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Feb

23

Exclusive: FBI Investigating Menacing Cyril Wecht Letter

February 23, 2006 |

cyril.jpgIn a completely strange twist of affairs, it appears there is more to wonder about Allegheny County’s famous Coroner, Cyril Wecht, than the 80 plus indictments he is now fighting.

Wecht, it turns out, is also being investigated by the FBI regarding a somewhat threatening (if not just plainly odd) letter he wrote to a Verona man.

Wecht’s letter, written on his private office stationary, comes across as an attempt to intimidate retiree Gerald Schiller into silence for disagreeing with Wecht via a letter to the editor Schiller wrote that was published by the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Schiller’s letter was in response to an earlier Trib letter to the editor written by Wecht. Wecht’s letter to Schiller basically “calls out” Schiller to physically back up his words. Aside from the muscle flexing, Wecht’s letter is simply most unusual.

Wecht’s original letter to the editor was written in November, 2004, following the death of Yasser Arafat (available here). In it, Wecht chastises the international news media for placing what he refers to as a “curtain of silence” over the real cause of Arafat’s death. Wecht “found it quite interesting” that everyone seemed indifferent that the French hospital treating Arafat through his final days would not release details on his cause of death. In the wake of such a conspiracy, Wecht — – a man ever incapable of restraining his own ego — volunteered to the public his own clinical diagnosis on the cause of Arafat’s death: Arafat died of AIDS.

With his long-distance diagnosis, Wecht was not alone. Most folks closely following the Middle East story-line are familiar with the Arafat Aids rumor, even if it is now mostly forgotten. The rumor circulated as Arafat’s health declined, but could never be confirmed with hard evidence. Still, it remained very popular with Arafat’s critics and the Israeli news media.

For those without an axe to grind one way or the other, the rumor seemed at best, tabloid. Even if you disagreed with Arafat’s legacy, making AIDS an issue came across as tawdry in era where the deadly disease is by and large treated sympathetically, having long ago been sanitized of behavioral judgments . Hence, making AIDS an issue seemed irrelevant for any purpose other than to tarnish the Palestinian leader. ( Arguably it is on par with the Democrats making a campaign issue out of Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter…)

Whatever the case, the AIDS rumor, at best, was dismissed as unfounded. More than a few pundits questioned if the rumor was spread to belittle Arafat’s legacy on the global stage as part of a deliberate pro-Israeli / anti-Palestinian PR campaign, which of course, was also the position of Arafat loyalists.

Enter Mr. Schiller, a Pittsburgh area retiree in his 60s, and his letter to the editor in response to Wecht’s accusation, Dated November 23, 2004, in which Schiller threw in a few theories of his own:

    “I find it interesting that Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht would seek to add more fuel to the fire to further disgrace Yasser Arafat and his already dismal reputation in the West by professionally suggesting that the Palestinians’ leader died of AIDS.

    A much more legitimate speculation would be that Arafat was poisoned by his Arab enemies, or more likely, by the Mossad, the famed Israeli intelligence agency.

    I hope that our word renowned coroner did not write his clinical diagnosis and widely defaming letter on official Allegheny County stationary or I fear that county taxpayers could become a party ot a massive civil lawsuit filed by Arafat’s widow.”

Again, some context might help our readers.

Indeed, Arafat had his enemies among Arabs, many of whom thought he’d gone soft and ought to be removed. As for the Mossad, one need only scratch a bit into the history of the organization to learn that it pulls no punches in its full dedication to seeing that Israel is not threatened. This includes everything from numerous documented assassinations and kidnappings, to the more benign, but equally questionable massive espionage on the United States on all levels, despite the fact that the U.S. is Israel’s chief ally and benefactor.

Hence, neither theory of Schiller’s is all that far fetched, and no more so than the Wecht’s own speculative AIDS diagnosis.
However, Wecht — as was often the case for him as Coroner– was evidently not too pleased to have his diagnosis questioned, or for that matter, countered with alternative theories not befitting Wecht’s political world view. So Wecht looked up Mr. Schiller’s home address and penned up a letter to set a few things straight.

If there was any doubt of the purpose behind Wecht addressing Mr. Schiller as “Herr Schiller”, it was made clear by the end of the first paragrpah that it was an association to Mr. Schiller’s German sounding name, and by inference, Germany’s Nazi past. This is all confirmed as Wecht overlays onto Schiller the elaborate psychological profile of a “Bundsman” super anti-Semite, obsessed with — and endlessly praying for — the end of Israel. Says Wecht of Schiller’s sickness, this is all because of the hatred and frustration associated with Schiller having to witness such a successful bunch of hard working Jews with their own country.

Wow. That’s a lot to extrapolate from a short Letter to the Editor. But that’s not all Wecht had to say.

In the second paragraph, Wecht goes on to call Schiller out to back up his words, saying “I would willingly disengage myself from the work that I do to confront a bigoted, anti-Israel, pro-Arabist like you.” Wecht closes by telling Schiller, “I doubt that I would need the assistance of the Mossad to effectively deal with you.”

Wow x 10.

You can read all of Wecht’s rambling and very disconcerting tirade here. (click for larger image)

wecht22.jpg

And if you are really up for a chuckle, you can read Mr. Schiller’s flat out, hilariously appropriate response to Wecht and his super-genius ego. (click for larger image)

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As for the FBI, they questioned Mr. Schiller a few days ago regarding Wecht’s letter, requesting a copy. Schiller supposes it must be related to the new charges, that Wecht has been intimidating witnesses regarding his ongoing Federal case. Perhaps it is to establish a pattern.

As for our thoughts, we’re not lawyers here. Nor do we have an axe to grind with Dr. Wecht. Frankly, I’ve long thought of Wecht as a solid coroner providing a healthy counterbalance to other powerful political interests — even if I’ve long thought Wecht’s massive ego would cuckoo.jpgultimately get the better of him. I always admired his “buck the insider culture” mentality he’s demonstrated, and especially credit him with extreme courage to stand up as the primary critic of the preposterous “single bullet theory” on JFK throughout various hearings. (For those with the stomach to revisit that case, I strongly encourage you to view the recently stabilized copy of the famous Zapruder film of the assassination from a documentary on the subject that completely supports Wecht. WARNING: Cleaned up, the film is now more gruesome.)

But when I contemplate the state of mind of a man who would dream up writing such a letter — and then have the lack of judgment to send it — I can’t also help but wonder if, with age, Wecht is no longer tied down to world in which the rest of us operate. Did this same sort of delusional lack of perspective cause the events that lead to his indictment?

Whatever the case, Wecht probably can’t help it. Those ruled by their own genius and egos rarely can.


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