Criminals & Presidents: The Adventures of a Secret Service Agent

by Tim Wood

  That sounds pretty simple, but you’d be surprised how many informants just can’t keep their mouths shut. Donnie had an informant one time that almost got killed because he could not resist telling his dope fiend friends he was working with the Secret Service on a big case.

  As an investigator you just never know if a suspect is telling the truth; you can only go on your experience and your gut feeling when you interview someone and turn him or her into an informant. If we were in L.A., we would have immediately polygraphed her; but in Las Vegas, the nearest Secret Service polygraph examiner was actually in Los Angeles, and we didn’t have the time to wait. We had to move. When you’re trying to work a case back to the source, a good informant is invaluable and time is of the essence.

  After breakfast, Donnie went to the Horseshoe Casino Security Office and then stopped by the Fremont to see if the surveillance cameras picked up any shots of Roland or Paul meeting with Tammy. From there, he was going over to the US Attorney’s office to meet with T.J, the duty AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney), to discuss our plan to introduce an undercover agent to the suspects.

  The Beaver went by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) Bunco/Forgery Squad to see if they had anything on these guys. I drove over to our office to inventory the Colombian counterfeit one hundred and write up a short report on the interview of Jean.

  Donnie had put together a solid, but simple plan to arrest Paul and Roland. And it followed the book; all good plans follow the book, and you have to keep it simple; because Murphy’s Law applies—“if it can go wrong, it will go wrong.” We were going to wire up Tammy and have her meet with Roland around two that afternoon at the Four Queens Casino bar, as Roland had instructed her. We would have her engage Roland in some good incriminating conversation, including Paul’s participation and give him the proceeds from the stolen US Treasury check.

  Donnie wanted her to ask Roland if she could do some more work for him and if Roland agreed, we would have her get another stolen Treasury check and another counterfeit driver’s license from them and do it again. Donnie told her it was very important to get his last name, where he lived and a telephone number from him. Our plan was to then have Tammy introduce her boyfriend (me) to Roland and Paul and get them to include me on a deal. If they didn’t bite on her offer, case over; but we would have some solid incriminating evidence in Roland’s own voice admitting his participation in the crime.

  When Donnie got back to our office he told me he reviewed the surveillance camera tapes at the Horseshoe and the Fremont. He said he could see the backs of the heads of Tammy and some guy with light-colored hair sitting at the bar at the Horseshoe, but that was about it. No good frontal shots. The cameras at the Fremont Casino were even worse; Donnie found footage of Tammy sitting at the bar and at around twelve thirty and getting up and walking away. No footage of a tall blond male and a short, skinny black-haired male. The Beaver said Bunco/Forgery had nothing on a Roland or a Paul.

  Tammy showed up at our office on time and that was a good start. Informants come in all shapes and sizes, as you can imagine, and most of them need repeated verbal instructions, and a tight leash. The absolute worst informant was the reformed crook that thought he was now on the right side of this godly profession…with a license to take the investigation wherever he wanted to take the investigation. The absolute best informant was a pissed off-girlfriend, with some sense. Tammy was just your average I-don’t-wanna-go-to jail-I’ll-help-you-any-way-I-can informant.

  Donnie and I reinterviewed Tammy to make sure there were no holes in her story. Donnie really tore into her; gone was Mister Nice Guy. “Just remember,” he scolded her, “if you are lying to us about this I will make sure the US Attorney charges you with everything under the sun. You’ll wish you had never met me.”

  Shit, now he had her bawling. “I swear,” she exclaimed. “That’s what happened, I swear it is!”

  Donnie ran through the plan with her at least a half dozen times. This would be our only shot to get into these two crooks. We still weren’t sure if they were part of a stolen Treasury check gang or a counterfeit identification gang or both or something totally different. The Secret Service had jurisdiction over stolen and forged US Treasury checks and counterfeit identification documents, so both parts of her cashing a stolen Treasury check with a counterfeit identification were in our bailiwick. Most forgery rings will cash any type of stolen check they can get their hands on. But that’s the kind of information an undercover agent can discover once he gets in with the ring.

  The fact (if it were true) that Roland had approached Tammy and she had cashed a stolen check for him once before made us think these guys were running a forgery ring. Bad guys typically recruit “runners” to cash the stolen checks so they can insulate themselves. But you just never know until you start investigating. One thing was for sure, if I could get into this gang as an undercover agent, this could turn into a big case.

  Tammy was supposed to meet Roland at the main bar in the Four Queens at two o’clock that afternoon; we bought her a sandwich and got her all wired up. At about one o’clock, Donnie and the Beaver drove her to the Union Plaza and I met up with Gaming Enforcement Agent Vinnie G. from the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

  Vinnie was a wizard in a casino camera surveillance room, and he was more than willing to help us with surveillance in a casino. Bad guys always seemed to want to have a meeting in a casino, which I could never quite figure out because almost every inch of a casino is covered by cameras.

  * * *

  The three of us loved working with gaming agents. In Nevada gaming is a privilege, not a right, so when the Gaming Control Board agents showed up at a casino, they didn’t ask, they told the casino people to clear the camera surveillance room. It was a wonderful and powerful investigative tool. I had worked with Vinnie on many occasions, my favorite being a case he had caught at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino involving counterfeit passports.

  The Aladdin was giving away five hundred dollars in free chips to new customers. All they had to do was show identification at the casino cage and voilà, a free gambling stake! Casino security had identified a group of Chinese gentleman who seemed to be repeat customers…same faces, but different names on their passports. Vinnie G. gave me a call one day and asked if I would be interested in helping them out. Heck, yeah!

  On a Saturday night I met with Vinnie and three other gaming agents at the Aladdin and he took over the casino surveillance room to watch and tape the suspects fraudulently obtaining the free chips. Vinnie and I walked through the casino to a nondescript door, up some stairs to another nondescript door. Vinnie knocked…I was half expecting him to utter a password. Some big guy cracked the door open. Badges flashed and Vinnie said, very calmly, “Nevada Gaming Control Board enforcement agent.” He nodded toward me and said to the big guy, “You don’t need to know who this is. You’ll have to vacate the camera surveillance room…we need to use it.”

  “Yes sir,” came the reply. No hesitation. No buts. About a dozen guys got up from their desks and walked out. Vinnie locked the door behind them. Then he began working the surveillance cameras. When one of the other gaming agents saw three Chinese men walk up to the casino cage, he alerted us on Vinnie’s handheld radio. Vinnie operated those cameras like a pro; he followed the targets as they stood at the cage, presented the passports to the cashier, were given the free chips, and walked to a blackjack table, recording everything. The other gaming agents, who were watching the suspects from the casino floor, confirmed with the Aladdin security manager that these were the same men who had previously used different names and passports to receive five hundred dollars in free chips.

  Once the targets started gambling, Vinnie got on his handheld radio and called for the arrest. We walked out of the surveillance room and down the stairs. We met up with the three other gaming agents and walked through the casino toward the blackjack table where the Chi
nese crooks were playing. As we walked five abreast down the center aisle of the Aladdin, patrons parted; they stopped gambling, they stopped talking, and some probably stopped breathing. It was a scene straight out of Gunsmoke, just like Marshal Dillon and Chester walking into the Long Branch Saloon to deal with some card cheats.

  It turned out the passports were Chinese and I had no way to determine their authenticity. They had to be counterfeit, but the AUSA declined to federally prosecute them. Just as well, the Las Vegas local courts dealt harshly with card cheats—don’t ever try to cheat a casino. The Nevada State Prison was full of people who’d been caught cheating.

  * * *

  Once Donnie and Tammy got to the Union Plaza, Beaver went into the Four Queens and found a seat down at the corner end of the bar, where he had a good view of the scene. Donnie had Tammy walk from the Union Plaza down Fremont Street into the Four Queens. Donnie kept his distance and followed her in. Meanwhile, I met Vinnie G. at the Four Queens hotel registration desk and he took me up to the casino surveillance room.

  A few minutes after two o’clock Roland walked into the Four Queens and sat next to Tammy at the bar. I had the receiver for the transmitter Tammy was wearing, but the connection was shitty; I could pick up some of the conversation, but it kept fading in and out. I just hoped the tape recorder in her purse was working. Tammy slipped Roland an envelope with $365 that Donnie had given her. He counted the cash, slipped her fifty bucks, and then put his arm around her shoulders and whispered something to her. I couldn’t make out with he said, but I did hear her reply, as she removed his arm from her shoulder, “Not today, honey.” That I heard…loud and clear. My gut tightened up, because now Tammy was off script; whatever she said next could make or break this caper.

  She came through with flying colors when, without missing a beat, she asked Roland if she could have his telephone number. Vinnie and I saw him reach for a cocktail napkin and start scribbling on it with a Keno pencil. Then, I heard her say she’d like to do some more work for him, that the driver’s license was perfect! The UHF transmitter was intermittent again and all I heard him reply was “Paul…best.”

  Roland got up from his bar stool and gave her a peck on the cheek and walked away.

  Vinnie worked the surveillance cameras and we were able to visually follow him out of the main casino exit onto Fremont Street. Beaver was working his way around the casino to keep an eye on Roland’s destination, while Vinnie and I scooted out to the parking garage where we jumped into my Camaro, standing by for Beaver to provide a direction of travel. As per the plan, Tammy got off the bar stool five minutes later and started walking toward the Union Plaza to meet Donnie. You have to love an informant that actually follows direction.

  The Beaver radioed me that Roland got on a city bus at the intersection of Fremont and Las Vegas Boulevard and was heading south toward the Strip. That was too easy to follow; so far, things were working out pretty smoothly with this meet. Vinnie and I followed the bus south on Las Vegas Boulevard. At a bus stop near the Stardust Hotel and Casino, we saw Roland get off and walk toward the casino entrance. Vinnie got some great pictures of Roland with his telephoto lens camera as he stepped off the bus and casually looked to his right…right at us.

  Donnie got on the radio and told us to discontinue the surveillance, no sense taking the chance of burning ourselves. He said Tammy got some great conversation with Roland, his telephone number, and he wanted her to call him for more work.

  A moving surveillance is hard to do with only two or three cars and that was a problem we always faced at the Las Vegas Resident Agency. Sure, we had the support of the mother ship back in at the Los Angeles Field Office, and the big boss in L.A. would always send guys to help us out with undercover meets, if we gave them enough notice. But we didn’t always have a lot of notice to put these deals together. Consequently, we worked very closely with our sister Treasury agency ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) and occasionally the boys at DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). If a casino was remotely involved in the scenario, the Gaming Enforcement guys would be involved. We tended to stay away from asking Freddie, Bernie, and Irving (FBI) for assistance…not because we didn’t appreciate their help, but the “Feebies” tend to want to control everything and Secret Service agents like being in charge. It’s in our DNA…it’s our nature. Individual Secret Service agents are given a tremendous responsibility with our Protective Mission. Thus, we are type-A…maybe even type-A plus. So we avoided routinely working with the FBI.

  We all met Donnie back at the office and he and Beaver debriefed Tammy. I listened to the tape recording and I could clearly hear Roland and Tammy’s conversation. We now had him on tape admitting he gave Tammy the check and the counterfeit driver’s license. And he handed up Paul as the maker of the counterfeit identification…it was perfect.

  Unfortunately, like most undercover deals, this one would take time to develop. We used to call it working on “bad guy time”; crooks are undependable, especially when they are drug addicts, and they don’t work the “day shift.”

  Over the next week Donnie had Tammy place some consensually recorded and monitored telephone calls to Roland. He either didn’t answer, was high on heroin, or was too busy to talk to Tammy…we were getting frustrated with the slow pace of this case and I was starting to think Roland thought she’d been pinched that night at the Sahara and he was keeping his distance, afraid she was snitching for the cops (which she was). We discussed the possibility that she was scamming us—meaning she’d contacted Roland on her own and “ratted” us out to him. The old double cross. We decided to polygraph her; Donnie got one of the polygraph examiners from the LAFO to come over to Vegas.

  The polygraph is an excellent investigative tool. Bad guys and defense attorneys are always saying, “The results of a polygraph are not admissible in court.” Yeah? Well, big deal. The whole point of a polygraph is to help an investigator determine if a suspect is lying to him. The actual instrument just advises the examiner that on some particular question, the suspect has had a different physiological reaction, which indicates to the investigator that the suspect may be untruthful. The post-test interrogation is where you get the truth out of them.

  I was never a polygraph examiner, but we utilized polygraphs all the time and I used to watch the post-test interview through the one-way mirrors in the polygraph suite. The investigator, or rather the examiner, is the one who gets the truth out of the suspect, and Secret Service polygraph examiners are the best interrogators in the business.

  Luckily, Tammy passed with flying colors; the agent from L.A. who conducted the examination said she had no issues on the two key questions we wanted her to answer. At least now we knew she wasn’t double-crossing us, and she had told the truth about that night at the Sahara. Now, we just needed Roland to take her telephone call and get this caper moving.

  Donnie thought about ending it and just getting an arrest warrant for Roland—we had probable cause for an arrest. But with Tammy passing the polygraph we wanted to keep trying to get ahold of Roland and get some good confirming evidence on Paul and arrest him. T.J. wanted us to keep trying for now, to see if we could get an undercover agent to buy a counterfeit driver’s license from Roland and Paul, and work Tammy out of the picture. That’s the book on these capers; you have to try and protect the informant as much as possible, for as long as possible. Eventually, if there is a trial, the informant is going to have to testify, and we told them that up front…but in the meantime, you have give them some cover.

  At the Las Vegas Resident Agency, time, or the lack of time, was always a problem. With only three working agents in that 1980s crime-ridden city, something else was always coming up.

  Chapter 2

  Getting to Las Vegas

  It was fall, and the oaks and hickories of central Missouri were in full color. I was sitting on the grass across from the Ellis Library at the University of Missouri; the Memorial Stud
ent Union was on my left. Jessie Hall and the Columns were down Lowry Street to my right. It was a normal class day and students were walking from one side of campus to the other. I was actually getting close to graduating from college.

  As I sat in the shade on that day, I pondered my future. Reality was starting to set in. I didn’t really have a plan and I was starting to realize that I really needed a plan. The idea of just getting a “job” when I graduated sounded so mundane. I had started college majoring in forestry, but this was the 1970s. Jimmy Carter was President, the economy was dog shit, and most of the guys graduating with a degree in forestry were not working in the forestry business; jobs in that industry were few and far between. So after five semesters, I’d changed my major to education. Although I had no real burning desire to be a teacher, after some research, I’d figured it was the quickest way to use all the college science classes I’d taken as a forestry major and get my degree. All I needed were the education degree requirements.

  I had just walked through the Memorial Union and saw a United States Marine Corps recruiting booth set up with a couple of marines in their blue pants with the red stripe and tan shirt. I remember looking at those two marines, a captain and a lieutenant, and thinking they were two impressive-looking men. So, as I sat there on that Indian summer afternoon, contemplating my future, it suddenly hit me, you only live once. I would become a United States marine.

  I had always thought about the Marine Corps—in fact, I had almost enlisted after I quit school the semester I’d become disillusioned with forestry as a career. That day, I got up and walked back into the Memorial Union and started a thirty-minute conversation with the captain about my future. And it was absolutely the best decision I have ever made…and that includes asking the Redhead to marry me, because had I not made the decision to join the United States Marine Corps, I would have never met that gal, plain and simple.