Peter F. Paul
Encyclopedia
Peter F. Paul is a former lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 and entrepreneur who was convicted for conspiracy and drug dealing, and later for securities fraud in connection with his business dealings with Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

creator Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....

. He has repeatedly brought suit against Hillary Clinton, accusing her of lying about donations he solicited on behalf of her 2000 senatorial campaign.

The Cuban coffee caper

In the 1970s, Peter Paul was a lawyer in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

, representing foreign governments and political leaders in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

. He also served as President of the Miami World Trade Center and was the original owner and operator of the largest Foreign Trade Zone
Foreign trade zone
A foreign-trade zone in the United States is a geographical area, in United States Ports of Entry Ports of Entry, where commercial merchandise, both domestic and foreign receives the same Customs treatment it would if it were outside the commerce of the United States...

 in the U.S., Miami Free Zone Inc. As a result of what Paul described as anti-Communist and anti-Castro political activities, he directed a fraud on the Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n government of $8.75 million dollars by selling agents of Cuban president Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

 nonexistent coffee. The plan apparently also involved sinking the ship that was to deliver the nonexistent coffee to hide the fraud from Castro and, according to TIME Magazine, to defraud its insurer, but the conspirators neglected to bribe a port official in Santo Domingo, and the people who were supposed to scuttle the boat were not allowed on board.

Paul pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges. When his home was raided by the police in connection with this crime, they found cocaine in his garage, and Paul also pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine with intent to distribute. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for the cocaine charge, and a concurrent three years for fraud; he was paroled after three years. His license to practice law was suspended as a result of the convictions, and he claims to have been sued by the Cuban government as well.

In 1983, Paul was caught traveling to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 using the identity of a dead man; he pleaded guilty to federal charges of making false statements to customs inspectors. This was a violation of his parole terms from the 1979 felonies, and he went back to jail.

Involvement in politics and the entertainment industry

After being released from federal prison in California, Paul moved to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. In 1985, he was appointed President of the California Bicentennial Foundation for the Constitution and Bill of Rights, a foundation designated by the California state legislature and governor to direct California's role in the Bicentennial celebration of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Paul's efforts on behalf of the Foundation were derided in the Los Angeles Times, in part because the commission was selling a book that described blacks as “pickaninnies”, and slaveowners as “the worst victims of slavery”, and in part because Paul referred to the founding fathers of the United States as "39 sweaty old men arguing in Philadelphia", and remarked that most Californians weren't able to understand the 18th century language in the constitution anyway. Prior to the Los Angeles Times article, Chief Justice Warren Burger had commended Paul for his efforts in a letter that read in part "We commend you for the many contributions you have made during the national commemoration of the Constitution's 200th anniversary".

Paul became a business manager for, or otherwise involved with several celebrities, including becoming manager for a time of romance-novel icon Fabio
Fabio Lanzoni
Fabio Lanzoni ; born March 15, 1959), widely known simply as Fabio, is a famous international Italian fashion model, spokesperson and actor who appeared on the cover of hundreds of romance novels throughout the 1980s and 1990s....

.

Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign

Paul emerged in 2000 as the largest contributor to Senatorial candidate Hillary Clinton. Paul and his attorneys have at various times offered two explanations for this. First, that he was trying to attract her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, to serve on the board of Stan Lee Media after leaving office. Second, that he hoped to negotiate a pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...

 for his previous criminal convictions. Paul produced and underwrote what he described as the largest fund raising event ever held for a federal candidate, in Los Angeles
Brentwood, Los Angeles, California
Brentwood is a district in western Los Angeles, California, United States. The district is located at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, bounded by the San Diego Freeway on the east, Wilshire Boulevard on the south, the Santa Monica city limits on the southwest, the border of Topanga State...

, days before the 2000 Democratic Convention began. The Hollywood Farewell Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton featured prominent entertainers singing for the President, while raising over $1 million for Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. The event cost $1.9 million to organize according to Paul and $500,000 according to the Federal Election Commission filing, much of it borrowed fraudulently by Paul from Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...

. Later indictments would state that Merrill Lynch lost about $5 million it had lent to Paul.

Two days after the gala, the Washington Post publicized Paul's criminal record, and Hillary Clinton denied knowing Paul and "vowed not to take any contributions from him". Through her spokesman, Howard Wolfson, Hillary stated on August 16, 2000, that she would return $2,000 she reported receiving from Paul in June 2000.

Paul alleged that Clinton was deceitful in this, and retained public interest law firm, and frequent Clinton opponent, Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch is an organization that describes itself as "a conservative, non-partisan American educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law." According to its mission statement, Judicial Watch "advocates high standards of...

 to represent him in a series of civil and criminal lawsuits against the Clintons, the Clinton campaign, and ultimately the Federal Election Commission (which he charged was negligent in failing to convict Mrs. Clinton). These charges were delayed, as courts held that Paul could not bring charges against the Clintons as he fought extradition from Brazil (to which he had fled in 2001 to escape Stan-Lee-Media-related criminal charges, see below), but proceeded once he was returned to the States.

In March 2005, Paul had a falling out with his advocates at Judicial Watch. He accused them of using his name to raise more than $15 million from people who disliked the Clintons, while doing little to advance his case. He announced his plan to replace them with a "dream team" of Republican lawyers, and in February 2007, he filed suit against them, saying that they had taken advantage of him and that he was “not a big fan of their behavior”.

Regardless, Paul's claims have not found traction. An audit by the Federal Elections Commission found that neither Senator Clinton nor her Senate campaign had accepted any illegal funds in connection with the Hollywood fundraiser, though the campaign was asked to pay $35,000 in fines for having under-reported the cost of the party. Paul's suit against the FEC was thrown out; his attempt to bring ethics charges against Clinton were rejected, and his fraud charges against Senator Clinton were tossed out in April 2006. Paul continued to press civil charges against Senator Clinton and former President Clinton for "looting" his business, but the courts refused to allow him to sue Senator Clinton, with the appellate court specifying that her behavior had been “perfectly legal”, and allowing her to recoup her legal fees from Paul.

Finding no luck in the courts, in 2007 Paul promoted a thirteen and a half minute video titled “Hillary Exposed: The Case of Paul v. Clinton”, attacking Senator Clinton. Her office responded “Peter Paul is a professional liar who has four separate criminal convictions, two for fraud. His video repackages a series of seven-year-old false claims about Senator Clinton that have already been rejected by the California state courts, the Justice Department, the Federal Election Commission, and the Senate Ethics Committee."

In January 2008, he re-filed his complaint with the FEC. Paul's suit against former President Clinton remains, as of December 2007, outstanding. He is seeking $41.9 million in damages.

Founding of Stan Lee Media, fraud, and flight

In 1998, Paul co-founded Stan Lee Media
Stan Lee Media
Stan Lee Media was an Internet-based creation, production and marketing company that was founded in 1998, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2000, and ultimately dismissed from bankruptcy in November, 2006. In its early years, the company created Stan Lee branded super hero franchises...

 with comic book legend Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....

 and took the company public via a reverse-merger into a trading shell in August 1999.

In February, 2000, in the midst of the Internet stock market boom, Stan Lee Media built a 165 person studio, and the company's market capitalization grew to over $370 million. However, at the end of the year, Stan Lee Media ran out of money. Paul alleged in a later civil fraud and coercion suit against Bill and Hillary Clinton that the company failed because of the intervention of Bill Clinton, who he claims persuaded a large investor not to further support the company.

In the aftermath of the company's collapse, it was alleged that Paul and a corporate officer named Stephan Gordon had illegally tried to support the stock's price by using nominee accounts to buy 1.6 million shares of the company's stock, attempting to pay for the stock with bad checks.

In February 2001, Stan Lee Media filed for bankruptcy, and Peter Paul fled to São Paulo, Brazil. There he managed 112 Interactive do Brazil, a seller of English language acquisition software, and fought extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...

.

Stan Lee-related litigation

Paul has promoted lawsuits against Marvel Entertainment
Marvel Entertainment
Marvel Entertainment, LLC , formerly Marvel Enterprises and Toy Biz, Inc., is an American entertainment company formed from the merger of Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. and Toy Biz, Inc....

 claiming that Stan Lee Media owns the rights to all the Marvel characters created by Stan Lee. These would include Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

 and The X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...

. Paul and his associates further claim that Stan Lee Media was never properly dissolved as a corporation, and that they control the company. Though courts have found that some Stan Lee Media characters were improperly transferred to Stan Lee's later company, Pow Entertainment
POW Entertainment
POW! Entertainment is an American media production company formed by Gill Champion, Arthur Lieberman and former Marvel Comics editor and publisher Stan Lee in 2001. POW! is made up of primarily two companies, POW! Entertainment, Inc...

, plaintiffs have not yet found traction with these broader claims, and Stan Lee himself has both publicly dismissed these claims and has engaged in a series of cross-suits with Stan Lee Media, Peter Paul, and his associates.

On March 3, 2008, Paul posted a message to his blog, subsequently reposted by one or more unknown parties verbatim on other websites, in which he claimed that Stan Lee helped disguise the origin of Paul's unreported donations to Hillary Clinton, and that he (Paul) has a video tape of Lee admitting to this subterfuge. Lee responded with a lawsuit against Paul, claiming defamation.

Securities fraud conviction and jail terms

On June 12, 2001, Paul was indicted on one count of violating SEC Reg. 10(b)5, for manipulating the price of the stock in Stan Lee Media. On August 3, 2001, Paul was arrested in Brazil and jailed, pending the outcome of extradition proceedings. Paul failed in his efforts to avoid extradition and, in September 2003, he was delivered to the Metropolitan Detention Facility in Brooklyn, New York, for arraignment and trial.

In August 2004, the SEC formally filed its complaint against Paul for the manipulation of Stan Lee Media's stock in violation of the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, and SEC Rule 10b-5. Paul pleaded guilty to the securities fraud charge. The government characterized his conduct as causing "losses to the investing public and financial institutions of approximately $25 million". In July 2005, he settled related civil charges, consenting to a permanent injunction against ever serving as an officer or director of any reporting company. He pleaded poverty and, as a result, was not asked to pay any fine. He then spent four years under house arrest, wearing an "ankle bracelet".

In July 2009, Paul was sentenced to ten years in prison, and ordered to pay over $11 million in restitution to Merrill Lynch and Spear, Leeds & Kellogg. He was ordered to self-surrender on September 30, 2009, and is currently serving his 10-year imprisonment term as inmate number 78802-012. As of November 2009, he was imprisoned in Anthony, Texas
Anthony, Texas
Anthony is an incorporated town in El Paso County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,850 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Anthony is located at ....

and eligible for parole in late 2014.

External links

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