Michael Riconosciuto is an electronics and computer expert who was arrested in early 1991, shortly after providing Inslaw, Inc. with an affidavit in support of their lawsuit against the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Riconosciuto professed a defense centered on the Inslaw Affair. Riconosciuto claimed to have reprogrammed Inslaw's case-management program with a secret "back-door" to allow clandestine tracking of individuals. Riconosciuto stated that he had been threatened with prosecution by a justice department official. Riconosciuto provided an Affidavit detailing threats to a House Select Committee investigating the Inslaw Affair.
1970s
Early background
Riconoscuito has demonstrated some technical and scientific talents. According to an article originally published in the Village Voice: Riconosciuto was employed as an engineer at a mine in Maricopa, California. Hercules Properties, Ltd. had raised financing and purchased a contaminated waste-disposal site which had once been a portion of a TNT and fertilizer manufacturer known as Hercules Powder Works, and which was located along San Pablo Bay in Contra Costa County, California.
Nathan Baca's Emmy winning series "The Octopus Murders" featured documents from the archives of Michael Riconosciuto. These documents have been the subject of interest for recently reopened cold case homicide investigations.
1990s
Inslaw
In early 1991, Riconosciuto filed an affidavit before a House judiciary committee investigating the bankruptcy case of Inslaw Inc. v. United States Government. Riconosciuto was called to testify before Congress regarding the modification of PROMIS, a case-management software program that had been developed for the Department of Justice by Washington, D.C.-based Inslaw Inc.. Riconosciuto declared that he had been under the direction of Earl Brian, who was then a controlling shareholder and director of Hadron, Inc.. Hadron was a competitor to Inslaw and was also a government consulting firm with "several contracts with the Department of Defense and the CIA." Within eight days of this declaration, Riconosciuto was arrested for conspiracy to manufacture, conspiracy to distribute, possession with intent to distribute, and with distribution—a total of ten counts related to methamphetamine and methadone. During his trial, Riconosciuto accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of stealing two copies of his tape. Then later he claimed a third was tossed by him into a Washington State swamp. In addition to his claims of a government "frame up" related to Inslaw, Riconosciuto maintained that the chemical laboratory on his property was in use for the extraction of precious metals such as platinum in a highly specialized mining operation. No drug-lab contamination was found at the laboratory site and a member of the DOE's Hazardous Spill Response Team asserted that high barium levels on the property were unlikely to be the result of Riconosciuto's work. Barium does have specialized usage for metallurgy with regards to the processing of platinum group metals.
