A federal prosecutor says he was fired for raising questions about a DEA agent. Is the prosecutor a whistleblower or is it simply an internal personnel matter?
John Caniglia
Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporter
CLEVELAND — Several years before a grand jury started investigating Drug Enforcement Administration agent Lee Lucas for his role in a bungled probe that sent innocent people to prison, a federal prosecutor wrote a memo to his superiors questioning Lucas’ tactics.
That prosecutor, Thomas Gruscinski, lost his job last month. Gruscinski has hired a lawyer, who says the former prosecutor’s criticism of Lucas led to Gruscinski’s dismissal.
“Mr. Gruscinski’s firing was initiated after he had reported numerous instances of suspected misconduct by members of his office to various agencies of the United States government,” said attorney J. Michael Hannon.
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He pointed out that Gruscinski was “fired in the midst of very serious issues being raised about the conduct of federal law enforcement authorities” in Cleveland.
U.S. Attorney Bill Edwards would not say that Gruscinski, who has been a prosecutor for 21 years, was fired, only that “he no longer works for the Department of Justice.”
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