January 25, 1999

 

IRA EINHORN--ONE MORE FADED 60'S ICON

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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.



 

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