Terrorists and con men, foreign and domestic: India, Sunny, O.J. and Henry Nicholas, lll
Runners-up for top story of the month:
The Mumbai, India terrorists, who battled Indian commandos for 60 hours, relied on cocaine and “other stimulants” to stay awake. Drug paraphernalia was recovered from the sites of the attacks, in which almost 200 people were murdered. Officials said, “We found [syringes] containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood.” They added there was also evidence of steroids, “which isn’t uncommon in terrorists.” I have suggested elsewhere that terrorism is rooted in alcohol and other-drug addiction, including in an article written shortly after the September 11 attacks available at www.preventragedy.com under “articles and interviews,” as well as the TAR August 2005 Top Story “Tantalizing Clues to Suicide Bombers”.
American heiress Sunny von Bulow, made famous in the Jeremy Irons/Glenn Close film, “Reversal of Fortune,” dead at age 76, after having been in a coma for nearly 28 years. Her second husband, Claus von Bulow, was convicted and later acquitted, in an appeal guided by Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz, of trying to kill her with injections of insulin. Although the prosecutions were the result of an investigation initiated by the two children from Sunny’s first marriage to Austrian playboy Prince Alfred von Auersperg, which pitted them against their stepfather Claus and their half-sister, all three children said in a statement that they “were blessed to have an extraordinary loving and caring mother.” I generally don’t use the term “denial,” but in light of her behaviors detailed in this month’s “Review” and Dershowitz’ comment while planning the defense, perhaps it’s a fitting term for the children.
O.J. Simpson, 61, who is so far the only person to have earned Top Story honors in TAR twice (December 2006 and October 2007), finally, as Fred Goldman put it, “in shackles like he belongs.” Simpson got 33 years, with eligibility for parole after nine, for planning and executing an illegal attempt to retrieve sports memorabilia and other mementos in a Las Vegas hotel room in September 2007. Goldman, whose son Ronald was murdered along with O.J.’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994, relentlessly pursued O.J.’s assets in an attempt to satisfy a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment. This may have, as Goldman put it, “pushed him over the edge,” leading him to commit the robbery. Shortly after the trial, which occurred around the same time I was learning about alcoholism first-hand, I told friends, “If I am right about O.J.—that he is an alcoholic—he will make a mistake later that will land him behind bars.” Ironically, if he’d gotten sober, the latest incident would have been exceedingly unlikely to have occurred, in which case he might never have gotten his comeuppance.
Henry T. Nicholas lll, accused by his former wife, Stacey Nicholas, of squandering $60 million of their fortune on “personal indulgences,” which forms part of a demand that he be removed as co-trustee of their family trust for gross mismanagement. The “indulgences” include a $3.1 million limousine bill (can you imagine the bar in that limousine?) and $1 million spent on detectives to tail her, their three children and her boyfriend as far as Europe. In a court petition, she also claimed that her former husband repeatedly threatened her physically. Nicholas, whose bizarre story is briefly mentioned in the runners-up section of the July 2008 TAR is under indictment for backdating stock option awards and buying and distributing cocaine, ecstasy and other controlled substances. He is alleged to have maintained homes and a warehouse for “using and distributing” cocaine, ecstasy and methamphetamine, and to have secretly slipped drugs into the drinks of business associates in a bid to gain competitive advantage. Nicholas also constructed a series of tunnels and underground rooms at his estate, designed to allow him to indulge in what the indictment terms his “manic obsession with prostitutes.” The trial should be among the most entertaining ever.