Michael William Barends via Brewster County Sheriff’s Office.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A Border Patrol agent in Texas has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a child more than 20 times, beginning when she was 12 years old.

Michael William Barends was arrested Friday by the Brewster County Sheriff’s Office on allegations he molested his stepdaughter from January 2015 to June 2019, the Washington Examiner reports.

Barends was a supervisor with the Big Bend Sector and worked with immigrant children after working with the agency in Detroit and Yuma, Arizona.

Barends, who was known as “Chicken Little” because of his glasses, was released Tuesday on a $200,000 bond.

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort surrendered to federal authorities, marking the first arrest as part of a special counsel investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia to disrupt the presidential election.

Manafort’s longtime business partner Robert Gates also has been ordered to surrender in what marks a significant development in an investigation that has cast a long shadow over the White House, multiple news sources reports this morning. 

At 8:15 a.m., Manafort was spotted walking into the FBI’s field office in Washington D.C. with his attorney.

Manafort has been an early focus in the intensifying investigation over allegations that he committed money laundering, violated federal tax laws and failed to disclose the extent of his foreign lobbying.

Gates has been linked to companies that Manafort established to receive payments from movers and shakers in Eastern Europe.

The arrest of Manafort was expected after the FBI raided his home.

With early arrests in large, complex federal investigations, prosecutors often try to offer leniency in exchange for incriminating information about higher-ups.

But people close to Manafort, including his former business partner Roger Stone Jr., insist he doesn’t plan to provide damaging information about the president.

A veteran Republican strategist, Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 and climbed the ranks of Trump’s campaign until he was running the day-to-day operations.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

An FBI special agent was arrested after he was accused of shooting at a Grand Rapids police officer outside of a gym in Michigan.

Police said the 35-year-old agent from Las Vegas entered a Planet Fitness gym, showed off a gun and fired three shots early Tuesday morning, WZZM 13 reports. No one was injured. 

The agent is accused of shooting at an arriving police officer before being arrested at gunpoint in a parking lot north of Center Point Mall.

The FBI in Detroit released the following statement Tuesday:

“The FBI takes allegations of misconduct very seriously. We are aware of the matter involving the recent arrest of an FBI Special Agent and are fully cooperating with the Grand Rapids Police Department. This matter has been referred to the FBI’s Internal Investigations Section in Washington, DC, as well as the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General. Because this is an ongoing investigation, we will not comment further.”

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

An FBI employee was arrested for allegedly tampering with evidence in a child pornography investigation involving her husband.

Local News 8 reports that Jennifer Barnett, 38, of Idaho, was arrested on charges of destroying, altering or concealing evidence.

Authorities said Barnett informed her husband, David Phillips, 41, of the investigation.

Jennifer Barnett was arrested Monday and released on $5,000 bond.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A Cleveland man is accused of calling the Secret Service and saying he wants to kill President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The Secret Service and Cleveland police on Monday arrested Jonathan Smead, 35, who was charged Wednesday in Ohio Northern District Court, Cleveland.com reports. 

Authorities said Smead called the Secret Service at 10 p.m. Sunday and asked whether it was a federal crime to acknowledge that he wants to kill the president.

Smead, who cited past assassins, also said he wanted to kill Clinton, authorities said.

Smead even told the Secret Service that he “wants federal charges, not little state charges,” and offered up his social security number, name, date of birth and the home where he was living with his grandmother.    

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The FBI arrested two men on charges of online child pornography after agents were able to hack into their computers to identify their true IP addresses that were hidden by Tor, Hacked.com reports.

The FBI hacked thousands of computers as part of a “bulk hacking campaign” to fight child pornography.

“In order to fight what it has called one of the largest child pornography sites on the dark web, the FBI hacked over a thousand computers,” Motherboard detailed.

The ACLU called the news “simply unprecedented.”

The FBI said some of the sites “contained some of the most extreme child abuse imagery one could imagine, and others included advice on how sexual abusers could avoid detection online.”

The site was “the largest remaining known child pornography hidden service in the world,” the FBI said.

“Fifteen-hundred or so of these cases are going to end up getting filed out of the same, underlying investigation,” Colin Fieman, a federal public defender involved in several related cases, told Motherboard in a phone interview.

“There will probably be an escalating stream of these [cases] in the next six months or so,” Fieman added. “There is going to be a lot in the pipeline.”

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A 14-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol has been arrested in Southern Arizona on allegations that he was in possession of 110 pounds of cocaine that he had planned to drive to Chicago, The Tucson Sentinel reports. 

Agent Juan Pimental, 47, was jailed without bail on a felony charge of possession with intent to distribute cocaine following his Nov. 18 arrest.

Pimental resigned Tuesday after he was stopped by state troopers in a rented vehicle that allegedly had a problematic license plate.

According to the complaint, the former agent allowed police to search his vehicle, where authorities found bundles of cocaine in inside four suitcases.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A former TSA agent is accused of allowing marijuana on flights to northern California, Fox 8 reports. 

Prosecutors allege that Deondre Smith, 33, helped co-conspirators smuggled bags of drugs past TSA screeners at Los Angeles International Airport.

Smith has been charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana and bribery of a public official.

Smith is accused of accepting payments of at least $500.

Smith faces up to 15 years in prison.

Other Stories of Interest

• FBI’s Outgoing Top Agent in New Orleans Says Heroin on Rise
• Man Who Bribed FBI Agent Also Lobbied to Fly Tourists Over NYC
• Justice Department Expands Cybercrime Investigations into Southeast Asia
• Trump, Carson to Receive Secret Service Protection As Clinton’s Is Increased
• ATF Member Injured While Investigating Scene of Fatal Fire in Kansas City