ATF and Obama DOJ Retaliating Against Fast and Furious Whistleblowers

ATF and Obama DOJ Retaliating Against Fast and Furious Whistleblowers
By Katie Pavlich
11/30/2011

In October, I brought you the story about Jay Dobyns, a highly decorated and respected ATF special agent who is facing retaliation from the agency for speaking out against the way managers within the ATF Phoenix Field Division were handling credible death threats against himself and his family. Coincidentally, the same managers who ignored the threats against Dobyns and then retaliated against him for speaking out, are the same managers who were heavily involved in Operation Fast and Furious. The Dobyns' case could be the worst case of whistleblower retaliation in history.

Jay Dobyns is a father, husband and 25-year highly respected and highly decorated Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent. He was the first law enforcement agent to ever successfully infiltrate multiple layers of the notoriously dangerous and violent Hells Angels motorcycle gang through "Operation Black Biscuit." He has described the Hells Angels as having their "PhDs in violence," and worked undercover in the gang for two years. Dobyns has dedicated his life to undercover service for ATF and took a bullet through the lung at one point for the agency. Luckily, he survived.

Dobyns has put a number of the nations’ most violent criminals behind bars, which naturally comes with threats from those criminals and their buddies in return. After he finished his work bringing down the Hells Angels, things were no different.

Approximately a year after Operation Black Biscuit concluded beginning in 2004 through 2008, Dobyns and ATF became aware of credible and substantial violent threats against him and his family. Those threats included plans to murder him either with a bullet or by injecting him with the AIDS virus, kidnapping and torturing his then 15-year-old daughter and kidnapping his wife in order to videotape a gang rape of her. Dobyns and ATF also learned contracts were solicited between the Hells Angels, the Aryan Brotherhood and the MS-13 gang to carry out these threats.

These threats were laid out in prison letters and confirmed through FBI and ATF interviews of confidential informants inside the Florence Corrections Facility and the Arlington County Detention Center in Virginia. Also found circulating in the Florence Facility by a prisoner known as the captain of the Aryan Brotherhood named "WHITEY," was an extensive hit list with Jay Dobyns as a top target. Leaders of each gang in the prison had a copy of the list and had been given "permission to kill" persons listed according to ATF documents and interviews. Dobyns’ name, in addition to a detailed description of his appearance, also came up in prison yard talk.

Dobyns reported these threats to Special Agent in Charge William Newell, asking for protection for his family. The threats were based in Arizona and Dobyns lived in Arizona at the time. Newell was in charge of investigating and handling all threats made against agents working out of the ATF Phoenix Field Office. The threats were ignored. When Dobyns essentially "blew the whistle" on Newell, pointing out his failures to address violent death threats against a federal agent, he was retaliated against. Newell dismissed the threats and then covered up his blatant dismissal of those threats within the Phoenix Field Office.

On top of ignoring death threats, recently Dobyns' house was set on fire at 3 a.m. with his wife, son and daughter sleeping inside in a confirmed act of arson. It is suspected members of the Hells Angels, or close associates of the gang carried out the arson in retaliation of Dobyns’ undercover work.

When Dobyns reported the incident to both ATF and Newell. He asked for an investigation into the case. Newell not only refused to investigate, calling the incident "just scorching," but allowed his subordinates, including Gillett, to attempt to frame Dobyns, accusing him of purposely burning down his own home with his family inside, has named him as a suspect and is investigating him. Newell conspired to destroy and fabricate evidence to "prove" his case. Emails, witness testimony, phone conversations and other documentation show the ATF Phoenix Field Divisions’ intentions, led by Newell, were to frame Dobyns, yet Newell denied under oath any involvement in this activity. His subordinates Gillett and ATF Tucson Group Supervisor over Operation Wide Receiver Charles Higman, also denied any attempts to frame Dobyns under oath, despite evidence showing otherwise.

The retaliatory actions of Newell, and other ATF management agents, were reported to ATF senior management at the highest levels and were ignored.

Now, Dobyns is speaking out on behalf of the whistleblowers facing direct retaliation as a result of exposing the Obama Justice Department Fast and Furious scandal to the public and Congress.

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