“So, have you heard about the witness in the campaign-financing scandal who mysteriously turned up dead?”
I’ve been asked some variation of that question every day since Oct. 14 by at least a dozen people — on the phone, in person, by e-mail. I’ve had nearly as many requests to report something on the case because of the dearth of news about it in establishment circles.
So here it is, folks. This is all I know. You’re not likely to find anything else about it from news sources anywhere on the Internet. You certainly won’t hear or read anything about it in the major media off-line. The story died a quick and equally mysterious death — even in data bases that normally store Associated Press stories for two weeks.
The Oklahoma state Medical Examiner’s Office is investigating the death of Ron Miller, 58, who tape-recorded business dealings with Norman and Gene Lum, two already-convicted Democratic Party fund-raisers, who, our sources say, know much more than they have been asked to tell by the Justice Department.
Miller died Sunday, Oct. 12, at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City after becoming ill at home. The chief investigator in the case has turned it over to the state because the death was not explainable. It is expected to take weeks before testing is complete.
A business partner said he was surprised by Miller’s sudden death.
“He went from being healthy to dying in a week,” said J. Dell Gordon, president of Mid-America Lamborghini. He said Miller had turned over boxes of material to a congressional oversight committee investigating campaign financing abuses.
Miller owned Gage Corp., an energy company that was sold to Dynamic Energy Resources Inc. in 1993 in a transaction that has been studied by federal and state investigators.
Nora Lum, the chief executive of the Tulsa-based Dynamic Energy, and her husband, Gene, were sentenced last month to 10 months confinement in their home and $30,000 fines after admitting using “straw donors” to conceal their $50,000 in illegal contributions. The money went to the re-election effort of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and an unsuccessful bid for Congress by W. Stuart Price of Oklahoma in 1994 and 1995.
Miller tape-recorded phone conversations he had in recent years involving business dealings with the Lums and their associates. More than 150 tapes have been turned over to the FBI.
Miller and Gordon were partners in Mid-America Lamborghini, which planned car dealerships throughout the Midwest and Southwest. Mid-America was formed after Gage was sold to Dynamic.
The state Corporation Commission studied an Oklahoma Gas contract that Dynamic received after it bought the assets of Gage and Creek Systems, a Gage subsidiary.
And that’s all she wrote — for now. Except it is worth noting that the Lums were close associates of the late Ron Brown. Untimely deaths seem to follow this couple around.
According to Nolanda Hill, girlfriend of the late Commerce secretary, the Lums passed $60,000 to Brown through his son, Michael, who had been hired by Dynamic Energy Resources specifically for that purpose.
Last November, another Commerce Department associate, Barbara Wise, was found dead inside her office — bruised and semi-nude. The results of her autopsy have been withheld from the public.
Have you ever seen so many unnatural and unexplained deaths among such a small group of people in your life? Can you believe the lack of curiosity by the establishment press?
If there is any hope of finding out what happened to Miller it would require the FBI to stay out of the case. Remember, it was Janet Reno’s Justice Department that slapped the Lums on the wrist rather than provide them the opportunity to tell what they know about corruption within the Commerce Department, the Democratic Party and the administration in general.
“If Janet Reno was serious about getting to the truth, she would have pressed a tougher case against the Lums and forced them to talk,” said Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch. “The light sentence they received and the limited amount of cooperation they gave in return smacks of one more cover-up to protect bigger fish.”
