Lucky Larry

From: "Thomas R. Ascher" <lifeforce@rockymountains.net>

Preface by Thomas:

To friends, family and correspondents: I have received numerous questions about the article entitled Lucky Larry which I recently forwarded. This article addressed the windfall insurance gain received by Mr. Larry Silverstein after the destruction of the WTC complex on September 11, 2001. I am going to try and address some of those questions. First, who wrote the article? Not me! It was written by an aeronautical engineer, and retired airline pilot. He is one of many professional people, including engineers, scientists, government officers, intelligence officers who have joined the so-called 911 truth movement. This would include members of S.P.I.N.E, Physics 911, and 911Truth among many other 911 organizations. His life has been threatened and so he asks for anonymity. He writes under the pen name of Ryan Rumpole.



-- comments continued, following the article.

------------- article follows: Subject: "Lucky Larry"



Larry “Lucky Larry” Silverstein



You’ve got to be lucky to make $4 Billion killing on a 6-month investment of $124 Million



Larry Silverstein is the New York property tycoon who purchased the entire WTC complex just 6 months prior to the 9/11 attacks. That was the first time in its 33-year history the complex had EVER changed ownership.



Mr. Silverstein’s first order of business as the new owner was to change the company responsible for the security of the complex. The new security company he hired was Securacom (now Stratasec). George W. Bush's brother, Marvin Bush, was on its board of directors, and Marvin’s cousin, Wirt Walker III, was its CEO. According to public records, not only did Securacom provide electronic security for the World Trade Center, it also covered Dulles International Airport and United Airlines — two key players in the 9/11 attacks.



The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for many years to the Bush family. KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.



Now, consider: The members of a small cabal owned the WTC complex, controlled its electronic security, and also controlled the security not only for one of the airlines whose aircraft were hijacked on 9/11, but the airport from which they originated.



Another little “coincidence” -- Mr. Silversten, who made a down-payment of $124 million on this $3.2 billion complex, promptly insured it for $7 Billion. Not only that, he covered the complex against “terrorist attacks”.



Following the attacks, Silverstein filed TWO insurance claims for the maximum amount of the policy ($7B), based on the two -- in Silverstein's view -- separate attacks. The insurance company, Swiss Re, paid Mr. Silverstein $4.6 Billion — a princely return on a relatively paltry investment of $124 million.



There’s more. You see, the World Trade Towers were not the real estate plum we are led to believe. From an economic standpoint, the trade center -- subsidized since its inception by the NY Port Authority -- has never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the rough-and-tumble real estate marketplace. How could Silverstein Group have been ignorant of this?



The towers required some $200 million in renovations and improvements, most of which related to removal and replacement of building materials declared to be health hazards in the years since the towers were built. It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons , but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings.



The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion!



In other words, the Twin Towers were condemned structures. How convenient that an unexpected “terrorist” attack demolished the buildings completely.



WTC Building 7 was a part of the WTC complex, and covered under the same insurance policy. This 47-storey steel-framed structure, which was NOT struck by an aircraft, mysteriously collapsed 8 hours later that same day into its own footprint at freefall speed — exactly in the manner of the Twin Towers.



How could this have happened? Mr. Silverstein gave the world the answer when he slipped up during a PBS television interview a year later, on 9/11/2002:



"I remember getting a call from the...er...fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."



As anyone who knows anything about construction can tell you, “Pull” is common industry jargon for a controlled demolition.



One thing is for sure, the decision to 'pull' WTC 7 would have delighted many people. Especially because it has been reported that thousands of sensitive files relating to some of the biggest financial scams in history — including Enron and WorldCom -- were stored in the offices of some of the building’s tenants:

US Secret Service

NSA

CIA

IRS

BATF

SEC

NAIC Securities

Salomon Smith Barney

American Express Bank International

Standard Chartered Bank

Provident Financial Management

ITT Hartford Insurance Group

Federal Home Loan Bank

The Securities and Exchange Commission has not quantified the number of active cases in which substantial files were destroyed by the collapse of WTC 7. Reuters news service and the Los Angeles Times published reports estimating them at 3,000 to 4,000. They include the agency's major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divvied up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high-tech boom. ..."Ongoing investigations at the New York SEC will be dramatically affected because so much of their work is paper-intensive," said Max Berger of New York's Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. "This is a disaster for these cases."



Citigroup says some information that the committee is seeking [about WorldCom] was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Salomon had offices in 7 World Trade Center. The bank says that back-up tapes of corporate emails from September 1998 through December 2000 were stored at the building and destroyed in the attack.



Inside WTC 7 was the US Secret Service's largest field office with more than 200 employees. "All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building," according to US Secret Service Special Agent David Curran.



What a neat, complete, and fortuitous turn of events was 9/11.



Incidentally, it’s worth noting that one of Lucky Larry’s closest friends — a person with whom it’s said he speaks almost daily by phone — is none other than former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.



More on that cozy little relationship later...

"Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong,

which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.

To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor,

both to yourself and to your country."

- Mark Twain ### "lucky Larry." Follow the money...More Questions...



Comment by Thomas continues from above: Second, what are the details of the transaction? The precise details are unknown---at this time. (One would need to examine the legal documents...) However this much is known and is public information: On July 24, 2001 the Port Authority of New York awarded control of the WTC complex to a partnership consisting of Silverstein Properties and Westfield America. Mr. Silverstein was the lead (general) partner and controlled Silverstein Properties. Mr. Frank Lowy controlled Westfield America. (Representing the Port Authority of New York was Mr. Lewis Eisenberg, Chairman of the Port Authority for New York. Eisenberg, was also former chairman of Goldman Sachs Inc., and is currently the chairman of the Republican National Committee. ) The winning bid from Silverstein and Lowy was 3.2 Billion dollars. Silverstein and Lowy were required to make a down payment of $125,000,000.00. (According to the website "What Really Happened," Silverstein had two other financial backers, a Lloyd Goldman and a Joseph Cayre, who also put up a portion of the down payment.) However, contrary to popular belief, Silverstein et.al., did not buy/purchase the WTC. The partnership only gained control of the WTC by obtaining from the P.A.N.Y. a 99 year lease in Buildings 1,2,4 and 5 and 9 and 400,000 square feet of retail space. Mr. Silverstein immediately insured the complex for 3.6 billion dollars. This was accomplished under contract with Willis Group Holdings Ltd. who arranged and negotiated the coverage with a consortium of 25 insurance companies. The contracts included coverage in the case of "terrorist attack." When the attack occurred Silverstein claimed that there were two different terrorists attacks and therefore the actual amount due under the contracts was double or about 7.2 billion dollars. In a subsequent lawsuit on this issue a jury awarded Silverstein an additional 1.1 billion dollars for a total recovery of 4.6 billion dollars. In December of 2003 the Port Authority of New York agreed to return to Silverstein and Lowy the entire deposit of $125,000,000.00 that the partnership had invested to acquire control of the World Trade Complex. The P.A.N.Y. rejected a request by the Wall Street Journal to review the transaction. See www.what really happened.com/silverstein. WWW.911research.wtc.7/wtc/background/owners. www.911review,com.motive/insurance.

Third, will the Silverstein/Lowy partnership be required to rebuild the WTC on behalf of the P.A.N.Y? I don't see why. They did not hold legal title to the WTC. They only had a 99 year leasehold interest. Why should they have to replace a physical building that they did not own? That means, as far as I can tell, they walk away not only with 4.6 billion dollars in insurance proceeds but also the 125 million dollars that they put up as a down payment. For six weeks that has to be the greatest return on an investment in world history. I think what has a lot of people confused is why should silverstein collect all the insurance when the Port Authority of New York owned the property----and therefore took the loss. I guess that would have to be a question that can only be answered by an examination of the 99 year lease, the insurance contracts and the officers now in control of the Port Authority of New York. Perhaps Mr. Lewis Eisenberg can explain this peculiar turn of events.

Fourth, are there URL's that discuss or identify the issues relating to asbestos abatement and the problems associated with electrolytic corrosion at the WTC? There are a number of excellent articles on the web discussing the environmental disaster that lay within the WTC, because of the existence of asbestos fire retardant. Two in particular are worth mentioning and they were both written by the powerful and influential New York Law firm of Arnold & Porter LLC. Just google the name of the firm with the word asbestos and world trade center, and the articles should come right up. (That there was asbestos contamination is beyond doubt since hundreds of first response people have died and many are now dying from numerous respiratory problems.) Noted below, the first URL is the affidavit and deposition of T.Scott Gordon. Mr. Gordon was with the architectural firm of Emery Roth Associates. These documents were submitted to the U.S. Senate Oversight Committee and relate partly to the serious problem of electrolytic corrosion at the WTC. The second URL is one of just several websites that covered the disclosures by Mr. Gordon. The third URL is an interview of Karl W. B. Schwarz, former member of the Republican National Committee, and currently the president and CEO of Patmos NanoTechnologies Inc. Also, In February of this year Mr. Schwarz was interviewed by the Republic Broadcasting corporation (You won't see any of this on either CBS or in the New York Times) concerning the 911 event. In that interview he disclosed the plans that were made in 1989 to completely dismantle the WTC. These plans were initiated not only because of the asbestos problems but also the electrolytic corrosion problems at the WTC. Apparently, the plans were dropped because they were considered prohibitively expensive. The URL for Mr. Schwarz's website is www.karlschwarz.com. and the URL for Republic Broadcasting is www.rbnlive.com.

There is a persistent report on the net that either the state of New York or the EPA had ordered that the dismantling of the WTC commence no later than 2007. As far as I know, this has never been confirmed. However, it is well established that the WTC presented expensive and problematic issues concerning asbestos abatement. It was estimated that the cost of asbestos abatement alone would be in the neighborhood of 200 million dollars. And I think there is serious and credible evidence that the building was suffering from corrosion brought on by electrolytic reactions between the steel frame and the aluminum facia. And then, according to Business Week, "the trade center was always subsidized by the city of New York. It never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the rough and tumble New York real estate market." It was just another government subsidized white elephant. Silverstein, a denizen of the New York real estate market, had to know of these problems before he gained control of the WTC. So, the question becomes: Why would Silverstein, a sophisticated, intelligent and knowledgeable real estate developer, pay 125 million dollars to get control of a building that was uneconomic, was an environmental basket case, and had serious corrosion problems. And if it is subsequently determined to be true that the WTC towers had to be dismantled as a matter of law, (and that is a very big IF) then the question becomes again why anyone would pay 125 million dollars to acquire control of the WTC when they knew that the buildings would have to be dismantled. A 99 year lease would make no sense at all. But, casualty insurance would make a lot of sense if you knew ahead of time that the buildings were going to be destroyed. It should be emphasized that dismantling the WTC by order of the EPA etc. would not result in the recovery of insurance proceeds. This would not be a casualty. Insurance recovery would only occur if there was a casualty, which is a legal term of art, and carefully defined within insurance law. One of those casualties, of course, would be a terrorist attack. hmmmmmm..... But, cutting to the chase, If it can ultimately be shown that an order was issued that the towers be dismantled sometime in the near future----say not later than 2007, and if it can be shown that Silverstein et.al., knew this, then I have to believe it would be Grand Jury time. Lots of serious questions have not been asked nor answered. One that comes immediately to mind; is there a record of this "problem" at the EPA? Has anyone ever asked to review these public records? F.O.I.A. ?

Bottom line: The destruction of the towers had several effects, all beneficial to the "lessees." First, the "removal" of the twin towers and WTC 7 substantially tightened up the commercial real estate market in lower Manhattan. (Over 10 million square feet of office space was removed from the market in the blink of an eye---and that does not include the office space at the WTC 7.) The problems associated with the removal of a serious environmental hazard (asbestos) vanished in a span of less than eleven seconds---the time it took for the towers to collapse to the ground. Third, the "lessees" of the WTC complex were relieved of the enormous financial burden of removing the asbestos and perhaps the dismantling of the WTC complex. Fourth, the government of the state of New York and the City of New York had to assume the burden and the enormous financial costs of removing the toxic remains of the WTC. The City of New York continues to be burdened with all the costs of all the people who died of respiratory ailments and continue to suffer from these ailments. Law suits anyone? (But, you can't sue "Lucky Larry." It was those damned arabs that did this.) Fifth, Mr. Silverstein and company walked away with a windfall of 4.6 billion dollars plus their entire deposit of $125,000,000.00. Again, I can only guess as to how they did this when the only "insurable interest" they had was a 99 year lease. But, it was a pretty sweet deal----unless of course you are one of the 3000 people who were murdered on that day. And, this was all because of those pesky Arabs. They made it all possible. Those daring young men in their flying machines.

We are now five years down the road, and so far no serious investigations have occurred, no grand juries have been impaneled, and nobody has either been prosecuted or otherwise held accountable for the greatest single event of mass murder in U.S. history. A lot of serious questions need to be asked of a lot of people who had the means, the motive and the opportunity to commit this crime. This is not rocket science. This is just a murder investigation----that has yet to occur. And what is the response of our government? Why we have to get Osama, and his merry band of terrorists, the Al Qaeda. Whoops, I almost forgot. According to Fox news, Osama has been dead for nearly five years................... hmmmmm,

Tom