The FBI Agent at my door - Handing off the Robinson tape to the FBI

The agent parked his rather non-descript car in a shadow under a tree, right near the news trucks. He was waiting for me to make the first move. I thought to myself, oh you cheeky bastard. Look at the balls on this guy, he’s parked right next to all the reporters and they don’t even know he’s there.

The FBI has the most remarkable talent for hiding in plain sight.

By VIRGINIA McCABE
Published March 6, 2007

After receiving a sex tape of Atlantic City Councilman Eugene Robinson, I immediately contacted the Atlantic City Field Office of the FBI to report that an anonymous source had handed me a video of a crime that might involve a 16-year old woman. Handing off the tape to the agent would prove to be harder than I thought.

“I never give information to law enforcement officers in my job as a reporter,” I told the agent I spoke to. “But I feel compelled to turn this tape over because it may involve the sexual exploitation of a minor. I definitely know it’s a crime.”

Protecting my sources is always my top priority as a reporter. It is a trust that you can never break. I never compromise my sources and they trust me. However, a sex crime involving a minor does not deserve the protection of a reporter or the media. I felt morally compelled to turn the tape over to authorities. The girl turned out to be older, but the note in the envelope stated that she was 16 and that was enough for me to act.

The FBI agent sounded very excited that I had the tape and would hand it over to them. He told me they would send an agent to pick up the tape, note and envelop that came with it. I told them I didn’t know if they could get any fingerprints because the man who handed it to me was wearing surgical gloves.

I was told that I must not speak to anybody, and they stressed anybody, about handing over the tape. I agreed to do this until the crime was solved, but I reserved the right to continue to report on the news story. I didn’t know then that they already knew about it. They knew who the suspects were.

I did not even tell my lawyer Jim Carroll that I had handed the tape over. Nobody knew.
I gave my word to the agent and my word is my bond. I was later released from that agreement with the FBI after they solved the crime.

Some members of the media asked me probing questions and did not understand why I didn’t give the tape to law enforcement officers. I could not defend myself and tell them that I had done the right thing. I felt terrible that I could not be completely open to people I had known in the media for years. I felt even worse when my friends and family asked me.

A few days later, an editorial ran in the Press of Atlantic City hinting that I was somehow involved in the crime. I was shattered by the editorial and called the FBI in tears. I told the agent I wanted to come in and take a polygraph test to prove my innocence and have a record that I did this. The agent laughed at me and told me they knew I had no involvement and that I just had to tough it out until the story could be told.

“It’s more important that we catch these guys than for you to play the Boy Scout,” he said. “Just tough it out, you’ll be ok.”

I asked for permission to tell WOND Radio Manager Dick Ireland that I had given the FBI the tape and the agent agreed. I was confident that Mr. Ireland would not reveal a confidence placed in him. I had a meeting with Mr. Ireland and told him that I immediately gave the tape over to the authorities. It was important to me that he knew the truth about what happened.

To his credit, Mr. Ireland kept the secret and he was very kind and completely professional about the entire situation. He has a very direct personality, with a wonderful sense of humor that put me at ease. He is also a very good judge of people. I like him immensely.

What I could not tell anybody, because I didn’t immediately know, the FBI already knew far more than I did about the source of the video.

The FBI and Atlantic City Police had already been aware of the DVD before it even surfaced in the media. I do not know if Robinson had called them after a blackmail attempt was allegedly made against him days before or if those who committed the crime were bragging about their activities around town and it got back to the agents. In the meantime, I had a tape to hand over.

The FBI was going to meet me in the parking lot of the radio station where I was to broadcast my nightly show. An agent I didn’t know came, but there were television news trucks in the parking lot and I could not hand him the tape without being captured by the news crews waiting to interview me about the story.

The agent parked his rather non-descript car in a shadow under a tree, right near the news trucks. he was waiting for me to make the first move. I thought to myself, oh you cheeky bastard. Look at the balls on this guy, he’s parked right next to all the reporters and they don’t even know he’s there. The FBI has the most remarkable means of hiding in plain sight.

The agent was supposed to meet me after my show when the news crews left, but he was called away for another reason. I called him back and asked him to come to my home that night to pick up the tape.

I was sitting at home waiting for the FBI and my phone was ringing off the hook. Reporter Todd Quinones of CBS News in Philadelphia was also on his way to my home. He wanted a copy of the tape, but I told him all he could do was view it to confirm that it existed.

I think I sprouted an ulcer hoping that the FBI and CBS would not meet at the same time at my front door. I can’t even imagine what my neighbors were thinking about a giant news truck parked outside. I live in a very quiet neighborhood where a live truck would stick out like a petunia in an onion patch.

I heard a knock at the door and when I opened it, there was an FBI Agent standing there. I didn’t know this one either. I was surprised he was wearing jeans. I invited him in, introduced myself and we went to my computer. I showed him the video. There was another knock at the door and this time it was CBS. The agent darted to the sofa in my living room while the reporter went into my study to watch the video.

I introduced the agent as my uncle. They shook hands.

CBS left and the agent came back into the other room to view and talk about the video. I stuffed the tape back into the envelope with the note and gave it to the agent.

“Here you go,” I told him.

We talked about the events that transpired for a long time. He took me through the story several times to make sure I recalled all the details, but he didn’t take any notes. I think he was surprised that my memory of the person who handed me the tape was so good. I told him that I made it a point to imprint his face in my mind and to write down a description of the man, what he was wearing and his features, which were mostly obscured by large glasses.

I am an artist. I offered to sketch a picture of the person who handed me the tape and the agent’s face lighted up. So I made a sketch remembering the exact tone of the skin, the height of his cheekbones, the nose and eyebrows above the glasses, the curve of his chin, jaw line and his distinctive lips. When I was finished, I looked at the picture and laughed thinking that the man had obscured his face so well with the glasses that he could have been any man on the street who was wearing a wool cap, hood and dark blue pea coat.

I handed the sketch to the agent and he asked me why I changed the pick up point and met him at a location of my choice.

Since I didn’t know my source when he called, I wasn’t even sure he would be giving me a tape. I had been covering the bribery stories in Atlantic City for a long, long time and many people knew I had an inside track on what was going on. I had been hitting the streets for months and spent a few nights meeting sources and other people on Maryland Avenue at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m. or whenever I got a call or had an opportunity to talk to people there. I also wanted to know what life on Maryland Avenue was like. I was told that some people were getting worried about what I was going to write and the people who were worried were not from Maryland Avenue.

I had this in my mind when I agreed to meet the anonymous source “Tim.” I chose Boston and Atlantic avenues for the pick up. If it was going to go bad, it would be hard to get away with anything in broad daylight on a crowded street where the businesses had plenty of security cameras. I noted the exact time of the pick up. It was 2:45 p.m.

“I didn’t know who I was meeting or what they really had in their pocket,” I told the agent. “I was moving them off their own turf to a place where I felt comfortable.”

One senior FBI official who followed my work sought me out to tell me not to go to any meetings like that again. He said there were things going on that he could not tell me about. He said that if anybody contacted me to hand something off, I should call the police or the local FBI field office. That is not an option for a reporter I told him. He was very displeased with my decision.

A year earlier, one of my sources warned me of a person in the city and another person in Philadelphia who was growing agitated that I was working on the story and that they believed I was at risk. At this time, I contacted a friend of mine in the media. I made copies of all my work and told the person where they could find it and provided him with a key to a location that was very secure. The reporter agreed to disseminate the work if anything happened to me. I thought it was silly, but I was following the advise of professional news people who had covered similar stories during their careers and were advising me on how to handle this one.

The agent asked me who I thought had done this and why they reached out to me to give me the tape. At that time I didn’t know the tape had been given to several media sources and was being viewed in barber shops in Atlantic City. I told him I thought it was because I had a reputation of following up on tough news stories. The agent had another idea.

“I think you are being used,” the agent said.

“A lot of people try to use reporters,” I told the agent. “Including the FBI.”

I don’t think I scored any points with the agent that came to my home that night, but it was no secret that everybody who calls a reporter has an agenda and a story they want out there. It is up to the reporter to determine what their agenda is and evaluate where to go from there.

I could tell the agent I was talking to didn’t think very highly of the media in general and this reporter in particular. His job is to keep secrets and my job is to report what is going on in government. We had competing interests. I tired to get more information out of him, but he was as tight lipped as a tuna.

The agent and I ran through all the possibilities and ideas. Who had something to gain? What was it? Who were the players and how dangerous are they? Is this a professional job or armatures? How many politicians had been taped? Were there other blackmail schemes of city employees, lawyers and other key people?

I thought I had told the agent everything I knew about the pick up of the tape when the agent surprised the hell out of me with a question that jogged my memory.

“Did the man describe himself to you during the phone call? How would you know what he looked like when you got there?”

It was the aha! moment in the story for me.

“Yes! He told me he was tall and good looking!”

The agent shook his head yes as if he already knew the exact words of the caller and I had repeated them precisely He had a broad smile on his face and he looked satisfied.

The only way the FBI could have known that information was if they had listened in on the phone call. At first, I thought this was impossible because my caller ID indicated the call came from a pay phone. Then a police officer told me that pay phones can be tapped too.

To this day, I still can’t confirm that the FBI had tapped that pay phone, but my gut feeling is that they were listening to the guy who called me that day and they knew what was going on because the people who committed this crime have been under intense surveillance for years.