Allegations of Retaliation Against Whistleblowers Surround U.S. Attorney Nominee
President Obama recently nominated Robert E. O’Neill to serve as U.S. attorney for Florida’s Middle District, one of the country’s busiest regions. The nomination will be reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months and will need to be approved by a vote of the full Senate. However, there are questions regarding his nomination based on O’Neill’s alleged involvement with whistleblower retaliation.
Between 1999 and 2003, O’Neill was former federal prosecutor Jeffrey J. Del Fuoco’s supervisor. Del Fuoco was in charge of investigating a corrupt Manatee County, Florida sheriff, Charles B. “Charlie” Wells, and an elite group of his deputies known as the Delta Squad. Then Assistant U.S. Attorney O’Neill gave Del Fuoco a glowing review, stating he “was able to demonstrate the legitimacy of the investigation and the fact that the corruption was rampant.”
The street crime-fighting record of Sheriff Wells was praised, but there were a number of allegations over the years that he mixed public and private business. Sheriff Wells was an advisor to Florida governor Jeb Bush. When George W. Bush appointed a new U.S. attorney, Paul I. Perez, Wells met with Perez to express his “opinion that Mr. Del Fuoco needed to be closely supervised.” According to the St. Petersburg Times “given the history of investigation into the Sheriff’s Office, Perez’s visit put him in a position where it could have appeared he was being influenced by Wells, an expert on legal ethics says.”
In 2002, Del Fuoco was still working on the sheriff’s case, but was spending most of his time investigating corrupt police officers in another city. So, when he discovered a black vehicle watching his home he assumed that it was as a result of that case. However, it was quickly discovered that a Manatee sheriff’s employee had run Del Fuoco’s tag numbers through the Florida Crime Information Center (FCIC) computer in order to get his home address and other personal information. Del Fuoco, concerned for his family, repeated asked Perez for protection, but received nothing for those efforts.
Out of frustration that the DOJ had done nothing to protect his family, Del Fuoco filed a lawsuit against the Sheriff and some of his employees for illegally accessing law enforcement data to retaliate against him for prosecuting Delta Squad members. The lawsuit “ helped poison Del Fuoco’s relations with supervisors, who felt he had acted rashly.” Del Fuoco’s lawsuit also helped spur more allegations involving the Manatee Sheriff’s Office to be reported to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. However, in May 2003, Del Fuoco was transferred from the criminal to civil division, all contemporaneous with filing a lawful complaint of whistleblower retaliation with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Del Fuoco considered his demotion to be in retaliation for filing the lawsuit against the politically connected sheriff. In fact, shortly after Del Fuoco was removed from the investigation into Sheriff Wells the investigation of Wells was dropped and the investigators were told that since Wells “swings a big bat,” there “would be no further investigations targeting him.” Del Fuoco resigned his position at the DOJ in August 2005.
Please click here to read a letter dated April 26, 2004 from Attorney Stephen M. Kohn to former Attorney General John Ashcroft detailing the improper and illegal harassment suffered by Mr. Del Fuoco and his family.
The National Whistleblowers Center hopes that the Senate Judiciary Committee conducts a full investigation into whether or not nominee Robert E. O’Neill retaliated against whistleblower Jeffery J. Del Fuoco for having the guts to stand up to a corrupt, politically connected sheriff. If the committee concludes that O’Neill illegally retaliated against a whistleblower, then they should not approve of his nomination.
Related Articles:
“Robert O’Neill nominated for U.S. attorney” St. Petersburg Times, June 9, 2010
“Was Manatee sheriff a target of prosecution or persecution?” St. Petersburg Times, March 29, 2008
“Former Manatee County sheriff merits closer scrutiny” St. Petersburg Times, April 4, 2008
April 26, 2004 letter from Attorney Stephen M. Kohn to former Attorney General John Ashcroft
.jpg)
This is a great move on the part of Whisleblowers. Thanks so much for writing this article. Jeff needs this kind of support. We need to forward this article to the President along with our comments as citizens. O'Reilley's appointment should not be confirmed. The only appointment he needs is a jail appointment.
I emailed the other comment that was missing from here with links to more current wrongdoing and evidence of lies in violation of US CODE by Robert O'Neill. Here is an article in the St Pete Times today ... it appears to cite commentary by an artist, Barbara Elliott. Thanks for speaking up Ms. Elliott. http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article1112145.ece
One would be interested in ALL of the StPeteTimes articles pertaining to O'Neill and his business partner at
the IRA headquarters in Tampa, Colin Breen. Irish Republican Army. The articles themselves prove to contain a
great deal of bias. It's the reader comments you will want to pay attention to.
Also of definite interest to readers here would be the disclosures via James Scanlan concerning the
prosecutorial abuse evinced by O'Neill during his prosecution of Deborah Gore Dean.
http://jpscanlan.com/images/Attorney_General_Eric_Holder_June_28,_2010_.pdf
http://www.jpscanlan.com/misconductprofiles/roberteoneill.html (addendum seven would be of immediate
interest)
Besides my own terrifying experiences with the Breen and O'Neill IRA krewe I would never have found out about
any of the rest of this.
Trust that Robert O'Neill comes out after personally and sends his nasty criminal cohorts, including women,
out after anyone who seeks (however unwittingly) to thwart his agenda. And it's a big operation. Robert has a
huge agenda and he will plow over anyone in his path. Including CHILDREN. My son has been poisoned and
threatened with framing. Thank you for exposing this criminal posing under the American flag as a prosecutor.
Of further interest to you folks would be the coverage this was given at the powerline blog: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/07/026683.php
AND
at the truthinjusticefiles blog:
http://truthinjusticefiles.blogspot.com/2010/06/curious-united-states-attorney.html"
AND here:
http://truthinjusticefiles.blogspot.com/2010/07/reason-for-bar-counsel-investigation-of.html"
These links comprise a few hours of reading.
What's important to know about O'Neill and his huge faction of criminals is that they will do their best to isolate a victim. Everywhere I turned there was an O'Neill or IRA loyalist waiting to call me crazy and to ignore the dire situation in which he placed my family. Interestingly enough when I spoke up, many MANY decent people came out of the woodwork with the same or similar tales. Some worse. I'm not sure how bad others consider it to have their child threatened FOR NO REASON with inclusion on the sexual offenders registry if they don't a. shut up or b. give up their valuable property but when the threat is made by the wife of the partner of a United States Attorney who has already framed plenty of people this is something that I took very seriously. I have been stalked and terrorized by these people for far too long now. No matter where I go or my child goes there will be a number of them. I began to collect their photos and tag numbers. I hope at some point it will help. Robert O'Neill and Colin Breen and a number of others belong in prison. They operate with great lack of fear, truly believing they are untouchable. Are they?
They have reporters at the local newspapers who have demonstrated Irish Republican Army loyalties. At some point Del Fuoco rightly accused Robert E. O'Neill of traveling to Ireland to meet with the IRA. They come here to Tampa, as well. These are dangerous people and they have a United States Attorney among others so highly placed in their pocket and among their members. Four Green Fields Tampa Florida. Please visit the st pete times and do a search for Robert O'Neill. Read all the comments on all the articles.
AUSA O'Neill is an outright criminal. Look at the United States v. Thomas Spellissy, et al case, MDFL Tampa, 05-cr-475. In this case O'Neill lied to the jury to get a conviction. There is also evidence of witness tampering, a dirty cop and a good ole boy network in full swing at AUSA O'Neill's discretion.