ATF Whistleblower Backs Up Latest Allegations Against William Newell
According to a story by Townhall.com’s Katie Pavlich, credible death threats against one of the ATF agents who blew the whistle on the Operation Fast and Furious debacle were ignored by the ATF.
Further, ATF attempted to frame him for arson:
Jay Dobyns is a father, husband and 25-year highly respected and highly decorated Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent.
…
Dobyns has put a number of the nations’ most violent criminals behind bars, which naturally comes with threats from those criminals and their buddies in return. After he finished his work bringing down the Hells Angels, things were no different.
Approximately a year after Operation Black Biscuit concluded beginning in 2004 through 2008, Dobyns and ATF became aware of credible and substantial violent threats against him and his family. Those threats included plans to murder him either with a bullet or by injecting him with the AIDS virus, kidnapping and torturing his then 15-year-old daughter and kidnapping his wife in order to videotape a gang rape of her. Dobyns and ATF also learned contracts were solicited between the Hells Angels, the Aryan Brotherhood and the MS-13 gang to carry out these threats.
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Dobyns reported these threats to Special Agent in Charge William Newell, asking for protection for his family. The threats were based in Arizona and Dobyns lived in Arizona at the time. Newell was in charge of investigating and handling all threats made against agents working out of the ATF Phoenix Field Office. The threats were ignored. When Dobyns essentially “blew the whistle” on Newell, pointing out his failures to address violent death threats against a federal agent, he was retaliated against. Newell dismissed the threats and then covered up his blatant dismissal of those threats within the Phoenix Field Office.
This is the same William Newell who was in charge of Fast and Furious — the operation which allowed thousands of military-style weapons into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels — and who apparently lied to Congress about his involvement.
According to Pavlich, Newell was sanctioned for his failures by the Office of the Inspector General:
Additionally, in response to the ATF/FBI interview, despite all the evidence the death threats were credible, Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division John Torres, who like Newell has also been promoted into ATF headquarters, informed Dobyns through an email, “The Chief of Operations Security does not deem the emergency action is required as of this date and time.”
Later, a DOJ Inspector General report concluded that management within the ATF Phoenix office, despite having the necessary resources, did not adequately address threats made against Dobyns and found “absence of any corrective measures proposed to address the failure to conduct timely and thorough investigations into the death threats made against Dobyns.”
In addition, a U.S. Office of Special Counsel report concluded, “I note with concern the absence of any corrective measures proposed to address the failure to conduct timely and thorough investigations into the death threats made against Special Agent Dobyns. ATF does not appear to have held anyone accountable in this regard. Fully addressing the problems and failures identified in this care requires more than amending ATF policies and procedures. It requires that threats against ATF agents be taken seriously and pursued aggressively and that ATF officials at all level cooperate to ensure the timely and comprehensive investigation of threats leveled against its own agents.”
Well, Dobyns’ house was then set on fire.
And ATF has named him as a suspect:
On top of ignoring death threats, recently Dobyns’ house was set on fire at 3 a.m. with his wife, son and daughter sleeping inside in a confirmed act of arson. It is suspected members of the Hells Angels, or close associates of the gang carried out the arson in retaliation of Dobyns’ undercover work.
When Dobyns reported the incident to both ATF and Newell, he asked for an investigation into the case. Newell not only refused to investigate, calling the incident “just scorching,” but allowed his subordinates, including Gillett, to attempt to frame Dobyns, accusing him of purposely burning down his own home with his family inside, has named him as a suspect and is investigating him. Newell conspired to destroy and fabricate evidence to “prove” his case. Emails, witness testimony, phone conversations and other documentation show the ATF Phoenix Field Divisions’ intentions, led by Newell, were to frame Dobyns, yet Newell denied under oath any involvement in this activity. His subordinates Gillett and ATF Tucson Group Supervisor over Operation Wide Receiver Charles Higman, also denied any attempts to frame Dobyns under oath, despite evidence showing otherwise.
According to ATF Special Agent Vince Cefalu — who has been the target of retaliation by ATF bosses himself — this is part of a pattern of behavior by ATF upper management:
These are just deplorable actions. It’s just nauseating; the family’s been through enough.
Cefalu said the response was lackluster at best:
I was there three days after the fire, there wasn’t an ATF agent within a hundred … miles.
Cefalu was understandably incensed by the attempt to paint a decorated agent as an arsonist. Cefalu noted that had it been an FBI agent or DEA agent whose home had been burned, federal agents would have descended in droves.
Instead, he noted, the investigation was botched from the beginning. Cefalu said a neighbor saw a glow that might have been a cell phone in the backyard of Dobyns’ house, and agents tried back-channel to get the U.S. Marshals Service to ping the cellphone towers to try to find out who might have had an active phone in the area at the time of the fire — to no avail.
In addition, protocol would have made the investigation a federal matter, since it involved a federal agent who received death threats pertaining to some of his cases. That’s not what initially happened:
We [ATF] are the arson police, that’s what we do.
But instead of ATF leading the investigation, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department took the lead. Additionally, any information that Dobyns was a suspect should have been turned over to the FBI within 24 hours, as should any evidence ATF collected based on the death threats Dobyns had received. Instead, according to Cefalu, ATF waited 30 days:
Our policy is information has to be turned over to FBI within 24 hours. … ATF sat on it for a month. Nobody did nothing.
At this point, who burned down Dobyns’ house will probably never be known, according to Cefalu:
“All the physical evidence has been tainted,” he said, adding FBI never reduced interviews to writing, so there’s nothing even to go back to check against should fresh evidence or suspects be uncovered. “FBI did a lackluster job.”
According to Pavlich, this is par for the course where retaliation in the ATF is concerned:
Throughout the years it has become clear that ATF is more interested in protecting and promoting the corrupt practices of the men who have made careers profiting off of corruption, obstruction of justice and lies, like Newell, rather than rewarding field agents taking out dangerous criminals like ATF Special Agent Jay Dobyns, ATF Operation Fast and Furious Whistleblowers John Dodson, Pete Forcelli, Vince Cefalu and others for their bravery and sacrifice to fight violent crime and for exposing corruption within the agency. The bottom line is, ATF as an agency doesn’t care about recommendations or evidence of misconduct, in fact, the agency rewards screw ups on a regular basis. The Dobyns case could be counted as the most reckless case of retaliation in ATF history, yet nobody has been held accountable for it.
It’s impossible for field agents to do their jobs if they cannot trust that management has their backs. At ATF it’s clear that not only is that not the case, but that the “bosses,” as Cefalu calls them, will not only hang agents out to dry, but are apparently willing to let them be killed in retaliation for blowing the whistle on their corrupt practices.
This entire agency needs to be disbanded immediately.
And I’m still waiting for this story to come up in the Republican primary debates. I want to know which candidate will vow to disband the ATF.
There are two kinds of people in the world and they both make the world a better place. The first kind because they are in it and the second kind when they leave it.
I am afraid if the ATF is disbanded as is, the evil and corrupt individuals will just be farmed out to other agencies. Weeding them out would have a much more beneficial effect. Then it can be disbanded.
I thought of that, too. But at least the hierarchy of evil-doers would be smashed by disbanding the agency now, and preserving all records so the criminals can be punished wherever they end up.
Disbanding the ATFE would scramble the evidence, making any investigations into their treasonous behavior nearly impossible.
I’m still waiting to see which candidate vows to disband the Hells Angels, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Crips, the Bloods, and the MS-13 gang. These criminal enterprises have flourished for far too long.
I liked the old joke that says, “Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms” should be the name of a convenience store, not a Federal government agency.
Is the ATF upper management part of the CFR? They sure read like those homosexual POS.
Dobyns Sir,
Thank you for your service to our nation. G-d’s speed.
“Homosexual POS…”
Why is it so many conservatives tie homosexuality into everything they don’t like, or find bad? Yes, those people ARE Ps of S; I am not disputing this. What I question is this constant allusion to homosexuality. Roy Cohn and Terry Dolan were famous conservatives who did this sort of finger-pointing. And if you look them up you’ll see what they were.
In short: project much?
Tar & Feathering of the ATF seems to be in Order
No more ATF, no more problems. 1 agency down, thousands more to go.
There are good men in the ATF, that’s clear; but if the middle managers and higher-ups are as corrupt as they appear to be, then I begin to understand how Ruby Ridge happened. It has always stuck in my craw that a young boy and his mother [holding a baby in her arms in her own doorway] could be killed by expert ATF marksmen. And the crime that brought these men to Ruby Ridge? The father modified a long gun in order to sell it for food to feed his family.
He could have been arrested the next time he came into town. Instead, swat team snipers were assembled from around the country and sent to Ruby Ridge. Does this sound similar to an even bigger American tragedy of the same period? Were any held accountable at Ruby Ridge or Waco?
Actually, the sharpshooter at Ruby Ridge was a member of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). Also, at Waco, it was the FBI and U.S. Marshals who took over the situation after ATF’s botched “photo op” raid attempt at the beginning. However, in both cases, the Rules of Engagement were being set by the “primary investigative agency”, namely ATF.
ATF has always been fond of roping other agencies in to share the blame for their screwups. The idea being, when the roof falls in, they can claim that it was somebody else who screwed the pooch, not them. And they have always been able to count on liberals who hate gun owners, in the press and on Capitol Hill, to alibi them.
Having an Administration which is willing to do it to further their “social agenda” helps, too. Don’t forget- at Waco, Janet Reno was in charge, with now-AG Eric Holder as her point man. If nothing else, he’s consistent.
clear ether
eon
@ Eon: The irony of the words, Hostage Rescue Team. Who was being rescued on Ruby Ridge? One team was concealed down the ridge, and the boy’s dog sensed them and started down the hill. They shot the dog, and the boy fired at these unknown intruders. They fired and killed the boy.
Another team was concealed on the ridge above the cabin. With a bullhorn, they called for the father to emerge. With the door open and the mother holding her baby, something caused this second team to fire. They hit and killed the mother.
The only thing I can see they rescued was the pride of the judge, upset that the man had missed his scheduled court appearance.
The father was not a dangerous criminal. He sold one of his guns to provide for his family. Compare this to the violent ones who avoid jail until they kill, though they have rap sheets as long as your arm.
“… And the crime that brought these men to Ruby Ridge? The father modified a long gun in order to sell it for food to feed his family…”
A “crime” for which a jury found him Innocent of due to the entrapment of the ATF.
As a retired DEA agent who worked with ATF. let me add this: I always respected ATF because along with DEA, they had the most dangerous job in federal law enforcement. These are people who worked undercover inside motorcycle gangs like the Hells Angels and investigated bombings-incl the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The problem is not the agency. It was corrupted by the political hires in the DOJ and WH. No sane law enforceenemt agent would have dreamed up this scheme and it never could have happened without the political types in Washington authorizing it-or ordering it. Agents who blew the whistle are being punished.
It drives me crazy that the media is ignoring it and even well-educated people who follow the news are completely unaware because they don’t hear about on NPR.
I agree with you that there are good ATF agents. But considering the Agency’s age it has had more than its share of bad management and bad operations. The FBI, Treasury and other agencies could absorb the good agents and the management could just of on unemployment. The management has been kissing politicians asses no matter who is in office. I don’t see how anyone could have confidence in the ATF as an agency.
Someone can be highly competent and do a perfect job, of a job that should not be done. Sometimes the solution offered will not solve the stated problem. That’s politics and leadership, though.
“But instead of ATF leading the investigation, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department took the lead.”
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik will most certainly get to the bottom of this.
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Unlikely, the Fumbling Bumbling Incompetence (FBI) have destroyed the evidence.
This is the same Dupnik who blamed Sarah Palin for the shooting of the judge in AZ, and Gabrielle Giffords. I’ve long thought, this was orchestrated by the same people who orchestrated Fast and Furious. It all seemed choreographed. The blaming of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party by the entire left.
Sorry, MRT, but Pima County Sheriff Dupnik is just another democrat hack. He would cover it up just like Holder is trying to do. Beside he shoots off his mouth before he get the facts of any situation. Remember the shooting in Tucson in January. Basically he was saying, ‘I don’t need no stinking facts to say what I think’. I live in Cochise County Arizona, just 75 miles from Tucson and am thankful I don’t live in Pima County, even thought I have family living in Tucson.
MRT was exercising his sarcasm dog.
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