FTR#297—Going to the Dogs—(One
30-minute segment) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded
on 4/29/2001.)
In January of 2000, Diane
Whipple, the coach of the women’s lacrosse team at St. Mary’s college, was
mauled to death by two 120-pound Presa Canario dogs at her residence in San
Francisco. (The relatively rare Presa
Canario is a breed that is adapted to fighting and
security activity.) As investigation of the case proceeded, a number of strange
and disturbing details began to emerge.
1.
The dogs
belonged to two San Francisco
attorneys, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, who are
married. Investigators soon determined that the attorneys were caring for the
dogs on behalf of two of their clients, who were members of the Aryan
Brotherhood, a powerful, white supremacist gang based in correctional
institutions. “The
dog that killed a San Francisco woman had a long history of viciousness and was
secretly owned by two Aryan Brotherhood prison gang members as part of an
underground scheme to breed and sell animals while in maximum security at
Pelican Bay [a California maximum-security prison], officials said. At the time
of Friday’s fatal attack on Diane Whipple, the 120-pound Presa
Canario dog, Bane, was being kept by the inmates’
attorneys, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller of Pacific
Heights, as was another dog, Hera. . . . Authorities said Pelican
Bay inmates Paul ‘Cornfed’ Schneider and Dale Bretches
were investigated by state prison authorities last year and found guilty in
February of running a dog-breeding scheme while in the maximum-security housing
unit at the prison.” (“Prison gang Duo Linked to Dog that Killed
Woman” by Jaxon Van Derbeken;
San Francisco Chronicle; 1/30/2001;
p. A1.)
2. Eventually, it turned out that Schneider (38 years old) was
the couple’s recently adopted son. “News that the lawyers whose dog mauled a San Francisco
woman to death have adopted the animal’s prior owner—a prison inmate and a
member of the Aryan Brotherhood—has veteran family attorneys shaking their heads
in disbelief. Adult adoptions are not unusual, but when Robert Noel, 59, and
Marjorie Knoller, 45, became the parents of
38-year-old Paul John ‘Cornfed’ Schneider, now
serving time in Pelican Bay
for aggravated assault and attempted, it turned a tragic situation into a
bizarre one. Adoption lawyers and scholars say they have never heard of a
lawyer adopting an adult client, a situation that raises a spectrum of ethical
issues. ‘I don’t know what’s going on in this dog case,’ said Nordin Blacker, a prominent San
Francisco family lawyer. ‘This seems particularly
strange.’” (“Lawyers’ Adoption of Inmate Stuns Legal Experts” by
Harriet Chiang; San Francisco Chronicle;
2/1/2001; p. A20.)
3. The case was to become stranger still. After being charged with second-degree
murder, Noel and Knoller proceeded to drive at very
high speed to the rural residence of a friend and client, and were ticketed by
pursuing police. “As the grand jury deliberated, Noel and Knoller
headed north on Intestate 80 in a maroon Chevrolet Impala. Undercover San
Francisco police in unmarked cars followed close behind,
but [San Francisco D.A. Terence] Hallinan would not say why authorities ordered the
surveillance. A California Highway Patrol officer stopped Noel in Woodland
at 4:29 p.m. after he reportedly
made several unsafe lane changes while driving through southern Yolo
County at speeds reportedly topping
90 mph. ‘Mr. Noel was very cordial and didn’t seem to be too upset by the
incident,’ said CHP Sgt. Willie Brooks. Noel was issued a ticket for reckless
driving. Before heading off, Noel told the San Francisco
officers where he was headed, said Lt. Henry Hunter. The couple arrived at a
ranch owned by their friend and client James Patton in Corning, a small Tehama
County town about 170 miles north of San Francisco, shortly after 6 p.m. . . .
Three days after the attack a judge finalized the couple’s adoption of Paul ‘Cornfed’ Schneider, a 38-year-old convict serving a life
sentence at Pelican Bay
State Prison.” (“Murder, Manslaughter Charges in Dog Attack” by Jaxon Van Derbeken; San Francisco Chronicle;
3/28/2001; p. A8.)
4.
As the case
became ever stranger, indications emerged that there may have been a sexual
dimension to the attorneys’ relationship to their clients. “What’s more, prison officials said Hallinan’s investigators found nude photos of Knoller in Schneider’s cell while searching for evidence.”
(Idem.)
5.
Subsequent
articles indicated at the possibility of bestiality. “The documents, including affidavits for
search warrants of the couple’s Pacific
Heights apartment, suggest
that authorities suspected sexual abuse of the dogs by the couple.
Investigators theorized that possible sexual abuse of the animals may have
contributed to the attack on Whipple. But officials said yesterday that it
appears found little to support that theory. Yet, according to one affidavit, Pelican
Bay Prison Sgt. Joe Akin reported
finding ‘a letter disguised as legal mail addressed to (inmate Paul) Schneider’
that discusses ‘sexual activity between Noel, Knoller
and the dog Bane.’ Noel and Knoller are Schneider’s
attorneys and adoptive parents. Akin reported that he saw ‘numerous photos of Knoller posing nude with fighting dog drawings’ among the
property of Paul ‘Cornfed’ Schneider and cell-mate
dale Bretches. Both inmates are artists, and have
made the Presa Canario dogs
the subjects of many of their works. Akin also reported that he ‘discovered
communications between Noel and Knoller to Schneider
that described sexual activities between Knoller and
Noel and included photos and drawings of dogs and fighting dogs’ as well as a
photo of a male dog’s genitals.’” (“Killer Dogs Had Attacked Blind
Woman” by Jaxon Van Derbeken;
San Francisco Chronicle; 3/302001; p.
A19.)
6.
Noel’s
background also raised some interesting questions about the case. Noel worked
for the National Security Agency, in addition to the Department of Justice. “For five years,
during college, he worked at the National Security Agency, developing
surveillance photos among other work. In 1969, he became a tax lawyer for the
Department of Justice in the Nixon administration. By 1981, now moved to San
Diego, he joined Rogers & Wells, a private San
Diego firm run, in part, by a Nixon associate. His wife
at the time worked in early childhood education.” (“Owners of Killer
Dog Abandoned Conventional Career Paths” by Dan Reed and Michael Bazeley; San
Jose Mercury News; 2/3/2001;
p. 7A.)
7.
It would
not be unreasonable to ask whether Noel may still have some connection to NSA,
or some other intelligence agency. While at Rogers & Wells, he worked with
an attorney who had previously represented C. Arnholt
Smith, one of Richard Nixon’s principal financial backers. He had worked
opposite that attorney (Mitch Lathrop) while working for the Nixon Justice
Department. “Lathrop
was impressed: Bob Noel was barely 34 years old, fresh from his stint in
Washington, dispatched to clean up after the failure of U.S. National Bank. For
someone trying to master the art of trial work, this was litigation heaven. ‘It
was like something out of a grade-B novel,’ said Lathrop, a San
Diego attorney whose firm represented the bank’s owner,
C. Arnholt Smith. ‘Everyone wanted to depose Noel’s
client, the Comptroller whose auditors had gone through the bank records. Bob’s
role,’ said Lathrop, ‘was to protect the United
States government.’ Lathrop asked Noel in 1981
to join him at the San Diego office of Rogers & Wells, headed by William
Rogers, attorney general under Eisenhower and Nixon’s secretary of state. Noel
handled big-name clients, earning good money to support Karen, the red-haired
woman he’d married the day after President Kennedy was shot, and their three
kids.” (“Story of Torn Family, Estranged Son May Offer Insight into
Actions in Mauling Case” by Patrick May; San
Jose Mercury News; 3/29/2001;
p. 18A.)
8.
An odd
coincidence enabled Noel’s son by his first marriage to escape prison himself. “One night in
1983, a San Diego police officer
pulled up at the front door with the boy. ‘The officer was going to write up a
report the next day, which meant Rob would have entered the juvenile justice
system.’ It never happened. In a bizarre incident, Noel said, the officer was
murdered later that night.” (Idem.)
9.
Both Noel
and Knoller represent themselves to the media as
championing the downtrodden. Their choice of clients (in addition to the Aryan
Brotherhood members in the case discussed here) seems odd in light of their
representations to the media. “. . .[they] started taking cases
involving guards accused of wrongdoing at Pelican
Bay.” (Idem.)
10.
Interestingly,
guards at Pelican Bay
have been accused of collaborating with Aryan Brotherhood members, whom they
allegedly used as enforcers within the institution. At the same time that the
Whipple death made headlines, the Aryan Brotherhood were
alleged to have conspired to murder Arizona
prison officials. “The Aryan Brotherhood prison gang has an ‘ongoing plan’
to kill Terry Stewart, state prisons director, and other correctional officers,
according to a Department of Corrections intelligence report, written late last
year. The October 18 report, obtained by The
Arizona Republic, says members of the white-supremacist organization are
mounting a terror campaign in hopes that the department will overturn a policy
requiring the permanent isolation of gang members.” (“Prison
Officials on Aryan Death List” by Dennis Wagner; The Arizona Republic;
2/4/2001; p. A1.)
11.
One of the
questions posed in the broadcast concerns the possibility that Robert Noel’s
background working in the corridors of power (NSA, Department of Justice, etc.)
might betoken ongoing involvement with some aspect of the intelligence
community. That, in turn, might suggest that his and Knoller’s
activities in connection with the Aryan Brotherhood might entail more than
meets the eye. The possibility that some of the alleged illicit sexual
activities might involve the making or underground bestiality or pornography
materials and/or sexual blackmail of individuals who use such material is not
one to be too readily cast aside.
12.
It is
interesting to speculate about some of the possibilities that may arise from
George W. Bush’s faith-based initiatives program. One of the institutions that Bush wants to empower to expand its
work within prisons is the organization of convicted Watergate burglar Charles
Colson. (For more about Colson, see also: G#3,
Miscellaneous Archive Show M59, and FTR#’s 253, 259.) “But for Mr. Bush, this idea is more than an
abstraction. He points to the prison program here, just outside Houston,
as a model of the sort of thing he would like to see spread across the country.
The program, called InnerChange, is the brainchild of
Charles Colson, the convicted Watergate felon who himself found religion while
serving time. It attempts to rehabilitate with an intensive
two-year indoctrination in biblical teachings and proper Christian behavior.
Nearly 200 inmates, mostly drug dealers and thieves, are enrolled in this
seven-days-a-week regimen designed to set them right in the months before they
return to society. As governor of Texas,
Mr. Bush helped persuade state-prison officials to embrace the program in
1997.” (“Some Texas
Prisoners Get Religion—16 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week” by Jim VandeHei; Wall Street
Journal; 1/26/2001; p.
A1.)
13.
In that
same context, it is interesting to note who the director of Bush’s program is
going to be. “And
now John DiIulio, the author of the tough-on-crime
manifesto Let ‘Em Rot, who falsely
prophesied a ‘rising tide of juvenile superpredators,’
has been made the first director of the brand-new White House office of
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.” (“Legislation: The 107th
Congress: A Look Ahead, A Call to Action” by Kyle O’Dowd; The Champion; March/2001; p. 47; www.criminaljustice.org.) (See also: Miscellaneous Archive Shows M14-17, as
well as FTR#’s 02, 7.) (Recorded on 4/29/2001.)