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Prosecutor Steadfast in Criticism of Las Vegas Officials

by Dave Berns and J.M. Kalil

LAS VEGAS -- Federal prosecutor Rick Convertino this week gave Las Vegas some unwelcome publicity when he accused local officials of soft-pedaling terror threats.

Local officials have verbally pummeled him since the news broke Monday.

A spokesman for the local FBI office labeled him "a disgruntled employee."

Clark County Undersheriff Doug Gillespie wondered aloud, "Why does anyone believe this guy?"

And Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman threatened to sue him for besmirching the ex-mob lawyer's reputation.

In an interview with the Review-Journal on Wednesday, Convertino reiterated that Las Vegas police, public officials and casinos declined an FBI agent's invitation to view Strip surveillance video seized from an al-Qaida terror cell.

He added he believes they avoided the viewing to minimize legal and public relations fallout if word of the tape leaked publicly or a terrorist attack ensued.

"There is just an amazing effort going on in Las Vegas ... to discredit me," Convertino said Wednesday.

Local officials have said Detroit FBI agent Paul George was not spurned by Las Vegas authorities and casinos when he flew here last year.

Special Agent Dave Nanz, a spokesman for the Las Vegas field office of the FBI, said Tuesday that casino officials and law enforcers declined George's invitation because they already had seen the footage.

He said local FBI agents had shared the footage with Las Vegas police and security chiefs at the hotels depicted in the video some six months earlier, when the Detroit footage was first decoded by the government.

Convertino led the team of prosecutors who won two terror conspiracy convictions in the Detroit case, which included evidence that one defendant referred to Las Vegas as the "city of Satan" and spoke about Islamic extremist "brothers" destroying it. It was the first major terror trial since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Convertino is now being investigated on suspicions of withholding evidence from defense lawyers.

In his 15 years with the Justice Department, Convertino prosecuted mobsters, investigated the Teamsters' retirement fund and helped crack cases of bank fraud and identity theft. Just three years ago he was considered for a federal judgeship.

Convertino says his troubles began a year ago when an aide to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, telephoned him for advice and subpoenaed him to testify at a congressional hearing focusing on financial fraud and identity theft, two potentially powerful tools for terrorists. Naive to the ways of Capitol Hill, Convertino appeared on Sept. 9, apparently irritating his bosses.

In his role as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley has oversight of the Justice Department, and has developed some enemies within the agency headed by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

In letters to Ashcroft, Grassley said Convertino's work life became hellish shortly after he returned to Detroit from Washington, D.C. He was isolated by his bosses. His unit lost resources, including a legal secretary, and his supervisors began an investigation into Convertino's role in the terror trial.

In January, he was assigned to a temporary job on Capitol Hill, working as a fellow for the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, a panel that is co-chaired by Grassley, who has become his benefactor.

The Iowa senator has told Ashcroft that he believes the agency retaliated against Convertino because he cooperated with Congress on terror-related issues. A Justice Department spokesman failed to return a Wednesday evening phone message seeking comment.

Grassley press secretary Beth Levine declined to discuss Convertino's situation.

"We can't because there's an ongoing investigation. It has to do with his case," she said.

In February, Convertino filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against Ashcroft, alleging the Justice Department interfered with the Detroit case and compromised a confidential terror informant by leaking his name to the media. It also accused the department of "gross mismanagement" of the war on terrorism. Convertino is seeking unspecified damages.

"Not only did he lose his terrorism informant, who had to leave the country, but as a prosecutor, not being able to protect an informant is really harmful to your career," said Convertino's attorney, Stephen M. Kohn, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based National Whistleblower Center. "This is one of the most egregious cases of retaliation against a whistle-blower. I have simply never seen a case where they were willing to expose the name of an undercover government terrorism informant, putting his life at risk."

Kohn is the attorney who won a $595,000 settlement for Linda Tripp in her successful Privacy Act lawsuit against the Defense Department after Pentagon officials released private information about her during the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to President Clinton's impeachment. He is the author of the first whistle-blower law textbook in 1985, as well as the 2001 book "Concepts and Procedures in Whistleblower Law."

Intense retaliation against employees who publicly criticize the Justice Department is typical, Kohn said.

"He has made allegations of wrongdoing, so the classic formula is, `Shoot the messenger, do everything you can to destroy his credibility,' " Kohn said. "More will be leaked about him. There will be more mud slung. This is their M.O."

But some government workers like Convertino are especially vulnerable to retaliation.

"If you work for the government in a sensitive position, they will have derogatory information about you because of background checks, medical records for fitness-for-duty reports," Kohn said. "They simply have the juice on you. The propensity of government agencies to leak information about anyone who criticizes them is enormous. Unfortunately, this is exactly what you should expect when you blow the whistle. You can expect more to be leaked out about him."

Meanwhile, FBI agents, Detroit police and prosecutors have taken up a collection to help Convertino pay for his weekend flights from Washington, D.C., to Detroit so he can spend time with his wife, Valerie, and five children, who range in age from 4 to 17.

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