Appendix Part 5

At various times, Aquino has suggested that Kinsey’s therapist, her parents, the press, the police, the courts, the Army and private investigators, researchers, Temple of Set defectors, crime writers, everyone is "lying" about him, that he was "in Washington, D.C." when the ritual molestations took place. "The San Francisco Police investigated," he explained in a public statement on June 7, 1999, and "verified that Lilith [Aquino] and I had been 3,000 miles away in Washington, D.C. – where I was on duty every single day." SFPD detectives closed the case. Charges were not filed.

But don’t take his word as Gospel. Aquino left the Presidio in the summer of 1986. He was assigned to Washington, D.C., then St. Louis. But he was, according to Army investigators, "back in the Presidio in San Francisco during that summer." Aquino’s alibi is a cracked goose egg.

Army files reveal that the San Francisco Police Department dropped the 1987-88 prosecution unjustifiably. The federal Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that the SFPD discontinued the investigation of Aquino and wife Lillith in September 1988 "for lack of sufficient evidence." The Army CID pressed on with the investigation and in August 1989 issued a report concerning "the various child-abuse and related criminal offenses investigated," and concluded that the police department’s case was stymied "because all further leads involved adults who refused to cooperate.35

To silence the children, guns were reportedly pointed at their heads and family members were threatened.36 True enough, some witnesses were not "cooperative" at all.

The Army CID maintains that the probe of Aquino and an employee of the center, Gary Hambright, "was not arbitrary or capricious. Kinsey made a certain, reliable identification of plaintiff in a non-suggestive setting, while shopping with her parents at the [Presidio] exchange. She exhibited the fear and terror that one expects upon recognition of a threat or source of harm. Her earlier statements to the child psychiatrist and her mother about ‘Mikey’ and ‘Shamby,’ persons until then unidentified, support the validity of the identification." Her description of Aquino and her "identification from a photo and video line-up also corroborate the identification at the PX. Kinsey identified plaintiff's house as the place where ‘Mr. Gary’ took her from the Child Development Center, and where she saw ‘Mikey’ in ‘Army clothes’ like her father's."

Kinsey Adams-Thompson described the blue-gray color of Aquino’s house. Photos taken at Aquino’s apartment "show masks, guns, toy animals and ceremonial items that are similar to things described by Kinsey and other children. A notebook from plaintiff's apartment contained the name ‘Mike Todo,’ and ‘Todo’ was one of the persons present at ‘Mr. Gary's’ house." Why, you might get the idea that Aquino had committed the molestations, as charged; that Aquino told "a different version of the events is irrelevant," concluded the Army.

When his military status was called into question on the Internet, he claimed in response that he is still an Army Reservist in good standing. Court documents tell another story. In 1990, an Army continuation board recommended terminating Aquino's service after conducting its own investigation of the ritual abuse charges, and he was processed out of the Army Active Reserves.37

Charles Baudelaire pondered "the sorrows of Satan" in verse; Michael Aquino experienced those pangs first-hand.

It happened this way: The newspapers reported that Gary Hambright, a Baptist minister who died of AIDS, stood charged with molesting dozens of children. Parents sued the Army for an excess of $60 million, and in some instances monetary settlements with parents were reached. Gary Hambright died, leaving behind an obituary thick with references to "my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.38

On April 19, 1988, all ten charges against Hambright were dropped by U.S. Attorney Joseph Russionello, who bluntly admitted that there was clear and convincing evidence of child molestation but "insufficient evidence" to link those charged to the crimes. Parents immediately denounced Russioniello, who had demonstrated that "the federal system has broken down," and was unable "to protect the rights of citizens age three to eight." (Russionello has been known to perform services for the intelligence sector. Jack Blum, a U.S. Senate investigator, testified before a Select Committee on October 23, 1996 that the DA returned $35,000 in cocaine profits seized in a trafficking bust to the Contras.39

And those accusatory headlines kept coming: "Satanic cult has bizarre links to Marin" (Marin Independent Journal, December, 6, 1987): "… Satanic church members, including a key figure in the Presidio child molestation case, have been linked to satanic cult activities in Marin County." William and Lynn Butch, the in-laws, were listed by the county clerk as "founders of two Marin satanic cult groups: Dark Star 9 Pylon and Meta Mates." It was reported that Aquino’s portfolio included property in Marin and Sonoma inherited from his mother, "who died of cancer in San Francisco in 1985 … a temple priestess. She left her son a $3.2 million estate, including a house … leased by Project Care for Children and the Marin County Child Abuse Council … "

Lynn Butch, Lillith Aquino’s sister, "is the daughter of Harry H. Johnson, a wealthy Mill Valley developer who was allegedly kidnapped in September by Kenneth R. Russo. Russo contends that Johnson swindled him out of more than $500,000 in a business deal."

Hell of a Note

Dr, Aquino made national headlines again in February 1997, when he and wife Lilith filed a lawsuit against ElectriCiti Inc., an Internet service provider, for its part in a "conspiracy" resulting in "negligence and infliction of emotional distress." Aquino’s complaint concerned Diana "Curio" Napolis, a researcher on the Internet posting under the alias ‘Curio,’ who "has been posting defamatory messages" about Dr. and Mrs. Aquino to various Internet newsgroups. He complained that the ISP "has not only permitted Curio to continue the postings, but has actively assisted Curio in making these postings." He sought $250,000 in damages.40

Diana Napolis, for six years an investigative social worker for the San Diego County court system, is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She is a skilled investigator. Offended that the civil criminal justice system had failed to lock him up, "Curio" obtained declassified Army documents related to the Presidio child abuse charges and Aquino's processing out of the military, and she posted them on the Net. Aquino claimed that Napolis "has posted at least 1,800 derogatory and threatening messages on as many as 38 different newsgroups," Web magazine reported that September.

But at least one of the "Curio" posts was fabricated: "I can find you [Aquino] whenever I want. And it soon will be much more than just finding for both your perv' wife and you." The threats were reported in the press far and wide … but have never been documented – were, in fact, a figment of Aquino’s fertile imagination. Napolis denies that she had anything to do with the message attributed to her, or that she has ever threatened the Satanist: "He cannot produce an authentic message, transmitted publicly or privately, with any such words written by me," she wrote in an Internet post. "Other Satanists have threatened him … but I've never done it – it's not my style. In contrast, one of his cult members threatened to cannibalize me (I didn't take it seriously)."41

The Internet provider responded that the firm "does not know the identity of Curio, or even know if Curio is an ElectriCiti customer…. ElectriCiti does not have prior knowledge or interest in either the Aquinos, Curio, or any conflict between them."42

The case was thrown out of court on June 13, 1997 with "leave to amend." "Apparently," Napolis wrote, "Aquino wants to continue to lash out blindly and punish someone, anyone." He attempted to seal the court’s file on the case. His appeal was thrown out "with prejudice" that is, he can never file his "cyber-stalking" suit – a certain threat to first amendment rights on the Internet – again. Web activists everywhere exhaled a collective sigh of relief.

Curio and her file of government documents on Aquino are not Aquino's only migraine. On July 7, 2000, Rusty Nelson, a photographer living in Omaha, Nebraska in the 1980s, stated in a spammed e-mail message that Lawrence King, an alleged participant in a local pedophile ring, passed a suitcase stuffed with bearer bonds to a familiar "dark villain" Dr. Michael Aquino, "earmarked for covert Contra operations."

Ser Appendix Part 6