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Meet Monte Morris Friesner
a documentary survey by Eric Jackson

By the mid-1980s, Mr. Friesner had acquired a certain reputation in Canada.

Later, Friesner got into more legal trouble in the United States:

United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee,
v. Monte Morris Friesner, Defendant-appellant
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. - 61 F.3d 917

July 25, 1995

Before ANDERSON, BALDOCK and BRORBY, Circuit Judges.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT

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Mr. Friesner was convicted of twenty felony counts of wire fraud, money laundering and various crimes relating to the unlawful use of interstate commerce. He appeals his convictions asserting first, the evidence seized by virtue of a search warrant should have been suppressed, and second, he was prevented from presenting a defense. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

The evidence presented at trial established Mr. Friesner was a consummate fraud artist. He sought out potential victims who were seeking enormous loans. Mr. Friesner would then enter into contractual agreements requiring the prospective borrowers to deposit a large sum of money, usually $250,000, in an escrow account as a commitment fee, demonstrating their ability and devotion to obtaining the large loans. The borrowers understood these commitment fees were to be returned to them in the event Mr. Friesner could not secure a loan for them. They were further led to believe Mr. Friesner would obtain a commission fee from other sources. No loan transactions were ever completed and the funds deposited in escrow were purloined by Mr. Friesner.

After Friesner got out of prison in 1998, he went back to Canada and got into the business of selling unregistered securities, until the usually lax Canadian authorities caught up with him.

In 2004, having been run out of the Canadian securities industry by the Ontario Securities Commission, Friesner came to Panama and, during the course of the Torrijos administration, registered a couple of securities companies --- again, unregistered with Panamanian authorities, but then the late PRD government was quite comfortable with that sort of thing. Friesner's name was internationally notorious, however so these companies were registered in the name of a Canadian war hero, who happened to be dead at the time.

So what were or are the financial services Friesner's companies intended to offer here? Well, Bosco Vallarino's lawyer, Herbert Young Rodríguez, did the incorporation papers but they were in the realm of banking or securities --- Ornstein reports a debit card scheme called Financiera Pronto Cash; and then there is the Swiss Hannover Realty company, which does Russian-language ads to promote investments in upscale Panama City condos; and the One World Financial Solutions / Carlyle Coutts combination of "asset management," "private placement portfolios," and "asset allocation" activities were described in a now-erased (except for those pesky caches that have been preserved) website as follows:

Our investment analysis is a continuous process. A strategy committee first establishes global investment parameters. The investment committee then makes an in depth study of the latest economic and financial events to identify investment sectors. The investment committee's conclusions will define our position on yield and benefit rates in different countries. Banks and Investments, which are completely guaranteed, are immediately distributed to all our representative offices and branch offices for the benefit of institutional and private investors.

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In addition to proven asset management skills, One World Financial Solutions S.A. offers its clients' all of the traditional banking operations at a high level of service via the numerous preferred banks we recommend. These include foreign exchange, escrow deposits, international transfers and commercial credits.

 Whatever it does for its clients, it sounds like something that the Comision Nacional de Valores would regulate, does it not? It's not. Or maybe it would be, except it was never registered.

Friesner's main business that can readily be seen here, however, is the Panama Sailing School. This business was briefly promoted to this reporter and others at one of the Tuesday Talks sessions by a woman describing herself as one of the school's captains, after the session's main talk. The Tuesday Talks were mostly attended by English-speaking women, many of them diplomats or the wives of diplomats, and the one at which the Panama Sailing School was promoted took place at the official residence of the US Embassy's number two person (not the one who's there now, but the same house) in Albrook. Nothing seemed unusual about the business to those in the room at the time. Indeed, there's not a hint of controversy on the business's Facebook page even now.

But Okke Ornstein eventually picked up on who Friesner is, and discovered about his use of a dead man as a front. Although Friesner is listed on the Panama Sailing School website as its "commodore," The Panama News has learned that his name and that of the company are kept off of at least some of the school's assets.

Now Friesner has filed a criminal defamation charge against Okke Ornstein, Friesner's ex-wife, Friesner's son, and the former webmaster of Friesner's Panama businesses. It's an alleged complex conspiracy to extort money for the ex-wife by revealing alleged secret information stolen from Friesner. The thing is, Ornstein's information comes from published public records. Another thing is that Friesner has come to Panama with a trail of fraud victims and cheated family members hollering for their money, and has gone on to get in a money dispute with his webmaster --- so it's easy for him to fantasize about a global conspiracy to take his money.

Anywhere else in the world, a career thug like Friesner could not maintain any sort of defamation action, civil or criminal, because the law generally presumes that a man with a criminal record like his has no good reputation to damage.

Ah, but Herbert Young is the well connected lawyer for Bosco the Clown, and the Public Ministry is now run by Martinelli's lapdog Giuseppe Bonissi --- so wouldn't you know that the Martinelli administration has taken up the cudgel for Mr. Friesner, by way of the prosecutors accepting Friesner's complaint as their own. Moreover, it is the stated policy of the Martinelli administration that the immigration of criminals to Panama is a "personal matter."

And wouldn't you know that one Don K. Winner is cheering on his client, Mr. Friesner, and predicting Ornstein's incarceration with glee. But of course. However, Winner seems to have never seen a scam he didn't like, and has a far less than perfect record in the prophecy department.