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BACKGROUND DATA ON SHERMAN H. SKOLNICK
Since 1958 he has been a court reformer. Since 1963 he has been the foundr/chairman, Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts, a public interest group researching and disclosing certain instances of judicial bribery and political murders.

In 1973, Mr. Skolnick wrote a book, "The Secret History of Airplane Sabotage", a heavily documented book dealing, among other things, with the sabotaged plane crash December, 1972, in Chicago, one month after Nixon was re-elected President. Twelve Watergate figures died when the United Air Lines plane pancaked just short of Midway airport. Dead in the crash zone were Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, wife of the Watergate burglar and others linked to the Watergate Affair. She had in her possession over 2 million dollars in valuables obtained by blackmailing Nixon on his role in the 1963 political assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Skolnick's group "liberated" the entire unpublicized file of the National Transportation Safety Board, some 1300 pages of documented reports and pictures showing sabotage. Skolnick brought a suit against the NTSB contending sabotage cover-up. The NTSB re-opened their public hearings on the crash but continued to contend it was caused by "pilot error". Skolnick who was the star-witness at the re-opened hearings demanded that the NTSB panel disqualify themselves since most were financially tied to the airlines industry and that Rockefellers, owners of all three News Networks, and major owner of United Air Lines, wanted the matter censored. The NTSB panel refused to disqualify themselves and entered a whitewash report,condemning Skolnick and his associates. Thereafter, Rockefellers' lawyers harassed the publisher so that Skolnick's book was stopped in the printing cycle and no copies are now available.

More highlights of the work of the Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts. Their work in 1969, touched off the biggest judicial bribery scandal in U.S. history,the collapse of Illinois' highest court, the Illinois Supreme Court. As the head of his group, Skolnick directly accused the high court judges of bribery involving a banker who owned a bank right across the street from the high court's Chicago offices. Facing jail and on appeal to their court, the banker, the former Illinois Director of the Department of Revenue, Theodore J.Isaacs, won his criminal appeal by bribing most of the high court judges with stock in his nearby bank. Outraged by Skolnick's direct confrontation with them, the high court judges demanded that Skolnick disclose to the high court judges how he and his associates went about investigating the high court. When Skolnick refused to disclose, the high court judges had Skolnick, a paraplegic invalid in a wheelchair, hauled off to prison for "contempt of court". The imprisoning of Skolnick touched off a public commotion and the chief justice and an associate justice of the high court resigned, and a third accused high court judge suddenly died in the ruckus and Skolnick was vindicated. Caught up in a further mess involving the same bank was the former Illinois Governor by 1969 he was a federal appeals Judge in Chicago. Skolnick accused that judge, Otto Kerner,jr., of bribery as well.

www.skolnicksreport.com