GIVING NEW IDENTITIES TO FEDERAL WITNESSES DRAWS INCREASING FIRE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700026-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: February 8, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 :CIA-RDP90-005528000605700026-7
Starting Over
Giving New Identities
To Federal Witnesses
Draws Increasing Fire
By STnNLE1' PENN
sLQJ.f RC pOTLET OJ THE WALL STREET J OURNAL
Despite Some Success, Critics
Say Lax Supervision Lets
Many Go Back to Crime
Strains of a New Beginning
While conceding ~ the need to restrict
knowledge of a protected witness's where- '
abouts, some local prosecutors strongly urge
that the Justice Department tighten supervi?
Sion of the offenders it places in their com-
munities. Ted Wilson, the chief of the organ-
ized-crime unit of the Harris County, Texas, '.
district attorney's office, says those respon-
si61e for protected witnesses "need to know
what the witness is doing. Somebody must
be on top of this." '
The Justice Department's U.S. Marshals
Service has the task of relocating witnesses,
providing them with new identities and help-
ing them find jobs. But it isn't responsible
for keeping track of their whereabouts.
Indeed, it wasn't until 1978 that the gov-
ernment required federal supervision of
criminals entering the program as federal
probationers. In 1981 it extended such super-
vision to federal parolees. State parolees
and probationers in the program still aren't
federally supervised.
The Justice Department stresses that it
recently has tightened screening of appli-
cants to the program. Thus, in fiscal 1983,
only 294 witnesses: were accepted, a sharp
drop from the roughly 450 people who en- '
tered annually during the mid-1970s. Appli-
cants now also receive psychological testing .
to weed out those who are violent.
The stress associated with assuming a
new identity may explain why some wit-
nesses lapse back into crime after going into
hiding. "I wouldn't advise clients to go into
it," says Houston defense attorney Roy
Beene of the witness program. "You are
taking a guy off the street, sending him 1,000
miles away where he never lived, nobody
knows him, where he has a funny accent.
He's now John Doe, has his family with him
and has to find a job. It's not easy."
Until they find work-up to about a
year-protected witnesses receive a monthly
living allowance ranging from 51,000 for a
single person to 52,800 for a fa.mfly. (More
than 7,000 family members have been relo-
cated along with witnesses since the pra
gram's inception.) The stipend ceases if a
witness refuses to take a job.
In trying to place witnesses, many of
whom have limited job skills, the marshals
service makes contact with a roster of about
150 corporations. "We want to make sure
that the company we contact is not a target
of an organized-crime investigation or asso-
ciated with organized crime," says Howard
Safir, assistant director of the marshals ser-
vice. Aprospective employer knows that the
witness has committed a crime, but isn't
told his true identity.
The Justice Department says that it now ;
assists creditors by threatening to reveal the
whereabouts of a witness who fails to meet
his obligations, provided the witness's safety
isn't jeopardized as a riSsult.
Janet Schlachter of Washington, D.C.,
says she was left penniless when her hus-
band, Douglas, vanished into .the witness-
protection program in late 1981. "I couldn't
pay the debts he left behind," she says. "I
couldn't pay the utility bills. We went for 10
days without gas and hot water."
Particularly galling, Mrs. Schlachter ;
says, was the living allowance that the gov- i
~ernment furnished W Mr. Schlachter and the
woman with whom he has been living. "But
for me .and my children-nothing," Mrs.
Schlachter says bitterly. "My children
haven't seen a dentist in four years."
Mr. Schlachter was associated with the
notorious Edwin P. Wilson, who has been
convicted three times in federal court for
crimes involving his dealings with Libyans.
Mr. Schlachter, after pleading guilty to
weapons violations, drew aseven-year sen-
tence in a federal court in Washington, D.C.,
last year. He served less than .six months,
the result of his cooperating with prosecu-
tors in the investigation of Mr. Wilson and
others.
According to E. Lawrence Barcella, a
U.S. prosecutor involved in the case, Mr.
Schlachter broke up with his wife and went
to work in Africa prior to entering the wit-
ness program. The Justice Department
takes credit for inducing Mr. Schlachter to
return to the U.S. and to work out a prop-
erty settlement with his wife. (Mrs.
Schlachter says she has yet to receive any
money from the settlement.) Mr.
Schlachter, the prosecutor adds, no longer
receives federal subsistence.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 :CIA-RDP90-005528000605700026-7