by Cyndi Steele
THE EDGAR STEELE DEFENSE FUND, an Idaho non-profit corporation wishes to address a recent prosecution motion which effectively asks for an all-expense paid trip to Ukraine, claiming it is related to Mr. Steele’s case.
Once again, the prosecution has it wrong. In pursuing the Ukrainian connection to my husband, First Amendment lawyer Edgar Steele (pictured), the government is grasping at straws because there is no motive for the alleged murder-for-hire. The government knows that, as my husband’s legal assistant, I was fully aware that the Ukrainian woman was suspected to be a part of a “Russian-Bride†scam which cheated one of his clients out of thousands of dollars. By communicating with this woman, my husband was working a case to bring down the people involved in stealing from Americans. Now, instead of doing her job, Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) Traci Whelan, is seeking an all expense trip abroad and has turned this into a Media-Op.
When my husband was first arrested, the FBI claimed his “motive†was to cash in on our life insurance proceeds. When I told them that we had canceled our life insurance years ago, the FBI claimed my husband had a private investigator following me who supposedly had pictures of me with a “boyfriend.†Oops, the FBI lied again. There was no private investigator, no pictures and no boyfriend. Now the government is using my husband’s investigation of a human trafficking ring to claim he had a girlfriend. This is just another example of the FBI using fraud to prosecute the innocent. As we all have learned from recent reports, the government has prosecuted thousands of innocent people on fabricated evidence over the past 14 years.
In response to AUSA Traci Whelan’s comment: “If the defendant could not control his actions and that is why he hired a hit man, what is to stop that from happening again?†First, my husband was weak from four surgeries and the prescription drugs taken during his recovery, so he didn’t see Larry Fairfax taking advantage of him. Second, he did not hire Larry Fairfax or anyone to be a hit man. And, third, AUSA Whelan well knows that Larry Fairfax is a liar because he lied to the FBI by not disclosing that he had attached a bomb to my car in June when he promised to “come forward†with all his criminal activity. AUSA Whelan has seen the theft report and knows that Fairfax stole $45,000 in silver savings from my husband and me. AUSA Whelan also knows that Fairfax was covering up his theft by blaming my husband in a supposed murder-for-hire scam. AUSA Whelan even told my attorney and me that Fairfax had confessed he was trying to “scam†us. So what does it take to get AUSA Whelan to do her job? She has the real criminal and she knows who his accomplices are but she will not properly charge either with the serious crimes committed by them, thus allowing them to continually put my life and the public in danger.
I’m standing up for my husband because he is innocent. It was the FBI that was tampering with my testimony, trying to persuade me to accept one of their many versions of this case. But I took the time to look at the evidence, without accepting anyone else’s perspective, in order to make up my own mind. After I looked, I realized that it was the FBI who knew there was a bomb on my car many days before I found it attached to my muffler on June 15th. Did the government say anything to me or do anything to warn the public? No!
The same day I found the bomb, a US Marshal told me that the government was not going to provide me any protection. This was the official word!!! At that point, the government supposedly didn’t know who had put the bomb on my car; because, supposedly, Larry Fairfax had not come forward with that information yet. But, all the same, I was being denied protection.
At that time, I told the government that I was worried about this bomb coming from some hate group because my family has had numerous death threats over the years. The FBI knew about these threats and ignored them even though the calls were traced back to the phone lines of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League). Now this same government that refused to protect me is going to give Larry Fairfax, who attempted to murder me, a soft plea deal of an 18 month sentence. The government also refuses to arrest or charge the Fairfax accomplices with their crimes. Since I am the victim of an attempted murder by Fairfax and his gang, I want to know what will it take to get the government to do its job?
Donations of any size for the defense of Mr. Steele are greatly appreciated and are still being accepted by the Edgar Steele Defense Fund. More information can be obtained at www.free-edgar-steele.com, or checks and money orders can be mailed to the Edgar Steele Defense Fund at P.O. 1255, Sagle, Idaho 83860. For further information call Robert Magnuson at 509-290-7466.