Robert Eringer - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

ROBERT ERINGER

Robert Eringer was born October 5th, 1954 in Los Angeles, California. He is a published author of fiction and non-fiction. He is retired from investigative journalism as well as from undercover FBI counterintelligence work. He created and directed the Principality of Monaco’s first intelligence service. His popularity is due to the exposure brought upon by litigation against the state of Monaco, featured in Forbes as "The Prince and The Blogger". He currently writes a popular blog on the Principality.

EARLY LIFE

Eringer is the son of fine artist and Disney illustrator Ellis Eringer, known as Papa Duke. Eringer spent his childhood until age fourteen in West Hollywood

West Hollywood, California

West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...

and Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

, California. He has a sibling, Michael, with whom he ran Tricky Dick’s Coffee House in London's Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

, from 1974 to 1978, an offshoot he created from the family's dessert business, Kaysens, while attending college.

EDUCATION

Eringer was a freshman at Beverly Hills High School in 1968-69. He moved to England in June 1969 and attended the American School in London

The American School in London

The American School in London is an international, independent K-12 school in St John's Wood, London, England for students aged between 4 and 18 years. Established in 1951 by Princeton graduate Stephen Eckard, it is the oldest American school in the city and the only non-profit American school in...

, from which he graduated in 1973. He went to college in Massachusetts and Washington DC between 1974-76, where he studied Law Enforcement and International Relations. A college term paper he wrote while there, on the Bilderberg Group

Bilderberg Group

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from...

, was picked up by the British magazine Verdict , who published it as an article on the power elite and thereby launched him into journalism. Eringer followed up with the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

’s UK graduate program in International Relations in 1978.

JOURNALISM

In 1977-78, Eringer wrote for The American, a community newspaper for Americans residing in Britain. Afterwards, he became a freelance foreign correspondent for The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) and The Toronto Star

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

(Canada), filing feature stories and interviews from Europe. He infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

who were at the time attempting to establish a “klavern” (branch) in the UK. Eringer traveled in May 1979 to Spartanburg

Spartanburg, South Carolina

thgSpartanburg is the largest city in and the county seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. It is the second-largest city of the three primary cities in the Upstate region of South Carolina, and is located northwest of Columbia, west of Charlotte, and about northeast of...

in South Carolina, for his mock initiation into the KKK. Eringer’s resulting two-part exposé in the UK's Sunday People brought the termination of KKK activity in Britain. Eringer then specialized in sting-undercover journalism for popular Fleet Street

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...

newspapers, including the News of the World

News of the World

The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...

, the Sunday Mirror

Sunday Mirror

The Sunday Mirror is the Sunday sister paper of the Daily Mirror. It began life in 1915 as the Sunday Pictorial and was renamed the Sunday Mirror in 1963. Trinity Mirror also owns The People...

and the Sunday People. He was tutored in the art of undercover reporting by that latter newspaper’s legendary investigative editor, Laurie Manifold. In 1984, for these three newspapers, he interviewed Lech Walesa

Lech Wałęsa

Lech Wałęsa is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity , the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland between 1990 and 95.Wałęsa was an electrician...

under house arrest in Poland on whom Eringer had written in 1982, the book Strike for Freedom!. Also in 1984, Eringer worked for ABC News

ABC News

ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

, gathering background on the Solidarity Movement. Years later, in 2008, Eringer returned to journalism, penning a weekly column, "The Investigator", for the Santa Barbara News-Press

Santa Barbara News-Press

The Santa Barbara News-Press is a broadsheet newspaper based in Santa Barbara, California.-History:The News-Press asserts it is the oldest daily newspaper in Southern California, publishing since 1855...

in California.

INTELLIGENCE & ESPIONAGE

In 1990, Eringer joined the field of private intelligence after acting as literary agent to Washington insiders, in the area of New York City. His partner was Clair George

Clair George

Clair Elroy George was a widely respected veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service who oversaw all global espionage activities for the agency in the mid-1980s...

, a retired CIA deputy Director of Operations. Their clients included Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Combined Circuses, for whom they monitored the activities of a freelance investigative reporter, resulting in a lawsuit . In 1993, Eringer worked undercover for FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

counterintelligence as an independent contractor. His prime mission was to gain the trust of Edward Lee Howard

Edward Lee Howard

Edward Lee Victor Howard was a CIA case officer who defected to the Soviet Union....

, an ex-CIA officer who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1985. In 2002, Eringer left the FBI and was retained by H.S.H. Prince Albert of Monaco

Albert II, Prince of Monaco

Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco is the head of the House of Grimaldi and the ruler of the Principality of Monaco. He is the son of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and the American actress Grace Kelly...

to become his intelligence adviser. In 2005, Eringer created Monaco’s first intelligence service upon the enthronement of Prince Albert II. From 2005 to 2008, Eringer as Director of MIS (Monaco Intelligence Service) established ties with numerous foreign intelligence services, including the CIA and the UK's SIS (Secret Intelligence Service)

Secret Intelligence Service

The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...

. In 2008, Eringer and MIS were decommissioned without warning. Popular belief is that compromised persons in the Prince's inner circle are responsible for the abrupt end of the Principality's intelligence service.

TELEVISION

In 2011, Eringer was host of a weekly one-hour TV series on Channel 17 in Santa Barbara called Surreal Bounce, based on the book of the same name. The program focused on the creativity vs madness paradigm. It featured episodes about 20th century American writers such as Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

, Hunter Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...

, Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

and John Fante

John Fante

John Fante was an American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Italian descent. He is perhaps best known for his work, Ask the Dust, a semi-autobiograpical novel about life in and around Los Angeles, California, which was the third in a series of four novels, published between 1938...

. Eringer's style of writing was largely influenced by the iconic authors.

LAWSUIT

In 2010, Eringer filed a lawsuit in the Santa Barbara Superior Court

Superior Courts of California

The Superior Courts of California are the superior courts in the U.S. state of California with general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a government agency...

against the Principality of Monaco

Monaco

Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...

for nonpayment of a final quarterly invoice in the amount of 40,000 euros . Defense attorney Stanley Arkin of New York city petitioned to move the case to Federal Court in Los Angeles and filed a Motion to Dismiss, citing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 is a United States law, codified at Title 28, §§ 1330, 1332, 1391, 1441, and 1602-1611 of the United States Code, that establishes the limitations as to whether a foreign sovereign nation may be sued in U.S. courts—federal or state...

. Judge Gary Feess ordered parties on June 10th, 2010 to jurisdictional discovery. As a result of failing to incur the case's dismissal, Monaco replaced Arkin the same month with former White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

Counsel to President Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

, attorney Greg Craig

Greg Craig

Gregory Bestor "Greg" Craig is a Washington-based lawyer and former White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. He has represented numerous high-profile clients, including John W. Hinckley, Jr., who was acquitted of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by reason of insanity, and, in...

. Craig's strategy was to appeal repeatedly to the U.S. Court of Appeals, as a manoeuver to avoid discovery. His appeals were denied a hearing on the basis that Judge Feess had not entered a judgment but rather issued a court order for the disclosure of the facts of the case through discovery. A decision on the Motion to Dismiss came down August 24th, 2011 in favour of the defendant on the grounds of immunity and lack of jurisdiction. Monaco spent an estimated one million euros for its defense without going to trial. An appeal now by Eringer's attorney was filed in September 2011.

MONACO

Eringer first visited the Principality in 1981 for a holiday. He returned regularly throughout the 1980s, to visit his parents who had a home there. In 1988, Eringer moved to Monaco for two years. He wrote a book called Monaco Cool, a satire based on characters living in a small country he described a “cosmopolitan Peyton Place

Peyton Place (TV series)

Peyton Place is an American prime-time soap opera which aired on ABC in half-hour episodes from September 15, 1964 to June 2, 1969.Based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious, the series was preceded by a 1957 film adaptation. A total of 514 episodes were broadcast, in...

", based on a popular American TV series from the 1960s. Eringer spent another year in Monaco, 1994-95, working on behalf of a private intelligence client. Eringer was introduced to the hereditary prince in 1989. In 1999, Prince Albert asked Eringer for a report on a Monaco-based Russian businessman named Alexey Fedorichev, who wished to invest in ASM, Monaco’s football club. In 2000, the Prince commissioned Eringer to produce another report, on Russian activities inside the Principality. In 2002, the Prince retained Eringer for full-time intelligence work.

BLOG

Eringer’s blog was set up in September 2009. It is a vehicle for excerpts of Eringer's books, essays and the dissemination of his account of life and work as intelligence chief in Monaco under the stylized header of The Spymaster of Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....

. Themes addressed on the blog reveal often the corruption and criminality in the Principality of Monaco. An adjunct of the blog is reserved for questions posed to and answered directly by Eringer, the Q&A. The blog was created partly in response to unfounded allegations made in the media by Prince Albert’s personal lawyer, Thierry Lacoste . Its readership has reached over 550 000.