Our tax dollars, not at work.
http://www.rgj.com/article/20120919...?odyssey=mod|mostview&gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
http://www.rgj.com/article/20120919...?odyssey=mod|mostview&gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
For a year, U.S. attorneys in Reno have refused to prosecute cases generated by local undercover agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, prompting most of the agents to move away and leaving the region ill-equipped to go after illegal weapon and drug activity, a Reno Gazette-Journal investigation has found.
Federal prosecutors in Reno dismissed four ATF cases involving people who had been indicted by federal grand juries on illegal weapons and drug charges. The prosecutors turned away other cases involving violent criminals, allowing them to walk free and face no charges, the RGJ found.
For more than a decade, Reno ATF agents have worked undercover to help shut down illegal gun sales in the region in some years bringing as many as 70 cases for federal prosecution, according to an ATF document acquired by the RGJ. The agents also helped identify and trace the firearms involved in the 2011 IHOP shooting in Carson City and have handled numerous explosives cases.
But in September 2011, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sue Fahami, who runs the Reno office, sent a letter to the Reno ATF agents saying at this time we are not accepting any cases submitted by your office. She said she would reconsider taking cases after certain unidentified issues were resolved. Those issues were not identified.
When the agents were unsuccessful at resolving the conflict, four of the six ATF Reno agents requested transfers to other offices. The four have moved out of Nevada, one to a supervisor post. Two agents remain, but sources close to the bureau say they arent working cases because they wont be prosecuted. They now report to the ATF in Las Vegas.
Ernesto Diaz, the former supervisor at the ATF bureau in Reno, said he could not comment in detail about what happened, but said he is concerned that without an active ATF office in Reno, there will likely be an increase in violent crime and firearms trafficking in the region.
Northern Nevada has lost a critical law enforcement agency, Diaz said. We regulate the firearms industry. Were the experts.
A spokesman for ATF headquarters in Washington, D.C., said they were referring all calls on the issue to the U.S. Department of Justice. Officials there did not immediately return calls. Natalie Collins, spokeswoman for Nevada U.S. Attorney Dan Bogden and Fahami, also said all media questions must go through the Justice Department.
In her letter to the ATF agents, Fahami cited management concerns, but the U.S. Attorneys Office would not disclose what they involved.
U.S. senator intervenes
After learning of the rift, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of a congressional oversight committee investigating the ATF Fast and Furious operation, sent a letter Monday to Bogden, saying he is concerned about the breakdown in relations and demanding that Bogden gather people involved in the issue for a telephone briefing with the senators office by Sept. 26.
Refusing to even consider cases that might merit prosecution as a way to exert influence over a law enforcement agency appears to be an extremely broad application of your discretion, Grassley wrote.
Grassley also sent a letter to ATF acting director Todd Jones, asking how he has addressed the problems and why they persist.
As a result (of the breakdown), the Reno ATF office has effectively been idled, Grassley wrote. It allegedly has no supervision, no cases and no investigative resources.
Grassley demanded a list of answers, including whether officials at ATF headquarters and the San Francisco field division were aware of the problem and what it cost to transfer the agents out of Reno. He also demanded a copy of all transfer memos submitted by the agents.
The allegations of a breakdown occurring between the ATFs Reno field office and the US Attorneys office are concerning, Grassley said in a statement Wednesday evening to the Gazette-Journal. Crimes may be going unpunished because of personality conflicts or bureaucratic squabbling between prosecutors and ATF. .
In his transfer request, acquired by the Gazette-Journal, Diaz said he first learned about the rift between the two Reno offices when he took over as resident agent in charge in January. He said he met with local and federal officials in the region to see if they were unhappy with the ATF office, and none of those agencies said they had problems with ATF but said they were aware of the issues with the federal prosecutors.
Over the course of the last several months, it has become apparent that (assistant U.S. Attorney) Fahami has intentionally misrepresented numerous issues regarding ATF agents in Reno to numerous law enforcement agencies in Washoe County as well as the District Attorneys Office, Diaz wrote in his transfer request.
These inaccurate, false and slanderous allegations made by ... Fahami have had a devastating effect on ATF agents careers in Reno.
The transfer letter also said the ATF assistant director met with Bogden to try to resolve the issues, but nothing was fixed.
It is apparent that the (U.S. Attorneys Office) in Reno is unwilling to resolve any issues they allegedly have with ATF Reno agents, the letter said.
Helen Dunkel, spokeswoman for the ATF San Francisco field division, which oversees Nevada, would not comment on the problems and would only say, We do continue to have resources in Reno.
Adopted cases
ATF agents work undercover and use confidential informants to infiltrate groups involved in illegal activities involving guns and explosives, according to Vince Cefalu, the ATF agent who was the whistleblower on the Fast and Furious case.
In 2008, Reno ATF agents spent 15 months working undercover in an operation targeting members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club. Operation Domino led to charges against 23 people and the seizure of 75 illegal weapons and six pounds of methamphetamine. Their operations have also gone after Hells Angels members and drug traffickers who run guns between Reno and Mexico.
According to an internal ATF document acquired by the RGJ, federal prosecutors in Reno stopped taking ATF cases after the agents declined to actively work on a task force organized by Fahami that would solely work on adopted cases.
Adopted cases are cases that are generated by local law enforcement and then prosecuted on the federal level, the document said. For example: a felon stopped by a traffic cop and found to have a gun.
Those cases are fast and easy to prosecute, according to the document. But they do not address the flow of illegal weapons by people who are often involved in drug trafficking and other crimes, the document said. They dont get to the violent criminals involved in transporting guns in and out of Reno, the document said.
While Fahami ran the task force, the ATF office was continuing its tradition of working proactive undercover investigations jointly with various local law enforcement agencies targeting violent offenders in the community and those trafficking in firearms and narcotics, the document said.
The ATF agents generated 22 firearms cases in 2011, the document said, but due to the Reno (U.S. Attorneys Office) displeasure with ATF not participating full-time in the adopted task force, cases were outright declined for federal prosecution.
In addition to the letter informing the agents that the prosecutors would not take their cases, Fahami sent the agents a memo stating that the ATF was on probation. The probation document, obtained by the Gazette-Journal, states that the agents must consult with federal prosecutors prior to any proactive investigations.
The document also states that the ATF agents are not allowed to split cases between the U.S. Attorneys Office and the District Attorneys Office and states the agents must get approval from a federal prosecutor before making a probable cause arrest. The agents must date-stamp all reports, it said, and deliver packets to the prosecutor on the case.
Cefalu said federal prosecutors have no authority to make these demands or place another agency on probation.
Such an attempt to control law enforcement functions by federal prosecutors is outrageous, unprecedented and illustrates a total lack of competence and leadership at the highest levels at ATF and the San Francisco field division, he said.
The probation note could be the singular most damning document to a law enforcement agency and public safety I have seen in almost 30 years, said Cefalu, who has worked as an undercover ATF agent for decades.
What makes it more atrocious is that a premier law enforcement agency would tolerate this, he said. U.S. Attorney has no such authority and is delving into officer safety and public safety issues.
Cefalu hosts a website called cleanupatf.org and said in a recent post that ATFs handling of the Reno problems is outrageous.
The Reno field office has been one of the most productive and professional offices in the country, he said. But after ATF management failed to stand up for its agents and resolve the problems, the agents are scattered in the wind and we are now going to pay for office space until the contract runs out in seven years, he said.
The six agents in the Reno office were paid their usual salaries over the past year despite the fact that they could not generate any cases, Cefalu said. The ATF then spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to transfer those agents to positions in other states, he said.
