Interpol imposter?

Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 25, 2006 at midnight

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David Race Bannon says he was a secret assassin, traveling the world and taking out child pornographers and traffickers. Others say he's a fraud. Is Bannon the real deal or just an Interpol imposter?

David Race Bannon has returned to the shadows.

Five years ago, Bannon emerged from anonymity with a remarkable and shocking tale. To some, it also seemed highly improbable.

Bannon's public supporters now are few. And Bannon - who once aggressively sought publicity for a book telling his purported life story - isn't returning calls from either the media or his own publisher.

He's due back in a Jefferson County courtroom Tuesday on multiple charges stemming from the accusation that he fabricated a dramatic identity: former covert assassin for the international police organization Interpol, battling child pornography and slavery by traveling the world for the better part of 20 years, delivering fatal, Star Chamber-style justice to perpetrators.

"He has tried to market himself as an expert in certain things and has been apparently soliciting engagement fees based on the expertise he has in this area," said Dennis Hall, the Jefferson County prosecutor handling Bannon's case.

Hall added, "I would expect that if we would put more time in on the case, we could find there were many other people across the country" who were defrauded.

A 43-year-old native of Spokane, Wash., Bannon is the author of Race Against Evil: The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals - A Real Life Drama, published by New Horizon Press in 2003.

Bannon's "retirement" from clandestine police work was interrupted by more unexpected drama Jan. 27, when he was arrested by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation upon arriving for dinner with a female companion at Sushi Tora, a popular Boulder restaurant.

"I have bad news for you. You're under arrest," a CBI agent said as he relieved Bannon of a cane he uses for a bad knee and handcuffed him.

The purpose of Bannon's Colorado visit was a planned Jan. 28 appearance at "Escape to Shangri-La," a fundraiser for Free A Child, a Boulder-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting indigenous organizations in protecting children from child prostitution and trafficking.

Bannon was taken to the Jefferson County jail. He's now charged with criminal impersonation, computer crime and attempted theft. Bannon posted a $5,000 bond and returned home to Charlotte, N.C., last month.

He listed his occupation on bond paperwork as "unemployed."

All three charges against Bannon are felonies.

Computer crime, a Class 4 felony - and the most serious of the three counts - could earn him up to six years in prison if he is convicted.

"I can't make any comment until I see what the government has on him," said David Lindsey, the Denver lawyer representing Bannon.

A fascination with comics

There's a reason the name David Race Bannon might sound familiar.

"Race Bannon" was a character on Jonny Quest, a short-lived animated television series that debuted in 1964. A Hanna-Barbera production, the show featured the adventures of a globe-trotting blond-haired boy.

"Roger T. 'Race' Bannon" was a government agent assigned to protect Jonny and his scientist father, "Dr. Benton C. Quest."

According to court records from Washington, Bannon and his then-wife, Susan, changed their surnames, and that of their daughter, in 1990 from Dilley to Bannon.

Susan Bannon divorced David Bannon in 1995 and has since remarried. Now living in South Carolina, she didn't to respond to multiple interview requests.

A CBI agent, however, talked to her in preparation of Bannon's arrest affidavit. She told the agent that "Bannon has a fascination with comic books and more specifically hero figures," and that they had selected their new names in tribute to Jonny Quest.

She told investigators that Bannon's daughter, now 15, is very close to him, and she is concerned about how her father's unmasking might affect the teen.

Bannon's ex-wife also told an agent that "Bannon is a habitual liar and that is what led to the end of their marriage," according to court records.

His ex-spouse is not the only person using strong language like that.

Interpol, when Bannon's book was published almost three years ago, issued this statement:

"Interpol's General Secretariat in Lyon (France) has no record of David Race Bannon having been employed and no knowledge of individuals mentioned in Mr. Bannon's book.

"Interpol exists to facilitate the exchange of information between the world's law enforcement agencies and to provide analysis of criminal data and other services. Accordingly, the claims in Mr. Bannon's book can only be seen as deceptive and irresponsible fantasy."

Bannon, at that time, dismissed Interpol's disclaimer. He argued that the agency would be compelled to disavow knowledge of him, his claim of assassinations reaching triple digits, and "Archangel," the name given in his book to a secretive team of trained killers - "cleaners," he called them - to which he said he belonged.

Bannon attended book signings and won coverage by media including the Discovery Channel and National Public Radio. He told his audiences that he and his colleagues in "cleaning" escaped detection thanks to teams of "washer/dryers" - specialists called in to sanitize the kill sites.

But Bannon's own publishing company, upon the book's release, appeared to hedge its bets, stating on the book's dust jacket: "He swears all this is real . . . But some call it one man's fevered nightmare."

Now, in the wake of Bannon's arrest, New Horizon publisher Joan Dunphy sounded like she's leaning toward the "fevered nightmare" description.

"I'm trying to get him, too," Dunphy said. "I've left messages all over the place. This is a guy I had become friendly with. I don't like him not calling in."

Dunphy said her company had done all it could to verify Bannon's story before publishing his book. But her lack of confidence now has caused her to cancel a paperback edition once planned for later this year.

"I've already told them to pull it and not do anything until we see what in the world is going on here," said Dunphy.

"I'm not going to do a Random House," Dunphy added, referring to that publisher's initial defense of A Million Little Pieces author James Frey, whose bestselling memoir Random House now admits contained numerous fabrications.

Bannon first surfaced in his incarnation as a hit man emeritus in "Deadly Hands," an article he authored as "David Bannon PhD" for the November-December 2001 issue of Kungfu Qigong, a California-based publication for martial arts enthusiasts.

That piece, which would appear again mostly verbatim as the closing chapter of Race Against Evil, recounted his participation in a multiagency raid in the summer of 1998 at an undisclosed location in Florida.

During that bust, Bannon wrote, he interrupted four men who were filming a pornographic video of an 8-year-old girl. Local sheriff's deputies, Bannon wrote, shot two of the suspects and Bannon killed two more.

Afterward, "I stared at the young girl, only eight, as she lay spread-eagled and naked on the bed," Bannon wrote. "Her eyes locked on mine. I saw shock, mostly, and terror, and a deadness that chilled me. Someone switched off the music. I took a clean blanket from the closet, covered her and sat beside her. She stared. I said the first thing that came to mind. 'It's OK. Your daddy sent me.' ''

Gene Ching worked at Kungfu Qigong when that piece was printed. The publication is now known as Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine and online as KungFuMagazine.com. Ching remains associate publisher.

"I met him once only fleetingly," Ching said. Up until then, he added, Bannon had been a reliable contributor of more mundane articles to the magazine.

"I always had my doubts about him," Ching admitted. "Now that I look at it in hindsight, sure, I could say that. But I didn't really act on them, to be honest with you, because I never really had hard proof that he wasn't what he claimed to be."

As he would do with New Horizon Press, Bannon provided Kung Fu staffers with background information on himself.

"Now, it looks like those leads were all fabricated, as well," said Ching. "It doesn't take too many fabrications to deceive."

In the original Kungfu Qigong piece and again in his book, Bannon wrote that another participant in the Florida raid was "Toni Brynes," a behavioral scientist who had been "consulting with the FBI Baltimore Field Division's Innocent Images National Initiative, a component of the Crimes Against Children Program."

In testimonials included as part of the book's epilogue, "Brynes" calls Bannon "truly a hero." The comment is signed as "Toni G. Brynes, Ph.D., M.D., Dublin, Ireland."

But the existence of "Brynes" came as news to Special Agent Michelle Crnkovich, spokeswoman for the Baltimore FBI office.

"I spoke to both a current supervisor and a support staffer, who has been here since inception (of the Innocent Images program), and neither one could remember working with, or confirm the existence of, Toni Brynes, Ph.D./M.D.," Crnkovich wrote in a recent e-mail.

Because the book's account doesn't provide the name of the Florida town, or the names of the local deputies who allegedly killed two suspects, or the names of the pornographers allegedly slain or apprehended, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement could not confirm, or refute, that any such incident took place.

Ousted from church

Bannon has left in his wake an impressive roster of people he has allegedly duped - or whose names he has used in building an autobiography police now label as fiction.

Kenlyn Kolleen is president of the board of directors for Free a Child, whose benefit Bannon was to attend in Boulder when he was arrested.

"We have known David Bannon for some time and, while we have been aware of the questions surrounding his background, the focus of our relationship has been his willingness to speak out about the sex trade," Kolleen said in a prepared statement.

"Clearly, as a nonprofit, we welcome the voices of those who may be able to help us expose this heinous crime and work to stop it. Free A Child has no way of knowing if David Bannon's story is valid."

She declined to respond to follow-up questions.

Others have been more clear in disassociating themselves from Bannon - including his church, which did so shortly after his book was published.

Bannon's book says he was recruited by Interpol in the early 1980s at the age of 18 while living in South Korea, where he had been sent as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. No one has challenged that he, in fact, once lived there or that it was missionary work that took him to the Far East.

However, Bannon was excommunicated from the church in October 2003, a few months after his book's release. Church officials won't say why.

"Obviously, the church deals with private matters and keeps the details of such disciplinary counsel confidential," said Kim Farah, spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.

According to court records, Bannon has also said he holds a doctorate in history from Seoul National University. When a recent employer, Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, N.C., had suspicions about Bannon's academic credentials, Bannon provided documents from a company that specializes in verifying non-American degree information.

But it turned out that the "verification" was faked.

"He fabricated an evaluation report," said James Frey, president of Educational Credential Evaluators Inc. in Milwaukee. "He fabricated the evaluation report from us, using the logo from an envelope. We have no idea where he got our envelope because we had no record of ever having any contact with him."

Court records state that Wake Technical fired Bannon from a job in the school's computer information systems department on Oct. 31, 2000, for "questionable degree information" and "possible inappropriate use of institutional vehicles."

Bannon's recent arrest in Boulder followed negotiations he conducted by telephone and computer with a CBI agent that called for him to be paid $3,000 for two days of training he would offer local officers on human trafficking.

Just one week before his arrest, Bannon was due to speak - as "a former officer of Interpol" - at a conference on international sex trafficking at York University in Toronto.

But two days before he was to appear, he e-mailed organizers, who already had paid for his plane ticket, and told them he would not be able to attend. A drunk driver, he said, had hit his car, putting his wife in the intensive care unit.

A Toronto police spokeswoman said this week that Bannon's no-show in Toronto now represents "an arm" of the Colorado investigation. But she declined further comment.

State Rep. Alice Borodkin, D-Denver, has had brief contact with Bannon. She's glad that's all it was.

Borodkin sponsored a bill in 2004 creating Colorado's Interagency Task Force on Human Trafficking, which landed a $450,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant last year through the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.

As an advocate on the issue, Borodkin received unsolicited correspondence from Bannon last year - which she answered. But she said their contact did not continue.

Borodkin was, however, a co-chair of the Jan. 28 event in Boulder that Bannon also would have attended - if not for his arrest the previous evening.

"Thank God we didn't get ourselves involved with him," said Borodkin.

She recalled her initial contact from Bannon.

"When I first saw his name, I cracked up," Borodkin said. "A friend said, 'Isn't that a detective in a comic book?' I wondered if he made it up. I thought: What?''

In Bannon's own words Excerpts from Race Against Evil: The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals

• All of the events in this book are real; the people in the book are actual. There are no composites. pg. vii

• Some of what you will read will be repulsive and grotesque; other pages may inspire you at the quiet valor of those who remain unsung. Every page is real. It is my life. I invite you into the truth of this world. pg. 2

• (Interpol supervisor Jacques) Defferre's office was cramped but tidy. "The Interpol building looks like a utility company," I said.

"Utilities?" he laughed. "Yes, we fix things, mon ami." The wall behind his desk was dominated by a poster of Humphrey Bogart, the famous scene from Casablanca where Rick is leaning back against the bar. pg. 86

• On the train back, I thought about how Archangel had prepared me for my mission. They had instilled a powerful sense of accountability to Interpol, motivating me by showing the horror-filled deeds of those criminals above the law. They did this so I would do the unthinkable - kill or be killed. pg. 159

• In Brazil we singled out a pimp who dressed up little boys as women. Bras with padding and everything. Kiddie transvestites for sale. I boosted a van and picked him up on a street corner. Defferre had hoped the guy might roll over on his customers, but I just couldn't stand breathing the same air with this freak a second longer. I cleaned him quick. pg. 245

• Later I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I wasn't handling my life very well. Bad dreams, intimacy problems, fear of the truth and fear of losing loved ones. The usual. pg. 284

• I finally hope to become a true human. pg. 304

Inside Interpol

Interpol is described on its Web site as the world's largest international police organization, with 184 member countries.

• BACKGROUND

Created in 1923, it facilitates cross-border police cooperation and supports and assists organizations, authorities and services whose work is to prevent or combat international crime. Its General Secretariat is located in Lyon, France.

• INTERNATIONAL SCOPE

Each of Interpol's member countries maintains a National Central Bureau, staffed by law enforcement officers from that nation. The United States' NCB is located in Washington, D.C., operating within Department of Justice guidelines in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security.

Interpol has three core functions:

• Securing global police communication services

• Operating data services and databases - such as DNA profiles and fingerprints - for police around the world

• Providing 24-hour, seven-days-a-week emergency operational support to law enforcement officials in its priority crime areas.

• PRIORITIES

Interpol's priority crime areas are fugitives, public safety and terrorism, drugs and organized crime, human trafficking, and financial and high-tech crime.

Interpol's Web site describes its work on battling the spread of child pornography - which author David Race Bannon said he was recruited by Interpol to fight - as an informational resource.

"Child sexual exploitation on the Internet ranges from posed photos to visual recordings of brutal sexual crimes. One of Interpol's main tools for helping police fight this type of crime is the Interpol Child Abuse Image Database (ICAID)," Interpol's site states. "Created in 2001, it contains hundreds of thousands of images of child sexual abuse submitted by member countries, thereby facilitating the sharing of images and information to assist law enforcement agencies with the identification of new victims."

• STANCE ON BANNON

Interpol in 2004 issued a statement disavowing any connection to Bannon or the events described in his book.

brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2742

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