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January 16, 2006

INTRODUCTION

Since the fall of 2005, I received several offers to be interviewed about John Lennon's murder. The offers were made in preparation for the 25th year anniversary of John Lennon's murder on December 8, 1980. I declined all such offers because most interviewers appeared to have ulterior motives. At least that was my perception. For example, one interviewer wanted to know my thoughts about Paul McCartney's murder in 1966 and the Paul double that is still touring the world. Obviously this is nonsense.

Nevertheless, an interview seemed like a good idea. Since the publication of my book, Rethinking John Lennon's Assassination, in April 2004, I have gathered quite a bit of new information which I plan to include in a second edition. So I decided to put together a "virtual interview" using various Usenet discussions I have had with several people related to a range of topics about John Lennon's murder. It also contains new information about President Kennedy's assassination, but the focus of the discussion is about Lennon.

The following text is over 52 pages worth of edited discussions between myself and various people, presented in Q&A format.

Hopefully you will find it enlightening.

Salvador Astucia

QUICK LINKS

Background
 

General description of the crime and New York justice
 

Chapman never received a trial

Interview begins

Physicist Edward Teller likely sponsored President Kennedy's and John Lennon's assassinations
 

Major SDI test conducted three weeks before Lennon's murder

Possible involvement of former Secretary of the Air Force Hans Mark

Chapman's claims of guilt
 

Was hit man Sanjenis posing as Dakota Doorman Jose Perdomo?
 

Writer/Editor Jim Gaines first revealed Perdomo's name in 1987
 

Frank Sturgis' claim that Sanjenis, the spy, died in 1974

Chapman's involvement in Lennon's murder
 

Dakota Security
 

Dakota's management firm
 

How could Sanjenis/Perdomo get a job as doorman at the Dakota?
 

FBI's national police force via graduates of FBI's Training Academy
 

Was Chapman a patsy?
 

Crime scene evidence

Why was Chapman charged with second-degree murder for a premeditated crime?

NBC Dateline's segment on John Lennon's murder

Appendix A: Lennon songs containing "Do it, do it, do it."
     "Bring On The Lucie (Freda Peeple)"
     "Do the Oz"

Appendix B: Photos of Jose Perdomo (aka, Sanjenis; aka, Sam Jenis)

The following "virtual interview" deals with John Lennon's murder and Mark David Chapman's lack of due process after confessing to the crime. In my book, Rethinking John Lennon's Assassination, I concluded that Chapman was framed, and mind control was used to make him believe he had shot Lennon when in reality, Chapman was completely innocent.

On December 29, 2005, I started a discussion thread entitled "Why was Chapman only charged with second-degree murder?" on a Usenet discussion group, rec.music.beatles. The topic proved to be quite controversial as the thread created an enormous furor, which was surprising given that the underlying premise of the thread was legal in nature. In most states, premeditated murder is synonymous with first-degree murder. Yet Chapman was charged with second-degree murder for what virtually everyone agrees was a premeditated slaying. Why did this occur? Was there a behind the scenes plea bargain agreement? This was the theme of the thread, which on the surface is fairly benign.

But the questions I raised seemed to undercut the official story that Chapman confessed without coercion from the Manhattan district attorney's office and perhaps the New York Police Department (NYPD). Rec.music.beatles has an unusually antagonistic bunch of regular posters, considering it is a non-political discussion forum. But the hostility rapidly unfolded after I questioned why Chapman was charged with second-degree murder to a premeditated slaying.

Things got extremely nasty, even by rec.music.beatles' standards. There were efforts to end the discussion or misdirect the discussion through diabolical means. Someone cloned my identity and began writing nonsensical messages to discredit me. For example, a Salvador clone wrote: "It must be painfully obvious that the New York justice system is run by Jews who bow to the easy way out to make more money." In addition, Google apparently supported the forger's effort by disabling my posting capabilities for several days, thereby creating the false impression to readers that I had actually posted the nonsensical messages.

Nevertheless, the stated discussion thread also contained several intelligent exchanges by people who agreed with me, and by others who disagreed. Unfortunately, these exchanges were buried in a flood of forged babblings and various ad homonym attacks. But given the positive comments within the thread, it seemed wasteful to allow those to remain unread simply because they were surrounded with nonsense.

To address the problem, I decided to extract and edit the intelligent exchanges and present it as an interview, although the interviewer is a non-existent entity. The interviewer is presented as one voice; however, the interviewer's questions and comments are based on actual comments made by multiple persons. Original verbiage was used as much as possible, but must comments directed at me were intentionally converted to questions in order to conform to standard interview convention. Consequently, I call it a "virtual interview," and its objective is to present the positive aspects of the stated discussion thread in a civilized, palatable format. This required substantial edits and deletions from the original thread. In addition, background questions and answers were added to provide context for various topics discussed.

Hopefully the interview will provide new insight into the murder of one of the most influential musical and political voices of the Twentieth Century, John Lennon.

John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980. He was gunned down at approximately 10:50 p.m. as he and his wife Yoko Ono entered their home at the upscale Manhattan condominium complex, The Dakota. Lennon was immediately taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

The NYPD quickly arrested 25 year-old Mark David Chapman for committing the crime. Chapman immediately confessed to second-degree murder, although he acknowledged it was premeditated (normally a first-degree offense).

Chapman saw Lennon twice on the day of the murder. Lennon stood in Chapman's view at the entrance of the Dakota approximately six hours before the shooting. At approximately 4:00 p.m., John and Yoko had finished a radio interview with deejay Dave Sholin about their relationship with the public. At approximately 5:00 p.m., they emerged in front of the Dakota and waited for a limo to take them to a recording studio, but it never showed up so they got a ride with a with Sholin. Just before they left, Chapman approached Lennon and got his autograph. The moment was captured for posterity in a now famous picture of Lennon signing his latest album, Double Fantasy, for Chapman. A small crowd had reportedly gathered to get a glimpse of the famous rock star.

Chapman never received a trial

Contrary to popular belief, Chapman was never tried for Lennon's murder and he was determined by the courts to be legally sane. On June 22, 1981, Chapman was given a competency hearing where it was determined by Justice Dennis Edwards that Chapman was legally sane, and as a consequence, he was sentenced twenty years to life at Attica Prison in upstate New York. Having stated that, it is important to understand the Justice Edwards did not reduce Chapman's basic charge of second-degree murder. Chapman was charged with second-degree within a few days after the murder. All Justice Edwards did was determine that Chapman was legally sane and competent enough to understand the consequences of confessing to second-degree murder. In the end, Justice Edwards reduced the sentence slightly to twenty years to life instead of the maximum sentence for second-degree murder, which in the state of New York at that time was twenty-five years to life.

Although Chapman immediately confessed to killing Lennon and he was charged with second-degree murder, his lawyer had advised him to plead innocent to the charge by reason of insanity. Immediately after the shooting, Chapman was held for psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital to determine if he was mentally fit to stand trial. After 24 days he was transferred to Riker's Island, a remote jail on the outskirts of New York. Then on January 6, 1981, Chapman went before Justice Herbert Altman where Chapman and his lawyer, Jonathan Marks, pled "Not guilty, by reason of insanity." A battery of psychiatric tests ensued. Several expert witnesses (psychologists, psychiatrists) concluded that Chapman was mentally unbalanced during this period; however, it should be noted that this was precisely what defense attorney Marks wanted since the legal strategy at that point was to plead innocent by reason of insanity.

A trial date was eventually set for June 22, 1981. Justice Dennis Edwards was assigned to the case. On June 8, 1981, Chapman unexpectedly told his lawyer, Jonathan Marks, he wanted to drop the insanity defense and plead guilty. Marks begged his client to reconsider, but Chapman's resolve was too strong. On June 11, 1981, Marks filed a motion with Justice Edwards for a competency hearing. As a result, a competency hearing was held on June 22, 1981 instead of the scheduled trial. On that date, Justice Edwards was satisfied that Chapman was legally sane and legally competent, as previously. As a result, Chapman's guilty plea to second-degree murder was accepted by the court, and the trial was waived. On August 24, 1981, Justice Edwards sentenced Chapman twenty years to life for the second-degree murder of John Lennon, even though the slaying was premeditated.

As a result, Chapman has served nearly 25 years in Attica Prison where he is treated like any other inmate convicted of murder. Chapman was denied parole in 2000 and 2004.

The virtual interview of Salvador Astucia begins at this point.

Salvador Astucia.

No. It's a pseudonym.

You're an author, I understand. What books have you written?

Here they are in the order they were published:

Opium Lords: Israel, the Golden Triangle and the Kennedy Assassination (first edition, April 2002)

and Rethinking John Lennon's Assassination: The FBI's War on Rock Stars (first edition, April 2004)

I want to protect myself from harassment and reprisal from religious fanatics and right-wing political ideologues over my research regarding criminal activity within certain Jewish circles. But I do not perceive Jewish groups per se as the problem. It is the Orthodox Jews with political influence and the Christian Right who create many of the problems in the world today. These two groups comprise most of the hard line support for Israel in the United States. And I am completely opposed to Israel as a nation that endorses and encourages Jewish nationalism, a view that makes me the blood enemy of the Orthodox Jews and the Christian Right. Rather than waging a war against terrorism, which is a euphemism for a war against Islam, we should be courting the Islamic and Arabic speaking nations because they are the predominant oil producing nations of the world. America's blind support for Israel has made us the enemy of these oil-producing nations, and that is a situation I find intolerable, not withstanding the manner in which Israeli land was taken from the Palestinians throughout the Twentieth Century.

In addition, there is a strong alliance between Orthodox Jews, the Christian Right, and right-wing factions within the United States military, particularly the Air Force, and the FBI. This alliance of religious and military fanatics is an extremely dangerous group, in my opinion. They want to form a world government with Israel at the center who will dominate the rest of the world by force, using limited nuclear assaults against any nation who refuses to become a member of the alliance.

Probably not. My use of a pseudonym has more to do with my book about President Kennedy's assassination than the Lennon book. In the Kennedy book, Opium Lords, I assert that Kennedy's murder was sponsored by a Zionist cabal, with help from Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky, elements of French-Corsican organized crime (who supplied the hit men), the U.S. military, the FBI, the Secret Service and a few others. The French-Corsican mobsters supplied hit men in exchange for being allowed to return to Southeast Asia (after being driven out in the fifties during the Eisenhower Administration) to smuggle opium from the Golden Triangle region. The opium of course was used by French-Corsican mobsters to manufacture heroin in heroin factories throughout the world.

In 1954, Ho Chi Minh's army defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, thereby liberating Vietnam from French rule. But even after the French were defeated militarily, French intelligence continued to use the Golden Triangle as an opium source for worldwide heroin production. In fact, French intelligence worked jointly with French-Corsican mobsters in the Southeast Asian drug enterprise.

In 1955, during the Eisenhower administration, the United States intelligence services (namely the CIA) intervened and drove the French drug smugglers (French spies and French-Corsican mobsters) from Southeast Asia. They installed Ngo Dinh Diem as president of the newly formed nation of South Vietnam. For the ensuing eight years under Diem's rule, French drug smuggling essentially ended in Southeast Asia. Then on November 2, 1963, Diem was assassinated in a CIA backed coup. This occurred just twenty days before President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963. It is a matter of historical record that after Diem was killed, the French-Corsican drug smugglers began to return to Southeast Asia to continue the opium trade as they did eight years earlier, before American intervened. I concluded, in Opium Lords, that Diem's murder was essentially a down payment to the French-Corsican mobsters by powerful interests within the United States government who wanted Kennedy removed from power. Once Diem was removed, the French-Corsican mobsters were given a green light to return to Southeast Asia and continue smuggling opium for production of heroin sold on the international market. In return, the French-Corsicans provided professional hit men to kill Kennedy.

That's essentially it. We gave them an opium supply. In exchange, they killed our president. We also guaranteed the safety of the killers.

From my research, I have concluded that Kennedy's assassins were Lucien Sarti, François Chiappe, and Jean-Paul Angeletti. Sarti was the one who shot Kennedy in the head, from the front. So he was Kennedy's true killer. Sarti stood behind a picket fence on top of a hill near the middle of Elm Street, his rifle loaded with exploding bullets. He was disguised as a policeman. François Chiappe and Jean-Paul Angeletti together shot Kennedy in the neck and shot then Texas Governor John Connelly in the back. One was positioned in the Dal-Tex building directly behind the car. The other was positioned in an upper-level window of the Texas School Book Depository. It is uncertain which assassin inflicted the stated wounds to Kennedy's neck and Connelly's back, but it is fairly certain that Sarti shot Kennedy in the head and killed him.

There are Jewish Zionists involved all along the way, and JFK's father, Joe Kennedy, Senior, was openly anti-Jewish. He was even pro-Hitler prior to World War II, as many Americans were. It is quite obvious that the elder Kennedy believed Zionist expansion was a threat to the United States and he did everything he could to stop it. Furthermore, he supported British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. And he continued to hold that belief after World War II. In 1937, President Roosevelt appointed Joseph Kennedy Senior to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, the first Irish-American to serve in that post. In November 1940, Roosevelt fired Kennedy (or forced him to resign) because Kennedy did not support Roosevelt's efforts to oppose Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Essentially, Kennedy had become too friendly with Chamberlain, who died suddenly on November 9, 1940, and was replaced by Sir Winston Churchill, the man who would lead British forces against Hitler.

Regarding the Zionist connection, in the current edition of Opium Lords, I assert that Kennedy's assassination was given a green light by Nahum Goldmann, founder of the World Jewish Congress, whom I refer to as "Mr. Big." Since then, I've had second thoughts about that conclusion.

No, I didn't say that. Goldmann was mixed up with Sam Bronfman's crowd, a bunch mobster bootleggers who became self-appointed high priests—or the modern-day equivalent—within organized Jewry. Sam Bronfman's son, Edgar, is President of the World Jewish Congress, a leading Zionist organization. I have connected many dots between the Bronfman's involvement in Kennedy's murder and the framing of Lee Harvey Oswald. Sam Bronfman reportedly did not make many political decisions, particularly those related to Israel, without consulting Mr. Goldmann. So I will not let Mr. Goldmann escape blame completely. I just no longer think he was Mr. Big.

Physicist Edward Teller likely sponsored President Kennedy's and John Lennon's assassinations

Edward Teller, the physicist, in my opinion was Mr. Big. He connects many dots between Jewish political forces and right-wing military types. Teller is considered the father of the Hydrogen bomb. He was also Jewish, and an ardent Zionist. Being from Hungary, he was an ardent anti-Communist. I assume he was an orthodox Jew, although I have never read that. But most of the radical right-wing Jews tend to be orthodox, from what I've observed. Teller and Kennedy clashed over Kennedy's limited nuclear test ban treaty, which banned nuclear testing everywhere except underground. Teller wanted to continue testing his anti-missile defense concept in the atmosphere, but Kennedy's test ban treaty put the kibosh on Teller's plans. There was an entire right-wing military community who thought Teller was God because of his involvement in development of the Hydrogen bomb. In addition, Teller co-wrote a book in the early sixties entitled, The Legacy of Hiroshima, which described his belief in a world government, enforced on the world with limited use of nuclear weapons which Teller encouraged as a deterrent to those who opposed the world government. I think Bobby Kennedy was killed, and there was an aggressive attempt to keep Ted Kennedy out of the White House because Teller's crowd hoped they might be able to eventually override Kennedy's test ban treaty, but feared the two Kennedy brothers would stand in their way.

Teller's right-hand man in planning Kennedy's assassination was Air Force General Curtis Lemay, one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Kennedy administration. Teller and Lemay made several public statements opposing Kennedy's test ban treaty, but ultimately the treaty was ratified.

My research points to Teller and his anti-missile defense followers within the right-wing military community as sponsors of John Lennon's murder. In fact, it was my research in Lennon's murder that directed me to Edward Teller in the first place.

Major SDI test conducted three weeks before Lennon's murder

Anti-missile defense as a concept was around for years, even back in Kennedy's time in the early sixties. But a huge technological advance was made about three weeks before Lennon's murder. On November 14, 1980, a major test—code-named Dauphin—was conducted in the Nevada Desert that tested laser-nuclear technology, an innovation that became the mainstay of what eventually was called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) under the Reagan administration. The test was a huge success, and the political climate had just shifted dramatically to the right the Dauphin test was conducted in November 1980. President Carter had just lost the election to Reagan. No one knew it at the time, but the nation was about to embark on a trillion dollar defense buildup, all because of Teller’s SDI program, which was given quite a boost within circles of power in Washington due to the successful tests on November 14, 1980.

Yes, he opposed the Vietnam War in the late sixties and early seventies. People listened to him. He was a hero to millions across the globe. As a leader of the Beatles, arguably the most popular music act in the history of civilization, he shifted the debate about the Vietnam War among young people everywhere.

Yes and no. The technology didn't do what Teller claimed it to do, but I think Teller's SDI goals were deceptive.

In my opinion, the goal of Teller's SDI program was to develop a missile defense system that would shoot down incoming nuclear missiles from the former Soviet Union and other enemy nations. I think the goal itself was a farce. The burgeoning SDI technology was intended for use as an offensive weapon in Teller's world government that he described in his book, The Legacy of Hiroshima. Of course that is my opinion. Teller's supporters will deny that accusation.

Answering that question requires a brief overview of SDI itself. Keep in mind, Teller's SDI program is a subset of missile defense technologies. Most military people think of SDI as Teller's approach that incorporated laser beams to replace nuclear missiles. But there are many types of missile defense technologies that do not utilize laser beams. So for the sake of a clear discussion, let's limit the discussion strictly to Teller's laser beam approach when we refer to SDI. And this specific type of missile defense technology was really born on November 14, 1980, three weeks before John Lennon was murdered, with the success of Dauphin, a laser-nuclear test conducted in the Nevada Desert. It was the success of Dauphin that laid the groundwork for a trillion dollar defense build-up during the Reagan years known as SDI.

Having stated that, the reasoning behind the SDI approach makes no sense. Teller's basic SDI approach was essentially to replace nuclear missiles with a laser beam that would set off a nuclear explosion when it hit its target, namely an incoming nuclear missile launched from the former Soviet Union or another enemy nation. Initially, Teller claimed a laser could be fired from the United States and shoot down an in flight missile at any point around the globe. But this was obviously impossible because the earth is round, and laser beams travel in straight lines. Surely a nuclear physicist of Teller's caliber would realize this. In addition, there was no need to detonate a nuclear explosion with the SDI laser beam if the technology was merely defensive. For defensive use, all that is required is an explosion big enough to knock the incoming missile from the air. When nuclear missiles are first launched, they are typically not armed, meaning they will not set off a nuclear explosion upon impact. The reason for this is obvious. If the Soviets would misfire a missile, they wouldn't want it to set off a nuclear explosion when it hit the ground in their country. So the missile is designed to arm itself in mid-air as it approaches its target. If another missile—or an SDI defensive laser beam—would hit an armed incoming missile, a small explosion created by the SDI laser beam would theoretically cause the armed incoming missile to set off a nuclear explosion. Consequently, there is no need for the SDI laser beam to set off a nuclear explosion when it hits its target, if its intent is truly defensive.

On the other hand, if the incoming missile is not armed, it will simply explode and crash when the SDI laser beam hits it, but without a nuclear explosion.

Exactly. And that is why the SDI critics say it failed. Because it never met Teller's original goal of detonating a nuclear explosion in space. To be more specific, Teller claimed he was looking for a technology that would allow a high amount of energy to be transmitted through a laser beam, enough to set off a nuclear explosion. When that technology was judged to be an impossibility, then the public was told that SDI was a failure. My question is why was it a failure since the SDI laser beam does not need to set off a nuclear explosion if the goal of SDI was truly defensive?

I'm operating on the assumption that Teller was a brilliant man, not an idiot. Only an idiot would forget that the earth is round and laser beams travel in straight lines. And I think Teller was aware that nuclear missiles arm themselves as they approach their targets. Therefore, detonating a nuclear explosion was not a requirement for the SDI laser beam. Given Teller's stated desire to form a world government that used limited nuclear weapons to enforce world law, I think he intended to develop a satellite system that could aim SDI laser beams at their intended targets and wipe them off the face of the earth.

I can think of no other explanation for SDI. It must have been an offensive weapon from the beginning. In my opinion, President Reagan will go down in history as one of the worst presidents of the United States. He shifted our nuclear strategy with SDI, and it's still in a state of confusion. Before Reagan, our nuclear policy was called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which made a lot of sense. If a country chose to launch a nuclear missile at the United States, they knew we would retaliate. That seemed to keep things in check. Reagan implemented a new policy of "assured survival" where he wanted us to survive a nuclear attack and strike back. The implications of such a policy are staggering. MAD seems to be ancient history for the time being, but hopefully things will begin to settle down eventually.

Possible involvement of former Secretary of the Air Force Hans Mark

You have also linked the Air Force to Lennon's murder.

Yes, that's correct. The Air Force has over the years provided a lot of funding for Edward Teller's nuclear weapons lab, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, located about 40 miles east of San Francisco.

How is the Air Force specifically linked to Teller's involvement in John Lennon's murder?

Teller’s connection to Lennon is through free-lance writer Bob Rosen, author of Lennon book, Nowhere Man. Rosen was apparently a speech writer for one of Teller’s military colleagues, Hans Mark, former Secretary of the Air Force, former Deputy Administrator NASA, and advocate of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). In 1976, Mr. Hans co-authored a book with Teller entitled Critical Choices for Security: Power and Security.

Fred Seaman, Lennon's personal assistant, was convicted of stealing journals and other personal effects from the Lennon estate and was subsequently sentenced to five years probation. Mr. Seaman had given Lennon’s journals to Mr. Rosen which were subsequently used as the basis of Rosen’s book, Nowhere Man, which portrayed Lennon in an extremely negative light. Mr. Rosen publicly stated in his book that he had been a speech writer for a Secretary of the Air Force. Although the Secretary was not named by Rosen, I learned that Hans Mark was Secretary of the Air Force from May 18, 1979 through February 9, 1981 (Lennon was killed during that period). Afterwards, Mr. Mark became Deputy Administrator NASA, serving from July 10, 1981 through September 1, 1984. On numerous times, Mr. Mark has publicly endorsed SDI and the concept of anti-missile defense. And like Teller, Mr. Mark is Jewish and is apparently a supporter of Israel. I'm not sure if Mark has aggressively pledged his support to Israel, but I made an interesting discovery about Mr. Mark's family loyalty to Israel. Hans Mark's paternal grandfather, Herman Carl Mark, was Jewish, and frequently dined with prominent Jews, including Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism.

Regarding Lennon's murder, the Jewish/Zionist connection is not as relevant as Mr. Mark's obvious  respect, and apparent friendship with Edward Teller. Remember, Teller and Mark wrote a book together in 1976: Critical Choices for Security: Power and Security. Teller and Mark were both were advocates of SDI. And as I pointed out earlier, a huge technological advance was made in the area of anti-missile defense about three weeks before Lennon's murder. On November 14, 1980, a major test—code-named Dauphin—was conducted in the Nevada Desert that tested laser-nuclear technology, an innovation that became the mainstay of what eventually was called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) under the Reagan administration. And SDI was the catalyst for a trillion dollar defense buildup during the Reagan years.

No. Not really. The fear is mainly of having my career destroyed by being branded anti-Semitic and a Holocaust Denier. But things are improving. I believe people are less naive about such charges than they once were. I suspect my books are having an impact.

I suppose it's possible. But the governmental group that harasses people the most is the FBI. They drive lots of people to suicide, but one of their main techniques is planting terrorism in people's minds. They try to make their targets afraid that their lives will be destroyed, their careers will be destroyed, on and on. Now I like money and material things as much as the next person, but if the Feds take everything from me, it isn't the end of the world. I've seen people close to me die horrible deaths through natural causes, so I know that life is precious and can never be replaced. Everything else can. So if the Feds want to destroy me, let'em try. It's mostly a big mind game they play. They try to drive people over the edge. And the Feds know, from my writings and from talking to me, that if anyone tries to kill me, I will defend myself if there is a way to do so. This makes them cautious. But the main thing that keeps me from getting killed, in my opinion, is I never under-estimate the sickness, the depravity, the cunning, and the evil of my collective enemy.

The FBI is the primary one. The average American does not understand how much that organization detests the United States Constitution. They are truly a subversive, deceitful, evil organization.

J. Edgar Hoover was the epitome of evil, the embodiment of it.

It's true, Hoover has been dead for a long time. But the FBI Headquarters building in Washington, DC still bares his name. And yes, he's dead, but he was alive running that organization longer than he's been dead. He ran it for 48 years, nearly half a century, from 1924 until his death in 1972.

You're right. I shouldn't call him a faggot. I do it all the time. But I'm not doing it to hurt homosexuals at large, I just think it's incredibly funny that the man who is worshipped by so many machismo guys—with their sun glasses, trench coats, and Wild West mentality—was a flaming homosexual and a transvestite. Actually, I'm not sure that it has been demonstrated absolutely that Hoover was a transvestite, but there is really no question that he lived a homosexual lifestyle. In fact, I'll go a step further. I would venture to say that Hoover was openly gay in his time. From what I've read, everyone in Washington, DC—the insiders anyway—knew the guy was homosexual. The newspapers and magazines simply didn't run that sort of thing during Hoover's life.

From what I've read, he lived with another man, Clyde Tolson, for approximately forty years, until they were both in their seventies. They did everything together. Hoover made Tolson second in command at the FBI, which was highly unethical, possibly illegal. They went to lunch together publicly everyday. They went to dinner together publicly every evening. They went on vacations together. They spent more time together than most heterosexual married couples, even when the man is extremely henpecked. It's obvious they were gay and the political insiders in Washington, DC knew it at the time. There was no secret. Reporters and politicians didn't dare mention his homosexuality publicly, because they were afraid of Hoover. This was raw power.

Yes, but I think that's an effort to downplay Hoover's relationship with organized crime. Hoover was obviously deeply involved with the mob, but the blackmail story portrays him as a victim. Such nonsense. He was a sadist, not a victim. I've read that Meyer Lansky had photos of Hoover performing oral sex on Tolson. And who knows, maybe such photos were floating around. But I say, so what? Hoover and Tolson were gay, and that's what gay men do. What's the big deal? If Lansky would have leaked photos like that to the press in the forties, I doubt that they would have printed them. Things were more proper back then. Nudie magazines like Playboy didn't come around until the fifties. Such things were considered vulgar. But even more important, it would have been overkill without real news value. It would be comparable today to leaking nude photos of Elton John with his gay lover. No one would care even today because we already know Elton John is gay. Tell us something we don't know. People understood that Hoover was gay, and he didn't make any real effort to hide it in Washington, DC. If he truly cared, he would have married a token wife. But he didn't. He lived with another man and they went everywhere together. Again, I tend to think the story about Meyer Lansky's photos is disinformation designed to portray Hoover as a victim, and it's damage control for Hoover's mob connections.

It's a loyalty device I like to use. Being a political writer, the FBI has an interest in me. If I suspect someone is an undercover FBI agent, I just casually interject the fag thing into the conversation, then watch the reaction. For example, I attended an anti-Iraq War rally last September 24, 2005, and there were a bunch of guys screaming these terrible things about the United States Government in front of the White House. Basically, I agreed with a lot of what they were saying, but they spewed it with such venom, it was off-putting. So I decided to test one of them. I walked right up to this young guy and casually said, "You know, J. Edgar Hoover was faggot." He immediately avoided eye-contact. As he looked away, he timidly replied, "I had heard he was a cross-dresser, but I never knew he was homosexual." That was quite a passive response from someone who had just been shouting anti-government rhetoric. I thought to myself, "Bingo."

I've heard that the upper echelon of the FBI are Israeli commandos. Do I know that for a fact? No. But the Bureau is clearly loyal to Israel. Two FBI agents raided my house in February of 2005 shortly after I wrote an article asserting that the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis in South Asia, in December 2005, were caused by Israeli nuclear testing in that region.

They claimed they had received an email death threat with my name on it as the sender. But the two agents who came to my house quickly determined someone else did it to cause me trouble.

They claim to have identified him, a fifteen year-old boy from Rhode Island. But they concocted an excuse not to prosecute. Of course the whole thing is nonsense. I don't believe any of it.

The whole story was a hoax, in my opinion. There was no 15-year-old kid. There was no death threat. There was no email. It was an FBI hoax, sponsored by FBI Cyber Chief Louis Reigel. Here's what really happened, in my opinion. An FBI agent wrote a fraudulent report describing the fictitious forged email death threat, which was a complete hoax. Of course Mr. Reigel probably told the agent to write it. After writing the fraudulent report, the agent sent the report to the FBI field office in Baltimore. And since FBI agents are trained never to question authority (like cops and military people), the agents at the Baltimore field office swallowed the fraudulent report, hook, line and sinker. Then they rushed to my house to investigate the crime, which turned out to be a hoax.

My research reveals that Mr. Reigel committed perjury on May 9, 2005 when he sent a letter containing false information about the forged death threat email to Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland. Senator Mikulski had made an inquiry with the FBI at my behest (I live in Maryland). In Reigel's letter, he more or less claimed that I started the incident by making a bunch of inappropriate outrageous claims in quaint little Internet chat room. And he insinuated that the teenager had every right to forge my name to a death threat and send it to an FBI office because I had upset the poor kid. Awe. The poor little thing. Such nonsense. Like I said, I don't believe any of it. Reigel and his band of thugs made the whole thing up. There was no 15-year-old kid. There was no death threat. There was no email. It was an FBI hoax, sponsored by Reigel.

There are two sentences in the letter that are completely false. Mr. Reigel wrote: "The FBI's investigation of the matter in question determined that Mr. [Astucia] was espousing certain views in an online chat room [The Education Forum], which others found to be offensive. As a result, another individual [Gibson Vendettuoli] from the chat room retaliated by emailing to the FBI various hate threats, which were purported to be from Mr. [Astucia]."

I wrote an article describing in great detail how Mr. Reigel lied through his teeth with those two statements. It gets pretty technical, but it's all described in the following article:

"Louis M. Reigel, III - FBI Cyber Chief's patriotism questioned"

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/FBI/Reigel.htm

Not long after I published the article on my website, on September 11, 2005, two more FBI agents came to my place of employment and harassed me.

Yes.

They obviously wanted to scare me, to intimidate me with their presence. But if you ask them why they were there, they'll say because I made public comments, nine months earlier, on a Usenet discussion group about a man named Sean Strub.

Sean Strub was a fake witness to Lennon's murder. He was several blocks away when the shooting occurred, but told every journalist he could find that Chapman was the shooter.

The two agents said I made them in January 2005.

Nine months later, on September 27, 2005.

Yes. I attended the rally in Washington, DC on September 24, 2005. In fact, Joan Baez walked right past me with her entourage. She was less than two of three feet away as she walked by. She's very pretty close up.

Yes. I handed out approximately one thousand flyers critical of the FBI at a huge anti-Iraq war rally. The flyer also contained a URL to previously mentioned article I about assistant FBI Director Louis Reigel who is in charge of the bureau's Cyber Division. The Reigel article link on the flyer was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back, FBI-wise. But the flyer itself was pretty good too. It was short and I believe it struck at the heart of the FBI's dirty tricks techniques used at anti-war rallies. I wrote it with a slightly humorous edge, borrowing from comedian Jeff Foxworthy's "You're probably a redneck" routine. Foxworthy routine went like this: "If your front porch collapses and more than six dogs are killed, you're probably a redneck." And of course he repeats lots of similar scenarios, then refrains with "you're probably a redneck." In my flyer, I used a similar cadence, except the refrain was "they're probably on the FBI's payroll." The flyer contained several bullet points like that. For example, one line read: "If you see someone with a bullhorn condemning the war and saying lots of sensible things, then tells you to join his group of Communists or Nazis, he's probably on the FBI's payroll." Another good one was "If you see someone making a speech or handing out flyers containing extremely divisive issues that have nothing to do with the Iraq war, like gay marriage for example, he's probably on the FBI's payroll." The flyer was really pretty funny, I thought. But obviously the FBI people didn't agree.

That's right. The article was critical of Louis Reigel, the FBI's Cyber Chief. He's also one of the assistant directors.

That is one-hundred percent correct. The anti-war rally was September 24, 2005. Two agents paid me a visit at work three days later, on September 27, 2005.

Although the FBI obviously views me as their enemy, and of course the feeling is mutual, I take their recent harassment as a compliment.

Exactly. Why else would they be so upset?

Okay, let's go.

Yes.

I have concluded that the true shooter was probably the doorman at the Dakota, Jose Perdomo, whose name was not revealed to the public until six years after the murder. I also uncovered evidence that Perdomo's full name was Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo, known to many as "Sanjenis" and also "Sam Jenis." Mr. Sanjenis was a spy, a Cuban exile and commander in the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, and a professional hit man on the CIA's payroll for ten years reporting to convicted Watergate burglar, the late Frank Sturgis.

Yes, I am fully aware of his confessions. But it is unclear if those confessions were coerced. If they were, there is no way the public could know this while Chapman is in prison. He may have been coerced initially by the Manhattan district attorney's office and by his court-appointed attorney Herbert Adlerberg, who was only on the case for two days. Chapman confessed and was charged with second-degree murder while Adlerberg was his attorney. Frankly, I think Adlerberg should be disbarred for apparently encouraging his client, Chapman, to cop a plea to second-degree murder, given the lack of forensic evidence indicating that Chapman indeed shot Lennon. Had Chapman denied being the shooter and pled not guilty, he would probably be a free man today because the DA had no case. It was Chapman's confession, made during legal representation by Herbert Adlerberg, that eventually got him a sentence of twenty years to life in Attica prison, a sentence he is still serving. I understand Adlerberg is now a New York Supreme Court judge.

Who knows? All I'm saying is Judge Adlerberg appears to be doing quite well.

KING: Well when you live daily, then, do you set daily goals? Do you say, like, today I am going to finish this book, write this thing?

CHAPMAN: Yes. I write now. I write Christian short stories. One of them is in the back of Jack [Jone's] book [Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Shot John Lennon]. It's called "The Prisoner's Letter." That took me three years. I've just started a new one. I don't know when that's going to be through, but that's the goal right now is finish this next story. That's it.

KING: Are you saying, Mark, that the young man who shot John Lennon was not you? What are you saying?

CHAPMAN: It was me, Larry, and I accept full responsibility for what I did. I've seen places where I'm blaming the devil, and I hope that that isn't kept going after this interview. I'm not blaming the devil, I'm blaming myself. But in the major sense, it wasn't me, because I'm better now. I'm normal, I'm functioning, I have a lovely wife, and we have a great marriage -- as much as, you know, can be had from here, from Attica.

But I'm not the same person in the major sense, because back then I was lost and I didn't know who I was. But now I do.

(end of excerpt)

Besides the issue of coercion, I have concluded that Chapman was a mind control subject of some sort, apparently manipulated by people in his church, which was a fundamentalist brand of Christianity. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that he is still a mind control subject at Attica Prison. If so, he may be conditioned to give certain answers to sensitive questions. In a series of 1987 interviews with Jim Gaines, of People Magazine, Chapman indicated that he had been subjected to mind control while attending fundamentalist Christian prayer groups in Decatur, Georgia led by a local psychologist. In Gaines' subsequent article, neither he nor Chapman used the term "mind control" per se, but it became obvious that mind control was involved, according to my reading of Gaines' article. In the article, Chapman claimed he saw "manifestations of demonic power" at the stated prayer meetings which, again, were led by a psychologist. These manifestations, according to Chapman, included a man "barking like a dog" then assuming a "karate position." Chapman, being a born again Christian, may believe in manifestations of demonic power, but I don't. In my opinion, the man who barked like a dog then assumed a karate position was probably in an hypnotic trance, possibly on drugs as well. Of course this is informed speculation, but I would say that the psychologist who led the prayer groups at Chapman's fundamentalist Christian church was probably surreptitiously conducting mind control experiments with his flock.^{(See footnote01)}

KING: What do you make of all the conspiracy theories that have come up in the last 12 years, CIA, mind control, et cetera?

CHAPMAN: Against the death of John Lennon?

KING: Yes.

CHAPMAN: Hogwash.

KING: No one asked you to do it? No one prompted you to do it? No cabal, nothing?

CHAPMAN: No, they probably wished they would have had me, Larry, but they didn't. It was me doing it, it wasn't them.

I have several comments about that. First, it is important to remember that Chapman is an inmate at Attica prison. Consequently, any public statements he might make regarding his possible innocence could potentially jeopardize his chances for early release by the parole board. To be released on parole, an inmate must say what the parole expects to hear, namely that he is guilty of the crime for which he was imprisoned, and he is truly sorry. The basic guidelines for parole hearings, in cases where a convicted person may be innocent, is yet another form of coercion. It could be argued that parole hearings often encourage innocent people to confess in order to attain early releases.

Second, let's not forget about mind control. Let's not forget about the guy who barked like a dog and assumed a karate stance in front of Chapman at a born again Christian prayer meeting led by a psychologist. If Chapman is and still is a mind control subject in prison, he could be conditioned to give certain responses to questions about his guilt.

Third, there is another very probable explanation for Chapman's comments. He may genuinely believe he killed Lennon even though the evidence indicates otherwise. I described this type of mind control in my book, Rethinking John Lennon’s Assassination. It is quite possible that handlers surreptitiously placed him in an hypnotic trance and planted within his mind an obsession to murder John Lennon. I do not think Chapman is a cold blooded killer, but even so, I think it is possible to plant subliminal thoughts—even thoughts of murder—in a person's mind through hypnosis. Chapman reportedly struggled with thoughts of killing Lennon for several weeks prior to the murder. Then when Chapman found himself in front of the Dakota standing near John Lennon's bullet-ridden body, he would have been extremely vulnerable to the power of suggestion at that critical moment. In other words, if someone told him he had killed Lennon as he watched the life flow from Lennon’s body, he would probably believe it, even if it was untrue.

That leads into a fourth point. Chapman seems to be someone, like many people, who is easily swayed, someone who can be talked into things easily. I've met lots of incredibly intelligent people who spend their lives waiting for other people to tell them what to do. Their bosses tell them, their wives, their churches, their best friends, on and on. I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but this must be a type of personality disorder, depending on the severity. It's a sort of "follow the leader complex." I expect Chapman was selected by the assassination planners because of his predisposition to be easily influenced by others. Then he became a born again Christian who was befriended by a psychologist who led a prayer group where attendees were apparently hypnotized on a regular basis. This was the perfect recipe for creating a patsy through the use of mind control.

Fifth, I noticed a level of ambivalence in Chapman's earlier comments to Larry King about his guilt. King fed him a phrase, and Chapman timidly confirmed it was true. King asked, "Are you saying, Mark, that the young man who shot John Lennon was not you?" Then Chapman replied, "It was me, Larry, and I accept full responsibility for what I did."

My overall point is anything Chapman says about his guilt is suspect. It must be taken with a grain of salt because there is a strong possibility he is still a mind control subject, as he suggested to Jim Gaines in 1987. Chapman is also an inmate trying to get released on parole, so any public statements of his innocence could jeopardize an early release. These things must be considered when evaluating Chapman's public statements. Another important thing to remember is that Chapman never had a trial.

That is correct, but it’s very dubious.

The legal system should be allowed to work, especially in cases like this. If anyone examines the forensic evidence, the crime scene evidence, the location that Chapman was standing and the angle from which the bullets hit Lennon, then several anomalies arise. In addition, the doorman at the Dakota appears to have a highly questionable background. The most curious thing about him, Jose Perdomo, was his name was not revealed to the public until six years after the murder. He was a Cuban national and apparently a professional hit man. In short, if one looks at the evidence against Chapman, it does not appear that he was the shooter. At least if he was, he could have pled not guilty and the DA would have had a difficult time showing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury.

In my opinion, the sponsors of the murder realized the DA had no case against Chapman. Although they had apparently convinced Chapman he had killed Lennon, they apparently wanted to hedge their bets to ensure he would go to jail. So they concocted a means of bypassing the legal system. It's outrageous that, given the lack of evidence against Chapman, his lawyers encouraged him to plead guilty, thereby giving up his right to a trial. In addition, he was charged with second-degree murder to a premeditated murder. That smells.

I suspect his full name is Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo, alias Sanjenis, or Sam Jenis, a known spy, Cuban exile, a professional assassin, a commander in the Bay of Pigs Invasion who was on the CIA's payroll for ten years reporting to convicted Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis. Several books refer to the doorman simply as Jose Perdomo, and it remains to be determined if Jose Perdomo is Sanjenis. Also, I've found some photographs of Perdomo, one taken around 1980, the other taken around 1960. It is uncertain if the men in the two photos are the same man, Sanjenis, the spy, but it is additional information that other researchers will probably want. (See Appendix B: Photos of Jose Perdomo (aka, Sanjenis; aka, Sam Jenis) )

To help recreate the crime scene, I wrote an article about a year ago (recently updated) that contains several photos of the Dakota. It's essentially a storyboard of the crime scene. The storyboard contains photos I took personally of the Dakota entrance, a diagram of the crime scene published by the New York Times on Dec. 10, 1980, and the famous photo of Lennon signing his autograph on Chapman's copy of the Double Fantasy album (Lennon's newly released album) about five hours before Lennon was murdered. Two photos show John and Yoko walking underneath the archway where Chapman reportedly stood as Lennon was killed. (Note: The two photos of John and Yoko under the archway were not taken on the night of the shooting, but they provide a good view of the crime scene.) The article and the accompanying photos provide a visual layout of the Dakota entrance, where Chapman was allegedly standing, and where Perdomo's guard booth was located. (See article: "Where was Mark David Chapman standing?")

Just because a professional hit man was on the CIA's payroll for ten years does not necessarily mean the CIA was behind every professional killing performed by that same hit man. And I suspect the assassination planners selected Sanjenis (Perdomo) as Lennon's killer specifically because he had been on the CIA's payroll working for convicted Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis. The Sturgis connection created the erroneous impression that Nixon and the CIA sponsored Lennon's murder.

Several writers have insinuated that Nixon sponsored Lennon's murder; however, I am unaware of any author who makes that charge outright. Several authors point to Nixon in a negative light, but no one makes a direct accusation, at least of whom I am aware. Examples include Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files, by Jon Weiner; John Lennon and the FBI Files, by Phil Strongman; and Who Killed John Lennon? by Fenton Bresler.

Bresler's book introduced the theory that Chapman might have been a Manchurian Candidate, although Bresler did not specifically blame Nixon for ordering the murder. Wiener's and Strongman's books focus on FBI surveillance of Lennon. They state that Nixon feared Lennon would perform at a political rally that coincided with the 1972 Republican Convention, potentially threatening Nixon's re-election. It is true that the FBI harassed Lennon, and that harassment led to immigration problems which prevented the British-born musician from establishing permanent residence in America for years. What these books generally do not tell readers is that, in a 1980 interview, Lennon flatly denied his intention to perform at an anti-Nixon rally. In the same interview, Lennon said it was Jerry Rubin who planted an erroneous story in the news media stating that Lennon planned to participate in something of that nature. Neither Weiner's or Strongman's books focus on governmental conspiracies regarding Lennon's murder, but they promote the theme that Lennon was harassed by Nixon several years before the singer's death. Casual readers of these books may get the message that Nixon was behind Lennon's murder, but I have found no evidence to support such a theory.

Is there any truth at all to such a hypothesis? The short answer is No, in my opinion. My view of Nixon is closer to that of Len Colodny's and Robert Gettlin's as described in their 1991 book, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President, which argues that Nixon was set up in the Watergate Scandal because of his progressive foreign policy. If we view Nixon in this light, then he was just as much a victim of government harassment as Lennon.

But what about the Frank Sturgis connection? Didn't Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo and Sturgis work together in the CIA during the Bay of Pigs Invasion and several years afterwards? Wasn't Sturgis a convicted Watergate burglar? Doesn't that mean Nixon was involved in Lennon's murder? Again, if we accept the Colodny-Gettlin hypothesis that the Watergate burglary was a means of sabotaging Nixon's presidency, then the Sturgis connection becomes less damaging to Nixon. In other words, it looks like the assassination engineers intentionally selected an assassin—Perdomo—with a direct connection to one of the Watergate burglars—Frank Sturgis—as a way of pinning Lennon's murder on Nixon as a fallback position should the true nature of the crime begin to unravel. If someone would ever figure out that the doorman was the true assassin, Nixon would become the false sponsor of the crime. But no one ever suspected the doorman, until a year ago when I published an article about it on my website.

Yes, Jose Perdomo is a relatively common name among Cuban men. And demonstrating that Sanjenis the spy and assassin was also Jose Perdomo the doorman at the Dakota is an important question that has not been answered definitively yet. But remember, as I stated before, Jose Perdomo's name was not revealed to the public for six years after Lennon's murder. This indicates that a cover-up in place.

Jim Gaines, former editor for People Magazine, according to my research. It is possible, however, that someone revealed Perdomo's name prior to Gaines, but if anyone did, I am unaware of it. In addition, I have publicly requested, on Internet discussion groups, that people contact me if they know of another writer who publicly disclosed Jose Perdomo's name prior to March 2, 1987, the date Gaines published an article that disclosed Jose Perdomo's name to the public. So far, no one has come forth with information that anyone prior to Gaines revealed Perdomo’s name.

On March 2, 1987, People Magazine published an article written by Jim Gaines entitled "In the Shadows a Killer Waited." Chapman had granted Gaines an interview and this article was one of several published by People. In the article, Gaines described Perdomo

as an "anti-Castro Cuban" who discussed with Chapman the Bay of Pigs Invasion and JFK's assassination while waiting in front of the Dakota a few hours before Lennon was shot.

I have no idea.

Yes; however, that is merely an opinion. I have never communicated with Mr. Gaines, so he would be a better person to explain whether it was intentional or accidental. I suppose it is possible that Mr. Gaines assumed the world knew Perdomo's name, but the article also revealed controversial bits of information about Perdomo and conversations he had with Chapman. For example, I do not see how Mr. Gaines' could have accidentally revealed that Perdomo was an "anti-Castro Cuban" who discussed with Chapman the Bay of Pigs Invasion and JFK's assassination while waiting in front of the Dakota a few hours before Lennon was killed. Surely Gaines knew this was explosive information.

No, I discovered that myself; however, the Gaines article pointed me in that direction. Gaines only said that Perdomo was an "anti-Castro Cuban" and that he discussed the Bay of Pigs Invasion with Chapman, and they also discussed the JFK assassination. This prompted me to research the Bay of Pigs Invasion itself, and the Cuban exiles involved.

I quickly found a listing of the members of Brigade 2506, the Cuban exiles who invaded Cuba in 1961 in what has become known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion. On the list was "Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo," aliases: "Joaquin Sanjenis" and "Sam Jenis." The listing provided a source book that described Perdomo's involvement. The name of the book was The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro, written by Warren Hinckle and William Turner. The book described Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo (aka, Sanjenis) as a commander in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a professional hit man, and was on the CIA's payroll for ten years reporting to convicted Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis.

But back to your question, the answer is no. Jim Gaines did not reveal Perdomo's full name as Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo. I revealed that information, although it still remains a question as to whether Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo was actually the same person employed as the doorman at the Dakota on the night John Lennon was killed. But if he wasn't, why was his identity concealed from the public for six years?

Frank Sturgis' claim that Sanjenis, the spy, died in 1974

Is Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo still alive?

Frank Sturgis reportedly told researchers Warren Hinckle and William Turner that Perdomo died in 1974 of natural causes. Hinckle and Turner in turn wrote briefly of Perdomo's so-called death in their 1981 book, The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro. It should be noted, however, that Sturgis had reason to lie, since Hinckle and Turner's original book was published in 1981, after Lennon's death. It is also highly suspicious that Jose Perdomo's name was not publicly disclosed for six years after Lennon's murder, according to my research.

I covered Sturgis's claim of Perdomo's death in my original article, "Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo - John Lennon's true assassin(?)," written over a year ago.

Here's an excerpt from that article that deals with Sanjenis's so-called death:

--------- excerpt --------
Point # 8: Frank Sturgis claimed Joaquin Sanjenis died of natural causes in 1974; however, this was never confirmed. This assertion was made in 1981 by Warren Hinckle and William Turner in a book entitled, The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro. Here is an excerpt:

"On a June morning in 1972, the week after the Watergate break-in, Joaquin Sanjenis left his modest import-export office in Miami's Cuban barrio and drove down SW Eighth Street to the Anthony Abrams Chevrolet Agency. Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo was a plain man of undifferentiated features, which was in his profession, an asset: He was a professional spy. His personality suited his work in that neither encouraged close personal relationships. His was a lonely life, sweetened by habitual cups of Cuban coffee; he looked forward to his forthcoming retirement, although he would not live long enough to enjoy it. It is testimony to the importance his employers gave to his carefully nurtured anonymity that when he died, of natural causes, in 1974, his family was not notified until after the funeral. Joaquin Sanjenis was, for over ten years, the head of the CIA's supersecret Operation 40 in Miami.

"The wear of a decade of living in the shadows showed on the spy's face that morning as he drove into the automobile agency's service entrance. Sanjenis had launched scores of ships and planes on clandestine raids against Cuba and had sent hundreds of men on missions from which there had been no return. He was able to offer only the most mute of patriotic explanations to the bereaved families. There were no official missing-in-action reports in the Secret War against Cuba. It was Joaquin Sanjenis's job to keep his troops, as himself, faceless.

(Warren Hinckle & William Turner, The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro, 1981, Martin & Row Publishers, ISBN 0-06-038003-9, pp. 307-308)

Whether Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo actually died in 1974, as Hinckle and Turner wrote, is a point worth challenging. What evidence did they present to support this claim? On page 354 of their book, under "Notes and Sources," they gave the following source for their claim that Sanjenis died in 1974: "Authors' interview with Frank Sturgis." How much faith should we place in Frank Sturgis' word, particularly on this critical point? Set aside that Sturgis is a convicted felon (Watergate burglary), as an employee of the CIA, Sturgis had plenty of reason to lie, particularly if Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo is/was the same person who worked as a doorman at the Dakota on the night John Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980. Hinckle's and Turner's book, The Fish is Red, was published in 1981, in the year after Lennon's murder. Consequently, it makes sense that Sturgis would want to muddy the water a bit. In addition, Hinckle and Turner revealed the importance the CIA placed on Sanjenis's anonymity when they described his alleged death. They wrote: "It is testimony to the importance his employers [the CIA] gave to his carefully nurtured anonymity that when he died, of natural causes, in 1974, his family was not notified until after the funeral." Did Sanjenis really die of natural causes in 1974? There is plenty of reason to believe this claim was disinformation generated by Sturgis at the behest of the CIA. The CIA had every reason to lie in order to continue nurturing Sanjenis's anonymity, particularly after the murder of John Lennon.

------ end of excerpt ------

Here is the full article:

"Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo, John Lennon's true assassin(?)"

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/Usenet/Perdomo.htm

He was definitely there, but I don't think he shot Lennon. I doubt that he even had a gun, but I am unwilling to state that categorically.

It's a definite possibility.

Sanjenis, of course — real name, Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo; aka, Sanjenis; alias, Sam Jenis; more commonly known as Jose Perdomo, doorman at the Dakota on December 8, 1980.

No, Chapman is clearly not an idiot. He is the victim of mind control. As I stated before, Chapman may genuinely believe he killed Lennon even though the evidence indicates otherwise. His handlers may have surreptitiously placed him in a hypnotic trance and planted within his mind an obsession to murder John Lennon. I do not think Chapman is a cold blooded killer, but even so, I think it is possible to plant subliminal thoughts in a person's mind through hypnosis. Then when Chapman found himself in front of the Dakota standing near John Lennon's bullet-ridden body, he would have been extremely vulnerable a suggestion that he had killed Lennon.

True, it isn't complicated. But a lot of life's mysteries are extremely uncomplicated. I am amazed at the number of people who embrace Fenton Bresler's complex theory that Chapman was a Manchurian Candidate, a programmed killer. The logic is quite convoluted and there is no evidence that a Manchurian Candidate has ever been groomed to kill on-demand with any degree of reliability. I believe the United States government has devoted a lot of energy in the area of studying the viability of programmed killers, and I suspect a small army of Manchurian Candidates could be created to inflict random terror on the populace. But I do not believe it has been demonstrated that a signal can be given to someone, who is outwardly non-violent, that will cause him/her to kill a specific person at a specific time. This is what we must believe if we accept Fenton Bresler's Manchurian Candidate theory. Yet people say my theory is too simplistic when all it requires is a sinister third party plant an hypnotic suggestion to murder someone (John Lennon) in the patsy’s mind. In my hypothesis, the obsession to murder is all that is required, not the actual murder. A professional hit man takes care of that.

Once a murder obsession has been planted in the subject's mind, you're halfway there, if you're plotting an assassination, that is. The next step is to get the subject (Chapman) to the scene of the crime just before the intended target is killed. Moments before the murder, the subject (Chapman) is given an hypnotic signal that puts him in an altered state of consciousness — a trance. At this point, the target (Lennon) is killed by someone else (Perdomo), but the subject (Chapman) thinks he did it because he was fighting an obsession to kill the person in question, in this case John Lennon.

In Chapman's 1992 interview on the Larry King Show, Chapman told King that there were "two different scenes" in his mind, before and after the shooting. He also told King that he heard the words "do it, do it, do it" in his mind moments before the shooting, although Chapman was ruled legally sane.

Manchurian Candidate proponents claim the words "do it, do it, do it" were a signal from someone else for Chapman to kill Lennon. I agree the words "do it, do it, do it" were probably an hypnotic signal, but I disagree that they were a kill signal. I believe the signal was intended to place Chapman's mind in a vulnerable state so he would not question what others told him within the ensuing critical moments. I suspect when Chapman heard the words "do it, do it, do it," he was in a "ready state," meaning he was ready to be a patsy. As Lennon walked past Chapman, Sanjenis (Jose Perdomo) walked right behind Lennon and shot him point blank directly in the heart (in the left side of the back) and kept firing as Lennon ran. Then Sanjenis, a man whom Chapman trusted, turned to Chapman—who was probably unarmed—and forced the gun he had just used to shoot Lennon into Chapman's hand and began to struggle with Chapman. He held Chapman's hand with the gun firmly in it screaming and sobbing (mock sobbing) at Chapman to release the gun. Because of Chapman's altered mental state, his memory became confused on the struggle. Chapman remembers Sanjenis (Jose Perdomo) bravely struggling with him to get take the gun, although I suspect it was really Sanjenis who fired the shots, not Chapman. Once the gun fell on the ground, Sanjenis reportedly asked Chapman, "Do you know what you just did?" Chapman obligingly replied, "I just shot John Lennon." Who knows, perhaps Sanjenis gave Chapman a dog biscuit for giving the correct answer. I’m being sarcastic, but you hopefully you get my point.

He seems to someone confused. Here is an excerpt from Chapman's 1992 interview on the Larry King Show where Chapman describes his thoughts before and after the shooting:

KING: Were you relieved [after shooting Lennon]?

CHAPMAN: No. I -- what happened was I was in a -- what happened before the shooting, before I pulled the trigger and after were two different scenes in my mind.

Before, everything was like dead calm. And I was ready for this to happen. I even heard a voice, my own, inside me say do it, do it, do it. You know, here we go.

And then afterwards, it was like the film strip broke. I fell in upon myself. I like went into a state of shock. I stood there with the gun hanging limply down at my right side and Jose the doorman came over and he's crying, and he's grabbing and he's shaking my arm and he shook the gun right out of my hand, which was a very brave thing to do to an armed person. And he kicked the gun across the pavement, had somebody take it away and I was just -- I was stunned.

I didn't know what to do. I took "The Catcher in the Rye" out of my pocket. I paced. I tried to read it. I just couldn't wait, Larry until those police got there. I was just devastated.

KING: Hold it right there. Mark. We'll be right back with Mark David Chapman. He's in the Attica Correctional Institute in New York state. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK; end of excerpt)

By the way, it strikes me as odd that Larry King would interrupt Chapman during a description of such a critical moment. I realize CNN is commercial television, but really, how many times does Larry King have Mark David Chapman on the show describing in detail how he felt the moment he thinks he shot John Lennon? Couldn’t he have waited a minute for the commercial? This strikes me as extremely odd.

Probably not knowingly. But King is a journalist, and without going off on a tangent, I believe the news media in the United States is extremely corrupt — a criminal enterprise. It is quite possible that one of CNN’s lawyer’s briefed King on how to question Chapman. King may have been told to break to a commercial when Chapman began discussing certain things in too much detail, so as not to jeopardize Chapman’s future parole hearings. That would likely be the pretext for interrupting Chapman.

Yes, in my opinion. Chapman has said in various interviews and statements—including the 1992 interview on the Larry King Show—that he heard the words "do it, do it, do it" just before Lennon was shot. I suspect those words were used by another person to put Chapman in an altered state of consciousness — a trance. He was still awake, still alert, but his mind was in an altered state where the power of suggestion was extremely intense.

Having stated that, the words themselves—"do it, do it, do it"—are interesting. Chapman told Larry King that he heard the words in his mind. But many people (myself included) suspect he actually heard those words from an external source. If so, how were those words transmitted? Were they sent by some sort of radio signal, or did someone simply say them to Chapman? There is, however, a much simpler answer to that question. Perhaps someone simply played an excerpt (on a boom-box) of a John Lennon song containing the lyrics, "do it, do it, do it."

Lennon apparently liked those words because he put them in the following two songs, and possibly more: "Bring On The Lucie (Freda Peeple)" from the 1973 album, Mind Games; AND "Do the Oz," a seemingly nonsensical song from the 1970 album, Plastic Ono Band.

If Chapman had been programmed to go into an hypnotic trance upon hearing the words "do it, do it, do it," a third-party manipulator simply needed to do play a recording of "Bring On The Lucie (Freda Peeple)" or "Do the Oz," and Chapman’s psyche would be in the ready state to either commit the crime (if you believe in Manchurian candidates) or take the fall. In the latter scenario (taking the fall), the words "do it, do it, do it" put Chapman in a mental state where he was extremely vulnerable to the power of suggestion. Within seconds he would be convinced that he had shot killed Lennon through the power of hypnotic suggestion combined with the very real fact that Lennon's bullet ridden body would soon be right in front of him, after he had fought an urge to kill Lennon. Did the so-called urge truly originate in Chapman's own mind, or did someone else plant it there?

The real trick is having the nerve to pull it off. It appears that the planners of Lennon's murder looked for someone like Chapman, a born again Christian who was highly impressionable, naive, you might say, easily swayed. Then one of the leaders within his church—the psychologist who led prayer groups at Mark's church—began to surreptitiously conduct mind control experiments on Chapman and other members of the prayer group. Many believe Chapman's contact with the CIA was through his work at the YMCA. That may have some validity, but I would look closer at his fundamentalist Christian friends, the Jerry Falwell types. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are plugged into the intelligence community and they're aggressive supporters of Israel, big-time Zionists.

I am very suspicious of Reverend Charles McGowan, Chapman’s religious mentor. From what I understand about Reverend McGowan (per Fenton Bresler's book), the Reverend was/is a fundamentalist Presbyterian, a born again Christian. Many people familiar with Chapman's background think of McGowan as a responsible citizen, but they fail to realize that McGowan’s beliefs are similar to those of people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the sort of people that most Americans consider extremist religious nuts.

Remember, it was through Reverend McGowan's religious community that Chapman attended prayer groups where he saw a man bark like a dog then assume a karate position. As previously stated, the man was probably in a hypnotic trance, possibly on drugs as well.

That's what I suspect. The beauty of a plan like this is Chapman trusts these people with all his heart. They would never betray him, they're born again Christians. Right?

Anyone that questions Perdomo's background in the Bay of Pigs, and his connection with the CIA, must also wonder if he was the actual shooter. Researchers Warren Hinckle and William Turner wrote in their book, The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro, documented someone named Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo (aka, Sanjenis) was a commander in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a professional hit man, and was on the CIA's payroll for ten years reporting to convicted Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis. The only question is this: Was Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo the same person as the Dakota doorman named Jose Perdomo? If so, there is little doubt that Perdomo/Sanjenis was the true killer, not Chapman. Again, Perdomo’s name was not revealed to the public for six years after Lennon’s murder, according to my research. That fact alone says a great deal about Perdomo’s probable involvement.

This is what Hinckle and Turner wrote Perdomo/Sanjenis in their book, The Fish is Red:

"Sanjenis was an opportunistic little man who managed to punch a CIA meal ticket the rest of his life. When he met [Frank] Sturgis he was filling a bucket of rotten eggs which would become Operation 40—the secret police of the Cuban invasion force. The ultrasecret Operation 40 included some nonpolitical conservative exile businessmen, but its hard core was made up of dice players at the foot of the cross—informers, assassins-for-hire, and mob henchmen whose sworn goal was to make the counterrevolution safe for the comfortable ways of the old Cuba. They were the elite troops of the old guard within the exile movement, who made effective alliance with CIA right-wingers against CIA liberals in order to exclude from power any Cubans who wanted, albeit without Castro, Castro-type reforms from land redistribution to free milk for rural children. Their hero was Manuel Artime, who became the CIA's Golden Boy; their bogeyman was Manuel Ray, a progressive Cuban anticommunist who many observers agreed had the most effective underground in Cuba, but who was tossed aside like an old taco by the invasion planners.

"Sanjenis got Sturgis a CIA mail drop and gave him the right phone numbers, and Sturgis agreed to coordinate his own operations with Sanjenis and work on a contract basis on special agency assignments. This working relationship extended for better than the next decade, until Sturgis and several other longtime Sanjenis operatives were caught in Watergate...

"Frank Sturgis became one of many commuters to the Secret War. When his unlisted number rang, it was Joaquin Sanjenis, the Operation 40 commander, on the other end with an "If you choose not to accept this mission" type assignment. Sturgis was being used in an intelligence phase of Operation Mongoose [CIA covert operation to overthrow Castro] referred to as study flights. After Sanjenis's call he would drive to the airport, take off in his small plane, and fly a prescribed course that would deliberately penetrate Cuban airspace. Sturgis was a guinea pig to activate the coastal defense system that had just been installed by the Russians. Alerted by the drone of his engines and the blip on their radar screens, the Cubans would talk excitedly over the radio, start up tracking devices, and warm up night-fighting MiGs. The feared quatro boches—four-barreled antiaircraft guns aimed by radar—would point at the inky sky, and rocket crews would fix the intruder's position on target display boards..."

(Warren Hinckle & William Turner, The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro, 1981, Martin & Row Publishers, ISBN 0-06-038003-9, pp. 52-53, 118)

Again, was Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo, the spy and assassin, the same Jose Perdomo who was the doorman at the Dakota on December 8, 1980?

There was a breakdown to an extent, but it was not abnormal for Chapman to be standing outside the archway on the evening of December 8, 1980. Other fans were standing around earlier that evening, but as far as I know, all but he had gone home by the time Lennon returned at approximately 10:50 pm. Dakota's security could not legally prevent people from standing on a public sidewalk, which is where Chapman and the other fans had been standing. As far as I can tell, the public sidewalk goes all the way up to the gated entrance with an archway top. Of course, Chapman has said publicly that he was standing "inside of the arch of the Dakota Building," so that seems a bit close for comfort.

Here is an excerpt from Larry King’s 1992 interview with Chapman where Chapman mentions being "inside of the arch of the Dakota Building."

KING: The circumstances of the killing, what happened?

CHAPMAN: I was sitting on the inside of the arch of the Dakota Building. And it was dark. It was windy. Jose, the doorman, was out along the sidewalk. And here's another odd thing that happened. I was at an angle where I could see Central Park West and 72nd and I see this limousine pull up and, as you know, there are probably hundreds of limousines that turn up Central Park West in the evening, but I knew that was his.

And I said, this is it, and I stood up. The limousine pulled up, the door opened, the rear left door opened. Yoko got out. John was far behind, say 20 feet, when he got out. I nodded to Yoko when she walked by me.

(end of excerpt)

Chapman had a legal right to stand on the sidewalk leading up to the arch of the Dakota building, but if he was actually sitting on the inside of the arch, as he described to Larry King, that would certainly be the private property of the Dakota’s management company. So, yes, it appeared there was a definite lapse in security on the night Lennon was killed, notwithstanding Perdomo himself likely being the real killer. This would make any security he provided a moot point.

Having stated that, I have visited the Dakota building several times since June of 2003. During those visits, I observed people standing outside the arch entrance for long periods of time, usually chatting with the doorman on duty. So standing near the arch was not unusual behavior in 1980 or today, but actually sitting inside the archway seems a bit unusual.

Yes, Dakota security was provided by the doorman but not exclusively. The basic design of the Dakota gives its residents a great deal of security. It's a huge fortress, bigger than some towns — four large buildings side-by-side forming a rectangular layout with a courtyard in the center and only one public entrance. And yes, that entrance is guarded by a doorman. The only way to get inside the guarded entrance would be by force, and the NYPD are quickly alerted if that happens and quick to respond as they did when Lennon was killed.

Those are all excellent questions and I plan to address them in the next edition of my Lennon book, but frankly, I expect to run into a brick wall in those sensitive areas. People with answers will obviously not discuss things that might get them killed, and revealing first-hand knowledge about a professional hit man will certainly get people killed. We're dealing with criminals of the highest order who are protected by people at the highest level of government.

In the book, The Fish is Red, authors Hinckle and Turner described Perdomo/Sanjenis as follows:

"Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo was a plain man of undifferentiated features, which was in his profession, an asset: He was a professional spy. His personality suited his work in that neither encouraged close personal relationships." (p 307)

Certainly a person like that could easily get a job as a security guard, particularly if he was backed by the CIA and FBI. The people who manage the Dakota hire security guards all the time. If Perdomo got a good reference from someone at the NYPD (which would have been no problem, given his CIA connections), then I'm sure he would have been easily hired.

I'm not sure why you use the phrase "all the way up" to the Dakota Management Company. That's isn't very far up, in my opinion. All the way up to the Manhattan's District Attorney's office is more like it (and obviously much higher). The DA must have been involved in the murder conspiracy. Otherwise, why would they only charge Chapman with second-degree murder instead of first-degree murder? Again, there is no question that Lennon’s murder was premeditated. No one disputes that point.

Yes. But it also appears that the person in charge of Dakota security, doorman Jose Perdomo, was himself a spy and a professional hit man. And after the target of the hit had been killed, a patsy was held up to throw the public off. Enter Mark David Chapman.

It's worth asking questions, but again, I do not expect people to be very cooperative. I've had first-hand experience regarding how the FBI, for example, actively covers up criminal activity perpetrated by the United States government. If word leaks out that someone from the Dakota's management company is talking to me or anyone else about Jose Perdomo, FBI agents will likely pay that person a visit and put the fear of God in them. In my case, a death threat email was faked, reportedly baring my name and address, thereby creating the false impression that the death threat email was sent by me. In addition, the death threat email was reportedly sent to an FBI office.

For the record, however, I don't believe there was an email, death threat or otherwise. The whole thing was a hoax, in my opinion, perpetrated by Louis Reigel, the FBI's Cyber Chief.

Consequently, two FBI agents came to my house, blocked my car in my driveway as I attempted to go to work. I complained to my senator (Barbara Mikulski) about the incident, and she contacted the FBI at my behest. Later she received a letter from FBI Cyber Chief Louis Reigel in which he lied to cover-up the FBI's activities. Details are described in the following article:

"Louis M. Reigel, III - FBI Cyber Chief's patriotism questioned"

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/FBI/Reigel.htm

The FBI is good at harassing citizens who talk or ask too many questions about government-sponsored crimes. So I wouldn’t hold my breathe about people voluntarily coming forward to provide information about Jose Perdomo’s involvement in Lennon’s murder. To get to the truth, the FBI would have to first be dismantled or destroyed. Once that is done, there is a possibility that that judges and prosecutors might attempt to see justice served. Then they could subpoena people to testify about Perdomo. But that will never happen as long as the FBI exists.

Any question about Jose Perdomo is a very sensitive topic and I doubt that truthful answers would be forthcoming from the parties involved. As previously stated, Perdomo's name was not publicly disclosed for six years after Lennon's murder, according to my research.

Surprisingly, the first stories in the New York Times (Dec. 9 and 10, 1980) failed to mention Perdomo by name, although they mentioned the "doorman" several times. On June 22, 1981, People Magazine published an article about Chapman, written by Jim Gaines. Similarly, this article mentioned the doorman but failed to identify Perdomo by name. In 1983, a member of the Beatles' management team, Peter Brown, published a book, co-written by Steven Gaines, entitled The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles. Not only did Brown and Gaines fail to identify Perdomo by name, they actually referred to the doorman by the wrong name: Jay Hastings. Hastings was a real person who worked at the Dakota and was on duty when Lennon was killed, but Hastings was not the doorman. Hastings was the desk clerk in the lobby. This is different from the doorman. As far as I know, Hastings did not witness the shooting because he was in the lobby at his desk when the shooting occurred, and Lennon was shot outside, but ran inside the lobby and collapsed. Here is Peter Brown's and Steven Gaines' description of the shooting:

"When John and Yoko left for the Record Plant at five pm John's limousine was at the curb, instead of inside the entrance gates of the Dakota, and as he strode to his car, Chapman thrust a copy of the new album, Double Fantasy, into his hands. John obligingly stopped and signed the cover for him, 'John Lennon, 1980.' Another fan ran up and snapped a picture. Mark Chapman was ecstatic as John and Yoko got into the limousine and rode off. 'Did I have my hat on or off?'

"Chapman asked excitedly. 'I wanted to have it off. Boy, they'll never believe this back in Hawaii.' John and Yoko returned to the Dakota at 10:50 pm in the limousine, John was carrying the 'Walking on Thin Ice' tapes. The tall security gates were still open, but again the limousine pulled to the curb, and John had to walk from the sidewalk. Yoko preceded him into the entranceway. Just as they passed into the dark recesses of the archway, John heard a voice call to him, 'Mr. Lennon?'

"John turned, myopically peering into the darkness. Five feet away, Mark Chapman was already in combat stance. Before John could speak, Chapman fired five shots into him.

"Yoko heard the shots and spun around. At first she didn't realize John had been hit, because he kept walking toward her. Then he fell to his knees and she saw blood. 'I'm shot!' John cried to her as he went down on his face on the floor of the security office.

"The Dakota doorman, a burly, bearded, twenty-seven-year-old named Jay Hastings, dashed around from behind the desk to where John lay, blood pouring from his mouth, gaping wounds in his chest. Yoko cradled John's head while Hastings stripped off his blue uniform jacket and placed it over him. John was only semi-conscious, and when he tried to talk, he gurgled and vomited fleshy matter.

"While the police were called, Hastings ran outside to search for the gunman, but he didn't have far to look. Chapman was calmly standing in front of the Dakota, reading from his copy of Catcher in the Rye. He had dropped the gun after the shooting. 'Do you know what you just did?' Hastings asked him. 'I just shot John Lennon,' Chapman said quietly."

(Peter Brown & Steven Gaines, The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles, 1983, ISBN 0-07-008159-X, McGraw-Hill, pp. 435-436)

(end of quote)

Again, Brown and Gaines not only failed to identify Jose Perdomo as the doorman, they erroneously identified lobby desk clerk Jay Hastings as the doorman.

On February 23, 1987, People Magazine published another article about Chapman entitled "The Man Who Shot Lennon," by Jim Gaines. (Note: I'm curious if Jim Gaines is related to Steven Gaines, the writer who co-authored "The Love You Make" with Peter Brown.) Once again, Jim Gaines' article mentioned the doorman but failed to identify Perdomo by name. It wasn't until March 2, 1987 that Gaines finally revealed the doorman's name as Jose Perdomo in another article for People entitled, "In the Shadows a Killer Waited." Jim Gaines further described Perdomo as an "anti-Castro Cuban" who discussed with Chapman the Bay of Pigs Invasion and JFK's assassination before the shooting occurred. Here is an excerpt:

"When [photographer Paul] Goresh left, Chapman had only the Dakota's night doorman, Jose Perdomo, to keep him company. Jose was an anti-Castro Cuban, and they talked that night of the Bay of Pigs and the assassination of John F. Kennedy."

(James R. Gaines, People Magazine, March 2, 1987, "In the Shadows a Killer Waited," around p 64; article begins on p 50)

Again, the cited People Magazine article, "In the Shadows a Killer Waited," written by Jim Gaines and published on March 2, 1987, was the first time the identity of Jose Perdomo was revealed to the public as the doorman at the Dakota on the night of Lennon’s murder, according to my research.

If anyone knows of a written reference to Jose Perdomo, the Dakota doorman, prior to Jim Gaines' public disclosure on March 2, 1987, I would like to know about it. Until someone can find such a book or article, we must assume that Jose Perdomo's name was hidden from the public for over six years after Lennon's murder. This indicates that any discussion about Perdomo is an extremely sensitive topic.

It's fine to ask questions about Perdomo to people at the Dakota's management company, but it is unrealistic, in my opinion, to expect straightforward truthful answers given what appears to be a cover-up regarding the identity of Jose Perdomo as the name of the doorman.

Again, Perdomo's name was apparently concealed from the public for six years after Lennon's murder, so I doubt that we will find much evidence regarding his employment with the Dakota's management company. But it doesn't hurt to ask.

Having stated that, I can offer an opinion regarding the Dakota management's involvement in the hiring of Jose Perdomo, and so on.

I know lots of people hate it when people give their opinions on serious matters, but there is nothing wrong with offering a realistic scenario, or hypothesis, as long as it is stated up front that it is merely an opinion.

I seriously doubt that anyone from the Dakota's management firm had prior knowledge that Jose Perdomo was a spy and professional hit man. Perdomo was probably recommended for the doorman job by a credible person within the NYPD. For the sake of discussion, we will refer to this NYPD person as Patrolman Bill. Patrolman Bill likely did not know of an active conspiracy to murder Lennon when he hypothetically gave Perdomo a good reference to the Dakota's management firm. Patrolman Bill person was probably told by a superior officer within the NYPD to give Perdomo a good reference. Patrolman Bill probably did not know Perdomo from Adam, but he complied with the order because he was conditioned as a police officer never to question orders given by a superior officer. Since Patrolman Bill did not know Perdomo from Adam, he probably did not know Perdomo was a spy or hit man either, or if he suspected anything like that, again, he would play dumb because it was completely beyond his mentality to question an order given by a superior officer. To a cop, this is a sacrilege.

So in my opinion, Patrolman Bill gave Perdomo a good, albeit phony reference which guaranteed Perdomo's employment as a doorman at the Dakota. Who knows, to satisfy Patrolman Bill’s own personal sense of ethics, perhaps he met with Perdomo for lunch to ask about his background before giving him a job reference. Of course, this would only be a formality since Patrolman Bill would never disobey the order of a superior office. Still, it would help him sleep better if he would at least meet the stranger he was about to recommend for a security-related job.

The person who hypothetically gave Patrolman Bill the order to provide Perdomo with a phony reference was probably an NYPD official who was a graduate of the FBI's training academy in Quantico, Virginia. For the purpose of discussion we shall refer to this person as Colonel Joe. There is a good chance that Colonel Joe was also unaware of the conspiracy to murder Lennon.

Before I continue, I would like to say a few words about the mentality of a typical cop, particularly cops in large cities. I do this because if a cop or former cop is reading my comments, I do not want him/her to think I'm a "cop hater" because I'm not. In my view, the typical big-city cop's practice of blindly following orders and looking the other way is somewhat understandable, given the circumstances under which a typical big-city cop must work. In large cities like New York, every cop has to deal with multiple interests such as corrupt politicians, wealthy businessmen, pushy FBI agents and organized crime bosses. After a short time on the force, the typical big-city cop's main objective is (a) to stay alive, (b) not offend people who could get him/her in trouble, and (c) keep his/her job as long as possible. As a cop stays on the force longer and longer, looking the other way becomes a survival mechanism.

Now let's return to my scenario, which I will repeat. Patrolman Bill was told by a superior officer, Colonel Joe, a graduate of the FBI's training academy in Quantico, Virginia, to give Jose Perdomo a job reference to the Dakota's management company so Perdomo could get a job as a doorman at the Dakota.

What would motivate Colonel Joe to do such a thing? What was Colonel Joe's connection to Jose Perdomo and a plot to kill John Lennon? Probably nothing directly. In this scenario, I would venture to say that Colonel's Joe's only motivation was blind loyalty to the FBI. Since Colonel Joe attended the FBI's training academy in Quantico, Virginia years earlier, he maintained several contacts with FBI agents. In addition, Colonel Joe (like most cops) considered it an honor to be sent to the FBI's training academy. Since graduating, Colonel Joe received a promotion within the NYPD and a substantial pay increase. Consequently, Colonel Joe had become quite loyal to the FBI for reasons that had nothing to do with altruism.

It is not widely known but virtually every local police force in every city and town across the United States sends at least police officer to the FBI's training academy, and that person generally rises to a position of authority within his/her police force. The FBI nurtures its relationships with training academy alumni (mostly cops) as a means of maintaining a footprint within every local police force throughout America, thereby giving the bureau control of a virtual national police force.

Back to Colonel Joe's motivation for telling one of his underlings to give Jose Perdomo a job reference, like everyone else, Colonel Joe was simply following orders. Colonel Joe was probably told by an FBI agent he trusted to have one of his underlings give Perdomo a good reference so Perdomo could obtain a security-related job with the Dakota's management company. For the sake of discussion, we will refer to the FBI agent as Agent Fred. I suspect that even Agent Fred did not know of plans to murder Lennon; however, Agent Fred was likely an ambitious guy, willing to do anything to get on the fast track to a prestigious job at FBI headquarters. Agent Fred may be a top FBI official today, or perhaps he's retired by now. Still, Agent Fred probably received his instructions from someone within FBI Headquarters.

So here's the hierarchy again. FBI Official X (from FBI Headquarters) tells Agent Fred to get someone from the NYPD to provide a job reference for Jose Perdomo so Perdomo can obtain a job as a security guard/doorman at the Dakota's management firm. Agent Fred issues the order/request to Colonel Joe (NYPD guy who graduated from the FBI's training academy). Colonel Joe in turns orders his underling, Patrolman Bill, to provide the reference. Patrolman Bill gives a positive reference and Perdomo gets the job.

If one understands the FBI/local cop hierarchy and the big-city cop's mindset of blindly following orders and looking the other way as a survival mechanism, it becomes clear how a guy like Jose Perdomo—a spy and professional hit man—could easily be placed in a position of trust as the doorman at the Dakota on the night Lennon was murdered. Once Lennon was killed, many people involved with Perdomo's hiring at the Dakota realized what had happened. That's when the infamous "blue wall of silence" went up. Everyone clammed up to protect one another and themselves.

Patrolman Bill and Colonel Joe probably felt terrible, even angry about what had happened. Agent Fred may have felt a glimmer of remorse, but it probably lasted a short period of time (less than a day). FBI Agents quickly learn that ruthlessness and blind loyalty provide the fast-track to success. So even though Agent Fred likely did not have prior knowledge of Lennon's murder, he probably lost no sleep over it. He probably justified his actions by convincing himself that Lennon was a Communist anyway. I suspect, however, that Patrolman Bill and Colonel Joe were extremely upset. They may have had nervous breakdowns or quit the force or both. But the one thing could NEVER do was talk. That would mean certain death and they knew it.

Patrolman Bill's and Colonel Joe's superiors at the NYPD probably learned quickly of their situations and offered them early retirements with nice pensions. The only catch was "keep your mouths shut."

What else could they do? Give up their pensions and probably get killed in the process if they disclosed what they knew about Perdomo?

The person at the Dakota's management company who interviewed and hired Jose Perdomo was in an equally awkward position. For the sake of discussion, we will refer to this person as Mr. Biff.

After Lennon's murder, I expect Perdomo simply quit reporting to work. He may have resigned claiming the pain of seeing Lennon murdered made it impossible to continue working there. Mr. Biff probably bought the explanation at first. But rumors soon began to circulate among Mr. Biff's colleagues about Perdomo's background as a spy and professional hit man. Mr. Biff's reaction would be a tough call. Whatever his reaction is really a moot point. Perdomo had been given a great reference by Patrolman Bill, a trusted member of the NYPD of impeccable character. No one could blame Mr. Biff for hiring Perdomo under such circumstances. Who knows? Maybe Mr. Biff tried to tell the authorities what happened, if he had suspicions. If so, word would quickly get back to the FBI and agents would quickly be sent to intimidate him. They could look through his company's financial records, find some inconsistencies and threaten to turn their findings over to the IRS. Any weakness in Mr. Biff's character or within his company's business practices would be used against him by the FBI. They're good at that sort of thing.

Anyway, this is all a hypothesis—my opinion—of how Jose Perdomo could have easily obtained a job as a doorman at the Dakota when Lennon was killed. It also explains how Perdomo could have left without a trace, and why no questions were asked, at least not officially.

I got it from a book written by one of J. Edgar Hoover's top aides, William Sullivan, in a book he co-wrote, with journalist Bill Brown, entitled The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI. Sullivan's book was an exposé on Hoover’s FBI.

Sullivan was Hoover’s assistant for thirty years until he was forced out in 1971 for openly challenging Hoover’s methods. Born in 1912, Sullivan was seventeen years younger than Hoover. During his tenure with the Bureau, Sullivan was Assistant Director in charge of Domestic Intelligence for ten years, a member of the United States Intelligence Board, and was eventually promoted to the Bureau’s number three man. Although Sullivan’s official position during his last year with the Bureau was third in command, he assumed the role of acting director, for all intents and purposes, because Hoover's by 1970, Clyde Tolson (the actual number two man, and Hoover's live-in gay lover) was old, weak and sick, having suffered strokes that left him physically disabled.

Besides being Hoover’s assistant, Sullivan was operationally in charge of all of the Bureau’s criminal, intelligence, and espionage investigations. Few people knew more about Hoover or the inner workings of the all-powerful organization he built.

Here is an excerpt from Sullivan's book that describes how the FBI has its footprint in virtually all local police forces throughout America:

"Hoover always took the public position that the United States didn’t have and didn’t need a national police force. But for all practical purposes we had one, a secret one at that, and it was controlled by the FBI. The national police force was made up of graduates of the FBI National Academy’s special three-week training course for police officers. It was an honor for a member of a city or state police force to be selected for this training—in fact, the men selected for this training often rose to positions of prominence within their own organizations shortly after returning home. And they were suitably grateful. With good reason, Hoover felt that the alumni of the FBI training course were his men. Thanks to his network of FBI-trained police officers, we had a private and frequently helpful line to most city and state police organizations throughout the country.…Having a man accepted for FBI training was quite a plum for any chief of police. Hoover was aware of this, and he took full advantage of the leverage."

(William Sullivan & William Brown, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI, p 115)

He was killed during the final stages of the book. In fact, the book was published in 1979, two years after Sullivan’s death. Sullivan had recruited journalist Bill Brown to help write it. Brown met with Sullivan on numerous occasions and collected a series of taped interviews from which he transcribed, edited, and turned into a book.

On November 9, 1977, Sullivan was shot and killed—reportedly by Robert Daniels Jr, age 22, of Libson, New Hampshire—while hunting near his home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. Sullivan was struck in the neck with a .30-caliber high-powered rifle. He was 65 years old. Daniels—the son of a state policeman—claimed to have mistaken Sullivan for a deer. He was arrested, charged with a misdemeanor—"shooting a human being by accident"—and released to the custody of his father. Later Daniels was fined $500 and lost his hunting license for 10 years. No further investigation was ever done.

That's the history of the FBI. Many people have attempted to cross them, but many end up like Sullivan—dead.

Perhaps, but the bureau's headquarter building still bares his name. And from my personal experience with FBI types, they become incensed when someone reminds them that Hoover was homosexual and a transvestite. I should know, I never miss a chance to taunt them on that sensitive issue.

Sure, anything is possible. But again, I expect a lot of powerful forces will try to prevent that from happening. I suspect (again this is just an opinion) that everyone at the Dakota management firm has been mandated not to discuss John Lennon's murder with anyone outside the company. Otherwise they will be fired. Of course the firm would put a positive spin on such a directive. They don't want to be sued, they don't want to upset Lennon's family, it would be bad for business to remind the public of the tragic incident. The list goes on.

Two points. The first point is a response to your comment about hollow-point bullets during a trip to NYC. Chapman made two trips to NYC. Lennon was killed during the second trip. There is a chain of evidence linking Chapman's purchase of a .38 revolver prior to the first visit, but the chain breaks during the second visit. Chapman's trip to Georgia to get hollow-point bullets occurred during the first trip to NYC, not the second. Therefore it remains unclear if the Georgia bullets were the same bullets found in Lennon's body. (The autopsy report is sealed from public view.) It is also unclear if the .38 revolver found at the crime scene was the same .38 revolver Chapman purchased prior to making the first trip. I can provide more details, but I don’t want to go off on a tangent. Just remember Chapman took two trips to NYC. He got the Georgia bullets on the first trip. We don’t know where the bullets came from on the second trip.

Second point: The mere fact that Chapman confessed really does NOT mean that much, as I stated previously. How reliable are confessions? In the Middle Ages people confessed to being the Devil. I have already discussed the case of the Central Park Jogger, one of the most notorious cases of false confessions in modern times, a crime that occurred close to Lennon's murder in Manhattan and was also handled by the NYPD. In addition, both cases were handled by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

On April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old Caucasian female investment banker jogging in Manhattan's Central Park was raped and severely beaten. She lay near death in a coma for 12 days in a hospital. The attack captured headlines around the world as the anonymous "Central Park Jogger" fought to recover from massive injuries that left her near death. Eventually she awoke from the coma, but her severe head injuries left her with no memory of the assault. Over the next months, she had to relearn how to talk, feed herself, think abstractly, and walk. Years later, the anonymous victim revealed her identity, Trisha Meili, in a book she wrote entitled I am the Central Park Jogger, published in 2004.

Within days after the attack, a group of African American and Hispanic teenage males, between the ages of 14 and 16 were arrested and were eventually convicted for the crime. Their names were Anton McCray (age 15), Raymond Santana (14), Kevin Richardson (14), Kharey Wise (16), and Yusef Salaam (15).

After prolonged periods of police interrogation, four of the defendants gave videotaped and written statements saying they participated in the attack but did not rape or bludgeon the victim themselves. A fifth defendant, Kevin Richardson, professed his innocence. Nevertheless, the boys were found guilty, mainly because of their confessions.

In early 2002, convicted murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the brutal attack on the Central Park Jogger (Trisha Meili) in April, 1989. Reyes' confession was substantiated by DNA identification of his sperm on the victim's clothes. Reyes' confession created quite a stir and was extremely damaging to the credibility of the NYPD and District Attorney Morgenthau, the same bunch whom Chapman had confessed 22 years earlier to murdering John Lennon.

On December 19, 2002, New York State Supreme Court Judge Charles Tejada issued a decision to vacate the convictions of the five defendants convicted of beating and raping the Central Park jogger. Judge Tejada's ruling was made at the recommendation of District Attorney Morgenthau who apparently saw it as the only means of saving face in a no win situation.

By the time Judge Tejada made his ruling, the defendants had served their sentences and had already been released in 1995 and 1997 with the exception of Kharey Wise who remained in prison until Judge Tejada's ruling. Collectively, each defendant served an average of approximately 8 years in prison, although Wise served 11 and a half years.

A great deal has been written about a new word, "wilding," that emerged around the defendants. Wilding is apparently inner city slang for a gang of black juvenile delinquents who get together—sometimes without knowing one another—and attack whites. Some have written that approximately forty teenagers were wilding in Central Park on the night Trisha Meili was beaten and raped. Some also claim that the five teenage defendants engaged in wilding and may have even attacked Ms. Meili, but did not severely beat or rape her. This is an area where it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. All we know is Judge Tejada vacated the convictions of the five defendants and did not make special sentencing provisions for wilding offenses that may have occurred. In other words, Judge Tejada reversed their convictions, although it was a moot point for all but one defendant, Kharey Wise, who was still incarcerated when Judge Tejada exonerated him. To my knowledge, none of the defendants have received compensation from the state of New York for their incarcerations.

One has to wonder why the authorities were unable to determine whether the Central Park Jogger had been raped by one or more assailants. Some have alleged that the victim's beating was too severe for one person alone to have caused. Analyzing the severity of a beating is not a precise thing to do, but one would think that doctors could easily determine if sperm inside the female victim had originated from more than one male, even before the advent of DNA testing.

The case of the Central Park Jogger damaged the credibility of the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau a great deal. Yet no one besides myself has compared the false confessions obtained by the NYPD in the Central Park Jogger case to Mark David Chapman's confession in the Lennon case. It seems highly plausible that Chapman's case may have been handled in a similar manner as the cases of Anton McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Kharey Wise, and Yusef Salaam. If a false confession can be rendered by the police and DA for a serious offense, it simplifies the legal process a great deal. This is what occurred with the Central Park Jogger and I believe the exact same thing happened when Mark David Chapman confessed to shooting John Lennon. The same authorities handled both cases.

On that point we both agree. But perhaps just as key is the fact that Chapman was charged with second-degree murder to a premeditated slaying, a crime normally associated with first-degree murder in most states. It appears that a deal of some sort was struck between the Manhattan District Attorney's office and Chapman's original court-appointed attorney, Herbert Adlerberg, who was only on the case for two days. As previously stated, Adlerberg claimed he quit due to lack of security (his, not Chapman's), which seems like a poor reason to quit after accepting a case. He knew Lennon was a hero to many people. He knew people would be upset with him for defending Chapman. Yet he got cold feet after only two days. What gives? If Adlerberg needed more security, why didn't he simply ask for more protection? Adlerberg’s involvement also seems like a factor.

As I have stated in previous articles, Lennon's death certificate and autopsy report reveal that all four entry wounds were located on the left side of the body; however, Chapman was reportedly standing to Lennon's right and slightly behind him.

To view John Lennon's death certificate, click here:

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/Death_Cert.htm

Who was standing on Lennon's left? None other than professional killer Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo (aliases: Joaquin Sanjenis, Sam Jenis), otherwise known as Jose Perdomo, the doorman.

The following page provides a good graphic overview of the crime scene:

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/scene/standing.htm

I only know of three witnesses: (1) Jose Perdomo, (2) the limousine driver who dropped off John and Yoko before John was shot, and (3) an unidentified woman who described the shooting to television reporters. I have video footage of the latter woman describing the shooting to a reporter; however, I don't believe she actually saw the shooter. She heard the shots fired and a scream from Yoko Ono. Doorman Jose Perdomo was right in the middle of the crime scene, but his identity was withheld from the general public for six years. And of course, I suspect he was the real shooter, so obviously he would not testify against himself.

I have no idea who the limousine driver was and I have found no record of him in any books or magazine articles about the murder. No witnesses are mentioned in the NYPD's police report.

Yoko Ono would be considered a crime scene witness, but she was at least twenty feet in front of Lennon when he was shot, and consequently, she apparently did not see much. Here is Chapman's description of Ono during the shooting, from the 1992 interview on the Larry King Show:

KING: The circumstances of the killing, what happened?

CHAPMAN: I was sitting on the inside of the arch of the Dakota Building. And it was dark. It was windy. Jose, the doorman, was out along the sidewalk. And here's another odd thing that happened. I was at an angle where I could see Central Park West and 72nd and I see this limousine pull up and, as you know, there are probably hundreds of limousines that turn up Central Park West in the evening, but I knew that was his.

And I said, this is it, and I stood up. The limousine pulled up, the door opened, the rear left door opened. Yoko got out. John was far behind, say 20 feet, when he got out. I nodded to Yoko when she walked by me.

KING: Did she nod back?

CHAPMAN: No, she didn't. And I don't mean to be so clinical about this, but I've told it a number of times. I hope you understand. John came out, and he looked at me, and I think he recognized, here's the fellow that I signed the album earlier, and he walked past me. I took five steps toward the street, turned, withdrew my Charter Arms .38 and fired five shots into his back.

KING: All in his back?

CHAPMAN: All in his back.

KING: Never saw it coming?

CHAPMAN: He never saw anything coming, Larry. It was a very quick — it was a rough thing.

KING: What — had you shot that weapon before?

CHAPMAN: That weapon, no. I didn't even know if the bullets were going to work, and when they worked, I remember thinking, they're working they're working. I was worried that the plane in the baggage compartment, the humidity had ruined them, and I remember thinking, they're working.

KING: What did Yoko do?

CHAPMAN: She naturally, and I can't blame her. She dashed around the stair area. I don't know if it's still there at the Dakota today, but she just, you know, ran for cover, which is what anyone would do. John, according to what I've been told, stumbled up the stairs, and then I saw her come back around and then go up to the stairs and then she cradled his body.

KING: Did he — she scream?

CHAPMAN: I don't think she screamed, but a few minutes after that there was just a blood-curdling scream from someone and it put the hair on the back of my neck straight up.

(end of excerpt)

His name is Sean Strub, and he was Chapman’s primary accuser, even though he didn't see a damn thing. By Strub’s own admission, he was a block or so away and claims he heard the shots and followed police cars to the Dakota. Yet it was Strub, more than anyone else, who shaped the public's perception that Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon.

Strub was quoted by Associated Press and several newspapers including the New York Times. Fenton Bresler cited Strub's observations in the renowned book, Who Killed John Lennon?

Given Strub's extraordinary desire to tell reporters about Lennon’s murder, it is amazing that he was not actually present at the Dakota when the shooting occurred, something he openly admits.

In the 24 years since Lennon's murder, Strub has prospered immensely, which raises the issue of quid pro quo. Quite simply, is it possible that special doors might have been opened for Strub by powerful individuals within the United States government in exchange for Strub’s false testimony about Chapman before live television cameras shortly after Lennon was killed?

To read more about Sean Strub, click here:

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/Usenet/Strub.htm

I mentioned this before, but it bares repeating. The Manhattan District Attorney's office only charged Mark David Chapman with "second-degree murder."

Mark David Chapman was not convicted of anything. He confessed. As a result, there was no trial. He confessed to and was sentenced for the charge of second-degree murder, not first degree. It was not the sentencing judge who reduced the charge from first-degree murder to second-degree murder. Early on Chapman was charged with second-degree murder. That raises a question. Was Chapman coerced into confessing in order to receive a lesser sentence?

Referring back to Chapman's 1992 interview on the Larry King Show, Chapman told King that he was charged with second-degree murder, not first. King seemed genuinely surprised by this information, given that the crime was premeditated. Here's an excerpt from the 1992 interview:

KING: ...Mark. Do you expect to get out in eight years?

CHAPMAN: No, I don't.

KING: You're not -- do you expect to stay there for life?

CHAPMAN: I don't know about that. That's up to the parole division here in the state of New York.

KING: How...

CHAPMAN: I certainly don't think they're going let me out on the parole date. They -- because of the nature of the crime, because of a man has died...

KING: Yes.

CHAPMAN: ... they generally don't let you go right away.

KING: But it was second-degree murder you pled to, right?

CHAPMAN: Yes, it was. I pled guilty.

KING: So they — now they determined it was not premeditated.

CHAPMAN: Well, it was definitely premeditated.

KING: Then why second degree?

CHAPMAN: That is within the second degree. I think this state doesn't have a first-degree murder except on the books, in the case of the killing of a police officer.

(end of excerpt)

Chapman's understanding of the law is generally consistent with current first-degree murder law in New York; however, the second-degree law does not cover the manner in which Lennon was killed either, so which is correct? From what I've read, most legal experts tend to agree with Larry King's belief that those who commit premeditated murder are generally charged with murder in the first degree.

Another explanation floating around is from Fenton Bresler, author of the book, Who Killed John Lennon? In his book, Bresler gave the following explanation of why Chapman was charged with second degree murder:

"Since New York State abolished capital punishment in 1965, all cases of murder, however severe, are 'second-degree murder' with a maximum possible sentence of 'twenty-five years to life imprisonment': i.e., you cannot even be considered for parole until you have served twenty-five years in prison." (p 262)

(end of excerpt)

That explanation seems more than a little fishy. According to Bresler, New York State abolished capital punishment in 1965, which seems reasonable enough. After that, his logic escapes me. Because capital punishment was abolished, therefore, no one is charged with first-degree murder. Huh? Does two plus two suddenly equal three? How can a state justify getting rid of first-degree murder simply because it has abolished the death penalty? I assume, according the Bresler, that New York has such high regard for its murderers that it will only convict them of second-degree murder for fear that another state will extradite someone convicted of first-degree murder in New York and have him/her executed in the other state. Gee, what was the late and former Governor Nelson Rockefeller thinking in 1971 when he ordered over one thousand New York state police and National Guardsmen to storm the Attica Correctional Facility (where Chapman currently lives) simply because the prisoners revolted due to subhuman living conditions? What a humanitarian act. Over 40 people died, including 11 of the 38 hostages. With that kind of history, does Mr. Bresler honestly expect people to believe that New York, of all states, gives a damn about convicted murderers?

Why was Chapman really charged with second-degree murder if the case against him was so overwhelming, as many would have us believe?

It seems more likely that the DA knew they didn't have a case, but they told Chapman they would seek the death penalty if he didn't plead guilty to second-degree murder.

Again, Chapman's first attorney (court appointed) was Herbert Adlerberg, who was only on the case for two days. He claimed he quit due to lack of security (his, not Chapman's), which seems like a poor reason to quit after accepting a case. He knew Lennon was a hero to many people. He knew people would be upset with him for defending Chapman. Yet he got cold feet after only two days. What gives? If Adlerberg needed more security, why didn't he simply ask for more protection?

This is all very strange indeed, but nevertheless, the second-degree murder deal was made on Adlerberg's watch.

Is it possible that Adlerberg's mission was to advise Chapman to confess to the crime as a means of escaping a possible death sentence, even though the death penalty had been abolished in New York State? If Adlerberg advised Chapman in this manner, then he (Adlerberg) was breaking the law, which was probably the real reason he quit the case after only two days.

As I've said many times, had Chapman not confessed, he most likely would have been acquitted. The forensic evidence points to Jose Perdomo, the doorman, as the shooter. Chapman had no real motive for killing Lennon, and Chapman was judged to be completely sane. Any case against Chapman only makes sense if he is insane, but he is clearly sane.

Again, why was Chapman only charged with second-degree murder rather than first-degree murder?

Keep in mind that New York's Murder 1 and death penalty laws were changed in 1995, so that should be considered. But for the sake of argument, let's go with New York’s present state code.

(Ref. code, S 125.27, "Murder in the first degree".

See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/nycodes/c82/a28.html )

Having stated that, your interpretation New York state law for first-degree murder is incomplete, and therefore not fully accurate. First-degree murder covers other scenarios than those you listed; however, you are correct in your implied point that New York's Murder 1 code does not match precisely what Chapman was accused of doing—basically stalking, shooting and killing Lennon for the hell of it, to become famous. No, New York's Murder 1 code does not cover that precise scenario, but neither does New York's Murder 2 law. (See the description of NY's Second-Degree Murder in same URL previously provided.) Consequently, it is up to the discretion of the district attorney to charge someone with first or second degree murder on a case by case basis.

New York's Murder 2 code does NOT come close to defining a scenario similar to Chapman's alleged crime, which was stalking and killing his victim.

The closest scenario I could find to the crime Chapman was accused of, but never tried for, was the "terrorism" clause under the Murder 1 code. It states that Murder 1 is applicable if "the victim was killed in furtherance of an act of terrorism...", then the text points to another code which defines terrorism. Of course that opens a new legal debate: What is terrorism?

You're talking about two separate topics: (a) murder laws themselves, and (b) sentencing guidelines used by judges to decide how long someone should serve for committing a particular crime. My point deals only with topic "a", the murder laws themselves. You're talking about topic "b", sentencing guidelines.

I agree that Chapman is being treated harsher than the average citizen would be for killing a non-celebrity, but that really misses the point. Why was he charged with second-degree murder to premeditated murder? Keep in mind, Chapman was charged with second-degree murder early in the game, not at the sentencing hearing eight months after the shooting? There is no question that the murder was premeditated, which is a prerequisite for first-degree murder in most states. So far, I've gotten two completely different reasons for the second-degree charge. Fenton Bresler claimed it was standard procedure in New York because district attorneys wanted to bypass the death penalty. You and Chapman claim it was because first degree-murder only applies to killing police officers and other public officials. Which is it?

Sure, it never hurts to discuss legal and law enforcement matters with people trained and actively working in those fields. But again, you're missing the point. Chapman's sentence is a separate issue. Why was Chapman charged with second-degree murder to a premeditated slaying?

Ambulance chasers are usually civil litigators, and they often work for free but get a percentage of the settlement or winnings if the case goes to trial and a judgment is rendered. Chapman needs a criminal defense lawyer, and they don't work for free. The good ones are quite expensive.

I'm sure plenty of criminal defense lawyers would have shown up if he had money to pay them. Again, top-notch defense attorneys rarely work for free.

No criminal attorney is going to waste one second trying to prove a client is innocent when the client has already confessed to the crime. On the other hand, had Chapman pled not guilty, and had some money to pay top-notch attorneys, they would have been fighting each other to represent him. The fact that he pled guilty right away destroyed any interest.

The sponsors of the murder concocted a means of bypassing the legal system. It's outrageous that, given the lack of evidence against Chapman, his lawyers encouraged him to plead guilty, thereby giving up his right to a trial. In addition, he was charged with second-degree murder to a premeditated murder. That smells.

In a moral sense, you may be correct. But the law categorizes murder by severity. First-degree is the worst. Second-degree is next to the worst. Voluntary and involuntary manslaughter are not as bad. Sentencing guidelines are less severe for less serious types of murder/homicide.

He's off the street by his own doing, but second-degree murder sure as hell does not fit the crime because the murder was premeditated, and therefore first-degree.

The charge absolutely did not fit the crime. With John Lennon's murder, the killing was "willful and premeditated." The killer was planning, "lying in wait" for the victim. The killer targeted Lennon, stalked him, waited for him, and when the time was right, shot and killed him. This was absolutely a case of first-degree murder, not second-degree.

Having stated that, there is no evidence that Chapman is the person who did these things, other than his own confession.

You are correct that Chapman's confession harmed him a great deal, but the crime scene evidence indicates someone else shot Lennon. Also, the fact that Chapman was charged with second-degree murder early on, rather than first-degree murder, gives the appearance that Chapman may have been coerced into making a false confession. Your point about Chapman getting harsher treatment than an everyday sentence is correct for the lesser charge of second-degree murder, and there are no mandatory sentencing guidelines for the New York State; however, Chapman's fate is really not the issue. I am merely pointing out that it was extremely unusual for the killer of a beloved celebrity like John Lennon to be charged with second-degree murder even though Chapman himself said it was premeditated. Again, this does not mean I believe Chapman truly killed Lennon. I’m just point out a flaw in the legal system worked regarding the Lennon case.

That's exactly what I'm saying. There must have been. How else could it be explained? And the so-called plea arrangement was made while court-appointed defense attorney Herbert Adlerberg represented Chapman. Then Adlerberg resigned after only two days on the case.

Scenario No. 1 seems more likely, except the fault was with the Manhattan DA rather than the police. It is the DA's responsibility to charge the defendant, build a case and take the case to trial. As I have pointed out several times, the prosecution had no case!

Also, I have found a considerable amount of evidence showing that doorman Jose Perdomo (aka, Sanjenis) was (a) a professional hit man whom the CIA's had on its payroll for ten years, and (b) was a Cuban commander in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. This information is described in the following article, which I wrote and published on my website about a year ago (and two FBI agents subsequently came to my house to harass me about a month later, in early February 2005):

"Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo, John Lennon's true assassin(?)"

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/Usenet/Perdomo.htm

The mere fact that Chapman was charged with second-degree murder rather than first-degree indicates that a cover-up was underway from day one. This strongly suggests Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo, the professional hit man, is the same Jose Perdomo who was the doorman on the night Lennon was killed. If this had been revealed early on, do you think a jury would have convicted Chapman? No way. (Talk about reasonable doubt.)

The DA did not want an investigation, so they apparently threatened to charge Chapman with the Murder 1 and go for the death penalty (even though the death penalty was against the law in New York in 1980), thereby coercing a false confession from Chapman.

Yes, you are absolutely right on that point. There is no question that it was first-degree murder, not second-degree. I don't see how a reasonable person could conclude that what Chapman was accused of doing was anything other than first-degree murder. Had he gone to trial, he would have been accused of stalking and killing his victim in a cold blooded manner, the worst form of murder, which deserves the highest criminal charge and highest punishment. Even the people who hate Chapman should be outraged at this.

NBC Dateline's segment on John Lennon's murder

I understand you objected to NBC Dateline's segment on Lennon's murder.

Yes. It was pure propaganda.

When did it air?

Nov. 18, 2005. It was shown a few weeks before the 25th anniversary of Lennon's murder. It was 25 years ago last Dec. 8th.

Who produced the Dateline segment?

As far as I know, the entire segment was written and produced by NBC Correspondent Hoda Kotb, an Egyptian-born journalist. Anchors Stone Phillips and Ann Curry did some of the narration, but Ms. Kotb apparently did the research, conducted several interviews and wrote the script, according to MSNBC's website.

What was it called?

"The man who shot John Lennon." (See transcript.)

How would you rate it?

That depends on how you categorize it: journalism or propaganda?

As a piece of journalism it was terrible. I'd give it an F, mainly because of it's dishonesty. As propaganda, it was only slightly better, but not very good. I'd give it a C as a propaganda piece, mainly because the logic was transparent to anyone familiar with Lennon's murder.

I wrote a response which points out Ms. Kotb's flaws in logic and misrepresentation of facts. Here it is:

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/Dateline/DL_11182005_response.htm

I heard that Dateline's webpage accidentally showed a photograph of the crime scene, then quickly took it down. What was that about?

The day after the Dateline segment aired, I began looking at MSNBC's website. What really piqued my interest was a clear photograph, taken shortly after Lennon's murder, of the glass doors in front of stairs leading to the Dakota lobby. Lennon ran up those stairs and collapsed in the lobby after being fatally shot. As many people know, I have been trying to find good crime scene photographs like this for quite some time. Unfortunately, when I first saw the photo on MSNBC's website, I was not at my home computer and consequently did not have the tools to capture it. I assumed it would be up indefinitely, but to my surprise, the photograph was removed from MSNBC's website within a matter of days.

The bullet holes in the glass doors (in the photo) were very clear. From what I observed, there were two glass doors and bullet holes were in both sets of glass. I would need more time to analyze the bullet holes, but as I recall, they appeared to line up in a way that indicated that the shots were fired from the doorman's booth. As I recall, the photograph had a caption underneath that indicated it was provided by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

Around 2003/2004, I sent a request to the NYPD for the very same photos (bullet holes in glass doors). They responded advising me to contact the DA, but unfortunately, I procrastinated. Later, I obtained a videotape of the news coverage of Lennon's murder which contained film footage of the bullet-ridden doors, but not as clear as MSNBC's photo.

The photograph showed what appeared to be a temporary set of doors and door frame placed in front of the lobby stairs; however, I have been to the Dakota several times since June 2003 and have not seen a similar set of doors.

Here is the lobby entrance as it looked in June of 2003:

(a) http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/exhibit_f_lobbystairs.htm

Within the last year, I obtained the following photograph from the Internet:

(b) http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/graphics_Lennon_video_dec_8/Lobby_door_recent.jpg

The photo on MSNBC's website was similar the "b" photograph, except it was taken from the rear of the entryway, facing the street. The photo showed what looked like two doors in a temporary door frame.

I assume the temporary door frame is for cold weather, to keep the lobby warmer in the winter.

Also, I'm curious why MSNBC took the photo down so quickly. Perhaps someone realized that the bullet holes shown in the photo could not have been made from a gun fired where Chapman was standing. So they quickly pulled the photo.

Yes, that's very curious indeed. What other information do you wish to share at this time?
 

I think we've covered most of it. As I stated at the outset, my overall objective was to update people with new information I've learned since the last publication of my two books about the assassinations of President Kennedy and John Lennon. I suppose the biggest revelation is that both crimes were apparently sponsored by the same people for similar reasons. Again, I have concluded that both crimes were sponsored by Edward Teller with assistance from high-ranking individuals within the United States Air Force. In Kennedy's murder, Teller was assisted by General Curtis Lemay. In Lennon's murder, Teller was assisted by former Secretary of the Air Force, Hans Mark. In both murders, the motive was continued development of anti-defense missile systems. In 1963, Teller wanted to continue testing his anti-missile defense concept in the atmosphere, but Kennedy's test ban treaty had put the kibosh on Teller's plans. In 1980, Teller's crowd had just developed an approach that would use laser beams to replace missiles and theoretically shoot down incoming missiles launched at the United States from the Soviet Union or other hostile nations with nuclear weapons. A huge technological advance was made about three weeks before Lennon's murder. On November 14, 1980, a major test—code-named Dauphin—was conducted in the Nevada Desert that tested laser-nuclear technology, an innovation that became the mainstay of what eventually was called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) under the Reagan administration. The test was a huge success, and the political climate had just shifted dramatically to the right the Dauphin test was conducted in November 1980. President Carter had just lost the election to Reagan. No one knew it at the time, but the nation was about to embark on a trillion dollar defense buildup, all because of Teller’s SDI program, which was given quite a boost within circles of power in Washington due to the successful tests on November 14, 1980. Lennon had already demonstrated that he was opposed to militarism and had used his celebrity to oppose U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the sixties and seventies. Teller and his right-wing military followers would ensure Lennon would not do to SDI what he did with Vietnam.

Appendix A: Lennon songs containing "Do it, do it, do it."

by John Lennon

"We don't care what flag you're waving

We don't even want to know your name

We don't care where you're from or where you're going

All we know is that you came

You're making all our decisions

We have just one request of you

That while you're thinking things over

Here's something you just better do

Free the people now

Do it do it do it now

Well we were caught with our hands in the air

Don't despair paranoia is everywhere

We can shake it with love when we're scared

So let's shout it aloud like a prayer

We understand your paranoia

But we don't want to play your game

You think you're cool and know what you are doing

666 is your name

So while you're jerking off each other

You better bear this thought in mind

Your time is up you better know it

But maybe you don't read the signs

Well you were caught with your hands in the kill

And you still got to swallow your pill

As you slip and you slide down the hill

On the blood of the people you killed

Stop the killing now

Do it do it do it now

Bring on the Lucie

John Lennon, Yoko Ono

Do the oz,

do the oz,

do the oz, babe,

do the oz,

do the oz,

do the oz, babe,

do the oz,

do the oz, babe.

Put your left hand in,

your right hand out.

Do the oz, babe,

dance all about.

Do the oz,

do the oz, babe,

do the oz,

do the oz, babe,

do the oz,

do the oz, babe.

Pull your right leg up,

your left leg down.

Do the oz, babe,

get it all around.

Do the oz,

do the oz,

do it, do it, do the oz,

ah, do the oz,

do the oz,

do the oz,

do it, do it, do it,

do it, do it,

do the oz.

Pull your left wing in,

and put your right wing out.

Do the oz, baby,

spread it all about, ow!

Do the oz.

Uh, uh.

D'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do,

d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do,

d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do - d'do

now, now, now, now, now, now, now,

do it, do it, do it, do it, do it,

do it, do it, do it.

Well, do the oz,

yeah, do the oz,

yeah, do the oz, oz, baby,

well, do the oz, oz, baby,

well, do the oz, oz, baby,

well, do the oz, now, baby,

do it!

Appendix B: Photos of Jose Perdomo (aka, Sanjenis; aka, Sam Jenis)

FOOTNOTES:

FN01 - Jim Gaines, of People Magazine interviewed Chapman in 1987. Gaines wrote: "Before [Chapman] left for Fort Chaffee [in August 1975], he began seriously dating Jessica Blankenship, a friend from fundamentalist [Christian] prayer groups. In one such group, led by a Decatur [Georgia] psychologist, Chapman and Jessica had their first experience with some of the rarer, more dramatic forms of charismatic Christianity: the laying on of hands, miraculous healing, speaking in tongues, the gift of prophecy and the deliverance from demons. 'At times I would be on my back and five or six people would be laying on hands,' Chapman recalled years later. 'At other times there would be manifestations of demonic power. I remember one man barking like a dog and then assuming a karate position… We talked about demons more than we did about Jesus'." (Jim Gaines, People Magazine, Feb. 23, 1987, "The Man Who Shot John Lennon"; p 71)

FN02 - Cuban Information Archives reveal a "Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo" (aliases: Joaquin Sanjenis, Sam Jenis) was a member of Brigade 2506 during the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. See the following webpage:

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_026-050/doc0035.html

Cached at:

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/Usenet/Brig2506.pdf

To order Salvador Astucia's book about John Lennon's murder, click here:

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/order_hardcopy_lennon.htm

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