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Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:45:19 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Hackworth
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AN AMBUSHED MARINE

        Have a look at the following. A loyal, heroic Marine is being
fed to the
sharks.

        A letter to your congress person and the Commandant of the
Marine Corps,
with an info copy to your local newspaper, would help.

        For those who might want to help a good Marine financially he
would be
forever grateful.

Tim Witham Legal Defense Fund
c/o Robert Ferris
Box 538
Jacksonville, NC  28541

        SEMPER FI and perhaps the top brass in the Corps should refresh
themselves
as to what this wonderful expression  means.

Hack

14, March 16, 1998
NATION: "Criminal Injustice?"

        To judge from his military paper trail, Marine Sergeant Timothy
Witham, a
33-year-old Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) specialist, is the
embodiment of the Corps. A veteran of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Witham
has also served with distinction in Somalia. Superlatives suffuse his
service record: "Sergeant Witham's professional achievement, initiative
and
loyal dedication to duty ... reflected great credit upon himself and were
in
keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United
States Naval Service," declared Lt. Colonel G.C. Cutchall in a citation
issued when Witham received the Navy Achievement Medal.

        In a letter endorsing Witham's application to become a Warrant
Officer
Candidate, Lieutenant Colonel E.M. Smith, his former commanding officer
at
North Carolina's Cherry Point Marine facility, praised Witham's
"seasoned
leadership ... high degree of maturity ... poise, understanding and tact."
In
addition to his military service, Witham has also excelled in joint
projects with civilian agencies, according to Smith: "He has established
a
tremendous rapport with outside agencies such as the FBI, various ATF
state
bureaus, Secret Service, DEA and other police agencies." Witham's
dossier
includes a certificate of appreciation from the Secret Service for his
work
as part of a presidential security detail at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
He
was also entrusted with similar security responsibilities during the
1994
Middle East peace talks and the UN's 50th anniversary in 1995.

Abrupt Change of Heart

        Noting that Witham is "loyal, displays sound judgment, and is
exceptionally reliable and trustworthy," Lt. Col. Smith recommended his
application "with utmost enthusiasm." Witham's current commanding
officer,
Lieutenant Colonel J.G. Ayala of Marine Wing Support Squadron 271,
offered
a similarly glowing endorsement last September. "[Witham] leads from the
front. Superior knowledge of the EOD field. Can handle any mission and
looks forward to challenging assignments," declared Ayala. "[Witham is
a]
true asset to his section and to this Squadron. His knowledge and
expertise
would make [him] an outstanding candidate for the warrant officer
program."

        However, Ayala's opinion of Witham underwent an abrupt change
just a few
weeks later. "SSgt. [Staff Sergeant] Witham has proven that he is a
threat
to the good order and discipline of the Squadron and the U.S. Marine
Corps," insisted Ayala in an October 17th memo. Ayala's radical
reevaluation of Witham followed the October 16th arrest of Witham and
five
other Marines as a result of "Operation Longfuse," a 16-month joint
sting
operation conducted by the FBI, the ATF, and the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS). Witham found himself accused of
"transporting
a loaded weapon on base; conspiracy to commit larceny; larceny of
military
explosives, equipment, and firearms; wrongful disposition of military
property; receiving stolen property; [and] federal firearms and
explosives
violations under the Federal Assimilated Crimes Act."

        Upon his arrest, Witham was designated "a flight risk," which
led Ayala to
support "continued confinement" until his pre-trial hearing - which
turned
out to be a 79-day jail term. "Lesser forms of restraint would be
inadequate to insure that he would appear at his hearing and
court-martial," insisted Ayala. "This is not the first time that SSgt
Witham has been involved in this type of incident." Curiously, in the
same
memo, Ayala noted that there had never been any previous disciplinary
action taken against Witham - which would suggest a serious delinquency
on
the part of his superiors if Witham had indeed been "involved in this
type
of incident" on earlier occasions. Just as curious is the fact that Form
1070 in Sergeant Witham's personal file, which lists "offenses and
punishments," is entirely blank.

        Literally in a single day, a model Marine with an unblemished
record was
transmuted into a felonious arms smuggler whose motivations were equal
parts greed and radical "anti-government" views. Federal and military
investigators have yet to find a particle of material evidence to prove
that Sergeant Witham is the criminal they describe; their case depends
entirely upon the testimony of three eminently impeachable witnesses - a
twice-convicted perjurer, a civilian ex-convict, and an ex-Marine of
dubious integrity who served as a "confidential informant" for the feds
during the undercover operation. Two of the witnesses peddled their
testimony against Witham in exchange for lighter sentences. The
"confidential informant" made an even better deal: He arranged for
complete
immunity before beginning his undercover work, and since October 17th he
has been taken into the witness protection program.

        Last September, Staff Sergeant Timothy Witham was chosen from 20
very
qualified candidates to become a Warrant Officer; now, after spending 79
days in jail, he faces the prospect of an April court-martial. Robert
Ferris, a retired Marine officer and former commanding officer to
Witham,
told The New American: "I spent 24 years in the military, in the Army
and
Marines, and I've never seen an abuse of power to compare with the
treatment of this young man. He should be at Quantico going to school to
become a Warrant Officer, and yet he's exhausting his life savings and
seeing his career destroyed because the feds need to convict somebody to
make a political point." The "political point" being made in the case of
Tim Witham appears to be that mere suspicion of "anti-government" views
is
enough to destroy the career of a model military man.

Extremist Spin

        The "Longfuse" investigation cast a net across several states,
pursuing
leads as far south as North Carolina and as far north as Massachusetts.
Fourteen suspects were arrested on October 17th - eight civilians and
six
Marines, including four stationed at Camp Lejune. Over the course of a
year
and a half, undercover investigators, focusing their efforts on gun
shows,
military bases, and gun dealers throughout the southeast, had purchased
an
estimated 150 pounds of plastic explosives, grenades, grenade launchers,
shoulder-launched rockets, a handful of anti-personnel mines, and more
than
50 machine guns. In the post-Oklahoma City bombing environment, the
preferred spin of federal investigators was entirely predictable.

        Robert Ferris, who is now Witham's next-door neighbor, was a
witness on
Witham's behalf at two preliminary hearings: the "Magistrate's hearing,"
which is held to determine if pre-trial confinement is necessary; and an
"Article 32" hearing, which is the military equivalent of a grand jury.
"The first thing out of the mouth of [military prosecutor] Captain
[Michael] Richardson was 'Ruby Ridge,'" Ferris recalls. "They insisted
that
Tim was part of a ring of anti-government radicals who were stealing
weapons and had sworn not to let the feds take them alive." Thus was
Witham
identified as part of the ubiquitous menace of "right-wing extremism."
Initial press coverage of the "Operation Longfuse" arrests played up the
alleged "anti-government" angle, and the feds did their best to abet
such
speculation - at least in the beginning.

        "Federal agents seized truckloads of stolen military and
civilian weapons
yesterday in an expanding investigation into the theft and sale of
machine
guns, grenades and plastic explosives," screamed the October 18th
Baltimore
Sun. The paper reported that an anonymous investigator portentously
warned
that some of the civilian suspects arrested "have ties - potentially -
to
militia groups." The Raleigh, North Carolina News and Observer carried a
similar warning: "A top official said he could not rule out the
possibility
that anti-government extremists were connected to the theft of military
ordnance from Camp Lejune."

        "These are weapons that are of military use, very lethal
weapons, and they
were weapons that were in the wrong hands," fretted Treasury Department
spokesman Jim Johnson at an October 17th press conference. "That's the
sort
of thing all citizens should be concerned about." Pentagon spokesman
Kenneth Bacon added the disturbing observation that "C-4 was taken,
which
is highly dangerous and used by terrorists."

        For those who missed the message, the Dallas Morning News
offered a useful
summary: "Concern over the theft of high explosives has increased in
military circles along with a broader anxiety about domestic terrorism,
especially in the aftermath of incidents such as the bombing of the
Oklahoma City federal building."

        The "right-wing menace" is the media's favorite enemy, and ATF
officials
were careful to drop tantalizing hints that "Operation Longfuse" had
uncovered something big. "You could outfit a small army with what we've
recovered," claimed ATF special agent Mark Logan. ATF spokesman Earl
Woodham primed the press for further dramatic developments: "The
investigation has really just begun. It's like we just hit the base of
an
oak tree, and if we follow it up, we may find that it branches out very
wide."

Dubious Informant

        The man who planted the acorn that grew into the ATF's "oak
tree" is a
former Marine sergeant who had served as an EOD specialist with several
of
the arrested suspects. In early 1996, this sergeant reportedly
instigated
"Operation Longfuse" when he approached authorities at Camp Lejune to
warn
them that weapons and explosives were being stolen and sold at gun shows
and gun dealerships. That his motives weren't purely idealistic is
suggested by the fact that he was careful to get complete immunity
before
taking an assignment as a paid confidential informant (CI). For the next
year and a half, the CI worked numerous stings against Marines and
civilian
gun enthusiasts.

        The feds deployed other undercover assets as part of "Longfuse"
and tried
to tailor stings to the psychology of the suspects. In the case of
Thomas
Crawford, a Marine captain stationed in Massachusetts who was among
those
arrested on October 17th, the undercover agents reportedly posed as
intelligence specialists who sought arms and explosives for deniable
missions in Latin America - "an Oliver North-type black ops project,"
according to one source. In the case of a second Marine sergeant who was
caught in the sting - and who became the second witness against Witham -
undercover feds reportedly posed as organized crime figures.

        "[The second Marine sergeant] wasn't going anywhere in the
Corps,"
Sergeant Witham asserted to The New American. "He was consistently
denied
promotions; you might say he has more 'pass-overs' than a satellite. I
suspect that he had a real need to feel important, and the undercover
agents were happy to feed his ego."

        From information made available during legal discovery, Witham
relates,
the second Marine "got involved in long drunken discussions with the
undercover people in which he claimed to have been involved in all kinds
of
crimes, including at least one murder. He supposedly helped kill a guy
and
then disposed of the body with a woodchipper. Strangely, though, the
prosecution didn't follow up on that particular story."

        The feds were willing to give credence to the second Marine's
alcohol-aided claims about Witham, which were covertly recorded. "They
initially used those drunken boasts to make three charges against me,"
Witham recalls. "The first was that I had been involved in the theft of
washing machines, dryers, and other appliances, as well as drywall and
other things of that nature. The second was that I had been involved in
forgery, and the third was that I had been involved in the theft of
explosives. The prosecution dropped the first two charges but has stuck
with the third."

        How credible is the second Marine as a witness? According to
local press
reports in North Carolina, he has twice pled guilty to perjury.
Furthermore, he faced accumulated prison terms of up to 380 years on
charges arising from "Longfuse" and reportedly made a deal with the
prosecution in which he could peddle his testimony against others for a
total of 12 years in prison - with the possibility of parole after four.
The third witness against Witham has served a prison term on
firearms-related charges. He also reportedly made a deal for his
testimony
in a previous weapons theft case involving Army personnel.

Casting a Large Net

        Given his own solid military background, and the dubious
background of the
witnesses against him, how did Sergeant Witham get entangled in this
mess?
Attorney Vaughn Taylor, who has acted as Witham's legal counsel,
believes
that the sergeant was "caught in a very large casting net" thrown out by
federal investigators. "There were two things that the government found
very significant," Taylor related to The New American. "First, they were
looking for people who had worked with Captain Crawford in EOD;
secondly,
they were looking at gun shows and people who did business at them. Of
course, these two facts don't add up to a case, particularly when the
suspect is someone like Tim Witham. As far as his military career is
concerned, Witham all but walks on water; it's impossible to imagine
someone farther from the person described in these charges."

        Nor were the feds able to develop a material case against
Witham. On
October 17th, agents from the ATF and NCIS conducted a search of
Witham's
home in Jacksonville, North Carolina; this included an examination of an
adjoining building from which Witham, a federally licensed firearms
dealer,
sold guns and related merchandise. The October 20th "Report of
Investigation" filed by special agent John S. Corpening of the ATF's
Wilmington, North Carolina field office noted that "no machine guns or
prohibited weapons were found" during the search of Witham's home and
business. The report did note that Witham was in possession of a stolen
Ruger pistol. The gun had been brought to Witham for repairs; when he
ran a
check on its serial number, he learned that it was a stolen weapon, and
informed the ATF. As instructed, Witham logged the stolen weapon in his
Acquisition and Disposition record, and held it on behalf of the ATF.

        "Strangely, the ATF's search of my home was conducted, in part,
by
students of mine," Witham informed The New American. "For about three
years
I've been involved with some of them in a drug interdiction program, so
they knew me well before all of this." (Witham has also helped train ATF
and FBI personnel in explosives disposal.) Despite the effort on the
part
of NCIS investigators and Marine officials to depict Witham as a danger
to
public order, the ATF did not seek revocation of his federal firearms
license. "Even though I was in jail for 79 days and face court-martial,
my
firearms license is still active, and my inventory is still intact,"
observes Witham. "If I had done all of the things I've been accused of,
or
any of them, would the ATF have left me with my weapons?"

        On December 19th, Major Robert Brubaker, the Judge Advocate
General
investigator who presided over Witham's "Article 32" investigation,
filed
his report, which once again noted Witham's sterling record and the
poverty
of the case against him. "Evidence was presented demonstrating that
SSgt.
Witham's military character up to this point has been excellent,"
Brubaker
pointed out. "He has a clean, in fact quite distinguished, service
record."
For a man identified as a "flight risk," Witham displayed little
inclination to escape when presented with the opportunity. Brubaker
noted
that the "chasers" - the MPs assigned to watch Witham - were quite
inept.
"To say that their supervision of their charge was loose would be an
understatement," reported the investigator. "I observed a couple of
occasions when SSgt. Witham was alone without the chasers in sight.
There
was one occasion when SSgt. Witham himself tracked down his chasers to
tell
them he was going somewhere and they needed to be with him. To me, this
rather strongly cuts against any argument that he is a serious flight
risk."

        While Brubaker stated that "there probably is sufficient
evidence to send
the case to a court-martial," he also took note of the fact that "the
government seems to be relying quite heavily on the statements of two
witnesses of questionable integrity" to make its case against Witham.
(Since that time a third witness has also offered to testify against
Witham.)

Abuse of Power

        It is possible that Witham's impeccable service record belies
his
involvement in the felonious theft of military weapons and explosives.
However, it is at least as likely that he is merely an exemplary
serviceman
who has been traduced by perjured statements offered in exchange for
special prosecutorial considerations. His case serves as a precautionary
tale about the federal government's increasing reliance upon paid
undercover informants, especially in firearms-related investigations and
other forms of covert operations against the "radical right." In his
book
Deadly Force, law enforcement analyst Carsen Stroud points out that in
1994
the Justice Department budgeted $100 million to spend on confidential
informants, many of them involved in "quasi-criminal or actively
criminal"
enterprises.

        Also significant is the potential impact on military morale
should
Sergeant Witham prove to be the innocent victim of a politically
motivated
abuse of prosecutorial power. "I love the Marine Corps and have great
respect for our federal law enforcement agencies," declares Robert
Ferris,
who was himself a respected field-grade commander. "But what is being
done
to Tim is simply wrong; it's an abuse of power by corrupt and ambitious
people who are, by God, going to get a conviction, whatever it takes to
do
so. In nearly a quarter-century of military service I've never seen a
comparable abuse of power."

-William Norman Grigg

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