectively, 89 percent of finders clicked on something they probably shouldn't have.

Meanwhile, only 50 percent of finders offered to return the gadgets, even though the owner’s name was listed clearly within the contacts file.

"I wasn't surprised, but I wish I had been,” Kevin Haley, director at Symantec’s security response team, said of the unscientific test. “At the end of the day people’s curiosity is so strong, if you present them with the opportunity, they will do it. You would have hoped most people would have made every effort to return the phone."

It's important to note that most, if not all, of the finders weren’t criminals and did not wake up the day they found the lost phones with the intention of rummaging through someone else's personal information. But the temptation created by finding such a device was apparently too much for most of them -- even for some Good Samaritans who tried to return the phone. The story of one lost phone illustrates this point.

On Feb. 2 at 3:05 p.m., Symantec “lost” a phone in a bathroom at Santa Monica Pier in California. A finder tried to access the phone's contacts application 18 minutes later. Moments later, the finder accessed files labeled “passwords,” “cloud-based docs” and “social networking.”

GPS data indicates the finder moved the phone into a nearby restaurant, then into a mall, and an hour later, to a dog park.  At around 5 p.m., the finder opened the Contacts application three times, even there were only two entries listed in it – and one, clearly including an e-mail address and phone number for the owner.

Then the finder continued rummaging around the device, started the File Manager application, and explored files on the gadget's SD card. 

The phone then made its way through downtown Los Angeles, eventually settling in East L.A., where the finder opened the passwords file three times.  Then, online banking, social networking, contacts, private pix, remote admin and other files were opened in rapid succession. Soon after, the device was plugged into a computer for recharging, and then finally reset to original factory settings, wiping all the logging software off the gadget.

But a guilty conscience eventually won out with this finder. On Wednesday, Feb. 8, nearly a week after the gadget was lost, the finder wrote an e-mail to the  supposed owner. It read:

"Hi. I found your phone at the Santa Monica Pier last Thursday (Feb. 2). I used it for like a week but now I feel bad and want to return it. I'm really sorry. :/  What do you want me to do to return it to you?"

Some might consider the 50 percent return rate a victory for humanity, but that wasn't really the point of Symantec's project. The firm wanted to see if -- even among what seem to be honest people -- the urge to peek into someone's personal data was just too strong to resist.  It was.

"The most stunning thing to me were the people that attempted to open bank account information -  four out of 10 finders. That's, a lot," Haley said.

Another tale of a phone lost near Rockefeller Center in New York City at 4 p.m. on Feb. 2 illustrates this point well.

The finder moved the phone some six blocks north, then repeatedly opened and closed the contacts application, again containing only two entries. One can imagine the finder struggling with his or her conscience like the “Lord of the Rings” character, Gollum, deciding what to do.  Between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m., the finder opened most of the other applications, and took many more glimpses into the “contacts” file. At 10:30, activity on the phone stopped.

Suddenly, at 4:03 a.m., the phone was used again by its finder -- this time to peek a view of the “HR salaries” file.

"It's like they woke up out of a deep sleep and said, 'Hey there's salary information on that phone. Let me see if I can access it,'” said Haley.  

At 6:30 a.m., the finder opened the calendar, private pix, social networking, online banking, HR salaries, remote admin, corporate e-mail and passwords. For the rest of the day, there was near continuous rummaging through the phone, including the eventual launch of File Manager to see the entire phone's contents. 

"It's relentless. He can't get into online banking so he goes back to the file that has passwords in it, checks the passwords again and tries again,” Haley said. “He tries to log in remotely to the computer, can't get on so he goes to password to get the password and tries again."

By nightfall, activity on the phone stopped, and it remained relative dormant until it was moved to New York City's Chinatown area at 5:35 a.m. Feb. 9 -- one week after it was lost -- and wiped clean, probably for sale on the black market.

Scott Wright, president of Security Perspectives Inc, helped design the research for Symantec.  One statistically insignificant finding he called attention to: the return rate in Ottawa was 70 percent, highest in the study. The lowest return rate – 30 percent – was in New York City.

“Curiosity is a very powerful thing, especially on a mobile,” he said. “The most surprising thing is how obsessed people became with finding personal information off the phones, with accessing e-mail, accessing social network, private pictures. … People didn't give up. They just kept trying again and again over the course of a week to get access to this data and that really surprised me.”

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS

The lesson here is obvious: studies show that half to three-fourths of smartphone users don’t password-protect their phones.  That’s an invitation to disaster. While most corporations force users to password-protect their phone, many personal users think entering a password is a hassle that interrupts their texting habits. 

One lost phone would quickly change that perspective.

After the steady drumbeat of identity theft and lost privacy stories, why would consumers still choose to put their smartphones at risk?

“People haven't thought it through,” Haley said. “Maybe before they had a smartphone, losing an old cell phone was devastating but there wasn't much information on it.  Maybe it’s like the frog in a pot of cold water that’s eventually boiled –  it wasn’t that bad losing their old phone, so people haven't thought through how much information is now on their smart phones and what could happen if they lost it. We hope this research shows what could happen and sticks out in people's minds.”

Even if you are glass-half-full person, and think a lost phone would find its way back to you, if you don’t use a password you’re still putting your data at great risk.

“The moral of the story is that people may offer to give you your device back, but you shouldn't assume they haven't accessed any of their personal or corporate information on the device,” Wright said.

Of course, PIN-protecting your phone may prevent a Good Samaritan finder using “contacts” to find you. So Haley recommends placing contact information on the outside of the phone, perhaps on the case.

Also, consider technology that allows you to wipe the smartphone’s memory clean in case it’s lost. There are also services like Apple’s MobileMe, which let you locate the phone through a Web page; several commercial services offer similar products. 

If you find a phone, the best thing to do is quickly turn it in to the nearest authority – a police officer or the lost & found at the mall, for example. If you really want to gain good gadget karma, and you can determine the service provider, walk it into a nearby Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint or AT&T store and turn it in there. It’s easy for stores to look up the phone’s serial number and get contact information for the rightful owner.

You might look up the owner on the gadget and send him or her an email. But be realistic about your own human nature. If you don’t think you could resist taking a peek at personal information on the phone, you are probably best handing it off to someone else instead.

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Worries about fallout from Japan’s nuclear reactor disaster fueled a roller-coaster year for radiation protection drugs, sending U.S. sales soaring, then diving -- all despite expert warnings there was virtually no danger to Americans.

“The earthquake hit and all heck broke loose,” said George Love, vice president for the firm that manufactures ThyroShield, a liquid form of potassium iodide. “Then it really did die down very quickly.”

Suppliers of ThyroShield and two other government-approved types of potassium iodide, known as KI, say demand exhausted supply in the days and weeks after the Fukushima crisis. Consumers -- particularly on the West Coast but also across the nation -- clamored for the drug that can protect the thyroid from radiation damage, perhaps preventing cancer.

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“It was absolutely crazy,” said Troy Jones, owner of NukePills.com, who had nine staffers shipping pills 20 hours a day at the height of the crisis in mid-March and April. The North Carolina-based business sells a 14-pill pack of 130 milligram tablets for about $10 online.

“I shipped 7,000 orders in four days. Normally, it’s under 100 a day,” Jones added.

It’s not clear exactly how much potassium iodide was sold in the U.S. in the early weeks after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that critically damaged Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors.

But Alan Morris, president of Anbex, Inc., a Williamsburg, Va., firm that makes IOSAT potassium iodide pills, estimated that the company produced 10 million pills in a month. "We got rid of them all," he said.

In addition, more than 400 people called the nation’s poison lines seeking advice about radiation and potassium iodide, said Loreeta Canton, spokeswoman for the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Some 38 people reported exposures to potassium iodide, including worries or problems after ingesting the drug. Nine reported mild reactions.

By early summer, however, demand for potassium iodide had fizzled, leaving some suppliers with extra inventory. Fleming Pharmaceuticals of Fenton, Mo., which makes ThyroShield, is now trying to sell the rights to the brand, Love said. It’s part of a larger company strategy that led to sales of the rights to other drugs last year, but the bust in the potassium iodide market was a factor, Love said.  

“Had the boom part of that continued, would it have been a different outcome?” he said.

Jones, of NukePills.com, buys vast quantities of potassium iodide from manufacturers and then resells it to distributors and consumers. For him, demand leveled off after about four or five months, he said, but now remains about 50 percent higher than before the disaster.

The market for potassium iodide is still jittery, added Jones. Sales jumped after a 5.8-magnitude August earthquake rocked Virginia and cut power to two nuclear reactors outside Richmond.

“If the word 'radiation' is in some news report, I get orders,” Jones said.

In addition, some of the product he sold to consumers last year will be set to expire soon, perhaps prompting new sales. Potassium iodide pills expire seven years after manufacture, according to extended guidelines from the federal Food and Drug Administration. But there's no danger to taking outdated pills and they'll still be effective because the material is essentially stable according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Older pills simply might not dissolve as quickly, studies have shown.

Potassium iodide works during exposure by saturating the thyroid with iodine, preventing absorption of harmful radioactive iodine.

Morris, of Anbex, said he's still making potassium iodide, but mostly for European and Asian markets. "We are doing far more business these days with governments of other countries," he said.

The larger problem, said Morris, is that the disaster didn’t spark the kind of attention he’d hoped from state and federal government officials in the U.S.

There are no plans, for instance, to overturn a waiver that allows distribution of potassium iodide only within the 10-mile emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants, rather than the 20-mile range authorized by U.S. law.

“The public felt terribly threatened by this,” Morris said. “We better not pretend that it couldn’t happen here because, of course, it could happen here.”

Morris worries that without better planning, there won't be enough potassium iodide to treat people who need it during a disaster.

But federal officials -- along with medical experts at the time -- said that the danger from Fukushima to people in the U.S. was always very low. They note that the drug only protects against future thyroid cancer, not other radiation damage. They say they're confident in plans that largely call for people to evacuate and avoid contamination in case of a nuclear accident in this country.

“The staff has determined that the existing 10-mile distribution zone remains acceptable while we continue to evaluate information from Fukushima,” said David McIntyre, a spokesman for the NRC.

Twenty-two U.S. states have received potassium iodide from the NRC; none requested additional amounts as a result of the Japan disaster, he added.

Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said KI is not a required medication in the Strategic National Stockpile, a resource for emergencies. The SNS contains some KI, in liquid form, but spokesman Jason McDonald said the agency is prohibited from disclosing how much.

For his part, McIntyre suggested that media “hysteria” was to blame for last year’s interest in potassium iodide.

“Any ‘demand’ for KI was driven by the media and alarmist Internet postings,’” he said.

Related:

Demand for potassium iodide spikes; NukePills.com is there

Popping potassium iodide already? Really bad idea

Despite fears, radiation health risk remains low, experts say

Population rises near U.S. nuclear reactors

 

Few people in the slums of Ahmedabad, India, know more about the supply of human guinea pigs for clinical drug trials than Rajesh Nadia. 

When Indian firms working for pharmaceutical companies need test subjects, they often turn to Nadia, who has carved a small niche for himself as a recruiter in the international drug-testing industry. 

“Companies call me or send me text messages,” he told “Dateline NBC” correspondent Chris Hansen. 

Self-confident and well-groomed with gelled hair and tight-fitting designer jeans, Nadia said he is paid about $12 for every recruit he brings to the three Indian research labs with whom he works. In a region of western Indian where the average worker earns 50 cents a day, that’s good money. 

“I don't feel guilty,” Nadia said. “I believe conducting these studies is a humanitarian effort. So many people benefit from (the) advancement of medicine.” 

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Drug trial outsourcing to foreign countries is rapidly becoming an attractive alternative for U.S. pharmaceutical companies looking to save millions of dollars, avoid regulatory scrutiny and tap into a seemingly endless supply of drug study participants.  

But a year-long Dateline investigation into one of the preferred destinations for overseas drug trials, India, raises questions about lax regulatory oversight in these studies, the integrity of some of the companies contracted to run them and the reliability of the data they produce.  

Whether the studies are for birth control, diabetes, migraines or high blood pressure, money often draws volunteers into Indian drug trials. And Nadia said that many of his desperately poor recruits are so eager to enroll that they disregard potential risks. 

“They don't regard the smaller side effects,” Nadia explained. “Sometimes, people feel weak or get body ache. They don't care about these little things because they need the money.” 

Dr. Chandra Gulhati, editor of the “Monthly Index of Medical Specialties,” an Indian medical journal, points out that luring test subjects with money violates India’s Drugs and Cosmetics Act.  The act allows some payment, but not enough to sway free will. 

“It should never be so much that it works as an inducement,” Gulhati said. 

In practice, however, the pay is often just that. Subjects can make up to $400, depending on the length of the study -- far outstripping traditional earnings. 

The financial incentives can lead to study volunteers enrolling in more than one study at a time.  That not only puts their lives in danger, but it also can skew the accuracy of test results that drug companies and regulators rely on to judge a drug’s safety. 

Asked if he was aware of volunteers taking part in more than one study at a time or ignoring “wash-out” rules designed to allow their bodies to be clean of test drugs, Nadia didn’t hesitate. “It happens. Lots of people do that.” 

“Sometimes the subjects have to log into the system through thumbprint readers and sometimes they get caught,” he said.  “But if (the companies) need the subjects desperately, they will ignore these things.” 

'People keep falling sick'

Parsottam Parmar is a social worker in Ahmedabad’s slums who advocates for higher wages and ongoing health care for drug-study participants. He is alarmed by what he is witnessing. 

“People keep falling sick,” he said. “There are many instances where there are swellings in the limbs, loss of eyesight. Several deaths have occurred … It becomes a question of human rights -- a big one at that.” 

The Indian government reports that across the country more than 1,500 people have died in clinical trials since 2008, many participating in studies for Western pharmaceutical companies. Because official documentation of the deaths is frequently incomplete or non-existent, it is unclear how many people died from the same illnesses that initially qualified them for certain drug studies. 

Gulhati, the editor of the Indian medical journal, said official inquiries into drug-trial deaths are rare. 

“Unlike the Western countries where there is an audit of each death during [a] clinical trial, we don't have a system like that at all,” he said. “So that is the biggest problem.” 

The lack of oversight by Indian government officials, Gulhati added, has created a culture of impunity for drug research companies and the doctors who work for them. 

He offered a recent example. In 2010, an Indian government investigation confirmed 10 deaths at drug trials sponsored by Western drug companies, including Pfizer and Astra Zeneca, at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre. The facility was built to treat survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster. 

Gas survivor patients and their families said some of the doctors who enrolled them never informed the patients that they were in drug studies nor did they pay them the requisite compensation. The hospital was paid more than $200,000 to conduct the studies, according to government records. 

Gas survivor advocates also claimed that at least one of the 13 studies conducted between 2004 and 2008 appeared to be illegal in India at the time.  

The Indian government later cited repeated violations of guidelines and regulations during those trials conducted between 2004 and 2008, but no penalties were issued to the hospital, doctors or study sponsors. 

In a warning letter to one company, India’s Drugs Controller General Dr. Surinder Singh wrote, “…you are hereby warned to be careful while conducting clinical trials to ensure that such deficiencies/discrepancies are not repeated in the future.” 

The companies sponsoring the studies said that international standards and Indian laws were followed, though Astra Zeneca acknowledged errors in receiving proper consent from some patients. It said the problem was “promptly corrected.”

FDA faces 'handicaps' overseeing foreign trials 

Although data from overseas studies is used to help win FDA approval for drugs, the agency told Dateline in a statement that it faces “a number of handicaps in its inspections of foreign clinical sites, which are not technically under FDA jurisdiction under international law.” 

In India, for example, the FDA said its inspectors are not legally permitted access to confidential records held by contract research firms that often do testing for Western pharmaceutical companies. It’s a law that would severely hamper any investigation into a patient’s death. 

Satinath Sarangi, director of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, told Dateline that the incentive for drug companies to conduct research in India is obvious. 

“You can do it cheaply, do it with no regulation, and even if there are violations, get away with it,” he said. 

Following reports of unauthorized drug studies on children and mentally disabled patients, India’s health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, told reporters last month that some companies running drug trials in India are not following regulations. 

“Sometimes the companies don’t go by the laid-down procedures and it causes great harm to persons and individuals on which this test is carried out,” he said. 

Even when deaths during drug trials raise questions, drug companies can eliminate those questions at little expense. 

Last year, Azad, the Indian health minister, confirmed that 10 foreign drug companies paid an average of about $4,800 to relatives of 22 people who died during or after participating in drug trials in 2010. The amount is a small fraction of compensation paid for similar deaths in other countries, Gulhati said.  

In the meantime, reports of illnesses and deaths linked to drug trials are doing little to deter a steady stream of willing volunteers. And Nadia sees no risk to his franchise. 

“There is more supply than demand,” he said. “There's nothing to feel bad (about). The subjects need the money, so they go. It's as simple as that.”

Tim Sandler is a producer for "Dateline NBC."

Is $41 a reasonable charge for a 3-second voicemail left by an American soldier on his way to Iraq?

Not according to a lawsuit filed by a military couple accusing a U.S. company of gouging troops traveling to and from tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Watch the video above or click here to read the full story by NBC News senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers.

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