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Mar20
Scandal puts focus on how CIA polices itself
Filed under: Obama, Politics, U.S.; Tagged as: barack obama, breaking news, central intelligence agency, cia, congress, government, Politics, president barack obama, prostitute, sex, terrorist, washington, whitehouseAllegations of officers’ sex misdeeds leads to scrutiny from Congress 
WASHINGTON – As a novice CIA case officer in the Middle East, Andrew Warren quickly learned the value of sex in recruiting spies. Colleagues say that he made an early habit of taking informants to strip clubs, and that he later began arranging out-of-town visits to brothels for his best recruits. Often Warren would travel with them, according to two colleagues who worked with him for years.
His methods earned him promotions and notoriety over a lengthy career, until Warren, 41, became ensnared in a sex scandal. Two Algerian women have accused the Virginia native of drugging and sexually assaulting them, and, in one instance, videotaping the encounter.
Six weeks after the allegations came to light, Warren has been formally notified by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta of his impending dismissal, according to U.S. government officials familiar with the case. But the episode — one of three sex-related scandals to shake the CIA this year — has drawn harsh questions from Congress about whether the agency adequately polices its far-flung workforce or takes sufficient steps to root out corrupt behavior.
‘An organization of professional liars’
The CIA says that these problems involve a tiny fraction of its workforce, and that those found to have breached rules are punished or fired. But former officers say the cases underscore a perennial challenge: guarding against scandal in a workforce — the size of which is classified but is generally estimated to be 20,000 — that prides itself on secrecy and deception.“You have an organization of professional liars,” said Tyler Drumheller, who oversaw hundreds of officers as chief of the agency’s European division. Experienced field managers are needed, he said, because inevitably “some people will try to take advantage of the system . . . and it’s a system that can be taken advantage of.”
The allegations against Warren drew an angry blast from the Senate panel that oversees the CIA. “The alleged activities are completely unacceptable,” committee leaders Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said in a joint statement last month. Feinstein also criticized the CIA for what she said was not promptly informing Congress about the case, given its potential to damage U.S. relations with Algeria.
Repeated attempts in recent weeks to contact Warren through relatives were unsuccessful.
Misuses of money
The recent string of embarrassing revelations started with the CIA’s former No. 3 officer, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, who was indicted on corruption charges two years ago. Court documents released in recent weeks depict Foggo as bullying the office of the agency’s general counsel into giving a job to his mistress, whose subsequent performance reviews were subpar.Last month, agency officials confirmed the firing of Steve Levan, a 16-year veteran who pleaded guilty to misusing CIA credit cards. Levan, an analyst, worked at the agency’s headquarters for the No. 2 official, Stephen R. Kappes. As part of his plea agreement, Levan acknowledged obtaining credit card numbers assigned to undercover operatives and using them to run up bills surpassing $115,000. Much of the money was spent on hotel rooms and gifts for a mistress, according to two agency officials familiar with the case. He is awaiting sentencing this spring.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Levan’s attorney, declined to comment on the case. In a pre-sentencing motion filed last week, Nachmanoff said the judge should consider his client’s strong record of service for the CIA — a record the agency had declined to release, he said.
Rapid ascent halted
But the most damaging revelations involved Warren, an Arabic speaker and Middle East specialist who was on a rapid ascent after CIA postings in Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and Algeria. He most recently served as Algiers station chief. But the State Department ordered him home in October after two Algerian nationals alleged that he assaulted them in separate incidents at his apartment.The women told State Department investigators that Warren assaulted them after giving them drug-laced drinks that made them pass out. State referred the matter to the Justice Department, where an investigation is ongoing. Warren has not been charged.
While looking into the allegations, U.S. officials discovered in Warren’s apartment more than two dozen video recordings that he apparently made of his sexual encounters, according to news accounts and two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation. One of the women behind the rape allegations appears in one of the videos, the officials said.
Current and former agency officials say that Warren and Levan were considered competent professionals with stellar work records, qualities that perhaps explain why their alleged misdeeds would have gone undetected.
“The fact of the matter is that the thousands of people who work at CIA are exceptionally dedicated, and cases of impropriety are extremely rare,” agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said. When there are such cases, he said, the CIA “looks into the allegations, follows up on them and cooperates fully with law enforcement authorities.”
Warning signs?
Several colleagues of Warren’s, though, spoke of warning signs that might have alerted the CIA sooner. Some who worked with him over several years said they were particularly concerned about the frequency of Warren’s use of strip clubs and other sex-related establishments for recruiting. The former officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agency does not allow them to discuss their CIA work publicly, said they were not surprised by the assault allegations.As CIA case officers attempt to recruit a foreign spy, they often offer personal inducements, ranging from cash to medical care. In some cases, a potential recruit may be taken to a strip club or even to a prostitute if it is deemed critical to cementing the relationship, longtime officers say. But for Warren, “it was a lifestyle thing,” costing the agency thousands of dollars, said one former co-worker who describes himself as a friend. The bills were routinely paid, he said.
“As long as you were doing good work, it was okay,” he said.
Mostly a ‘self-regulating system’
A. John Radsan, a former CIA assistant general counsel, said there are internal guidelines and structures — including the CIA inspector general’s office and a separate review board that oversees clandestine operations — that are intended to guard against scandal. In reality, he said, it is a self-regulating system with few incentives for reporting bad behavior.“You want a culture that values innovation and creativity and doesn’t mind violating the laws of other countries, but at the same time, you want a culture of compliance and honesty,” Radsan said. “It is a built-in contradiction.”
The agency’s internal management practices were also called into question last month during court proceedings for Foggo, who served as the top CIA administrator from November 2004 to May 2006.
A lengthy prosecution memo, made public over the objections of Foggo’s attorneys, listed a series of ethical alarms that did not prevent his reaching the agency’s highest ranks. Two personnel reports in 1989, for example, noted that Foggo “takes a very liberal and self-serving position regarding the interpretation of Agency rules and regulations” and warned that “he is likely to remain a potential threat to security through his poor judgment.”
In a court filing last month, Foggo’s attorneys said that their client has “committed his life to public service” and that his dedication and skills justified his promotions. They declined to comment further yesterday.
“Foggo was never a truly honest public servant” during his 24 years in the CIA, three prosecutors wrote in their memo to a federal judge in Alexandria shortly before Foggo was sentenced to 37 months in prison for corrupting the agency’s contracts. “He spent years defrauding the country.”
When Foggo manipulated agency contracts in 2003 and 2005, his colleagues and subordinates did not act on their suspicions of wrongdoing, the prosecutors said. Instead, they demonstrated a persistent reluctance to challenge authority that seems at odds with the climate of dissent and debate that the agency says it encourages.
After a former colleague of Foggo’s who had become his mistress was turned down for a job in the general counsel’s office, Foggo, who was the CIA’s executive director, called an associate general counsel into his office and “grew increasingly loud in tone and condescending,” according to a memo the counsel placed in her files. “[S]peaking in the third person, [Foggo] said, among other things, that when the EXDIR has an interest in a candidate for employment that I had better respect the EXDIR’s interest.”
The mistress was subsequently hired after an accelerated security check, because her paperwork was tagged “ExDir interest.” When her failure to perform required duties provoked her supervisor’s complaints, Foggo arranged for the supervisor — a 20-year veteran who had won many performance awards — to be ousted and moved to the Defense Department. The supervisor alleged in a court affidavit that her ouster was retaliatory.
No CommentsFeb18Georgia’s Rules That Keep Some Convicted Felons Far From Children Create Challenges for Compliance, Enforcement
CEDARTOWN, Ga. — After two years of fitful searching, Christopher Noles and his family finally found a modest three-bedroom house in rural Georgia. The bedrooms are cramped, the kitchen plumbing leaky. There isn’t a neighbor in sight.But the lonely old house is a last refuge. Mr. Noles is one of nearly 16,000 sex offenders convicted in Georgia who, under state law, can’t live or work within 1,000 feet of a church, school, day-care center, skating rink, park, swimming pool or any other place where children gather. Failing to register an address could mean 30 extra years in prison for a convicted sex offender.
The crime that placed Mr. Noles, now 31 years old, in Georgia’s database of sex offenders was having sex in August 1996 with his girlfriend. He was then 17, while she was 14. Both said the sex was consensual, and they later wed. But state law at the time said it was statutory rape for either an adult or a minor to have sex with someone under the age of 16. After the girl became pregnant, a family member reported the liaison to police. Mr. Noles pleaded guilty and spent three months at a prison boot camp.
He thought he paid his debt to society. But under a 2006 Georgia law, Mr. Noles and nearly every person convicted of any of dozens of crimes considered sex offenses must be listed on a publicly available database. They must keep police notified of their address at all times and can never reside or work near any banned area.
An additional requirement prohibits any convicted sex offender from volunteering at church. Mr. Noles says he skips all church activities — including a play in which his 11-year-old daughter performed at Pleasant Valley South Baptist Church in Silver Creek, Ga. “I’d rather be able to tuck my kids into bed every night than to have to dream about them from prison,” he says.
Laws cracking down on sex offenders enjoy broad public support across the U.S. All states require offenders to report to law enforcement, but Georgia’s statute is considered to be among the toughest such laws in the U.S. for its living restrictions and sentences. The law has set off messy conflicts between politicians and others who argue sexual criminals should be aggressively tracked and isolated and those who say lawbreakers — especially juveniles and nonviolent offenders — deserve a second chance.
Among the most vocal critics of the laws are police. Some sheriffs say the crackdown on sex offenders forces them to divert substantial resources from investigating active criminals to monitoring and tracking offenders who aren’t threatening. Enforcing the additional restrictions from the 2006 law cost sheriffs’ offices about $5 million in 2007, says the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association.
Some states also object to a recent federal law requiring states to impose strict standards for registering sex offenders, arguing it’s too costly and no more effective than their own state laws.
“Oh, my God, it’s overwhelming,” says Capt. Ronald Applin, who works in the Fulton County sheriff’s warrant-service division that tracks down anyone deemed too close to children for comfort. Monitoring more than 1,500 sex offenders in the state’s most-populous county requires four deputies full time, he says.
It’s not clear whether the laws have had any effect on the frequency of sexual offenses in Georgia. Only 90 of the 15,800 people listed as sex offenders are classified by law-enforcement officials as dangerous “predators,” which the state defines as someone who is at risk of perpetrating a future sexual offense. The number of rapes in the state increased slightly between 2006 and 2007, but the laws haven’t been in effect long enough to establish clear statistical patterns, experts say.
Law-enforcement officials say the law has forced many sex offenders to move. According to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of records compiled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, more than 8,400 of the sex offenders on the registry, or 68%, moved between June 2006 and November 2008 — far higher than in previous periods. More than a hundred left the state entirely.
Still hanging over those listed on the Georgia registry is a provision approved as part of the 2006 law forbidding them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. But enforcement of that requirement was stayed by a federal judge in response to a lawsuit filed by several sex offenders. If the measure ultimately goes into effect, the vast majority of Georgia would be legally uninhabitable to anyone on the registry, according to sheriffs across the state.
Defenders say residency restrictions are one of the few ways society can protect itself from repeat sex offenders. “Nothing is going to be 100% effective unless every single offender goes to jail,” says Monica Lukisavage, a day-care operator in Stevens Point, Wis., whose daughter was abducted at age 13 by a neighbor in 1995, held in captivity for three months and repeatedly raped and beaten. “But these restrictions are a step in the right direction.”
Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law and The Crime Victims Center, based in New York, says employment and residency restrictions are necessary, because therapists and treatment organizations can’t guarantee a sex offender won’t re-offend. “Residency restrictions can give the community more security and safety when they know offenders are being monitored,” she says.
More than 30 states, including California, Michigan and Ohio, already ban sex offenders from residing in certain areas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Several states have also dramatically tightened their registry requirements.
Georgia first imposed residency restrictions in 2003, banning sex offenders from living near schools, day-care centers and parks. But the issue only exploded onto the public radar in February 2005, when 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped from her family’s home in Homosassa, Fla. The girl was raped and killed by being buried alive just 150 yards from her home.Stirred by the Lunsford case, Georgia State Rep. Jerry Keen introduced sweeping revisions to strengthen the Georgia registry law. The changes banned offenders from working near those locations and added churches, swimming pools and school bus stops.
But soon there were signs that the newly strengthened law might have gone even further than intended. Law-enforcement officials were required to order hundreds of people to move. The requirements make no distinction between the most heinous sex offenders — such as child rapists — and those who had consensual sex with an underage girlfriend. More than 800 of those on the Georgia list committed their offenses before they turned 19 years old, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Since then, exceptions have been added to Georgia’s statutory-rape laws reducing the charges against minors having sex.
Generally, offender names are on the list for life or can’t be removed until at least 10 years after probation. It’s unclear how many of the nearly 16,000 offenders tried to have their names removed since the law went into effect, but the petitioning process is difficult. Between 2006 and 2008, 70 records were deleted from the registry based on court orders, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. In 2007, Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled that the new 1,000-foot restrictions violated property rights. But state lawmakers circumvented the court’s decision by allowing offenders who had long owned their property to remain in their homes.
Former Polk County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Mike Sullivan says the proximity-based employment and residential restrictions create a false sense of public safety. None of the 78 offenders he was tracking before he retired committed their crimes on victims they lived or worked near, he says. Instead, he worries that the residency laws destabilize past offenders by forcing them to move or lose their jobs and that pushing sex offenders to cluster together in the few livable areas of the state could ultimately encourage illegal behavior.
At the time the 2006 law took effect, Mr. Noles, then a truck driver, was busy dropping off loads at Davenport Lumber Company in Rockmart, Ga. After getting divorced from his first wife of seven years, he was raising his newborn son with his second wife, Rita. The sheriff told him to stop delivering to the lumber company because its grounds bordered a church. It made no difference that Mr. Noles didn’t work on Sundays, rarely was at the lumber yard and had letters from his boss begging a probation officer to let him stay, citing a clean, two-year work history. For the last two years, he has been unemployed the majority of the time, scraping by as a freelance construction worker.
“I’ll do any job I can, but the law is forcing me out of the county,” he says. “And there just aren’t that many job opportunities out here.”
It took two years of scavenging real-estate ads and dozens of nights in motel rooms for the Noles family finally to locate and rent a home that didn’t violate the sex-offender statute. Mrs. Noles says she is tired of repeatedly uprooting her life to comply with the law. Now, with many acres of wide pastures surrounding the new home, she is hopeful. “This time, it’s for real,” she says. “We’re staying.”
No CommentsFeb3‘American Idol’ heads to Hollywood
Filed under: Entertainment; Tagged as: america, american idol, barry manilow, bikini, girls, hollywood, Money, nude, sexNo CommentsBikini Girl still divides the judges; Norman Gentle keeps up the schtick
The first of “Idol’s” Hollywood episodes this season focused on the first two days at the Kodak Theatre, where the field of contestants was cut from 147 to 104. Most of the hour was spent on those who made it through to Wednesday’s group sing. The meek who accepted their fate quietly did not inherit much of “Idol’s” precious airtime.I know what boys like: Katrina Darrell, a.k.a. “Bikini Girl,” made her return to the stage and got the expected hostile reception from Kara DioGuardi. This time, at least the judge began a bit more subtly, saying that she started off liking Darrell’s version of “Breathe,” before subsequently hating it. Simon Cowell made a claw motion and noises to indicate that she was being catty, and Kara didn’t make Simon’s actions unreasonable when she muttered “Bring your pole tomorrow” after Darrell advanced.
Get the message: Dennis Brigham made it out of the Kansas City auditions, but was a unanimous call to get sent home the first day in Hollywood. But Brigham bristled when Simon said that nobody would take him seriously, and let the judges have it as he walked off. “What kind of message are you sending to America?” he asked. Maybe that the show’s only looking for people who can sing?
You’re the inspiration?: For the first time ever, “Idol” gave all of its contestants an “Idol Boot Camp” complete with stylists and voice coaches. And a guest mentor — Barry Manilow. Seriously? If Barry Manilow is supposed to be the inspiration for this group of singers, the music people shouldn’t complain when they get cloyish and sappy performances. No musician who’s been on the pop charts in the modern era could make themselves available?
Bursting with desire: Every one of the 147 singers who made it to Hollywood wanted to win, but some were more expressive about letting the judges know it. New York’s Nathaniel Marshall was equally effusive and panicky, letting the judges know “I want this more than anything. It’s on my skin. It bursts out of me every time I’m onstage. I don’t know why.” He made it to the next round, since the Kodak Theatre isn’t insured for whatever would burst out of Marshall if he got rejected.
When ‘No’ means ‘Yes’: Erica Wesley was the lone person in her group of eight to get sent home, but she didn’t go quietly, pleading with the judges for another chance. Paula Abdul said that she liked Erica, but was outvoted. Simon pointed out that she had written “No” on her sheet, and Paula tried to explain that she started to write yes and then wrote something different because of a long and rambling explanation that made Simon sorry he brought it up.
Surviving a bad spell: Emily Wynne-Hughes rehearsed “I Put a Spell on You,” but the rocker who torpedoed her band’s European tour dreams to jump on the “Idol” bandwagon got nervous and changed to “Excuse Me Mister” by No Doubt instead. She advanced, but the judges slammed her for the change, and she learned a valuable lesson: if you’re going to change up at the last minute, at least pick one of Gwen Stefani’s better songs.
Do not go ‘Gentle’: Nick Mitchell was a huge favorite of the Hollywood audience, probably because he performed as the “Norman Gentle” character that he auditioned with. That’s a moderately entertaining act, but one that has no chance of winning. But he made it to the next day despite Simon’s criticism, and once again promised the cameras that he would retire the “Gentle” character. We’ll see.