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by John Pacenti
The Palm Beach Post,
September 29, 2001
Randy Glass chatted up diamond wholesalers as easily as shadowy arms
dealers looking to buy missiles for terrorists. The former Boca Raton
jeweler's talents made him the consummate con man, accused of bilking
people out of millions of dollars worldwide. Those skills also suited
him for work as a prized government snitch. Facing a substantial federal
prison sentence for 13 felonies in 1998, Glass put his skills into
overdrive on numerous undercover investigations, transforming himself
into what a prosecutor called "one of the most prolific informants the
world has ever seen."
He might have gotten
close to associates of Osama bin Laden, the most wanted man on Earth
whose vast terrorist network has been blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Glass was the government's go-to guy in a 31-month investigation into
the attempted sale of military weapons -- Stinger anti-aircraft
missiles, night-vision goggles, even nuclear weapon components -- to
various groups in foreign countries, including Afghanistan's ruling
Taliban, which has been secreting bin Laden. The probe led to the arrest
of two New Jersey men -- Egyptian national Diaa Badr Mohsen and
Pakistani native Mohammed "Mike" Malik -- in June at a West Palm Beach
warehouse. Two others were arrested in Fort Lauderdale on related
money-laundering charges.
But the attorneys
for the two New Jersey men say Glass conned them into thinking they
themselves were working for the U.S. government to either facilitate a
legitimate arms deal or catch terrorists. It was all part of Glass'
scheme to reduce his own sentence, they say. "The more we learn about
Mr. Glass, the stronger our case gets," said attorney Val Rodriguez, who
represents Mohsen. If Glass was blowing smoke, the government was
pouring the fuel for the fire. Members of three federal agencies -- the
FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Customs -- went before
a federal judge on July 9, 1999, to ask that Glass remain out of prison
to work on multiple "undercover matters." They said national security,
as well as Glass' life, was at stake, especially now that bin Laden
appeared to be involved.
Bin Laden had been
tied to the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
that killed 224 people. "I mean, he is the most wanted individual in
the world at this time," ATF agent Steve Barborini told U.S. District
Judge Wilkie D. Ferguson. "And at this point, that is a major
concern." Ferguson was skeptical. "National security interests will be
triggered, but what we have so far, I guess, is talk," he said. "I can't
see that Mr. Glass ever paid the price for any of his misdeeds. He has a
way of getting out of everything." But the judge deferred to the agents,
allowing Glass to remain free. When it finally came time to sentence
Glass last year, prosecutors gushed over his work. "He has met with
individuals in Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Republic of Congo, in
South America and West Africa, as well," Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil
Karadbil told a judge on May 19, 2000. "The individuals that Mr. Glass
has dealt with are essentially terrorists. They are without question
dangerous individuals." Glass, 49, was sentenced to 20 months in prison
last year, but remained free while working for the government. After
the arrests of the four men in June, Glass' sentence was cut again to
seven months, which he is now serving in a prison at Eglin Air Force
Base in the Florida Panhandle.
Series of scams,
cons
Glass' metamorphosis
from con artist to informant started in 1998 when he was arrested for
bilking $6 million from diamond and jewelry wholesalers worldwide. Glass
wrote worthless checks and made up stories that he had been burglarized
or robbed of precious jewels, investigators said. The victims were from
South America, Belgium, New York, California, Toronto and South Florida.
He was accused of laundering $1 million in drug money and filing a $1
million false burglary claim from Palm Beach Jewelry Center on
Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach and a false report that he was
robbed of $250,000 in diamonds on a Chicago street corner by two black
men in camouflage. During "Operation Diamondback," as the probe was
called, investigators gathered information about other Glass capers. For
years, the man known as Randy Goldberg back in his native Baltimore had
used his charm as a means to scam.
"He's got that kind
of personality that anything he says to anybody, people believe him,"
said Carolyn Furst, a Lighthouse Point jeweler who worked with Glass
briefly in the early 1990s. "I don't know anybody who has been fleeced
by him who doesn't think he is a hell of a nice guy." In 1990, he was
able to "convince two desperate owners/sellers of a $500,000 Pompano
Beach home to take what Randy claimed was $200,000 worth of rare stamps
as down payment," according to information gathered by the Palm Beach
County Sheriff's Office. When the owners discovered the stamps were
worthless, they tried to back out of the contract. Glass sued, tying up
the property until he received $5,000 in a settlement, according to the
PBSO report. In 1993, Glass convinced a 70-year-old man to loan him
$200,000, the report said. As collateral, he put up some jewelry that
the victim discovered was fake after Glass reneged on the loan. The man
sued and got a judgment against Glass, according to the report. In 1995,
Glass was charged with luring two Brazilians to a Pompano Beach bank
with promises of paying them $1.5 million for rough-cut diamonds. Inside
the bank, Glass locked the jewels in a safe deposit box. Detectives said
he was trying to steal the gems to pay back some Belgians he had conned
in 1993. He pleaded guilty to grand theft and returned the gems. In
Glass' shop on Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton, he would often deal his
diamonds and move money from one bank account to another and back again
within a few hours, Furst said. When a customer came in, he would order
Furst and Jennifer Donnelly -- Glass' wife, co-worker and later
codefendant -- into a back room where there was a gun in the safe. "He
said if anybody pulls anything, pull out the gun. We were just like
there to protect him," Furst said. "It was like the blind leading the
blind." Glass and Donnelly hosted champagne auctions to raise money for
the United Cerebral Palsy of Palm Beach and other charities, including a
home for abused teenagers. Despite his charm, Glass' personal life was
often in turmoil. He has been married five times. Police records show
that in 1997, one of his ex-wives, Jan Yager, said she was intentionally
hit by a red car as she walked on her Boca Raton street. She told police
she believed the driver was Glass because she was arguing with him over
visitation rights to their son. Glass was not charged. "He has a
charisma about him that everybody seemed to love but when you see him on
a daily basis, he had a very short temper," Furst said. "He could blow
up on a drop of a dime."
Donnelly's
attorney, Richard L. Rosenbaum, said it wouldn't surprise him if Glass
set up people into thinking they were government operatives. "It
wouldn't shock me at all. He's a scammer all day and all night,"
Rosenbaum said. "He could sell you ice cubes in Alaska. He is not the
kind of person you want to see our government rewarding with a reduced
sentence." Donnelly pleaded guilty to two fraud counts. Glass, hit
with 13 felony charges, started to cooperate with the government. By the
time Glass pleaded guilty last year, the 13 felonies had been dropped
and two counts of fraud had taken their place. When it came time for
sentencing, the prosecutor -- normally the defendant's adversary --
appeared to be in awe of Glass. "He is an individual who is very bright,
beyond any kind of degree that a person could have," Karadbil said. "He
is someone who is able to move in any type of social circle. . . . He
has a tremendous gift of gab, tremendous resourcefulness."
According to
Karadbil, Glass:
-
Provided
information for the FBI, the ATF, the Secret Service, Florida
Department of Law Enforcement and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's
Office.
-
Helped recover a
30-plus carat diamond stolen in the armed robbery of $2.5 million in
jewels from a Palm Beach jewelry store. The FBI was then able to
arrest the robbers and their fence.
-
Worked with the
New York City FBI regarding forged Picasso and Reubens paintings and
the recovery of two burial masks, said to be more than 30 centuries
old, stolen from Egyptian museums.
-
Helped the
Secret Service expose a counterfeit operation of fake $100 bills
supplied through Guyana.
The prosecutor also
said Glass' son had information about the beating death of Adam Jones
that occurred after a Boca Raton birthday party was broken up by police
on Feb. 26, 2000. Karadbil said the information led to the arrest of
Derrick Acklin, who was convicted of battery for hitting Jones and was
sentenced to four years in prison. Most federal investigations are
cloaked in secrecy, so it's hard to corroborate Glass' involvement in
these cases. Karadbil declined to comment. When Palm Beach police
announced the arrest of three men in the robbery of Richters jewelry
store on Worth Avenue, it acknowledged the help of an FBI informant. A
source close to the Richters investigation confirmed that Glass played a
role. However, New York newspapers reported that a stock fraudster had
helped police nab members of the Gambino crime family peddling the fake
Picasso and Reubens pieces. Glass' lawyer -- his brother, Gerald -- did
not return phone calls seeking comment.
Taliban tried to buy
weapons
Of all Glass'
reported missions, the most wide-reaching by far was the weapons sting.
Soon after he was charged in the fraud case, Glass told agents he knew
of an arms dealer, a gambling buddy from New Jersey named Diaa Mohsen.
Agents fitted Glass with a wire and tapped his phone, according to
transcripts of court hearings. Mohsen, an Egyptian national, led Glass
to a former Egyptian judge named Shireen Shawky, federal agents told
Judge Ferguson in 1999. Shawky, ready to front $2 million of his own
money, tried to broker a deal for weapons. Shawky was shopping on behalf
of buyers in the civil war-ravaged Congo, but after a peace accord
there, he looked for possible buyers elsewhere.
The night before the
July 1999 hearing, a phone conversation revealed the interest of the
Taliban. "That group is presently seeking arms on behalf of themselves,
and maybe for the benefit of bin Laden," ATF agent Barborini told the
judge. Shawky had set up a bank account in Boca Raton for the arms deal,
Barborini said. Mohsen asked about grenade launchers, machine guns,
anti-tank missiles, a component for a nuclear weapon and Stinger
missiles, according to a federal arrest report. In the 1980s, Afghan and
Muslim rebels, including bin Laden, used U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles
to bring down Soviet aircraft. Up to 100 unused Stingers remain in the
hands of the Taliban or bin Laden, arms experts believe. Mohsen and
Malik were arrested June 12 after inspecting a Stinger missile in a West
Palm Beach warehouse. They were charged with violating the Arms Export
Control Act. The men who brought the missile to the warehouse were
undercover agents. Photographs obtained by The Palm Beach Post show a
gloating Glass and a man defense attorneys believe is Shawky holding
Stingers and other weapons. One photo also shows Glass counting cash
with other men, possibly federal agents.
Agents also nabbed
one-time Wall Street high-flyer Kevin Ingram and Connecticut airplane
broker Walter Kapij in a related money laundering scheme. Ingram has
pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Prosecutors do
not plan to call Glass to testify, according to defense lawyers. Past
experience might be why. The last time the government called Glass as a
witness in a trial, it backfired. In a 1999 contempt of court hearing
for famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, who was accused of taking a
client's money for legal fees when it should have been forfeited to the
government, Glass took the stand and claimed Bailey tried to have Glass
fence $1 million in jewelry. Bailey accused Glass of lying and Glass
refused to answer questions on cross-examination about his plea deal in
the West Palm Beach case. Glass' testimony was tossed out. Bailey was
eventually found in contempt of court but wasn't jailed or fined.
Outside of court,
Bailey said Glass had asked him to talk to the U.S. secretary of defense
about getting Glass a reduced sentence in his West Palm Beach case if
Glass turned in an international terrorist. Bailey said he threw him out
of his office. Now, in the wake of the worst terrorist attack on
American soil, the FBI hasn't even talked to Malik, said his lawyer,
James Eisenberg. Mohsen offered on his own to help the government
investigate the Sept. 11 attacks, Rodriguez said. When Mohsen was
arrested, he had a card in his wallet from an FBI agent working on a
terrorism task force, Rodriguez said. "We have every reason to believe
Glass duped the government during this investigation," Rodriguez said.
"At no time did they have control of what he did."
Rodriguez and
Eisenberg say their clients began looking for weapons because Glass
fooled them into thinking they all were working for the government.
Eisenberg said Malik brought in a Pakistani government official,
Mohammed Abbas, and thought the arms deal was legitimate. When
prosecutors praised Glass' work to Judge Ferguson last year, the judge
was wary. "I don't want to become duped," the judge said, adding he
didn't want to end up just another of Glass' marks. He did, however,
eventually reduce Glass' sentence to just seven months. Glass had wanted
mere house arrest. In a sealed motion, he said the prosecutor downplayed
his role. He said his contacts helped the government prevent a bombing
at the U.S. Embassy in India and led to the arrest of eight people in
Yemen related to last year's suicide bombing of the USS Cole, in which
17 sailors died. This month, the judge refunded Glass' $75,000 bond even
though he has been ordered to pay $4 million in restitution to the fraud
victims. "It appears that Mr. Glass is one of the more prolific
informants the world has ever seen, and one of the more successful, and
got one of the best deals the world has ever seen," said Eisenberg,
Malik's attorney.
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