FINGERMATRIX INC [text] [html] DEFM14C 07/12/2000
Title of Class/Amount and Nature of Beneficial Ownership (1), (2)/Percent of Class
Series B Preferred Stock /1,000(14)/100%
Common Stock/3,177,985(15)/14.7%
.
Name and Address of Beneficial Owner
P.T. Dolak Permei
Surf Song Condos No. 68
205 P. Helix
Solana Beach, CA 92075
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"In a recent interview, the current chairman of Finx, Lewis Schiller, initially insisted to me that Ray had nothing to do with his company, appeared in no SEC filings, and wasn't a shareholder. But when the actual filing was cited to him he backtracked and claimed that although he was now preparing a business venture with Ray, he had been only marginally associated with him in the past. He called Ray a "great American" who had put his life at risk for the U.S., but refused to say how. "
.FEDS' DOUBLE-TAKE By CHRISTOPHER BYRON
December 20, 2004 -- IT is entirely possible that there is an inno cent explanation for ev erything Bernard KERIK has said and done in recent days, and for the information about his past life that has surfaced as a result.
But KERIK has not yet provided it and more information dribbles out daily to fan the flames that are devouring his reputation. In a minute we'll turn to the newest revelation — that KERIK may not have fully informed federal investigators about the nature and duration of his involvement with a Long Island penny stock company called Dataworld Solutions Inc.
But first some perspective on what this entire matter is really all about: the ex-commissioner's solidifying public image as a man tied far too closely to the world of oraganized crime. KERIK's choice of a lawyer to represent him before the public has certainly not helped. The attorney in question, Joseph Tacopina, is by all accounts a skilled and able lawyer, and he has several high profile-acquittals to point to in that regard, including one of the defendants in the Abner Louima case. But when it comes to public relations advocacy, Tacopina is proving to be a real liability for KERIK.
That is because Tacopina's own past includes membership on the criminal defense team that defended Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. Most recently, he has been lead lawyer at the trial of a bag man for John Gotti's brother, Peter. As a result, every time Tacopina steps up to defend KERIK, he cannot help but remind one of what this is really all about.
KERIK needs to begin effectively addressing the accumulating facts against him, and a good place to start would be to sort out when and why he became an adviser to Dataworld Solutions Inc. in the first place — and if what he appears to have told federal investigators is correct, why he decided to leave soon after arriving.
Sources in this matter said it appears that KERIK told government interviewers in November that he had begun severing his ties to Dataworld in April of 2004, some six months after he accepted the position.
KERIK claimed to have done so after learning of the company's plans to do business with a Queens-based contractor called Georal International Ltd., whose owner was soon thereafter indicted for defrauding the City of New York on various service contracts.
YET KERIK is quoted in an April 2004 Data world press release, and in a follow-up one as well, as being highly enthusiastic about the deal with Georal, whose owner, Alan Risi, he had known for years.
Moreover, whatever he may have subsequently claimed to be his intentions at the time, the ex-Commissioner did not actually sever his ties to Dataworld until news of Risi's indictment on fraud charges became public in June.
Even the date of his departure is in doubt. In an interview last week, Dataworld's chief operating officer Philip Rauch told me KERIK, having contributed virtually nothing to the company during his time on its board of advisers, resigned abruptly in late October, just prior to his selection by George Bush to succeed Gov. Tom Ridge as homeland security czar. Two days later, the company issued a corrective press release praising KERIK's contributions to Dataworld and asserting he had resigned in late August.
As KERIK's world comes increasingly into focus, it appears to involve individuals and companies haunted by their own poor choices of business partners and personal relationships.
For its part, Dataworld is tussling with a twice-bankrupted Florida-based company called Finx Group Inc. over licensing rights to a type of entry system that can monitor and control access to public buildings. In June of 2001, four of these so-called "secure doors" were ordered by the New York Police Department to be installed at Police headquarters where KERIK was serving as the city's Police Commissioner.
But the doors were not needed and were never installed, and instead of being returned to Georal were shipped to Rikers Island where three of them have been in storage for the last three years. Both the NYPD Internal Affairs division and the city's Department of Investigation are probing the circumstances surrounding the handling of this contract.
Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that in the summer of 2003 a federal ex-con with Organized Crime ties named Lawrence Ray held 36 million shares in Finx along with a promise from the company to give him a warrant to purchase 200 million more shares.
In a recent interview, the current chairman of Finx, Lewis Schiller, initially insisted to me that Ray had nothing to do with his company, appeared in no SEC filings, and wasn't a shareholder. But when the actual filing was cited to him he backtracked and claimed that although he was now preparing a business venture with Ray, he had been only marginally associated with him in the past. He called Ray a "great American" who had put his life at risk for the U.S., but refused to say how.
RAY, who lives in a $1 million home in War ren, N.J., pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a federal Organized Crime stock fraud case involving the brother-in-law of Mafia turncoat Sammy ("The Bull") Gravano as well as members of the Colombo and Bonanno crime families.
Ray is also the source of many of the most lurid revelations regarding KERIK's links to the criminal underworld.
Until his indictment in March of 2000, Ray was a close confidante and financial supporter of KERIK's, serving as best man at KERIK's wedding in 1998, as well as making him gifts of more than $7,000 in cash and valuables.
Last week Ray was vague with me concerning how and when he first met KERIK or who had introduced them to each other. But Ray did say that when someone he grew up with and who turned out to be "real bad" entangled him in what developed eventually into a securities fraud case involving a mob-infested company called U.S. Bridge of New York, KERIK introduced him to the FBI.
Whether or not he wound up helping the government (and he is vague on that point, too), he was nonetheless eventually indicted anyway. The U.S. Attorney in the case declined to discuss the matter.
In any event, published reports say that in late 1998 Ray introduced KERIK to a friend of Ray's named Frank DiTommaso, the co-owner, along with his brother Peter DiTommaso of a Clifton, New Jersey construction company called Interstate Industrial Corporation.
Interstate had recently purchased a Staten Island garbage dump from Gambino crime family underboss Sammy Gravano's brother-in-law, Edward Garafola, and was having trouble getting it licensed by the City of New York because of Interstate's long-rumored ties to Organized Crime. According to a statement given by Frank DiTommaso to the New York City Dept. of Investigations, Ray told him he could help and thereafter introduced him to KERIK.
KERIK appears to have helped by encouraging DiTommaso to hire Ray to lobby city regulators for a license, which DiTommaso did, giving Ray a position at $100,000 per year as director of security for an Interstate affiliate called Interstate Materials Corp. that actually ran the dump.
In mid-November, a DeCavalcante crime family turncoat, Anthony Rotondo, testified as a government witness at the racketeering trial of acting Gambino crime boss Peter Gotti that Rotondo had collected protection money from the owners of Interstate — Frank and Peter DiTommaso — to assure labor peace while employing non-union workers.
Ray claims that when he was indicted in the U.S. Bridge case, KERIK immediately cut him off and stopped returning his phone calls. This turned Ray into KERIK's sworn enemy, and he has lately emerged as a principal source of much of the bad publicity now swirling about the ex-Commissioner.
*Please send e-mail to: cbyron@nypost.com |
