-Caveat Lector- Dave Hartley http://www.Asheville-Computer.com/dave --- Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General scalds Oklahoma City FBI Evidence Program . . . FBI Special Agent accused of perjury www.ar-chronicle.com OKLAHOMA CITY (NOV 24 1999) A detailed 206-page secret report of an internal U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) probe was issued on November 18, 1999. In it are details of serious internal problems and flaws in the Oklahoma City FBI Field Office. That office investigated the 1995 death of federal prisoner Kenneth Michael Trentadue. That same office spearheaded the investigation of the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing. Investigations into both cases, believed to be unrelated, ran concurrently out of the Oklahoma City Field Office. Chronicle reporters had requested a copy of the report over a year ago and had been assured a copy from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) when it was completed, and initially assumed that the report had been sent on that basis. The report, which discusses the alleged suicide of a federal prisoner, also roundly condemned the handling of physical evidence in the FBI's Oklahoma City Field Office. OIG investigators recommended that four DOJ employees, including a veteran FBI agent, be prosecuted for perjury before the federal grand jury and/or false statements to federal investigators as a result of their conduct in the Trentadue case. Shortly before press time, Chronicle reporters learned than an internal probe was underway at the U.S. Department of Justice, the goal of which is to determine how Arkansas Chronicle reporters obtained an "unredacted" copy of the internal and apparently secret Justice Department report. According to a letter faxed to U.S. District Court Judge Tim Leonard in Oklahoma City, on November 24, 1999, by Robert Ashbaugh, Acting Inspector General, OIG investigators are now investigating how the report, which Ashbaugh claims contains secret grand jury material, fell into the hands of reporters. The Chronicle's copy of the report was one which was never intended for release outside the Department of Justice according to OIG spokesman Paul Martin. According to the OIG, such reports are released only after careful removal of information that the DOJ feels is too sensitive for public review. The OIG immediately requested return of the report. --------------------------------------- While the OIG report also concluded that Trentadue committed suicide, and the bulk of the OIG report deals with Trentadue related issues, it also touches on matters not directly related to the case. The voluminous OIG report contains a scathing assessment of the Oklahoma City Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It cites FBI managers there as being uncooperative, and says they failed to protect physical evidence the OIG requested, allowing it to go to a paper shredder even after promising to protect it in order to facilitate possible criminal prosecution of an Oklahoma City based FBI agent. OIG investigators include in their report a section entitled, "Systemic Problems with the FBI Oklahoma City Evidence Program." That section of the OIG report may soon spell yet more trouble for an already embattled FBI Field Office. The OIG report describes in detail how an Oklahoma City FBI employee was hired as mail clerk but placed in the position of "Evidence Control Technician (ECT)," after receiving "inadequate training." The entire training of the person consisted of "two weeks of on-the-job training," according to OIG findings. The ECT was drawn into the investigation when a dispute arose as to when a FBI agent turned-in evidence in the Trentadue case. The OIG report claims he was found to have lied about it. The ECT and the evidence control process are likely to soon be at the center of yet another controversy. According to a FBI source in Oklahoma City, "She [the ECT] had, at one time or another, complete access and sometimes custody over a lot of the OKBOMB evidence." "OKBOMB" is the code name the FBI assigned to its investigation of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in April, 1995. The report states the ECT was observed by a supervisor as being someone who "was not grasping the training." In an OIG interview, the technician admitted that she "had not been trained as of August 1995 in all of the areas that [I] needed in order to perform [my] duties." The technician was finally sent by Oklahoma City FBI managers for training at FBI Headquarters, but that training came in March, 1997, some eighteen months after being placed in the job. The OIG investigators apparently see serious overall implications of having an untrained person handling critical evidence in criminal cases. "Based on our review, we became concerned about broader problems in the way evidence was handled by the FBI/OKC, particularly the manner in which chain of custody of evidence was documented. For example, we found that after the FBI/OKC converted to an automated inventory system, it documented the chain of custody out of sequence. . . This procedure allowed disputes about how evidence was handled," according to the report. The FBI apparently became conscious of its grave problems only as recently as April, 1999, when, according to the OIG report, "Evidence Program Manager Susanna Mullally from FBI Headquarters conducted a review of the evidence program in FBI/OKC." "The [Mullally] review found serious deficiencies in the way the FBI/OKC handled evidence, including incorrect or missing chain of custody forms, evidence that had not been processed for years, and various other areas of non-compliance with FBI procedures," according to OIG investigators. They said that Mullally, "acknowledged that a very serious problem had arisen in the FBI/OKC evidence program. We saw many of these problems in the handling of evidence in the Trentadue case." Two former federal prosecutors, now separately in private practice, conducted a review of that section of the OIG report at the request of the Chronicle. On a condition of anonymity, they commented candidly about the implications they felt the OIG report might have. They say that if true, for example, DOJ internal allegations about mismanagement of the "evidence program" at the Field Office could easily be enough to force the Oklahoma City federal court to reopen the case against convicted bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. "It's not like some defense lawyer saying, 'Look Judge, they've got this problem.' This is the DOJ reviewing itself and describing a nightmare in the evidence control process, at exactly the same time they were handling the bombing evidence," said one of the lawyers. The other lawyer added, "It's quite possible that this report in and of itself might be the basis for a new trial request. After all, it was the Oklahoma City FBI office which managed a lot of the physical evidence from the McVeigh/Nichols bombing cases. The report documents this occurred at the same time the OIG claims there were massive defects in the evidence collection, management and 'chain of custody' procedures of the Oklahoma City Field Office." "I don't care how good the case seemed to be," said the other reviewer. "If the chain of custody broke down in Oklahoma City, even slightly, with any of the Murrah Building bombing evidence or if any of the agents lied about it, then the McVeigh and Nichols convictions won't be worth the paper they're printed on. "If the government knew they had this problem while they were trying McVeigh and Nichols and never revealed it to the defense, they've now got an extremely serious problem on their hands," the lawyer added. "The implications are that virtually anyone convicted of a federal offense where physical evidence was handled by the Oklahoma City Field Office may now have standing to challenge their convictions," said one of the lawyers. Attorney Stephen Jones, lead defense trial counsel for McVeigh, said in a telephone interview that he was previously unaware of the problems as described in the OIG report in the Oklahoma City Field Office evidence control program at the time McVeigh was being prosecuted. Tulsa attorney Rob Nigh Jr., who now represents McVeigh on appeal, was unavailable for comment shortly before press time. A federal civil trial in the Trentadue case, scheduled for November 15, 1999, has been postponed indefinitely. The delay came when defendants appealed the pending trial to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. At least one of the persons appealing, Carlos Mier, is also named in the OIG report as having made false statements about the case to investigators. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Was the salesman clueless? 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