Cheating Down on the Border
A kickback scheme among federal agents in Arizona results in some charges--and plenty of questions
Larry Davenport never thought he had an easy job. For 14 years as an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, he tracked down illegal immigrants and drug smugglers in the deserts of Texas and Arizona and spent many a lonely night at checkpoint trailers along the Mexican border. But in late 2000, soon after he was detailed to the Border Patrol station in Douglas, Ariz., Davenport quickly learned how tough his job could be. He was denied a promotion, he says, and became persona non grata among the station's senior managers.
His crime? Davenport says he became a marked man after he and another agent, Willie Forester, disclosed to Justice Department criminal investigators that some Border Patrol agents temporarily assigned to the Douglas station had accepted kickbacks from supervisors who rented rooms to them and from hotels anxious to get their business. Their charges ultimately led to several investigations and the disciplining of 23 Border Patrol agents and three low-level supervisors. Border Patrol records show that at [least] 19 other agents were involved in the scheme but were not disciplined. Two agents indicted in the case are awaiting trial in Arizona. A federal investigation of similar charges, at a Border Patrol facility in Charleston, S.C., led to disciplinary action against nine agents.
Coverup? For Davenport and Forester, however, the story doesn't end there. Both men continued to press their allegations with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the government agency in Washington that protects whistle-blowers against reprisals. In papers filed with that office, the two men alleged that David Aguilar--now the head of the Border Patrol in Washington, directing the enforcement efforts of 11,000 agents nationwide--and senior managers in Douglas were aware of the kickback scheme but did nothing to stop it. At the time, Aguilar was the chief patrol agent in Tucson. The whistle-blowers also charged that the Department of Homeland Security, which investigated their allegations, failed to pursue other charges against Border Patrol managers who, they say, participated in the scheme.
Now, the Office of Special Counsel, after reviewing the case for more than two years, has rendered its verdict, one that is sharply critical of both the Border Patrol and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security. In a letter and analysis of the case that he sent to President Bush late last week, Special Counsel Scott Bloch said that the agency "failed to thoroughly investigate the whistle-blowers' allegations" against senior Border Patrol officials. He concluded: "It is simply not credible that 45 employees at a single Border Patrol station could engage in a pattern of conduct sufficiently egregious to warrant severe discipline without the knowledge of management." In a separate statement to U.S. News, Bloch said that there was "a real risk of creating the appearance of a whitewash." Bloch did not specifically address questions about Aguilar, but included in the material he sent to the president are the allegations made against Aguilar and some of his close associates.
Denials. Through a spokesman, Aguilar strongly denied the allegations that he knew of the kickback scheme and did nothing about it. Aguilar, the spokesman said, did not engage in any effort to cover up the matter. In a signed statement he gave to federal investigators last year while he was still running the Tucson region, Aguilar recounted how he first learned of the allegations from senior managers at the Douglas station. But, he said, he could "not recall the exact date that [the] allegations . . . were first brought to my attention."
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