Ira Einhorn Revisted
Jigsaw1695
Ronnie Polaneczky: The Ira Einhorn Interview
By Ronnie Polaneczky
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Columnist
IRA EINHORN still has the white hair and goatee he sported in 2002,
when he was convicted of killing his girlfriend, Holly Maddux, whose
mummified remains were found in a trunk in Einhorn's Powelton Village
apartment in 1979.
And those blue eyes haven't lost their freaky intensity as he
approaches the eighth anniversary, this Sunday, of his conviction.
But, at 70, Einhorn is thinner than the husky bear we knew back then.
His hairline has receded, revealing a scalp that looks like marbled
ham, and he has lost some front teeth. Those that remain are lemon
yellow, and his breath is foul.
It's a beautiful fall morning and I am visiting Einhorn at Houtzdale
State Correctional Institution, in mountainous Clearfield County
"How was your trip?" he asks.
"Beautiful," I tell him.
It feels utterly surreal to be making small talk with Einhorn, who
says that he hasn't given a press interview since his conviction.
He once held Philadelphia's rapt attention. A counterculture icon of
the'60s and '70s, he was a hippie guru to the rich, famous and
influential, mesmerizing them with messages of peace, love,
intellectual enlightenment and global connectivity.
But awe turned to loathing in 1981 when Einhorn, on the eve of his
trial for Maddux's murder, went on the lam for 16 years in Europe,
becoming our most high-profile fugitive.
He was arrested in 1997 in France, where he was known as "Eugene
Mallon." He lived in a picturesque village with a Swedish wife who
bore an unsettling resemblance to Maddux.
But French authorities blocked his extradition to the United States,
arguing that Einhorn had not gotten a fair trial (he'd been tried and
convicted in absentia here), deserved a new one and should not be
executed if found guilty.
The French finally sent Einhorn back to Philly in 2001. He was
convicted in 2002, given a life sentence and sent to Houtzdale, where
he's dwelled ever since.
I'd mostly forgotten about him, until his letter landed on my desk
some months ago. He wanted to talk about the flawed U.S. justice
system, he wrote.
So we arranged to meet. Not because I doubted Einhorn's guilt. He
killed Maddux, and the bastard is where he deserves to be. But I
wanted to see what had become of the man whose brazen flight from
justice had once so incensed Philadelphians, they'd participated in an
annual contest to throw tomatoes at a poster bearing his image.
I'm pleased to find that Einhorn - whose intellectually hungry
followers used to devour his perceptions, then clamor for more - says
that he is virtually ignored now that he is Prisoner No. ES6859.
During our five-hour visit, he complains that most of the copious
letters he writes - to this genius author or that ground-breaking
professor, in hope of stirring delightful discussion - go unanswered.
"I'm a pariah," he says, self-pityingly, oblivious to the possibility
that his being a murderer might limit his pool of willing pen pals.
"Once you're in prison, it's as if you no longer exist!"
He seems to expect me to cluck in sympathy. Instead, I feel
satisfaction for the family of Holly Maddux, whom he put through hell.
For a narcissistic gasbag like Einhorn, being irrelevant is a
punishment more cruel and unusual than death.
Still, I've driven hours to see Einhorn, so I settle in for a chat.
I tell him that I believe he killed Maddux, so I'm not interested in
hearing his claims of innocence. Einhorn is equally adamant that he
won't discuss his wife, Annika Flodin, who remains in France, other
than to say that she is the love of his life.
"I had a lot of lovers when I was younger, anywhere from 1,500 to
1,800. I had a lot of erotic energy," he says, though not "Wilt
Chamberlain's erotic energy. But from the moment I met my wife, I was
monogamous."
He misses their intellectual banter, or any riveting conversation,
actually. Much as he likes many of the 130 inmates and corrections
officers on his cellblock, where he has a job as a clerk, they're not
the deep-discussion sort.
"I've spent a lifetime creating a knowledge factory in my head," he
says, tapping his blotchy scalp. "But everyone here just sleeps or
watches television. It makes me sad."
He rises at 5 a.m., works on the series of "erotic short stories" he's
writing and composes a journal entry, as he has daily since the early
'60s. He says that his musings now comprise some 30,000 pages.
He would like his journals archived in a university, after his death,
for study.
"They're an important view of daily life at this time in history," he
says airily, his ego apparently undamaged by eight years behind bars.
He subscribes to domestic and international periodicals too numerous
to name, but I'll say this for his reading addiction: It sure keeps
him interesting. As he excitedly weighed in on everything from
metaphysics and epigenetics to global warming and design science, it
was easy to see how Ira Einhorn, 1957 Central High grad, became Ira
Einhorn, darling of the pseudo-intellectuals.
His manner was so expansive, charming and generous, I temporarily
forgot that we were sitting in a prison because he had killed a woman,
lived with her corpse in a trunk for 18 months and had had the hubris
to believe that he could outsmart detectives who pursued him for two
decades.
Sociopaths are good that way.
Einhorn has logged hours in the prison library, learning the law and
becoming appalled at all he didn't know about it. He speaks with anger
about inmates whom he believes are innocent.
"Not everyone is," he says. "I'm no fool. But some of these men, you
just have to look at their files to know they shouldn't be here. They
didn't have the right representation."
He rails against a justice system that doesn't seem interested in
keeping itself accountable to a higher ideal. He thinks it's a
reflection of a society gone mad, a betrayal of all he preached in the
'60s and '70s, when "you knew you had to be responsible, or you were
lost."
This, from a man who went on the lam for 16 years.
Our time stretches on, and he talks about how bad he feels for
introducing so many people to recreational drug use back in the day
("People weren't ready to be responsible with it," he says. "I have to
own my part in that."); how the government owes returning war veterans
decent medical care; how he now believes that family, first and
foremost, is everything.
It's a bizarre, fascinating and far-reaching conversation that has my
head spinning by the time we shake hands goodbye. And I can't help
thinking, as I head for home, that Einhorn, by taking Maddux's life,
has squandered his own.
A fine way to redeem it might be to admit his guilt and throw himself
into advocacy work for those inmates who, unlike him, truly are
innocent and in need of help from a man whose brain is big enough to
figure out their next move.
But it'll never happen. Because sociopaths aren't good that way.
Jigsaw1695
> From the net:
>
> Ronnie Polaneczky: The Ira Einhorn Interview
>
> By Ronnie Polaneczky
> Philadelphia Daily News
> Daily News Columnist
>
The Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/news-forum/index?tab=articles
Earl Evleth
d2163f17-e15c-41dc...@t11g2000vbc.googlegroups.com,
"Jigsaw1695" <Jigsa...@aol.com> wrote:
> But French authorities blocked his extradition to the United States,
> arguing that Einhorn had not gotten a fair trial (he'd been tried and
> convicted in absentia here), deserved a new one and should not be
> executed if found guilty.
Inaccurate. French law says that a person tried in absentia has to
be tried again if finally arrested.
Extraditions are based on coherence of law between the two states.
Thus France, which has no DP will not extradite a person into a
DP country unless there is an agreement not to execute.
Likewise in this case France could not legally extradite
Einhorn unless Pennsylvania gave him a new trial.
It was no question legally around a fair trial or not, that issue
did not arrise.
Pennsylvania changed their law and allowed for a real trial of
a person who had been tried in absentia.
The DP was not an issue since the murder Einhorn committed occurred
during ta period when Pennsylvania did not have the DP. Pennsylvania
had assured the French that the DP was not involved.
We attended the final meeting of the Conseil d'Etat and heard
the rapporteur give a report on the Einhorn case. Extradition
had already been approved by the court and he had appealed that.
The report was devastating for Einhorn and extradition when ahead.
The Minister of Justice said the Einhorn case was of a Biblical
simplicity.
Donna's letter to the Prime Minister at the time is still on the
web http://www.amgot.org/einhorn/pm9i24.htm
Lettre au Premier Ministre
envoy�e le 25 septembre 1999 en r�ponse � l'intervention de Me Delthil
M. le Premier Ministre Lionel Jospin
J�ai r�cemment pris connaissance des d�claration de Me Delthil de Bordeaux
dans l�affaire de l�extradition de l�Am�ricain Ira Einhorn, accus� d�un
meurtre commis � Philadelphie aux Etats-Unis.� Me. Delthil d�clare que �
l�acharnement que mettent les autorit�s judiciaires am�ricaines dans cette
affaire est d�montr� par la condamnation au civil le 28 juillet �
Philadelphie, d�Ira Einhorn, en son absence, � verser la somme aussi
faramineuse qu�inconcevable de 907 millions de dollars, soit l��quivalent
de 6 milliards de francs. �
Cette d�claration appelle une explication de la nature de la condamnation
au civil aux Etats-Unis.� Cette condamnation au civil est surtout une
condamnation de principe, sans l�intention d�essayer de r�cup�rer une telle
somme.� De telles condamnations sont pratique courante aux Etats-Unis: on a
vu la m�me sorte de condamnation dans l�affaire de O. J. Simpson.� C�est
surtout une action pr�ventative pour emp�cher que M. Einhorn profite des
contrats �ventuels hollywoodiens ou autres �galement faramineux.� C�est
pour contrer la possibilit� d�un m�diatisation de cette affaire par M.
Einhorn, � la m�prise de la victime, Holly Maddux.� On a d�j� parl�
d�ailleurs d�un livre...
J�esp�re que cette explication peut vous �clairer sur la vraie
signification de cette proc�dure aux Etats-Unis, de laquelle M. Einhorn
�tait absent, d�ailleurs, par son propre choix.
Veuillez agr�er, Monsieur le Premier Ministre, l�expression de mon
respectueux d�vouement.`
Madame Donna Evleth
Donna Evleth
> From: Jigsaw1695 <Jigsa...@aol.com>
> Organization: http://groups.google.com
> Newsgroups: alt.activism.death-penalty
> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 04:59:23 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: Ira Einhorn Revisted
This is a most interesting article. Pleasing, too, in many ways. The
author describes the Ira we knew and hated. I will add a few comments as I
go along.
>
> From the net:
>
> Ronnie Polaneczky: The Ira Einhorn Interview
>
> By Ronnie Polaneczky
> Philadelphia Daily News
> Daily News Columnist
>
> IRA EINHORN still has the white hair and goatee he sported in 2002,
> when he was convicted of killing his girlfriend, Holly Maddux, whose
> mummified remains were found in a trunk in Einhorn's Powelton Village
> apartment in 1979.
>
> And those blue eyes haven't lost their freaky intensity as he
> approaches the eighth anniversary, this Sunday, of his conviction.
>
> But, at 70, Einhorn is thinner than the husky bear we knew back then.
> His hairline has receded, revealing a scalp that looks like marbled
> ham, and he has lost some front teeth. Those that remain are lemon
> yellow, and his breath is foul.
If you're missing some front teeth, it really ruins your image. Good.
>
> It's a beautiful fall morning and I am visiting Einhorn at Houtzdale
> State Correctional Institution, in mountainous Clearfield County
>
> "How was your trip?" he asks.
>
> "Beautiful," I tell him.
>
> It feels utterly surreal to be making small talk with Einhorn, who
> says that he hasn't given a press interview since his conviction.
>
> He once held Philadelphia's rapt attention. A counterculture icon of
> the'60s and '70s, he was a hippie guru to the rich, famous and
> influential, mesmerizing them with messages of peace, love,
> intellectual enlightenment and global connectivity.
>
> But awe turned to loathing in 1981 when Einhorn, on the eve of his
> trial for Maddux's murder, went on the lam for 16 years in Europe,
> becoming our most high-profile fugitive.
>
> He was arrested in 1997 in France, where he was known as "Eugene
> Mallon." He lived in a picturesque village with a Swedish wife who
> bore an unsettling resemblance to Maddux.
>
> But French authorities blocked his extradition to the United States,
> arguing that Einhorn had not gotten a fair trial (he'd been tried and
> convicted in absentia here), deserved a new one and should not be
> executed if found guilty.
Earl has addressed this issue. Fair trial was not at issue, it was simply
that in France this is the way it is done. Cultural rigidity if you will.
>
> The French finally sent Einhorn back to Philly in 2001. He was
> convicted in 2002, given a life sentence and sent to Houtzdale, where
> he's dwelled ever since.
>
> I'd mostly forgotten about him, until his letter landed on my desk
> some months ago. He wanted to talk about the flawed U.S. justice
> system, he wrote.
>
> So we arranged to meet. Not because I doubted Einhorn's guilt. He
> killed Maddux, and the bastard is where he deserves to be. But I
> wanted to see what had become of the man whose brazen flight from
> justice had once so incensed Philadelphians, they'd participated in an
> annual contest to throw tomatoes at a poster bearing his image.
>
> I'm pleased to find that Einhorn - whose intellectually hungry
> followers used to devour his perceptions, then clamor for more - says
> that he is virtually ignored now that he is Prisoner No. ES6859.
> During our five-hour visit, he complains that most of the copious
> letters he writes - to this genius author or that ground-breaking
> professor, in hope of stirring delightful discussion - go unanswered.
> "I'm a pariah," he says, self-pityingly, oblivious to the possibility
> that his being a murderer might limit his pool of willing pen pals.
> "Once you're in prison, it's as if you no longer exist!"
> He seems to expect me to cluck in sympathy. Instead, I feel
> satisfaction for the family of Holly Maddux, whom he put through hell.
How in the hell did this guy rate a five-hour visit? In French prisons, the
most you get - and it depends on the prison, is 2 1/2 hours - half that.
>
> For a narcissistic gasbag like Einhorn, being irrelevant is a
> punishment more cruel and unusual than death.
That was the point of the exercise. If he had been executed, he would have
been forgotten with time, also. But he wouldn't have known about it. By
being sentenced to LWOP, he knows about it. And that is probably the worst
punishment for this narcissistic, egotistical sociopath. But then, what
sociopaths are not narcissistic and egotistical?
>
> Still, I've driven hours to see Einhorn, so I settle in for a chat.
>
> I tell him that I believe he killed Maddux, so I'm not interested in
> hearing his claims of innocence. Einhorn is equally adamant that he
> won't discuss his wife, Annika Flodin, who remains in France, other
> than to say that she is the love of his life.
>
> "I had a lot of lovers when I was younger, anywhere from 1,500 to
> 1,800. I had a lot of erotic energy," he says, though not "Wilt
> Chamberlain's erotic energy. But from the moment I met my wife, I was
> monogamous."
Annika was not allowed to come to the US, because she knowingly aided and
abetted his flight. What I would love to know is if she has stuck by him.
It seems rather pointless, since he will never get out.
>
> He misses their intellectual banter, or any riveting conversation,
> actually. Much as he likes many of the 130 inmates and corrections
> officers on his cellblock, where he has a job as a clerk, they're not
> the deep-discussion sort.
>
> "I've spent a lifetime creating a knowledge factory in my head," he
> says, tapping his blotchy scalp. "But everyone here just sleeps or
> watches television. It makes me sad."
That's prison.
>
> He rises at 5 a.m., works on the series of "erotic short stories" he's
> writing and composes a journal entry, as he has daily since the early
> '60s. He says that his musings now comprise some 30,000 pages.
>
> He would like his journals archived in a university, after his death,
> for study.
> "They're an important view of daily life at this time in history," he
> says airily, his ego apparently undamaged by eight years behind bars.
A sociopath's ego is immune to damage.
It was his choice. Now he lives with it.
>
> A fine way to redeem it might be to admit his guilt and throw himself
> into advocacy work for those inmates who, unlike him, truly are
> innocent and in need of help from a man whose brain is big enough to
> figure out their next move.
>
> But it'll never happen. Because sociopaths aren't good that way.
For sure.
Donna Evleth
Earl Evleth
Goldstein" <yit...@yahoo.fr> wrote:
> Oh, is this the same Ira Einhorn who you claimed had been 'sheltered' by
> France? A claim you continued to make even after France had sent him home
> to the US to stand trial for murder?
Jiggy along with other pro-DP people on this group have never
understood the basis of extradition agreements. If the laws
of the two countries are not in sync, extradition is not possible.
For instance, even in Europe, Portugal does not have life-sentences
and will not extradite a person into situation where that
person would received life. This came up with regard to
France since Portugal had arrested a person accused of murder
in France and had some hesitation to extradite.
France does have "life sentences" but in fact courts award
"life" with the stipulation of certain minimal sentence.
(suret�, http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BBret%C3%A9)
which means in fact parole can not be awarded before this
time is served. Murderers may get life but they have a chance
of getting out.
This kind of law would not quench the blood thirst of our
DP supporters.
Le concept of suret� is based on les Droits de l'homme et du citoyen de
1789.
I