Copyright 2005 Sarasota Herald-Tribune Co.
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida)

July 11, 2005 Monday
ALL EDITION

SECTION: FLORIDA WEST; Pg. E1

LENGTH: 1863 words

HEADLINE: Venice author questions 9/11 findings in controversial book

BYLINE: By LAUREN GLENN lauren.glenn@heraldtribune.com

DATELINE: VENICE

BODY:

Don't question him too hard.

In fact, try to eliminate any tones of doubt from your voice.

He doesn't have to explain himself if he doesn't want to.

Daniel Hopsicker is sitting in a coffee shop in Venice, talking to a reporter and drinking a latte because that is exactly what he wants to be doing.

"I'm not here to give you my resume, honey," said Hopsicker, his voice loud enough that other people in the Bella Luna Coffee Shop on Miami Avenue turn and stare for a moment.

The reporter had asked Hopsicker, a 53-year-old local conspiracy theorist and self-published author, why people should believe the things he writes.

Why should they believe him when he writes that Mohamed Atta, the terrorist who flew the first plane into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and one of three hijackers who lived in Venice, was a cocaine-bingeing sex fiend?

Why should they believe that the whole ordeal — everything from the flight school where the hijackers trained until the day they crashed commercial airliners into the Twin Towers and Pentagon — was a CIA conspiracy?

"Why should anybody believe anything you write?" Hopsicker retorts.

In his book, "Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9/11 Cover-up in Florida," Hopsicker alleges that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for an influx of Arab flight students into Florida flight schools in the months before Sept. 11.

He alleges that there was an attempt on President George W. Bush's life the morning of Sept. 11 and that Atta's American girlfriend was intimidated into silence by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He maintains that Sept. 11 and the events leading up to it were a government conspiracy, an idea the 9/11 Commission denounced during last year's hearings.

"Our commission interviewed 1,200 people, reviewed over 2 million pages of sensitive government documents, and held 12 public hearings over 19 days," said Al Felzenberg, senior director of communications for the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, in an e-mail.

"The facts in the Commission Report are derived from this exhaustive investigation. We stand by those facts. We believe they speak for themselves."

The 9/11 Commission does not comment on any books other than the 9/11 report, Felzenberg said.

But other people who say their lives have been damaged by Hopsicker's book and Internet postings do want to comment — some in a courtroom.

Hopsicker says he's heard no complaints about the book.

"Except for the guy who's suing me over it," he said.

A pair of lawsuits

A Pensacola man  is also suing Hopsicker, accusing him of libel in "Barry and the Boys," Hopsicker's first book, about a man named Barry Seals.

Seals was a former drug smuggler and pilot who became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and was, at least once, involved in a CIA sting operation, according to old news reports. He was assassinated in 1986.

Meanwhile, another man, one of Hopsicker's biggest targets, wishes he could sue but says he cannot afford the legal fees.

The man, Rudi Dekkers, a Naples businessman who works in aviation, said Hopsicker's accusations have taken a toll on his business and caused former customers to stop associating with him.

Dekkers formerly ran Huffman Aviation, the Venice flight school that trained at least two of the four terrorist pilots who flew planes into the World Trade Center: Atta, who flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower, and Marwan al-Shehhi, who flew United Airlines Flight 175 into the south tower.

Online and in his book, Hopsicker often accuses Dekkers of having close relationships with the terrorists.

"This S.O.B., he doesn't realize he destroys families and people," Dekkers said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I have seen nothing that's the truth. He fantasizes. He fantasizes stories, and names.

"If I had the money, would I sue him? Into hell," added Dekkers, a Dutch immigrant who now charters airplanes from Naples. "I would sue him into hell."

With so many books published about Sept. 11, Hopsicker's tome may have gone unnoticed were it not for the Internet.

Typing his name into Google brings up 13,200 results, several of which also mention Dekkers…  Most of the results are conspiracy-theory Web sites, such as SanderHicks.com and OnlineJournal.com.

Hopsicker's Web site is a mix of press releases, conspiracy theories, news stories and sales pitches. He sells his books online, along with several documentaries that he produced and funded himself.

"The problem with the Internet now is it's a kind of anything-goes, Wild West frontier, and there's not a lot of accountability," said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at journalism's Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.

Only in recent years have courts begun exploring libel lawsuits relating to Internet publications, many of which are produced by loners with a computer in their basement, some free time and little financial backing.

"It is only a matter of time before people start filing lawsuits against these small publishers," McBride said. "And then, it will be interesting to watch and see what the courts do to it."

'Secrets' in Venice

Three months after the Twin Towers fell, Hopsicker came to Venice after learning that the 9/11 hijackers learned to fly in this city.

He had visited Venice several times through the years with his parents, who by Sept. 11 were living here. He rented a place on the Island and began poking about, trying to find something that no one else knew.

Hopsicker intended to investigate and write about what happened in Venice, convinced that there was something the FBI, the CIA, the politicians and the Venice Airport wasn't telling the American public.

"Hundreds of reporters should have been here," he said. "Bob Woodward should have been here. Carl Bernstein should have been here. But they weren't."

Hopsicker had been living in New Orleans and Los Angeles, researching and writing "Barry and the Boys," which he published himself. (It was later published by a German publisher, as was "Welcome to Terrorland.")

He came, he said, because he felt he had to.

"I had to watch over 3,000 people die on TV," Hopsicker said, smacking the table with the palm of his hand. "I had an obligation to them."

Hopsicker maintains that neither the FBI nor any other government agencies thoroughly investigated the connection between 9/11 and Venice.

He says that over the past three years, he spoke to hundreds of people who knew the terrorists.

"I did what the press and the FBI refused to do, which was to investigate a mass murder," Hopsicker said.

For someone who questions everyone and everything, Hopsicker grows antsy when being questioned about what he's done in the past, and how he survives off the modest earnings from his books.

He'll go into detail on many things — the CIA, narcotics, Iran-Contra — but nailing him down on his past and his finances proves difficult.

"I get my credibility from the people who read what I write and believe it. Where do you get yours?" he asked after being asked a second time about what makes him credible as a reporter.

American dreams

At times, Hopsicker speaks almost like a college professor standing behind the podium, prefacing most of his lectures with sweeping, grandiose statements such as:

"The biggest lie about Sept. 11 is … "

Or:

"Here is the only fact about Sept. 11 that you need to know … "

Hopsicker is self-employed, and said his only earnings come from his self-published books. He would not say where he gets the money to fund his different media ventures, such as his books, his Web site and self-produced documentaries.

"I sacrifice myself to do it," he said. "I make a living. I'd make more as an assistant manager at McDonald's. But I discovered I have a passion."

His passion didn't always lean toward investigating conspiracy theories. As a college student at UCLA, Hopsicker majored in creative writing and dreamed of becoming the next great American novelist.

After college, he did some work in advertising and wrote for some magazines, he said.

In 1993, Hopsicker also produced a play called "Marooned in Malibu" for the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles.

Variety magazine reviewed the play and called Hopsicker a "raw talent" who would, in time, become more refined.

He wrote a few screenplays that never became movies and produced some industrial films.

In 1996, Hopsicker said, he produced a TV show for NBC called "Global Business 2000" that ran in Asia.

The Herald-Tribune was unable to confirm the show's existence.

Hopsicker said he also produced a 110-minute documentary called the "Secret Heartbeat of America," which was about the narcotics industry, the war on drugs and the hypothesis that it's all the CIA's fault.

He tried to sell it to HBO, but the pay-cable network didn't buy it. Now he sells it on VHS tape from his Web site for $19.95.

Small-town revelations

In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, revelations that several of the hijackers trained at a Venice flight school shook the city to its sleepy, retired core.

So when "Welcome to Terrorland" hit local book stores, residents' interest was piqued.

"In Venice it's extremely popular," said Joan Williams, owner of The Bookshop on Venice Avenue. She's sold an estimated 100 copies. Sometimes, she said, Hopsicker comes in for book signings.

After Sept. 11, she said, "People's eyes were opened to vulnerability even in small, safe communities such as ours."

John Patten, who runs a local news Web site, VeniceFl.com, reviewed the book, calling it a "must-read for all Americans."

On Amazon.com, reviews of "Welcome to Terrorland," vary. Some praise it as "an important and thoroughly entertaining read" and "a true work of investigative reporting," while others denounce it as laughable and unconvincing.

Williams said she does not know if what Hopsicker writes is true, but that the book makes for a good read and he has interesting ideas.

"I believe that it is a good hypothesis, but the proof is yet to be established," she said. "Maybe it could have happened the way he says that it did."

But the people most closely involved with the story, or at least with the Venice portion of it, say nothing happened the way Hopsicker says it did.

"Intelligent people can see he's just a fake," said Dekkers, the Naples businessman. "He's not real media."

But Hopsicker worries little about whether people believe him.

"I don't need permission to do what I do," he said, during the same interview at the coffee shop, his voice rising again, as he waves a half-finished latte in the air.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO 2
Daniel Hopsicker is a 53-year-old conspiracy theorist and self-published author. "Welcome to Terrorland" cover