FBI files sold to mob figures: Las Vegas analyst is charged with stealing secrets

[William Knowles <wk () c4i org>]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2001/jun/19/511975065.html

By Jeff German 
<german () lasvegassun com>
LAS VEGAS SUN
June 19, 2001 

A confidential informant has told the FBI that he sold investigative
information obtained from a just-arrested Las Vegas FBI employee to
organized crime members and other criminal targets.

The employee, James J. Hill, a 51-year-old security analyst for the
Las Vegas FBI, was taken into custody locally last week on a criminal
complaint filed against him in New York. He faces a 3 p.m. Wednesday
detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Lawrence Leavitt.

Hill was charged in the six-page complaint with obstruction of justice
and stealing and selling the top-secret FBI information for cash.

The informant, a New York private investigator, said he had paid Hill
$25,000 for criminal files since November 1999.

"The FBI and its many hard-working, dedicated employees should not be
judged by the actions of one individual," Las Vegas FBI chief Grant
Ashley said in a statement Monday. "The FBI is committed to the
highest degree of professionalism, and any allegation of misconduct
will be appropriately addressed."

The New York complaint alleged that Hill, an Air Force veteran who has
worked for the Las Vegas FBI for several years, had access to national
security and electronic surveillance information as well as
confidential informants and witnesses data stored in the FBI's
nationwide computer system.

"CI (confidential informant) admitted that the defendant has provided
CI with classified FBI records pertaining to organized crime
investigations, white collar crime investigations and investigations
involving international alien smuggling, which CI sold to members of
organized crime and other criminal targets," the complaint said.

New York FBI agent Demetrius Barkoukis also suggested in the complaint
that the confidential informant may have provided secret FBI
information obtained from Hill to potential FBI targets in other
countries.

Barkoukis said the confidential informant's phone records showed that
he had communications with people in Mexico and Cuba and that his
passport listed recent visits to the drug cartel cities of Medillin
and Bogata, Colombia.

FBI agents learned of Hill's reported clandestine activities after
they arrested the informant in Oyster Bay, N.Y., Thursday on charges
of stealing and selling classified FBI information, the complaint
said.

When he was taken into custody, the complaint added, the informant was
in possession of numerous FBI documents, and he later agreed to
cooperate with agents.

The informant told agents that he had recruited Hill in 1999 and that
Hill had provided him with "hundreds of different classified FBI
records and documents pertaining to criminal cases and grand jury
investigations," the complaint said.

The records obtained from Hill also were sold to attorneys and
criminal defendants in New York, Long Island and elsewhere, the
complaint said.

Hill was arrested at 7:45 p.m on Friday as he left the FBI office in
Las Vegas.

"At the time of his arrest, Hill admitted that he had been accessing
FBI records and documents relating to criminal investigations and
providing them to CI for which he was paid by CI," the complaint said.

Ashley said that as a precaution, the FBI was conducting a "national
security damage assessment" as a result of Hill's arrest.

FBI officials would not discuss who specifically wound up with the
information allegedly provided by Hill.


 
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