-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.ar-chronicle.com/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.ar-chronicle.com/">Page One</A> ----- Tarnish on the badge . . . Explosive report from the U.S. Department of Justice says Oklahoma City based federal agents lied in prison death investigation Office of Inspector General report cites major problems in Oklahoma City's FBI Field Office - with far reaching implications - including the evidence in Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building bombing . . . by Tom Winters [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright � 1999 Utica Publishing Corporation, all rights reserved. See related previous story, "FBI caught in FIB" 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. After an internal review to assure that no federal or state laws had been broken by Chronicle staff, a decision was made to retain the copy. Since the report is claimed to have secret federal grand jury �material� in it, OIG officials are now claiming that an intentional leak of the report constitutes a federal criminal act. In his letter to Judge Leonard, Ashbaugh claims that there is a possibility that one of the outside parties receiving a copy of the report on the same day as the Chronicle, are somehow responsible for the leaked report. The report arrived at the Rogers, Arkansas, office of Arkansas Chronicle on Friday, November 19, 1999, only one day after the date Ashbaugh supposedly signed the report. The report�s arrival was simultaneous with the receipt of the report by several attorneys outside the DOJ who are involved in a related federal civil lawsuit. The controversial report was created as the result of a bitter dispute that originated in August 1995, when a federal prisoner was found dead in a seventh floor solitary lockup cell in Oklahoma City�s �Federal Transportation Center� for federal prisoners. When allegedly found by guards, Kenneth Michael Trentadue was bloody, had numerous head wounds and cuts, bruised knuckles, a slashed throat and was said to be hanging from a homemade noose. Prison guards immediately ruled the case suicide. One prison physician assistant, Carlos Mier, according to the OIG report, originally lied to investigators about trying to revive Trentadue. The report says he later recanted his statement. Family members, upon viewing the battered and bruised body, immediately suspec ted foul play and undertook their own investigation. The controversy resulted in a wrongful death lawsuit being filed in the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in which a number of prison staff as well as the federal government were named defendants. The Inspector General�s investigation came in the wake of what has been portrayed as an independent Oklahoma state investigation conducted by Assistant Oklahoma County District Attorney Richard Wintory. In his report, Wintory concluded that Trentadue had committed suicide in the early morning hours of August 21, 1995. That documentt, termed by investigators as the �Wintory Report,� was constructed largely on physical evidence and photos generated by Bureau of Prisons �Special Investigations Supervisor� Kenneth Freeman. But in the OIG report, Freeman and three other federal employees involved in the incident are said to have either admitted to perjury before the federal grand jury probing the death or numerous false statements to federal investiga tors, or both. The investigators and the grand jury had sought to unravel a tangled web of missing or destroyed evidence, conflicting statements and other inconsistencies in the case. Later, the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner�s Office, acting solely on the basis of the �Wintory Report� reluctantly listed the cause of Trentadue�s death as �suicide.� The OIG report now casts grave doubt over the integrity of the only person initially responsible for the collection of physical evidence and documentary photos in the case. �The record is clear that Freeman made false statements repeatedly about when he first notified the FBI concerning Trentadue�s death,� the report states. Freeman allegedly lied to federal investigators and the federal grand jury about having clearance to �clean up� the death cell according to the report. Freeman, is characterized as lacking advanced requisite expertise and training in crime scene preservation and collection of evidence. Nevertheless, Freeman was the only person who took photos and collected evidence. In subsequent statements to the OIG, Freeman admitted that he rearranged then photographed �posed� critical physical evidence in the death cell. Then Freeman lied about FBI clearance, and induced his boss to order critical �blood evidence� cleaned up before other federal investigators realized the serious nature of the death scene according to the report. With the loss of the critical blood evidence, authorities are now unable to conduct DNA testing to see if any blood other than Trentadue�s was in the cell. Analysts were also apparently impaired in examining photos of blood �castoff� and �spatter� since Freeman was never trained in forensic photo techniques. The Oklahoma D.A.�s �Wintory Report� relied heavily on Freeman�s evidence collection and photos to determine that Trentadue�s death was a suicide. In the civil wrongful death suit maintained by family members, most if not of all of Wintory�s conclusions have been disputed. According to the OIG report, �In a polygraph conducted by the OIG on July 14, 1998, Freeman was found to be deceptive regarding his statements about the time he had processed the cell in relation to when he spoke with [FBI Special Agent] Jenkins.� The report noted that Freeman�s supervisor, Associate Warden Max Flowers, believing that Freeman was acting with FBI consent, ordered the cell cleaned up before outside investigators had a chance to examine it. The OIG investigators claim that when confronted with a failed polygraph test, and after admitting his perjury and lies, �Freeman did not appear to recognize the consequences of his lies. He stated after making his admission to the OIG, �This really doesn�t change the case facts. If I have to take a hit for it, then so be it.� � The report section dealing with Freeman concluded, �In sum, we believe that Freeman�s false statements, repeated several times under oath, constitute serious misconduct and warrant discipline.� The OIG�s office reportedly referred Freeman and three other federal employees for federal criminal prosecution. The Reno Justice Department has declined to prosecute the cases, citing �lack of prosecutive merit.� Repeated attempts to contact Freeman were unsuccessful immediately before press time. The warden at the Federal Transportation Center in Oklahoma City would neither confirm nor deny that Freeman was still employed by the Bureau of Prisons, and referred all inquiries to Dan Dunne at the Washington headquarters. Repeated attempts to reach Dunne for comment were unsuccessful as well. While the prison officials are mum, the FBI agent singled out in the report has agreed to review the report and offer comment at a later date. The agent, a 10-year FBI veteran, denies all allegations in the report which include mishandling evidence, creating false or fictitious reports, perjury before the federal grand jury and false statements to internal investigators. Oddly, persons close to the Trentadue case are expressing some concern that the agent may have �been set up� by others as part of a pattern of their avoiding detection or blame for misconduct. Another Bureau of Prisons staff member, Robert Garza, allegedly admitted to federal investigators after failing a polygraph test that he had in fact made a statement to a former Oklahoma City area police officer that he had knowledge of guards beating Trentadue to death then faking a hanging to cover the homicide. Garza had previously repeatedly denied ever making the statement. Garza has previously denied requests for an interview and has refused to comment on the case. According to the OIG report, Garza has now executed an affidavit in which he admitted that he had, �made statements that gave [William] Garrett the impression that Trentadue had been murdered.� OIG investigators state in their report, �Nevertheless, Garza said that Garrett would have been justified in thinking, based upon their conversations, that FTC officers had indeed killed Trentadue.� Garza allegedly told OIG investigators he told Garrett �it was possible that some of the employees of the FTC could have beaten, tortured, and hanged� Trentadue. Garrett had previously told Oklahoma City based FBI agents that Garza had stated to him, �that correctional officers accidentally killed Trentadue and then hung him to cover up their actions.� The report claims that Garrett also told federal agents that Garza had stated �that similar incidents occur frequently throughout the prison system.� The statement attributed to Garza was exactly the same theory that the Trentadue family had proceeded on prior to learning of Garza's statement to Garrett. Findings in the Trentadue autopsy report suggest that his neck wounds were more consistent with strangulation than hanging. In a previous FBI interview, William Garrett told federal investigators that Garza later threatened to kill him and his entire family to silence them when Garza became fearful that Garrett was going to tell federal investigators about his admissions. The OIG report strangely omitted mention of the death threat, which appears in court documents and FBI reports related to the Trentadue investigation. The �Wintory Report� refused to discuss or explore the Garrett allegations and never followed up on them, even though Oklahoma City police investigators had knowledge of the allegations. Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney Richard Wintory, in an earlier telephone interview, said he thought that Garrett had invented the whole story for personal reasons and Wintory said he never bothered to check Garza out. 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. . Last Modified: 11/26/99 10:26:33 AM ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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