DETROIT — Exciting things are happening at Ford Motor Company’s world headquarters in Dearborn besides talk of the Mustang the future of electrical cars, and it involves potential corporate espionage and the FBI.

John Snell and David Shepardson of the Detroit News reports that the FBI searched the headquarters while investigating one of the automaker’s engineers, and they seized listening devices, computers and financial records.

The News writes that a lawyer for the mechanical engineer said Ford’s security team feared she was stealing trade secrets by hiding secret recording devices in conference rooms at headquarters, The engineer’s home was also searched, the News reports.

The case is being investigated by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel, who heads the National Security Unit in Detroit, the News reported

The News writes:

Searching a Fortune 500 company’s world headquarters instead of issuing a subpoena is a rare step and could indicate investigators were worried about someone destroying evidence, said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University and a former federal prosecutor.

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Steve Neavling

Questionable ties between FBI agents and probation officers preceded Thursday’s decision by Cook County prosecutors to dismiss felony gun charges against a Chicago man Thursday, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Orangelo Payne, 34, was on probation for felony possession of marijuana when his probation officer turned up at Payne’s home with an FBI agent in tow. Using the probation as a pretext to search his apartment, he said an FBI agent squeezed him for information about a murder suspect, and a shotgun was found.

Before Payne could even challenge the charge in court, State Attorney Anita Alvarez declined to pursue the weapons charge.

Instead of facing up to decades in prison, he was charged with a lesser count that will allow for his release from jail within a few days, the Tribune reported.
“They dropped the charges because they didn’t want to air dirty laundry in open court,” Payne’s lawyer, J. Scott Arthur, said. “Under the ruse of probation officers conducting curfew checks, law enforcement is tagging along and illegally gaining access to homes.”

Steve Neavling

A former FBI employee and his wife were convicted in a mortgage fraud scheme and now face up to 30 years in prison, the Mercury News reports.

The husband, Charles Espinel, 61, also admitted he lied to the agency about his new properties to prevent suspicion.

Espinel and his wife, Jeanette 58, pleaded guilty to defrauding First California Bank and Wells Fargo Bank to buy a combined $1.3 million in rental properties. The couple lied about their incomes and intentions of living at the properties.

Espinel spent 32 years with the FBI, retiring as a support services technician.

Tex. Gov. Rick Perry/official photo

The 1,000 National Guard troops who were deployed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to assist with the border crisis may get the unusual authority to make arrests and apprehensions, the New York Times reports.

In the past, troops who were sent by presidents were prohibited from making arrests while they helped at the border. But since Perry ordered the deployment, he has the authority to permit Guard troops to make arrests, the New York Times wrote.

Immigration rights advocates and experts on the National Guard expressed concern that troops were ill trained to handle potentially deadly encounters.
“This does not come from the federal government,” said Jayson P. Ahern, a former Customs and Border Protection acting commissioner who helped coordinate deployment of the National Guard to the border in 2006. “That’s the biggest distinction here. This is the governor taking unilateral action. Not having that oversight and supervision and direction as part of a plan from the federal authorities, I think it is reckless and could lead to significant safety issues.”

The troops are expected at the border next month but they cannot enforce immigration law.

Steve Neavling

The Obama administration is going explore the need for deploying National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border, the Washington Post reports. The administration has dispatched a team of military and national security officials to examine whether the Rio Grande Valley would benefit from a military “temporary assist.”

Despite objections from Democrats, Texas Gov. Rick Perry decided earlier this week to send 1,000 of his state’s National Guard troops to the border over the next month.

“The assessment team will review support options that increase U.S. Customs and Border Protection capacity to conduct enforcement and processing activities and to enable DHS to implement a surge plan that addresses spikes in the influx of UACs [unaccompanied alien children]/migrants along the Southwest Border,” a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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