As we approach
the new millennium, do we really need to still be dealing with
the likes of world class sixties scumbag Ira Einhorn?
Einhorn,
of course, is the once famous "Unicorn," renowned
for preaching New Age nonsense to hippies and corporate chieftains
alike. These days, though, he is better known as a fugitive.
Back in
January, 1981, Einhorn jumped bail just before his trial for
the murder of ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux, whose mummified body
was found stuffed in a trunk in his closet. In 1993, he was
convicted in absentia, and sentenced to life in prison.
Einhorn,
an anti-war activist, and a huge fraud--he claimed to have invented
the Internet--does have one great talent. He is able to find
stupid women, including billionaire heiress Barbara Bronfman,
to support him.
Amazingly,
as long ago as April, 1981, the authorities had a pretty good
idea as to his whereabouts.
Einhorn
and his girlfriend at that time, Jeanne Morrison, had been living
with another couple in Dublin. Einhorn said he was having some
"political problems" in the United States and urged
them to avoid mentioning his name.
While in
Chicago to visit relatives, the Irish couple contacted the Chicago
Sun Times to see if they could find out more about their boarder.
The Sun Times told them to call the Philadelphia Inquirer, and
that's where they found out that Einhorn was wanted for murder.
When they returned to Ireland, the couple, knowing a murder
fugitive was living in the apartment, called before going home.
Morrison answered. The couple called police, who threw Morrison
and Einhorn out of the apartment. Because there was no extradition
treaty with Ireland, Einhorn was not arrested.
In May 1985,
Richard DiBenedetto, also of the DA's office, got a call from
an Irish professor. The professor said he ran into Einhorn at
Trinity College, and confronted him about being a fugitive.
Einhorn soon left the area, telling an acquaintance he was going
on a vacation.
Einhorn
and Morrison soon split up.
The story
then shifts to Sweden. Philadelphia detectives learned that
Einhorn was in Stockholm, staying with a woman named Annika
Flodin. Police in Stockholm were asked to go to Flodin's house.
She told police Einhorn already had left, and that he had been
a boarder there.
At that
point, DiBenedetto said, detectives wanted to wait and see if
Flodin, who they believed was Einhorn's girlfriend, would get
together again with the fugitive.
Soon, Flodin
left Sweden for Denmark. DiBenedetto found out that she left
a forwarding address, but it was a fake.
"At
that point, I thought she was trying to hide something,"
he said.
In 1987,
two detectives from the district attorney's office were going
to Ireland, and DiBenedetto asked them to check on a known Irish
acquaintance of Einhorn's--Eugene Mallon. The detectives showed
Mallon a photo of Einhorn, and "the guy got nasty with
them and called the Irish police on them," DiBenedetto
recalled.
DiBenedetto
decided to call the Swedish police again, asking them to keep
an eye out for any signs of Flodin or Einhorn.
Meanwhile,
Annika Flodin Mallon applied for a French driver's license in
1993. She and Einhorn were living in the French countryside
and using the name Mallon--the name of their Irish bookstore
friend.
Eventually,
the paperwork for the license made its way back to Sweden. Swedish
police spotted it last December and called DiBenedetto. Police
in Champagne-Mouton, France--where Einhorn and Flodin were living--
were notified, as were FBI agents in France. The Champagne-Mouton
police conducted surveillance and said the man going by the
name of Eugene Mallon "looked like our man," said
DiBenedetto.
Soon after,
Einhorn was arrested by the French police. "I was very
happy for the (Maddux) family," DiBenedetto said after
Einhorn was captured. "They were people who believed in
the system."
Too bad
that the system doesn't work.
In December,
1997, a French court refused to extradite Einhorn, citing a
French law requiring that all defendants convicted in absentia
must have a retrial. Pennsylvania then passed a law promising
Einhorn a retrial. He was re-arrested in September 1998, but
at a subsequent court hearing, he was ordered released.
On January
12, 1999, another French court postponed a final ruling on a
U.S. request for his extradition. Judge Claude Arrighy gave
no reason for the postponement and said that a new hearing would
be held on February 18th.
The reason
is perfectly clear, and diplomatic intervention, as already
requested by the attorneys general of many states, won't help
either.
After all,
how does one assert diplomatically that the French, pathetically
requiring American intervention to save them--twice this century--will
never get over their massive inferiority complex? These same
French, far too many of whom were very willing collaborators
with the Nazis, take absolute delight in tweaking the nose of
the US, even if it means letting a murderer off the hook.