Michael James Riconosciuto (born 1947 or 1948) is an American electronics and computer expert who was arrested in early 1991, shortly after providing Inslaw, Inc. with an affidavit in support of their lawsuit against the United States Department of Justice.
[8] When he was only twelve years old, The Tacoma News Tribune and Ledger called him a "modern Da Vinci" in a 1960 article describing a phone network he established for himself and thirteen friends in Tacoma, experiments he conducted with underwater microphones and plant cognition, an intercom system he developed in his home and a radio class he helped teach at a local YMCA.
[1] By the summer of 1964, before his junior year of high school, Riconosciuto built and lived in an underwater house complete with television, radio, "and other common necessities."
[15][16] In early 1991, Riconosciuto filed an affidavit[3] before a House judiciary committee investigating the bankruptcy case of Inslaw Inc. v. United States Government.
In addition to his claims of a government "frame up" related to Inslaw, Riconosciuto maintained the chemical laboratory on his property was in use for the extraction of precious metals such as platinum in a highly specialized mining operation.
[22] No drug-lab contamination was found at the laboratory site and a member of the DOE's Hazardous Spill Response Team asserted that high barium levels on the property were unlikely to be the result of Riconosciuto's work.