So the type of scam operation that Lyndon LaRouche was operating to funnel money into his presidential bids, which an ex-LaRouchite explained at trial with “If you’re talking to a little old lady who says she’s going to lose her house, get the money.  If you’re talking to an unemployed worker, get the money.  These people are immoral anyway.” went like this:

Ms. Adel E Bradley, a 75-year old widow who lives in a mobile home in Modesto, California, said in an interview that she stopped at a LaRouche table in the San Francisco airport in 1984 and gave “$20 for magazines”.  Soon after, she began getting calls from LaRouche operatives, soliciting money.  One caller, she said, asked for her credit card number, saying he would check to see what the credit limit was, and the next thing she knew she had lent the campaign $950.Over the following months, she wrote to the Federal Elections Commission.  “I continued to get calls and was talked into making loans of monies that represented my life savings.”  She said that LaRouche representatives warned her that the banking system was about to collapse, so her money would be safer with them.  They promised quarterly interest payments at 15 percent.  One time “a young man from his organization came to my house at 11:30 pm” to pick up a check for #20,000 instructing her to make it out to a LaRouche affiliate organ.  Receipts for #30,000 in loans to that company were submitted with her complaint, and she said it was her understanding that she was making the loans to the LaRouche campaign.  To date she has received no interest payments, just a $500 check on an account that was closed, she said.Mr. Spannus said Mrs. Bradley’s “name is familiar” and suggested that the banks or the Federal government might have prompted her, as well as others, to complain.  Mr. Spannus said that the LaRouche Campaign had repaid the $950 and declined to discuss the remaining $30,000 debt, except to say “our contention is that the FEC has no jurisdiction in the matter.”  (“Fraud Suggested in LaRouche Fund-Raising”, 4-12-86)

(“Fraud Suggested in LaRouche Fund-Raising”, 4-12-86)Anecdotal evidence that I’ve seen here or there or been emailed suggests nothing much has ever changed concerning “campaign fundraising tactics”, even when they veer into the moderately legal category.  There were other methods of fraud being committed.  Money was being siphoned off from LaRouche’s California anti-AIDs ballot initiatives (quarantine the gays) into his presidential bid, and with a panoply of acronyms that matched the two crusades.As various subordinates were charged and convicted, LaRouche striked out in his usual manner.  “The baseless and unconstitutional actions are nothing but a political dirty operation carried out by the parallel government that is behind the Iran – Contra Affair.”  And thus LaRouche was able to narrow-cast an actual government conspiracy into a vendetta against him.  He also made the statement, “Any attempt to arrest me would be an attempt to kill me,” and he was prepared to “Defend myself by every means at my disposal.  I will not submit passively to an arrest, but in such a scenario I will defend myself.  The Reagan Administration will be condemned by history if such a scenario passes.”

When he was arrested and sent to prison, he submitted passively.  A LaRouchian organization sprung up called the “Human Rights Commission”, which once held a fund-raiser where “one leading physicist, acquainted with Albert Einstein, plans to show that LaRouche has contributed far more to science than Einstein.”  The LaRouchians were kept occupied with the activities of this “Human Rights Commission”, a House of Reprsentatives campaign that LaRouche ran, and his 1992 presidential bid.

Disgraced televangelist and fellow – cellmate Jim Bakker described an incident with LaRouche thusly:

In no time at all, our current-affairs discussion group turned into the Lyndon LaRouche Hour.  It was interesting just to watch Lyndon “wow” the unsuspecting listeners who did not know him as he attempted to explain the current Persian Gulf Crisis by reviewing history as far back as the ancient Roman Empire.  Newcomers to the group did not want to appear ignorant, so they often simply sat there nodding their heads in agreement as they listened to Lyndon ramble on, even though they didn’t have a clue what the man was saying. […]One Friday night we had a new member attend our discussion group.  The newcomer was a bald, young, black man, about six feet tall with a muscular physique, wearing dark sunglasses.  As was our custom, the moderator invited the newcomer to introduce himself and tell the group a little about his background.“I am the Messiah,” he announced threateningly, “and I have come to save the world from Ronald Reagan and George Bush.”

The man in question was in prison for breaking into Ronald Reagan’s estate.  Lyndon LaRouche behaved himself well, and despite being remorseless (and constantly paranoid that his cell was bugged) was let out early for Good Behavior at the start of 1994.  Incidentally, when he made a fight against the Senate campaign of Oliver North part of his crusade — roughly the first item on his agenda upon entering back into civilian life — North pointed out that LaRouche was a felon and he wasn’t.

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