◆ SpookStack

As a police officer, I was taught how to act when I was approached with a bribe offer. My obligation was to report it to my superiors, get wired up, and make a bribery case against the person offering the bribe. I don't see the Slightest problem in the tactics employed by ABSCAM. Every- one of those people who were "enticed" or "tempted" had the legal and moral obligation to make known the bribe offer, and to cooperate in the apprehension of the bribers. They are all attorneys and lawmakers - they can't claim ignorance of the law. What's being overlooked here by the supporters and sympathizers of these corrupt officials is the fact that if these criminals were so readily agreeable to snatch up payoffs to misuse the power of their offices, how many of them succumbed to previous offers? How many bribes had they and their colleagues accepted prior to ABSCAM? How common was this practice, that the Bureau saw fit to use this, or any investigative tactic, to cope with the problem? I'm sure we have seen only the very tip of the iceberg; and I think it is a sad commentary that in so few cases, did our elected officials have the integrity to report the bribe offer. f What we are seeing now is lawyers rallying to the sup- port of other lawyers, out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to one another, much as corrupt cops in New York were often supported or protected by other policemen in a spirit of distorted fraternalism. Perhaps, the attitude we are seeing is a “there but for the ,grace of God go I" phenomenon - a sad commentary on the penics of our legal profession. As_a criminal justice professional and an experienced investigator who has worked "Sting" operations, I strongly urge you to continue with some variations of your ABSCAM tactics. You are not at fault for using such tactics. The cries of "fight fair" are answerable by a response of "re- port bribery attempts". For you to abandon these tactics because of the bitching and wailing of a vocal minority of lawyers and their supporters would mean that you have allowed them to intimidate you. To desist now, is to admit that you were wrong, and you were not; on the contrary, I would con- tinue to use this tactic as effectively as possible, particu- larly now: It was our experience in New York that as fast as we shut down one of our "Operation Fence" or "Sting" opera- tions, we opened up a new one. Damned if we didn't lock up many of the same thieves the second time around that we did gO ete ct np nn ee EAT CT te ST MERA RS PE I I RE A LAR A TEE EAEE NES f MEN GN A mR RM OE tg ae wee ey eee