http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2016/11/20/mysterious-saga-arizona-arms-dealer/94023174/
Marc Turi: The mysterious saga of an Arizona arms dealer
THIS STORY, FULL OF SPOOKS AND POLITICAL MISDIRECTION, TWISTS THE MIND. THE CIA IS INVOLVED. ALSO BULGARIAN ARMS MANUFACTURERS, BENGHAZI TERRORISTS, LIBYAN REBELS AND U.S. POLITICAL OPERATIVES
In March 1987, an Arizona State University sophomore named Marc Chapman slipped into Old Main, a historic building on the Tempe campus, and ripped off $10,000 worth of computer equipment.
Within months, according to court records, he was a convicted felon, stripped of civil rights and barred from possessing firearms.
Twenty-four years later, in March 2011, an international arms dealer named Marc D. Turi set up a $534 million deal to ship military weapons from Eastern Europe to rebel fighters in Libya’s civil war.
Within months, according to court records, federal agents swarmed over Turi’s Scottsdale residence and seized his computer. He was charged with violating the U.S. Arms Export Control Act.
Seemingly unrelated incidents, but with a common denominator: The student and the arms merchant are just one person — a mysterious figure named Marc whose story contains all the elements of a spy novel.
Be advised that this saga, full of spooks and political misdirection, twists the mind. The CIA is involved. Also Bulgarian arms manufacturers, Benghazi terrorists, Libyan rebels and U.S. political operatives.
By the end, even Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump weave into a saga that had implications in America’s 2016 presidential election.
Marc Daniel Chapman’s early years are drawn from blurred Maricopa County Superior Court documents, now stored on reels of microfiche:
He was born in Hollywood, didn’t know his birth father, and became a victim of abuse by a stepdad around age 6.
He went to high school in Los Angeles, where he was captain of the track team.
Then he began getting into trouble with the law.
The first offense, in Southern California, involved credit-card fraud and forgery around 1986.
While on probation, Chapman enrolled at ASU and joined the ROTC. A year later, he stole the computer equipment. A roommate informed police, leading to a guilty plea.
According to a pre-sentence report, Chapman described the theft as an impulsive mistake. He still wanted to study Russian “and be of service to his country.” A probation officer opined that the defendant had “struggled for parental approval all his life, and rebelled when he did not get it.” A detective said Chapman had been influenced by pals — “a crowd of idiots.”
Chapman avoided a prison sentence. Within months, court records say, he violated probation, moved to Los Angeles, joined the Navy, went absent without leave, returned to Arizona, stole a car and ripped off some checks.
The new charges apparently were merged into his probation-revocation case. Chapman spent 24 days in jail. Then, somehow, he got intensive probation and was extradited to Beverly Hills, where another theft charge was pending.
In a Fox News interview years later, he would acknowledge making “very bad mistakes” as a young man, including a check forgery for $100,000. He also mentioned an “other than honorable” discharge from the Navy, adding, “I’ve been fighting ever since to get that honor back.”
ASU records from 1987 show Chapman, a computer engineering major, left school around the time of his conviction. University officials declined to say whether he was expelled.
Chapman subsequently changed his last name to Turi and obtained a new Social Security number.
Turi declined comment to The Arizona Republic on his early life except to say he had been adopted as a child, and reverted to his birth name in early adulthood.
Other answers unravel in a paper chase.
During 1992, Turi returned to Tempe and enrolled at ASU under the new identity. It is unclear whether university officials realized the new microbiology student had previously matriculated as Chapman.
He stayed four years, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1996, and then spent a semester in grad school.
For a long while, his problems with law enforcement were over.
The trail mostly vanishes for several years before a military merchant pops up.
It is unclear exactly when and how Turi became an arms broker.
During a TV interview last year, he said he “got involved in this business in the late 1990s” — an assertion that raises questions because during those years he was a convicted felon prohibited from possessing firearms.
More recently, in written responses to questions from The Arizona Republic, Turi clarified by saying he began studying U.S. foreign policy and building international relationships in 1990s. He said the interest in military equipment started later when he attended a party in the Dominican Republic hosted by a U.S. Defense attache. He said he met Bulgarian weapon manufacturers at arms shows.
Asked who served as his arms-brokering mentor, Turi responded cryptically: “The USG,” an abbreviation for the United States government.
In 2002, records show Turi asked a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to dismiss the 1987 conviction and restore his civil rights. That request was approved. However, because Turi did not specifically include the right to bear arms, he was still banned from gun possession.
Three years elapsed. Turi returned to Los Angeles, got an appraiser license and started a new company, Turi Valuation Advisors Inc., in 2005. Though the name sounds like real estate, online records show the enterprise became involved with government contracts, munitions and other ordnance, and began doing business as Turi Defense Group LLC.
In 2006, Turi corresponded again with the Maricopa County judge. He told how his life had turned around. He said he’d gone to medical school, was getting a master’s degree in business, and planned to study electrical engineering.
Then he mentioned the appraisal business and asked to regain the right to bear arms so he could pursue “certain types of security clearances within the government.” The judge accommodated........
It is unclear exactly when and how Turi became an arms broker.
During a TV interview last year, he said he “got involved in this business in the late 1990s” — an assertion that raises questions because during those years he was a convicted felon prohibited from possessing firearms.
More recently, in written responses to questions from The Arizona Republic, Turi clarified by saying he began studying U.S. foreign policy and building international relationships in 1990s. He said the interest in military equipment started later when he attended a party in the Dominican Republic hosted by a U.S. Defense attache. He said he met Bulgarian weapon manufacturers at arms shows.
Asked who served as his arms-brokering mentor, Turi responded cryptically: “The USG,” an abbreviation for the United States government.
In 2002, records show Turi asked a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to dismiss the 1987 conviction and restore his civil rights. That request was approved. However, because Turi did not specifically include the right to bear arms, he was still banned from gun possession.
Three years elapsed. Turi returned to Los Angeles, got an appraiser license and started a new company, Turi Valuation Advisors Inc., in 2005. Though the name sounds like real estate, online records show the enterprise became involved with government contracts, munitions and other ordnance, and began doing business as Turi Defense Group LLC.
In 2006, Turi corresponded again with the Maricopa County judge. He told how his life had turned around. He said he’d gone to medical school, was getting a master’s degree in business, and planned to study electrical engineering.
Then he mentioned the appraisal business and asked to regain the right to bear arms so he could pursue “certain types of security clearances within the government.” The judge accommodated.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/05/doj-abruptly-drops-case-against-gun-runner-who-threatened-to-reveal-clintons-libya-dealings.html?refresh=true
Arms dealer who threatened to reveal Clinton's Libya dealings rips DOJ for 'injustice'
An arms dealer who had threatened to reveal potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton's alleged role in arming Islamist militants until federal prosecutors abruptly dropped their case against him Tuesday, told Fox News the case has cost him everything.
Federal prosecutors faced a Wednesday deadline to turn over discovery documents to the legal team of American Marc Turi, who had been charged with selling weapons to Libyan rebels. Late Tuesday, an announcement came that the government was dropping the case, which was set to go to trial on Nov. 8 – the day American voters choose between Clinton and GOP nominee Donald Trump. The move may avert a release of potentially explosive documents.
“I am glad this horrific five-year ordeal is over and I am pleased to be able to move on with my life," Turi told Fox News in a statement. "The American public has the right to know that an injustice was committed against an innocent American."
Turi said his legal team advised him to accept the deal and avoid a trial, but insisted that his actions were in furtherance of his ongoing support of U.S. foreign policy. He said defending himself in a case that has now been dropped has cost him everything.
"The government took away my life, my savings, and my company that I worked so hard to build to serve our nation, and for what?" he said. "I still don’t really know who the unjust actors were who launched this attack against me from the shadows. I just hope that someday there will be someone that will be held accountable."
Last year, in his only extended television interview, Turi provided Fox News with documents and email exchanges he had with high-level members of Congress as well as military, and State Department employees to back up his claim that the Obama administration authorized in 2011, at the height of the Arab Spring, a covert weapons program that spun out of control.
"That's where I came up with this 'zero footprint' Arab supply chain, whereby, our foreign ally supplies another, Arab country," Turi said. In this case, the US would supply conventional weapons to a U.S. ally-Qatar, who would inturn supply them to Libya, as a kind of workaround.
"If you want to limit the exposure to the US government, what you simply do is outsource it to your allies," Turi said, describing the practice. "The partners-the Qataris, and the Emiratis did exactly what they were contracted to do."
Turi told Fox he never supplied any weapons to Qatar, and it was in the hands of the U.S. government and the State Department's Bureau of Political and Military Affairs which was headed by a key Clinton aide, Andrew Shapiro. Shapiro was responsible to oversee the export control process at the State Department.
“They don’t want this stuff to come out because it will look really bad for Obama and Clinton just before the election,” an associate of Turi told Politico, claiming that information sought by Turi’s team would show Clinton’s own role in arming Libyan rebels fighting former strongman Col. Muammar Qaddafi while she was secretary of state.
Fox News, citing federal records, reported last year that documents showed U.S. officials supported Turi’s effort to channel weapons to Libyan rebels while Clinton was secretary of state.
Many of the arms destined for Libyan rebels ultimately fell into the hands of Islamist militants, reportedly including those in Syria.
"When this equipment landed in Libya, half went one way, and the half went the other way," Turi previously told Fox News, emphasizing that poor oversight, allowed individuals hostile to the United States to get arms. "The half that went the other way is the half that ended up in Syria."
In their motion for dismissal, federal prosecutors acknowledged that discovery rulings from U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona Judge David Campbell factored into the decision. The motion includes a request that Campbell accept a confidential agreement to settle the case civilly, further fueling claims the deal was struck to keep potentially damaging disclosures under wraps.
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