SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS AND REVIEW UNIT

The Special Investigations and Review Unit (SIRU) is composed of attorneys, special agents, program analysts, and administrative personnel. SIRU investigates sensitive allegations involving Department employees, often at the request of the Attorney General, senior Department managers, or Congress. SIRU also conducts systemic reviews of Department programs, such as a review of how Department employees handle classified national security information or how the BOP monitors inmates who use prison telephones to commit crimes.

SIRU Activities

During this reporting period, SIRU completed investigations of allegations of sexual harassment, intimidation and retaliation, and conflict of interest. SIRU conducted preliminary inquiries concerning contractor fraud, the rehiring of a former employee, and favoritism.

• SIRU completed two investigations involving senior officials within the OBDs. One investigation involved sexual harassment; the second concerned a possible conflict of interest. Neither allegation was sustained. However, SIRU did recommend, as part of the sexual harassment investigation, that an office within OJP implement a performance management program and complete annual written appraisals of its employees.
• SIRU investigated an allegation that an immigration judge violated ethical rules by his marriage to an illegal alien. Our investigation revealed no ethical violation, but we recommended that the Executive Office for Immigration Review develop guidelines to recuse the judge from cases that would raise the appearance of a conflict of interest while his wife’s immigration case is pending.
• SIRU investigated an allegation that officials within a USAO tried to prevent officials of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) from providing information about gun statistics to Congress. It was also alleged that the USAO’s personnel retaliated against and tried to intimidate senior officials within the ATF. The OIG did not sustain the allegations.
• SIRU initiated a program review after a federal district judge requested that the Department investigate the cause of the U.S. Parole Commission’s failure to provide timely parole hearings to over 100 District of Columbia inmates. SIRU is currently reviewing documents and conducting interviews.
• As part of an ongoing review of Department security procedures, SIRU received responses to a survey of all Department components regarding component security programs. SIRU will analyze this information and use it as part of its ongoing review.
• In this reporting period, the OIG completed its investigation of allegations of misconduct by the South Carolina USAO and the South Carolina FBI in a series of prosecutions known as the “Lost Trust” cases. A U.S. district judge had dismissed many charges in the Lost Trust cases, alleging errors in the conduct of the undercover investigation, failures by the government to meet its discovery obligations, and possibly perjured testimony by government witnesses. At the request of the Deputy Attorney General, the OIG reviewed the Lost Trust prosecutions and investigations implicated in the court’s dismissal order and other related issues. The OIG did not find prosecutorial misconduct but was critical of the government’s management of its discovery obligations. The OIG review criticized the FBI’s failure to attend to its discovery responsibilities, provide effective supervision to a new special agent, seek guidance from the USAO, or apply the resources necessary to support the investigation and trial. The OIG was also critical of the South Carolina USAO for its failure to ensure that the FBI produced discoverable material; the USAO’s failure to press for material that it knew, or should have suspected, existed; and the incompleteness and inaccuracies of some of the prosecutors’ responses to defendants and representations to the court regarding discovery. The OIG did not find credible evidence of any effort to improperly abort or bias meritorious investigations or prosecutions, or to withhold discovery material purposefully, or to condone perjurious testimony.
• At the request of the Attorney General and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the OIG has begun an examination of the Department’s performance in preventing, detecting, and investigating the alleged espionage activities of FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen. The OIG completed a similar review in April 1997 of the Department’s performance in the Aldrich Ames spy matter.