Greg Stejskal served as an FBI agent for 31 years and retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office.
A Michigan Case That Tested Free Speech in the Early Days of the Internet
The writer, an FBI agent for 31 years, retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office in 2006. By Greg Stejskal Free speech has limits, as a famous Supreme Court example illustrates. “Falsely shouting fire in a theater” is not constitutionally protected speech, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in 1919. (Photo: Michigan Technology Law…
The Not-So Shocking Revelation that Some Asian Spas are Really Brothels
By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com Last week in Jupiter, Florida, the Orchids of Asia Day Spa was raided and closed allegedly for being a prostitution business, a brothel. Making it a prominent story on national news was the identity of one of the spa customers, Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots. Kraft…
Inside the Beltway: Of Rats and Witch Hunts
Greg Stejskal served as an FBI agent for 31 years and retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office. By Greg Stejskal “Conspiracies hatched in hell can not have angels for witnesses.” – is an adage sometimes used by prosecutors in criminal cases. The point being that in order to prove the…
HBO Docu-drama Makes Me Think How Bo Schembechler Would Have Handled the Penn State Scandal
HBO has produced a docu-drama about Joe Paterno & the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal starring Al Pacino as Paterno. This column first ran in 2012 and is a summary of what the investigation of the scandal revealed and poses the question, how Bo Schembechler would have dealt with the Sandusky and the scandal. By Greg…
I Stand By My Critique of the Discovery Channel Series on the Unabomber
Greg Stejskal served as an FBI agent for 31 years and retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office. He wrote two critiques (1 and 2) of the Discovery Channel series, “Manhunt Unabomber,” in which he criticized the way FBI agent Jim Fitzgerald was portrayed as having a much bigger role in…
The Unabomber and I Agree on One Thing: The Discovery Channel Series Was Chock Full of Inaccuracies
By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com A few months ago, I wrote a critique of the Discovery Channel series, “Manhunt: Unabomber.” My concern shared by a number of agents that were on the Unabom Task Force was that the series portrayed a minor player on the UTF, Jim Fitzgerald, as the agent who broke the case and…
What the Discovery Channel Gets Wrong In Its Series on the Unabomber
By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com The Discovery Channel TV series, “Manhunt Unabomber,” disrespects achievements of the “Unabom” investigation by creating a predominantly fictionalized story. One of the shows I watched in my youth was “The Untouchables.” I was about ten when it premiered in 1959 on TV, and it was one the things that inspired me…
Hunting for The Joker
By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com In the Spring of 1989, a drama fraught with irony began playing out in Austria. A Jewish American family, a mother and her two grown sons, were fighting extradition to the US. About 50 years before, Jewish families were desperately trying to leave Austria for safe havens like the U.S. The…
The Abduction of GM Executive’s Son Shows Kidnapping Doesn’t Pay
Greg Stejskal was an FBI agent for 31 years and retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office. Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com I was one of more than a dozen FBI agents assigned to surveillance on Braeburn Circle on Ann Arbor’s south side. After a few hours, agent Stan Lapekas, suggested we look…
Robin Hood in Reverse — A $1.1 Million Scam
By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com In 2005 Female Jones (not her real name), an indigent woman living in public housing in Ann Arbor, Mich., discovered she wasn’t eligible for federal housing assistance. The reason she wasn’t eligible was because it appeared she was already receiving “Section 8” voucher payments. Jones wasn’t aware of receiving any assistance….