by Bob Hamer
I also tried to pick up the habits of various gamblers—how they held their programs, how they marked their selections, which periodicals they purchased, how they dressed, when they arrived, when they left. To be successful, I needed to present the authentic appearance of a degenerate gambler who lived for the track and the next big score. I had about a month to accomplish what most of these men learned to do over a lifetime.
Before the actual undercover operation began, we received information that on September 28, 1995, several races were being fixed at the Los Alamitos racetrack in Orange County, California. Arabian horses and quarter horses, rather than Thoroughbreds, were running that night. The Pick Six carryover that evening was eighty-one thousand dollars, a large amount for a smaller track.
According to sources, Fingers, someone identified as a major race fixer, paid off two jockeys to fix three races. Fingers was banned from every track in California, but he could bet the race in Mexico, where the wager would not appear in the pari-mutuel pool.
Fingers was truly a character. A golf hustler and a professional gambler, he prided himself on being an excellent handicapper. A favorite trick of his was to tout different horses in the same race to several different gamblers, then collect his percentage of the winnings from the person who placed the winning wager.
In 1991, he was with an associate who was fatally shot outside a hotel following a successful night of gambling at Hollywood Park. Fingers was initially a suspect, but was eventually cleared, although rumors abounded at the track. Many still believed Fingers was involved in the murder.
At the Los Alamitos track that evening in one of the suspected races, the even-money favorite came in fourth. The horse jumped at the starting gate and at one point was ten lengths behind the lead. In a second race, a horse that went off as the favorite at 7-5 odds, ridden by the same jockey, finished third and was disqualified to fourth because of interference. Even to my untrained eye, the race looked funny. The jockey we suspected was starting from the number one post, next to the inside rail. Before the race ended, his horse had run across the track to the outside of the pack, blocking several of the other favorites from advancing. It seemed pretty clear to me. But afterward, in discussions with the steward, a state employee paid to officiate the races, he claimed that particular horse had a history of “lugging out”—running to the outside—so the steward could not say with certainty the race was fixed or the horse’s conduct was unusual. Would the steward’s opinion sink the investigation before it began? Just how difficult was it going to be to prove race fixing?
Once the administrative approvals were in place, I began a six-month undercover assignment, never returning to the office. My only contact with the FBI would be weekly meetings with my case agents at some discreet park or restaurant. I spent every race day at Santa Anita or Hollywood Park, two of the most famous racetracks in America. It was like living inside a Damon Runyon story.
Los Angeles, after the New York Conference
In February, I met again with Jeff, this time at a casual Beverly Hills restaurant he recommended. My case agent and I had decided to make one more attempt to obtain sufficient facts for the probable cause we needed to get a search warrant for his computer. We reasoned that the wording in a search warrant affidavit could be written to conceal the fact I was an undercover agent. Should we find prosecutable images, Jeff might even confess and agree to plead guilty without any need for disclosing my identity.
At dinner, he told me he was no longer attending the 12-step sexual addiction program. The program defined “appropriate” sexual intercourse as the act between a married man and his wife. Jeff was gay, he said, and couldn’t or wouldn’t accept that premise, so he dropped out of the program and refused to seek help elsewhere.
Two probationary agents were providing backup during the meeting, and I suggested they cover us from inside the restaurant. Let the Bureau buy a meal; the pay’s not that great and I figured they deserved the perk. I didn’t have to work too hard to persuade the agents; they sat several tables away in the very crowded restaurant.
Shortly after we arrived, while we were waiting for our dinner, Jeff excused himself to go to the restroom. When he came back, he had a big smile on his face.
“Do you see those two guys sitting over there?” He nodded in the direction of my surveillance team.
“You mean those two?” I said referring to the agents.
“Yeah. When I went to the bathroom, the cute one couldn’t take his eyes off of me.”
I laughed and said they were both a little old for me, but maybe I could fix him up for the evening. Once again, my surveillance agents lost points for lack of subtlety. The agent’s interest played well with Jeff, though; he never suspected.
I told Jeff my computer crashed and I lost my entire collection of child pornography. He said he would like to help, but once he began the 12-step program, he deleted the pornography on his five-year-old computer. I probed, trying to determine exactly how he deleted the images. He said he merely pushed the delete button, and they were gone. I knew then the images could probably be recovered if the FBI decided to pursue the matter with a search warrant. He did volunteer that the images would be “of interest to law enforcement,” a comment that clearly signaled child pornography.
Jeff returned to the theme of our previous meetings: he seemed confused, was questioning his boy-lover orientation, and suggested he didn’t even think he was a BL. As much as I hated everything NAMBLA stood for and as vehemently as I disagreed with their efforts to justify “Greek love,” I was beginning to feel sorry for Jeff. Maybe the FBI should back away, I thought, and give this guy a chance to sort himself out.
Before I could go much further along that line of thought, he dropped a bombshell: “But, if you said you had a fourteen-year-old boy in your apartment and I could have sex with him without getting into trouble, I would do it for the experience—but I don’t feel like I have to.”
What kind of statement was that supposed to be? Suddenly he sounded like the predators Jim from New Jersey feared were part of the membership. Apparently, Jeff was no closer to rehabilitation than before he entered the 12-step program.
Jeff and I ended the evening with a promise to meet again, but it would be almost ten months before we had our next face-to-face encounter. Though Jeff certainly wasn’t making a concerted effort to leave his problematic behavior behind, the evidence for prosecution just wasn’t there.
We did exchange a few more e-mails. In a February 23 communication, he complained that the Canadian fourteen-year-old “verbally assaulted” him. A discouraged and ambivalent Jeff wrote, “Sometimes I think this BL is a crock of shit, and other times I realize it’s such a part of me.”
In a second e-mail following the dinner, Jeff said he had another friend he met online who was a BL and lived in Long Beach. He suggested the three of us get together. I was ready, hoping to rekindle the investigation. I tried to pursue the invitation but Jeff was never able to arrange for the three of us to meet. Once again, my case agent and I realized we lacked the evidence to go forward, so we put the matter of Jeff Devore on hold.
16
KEEPING MY SHIRT ON
Los Angeles, 1995
My favorite track was Santa Anita, situated on 320 acres at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains in Arcadia, California. There I could easily envision the excitement during the days when racing was truly the “sport of kings.” Even though the grandstand could accommodate twenty-six thousand patrons, the days of capacity crowds had long passed. I frequented the clubhouse level, where all of our targets congregated.
Racetracks abound with unique characters. From the wealthiest in society to the unemployed, thousands spend afternoons at the track. Grown men who have not won a race in years still brag of the time they hit a “big one,” even if it was decades earlier.
The crowds increased on the days following the issuance of welfare checks; young children were dragged to the track by parents hoping to e
xtend their state-issued monthly stipend into a windfall. It was sad to watch people pin their precarious financial hopes on a horse.
On Wall Street, seldom will a broker seek advice from the janitor, but at the track, even CEOs sought the help of exercise boys or grooms in the ironic hope someone making less than minimum wage might hold the key to a successful wager. Nicknames were commonplace—Fingers, the Mouth, the Greek, the Broom, the Printer . . . even I acquired a moniker: Bob the Cop!
I began the undercover assignment at Hollywood Park in Inglewood. I would walk down to the paddock before the race and observe the horses being readied. I listened as various gamblers commented on the mounts, usually unable to distinguish the subtleties they were observing. It didn’t matter; I just wanted to learn the language and repeat it when I was around the targets. When I returned upstairs, I tried to remain within eyesight, if not hearing range, and would occasionally engage our targets in conversation about a particular race or horse. Typically, they blew me off, responding with a look or a grunt, or even more common, just ignoring me. It was no place for a fragile ego. After several weeks of just observing and then attempting to close on the subjects, I decided to make a move.
The Mouth, one of our prime targets, would put together a Pick Six wager every race day. He would often sell a piece of the ticket, asking trusted associates to contribute to the purchase price, allowing for a much larger Pick Six wager. The Mouth’s Pick Six tickets were often in the hundreds of dollars and occasionally he wagered in the thousands. On at least two occasions when the Pick Six pari-mutuel pool was several hundred thousand dollars, I recall tickets costing more than ten thousand dollars. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Mouth held onto the losing tickets. They were gold at tax time, since winning wagers could be offset by losing bets. Even if the Mouth sold his entire ticket, he still kept the losing ticket to offset winnings. Events would subsequently prove that the Mouth’s sophisticated tax fraud netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax refunds each year.
On a Friday afternoon, I approached the Mouth as he stood near an usher. With the same brashness I saw in other gamblers, I introduced myself and asked if he was selling pieces of his Pick Six ticket.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “What are you talking about? How do I know you’re not an IRS agent?” He looked at the usher and jerked a thumb in my direction. “Do you know this guy?”
The usher said he’d seen me around.
As the Mouth continued with the tongue-lashing, I fished a wad of money from my pocket. As it turned out, green was his favorite color. He sold me a piece of his ticket, we hit five of six on the Pick Six wager that afternoon, and I won back all I wagered and then some. The Mouth and I became betting partners. From that day on, almost daily, I contributed some piece of a Pick Six ticket the Mouth wagered.
As the days and weeks progressed, I began to meet some of the Mouth’s associates. Although I was never accepted as an equal, I could converse with them and occasionally bet with them on those days when the Mouth was absent from the track.
One associate had been gone for several months, recovering from knee surgery. When he returned, he questioned who I was and whether I was “a cop.” In subsequent conversations, the Mouth and the others referred to me as “Bob, the guy Rene thinks is a cop.” Soon the moniker was shortened and I became simply “Bob the Cop.” Rather than hide, I played up the sobriquet. When the Mouth, who well deserved his handle, would refer to me in a loud voice as “Bob the Cop,” I would ask him if he had purchased tickets to the policeman’s ball. He’d laugh off the joke and we’d go about our business.
With the Mouth it was all business; he had little desire to socialize and our conversations were limited to track-related subjects. On one occasion, the Mouth introduced me to his associate, the Greek. The Mouth was going on vacation and introduced us so I could wager with the Greek, if I desired. When the Mouth referred to me as Bob the Cop, the Greek insisted I pull up my pants legs. I looked at him with obvious confusion. He repeated, “Pull up your pants legs. Show me your ankles.”
I did as instructed. All he saw was socks and he was satisfied. The Greek said, “Undercover cops wear guns on their ankles.” I was glad I left my gun in the car . . . but the Mouth went even further.
I was wearing a loose fitting sweatshirt and had not tucked it in. The Mouth grabbed the sweatshirt and pulled it up, exposing an elastic back brace I was wearing. The recording device was concealed in the front of the brace and wires ran up my chest to my nipples, where the microphones were taped. I quickly slapped the Mouth’s hand, dislodging it from the shirt.
I then made a less-than-polite remark by way of letting him know what he could do with his hands.
He had seen the elastic band around my stomach. “What is that?”
“It’s a back brace. I’ve got a bad back and standing around here on the concrete listening to your crap all day hurts my back. Now, who do you like in the first race?”
It was a close call. Had he pulled the sweatshirt any higher he would have seen the wires and the investigation would have ended in a New York minute. From that moment on, I tucked in my shirt.
One afternoon while at Santa Anita, some of the targets became suspicious of me for some unknown reason. The Mouth confronted me and demanded to see my wallet and identification. My hands shook as I pulled my undercover driver’s license from my wallet. The Mouth noted the shaking, became agitated, and accused me of being a cop. I told him my hands always shake—which they often do, thus explaining my sometimes-poor shooting scores at the range—and told him to quit taking my money if he thought I was a cop. He seemed satisfied with my answer but the rest of them kept their distance throughout the remainder of the assignment.
San Diego, after the New York Conference
Following the New York conference, I had little communication with NAMBLA except for the occasional Bulletin. I was assigned full-time to a sensative national security–related undercover operation and transferred to the San Diego office. I heard nothing further from NAMBLA on the privacy pamphlet, and maintained minimal correspondence with a few prisoners in the pen-pal program, primarily to maintain credibility in case Los Angeles desired my continued services on the pedophile case.
Once I settled into the San Diego office, I met with the Innocent Images National Initiative contact in the division. I explained to him in detail my membership in NAMBLA and the nature of my previous undercover activity. His enthusiasm was contagious and we clicked immediately. I sensed we could work well together and was hoping he might want to proceed. However, I left the decision up to him and his supervisor. They did not disappoint me: My new case agent contacted Los Angeles and got up to speed with the NAMBLA investigation.
In July, I received a handwritten letter from Chris, the mop-haired socialist who had rambled almost incoherently at the conference. Chris was a member of the steering committee and was inquiring about my work on the privacy pamphlet. He said he was following up on the work I did and asked if I was interested in continuing on the project. Chris used the return address of PO Box 174, Midtown Station, New York, NY 10018, the address from which all the NAMBLA correspondence came. I assumed Chris was in New York and replied.
Chris,
I received your letter and am glad someone is taking charge of the pamphlet project. Thanks for doing that. Being in California makes everything so distant. You’re lucky to be in New York and close to all the action.
I’m still interested in helping in whatever way I can. I do have some health problems so it isn’t always easy to get too committed. Peter may have given you what I have already written on “Privacy.” I submitted it to Peter and the others on the committee and never heard another word. . . .
As I told Peter, I have access to a hotel in San Diego where I booked an investment seminar. . . . If you were interested I could take advantage of this offer and we could maybe have the pamphlet people meet here for a weekend before the Membership
Convention. Lots of young, tanned bodies in sunny Southern California. Something to think about. Just let me know.
About a week later, I received a letter from Peter, reminding me it was time to renew my membership. Had I truly been a boy lover, I’m not sure I would have expended the funds: the organization was of little benefit, as far as I could tell. I did not see it as “political” or “educational,” as advertised in the statement of purpose. I was aware of no “spokespeople” who were raising “awareness in the media . . . and among the general public.” Nor did I see any tangible effort whatsoever to modify age-of-consent laws. There was no lobbying at any level of government, no letters to the editors of major newspapers or magazines, no appearances on any media outlet. Support and comfort could just as easily come from going on the Internet and spending time in a chat room—without paying the membership dues. Whatever the membership numbers were, the organization’s actual primary purpose, as I saw it, was to reinforce among members their destructive and criminal passions.
Kathy Baxter, the director of the San Francisco Child Abuse Counsel, accurately described the organization in the 1992 KRON-TV investigative report: “It is a group, in my opinion, of men primarily who get together to network with one another on where to find young boys, how to pick them up, how to get them involved, and how to feel good about what you’re doing.”
Nevertheless, I sent Peter a letter and a postal money order I know he gladly cashed. In August, I received my invitation to the November conference. My cover was still obviously intact.
The conference was being held in Miami, Florida. The invitation described Miami as a “delightful city . . . and November is a delightful time of the year to be there.”
What followed was troubling: “We have reserved a block of rooms in a charming secluded inn at very reasonable rates. . . . The cost . . . will be $175. This low price is for double occupancy rooms.”