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Informants and Agents Latest News

 
Report: use of criminal informants "disastrous"
THEO EMERY, Associated Press Writer

(01-13) 20:07 PST BOSTON (AP)

The government's use of murderers as government informants constitutes "one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement," according to a draft report from a congressional committee.

"Democracy succeeds in the United States when the rule of law is respected. When the government strays from the rule of law, the harm outweighs the benefit. In Boston, this is what happened," the report concluded.

The House Government Reform Committee draft report, obtained by The Associated Press on Monday, lays out a blow-by-blow criticism of the nation's top law enforcement agency, saying that use of criminals compromised investigations across the country with "disastrous consequences."

FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz declined to comment, as the agency had not seen the report.

Under U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Indiana, the committee has been investigating for two years the FBI's use of criminal informants in investigations. Last week, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., replaced Burton, but Burton will continue investigating the Boston FBI office.

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Massachusetts, had not read the draft report Monday, but said that the committee's findings indicate that "there must be a radical reform of the FBI."

"The committee has not finished its work and I anticipate during this coming session of Congress, that there will be further review of FBI and its performance," he said. "After the facts are ascertained, there will be a opportunity for a review of options to affect the necessary changes, both administrative and legislative."

The committee has focused on the relationship between Boston FBI agents and the hit men and mob leaders they cultivated and sometimes protected from prosecution for crimes as serious as murder.

The report said the Justice Department's failure to rein in criminal informants compromised homicide investigations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oklahoma, California, Nevada, Florida, and Rhode Island.

At the root of the problem with the justice department, the report said, was lack of oversight of the Justice Department. Not only was the department itself at fault, but Congress as well, for failing in its duty to police the police.

"In all likelihood, if there had been vigorous oversight of Justice Department programs, and the FBI's use of informants, most of the events that are described in this report would not have occurred. Unfortunately, however, there was a failure of oversight. The Justice Department failed to police itself, and Congress failed to do its job," the report said.

Last month, Burton subpoenaed University of Massachusetts President William M. Bulger to testify at hearings in Boston about his fugitive mobster brother, James "Whitey" Bulger.

William Bulger, an influential power broker in Massachusetts and former state Senate president, appeared before the committee but refused to say whether he's been in contact with his brother or knows his whereabouts, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Bulger's refusal to testify deprived the committee of finding out information such as Bulger's knowledge of favors the FBI did for Whitey Bulger, whether the FBI assisted Bulger's own career, and details of William Bulger's relationship with former FBI agent John Connolly, who is now serving a more than 10 year prison sentence for racketeering and obstruction of justice, the draft report said.

Senior FBI staff, possibly including the late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, were personally involved in use of at least one criminal informant, and the Justice Department repeatedly blocked the committee's investigation into the use of mobsters.

And despite all the evidence indicating that the Boston FBI office was riddled with problems, the Boston office "continues to exhibit insensitivity to the evidence of impropriety" in the infamous case of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, whose murder resulted in four innocent men sent to prison for his murder.

"The legacy is a lack of confidence in those charged with administering our laws, families torn apart by a government that permitted murders to occur, and more than two billion dollars in civil lawsuits," the report said.

U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Massachusetts, who also had not seen the report, praised the committee for its work.

"I sat through committee hearings that revealed a history of serious mistakes in the use of criminal informants by members of the Boston FBI office. These hearings demonstrated the critical importance of changing the culture and practices that have permeated the bureau and undermined its credibility," he said in a statement.

On Monday, an FBI spokeswoman said Kenneth W. Kaiser, a 20-year FBI veteran, is expected to take over the Boston office in March. He will replace Charles Prouty, who was named in November as executive assistant director of law enforcement in Washington, a position created as part of the FBI's reorganization. Prouty's two years in Boston were spent trying to restore the bureau's tattered reputation.
 
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