Philip Tolomeo was a loan collector for a dangerous organized crime mob known as the Calabrese crew in Chicago from 1978 to 1988 . When Tolomeo shine out of favour with Frank Calabrese , he take flight Chicago , but not before malversate money from the crew and taking comprehensive phonograph recording detailing the work party ’s illegal loan - solicitation activities .
Tolomeo would later enter witness aegis ( akaWITSEC ) and ply the records to theFBI . His testimony led to the sentence of two members of the Calabrese crew .
The Federal Witness Security Program is intended for important witnesses , like Tolomeo , whose prospective testimony puts them in immediate peril of harm . Since the program began in 1970 , more than 7,500 witnesses and more than 9,500 informant crime syndicate members have come in the programme and have been protected , relocate and given new identities by the U.S. Marshals Service .
Here ’s how theU.S. Department of Justiceerases the previous identities of important witnesses and localise them in a city where they are not likely to be recognized , with raw identity and new lives .
Who’s Eligible for The Witness Protection Program?
Witness protection is provided only for attestator whose testimonial is set to be essential to the successful prosecution of a felonious case and in which the attestor ’s life or the lifetime of their family is at risk .
The witness ’s testimony also must be consider credible and certain in come , meaning that the witness is n’t going to back out of give that testimony in court .
Three organization supervise witness trade protection programs :
Weighing the Risks: A Multistage Process
The process for enrolling a looker into the federal program begins when a body politic or federal law enforcement office subject a request for protection .
A Witness Security Program app is then submitted to the OEO . This practical software summarizes the testimony to be ply , the terror to the informant and any risk the informant may pose to a new community if relocate .
The OEO then arranges for a preliminary interview with the Marshals Service so the viewer can chance out what to ask from his or her new life in the attestator protection programme . The Marshals Service coordinates the audience directly with the prosecutor or requesting law of nature enforcement agency , which must supply a copy of the app and terror assessment to the Marshals Service .
Since many of these witness are often criminals themselves , the Attorney General value the following factor regarding each grownup considered for watcher protection programme :
If the value of the looker ’s testimony overbalance the danger to the new community , the Attorney General can place the spectator in the Federal Witness Security Program . The OEO then advises the requesting government agency ’s headquarters of the Attorney General ’s decision .
The witness and class phallus must sign up a Memorandum of Understanding , verifying they understand the rules of the program . But entry into the program is only the first step toward namelessness .
Prisoner Witnesses
Some witnesses who are already in state of matter or federal prison may also eligible for the Witness Security Program if they meet the criteria of the program . In summation to the other term of the program , captive witness are demand to take apolygraph trial run . Entry into the computer program can be deny count on the results of the polygraph test .
Incarcerated spectator are manage by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons and often will be transfer to a unexampled prison house once in the program to serve the remainder of their prison term . Once out , their type will be reevaluate to determine if they need to be relocate to a safe city .
Falling Off the Face of Earth
The Witness Security Program is design to create full anonymity for witnesses and help them blend into a new city where they most likely wo n’t be recognized . The United States has more than 300 million people and thousands of cities in which to hide out a protected informant .
While witnesses are given a fresh beginning in a young residential area , their preceding transgression are not completely ignored . The Marshals Service often notifies local jurisprudence enforcement in the new community of the comportment of the informant and their criminal account .
The Marshals Service also can mandate random drug oralcoholtesting and coif other weather condition to control the success of the program . In return , the Marshals Service will :
As far as choose a new name , witnesses can have their pick . However , fit in to the book " WITSEC : Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program , " cowritten by the program ’s creator , Gerald Shur , witnesses are advised to keep their current initial or same first name .
Name change are done by the court organization just like any name change , but the platter are sealed .
There is no pardon of loans or other obligations . Before inscribe the program , potential witness must first compensate any existing debts and satisfy any outstanding criminal or polite obligations . They also must supply appropriate child custody documents prove that their fry are indeed theirs .
Testifying
The total purpose of the witness protection program is to keep the informant safe so that they can take the stand at trial that could convict member of organized crime , gangs or terrorist web . Perhaps the riskiest part of the appendage is when the witness returns to testify .
A slap-up number of precautions are pick out , and security measure is maximized at this sentence . In his book , Shur describes bringing attestor in ring armour hand truck , helicoptersand sportfishing boats . In one instance , an armoured car was sent with a full police escort as a bait while former Mafia penis Joseph Barboza was snuck in through a side door of the courthouse .
At test , even witnesses no longer in the political platform are give way protective covering if they are testifying in cases for which the spectator to begin with come in the programme .
Taking such drastic measuring rod to protect viewer has pay off for public prosecutor . Since the program ’s origination in 1970 , it has achieve an overall conviction pace of 89 percent as a outcome of protected attestant testimonial , and more than 10,000 crook have been convicted , according to the Marshals Service .
Once the trial is over , it is sentence for the witness and his menage to enroll their unexampled life .
Living the New Life
One of the central objectives of the Witness Security Program is to help witnesses assimilate into their unexampled community and become ego - sufficient . Among other things , this requires assistance with securing employment .
However , from the beginning of the platform , there has been some concern that the government could be aid felonious viewer too much .
The Marshals Service will assist witnesses with finding employment . However , if a attestor fails to aggressively search work , subsistence payments will be terminated . At that point , the relocate looker can enroll in public assistance if he or she chooses .
The most important convention of the program is that witness must not make liaison with former associate or unprotected family members . They also must not bring back to the town from which they were relocate . According to the Marshals Service , no witness who has followed these two safety rules has ever been pop .
Once absorb into their community , contact with government officials is only required once per year . attestor also take to make impinging with the regime if they move . Any other contact with looker must be bespeak through the OEO or Marshals Service .
Breaking the Law in the Program
Witnesses in the Witness Security Program sometimes break the law while in protection . In fact , there is a recidivism charge per unit of about 17 percent among watcher who have been placed in the the federal witness ' programme , harmonize to a late Department of Justice study .
However , that is a low rate compare to criminals paroled from prison : Only 60 percent of X - convict stay out of trouble , agree to " WITSEC . "
If state authorities ca n’t protect the spectator , they can rede the OEO , which will look back the witness ’s case and think reinstatement in the Witness Security Program as a prisoner . Once in prison , the Federal Bureau of Prisons takes over custody .
Victims of crime committed by protect witnesses can be even up for certain criminal offence as part of the Victims Compensation Fund , as furnish by U.S. Code Title 18 , segment 3525 . The store is administered by the OEO and covers aesculapian care and/or funeral costs , as well as basic aliveness expense due to lost payoff .
History of WITSEC
The Witness Security Program we know today is an evolution of individual cases that began in the former 1960s and were inquire by the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section ( OCRS ) of the U.S. Department of Justice ’s office . This group was led by U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and included Gerald Shur , the piece who would go on to create WITSEC .
Shur , who was a U.S. Attorney at the time , was involve in several cases in which the Union government protected witnesses who testified against unionised crime . Among these witnesses were Joseph Valachi , Joseph Barboza and Larry Gallo .
In 1969 , Sen. John L. McClellan of Arkansas enter a orotund criminal offence bill . G. Robert Blakely , a penis of McClellan ’s faculty , had drafted much of this bill . Blakely accept Shur ’s idea for a witness protection political platform and enclose it into the crime bill , consort to Shur ’s record , " WITSEC . "
The Federal Witness Protection Program was empower as part of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 . Within this law was the section deed of conveyance quintet : Protected Facilities for Housing Government Witnesses , which outlines the canonical tenets of what would become the Witness Security Program .
Although the law now offer for a program to protect witnesses , many details of the program and the daytime - to - day administration still had to be formulated . Shur suggested that the Marshals Service protect , hide and relocate witnesses and fund enforcement operations of the program . Soon this program became known as WITSEC , an abbreviation of " witness security . "
This natural law gave the Department of Justice broad parallel of latitude to accommodate what attorneys view as necessary to protect witnesses .
Nearly 15 years later , the power of the Attorney General with respect to the Witness Security Program were expanded by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 . This new Act provide for the security of certain relatives and associates .
Today , the WITSEC Program is essential to the prosecution of one C of cases . Without it , many witnesses would never come ahead or would be kill if they did . With the shelter provided by the program , witnesses can testify and then disappear when the trial is over , and the criminals they testify against are almost always convicted .
