By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
The libido of an FBI agent in Phoenix is likely to land him in prison.
Agent Joe L. Gordwin, 40, of Phoenix pleaded guilty earlier this week in U.S. District Court to wire fraud charges for carrying on an improper sexual relationship with the wife of a criminal he was investigating, the FBI said.
Sentencing is set for June 29 before U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton in Phoenix. The charges carry a maximum of 60 years in prison.
“Mr. Gordwin flagrantly and repeatedly violated the oath he took to follow all the rules, regulations and laws that govern the conduct of a federal agent,” said U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien in a statement. O’Brien is from the Central District of California, whose office handled the case.
According to authorities, Gordwin arrested the husband in 2002 and subsequently began a sexual relationship with the wife. Subsequently, Gordwin successfully recommended to the Maricopa County District Attorney’s Office that the husband, not identified in the plea agreement document, get a reduced sentence.
The relationship between Gordwin and the wife continued until January 2004, and stopped for several months after the woman’s husband was released from prison, according to the plea agreement.
In November 2004, Gordwin got word that the husband was involved in criminal activity and passed that on to the Scottsdale Police Department. Around that time, he also resumed the affair.
In January 2005, police arrested the husband and the wife’s son for robbing a Radio Shack.
Again, FBI agent Gordwin tried to help out by getting the husband a favorable plea agreement, but the prosecutor refused. Gordwin told the prosecutor that the husband was alleging that he was having an affair with his wife. Gordwin told the prosecutor it wasn’t true, according to the court document.
On Oct. 18, 2005, after the plea deal was rejected, Gordwin feared that the husband would disclose the relationship to authorities, according to the government court document. So he revealed the affair to his supervisor, though he minimized the extent of the relationship.
His supervisor ordered him to stop seeing the wife, but Gordwin met with her and told her to lie to investigators, authorities charged.
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