Was Paul Watkins interviewed in a "Mr. Big" sting police operation?

Was Paul Watkins interviewed in a "Mr. Big" sting police operation? What is a Mr. Big Sting? We figured you'd ask...

Undercover police officers pretend to be members of a fake criminal organization. They attempt to "recruit" a suspect to the fake gang in order to get him or her to confess to prior crimes.

The officers slowly build their suspect's trust, and ask him to do increasingly important jobs for the organization. In the end, the officers introduce their suspect to the fictitious leader of the organization. The so-called "Mr. Big" then tells the suspect that the gang can help him, but only if he recounts his entire criminal experience.

Rather than landing the potential gangster a role in a criminal organization, however, those confessions can send them to jail.

Remember  Jake Friedberg, who (according to Watkins) put Paul up in a hotel suite for three days then vanished? Could it have been an early police "Mr Big" sting? Think about it... Paul is invited to meet 'Mr Big'. He wines and dines him, brags about the crimes they commit while making him comfortable enough to share his exploits to gain acceptance into their group. They tell him that they want to branch out and since Charlie is in jail they need Paul to be the new connection. But first, can they trust Paul? They want to get him to admit to some crimes in order to gain their trust and then... busted. But he didn't know anything he didn't already tell the LAPD, so they vanished and nobody knows who they were or where they went. By the way, this tactic is illegal in the United States, so it will never come out if that was actually what they were up to.

Below is a short excerpt from Paul's book, MY LIFE WITH CHARLES MANSON - by PAUL WATKINS and Guillermo Soledad (if you'd like to download a PDF of the book, CLICK HERE). It deals with Paul's encounter with Friedberg beginning on page 187:

After that episode, things happened fast. Later that same week I was coming out of the court building when a dapper little guy sporting a goatee and dressed in a double-breasted suit approached me, saying he was a lawyer and wanted to ask me a few questions. I walked with him to a chauffeured limousine and we drove up to Hollywood. He introduced himself as Jake Friedberg, saying he just wanted some information about the Family and that he'd make it worth my while to provide it. He asked if I'd mind staying at the Continental Hyatt House for a couple of days, and when I said no, he made a reservation for me in the penthouse. I spent two days there telling him what I knew; on the morning of the third day, as I was leaving the hotel, I was paged to the phone. It was Crockett; I'd called him the day I arrived and left my number.

His voice was hard and clear, like a pick against granite.

"Where the hell you been?"

Nowhere."

"I been tryin' to get you. D.A.'s office called us up and said that guy Friedberg is a Mafia man... somethin' about La Bianca's connection with the syndicate... he say anything about it?"

"Nope."

There was a long pause. Then Crockett spoke. "Where you tryin' to take yourself anyway, oblivion?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know.

"When you comin' out to the desert?"

"It won't be long."

I waited [for] Friedberg to come back, but he didn't. And I never saw him again.

Guillermo Soledad

From a recent festival brochure:

"Guillermo Yuscaran (William Lewis) is both a writer and primitivist painter. He  currently resides in Santa Lucia, a small village outside of Tegucigalpa. A former Fulbright scholar, he holds a PhD in Hispanic Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara. His work has appeared in major publications in the US, Canada, Latin America and Europe. Exhibitions of his paintings have been held in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Belize, as well as the US. He has authored numerous books, including GRINGOS IN HONDURAS, VELASQUEZ: THE MAN AND HIS ART, POINTS OF LIGHT, and BLUE PARIAH."

And..."My Life with Charles Manson" because as esteemed reader Kimchi has discovered, Guillermo Yuscaran, aka William Lewis, is also Guillermo Soledad! Thanks, Kimchi! This has been driving Patty nuts for years.

While "Guillermo Soledad" means "William Sunshine" in spanish, "Yuscaran" is the name of a historic village which is significant because it was one of the first places in Honduras to get electricity in 1898- even before Tegucigalpa. It is the home of the national drink, "guaro." In 1977, Guillermo submitted an article to Ms. Magazine using the pseudonym "Francisca Yuscaran," which was published. This is when he started using the name in earnest, according to a documentary you can view at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0FOcRdsPA.

A nice quote from this video: "When you think you have the answers, they actually turn out to be bigger questions. And that's success...that means we are evolving in the right way: when our answers turn back into questions again."

There is also a video about his art at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL_tm9lR8UE. Guillermo's paintings are colorful and interesting, and reasonably priced at waves-of-art.com:

"To enter the world of Guillermo Yuscaran’s paintings, it is essentially to enter a rich dream-world. Indeed, the figure of a man sleeping and dreaming appears in many of the paintings, and as the conscious mind recedes, the landscape of magic and symbol emerges, and reigns in a transparency of wholeness and peace. Guillermo has been called a primitivist, the idealized Honduran village is a central theme, a landscape of great tranquility, but the Yuscaran range is much greater and radiates a quality of emotion and passion.

Guillermo Yuscaran, William Lewis, was raised and nurtured in California. The Pacific coast Buddhism, the radical openness at the end of the long American trail of the westward passage, is a formative influence of the writer-artist. The unique isolation and freedom of Honduras has allowed his art to emerge and flourish. Honduras is as important to him as Tahiti was to Gauguin. He first came to Honduras in 1972. Since then, he has distinguished himself in both art and literature."


Guillermo is one interesting dude.