John Carman US Customs Whistleblower Faced Federal Charges
Illegally Held for 4 years by Feds
Breaking News May 15, 2011
http://www.customscorruption.com
Good Guy John Carman
former Secret Service Agent and U.S. Customs Agent has been illegally held for
nearly four years in Federal
Prison for exposing the George HW Bush Crime Syndicate Illegal Narcotics
Importation
http://www.customscorruption.com
Special Note from Stew Webb: John needs our support get John
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Listen to John Carman
on Radio
FREEDOM
FIGHTERS
FOR AMERICA WORLD RADIO,
INTERVIEW: JOHN CARMAN
EX SECRET SERVICE, WHITE HOUSE,
(FORD-CARTER), US CUSTOMS AGENT, US MINT.
HEAR HIS STORY
5-11-11 2HRS 12 MINS.
http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-27564/TS-488015.mp3
John Carman: U.S.
Customs Whistle-blower....Attorney Letter court notes
Austin Price
Attorney at Law
P. O. Box 1340
Whitley City, Kentucky 42653
Phone: (606) 376-5931
Fax: (606) 376-4401
October 9, 2007
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Congress:
Having worked as an attorney for over sixteen years, I have
tried numerous criminal
cases ranging from minor misdemeanors to capital murder. I have
found that most
police officers, prosecutors and courts truly strive to be
honorable and serve the
public
fairly. However, it appears that the protections that we enjoy are
often denied to
those
who seek to protect us by whistleblowing
on corruption, fraud, waste and abuse in our
federal government. In fact, it appears that one such
whistleblower, John Carman, is
being
wrongfully imprisoned by the very people who are supposed to protect
us.
In September, 2007, I had the opportunity to observe most of
John Carman's criminal
trial in federal court in San Diego, California. I had previously
met John through my
fiancée, Darlene Fitzgerald, who testified at his trial. Darlene
and John had
previously
collaborated to expose corruption in the U.S. Customs Service. As I
observed John's
trial, I was looking for a "smoking gun," some real
piece of evidence that I could
say - I
see why the government would believe he is guilty. But it
simply was not there.
In the mid 1990's, John was an inspector with the U. S. Customs
Service (now under
the Department of Homeland Security) assigned to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, on the
California border with Mexico. John served many years with Customs and, prior to
working for Customs, was a Secret Service Officer. By the mid
1990's, John had
successfully worked for the federal government maintaining a high level
security
clearance
and good standing for over 25 years.
While working at Customs, John says that he began to notice
things that with all his
experience, training and expertise did not add up. John noticed that
there were
things
like "overflight exemptions"
being granted to suspected narcotics smugglers and drug
cartel members which allowed these highly suspect individuals to
enter the U.S.
uninspected
with simply a stroke of a pen from certain Customs' managers.
Further, John
noticed that important leads on suspects connected to notorious
drug cartel members
that
should have be followed up, were being shut down by these very
same managers. John
says that when he began to question his managers' actions, he
was
immediately
retaliated against.
At about the same time frame, Special Agent Darlene
Fitzgerald of the U.S. Customs
Service was running a counter-smuggling operation in
Southern California, involv
1
ing pressurized rail tanker cars that were suspected of
bringing tons of illegal
narcotics
into the U.S. Darlene had been with the Customs Service for just
over ten years and,
prior
to that, was a captain in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps,
for many years - all
in
good standing. Darlene's task force, dubbed "Operation Rite
Rail," had information
that
literally tons of narcotics were being loaded into tanker cars in a
rail yard in
Guadalajara,
Mexico every day, destined for the U.S. Her information
turned out to be accurate
because
her task force seized 8,000 pounds of marijuana and 34 kilos of
pure, uncut cocaine
in just one of these tanker cars.
Subsequently, Darlene seized five more of these tanker cars
from the same front/shell
company in Mexico, manifested as empty, yet, when weighed, were
found to
cumulatively contained 25 to 40 tons of contraband.
Darlene says that certain managers in her chain of command
immediately began to
torpedo her operation and eventually ordered her to stop her
investigation. The hold
that
Darlene had placed on these five tanker cars was then
inexplicably removed, without
Darlene's knowledge or permission, allowing them to enter
the U.S., uninspected by
anyone.
Darlene and her task force realized that if drug cartels
could use railroad tanker
cars
to smuggle drugs into the U.S., terrorists could also use them
for attacks. Timothy
McVeigh blew up the federal Murrah
Building with less than one ton of ammonium
nitrate
in an unsealed cargo truck. Terrorists could put several times
this amount of
ammonium
nitrate in a sealed tanker car and, essentially, create the world's
largest pipe
bomb.
While this seems too hideous to image, surely America has
enemies who welcome
such an opportunity. It is no surprise to me that since Darlene
left Customs, no
railroad
tanker car seizures have been made. I sincerely doubt that the
drug smugglers have
simply
stopped using them.
Darlene and John, and other loyal Customs employees working
with them, were then
placed between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Their
instincts were screaming
that
this was more than just incompetence. Surely, no manager would
perfunctorily
surrender
the acclaim and recognition that would have came with making
what was probably the
largest drug seizure in U.S. history. All of these loyal government
employees had
been
taught throughout their careers that the way to solve grievances
was to use their
chain of
command, and so they did.
Darlene says that the real problem turned out to be the
chain of command. Under the
United States Code, if a government official observes what
he/she feels is a felony,
they
must report this suspected offense, or they too will be guilty
of a felony -
Misprision of
Felony. As is clearly documented, these employees did their duties
and reported these
offenses through their chain of command.
Yet, no investigations were ever conducted. In fact, U.S.
Customs SAC Lori Brown
(the person in charge of Customs
enforcement throughout Los Angeles and into Las
Vegas)
openly condoned the shut down of the
investigation by Customs managers.
What these loyal government employees say happened to them
can best be described
as a horror story that seems more tailored to a Grisham novel.
All of these
agents/officers
had been with the government for many years and had never been
placed under
investigation
by anyone for anything.
Yet, unexpectedly, as soon as they reported what they felt
was major corruption, they
were placed under repeated frivolous internal affairs
investigations and, eventually,
2
IRS
audits. When they locked arms and decided to fight back by going outside
the
agency for help, the agency simply turned up the heat on them.
Darlene and John say
that
they and five other Customs Special Agents and
Inspectors met with FBI Special Agent Rob Meza with the
FBI's Public Corruptions
Office out of San Diego, California. They laid out all of their evidence and even
had a
federal prosecutor, who had witnessed much of this corruption, back
them up. Agent
Meza reportedly agreed to investigate, then did not, even
though millions of your tax
dollars pay for this task force to investigate public corruption.
Again, the heat was turned up even higher on the Customs
employees. They say they
were harassed, investigated, passed over for promotions,
threatened, surveilled by
their
own agency, and ultimately drummed out of the Customs Service,
for doing their jobs.
The details of this travesty of justice are contained in a
recently released book
entitled
"BorderGate, the story the
government doesn't want you to read."
These agents/inspectors attempted to file a class action
lawsuit against Customs for
whistleblower retaliation and EEO violations. The class action was split
into several
different
federal cases. John's case moved forward separately from Darlene and her
coplaintiff's,
Special Agent Sandy Nunn's, case. Darlene's Co-Case Agent,
Special Agent
Ruben Sandoval's case was split away as well. The game plan
of "divide and conquer"
is
a good strategy for the government when they choose willful
blindness as opposed to
seeking out the truth.
During the time frame after these Customs employees left the
agency and their civil
cases were slowly snaking through the federal court system, these
people did not go
quietly into the night. John developed what became a very popular
website for
government
whistleblowers who feared for their jobs if they spoke out against their
managers.
Here they could pass on information anonymously if they
wished, although some
used John's website to publicly blow the whistle on government
corruption, fraud,
waste
and abuse. As you might imagine, this website, entitled
"www.CustomsCorruption.com,"
would not have been well received by those within Customs and the
FBI who were the
object of the allegations. Moreover, these brave Customs employees
in their attempts
to
obtain help, testified before various U.S. Congressional &
Senatorial committees.
They were repeatedly in the media regarding their
allegations of corruption in
Customs
and the failure of Special Agent Meza and the FBI Public
Corruption Office to
investigate
their allegations. Certainly, these activities would not have
been welcomed by
either agency.
Just a few weeks after the initial meeting with Special
Agent Meza, John says he was
arrested by local authorities in Le Mesa, California, reportedly at
the direction of
U.S.
Customs Internal Affairs. The charge was apparently so frivolous that it did not even
make it past arraignment. John was immediately released and
filed another law suit
against Customs. This appears to be the first attempt to shut John
up using the
criminal
courts; it would not be the last.
Ruben Sandoval's civil case was dismissed on a motion for
summary judgment before
it ever went to trial. According to statistics at the
Government Accountability
Project
(GAP), Whistleblowers must first utilize the Federal Merit
Systems Protection Board,
and then file an appeal directly with the Federal Circuit Court
of Appeals. Since
October
1994, One Hundred
Eighty-Three (183) out of One Hundred Eighty-Five (185) cases
were dismissed for decisions on the merits.
3
In February 2005, Darlene and Sandy's federal civil case was
held in the San Diego
Federal Courthouse. This case made history as a landmark case. It was the first
time
that a sitting judge, the Honorable Yvette Palazuelos,
testified against the federal
government
as Darlene and Sandy's witness. During this trial, there was
ample evidence presented
to warrant a grand jury investigation into perjury, witness
tampering, and
facilitation
of the illegal importation of 25 to 40 tons of narcotics – yet
there was none.
After 90% of Darlene and Sandy's case was disallowed into
the trial, the jury, not
surprisingly,
found in favor of Customs. The trial is more fully detailed in
Darlene's book
"BorderGate." Darlene and Sandy report that everyone on their witness
list, including
John, has since been severely harassed, fired, and/or arrested.
Even with the shenanigans, Darlene and John were still
willing to testify before
another
Congressional committee in May, 2007, in support of the much
needed "Whistleblower
Protection Act" for federal
government employees. Just two weeks
before they
had planned to go to Washington, D.C., John was placed under
arrest by the FBI in San
Diego on charges of conspiracy to
kidnap a U.S. citizen in Mexico.
The FBI's case was
based in large part on the testimony and telephone recordings of
a convicted felon
and
illegal alien, Eloy Fernandez.
Eloy's felony conviction stems from his attempted framing of two
Customs' employees
for crimes the FBI maintains they did not commit. Eloy's acknowledged motivation
in framing the Custom's employees was so that the government
would give him U.S.
citizenship
in exchange for his providing information of a crime. After
his felony conviction,
however, the FBI's headquarters reportedly blackballed Eloy from ever again being
used as a confidential informant (CI). When the FBI blackballed Eloy, they noted
that he
was desperate for U.S. citizenship and hoped to use the
government to get that
citizenship
by supplying information. John's attorney, Knut Hohnson, says that by this time, Eloy
had already received over $300,000 from the government for information
in other cases.
He never paid any taxes on this money, and the government
never filed any forms
with the IRS notifying them that Eloy
had earned this money.
Agent Lombardi was admittedly aware that Eloy
was expecting either U.S. citizenship
or a green card for his work in trying to get incriminating
statements from John.
Apparently, Eloy's only duty for
such a coveted status was to talk with John three
times,
while Agent Lombardi recorded the telephone conversations. These
recordings were
used by Agent Lombardi to indict John.
Later at John's trial, it was apparent that John was unaware
of Eloy's past.
Testimony
from numerous federal agents revealed that John had taken Eloy to various agencies
and
introduced him as a possible contact for them in Mexico. Apparently,
due to
confidentiality,
these agents were not allowed to tell John of Eloy's
past or that he had been
blackballed
by the FBI.
When John left Customs earlier, he had become a private
investigator in San Diego.
One of his clients was George Lane. Lane had hired John for
a surveillance job of his
ex-girlfriend Christie (last name intentionally omitted to preserve her
privacy).
Unknown
to John or Christie, Lane, reportedly, was a consummate
womanizer who had become
quite skillful at conning women. He was reputed to have been
notorious for spinning
yarns that he was either a CIA agent or NSA agent, of which he
was, apparently,
neither.
This information was confirmed, and
uncontested during John's trial, not only by
4
Christie, but by Eloy
and the government as well.
Further, Darlene through her own
investigation of Lane in Maysville, Kentucky, further developed this
fact.
The recordings and e-mails clearly showed that Lane had
convinced John that
Christie was heavily using methamphetamine in Mexico, while
in the presence of her
two young sons. They also revealed that John was under the
belief that he could have
Eloy arrange for the Mexican Police (Mex. Feds) to detain,
search, and arrest
Christie if
she were found to have drugs in her possession. Further they
revealed that John
believed
that because of his tip, the Mex Feds
would pay him a portion of any future bond that
Christie would have to post. While this sounds a bit seedy,
it certainly does not
rise to the
level of kidnapping; and it is tempered by fact that John
believed he would be
protecting
the children from a methamphetamine addict.
It was discovered several months prior to John's trial that
the FBI knew where Lane
was located but, inexplicably, had never arrested him. Asked by
John's attorney to
locate
and interview Lane, in July 2007, Darlene traveled to
Maysville, Kentucky where Lane
was reportedly residing. She discovered after interviewing
several residents of
Maysville,
including members of the local police and sheriffs' departments, that
FBI Agent
Lombardi had interviewed Lane two months prior to her
arrival. In fact, FBI Agent
Lombardi himself had traveled to Maysville along with a polygrapher and had not only
interviewed Lane but had polygraphed him and
executed a search warrant on his
residence,
seizing two lap top computers. The prosecution released the
information that
Agent Lombardi had obtained only after George Lane was
arrested, even though John's
attorney had requested it weeks prior.
Bear in mind that Agent Lombardi and the prosecution had
argued the dangerous nature
of the charges against John and his ability to abscond as
justification to keep him
imprisoned. Certainly, the same would have been true for Lane; after
all, Lane, who
was
an alleged co-conspirator, had obviously already departed
California. If the
prosecution
and Agent Lombardi truly believed this, then why was Lane not
arrested in Kentucky
when there was a clear opportunity to do so? Perhaps, it was
because they did not
want
Lane present during John's trial. Certainly, it would have
seemed unlikely that Lane
would have ever been discovered in Maysville, Kentucky by John's
attorney who, after
all, was in California. It should be noted, that only after
Darlene discovered this
critical
information was Lane eventually arrested.
John's attorney claims that immediately after John's
criminal trial, Lane was
released
on bond, even though John had been held without bond
throughout his ordeal. Could it
have been that since Darlene had discovered his whereabouts,
Lane was being sent a
not
too subtle message discouraging him from cooperating with
John's attorney?
Before John's trial began, his attorney repeatedly asked
through motions to the court
for all discoverable evidence held by the government. On the
Thursday before John's
trial was to begin (Sept. 19th), the prosecutor in step with
Agent Lombardi relayed
to the
court and John's attorney that despite all of their best efforts,
they could not
locate Eloy.
However, they still wanted to use the recorded telephone
conversations between Eloy
and John as evidence. Now, at almost that same instance that
this was occurring, Eloy
was telephoning Darlene in an attempt to contact journalist
Bill Conroy. Bill is the
reporter
who broke the "BorderGate"
story in which John, Darlene and others had uncovered.
Incidentally, Bill relates that he and his family were also
severely harassed and
intimidated
by U.S. Customs after he had printed his articles. Bill had continued
to fol
5
low this story, however, and had recently published a story on
John's case, which is
how
Eloy got his name.
When Eloy spoke to Darlene he told
her that he needed to get in touch with Bill in
order
to, "Tell his side of the story." This begs the
question, "Why does the FBI's witness
need to talk to the media to tell his story?"
Darlene passed the information on to Bill, and Eloy was later interviewed that same
day. Eloy reportedly told Bill that
the FBI had lied to him and setup John. He also
said
that he had been trying to get with Agent Lombardi and the
prosecutor, but they would
not return his calls. Keep in mind that this interview was
happening the very day
that the
prosecutor was informing the court that Eloy
could not be found. Apparently, only
after
the court refused to allow the government to play for the jury Eloy's voice
recordings
from the telephone conversations did the prosecutor and Agent
Lombardi feel the need
to
return Eloy's telephone calls. When it
became clear that the court was going to
enforced
John's Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses
against him, Eloy then
miraculously
appeared just in time to testify for the government.
The evidence presented by the prosecution during John's
trial was essentially Eloy's
three recorded telephone conversations with John and various
e-mails. Nowhere in any
of these recorded conversations or e-mails does John ever
discuss a kidnapping. The
only
mention of kidnapping came from Eloy in
one of the e-mails, but nothing in the
recorded
telephone conversations. Eloy said to John,
"What ever happened to that woman we
were going to kidnap, ha, ha, just kidding." John responded
to this statement with
confusion
as to what Eloy had written.
The prosecution never addressed the obvious questions of why
Eloy said he was just
kidding and why Eloy had not been
encouraged to send e-mails to John soliciting
details
of the alleged kidnapping. After all, Eloy
was certainly hoping to curry favor with
the
FBI in hopes of getting U.S.
citizenship. Likewise, it is important to note
that
Agent
Lombardi was present during all three recorded telephone
conversations, yet he never
explained why he did not insist upon Eloy
asking John specific questions about
the alleged plot. The obvious reason would appear to be that if
Eloy had forthrightly
discussed such a kidnapping plot, and there was none, then John would
have
immediately
began to question Eloy as to what he
was talking about.
Throughout the tape recorded conversations and e-mails, John
repeatedly speaks of
having Christie arrested and of bond money - not kidnapping.
Further, nowhere in any
of the evidence was there any statements by John or even Eloy of a planned
kidnapping.
Presumably, the whole idea for Agent Lombardi's working with
Eloy was to have him
entice John into discussing a kidnapping plot.
Yet, even with Eloy talking with
John three separate times and exchanging numerous
e-mails, there are no conversations of how, when or where they would
grab Christie;
what
would be used to secure her, i.e., rope, zip ties or handcuffs;
whose car would be
used,
rental or personal vehicle; what time and date would it occur;
where would it occur,
city
or country side; while she was alone or with someone; where
she would be taken; would
she be held at a motel/ hotel or private residence; who would
be watching her while
waiting
for the ransom; would they take shifts and how long would the
shifts be (12 hours/
one day, one week, etc.); who would write a ransom note; how
would it be written(e.g.
typed, hand written, news clippings, etc); if typed, whose
computer; who would
deliver
the ransom note; what would it say; how long would they wait;
who would pay the ran
6
som; how would contact be made; amount of ransom; method of
delivery and pick up of
the ransom. The lack of these details, or the thousands of
other details that would
have
arisen had there been a kidnapping plot, were never addressed by
the prosecution.
Could
it be that they do not exist? Moreover, when Eloy took the stand, he was given ample
opportunity to describe the details of a kidnapping plot had he and
John ever
actually discussed
such a thing.
Surely, had he and John ever had such conversations,
recorded or not, Eloy could
have easily lured John into discussing them during the recorded
telephone
conversations,
yet they were not even alluded to.
In order to understand why the expenditure of $300,000 for Eloy may seem contrary
to government policy, it is necessary to review the apparent
corruption that Darlene
had
blown the whistle on when she worked for Customs.
As stated above, in 1998, Darlene and her task force seized
8,000 pounds of marijuana
and 34 kilos of pure, uncut cocaine from a single railroad
tanker car. They then
seized five more tanker cars containing 25 to 40 tons of
contraband and had them
parked
in a rail yard awaiting approval to be opened. Her manager
Assistant Special Agent in
Charge (ASAIC) Gary Pinkava
refused to allow her to inspect the tanker cars and
ordered
her not to complete her investigation. Later, he gave numerous
reasons for not
allowing
the inspection of the tanker cars, which initially included him
stating at a
deposition that
he did not even remember the tanker cars. After several other
witnesses testified
that
Pinkava had in fact been specifically told about the tanker cars
and after he was
reminded
of the fact that this would have been difficult to forget
since it would have been
potentially
the largest drug seizure in U.S. history, his memory
surprisingly improved. His
second excuse was that he had told Darlene's immediate supervisor,
Robert Mattivi, to
inspect the tanker cars.
When this assertion was refuted by Mattivi,
Pinkava then said that it would have cost
too much to open the tanker cars. Incidentally, this was also
argued by the
government
in Darlene's civil trial as justification for thwarting her
investigation. (Case
styled as
Darlene Fitzgerald -Sandy Nunn Vs.
Department of Homeland Security, civil docket in
San Diego Federal Court; (a complete transcript of ASAIC Pinkava's testimony may be
read at www.BorderGate.net)). It was presented in court that the
cost to safely open
and
inspect one of these tanker cars would have been approximately
$8,000.
Now, when you compare the refusal by certain officials
within our government to the
spending of even a relatively small amount of money to generate the
country's largest
drug seizure with the amount they are willing to spend on a
witnesses such as Eloy,
it
paints a disturbing picture. This is even more disturbing when you
read ASAIC
Pinkava's
trial testimony from the Fitzgerald/Nunn civil case wherein he
admitted, without
equivocation,
that he would not even allow Darlene and Robert Mattivi to pressure test
the tanker cars for free. Darlene says that she had arranged to
have the tanker cars
pressure
tested at no cost to the government, and yet ASAIC Pinkava still ordered her not to
do her job. No investigation has ever been conducted into why
a high level Customs
manager would actively thwart such an investigation.
In his criminal trial, John,
unfortunately, got assaulted by a perfect storm. First,
he
was against young prosecutors who appeared more than eager to
impress their superiors
by obtaining a conviction on John - the man who had
embarrassed some by maintaining a
website exposing corruption within the federal government. A more
seasoned prosecutor
7
surely would have insisted upon Agent Lombardi having Eloy to get John to discuss
details
of the alleged kidnapping plot, or seek a wire tap on John's
telephone. Certainly,
appropriate
safeguards could have been initiated to protect Christie while the
investigation
was properly conducted. And, clearly, the government has not
been concerned with s
pending too much tax payer money on certain investigations.
Second, the criminal case against John was being managed by
an FBI agent whose
own agency had been specifically singled out by John for its
refusal to investigate
public
corruption. Third, John's jury consisted of jurors who had only been
superficially
questioned
by the court using cursory questions. John's attorney was not
permitted to ask any
questions of the jury, and the court did not ask any probing
questions that might
have uncovered
biases against John.
Clearly, the prosecution team showed no intentions of
prosecuting John fairly. As
stated above, Agent Lombardi and the prosecution did not divulge
evidence
voluntarily,
timely, or sufficiently. During the presentation of the case, they
introduced the
three recorded
statements and various e-mails covering a plethora of topics and
investigations
that John was discussing with various people.
Then, during his closing argument, the prosecutor
incessantly took excerpts from
those documents and pieced them together, often out of context. A
clear example of
this
was when the prosecutor took just one sentence from an e-mail
in which John was
discussing
a hotel in Mexico. The prosecutor presented this as one of
his "Ah-hah!" moments,
telling the jury that this proved that this was the location where
John and Eloy
were going to take Christie. What the prosecution did not reveal
to the jury was
that the
e-mail had been sent two years prior to this alleged conspiracy.
John's attorney attempted to rectify this misstatement of
fact, and displayed the
date
to the jury, but the wound had already been inflicted. Even
though this piece of
evidence
was clearly refuted by John's attorney, the prosecutor
continued to present
statements out
of context, even when they clearly referred to entirely
different matters.
Another example of this came when the prosecutor took a
statement in which John
was talking of a reward on another case he had been working on.
At no time during
this
conversation was Christie referenced. In fact, John spoke of the other
case he had
been
working on. John's attorney even had another investigator testify
that he and John
were, in fact, talking about a reward for a case he had given
John. Yet the
prosecutor
continued to present this statement out of context repeatedly and
referred to it as
"ransom" for Christie.
Objections were raised, arguments were made; the court
instructed
the jury; but the damage was apparently too great to overcome.
The prosecutor then got to present his closing argument to
the jury, twice. In
federal
court, the prosecution is allowed to present, essentially, two
closing arguments.
John's
attorney was permitted only one closing argument, smothered between
the prosecution's
two arguments.
On September 26th, John was found guilty, much to the shock
and dismay of those
who had observed the trial and were aware of the whistleblower
retaliation. The
message
sent by those in power in San Diego appears to be that whistleblowing on waste,
fraud,
abuse and corruption will not be tolerated.
It is also important to note that in May of this year as
John remained incarcerated,
Darlene Fitzgerald did in fact go to Washington, D.C. and
testified in support of the
"Whistleblower Protection Act" also known as the
"Akaka Bill" after Senator Akaka
8
who helped author it.
It was officially read into the record that over 700 federal
government employees
wanted to appear and testify at this hearing. This clearly shows
just how pervasive
and
systemic whistleblower retaliation has become. As I am writing this
letter, this much
needed piece of legislation sits idle at the Senate.
Since I first began practicing law, I have never truly felt
that I knew, without a
doubt,
that an innocent man had been convicted of a crime he had not
committed. John's case
changes that. On behalf of John and all brave whistleblowers, I
beseech you to
appoint a
special prosecutor and initiate a formal investigation into these
cases. If you
passively
allow whistleblowers, such as John Carman and Darlene Fitzgerald,
to be silenced,
then
no one can be expected to have the courage to report
corruption, fraud, waste and
abuse
within our government.
Our beloved country can scarcely afford to be without the eyes
and ears of whistle-
blowers at a time when so many of our enemies, both foreign and
domestic, seek to do
us
harm.
Sincerely yours,
Austin Price, Esquire
CC:
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Senator Harry Reid
The Government Accountability Project (GAP)
The Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
Senator Daniel Akaka
Congressman Dana Roherbacher
Senator Charles (Chuck) Grassley
9