A former FBI agent has filed a federal lawsuit against the bureau and its officials alleging he was fired after blowing the whistle on a fellow agent.
Notah Ben Tahy, who served as a special agent in the Utah office of the FBI until June 3, 1995, blamed his dismissal on a conspiracy by superiors and fellow agents who were friends of an agent fingered by Tahy.Filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, the lawsuit says Tahy reported agent Trace L. Kirk for "consorting with criminals" in Blanding during 1992.
"Since that time, Kirk and Kirk's friends in the agency sought to fabricate justifications for actions against Tahy when no adverse personnel actions were justified, culminating in Tahy's termination on false charges," the suit said.
According to the lawsuit, Kirk was later transferred to the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, office of the FBI "because of Tahy's blowing the whistle." Before he left, Tahy alleges, Kirk vowed to "get" him.
"Several agents and employees of the FBI and Department of Justice . . . formed an agreement to retaliate against Tahy because Tahy turned in Kirk for consorting with criminals," the suit said.
For example, within three weeks of the incident, two female friends of Kirk, both of them employees of the FBI, filed "frivolous" sexual harassment reports against Tahy, the suit said.
Tahy, who is a member of the Navajo Tribe, said an application he submitted for additional compensation for his Navajo language skills was never forwarded to the Washington office because the officer responsible was also a friend of Kirk.
When the sexual harassment and application flap failed to remove Tahy, the "conspirators" came up with two other devices to get him fired, the suit said. The first involved getting Tahy's wife to make a statement against her husband about earlier domestic violence. The second involved accusations against Tahy for two lost reimbursement checks totaling $200.
"Having manufactured the `ammunition' they believed was sufficient, the conspirators moved forward to attempt to justify Tahy's removal, in accordance with co-conspirator Kirk's promise to `get' Tahy," the suit said.
The suit further alleges, "The FBI has a history of discriminating against minorities, including not only African-Americans, but also Native Americans, such as Tahy."
And the suit also raised the issue of the Salt Lake office's handling of the Ruby Ridge incident, saying the allegations against the local agents included perjury, destruction of material evidence and "illegal cover-ups of their unlawful actions."
Saying that kind of conduct is in "accordance with the established modus operandi of the Salt Lake City FBI office," Tahy alleges that local FBI officials are intent upon doing the same thing in his case to make good on Kirk's threat.
The conspiracy includes falsification of reports, false sworn testimony and other criminal and uneth-ical conduct to justify Tahy's termination, the suit said.
The defendants include Attorney General Janet Reno and Washington and Utah FBI officials and agents. Tahy is seeking reinstatement and damages to be determined at trial.
A spokesman for the Salt Lake office of the FBI said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.