Mystery man informant stuns Chicago Irish
By George Houde, Irish American Post Chicago Bureau,
Diarmaid Mac Dermott, Ireland International News Agency
and Post staff
®The Irish American Post
 

Frank O'Neill  thinks  people will get the wrong idea of the Irish Freedom Committee.

Richard Wallace believes the Irish nationalist movement in the United States has been poisoned.

And Maureen O'Looney isn't quite sure what to think. "Every newspaper has called me,"  said O'Looney, a supporter of Irish causes and owner of Shamrock Imports gift shop in Chicago. "But I don't know this man."

The "man" in question is a shadowy figure  of German-Mohawk Indian heritage named David Rupert — currently subject of an international media manhunt following revelations that he may be an infiltrator and informant of radical Irish nationalist factions with direct links to Chicago Irish circles.

Chicago advocates of the republican cause in Ireland have found themselves enduring some uncomfortable and embarrassing media questions in the past weeks. The reason: Rupert has been involved with the activities the Irish Freedom Committee (IFC)  in Chicago, Boston and New York, an organization which says it raises and sends fund to Ireland to support families of  political prisoners.

Rupert is believed to be in protective custody of British intelligence services and the FBI while he waits to testify at the trial of Mickey McKevitt, a leader of the Real IRA in Ireland. This radical splinter group is thought to be responsible for a number of  recent bombings in Northern Ireland and England. Among them was the terror attack in Omagh in 1998 which left 29 dead. 

 McKevitt was arrested in Ireland in March and charged with organizing terrorist acts. But since it was McKevitt  who apparently inducted Rupert into the inner workings of the Real IRA as an affluent fundraiser -- when Rupert lived in Ireland with his wife, Maureen — the general belief is that Rupert has been acting as an informant and/or was recently turned.

  In the Special Criminal Court in Dublin, April 24, prosecuting counsel George Birmingham  affirmed that  Rupert will be the principal prosecution witness in the case against McKevitt. He said that the State would object to bail for McKevitt on the grounds that if it is granted he will commit further offenses.  McKevitt's counsel, Hugh Hartnett, said the defense would ask to see all statements made by Rupert. The court remanded McKevitt in custody until May 14.

"This Rupert affair," snorted O'Neill — a long-time Irish republican advocate and former owner of the well-known O'Neill's Lounge, 6100 W. North Ave., Chicago — "Well, it's not going to do us any good. People get wrong ideas about us. I don't know what he does or what he knows. You guys (reporters) have been calling from London. But I didn't  know him that well."

Wallace, also of the Chicago IFC, was more vehement in his reaction over the flurry of allegations, rumors and questions surrounding Rupert. He said much of the information about the man has come from John McDonagh, one of the leaders of the New York-based National IFC, a group which broke from the Chicago and Boston organizations last year in a dispute over financial support of Irish groups.

McDonagh, however, claims that the Chicago faction was expelled from the national body about three years ago and showed paperwork to that effect.  He also told The Irish American Post  that "it became clear that the Chicago IFC wanted to go in another direction" concerning fundraising for the Continuity IRA prisoners from Sinn Fein, but also Real IRA prisoners.

"We suspected he (Rupert) might have been up to something, like he was trying to set us up with leading questions.  So what happened vindicates us. I wish the people in Chicago had wised up earlier," he added.

But Wallace said McDonagh was making up stories. 

"Regarding these allegations from McDonagh, they are all lies," said Wallace.  "Rupert was introduced in Dublin by McDonagh. He brought Rupert into the organization."

(When McDonagh denied he was in Dublin with Rupert, Wallace said later that he was misunderstood by the reporter and actually meant that Rupert was with Irish activists from Dublin when he met with McDonagh in New York.  In June,  McDonagh did again confirm that he met with Rupert in New York when Rupert represented  the Irish Freedom Committee-Chicago unit.  After several other meetings in New York with the Chicagoans, McDongah  repeated that  Rupert and the Midwesterners  "were thrown out of the IFC.")

A commentator on WBAI radio in New York, McDonagh has used the show to broadcast evidence of what he said was proof of Rupert's duplicity, including incriminating e-mail memos.  Such charges reveal the deep divisions not only in the IFC but in the Irish independence movement in general.

Rupert's case seems to have widened those gaps while demonstrating the vulnerability of groups desperate for cash and political support, such as the Real IRA.

"The Real IRA's main problem is that they have a good amount of weapons, but they don't have a good amount of money," a Washington (D.C.) security expert who specializes in monitoring Irish terrorist organizations told The Post.

"Because they have a small number of personnel, about 50 to 75 people, they have a limited ability to raise funds. It would be essential for them to have someone who can raise money," said the source, who asked not to be identified.

Enter David Rupert, a 49-year-old native of Madrid, N.Y., an upstate community near the Canadian border and close to the St. Regis Mohawk Indian reservation, which is adjacent to the St. Lawrence Seaway.  In the mid-1990s, a number of Native Americans there allegedly were involved in smuggling guns, drugs and cigarettes. There were violent altercations with Canadian security forces,  but there is no evidence yet showing that Rupert was involved in those activities.

Despite the physical build of a professional football lineman, at 6'  4 '' in height and weighing close to 300 pounds, Rupert has managed to stay out of the limelight and remain in the shadows beyond public scrutiny. However, he has made appearances in behalf of the Real IRA and the IFC, such as one he made before 100 IRA sympathizers in Dundalk in 1999. 

And though he is capturing headlines in Ireland and England, his background between the time he left Madrid-Waddington High School in New York state and his surfacing in Ireland in 1997 (where he and his wife owned a pub in Tulleghan, Co. Leitrim), remains a mystery. Only one known picture of him exists and that is his high school yearbook photo available now, incidentally, on the Irish Freedom Committee website.

"I have chased Rupert since last December," said Joe Lauria, a New York-based reporter who writes for the Sunday Times. "This is huge news in London and everyone is scrambling around to find out about this man."

That includes Lauria, who traveled to Chicago this past winter several times to track down the man who was initially alleged to be raising money for the Real IRA and its political arm, the 32-County Sovereignty Committee. But Lauria found not so much the trail of an imposing and politically active man as an elusive figure who had managed to avoid any sort of close study, including that of the Irish groups to which he was linked.

"What's missing are 30 years of his life from 1968 or 1970 to 1999," noted Lauria.  "I went back to Chicago in February and made a lot of phone calls and did a lot of work. He had three addresses in the Chicago area and the management of the current one had no record of him living there."

At one time, he owned a home in Wheatfield, Indiana, near the Illinois border.  But building is now vacant and neighbors do not know his whereabouts. The Chicago Sun Times reported late in April that $325,000 in tax liens filed against the mysterious Rupert -- found in documents on file with the Cook County recorder of deeds -- could have been withholding tax he took from his trucking company employees but did not send to the IRS.

What is known about Rupert is that he apparently met his wife, Maureen, at a trucking company he managed in Chicago. But no one, including O'Neill or Wallace, seemed to know the name of the firm or what role Rupert played in it.

"He drove a pickup truck and he came around once in a while," said Wallace. "He would help set up chairs and tables at our events. He never gave us money.  He didn't even buy tickets."

In 1997, Rupert apparently began showing up at  IFC meetings and eventually became a confidant of McKevitt, supposedly convincing him that he (Rupert) could raise money and provide support, according to news reports. But how an American Protestant born of German and Mohican ancestry without any roots or link to the Northern Ireland independence movement could become a close associate of such people as McKevitt remains a matter of much speculation.

"We had no reason to doubt his credibility," Deirdre Fennessy, national secretary of the IFC, told the Irish Echo newspaper in New York.  She said high ranking members of Sinn Fein vouched for Rupert.

Martin Galvin, the well-known activist for Irish Northern Aid and a supporter of the 32-County Sovereignty Committee, met Rupert, but was skeptical of the allegations. Should they prove true, however, Galvin noted it would be the first time an American has been recruited by the British intelligence service to counter legal activities of Irish Americans.

FBI officials in Chicago and Washington have maintained the agency has no standing in the case, but did not comment when asked if Rupert is in protective custody of the U.S. Justice Department. Wallace also said the rights of citizens to free expression is being damaged.

"We are aware of David Rupert and we are aware of the Irish Freedom Committee. But I am not in a position to comment on this. I don't want to say we are investigating this case," said an FBI contact.

"We're glad the FBI came out with that statement," said Wallace. "If he (Rupert) is a British agent, why are they sending him into this country to interfere with the first amendment rights of U.S. citizens? Even the FBI went so far as to say we (the IFC) are not violating any laws"

Lauria and other reporters originally wanted to interview Rupert as allegations about the purchase of weapons and links between the IFC and the Real IRA began to circulate. There have been reports of Real IRA links to gunrunning from Croatia, but that avenue reportedly has been closed by authorities.

Through press reports, Rupert became known as the "Chicago trucking boss" suspected of being a major fundraiser for hardline groups opposed to the 1998  Good Friday accords — which are a blueprint for the disarmament of warring factions in Northern Ireland.

British and Irish officials have been lobbying the U.S. State Department to consider adding the Real IRA to the list of banned terrorist organizations, meaning it would be illegal to raise money for it in the United States.  However, State Department officials told The Post  that such action has not yet been initiated. Several stages are required in this lengthy process, they said, including securing evidence  that will hold up in court that an international group's activities threaten the security of the UnitedStates.

Both O'Neill and Wallace maintain that money raised by the Chicago IFC at its raffles and dinners do not go to the purchase of arms and equipment, but solely to the families of prisoners. "We support the families of prisoners, period," emphasized Wallace. "That's all we do."

"Our people are stuck over there in bloody, rotten jails," said O'Neill.  "Our committee does raffles and tries to get money together to send over there.  Oh sure, they say we're trying to raise money for equipment, but the IRA is better equipped than the British army."

However, at a recent National IFC dinner in New York, about $15,000 was raised for the militant groups.  Termed the "Gunrunners' Ball" by Irish security police, speakers advised the Irish to hang on to their weapons and circulated a schematic of an AK-47, the weapon of choice for armed anti-British factions.
Officials overseas point to these events when arguing that such groups have given money to radical organizations in Northern Ireland. They claim the funding purchased some of the armaments used by these fringe units in committing terrorist activities.

That's why Dublin and London have petitioned the United States to invoke the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 against the Irish groups, a step that would make it illegal for Americans to contribute to them.

In the weeks prior to Easter, just before it was learned that Rupert allegedly was an FBI mole, the Sunday Times had asked The Post to help track down the mysterious Chicagoan.  As part of that search, a source in the Chicago FBI office said, "We are aware of David Rupert and we are aware of the Irish Freedom Committee.  But I cannot comment on whether or not we are investigating him."

A few days later came word that Rupert had supposedly been working with the FBI, Irish security services and MI-5, the British intelligence unit.

This revelation prompted McDonagh to lash out at Rupert, calling him a "rat bastard" and a turncoat.

Whether Rupert will turn up as a government informant remains to be  seen. One thing is certain:  the incident has further pitted Irish against Irish in another Northern Ireland controversy.