Borderline Security
A Chronicle of Reprisal,
Cronyism and Corruption
in the U.S. Customs Service
By Bill Conroy
12
From the DEA to "Homeland Security"
Asa Hutchinson's "Retaliation Against Minority Employees"
As the end of 2002 approached, in the wake of elections giving Republicans control of the White House and Congress, the Senate and House took quick action to approve expansive legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security. President Bush signed the measure into law in late November 2002.
The formation of the Department of Homeland Security represents the largest restructuring of the federal government since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. Seventy-two years earlier, in 1875, the U.S. Customs Service officially became part the U.S. Treasury Department. And now, as part of the effort to enhance home-front security in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Customs is being re-branded as part of the fledgling Department of Homeland Security.
But the culture of the Customs Service, which was established in 1789 as one of the nation’s first federal agencies, is not likely to be easily transformed by simply shuffling the agency into some new juggernaut bureaucracy—any more than putting a baseball team in a new division would alter the underlying chemistry of that team.
That supposition has huge implications for national security.
For example, the nation’s intelligence agencies were criticized heavily for failing to piece together a series of clues that, in hindsight, appear to have been threads in the tapestry of planning for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
To prevent such communication and analysis lapses in the future, the intelligence community has assured members of Congress that new information-sharing and warning systems have been put in place.
But what if the intelligence shortcomings have deeper roots than poor coordination and bureaucratic bumbling? What if those roots spring forth from the very culture of the government agencies involved in gathering, analyzing and disseminating critical information?
That concern appears to be given some weight by whistleblowers in at least one sector of the nation’s intelligence community: the Tactical Intelligence Center, or T.I.C, located at Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
T.I.C is part of U.S. Customs’ intelligence operations and is charged with conducting counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism missions.
The curtain is drawn back on the inner workings of the clandestine intelligence unit in a series of legal filings and internal letters that have surfaced involving T.I.C personnel. The documents, as well as sources within Customs, depict a scene of bitter office politics at T.I.C that have bred charges of discrimination, falsification of documents, budget manipulation, cronyism and abuse of power. These alleged activities have been so disruptive, and created such a hostile workplace, that they threaten to compromise T.I.C’s overall effectiveness as an intelligence unit, according to observers familiar with TIC.
“From the outside, I look at all the crap going on in this place (T.I.C), well, I thought federal employees were supposed to protect us,” says Miguel Elias, a New Orleans-based attorney who agreed to take on the discrimination claims of five TIC employees. “The higher-ups are simply writing their own ticket, and covering each others’ backs. And you’re either part of that clique, or you’re out.”
In that type of atmosphere, workplace morale becomes abysmal. As one former Customs agent points out, “Do you think you’re safe if morale (in law enforcement) is down? Do you think anyone wants to work under those conditions?”
Litigation
The T.I.C employees represented by Elias filed discrimination complaints charging Customs with engaging in age, gender and ethnic discrimination. Elias says all of the cases had wound their way through the administrative process of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (E.E.O.C) by 2002, with each of the five employees involved being granted the right to file a lawsuit in federal court.
One of those cases made its way into U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana that same year. The case involves a high-ranking intelligence officer who alleges that the director of T.I.C systematically discriminated against Hispanic employees—resulting in less-qualified individuals being promoted to supervisory positions.
Carmen M. Leon served as a supervisory intelligence operations specialist-chief of analysis for eight years before being demoted in June 1999 to program manager.
“Leon’s position … was taken away from her, without cause, and given to Pete Hallock, an untrained Caucasian male with less experience and seniority than Leon,” her lawsuit alleges. “And to add insult to injury, Tim Burke (the T.I.C director at the time) assigned Leon to work for Pete Hallock.”
Leon applied for a higher-level supervisory position in November 2000, but failed to get the promotion, even though, according to her complaint, she was “the most qualified candidate and ‘next in line’ for the promotion.”
“(Leon) alleges that the true reason she was not promoted is on account of her sex and national origin: Hispanic female,” Leon’s lawsuit asserts.
Leon goes on to claim that T.I.C Director Burke engaged in a “pattern and practice of harassing and applying unequal treatment toward Leon” and other Hispanic employees. She contends further, that since at least 1997, “Customs has engaged in unlawful employment practices at their facilities,” including creating a hostile work environment for Hispanic employees “by harassment and retaliatory tactics.”
Those tactics, Leon alleges in her lawsuit, included “taking away necessary items, i.e., laptop computers and digital pagers; having to submit paperwork several times because original paperwork conveniently gets lost; having to submit reasons for use of a cellular telephone; and not giving earned awards.”
Leon claims in the litigation that the emotional distress inflicted on her as a result of the hostile work environment at TIC “caused (her) to prematurely deliver a baby in July 2001, resulting in a miscarriage.”
Customs denied Leon’s charges in its response to her complaint and asked the judge to grant judgment in the agency’s favor, “dismissing (Leon’s) complaint with prejudice, with (Leon) to bear the costs of this litigation.”
Leon’s case never made it before a jury. The federal judge hearing her case in New Orleans granted Customs’ request, and dismissed the litigation on summary judgment in September 2003.
Grievance, Affidavits
Leon may have lost her battle in court, but she is not alone in speaking out about the problems at T.I.C. In yet another round of allegations, an administrative grievance filed by a former T.I.C supervisor in January 2002 claims the unit’s parent agency, the Office of Intelligence, tried to “disrupt management at T.I.C, with the use of threats and abuse of powers….”
By way of example, the former supervisor—who filed the grievance after being demoted—claims that T.I.C’s budget was slashed to the point where it was having difficulty paying rent to its landlord. T.I.C was leasing building space at Stennis from N.A.S.A.
“Our administrative staff is often instructed by HQ to move existing money around between various accounts in order to pay different bills with the same money…” states the grievance, which is directed to the U.S. Customs Office of Investigations. “It can’t be done; it is ludicrous. This is the extent of the incompetence … and NASA is going to be furious when they learn we can’t pay the rent.”
The rent was, in fact, eventually paid, according to a source familiar with TIC’s operations, who adds, “There is a lot of fraud, waste and abuse going on at TIC.”
A draft of an undated letter prepared by the same former supervisor sometime after December 18, 2001, and addressed to a U.S. congressman, adds credence to the source’s assertion. The letter charges that a TIC employee was sent to Kosovo as a U.S. Customs representative “and then had his payroll records falsified … in order to avoid the congressional mandated GS-15 pay cap.”
“The unit file on this situation is three to four inches thick,” the letter continues. “It is filled with numerous memos and e-mails demonstrating our repeated objections and refusal to take these actions that were categorized as ‘against the law’ by the senior Customs finance specialist in Indianapolis.”
The former supervisor, who was still with T.I.C as 2003 drew to a close, declined comment.
A series of affidavits also were obtained that are related to another discrimination action against T.I.C management. In one of those affidavits, a high-level director in Customs intelligence operations stresses that age, race, and national origin are not factors in determining promotions or treatment of employees.
However, a half dozen T.I.C employees claim in their affidavits that they have been subjected to some form of unfair treatment by the unit’s management.
In one of those affidavits, a Hispanic T.I.C intelligence analyst echoes the comments made by attorney Elias concerning the cliquish atmosphere within T.I.C:
“It is common knowledge that management … have in the past and are presently discriminating against individuals in Bay St. Louis, Miss. The main issues are traversed around the good-ol’-boy network. If you are not a member of the elite group, you will not get the equal opportunity to participate in areas such as cash awards, travel to special locations, overtime, promotions and training. The majority of discrimination has been directed toward older, Hispanic employees.”
The analyst goes on to claim that individuals involved in the EEOC process have been retaliated against.
“One of the most common practices is requesting an Internal Affairs investigation on petty subjects that may have happened 1 to 3 years ago,” the analyst claims in the affidavit.
Mirror Image
The issues being raised by Hispanic employees at TIC mirror discrimination complaints raised in the federal class-action lawsuit filed in May 2002 by Hispanic Customs agents.
In fact, the seemingly pervasive pattern of racial bias has started to command the attention of the Hispanic law enforcement community nationwide. The mounting tension was focused in late 2002 on a nominee for a high-level post at the new Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S). That nominee was Asa Hutchinson, who at the time was the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A)—which is part of the Department of Justice.
Hutchinson is a former Republican congressman from Arkansas and a graduate of Bob Jones University in South Carolina—which, until 2000, maintained an open policy of prohibiting inter-racial dating among students. Hutchinson was tapped in late November 2002 by President George W. Bush to serve as Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security within D.H.S. The undersecretary post is charged with overseeing U.S. Customs, the Transportation Security Administration, Border Patrol and a number of other federal agencies that are being reshuffled and/or reorganized as part of the creation of the new bureaucracy.
The Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association (H.A.P.C.O.A) has raised some serious concerns about Hutchinson’s track record at D.E.A, particularly as it relates to minorities. H.A.P.C.O.A, which has about 1,100 members in the United States and Puerto Rico, represents command-level Hispanic law enforcement officers working on the local, state and federal level. One of the charges made in a 2002 resolution adopted by H.A.P.C.O.A is that Hutchinson, as DEA administrator, was “party to continuing an insidious ‘good-old-boy’ network (in DEA) thus perpetuating an atmosphere of distrust, reprisal and retaliation against minority employees….”
When interviewed in December 2002, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge—who at the time had only been recently nominated by Bush to serve as secretary of D.H.S —said he was not aware of H.A.P.C.O.A’s charges against Hutchinson.
However, Johndroe stressed that “Mr. Hutchinson is a man of integrity and has done an excellent job at D.E.A.”
Regardless, several federal law enforcement sources say failure to address racial tensions in the workplace inevitably hurts morale, which, particularly in the case of the new D.H.S, could pose a risk to national security.
“Morale goes down if people feel they’re being treated like garbage,” stresses one federal agent—who asked not to be named because he feared he would be retaliated against for talking to the media. “Does that (poor morale) jeopardize the safety of the country? Yes.
“No one would blow a case, such as a terrorist investigation, on purpose, but you can be so demoralized that you’re not working at 100 percent.”
The Resolutions
In late August 2002, H.A.P.C.O.A adopted a resolution in support of the Hispanic agents who are pursuing a class-action discrimination lawsuit against U.S. Customs. The federal lawsuit, filed originally against the Secretary of Treasury, has since been redrafted to name the Secretary of D.H.S to reflect Customs merger into the new department.
Customs is fighting the litigation, claiming the allegations are without merit and not supported by the statistical evidence. The case was still pending in federal court in Washington, D.C., as of early 2004.
The H.A.P.C.O.A resolution calls on the President of the United States and Customs leadership to “take quick and effective action to ensure justice and equal and fair treatment in promotions, training, transfers and disciplinary actions for all Hispanic special agents in the Customs Service.”
A similar resolution also was adopted in the summer of 2002 by H.A.P.C.O.A in relation to D.E.A. In particular, the resolution singles out Hutchinson, alleging that he has failed to live up to his promises to Hispanic agents.
The resolution follows:
At the 29th Annual Conference of the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association (H.A.P.C.O.A), the members assembled here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Aug. 19-24, 2002, strongly take exception to the institutional racism that has been allowed to continue under the current Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A) Asa Hutchinson.
The men and women of H.A.P.C.O.A listened to Mr. Hutchinson’s keynote speech in Sacramento, California, at their annual conference in 2001 wherein Hutchinson led the members to believe that he supported fair and equal treatment of Hispanics in the D.E.A, and that he would change the culture in D.E.A that is notorious for discriminatory practices and disparate treatment of Hispanics.WHEREAS, in the year since Administrator Hutchinson addressed the H.A.P.C.O.A members, treatment of D.E.A Hispanic employees has further deteriorated;WHEREAS, the D.E.A Hispanic Advisory Committee was formed as part of the settlement of a discrimination class action filed by Hispanic D.E.A special agents in the 1980's for the specific purpose of bringing Hispanic issues of concern directly to the D.E.A Administrator;WHEREAS, following Hutchinson’s keynote address in Sacramento, under his management the D.E.A Hispanic Advisory Committee (H.A.C) charter has not been extended;WHEREAS, under the current senior management of the D.E.A, three former chairpersons of the Hispanic Advisory Committee, all members of the Senior Executive Service of the United States and members in good standing of H.A.P.C.O.A, including two National Presidents, have been involuntarily reassigned, demoted, retaliated against, denied promotions for which they are qualified or denied due process;WHEREAS, Administrator Hutchinson has ignored the advice and counsel of minority senior managers in both D.E.A Headquarters and the D.E.A Field Divisions;WHEREAS, Administrator Hutchinson has been a party to continuing an insidious “good-old-boy” network thus perpetuating an atmosphere of distrust, reprisal and retaliation against minority employees for exercising their rights under the laws of the land, thereby continuing a hostile work environment for minority employees in the Drug Enforcement Administration.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the members of the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association at their annual national conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Aug. 19-24, 2002, strongly recommend that the Attorney General appoint an oversight committee to ensure that minority concerns in the D.E.A are properly and expeditiously addressed and resolved. H.A.P.C.O.A also calls upon the President of the United States and the Attorney General to exercise appropriate and firm oversight over the Administrator of the D.E.A in order to end the institutional racism at the D.E.A and thus ensure equal treatment and equal employment opportunities for qualified Hispanics in our nation’s lead federal drug enforcement agency.
The President
H.A.P.C.O.A also sent a letter to President George W. Bush in early September 2002, which was signed by H.A.P.C.O.A President Arthur R. Parra Sr.—a captain in the Chicago Police Department. The purpose of H.A.P.C.O.A’s letter to the President was to make him aware of the group’s resolutions concerning Customs and D.E.A and to also seek his help in bringing about needed changes to address the discrimination confronted by Hispanic federal agents.
Parra says H.A.P.C.O.A members adopted the resolutions and sent the letter to Bush out of a sense of “frustration.” He says Hispanic federal agents have tried to cultivate a working relationship with their agencies, but “it hasn’t worked.”
“We have made numerous pleas to get a resolution to this problem, which has been going on for years, but we’re at a stalemate,” adds Parra, speaking for H.A.P.C.O.A. “We wish we could do this another way. These agents love their country. They are only asking to be treated fairly.”
As 2002 drew to a close, H.A.P.C.O.A also took its case to the media. That move seemed finally to attract some attention to their issues in Washington, D.C. In mid-December 2002, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (C.H.C), U.S. Rep. Ciro D. Rodriguez, D-Texas, issued a statement weighing in on the issue:
The C.H.C is concerned about these issues because they affect Hispanic employees, but also because they affect the work of the Federal government….
The previous administration recognized this problem and directed the Office of Personnel Management (O.P.M), which is the Federal Government’s Human Resources Office, to develop a plan to deal with this problem. On October 2000, President Clinton issued an Executive Order (13171) directing the heads of executive departments and agencies to establish and maintain a program for the recruitment and career development of Hispanics in federal government. Under President Bush, who has talked about the inclusion of all Americans in his Administration, we have yet to see how this Executive Order is utilized and to see an improvement in the number of Latinos in the federal workforce. Even an O.P.M report issued earlier this year (January 2002), highlights that the government’s overall diversity numbers are very encouraging for minorities, with the exception of Hispanics.
How does the Federal government hope to attract Hispanic employees if it appears that current workers are being treated unfairly?
***
Sandalio Gonzalez, special agent in charge of the D.E.A’s El Paso, Texas, Field Division, says the letter sent to the President in September 2002 took on even greater relevance with Hutchinson’s nomination a few months later to the undersecretary post at the new D.H.S.
“One of the resolutions (the D.E.A’s) hits Hutchinson pretty hard, and he is going to be over Customs (at D.H.S),” Gonzalez explains.
Gonzalez, who was president of H.A.P.C.O.A when the Customs and DEA resolutions were drafted in August 2002, says the White House did not responded to H.A.P.C.O.A’s letter.
“Our association (H.A.P.C.O.A) is on the White House guest list, and I’ve been to two meetings at the White House as head of H.A.P.C.O.A,” Gonzalez says. “It’s kind of like they use us when it’s convenient, but when H.A.P.C.O.A raises an issue that is ugly, then they want us to go away. But this issue is not going away.”
Gonzalez also served for a number of years as chairperson of D.E.A’s Hispanic Advisory Committee, or H.A.C, which was established as part of a 1992 settlement agreement in an employment-related class-action lawsuit filed against D.E.A on behalf of Hispanic agents. H.A.C was created to bring the concerns of Hispanic employees directly to the attention of the D.E.A Administrator.
Supporting Documents:
Redacted affidavit from an employee of Customs Tactical Intelligence Center (91 kb PDF)
HAPCOA resolution relating to the Customs class-action discrimination lawsuit (121 kb PDF)
H.A.C’s charter, as the H.A.P.C.O.A resolution points out, was allowed to lapse in 2001 under Hutchinson’s reign at D.E.A. However, after the H.A.P.C.O.A resolutions garnered some media attention in late December 2002, Hutchinson issued an internal memo reinstating H.A.C. At the time, Hutchinson’s nomination to the new D.H.S post was awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate. His nomination was approved several weeks after he reauthorized H.A.C.
“Whenever a minority agent files a complaint against the government, they always fight it,” Gonzalez says, referring to the way Hispanic and other minority agents are put through the wringer when they seek to address alleged discrimination. “Never do they say, “’You’re right; let’s fix it.’ Are we always wrong?”
“Whenever a minority agent files a complaint against the government, they always fight it,” Gonzalez says, referring to the way Hispanic and other minority agents are put through the wringer when they seek to address alleged discrimination. “Never do they say, “’You’re right; let’s fix it.’ Are we always wrong?”
H.A.P.C.O.A’s September 3, 2002, letter to President Bush is printed below:
Dear Mr. President:
The following letter serves to transmit the most recent resolutions passed by the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association on behalf of their Hispanic colleagues in the United States Customs Service and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. The association’s membership feels that the institutional racism and rampant discriminatory practices continually directed against Hispanic Americans by federal law enforcement agencies will no longer be tolerated, and based on your relationship with Hispanic Americans should be addressed at your level.The Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association (H.A.P.C.O.A) is the oldest Hispanic command level law enforcement association in the nation. Its membership represents Hispanic command officers throughout the United States and Puerto Rico at every level of government.It is disturbing for us to find that in addition to the above referenced class action against the Secretary of the Treasury, and the discrimination affecting Hispanics in the Drug Enforcement Administration, Hispanic Americans in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms within the Department of the Treasury as well as in the Immigration and Naturalization Service within the Department of Justice, are also seeking resolution to class action complaints charging violations of their civil rights.Following the September 11, 2001, simultaneous terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., a new chapter in law enforcement was forged: national security. Having been tasked by the Executive Office of the President, demands for more vigorous and proactive involvement by law enforcement in protecting our nation became a necessity.The Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association is aware that our Hispanic colleagues in law enforcement have continued to rise to the call formidably, but they cannot and should not continue to be violated and their efforts individually and collectively ignored at this time when law enforcement reform and community relationship are at an all-time critical stage.On behalf of our National Executive Board and our members I ask that you and your office intervene and accelerate the necessary changes to bring about a more united America.
Respectfully,
Arthur R. Parra, Sr.National President
Beyond the charges of discrimination and reprisal bubbling up within the Tactical Intelligence Center (T.I.C), U.S. Customs as a whole and other federal agencies, there is the broader issue of their disruptive effect on national security and the ability of the intelligence community—and the law enforcement community in general—to work efficiently and productively. With respect to that grave issue, failure to address endemic management and workplace-culture problems can literally become a life and death matter for citizens of the United States.
Unfortunately, the dysfunction within the workplace at agencies like Customs and DEA appears to have very deep roots—as the H.A.P.C.O.A letter to President Bush illustrates. The following statement from a T.I.C analyst further drives home that point.
“Unsound personnel decisions, which were made many years ago (and some more recently) have haunted this project (T.I.C) and will inevitably continue to do so,” states a T.I.C analyst in a legal affidavit. “This is most unfortunate, not only for the project in general, but for all the affected individuals [management included], their families, and the Customs Service as a whole. We waste time, energy, assets and funds attempting to settle irreconcilable disputes such as this, when they should never occur….”
13
Airline Passengers At Risk from DEA Drug Sting Shipments
Smuggling Case at JFK Airport Reveals Pattern of Corruption, and
Danger for Passengers
U.S. Customs does not have eminent domain over the battleground of the so-called war on drugs. Customs must share that turf with a host of other federal agencies, including the major-domo of counter-narcotics enforcement, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
This shared mission fosters a mutual tension, both within and between agencies, over who will define the battle lines of the conflict. In the shadows of this turf war, the distinction between right and wrong can sometimes bleed into a gray zone where strange alliances are struck.
It is also in this gray zone where the table of corruption is set and the high-stakes players from both sides of the drug war come to place their bets. Some walk away winners; others wind up dead.
That backdrop to the war on drugs helps to explain how agents from both Customs and DEA have become intertwined in what appears to be a pattern of corruption that is centered on JFK International Airport in New York City.
In order to adequately convey the context of the intricate web of corruption charges linking the two federal law enforcement agencies, it is necessary to explore an intriguing legal case that dates back to the early 1990s.
Although the trail of the case leads into the past, the litigation has serious implications for the fate of the war on drugs and the war on terror—both missions that DEA and Customs share.
Exploring the Nexus
The airline industry put its thrusters on full bore in an effort to comply with government demands to beef up security in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.
But the same government that feverishly spun out new legislation to strengthen the airline industry’s security web in the war on terrorism may also be the source of a major flaw in that safety network.
According to a Yale Law School professor, that flaw may have already played a role in the destruction of at least one commercial airliner—which was blown up in mid-air, resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives.
The law professor, Steven B. Duke, wrote to numerous federal agencies concerning this flaw as part of his efforts to prove the innocence of one of his clients. His efforts produced little more than agency finger-pointing and a cryptic picture of the shadowy world of undercover law enforcement.
The flaw being exposed by Duke relates to a practice called “controlled delivery.” The practice is used by law enforcement to snare high-ranking members of drug trafficking organizations. In such a delivery, a law enforcement agency allows a shipment of drugs to be transported from one location to its destination, under close surveillance, in an effort to catch drug-syndicate kingpins with their hands in the cookie jar.
In the case of Duke’s client, Gaetano DiGirolamo, some 20 kilos (44 pounds) of heroin were transported on commercial airlines from Pakistan to New York City in an alleged controlled delivery undertaken to advance a major undercover drug operation. Agents with the D.E.A transported the heroin in December 1990 from Pakistan to Paris, via Air France; and then from Paris to New York City, via the now-defunct airline T.W.A.
The drugs were then purportedly used to set up a series of stings, one netting DiGirolamo, who was ultimately convicted in 1994 of drug conspiracy charges in federal court in New York and sentenced to life in prison. Duke later took on DiGirolamo’s case, seeking to prove he was wrongfully convicted.
The Case
Gaetano DiGirolamo is no saint.
According to D.E.A records, DiGirolamo is a “known associate of the Cotroni organized crime family based in Canada, and has an extensive narcotics background.”
And DiGirolamo has paid a price for his career choice. He spent much of the 1980's (1984-1990) in federal prison in Danbury, Conn.
So it should not be a big surprise to most people that he again found himself on the wrong end of the law in the early 1990's, shortly after his release from prison.
That run-in with the system—the D.E.A specifically—led to his indictment in 1991 and conviction in 1994 on drug conspiracy charges in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The conspiracy charges against DiGirolamo stemmed from a meeting he arranged between a D.E.A informant and another individual who eventually purchased heroin from the informant.
However, DiGirolamo claims he had nothing to do with the drug deal. Despite what people might assume about him, he contends that he is not guilty of the charges brought against him in 1991; in fact, he claims that D.E.A agents framed him, seeking to use his case as a cover for their own illegal drug-smuggling activities.
DiGirolamo appealed his conviction, only to lose again in 1995. At that point, Steven B. Duke, a professor of law at Yale Law School in New Haven, Conn., stepped in, and took on DiGirolamo’s case pro bono. In 1997, Duke filed a post-conviction petition with the federal court seeking to vacate DiGirolamo’s conviction.
Among the claims raised in the post-conviction petition were that DiGirolamo was convicted “based upon perjury of three DEA agents” and that his court-appointed lawyer provided inadequate legal representation.
“(The D.E.A agents) testified that they were involved in importing drugs for use in ‘stings’ against me and others when in truth and in fact they were doing so for their own personal, criminal enrichment,” states DiGirolamo in his post-conviction petition.
According to court pleadings, the D.E.A agents transported the heroin from Pakistan to New York City allegedly for the purpose of setting up undercover stings.
The petition goes on to raise major doubts about the veracity of the DEA agents’ purported sting against DiGirolamo—such as the fact that the alleged heroin brought in from Pakistan was never tested to assure it was the same heroin used in the sting, nor was the heroin ever produced at trial.
In addition, despite claims by the D.E.A agents involved in transporting the heroin that their operation had been sanctioned by D.E.A headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as the French and Pakistani governments, Duke says those approvals were never produced.
“Where are they?” Duke asks in a court filing. “Where are the applications for such approvals? Where is the evidence that any of these approvals were sought, much less obtained?”
The DEA agents, of course, contend Duke’s allegations are baseless.
Jan Connection
DiGirolamo and others were being targeted, according to the testimony of D.E.A agents, because they were believed to be distributors for a major heroin trafficking syndicate headed by a mysterious Pakistani figure named Jan. The 20 kilos of heroin imported from Pakistan by the D.E.A agents allegedly were acquired through undercover purchases from the Jan organization, legal filings in the DiGirolamo case state.
From the fall of 1991 to the summer of 1992, there were a total of nine other prosecutions that were related to the Jan syndicate sting. In each of those cases, the D.E.A agents tell the same story, according to court filings made by DiGirolamo’s defense team.
Despite this fact, the court filings claim, Jan and the drug syndicate being targeted by the D.E.A operation never figured out that repeated stings and arrests were occurring—even though the heroin involved in the nine prosecutions adds up to 50 kilos, 30 kilos more than was provided by the Jan organization.
“How could any organization think it had any of the 20 kilograms of heroin to sell after the first few arrests?” Duke states in a legal brief in the DiGirolamo case. “Moreover, Jan was an informant for the D.E.A.”
Duke was even able to track down a witness who claims to have purchased heroin from individuals fitting the description of the DEA agents in the DiGirolamo case. The witness, who is serving a life sentence on drug conspiracy charges in a federal prison in Pennsylvania, claims the drugs he and his partner acquired in those deals in Queens, N.Y. (some 40 ounces a week at $6,000 an ounce) were in turn sold on the streets of Philadelphia.
Duke made numerous requests of prosecutors in both Philadelphia and New York for various records that would help substantiate or disprove the claims being made by the witness, but “all those requests were ignored,” he claims.
In a letter to the judge in DiGirolamo’s case, Duke alleges that the D.E.A agents were, in reality, engaged in their own smuggling operation “for the purpose of selling the drugs and using ‘stings’ as a cover for their operation.”
The D.E.A agents characterized the claims raised by Duke as “untrue and absurd,” according to court records.
The judge in the case also dismissed Duke’s arguments, contending instead that DiGirolamo was convicted on overwhelming evidence that he conspired to possess heroin.
In addition, according to court records, the judge found there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that the D.E.A agents were illegally importing heroin for their own drug trafficking operation. And even if those allegations were true, the judge reasoned, it would simply make DiGirolamo a co-conspirator with the D.E.A agents.
“In December 1999, (the judge) dismissed the entire case in one of the most bizarre opinions I have ever seen,” Duke says. “... Essentially, (the judge) said it didn’t matter if the D.E.A agents were corrupt smugglers.”
Duke has continued to pursue the DiGirolamo case, and in 2002 uncovered a possible connection between his case and allegations of corruption centered on U.S. Customs operations at JFK International Airport. Those Customs-related allegations were brought forth by Diane Kleiman, a former federal agent turned whistleblower. Kleiman claims that she was targeted for retaliation and finally fired after attempting to expose the allegedly corrupt practices at Customs’ JFK office.
DiGirolamo recounts his version of what happened to him in a letter dated September 3, 2003, which he wrote from federal prison. (With the exception of DiGirolamo’s attorney, Professor Steven B. Duke, the names of individuals mentioned in the letter have been withheld to protect their real identities.)
The Prison Letter
Inmate Name: Gaetano DiGirolamo
Register Number: 07853-014 Unit F105United States PenitentiaryP.O. Box 1000Lewisburg, PA 17837Dear Mr. Conroy,My name is Gaetano DiGirolamo. A couple of years ago you did a story about me. It concerned D.E.A Agents using commercial airlines to import drugs into the U.S. I know you remember the story.The reason I am writing is because I am desperate for help. I need some sort of publicity to explain my plight. I have been contemplating for some time as to whether I should write to you. From the heading of your article you seem to think that I was some sort of king pin.Let me give you some background about myself. I am not no kingpin in the drug business. The government has created this myth. Let me tell you that I was a gambler and a bookmaker. My adventure in the drug business took place in 1982. I was involved with trafficking cocaine. My indictment for that crime was that from the year 1982 thru 1984 I distributed 164 grams of cocaine. That is the case I pled to and that is what I went away for. I deserved to go away. They were not satisfied with taking me and my sons, They also took my wife who had nothing to do with anything. She too was put away. I do not have to tell you why they took my wife I am sure that you can figure that out yourself. They play dirty. They wanted me to be informant on certain people. I won’t go into the whole story I just wanted you to know what I did.I was sentenced to 16 years. The judge gave me two consecutive sentences of 8 years. I pled to this because I wanted my wife to remain home with our two remaining sons. Instead they sent her away for 4 years and she maxed that term out.I was released from Danbury on Oct. 26, 1990. I got a job with the X.X fish company in December of 1990. This was owned by a Mr. A.A and Mr. B.B.While I was serving time at Danbury, I met a Pakistani named C.C. I befriended him. In 1986, February to be exact, Mr. C.C was taken to I.N.S to be deported back to Pakistan. I was instrumental in securing a bond for him to remain here to fight the extradition. I had a lawyer friend of mine put up the bond for which I stood behind.As it turned out C.C skipped out leaving me owing this money. Over the next 4 years I may have heard from via mail about 4 to 6 times. Each time he would say that he would pay attorney D.D the money he owed. I kept D.D informed each and every time I heard from him.In January of 1991 it was the last week of the month I received an M.C.I cable from this C.C. I went to Mr. D.D’s office and we tried to call the number that Mr. C.C wrote in the cable. We were unable to make a connection. I next hear from Mr. C.C by letter. This was the end of February of 1991. Mr. C.C informed me that he had a friend who was here in the U.S. that would contact me concerning the money Mr. C.C owed Mr. D.D. I was later contacted by a person known as E.E.I did meet this E.E, which was the mistake of my life. He informed me that Mr. C.C had sent me 12 kilos of heroin and that I was to pay him $150,000 for courier fees. I swore at this guy and cursed him. I told him that I was not there for the purpose of any drug deal. I want the money that Mr. C.C owes Mr. D.D.As you can figure out this was a setup. The person I met wore a wire. When we asked for the wire it turned out to be inaudible. The D.E.A said that the recorder was working prior to my entry into the motel and then went off and all you could hear is static. This tape would have shown that I had nothing to do with drugs.What happens next is that I finally speak to Mr. C.C on Mar. 25, 1991. I reigned terror on him for what he did. He told me that it was all a mistake and that E.E was suppose to see a friend about some other deal. He mentioned the name and I knew he was. We were all friends at the Danbury facility. He wanted me to introduce E.E to him. I did put the two people together but it was for some deal that involved gems. I wasn’t involved in any deal with either of the people. I only made the introduction for Mr. C.C with the understanding that he would pay Mr. D.D. I was concerned about our home which was in foreclosure.As you can guess they supposedly made a deal for the drugs. My friend was arrested and two days later they arrested me for introducing them. I received a Life sentence plus 10 years. He received 22 years. They enhanced me for the convictions I had in 1984.Mr. Conroy I have been inside prison since 1984. This November I will have spent 19 years away from my family. I will be 71 years old on September 22. On September 21 I will be married 46 years. My wife will be 68 years old on September 19. My life is over. I would like to die around my family. I would like to spend a few years with them.This case was a cover up from the outset for the D.E.A to smuggle drugs and sell drugs in the inner cities across this country. I have proof of the smuggling operation. I have people who dealt with the agents. As you know they will not give us the opportunity to show the buyer the photo array of the agents.I do not know what you can do or if you want to help me. I am a desperate man. Each day that goes by I wish that something happens. It hasn’t. I have spoken to my lawyer about going to the Judge and asking that I be given a lethal injection. I do not want my family to suffer any longer. I figure that with me gone they can go on with their lives. But Prof. Duke will not hear of it and doubts the Judge would ever do that.I sit hear in prison for the crimes of others. What I have done in the past I have paid for. I was never a Kingpin drug dealer. I know a lot of people but does that mean that I am a drug dealer. I admit to what I have done. I pled guilty to it. There was nobody involved with me. I am ashamed for what I have done to my family.
I will close for now. If you will answer me as soon as possible I would greatly appreciate. Time is running out for me. God Bless You.
Dire Impact
The twists and turns of DiGirolamo’s legal case expose the rough underbelly of the U.S. justice system. But his case also raises another frightening specter in the realm of airline security.
Controlled delivery may well be an effective law-enforcement tool in combating drug cartels, when all goes as planned. However, when the system breaks down, or is corrupted, the consequences can be serious, even deadly, according to Duke.
A letter written in December 1999 by Duke to Jane Garvey, then administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A), elucidates those concerns:
“The D.E.A agents who brought the heroin to this country were allegedly linking up Pakistani drug producers and American dealers, through the assistance of informers working both in Pakistan and the United States. The drug dealers’ discovery that the distribution network had been infiltrated by informers was therefore an omnipresent possibility, which they might choose to defend against by blowing up the airplane. There is ample precedent for drug organizations planting bombs in airplanes occupied by passengers who are informants. In 1989, a commercial airliner headed for the United States was blown up in flight because the Medellin Cartel believed an informant was aboard. All 107 passengers and crew were killed….”[Lockerbie is another one DC]
In a June 8, 2000 letter to the F.A.A’s chief counsel, Duke also contends that negligence in a U.S. government-sponsored drug-sting operation may have played a key role in the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. The airliner exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, snuffing out the lives of 259 people on board and another 11 people on the ground.
A Libyan intelligence officer was subsequently convicted of the bombing and Libya has since agreed to pay the families of the victims a total of some $2.7 billion. However, Duke provided the F.A.A’s chief counsel with a 1991 news story from the London Times and a copy of an affidavit from a U.S. intelligence officer that points to a potential security flaw that may have facilitated the terrorist plot to place explosives on Flight 103.
The intelligence officer, who was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency (D.I.A) and stationed in the Middle East in 1988, contends that Flight 103 was being used as a “controlled” flight as part of a D.E.A drug-sting operation. The London Times story states that the D.I.A agent believed the D.E.A operation was compromised, allowing terrorists to plant a bomb on Flight 103 through an airport bag switch.
The D.E.A claims it was not running a drug sting on the ill-fated flight. A spokesman for Pan Am, however, said the DEA’s claim is “simply false,” according to the London Times story.
“In addition to the drug-related bombing of the Colombian jetliner in 1989 … it now appears that D.E.A’s smuggling of drugs on another passenger airplane may have contributed to the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie,” states Duke in his letter to the F.A.A’s chief counsel. “... Perhaps the Congress can be persuaded to rectify that deficiency. One may hope that a tragedy is not required to produce a recognition of the problem in that venue.”
The Customs Link
Although the letter Duke wrote to F.A.A Administrator Garvey argues hypothetically from the assumption that the D.E.A agents in DiGirolamo’s case were telling the truth about the Pakistan-to-New York controlled delivery of heroin, Duke’s real position in his client’s case is quite the opposite.
In addition to failing to produce documents to show that the operation had been approved by D.E.A and the foreign governments affected, Duke points out that the agents transporting the heroin did not find buyers for the drugs until some five months after bringing the contraband back to New York. He also stresses that the agents involved in the transport never pretended to be anything other than federal agents—so they weren’t acting undercover.
Several former federal law enforcement officials who were contacted about the DiGirolamo case also agree that what occurred—as asserted by Duke in the litigation—does not appear to qualify as a controlled delivery.
“A controlled delivery requires the coordination of numerous affected offices, such as U.S. Customs, the D.E.A and the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuting the case,” explains one former undercover agent. “And there has to be surveillance on it from start to finish, someone eyeballing it all the way—which makes the operations very expensive because they involve a lot of man hours. This operation (the one in the DiGirolamo case) doesn’t sound normal; it’s not the way it works.”
Duke has made efforts to discover if the Pakistan-to-New York heroin shipment was sanctioned by a government agency. Between 1997 and 2000, he wrote a series of letters to the F.A.A, the Department of Transportation and the U.S. Customs Service seeking information on their policies concerning controlled deliveries—and more specifically about their knowledge of the heroin transported by D.E.A agents from Pakistan to New York in December 1990 via commercial airlines.
The Department of Transportation referred his letter to the F.A.A, which replied by informing Duke that the F.A.A “does not have authority … to prohibit D.E.A from transporting narcotics on commercial airlines. ...”
Duke’s letter to Customs, dated March 3, 2000, was addressed to Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Duke’s letter to Customs:
Dear Mr. Kelly,
In a criminal prosecution in the Eastern District of New York in 1993, a D.E.A agent named Derek Maltz testified that he personally brought 20 kilos of heroin to New York from Pakistan on a commercial passenger airline and that he did so with the approval of not only D.E.A headquarters in Washington but the United States Customs Service. I enclose a copy of his testimony on the subject. United States v. Salerno and DiGirolamo, 91, CR. 0395, tr. 514-15. In subsequent proceedings in that case, another D.E.A agent stated that such importations of contraband for use in sting operations is commonplace.I find that testimony both incredible and incomprehensible. There can be no legitimate law enforcement need to bring large quantities of heroin into this country when we are already awash in it, and more is surely not needed for sting operations. There is a substantial risk that such shipments of multi-million dollar packages of drugs will encourage corruption of the agents involved in bringing it here. Moreover, carrying such contraband as a passenger on a commercial airliner risks the safety of passengers, crew and ground personnel, since it is a likely target for robbery and also since the consignors, if they suspect betrayal or law enforcement involvement, may blow up the airplane, as was done to another jetliner headed for New York in 1989. [See “107 Dead in Bogata Jetliner Crash, Los Angeles Times, 11/27/89; United States v. Escobar et al., 842 F. Supp. 1519 (E.D.N.Y., 1994)—prosecution for blowing up plane headed to New York.]As I read the law, secretly importing large quantities of illicit drugs on commercial passenger airliner is a serious felony, even if conducted by law enforcement officers. ... I can find no statute or regulation authorizing it.
Please tell me whether Mr. Maltz’s claim about Customs authorization is true or false and, in any event, whether you think there is any legal justification for the practices he describes.
The U.S. Customs Service sent Duke a reply on May 2, 2000. The response was prepared by Bonnie Tischler, assistant commissioner for Customs’ Office of Investigations.
Tischler’s letter to Duke:
Dear Mr. Duke,
Thank you for your March 3, 2000, letter regarding the importation of narcotics into the United States by law enforcement officers.In your letter you cite the judicial testimony of a special agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A) who received approval from D.E.A and the U.S. Customs Service to conduct an international controlled delivery. An international controlled delivery is one of many investigative techniques utilized by law enforcement officials to investigate and infiltrate narcotics smuggling organizations. More specifically, they are a highly effective tool used to further identify and ultimately arrest the high-level members of those organizations. The U.S. Customs Service has specific guidelines that grant such importations provided all precautions have been taken to ensure the security of the controlled substances, the law enforcement officers involved and members of the public.The specific incident you cite involved the international controlled delivery of 20 kilograms of heroin at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport on Dec. 4, 1990. Our records indicate that while our agency provided assistance in facilitating that delivery through JFK, the entire operation was initiated and coordinated solely by the D.E.A. Therefore, I would refer any further questions you my have regarding this matter to D.E.A Headquarters, 600 Army Navy Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22202.
I appreciate your interest in the Customs Service. If we may be of any further assistance, please contact me ….
The response from Customs does not indicate who within the federal law-enforcement agency facilitated the delivery. However, at that time, Customs was dealing with some issues itself in relation to its J.F.K operations, according to former J.F.K Customs Agent Diane Kleiman —who claims she was fired in 1999 after blowing the whistle on alleged corrupt activity on the part of Customs officials at the New York City airport.
Supporting Documents:
Attorney Steve Duke’s letter to the U.S. Attorney’s office concerning a federal prisoner who suspects he sold heroin to corrupt DEA agents (387 kb PDF)
Affidavit of federal prisoner who claims two of his drug clients were likely corrupt DEA agents (188 kb PDF)
Affidavit of DEA agent confirming DEA ships heroin via commercial airlines (576 kb PDF)
DEA report of investigation (340 kb PDF)
Letter to Duke from the FAA concerning drug shipments on commercial airlines (238 kb PDF)
Duke’s letter to Air France on DEA drug shipments; Air France’s response (265 and 164 kb PDFs)
Kleiman’s case was accepted for investigation in the spring of 2002 by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (O.S.C), an independent federal agency that is empowered to investigate and prosecute cases of alleged governmental misconduct and mismanagement. In a letter Kleiman sent to the O.S.C in July 2001, she alleges that in the early 1990's, three federal agents assigned to a drug unit at JFK died under unusual circumstances. Two died of heroin overdoses and one committed suicide—allegedly after stealing drugs from an evidence room.
Duke says he is investigating whether there is any connection between the J.F.K drug-unit agents and the D.E.A agents involved in the DiGirolamo case, but adds “we don’t have the connection yet.”
“We do know that Customs at J.F.K ‘facilitated’ the (alleged) smuggling by our D.E.A agents and were aware of it,” he adds. “Whether they were corruptly involved remains to be determined.”
In the fall of 2002, Kleiman, who is Jewish, also filed a lawsuit against Customs in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Among the charges in Kleiman’s lawsuit are that Customs management at J.F.K International Airport discriminated against her because of her gender and religious background and that she was retaliated against by the same managers for shining a light on the alleged dysfunction and corruption within Customs’ J.F.K operations. Customs denies Kleiman’s allegations in its answer to her legal complaint and asks the court to dismiss the case.
In the Dark
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn declined to comment on the DiGirolamo case or on its policies concerning controlled deliveries.
The same questions were posed to D.E.A headquarters in Washington, D.C. Will Glaspy, a D.E.A agent and spokesman for the agency, says he cannot comment on the specifics of ongoing litigation, such as the DiGirolamo case. However, he provided the following general comments concerning international controlled deliveries involving commercial airlines:
“Yes, there are procedures that allow for this type of operation. ... We have policies with checks and balances in place to make sure everything operates smoothly (with respect to potential dangers to passengers).”
Glaspy adds that the D.E.A cannot operate unilaterally in a foreign country, so it would need to obtain approvals from any foreign countries affected by an international controlled delivery—such as France and Pakistan in the case of the delivery made in the DiGirolamo case.
In addition, Glaspy stresses that “there are numerous people who need to sign off on the details of the operational plan (for a controlled delivery) from the beginning to the end. (D.E.A) Headquarters plays a big part in that.” He adds that there are also procedures in place to assure that agents transporting the contraband do not steal drugs from the shipment.
In terms of whether the airlines would be made aware of such an operation:
“It is possible that the commercial airlines involved (in a controlled delivery) would be made aware, but it is also possible that they would not be aware,” Glaspy explains. “It’s done as the need dictates with respect to the security of the operation and the safety of the agents.”
That might explain why Air France stated in a March 9, 1998, letter to Duke that it had no record of having been notified by the D.E.A of the 1990 shipment of 20 kilos of heroin from Pakistan to Paris via Air France.
“We are not permitting such a transportation on our lines,” the letter states. “Should we learn that a quantity of drugs, heroin or other, large or small, is loaded on board one of our air crafts, we would immediately report to the local police as well as our national authorities.”
T.W.A, which was the commercial carrier that was used by the D.E.A agents to move the heroin from Paris to New York City, sent a letter to Duke in January 1998 declining to comment on the incident.
T.W.A’s assets have since been acquired by Fort Worth-based American Airlines. When asked about its policy concerning controlled deliveries, American Airlines spokesman John Hotard provided the following reply:
“American Airlines often cooperates with federal law enforcement agencies in the fight against drug smuggling. We have a vast network of our own security agents throughout our route system to ensure that American Airlines flights are safe and secure. That said, we are not aware of any illegal drugs ever being placed on any of our aircraft by federal law enforcement officers.”
Risky Business
Although American Airlines may not be aware of such activity, according to a February 1999 affidavit submitted in the DiGirolamo case by D.E.A Agent Charles Graham, international controlled deliveries of illegal drugs are standard fare for the DEA. Graham was assigned to the D.E.A’s Karachi, Pakistan, resident office (K.R.O) from 1989 to 1993.
“It is standard operating procedure for the D.E.A to transfer drugs seized by the D.E.A in Pakistan to the D.E.A in the United States for the purpose of doing controlled deliveries,” Graham states in the affidavit. “In my estimation, during the course of my tenure at the K.R.O, D.E.A performed at least 30 such controlled deliveries. Drugs have been transferred under those circumstances to a number of DEA offices, including those in Long Island, Miami, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.”
These revelations take on an even more ominous tone post-September 11 and with the rise of global terrorism. Consider that, according to an analysis of public records, of the 35-plus groups that are designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department, at least 10 (including al-Qaeda) have known ties to drug trafficking or drug cartels.
In that light, Duke’s legal efforts reveal some startling information concerning the U.S. government’s policy on controlled deliveries, including the fact that the airlines and passengers are often kept in the dark with respect to these undercover drug shipments.
Duke spells out his concerns with the practice in his December 1999 letter to F.A.A Administrator Garvey:
“When I first learned of an agent’s testimony that he brought multi-kilo quantities of heroin into this country on commercial flights, I concluded that the agents were probably using the cover of their jobs to smuggle drugs for their own private, corrupt purposes,” Duke states in the letter. “I still suspect that was the case. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York contends, however, that such activities are a common practice of the DEA.”
Duke goes on in the letter to again question why the government is importing more drugs into the country given the fact that there are already plenty of drugs in the United States that could be used for sting operations.
“Since there can be no compelling law enforcement purpose for bringing such drugs into the country,” Duke continues, “... something is seriously awry in the D.E.A that, among other things, threatens the lives of innocent airline passengers.”
14
The Dysfunctional Anti-Drug Agencies
Documents Show a Pattern of Corruption Cover-Ups at DEA and Customs
Federal agents, whether they are with Customs, the D.E.A or some other agency, have to confront not only crooks but also their own consciences. The allure of easy money is all about them, often in the form of piles of dope and cash. That temptation proves to be too much for some, and they choose to cross the line, for many reasons—an extra house, a kid’s education, the dream vacation, or vindication for putting up with a dysfunctional bureaucracy.
Bad cops can do real damage to the integrity of the justice system, but an even bigger problem is the cover-up that frequently occurs after someone blows the whistle on corruption—a fact of life Sandalio Gonzalez knows first-hand.
Sandalio Gonzalez is a 30-year-plus veteran of law enforcement. He has been with the Drug Enforcement Agency (D.E.A) for a quarter of a century.
With his appointment in September 1998 to associate special agent in charge in Miami, Fla., he became the highest-ranking Cuban-American in D.E.A and the second in command of the Miami Field Division.
Over the course of his career with DEA, Gonzalez has taken on a number of domestic and foreign assignments, including a stint in Washington, D.C., as chief of South American Operations, just prior to coming to Miami.
But Gonzalez’ move to Miami would prove to be career altering. It was there that he ran headfirst into a suspected cover-up that thrust him into a major legal battle with the D.E.A.
Following a November 1998 search of a suburban Miami house, a joint D.E.A/Miami-Dade Police team came up short on a stash of cocaine. Prior surveillance of the house indicated there should have been about 32 kilograms of cocaine on the premises, but the total amount accounted for after the search fell 10 kilos short of that mark.
Enrique Bover and his wife, Gisel, who each had prior drug convictions, were the targets of the raid. After their arrest, the Bovers agreed to become confidential informants in a play for leniency in their case. Their cooperation did lead to several arrests.
The Bovers assert that they informed D.E.A agents about the missing cocaine immediately after their arrest and that the information was ignored. Months later, the Bovers found themselves being accused of taking the 10 kilos of coke.
Gonzalez, though, suspected a set-up. He says the same Miami-Dade Police team involved in the Bover raid was responsible for “compromising three prior drug cases.”
Gonzalez was clued into the potential corruption after receiving a memo from one of his agents outlining “apparent official misconduct … and violations of federal law,” according to a discrimination lawsuit Gonzalez filed in federal court in Miami.
“It was alleged that police officers may have taken the cocaine,” Gonzalez asserts in the lawsuit.
However, the fix was in, according to Gonzalez, who claims in his lawsuit that the “good ol’ boys” within D.E.A and the U.S. Attorney’s Office closed ranks to protect the “non-Hispanic/non-minority” D.E.A agents involved in the Bover raid.
The goal of the alleged cover-up, Gonzalez claims in his litigation, was to prevent “any type of scrutiny regarding the Bover allegations” of police misconduct. Specifically, the lawsuit asserts that D.E.A brass wanted to ward off scrutiny of the D.E.A agents’ “association with the Miami-Dade Police Department squad” that was involved in the Bover raid.
“The Bovers were deactivated as … informants in January 1999, following the arrest of Enrique Bover,” Gonzalez’s lawsuit states. “This arrest was based on what was clearly questionable information and evidence produced by a Miami-Dade detective who worked closely with (the suspect D.E.A agents and) who Gonzalez subsequently learned was under investigation by his own police department’s Internal Affairs Office, as well as by the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office. The January 1999 case against Enrique Bover was consequently dismissed for lack of evidence.”
However, Gonzalez’s problems were only beginning.
“I took a stand on the missing 10 kilos of cocaine, and insisted that that they (D.E.A) do an investigation,” Gonzalez says. “And that was it.”
In the wake of pushing for that investigation into the missing coke, Gonzalez found him self the target of a series of actions by his superiors that he claims were designed to intimidate, embarrass and ultimately silence him. Gonzalez subsequently filed Equal Employment Opportunity claims against his superiors for their actions and ultimately took his case into federal district court in Miami.
In addition to suffering retaliation and discrimination designed to “harass and humiliate (him) and slander his character and damage his reputation,” Gonzalez asserts in his lawsuit that in January 2001 he was transferred involuntarily to the less prestigious post of special agent in charge of the El Paso, Texas Field Division.
“The prohibited actions cited … were undertaken by the Department of Justice-Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida personnel, all sanctioned and encouraged by management officials of the D.E.A, who also participated in the prohibited actions, and furthered an entrenched D.E.A policy or philosophy of racial profiling and retaliatory actions against minorities, specifically Hispanics,” Gonzalez alleges in his lawsuit.
Gonzalez’s legal case was dismissed on a technicality by a federal judge in the spring of 2003. However, a federal appeals court later reversed the decision and Gonzalez’s case was sent back to the federal district court, where it was still pending in 2004.
The Department of Justice, the defendant in Gonzalez’s lawsuit, contends the charges made in the case are without merit. Gonzalez, though, says his career did not merit being turned upside-down for blowing the whistle on suspected corruption within D.E.A.
“The missing cocaine is definitely the catalyst of my problems,” he says. “The cover-up (since then) has been amazing. They (his superiors) look at you blank-face and then look the other way.”
The Big Apple
A decision to stare down a cover-up is also what former Customs Agent Diane Kleiman claims brought the heat down on her. Kleiman asserts that she was asked to commit perjury by her supervisor as part of an effort to conceal the success of a drug-smuggling scheme that allegedly involved employees of a major airline. Kleiman says she refused to go along with the cover-up and was subsequently fired as a result.
Kleiman—who worked as a Customs agent at J.F.K International Airport—says she attempted to make officials within Customs, as well as other federal agencies, aware of the alleged cover-up and the potential security risks it posed prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. However, Kleiman claims her warnings were ignored.
In the spring of 2002, Kleiman’s case was accepted for investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Council (O.S.C), an independent federal agency that is empowered to investigate and prosecute cases of alleged governmental misconduct and mismanagement.
“You allege that (your supervisor) took unfavorable personal actions against you in reprisal for engaging in whistleblower activity and refusing to provide false testimony before the grand jury,” states a March 18, 2002, letter from the OSC to Kleiman. “You also believe (your supervisor’s) actions were motivated by discrimination on the bases of race, sex and religion.
“Based on the information you submitted, we have decided to refer your complaint for an investigation….”
Janet Rapaport, spokesman for U.S. Customs in New York, declined to comment on Kleiman’s case “since this is an open administrative matter that U.S. Customs is looking into.”
Kleiman also filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, D.C., in November 2002. The charges in the lawsuit are similar to those raised in her O.S.C complaint. Kleiman’s attorney is Ronald Tonkin of Houston—who also represented Laredo Customs Agent Romeo Salinas in his lawsuit against the agency.
Kleiman’s Story
Kleiman was the new kid on the block when she arrived in late 1998 as special agent at the U.S. Customs office at J.F.K International Airport in New York.
Kleiman, a former assistant district attorney in New York for six years, says in the spring of 1998 she decided to trade in her law books for a badge in order to become a special agent and to “fulfill her desire to serve her country.”
After about four months of training for the special agents’ job in Georgia, Kleiman was assigned initially to the World Trade Center in New York and later to U.S. Customs’ office at J.F.K. According to Kleiman, that’s when her troubles started.
“Immediately after arriving at J.F.K, I was called to a meeting by my supervisor,” states Kleiman in a July 25, 2001, letter that she sent to the OSC. “... The first comment that he made to me was the following: ‘Customs is like the Irish Mafia. Our form of affirmative action is hiring an Italian, so understand what your place is in this agency.’ This statement was made in regards to me being a female, a Jew and an attorney.”
Kleiman’s litigation spells out the extent of the alleged discrimination. Following is a section of Kleiman’s pleadings filed in U.S. District Court in New York. (Kleiman’s name has been substituted for the word plaintiff in the passages below.)
From the Lawsuit
Kleiman was assigned to the “currency group” of the U.S. Customs Service at J.F.K Airport, with Supervisory Criminal Investigator Thomas Flood [S.C.I Flood is a non-Jewish white male] assigned as her supervisor on Dec. 22, 1998.
Kleiman was subjected to harassing comments upon her first meeting with S.C.I Flood. The harassing comments made by Flood related to Kleiman’s Jewish descent and her being a woman. S.C.I Flood pointed out that Kleiman was one of only a few Jews in the office and stated that he and a few other co-workers, Rich Dallasandro [non-Jewish white male] and Don Hughes [non-Jewish white male] were taking bets as to how long it would take before Kleiman resigned. S.C.I Flood told Kleiman that U.S Customs Service had been all Irish in the past and that U.S. Customs’ form of affirmative action was hiring an Italian, and that Kleiman should have an understanding of her place in the Agency.S.C.I Flood told Kleiman that he could never understand why the people with the most money, meaning Jews, care about those who had nothing, meaning the blacks. S.C.I Flood assigned Kleiman to a desk in the “Ghetto,” a cubicle area, where four desks were together. S.C.I Flood told Kleiman he was putting her in this location because three out of the four Jews in the office were in this area and this way, “he could keep an eye on all of us.”S.C.I Flood stated that he was assigning Kleiman an old car for the first three months and that if Kleiman didn’t get into an accident, he would assign her a better car. Flood stated that U.S. Customs was plagued with women who can’t drive. Flood stated that none of the men had been involved with accidents, which goes to “prove his theory that men are better drivers than women.” Flood said maybe it’s because they put their makeup on and get ready for work in the car.S.C.I Flood called Kleiman into the office on a daily basis, subjecting her to malicious comments pertaining to her being incompetent because she was a woman and to having to keep “an eye on the Jew in the office.”Kleiman was in a co-worker’s office with several other men present. One man loudly stated that he had a friend at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (A.T.F), an agency where Kleiman previously worked, who told him that Kleiman had some plastic surgery while at A.T.F. Then he pointed to his chest and he asked Kleiman if “she had her tits done.” After that, a rumor was spread that Kleiman had breast implants. Thereafter, male agents would make rude comments regarding Kleiman’s breasts.S.C.I Flood assigned Agent Rich Dallasandro to be Kleiman’s training officer. Kleiman repeatedly asked Dallasandro for work. Dallasandro never gave Kleiman the time of day and refused to talk to her. One day, Kleiman walked up to Dallasandro and Dallasandro put his hand in Kleiman’s face and said, “talk to the hand.” Kleiman asked Dallasandro what the problem was and he stated that he has a short time to retirement, that he has been in the group for a long time, and that the last thing he needed was to be a training officer, “especially to a female.”Dallasandro never explained to Kleiman her duties. Dallasandro was required to teach Kleiman the procedures and mechanisms of the U.S. Customs Service. However, Dallasandro refused to train Kleiman. Dallasandro openly humiliated Kleiman on a daily basis either by yelling, cursing or using crude language (as when he told Kleiman to report for a “piss test” in front of 8-10 other male police officers and agents). Every time Kleiman asked Dallasandro a question, he told her he was too busy or that Kleiman was “a stupid bitch.” Dallasandro constantly cursed and referred to Kleiman in four-letter terms. When Kleiman asked Dallasandro to stop, he called Kleiman a “prissy fucking bitch.” On numerous times, Dallasandro became irritated and suggested that Kleiman take a Valium or “get laid.” Kleiman was continuously subjected to a hostile work environment.
Around the middle to the end of January 1999, S.C.I Flood stated that he was making up a duty roster and said that he was assigning Kleiman the weekend duty because Kleiman’s people (meaning Jews) were always having holidays, which was a great excuse to get out of work, but still get paid. Flood, Dallasandro and Hughes always made fun of Kleiman by calling her “Keinberg” (or) ”Kleinstein.” (And adding,) “You know, they all sound the same.”
Shooting the Messenger
Despite the alleged discrimination and harassment, Kleiman pressed on. Over the first few months of 1999, she made a series of disclosures to her supervisor that were met with harsh reactions.
In her O.S.C complaint, Kleiman reveals that she reported to her supervisor at J.F.K the use of excessive force on a suspect, several incidents of improperly handled evidence, an office gambling operation involving payouts exceeding $5,000, and the fact that there was some $300,000 unaccounted for in a case involving a large cash seizure.
“When I raised my concerns with (my boss), I was told to shut up and was virtually told that if I didn’t listen, I was finished,” Kleiman says.
Kleiman still wasn’t about to stand down, though. During the winter of 1999, she began to work a case involving an American Airlines baggage handler, a non-citizen, who was caught twice within a few months attempting to smuggle about $30,000 in currency out of the country.
“This baggage handler makes minimum wage, and after interviewing him, I felt he was engaging in criminal activity,” Kleiman states in her O.S.C complaint. “I reported this to (my supervisor) and recommended that either we cultivate this man as an informant and watch him, or report him to American Airlines security. (My supervisor) told me to keep my mouth shut and told me if I didn’t, he would make sure I was fired.”
By early spring of 1999, Kleiman would find herself jumping from the frying pan into the fire. In March, with the assistance of a D.E.A agent, Kleiman scored a major investigative coup that led to the arrest of a man attempting to smuggle 46.2 pounds of cocaine into the country, Kleiman states in her O.S.C complaint.
The case involved a smuggling scheme whereby an American Airlines employee was allegedly being used to assist the smuggler to bypass airline and airport security.
“... The method used by the smugglers usually involved a second individual, who customarily was seated behind the courier,” Kleiman states in a July 2001 letter to O.S.C. “This second individual would most likely be an employee of (the airline) and would have a key to the gate at the airport. According to D.E.A, this was how the drugs could enter the country, bypassing a Customs check point.”
The former agent claims a lack of security and the failure by airlines to perform thorough employee background checks make these schemes possible to pull off.
Again, in this case, Kleiman’s boss allegedly told her to withhold information.
“My supervisor ordered me to perjure my testimony before a grand jury because the defendant stated to me that he had smuggled drugs into J.F.K on prior occasions,” Kleiman states in her O.S.C complaint. “He wanted me to omit that information from the statement because it would look like Customs wasn’t doing its job, and it would embarrass the agency.”
Tangled Up in Turf
Kleiman claims the cocaine smuggling case was considered a very complex investigation, particularly for a rookie like her. In fact, Kleiman alleges in her lawsuit that the case was given to her by her supervisor, Flood, in order to set her “up to fail in her first important case.”
However, Kleiman surprised everybody when she played a key role in the March 1999 bust.
After news of the arrest reached Flood, Kleiman was called into a conference room and interrogated for more than two hours by Flood and his boss, the assistant special agent in charge at J.F.K.
“They wanted to know what information Kleiman had given to the Drug Enforcement Administration,” the lawsuit alleges, because they knew a D.E.A agent had assisted Kleiman in the case.
“Flood stated that U.S. Customs was afraid that the D.E.A was going to break the case and that U.S. Customs would be embarrassed because drugs were smuggled into the United States right under U.S. Customs’ nose,” Kleiman’s lawsuit asserts.
Kleiman says Flood even went as far as to orchestrate the destruction of evidence related to the smuggling case.
(Again, in the following passage from her lawsuit, Kleiman’s name has been substituted for the word plaintiff.)
More From the Lawsuit
On March 16, 1999, Flood called Kleiman at home and told her to give the smuggling case file to Don Hughes the next day, and told her to keep her mouth shut about the case. On March 17, 1999 [Flood was not in the U.S. Customs office] Kleiman gave the smuggling case file to Agent Don Hughes and Kleiman observed Agent Hughes remove all the notes which she had placed in the case file and shred them, thereby sanitizing the file, and she further observed Agent Don Hughes making changes to the Treasury Enforcement Communications System II computer system.
On March 18, 1999, Kleiman had a meeting with agents Flood and Twomey regarding the smuggling case. On March 22, 1999, S.C.I Flood called Kleiman into his office and told her that her “hell” had just begun; that U.S. Customs did not want D.E.A taking credit for the case; and that he wanted Kleiman to lie to the Grand Jury that the D.E.A had nothing to do with the case; as well as state that it was senior U.S. Customs agents that had assisted Kleiman in the investigation. When Kleiman refused, the case was taken away from her and Flood stated that he was not going to let some “junior Jew bitch agent” take credit for such a big case.
Flood told Kleiman that he was going to retroactively withdraw permission for Kleiman to use the Government car on several occasions in the past several months and how he was citing Kleiman for these usage violations. Flood also threatened that he would place retroactive evaluations in Kleiman’s file and have Kleiman fired. Flood stated that since Kleiman’s mother lives alone, bad things could happen to her, like she could get killed. Kleiman again refused to provide false information on her reports (or) perjure herself before the federal Grand Jury.
Double Trouble
Kleiman says she never was allowed to appear before the grand jury in the cocaine-smuggling case. In July 1999, she was fired.
Kleiman then filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (E.E.O) complaint—after having attempted to file such complaints unsuccessfully while employed at JFK.
“(Kleiman) attempted to file E.E.O complaints,” her lawsuit alleges. “However, Flood told (Kleiman) that she had to file E.E.O complaints through the chain of command.
“For months, (Kleiman) gave Flood her E.E.O complaints…. Flood did not pass on (Kleiman’s) complaints to be processed by the proper authorities.”
When Kleiman’s E.E.O case was finally acted on after she was terminated, the investigation revealed that two sets of job-performance evaluations did exist for her—and one of them had been altered, Kleiman’s O.S.C complaint states. The altered evaluation was prepared on March 22, 1999, the same day Kleiman’s supervisor had threatened to fire her.
When contacted, Flood declined to comment on Kleiman’s allegations.
However, Marvin Walker, the supervisor in charge of Customs agents at J.F.K, is outraged by Kleiman’s allegations. Walker claims in a memo to his staff that Kleiman’s charges are bogus and a blatant attempt to capitalize on the 9/11 tragedy in order to bolster her weak legal case.
Although Walker’s intention in writing the memo is to refute Kleiman’s allegations, in the process he has raised some serious questions about his own management judgment that, according to Kleiman, are proof he is “out of control.”
Walker’s memo was written in response to an article about Kleiman’s case that appeared in New York Magazine in June 2003—more than a year after a Texas paper broke the initial story about Kleiman’s case.
“Many of you have, no doubt, seen the New York Magazine article of June 2, 2003, concerning the allegations of former Customs Special Agent Diane Kleiman of rampant mismanagement, malfeasance, sexism and anti-Semitisim in the management of this office,” states Walker, in a June 5 memo he addressed to his subordinates at J.F.K. “While Ms. Kleiman has sought Whistle blower status by attempting to contort these allegations (which remain unfounded) into issues impacting national security, I wanted you, the workforce of this office, to understand that none of these allegations have any merit. ...”
Attached to the internal Customs memo is a letter to the writer of the New York Magazine article. That letter was never sent because Walker was “advised not to send it,” the memo states.
In that letter to the magazine, Walker accuses Kleiman of attempting to inflict “multiple professional and personal injuries,” and he thanks the magazine writer “for taking the time to characterize the behavior and the appearance of former Special Agent Diane Kleiman … as it at least gives one pause to consider why she is no longer employed as a Customs special agent.”
In addition, Walker concedes in the memo that official Customs policy prevents him from responding publicly to Kleiman’s charges.
Walker writes the following in the memo:
“I write to each of you, because everyone has the right to defend themselves in the court of public opinion. Sadly, we here, the maligned, who have been living with this sordid tale since June 1999, are precluded by Agency policy from responding to the New York Magazine article, predicated upon the pending litigation of Ms. Kleiman in U.S. District Court. Yes, that’s where we are headed. I also write to each of you, because this missive has the potential for sustaining a corrosive effect on the morale of this office. Sensational allegations such as these, unrefuted by an agency spokesperson, and allowed to linger, even in the face of pending litigation, could cause one to infer that silence equals acquiescence.
“As that is not the case, we are constrained by official policy from responding, and we will abide by that policy. However, I have attached a rebuttal letter, which I wrote to the author of the article, Mr. Craig Horowitz, to attempt to refute these allegations, as well as to thank him for a balanced article. ... I was wisely advised NOT to send it, and I did not. As this memorandum, and the attached letter is for INTERNAL CONSUMPTION ONLY, I ask that you read it, and then either shred it, or secure it.”
Kleiman’s attorney, Tonkin, says the memo is a demonstration of Walker’s “animus” toward Kleiman and represents a not-too-subtle attempt to pressure his staff to stick to the company line should they be questioned about her case. Tonkin, a former federal prosecutor, also says that by issuing orders to shred the memo, Walker was pressuring his staff to destroy evidence in a pending legal case.
“His constant barrage in the letter demeaning her character also goes to his motive,” Tonkin adds.
Walker, when contacted by phone, said he wrote the memo as an “attempt to do some internal damage control.”
“People are entitled to their opinions, but they are not entitled to their version of the facts,” he said.
Walker added that Kleiman is attempting to portray him as a supervisor who “presided over a corrupt enterprise.” He said he “is not that type of person,” stressing that he would never turn a blind eye to such corruption if it did exist.
Walker added, “Any supervisor who stands up nowadays and says, ‘Well, gee, you know I didn’t know what was going on,’ they’re either lying or a fool. ...”
For its part, Customs has denied Kleiman’s allegations in court pleadings filed in her case. One source within Customs, who asked not to be named, indicated that the real reason Kleiman was fired was because she misused a government car.
Kleiman agrees that among the stated grounds for her termination was that she allegedly misused a government vehicle. However, she says the charge is a deliberate attempt to distort the truth.
“I had turned in vehicle reports in January and February (of 1999) that were approved,” she asserts. “Why was there all of a sudden a problem (with my use of the government car) after March 22, the same day I refused to commit perjury and the same date that the phony evaluation was prepared? ... They were doing damage control.”
Thin Air
There have been some high-profile busts of smuggling operations involving airline employees in the past. But what makes Kleiman’s story unique is the alleged cover-up by a Customs supervisor that ensued after suspects were apprehended. John Hotard, a spokesman for American Airlines, said in a prepared statement in April 2002 that the airline is “on schedule to comply with the government’s (post 9/11) mandate that all employees and vendors with access to secured areas … undergo a criminal background check.”
Hotard added:
“We notified employees about the background checks and have begun the fingerprinting process. Additionally, even though we are not required to, American Airlines is performing 10-year background checks on all new hires and verifying the most recent five years. American has re-validated the badge of every American Airlines employee who has one. Anyone who does not pass the criminal background check will have his or her badge revoked. Prior to 9/11 and the passage of the new Aviation and Transportation Security Act, American was in full compliance with F.A.A regulations regarding the badging of airport employees.
“American cooperates daily, both at the headquarters and the field levels, with Customs and other law enforcement agencies on issues of a criminal nature, working with the various agencies in sting and/or surveillance activities to root out criminal activity. Many times it is the airline that brings such activity to the attention of the law enforcement agencies.”
However, according to Kleiman, all the background checks in the world will not protect the American public from potential harm if Customs management continues to cover up information in order to bolster careers, protect agency turf, or to prevent the agency’s image from being tarnished.
Kleiman points to the fact that in late fall of 2002, more than a year after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, about 120 current and former workers who had been issued security clearances at La Guardia or J.F.K International airports in New York were arrested or facing arrest.
Why? Because they had lied about past criminal records, immigration status or otherwise provided deceptive information about their identities. In some of those arrest cases, according to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice on November 19, 2002, the security clearances in question were authorized by U.S. Customs.
A year later, trouble struck J.F.K again, when some 19 airport employees were charged in the fall of 2003 with participating in a large-scale narcotics importation conspiracy that involved the seizure of some 400 kilos of cocaine and hundreds of pounds of marijuana. The employees included baggage and cargo handlers as well as supervisors.
“... The defendants capitalized on their status as airport employees to circumvent inspection procedures as a means to import massive quantities of narcotics into the United States,” states a press release issued by federal law enforcement officials in the wake of the bust. “Utilizing their knowledge of international airline schedules, cargo unloading procedures and airline personnel assignments, the defendants and their associates conducted a decade-long narcotics importation ring.”
The government’s investigation into the importation ring began in the fall of 2002, “following several seizures of cocaine on Universal Airlines flights from Guyana,” according to the press release.
“Customs is not doing its job,” Kleiman says. “Anything that gets in the country goes through Customs. And people in the agency are not saying anything when they see problems, because they know if they rock the boat, they will get fired, or possibly even killed.”
Kleiman adds that in addition to filing an E.E.O complaint, she reported the alleged corruption and cover-ups by her supervisor to Customs Internal Affairs, the Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York. Those reports were made months prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks. She claims none of those agencies did anything to address the problems at J.F.K.
“It’s not an issue of putting more money into the agency, or combining it with some other agency,” Kleiman says. “It’s an issue of hiring highly qualified people who care. That’s the whole point. Since 9/11, people have gone back to going about their lives like it never happened. But it will happen again, unless something is changed.”
In fact, Kleiman, in a prepared statement, contends that four months prior to 9/11 she warned the U.S. Attorney’s Office in specific terms that the lack of security at J.F.K and the corruption within Customs could lead to a major tragedy.
“I told them (the U.S. Attorney’s Office) that if these (airline) employees had such easy access to the planes, they could place bombs and weapons on the planes,” Kleiman asserts in the prepared statement. “I further informed them that the airlines were not doing background checks on employees and many that were hired were illegals.
“I showed them the perjured evaluations (her job reviews) and they admitted that there were problems with Customs. ... The U.S. Attorney’s Office dismissed me by saying they would look into it and never got back to me. Customs fired me for raising these issues.”
For some two years, Kleiman’s charges were before the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. However, Kleiman says in August of 2003 she withdrew her case from that agency out of frustration with its failure to address her charges in a timely manner.
“After … years of investigation, with no closing date in sight, I decided to withdraw the O.S.C case and to put all of my energies into my federal court case,” Kleiman says.
Kleiman’s pending federal litigation assures that her corruption and discrimination allegations are not going away anytime soon. Her allegations also have attracted the attention of several congressional leaders who are not prone to subscribe to conspiracy theories. They include Democratic U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman as well as Republican senators Charles W. Grassley, Susan Collins and Richard Shelby — all of who have made inquiries on her behalf.
“Based on our review of Ms. Kleiman’s case and various news reports, we are deeply concerned about the specific accusations against J.F.K Airport security and U.S. Customs’ Special Agents,” states a Jan. 8, 2004, letter co-written by Shelby and Collins and directed to Robert Bonner, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. “Ever since, 1999, Ms. Kleiman has made assertions of incompetence, wrongdoing and possible criminal activity by law enforcement officials. We believe these accusations are too troubling to dismiss.
“Understanding the importance and significant steps your agency is undertaking to ensure the security and safety of our nation’s borders, we want to make you aware of this case and ask you to take a closer look at Ms. Kleiman’s allegations, particularly focusing on the conduct and operations of the U.S. Customs officials at J.F.K airport and what changes have been made.”
Lieberman’s interest in Kleiman’s case led him to look into her allegations that three federal agents at J.F.K died under suspicious circumstances in the early 1990's.
The agents were assigned to a drug unit at the airport that, Kleiman alleges, was overseen at the time by Thomas Flood — who would later become Kleiman’s supervisor. In a letter Kleiman sent to the O.S.C in July 2001, she claims that two of the federal agents died of heroin overdoses and the third committed suicide — allegedly after all three had been implicated in stealing drugs from their unit.
Kleiman says the deaths demonstrate how deeply rooted the problems are at J.F.K.
Customs responded in writing in April 2003 to Sen. Lieberman’s official inquiry into the matter as follows:
“In her letter, Ms. Kleiman raised issues regarding the deaths of former Customs Special Agents Thomas Sullivan and Thomas Calamia. Mr. Sullivan was arrested during June 1991 after it was determined he was involved in the theft of drugs from Customs’ custody. In February 1992, subsequent to his conviction in federal court, Mr. Sullivan took his own life.
“Mr. Calamia died in September 1992 while he was a Customs employee. Mr. Calamia’s death was investigated by Nassau County Police Department and ruled a drug overdose. Customs employees were not involved in the discovery of Mr. Calamia’s body and were not implicated in Mr. Calamia’s death. A subsequent investigation conducted by the Office of Internal Affairs determined that Mr. Calamia was involved in the theft of drugs from Customs’ custody.
“Special Agent Gary St. Hillaire was an employee of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Accordingly, BICE (the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also part of DHS) possesses no records regarding the allegations of misconduct on the part of Mr. St. Hillaire. ...”
Kleiman claims that at a minimum, the drug-thefts and deaths are evidence that her corruption charges are not out of bounds when it comes to Customs’ operations at J.F.K.
She adds, “Three agents died, all within about a year of each other, and they were stealing drugs from their unit.”
Not Alone
Kleiman is not the only one to blow the whistle on the good-ol’-boy club at J.F.K International Airport.
During the same time frame that Kleiman was dealing with her turmoil at the airport, Frank Almonte, a special agent at Customs J.F.K office, also was dealing with his own set of problems stemming, he alleges, from the fact that he is Hispanic.
Supporting Documents:
Letters from U.S. Senators concerning former federal agent Diane Kleiman’s legal case to Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner and Special Counsel Elaine Kaplan (160 and 28 kb PDFs)
Letter to Senator Joseph Lieberman concerning Kleiman’s case from Assistant Customs Commissioner William Keefer (52 kb PDF)
Almonte is among the named plaintiffs in the class-action discrimination lawsuit filed in federal court in May 2002 on behalf of some 400 former and current Hispanic Customs agents.
Among the claims made by Almonte in the class action litigation is that over the course of his career he “has constantly been asked by his Customs supervisors to work an undercover, monitor a wiretap, debrief a defendant, transcribe tapes and translate documents.”
As a result, the lawsuit charges, “case agents who are typically white non-Hispanic have benefited from Agent Almonte’s language and undercover skills, but Almonte has not in terms of his career progression.”
Almonte alleges he applied for numerous promotions between 1993 to 2000, but was never promoted. In each of those cases where Almonte sought and failed to get a promotion, a white non-Hispanic was chosen for the position, the class-action lawsuit alleges.
In October 2000, Almonte filed an E.E.O complaint regarding his failure to be granted a promotion. In January of the next year, Almonte finally was promoted, from a GS-12 grade to GS-13.
On top of failing to offer him a fair chance to advance his career, Almonte charges in the lawsuit that his contributions to Customs are seemingly not appreciated and, in fact, are undervalued by his Anglo supervisors.
“In 1992, after Almonte had transferred to the Financial Division of the New York/special agent in charge (S.A.I.C) office, a group supervisor and senior special agent (both white non-Hispanics) called him into an office to convince him to perform undercover money-pickups from Colombian drug smugglers,” the class-action lawsuit states. “Senior Special Agent Robert McCrossen told Almonte, ‘This is so easy, I would have my teenage kids do it if I could.’ In 1997, a Hispanic undercover agent was shot and wounded and two suspects were killed during a money pickup involving New York/S.A.I.C personnel and the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
Beyond having his career stunted and his work undervalued, Almonte, while working as an agent at J.F.K International Airport in the late 1990's, also was forced to endure the same type of racism and discrimination that Kleiman confronted, according to the lawsuit.
From the May 2002 class-action litigation:
“In February 1998, when Agent Almonte told narcotics smuggling Associate Special Agent in Charge (A.S.A.I.C) John Saldino that he had arrested several Dominican nationals on a controlled delivery involving 4 kilograms of heroin, Saldino’s response was ‘Those fucking people.’ On another occasion, Almonte was in the office gym listening to a Spanish music radio station. Saldino said to Agent Brian Aryai, ‘There he goes with that fucking music again. Does he think this is a foreign country?’ Agent Aryai also heard Customs Supervisor Tom Lorreto say that, ‘Ever since they let Hispanics in here, this job has gone downhill.’”
Don’t Rock the Boat
Gary Aldrich, founder of the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty and a former FBI agent who specialized in investigating political corruption, says the underlying problem with federal agencies like Customs is that they “are so big, there is no way Washington can really manage them, beyond relying on hope and trust.”
If that is true, then the prospects for the newly created Department of Homeland Security are exceedingly dim. D.E.A’s Gonzalez echoes that concern, explaining that the creation of the new super bureaucracy is likely to magnify the already severe management dysfunction within the federal government.
“I personally believe the new department, absent appropriate protections for employees, will be a disaster,” Gonzalez says. “We have seen what happens (at agencies like DEA) with civil service protections. Without those protections (which are scaled back drastically in the new department), it will lead to a lot of abuse by managers.”
“We spend millions of dollars making sure we hire good people, and then we ship them off to field offices where they run smack into corruption,” former FBI Agent Aldrich says. “Then those agents are told, ‘Shut up or we’ll kill (your career),’ ... (while others simply) don’t want to rock the boat. And in the meantime, these (bad) guys are out there with guns and handcuffs.”
Kleiman has a slightly different take on Customs’ woes—one tied to the events of September 11. Kleiman says she is reminded of that “don’t rock the boat” mentality every time she looks into the void that once was the World Trade Center.
Well before the World Trade Center was attacked, Kleiman claims she “knew something bad like that was going to happen” because of the indifference she encountered within the federal government in relation to the problems at Customs.
“When that second jet came right over my apartment, I said, ‘Fuck Customs!’” recalls Kleiman, who lives a block and a half away from what is now Ground Zero. “Maybe now people will start to listen, but 3,000 people are already dead.”
http://www.narconews.com/Issue32/article893.html
http://www.narconews.com/Issue32/article893.html
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