From 'FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose', by M. Wesley Swearingen, 1994
Swearingen served as an FBI agent from 1951 until 1977.
During that period he admits to perpetrating or witnessing many illegal
activities by FBI agents and their operatives, heard revealing statements
by other agents about their illegal activities, and read files which
document illegal activity by the FBI.
These activities include warrantless break-ins, theft, fraud, kidnapping,
perjury, fabrication of evidence, suborning of witness perjury, and murder.
The victims are innocent American citizens; anyone FBI agents don't like.
Swearingen details how innocent members of the Black Panthers were murdered
by FBI operatives, another was framed for a murder he didn't commit, and
still others were prosecuted on fabricated charges.
He describes the FBI as riddled with corruption, incompetence, and
inefficiency, composed of men who may have once been patriots, but
who are now reduced to common criminals, whose crime fighting activities
are limited and largely for show, with political repression being their
primary mission.
This book shows how government agents and otherwise good men are corrupted
by the system of which they become a part. They are totally willing to do
whatever works, regardless of legality. According to Special Agent Joseph
G. Deegan in 1977: 'We are the only ones who know what is good for the
country, and we are the only ones who can do anything about it'; clearly,
a dangerous delusion of grandeur.
From 'THE FBI KILLER', by Aphrodite Jones, 1992 and
'Above Suspicion', by Joe Sharkey, 1993
Mark Putnam was an FBI agent assigned to the agency's Appalachian outpost
in Pikesville, Kentucky when he began an affair with one of his informants.
When she threatened to tell his wife and bosses of their affair,
he committed what seemed the perfect murder.
On February 7, 1994, the story was featured on Maury Povich:
Mark Putnam, FBI agent who murdered his lover/informant (Mark's wife Kathy;
murder victim's sister Shelby discuss the case)
Transcripts are available from Burrelle's Transcripts.
From September 28, 2000 --
The FBI agent Mark Putnam will be released from prison this week.
Putnam will have served 10 years and three months of his 16-year
sentence in the June 1989 death of Susan Daniels Smith, his pregnant
girlfriend.
-- Lexington Herald-Leader.
Joseph Salvati went to prison for murder in 1967 even though FBI agents
and Boston police knew that he was innocent of the crime. The forces of
law and order kept their mouths shut to protect informants they believed
would be endangered if the real murderer was identified. Several of those
informants were later implicated in murders of their own.
While Salvati suffered in prison for decades, the Bureau maintained its
collective silence. Director J. Edgar Hoover knew of the miscarriage of
justice and let a man suffer for a crime he didn't commit. Salvati was
released after his lawyer found documents that proved what the FBI had done.
This case has become the subject of Congressional hearings.
From Friday, May 4, 2001 --
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Retired Boston FBI agent H. Paul Rico yesterday defiantly
denied that he and his partner helped frame an innocent man for a notorious
1965 Chelsea murder but now admits Joseph Salvati spent 30 years in prison
for a crime he didn't commit.
'What do you want, tears?' Rico shot back at Connecticut Rep. Christopher
Shays, who accused him of feeling no remorse for his role in the Edward
Deegan murder case in which four innocent men received life sentences.
'It'll be probably a nice movie or something,' said the tanned,
white-haired ex-agent.
-- Boston Herald.