In May 1985, federal agents arrested a 47-year-old retired Navy chief warrant officer on charges that he had spent the better part of two decades spying and providing top secret U.S. documents to the Soviet Union. It was a headline story for weeks and one of the last major spy cases of the Cold War era.Details emerged that the man, John Anthony Walker, Jr., had provided codes for more than 200,000 encrypted naval messages to the KGB and organized a spy ring in what was considered by many to be one of the most damaging cases of espionage in the United States.

What caused a 10-year veteran of the U.S. Navy to become a spy? According to the FBI, Walker’s motivations were strictly financial. In 1966, he had taken out a large loan to open a bar in South Carolina, but the bar was a failure. Mounting debt and the financial pressures of having to provide for a wife and four children are what motivated him to drive four hours from his duty station in Norfolk, Va. to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. For the next 18 years, Walker provided the KGB with classified documents in exchange for a weekly salary ranging from $500 to $1,000.

Twenty-four years later, the case highlights the reason why the Department of Defense continues to fight to protect its military personnel from accumulating unmanageable debt.

Matters of National Security

“When you’re entrusting an individual with classified information, any sort of weakness that can be exploited by our adversaries to try and garner that information, like finances, is a factor that needs to be considered,” Air Force Lt. Col. David Silverman, commander of the 21st Force Support Squadron, told FRONTLINE.

In 2008, the Navy reported that financial issues accounted for roughly 80 percent of security clearance revocations and denials — approximately 1,500 sailors out of 330,000 active-duty Navy personnel. Cpt. Mark Patton, chief of staff for the Navy Installations Command, told FRONTLINE that security clearance revocations seriously impact a unit’s mission readiness. When one service member is unable to deploy because he or she cannot obtain a security clearance, he explained, the military is often forced to deploy another service member sooner than expected or extend a deployment in order to fill that void. “Any time the nation is at war, any issue that affects your operational readiness and prevents a service member from carrying out his duties and responsibilities is a significant issue,” Patton said.

A 2005 study commissioned by the Department of Defense showed that the U.S. military, excluding the Army, revoked 2,654 clearances that year due to financial problems, up from 284 in 2002, the year before the invasion of Iraq. During that four-year period, more than 6,300 troops from the Navy, Air Force and Marines lost their clearances because of financial troubles. (Figures were not available for the Army, the largest branch of the military.)

Retired Navy commander David Julian, the director of personal finance for the Defense Department, told FRONTLINE that financial problems could affect a service member’s performance during missions. “If we’ve got a service member who’s deployed, potentially in harm’s way, they’ve got to be thinking about the important tasks at hand,” Julian said. “They can’t be thinking about their personal finances at home.”

Money Management Skills

Like most Americans in their late teens or early 20s, new recruits have received little financial education before entering the military. Members of the armed forces earn more money during a deployment — from hazard pay, tax-free income and separation pay — and military financial counselors from bases across the country report that many of these troops return home with little understanding on how to manage it, often finding themselves in financial danger.

Since 1994, the military has mandated financial literacy programs for troops. “Long before the current economic crisis, DoD has valued the financial education of service members and family members, [and] provided them access to resources and programs,” Julian said. “When the current economic crisis hit, we were able to fall back on those controls we already had in place to help our service members be financially ready.”

Betty Geren, who oversees financial education for soldiers and families at Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the 101st Airborne Division, said her department provides mandatory financial education for all first-term soldiers. Staff also provide one-on-one counseling, pull CarFax and credit reports, and assess if a soldier qualifies for a low-interest or no-interest loan. Through a debt liquidation program, the department can also negotiate lower monthly payments and interest rates for a soldier in severe financial trouble. “I think we’re better educating them when they first get here,” said Geren, who has taught financial education for more than 15 years. “And I see more soldiers coming in to be proactive about their finances.”

The Military Lending Act and Other Provisions

Congress has also played a part in protecting the financial security of the nation’s forces. When senior military officials recognized that one of the biggest obstacles to the financial security of its troops was the proliferation of payday lenders — small short-term loan centers that come with extraordinary high interest rates — which popped up near bases in the last decade, Congress took action.

In 2007, lawmakers passed the Military Lending Act, which put an interest rate cap of 36 percent on loans made to service members and their dependents. It requires lenders to disclose the terms of the loan information in writing with a clear description of the payment obligations, the annual percentage rate and fees associated with the loan. The act also prohibits lenders from rolling over debt from one loan to another and from using a personal check or vehicle title as collateral for the loan. Since the act was implemented, it has effectively banned payday lenders from capitalizing on a service member’s debt.

The Military Lending Act is not the only provision in place to assist members of the armed forces, Julian said. Since the Civil War, the government has passed several laws designed to protect the rights and property of service members at war. A 1940 bill included a provision that caps all interest rates on debt accrued prior to active duty service at 6 percent. The bill’s protections were expanded further in 2003, when it was renamed the Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act.

Even with established educational and support programs, Julian said the next step is to expand and improve the financial services for military personnel. “If we can get our service members to understand the right way to do things financially and have the awareness of the programs that are out there,” he said, “then that’ll help solve 90 percent of the problem.”

Watch the accompanying PBS FRONTLINE story that aired on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, for which I was the associate producer.

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Iraq Portfolio – Top 24

My top picks from the thousands I took while deployed to the northern Iraq province of Kirkuk from September 2005 to September 2006. They have been published on various news and internet sources, many are published in the book “Screaming Eagles,” by Russ and Susan Bryant and one received honorable mention in the 2006 Keith L. Ware journalism competition for single/standalone picture.

All photos taken with a Nikon D2H.

To see additional photos I took while in Iraq, visit my Flicker portfolio.

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Gated Community

Featured in the 2009 photojournalism magazine RealEyes, published by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

All photos takes with a Canon EOS 50D.

Wandering through the dim hallways, up and downs flights of stairs of the single resident occupancy buildings (SRO), I quickly got to know the colorful residents and employees who live and work there. Each person has a unique story to tell and together, they form a larger community, unseen by many living in the Bay area.

With over fifteen SRO hotels in San Francisco, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic provides affordable housing to some of the cities most needy residents. While these SROs are located in aging hotel buildings, in parts of the city marred by high drug use, violence and gang activity, they are home to thousands of people who might otherwise be homeless.

Despite all the negatives, the residents who walk through these iron-gated front doors demonstrate that home is truly the place where you live.

To see additional photos taken of the SROs, visit my Flicker portfolio.

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© 2009 Linsay Rousseau Burnett

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This animation was used at the beginning of all Bastogne Production videos. A similar version was created for Bastogne TV stories.

Graphics design software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
Video editing software: Adobe PremierPro CS2

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The first generation intro graphic designed to play before all Bastogne TV stories.

Graphics design software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
Video editing software: Adobe PremierPro CS2

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© 2009 Linsay Rousseau Burnett

In the military you learn to expect screw-ups, especially when it comes to your money. So for those of us returning to school on the new GI bill, the Department of Veterans Affairs is easing the transition to civilian life by doings things the military way.

After weeks and weeks of waiting for Post 9/11 GI Bill education benefits – tuition, fees, housing and book stipends – we can finally get our money.  Sort of. Veteran students, already nearly two months into the fall semester, can now apply to the VA for “Emergency Checks” of up to $3,000 to help ease the economic burden of not having received the money we applied for starting in May and were supposed to get in August.

At this rate, it will take longer for the VA to get me my education money than it took for the Army to turn me into a soldier.

Why can’t student vets get the money they were promised back when the Post 9/11 GI Bill was signed in July 2008? According to Paul Sherbo, a VA spokesman, the department has been overwhelmed with new applications, and the backlog has caused massive delays. And why bother offering these emergency checks? According to the VA Secretary, Eric Shinseki, “Students should be focusing on their studies, not worrying about financial difficulties.”

So let me get this straight. After loud complaints from veterans groups about vets being forced to drop out of school for lack of money, the VA can process these emergency checks, but couldn’t manage to make that first tuition payment? In the Army, this would be called an “ass backwards” approach (a technical term).

By the VA’s own count, over a quarter of a million education claims have been filed by eligible vets since the first of May, and about 70% of those have been completed.  While this might sound like progress, let’s not confuse completion with distribution. As of the first week in October, the VA has distributed only 27,000 payments for living and books stipends or tuition payments. In other words, nearly 200,000 veterans haven’t received a dollar.

No one seems to be keeping more detailed numbers beyond that, but my own informal survey of five of the 10 University of California campuses shows the percentage of veterans who have received tuition payments to be hovering around 11%. Pretty pitiful for the state that boasts the largest number of veterans in the country.

The university officials assisting these veterans were baffled by the delays and exasperated by the lack of communication by the VA. This unresponsive bureaucracy must be incredibly frustrating for these civilians. Luckily for veterans, the military conditioned us to accept inept behavior without question and learn to take comfort in just the slightest glimmer of hope. At least we can sleep better at night knowing the VA has over 900 personnel processing these education claims. And, that everyone is working overtime. And, that the agency even rehired retired claims processors to provide additional support.

There is of course the minor problem about who’s going to pay the interest that’s been accruing on the education loans some veterans were forced to take out while waiting for their GI money. Most universities require a student to pay tuition and fees up front; so turning in an IOU from Uncle Sam doesn’t quite do the trick.

At UC San Diego, Vonda Garcia, the associate director of financial aid, said her office hasn’t heard anything from the VA about the status of their students’ GI Bill money or details about these emergency checks. In the meantime, her counselors are discouraging veterans from applying for the emergency payments and are going out of their way to find money for them through the university. “We don’t want to risk the VA messing up and these vets end up having to owe any more money,” said Garcia.

To add insult to injury, some veterans who did receive these emergency checks apparently are having trouble getting them cashed. While not saying this explicitly, the VA website notes that, “In many cases these checks are handwritten and could pose concerns of fraud from banks.” There’s now a special 800 number for banks to call so they can verify the check’s authenticity and the veteran’s identity. Perhaps tellers will have better luck than your average vet does in penetrating the automated phone system that doesn’t let you leave a message.

When Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia said that veterans “who have been serving since 9/11 should have the same opportunity for a first class educational future as those who served during World War II,” I believed him. So did hundreds of thousands of my fellow student veterans who, like me, have little choice but doing what we perfected in the military – suck it up, drive on and wait for the VA to pull it’s head out of it’s “fourth point of contact” (another technical term).

I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I wasn’t sure what to expect as I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, turned down the hallway and stood outside of Matt’s door. I took a breath and tried to exhale all remaining nervousness and hesitancy as my knuckles struck the door. “Linsay, I’m so glad you made it,” greeted Matt in a familiar timber and we embrace for the first time in seven years. Has it really been that long since Peter (his roommate and my boyfriend at the time) and I sat across from him one sunny afternoon in Williamsburg, Va. when things changed forever? “I’m HIV positive,” Matt had said then in a perceptibly detached tone. It was the middle of his senior year at college but within months he was on a plane to California. Word had leaked out and Williamsburg wasn’t a good place to be gay and HIV positive. Standing in the hallway hugging this brilliant intellectual and accomplished thespian, his surgical mask rubs up against my cheek and reminds me why Matthew Blanchard is once again forced into seclusion and that this time, life as he knew it would never look the same.

It was a Sunday afternoon in late 2004. The creak in his neck had gotten worse and he stayed up all night practicing yoga trying to work it out, finally making his way over to the gym when it opened at 6:30, where he convinced the staff to let him practice yoga in an empty studio. About to give up and return home, he fell out of a backbend and his neck finally cracked. As he puts it now, recalling the sensation, “At that moment, I saw a flash of bright light. I was having an immaculate vision,” That flash, he thought, was the HIV virus that was circulating in his body, breaking through the now clear path through his spine into his brain. “It attacked my intellect. Pushed me into psychosis,” said Matt.

Returning to his apartment, delusional, Matt began tearing his compulsively organized studio room apart; obsessively chasing an imaginary glowing light he saw bouncing on the wall. Following a conversation in the mirror with his alter ego and an incoherent discussion with his next-door spiritual guide, “I chased the light up the fire escape and on to the roof. I spent three days on the roof watching the sun and moon rise and praying to these five crosses on the skyline. Which were actually scaffolding cranes,” said Matt.

Finally, he climbed down the fire escape on the opposite side of the building entering what he thought was his apartment. Wearing a white bathrobe covered in pigeon poop and rainbow pride flip-flops, he embraced the reserved Italian Catholic young woman who walked out of her kitchen. “She was scared out of her wits,” Matt vividly recalled. But she walked him to his apartment and called his HIV case manager, who sat next to him in the taxi as it drove to the UCSF medical center.

“I was there for a month because I had pneumonia. That’s when I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS,” said Matt. When he was finally released from the hospital, he was set up at a halfway house and started taking AIDS medications and receiving treatment for his psychosis. “I was regaining my sanity,” said Matt, “I was having clear, rational thoughts. There is such a distinct difference between psychosis and rational thought and I had to come to terms with that. The psychosis was such a blissful out of world experience that I loved it. I cherished every moment of it. Even the horrifying parts.”

When he returned to his apartment a few months later, Matt described his situation as one of anguish, isolation and stasis. His depression was compounded by a constant craving for the “blissfulness of an immaculate experience” he felt during his psychosis. In his previous work with HIV/AIDS advocacy groups, he had become well versed on the effects of crystal methamphetamine, which he describes as “the other epidemic in San Francisco and gay communities in the nation.” Matt made an educated choice. “I was going to get as close as I could to retaining a psychotic experience but experience it with perspective and control.”

The first time he smoked crystal meth was “another out of this world experience. All the problems in my life disappeared.” After a year of heavy drug use, in the middle of 2006, Matt stopped taking his AIDS medication.  “It wasn’t an intentional decision. I spent so much time partying, getting high, I had no regular schedule to follow, no pattern in life.” With AIDS medication, there is a six-hour interval between dosages, which must be taken regularly each day without skipping or the virus will develop a drug immunity. This went on for over a year and a half. “I was continuously getting high, getting depressed, getting a cold and over and over again,” said Matt, “I was high all the time so my body couldn’t distinguish what was and wasn’t a cold.”

In late September, 2007, Matt caught another cold. “I thought it would just go away so I wasn’t seeing my doctor, I wasn’t taking my meds. I fell asleep watching Conan O’Brien. That night Robin Williams was on.” The next thing Matt remembers is being awakened by a loud pounding on his door, “like someone was trying to break in.” It was now October 7th. As he dragged himself out of bed, he said he felt fatigued but was in no pain. He opened the front door and there stood his case manager and three fire fighters. “I walked towards them, my vision faded and I collapsed and fell unconscious,” he recalled.

Matt doesn’t remember what happened, but his doctors speculate that he had been unconscious in his bed for between 10 to 12 days. “It takes 14 days for someone to die,” Matt interjects as a side note. When he arrived at the hospital, the doctors said he was covered in his own urine and feces, blood dripping out of his mouth, his teeth falling out and the skin on his face was black and green. He died three times and was resuscitated. For over a week, Matt had been lying in his bed, not moving, his faced pressed to the pillow, the bacteria from the saliva draining out of his mouth, forming a puddle under the left side of his face, infecting the skin. “The doctors at St. Francis were trying to defeat my pneumonia but they couldn’t control the bacterial infection. So after two weeks they sent me to UCSF for an emergency debridement,” Matt recited in a detached clinical tone.

They debrided much of the left side of his face: amputated his upper jaw, removed his upper lip, the left side of his mouth and his left nostril. “I don’t remember waking up. I do recall the doctors telling me what had happened and explaining why I couldn’t talk. I didn’t touch my face the whole time. I didn’t see it.” It was three o’clock in the afternoon on November 15 when a doctor finally brought him a mirror. “I remember slowly lifting it up and I could see my forehead, my eyes and the top of my nose, and then I could see that I was missing a nostril and I could see that I had no upper lip and no sinus cavity and I could see that I was missing teeth down at the bottom and had half a lip on the bottom and then I could see the entire hole in my face,” said Matt, as he traced his face with his hands. “I remember thinking, wow, that’s fascinating. And then thinking, oh my god, I’m grotesque.”

Like when he was diagnosed HIV positive, Matt didn’t cry. He was stoic, emotionless. “I don’t remember crying until five months later, after my first reconstructive surgery (on January 20, 2008),” he said, an audible breath forced through his tracheostomy tube. They took a 6 by 16 inch piece of flesh from his lower left leg to form the area where the lips once were. Cutting into the bone, they took a chunk of fibula to replace his jaw.

Seeing his face after the surgery is what finally brought him to tears. “I thought, if this is the best they can do after one reconstruction, what can they do with more? I’m going to look like a monster for the rest of my life,” said Matt, choking back his resentment. “This has become my second skin,” he said, holding up the blue facial mask you see doctors wearing in emergency rooms. Returning to his apartment, alone, a wave of relief and happiness washed over him when he saw the little plastic baggie still containing those precious white crystals, sitting next to his pipe. “I immediately started smoking. It was my escape. It was the only way I could find to rid my mind of all the horrifying images I had of myself,” said Matt.

Five days later, on April 18, the second surgery fixed the right side of his face and he drooled less. During the two-month wait before his next surgery, the first of three nasal operations, he became involved in substance abuse recovery. Lying about his continued drug use, he underwent his first nasal surgery. Taking a T-shaped square piece of skin from his forehead and scalp, they flipped it down to construct the front part of his left nostril and to shape the septum.

This was his last surgery. “For some confounded reason, at my pre-op appointment for my second nasal surgery, I blabbered, I’m addicted to crystal meth,” said Matt, the right side of his mouth curling up slightly into an ironic smile. Everything changed after that. The doctors won’t operate until he’s been sober for two months. “I’ve gone for four appointments for surgery that I’ve failed the urine test because I used. I just spent a month and a half getting sober and relapsed on Wednesday of last week,” Matt said.

Matt doesn’t get out much. And his loss of facial expressions has been especially troubling. “My lack of lips, my distorted nose. My inability to ever kiss a person again. I can’t ever smile again,” said Matt. He has had to relearn even the simplest of things. With few teeth left in his mouth and no soft pallet he can’t chew properly, without lips he can’t drink out of a cup and must use a straw, he can’t fit a spoon into his small mouth and must cover himself with absorbent bed covers to catch falling food. “I’ll never eat out at a restaurant again,” he mentioned.

So why are you still using…? Matt jumped in before I even finish the question, “I think if I’ve survived this far and haven’t killed myself because of the trauma then I can do it. But it’s the times that I don’t believe, that I relapse. When the thought enters my mind that I’m not strong enough of a person to survive recovery and survive deformity and disfigurement that I turn to drugs.”

As I helped him make the bed with the freshly cleaned white and brown sheets the maid brought up earlier, Matt told me that a lack of money is about the only thing that will keep him from using. With his only income coming from disability and Medicare payments, money is something he doesn’t have a lot of. What he does have, at least for now, is time. And he’s spending a lot of that time sitting in front of his computer. “Through my blogging and my photos, I’m hoping that someone can hear my awful, disgusting terrible story – horrific – and be disgusted. You have the right. But be moved to never make the mistakes I have and to love yourself —to believe in yourself.”

Matt admitted that each day is a struggle and that his pain, rage and sadness often drown out his own good advice. One bright light – his T cells are close to 500 and his viral level is undetectable, which he said is about normal. But that tiny glimmer quickly faded as Matt habitually wrapped the elastic strings of his mask around his ears so he can walk me to the door. Today was a good day. And on good days, “I still have complete confidence, belief and faith in my potential to contribute something beautiful to the world,” said Matt, his bright blue eyes smiling at me, even though his mouth can’t.

*Update 10/26/09: Matt has graduated from a 90 day residential recovery program, “garnering such high esteem and accolades from his peers and the staff there.” On 29 September 2009, he successfully underwent a second surgery at San Francisco General Hospital to straighten his nose.

He’s also become deeply immersed in his work for the International Professional Partnership for Sierra Leon as the Communications & Development Director and the Corporate Identity Designer & Webmaster.

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Berkeley Iron Works

If your exercise routine seems a little monotonous, then maybe you should consider a hobby that lets you go over and under and maybe even sideways. The Berkeley Ironworks is not only a fully size fitness gym, but has over 20,000 square feet of various climbing terrain. People come here for the convenience of indoor climbing to stay fit and sane. Broadcast 30 April 2009

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Allegro Music Store

In these grim economic times, chain stores and online retail companies still pose an increasing threat to small businesses. The Allegro Music Store in Fremont, CA has been a mainstay in the community for the past 47 years and remains full of life. Broadcast 12 March 2009

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Used Fashion

In these tight economic times, style might be the last thing on your mind. But if you’re worried that your look might be so five minutes ago, this is a place where yesterday’s clothing becomes tomorrow’s fashion. And even if you don’t really care what you wear and usually get dressed in the dark, you should still listen to find out where you can get good affordable clothing. Broadcast 7 May 2009

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Legal Muse

Peter Maybarduk is a DC-based singer/songwriter, but his movements around the world and humanitarian activities give his music life. Listen to this one-on-one interview. Broadcast 8 April 2009

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Matt the Butcher

An audio exercise interviewing someone with a noisy job. 4 February 2009

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Giants Game During SF Earthquake

An editing exercise where I was given a handful of full length audio clips and told to edit together a story, paying close attention to audio mixing, in one hour. SFX sounds created by me from the clips I was given.

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© 2009 Linsay Rousseau Burnett

Take a stroll through the Allegro Music Store and it’s rich history. Hover your mouse over the collage to scroll right and left or grab the scroll bar at the bottom. Pressing the play button in the bottom left hand corner will scroll the collage automatically. Click on the audio icon in the bottom right hand corner and press the play button to listen to the song “Training Day,” by the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, in the background as you explore the collage. Alto saxophonist Gabe Eaton works at the store. As you wander through, click on the various icons to watch video clips, listen to audio or read more about Allegro.

To view the full screen version, visit the Vuvox website.

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Photo collage created using Adobe Photoshop CS3
Video elements edited using Final Cut Pro 6.0
Audio elements edited using Pro Tool LE 7.0

To view more photos of the Allegro Music Store visit my Flicker collage.

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© 2009 Linsay Rousseau Burnett

Camera: Sony PD 150
Video editing software: Adobe PremierPro CS2
Graphics designed in: Adobe Photoshop CS2
Additional effects: Adobe AfterEffects CS2

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A morale music video and historical look at the 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the present day operations of the newly created 1st Brigade Combat Team. Created solely for use by the 1st BCT and support organizations. November 2004.

Memorial video created in remembrance of Sgt. Rickey Jones, C Co., 1-327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).
Died 22 February 2006 near Hawijah, Iraq.

Video highlighting the accomplishments of the Iraqi Army in assuming control over military operations in the Kirkuk Province.

Morale video created following the end of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division’s (Air Assault) year long deployment to the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom IV. November 2006.

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The following audio slideshow created using Soundslides Plus.
Camera: Canon Rebel EO2
Photo editing software: Adobe PremierPro CS3
Audio recorder: Olympus DM-20 with external microphone
Audio editing software: Soundtrack Pro

Ed Frakes has been painting for over 50 years. Now 71, Frakes describes his life as an artist and explains the meaning behind some of his paintings in this audio slideshow.
Published on 510 Report 21 October 2008.

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All music used in these videos is protected by the Fair Use Doctrine. This video is not intended for distribution but for personal portfolio purposes only.

© 2004 Linsay Rousseau Burnett

A look at how military programs aim to protect service members from amassing too much debt, something the military considers a threat to national security.

Watch the NewsHour story. (7:32)
Read my accompanying article.

View the related PBS FRONTLINE documentary “The Card Game,” for which I was a production associate.

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Fruit-Picking Children
Aired on ABC – Nightline, Good Morning America and World News with Charles Gibson
30 October 2009

This story is the result of a summer long investigative reporting project by the four Carnegie Fellows (of whom I was one) chosen to work with ABC’s Brian Ross Investigative Reporting Unit. All footage – with the exception of the blueberry festival, Adkins shots and Zama interview – was shot by the Carnegie Fellows. We were not involved in the writing of the script and feel that, due to time constraints, the final product was not able to fully convey the complex nature of the issue.

The day this story aired, Walmart and supermarket chain Kroger severed ties with Adkin packaging company. That same week, the Department of Labor cited the owner for child labor violations discovered during the summer. The DOL has also cracked down on farmers in Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey and Arkansas for child labor violations.

Watch the Nightline story.
Watch a followup story on Democracy Now!

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Iraq TV Stories
All stories reported, shot, scripted and edited by Linsay Rousseau Burnett
Broadcast on: American Forces Network (AFN), DVIDS website and 1st BCT website
Camera: Sony PD 150
Video editing software: Adobe PremierPro CS2
Intro and Lower Thirds designed in: Adobe Photoshop CS2

To view photos I took while in Iraq visit my Flicker portfolio.

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A look into the explosive ordinance work of Air Force Staff Sgt. David Silberman and his K-9 partner, Zeko, stationed at FOB McHenry near Hawijah, Iraq. 27 February 2006

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Employees at the Iraq Media Network are transcending ethnic, religious and gender tensions as they come together to produce television news and entertainment programs throughout the Kirkik Province. 10 February 2006

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Soldiers from the C Co., 426th Brigade Support Bn., 1st Bde. Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division provide medical care to a local woman at FOB Bernstein, near Tuz, Iraq. 18 November 2005

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Iraqi forces take the lead in a massive cordon and search in and around Hawijah Iraq, with perimeter and aerial support provided by the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. 24 March 2006

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Soldiers from the 451st Civil Affairs General Support Team attached to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), assist Iraqi soldiers from 2nd Bn., 2nd Bde. in providing aid to a Kirkuk orphanage. 3 November 2005

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One the mission of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) while deployed to the Kirkuk Province, Iraq, is training the Iraqi Army to be a self sufficient force. Soldiers from 1st Bn. stationed at FOB McHenry, near Hawijah, conduct such a program. 10 December 2005

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Soldiers and Airmen destroy explosives found in one of the largest weapons caches discovered in the Kirkuk Province.  3 December 2005

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© 2005 Linsay Rousseau Burnett

Less than two weeks after fraudster Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, Kentucky oil-and-gas tycoon David G. Rose pleaded guilty on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court of Western Kentucky to Ponzi Scheme charges of tax evasion and defrauding hundreds of investors across the world out of tens of millions of dollars through oil and gas reserve development projects.

Acting U.S. Attorney Candace G. Hill, announced that the former head of enTerra Energy, LLC and the oil and gas exploration firm Robo Enterprises, Inc. pleaded guilty to 21 counts of defrauding investors and one count of willfully evading more than $200,000 in taxes on an income of $3.5 million in 2000 and 2001.

As part of the plea agreement, Rose will pay more than $2.9 million in restitution to 60 victims. He paid the first $1 million in court as he entered his plea and agreed to a 52-month prison sentence for the two separate charges that were combined for this trial.

In his plea, Rose admitted that he instructed company salespeople to give false statements to investors, so as to encourage them to invest in the two oil and gas well projects promoted by enTerra Energy. With the tempting allure of black gold and claims of 50 percent returns, Rose convinced hundreds of potential investors to transfer tens-of-millions of dollars to his companies.

Under the fraud scheme, enTerra Energy falsely claimed it had entered into partnerships with major oil companies such as Citgo Petroleum Company, Samson International, Hunt Oil and Texaco, in developing the oil and gas wells which comprised the two projects.

Last month, one fraud victim told reporter Adam Walser from local ABC affiliate WHAS-TV that his father invested almost $300,000 with 33 units in three different projects that showed no returns.

“This well was dry. This well was pulling salt water. We had to cap it,” said Rick Wimp, whose family owns the Corydon Service Station in Louisville, Ky. “I could go out here, dig 33 holes and probably find more oil and gas than they did.”

Documents Seized

Wimp’s investment brought in a measly $20,000, something federal investigators say happened to more than 200 investors.

Rose’s companies have been under investigation by departments within the FBI and IRS since 2001, culminating in an FBI raid on his Louisville headquarters in 2004. Among the documents seized, investigators uncovered scripts that were issued to enTerra Energy salespeople, making false claims of successful oil and gas production.

WHAS reporter Adam Walser also interviewed a former Rose salesperson who managed to smuggle out a copy of the script.

“They would say that the well’s come in and that everything looks like it’s gonna be good. As time went on there was nothing. There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” said the former Rose employee, who asked not to be named due to concerns for his personal safety. He went on to say, “You’ve got to be a heck of a salesman. But you’ve got to be willing to mislead people too. And I couldn’t do it anymore.”

For the tax evasion charge, Rose admitted to employing evasive tactics to conceal the income and assets he owned and controlled, such as titling vehicles he purchased and owned in the names of acquaintances, having someone else make payments on a Florida condominium he purchased in 2001 and diverting monies from companies such as enTerra Energy to friends and family members. It also alleges that some of the money he took from investors for drilling paid for company bonuses and salaries.

Rose, along with his son Jason and nine other businesses and people, are also named in a civil suit filed by the Security and Exchange Commission in the Southern District of Indiana in June. In it, the government alleges that another company, Berkshire Resources, LLC, raised $15.5 million from 265 investors throughout the United States and Canada then defrauded them by spending $6.7 million on items having nothing to do with drilling, including $1.3 million to pay for mortgages on the Roses’ homes, home furnishings and electronics, cars and credit card charges.

Rose Awaiting Sentence

In the complaint, the SEC claims that, while David’s son Jason T. Rose was listed as the managing member and touted as the public face of the company, it was David Rose who truly ran the business behind-the-scenes. Berkshire Resources is still in operation.

A lawyer representing Jason Rose could not be reached for comment.

Two other oil and gas executives connected to Rose and his former company Robo Enterprises have already served prison time for tax evasion. David W. Stewart pleaded guilty in April 2007 for failing to report $640,000 of taxable income and was sentenced to one year in prison. Richard P. Underwood pleaded guilty in June 2007 to tax evasion amounting to more than $3 million. He was sentenced to a little over three months in prison.

Had Rose been convicted at trial on the 21 counts of mail and wire fraud and one count of tax evasion, the maximum potential penalties would have been 425 years’ imprisonment and $5.5 million in fines. The government also sought the forfeiture of $6.6 million.

Rose’s lawyer Scott C. Cox said Rose decided to plead guilty to the criminal charges because the case has “just worn him out financially and been hard on his family. He wants to put it behind him.” Rose remains free on bail and is scheduled to be officially sentenced before the Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell on November 16 in Louisville.