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Jane Turner was a highly decorated, 25-year veteran Special Agent with the FBI. She served in the most difficult investigatory positions and was the first woman named as the head of an FBI resident agency.
She led the FBI’s highly successful programs combating crimes against women and child sex crime victims on North Dakota Indian Reservations. In retaliation for exposing FBI failures within its child crime program, Turner was removed from senior resident agent position. Turner successfully fought her removal and won a historic victory for all FBI whistleblowers before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She challenged her retaliation in federal court, and won a unanimous jury verdict in her favor, obtaining the largest compensatory damage award permitted under the law for federal employees.
Jane also exposed criminal theft of property at the 9/11 crime scene by a handful of FBI agents. She was harshly retaliated against for reporting these violations to the Department of Justice, Inspector General. After a ten-year battle, she prevailed, becoming only one of a small handful of FBI agents to win her cases under the FBI Whistleblower Protection Act.
Dr. Frederic Whitehurst is a former FBI scientist who “blew the whistle” on misconduct within the FBI crime lab, resulting in extensive reforms being made.
He was America’s first successful FBI whistleblower. His case exposed forensic fraud in the FBI crime lab and subjected it to outside oversight for the first time. In 1997, Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto won a landmark victory and was responsible for a historic Presidential Executive Order ensuring whistleblower protection rights for FBI Agents who expose misconduct. They also obtained an extraordinary settlement of $1,166,000 plus $258,580 in attorney’s fees. Dr. Whitehurst established the Forensic Justice Project at the National Whistleblowers Center and initiated Freedom of Information Act requests that led to a NWC/Washington Post investigation of the FBI Crime Lab that forced the FBI to review 20,000 hair analysis cases. The investigation to date has resulted in several exonerations, reversals of convictions, and one stayed execution.
Robert Kobus began his career with the FBI New York Office when he was 20 years old and retired after 35 years of service. During this time, he received 10 GS Level promotions and thousands of dollars in awards for outstanding service. Kobus loved working for the FBI. This all changed when he reported wrongdoing.
He observed and reported that his SSA (Supervisory Special Agent) created “no show” positions for employees under his responsibility. Kobus was told that he might be fired for simply advising the NYO Executive management of this illegal activity. Within weeks, he was removed from his Supervisory Position and made to sit on a deserted, trash filled vacant floor among 130 empty desks. FBI Special Agents were sent to his home to retrieve an assigned vehicle. In the end, after a nine year legal battle, DOJ-OIG and the DOJ-OARM both acknowledged that Kobus’ actions were correct. Kobus won his case. Now he has dedicated his life helping and supporting other FBI employees that have the integrity and courage to tell the truth.
