Matthew Steen

Last updated
Matthew Steen
13765752 513034858886225 7079376517428943570 o copy Matthew Steen and Karen Jessica Evans attending a Democratic Party fundraiser for Jane Kim for California State Senate.jpg
Matthew Steen and Karen Jessica Evans attending a Democratic Party Fundraiser in San Francisco 2016
Born(1949-08-22)August 22, 1949
San Francisco, California
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley, History 1991 University of California, Santa Barbara, Psychology 1976
Occupation Community Organizer
Known for Weather Underground, 60 Minutes Interview with Mike Wallace

Matthew Landy Steen (born August 22, 1949), also known under the alias William Hollis Coquillette [1] is a former member of Weather Underground Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. In 1972 he was indicted on federal conspiracy and bank robbery charges to finance radical leftist Weatherman activities, sentenced to a ten-year federal prison term. [2]

Contents

In June, 1972 Steen attempted to be an informant for the FBI about the February, 1970 San Francisco Park Station Bombing. [3] [4]

Steen was featured on the lead segment of 60 Minutes , "Fake ID", in an interview with Mike Wallace, first aired February 1, 1976. This was the first time a former Weatherman had ever appeared on national television. He was queried about false identities and traveler's check fraud. [5] [6]

1976 60 Minutes interview

Interviewed in Beverly Hills in mid-1975 by Mike Wallace, Steen responded to questions about identity theft (he possessed ID of at least 150 people) and how he purchased and reported stolen some $50,000 to $100,000 in traveler's checks, while still being able to cash the originals. This was the first time a former Weatherman had appeared on the CBS news show. It was re-broadcast several months later.

The entire interview [7] can be viewed, beginning at the 48 minute 19 second mark, in this November 2015 speech about making documentaries.

Transcript of Steen's portion of the segment: [From the Congressional Record. May 24, 1977]

"60 MINUTES" MAY 16, 1977—"FALSE ID"

(Note: the episode first aired February 1, 1976 and re-aired on May 16, 1976. It never aired in 1977 and the actual title is "Fake ID")

. . . MIKE WALLACE: Walking proof that the process really does work is this young man, Matthew Steen, alias Eric Gilbert Dietz, alias T. Swingle Frick, III, alias Romez Tormey. In 1970, while a student at Berkeley, Steen went underground as a member of the militant Weathermen organization. Before he was arrested in 1971, Steen says he had obtained a hundred-fifty different identities—almost all of them courtesy of various Government agencies.

What kind of documents are we talking about?

MATTHEW STEEN: Birth certificates, notarized birth certificates, driver's licenses from various states, occasionally Social Security cards, and other superficial types of identification, like library cards, et cetera.

WALLACE: And you had no real difficulty in doing this?

STEEN: No.

WALLACE: By the time the FBI got to him in 1971, Steen acknowledges he had used various fake ID's to rip off the Bank of America. He'd buy a set of Travellers' Checks; then, a couple of weeks later, claim they'd been lost or stolen—and get replacements. He had doubled his money.

How much did you make this way?

STEEN: Somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars.

WALLACE: Among the official documents Matt Steen obtained under assumed names was a U.S. passport. Well, for decades, the head of the passport office in Washington has been keenly aware of the fake ID problem—Frances Knight.

Ms. FRANCES KNIGHT: This has been going on for years. Identify fraud is nothing that—that is new in this Administration or in this decade. And yet, nobody—including the—the brains of the Department of Justice—have been able to come up with anything to stop it. It's been increasing. . . . [6]

Federal prison

Steen was sentenced to two consecutive five-year terms, served three years and released from United States Penitentiary, Lompoc in 1974 in Santa Barbara. Shortly after, he campaigned for public office and was twice elected to the Isla Vista Municipal Advisory Council.

Public service

Steen became the director of a Community Action Agency for Santa Barbara County and was elected to the board of trustees of the local Community College District in Santa Barbara. [8] [9]

After his return to San Francisco, Steen was nominated to serve a term on the Market-Octavia Citizen's advisory committee, repurposing public lands that became available after removal of the Central Freeway, damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. [10] He has since served on the San Francisco Shelter Monitoring Committee from 2012 to 2016, ending his two terms as Vice-Chairman, [11] and is a former Vice-Chairman of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Citizen Advisory Committee. [12] Steen, with his late partner Karen Jessica Evans, worked on development of open space, preservation of the urban forest canopy in San Francisco and saving the historic, world-famous Palace of Fine Arts from privatization to maintain unfettered public access in perpetuity. [13] [14] [15] [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weather Underground</span> American far-left militant organization, 1969–77

The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organized as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) national leadership. Officially known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) beginning in 1970, the group's express political goal was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government, which WUO believed to be imperialist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matrícula Consular</span>

The Matrícula Consular de Alta Seguridad (MCAS) is an identification card issued by the Government of Mexico through its consulate offices to Mexican nationals residing outside of Mexico. Also known as the Mexican CID card, it has been issued since 1871. The issue of the card has no bearing on immigration status in the foreign country they are residing in. The purpose of the card is to demonstrate that the bearer is a Mexican national living outside of Mexico. It includes a Government of Mexico issued ID number and bears a photograph and address outside of Mexico of the Mexican National to whom it is issued.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States House Committee on the Judiciary</span> Standing committee of the United States House of Representatives

The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, federal administrative agencies, and federal law enforcement entities. The Judiciary Committee is often involved in the impeachment process against federal officials. Because of the legal nature of its oversight, committee members usually have a legal background, but this is not required.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Edwards</span> American politician

William Donlon Edwards was an American politician of the Democratic Party and a member of the United States House of Representatives from California for 32 years in the late 20th century.

The René Guyon Society was an American organization that advocated sexual relationships with children. Most investigators considered it a one-man propaganda operation. It was named after René Guyon, a former judge who served on the Supreme Court of Thailand for 30 years and who, apart from traditional judicial work, wrote on sexual ethics in his work The Ethics of Sexual Acts.

Christopher H. Pyle is a journalist and Professor Emeritus of Politics at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He testified to Congress about the use of military intelligence against civilians, worked for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, as well as the Senate Committee on Government Oversight. He is the author of several books and Congressional reports on military intelligence and constitutional rights, and has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress on issues of deportation and extradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Charles Wester</span> American prelate

John Charles Wester, is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been serving as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in New Mexico since 2015. He previously served as bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City in Utah from 2007 to 2015 and as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco in California from 1998 to 2007.

Passport fraud is an act of intentional deception that involves forgery, alteration, or false use of a travel document, such as a passport. Common reasons to perpetrate passport fraud include illegally entering a country, avoiding deportation, committing financial crimes, and smuggling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George P. Miller</span> American politician (1891–1982)

George Paul Miller was an American veteran of World War I who served 14 terms as a U.S. Representative from California from 1945 to 1973.

Naomi Esther Jaffe is a former undergraduate student of Herbert Marcuse and member of the Weather Underground Organization. Jaffe was recently the Executive Director of Holding Our Own, a multiracial foundation for women.

Dianne Marie Donghi is a French former member of Students for a Democratic Society and Weatherman (organization).

Robert Roth was an active member in the anti-war, anti-racism and anti-imperialism movements of the 1960s and 70s, and key member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) political movement in the Columbia University Chapter in New York, where he eventually presided. Later, as a member of the Weatherman/Weather Underground Organization he used militant tactics to oppose the Vietnam War and racism. After the war ended, Roth surfaced from his underground status and has been involved in a variety of social causes to this day.

Howard Norton Machtinger is a former director of Carolina Teaching Fellows, a student teacher scholarship program at the University of North Carolina. He is an education and civil rights activist, a teacher, a forum leader, and a political commentator. Machtinger is a former member of Students For a Democratic Society and Weatherman.

Scott Braley was a leftist activist and a regional organizer for the Michigan State University's chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society, better known as SDS. Braley became a member of Weatherman in 1969 and remained so until the group disbanded in 1977. Braley was one of the original members of the Revolutionary Youth Movement, a group devoted to anti-racism and Third World struggles which later evolved into Weatherman.

The Joe Boys, or JBS, was a Chinese American youth gang founded in the 1960s in San Francisco's Chinatown. The Joe Boys were originally known as Joe Fong Boys, after its founder Joe Fong, a former member of the Wah Ching. Most of their members were born in Hong Kong or were of Hong Kongese descent.

The Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 is an Act of the United States Congress that generally makes it illegal to use false Caller ID information for a call with the intent to defraud or scam a called party. The Act makes exceptions for certain law-enforcement purposes. Callers are also still allowed to preserve their anonymity by choosing to block all outgoing caller ID information on their phone lines. Caller ID spoofing is generally illegal in the United States if done "with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dana E. Wallace</span> American biologist

Dana E. Wallace (1917-2007) was the assistant director of research of the Maine Department of Marine Resources from 1946 to 1983. He co-chaired the Biological Advisory Committee of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. His work focused primarily on the aquaculture of mollusks, particularly clams and oysters, in the coastal regions of Maine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myrna Melgar</span> American politician

Myrna Melgar is an American politician currently serving as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for District 7 since January 8, 2021. Melgar is the first woman elected to represent District 7. Additionally, she is the first Jewish Latina to serve on the Board of Supervisors after the implementation of District elections in 2004.

References

  1. ↑ "Domestic Intelligence Operations for Internal Security Purposes, Part 1: Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security, House of Representatives, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session". 1974.
  2. ↑ Jamison, Peter (16 September 2009). "Time Bomb". SF Weekly. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
  3. ↑ Jamison, Peter (17 September 2009). "TIME BOMB: A '70S COP KILLING INVESTIGATION LEADS TO A CHICAGO LAW PROFESSOR WHO HELPED LAUNCH BARACK OBAMA'S POLITICAL CAREER". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
  4. ↑ Burrough, Bryan (7 April 2015). Days of Rage. Penguin. pp. 96–97. ISBN   9780698170070.
  5. ↑ United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Crime. (1984). False identification: hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on H.R. 352, H.R. 6105, H.R. 6946, and S. 2043 false identification, May 5, 1982. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.. p.55
  6. 1 2 False identificationhearing before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on H.R. 352, H.R. 6105, H.R. 6946, and S. 2043 false identification, May 5, 1982. U.S. G.P.O. 30 August 1984.
  7. ↑ Steen, Matthew. "PhreakNIC 19 - Doc it Your Own !@#$% Self". YouTube. Nashville 2600. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  8. ↑ Board of Trustees: Board of Trustees - Santa Barbara City College Archived 2006-09-24 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ "Board Minutes" (PDF). Santa Barbara City College. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 29, 2015.
  10. ↑ "SFGTV : December 10, 2012 12:00am-12:30am PST". 10 December 2012.
  11. ↑ http://sfgov.org/sheltermonitoring/sites/default/files/12.21.16%20Agenda.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  12. ↑ "San Francisco Water Power Sewer | SFPUC". 5 June 2023.
  13. ↑ https://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/tree-activists-are-still-not-letting-their-eucalyptus-fight-die
  14. ↑ "Rec and Park Commission - Sep 15th, 2016".
  15. ↑ http://sfgov.org/bdappeal/sites/default/files/BOA%20Meeting%20Agenda%20for%20August%2009%202017.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  16. ↑ "Gay uncle". 13 August 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.