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New York, Friday, September 5, 2003 Restitution
Leader Disbarred by Court after Investigation of
Job Misconduct FORWARD STAFF The former top American
professional of an international Holocaust
restitution commission has been
disbarred.  The
move comes one year after the official, Neal
Sher, former chief of staff in the Washington
office of the International Commission on Holocaust
Era Insurance Claims, was investigated by the
commission for allegedly misappropriating funds for
personal use. The investigation was launched after
Sher admitted "unauthorized reimbursements of his
ICHEIC travel expenses," according to sources and
an internal document written by the commission's
chairman, former secretary of state Lawrence
Eagleburger.
On August 28, 2003, the District of Columbia
Court of Appeals ordered Sher "disbarred by consent
effective forthwith" from the Bar Association of
the District of Columbia. The order does not
specify the reasons for his disbarment, but Sher
signed an affidavit consenting to it. A consent
affidavit is submitted when an attorney is the
subject of an "investigation or a pending
proceeding based on allegations of misconduct,"
according to a rule of the D.C. bar association
that was cited in the court order.  Sher
told the Forward that his decision not to
fight against disbarment was "purely due to the
fact that the cost would be absolutely
prohibitive." He also said that Eagleburger
(left) had told him "that the bar action was
an outrage and I know that he wrote a letter to the
bar telling them it was inappropriate for them to
proceed" with the investigation.
Eagleburger's office
confirmed he wrote a letter to the bar stating
"I would respectfully suggest . . .
that no further action be taken against Mr.
Sher." Through an assistant, Eagleburger said, Sher
"did a bad thing, but didn't deserve to have his
whole life destroyed." Sher was investigated by the restitution
commission after admitting "unauthorized
reimbursements of his ICHEIC travel expenses"
according to sources and an internal document
written by the commission's chairman, former
secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger. Following
the investigation, which was subjected to a
"review" by a former FBI chief, Judge William
Webster, Sher resigned in June 2002 and paid
"full and immediate restitution," the commission
document states. A source with direct knowledge of
the situation, as well as other sources close to
the commission, verified the existence and content
of the document. Although the commission's allegations were made,
the Forward has not ascertained whether they
are true, nor has the Forward learned
whether these allegations precipitated the
investigation that led to his disbarment. According to the bar association's rules, a
consent affidavit, which is not a public document,
must acknowledge that the "material facts upon
which the allegations of misconduct are predicated
are true." It must also declare that the attorney
knows that if disciplinary proceedings based on the
alleged misconduct were brought, "the attorney
could not successfully defend against them." A
disbarred attorney may not apply for reinstatement
for at least five years. 
David Irving
comments: YES, the wheels of Justice grind
slowly, aber trefflich fein, as the
Germans have it. Neal Sher was one of the
most sleazy lawyers to have emerged from
the whole Holocaust
industry. He persecuted innocent men
mercilessly, and was finally caught out by
his own thieving and greed.
In 1999, when he
accused
the CIA of anti-Semitism, I wrote:
"For those with short memories: attorney
Neal Sher is not just any former
head of the Office of Special
Investigations; it was his office which
master-minded the railroading of innocent
American citizen John Demjanjuk
into Israel's custody, by arranging the
concealment and destruction of information
which totally exonerated the victim.  "Demjanjuk (above)
was stripped of his citizenship,
deported to Israel, sentenced to hang --
and then acquitted of all charges through
the efforts of a brave Jewish attorney and
even braver judges of the Israeli Supreme
Court; their findings, and the scathing
words about Sher's office pronounced by
the US District Court judge who ordered
Demjanjuk's citizenship restored, ought
still to ring in newspapermen's ears.
"In a later incarnation,
Sher pursued much the the same role in
Canada, until angry Canadians secured his
ouster.
"As for the unfortunate
Mr Ciralsky, the suggestion that Israeli
citizens are more predisposed than others
to spy on their host nations is a baseless
and distasteful slur, as Jonathan
Pollard, the late Mr & Mrs
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Klaus
Fuchs, George Blake, the
Krogers, and innumerable others
would doubtless, some of them from beyond
their lime-filled prison graves, solemnly
agree."  |
One restitution
leader, Elan Steinberg, defended
Sher, who was well respected for his role in
investigating war criminals as the federal
government's chief Nazi hunter from 1983 to 1994.
"What happened at [the international
commission] Eagleburger accepted as a full and
prompt resolution of the matter," said Steinberg,
the former executive director of the World Jewish
Congress.As director of the Office of Special
Investigations of the United States Department of
Justice, Sher handled the denaturalization and
deportation of dozens of onetime Nazi war
criminals. He headed an investigation into the Nazi
past of Austrian president Kurt Waldheim and
is credited for Waldheim's placement on the watch
list of persons ineligible to enter the United
States. In 1994 Sher became the top executive of
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which
he led for two years. Steinberg praised Sher's work at the Justice
Department: "Neal Sher has literally, not
figuratively, laid down his life for the Jewish
people on many occasions. I know of several
death threats against him when he was hunting
Nazi war criminals." But Sher's work at the commission was not as
widely admired. Both during and after his tenure,
the commission came under attack from some survivor
groups and congressmen for spending more money on
administrative expenses than on payouts to
survivors. The controversy was reported in the
Forward, and in The Baltimore Sun and
Los Angeles Times. The insurance commission was formed in 1998 by
survivor organizations, state insurance
commissioners, representatives of Jewish groups,
the Israeli government and European insurance
companies including Germany's Allianz, France's
Axa, Italy's Generali and Switzerland's Winterthur
and Zurich. Funded by the companies, the commission
seeks to resolve and pay claims by survivors and
heirs of Nazi victims who contend companies refused
to pay their families' life insurance policies. Recently, however, German insurers released a
list of some 400,000 names of policyholders. These
lists have been instrumental for those who have no
proof or knowledge of their unpaid policies.
Survivors' advocates have pledged to pressure
companies to disclose more names. The Baltimore Sun, in an article on the
commission's administrative costs published on July
7, 2002, reported on Sher's air-travel expenses.
The newspaper claimed that commission financial
records showed that in 1999
Sher spent $136,563 in travel expenses, mostly for
travel to Europe. "Sher's first-class or
business-class airfare to Rome, Berlin and other
cities often totaled $5,000 or more per trip," the
article stated. Sources close to the commission told the
Forward that Sher had allegedly carried out
a misappropriation by improperly claiming
reimbursement for his air-travel. Sher first admitted his actions to Eagleburger,
who regarded them as "probable improprieties" and
placed Sher on "administrative leave" pending an
investigation, the commission's document states.
Eagleburger then asked the commission's legal
counsel, Tom Howard, to conduct a
"fact-finding investigation" and enlisted Judge
Webster to review the case, according to the
document. Following Webster's reply to Eagleburger, the
document states, Eagleburger "accepted Mr. Sher's
resignation" effective June 20, 2002 and "obtained
full and immediate restitution." - Related
stories on this website:
-
Our
dossier on the origins of
anti-Semitism-
L
A Times on the Demjanjuk case
-
Ex
OSI chief Neal Sher was caught with his hand in
the till and sacked from Holocaust
Commission.
-
Neal
Sher accuses the CIA of anti-Semitism
-
May
1999: Justice Dept renewed court battle to strip
U.S. citizenship from John Demjanjuk
-
Settling
the score with John Demjanjuk: Globe and Mail
finds that a notorious war-crimes suspect is a
target again after 6 years of freedom, and
neighbours ask why
-
Neal
Sher is currently under criminal investigation
for perjury in the United States; this same OSI
is now saying Demjanjuk was not Ivan the
Terrible after all...
-
Real
History and Mossad,the Israeli Secret Service by
Victor Ostrovsky
-
Jerome
Brentar reports on the OSI's attempts to conceal
the truth about John Demjanjuk and to railroad
an innocent man to the gallows
-
US
Government and its new Nazi-hunting Office of
Special Investigations had the wrong
man
-
David
Irving's diary documents an attempt to circulate
a (probably forged) document of OSI provenance
smearing his name in Feb 1993
-
Crooked
Nazi-Hunter Neal Sher on the death of Mossad
chief Isser Harel
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