John Carman Inspector
Alleges Corruption in Customs
Illegally
Jailed for Blowing the Whistle on Bush Narcotics
Breaking News
July 24, 2011
By Christopher
Ruddy
April 20, 1997
SAN DIEGO,
Calif. - A U.S. Customs Service inspector who blew the whistle
on corruption
within the agency continues to suffer retaliation from agency
officials, the Tribune-Review
has learned.
Despite
assurances from outgoing Customs Commissioner George Weise
- who announced his resignation last week that officers who
went public with
wrongdoing would not
suffer retribution, Customs officials are seeking to fire
John Carman, a
senior inspector stationed in San Diego.
In a February
1995 letter to Customs employees, Weise wrote: "... I want to
assure you that I
recognize your right to speak with news media
representatives about your
perceptions which you believe evidence serious
misconduct or
mismanagement."
Since then,
Carman, 44, a 14-year veteran of the federal service, has spoken
on the record to
several major news organizations to expose what he says is
"corruption that has taken place with the complicity of supervisory
and high
officials." Carman
says he went public after he found officials unresponsive
to his
complaints. He has made numerous public allegations:
In October
1995, he was quoted on the record - the only current Customs
employee to do so - in
the San Diego Union Tribune, supporting allegations
made by former
inspector Mike Horner. Horner charged that corruption was
widespread among Customs
personnel working along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Horner,
profiled in a June 1994 edition of Reader's Digest, alleged that
Customs
officials regularly deleted computer files on known narcotics
traffickers. He also
alleged that one of his superiors asked him for the
names of two
confidential informants who had tipped Horner off about a drug
shipment.. Within two
days, one of the informants had been murdered and
another suffered a
near-fatal stabbing.
In 1995 and
1996, Carman was interviewed for two segments of NBC's
"Dateline"
in which he claimed that Customs officials had allowed the border
crossing points to
become like open faucets for drugs shipments.
In September
1996, Carman was interviewed by a major Mexican newspaper, El
Universal,
causing a hubbub in Mexico City. Carman told the paper that in
1994, Customs
officials refused to enter information into the agency's
computer system that
the former governor of Baja, Mexico, Roberto de la
Madrid, as well
as a prominent Mexican organized crime figure, had links to
narcotics trafficking.
In 1996, Carman
alleged to several media, including "60 Minutes," that he
had complained
about a ranking Customs official's memo allowing 167 Mexican
nationals to transit
without inspection through the San Diego Customs
district, contravening
federal regulations. Carman said he took the matter
to a superior,
who agreed that the memo was illegal. Instead of acting on
it, the superior
threw the memo into the trash, Carman recounted..
For years,
Carman was one of the Customs Service's top guns. One report
stated he was among
the department's highest-rated inspectors in nabbing
drug carriers. The
Office of National Drug Policy calculates that about 70
percent of all cocaine
coming into the United States crosses the border with
Mexico. The San
Diego Customs district, with its four border crossings
spread across 120
miles, is arguably the most problematic for drug
interdiction.
Carman's own
nightmare seems to coincide with Clinton administration efforts
to reduce
inspections and move resources away from border interdiction. In
October 1995,
the Tribune-Review, quoting high-level Customs sources,
reported that the
administration had gutted the agency's enforcement senior
staff of hard liners
and slashed its budget. The administration also
de-emphasized interdiction
at the borders in favor of promoting unrestricted
commerce between the
United States and Mexico.
Within the
first two years of the Clinton initiatives, the amount of cocaine
seized by Customs
plummeted by nearly 40 percent.
*MARKED MAN*
After going on
the record to support Horner's allegations, Carman become a
marked man.
Above-average ratings on his twice-yearly job performance
evaluations suddenly
became just average. Carman filed a grievance regarding
the evaluations,
and won on appeal. "He's the only one who spoke out,"
Horner said of
Carman, telling the Tribune-Review that for doing so Carman
has paid a heavy
price. "He is a good officer, but (Customs) has beat up on
him good."
A tall, husky
man who sports a moustache, Carman comes across as all-cop
after his more than
two decades in law enforcement. He started his career as
a uniformed
Secret Service officer at the White House, and later joined the
San
Diego Police Department. He subsequently took a job as a Customs
inspector here. "I
wanted to get into a law enforcement agency that was
active in stopping
the drug trade, because I believed then - I still believe
- the drug
problem has done real harm to this country," he says.
During his
tenure with Customs, Carman received numerous commendations, as
well as several
citations from the commissioner himself for suggestions made
to improve
department procedures.
In February
1995, after years of working the border inspection line where
millions of cars
passed, Carman was overcome by car exhaust. His doctor
found his blood had
higher-than-normal levels of poisonous carbon monoxide.
Carman returned
to work a week later over his doctor's objections, but
suffered a relapse that
kept him out of work for nine months.
As he eagerly
approached the day he would return to his job, his superior at
Customs, Rudy
Camacho, the current district director, informed him that he
would not be
returned to an enforcement position. Carman's doctor requested
his patient be
given light duty; Camacho responded that no special duty
would be found for
him.
Carman says
other employees with similar ailments have been transferred to
the San Diego
airport - away from car exhaust - and he is more than willing
to work a full
load there. Carman suspects he didn't get an airport posting
because of fear that
he would have access to federal computers there.
Recently,
Carman was the subject of an internal affairs investigation into
allegations that he leaked
sensitive criminal information to a Washington,
D.C., reporter
from the agency's computers - a charge he denies .
Instead of
offering Carman a light-duty position at the border crossing or
at the airport,
Camacho gave Carman an ultimatum: take an office job or be
fired. The position
offered him was as an import specialist at the agency's
San
Diego offices. Carman says this position entails "classifying and
valuing merchandise
coming into the United States. I basically tell you how
much a case of
tomatoes is worth."
*HARASSMENT
CONTINUES*
Faced with
immediate dismissal, Carman accepted the post, but says the
harassment continues. His
superiors have threatened to fire him unless he
completes a six-week
import specialist training course at a federal center
in Georgia.
Carman is under doctor's orders not to travel for extended
periods.
On March 5,
Carman received a notice of dismissal that cited not only his
failure to comply with
the training program, but also a charge of sexual
harassment. The sexual
harassment charge proved baseless and was quietly
dropped, and on March
27 Customs rescinded the dismissal letter. On the same
day, Carman
received another letter threatening dismissal unless he took the
training course.
Carman says his
doctor's order isn't the only reason he doesn't want to go
to Georgia.
Another reason is fear. In 1995, he noticed that someone had
removed several lug
nuts from the two tires on the passenger side of his
car, creating a
significant safety risk. Weeks later, while making a routine
U-turn one
night near his home to park his car, Carman's small Toyota
Cressida was
struck directly in the driver's door by a pickup truck driven
by a Filipino
man. The man said it was an accident, but Carman is sure that
the pickup's
headlights were off, that the man was traveling in excess of 50
mph in a 30 mph
zone, and that the driver never used his horn or braked.
There were no
skid marks. Carman survived with several broken ribs.
He is not
without allies. He has received some support from U.S. Sen. Diane
Feinstein, a
California Democrat who has been one of the fiercest critics of
the
administration's drug interdiction policies. Feinstein wrote to Customs
on Carman's
behalf. In a letter dated Nov. 8, 1995, Director Rudy Camacho
replied to Feinstein.
He claimed that Customs "has no direct or indirect
knowledge that Mr.
Carman is a whistle-blower; other than Mr. Carman stating
it."
Camacho's
letter was sent to Feinstein after department officials had warned
Carman not to
speak with the press, and just a month after Carman was named
as a
whistle-blower in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Bill Anthony, a
spokesman for Customs in Washington, said, "The Customs
service believes John
Carman has been treated fairly," but declined to
discuss the case
because of Privacy Act restrictions. He referred questions
to Camacho, who
was unavailable for comment. Paul Tourkin, the
Customs
Service's
assistant chief counsel who is handling Carman's case, declined to
comment on it.
Susan Kennedy,
spokeswoman for Feinstein, said protecting whistle-blowers
will remain a
priority for the senator. "It's always a concern when someone
tries to do their
job and comes to a superior with evidence of wrongdoing,
and that person is
then retaliated against. That person should be
protected," she
said.
Despite the
perceived risks, Carman wants to continue working at Customs..
"I've got
to do what I feel is right no matter what people think,"
he says.
"It's
important not for me but for the people I'm sworn to protect."
July 24, 2011
Message from
Stew Webb Federal Whistleblower
http://www.stewwebb.com/breaking_news.htm
John needs our
help,
Donations and a
Job in Southern California
San Diego
County the Bush Crime Syndicate
Has
him on illegal probation.
Stew Webb
John Carman Ex Secret Service-US Customs Whistleblower
Faced Federal
Charges
Illegally Held
for 4 years by Feds
For exposing
Bush Narcotics Rings
http://www.stewwebb.com/breaking_news.htm
Please send
John a Donation
John Carman
P.O. Box 577
La Mesa, Ca.
91944