I found this information a while back in reference to Mike Bynum and John Ramsey:
Mike Bynum was the corporate attorney at John Ramsey’s company, Access Graphics. The most pertinent details surrounding Mike Bynum are:
- In the early 1970s, Bynum worked as a deputy in the Boulder District Attorney’s office. Bynum worked with both Peter Hofstrom and Alex Hunter
- At the time of JonBenet’s murder, Hofstrom was the head of the DA’s felony division, and Hunter was the Boulder District Attorney
- Bynum grew up (mostly) in Moab, Utah, he went to college in Boulder CO, and in 2002, he retired from the legal profession and moved back to Moab, Utah. I will revisit Moab, Utah, later on in this post.
- A general overview of Bynum’s life and career can be found here
Bynum’s initial involvement in the case
As per
this excellent comment by
u/juror_13, Bynum’s relationship with John Ramsey was presented by both, at various times, as either a close friendship, or a business relationship. As of December 1996, it appears the two were more akin to business partners than friends: for example, Bynum had not been invited to the Ramseys' Christmas party on the 23rd, nor was he called to the Ramsey’s house early on the morning of Dec. 26th, 1996.
Now let’s talk about Fleet White for a moment: as described by Det. Schiller in PMPT, on Dec. 26th 1996, “Fleet White drove over to the Fernie’s house to stay with John and Patsy. Later, at around 4:00pm, he [Fleet White] went to the office of Michael Bynum, Ramsey’s corporate attorney…”. Fleet and his wife were the first to arrive at the Ramsey’s house that morning, and Fleet was with John when JonBenet’s body was located in the wine cellar. This means that outside of John, Patsy and Burke, Fleet would have been
the star witness for police investigators. Could this be why Mike Bynum was so quick to speak to Fleet alone that evening - to find out what Fleet had witnessed?
This raises the obvious question - why was John’s
corporate attorney so quick to jump into the case? He had arranged a meeting with Fleet mere hours after JonBenet's body had been found. Bynum was not John’s personal lawyer - his professional role was to perform legal duties for Access Graphics. Could Mike Bynum’s pre-existing relationship with the DA’s office, who are widely thought to have obstructed the BPD’s investigation, be the primary reason for Bynum’s involvement? If not, a more reasonable approach (i.e less of a conflict of interest), would have been: Bynum refers John to criminal defense lawyer/s > criminal defense lawyer/s decide whether to meet with Fleet on the 26th.
How did Bynum assist John Ramsey?
Bynum did in fact go on to source John’s legal representation, as made clear in
John’s Oct. 1998deposition:
John: Well, my friend, Mike Bynum, basically asked me, would you trust me to do some things that I feel need to be done for your family? And I said yes.
Q: When did he ask that?
John: That was probably on the 26th or 27th.
So Bynum moonlighting as John’s legal wizard is over now, right? Well no, because Bynum again goes above-and-beyond the duties of a corporate attorney. As also mentioned by John in the same Oct. 1998 deposition:
John: Mike's firm set up the children's foundation, for example, for us.
What John doesn’t mention in this deposition, is that nine months previously, a company called ‘755 15TH STREET, LLC’ was
incorporated, by none other than Mike Bynum’s own law firm,
Chrisman Bynum & Johnson, P. C. What did this newly formed “investor group”, composed of “
individuals assisting the Ramsey family” do? In Feb. 1998, they purchased the Ramseys’ house for $650,00. This was almost $260k below what the home was valued at in 1996 (and presumably the property value would have increased further by 1998). In fact, from the same Denver Post article, “...Bynum said the group eventually planned to sell the home and donate any profits to the JonBenet Ramsey Children's Foundation”.
So, to recap:
- Mike Bynum’s firm incorporates the JonBenet Ramsey Children's Foundation
- In January 1998, Mike Bynum’s firm incorporates an investment group, which, given the chosen business name, appears to have been set up with just the one investment in mind
- This investment group then purchases the Ramsey’s house for ~260k below market value. Now sure, we’ve all heard that ‘murder houses’ are notoriously difficult to sell - but surely John’s ex-corporate attorney and ‘good friend’, whom he clearly maintained a relationship with after having left Access Graphics - surely he wouldn’t be one to stiff the Ramseys in his offer to buy their house? As stated by Bynum’s own firm, they planned to later sell the home, and generously donate all profits back to the Ramseys’ foundation.
Thus far, I suspect there are some financial shenanigans afoot: a non-profit and an LLC are formed by the same individuals, and money is exchanging hands from one organization to the owner of the other. Future profits are earmarked to be transferred back between organizations.
Furthermore, it is interesting that Bynum and Johns’ relationship seemingly grew closer
after they no longer worked together at Access Graphics. If Bynum was the critical link between John and the Boulder DA’s office, could the house sale (at below market value) have been an off-the-books payment to Bynum, for having facilitated the connection between John and the DA’s office? As to why Bynum’s firm would later donate back profits to the Ramsey’s foundation, from a second sale of the house… that I can only speculate about. And we don’t know whether or not these profits were in fact donated back, or if there was even a genuine intent to follow through with this payment.
But so far, Mike Bynum seems to be involved in some shady practices. Certainly practices which seem outside the realm of what one would expect of a corporate attorney.
Shady practices?
So I did some digging into Mike Bynum, and as per
opencorporates, his name is attached to a slew of companies. He is listed as a President/Director of over 10 different companies, which seems like a lot for one person to manage.
In 2010, Mike Bynum became CEO of
White Canyon Uranium (North America), which appears to have been a branch of an AU/CA based parent company. Who else should join this same company, in the same year, as Executive Director of the Board?
John Ramsey. Additionally, Mike Bynum is the registered agent of the flight/aircraft company
Redtail Air, of which John Ramsey is
President.
So it’s clear that Mike and John have been doing business together for at least two decades now. I would hazard a bet that having worked together for so long, they’re probably friends at this point too, particularly given that John also moved to Moab, Utah, in 2011.
So what’s all of this got to do with the murder?
It appears that Mike Bynum could have been complicit in the cover up of JonBenet’s murder, and that he was the conduit by which the Ramsey’s were able to receive such favorable treatment from the Boulder DA’s office. Does Bynum know who killed JonBenet? Maybe. Or maybe not. At the very least, Bynum could have used his personal relationships to assist in obstructing the BPD’s investigation. But why would someone (or anyone, for that matter) facilitate such corruption, when the crime at hand is the murder of a child? I strongly suspect that there was an “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” arrangement between Mike and John. Both were deeply entangled in each other’s business dealings, and it appears there’s a high probability of illegal business activities (e.g money laundering, tax evasion, etc…) having occurred.
We can only speculate as to the extent and the specifics of such activities, but if Bynum did in fact willingly assist in obstructing a murder investigation, I can only assume that the depths of illegality ran fairly deep. Both Mike and John certainly have had unusually diverse careers - spanning across the fields of computer software hardware, financial investing, uranium mining and aircrafts. Impressive resumes.
Pasta Jay
I was unsure whether to include this last section, because I’m not sure how relevant it is (I have not been able to dig up as much information). Perhaps somebody else has already done some research on this and can share what they’ve found.
Jay Elowsky (aka ‘Pasta Jay’) owned a popular (still active to this day) Italian restaurant in Boulder, of which the Ramseys were frequent guests. As per this
acandyrose entry, at some point prior to 1996, John Ramsey and Mike Bynum loaned Elowsky money for his restaurant business. In fact, at ~1:55 in the crime scene
video taken at the Ramsey’s house, a check from Jay Elowsky is located in the Ramsey’s home. Jay Elowsky must have been close to the Ramsey family, because in January of 1997, for approximately 8 weeks, John, Patsy, Burke - and both Patsy’s parents and two sisters - lived with Jay Elowsky in his Boulder home.
In 1992, Pasta Jay’s opened another restaurant location in
Moab, Utah. Which is where John Ramsey and Mike Bynum now live. It is unclear what (if any) relationship Mike and John have with Jay Elowsky nowadays, but it is interesting that all three of them are living in the same ~5k population town. I wonder if they're still doing business together.
John and his wife Jan also own ‘The Find’ in Moab, UT.
