Posted on 10/30/2002 4:20:46 PM PST by Dog Gone
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) -- Questioning of the two sniper suspects was halted when federal agents took custody of the pair, possibly preventing investigators from obtaining information about the shooting spree, a local law enforcement source complained Wednesday.
The dispute was one of the very earliest clashes among prosecutors over which jurisdiction would take the lead role in pursuing a case against John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17.
After a three-week manhunt covering the entire Washington region, Muhammad and Malvo were arrested Oct. 24 at a Maryland rest stop on a federal charge and were questioned that morning by members of the multi-agency sniper task force.
Later that day, after investigators received calls from U.S. Attorney Thomas DiBiagio of Maryland, the two were taken into federal custody, the local law enforcement official said.
Task force investigators complained they were trying to develop a rapport and may have been able to obtain valuable information.
However, a senior Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the pair were providing little information to interrogators and invoked their right not to speak without a lawyer.
The Justice Department official said Malvo would not even admit he was in the car with Muhammad when the two were arrested, saying only things like ``I'm hungry'' or ``Leave me alone so I can get something to eat.''
Task force officials complained that the federal government's decision ended potentially valuable interrogations, the local law enforcement source said.
``He was talking,'' the source said of Muhammad. ``There was certainly a great deal of information that remained to be gleaned from him.''
DiBiagio, however, told task force investigators that he had orders from the White House and the Justice Department to take the suspects, and could not be talked out of doing so, the source said.
Muhammad and Malvo did not give any indication they were prepared to confess, the source said.
DiBiagio issued a statement Wednesday, denying the White House was involved in the decision to take Muhammad and Malvo into custody.
The prosecutor said he advised local investigators that federal law required Malvo, a juvenile, be brought before a federal magistrate ``forthwith'' and Muhammad ``without necessary delay.''
Montgomery Deputy State's Attorney John McCarthy called the U.S. Attorney's office at 3 p.m. that day to say Muhammad had asked for a lawyer. At that point ``questioning had to cease'' and the suspect had to be taken before the magistrate, DiBiagio said.
But the local law enforcement source said the task force wanted the government to dismiss the federal gun charge, a misdemeanor, and allow Montgomery County to file six murder charges against the suspects. That request was denied, the source said.
Responding to DiBiagio's statement Wednesday, Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler said McCarthy's call was to say Muhammad and Malvo were on their way to Baltimore for a federal hearing, not that Muhammad invoked his right to a lawyer.
Whatever the case, Robert Cleary, a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey who headed the Unabomber case, said: ``It is never good when prosecuting authorities are at odds with each other. It can only serve to hurt the case.''
It can also damage the public perception that justice is being served, said Nicholas Gess, a former Clinton administration Justice Department official.
``It's important from the public's perspective that they have confidence there is unity among the people doing this,'' he said. ``I hope if there is squabbling, it's short-lived.''
The interrogation account, first reported in Wednesday's New York Times, illustrates the rising tensions between federal and local authorities over who will prosecute Muhammad and Malvo first.
Muhammad was charged in federal court Tuesday under weapons and extortion laws that could bring the death penalty. Prosecutors in Maryland and Virginia have also filed state murder charges against both. Authorities in Alabama have charged them with a slaying last month, and the two are suspects in a Washington state killing earlier this year.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said negotiations continue on which jurisdiction will try the first case.
During the investigation, authorities were able to cobble together a task force from dozens of federal agencies and local police forces. The relative unity of the task force crumbled soon after the arrests.
Associated Press writers Curt Anderson in Washington and Gretchen Parker in Baltimore contributed to this story.
Moose, is that you? Worried that they got your number, perhaps?
Sorry, all federal "gun charges" are felonies. Ask Randy Weaver, or anybody else who has run afoul of federal gun laws, and survived.
There are certainly bigger charges than that to fry these two with, but as far as I have heard, the feds can only trace the rifle from the factory to the West Coast wholesaler. I'm beginning to suspect that the feds feel that there are questions that should not be asked, and are afraid of something getting out in trials in the states on murder.
You bet they are. I think it's a darn good bet that one of the alphabets was running him as an agent/informant and he outmanuevered them. There are just too many oddities in his known past to be explained away by any other explanation in my book.
From Reply 15 on this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/776379/posts
From the Washington Post
The credit card in question belonged to a Greyhound bus driver in Flagstaff, Ariz., whose driver's license and credit cards were stolen March 25. The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the cards were taken from a pouch behind her seat while she was driving a bus on the 337-mile route between Nogales, Ariz., and Flagstaff.She did not realize the Visa card had been stolen until Bank of America's fraud control branch wrote her April 11, saying it had automatically closed the account after the Visa was used for a $12.01 gasoline purchase in Tacoma, Wash., that the bank believed to be fraudulent.
"That was the end of that, until last Sunday when I had the FBI calling me at Greyhound, saying that through this credit card they [had a link to] the people involved with the sniping," she said.
As noted above, the Post did not hide her name in the .pdf file it released. I guess the Post's word is not its bond...
15 posted on 10/26/2002 5:09 PM EDT by Fixit
The WP article is linked in that reply, but I didn't take the link; so I don't know if that is the same name you have found or not.
It's a rhetorical bet. I doubt either of us would ever have enough information to be able to collect :)
In this case they are doing the right thing. Watch what happens next :).
You should ask that question slightly differently. Who or what would have had access to that credit card account and been able to transfer the money elsewhere? Who have recently had their assets seized/frozen?
We're working with Ashcroft here not Janet aka "the pawn".
Now if we could just get rid of the bad witch of the north.
It's possible that there was a female accomplice in there somewhere.
It's equally possible that there is no truth whatsoever to the story of the credit card being in a woman's name. We only get the information we are fed.
OTOH, if you only use a credit card for a cash withdrawl via an ATM, you only a need a PIN number to access the cash. I don't know what the limit is in other areas, but around here, it's usually $400 maximum at a time. The picture taken by most ATMs is probably pretty poor.
I personally don't put much stock in this story of a credit card. This guy was apparently smuggling people and tied into some sophisticated document forgers. He would have been too savy to ask for a deposit to a credit card. I believe the credit card story is probably a red herring.
Are we talking something beyond just robbing a card??...like computer hacking or an inside person.
I'd guess that bells and whistles would go off if you deposited $10 mil on you debit card or to any account for that matter.
Are we talking something beyond just robbing a card??...like computer hacking or an inside person.
I'd guess that bells and whistles would go off if you deposited $10 mil on you debit card or to any account for that matter.
If the story is true, there would have to be someone one the inside (or a hacker with access to that account) to transfer the money as soon as it arrived. And it would have to be a heavyweight in computer technology and security, I would think, to avoid all the government traps and traces.
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