Lies, Liars, and Those Who Suffer the Consequences of Impeachable Offenses

Nothing really "fits" when all the pieces come together. Why has Charles Schwab, the billionaire, not had to answer for charges? Is the U.S. government protecting one of their own?

President Bush congratulates Charles Schwab, Chairman of the newly-formed President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, 1/08 Photo: Society for Financial Education and Professional Development

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Over five and a half years ago, Wayne Pierce, of Eugene filed formal charges with the FBI and SEC against billionaire Charles R Schwab. His allegations included harassment, stalking, computer hacking, email theft, and insider trading.

"Charles R Schwab of brokerage fame secretly entered my life in 2001 after I unknowingly started dating his former lover, Kim Haines," said Pierce.

Charles R Schwab is an icon in the financial realm for starting the country's first discount brokerage firm. Its philosophy of making the stock market accessible to everyone through online trading proved enormously successful.

Wayne Pierce of Eugene, Oregon

Wayne Pierce, retired from IBM after 36 years, said he never had a bad thing to say about Charles R Schwab or his company. "Not," he says, "until I learned from my fiancée that Schwab was clinging to their past romance and causing incredible havoc in her life."

"I met Kim around the middle of 2001. We became engaged to be married a few months later, and set our wedding for August of 2002," Pierce explains.

"One day, Kim broke down and started telling me about her former engagement to Charles Schwab. Her initial concern about talking with me, she said, was that Schwab always had his detectives following her. She said that Schwab knew every move she made. That he even knew when we were together, the places we visited. He told her these things. Very creepy. This constant surveillance caused her to be very upset."

Pierce says that Kim met Schwab through a mutual friend, in San Diego. After her husband died, she became involved in a two-year relationship with Schwab. They became engaged to be married. "The commitment was overwhelming to her, and she broke it off," he says.

It was his obsession of this woman and compulsion to win her back that Pierce says motivated Schwab to engage in a daily campaign of personal attacks against Pierce's character, "He tried to manipulate Kim and destroy our relationship through illegal activities." Pierce cites email theft, financial coercion and blackmail in his charges against Schwab. "Through his computer hacking, Schwab was able to spy on me, destroy files on my computer, and cause both our computers to crash."

On the 2007 Forbes 400 list, Schwab is listed as the 57th richest person in the United States with a fortune of approximately $5.5 billion. But does money make you untouchable?

He says Kim advised him when first told charges were to be filed against Charles Schwab, "Don't waste your time; Charles is too rich and powerful and no one can touch him."

Powerful, indeed. As the first to figure out Internet trading, Schwab helped create the investment frenzy and his company became the unofficial capital of Trader Nation. When the bubble burst, Schwab's customers and the company both went into shock. In 2001, Schwab's revenue fell 25%, to $4.3 billion; its net income dropped 72%.

According to Money Magazine (owned by CNN), Schwab's workforce stood at 15,100 in 1998, grew to 26,300 in 2000, and shrank to 16,300 by the end of 2003. The company wasn't completely financially crippled, but it was close.

Perhaps all this upheaval on the business front affected Schwab’s home life as well. It was during this period that Kim’s relationship with him, followed by harassment, took place, according to Pierce.

"Kim and I suffered many months of torture and emotional stress due to Charles Schwab's invasions into our privacy; then one day, he called her to his office.”

In June of 2002, Pierce says that Schwab summoned Kim to his office in San Francisco where he and his attorneys waited.

"She was told that if she continued with her plans to marry me, Schwab would exercise his rights regarding their Micron-Hynix financial agreements, which, according to her would have wiped her out financially."

He says that Schwab had several copies of Pierce's personal emails and showed them to Haines to discredit Pierce's character. Schwab's behavior was an undeniable note of contention between Haines and Pierce, and he says that eventually the continual intervention ended their relationship.

"We broke up over dinner one night," he said. "I was stunned as she started telling me that for many months her good friend, Charles Schwab, had been hacking into my computer and forwarding my emails to her. As she described in detail the contents of some of my emails--stuff she could never have otherwise known, I knew she was telling the truth."

Wayne Pierce's credibility was unfaltering and forthright, according to his colleagues. He worked as an engineering manager, and was instrumental in putting together IBM's first ink-jet printer laboratory, which evolved into the Lexmark line of printers. He wasn’t a man to let wrongs go uncorrected.

"Even though our relationship had ended, I knew I could not live with myself if I just walked away and let this guy get away with this. I guess I was naive in thinking I could touch a billionaire like Charles Schwab, I could not have even imagined that he would have the US president and vice president on his side and conspiring to protect him." That is, in fact, what Wayne Pierce believes to be true.

Reports to the FBI

Wayne Pierce first contacted Agent Paul Mueller of the Portland FBI office in late 2002, providing numerous documents to support his allegations against Charles Schwab. Agent Mueller apparently expressed interest in the case and told Pierce that he would speak with Kim Haines, the key witness to Schwab’s illegal activities.

Though they were no longer a couple, Pierce believed that Kim Haines would help. “I called Kim and advised her of this; she agreed to talk to him and promised that she would tell the truth,” he said.

This seemed like a turning point for Wayne Pierce, even possible vindication for those who demand Americans stand up for the principle that we treat all persons equally in accordance with the law. Charles Schwab is a powerful man, but above the law? No way.

After several weeks, Agent Mueller said that he could not proceed with the case unless Pierce could produce the emails that he claimed Schwab had stolen from him; the ones that Schwab had shown to Haines. This was a blow, as the emails had never been in Pierce’s possession.

So, he went straight to the top. Wayne Pierce wrote to President Bush requesting his assistance in bringing Charles Schwab to justice. On November 4th, 2002, he received a letter from Bush advising him that his enquiry was being sent to the US Department of Justice, and several months later, he received a response advising him that in order for them to take action, the woman involved, Kim Haines, would have to be the one who made the allegations.

“It was my computer he was hacking and my emails he was stealing, so why couldn't I initiate action against him?” Pierce asks.

Bruce Delaplaine of the US Department of Justice then followed up with a letter. "Mr. Delaplaine advised me that I had been told by the FBI, the Lane County District Attorney, and the SEC, that some proof of my allegations would be required before an investigation could be initiated," Pierce said.

"But, neither the SEC, or Lane County District Attorney, Douglass Harcleroad, had ever talked with me about Charles Schwab, not ever."

Though he had just been told directly that there would be no investigation, on March 26th, 2003, he received another letter from the US DOJ that directly contradicted Mr. Delaplaine. “The US Department of Justice must have proceeded to investigate, because in that letter I was advised that they could not identify any violation of federal law in my allegations against Charles Schwab."

“‘No violation of federal law’, was what it said. Is that because within the Bush administration, wire tapping and breaching the right to privacy for Americans is allowed? Especially by those with wealth and power? I think that’s exactly what it means.”

The email theft was well-substantiated, according to Pierce. “I came to realize that Kim had betrayed me and joined in protecting Schwab. When they told me Kim would have to initiate any action against Schwab, they already knew that she would not do this.”

Bombs Found at Charles Schwab Properties

CNN reported that in August, 2003, a briefcase found at the foot of Schwab's driveway in Pebble Beach contained a device that so resembled a bomb that police blew it up to get rid of it. The report says that officials never did figure out who left it there. (see http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/05/30/8261246/index.htm)

Oddly enough, their investigation took them to the door of Wayne Pierce in Eugene, Oregon.

"On August 19th, 2003, Kim called to tell me that bombs had been found at Schwab’s retirement mansion in Pebble Beach and at his office in Carmel. She was very upset and wanted to know if I was responsible. Both Charles Schwab and her business partner, Schwab's good friend, Keith Johnson, told her they thought I had planted the bombs and was trying to kill Schwab."

He said, "I knew what was up and assured Kim that it was a feeble attempt to frame me and convince the FBI that I was a nutcase. I told her the FBI would soon be calling on me."

As predicted, two days later Eugene FBI agent Ferreira and another agent were knocking on Pierce's door, and he was subsequently interrogated about the bombs. The FBI agents told Pierce they would do some research and try to prove that Schwab and Kim were lying about not knowing one another, but he never heard from them again.

Pierce believes that Charles Schwab either acted alone or, more likely, conspired with the Bush Administration to accuse him of attempting to kill Schwab, “The timing of the bomb hoax was only possible if the US Government and/or Schwab were hacking into my computer and possibly tapping my phone line.”

“I had sent emails and chatted on the phone with friends about my plans to visit California and specifically along the Seventeen Mile Drive, near Pebble Beach and Carmel--during the very week these bombs were found. But, I had canceled my plans and was not in California. Funny that they didn’t know I wasn’t coming, and still went through with their frame job. Luckily, I wasn’t in the area, so they couldn’t pin it on me. It must have been quite a disappointment to them.”

“If Charles Schwab was himself responsible for this bomb hoax, it seems only fair that he be prosecuted for false accusations of attempted murder. That’s a felony. If it were one of us average Joe’s, we’d answer for our crimes.”

Claims That They Don't Know Each Other

Charles Schwab’s attorney wrote to Pierce on August 1, 2003. “In her letter to me, Linda Drucker makes the claim that Schwab does not know Kim or me. She says all my allegations against Schwab are false, and she put all this in writing!” Pierce said, “She demanded that I immediately cease from making further statements about Schwab. She even threatened that if not, the Charles Schwab Corporation would bring a lawsuit against me. This threat was meant to silence me for having reported crimes to our government. It is a felony to intimidate people into keeping quiet, but that didn’t stop them.”

Kim Haines and Wayne Pierce in Southern California

About six months later, in April 2004, Pierce got another letter from a Schwab attorney. “In it, Richard Karoly says again that Schwab does not know Kim or me. Again he threatens me with a defamation lawsuit. He characterizes me as "misguided" and suggests I consider counseling, the ultimate insult and attempt to bully me.”

That Kim Haines “knew” Charles Schwab seemed a moot point. She had revealed a multitude of details of her two-year relationship with Schwab to Pierce, and according to him, maintains a relationship with Schwab to this day. That his office would deny that fact seemed irregular, though since he was estranged from his second wife throughout that period, Pierce considered that his marriage might be affected by these revelations.

Pierce says the claims that they did not know one another could easily be disputed by their families and friends, but the US Government has not spoken with these potential witnesses. Pierce became convinced that there was a greater force at work on Schwab's behalf, and suspected that it could only be the Bush Administration, preventing the FBI from investigating the case.

What’s more, he thinks that there is a very good chance that the motivation behind Bush’s firing of the US Attorneys was, in part, to protect Schwab. “Because of Bush’s refusal to provide White House records to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as required by law, this could lead to a Constitutional showdown. What more could be revealed, and about whom, if those records were revealed? As Americans, we have a right to know,” he insists.

“George Bush and Dick Cheney have spent two terms ignoring the US Constitution and international laws and agreements. They have operated with arrogance and total disregard for the welfare of the American people or our international neighbors. We can’t let them protect their own, at the expense of our freedoms. These are impeachable offenses.”

In May 2005, Pierce wrote to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and was advised that the case was being referred to the Portland FBI office. The response letter said the Portland FBI and the US Attorney General would decide whether to pursue the matter. The case came to an abrupt halt.

“Though the case was ostensibly left open, my proof that Schwab had been lying to the FBI about not knowing Kim, plus his attempt to frame me for trying to kill him, did not seem to have any effect upon Attorney General Gonzales’ actions,” Pierce says. “I've not heard from anyone in the US Department of Justice since.”

Finally, in his ongoing effort to break through the conspiracy to protect Schwab, Pierce turned to the media and in July of 2007, met with Salem-News.com's lead journalist, Tim King.

During their initial meeting, Pierce provided King with copies of dozens of letters he had written to Bush and leaders in Congress. We interviewed Wayne Pierce on camera last October, letting him explain the experience and controversy in his own words. (link: www.salem-news.com/articles/october042007/schwab_vid_10407.php )

When Tim King called Charles Schwab’s office in 2007, his people confirmed they knew of Kim Haines. King told them he was inquiring about the relationship between Kim Haines and Charles Schwab, and they asked if he had interviewed Kim Haines yet and suggested that he speak with her. He chose not to contact Haines, as she has repeatedly told interested parties that she has no intention of getting involved in the case.

Five and a half years of dealing with the US Government has convinced Pierce that Americans are not created equal and are not equally protected by the US Constitution.

He would like to be proven wrong.

For more information about Wayne Pierce’s endeavor to reveal Charles R Schwab’s illegal activities and how the US Government is protecting him, visit Pierce’s website: www.aeolusblue.net