A Tour of Gordon Todd Skinner's Subterranean LSD Palace

[ThirdEyeVision]

She did have a rockin body back then (bikini photo in article)


Just looking for the silver lining.

I concur!

 

[easyrider]

Can anyone confirm whether Pickard cooperated with law enforcement the first time he got busted with production of LSD in 1988? Supposedly, he snitched on some Family members to get a lighter prison term, which resulted in his expulsion from the Family.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

So, apparently Krystle Cole also played a role with regards to the BBB bust a number of years back.

January 5, 2011: Krystal Cole is the primary government witness on the indictment of her website advertisers in the matter of State of Kansas v. Clark Sloan (Jefferson Country, Kansas). Sloan and another party were indicted on twenty counts involving acts on or about February 4, 2010 in "unlawfully, willfully and feloniously use a communication facility in committing, causing, or facilitating the commission of a felony [] to with: Distribution or Possession of Mescaline (Count I), Bufotenine (Count II), Dimethyltryptamine (Count III), Lysergic Acid Amide (Count IV), 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine (Count V); and Possession with Intent to Distribute Mescaline (Count VI), Bufotenine (Count VII), Dimethytryptamine (Count VIII), Lysergic Acid Amide (Count IX), 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (Count X).

Click here to read indictment of Sloan as an advertiser on Krystle Cole's website.

 

[hug46]

If BBB was advertising on her site surely she has no choice but to be called as a witness?

As for the narcing and kidnapping debacle, she was a teenager, an adolescent. I do not condone narcing but if i had a teenage son or daughter that took up with an older sociopath that fed them bucketloads of drugs, i would try to not be too judgmental over some of the choices that my child made (or was potentially coerced into making) at that particular time.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

You always have a choice when it comes to state cooperation. Full stop.

There are countless people who have gone to jail for refusing to cooperate with grand juries rather than snitch on their comrades.

Imo, as a criminalized subculture, it would behoove us to not engage in the justification of snitching or snitches.

From: Green Scared? Preliminary Lessons of the Green Scare

If becoming an informant is always a bad idea, why do so many people do it? At least eleven high profile defendants in Green Scare cases have chosen to cooperate with the government against their former comrades, not including Peter Young’s partner, who informed on him back in 1999. These were all experienced activists who presumably had spent years considering how they would handle the pressure of interrogation and trial, who must have been familiar with all the reasons it doesn’t pay to cooperate with the state! What, if anything, can we conclude from how many of them became informants?

There has been quite a bit of opportunist speculation on this subject by pundits with little knowledge of the circumstances and even less personal experience. We are to take it for granted that arrestees became informants because they were privileged middle class kids; in fact, both the cooperating and non-cooperating defendants are split along class and gender lines. We are told that defendants snitched because they hadn’t been fighting for their own interests; what exactly are one’s “own interests,” if not to live in a world without slaughterhouses and global warming? Cheaper hamburgers and air conditioning, perhaps? It has even been suggested that it’s inevitable some will turn informant under pressure, so we must not blame those who do, and instead should avoid using tactics that provoke investigations and interrogations. This last aspersion is not worth dignifying with a response, except to point out that no crime need be committed for the government to initiate investigations and interrogations. Whether or not you support direct action of any kind, it is never acceptable to equip the state to do harm to other human beings.

Experienced radicals who have been snitched on themselves will tell you that there is no surefire formula for determining who will turn informant and who won’t. There have been informants in almost every resistance movement in living memory, including the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement; the Green Scare cases are not particularly unusual in this regard, though some of the defendants seem to have caved in more swiftly than their antecedents. It may be that the hullabaloo about how many eco-activists have turned informant is partly due to commentators’ ignorance of past struggles.

If anything discourages people from informing on each other, it is blood ties. Historically, the movements with the least snitching have been the ones most firmly grounded in longstanding communities. Arrestees in the national liberation movements of yesteryear didn’t cooperate because they wouldn’t be able to face their parents or children again if they did; likewise, when gangsters involved in illegal capitalist activity refuse to inform, it is because doing so would affect the entirety of their lives, from their prospects in their chosen careers to their social standing in prison as well as their neighborhoods. The stronger the ties that bind an individual to a community, the less likely it is he or she will inform against it. North American radicals from predominantly white demographics have always faced a difficult challenge in this regard, as most of the participants are involved in defiance of their families and social circles rather than because of them. When an ex-activist is facing potentially decades in prison for something that was essentially a hobby, with his parents begging him not to throw his life away and the system he fought against apparently dominating the entirety of his present and future, it takes a powerful sense of right and wrong to resist selling out.

In this light, it isn’t surprising that the one common thread that links the non-cooperating defendants is that practically all of them were still involved in either anarchist or at least countercultural communities. Daniel McGowan was ceaselessly active in many kinds of organizing right up to his arrest; Exile and Sadie were still committed to life against the grain, if not political activity—a witness who attended their sentencing described their supporters as an otherworldly troop of black metal fans with braided beards and facial piercings. Here we see again the necessity of forging powerful, long-term communities with a shared culture of resistance; dropouts must do this from scratch, swimming against the tide, but it is not impossible.

Healthy relationships are the backbone of such communities, not to mention secure direct action organizing. Again—unaddressed conflicts and resentments, unbalanced power dynamics, and lack of trust have been the Achilles heel of countless groups. The FBI keeps psychological profiles on its targets, with which to prey on their weaknesses and exploit potential interpersonal fissures. The oldest trick in the book is to tell arrestees that their comrades already snitched on them; to weather this intimidation, people must have no doubts about their comrades’ reliability.

“Snitches get stitches” posters notwithstanding, anarchists aren’t situated to enforce a no-informing code by violent means. It’s doubtful that we could do such a thing without compromising our principles, anyway—when it comes to coercion and fear, the state can always outdo us, and we shouldn’t aspire to compete with it. Instead, we should focus on demystifying snitching and building up the collective trust and power that discourage it. If being a part of the anarchist community is rewarding enough, no one will wish to exile themselves from it by turning informant. For this to work, of course, those who do inform on others must be excluded from our communities with absolute finality; in betraying others for personal advantage, they join the ranks of the police officers, prison guards, and executioners they assist.

Those who may participate in direct action together should first take time to get to know each other well, including each other’s families and friends, and to talk over their expectations, needs, and goals. You should know someone long enough to know what you like least about him or her before committing to secure activity together; you have to be certain you’ll be able to work through the most difficult conflicts and trust them in the most frightening situations up to a full decade later.

Judging from the lessons of the 1970s, drug addiction is another factor that tends to correlate with snitching, as it can be linked to deep-rooted personal problems. Indeed, Jacob Ferguson, the first informant in Operation Backfire, was a longtime heroin addict. Just as the Operation Backfire cases would have been a great deal more difficult for the government if no one besides Jake had cooperated, the FBI might never have been able to initiate the cases at all if others had not trusted Jake in the first place.

Prompt prisoner support is as important as public support for those facing grand juries. As one Green Scare defendant has pointed out, defendants often turn informant soon after arrest when they are off balance and uncertain what lies ahead. Jail is notorious for being a harsher environment than prison; recent arrestees may be asking themselves whether they can handle years of incarceration without a realistic sense of what that would entail. Supporters should bail defendants out of jail as quickly as possible, so they can be informed and level-headed as they make decisions about their defense strategy. To this end, it is ideal if funds are earmarked for legal support long before any arrests occur.

It cannot be emphasized enough that informing is always a serious matter, whether it is a question of a high profile defendant snitching on his comrades or an acquaintance of law-abiding activists answering seemingly harmless questions. The primary goal of the government in any political case is not to put any one defendant in prison but to obtain information with which to map radical communities, with the ultimate goal of repressing and controlling those communities. The first deal the government offered Peter Young was for him to return to animal rights circles to report to them from within: not just on illegal activity, but on all activity. The most minor piece of trivia may serve to jeopardize a person’s life, whether or not they have ever broken any law. It is never acceptable to give information about any other person without his or her express consent.

 

[hug46]

You always have a choice when it comes to state cooperation. Full stop.

Fair enough but do you think that the average 17 or 18 year old is mentally developed enough to deal with coercion, fear mongering and general influence by an interrogating authority?

Imo, as a criminalized subculture, it would behoove us to not engage in the justification of snitching or snitches.

I do not think that i am justifying snitching. But i do think that as an open minded and compassionate, criminalised subculture that it behooves us to understand possible personal complications as to why people snitch. Not everyone is as strong minded as you and i Snozz.


What if you were offered a chance to go in the witness stand, and if you didn"t, you were not only locked up but there was the added promise that your family (who may not share your politics) would suffer? Comrades or family? If those kind of choices come into the equation it becomes more difficult to make a choice.

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

I think she is someone who got mixed up in something that absolutely no one should ever have to deal with at an age when she had no way to really understand or integrate the experience.

She was, what, 18 or 19, and being fed absolutely massive quantities of psychedelic drugs by someone who was obviously not a compassionate mentor, but rather, a psychopath who was taking advantage of her. When things all went to Hell, I imagine she had no idea what was going on or how to handle the situation.

Follow that up with the ways that Gordon Skinner tortured her and her ex-boyfriend, I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for her. Do I support what she does now? No. But I don't think she's a bad person.

I couldn't imagine going through the stuff she went through: imagine being trapped in a psychedelic prison by someone you thought was going to kill you. Can you imagine what going through this:

any psychedelic experience has the potential to be good unless there is a person literally standing above you and stabbing you with needles, strangling you, and screaming, which is what Todd did the second time around.

Would do to someone?

It is definitely possible to take too many psychedelics, esp. LSD.

Blessings
~ND

 

[SnozzleBerry]

So, apparently Krystle Cole also played a role with regards to the BBB bust a number of years back.

January 5, 2011: Krystal Cole is the primary government witness on the indictment of her website advertisers in the matter of State of Kansas v. Clark Sloan (Jefferson Country, Kansas). Sloan and another party were indicted on twenty counts involving acts on or about February 4, 2010 in "unlawfully, willfully and feloniously use a communication facility in committing, causing, or facilitating the commission of a felony [] to with: Distribution or Possession of Mescaline (Count I), Bufotenine (Count II), Dimethyltryptamine (Count III), Lysergic Acid Amide (Count IV), 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine (Count V); and Possession with Intent to Distribute Mescaline (Count VI), Bufotenine (Count VII), Dimethytryptamine (Count VIII), Lysergic Acid Amide (Count IX), 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (Count X).

Click here to read indictment of Sloan as an advertiser on Krystle Cole's website.

This is the reason this thread was revived. This did not happen when she was 18. This did not have anything to do with Skinner. This was a decision she made much later in life, to cooperate against someone she had willingly chosen to work with.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

You always have a choice when it comes to state cooperation. Full stop.

Fair enough but do you think that the average 17 or 18 year old is mentally developed enough to deal with coercion, fear mongering and general influence by an interrogating authority?

I've already put forth my perspectives on this earlier in the thread. I know people who've kept tight-lipped at similar ages, when facing massive amounts of state repression. I'm really not interested in what the "average" person does, as the "average" person is never in these situations, only the actual people.

Also, this is not about her at age 17 or 18...this is about her ~3 years ago.

Imo, as a criminalized subculture, it would behoove us to not engage in the justification of snitching or snitches.

What if you were offered a chance to go in the witness stand, and if you didn"t, you were not only locked up but there was the added promise that your family (who may not share your politics) would suffer? Comrades or family? If those kind of choices come into the equation it becomes more difficult to make a choice.

I don't deny these things become complicated. I do not, however, see any connection with the actual concrete incident I have laid forth, that her actions with BBB caused any threat to her family. Hypotheticals are just that, hypothetical. The reality is, she chose to cooperate with the state against BBB at a point in time where she was significantly older than she had been during the Skinner incident. She was also not coerced into working with BBB, afaik, but did so of her own free will, ostensibly to increase her own marketability as neurosoup.

 

[jamie]

I had no idea she was an informant against BBB. Wow.

 

[a1pha]

I had no idea she was an informant against BBB. Wow.

My thoughts exactly. Wow.

 

[Bill Cipher]

Don't forget as well that the raid on BBB was really the beginning (or at least coincided with the forefront) of the US crackdown on mimosa.

I don't see how she is any friend of the community, myself - or, for that matter, anything other than a wantonly destructive force.

 

[The Traveler]

I had no idea she was an informant against BBB. Wow.

I'm not sure what happened here but calling her an 'informant' has no place in the objective sense.

I am not protecting her but if you call her an informant for being on the witness list then I guess we can call "Douglas county nature center" and "Miller hardware store" informants too.

If BBB was advertising on her site then it's actually pretty normal for her to be put on the witness list, since her site is about drugs. With BBB advertising their products on that site the DA is making for a stronger case for connecting the BBB products for use as drugs.

So lets not do what the mass media does: making bold conclusions based on inconclusive information. I really hope we are better than that.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

 

[Entropymancer]

I agree with the Traveler, I don't believe we have sufficient information to draw any conclusions. That the state listed her as a primary witness does not mean anything in itself. She could have simply invoked her fifth amendment rights.

Were there any open court proceedings in the case?

 

[hug46]

January 5, 2011: Krystal Cole is the primary government witness on the indictment of her website advertisers in the matter of State of Kansas v. Clark Sloan (Jefferson Country, Kansas). Sloan and another party were indicted on twenty counts involving acts on or about February 4, 2010 in "unlawfully, willfully and feloniously use a communication facility in committing, causing, or facilitating the commission of a felony [] to with: Distribution or Possession of Mescaline (Count I), Bufotenine (Count II), Dimethyltryptamine (Count III), Lysergic Acid Amide (Count IV), 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine (Count V); and Possession with Intent to Distribute Mescaline (Count VI), Bufotenine (Count VII), Dimethytryptamine (Count VIII), Lysergic Acid Amide (Count IX), 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (Count X).

This is the reason this thread was revived.

I understand. But today is the first time i have read this thread and i wanted to offer my perspective on it.

I'm really not interested in what the "average" person does, as the "average" person is never in these situations, only the actual people.

I disagree. The "average" person does get into these situations and it is the nature of the situation that makes them seem less "average".

 

[SnozzleBerry]

I'm really not interested in what the "average" person does, as the "average" person is never in these situations, only the actual people.

I disagree. The "average" person does get into these situations and it is the nature of the situation that makes them seem less "average".

Hmmmm...I can maybe accept that. I guess my point was more that I'm not so interested in hypotheticals? Only the actual situations where either people do or do not hold up to it? Does that come across better?

I would also like to say thank you to both The Traveler and Entropymancer for pointing out my hastiness to condemn. I posted this last night shortly before going to bed, and had not stopped to consider that it was a list of people to be indicted, rather than post-indictment accounts.

Entropy, do you have any suggestions on where to start digging for court records for this case?

 

[hug46]

I guess my point was more that I'm not so interested in hypotheticals? Only the actual situations where either people do or do not hold up to it? Does that come across better?

Yes it does come across better. My hypotheses were due to my misunderstanding of your statement about always having a choice when it comes to state co-operation (full stop) being a generalisation rather than being in relation to my intial comment about Cole not having much of a choice in being called as a witness in the BBB case.

 

[scaredofthedark]

In logic this is called petitio principii. You have assumed a false premise in your question, which is that she kidnapped her boyfriend. She did not. They both were willfully spending time with Skinner, in fact her boyfriend Brandon Green was collaborating with Skinner on a harbor dredging venture the details of which are discussed in this legal document. I think kidnapping is actually the wrong word to describe what happened, it sounds more like he was held hostage after willingly meeting with Skinner. Krystle did everything she could to save "Brad" and we have no reason not to believe her, why would she want to have her boyfriend's penis destroyed? Last time I checked most girls enjoy the penises of their boyfriends.

I still feel conflicted even telling the truth about her and painting her in a negative light. It's like part of me still feels like I'm supposed to protect her even though if it wasn't for her I would of never been kidnapped or tortured. The physical misery I'm in has been horrific but coming to terms with the fact that while I was blindfolded and being sadistically tortured by Todd, screaming out "Krystle, Krystle help me, please Krystle," she was in the same room leisurely changing her clothes so she could put on her bathing suit and go swim laps, reportedly giggling and commenting to Bill standing nearby that "This is like a movie!" And then quietly asks Todd for his wallet and keys so she can go shopping after she is done swimming laps in the pool. Since I know how good I was to her, and I know how fucked up and saddistic the torture was that I was being put through - coming to terms with the fact that she could not only care so little about what was being done to me but also get off on it and get some sort of thrill as if she was some lead actress on some psycho Hollywood blockbuster is difficult for me emotionally to come to terms with. - source

Sorry for the old bump, but Krystal is an evil person still active in the scene. Seeing this person cape for her knowing the role she played in this young man's sadistic torture is a bit much. The reality of what she did and is capable of should be known by the community.

 

[dragonrider]

She sounds like an awfull person.

But i find it kind of strange and disturbing that of all the nasty things she may have been complicit in, like kidnapping and torturing a fellow human being, the foremost concern of some people here is that she snitched on the person doing the torturing. Oh, and who also (not realy a minor detail i would say) raped her.

So she should not have snitched on a rapist, kidnapper and torturer? Even though that would have got her in even more trouble than she already was? :?: