Agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have admitted to attending sex parties with prostitutes hired by drug cartels while on assignment in Columbia. The admission came during an investigation by the Department of Justice that began after a 2012 prostitution scandal in Columbia was uncovered that involved agents of the United States Secret Service.
Seven of ten of the agents accused of misconduct admitted to the parties that took place in the agents’ quarters that were paid for by the U.S. government, according to a report in the Washington Post. The agents received suspensions ranging from two to ten days. Some of these agents had top-level security clearances.
The revelation came as part of a 131-page report from the Department of Justice titled, “The Handling of Sexual Harassment and Misconduct Allegations by the Department’s Law Enforcement Components” (attached below). The report details potential misconduct in the DEA; FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Marshalls Service, according to a report in Politico.
Politico Reports, that “The foreign officer allegedly arranged ‘sex parties’ with prostitutes funded by the local drug cartels for these DEA agents at their government-leased quarters, over a period of several years,” the IG report says. The parties reportedly took place from 2005 to 2008, but the DEA’s Office of Professional Responsibility became aware of them only in 2010 after it received an anonymous complaint. DEA supervisors, however, had been aware of the allegations for several years because of complaints from building management where the DEA office in Bogotá was located.
Three DEA agents in particular were said to have received money, expensive gifts, and weapons, from drug cartel members. The IG report claims that DEA officials did not fully comply with the investigators’ requests for information.
The report claims the DEA did not give the Office of Inspector General (OIG) access to the case file until several months had passed. DEA employees told OIG investigators they were under the impression from their agencies they were not to discuss the case with the OIG while the case remained open. Once the misconduct case was closed, they were allowed to talk to the OIG, but only after the OIG requested information.
“Therefore,” the report concludes, “we cannot be completely confident that the FBI and DEA provided us with all information relevant to this review. As a result, our report reflects the findings and conclusions we reached based on the information made available to us.”
Other examples of misconduct by DOJ law enforcement agencies include the following, according to Politico:
- A deputy U.S. Marshal “entered into a romantic relationship” with a fugitive’s spouse and would not break off the relationship for more than a year even after supervisors told him to end it;
- An ATF “Director of Industry Operations” “solicited consensual sex with anonymous partners and modified a hotel room door to facilitate sexual play.” The ATF employee even disabled a hotel’s fire detection system, and when caught by the hotel, he said he had done it before;
- “For over 3 years, an ATF Program Manager failed to report allegations that two training instructors were having consensual sex with their students. According to the incident report, the Program Manager learned the same instructors had engaged in substantially the same activities 3 years earlier but had merely counseled the training instructors without reporting the alleged activities” to the Internal Affairs Division.
In the investigation of the FBI, it was revealed that four senior FBI officials failed to report the alleged misconduct of a supervisory management and program analyst who engaged in misconduct over a three year period. He allegedly cornered his subordinates in their cubicles while displaying his genitals by “tightening his pants and making inappropriate sexual comments and gestures.”
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called on the DOJ to adopt a “zero-tolerance policy” for their employees who are found to be purchasing sex. “The Department of Justice may not be taking adequate steps to prevent its own employees from buying sex and thereby contributing to the demand for the human sex trade,” Grassley wrote in a letter to Acting Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates, according to the Post’s article.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told Politico he wanted the agencies to “swiftly fire those involved” and pledged his committee would begin an immediate investigation. “You can’t ignore this,” Chaffetz said. “This is terribly embarrassing and fundamentally not right.”
“We have to understand issue by issue what is happening. We need to understand how these people are being held accountable. There should be no question about the severity of the punishment,” Chaffetz concluded. “I don’t care how senior the person is, they are going to have to let these people go.”
A hearing by the House Oversight Committee is scheduled for April 14th. Chaffetz has invited the Inspectors General for the DEA and the DOJ to testify.
Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2.
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