The largest corruption sting in the history of the FBI started with a corrupt Arizona National Guard employee who told undercover FBI agents he could not only run fix test results for recruits but use his uniform and military vehicle to run cocaine for them.
http://borderreporter.com/blog/?p=242
I’ve been waiting a long time for this story, first hearing about it back in 2004. The Freedom of Information Act request I filed a year ago finally came in.
The largest corruption sting in the history of the FBI started with a corrupt Arizona National Guard employee who told undercover FBI agents he could not only run fix test results for recruits but use his uniform and military vehicle to run cocaine for them.
I’m going to play this straight, leaving the vitriol and the blame-game for others. The sources I cited for this story include a Freedom of Information Act request I filed last summer with the Office of Inspector General, and the letter U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton sent to the FBI Director in Phoenix.
Both documents detail what happened in a Las Vegas hotel room five years ago, a party thrown by the FBI for a group of cocaine runners living it up big-time, a possible rape, the ensuing cover-up by the FBI and the scandal that rocked the Justice Department.
The case was called Operation Lively Green. In the military, it was called Operation Desert Blue. It was the biggest corruption sting the FBI had ever run. Soldiers, airmen, cops, prison guards, anybody with a uniform and access to an official vehicle all happy to run a load of blow for what they thought was a drug cartel. It was the kind of career-making investigation federal career agents dream of. The kind that drive promotions, awards, good guy versus bad, headlines and recognition for a job well done.
It ended up turning into a fiasco, one that was silenced by Washington D.C., whom, it appears, now wishes the whole thing will just go away.
In late 2001, the FBI got wind that a military recruiter, Darius Perry, claimed he could fix the results of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test for recruits.
Oh yeah? What else can you do? an agent must have asked.
He also told the agents that he would help run cocaine using his uniform and his military vehicle.
In January, 2002, Perry and another recruiter ran 11 kilograms of FBI cocaine from Nogales to Tucson. More than 70 others, including military police from Oklahoma, a Nogales parking enforcement officer, a port inspector from the Mariposa port of entry and federal and Arizona prison guards all joined in, hungry for the chance at $1,500 a load.
Three confidential informants were used by the FBI: Frank Arvizu, his brother Armando Arvizu and Hal Turner.
In October 2002, the FBI had 11 targeted officials run cocaine from Arizona to Las Vegas. Frank, Armando and Hal were in on the sting.
Each of the targets received a partial payment for their services from the undercover FBI agents on October 16, 2002. The rest of the money would be paid the next day.
As part of the scam, the FBI had arranged for a stay in the Presidential Suite at the MGM Grand Hotel in Vegas. Frank, Hal, Armando and six of the targets were in the suite at different times.
Three federal prosecutors got wind of the sexual assault of a prostitute in the room. They sat down with Frank on March 18, 2004, asking him if there was anything they should know about what happened in the suite.
Frank spilled the beans.
Armando and two of the targets, Ronrico Allen and Derrek Curry, had gone out to some strip clubs. They picked a woman up and brought her back to the suite. She agreed to bang Armando and two of the targets for $100 each. Frank says he left to gamble downstairs in the lobby.
When he returned, he saw the woman. She was bento over a chair and looked like she had passed out. Armando was naked behind the woman. Allen and Curry were naked behind him. I presume they were pulling a train on her but Frank told prosecutors he didn’t know if any of them had hooked up with the woman before he came into the room.
Then the college-aged girls were brought up. One of the targets gave them some liquor that the butler had brought up to the suite. The girls took one look at the orgy going on in the Jacuzzi and left.Yet another hooker was brought up to the room; a prostitute named Sage. Sage hooked up with the targets, who paid her several hundred dollars from the money the undercover FBI agents had given them.Sage told one of the men to take the passed-out girl out of the room. The girl wouldn’t leave, Sage gets in her face, telling her if she didn’t, she’d beat her up.
That girl had a cop come to the door to recover her purse. The cop took the purse and left.
HOOKERS FOR EVERYONEFrank has said he didn’t hook up with anyone. But at some point during the party, both he and Armando took out their cocks, sticking them in the ear and by the mouth of the passed-out woman. Pictures were taken.
It had happened before. During the meeting with prosecutors, Frank told them how he had gone to Mexico with Hal and one of the targets; they were only there to entertain the target.
March 22, 2004. The prosecutors meet with Armando and Frank. Frank tells the Feds how he had woken Hal up so he could watch the hookers getting it on in the Jacuzzi.
Armando confirmed his brother’s account but told prosecutors the woman draped over the chair was not passed out.
Later that day, the Feds brought Hal Turner up for questioning.
He saw Armando and two targets lined up behind the woman as though they “were going back for seconds.”
He says he checked her pulse to make sure she was still alive. Frank and Armando were jacking off over the woman’s body, he said.
A wiretap of the Oct. 22 conversation between two of the targets, Hal Turner and Ronrico Allen, was transcribed:
Hal: I about abandoned ship that night because I went over and touched that and made sure she still had a pulse. I was ready to start wipin’ my prints off of everything.”
(Laughter)
Allen: “I touched that bitch’s arm, her body was ice cold. I thought this bitch … “
Hal: “You touched more than that.” (Laughing)
March 26, 2002. The FBI provides two videotapes shot that October day in the suite. Frank demonstrates for the FBI undercover agents how one of the women was slumped over the chair. There is talk of whores, of people being “buck-naked.”
The second videotape shows the FBI agents making the payments.
One of the targets suggests that the passed-woman knew what was happening to her; he says she asked, “is that so wrong?” when someone said she was trying to get money.
Other voices are heard on the video: “I checked to see if the bitch was breathing.”
“All of you are going to jail.”
“Bitch half dead.”
“She should get an Oscar.”
“Two men in line by the woman.”
Darius Perry says: “Fuck all the whores you want.”
Another male voice: “Even if they are passed out.”
Another: “(Armando) gets up and bitch looks dead.”
AFTERMATH
According to the letter that Charlton wrote to FBI Director Charlene Thornton, no reference was ever made about the sexual misconduct by the men, the sodomy of the passed-out woman, the masturbating over her body, none of it, except for one interesting side-note. Apparently Darius Perry admonished the others who were present in the room for their unprofessional behavior.
The FBI case agent, Tim Jacobson, never told prosecutors about the misconduct. He never told the other Feds a rape may have occurred in the hotel room.
As a matter of fact, Jacobson tried to cover it up, telling an assistant U.S. Attorney there was a fight in the room and that some of the targets had rented hookers. No mention was made of the orgy, the sexual assault on the passed-out woman and most importantly, the photos of the snitches placing their cocks at the woman’s face.
“Based on these facts,” Charlton wrote in his letter, “the United States Attorney’s Office does not concur in the use of Frank Arvizu, Armando Arvizu and Hal Turner in any ongoing investigations. Our office will not prosecute any additional cases involving any of these individuals until the circumstances of the October 16, 2002, incident in Las Vegas are fully investigated.”
The FOIA says that one of the FBI agents in Operation Lively Green told prosecutors that he was aware of the federal laws stating that illegal behavior by snitches has to be reported. But, according to the document, “he did not give the events of 10/17/02 much thought and did not feel they were serious.”
Here’s the kicker: more than 60 public officials, prison guards, cops, federal agents, U.S. Army soldiers, Air Force airmen (and women) were popped in Operation Lively Green. Sixty-seven I believe.
A Justice Department official familiar with the investigation tells me, “There was no end to it. More and more people kept agreeing to run cocaine for eff-bee. The whole thing was finally shut down.”
Those accused were given sweetheart deals, five years maximum for running as much as 60 kilograms of cocaine.
According to sentencing guidelines, the lowest sentence for 10 pounds, 4 kilos of cocaine, is ten years. And that’s without enhancement for acting under “color of authority.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Lacey put it best, paraphrased in the Office of Inspector General report I received, “these acts constitute criminal activity on behalf of the CW (confidential witnesses) and subjects. AUSA Lacey believed that the subject’s defense team would have received all the information about the events in Las Vegas and feared that the DOJ and FBI could be viewed as engaging in misconduct as the defense might argue that the DOJ and FBI knew or should have known a rape of the stripper took place and the FBI and DOJ did nothing about it.”
That’s what happened, faithful reader.
Under the rules of disclosure, the defense attorneys needed to have been told their clients were part of a rape investigation – if there were a rape investigation.
The FBI decided to cover it up. I’m told that one of the FBI case agents told either one of the Arvizus or Turner to “dump those fucking pictures and I don’t want to know anything more about it.”
The defense attorneys were told about the allegations, even shown the proof, but the proof was never given to them. Instead, sweet deals were offered up, five years, provided nobody talks.
The FOIA goes on, page 20:
Special Agent XXX (the OIG blocked out the name) stated that after the debriefing, he began to hear jokes and banter from other FBI agents in reference to the CWs and subjects behavior in the early morning hours of 10.17.02. He heard that there was an orgy, that prostitutes were present, that both CWs and subjects were naked and a fight broke out and someone’s nose was broken, and that a police officer reported to the PS but took no action.
He says, “Although the CWs were present, no clear allegation arose which linked the CWs involvement in the crime of prostitution or any other felony crime. … I thought these general conversations, banter, and jokes were just unsubstantiated talk.”
The FBI tried to defend itself, quite cleverly too.
According to the OIG report:
The FBI agent saw a photo of a naked white woman sitting in a chair. He couldn’t tell if she was conscious. He never told anyone to throw out the photos. He couldn’t remember, but the snitches may have discussed a woman being passed out, a line of men behind her.
He doesn’t believe he did anything wrong.
The OIG dropped the case, saying they did not believe the FBI agent did anything wrong, nor did the agent know the women in the room were hookers, much less that any informants had raped one of the women.
Case closed.
Except for a couple of things; but you’ll have to come back Wednesday for those.
Part Two will post July 18.
–Michael Marizco
No comments:
Post a Comment