A overcrowded, cold detention facility in Tucson.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A trial is set to begin today over conditions at detention centers at several of Border Patrol’s stations in Arizona.

The case involves a lawsuit filed in 2015 that challenges what attorneys say are unsafe and deplorable conditions at eight Border Patrol facilities in Arizona, The New York Times reports.

The lawsuit was filed four years before the surge in immigrants last year caused even bigger problems at the facilities, which activists say are inhume.

Photos used as evidence in the case show men packed under an aluminum blanket, rusty toilets, soiled toiled paper, and women changing a baby’s diaper on a concrete floor littered with trash.

“We’re talking about ensuring that the government is meeting constitutional standards when it comes to the detention of people in these facilities,” said Victoria López, advocacy and legal director for the ACLU of Arizona, one of the organizations involved in the suit.

Border Patrol didn’t respond to questions from The New York Times.

Gangster John Dillinger, via FBI.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

It appears the fight over exhuming John Dillinger’s gravesite is over.

Michael Thompson, the nephew of the 1930s American gangster, has withdrawn his lawsuit seeking permission from an Indianapolis cemetery to exhume Dillinger’s gravesite to determine if he’s actually buried there, RTV-6 reports.

Thompson believes he may have evidence that his bank-robbing uncle was not fatally shot by the FBI at a theater in Chicago in 1934. The FBI disputes those claims as fantasy.

Thompson’s plans were thwarted by Crown Hill Cemetery, which refused to give him permission to exhume the body.

Marion County Superior Court Judge Timothy Oakes dismissed the lawsuit in December, saying state law requires a cemetery’s consent to exhume a body.

“The limited question before the Court today is whether disinterment may occur under this section of the statute without cemetery approval. Court finds that the statutory requirements for this section of the statute are clear in that disinterment requires the cemetery owner to give consent before disinterment may occur,” Oakes wrote.

The judge, however, gave Thompson an opportunity to amend the suit, but he has not.

Crown Hill Cemetery released the following statement:

Crown Hill objects to the exhumation of John Dillinger. We have a duty to the families we serve to ensure the safety and integrity of the Cemetery which is threatened by the proposed exhumation. We also have concerns that the complex and commercial nature of this exhumation could cause disruption to the peaceful tranquility of the Cemetery and those who are visiting to remember their loved ones. Additionally, we received notice that not all of Mr. Dillinger’s next of kin agree with the exhumation. We honor the trust placed in us to protect all individuals in our care, and to protect the interests of those who cannot speak for themselves.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Two Homeland Security agents investigating a transnational network of illegal massage parlors engaged in sex acts with the alleged victims in two Arizona cities, according to reports uncovered by Today’s News-Herald.

The reports indicate two agents participated in sex acts at massage parlors at least 10 times with Asian immigrants who were forced into sex slavery.

The two-year trafficking investigation began in 2016, when police were tipped off about several massage parlors in Lake Havasu City and Bullhead City in Arizona. When local police departments found evidence that some of the employees may have been victims of human trafficking, they called in the Department of Homeland Security.

According to investigative reports, the agents negotiated prices for hand jobs and other sex acts.

In September 2018, police arrested eight people on charges of sex trafficking, money laundering, and operating a house of prostitution.

But charges against two of the suspects were dismissed last week because the two federal agents refused to testify.

Homeland Security officials did not respond to questions about why the agents didn’t show up.

One of the women arrested in the case filed a lawsuit 0n Sept. 30 in an attempt to get more information from Homeland Security, including the disclosure of the agents’ identifies and all reports generated during the probe.

Lisa Page, via social media.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Former FBI attorney Lisa Page filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the bureau and Justice Department for publicly disclosing text messages between her and another FBI employee with whom she was having an affair.

Page argues the release of the text messages violates the Privacy Act, which prohibits the disclosure of individuals’ information without their consent, CBS News reports.

The messages between Page and Strzok, who were having an affair, were used by President Trump and Republicans to argue the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was politically driven. The pair had worked on the investigation and exchanged disparaging messages about Trump during the election.

The messages were released to the media in December 2017.

In the lawsuit, Page says she was subjected to harassment by Trump and the White House “in more than 40 tweets and dozens of interviews, press conferences, and statements.”

Page broke her silence in a wide-ranging interview published by the Daily Beast on Dec. 1.

“I sued the Department of Justice and FBI today,” Page tweeted Tuesday. “I take little joy in having done so. But what they did in leaking my messages to the press was not only wrong, it was illegal.”

Gangster John Dillinger, via FBI.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

John Dillinger may continue to rest in peace.

A judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by the nephew of the 1930s American gangster, who sued for permission to exhume Dillinger’s gravesite in Indianapolis to determine if he’s actually buried there, the Associated Press reports.

Dillinger’s nephew, Mike Thompson, believes he may have evidence that his bank-robbing uncle was not fatally shot by the FBI at a theater in Chicago in 1934.

His plans were thwarted by Crown Hill Cemetery, which refused to give him permission to exhume the body.

Marion County Superior Court Judge Timothy Oakes dismissed the lawsuit, saying state law requires a cemetery’s consent to exhume a body.

“The limited question before the Court today is whether disinterment may occur under this section of the statute without cemetery approval. Court finds that the statutory requirements for this section of the statute are clear in that disinterment requires the cemetery owner to give consent before disinterment may occur,” Oakes wrote.

Indiana law, the judge added, “does not require that the cemetery have a valid, rational, or meaningful reason” for withholding its consent.

In the 1930s, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared Dillinger as “Public Enemy No. 1” after his gang killed at least 10 people, robbed banks and even staged three jailbreaks.

The FBI has disputed claims that the FBI killed another man who was not Dillinger.

“A wealth of information supports Dillinger’s demise including 3 sets of fingerprints, all positively matched,” the FBI tweeted on Aug. 1.

Attorneys for the cemetery dismissed the nephew’s claims as “a decades-old conspiracy theory.”

One of the attorneys, Alice McKenzie Morical, said Wednesday that relatives identified Dillinger after he was fatally shot.

“His close family believed it was him and they wanted him in the family plot,” she said.

ATF Agent Bradford Devlin with a Nazi-themed tattoo, via U.S. District Court.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A black ATF supervisor will receive $450,000 to settle a lawsuit in which she claims the agency discriminated against her after she launched complaints about another supervisor with a Nazi-themed tattoo.

Cheryl Bishop, a senior supervisor agent in Seattle and former bomb-dog handler, alleged in the 2018 suit that the agency scuttled her appointment to a job at Washington D.C.’s headquarters after she blew the whistle on abusive behavior by Agent Bradford Devlin.

ATF settled the case before it was set to go to a seven-day trial this month.

In addition to the payout, Bishop will receive a private meeting with the agency’s director and get a ring commemorating her time as the first female member of ATF’s Special Response Team, the Seattle Times reports.

Devlin, who is now the senior supervisor in ATF’s Seattle Field Division, denied being abusive and says he got the Nazi tattoo while working undercover investigating an outlaw white-supremacist biker gang in Ohio.

Although the agency offered to pay for the removal of the tattoo, Devlin decided to keep it, calling it a “war trophy.”

“While I am grateful to put the lawsuit behind me, healing the emotional scars will take more time,” Bishop said in a prepared statement. “What happened to me should never happen to anyone, anywhere. Since harassment, discrimination, and retaliation are alive and well, I encourage anyone who encounters them to speak out — that’s the only way change happens.”

Courtesy of ICE

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A Honduran woman living in Connecticut has accused an ICE agent of repeteadly raping and impregnating her for seven years, threatening to deport her if she didn’t do what he said, according to a federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges ICE Agent Wilfredo Rodriguez impregnated her three times and raped her up to four times a week.

“My only comment is that my client had a choice, cooperate with ICE or be deported with her family,” George Kramer, the woman’s lawyer, said in an email to the Associated Press. “She remains in a very fragile psychological state. She is not only seeking compensation for the physical and emotional damage she suffered but to change the way those who are cooperating with ICE are treated by those in a position of power and who often wield total control over the ability to remain in the United States.”

ICE declined to comment on the case but said Rodriguez no longer works at the agency.

According to the lawsuit, Rodriguez met the woman in 2006 and began demanding she become an informant to help deport undocumented immigrants.

A year later, she says, Rodriguez raped her at gunpoint. That was the beginning of seven years of sexual assault, the lawsuit states. During that period, she was impregnated three times and had an abortion each time.

According to the suit, she attempted suicide four times.

When Rodriguez left the agency, he warned her that “she and her family would pay” if she told authorities what happened.

She finally came forward last year when her husband applied for asylum. She confided in an agent, who suggested she consult an attorney.

ATF Agent Bradford Devlin with a Nazi-themed tattoo, via U.S. District Court.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

An African American ATF supervisor claims in a lawsuit that the agency discriminated against her after she launched complaints about another supervisor with a Nazi-themed tattoo.

A seven-day trial is set to begin Oct. 26.

Cheryl Bishop, a former bomb-dog handler, said the agency scuttled her appointment to a job at Washington D.C.’s headquarters after she blew the whistle on abusive behavior by Agent Bradford Devlin, The Seattle Times reports.

Now the senior supervisor in the ATF’s Seattle Field Division, Devlin denies being abusive and says he got the Nazi tattoo while working undercover investigating an outlaw white-supremacist biker gang in Ohio.

Although the agency offered to pay for the removal of the tattoo, Devlin has decided to keep it, calling it a “war trophy.”