Steve Neavling

FBI agents investigating claims that U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez was attending sex parties with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic are accused of brow-beating two maids for information, the Miami Herald reports.

The maids are asking the Dominican National Police to investigate the FBI’s handling of them, saying they were illegally detained and felt threatened, the Herald wrote.

The maids are employees of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Florida doctor who is accused of hiring prostitutes for Menendez, a Democrat, at the vacation home in the Dominican.

The maids said they felt pressured to make false claims that the senator was having sex at the house.

Steve Neavling

Bernard Tolbert, the former head of the FBI office in Buffalo, is entering the mayoral race as a Democrat and will take incumbent Byron Brown, the Buffalo News reports.

Tolbert, 64, is expected to soon file his paperwork for a campaign finance committee.

A Buffalo native and FBI veteran, Tolbert has been quiet about his intentions.

Brown, however, is considered the favorite as he seeks a third term.

Ed Hanko

When Ed Hanko took over as special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia office, he prominently displayed a photo of his father standing with about 60 other helmeted coal miners at a plant in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

The weathered black-and-white photo on his bookshelf reminds Hanko of how hard is father worked without making it to high school. 

The Inquirer wrote that Hanko was 12 when he and his father toured the mine. When they re-emerged, his father told Hanko to stay in school and get a good job.

“Whenever I feel like I’m having a bad day,” Hanko, now 52, said, “I look at the picture of my father.”

Steve Neavling

ICE agents along the Arizona border became aware that ATF was allowing illegal guns to cross the border as part of the bungled Fast & Furious investigation, the Washington Guardian reports.

But ICE agents, who were concerned and talked to local ATF officials about the unusual probe, never took the complaints to Washington, missing an opportunity to blow the whistle on the scandal, the Guardian wrote.

The findings were revealed in a new Homeland Security inspector general report.

“Most Homeland Security Investigations personnel in Arizona who received information about the investigation recognized that the task force was using a flawed methodology, which was contrary to ICE policy and practices for weapons smuggling investigations,” the inspector general concluded in a little-noticed report issued late last month.

Steve Neavling

A division of the Department of Homeland Security spied and kept records on the Occupy Wall Street protests, even when they were peaceful the Huffington Post reports.

More than 250 records obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund show the federal government was keeping close tabs on protesters.

“Taken together, the two sets of documents paint a disturbing picture of federal law enforcement agencies using their vast power in a systematic effort to surveil and disrupt peaceful demonstrations,” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said in a statement. “The federal agencies’ actions were not because Occupy represented a ‘terrorist threat’ or a ‘criminal threat,’ but rather because it posed a significant grassroots political challenge to the status quo.”

The department was watching demonstrations in Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Denver, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis and Tampa, Fla.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Washington Man Indicted on Federal Hate Crime Charge for Allegedly Assaulting Sikh
• Feds End Taser Investigation in Orange County After 6-Year Investigation
• Man Accused of Killing ATF Agent Is Charged with Capital Murder
• Immigration Bill Could Be Held Hostage by Border Security Quandary
• ICE Raid Results in 16 Arrests at Phoenix Apartment Building

Suspect Matthew Joseph was fatally shot

DETROIT — The man suspected of shooting and wounding two Detroit police officers on Tuesday evening following a car chase on the city’s west side, had been on parole since last October after serving time for armed robbery, according to a law enforcement official and public records.

Matthew Renard Joseph, 23, of Detroit, was under surveillance Tuesday for a March 28, narcotics-related homicide, a source said. In the end, he was fatally shot by law enforcement.

The surveillance, which began shortly before 6 p.m. in the 3700 block of 25th Street, turned into a car chase. After police boxed Joseph’s car in at Linwood and Hooker, they got out of the car, law enforcement sources said.

Joseph then opened fire, striking one officer in the head and the other twice in the leg. Law enforcement shot back, killing him, authorities said. Two people in the suspect’s car, a man and a woman, were taken into custody, Detroit Police said.

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