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Fake Feds?
Friday, the 31st of October, we received a phone call
from a man who refused to identify himself. He wanted to talk to
me and it was urgent. First he made me promise that I would not
reveal to anyone under any circumstance that we had talked. I
had immediately recognized from his voice that it was Col.
Rublee but I didn’t mention that I knew who it was. I always
assumed that my phone was bugged.
He then told me that he had become aware of a plot to
surreptitiously remove any data media they could find in my
condo. They wanted my database that badly. He was sure that I
would know who are the perpetrators responsible for this
unlawful act. He thought that I should be warned. I thanked him
and he disconnected.
Tuesday, the 4th of November, I had just flown out to
Chicago the day before. I had warned our doorman to be on the
lookout for strangers looking to gain access to the building. I
also let him know about the warning I had received. Laura was
out of the condo doing a slew of errands. When she returned, our
doorman told her that two men claiming to be FBI agents had gone
up to the condo about a half hour ago with several folded up,
empty boxes. The doorman was a retired police officer and he
knew that those boxes were used to carry evidence. He had asked
them if they had a search warrant because there was no one at
home and they said that they didn’t need one and that he had
better be careful that he wasn’t charged with impeding a federal
investigation. He also told Laura that he didn’t really believe
they were from the FBI because he was very familiar with FBI
special agents and they were usually very courteous.
Laura used the doorman’s phone to call the local FBI office (we
worked with them so often she knew their phone number from
memory). They told her that the agents were not from their
office and that agents from any other offices were required to
check in with the local office first. They also told her to call
the local precinct (NYPD) because, though they were dispatching
two special agents immediately, they may not be able to get
there quickly enough. Laura asked them to call the precinct for
her because the response would be much more prompt. They did and
within minutes two police cars, each with two officers, rolled
up to the building.
The doorman described to the sergeant what had happened. Two
officers went up to the condo. Another officer went to see if
anyone had gone out the door to the rear alley and the fourth
officer checked the garage in case they decided to exit that
way.
When the two officers, who went up to the condo, arrived there
they saw that the front door frame had been broken and they
found no one in the condo. They radioed in that the suspects had
taken the stairs. The officer watching the garage moved the
patrol car to block the garage exit and then waited in the
lobby. No one appeared. They then did a search of the garage and
found the two men who had broken into our condo had broken into
and were hiding in one of the cars (the garage was mostly empty)
with our disk pack and a reel of tape. The officers arrested the
two men and transported them to the precinct, one of the men in
each of the two cars. The FBI still had not made their
appearance.
When the car with the two FBI special agents drove up the
doorman told them what had happened and they continued to the
precinct. We never did hear the whole story but the FBI traced
the two men back to an NSA employee who, of course, claimed that
he had no knowledge of the plot nor had he ever seen or
communicated with those men previously.
I was very dubious that this NSA employee had acted on his own.
He did not appear to have anything to gain. It was my suspicion
that he had been ordered by the NSA to get our data base that
way as I had already refused to share it with them. |