Tomsheck’s “July Amnesty”: CBP IA loses hundreds of cases alleging criminal activity by CBP Employees -- Pt. 3

Separate but closely tied to CBP, CBP IA, “…pursues a comprehensive integrity strategy designed to prevent, detect and investigate all threats to the integrity of CBP and its workforce; and sustains an integrity continuum, reviewing CBP operations on an ongoing basis to ensure that incidents of corruption and misconduct are prevented, detected and investigated timely” (James F. Tomsheck Assistant Commissioner of Office of Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs, CBP-IA Five Year Report, Washington, D.C., 31 December 2012, p. 6; emphasis added).

In addition to accusing CBP of acting beyond “constitutional constraints,” Tomsheck also says that CBP suffers from “institutional narcissism” in part promoted by a dysfunctional culture and lack of a clear institutional identity. Tomsheck says that CBP views itself, “…as the premier federal law enforcement agency” among all others including the FBI and the CIA.

One direct result of this agency culture at CBP, according to Tomsheck, is that an estimated 20 percent or more of all Agents and Officers have at some time during their career engaged in acts of corruption.

In addition Tomsheck alleges that 25 percent of the twenty-eight immigrant deaths at the Mexican border since 2010 are, in his own words, “highly suspect.” Tomsheck says that, “In nearly every instance there was an effort by Border Patrol leadership to make a case to justify the shooting versus doing a genuine, appropriate review of the information and the facts at hand.” (See also Randal C. Archibold and Andrew Becker, “Border Deaths, Lured by the Other Side,” New York Times, 27 May 2008).

In the Center for Investigative Research interview, Tomsheck alleges that the role CBP assumed led it to protect all of its Agents and Officers charged with participating in criminal activity. This reasonably could be interpreted to include any investigations by the CBP itself, and/or by local and regional agencies over which CBP might have informal or formal influence including municipal police departments, county sheriffs departments, and state police.

In sharp contrast, Tomsheck defends his own CBP IA as innocent of such allegations of protecting CBP Agents and Officers.

Tomsheck places full responsibility for his charges against CBP upon the shoulders of those in the chain of command above him. Among those he specifically identifies is CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin along with Acting CBP Chief David Aguilar. Bersin now serves as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security, while Aguilar is employed by Global Security and Intelligence Strategies.

Tomsheck summarizes his eight years as Assistant Director of CBP IA by saying that, “…he was ultimately scapegoated for not performing a job that wasn’t, by CBP policy, assigned to his CBP IA. Allegations of wrongdoing he believed needed to be investigated instead would go to Border Patrol management for review and discipline. Those inquiries went nowhere or were inadequate…” (interview with Andrew Becker, p. 5; verbatim).

The case of a disabled war hero at CBP IA: Lieutenant Commander J. Gregory Richardson

While Tomsheck’s charges found immediate support from several different employees and former employees at CBP IA and CBP, an investigation into the treatment by Tomsheck of J. Gregory Richardson, Lieutenant Commander in the Navy (Retired) suggests long-term workplace discrimination and harassment of a physically disabled war hero.

Richardson is an African American who worked at IPD as Senior Security Analyst with a civil service pay scale of a GS-14. (Robert Lee Maril, “Vet alleges supervisors at CBP IA ignored his disability: ‘He Just needed an ounce of compassion’” — Pt. 1, HSNW, 28 October 2014; and “James F. Tomsheck forced disabled veteran from CBP IA – Pt. 2,” HSNW, 24 November 2014).

Work colleagues affirmed Richardson’s statements about his extensive health problems when he returned from his last deployment in the Naval Reserve from East Africa. Upon return, Richardson was under the leadership of CBP IA’s Tomsheck along with the direct supervision of IPD’s Director, Janene M, Corrado, and IPD Assistant Director, Jeffrey M. Matta. Tomsheck handpicked Corrado and Matta.

The medical records of Richardson substantiate his own statements about his medical status at the time he worked as a GS-14 in IPD at CBP IA. With the alleged complicity of Corrado and Matta, eventually Richardson says Tomsheck fired him from IPD on 5 March 2014.

Two weeks ago Richardson, who had a documented 80 percent physical disability after his deployment in East Africa, received notification from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. After reviewing his medical records, Richardson now qualifies for a 100 percent medical disability. Richardson is a plaintiff in several lawsuits at this time.

In addition to the Richardson case, facts of the July Amnesty raise more questions about Tomsheck’s leadership at CBP IA. Many hundreds, perhaps more, of security cases involving criminal allegations against CBP Agents and Officers may have never been passed up the chain of command to Tomsheck’s superiors for further action and decision.

Equally troubling, as revealed by the July Amnesty, at least some of these same IPD security cases that were passed up the line of command, cases which had languished for months or years in IPD’s data base, may have been seriously flawed or otherwise failed to meet the professional standards set by Tomsheck.

These CBP IA security cases involving allegations against its own Agents and Officers, as evidenced in the July Amnesty, repeatedly fail to follow CBP IA’s stated mission of insuring that CBP employees’, “…incidents of corruption and misconduct are prevented, detected and investigated timely.”

Security case management at IPD

According to Tomsheck’s CBP-IA Five Year Report, his Integrity Programs Division is, “…the research, analysis, and education component of the Office of Internal Affairs…” (CBP-IA Five Year Report, p. 17).

After two decades of service in the U.S. Secret Service, Tomsheck was hired to lead CBP IA in 2006. Subsequently Tomsheck emphasizes in his five report covering 2008 through 2012 that, “Beginning in 2007, the decision was made to expand IPD and its capacity to move from a reactive posture primarily conducting post case analysis work to a strategic, proactive stance with analysts and behavior research specialists working collaboratively to identify potential acts of corruption and misconduct, indentifying potential vulnerabilities in CBP operations; providing research and analytical support to ongoing investigations and isolating behavior potentially indicative of corruption and misconduct.”

The Integrity Programs Division under Tomsheck’s leadership is a relatively small part of the parent CBP IA, but a division Tomsheck personally developed, nurtured, and closely watched throughout his 8-year tenure as chief executive. In 2008 IPD had a budget of $2. 6 million, but by 2012 its budget had almost doubled.

Under Tomsheck’s leadership, IPD consists of twenty-six employees, including about eight Security Analysts and Senior Security Analysts headquartered in Washington, D.C.; about thirteen Analysts and Senior Analysts located at various locations around the country; two Behavioral Researchers;, and several administrative assistants.

Because of the small size of this CBP IA division, all IPD security analysts, regardless of location, know each other well, communicate among themselves about security cases on a regular basis, and as a result frequently develop strong professional relationships based on their shared commitment to achieve the objectives defined by the IPD mission at CBP IA.

This is particularly true at IPD headquarters in Washington, D.C. As early as 2011, according to IPD internal documents, the Security Analysts, employees who see each other on a daily basis, are encouraged to discuss and review their security cases with each other by their Directors, Corrado and Matta. All Security Analysts are, in specific, encouraged to participate in a peer review of security cases in which one Security Analyst shares a case or details of a case with another both to receive constructive feedback and to insure a high quality of case analysis.

IPD Security Analysts stationed at field offices throughout the country are frequently in touch by computer, phone, and conference call with co-workers in Washington and, of course, constantly in touch with supervisors Corrado and Matta.

While final reports by IPD Security Analysts of CBP employees might exceed twenty to twenty-five pages in length and require several hours of reading by Corrado and Matta, the case peer review system provides a quick review by Corrado and Matta of the case summary in ten minutes or less. This is true because the two supervisors at IPD are assured that the case summary in the report, the product of more than one agent’s professional work, is fact-based, complete, and the product of the expertise of more than one professional Security Analyst.

The allegations in the security cases against Agents and Officers reviewed by IPD Security Analysts normally are graft and corruption including accepting bribes, conspiring with drug cartels, and drug trafficking.

Also under the purview of IPD are allegations of lethal force causing bodily harm to the victim. These allegations against Agents and Officers may include charges of physically abusing illegal aliens attempting to cross the border-including children- that might include sexual assaults and/or physical beatings. Agents and Officers using lethal force against others, including spouses, ex-spouses, and girl friends, family members, or those outside the family are also some of the allegations reviewed by IPD.

Allegations of the involvement of agents and officers in homicides are much more rare; if these allegations do reach IPD they are sent to other federal law enforcement agencies for action.

Until Tomsheck was replaced at CBP IA by Mark A. Morgan, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Inspections, CBP and CBP IA agents lacked full investigatory and policing powers. As a result, Agents and Officers alleged to be involved in homicides would normally, at least in theory, draw oversight by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, and/or the Joint Task Force units in place along the Mexican border.

However, there is some evidence that these allegations of Agent and Officer involvement in homicide cases regularly fall in between the legal and policy jurisdictions of federal law enforcement agencies including the CBP (Andrew Becker, “Did he need killing”, Center for Investigative Reporting, 10 September 204; and Robert Lee Maril, “Report on CBP agent border shooting: ‘Police don’t get to shoot someone in the back because they beat you up’,” HSNW, 16 September 2014). One such case is the murder of Juan Mendez Jr., 18, a U.S. citizen who was shot and killed by Agent Taylor Poitevent near Eagle Pass, Texas, in 2010.

The point remains that allegations of murder involving CBP employees normally are not within the purview of Tomsheck or his CBP IA. Therefore, Tomsheck’s comments about the possible involvement of CBP Agents and Officers in the alleged murders of twenty-eight border immigrants since 2010 may be true or not, but would not be based upon investigations conducted by Tomsheck’s CBP IA.

After a case is given a number and assigned to a Security Analyst, he/she scrutinizes Agents and Officers who possess unexplainable wealth or assets appearing to exceed their means. This may include houses, cars, trucks, recreational vehicles, boats, or other possessions that normally cannot be purchased by Agents and Officers. IPD security analysts also examine individual behaviors that seem unrealistic given the Agent or Officer’s annual and family income as well as assets. These behaviors might, for instance, include excessive gambling losses, expensive family vacations at exotic destinations, or pricey gifts to family members and relatives.

Security analysts at IPD then run base-line checks utilizing different data sets that may examine the number of border crossings by an employee, for example, or purchases of high priced goods and services. All of these quantitative measurements may suggest suspicious activity when examined by experienced Security Analysts.

If a red flag appears in regards to these base-line data checks, then an analyst further pursues the case to the extent he/she judges reasonable by examining additional data sets and law enforcement reports. At the end of this research, the IPD Security Analyst makes a final determination on the allegations against the Agent or Officer.

On every security case assigned at IPD, there are only two possible conclusions. The first is that the case is closed because the allegations involving the Agent or Officer are not supported by the facts analyzed by the Security Analyst in additional to the expertise provided by the peer review system encouraged by Corrado and Matta.

In this first security case determination, the security case then goes directly to Corrado and Matta who, in a timely fashion, enter the case into the CBP IA case management system. At the same time, they e-mail the Investigative Operations Division Director, Paul Hamrick, that the case is officially closed.

If an IPD security case is closed, CBP’s Joint Intake Center may be contacted. In turn, the accused Agent or Officer, if aware of the allegations against him/her, is supposed to be notified that the case is officially closed. All other law enforcement agencies involved in the case are also supposed to be notified of IPD’s decision that the case against the alleged suspect is officially closed.

The second possibility in the review of an IPD security case is that the IPD Security Analyst concludes that the charges against the CBP Agent or Officer may have some merit requiring further scrutiny. If the IPD Security Analyst reaches this determination about the case, then the Assistant Director and the Director, after reviewing the case, send the Security Analyst’s report to IOD for further action as required. They might also provide by e-mail more information on the case as well as specific suggestions as to possible actions or referrals.

At IOD, under the direction of Paul Hamrick, the case is supposed to be further investigated. Employees at IOD might be instructed to conduct further research into the allegations against the Agent or Officer identified in the security case, investigation limited until very recently by the narrow police powers by which CBP agents are empowered. IOD agents might conduct further research of the suspected CBP employee in his work and community setting or the FBI, ICE, or other law enforcement agencies might be contacted to conduct investigations beyond the expertise of IOD analysts.

Standard operating procedure regarding security case management in either of these two possible determinations by an IPD Security Analyst limits his further knowledge or research of the security case he examined. Once he sends his report to Corrado and Matta, he is finished with that case and he begins working on a new one that is assigned to him.

From start to finish this case analysis, including a detailed, written report sent to IPD supervisors Corrado and Matta, may take less than an hour or two, one-half a work day, three days, or even three weeks, all depending on what the facts discovered may suggest. These are professional Security Analysts with years of experience to their credit and a detailed understanding of the work performed by Agents and Officers. At IPD headquarters in 2012 Security Analysts are all GS 14s including both Security Analysts and Senior Security Analysts. Corrado and Matta, the IPD Director and Assistant Director, are GS 15s.

All security cases involving allegations against CBP Agents and Officers are managed in this exact and professional manner at IPD. Until February 2011.

In February, 2011, Achante Boyd, an African American with nine years of service, worked — as she has for several years — as the Mission Support Specialist at IPD. One of her tasks was to assign case numbers to all incoming security cases, then assign the case to one of the IPD Security Analysts. Boyd was the only other IPD person with specific knowledge of the case management system including the case management database besides Corrado and Mata.

At 4:10 p.m., 22 February 2011, Corrado notified all IPD staff that she had fired Achante Boyd.

The exact reasons for Corrado firing Achante Boyd are not known, but some IPD Security Analysts believe Achante Boyd is fired by Corrado because Boyd may have discovered crucial problems in the security case management database, deficiencies that may have included security cases not being passed up the line to IOD on a timely basis for months or years, or other issues central to the integrity of IPD case files.

Corrado notified her staff in this same e-mail, “Effective today, Ms. Boyd will no longer be working at CBP.” She blames the termination of Boyd on lack of funding for the position by the Federal Career Intern Program.

However, Corrado then immediately hires Eric Timmel, a former summer intern with far less work experience and training than Boyd. In fact, Boyd has been training Timmel on a variety of different tasks she performs daily. Boyd claims that she has not finished training Timmel in all the courses necessary.

Like others who frequently fill summer jobs at CBP IA, then move into permanent positions, Timmel is the son of a CBP IA manager. Eric Timmel is, in fact, the son of Robert Timmel, a former Director of IOD.

“July Amnesty”

Given these standard operating procedures and protocols for all IPD security cases, IPD Security Analysts were shocked to hear the news of a huge backlog of cases at another IPD division during their own division meeting on 30 March 2011. The Analysts are told that there was an enormous backlog in the Personnel Security Division (PSD). PSD is by far the largest of seven divisions at Tomsheck’s CBP IA, with an annual budget in 2012 of $81 million and staff to match it.

At this meeting, Corrado and Matta tell IPD Security Analysts in a telephone conference call that, “PSD needs to clear 12,000 PRI’s (Periodic Reinvestigations) and 2,000 BPA (Border Patrol Agent) applicants.”

These huge numbers of PRI’s cases and BPA’s cases clearly show that at least as early as the end of March, 2011, there was an enormous case backlog prevalent throughout Tomsheck’s largest CBP IA division, PSD.(CBP IA IPD “Meeting Notes,” 3/30/11,p.1; notes taken by Juanita Medina). This huge case backlog suggests a dysfunctional institutional culture at CBP IA, the same charge Tomsheck levels against his CBP superiors when he turns federal whistleblower in 2014.

IPD Security Analysts at the conference call, experienced men and women who had no knowledge or control of the case management system in either their own IPD or other CBP IA divisions, out of nowhere glimpse a dysfunctional CBP IA division overwhelmed by an enormous case backlog.

This disheartening information about the largest CBP IA division, however, was just a forewarning of far worse news to come for IPD staff.

Three months later, at the IPD meeting of 30 June 2011, a meeting held in their IPD Conference Room at CBP IA headquarters, Corrado and Matta dropped a directors’ bomb on their own Security Analysts (“IPD Monthly Status Meeting, June, 2011,” 6/30/11; notes prepared by Julie Jucenas).

The IPD meeting notes read: “IPD currently has713 unclosed cases. Director Corrado has declared July amnesty month. All of these open cases need to be resolved in the next 31 days.” “These reports need to be completed so the cases can be closed out.” “We need to clean these cases up” (“IPD Monthly Status Meeting,” p. 3; emphasis added).

Further, the minutes of the same meeting state: “Director Corrado will make a determination as to some of the aging cases. You will receive an email indicating that certain cases have been closed, will continue or will be suspended. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these determinations, please let Director Corrado/AD Matta know” (“IPD Monthly Status Meeting, emphasis added).

It is important to note that the Security Analysts had no idea that cases were indeed backlogged at IPD. Certainly they did not know there were a total of more than 700 cases still in the case database still waiting to be sent to IOD.

Neither did Security Analysts know that there existed, in Corrado’s words, a new category she names “aging cases.” In fact, Analysts have always assumed that all of their cases, once passed on to Corrado and Matta, were entered into the case management system in a timely fashion and sent to IOD.

In the daily working world of these IPD Security Analysts, “aging cases” do not exist.

The minutes also read: “Director Corrado. Cannot stress enough the importance of amnesty in July. It is very important that you clean up all of your aging cases. Eric will send out case spreadsheets tomorrow. Every single case will require an explanation. Please be honest as to the status. All of these cases need to be resolved in July” (verbatim).

The IPD Security Analysts also were stunned because they were asked by Corrado to do the impossible: to analyze — or in some cases, re-analyze — more than 700 cases in one month. Perhaps in four or five months this number of cases might be professionally examined and determinations reached by IPD analysts. But certainly not during the limited time period of July, 2011.

There is no way, in short, that more than 700 IPD security cases could be professionally and competently reviewed at the rate suggested by Corrado and Matta. In fact the Security Analysts soon learned that some “aging cases” were, in fact, years old. These cases were their own previous cases they assumed had already been entered into the data base system and long since acted upon as required by CBP IOD.

There is also in these IPD documents a description of a new data base for security cases, a second data base which is supposed to be superior to the first case management data base. What is noticeably absent is any explanation of why the first database has apparently failed and must, through the hard work of all Security Analysts, essentially be reconstructed by the Security Analysts.

The need for a July Amnesty suggests that the case management system at IPD was either accidently deleted/changed or intentionally deleted/changed.

Under “Questions/Closing Remarks,” the IPD minutes from this same meeting read: “31 days of amnesty. Director Corrado understands-she has been where we are. Amnesty is a good thing. Make it work.”

According to reporters Marissa Taylor and Franco Ordonez, who appear to have examined other documents about events at CBP IA, “…division leaders failed to review reports they completed sometimes years earlier.” (Marisa Taylor and Franco Ordonez, “Border Agency’s Watchdog under Investigation for Cover-up”, McClatchyDC, 20 June 2014).

Regardless of who bears the exact responsibility for the IPD case backlog, Corrado and Matta’s July Amnesty” clearly demonstrates that more than 700 IDP security cases alleging criminal misconduct by CBP Agents and Officers were, for up to several years, never passed up the line of command at Tomsheck’s CBP IA.

Tomsheck’s leadership at CBP IA

Under Tomsheck, Corrado Matta, both of whom he handpicked, the IPD’s July Amnesty reveals an organizational tactic by which CBP IA struggled to cope with an enormous backlog of security cases involving allegations of criminal activity by Border Patrol Agents and Customs Officers.

While federal whistleblower Tomsheck accuses managers above him, specifically Alan Bersin and David Aguilar, of ignoring security cases sent to them regarding alleged criminal activity by Agents and Officers, the July Amnesty suggests instead that hundreds of such cases appear to have languished in Tomsheck’s own IPD for months or even years. Then Security Analysts, ordered by Corrado and Matta to reconstruct all these security cases within an unreasonable time frame, the month of July 2011, hastily re-analyzed these same security cases.

It remains unclear exactly when, or whether, all of these 714 cases were ever officially closed or passed up the chain of command for further action to be taken.

Tomsheck’s July Amnesty demonstrates that in at least one of his seven divisions, IPD, security case management was dysfunctional. Clearly one of Tomsheck’s seven divisions at CBP IA, IPD, was hindered by a serious security case backlog of enormous size, not meeting the professional standards outlined in its own Mission Statement.

At the same time, Tomsheck’s largest division, PSD, was also inundated in 2011 by an even greater number of backlogged cases.

Corrado and Matta’s remedy to IPD’s dysfunctional case management system, the July Amnesty, a case management system they directly supervised and maintained, miserably failed to support IPD’s “comprehensive integrity strategy” and sustain an “integrity continuum.” Corrado and Matta were hired by Tomsheck at IPD to review “CBP operations on an ongoing basis to ensure that incidents of corruption and misconduct are prevented, detected and investigated timely.”

Corrado and Matta appear to have failed to meet these professional standards and expectations as detailed in Tomsheck’s IPD mission statement.

Corrado has, according to an in-house CBP IA document, received a promotion to the position of Chief of Staff for Gregory Marshall, Chief Security Officer at the Department of Homeland Security.

According to another in-house CBP IA document, Matta, Corrado’s former Assistant Director at IPD, will take a future position in the Office of Field Operations at CBP (“CBP IA’s Janine Corrado and Jeffrey M. Matta leave Agency for New Positions,” HSNW,27 November 2014).

The July Amnesty also translates into the troubling fact that an unknown number of Border Patrol Agents and Customs Officers, who are possibly guilty of a variety of criminal offenses never investigated to IPD professional standards or in a timely fashion, may still be employed at CBP.

An unknown number of these Agents and Officers may have since taken jobs in other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. At the very least, these same possible offenders may have retired with full CBP pensions and benefits.

Along with the July Amnesty in 2011 and the alleged discrimination and firing of Richardson in March 2014, there appear to be a number of other events calling Tomsheck’s leadership at CBP IA into question.

Robert Lee Maril, a professor of Sociology at East Carolina University, is the author o f The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border. He blogs at leemaril.com.