Back to the Future - John Delorean brought down by US plot

[scienceplease 2]

John DeLorean seems to have brought down by a corporate-government conspiracy... corprate: GM, US government: FBI and appears to include assistance from UK government too...

Background...

John DeLorean never cared to fit the mold of a typical Detroit auto executive. He was a young, free-spirited maverick that revolutionized the auto industry as the major force behind America’s first muscle car. At 40, he was put in charge of GM's Pontiac making him the youngest division head in GM history. After four years of record profits he was promoted again to head of Chevrolet, which in two years he transformed from a financially troubled company to one with sales equal to every other GM brand combined. Then in 1973, at age 48 and the peak of his career, John DeLorean quit GM... he supposedly walked away from his $650,000 salary, which was a lot of money in those days and decided to go it on his own.

Many were predicting that one day he would be President of the United States.



A few years after leaving, John Delorean started showing the car that would later become the DMC-12, the exotic gullwing-door stainless steel-skinned car which most people know best from the Back To The Future movies. The car was originally called the DSV — the Delorean Safety Vehicle — and was designed not as a sportscar, but as a safe daily driver which tried to address many of the problems John saw with modern car production. At the same time, Delorean co-authored a book called "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors", in which he accused GM of stagnation and caring more about profits than the customers or the cars.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clear-Day-You-General-Motors/dp/0380517221/

As the DMC-12 approached production, Delorean attempted to block the publication of his own book, fearing that the big car companies with their massive government lobbying power would do everything they could to sink his new venture at its most vulnerable point. These fears proved well founded. Even with a huge grant from the UK government, the company was plagued with problems — said to source from many questionable payoffs to British government officials by GM — and it wasn’t long before the company was in serious difficulties: production and quality control, cashflow, certification, distribution...

At the same time it appears that a cocaine dealer approached Delorean, offering to solve his financial woes. He proposed that cocaine be loaded into the door panels of his cars as they were shipped overseas, using them to transport the drug. And it was caught on tape, with Delorean saying "cocaine was as good as gold"...

John Delorean was arrested for conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and as he fought the charges, the DMC company went bankrupt.

Except that the cocaine dealer was an undercover FBI agent. He'd been set up. While John Delorean was not aware of the video tapes, he had documenting the illegal activities - presumably for later release to the Police, since behind the cocaine deal was also blackmail: his daughter's life was under threat. But how could that be proved unless all the video tapes were released?

The only reason that John Delorean avoided a long term prison sentence is that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt was given a selection of video tapes showing not only that the drug trafficking idea was invented and proposed by the US government, but that both the cocaine and the money were provided FBI, and most importantly, that John Delorean told the undercover agents that he wasn’t interested and begged to be let go — the tapes show the agents actually threatening to kill John Delorean’s daughter if he didn’t proceed with the drug deal. It should also be noted that Larry Flynt was briefly imprisoned for contempt of court for not revealing the source of this tape. Delorean was released because the tapes did prove FBI entrapment.

This court case is well documented on the internet and is indeed in the Stranger-Than-Fiction category.

Meanwhile the UK Government went after Andersons - the auditors - for their $50m investment in DMC... (well recorded on the internet). In two separate court cases, Andersons paid out $60m - half to UK government and half to creditors...

Also (Allegedly - haven't found additional information on this)... the government — which received millions of dollars in “donations” from GM — moved in illegally and seized all of the tooling from the company, and, contrary to UK automobile law, dumped the tooling in the ocean insuring that not only could the company not be resurrected after the trial, but replacement parts couldn’t even be made.

Delorean’s lawyer was later quoted in Time magazine saying, “This was a fictitious crime. Without the government, there would be no crime.”

But John Delorean really was more than "entrapped" - he was being blackmailed by US government agents who threatened to kill his daughter if John didn’t proceed with the crime.

He died in 2005 - aged 80.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/mar/21/usa.davidteather

But despite constant legal battles in the latter half of his life, he was still expecting to bring new cars to the market...

Two weeks before he died he gave his last interview...

http://autos.aol.com/article/john-delorean-last-interview/

[Disco_Destroyer]

very apt for this thread

http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=19280

[scienceplease 2]

Quite possibly, DD. I didn't research his cause of death - it's interesting that he was verge of comeback when he died...

[scienceplease 2]

Quite why no-one has told the whole story is amazing because the story is truly amazing.

Article One

http://selvedgeyard.com/tag/delorean-motor-company/

This sticks with the official line

"Law enforcement officials said he intended to sell $24 million of cocaine to prop up his flailing auto business. To them, the case was clear-cut, complete with an FBI surveillance tape of Mr. DeLorean accepting a suitcase containing 55 pounds of cocaine and telling an undercover agent that “it’s better than gold.” A series of manoeuvres by Mr. DeLorean’s legal defense team discredited the star witness, a convicted drug dealer turned government informer. Their main argument was entrapment by the government. Mr. DeLorean was acquitted on all drug charges and beat a later indictment on charges of defrauding investors in his company.”

A series of “manoeuvres” - sounds like he was playing a clever game - well I guess that could be true - or more likely, the truth is here… when you consider Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine. The most unlikely of heroes rides to Deloren’s rescue and is described here:

Article Two...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/celebrity/larry_flynt/7. html

“...the surveillance tape that Larry Flynt received showed DeLorean's arrest and the events that preceded it. An undercover FBI agent posing as a dealer had offered the cocaine to DeLorean, suggesting to him that this would be a solution to his financial problems. It was clearly a case of entrapment, and Flynt, the political firebrand, was determined to show the nation how far its government would go to make a high-profile arrest. He showed the tape to 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt, who agreed to air it. The government sought an injunction to stop CBS from broadcasting the tape, but they failed, and the tape was shown, causing a national brouhaha."

But there is more… (next page)

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/celebrity/larry_flynt/8. html

“...Flynt came into possession of an audiotape of DeLorean's entrapment… On this barely audible tape, DeLorean is heard trying to back out of the drug deal, but the undercover agent threatens to hurt his daughter if he reneges. Flynt called a press conference on the lawn of his California mansion to play the tape for reporters...
The judge assigned to the DeLorean case, Robert Takasugi, subpoenaed Flynt to appear in court with the tape. Feeling ornery because of his constant pain, Flynt deliberately ignored the subpoena and was consequently arrested on his 41st birthday by a team of 15 federal marshals. In court, Judge Takasugi ordered him to turn over the tape, but he said it was lost. The judge then ordered him to reveal who gave it to him. Flynt believed the government had no right to ask a journalist to reveal a confidential source and refused to give Judge Takasugi a direct answer. The judge lost his temper and threatened to fine Flynt $10,000 a day until he agreed to reveal his source. He ordered Flynt to appear before him the next day.

Flynt returned to court the following day, dressed in a diaper fashioned from an American flag. He figured if he was going to be treated like a naughty child, he was going to act like one. Surprisingly, the judge did not comment on the flag diaper, but a federal prosecutor had him arrested outside the courtroom. Flynt was charged with desecration of the flag.”

Because Flynt continued to be unruly in court, he was sent to jail. For 15 months!

Somehow this does not bear the hallmarks of clever “manoeuvres”.

Finally, an overview can be found here:

http://evanbeaulieu.com/2012/11/the-john-delorean-story/

Which reveals that Andersen Accountants were sued and provided the British Government with most of the money that they had invested in the car company.

Apparently 7500 of the 9000 cars manufactured are still on the road…

[scienceplease 2]

Deloran mentioned the Hydristor...

It's inventor, Thomas Kasmer, is now dead. The Hydristor website now seems to have been taken over by a Child Care group with no contact email address and supposedly dates from 2007 (which is not what Wayback Machine says).

From Wayback Machine...

News section from 2001 to 2010 (latest first)