Want to commit non-violent crimes and not get prosecuted? According to an AP piece on Yahoo, it’s not as hard as you might think:
Dan L’Allier said he witnessed 45 tons of the New York loot being unloaded in Minnesota at his company’s headquarters. He and disaster specialist Chris Christopherson complained to a company executive, but were ordered to keep quiet. They persisted, going instead to the FBI.
The two whistleblowers eventually lost their jobs, received death threats and were blackballed in the disaster relief industry. But they remained convinced their sacrifice was worth seeing justice done.
They were wrong.
The key to escaping justice is apparently to commit the same kind of crime as a bunch of FBI agents and top federal employees:
A March 2002 entry in the FBI‘s “prosecutive status” report states the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota intended “to prosecute individuals who were alleged to be involved in the transportation of stolen goods from New York City after the terrorist attack.” A followup entry from Sept. 6, 2002 lists the specific evidence supporting such a charge.
The lead investigators for the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency told AP that the plan to prosecute KEI for those thefts stopped as soon as it became clear in late summer 2002 that an FBI agent in Minnesota had stolen a crystal globe from ground zero.
That prompted a broader review that ultimately found 16 government employees, including a top FBI executive and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, had such artifacts from New York or the Pentagon.
“How could you secure an indictment?” FEMA investigator Kirk Beauchamp asked. “It would be a conflict.”
(As an aside, is anyone else worried that FEMA has investigators? Do you think they carry guns? I mean, FEMA employees with guns? Is that safe?)
It’s a strange story with a lot of weird angles, including the sort of fumbling ass-covering that we’ve all come to expect whenever FEMA is involved.
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