This Week's Top Snitch Scandals: Speaking With Forked Tongues

Once again, a steady parade of informant scandals has been making top headlines across the country.

You probably already heard the tragic story earlier this year of the gruesome murder of college student Imette St. Guillen, who was found bound, gagged and raped on the side of the road in Queens, New York. But you may not be aware of a disturbing new development in the case, uncovered by Ethan Brown, author of a forthcoming book, Snitch. Radar Magazine Online reported:

Last March, a month after the brutally mutilated body of New York City college student Imette St. Guillen was found bound and gagged in Queens, police hauled in bouncer and ex-convict Darryl Littlejohn and charged him with first-degree murder. Now Radar has learned that Littlejohn was actually an informant for both the Nassau County District Attorney and the federal government at the time of the killing.

Radar really summed up the situation by pointing out that Ms. St. Guillen's life might have been spared had the government not fallen asleep at the wheel with its use of Littlejohn as an informant: "The killing sparked a crackdown on New York City nightlife. Perhaps it should have also caused the government to reassess why type of person it awards with informant agreements."

In a separate story, the Associated Press reported, the FBI helped one of its most notorious informants, Whitey Bulger, murder at least one - and maybe numerous - other informants. James Joseph Bulger, a.k.a. Whitey Bulger, was a government informant in the Boston area while he took part in over a dozen murders. (You can check out Leonardo DiCaprio's portrayal of his story in the film, The Departed.) The federal government was paying Bulger to help take down the Italian mafia while he used his government protection to build up his Irish crime organization. The federal agents who directly handled him not only knew that he was taking part in murders, but they were letting him know the identity of his enemies so that he knew who to murder. By the time some within the federal government tried stop him, he had fled and remains free today!

Thanks to the FBI, American taxpayers will have to provide at least one of the families of an informant murdered by Bulger with a significant monetary settlement in an amount to be determined in the coming weeks. Columnist Howie Carr at The Boston Herald reported from the courtroom hearing two weeks ago:

On Monday U.S. District Court Judge Reginald Lindsay ripped the Justice Department lawyers apart for speaking with forked tongues. Then he strongly suggested the government set up a 9/11-type fund for the multiple victims of FBI informant Whitey Bulger and his crew of corrupt G-men.

The tragedy is that in the decades since Bulger went sideways, the FBI has done little to show that it has taken this problem seriously. The latest government report available reveals that the FBI has failed to implement new informant system accountability measures in 87 percent of its cases!

There are virtually no rules governing how police use informants, but these stories show that our criminal justice system is in dire need of safeguards and accountability measures to ensure that informants are used to enhance - not threaten - public safety.

Do you have a personal experience with the informant system? Please help us out by reporting any experience you've had with the use of informants in your community by filling out this story collection form.The ACLU is working with lawyers, elected officials and in the community to promote awareness and to ask for accountability measures such as public data collection so that we can assess the value of our informant system. Check our website for the latest information at www.aclu.org/unnecessaryevil.