© Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. 2009
Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI
Brooke D. Roberts (1964- 1986)
Interviewed by Cyril P. Gamber
On April 7, 2009
Edited for spelling, repetitions, etc. by Sandra Robinette on May 12, 2009. Edited with Mr. Robert’s
corrections by Sandra Robinette on June 27, 2009.
Cyril Gamber/
CG: This is Cyril P. Gamber. I am interviewing Brooke D. Roberts for the Society of Former
Special Agents of the FBI Oral History Program. Today is April 7, 2009. This interview
is taking place at the home of former Special Agent Roberts in Lakeland, Florida. This is
an Olympus Stereo Recorder, WS210S recording in folder A. Okay, we are recording.
Brooke, before we start, maybe you could read into the recorder this release form.
Brooke Roberts/
BR: “We the undersigned convey the rights to the intellectual content of our interview on this
date to the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. This transfer is in exchange for
the Society‟s efforts to preserve the historical legacy of the FBI and its members. We
understand that portions of this interview maybe deleted for security purposes. Unless
otherwise restricted we agree that acceptable sections can be published on the World
Wide Web and the recordings transferred to an established repository for preservation
and research.”
CG:
Okay. With that having been dispensed with and we‟ve got the signatures on there.
What I think we need to start with is when and where you were born.
BR:
Boston, Massachusetts. April 18, 1935.
CG:
The 18th of April? That‟s Patriot‟s Day, isn‟t it?
BR:
You bet your life. I was born in the right city.
CG:
Yes, you were. Where were you raised?
BR:
Melrose, Massachusetts. When I was in my early teens we moved to Andover,
Massachusetts.
CG:
How long did you stay in Andover?
BR:
I stayed there until I was a senior in high school.
CG:
Where did you go to high school?
Brooke D. Roberts
April 7, 2009
Page 2
BR:
Punchard High School in Andover until my senior year, at which time I was sent to
Bamberg, South Carolina to Carlyle Military School. Not because I was a bad boy, but in
my high school I was on the track team, the basketball team and cross country team and
at the state meet I had suffered a contusion of the diaphragm, which meant I was not
going to be able to compete for a year. Rather than go to a school where I couldn‟t
compete I decided to try something new.
My grandparents were familiar with this little military school down in South Carolina
because they were wintering in Florida. They traveled down Route 301 and had come to
know this school and stop by to visit it on certain occasions when they were passing
through. They suggested it to me and I accepted their suggestion. I went there as a
senior in high school so I was a senior rat.
CG:
A senior rat. Now I take it from there you went to college probably also in South
Carolina, is that correct?
BR:
Yes. Several of the Carlyle Military School graduates went on to the Citadel, the military
college of South Carolina and I was one of them.
CG:
You spent four years there. What was your major at the Citadel, do you remember?
BR:
Business Administration.
CG:
Business Administration?
BR:
They called it Commerce.
CG:
Once you graduated from the Citadel, what did you do next?
BR:
When I graduated, I was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Air
Force. On December 4th of 1958, I went to San Antonio, Texas to Air Force
Indoctrination and was sent to Mission, Texas, to a little Air Force base for pilot training.
Prior to the completion of that training, they discovered that my eyesight was not what it
should be. I had an astigmatism that affected my ability to read certain instruments under
certain conditions. They gave me an opportunity to withdraw from pilot training and
enroll as a navigator.
CG:
That must have been a bit disheartening for you.
BR:
A little bit, a little bit.
CG:
So you become an Air Force navigator?
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BR:
I went to nav school, graduated nav school and then was sent on to advanced navigation
and bombardier school in California. I graduated from that and went to B47 crosstraining for a specific type of air craft there, the Boeing B-47 medium bomber. That was
in Wichita, Kansas.
From Wichita, I was transferred just up the road to Topeka, where I was at an Air Force
base in Topeka, Kansas, Forbes Air Force Base, part of the Second Air Force.
CG:
How long did you stay in the Air Force?
BR:
Well that is a good story. I was very happy in the Air Force. I was on a very good crew.
My air craft commander was a kid named Bernard Janicki who was an outstanding player
at Duke in basketball. When we traveled around the world on our SAC missions we
would play the base team in basketball. We only needed one play and that was to get the
ball to Bernie, and we never lost a game.
A fellow Citadel graduate from a class behind me, Dana E. Caro, came out to visit us in
Topeka. He just mustered out of the Marine Corps and joined the FBI. He encouraged
me to follow him in to the FBI.
I made inquiry at the Topeka Resident Agency. I went to Kansas City and did my
application and subsequently on March 3, I received an appointment for class to begin on
April 27, 1964 in Washington, D.C.
CG:
Okay. So you joined the FBI in April of 1964, is that correct? Where did you go to FBI
training at that point?
BR:
Quantico.
CG:
Quantico, Virginia. How many weeks did you spend there, do you remember?
BR:
I think it was sixteen weeks.
CG:
I think you are right. From Quantico, you went to what office as your first office?
BR:
It was Atlanta. A Yankee boy going to the south, but I had already been in the south so it
was no shock.
CG:
That happened quite a bit back in those days, isn‟t that correct? Northern boys went
south and southern boys went north.
BR:
That‟s right and I became a civil rights specialist.
CG:
So that is the type of cases that you worked in Atlanta?
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BR:
Actually no. I did some. I was there during the school integration of the State of Georgia
and found myself on several school campuses on school start-up day.
CG:
What were you doing exactly?
BR:
I was working theft from interstate shipment primarily, and bank robberies. Atlanta had a
lot of bank robberies. I worked for a guy named “Ange” Robey who was the supervisor.
I was on his squad. It was a good squad, and we had a lot of good work.
CG:
Any interesting cases that you worked in the Atlanta Office?
BR:
I did one undercover assignment where I had to be a Yankee, purchasing stolen carpet up
in the little carpet town of Dalton, Georgia.
CG:
How did that work out?
BR:
It worked out very well. We went in and bought the carpet and then busted the operation.
CG:
Great. How long were you in Atlanta?
BR:
I was reassigned in August of 1965. I had spent the summer of 1965 in Bogalusa,
Louisiana on a civil rights special.
CG:
What happened down there?
BR:
A couple of black deputy sheriffs were shot up by some Klan members. An agent named
Steve Seperek (hard to believe I can remember these names after all of these years) and I
were sent to Bogalusa.
CG:
Can you spell it?
BR:
I believe so. I think it was SEPEREK.
CG:
Close enough.
BR:
Steve was a good guy and I worked the streets in Atlanta with him a little bit. SAC Joe
Ponder sent the both of us to Bogalusa. We were going to be there two weeks. Yeah,
right. I returned home for school beginning. We left in the start of the summer probably
June and we came back in August.
CG:
August of 1965?
BR:
1965.
CG:
It wasn‟t long thereafter that you were transferred. Is that correct?
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BR:
That is correct. I was transferred to Tampa in January of 1966.
CG:
January of 1966. Who was the SAC of Tampa at that time?
BR:
Joseph A. Santoiana, Jr.
CG:
Do you have a bit of a story to tell about whether you were transferred to Headquarters or
to somewhere else? Were you transferred directly into Tampa Headquarters?
BR:
Oh yes, directly into Tampa Headquarters. I had been told by the agents in Atlanta as I
was leaving that I would be most fortunate if I were not on the boss‟s squad. I didn‟t
really know what that meant. But SAC Santoiana‟s reputation far exceeded the boundary
of Florida.
When I arrived in Tampa I was greeted by Jack Gaffney, who announced to me that I was
on the boss‟s squad.
I was taken into Mr. Santoiana‟s office and I was told to scrub my feet on the rubber mat
outside his office to make sure I didn‟t track any dirt into his office. I dutifully scrubbed
my feet and went in to meet the boss.
I can tell you, after having served in his division, as a headquarters agent, and as a
resident agent, he is one of the finest men I have ever met. We had no problems.
I arrived a week or two after Willis Smith. Willis Smith was in the class behind me in
Bureau training at Quantico and Washington. We had met up there and as soon as I
found Willis, we kind of partnered up. We were both on the boss‟s squad. We worked
bank robberies and organized crime off of the boss‟s squad.
CG:
Any particular cases that you recall from that partnership?
BR:
Willis and I had a bank robbery case. John Joseph Blake. Elizabeth Mae Blake was his
wife. John Joseph Blake had driven to Jacksonville. He had hired a black gentleman by
the name of Algernon Roundtree. Algernon was a nice guy but he was just a driver. He
took Blake up to do some transactions, some business up in Jacksonville.
The business was to rob a bank. He didn‟t tell Algernon what his business was. But it so
happened that as he was leaving Jacksonville Mr. Blake was sitting in the back seat of the
car, removing all the bands from the money and throwing them out the window of the
car. Algernon figured something was wrong.
CG:
Like following a trail of bread crumbs.
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BR:
He was developed as a suspect on the case and Willis and I tried to find him. He was not
readily available but his wife, Elizabeth Mae Blake, was interviewed on several
occasions. Willis and I got a search warrant and searched the house. We actually
recovered the money from a Dempsey Dumpster where it had been hidden.
CG:
Was it all there?
BR:
Most of it was accounted for, I believe. The funny part of this case was that, since it
happened in Jacksonville, our discovery and our investigation was going to be required to
be delivered to the court in the Northern District of Florida in Jacksonville. Willis and I
climbed on the air plane to fly to Jacksonville.
We are sitting in our seats minding our own business when all of a sudden two gentlemen
come down the center aisle of the airplane and take the seats directly in front of us. One
of them happened to be a well-known Tampa criminal defense who told his seat mate that
he was in route to Jacksonville to defend a client who had been charged with bank
robbery.
As an aside, he tells his seat mate, in humor, that he thought it was quite funny that his
client had paid his retainer in consecutively numbered twenty dollar bills. Needless to
say we are frantically making notes in the seat behind him. When we arrived in
Jacksonville we contacted the Assistant United States Attorney, Joe Hatchet, who was
working that case. Joe later became a Supreme Court justice in Florida.
CG:
Interesting.
BR:
Joe says, “Do you have a 302?” I said, “No, sir, I have notes.”
He says, “Make a 302.” I said, “Yes, sir, right away.”
So we ran over to the Jacksonville Office and got a steno. We dictated our 302 and
rushed it back to court and handed it to Joe. He went into chambers and the next thing
you know Joe comes out grinning from ear to ear and says, “Tomorrow morning, when
you get back to Tampa, would you go to attorney‟s office, he is going to give you a bag
of money.”
In fact, he did. The next day we went to the office and got a paper bag full of twenty
dollar bills.
CG:
Proceeds of the crime I take it.
BR:
Proceeds of the crime, taken as evidence. Willis and I had a good time in Tampa
working mainly bank robberies.
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CG:
You eventually ended up in Lakeland. How did that happen?
BR:
Well, that is a funny story too. I came in from the field one day and Willis was kind of
distraught. He had been called in to talk to the boss and it was pointed out that he had
sent the wrong copy count of „92‟ Reports to the Bureau and this resulted in O-1‟s being
directed against the supervisor who happened to be Joe Santoiana.
CG:
Maybe you should explain „92‟ Reports and O-1‟s.
BR:
„92‟ Reports are organized crime type reports.
Willis was kind of distraught about the fact that he had cost the boss four O-1‟s which is
just the Bureau‟s pointing out that the field had messed up as to copy count. So about a
week later I came into the office and John Ambler, one of the agents in Tampa, asked me
if I had checked my mail.
I told him that I hadn‟t so he said that you better go check your mail. I went and checked
my mail and wondered how he knew what was in my mail. At any rate there was an
envelope in there and the envelope was addressed to me and had “see me” on the outside
with a big “S” which is Mr. Santoiana.
So I went to the boss‟s office. Scrubbed my feet, entered, and asked him if he wanted to
see me and he said, “No, I don‟t think so, what about?”
I handed him my transfer letter to the Lakeland, Florida RA. He looked at it, he looked
at me, and he looked back at it and he said, “Did you buy a house in Tampa?”
I said, “No, sir.”
He said, “Renting?”
I said, “Yes, sir.”
He said, “Is there any reason why you can‟t go to Lakeland with your family?”
I said, “No, sir.”
He said, “Very well.”
We didn‟t put it together for years, but he frequently confused Willis Smith and me. He
sometimes called me „Smith‟ and sometimes called Willis „Roberts‟. So I figured he
thought he was sending the O-1 offending Willis Smith to Lakeland but that didn‟t
happen.
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BR:
Several weeks later, after I had transferred to Lakeland, Willis got transferred to Sarasota.
Willis didn‟t make out too bad on that deal either.
CG:
Sounds like it was a pretty good deal for Willis.
BR:
Yes, it was and a good deal for me too.
CG:
Now when you got to Lakeland, who was in charge of that office that Resident Agency?
BR:
Lawrence Thompson.
CG:
Lawrence Thompson.
BR:
“LET the II.”
CG:
What type of cases were you assigned in Lakeland at the outset?
BR:
The Lakeland Office at that time, Ben Cook had been transferred to the Bureau so I was
there to replace Ben Cook. Tom Levering was in the office. Tom had been around for a
long time, and Glyde Gentry.
Glyde worked the Klan. That was pretty active in Polk County, Florida in those days.
Larry Thompson worked anything, pretty much any criminal matter, in Lakeland. I
worked any criminal matter everywhere else.
CG:
So you were the go-to guy in the county, is that right?
BR:
I was the guy who went to Bartow, Lake Wales, Frostproof, Haines City you name it and
I went.
CG:
You got to know the countryside.
BR:
Tom worked more or less specific cases but he was kind of a specialist in some matters. I
was the guy on the road. It was fun. It was a great county. It was a large county, one of
the larger ones in land mass. It had a lot going on and we always had the saying over the
years that any major case anywhere in the country has some tentacle reaching into Polk
County.
CG:
When did you actually arrive in Lakeland if you remember, Brooke?
BR:
It was right after Christmas, January of 1966 I got here.
CG:
While you were roaming the county, the largest land mass county in Florida, were there
any specific cases that you recall that you thought were interesting?
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BR:
What period of time?
CG:
Well between then and, let‟s say 1968, which we will get to in a minute or two.
BR:
Lots. We had kidnappings. We had theft from interstate shipment, interstate
transportation of stolen motor vehicle cases, but the crux of our existence here was
fugitives. It was not uncommon in Lakeland to pull down three or four fugitives a week.
CG:
Did you ever arrest a Top Ten in this area?
BR:
Top Ten? The closest we probably got to a Top Ten would have been Joseph Paul
Franklin. I am not sure that Franklin was on the Top Ten but he should have been
because he was the one that …
CG:
But he might have been an IO or an Identification Order?
BR:
He was definitely an IO. He was the one who shot Vernon Jordan and he shot some
joggers. He hated black people.
CG:
When would that have been roughly?
BR:
October of 1980.
CG:
Oh, it was that late?
BR:
That late.
CG:
Let‟s go back to 1968 to the time of the Mackle kidnapping. What do you remember
about how you got involved in that case and what transpired during your time that you
were involved in the case?
BR:
Well, it was a telephone call to the RA from, I think, Joe Santoiana. He said that Miami
had called and asked him to send a couple of agents down to assist with the kidnapping of
Barbara Jane Mackle.
We were aware of the case because I think it was already out in the news. Joe told me
that also being sent to Miami was Frank Davis. I don‟t remember if Frank was in the RA
at that time or if he was in headquarters. I think he was in headquarters at that time.
So I packed my gear and headed out for Miami. I arrived in Miami probably about 11:00
at night.
CG:
Do you remember what day of the week this might have been?
BR:
I don‟t really remember.
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CG:
Okay, if you don‟t, that‟s fine.
BR:
It was shortly before Christmas. I know that.
CG:
Christmas of ‟68.
BR:
Yes. It was in December of 1968.
Apparently the drop had been made on the original demand and two police officers down
in Miami had recovered the drop when some guy came up into a parking area where two
officers were talking together and when he saw the police officers, he ran. Well they did
what any police officer would do when somebody runs you pursue, not knowing what
they were into.
Well, as a result of their activities they recovered the car that the man was coming to,
which was a Volvo. In the car was a camera with pictures. It was everything to identify
the perp. They just didn‟t know anything was going on. They also recovered the money
because the guy dropped the money when he ran. So they had a fairly good sum of
money in a bag. They had no reason to believe it was a kidnapping because no one had
told them.
It was my understanding that the police then inquired of the FBI to determine what was
going on.
CG:
So that was their first knowledge of the Mackle kidnapping.
BR:
That was their first knowledge of the Mackle kidnapping as far as I can recall.
At any rate, I arrived in Miami like I said at about 11:00 at night, pretty much lost
because I had never been to Miami before. It was dark and I got on the radio and I just
called hoping I would reach somebody and Frank Davis came back to me.
Well, Frank it so happens was from Miami and his family lived in Miami so he was able
to steer me out of wherever it was that I was, back into the light because I was in the
darkness. He directed me to the Miami Office and there we were greeted by the folks in
the Miami Division.
Our initial assignments were separate. He was going one way and I was going another. I
don‟t remember who the agent was that I was working with. I had the feeling or I recall I
think I had met this individual either in Atlanta or in Tampa previously. I don‟t know
why I have that feeling. But I do.
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BR:
It was somebody who knew the city, so that individual drove while we did leads. Most of
our leads covered going to banks and inquiring about various accounts and gleaning
information that way. We did that for a day and then we were going to be covering
another drop and that was going to be in the evening.
CG:
So I take it they had heard once again from the kidnapper and he had made additional
demands.
BR:
There was another plan to make a drop so we were told the area that the drop was to be
made in, which was out in the Everglades. We were told not to enter into the area of the
drop, but to be alert for any vehicles, if they could come up with a description of the
vehicle after the drop was made. The drop did go down and we did get a vehicle
description.
BREAK
BR:
Investigation that evening was basically the entire section of that neighborhood in Miami
that they felt was apt to be active with this guy. A description of the vehicle was given to
us and we did spend the night looking for cars that fit the description. I don‟t remember
what the description was at this point. We didn‟t find anything that night.
I think the next day we were in the office and somebody mentioned that they needed
some agents to run out to a boat yard. Some guy had called in and said that a man had
bought a little outboard motor boat for cash.
I don‟t remember if they sent one or two cars. I remember going out to a store where a
guy was selling boats. We interviewed the guy at the boat place.
We did determine that the boat was paid in full with twenty dollar bills and I think it was
over $2000 as best I recall. We did find bait bills amongst them, by serial number. We
transported the bills back to the office, but before we did that, in the interview of the boat
salesman, we got the description of the guy that bought the boat and the name that he
used, which is a name that I don‟t recall.
Another important piece of information that was gleaned was the fact that the buyer had
also purchased waterway maps which would show you how to travel from the east coast
of Florida to the west coast of Florida through a series of canals.
CG:
Oh I see.
BR:
Then there were maps of the Gulf area. So it was a no brainer that this guy was going to
try to slip across the state. We rushed back to the office and I can remember a team of
agents sitting there and going through and cataloging all of these twenty dollar bills that
we brought back. I think I may have done some myself.
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BR:
At that point the decision was made that we were going to send some cars over across the
State to try and catch up with this guy or try and find him if he is out there. I think the
Tampa Division got involved about this time. I think the Coast Guard got involved with
some of the Tampa agents.
I was assigned with Frank Davis to proceed to the west coast of Florida. So with Frank
driving his car, we crossed Alligator Alley at about 90 miles an hour. I would have
preferred to have been driving myself but Frank did a good job.
We arrived in Naples and proceeded further north after receiving reports that a boat had
been spotted, which could be the one in question.
CG:
Where was it located or do you remember?
BR:
I don‟t recall. I think it was crossing through the waterway through the canals. Of course
there is a series of locks that they have to go through. Locks take time, so we figured that
we were probably gaining on this guy as we got up to the other side.
As we were proceeding into the City of Fort Myers I can remember Frank uttering an
expletive and I said, “What‟s the matter?”
He said, “We‟ve got a tail.”
I looked out the back window and we had a highway patrolman coming after us at a very
high rate of speed, because we were moving at a pretty smart pace ourselves. I got on the
radio and managed to get the Fort Myers Office, which had apparently already been put
on alert about the activities. I told them to contact FHP and tell them that the car they
were chasing was us.
We continued at a high rate of speed into the city of Fort Myers as the highway
patrolman came up beside us. It was obvious that he got the message because as he got
beside us he took his right arm and he pointed straight ahead, advanced his car in front of
us, and we proceeded with a Highway Patrol escort through the city of Fort Myers.
On the other side of Fort Myers, he turned us loose and we proceeded to a little area
called El Jobean, based on radio traffic that we were receiving.
CG:
That was the rendezvous area?
BR:
Apparently Mr. Krist had been trying to elude the helicopter that was following him and
got himself too close to the island known as Hog Island in El Jobean, which is in the Port
Charlotte area and got the boat stuck in the mud.
CG:
So he ran aground?
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BR:
He hadn‟t run aground but he was some distance from the island itself. He was just stuck
in a muddy area.
When we arrived there the Sarasota Resident Agents, Willis Smith, Ted Seman and, I
don‟t remember who else, had just arrived in the area and were awaiting further
instruction.
We could see Krist‟s motor boat between us and this little strip of an island out there,
mainly mangrove and saw grass.
CG:
I take it that it was unoccupied at that point?
BR:
There was no one living on that island. No human living on that island. A fisherman just
happened to be coming in with his little fishing boat, probably eight or nine footer with a
little kicker on the back of it. I displayed my credentials and told him that it was
imperative that we commandeer his boat, would he allow that to happen?
He said that he would and I promised to take care of his boat. That was a promise that I
tried to live up to but failed. Failed only in that I don‟t know what happened to the boat
because they pulled me off of the island before I had a chance to deal with the boat. I am
sure he got it back.
But, at any rate, we got into his boat, Ted Seman, myself and Frank Davis. I think there
was at least one more person. We must have looked ridiculous in this little tiny boat, four
guys. But at any rate we headed on out to the boat that was stranded in the mud. We had
a shallower draft in that boat so we had no problem getting up adjacent to it.
Frank Davis was then put onto the Krist boat. He went to the front of the boat and found
a knapsack or duffle bag. Seems to me I remember olive drab. He opened it up and it
was full of money. We left Frank on the boat with the money and we proceeded onto the
island.
We landed on the island and I think in my efforts to keep the guy‟s boat safe I stayed
with the boat. I just dragged it down along the edge. Ted went into the mangrove. I
chose to stay with the boat for a little bit. I took the boat down and found a little inlet and
I walked into the inlet dragging the boat behind me.
I took it in as far as I could get and when I started back we had searched for probably at
least an hour. I would leave the boat to run out and …
CG:
What time of the day was it?
BR:
I think we probably started about 1:00.
CG:
How are you dressed at this point?
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BR:
I was dressed in a suit.
CG:
Suit and tie?
BR:
Suit and tie and white shirt. I had left my coat in the boat. I had moved my credentials
from my shirt pocket to my pants pocket mainly because when I got into the saw grass
adjacent to the little canal, the saw grass would eat away at the clothing and the cloth so
everything had to be protected from the saw grass and there was no way to do that. It just
picked away at the clothing and pretty soon you have minimal clothing on. The seams
came right out of the pants.
CG:
You looked like Robison Crusoe right?
BR:
I guess I would leave the boat and go out and check areas adjacent to the little canal
working my way back to the boat again, going further in making these spot checks
looking for Krist. Probably about an hour and a half or maybe two hours after I arrived, I
was coming back down the stream because I could hear voices. It was our guys
obviously and I come across William Sullivan.
CG:
Will Sullivan, ASAC of Tampa, at the time right?
BR:
Yes. Bill had lost a shoe in the muck. Fortunately my shoes were hanging on my feet
alright but they were being badly beaten by the barnacles. They weren‟t really barnacles,
oyster shell type things that were very sharp.
So he was in a position where he couldn‟t even move. I had to go over to the bank where
he was and I loaded him on my back and I carried him onto the boat. I dumped him into
the boat. I didn‟t dump him, I put him into the boat and started pulling him down this
little canal.
Lo and behold coming toward me was Charles A. Long, Jr. of the Lakeland Resident
Agency who had been dispatched to the island. He was wearing full rain gear which was
wonderful because he was protected.
CG:
How perceptive of him.
BR:
He stopped in route, realizing what was going on.
CG:
Was he also in a boat at that point?
BR:
No, no. He was walking in the water and I was coming down the canal, like Humphrey
Bogart in the African Queen, pulling a boat down the canal toward him. I took ASAC
Sullivan, out to the little beach on the side of the island. I think Joe Santoiana was there
at that point.
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Page 15
BR:
Joe decided to use the boat for his little control point. I think he had a shoe missing but I
am not sure, I have a recollection that he might have had a shoe missing. I know he got
into the boat. We used the boat kind of as a little office. By then I was put onto an air
boat with other guys and we were transported to the far end of the island, probably the
west point, which was basically all saw grass.
We were landed in that area and we all took up a line basically side by side and tried to
pass through the saw grass checking that area out. That probably took about two hours to
get back to the base camp area.
CG:
I take it you are losing daylight.
BR:
We are losing daylight and I have almost no clothes left on. My shirt is ripped open and
my pocket is hanging down and I‟ve got a water line across the middle of my chest.
I was trying to think about this last night as to where my gun was because I was over my
hips in water. I must have been carrying the damn thing in my hand. I don‟t know. I
don‟t think I would have allowed my weapon to get wet. It is so amazing the many
things that you can‟t recall, little things just gone away.
CG:
Understandable, I think.
BR:
So anyway, I got back to the main site where my little boat was and that was when I was
told that I was being taken off of the island. Mr. Santoiana told me there was going to be
a meeting later that evening and he would appreciate it if I would deliver the „reptile‟
briefing.
CG:
Reptile meeting?
BR:
I told him that I really hadn‟t seen any reptiles and I had been all over that island. I had
seen drags which were still filling with water so I know that the alligators, if that‟s what
they were, wanted no part of us and were staying well away from us.
I told him I would check with the wildlife officers locally if they were available and make
sure my presentation would be as accurate as I could make it. I had no problems with the
reptiles while I was on that island.
I was then taken by air boat from the island back to the main land where I encountered
Dana E. Caro again, of all people. He was assigned to the Tampa Division at that time.
My clothes were in such disreputable condition at that time that Dana said, “We have to
get you some clothes.”
I said, “Where do you go to get clothes at this time of night?”
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BR:
He said, “Oh, my Dad, will take care of us.”
I said, “So your Dad will take care of us, does your Dad live nearby?”
He said, “Yes. He lives in Port Charlotte.”
So with several agents we went to Dana Caro‟s father‟s home.
CG:
That was fortunate.
BR:
Yes, it was fortunate that I had a place to get cleaned up and get dry clothes to put on.
The unfortunate thing was that Mr. Caro‟s dad was five feet tall and five feet around so I
looked like I was wearing oversized knee highs as the pants with a belt line that was
bundled. My shoes had stayed pretty much intact and my shirt was totally gone just
reduced to rags.
With that I wore his clothing and we had something to eat. Then we went back to the
meeting. I talked to the Wild Life Officers and they told me that in fact one could expect
to find water moccasin and alligators and even some Florida crocodiles that reside in the
area. I had seen none of them so you couldn‟t prove it by me.
At any rate, I gave my reptile briefing and my work was done for the evening. We retired
in the evening with the intention that in the morning at first light we would be transported
back to the island where we would do a side by side walk through of the island from one
end to the other, probing as we went, so that everybody would be in contact with adjacent
people on their right and left until we found this guy.
CG:
Sounds like this was to be a thorough search.
BR:
It would involve many, many people. The County Sheriff‟s Office was well represented
there and I think there may have been some state agents there from state agencies,
wildlife people were there. There was great support.
Willis Smith had been assigned to road block because of his prior experience. Prior to
the FBI, he had been in Border Patrol and he knew road blocks. He was assigned to road
blocks. He didn‟t have the fun of the island.
At any rate during the night, when we awoke the next morning we were pleased to hear
that Mr. Krist had been found by two deputies at the end of the island and brought back
to the control point where my little boat had been left. He was secured at that point by
SA Charles Long.
CG:
So you were not involved in the capture of Krist?
BR:
No. I was not involved in the capture of Krist.
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Page 17
CG:
What happened to the ransom money?
BR:
That was still in possession of Frank Davis and probably was turned over to SAC
Santoiana who turned it over to somebody else for transport to, I think they took it to
Tampa.
Krist however was put into a car with William Kenneth Garner, Jr. of the Lakeland RA
and Willis Smith of the Sarasota RA in the back seat. Krist was in the middle. I don‟t
know who was driving but they were driven to Fort Myers.
CG:
To the Miami Office?
BR:
My recollection is that we pretty much went in line. I can remember us traveling in a line
of cars back to Miami.
CG:
This would have been the morning after the capture?
BR:
This would have been the morning of the capture. I think the capture probably occurred
after midnight.
CG:
I see.
BR:
We got back to Miami and at that point… We had gone to the hotel and got showered
and changed and cleaned up and then went back to the office. I was now back again with
Frank Davis because we returned together back to Miami.
We had a few other leads that they wanted covered, so we took off to do leads. During
traveling between two of the leads that happened to be in Frank Davis‟ parents‟
neighborhood, we went to Frank‟s parents‟ home just so he could drop in and say hello.
We did. We went into the house and met the family. As an aside at Frank‟s funeral
which was not that many years ago now … Frank was a special guy.
CG:
Yes, he was.
BR:
I talked to the parents. Of course they were well aware of the Mackle case, having seen
us that day, but didn‟t recognize me. They were talking about remembering Frank
coming to the house and the guy that was with him had dirty shoes. I copped out and told
them that I was the „dirty shoe guy‟ because there was very little leather left on the tops
of my shoes. They were pretty bad.
We continued to do leads into the next day or two in Miami and then we were dispatched
back to our respective offices in the Tampa Division.
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Page 18
CG:
So you went back to Lakeland?
BR:
I went back to Lakeland.
CG:
How many days after Krist‟s arrest did you spend in Miami before you went back to
Lakeland?
BR:
I would have to guess maybe three.
CG:
Maybe, three days. Were you ever asked to do any follow up investigation in Tampa or
Lakeland?
BR:
On that case?
CG:
On that case.
BR:
No, I don‟t believe so.
CG:
Were you ever asked to testify in any way in the trial of Krist?
BR:
No. I know Caro did.
CG:
What happened to Ruth Eisemann Schier?
BR:
Ruth Eisemann Schier had split on the failure of the first pick up, the first drop. She left
the state of Florida. I can recall and, I don‟t know if we had Behavioral Sciences at the
Bureau or not at that point, but we had guys who thought along those terms and I can
recall hearing someone mention that Ruth Schier would seek out a scholastic
environment, a university or college. Sure as heck she did. She went to Oklahoma, I
believe.
CG:
Is that right?
BR:
She was in fact engaged in activities in a university environment. She was apprehended
there.
CG:
You spoke about Willis Smith being involved in the investigation at Hog Island and at El
Jobean. Do you know of any others who you can think of who have similar experiences
to yours as far as the Mackle case is concerned? I think you said that Charlie Long was
another one.
BR:
Charlie Long. I saw Charlie. Ted Seman, I am sure Ted Seman was there but I have no
recollection of what happened to him after we split up on the island. I‟m sure Ted would
be, I wouldn‟t have thought anything of seeing him, but I have no specific recollection of
having any specific interaction with Ted.
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CG:
I think Ted is up in the Jacksonville area now.
BR:
The Bureau was so kind to grant me a reimbursement for the clothing that I had damaged.
I was given a voucher for $65 to replace my clothing, my suit.
CG:
Your shoes and your suit.
BR:
Everything. There was nothing left that I could use.
CG:
So you got $65?
BR:
Yes. I got $65 I did.
CG:
Back in that day that was a handsome sum right?
Did you get a letter or commendation?
BR:
Yes, I did, with an incentive award in the amount of $150.
CG:
That would have taken care of the rest of your costs.
BR:
That took care of my suit for sure. I think Frank Pezzi made out okay. He was my tailor.
CG:
So you purchased the replacements here in Tampa? I mean in Lakeland.
BR:
Yes. I replaced my clothing in Lakeland.
CG:
Once this juncture in the case occurred and you went back to Lakeland, did you ever do
any other follow up in Lakeland on this case?
BR:
Not on this case, no. I don‟t think so. We followed it.
CG:
How long did you stay in the Lakeland Resident Agency after the Mackle kidnapping
case was over?
BR:
Well, I retired in 1986.
CG:
So you were probably another eighteen years in the Lakeland Resident Agency. Were
there any other interesting matters during that time?
BR:
Bill Garner had been sent over from Tampa right after I got to Lakeland. Bill was made
SRA when Larry Thompson retired. Bill went back to Tampa for administrative
advancement. I inherited the SRA slot. I had that position from 1970 to 1986.
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BR:
Yes, Lakeland had a lot of good stuff going on.
I went to an in-service for police instructors so I became a police instructor in the Polk
County area and I traveled all over central Florida doing police schools.
We had a series of agents transferring in and out. We became a training office for first
office agents. We had a constant flow of agents in and agents out.
CG:
You had one of the first female agents at your resident agency right?
BR:
I think we had the first female agent in an RA.
CG:
Assigned to a resident agency.
BR:
Assigned to a resident agency, not Headquarters city. That was Mary Lou Mertens. She
came out to the RA but I don‟t remember what year it was. Probably about 1974.
CG:
Sometime after 1970, when you became SRA?
BR:
Well, after the time I was made SRA.
Actually the RA was involved in the Watergate Case. Not too many people would know
that.
CG:
How so, Brooke?
BR:
There was information that was developed during the investigation going on in
Washington, D.C. that there had been some contacts with a former CIA agent who was
medically retired and living in Winter Haven, Florida. He had been contacted by some of
the folks known as the “plumbers.” That was McCord and some of those guys.
There was an interview done I think on a Saturday by John Williams, who was assigned
to go over and interview this guy in Winter Haven to see what he could tell him.
CG:
Do you remember roughly when that would have been?
BR:
It would have been, gosh, February or March of 1973 it would have been.
CG:
1973?
BR:
John had gone over and done the interview with a guy named Jack Baughman. Boy these
names just keep popping into my head. He was a brilliant, brilliant individual. The only
reason I know that is because the next day I got a call from Joe Santoiana himself and it
was Sunday morning. I figured it was important if Joe was calling me on Sunday.
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BR:
He said that the Bureau had gotten the information on the previous day‟s interview and
was not satisfied and wanted him re-interviewed. Joe wanted me to re-interview him. I
decided in the interest of preserving my sanity, I would take somebody with me.
I took Bruce Dando with me and we went over to interview Mr. Baughman. Mr.
Baughman had married an FBI clerk. He was very familiar with the FBI. Mr. Baughman
was an absolutely brilliant guy. He could say nothing in more words than anybody I have
ever heard in my life.
I grew very fond of Mr. Baughman and we became close personal friends after this series
of interviews. Interviewing Mr. Baughman on specifics was like pulling hen‟s teeth and I
have never seen a hen‟s tooth.
CG:
Really.
BR:
I was mandated by Mr. Santoiana to respond to the Bureau no later than 7:00 p.m. I was
still in his living room at 7:00 p.m. trying to extricate information from him because I
was pretty sure that he knew what I wanted to know.
CG:
On a slippery interview.
BR:
Very slippery. He did not want to give up Mr. Howard Hunt but he did acknowledge that
he was familiar with him and had served with him in the Agency and what have you and
that he met with him in D.C. on an occasion or two. It was when I asked him if he had a
day-timer that we won the day because he acknowledged that he did. He went and got
the day-timer and we had all of our information.
The Bureau didn‟t get their intelligence until close to 10:00 that night. I guess it must
have satisfied them.
CG:
But dates and times and things like that.
BR:
We had everything. The importance of it I guess was the fact that they were trying to
figure out who was accompanying Mr. Hunt in the meetings that they had with Jack.
They were trying to employ Jack as a member of the intelligence unit that they had
formed.
BREAK
BR:
The Bureau was aware of Mr. Baughman traveling to Washington on several occasions.
They were interested in determining who it was he was meeting with and he
acknowledged that he was meeting with …He was a personal friend of Howard Hunt.
CG:
Oh, he was?
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BR:
Howard had been attempting to recruit him for work in D.C. Jack had been very much
involved in the Cuban situation, the Cuban invasion if you will.
CG:
The old missile …
BR:
No. It was when Cuban militants attempted to retake the island, Bay of Pigs.
CG:
Bay of Pigs Invasion, yes.
BR:
It is my understanding that on that date, while at the Miami airport, Jack suffered a
serious heart attack which probably almost killed him. He was medically retired and
really was in no condition to continue his service to the Country as a CIA agent,
physically. So he had retired to Winter Haven.
The description that Mr. Baughman provided of the individual with Mr. Hunt, apparently
identified him to the satisfaction of the Bureau. There was a point where Earl Silbert, he
was a departmental attorney, wanted Mr. Baughman to fly to Washington, D.C.
He called me and asked me to arrange that. I called Jack and Jack immediately said that
there was no way that he could travel to Washington, D.C. because his physical condition
wouldn‟t allow that.
So when I notified Mr. Silbert of that he asked if he would consent to be interviewed by
him. I called Jack back and he agreed that he would but only in the company of his
attorney. So arrangements were made under those conditions.
I picked up Mr. Silbert, I am sure it was Earl Silbert and I don‟t remember the other guy‟s
name, red headed guy. I picked them up at the Tampa airport and drove them over to
Bartow to his attorney‟s office where he was presented with my FD 302‟s, that I had
prepared as a result of his interviews. They were read to him for verification.
Fortunately for me, everything cleared muster and I was very glad.
CG:
So they tracked his interview pretty well.
BR:
That‟s what they planned to do. We were told that in lieu of his having to go to
Washington to testify before whatever the committee was that was doing that
investigation, they would just read his FD 302 into the record.
CG:
Perhaps that was the Watergate Committee hearing?
BR:
Perhaps. I suppose. At any rate Jack and I after that point became rather close. He
passed away when I was in trial in Tampa when his funeral occurred and I was unable to
attend. That always bugged me.
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CG:
I understand. After that were there any other case that come to mind that seem to stand
out in the rest of your career here in Lakeland?
BR:
Yes, yes several cases.
CG:
A couple of highlights would be good.
BR:
Every day was an absolute marvel in beautiful imperial Polk County. We had probably
no less than three fugitives a week, every week, for the whole time I was here. Fugitives
were our life blood but interspersed with those we had some major cases.
One fugitive case that stands out was the arrest of an individual by the name of Joseph
Paul Franklin. Franklin came to Polk County in advance of the arrival of Presidential
candidate Jimmy Carter.
It was believed by the Bureau that Joseph Paul Franklin was stalking Carter so there were
efforts underway to try and locate Mr. Franklin. Franklin was an IO fugitive even at that
time. He was wanted for numerous bank robberies. He was supporting himself robbing
banks.
There was a flyer that was prepared by the Bureau to take to various blood banks because
he was known to frequent blood banks. Bruce Dando had developed an informant at a
blood bank in Lakeland as one of his sources of information because they are dealing
with a segment of society that might be of interest to us in the fugitive business.
Two agents from Tampa had traveled to Polk County and I don‟t know why they didn‟t
send it over to us but they didn‟t. They delivered the pamphlet to the blood bank in
downtown Lakeland.
That evening probably after 6:00, Bruce and I were the only ones left in the office and we
got a call from the blood bank. They had a guy that looked like the picture that they were
given by the agents from Tampa in there now claiming his name was Bohnart, Tom A.
Bohnart, if my memory serves.
They were trying to find tattoos on his person that were reported on the material that they
were given. They knew he had tattoos and one of them they thought looked pretty good.
So we decided it was worth a good look-see. Bruce and I decided that we would
intercept this guy and take him into custody, if in fact in interview we found out that he
met the criteria.
We had the IO with us. We pulled it out of the file. To take an abundance of caution, I
called the Lakeland PD and I asked two of the detectives over there, that I had worked
with, if they would give us a backup, in the event that we might have a problem.
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BR:
So two detectives from LPD did meet with us and we explained the scenario. We were
going to wait for Mr. Bohnart to exit the blood bank. We had made arrangements with
Bruce‟s source that he would come out and buy a newspaper at the stand immediately
adjacent to his building.
CG:
He was to be the identifier, I take it.
BR:
He would come out immediately after this guy did and he would go buy a newspaper.
Sure enough Bohnart came out and the manager came out and went and bought a
newspaper. We let Bohnart get down the street a little bit away from the blood bank and
we took him down, Bruce and I. The detectives gave us back up.
Bohnart claimed he was not Joseph Paul Franklin. He denied that. He provided
information that he had in his wallet with the name of Bohnart on it. He was pretty well
documented but he looked like him to me.
We told him that we were going to take him to the Lakeland Police Department and I
would fingerprint him and we would check it out and, if he was not Mr. Franklin, then he
would be a free man. He agreed that that would work.
He wanted to cash his $5 check for his blood. I know the police officers were aghast
when we told him he could. We pretty much had him controlled. We took him into a
store, he cashed his check and we took him to the Lakeland Police Department.
I called Edgar Pickett. He was the ID guy at the Lakeland PD and asked him if he would
come back to the office and assist us in the identification of Mr. Bohnart. I fingerprinted
him. Pickett arrived about the time I had him printed. We put him on the phone with the
Ident Division and they talked their ident language back and forth and the decision was
made that we did, in fact, have Joseph Paul Franklin.
I was pretty sure because the prints that I had looked like the prints on the IO.
CG:
So you struck pay dirt, huh?
BR:
So we transported Joseph Paul Franklin from Lakeland to Tampa. En route I drove and
Bruce sat with him in the back seat and we had him properly trussed.
It was obvious that Franklin had an intellect that went far beyond what you would expect.
This guy could remember line and verse anything he had ever read. It was impressive.
He did not like black people. He espoused some of his venom on our ride to Tampa.
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BR:
We asked him if he wanted to get something to eat because he hadn‟t eaten in a while.
He said that he would only eat if we could assure him that no black person had touched
any of his food. We assured him that he was not going to eat on the drive to Tampa
under those conditions.
We proceeded to Tampa and upon arriving in Tampa we parked in front of the office and
I asked Bruce to take him on up and as Bruce was taking him out of the car, Bruce made
the comment and I will never forget it, he says, “Mr. Franklin, you are the most gross
waste of a human intellect that I have ever met in my life.” Franklin smiled.
He took him up and I parked the car and then joined them upstairs for the interviews.
As a result of that I did have to travel to Salt Lake City to testify in the trial where he had
been accused of shooting some joggers in Salt Lake City. He was also involved with, I
think, Vernon Jordan. I think he had shot Vernon Jordan if I am not mistaken. It was one
of the civil rights guys and I am pretty sure it was Vernon Jordan.
Strangely enough when I was in Bogalusa, Louisiana, I can recall a car escort that the
Bureau had us do on a civil rights leader who was in Bogalusa for a parade that the black
community was going to have, and I believe it was Vernon Jordan that was the guy that
we were escorting around.
I can recall a beastly hot day and we had gotten him into the black community in
Bogalusa, Louisiana. It was probably 100 degrees and while we are sitting in the car
watching Mr. Jordan exiting his car and go into a building and the next thing we knew
some young black kids came out and brought us cold drinks and cupcakes. So they were
taking care of us.
CG:
Do you recall what happened to Franklin as a result of the trial in Salt Lake City?
BR:
Franklin was sentenced to die but he never did. He is still in prison.
CG:
Still languishing?
BR:
I recall reading press releases about Franklin over the years. He was attacked in prison.
Obviously he is in a population where he is significantly outnumbered by people he
didn‟t care for because of their ethnicity or their race. He was savagely attacked and
almost killed as a result of numerous stabbings on that event. I think they probably made
other arrangements for him. He is still alive today.
CG:
I was going to ask you about one other matter or maybe they are joined together. There
was an undercover operation on an automobile theft ring here in Tampa and in Lakeland,
actually most of it took place in the Lakeland Resident Agency back in the 70‟s. It
involved an agent by the name of Joe Pistone. Are you familiar with that case?
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BR:
That was Joe‟s first undercover assignment. He was sent to us to act undercover as a bad
guy to infiltrate a ring of folks that were stealing tractor trailers and luxury cars. Joe
came down here and successfully infiltrated the ring resulting in a significant recovery of
luxury cars and what have you. I have seen Joe several times since that time.
CG:
Did he ever come back to do another undercover operation?
BR:
I am not sure if he came back for the one where I was working a wire over in the
Clearwater area. They set up a gambling casino.
CG:
Was that called something like “Gentlemen‟s Retreat?”
BR:
Something like that. They made a movie out of it. That‟s right. Donnie Brasco, big as
life, yeah okay. I never laid eyes on Joe during that time frame because I was kind of
confined to a room with tapes.
CG:
So he was involved in at least two successful undercover operations in the Tampa Office,
is that correct?
BR:
At least, yes.
CG:
Anything else you can think of that you want to tell us about?
BR:
Well, we had another case that was kind of interesting. Every year for years - oh gosh
what years was it? Standby. Polk County had the misfortunate of being the site of
migrant labor abuse. We became aware that there were black men and women who were
being taken off the streets of Philadelphia, Boston and New York, all up and down the
east coast, Atlanta.
They were being invited to earn some quick bucks by going out and helping some guys
unload a truck.
CG:
When would this have been, Brooke?
BR:
It would have been in 1984.
We had in probably 1981, 1982, 1983, each year we would have what we would call in
the RA “Abraham Lincoln Day.” One of the agents, Bruce Dando became known as
Abraham Lincoln. Dando because essentially he was the agent who was spear heading
this activity.
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BR:
The entire RA would travel in the late afternoon to Loughman, Florida, north of Haines
City. We would wait until the migrant buses returned to the camps. These camps
consisted of long barrack-like buildings with basically no beds, just rags thrown on the
floor for these people to sleep on. They were fed pretty much gruel from whatever the
crew boss wanted to feed them.
We would interview these people and during our interviews we would identify them as
completely as we could right down to dates of birth, any numbers they had, where they
were from, who their family was. We would take every piece of information we could
glean from them and then give them the opportunity to leave the camp with us.
A few of them did. Most of them that we took out of the camps were tubercular which
presented a problem because we had difficulty finding a place to put them. But the
Salvation Army, to their credit, took everybody that we brought in and then found monies
for them to go home. That worked out well.
We couldn‟t get the guys or most of the guys to give us any specific information. They
were scared to death of these crew bosses and they were told that if they talked to law
enforcement they would be summarily dispatched. I guess they believed it because they
just weren‟t inclined to tell us much.
CG:
So threats and intimidation were a way of life in the migratory camps?
BR:
Absolutely. These people traveled from Michigan to Georgia to Florida, just doing
migrant labor work generally under the tutelage of a guy named Willie Warren. But at
any rate, after about the third time we had been there we began to see repeats on these
guys.
So we managed to take a few of them out of there and get some information about how
they were being abused and what have you. We started to develop a body of information
over a couple of years that we able then to get an indictment of a guy by the name of
Willie Warren and his son.
At any rate we were able to get enough information together that the Department of
Justice decided that they were going to proceed under the Involuntary Servitude Slavery
Acts. We charged them with the crimes of committing these people to slavery and what
have you. We took that case to trial.
CG:
What was the result?
BR:
It was interesting. We had to locate all of these people now and some of them severed
their relationship. They were in Philadelphia, they were in Atlanta; they were all over the
country. A few of them still lived in Polk County so we were able to take care of the
Polk County people ourselves.
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BR:
We had to lug the Assistant Unite States Attorneys and departmental attorneys out to
interview these people locally. We had to send leads out to various resident agencies to
locate these people and conduct interviews. We got back a pretty good body of
information sufficient to take it to trial.
We took it to trial. A departmental attorney from Washington, D.C. was the one who
prosecuted the case in Tampa in Federal court. These people had never been on an air
plane before. They couldn‟t open the door on the restrooms so they ended up peeing on
the back wall. It was really sad but we put them up at the Embassy Sheraton Hotel.
These people had never slept on a bed like that before. They had never eaten like that
before.
One guy from Atlanta had his sister come down. She happened to be a professional girl
from Atlanta, and I don‟t know how much money that we gave these people but some of
their expense money found its way into her purse. We certainly encouraged them not to
participate, but I am sure she left with more money than she came in with. It was an
interesting scenario. We did get convictions of all of the principals involved.
CG:
It was a worthwhile endeavor.
BR:
It was a worthwhile endeavor and it was the second slavery case that the Lakeland RA
had successfully brought to trial in Tampa.
CG:
Did it stop the activity?
BR:
Only for the principals, and probably only for a while, but it got their attention.
CG:
Let me ask you this now. You retired in 1986. It says here April 30, 1986. After you
left, what did you do?
BR:
Well, actually that backs up. I had a case that came up the last year of my being here in
the office. An individual came in and told me that there was a bunch of local good ole
boys, actually these were well placed good ole boys. These were wealthy men who were
ripping off a company called Farmland Industries.
CG:
Where was that located?
BR:
Farmland Industries had a phosphate plant in the southern end of the county. I started an
investigation on the thing and we identified the principals. We found out that in fact
Farmland was being ripped off to the tune of millions of dollars.
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BR:
The group of five or six, I don‟t remember how many now, had conspired to put one of
their own people in a high place with Farmland Industries and then they would use his
position to steal the land rights from Farmland. Farmland was buying the land from IMC
and the deal that was available to Farmland was that they could only buy the mineral
rights but the surface rights would remain with these conspirators.
Judy Hoyer, Assistant United States Attorney in Tampa, took the case. We put the case
together with the assistance of several of the agents in Tampa. Ron Jordan was very
much active in the case as it started to develop.
Ron was an absolute genius in financial matters and was able to track money and what
have you. So he was invaluable to us in the case. We put the case together and Judy
tried it as a RICO case. It was one of the first RICO cases that was tried in the country.
These good ole boys objected to the fact that they were considered organized criminals
but Judy convinced the jury that they in fact were in organized crime and we could get a
successful prosecution in that case.
That was in 1984.
That was really the last major case that I worked in the Tampa Office before I retired.
BR:
What did you do after you retired?
CG:
Ron Young had been an agent in the Tampa Office and I was at home recovering from
hernia surgery. Ron called me and asked me if I would be interested in joining him in the
security department of NCNB, which was a North Carolina Bank with great potential.
They were interested in making their bank large. Today it‟s the Bank of America.
CG:
That is large.
BR:
As I was recovering from my surgery I realized that I could no longer leap tall buildings
in a single bound and was no longer faster than a speeding bullet so having achieved my
twenty years of service, I elected to slide on over to the bank and work for them.
I did that for ten years and retired from Bank of America.
CG:
It was known as Bank of America at the time you worked there?
BR:
When I left it was Nations Bank and they subsequently acquired Bank of America.
CG:
I see.
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Brooke D. Roberts
April 7, 2009
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BR:
While at the bank I had become a certified financial crimes investigator and in that regard
we used to use Judy Hoyer to come and speak to us because she was in the practice of
law. Plaintiff law basically and had done numerous cases involving fraud. One day Judy
said to me, “When you get tired of the bank, call me.”
The bank in their infinite wisdom decided that I should… I had originally been
responsible for all the banks north of Interstate 4 to the Georgia line plus the State of
Georgia, the State of Virginia, and the State of Maryland, so I found myself on airplanes
frequently and traveling, but it was fun.
CG:
You were faster than a speeding bullet after all.
BR:
For years, I was allowed to maintain my office space in Lakeland. Well, eventually the
bank decided that I should move my office to Tampa, so every day I would drive to
Tampa in the seven o‟clock traffic. I just decided that after ten years, if I had to drive to
Tampa, I would really like to work for the Hoyer‟s.
So I called Judy and Chris Hoyer and went to work for them. I worked there with Al
Scudieri former agent, Ron Jordan former agent, and some agents that I didn‟t even know
when I was in the Bureau came to work at the law firm.
CG:
How long did you do that?
BR:
I was there about seven years. I retired to do some serious travel into Europe and other
places, to keep the wife happy you know.
CG:
Sounds like it was an exciting career.
BR:
It was a fun career. I wouldn‟t change anything that I have done.
CG:
I have heard that before.
BR:
Yes, you have at my retirement.
CG:
Well that about does it unless you can think of something else.
BR:
I think that covers it.
CG:
We will call this a covered lead at this point.
END
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