chapter 2 contents of the palace, itemized "it seemed like a Holy Place, protected by amazing grace." --- the eagles "we estimate their worth at sixteen million dollars", said the marshall county tax assessor's office about the hare krsna commune that used to be the new vrndaban. it used to be new vrndaban community, but that has morphed into a vast criminal empire using ISKCON's 501(c)3 status, ISKCON's facilities, and ISKCON's goodwill amonst the indian expatriate community to fund an indictable criminal enterprise. "how we figure that is ten million for the palace, one million each for the temple and the lodge and four million for all the other land, livestock, assets and equipment they may have. if you sue them, don't forget we're ahead of you in line to get paid." the assessor reminded. the tax liability case against the hare krsnas was one of the points that had brought pinky clark to office and he'd been re-elected on the strewth of the lawsuit he'd won against the community in the early 1980's. "winning the lawsuit" and "collecting the damages due" are two entirely different aspects of the same problem, as pinky was soon to find out. the krsna's tied up the decision with appeals that, to this day, have not been resolved. sandy frey, representing ISKCON in the civil matters pending in los angeles, texas and in west virginia, told judge edward friend of wheeling, at the start of the civil litigation that the ISKCON defense strategy was the same scheme they had used in the robin george matter eight years earlier. first, they would get everyone to agree to a settlement with numbers so low that they would come in way below the thirty nine million dollar insurance cap. in this way, no property would be in jeopardy of being sold, although the ploy would be used early and often in the push to silence the complainers. second, the ISKCON lawyers would appeal the settlement that they themselves had proposed in the beginning. they would complain that the settlements were excessive and that they were for crimes that occurred so long ago that they were beyond the statute of limitations. they would seek to reduce the number of people in each class of the lawsuit, while not increasing their settlement amounts. a trust fund of nine million dollars, divided two hundred ways should yield a larger portion than if it were divided six hundred ways. in the ISKCON defense strategy, although the number of litigants would decrease, individual shares would not rise proportionally. the third thing that ISKCON proposed was to stall the proceedings at every possible court date, thus postponing any real settlement until a theoretics date so far into the future as to make the results absurd. these are all matters of public record and are available as trial transcripts from the clerk of the court, federal bankruptcy court, federal building, wheeling, west virginia. after having read the bankruptcy plan in full in 2004, judge friend asked kuladri and company, representing ISKCON in the west virginia case, why did they not issue each claimant in the case a check for one thousand dollars. the plan offered everyone filing, even the late and otherwise untimely filers, a minimum of one thousand dollars. the non-gurukuli claimants were offered their own trust fund in the matrix but the attorneys had no intention of ever satisfying the terms of the bankruptcy plan in full. in the words of ISKCON attorney frey, "we think they(the gurukulis) have already caused us quite enough problems!". like accountants at tax time, the federal bankruptcy court assesses the financial numbers to a tort settlement. the job of the ISKCON defense lawyers is to argue that any settlement is too much and therefore needs to be reduced. the ISKCON lawyers are good at what they do, even if that be defending dirtbags. no matter how vile the behavior of the individuals, for enough money there is a attorney who would defend anyone. ISKCON management, being the bean-counting businessmen that they are, intend to see that none of the second generation inherit the mission. "spend your kids inheritance!" seems to be the philosophy prevailing in ISKCON "devotional service" at new vrndaban, at least at the general manager level demands a salary of $ 80,000 a year. when one considers that Prabhupada's Palace was built for $ 500,000, the dual general managers salaries paid to kuladri and narada muni would be enough to rebuild the palace every four years. the rules are made to favor the return to power of the incumbents. in the words of kuladri das, "we all used to be good devotees, some time ago.". unfortunately, the collapsing palace restaurant roof has made the facility non-functional. the re-organization plan ISKCON proposed lists the restaurant as a revenue source and the writers know this to be false. the revenues from any future gurukula project should be more closely monitored to prevent the further fueling the fires of the pedophiles who find ISKCON underwear attractive on children. the worship of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami at the crumbling palace is conducted only once a week on sundays, and with no new disciples being offered Swami maharaj as a diksa guru, the prospects look even more bleak for the future. "what does one have to do to earn this $ 80 K per year paycheck?" the prospective candidates want to know. to date, the candidates for the job have had to drive from their residences outside of Pittsburgh to new vrndaban at least once every week to oversee the continued degradation of what has come to be called, "walden by the cemetery". the once "sacred cows" of bygone years have been replaced with the he goats and she goats of expediency. the goats eat anything and they breed incessantly on a smaller budget then their bovine predecessors. the fact that they eat trash makes then the favorite of both the salaried management and the over-paid, non-industrious labor staff. the palace, built in the 1970's for the cults leader has fallen on hard times in the ensuing power struggles that have followed k swa's incarceration. k swa's release from prison was with the proviso that he not be involved with the management of new vrndaban. the management of NV has been divided into a spiritual as well as a managerial board, as per the instructions of k swa on his departure for the federal health facility. k swa's plan for NV was a GBC board of "spiritual guides", currently the troika of slavin, nagel and favors(late), all k swa sanyass initiates. these individuals would remain "hands free" in the management of nefarious activities. in the words of the illustrious GBC chairman devamrta swami,"i'm like the CIA, i operate on a need to know basis. i don't need to know how it happens, i only need to know that it happens. don't tell me anything about it, just make it happen." the dirty deeds department, the ksatriya force*, led by the infallible vision of the brahmin council, would implement the desires of the guru, which were non-different from the desires of The Supreme Lord. this was the theory. the facts were somewhat murkier. much like the childrens game of passing a sentence from one child to another, we far more often than not get a message that scarcely, if at all, resembles the original spirit. many times, the current hoped for results are diametrically reversed because things have become so convoluted with all the personal motivation that has been injected by mixed devotion neophytes posing as divinely inspired infalliblists. what tommyrot! a question raised by this sorry state of affairs might be, "what are they fighting over?", with every thing in such a state of decay, but there is a vast amount of goodwill built up in the indian community. this goodwill brings in $ 40,000 per month to the new vrndaban community treasury. these accumulates pious credits are then distributed at the whims of "the powers that be". Prabhupada's treasury has become the piggy bank of a bunch of drug crazed sense gratifiers posing themselves as "renunciants" and in some cases, "celibates", when, in fact, they are, truly, neither. once, while restoring the old vrndaban cabin where Swami maharaj first stayed at new vrndaban, the siding boards were pulled off, exposing a huge serpent. over ten feet long, with a variety of multicolored diamond shapes and rings covering his body, he left his perch on the cornerstone foundation and slithered further up under the house, never to be seen again. the locals describe such snakes as milk snakes and say they are completely harmless but given Swami maharaj's reference to his guru's ordering the killing of a snake, the construction crew, armed with shovels, pick axes and mattocks, would have made short work of the legless one. when instantaneous decisions are required one's conditioning plays a major role in the overall scheme. "it's auspicious to leave your body in the Holy Dham!' was a common expression in the rural, non-antiseptic new vrndaban setting. against this backdrop, given that new vrndaban was the dumping ground for all the mental rejects in ISKCON worldwide, in the aftermath of the shotgun attack on new vrndaban by the bike gang, the environment was much stranger than many on the left coast even knew. true the gossip moved from temple to temple with the BBT truck every month, but jambavan was fair and balanced in his reporting of events. the west coast knew the alliance between LA and new vrndaban was for the purpose of Bhagavat-gita, practically applied but not every one agreed with the proposal. the killing a snake debate raged on both coasts, with both camps armed and willing, or so it seemed. ramesvara had ordered his disciples to take out sulocan and that order was given to LA's ksatriya force, currently at the time of the sulocan hit, prema datta, ramesvara's personal servant and krsna katha, a ramesvara disciple, wannabe tough guy. malibu's most wanted were hardly up to the task at hand, so the offer by tirtha and top buffoon to do the deed met with complete LA temple approval and co-operation. it would be a joint affair, with LA supplying the weapon, the get away car, the apple valley silver mine shafts as a disposal site, and NV would send in the out of town hitman to do the deed as soon as sulocan was released from prison. " "when he gets out, he will immediately go home to mommy for more money and then he will go to the west coast to reload on drugs and weapons.." ravanath was saying to those he was giving marching orders to. "sulocan poses a life threat to both kuladri and to k swa. he has written that in his diary, and for that reason alone, this guy must be transmigrated to his next body", ravanath was clear in his meaning beyond any shadow of a doubt. "now that Srila Prabhupada has left us, the entire fate of this movement, OUR movement, Lord Caitanya's movment, tests in k swa's hands and, according to our nature, it is up to us to do whatever we can to help the movment in that regard." the sheer number of times he had repeated that same thing, in his own head to himself, and openly and often to many of those he thought sympathetic to such an approach. ravanath had made his pitch to at least a half a dozen sets of sympathetic ears before someone raised these Gita related questions. "how have these impurities come upon you? they are not at all befitting a man who knows the progressive values of life" " the words existant and non-existant refer only to spirit and matter. why worry?" "how can a person who knows that the soul is indestructible, unborn, eternal, and immutable, kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?" tough questions but from a submissive audience, ravanath was undaunted. he quoted krsna in his response to a potentially explosive volley of inquiry, "everything has it's proper utility, and a man situated in complete knowledge knows how and where to apply a thing...so there is no possibility of sinful reaction." "also, considering your specific duty as a ksatriya...". that settled it. the order was there from your bona-fide spiritual authority and it was based on scripture, directly from krsna, either you followed those instructions or you were going to hell! tirtha was already guaranteed a place in hell by his previous activities. no need to struggle hard for that kind of a response. he had volunteered for vietnam just so he could engage his propensity for killing in some manner that wouldn't put him behind bars for life. he had killed nightly as a long range recon patrol in nam and if his stories were to be believed, he'd hadn't stopped simply because he had returned to the states. a recipient of a monthly government check from the US government because of his mental instability, tirtha got what many nam vets were encouraged to collect, "nuts money". you simply had to convince one social worker at one of the offices that you were scitzoid and you would you would receive a monthly pay check for life. by listing your address as the krsna compound, it was a sure thing that you would qualify for nuts money. k swa collected these funds and, in spite of Srila Prabhupada's orders to the contrary, he encouraged every one eligible to collect.