Including information about his associates
July 28, 1999
For many years, Willis Carto, treasurer and sometime-CEO of Liberty Lobby, used long-time friend LaVonne Furr as a front for his illegal dealings. At Carto’s request, LaVonne signed back-dated minutes, set up overseas bank accounts, and helped transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars among various Carto front groups. As a result, LaVonne and her husband Lewis are now known to have committed half a dozen federal felonies, all as part of the fraudulent effort to divert millions of dollars meant for the IHR to Carto. Carto even convinced LaVonne to initiate two lawsuits against the IHR after their fraud was discovered.
As the details of Carto’s fraudulent diversion of funds from the IHR started to become known, Carto needed another front person to hide behind. His choice? His own wife, Elisabeth Carto. Like LaVonne, Elisabeth filed suits against the IHR, participated in phony board meetings, and issued false powers of attorney, etc. Other women Carto has hidden behind include Jean Farrel, Ingaborg Busch, Olive Snead, and Anne Cronin.
Both Elisabeth and LaVonne are now so fearful about what they have done that they refuse to turn over documents, to answer questions about their actions under oath, and in some cases, to appear for questioning when ordered to do so by the court!
Because of his continuing refusal to return the diverted funds, to give an accounting as to what happened to the money (he says he fears criminal prosecution if he does), or to settle even at pennies on the dollar, Carto now finds himself in a position where his hillside estate is about to be sold at auction, and a special trustee could be appointed to run Liberty Lobby and look into the millions of dollars that flow among Carto’s many organizations.
Carto must realize that he is in a bind, because once again he has found a woman behind whom he can hide: Katherine Dall, ex-wife of Colonel Dall. Carto is using Katherine Dall’s name for all it is worth in the pages of The Spotlight, and in fund-raising letters, but that is nothing compared to the fact that before lavishing all this attention on Mrs. Dall, Carto had just conned her out of $300,000! That’s right, Katherine Dall gave Liberty Lobby, a multi-million dollar operation that is currently enjoying protection from creditors (meaning it doesn’t even have to pay all of its bills), more than a quarter of a million dollars.
(Apparently, Mrs. Dall doesn’t remember the letter written by Revilo Oliver to her husband in December 1970, in which Oliver refers to Carto as a snake, and implies that Carto has a Swiss bank account with millions in it, way back then.)
Meanwhile, Carto is telling selected sycophants (such as convicted child molestor Joe Fields) that he intends to steal the Liberty Lobby mailing list and publish The Spotlight himself, leaving Liberty Lobby to the tend mercies of the special trustee. Did Dall know this when she gave Carto $300,000? Is Dall going to help Carto steal the Liberty Lobby mailing list, valued by Carto at between $7 and $12 million, which is virtually the only asset owed by Liberty Lobby? Is Dall going with Carto to his new publishing enterprise, or is she going to be left holding the bag?
See also: