No Way Out But One tells the story of an American woman accused of kidnapping her own children, who fled the country and became the first American woman to ever be granted asylum by the government of the Netherlands, due to domestic violence.
No Way Out But One follows on the groundbreaking work of producer Garland Waller’s previous award winning documentary Small Justice. The earlier film examined the failure of the family court system to protect children from sexual abuse. No Way Out But One exposes the other grave failure of the courts—that men who batter wives and beat children can and do get custody. This failure, the secret shame of the American court system, is virtually ignored by the mainstream media.
No Way Out But One is based on extensive interviews with Holly and her family, medical professionals, lawyers, and child advocates. Filming has been completed in The Netherlands, Boston, Washington DC, and New York. The producers have culled through thousands of pages of court and medical records, unpublished journals, news reports, family photos and videos. The producers also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI for Holly’s files, which resulted in the identification of nearly 1,000 pages of material.
In a world that has been shocked by Jerry Sandusky/Penn State, Jerry Seville/BBC, Boy Scouts and Catholic Priest abuse, it is a sad commentary that courts can and do ignore sexual abuse and give custody to abusers. No Way Out But One seeks to expose this injustice by telling the powerful and compelling story of Holly Collins.
In 1994 Holly Collins became an international fugitive when she grabbed her three children and went on the run. It all happened because a family court had ignored Holly’s charges, the children’s pleas, Holly’s broken nose, Zackary’s fractured skull, and other medical evidence of domestic violence. The family court in Minnesota gave full custody of Zackary and Jennifer to Holly’s ex-husband. It was at that point that Holly came to believe she and the children had No Way Out But One.
In what has become an incredible saga, Holly eventually fled the United States. For awhile, she lived beneath the radar, hiding on Indian Reservations, in Mexico and Guatemala. With three children and no passports,incredibly, she made it to Amsterdam where she blurted out a plea for asylum. The fact that she was fleeing domestic violence and would not be protected if she were returned to the US seemed ridiculous at first. But Holly had come armed with documents – legal and medical. At first, she and her children were treated as refugees, living in a refugee center with other poor souls fleeing violence torn hell-holes from around the world. Living shoulder to shoulder with people learning to use indoor plumbing for the first time in their lives, Holly and her kids made the best of it. At least they were safe.
Holly became the first U. S. citizen to be granted asylum by the government of Netherlands. She lived a quiet, low profile life for the next 14 years, until the FBI agents came calling. Hoping to return Holly to the United States to face kidnapping charges, they interviewed her now grown children. Jennifer and Zackary told the agents that far from being their kidnapper, their mother was their savior and their hero.
Holly and all her kids – this spring in Holland
Eventually, all charges against Holly were dropped, save one: contempt of court. Holly readily acknowledged that after all she and the children had been through, she did indeed harbor “contempt of court.”
In September of 2011, Holly and her children returned to North America.
NO WAY OUT BUT ONE is a documentary film about Holly Collins. The FBI called her a kidnapper. But her kids called her their hero.
A TRUE STORY OF FIERCE LOVE
AND BLIND JUSTICE
No Way Out But One is a documentary that tells the story of Holly Collins, an American woman who was driven by fear, love and desperation to kidnap her own children and go on the run in order to protect them from a life of abuse. Wanted by the FBI, Holly left behind everything she owned and everyone she knew in an effort to keep her children safe. She became an international fugitive, eventually making it to Amsterdam. After spending 2 years in a refugee camp out in the middle of nowhere, living shoulder to shoulder with other desperate souls fleeing violence torn hell holes around the world, Holly became the first American woman to ever be granted asylum by the Government of the Netherlands, due to domestic violence. Though it focuses on the desperate measures that one woman felt she had to take to protect her children, it also exposes the problems that protective parents and vulnerable children are facing nearly every day in courtrooms across the country.
After the family had been living quietly in the Netherlands for 14 years, the FBI found them and came calling. By then the children had “aged out” of court supervision and they told the FBI that, in their eyes, their mother was not a kidnapper, but a hero, who had saved their lives. Eventually, all charges against Holly were dropped.
Today, Holly’s children all thrive. They are warm and gracious and caring. And Holly and her kids are preparing to return to America.
No Way Out But Onefollows on the groundbreaking work of producer Garland Waller’s previous award-winning documentary Small Justice.It examinedthe failure of the Family Court System to protect children from abuse. It is the secret shame of the American Court system and one that is virtually ignored by the mainstream media.
No Way Out But One is based on extensive interviews with Holly and her family, medical professionals, lawyers, and child advocates. Filming has been completed in The Netherlands, Boston, Washington DC, and New York. The producers have culled through thousands of pages of court and medical records, unpublished journals, news reports, family photos and videos. Our Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI for Holly’s files, resulted in the identification of nearly 1,000 pages of never before seen material.
The Larger Picture: Exposing a National Scandal
No Way Out But One tells the story of one woman and her family but it is emblematic of a much larger heartbreaking national scandal. In Child and Family Court systems across the country, those who abuse their children are all too often awarded custody of them by the very courts charged with protecting them.
It is estimated that 58,000 children a year are ordered into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce in the United States.
Holly’s case is by no means an isolated example. View some of the interviews producer Garland Waller conducted at the annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference.
As it stands today, the Family Court System is far too often a dysfunctional and dangerous place for children. It is a system desperately in need of change.
About The Collins Family
Holly
Holly Collins didn’t want to run away. In fact, she put it off until she could not live with herself unless she protected her children. She KNEW these children she so loved were being abused while in the custody of their father. They told her. They told the court supervisors. They told the guardian ad litem. But the Minnesota family court gave the father custody anyway.
“I just thought if you told the truth, you know, you would be believed. I always just told the kids, just tell the truth, so when the court didn’t believe us, I started going through all of our records.”
Holly had records of legal documents, medical reports, as well as pictures the children drew which clearly showed abuse.
No Way Out But One explores how Holly, a battered woman lost custody of her children. After a judge gave her ex-husband full custody, it’s easy to see how Holly would have been desperate.
It is important to acknowledge that kidnapping is crime. And the legal consequences for those convicted of kidnapping charges can be grave indeed. Holly will also be the first to tell you that their life on the run was hard on everyone. And she is aware that in a post-9/11 world of increased airport security, she and her children would never have made it out of the country. But to this day, Holly says her biggest regret was waiting as long as she did to take her children and run. She has other regrets of course. But then, just ask her to tell you about her children – all of them – and her face lights up.
Jennifer
Jennifer Collins was the early inspiration for this documentary. Garland and Barry heard her speak at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference in 2009. Barry’s article was published in E Pluribus Media.
Jennifer’s story, her memories, were so moving and so powerful plans were made shortly thereafter to begin work on a documentary.
Jennifer speaks in No Way Out But One of going to supervised visitation to see her mother after the court gave her father full custody.
“I was told on several occasions that I wasn’t allowed to talk about what my father was doing to us…I showed up for example once (at a supervised visitation) with bruises. And I showed my mother and I got in trouble. They (the supervisors) said, “No, no. You know you’re not allowed to talk about those things anymore and if you do then you’re not allowed to see your mother.”
Jennifer was in elementary school at the time.
Today, Jennifer is the Executive Director of Courageous Kids, which helps other children who have been abused speak about their abuse so that they can begin to change the system.
Jennifer’s blog has details, facts, and pictures about her experience of abuse, being on the run, living at the refugee center, and speaking about her life today and some of the challenges she still faces.
Zachary
Zachary spoke out for the first time at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference in 2011.
“I would like to say that never since we left did I feel like I was kidnapped. Actually when I kid I thought it was quite ridiculous when we heard that they were charging my mom for kidnapping her own children. Taking them away from an abusive father….it seemed completely ludicrous to me. That’s one thing I’d like to get clear.”
Please visit The American Red Cross Tornado Relief Fund to help the victims of this tragedy in Oklahoma. Please go to http://www.redcross.org/ for more information on how you can help. You can also call 1-800-RED-CROSS or text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation or whatever you can.
This morning, President Obama delivered a statement on the devastating tornadoes and severe weather affecting Oklahoma. He described the response efforts underway, and assured the people of Moore and all the affected areas that they “would have all the resources that they need at their disposal.”
“Americans from every corner of this country will be right there with them, opening our homes, our hearts to those in need,” President Obama said. “Because we’re a nation that stands with our fellow citizens as long as it takes. We’ve seen that spirit in Joplin, in Tuscaloosa; we saw that spirit in Boston and Breezy Point. And that’s what the people of Oklahoma are going to need from us right now.”
Update 3: As response and recovery efforts continue on the ground in Oklahoma, the Department of Homeland Security announced this afternoon that Secretary Janet Napolitano will travel to the area tomorrow to meet with state and local officials and ensure first responders are receiving the assistance they need to help those affected by the tornadoes.
Update 2: This morning, President Obama delivered a statementon the devastating tornadoes and severe weather that impacted Oklahoma. He described the response efforts underway, and assured the people of Moore and all the affected areas that they “would have all the resources that they need at their disposal.”
For there are homes and schools to rebuild, businesses and hospitals to reopen, there are parents to console, first responders to comfort, and, of course, frightened children who will need our continued love and attention. There are empty spaces where there used to be living rooms, and bedrooms, and classrooms, and, in time, we’re going to need to refill those spaces with love and laughter and community.
“Americans from every corner of this country will be right there with them, opening our homes, our hearts to those in need,” President Obama said. “Because we’re a nation that stands with our fellow citizens as long as it takes. We’ve seen that spirit in Joplin, in Tuscaloosa; we saw that spirit in Boston and Breezy Point. And that’s what the people of Oklahoma are going to need from us right now.”
President Obama Speaks on the Tornadoes and Severe Weather in Oklahoma
Published on May 21, 2013
President Obama delivers a statement about the ongoing response efforts following the devastating tornadoes in Oklahoma.
Tornado Moore Oklahoma May 20th 2013
Published on May 20, 2013
Time Lapse video of the Moore OK Tornado: May 20th 2013. Watch the full destruction to rope and dissipation.
As of 9 pm, the death toll was 51, at least 20 were children. These numbers are climbing. The children and faculty found dead in Plaza Towers Elementary School were in the basement, drowned from flood water. This will be the deadliest twister on record and proof that funding of the NOAA NWS Storm Prediction Center and warning systems should never be considered to be cut!
Huge destructive tornado hits Moore, Oklahoma, May 20th, 2013. This tornado left over a mile wide path of debris and devastation.
Oklahoma Tornado Live Footage Twisters Scary VIDEO Damage Moore Oklahoma Central Oklahoma Tornado Live Footage Twisters Scary Damage At least 1 dead, over 20 injured after tornadoes slam Kansas, Oklahoma City and Iowa.
Moore, OK Tornado – May 20, 2013
Published on May 20, 2013
Video of the Moore, OK tornado of May 20, 2013 as it was doing damage. I was with fellow research scientist Adam Clark of NSSL/CIMMS (he is filming). We were located at SE 24th St. and S. Eastern Ave, about a mile away.
Raw cell phone video of Moore Oklahoma City tornado May 20 2013
Please visit The American Red Cross Tornado Relief Fund to help the victims of this tragedy in Oklahoma. Please go to http://www.redcross.org/ for more information on how you can help. You can also call 1-800-RED-CROSS or text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation or whatever you can.
Please visit The American Red Cross Tornado Relief Fund to help the victims of this tragedy in Oklahoma. Please go to http://www.redcross.org/ for more information on how you can help. You can also call 1-800-RED-CROSS or text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation or whatever you can.
Ed. Note: You can help people affected by the recent tornadoes through American Red Cross Disaster Relief. If you are in the affected areas, you can also register as “Safe and Well” to let your friends and family know you are okay. Check back here for more information — we’ll continue updating this post as the response effort develops.
5/21/13
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the ongoing response to the devastating tornadoes and severe weather that impacted Oklahoma, in the State Dining Room of the White House, May 21, 2013. Vice President Joe Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and FEMA Deputy Administrator Richard Serino accompany the President. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
Update 2: This morning, President Obama delivered a statementon the devastating tornadoes and severe weather that impacted Oklahoma. He described the response efforts underway, and assured the people of Moore and all the affected areas that they “would have all the resources that they need at their disposal.”
For there are homes and schools to rebuild, businesses and hospitals to reopen, there are parents to console, first responders to comfort, and, of course, frightened children who will need our continued love and attention. There are empty spaces where there used to be living rooms, and bedrooms, and classrooms, and, in time, we’re going to need to refill those spaces with love and laughter and community.
“Americans from every corner of this country will be right there with them, opening our homes, our hearts to those in need,” President Obama said. “Because we’re a nation that stands with our fellow citizens as long as it takes. We’ve seen that spirit in Joplin, in Tuscaloosa; we saw that spirit in Boston and Breezy Point. And that’s what the people of Oklahoma are going to need from us right now.”
President Obama Speaks on the Tornadoes and Severe Weather in Oklahoma
Published on May 21, 2013
President Obama delivers a statement about the ongoing response efforts following the devastating tornadoes in Oklahoma.
President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin in the Oval Office, May 20, 2013. The President spoke with Gov. Fallin to express his concern for those who have been affected by the severe weather beginning last night and continuing today. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Statement by the Press Secretary on the President’s Travel to Africa
President Obama and the First Lady look forward to traveling to Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania from June 26 – July 3. The President will reinforce the importance that the United States places on our deep and growing ties with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including through expanding economic growth, investment, and trade; strengthening democratic institutions; and investing in the next generation of African leaders.
The President will meet with a wide array of leaders from government, business, and civil society, including youth, to discuss our strategic partnerships on bilateral and global issues. The trip will underscore the President’s commitment to broadening and deepening cooperation between the United States and the people of sub-Saharan Africa to advance regional and global peace and prosperity.
Senegal
Population: 13,300,410 (July 2013 est.)
South Africa
Population: 48,601,098 (July 2013 est.)
President Obama’s Bilateral Meeting with President Thein Sein of Myanmar
May 20, 2013 | 19:30 | Public Domain
President Obama and President Thein Sein of Myanmar speak to the press after a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office.
White House Schedule – May 21, 2013
9:30 AM: The President receives a briefing on the ongoing response to the devastating tornadoes and severe weather that impacted Oklahoma Sunday night and Monday.
10:00 AM: The President delivers a statement on the devastating tornadoes and severe weather that impacted Oklahoma.
10:15 AM: The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing.
11:00 AM: The President and Vice President meet with DREAMers who have received Deferred Action and U.S. citizen family members of undocumented immigrants.
12:30 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney.
4:30 PM: The President and the Vice Presdent meet with Secretary of Defense Hagel.
5:30 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks at a reception hosted by the Democratic National Committee in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month.
President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Oklahoma GovernorMary Fallin in the Oval Office, May 20, 2013. The President spoke with Gov. Fallin to express his concern for those who have been affected by the severe weather beginning last night and continuing today. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
As the President told Governor Fallin tonight, the administration — through FEMA — is committed to providing all the assistance it can to Oklahoma as the response effort unfolds. Already, FEMA has deployed an Incident Management Assistance Team, Urban Search & Rescue Teams, and an Medical Emergency Response Support Team to provide resources to hard-hit areas in Oklahoma.
FEMA is urging those in impacted areas to listen carefully to instructions from local officials, and to take the recommended protective measures. Residents should monitor local radio or TV stations, or the National Weather Service at www.weather.gov.
As the response effort develops, here is a list of resources for those affected:
The federal government targeted this company (IRP Solutions) shut them down, prosecuted and convicted its executives.
I am sending this to you because you either have a blog or you have access to people, and I need your help. WE need your help spreading the word about this injustice.
I would like to enlist your help with something if you believe you are interested and can help a just cause. I am working with freetheirp6.org & a-justcause.com, 2 organizations involved with fighting a legal injustice done to 6 businessmen from Colorado. These 6 businessmen have been tried, convicted and imprisoned all because they invented a software program the federal government and the “big boys”, such as IBM, wanted. These 6 businessmen are now in prison, snatched from family and their lives, for being brilliant and following their American dream.
I am asking you to blog about this injustice done these 6 men. This subject may be off topic from what you normally blog about. The reality is this could happen yo you, me and anyone who stands up to the United States Government and our corrupt judicial system. No One Is Safe.
I am asking that if you agree with this cause please use all or part of this 3 blog post series. I’m not interested in you using my name, using the name of TheObamaCrat™ or linking back to my blog. This is not about personal recognition but about freeing these 6 men. PLEASE feel free to copy & paste what you need from my blog post or from the Free The 6 web site located here freetheirp6.org. You can find links to the original articles I used in my initial post here freetheirp6.org. The web site spearheading this project to free these 6 men is a-justcause.com.
I thank you in advance for whatever help you can give us. If you decide this is not your fight or that it is outside the scope of your blog, I fully understand.
This is a story about how prosecutorial tunnel vision created a tragic communication failure. The criminal justice system exists to give everyone a chance to tell their story. Juries decide who brings the best story to the table. Bad things happen when the system amplifies one story while silencing the other. (Dr. Alan Bean, Executive Director, Friends of Justice)
Community advocate H.A. Jabar and platinum music producer Larry Gates collaborated to produce a song to bring awareness to the IRP case.
The song entitled “IRP-6 Needs Justice” was released this week on YouTube as part of a new campaign supporting the fight to gain freedom for the IRP6 (Gary Walker, David Banks, Kendrick Barnes, Demetrius Harper, Clinton Stewart and David Zirpolo). Please visit H.A. Jabar and thank him for his work in helping The IRP6 (Gary Walker, David Banks, Kendrick Barnes, Demetrius Harper, Clinton Stewart and David Zirpolo).
The federal government targeted this company, shut them down, prosecuted and convicted its executives
Dr. Alan Bean, Executive Director of Friends of Justice, has partnered with A Just Cause to look into the wrongful conviction of six executives who ran a software development company. A synopsis of Dr. Bean’s initial review is shown in the following paragraphs.
This is a story about how prosecutorial tunnel vision created a tragic communication failure. The criminal justice system existsto give everyone a chance to tell their story. Juries decide who brings the best story to the table. Bad things happen when the system amplifies one story while silencing the other.
The IRP-6 case is characterized by an unusually deep dividebetween the government’s story and the defendants’ story.
Such a wide gap is rare, 95% of federal cases are resolved short of trial because few defendants ultimately maintain their innocence. If a federal case proceeds to trial it is eitherbecause the government isn’t offering much of a plea deal or because the defendants actually believe in their own innocence. There are two ways of approaching the issue and everything depends on where you start. It has been said that where we place our focus determines what we miss.
Following an FBI raid in 2005, a criminal investigation and two grand jury hearings in 2007 and 2009, six executives of IRP Solutions Corporation went to trial in the fall of 2011. The case was tried by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kirsch in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The defendants—David Banks, Demetrius Harper, Gary Walker, Clinton Stewart, David Zirpolo and Kendrick Barnes—represented themselves pro se after feeling they did not have accurate legal representation. The Honorable Christine M. Arguello served as the judge in this case.
Opening statements began September 27, 2011. In opening statements and throughout the remainder of the trial, Mr. Kirsch accused the defendants of running a scam by committing conspiracy, mail and wire fraud to gain $5 million worth of free labor from staffing companies. The prosecution insisted that the defendants openly lied to several staffing companies by stating that IRP Solutions had signed contracts with law enforcement agencies to sell their software, CILC; thus, the executives committed fraud.
The defense admitted that some of the facts in Kirch’s opening statement were true, but many were false. Mr. Harper told the jury that at no time did any of the executives tell staffing companies there was a final contract with law enforcement to sell the software. While the execs did say they were negotiating a contract—which was true—they did not tell staffing companies they had officially signed a contract with law enforcement agencies.
Following the FBI raid of IRP Solutions Corporation in February 2005, the FBI office in Denver still seemed to consider the case to be a civil matter. In August 2005, Special Agent Richard C. Powers and Supervisory Special Agent Jean M. Andersen wrote to one of the companies that had initiated legal action against IRP. The agents wrote that they felt “this case would best be handled civilly.”
Despite this fact, various attorneys and law firms continued to request further criminal investigations, accusing the executives of not having a legitimate business or software. It took two years before the criminal case reached a grand jury.
In 2007, a grand jury found no grounds to indict as the allegations that IRP Solutions was not a legitimate company with legitimate software was ultimately disproved—IRP was, in fact, a legitimate practice and its CILC software was fully tested. After the failure to indict, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kirsch alleged different charges that apparently had not been cited in the initial warrants.
On February 9, 2005, 21 federal agents raided IRP Solutions Corporation and its 20 employees for alleged wrongdoing. The FBI presented a warrant stating that IRP Solutions and its six executives were being accused of mail and wire fraud.
The company, which was established in 2003 to develop software for law enforcement agencies, previously had become engaged with agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and NYPD to make modifications to the software. Although no contracts had been drawn up, IRP began working on software non-contractually to meet the needs of state and federal law enforcement.
In order to meet the increased demand for software development, IRP began to explore the option of using staffing agencies, which act as liaisons between employers (like IRP) and often temporary employees. Staffing agencies initially pay employees or “contractors” for the hours he or she bills and then collect a fee that covers the pay rate to the contractor as well as the profit to the agency. Thus, the agency is usually reimbursed by the hiring client.
In this case, IRP was the hiring client that sought out the help of staffing agencies. While several agencies considered IRP a financial risk and did not team up with the company, several more chose to accept that risk and executed contracts with IRP.
Fraud or Injustice: Black-Owned Software Company Brought Down by Federal Government
November 5, 2012 | Filed under: Commentary | Posted by: Victor Trammell
A black-owned computer technology company called IRP Solutions based in Colorado Springs, Colorado was formerly what appeared to be a promising software development company looking to expand its base. Gary Walker (pictured left) is one of the company’s founders.
Along with four other black men, Walker conceptualized and worked on a vision to build IRP Solutions into a successful business that would compete fairly against the Lockheed Martins and IBMs of the world.
As a black man pursuing a professional degree and career, it is inspiring to see other educated black men pursue their dreams. It is also a rare feat for black-owned businesses that start small in industries other than music and fashion to become multi-million dollar entities gainfully respected in the corporate world.
I fully support and applaud such efforts because they inspire a new generation to do something our race is not normally known for doing.
However, in some fields of business, it may not be a good idea for blacks to dream big. That is only true if you hold the cynicist’s mind. IRP Solutions was given a terminal blow to its existence from the federal government.
This case may very well justify such cynicism, which is fueled by the deep-seeded racism in America to this day. Beginning in 2002 for reasons unknown, the FBI’s offices in Colorado began investigating IRP Solutions and six executives that ran the company.
Gary Walker, David Banks, Demetrius Harper, Clinton Stewart, and Kendrick Barnes are black. The sixth executive, David Zirpolo is white. The software developed by IRP specialized in investigative case management purposes, which is a function relied upon by various law enforcement agencies.
The primary goal of this company was to contract with big law enforcement agencies in order to help them advance their methods of drawing links between people and cases more effectively. Sounds like a good idea for a firm with a great product operating for the commendable cause of better law enforcement, right? Wrong.
In 2005, IRP Solutions’ offices in Colorado Springs were raided by the F.B.I. They confiscated software codes and other sensitive information. For reasons unclear, the agency also probed into the bank records of the executives’ family members. Agents then probed into the personal records of members of the Colorado Springs Fellowship Church, which is where the IRP executives attended service regularly.
Why would such an extreme action be carried out by what most people believe is a responsible federal law enforcement agency? In 2009, all six executives were indicted on multiple federal counts of fraud. In October 2011, Gary Walker and his business partners were found guilty. They are all serving sentences around 10 years and are working on appealing their convictions.
After researching the case by reading over documentation sent to me by an advocacy group called A Just Cause, I saw that at at some point IRP began contracting with temporary staffing agencies to perform the labor to develop the software.
However, when the software did not sell up to company standards, IRP was not able to pay its debt to the staffing companies. During a telephone interview with Gwendolyn Solomon (an attorney representing four of the IRP executives on their appeal), I began to suspect that this case should have never resulted in a federal investigation, let alone a criminal trial. “Typically something like this would have resulted in a civil case,” Solomon stated.
Solomon also told me: “Cases like this happen all the time and they are settled out of court, or the companies being sued end up filing for bankruptcy.” Matthew Kirsch, a U.S. Attorney in Colorado who led the prosecution of this case could not be reached for comment. Here is a link showing a video of supporters of Gary Walker and his associates: http://archive.org/details/dom-105068-ajustcause-episode3-irpsoluti The video was produced by A Just Cause, a advocacy group assisting with the appeals in this case.
Six IT professionals, five black and one white, had a dream of developing law enforcement software that would assist local, state, and federal agencies in sharing information. They built a small company that concentrated on developing a software application called CILC, which stands for Case Investigative Life Cycle. This software was developed to assist law enforcement in investigating a case through to prosecution. The necessity of this type of software was overly apparent as the government indicated the main reason 9/11 was able to occur was because of the inability of government agencies to share information.
Unfortunately for these six men (the IRP-6), their patriotic love for their country was rewarded with 7 to 11 year sentences in federal prison. On February 9th 2005, IRP Solutions (an 18 employee black owned company in Colorado Springs, Colorado) was raided by over twenty FBI agents. The FBI received a subpoena on the basis that IRP Solutions had “purported” software. In other words, the FBI alleged that IRP Solutions did not actually have software at all.
Coincidentally, the raid of IRP Solutions occurred a few days after the FBI had to explain at Congressional hearings why they wasted $400 million of the taxpayer’s money developing law enforcement software that did not work. The FBI was embarrassed in front of the whole world as being incompetent and wasteful.
During the raid at IRP Solutions the FBI attempted to herd all the employees into one room, while they went about imaging all of the company’s computers. The subpoena indicated that they were there for financial records, but oddly enough they left the financial records in the middle of the floor and opted to spend a day’s worth of time seeing what information they could retrieve from IRP Solution’s intellectual property.
Why would the FBI question whether IRP Solutions had real software when Police Technology Magazine reported on the functionality of IRP Solution’s Law Enforcement Software, CILC?
How does such a strange turn of the events come about for six highly intelligent, (some of whom were ex-military men) that never committed a crime before? These six men, who attended the same church for over 20 years, were competing with global giants, such as IBM, Deloitte, and Lockheed Martin for government contracts that were literally worth hundreds of millions of dollars, scaling into the billions.
IRP Solutions had a ‘secret sauce’ that the global behemoths did not. CILC was the brainchild of computer scientist Gary Walker who spent nine years developing law enforcement software previous to starting IRP solutions. He worked diligently with local agencies to understand the day-to-day processes of investigations all the way through to prosecution. CILC was software that was designed to work in accord with the daily procedures and tasks of law enforcement officials.
The large global companies that competed with IRP solutions develop their software from their own interpretations of how things should be done. So one company, IRP solutions, designed software around the daily operations of their users, while the other companies built software from the basis of ‘do it how we say do it’.
The result was that the Department of Homeland Security, Philadelphia Police Department, and New York Police Department advised large companies to partner with IRP solutions. What an insult! After numerous attempts to steal the software, other methods were applied.
The six executives that ran IRP Solutions (the IRP-6) are currently in federal prison in Florence, Colorado serving sentences ranging from 7 to 11 years for mail and wire fraud. The debt that IRP Solutions owed to staffing companies was used as a guise to eliminate competition and jail six innocent men.
The IRP-6 are fighting their unjust conviction with an appeal. They are being assisted by a nonprofit agency for the wrongfully convicted, A Just Cause. You can learn more about these six men at freetheirp6.org, you can like their Facebook page at Free the IRP6 and you can view many interviews on their YouTube channel freetheirp6.
Platinum producer and son of the late Roger Troutman, Larry Gates, has supported the IRP-6 by collaborating to produce a song and Music Video, ‘IRP-6 Needs Justice’ . The original song was inspired by the wrongful conviction of the six executives at IRP-Solutions and can be viewed on YouTube.
H.A. Jabar is the Founder and CEO of Jabar International, a Freelance Writer, a Motivational Speaker, Youth Advocate, and Author of A Well-Made Man: Building the Temple of Self. He is a graduate of Arizona State University where he was an NCAA All-America wrestler and Pac-10 Conference Champion.
In a series of sentencing hearings this week and last week, six former software company executives from Colorado Springs were sentenced to between 87 and 135 months in federal prison on fraud convictions.
They were convicted in October on mail and wire fraud charges that involved hiring 42 staffing companies in the state to test software for law enforcement, then left $5.1 million in unpaid charges from the company.
The men lied to vendors about government contracts and never had any income to pay the staffing charges, prosecutors said.
David A. Banks and Gary L. Walker were sentenced to 135 months each; Demetrius K. Harper, Clinton A. Stewart and David A. Zirpolo received 121 months each. Kendrick Barnes received 87 months.
They also were ordered to pay restitution to the staffing companies they defrauded.
Prosecutors said the executives lied to the companies to provide and pay employees to test software. The men were indicted in 2009.
Members of Colorado Springs Fellowship Church have protested the indictment and conviction. David Banks’ mother is the pastor there.
The software involved in the case was designed for law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the New York Police Department. But the contracts the six alleged to have did not exist, prosecutors said.
“The sentences handed down to these defendants appropriately reflects the seriousness of the specific crimes they committed,” said James Yacone. agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver office, said in a statement. “The number of victims and amount of loss were significant. Hopefully this will serve as a deterrent to others contemplating such crimes in the future.”
Weeks after six members of a predominantly black church in Colorado Springs were convicted of wire fraud by a federal jury, the church’s pastor continues to assert their innocence.
Pastor Rose Banks renewed claims that federal authorities unfairly targeted members of Colorado Springs Fellowship Church, alleging the prosecutions were tainted by racism and unfair tactics.
“I think at this point, we’re disillusioned with the system itself,” said Banks, whose son, David Banks, and son-in-law, Gary Walker, are among those convicted in a scheme that authorities say netted them $5 million.
The six face up to 20 years in prison and a $10 million fine. They are scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 14.
Rose Banks’ daughter, LaWanna Clark, received a six-month sentence after a related perjury conviction in 2010.
The criminal case focused on the business dealings of a fledgling software company called IRP Solutions.
With offices just down the street from the church, and an employee roster rounded out by church members, the company said it was close to a series of lucrative deals when it was raided by FBI agents in February 2005.
A 2009 grand jury indictment alleged the company was peddling sham software while bilking staffing companies it relied upon to supply labor. The men profited by submitting phony work orders on nonexistent contracts, the indictment said.
The men countered they had accrued “normal business debt” while pursuing big-dollar contracts for software designed to help law enforcement agencies manage their investigative files and reports.
One sale could have paid the company’s debts, said Cliff Walker, an IRP executive, who said one potential payout approached $100 million.
Cliff Walker, who wasn’t charged, said the $5 million went to employees, consultants and contractors, not IRP executives. Drained of resources, the men defended themselves at trial after concluding their government-appointed attorneys had sided against them, Rose Banks said.
“If they’re going to run with $5 million, they would have done it by now,” she said.
Rose Banks and her supporters say the government investigators singled out company officials who belonged to the church, located at 451 Windchime Place off East Woodmen Road. The government also appeared focused on tying the church itself to wrongdoing, they say.
According to Banks, government investigators obtained church banking records in 2007 without subpoenas, a claim that forms the basis for a federal lawsuit still pending in U.S. District Court.
“You just don’t bring a church into it unless you have grounds for it, and (an assistant U.S. attorney) didn’t have grounds for it,” she said. The church wasn’t accused of participating in the alleged scheme.
Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, has denied that racism played a role in the prosecutions. The company’s arguments that federal agents exceeded their lawful authority were dismissed by a federal judge, who permitted the government to use the disputed financial records at trial.
Pastor Banks — who believes that she too was an investigative target — said the legal trouble began when a small, black-owned business thrust itself into competition with much larger, and more powerful, corporations.
Money interests and racism tilted the court system against the men, she said.
Those arguments are likely familiar to worshippers at Colorado Springs Fellowship Church. Rose Banks said the legal saga was discussed at weekly briefings to the church members, and sometimes figured into sermons.
“If I’m preaching on Sunday morning and my message deals with anything referencing justice, that may come up,” Banks said.
Rose Banks founded the nondenominational church in 1981 when she and her husband took over a Bible study group hosted while he was stationed with the military in Bamberg, Germany. Later that year, they moved to Colorado Springs and opened a small storefront church on South Eighth Street with a congregation of about 10 members. The church now accommodates up to 700 worshippers a week, officials said.
Colorado Springs church accuses prosecutors of bias in fraud case.
Posted: 08/31/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
By Electa Draper
Members of Colorado Springs Fellowship say federal prosecutors have wrongly involved their church in a case in which the pastor’s son and other congregants stand accused of defrauding dozens of Colorado employment companies of millions of dollars.
The pastor and congregants have questioned whether the case was motivated by religious bigotry and racial prejudice.
However, federal prosecutors investigating David Banks, the 42-year-old son of Pastor Rose Banks, said clerical collars had nothing to do with it. They were after white-collar criminals.
“This prosecution has nothing to do with religion. It has nothing to do with race,” said U.S. attorney’s office spokesman Jeff Dorschner.
Nevertheless, the church filed an “abuse of process” claim against the U.S. attorney’s office in Denver and is asking for $75 million in damages for “vindictive” pursuit of the church and harm to the pastor’s reputation.
During the fraud investigation of David Banks’ software development business IRP Solutions Corp., church bank records and its members’ bank records and religious diaries were wrongfully seized, church board members said.
“I felt like they raped us,” Rose Banks said.
Neither she nor the church has been charged in the case, David Banks said, yet the prosecution focused much of the grand jury proceedings on the nondenominational church she founded in 1981, which has grown to 600 or 700 members.
“You have millions of dollars missing, and you have to find out where it went,” Dorschner said. “All records were lawfully seized.”
Churchwomen, in what looked like Sunday best, twice braved scorching heat to protest outside the federal building in downtown Denver against what they consider unfair treatment of the church.
Fellowship member Ethel Lopez called the government’s actions against the church “unbelievable” and “mind-boggling.”
Church members, Dorschner said, have a right to protest. “We respect that. But it’s a complex case. They might not know all that’s been going on.”
After six years of investigation, David Banks, who is IRP’s chief operating officer, and five others are set to stand trial in January for allegedly defrauding 46 temporary-placement or staffing companies in Denver and across the state between 2002 and 2005.
David Banks and two others indicted also serve on the Fellowship board.
Payments questioned
In June 2009, a grand jury handed down a 25-count indictment charging the defendants with federal mail and wire fraud because they mailed allegedly false invoices.
The alleged fraud totaled more than $5 million, paid by companies that placed temp workers with IRP Solutions. The workers included many that IRP and related firms had specifically identified as the software engineers, security guards and other qualified temps they needed to help them develop their product.
The placement companies also offered payroll service for these workers, generating the temps’ paychecks and thus advancing tens of thousands of dollars to IRP to pay a few dozen workers. But IRP then didn’t reimburse the companies for the payrolling.
When one staffing company would cut off services because it wasn’t getting reimbursed for paychecks or paid for services, IRP would find another.
However, David Banks said, the unpaid invoices were just overdue business debts, not a federal crime.
Court documents indicate that some employees were working for, and getting paid by, more than one staffing company for the same periods of work at IRP — apparent double-dipping in the same work period.
David Banks and other IRP executives, including some of his co-defendants, were among those who submitted time cards as temp workers to be paid by staffing companies.
Some paychecks were then deposited into personal bank accounts, but some were deposited into IRP accounts and others into church accounts, according to investigators. Investigators noted that many temp workers were members of Colorado Springs Fellowship.
The implication that the church was involved in a kickback scheme or money laundering is “absurd,” said Sam Thurman, who handles public relations for the church and IRP, and is on the church board. Some church members simply sign over checks to the church as a donation, he said.
“The FBI raided IRP Solutions (in February 2005) with 20-plus armed agents where their actions and language communicated a clear racial bias against the primarily African-American company,” IRP officials said in a recently released statement. “The only white executive in the company, Mr. David Zirpolo, never received a search of his person or his belongings and was simply allowed to leave with his laptop and documents, while the African-American personnel were corralled and forced into the cafeteria.”
Zirpolo is one of the six indicted, along with Demetrius K. Harper, Gary L. Walker, Clinton A. Stewart and Kendrick Barnes.All are church members.
Law-enforcement aid
Banks said the case is doubly strange because IRP’s software is meant to assist law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the New York Police Department, with case management.
“This was no scam,” Thurman said.
IRP was pursuing contracts with federal agencies potentially worth hundreds of millions that would have enabled it to pay its debts, David Banks said, but the process took too long and the company overextended itself. Nevertheless, Banks said, IRP is a legitimate business with a real product.
The FBI initially tried to show that IRP was just a front for this payroll scheme, but it couldn’t, because the software exists, Thurman said.
The indictment states that defendants falsely represented to staffing companies that they “had large current or impending contracts with one or more large government agencies.”
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
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