Thursday, November 7, 2013

The Alex Odeh case briefly reemerges (the SOCCCD's sometimes lurid past)

Odeh: murdered in Santa Ana
     YOU'LL RECALL (or not!) that former SOCCCD trustee, Holocaust denier, and faculty union favorite, Steven Frogue, road several bandy hobbyhorses, among them conspiracy theories concerning the murder of Alex Odeh in Santa Ana in 1985. When he wasn't yammering idiotically about the ADL, the JFK assassination, and allegedly fixed IVC Academic Senate elections, he was thinking aloud, in his inimitable manner, about poor old Alex Odeh, blown to bits, right here in Santa Ana. "Sort of interesting," he'd say.
     Well, every few years, the Odeh case, which has never been solved, pops back up, usually because of politics.
     Today, our old pal Matt Coker (NavelGazing) reports that
     Reps. Loretta Sanchez … and John Conyers, Jr. … co-authored a letter to the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee requesting a hearing on the assassination of Alex Odeh, the Palestinian-American civil rights leader who perished in a 1985 bomb blast in Santa Ana.
     Evidently, Sanchez and her crew, including various civil rights groups, believe that there has been a “delay of justice” in this cold case. Further,
     Sanchez, whose district includes the site at 1905 E. 17th St., Santa Ana, where Odeh was killed shortly after a blast triggered when he opened the door of his office on Oct. 11, 1985, last June sent an inquiry to Attorney General Eric Holder seeking an update on the case.

     You’ll recall that, during those zany Frogue years (c. 1994-2000*†), some of the Liberty Lobby neo-Nazis that attended SOCCCD board meeting in support of the Froguester accused Jewish Defense League (JDL) leadership of the Odeh killing.
     That very leadership, based in Los Angeles, also attended those wild meetings, and their clashes with the goose-stepping crowd were memorable to say the least.
     That’s right. The likes of Irv Rubin and Barry Krugel came on down to address the board and piss off the Nazis. I'd like to say that, after that, OC was never the same. But, of course, it was. Is.
     Things didn't turn out well for some of those JDL fellas. In 2001, Barry’s twin, Earl, was “imprisoned for plotting to bomb a Culver City mosque and the field office of Arab American Rep. Darrell E. Issa.” (See LA Times.)
     In 2005, Krugel was murdered with a chunk of concrete at a federal prison.
     Rubin, who was arrested for the same crime, committed suicide while in custody in 2002. (See LA Times.)
     Yikes!
* * *
     In his 2002 remembrance of Rubin, Matt wrote:
     …[Rubin] blew into a June 1998 meeting of the South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees, which had been subjected to international ridicule after trustee Steven Frogue tried to get taxpayer funding for a John F. Kennedy assassination seminar that would feature two speakers who had been branded anti-Semites. One of those speakers, Michael Collins Piper, who'd written a book that alleged Israeli intelligence agents killed Kennedy, had flown in from the East Coast to attend the same board meeting.
     A partial account from that evening reveals the Irv Rubin we'd all come to love—or loathe, depending on your world view. 
     9:38:10 p.m. Someone leaves the standing-room-only meeting, and Rubin is allowed in by the doorman cop. Rubin and Piper exchange death stares. 9:38:17 p.m. "Shouldn't you get your money back for that haircut?" Piper crony Jim Scott asks Rubin. 9:40 p.m. Barry Krugel, Rubin's colleague, is finally admitted. Barry is the brother of Earl Krugel, who is also being held in the alleged bomb plot. 9:47 p.m. After much back and forth, Scott calls Rubin "subhuman" and "a lower life form." 9:59 p.m. Rubin wants to "shed the spotlight" on Joe Fields, who had to leave the meeting early for another engagement. "He's a self-admitted Hitler-lover," Rubin says of Fields. "He is also a convicted child molester who tries to pick up young girls and put them in his dirty little movies. And yet we have nothing but silence from Mr. Frogue. Mr. Frogue, your silence speaks a great deal. Maybe you ought to look yourself in the mirror and wonder who you're associated with." 10:07 p.m. As pro- and anti-Frogueans shout at one another, Rubin stares down Scott. "Don't look at my face," Rubin demands.
     "I wouldn't look at you, you piece of garbage," Scott answers back.
     10:16 p.m. Piper takes the microphone. "I feel like I'm in a really bad John Waters movie," he says.
     "Really? More makeup," Rubin suggests. "Your makeup job is really bad."
     "You need some sun, my boy," Piper tells Rubin, who replies, "Puh-leeze." Piper asks his challengers to debate him about his book.
     "Who would give you any credibility?" Rubin asks. "Who would give a nut case like you a forum?"
     10:17 p.m. Amid another shouting attack, Piper says of Rubin, "If ever there was an argument in favor of anti-Semitism, it's this spokesman, this self-appointed spokesman for the Jewish community right here." Speaking directly to Rubin, Piper adds, "You're a most unpleasant man."
     "And you're a creep," Rubin shoots back.
 
Mostly, we'll miss the love.
     I recall talking with a certain college police chief at a board meeting, circa 2003. "I always sort of admired old Irv," he admitted.
     Lots of people did. Sorta.

     “Trustee calls IVC senate 'intellectual spur posse',” IVC Voice, March 23, 1995
     *Frogue was elected in 1992 but did not begin to attract attention, all of it negative, until 1994.
     The last time we heard from or about Frogue was in Oct., 2009. We wish him well. I guess.
SEE ALSO:
The Alex Odeh case, Frogue, and the ADL - October 11, 2007
RED AND IRV - March 10, 2002
HANGIN' WITH BIGWIG REPUBLICANS WHILE NAZIS HIDE IN BUSHES - September 28, 1998
A MOTLEY CREW OF NAZIS VS. JDL THUGS: OH, WHAT A NIGHT! - June 21, 1998
FROGUE'S "SCHOLAR" HINTS AT VIOLENCE - March 27, 1998
• NIGHT OF THE NAZI January 20, 1998
• IS TRUSTEE STEVEN FROGUE A HOLOCAUST DENIER? - March 23, 1995
In Alex Odeh's 1985 slaying, still seeking answers (LA Times)

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...