Riggs Bank to Pay $8 Million to Pinochet Victims

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Riggs Bank to Pay $8 Million to Pinochet Victims

By Jonathan Stempel and Fiona Ortiz
NEW YORK/SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A U.S. bank that ran into serious trouble for helping foreign officials hide money has agreed to settle a Spanish lawsuit by paying $8 million into a fund for victims of crimes by its former client, Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, the bank said on Friday.

In Chile, a human rights lawyer called the settlement in Spain by Washington, D.C.-based Riggs National Corp. an important part of international efforts to bring Pinochet to justice for human rights abuses during his 1973-1990 rule.

The ailing, 89-year-old retired general has been named in many human rights cases in Chile and is also being probed for tax evasion, tax fraud and embezzlement of state funds. But he has never been convicted of any crime.

"This demonstrates that the horrors of the Pinochet dictatorship are not a mystery to anyone and that the whole world knows his victims deserve reparations," Eduardo Contreras, a lawyer who represents victims' families in Chilean human rights cases, told Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7746411

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1. Stargazers predict Sodom/Gommorah weekend for top Riggs customers:

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i7553

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2. Please remind me of the connection between Riggs and the BFEE

Isn't it one of the chimp's uncle's bank? I can't remember.

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3. Unka Jonathan Bush is CEO of Riggs subsidiary. Riggs has

been fined a staggering $41 million for money laundering and fraud re scandals in financing Saudi terrorist accounts, corruption involving the Equatorial Guines coup plot (Sir Mark Thatcher just got a suspended 5 year jail term for this plus a £250,000+ fine) and hiding General Pinochet's illicit accounts totalling some $8 million+.

The Riggs majority shareholder Joe Albritton is an old time buddy of Ronald Reaqgan and once testified that the ex-Pres categorically had nothing to do with the Chuildren of God pedophile cult.

All subsequent references to the complaints that let to the investigation of this claim and the actual Justice Department files concerning this were gagged, whitewashed and eventually "disappeared".

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5. Thanks for the additional information!

That family is so corrupt! And the paper trail always "disappears!" Jr.'s military record: gone. His original SSN: gone. His arrest record: gone. Does anyone else see a pattern here?

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6. Does anyone else NOT see a pattern here????

???

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4. Albrittons to pay up additional $1 million: LAT

Snip:
Members of the Albritton family, which controls the bank, will pay an additional $1 million, an attorney working with Spanish investigators said.

Riggs spokesman Mark Hendrix said that the bank would pay the $8 million using funds it set aside for litigation-related expenses and that criminal and civil claims against the company and seven former and current directors had been dismissed.

"The court order speaks for itself," Hendrix said. "This enables the institution to put the matter behind us."

The decision, which settled a case filed in Madrid alleging that the bank had illegally concealed assets, came a month after Riggs National Corp. pleaded guilty in the United States to violating a money-laundering law in connection with millions of dollars in secret Pinochet accounts.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-riggs26feb26,1,3463390.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true