Love the Felon, Part 2
Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 29 WorldNetDaily article by Art Moore checks in again on his favorite felon, Peter Paul. Moore depicts just how desperate Paul is for attention -- apparently, he is "producing three different documentaries, including a theatrical release planned for the third quarter of 2007 that aims to have the kind of election-season buzz generated by Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11.'"

Moore gives Paul the attention he craves -- after all, Paul's mission coincides with that of WND's, to smear the Clintons -- and in exchange for Paul's dose of Clinton-bashing, Moore obliges by once again (as he did in a article last August) whitewashing Paul's criminal record. Moore repeats Paul's lame claim that his late-70s conviction for cocaine possession and an attempt to bilk Cuban dictator Fidel Castro of $8 million was "politics."

Moore also whitewashes Paul's current felony, and gets a date wrong to boot. Moore writes, " In 2001 he pleaded guilty to one count of violating Securities and Exchange Commission regulations on the trading of his stock." In fact, Paul's plea was in March 2005; 2001 was when Paul fled the country to avoid prosecution, fighting extradition to the U.S. for two years. And Moore's description of Paul's current felony makes it sound much more benign than it is. From the U.S. attorney who prosecuted Paul:

PAUL admitted orchestrating a scheme in which he and others manipulated Stan Lee Media stock, trading it through numerous nominee accounts that hid from the investing public PAUL's ownership and control of large volumes of stock that were being traded. PAUL also admitted that to further the scheme, he sought to inflate and stabilize the price of the stock by instructing market makers in Stan Lee Media stock to execute trades that created a false appearance of constant demand and that concealed from the investing public the fact that PAUL had arranged for large blocks of stock to be sold at substantial discounts in after-hours trading. Finally, PAUL admitted that he had secretly borrowed millions of dollars on margin using as collateral the stock that he had traded through the nominee accounts; in this way PAUL concealed from the investing public that he was effectively liquidating a substantial part of his stock holdings in Stan Lee Media.

Paul faces up to 10 years' imprisonment, a maximum fine of $5 million, or two times the greater of the gross gain or gross loss resulting from his crime, believed to be in the neighborhood of $25 million.

You can see why Moore wants to make Paul and his felony sound benign. Anyone else with Paul's criminal record would have no credibility, even in WND's eyes -- but since Paul is dishing on the Clintons, WND is all too willing to suspend reality and treat him as a credible witness.