# Michael Riconosciuto Michael James Riconosciuto (b. 1947) is an American self-described former intelligence operative whose 1991 affidavit became the single load-bearing source for the most explosive claim in [[The Octopus]] story: that a secret "back door" was built into [[Inslaw]]'s [[PROMIS]] software. ## The affidavit On March 21, 1991, Riconosciuto swore an affidavit to the House Judiciary Committee claiming that around 1983-84, at the direction of Reagan-era figure Earl Brian, he had modified PROMIS to insert a covert back door so the software could be sold to foreign governments while letting U.S. intelligence secretly read their systems. He said the work took place near the [[Wackenhut]]-Cabazon joint venture on the Cabazon Indian Reservation in California, where he also claimed to have developed weapons such as a fuel-air explosive. He was a source for [[Danny Casolaro]] in the months before Casolaro's death. ## Credibility Eight days after the affidavit, on March 29, 1991, Riconosciuto was arrested on methamphetamine distribution charges; he was convicted in 1992 and imprisoned for decades (released 2017). He claimed the arrest was a frame-up to silence him. Special Counsel Nicholas Bua, who investigated the Inslaw matter, found Riconosciuto's accounts inconsistent across his statements to the Hamiltons, his affidavit, and his trial, and likened his PROMIS story to "a historical novel; a tale of total fiction woven against the background of accurate historical facts." ## Epistemic status Riconosciuto's drug conviction is established fact. His substantive claims -- the back door, Earl Brian's direction, the Cabazon weapons work -- are uncorroborated single-source testimony from a convicted felon and were specifically rejected by the Bua report. They remain central to Octopus lore precisely because they cannot be confirmed. ## See also - [[The Octopus]] - [[PROMIS]] - [[Inslaw]] - [[Wackenhut]] - [[Danny Casolaro]]