Breaking omerta: before Gerald Shur, godfather of the U.S. federal witness-protection program, took action, those courageous enough to break the code of silence that sheltered organized crime faced the risk of being killed for testifying

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 3, 2002 | by Timothy W. Maier

Not surprisingly, the case against Garrison was lost. "Meanwhile, Garrison was portrayed as a hero in Oliver Stone's controversial film JFK, and I wound up being in the conspiracy" Shur laughs. "I guess I was on the assassination team."

Shur also calls for an end to the short-term program, which was set up to get witnesses out of their neighborhoods by moving them across town. It primarily 'has been done in inner-city projects, which some suggest is a racist policy. "I don't like that program" Shur says. "It has too much risk. They say people wanted to come back home, but I am looking for 100 percent safety."

Prout, who has been acting director for less than a month, defends the short-term program. "We believe that in each prosecution there are different methods that work" he says. "We have expertise in changing names and changing identifies. In certain situations and applications it can be very successful"

WITSEC inspectors meanwhile are concerned that covers might more easily be blown in the information age as past identities are discovered by employers conducting more thorough background checks in the aftermath of 9/11. "Unlike 20 years ago, computers are creating major problems for program participants" Coon says. "Everyone has access to debt files like banks" making it easier to find someone.

Hiding a terrorist witness can be especially tricky, Earley notes. They can't exactly be placed in Fox Lake, Wis., where they certainly would stand out, nor can they be placed overseas, where one slipup could create an international nightmare. "It's a concern" Prout says. "We take a lot of time in placing witnesses in a community where they can best assimilate." And WITSEC has been successful at this in the past. New identities were provided to terrorists who testified in the 1988 Lockerbie, Scotland, airplane bombing, a 1989 terrorist attack in Greece, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

"WITSEC has proved it can help turn terrorists against each other," Shur adds. "The key" he says in his book, "is demonstrating that we can protect those courageous enough to cooperate"

Caulfield, who stumbled into an organized-crime syndicate while working security at an adult bookstore, says the innocent witnesses should not be treated as though they were terrorists or mobsters. He claims he was kicked out of the witness-protection program in 1986 when he allowed a local police department to fingerprint him for a gun permit. WITSEC inspectors told him he couldn't have a gun because felons couldn't carry guns. When he told them that he wasn't a felon, they told him it didn't matter. "They treated me like a criminal," he says. "Everyone was treated the same--just like s***. Maybe if I had been a somebody--a killer--I would have been in pretty good shape. But I hadn't killed anybody. Look at Jimmy the Weasel: He got a million bucks; his wife got new tits and a new nose; and they even moved him from the Virgin Islands because he complained he couldn't get the Cleveland Browns on TV."