Patrick Crosby

Patrick Crosby, a former spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta, blasted the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco for issuing him a subpoena in a case involving an ATF agent.

Crosby, who now runs an Atlanta-based media relations company, GeorgiaNewsmakers.com, represents controversial ATF agent Vince Cefalu, who has a whistleblower lawsuit against the government for allegedly retaliating against him on the job. Crosby said he and Cefalu got to be friends when Cefalu was an agent in Atlanta.

Crosby said the Civil Division of the San Francisco Office has issued a subpoena in the civil suit and has asked him  to turn over “any and all documents or information of communications between Vince…and me, his friend whose firm does his PR.”  Cefalu currently works in the California-Nevada area for ATF.

“This wide-ranging subpoena in my opinion, goes far beyond a civil case involving a whistleblower and his job, and wastes even more resources. For what?,” Crosby said in a statement. He said he found it highly unusual for the government to go after client communications from a public relations firm.

“Next will the US Attorney’s Office seek cellular taped conversations between Vince and his PR firm? “This is exactly what the Justice Department, where I worked for 15 years, is trying to get away from—wasting the taxpayers money on something that has nothing to do with Justice.

“They’ve actually filed this. This odd and invasive tactic speaks for itself. I can tell you that most communications between Vince and his PR firm are quite boring, and it usually involves Vince not being able to afford to pay his bills.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco declined comment Tuesday when called by ticklethewire.com.

Todd Jones

Ranking Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said “very troubling allegations” have surfaced that suggest B. Todd Jones, who is President Obama’s choice to head the ATF, retaliated against a whistleblower, The Washington Times reports.

The Iowa senator questioned why the confirmation hearings last week weren’t delayed while an investigation of Jones continues. 

When asked about the whistle-blowing complaints, Jones said he wasn’t familiar with the “substance of the complaints” and declined to comment.

“I must say that the allegations in the complaint are extremely troubling,” Grassley said.

Steve Neavling

A burglar chose the wrong house to rob early Sunday.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the homeowner, an ATF agent, shot the suspect as he entered the home in Spring, Tex. in search of valuables.

Wounded, the suspect fled in a car but was stopped by police shortly after, The Houston Chronicle wrote.

The suspect had nonfatal wounds to his arm and was taken to a hospital.

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Vince Cefalu

Cefalu, who has been described as a whistleblower, and is embroiled in multiple controversial legal actions against ATF, says that the current leadership at the top of ATF is, in his words, is “A joke that is not funny.”

“Not only do we have no Director in place, this climate allows the corrupt middle management at ATF to live on and keep their jobs, ATF needs a total housecleaning and a new direction, not just a figurehead who isn’t even confirmed by Congress,” he said in a statement provided to ticklethewire.com

“Not just ANY Director. DOJ cannot just keep throwing up names without a nationwide search or at least considering nominees with significant law enforcement experience. ATF is an elite law enforcement agency. Merely choosing lawyers who are friendly to the administration does not ensure competency in critical and very dynamic law enforcement operations.”

His spokesman, Patrick Crosby, a former spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, describes Cefalu as a an agent who “successfully infiltrated the KKK and California biker groups in key cases for ATF” and is known as a whistleblower. Crosby, who runs a media relations firm, says that Cefalu is an activist within ATF, who was responsible for first bringing to light the ill-fated ‘Fast and Furious’ case fiasco.

Crosby says that he is currently employed by ATF while his personal case against ATF is dragging on without a final disposition.

“My case is important to me, but what is more important is that ATF get some real leadership, and that situation dragging on is much more important to the country and the safety of its citizens than my individual case,” Cefalu said.

“As I have said all along, there needs to be accountability for abuses and incompetence. Not reassignments to a locale of the specific managers’ choosing. The agency has dropped to 280 out of 294 in trust in the integrity and honesty in management in the 2012 OPM-sanctioned annual employee survey. The practice of demoting in title only is destructive and sends the message to corrupt managers that ‘We will protect’ retaliation waste fraud and abuse and incompetence. Yet the attacks on complainants and whistleblowers continue. My disputes are now being litigated in multiple venues at great expense to the taxpayers and the public who rely on the Department of Justice to police itself. DOJ has consistently fought vigorously to protect corrupt managers in my case rather than to resolve these disputes and return to serving the public safety.”

Todd Jones

Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones’s nomination to head the ATF has become mired in congressional politics, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Nearly six months after he was mentioned as a candidate, Jones is expected to face tough questions from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I am looking forward to meeting with the committee and answering all their questions,” Jones told the Star Tribune.

Republicans say they are concerned about his leadership as a temporary ATF head and his positions on gun-control.

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Steve Neavling

A federal judge ruled that an ATF agent was not negligent when he drove through a red light with his emergency lights on and collided with another car at a suburban Detroit intersection in 2010, The News-Herald reports.

Saying Agent William Temple “exercised due care” while driving to a murder scene, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said the driver of the other car, Lynae Neal, was more at fault for failing to yield to the unmarked law enforcement car.

Neal filed a lawsuit, claiming the agent was negligent, but acknowledged he heard a siren and still drove through the intersection.

Jay Dobyns, who has become a controversial agent at ATF, is finally getting his day in court.

Trial begins in the U.S. Court of Federal on Monday addressing claims in his lawsuit of  breach of contract.

Dobyns claims the agency failed to abide by a 2007 written contract to protect him and his wife and two children against death threats from the Hells Angels. He worked undercover, posing as a Hells Angels, which didn’t go over too big when the gang found out.

The suit, which will be heard in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, also says the agency failed to stop subjecting him to a hostile work environment for complaining about his safety.

Dobyns posted this on his blog:

Beginning on Monday, June 10, 2013, at 10:00 a.m., my nine-year war becomes official in a United States Courthouse. It has been a long, hard, brutal and bloody fight to get to the point where the truth can be told. The trial will start in Arizona and end in Washington, D.C. in early August.

I have never strayed from my respect and admiration for every ATF agent or supervisor who places themselves in the path of danger or makes the tough, real-time decisions on how we attack violent criminals.

My disgust is with those who are corrupted by the power of their titles and then use their influence to damage my ATF and hurt those who try to do it right.

Some very authoritative people in our government have done everything within their power to paint me as a greedy, ungrateful, malcontent. Decide for yourself how you feel about me but know that any public or private opinion I have expressed has always, and only, been critical of corruption in the White House, DOJ and ATF – not against my peers who do a job that no one else wants.

I do not enjoy the position I am in. In a time when it is very easy to hate ATF, I love ATF, always have. Those who think that all of ATF is dirty are entitled to their opinions but I will never fully agree and will openly defend my position. In our purest sense we don’t go after guns. We go after violent criminals who use guns, bombs, and arson to commit crimes like murder, rape, drug dealing, home invasion, murder-for-hire and intimidation.

On Monday I intend begin proving in a court of law what has been known from both inside and out at ATF, DOJ and the Administration for a very long time – that ATF ignored facts, evidence and the official conclusions of investigators and tried real hard to frame me as a murderer and arsonist. In my case ATF became the opposite of what America expects, demands and is due from a law enforcement agency.

Read more »

Steve Neavling

Some ATF agents involved with a botched gun-buying storefront operation in Milwaukee face disciplinary action, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

The investigation was so bungled that agents last year had their guns stolen and their storefront pillaged.

The Journal Sentinel discovered through a letter sent to Congress that the Justice Department is conducting personnel investigations in connection with “Operation Fearless.”

According to the letter, the FBI backed off helping because of concerns about how the investigation was run.

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