Federal Agents in the News
Federal Agents ...
Agents nab 26 in child porn sting
BREVARD COUNTY, Fl -- The U.S. attorney’s office recently announced the results of a sting called Operation Safe Summer. A police lieutenant and a convicted killer are among the suspects prosecutors say they caught red-headed preying on children online. Investigators said 26 people in all were arrested on charges related to child porn and soliciting children online.
The 26 men are from all walks of a life. The oldest is 72 and the youngest is just 19.
Federal investigators allege that the suspects spent their summer downloading and exchanging child pornography, as well as prowling for minors over the Internet through chat rooms and social networking sites. What they did not know is that special agents were at computers, too, monitoring them as part of the sting, investigators said. “We’re putting predators on notice. You cannot hide. We will find you. We will arrest you, and we will prosecute you,” said ICE Special Agent in Charge Susan McCormick.
Two of the suspects are from out of state, but the majority live in Orange, Brevard, Volusia and Lake counties. Among the suspects, Thomas Baker of Apopka, who is already a registered sexual predator, and Steven Waring, a former computer software specialist for Brevard County schools. David Williams is a police lieutenant in Kentucky.
“When you run across someone who is supposed to be protecting citizens, children, it’s sickening,” said Lt. Todd Goodyear with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators said, in one case, they found 350,000 inappropriate pictures on a confiscated computer and 7,000 child pornography videos.
Officials said David Cooney of Winter Haven bragged about a 6-year-old he was eyeing.
The Middle District U.S. Attorney’s Office has prosecuted the most child predator cases, nationwide.
The investigators also said that agents in Florida are more aggressive than agents elsewhere. T he 26 suspects arrested in the sting face anywhere from 10 to 40 years in federal or state prison.
More pay cuts coming
Washington, D.C. - A federal employees’ organization fears that “the next shoe to drop” in budget-cutting measures could be a revived proposal to shift more health care costs to feds and retirees.The White House’s deficit reduction commission, headed by former Sen. Alan Simpson and former White House
chief of staff Erskine Bowles, last December proposed turning the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program into a premium support system. Under this plan, employees and retirees would receive a fixed subsidy to cover their health insurance premiums that would grow by no more than the gross domestic product, plus 1 percentage point, each year. Participants would cover the remaining premium cost if their plans cost more than the subsidies provide.
Critics say growth in health care costs would quickly outpace the premium support subsidy — and leave employees paying thousands of dollars more per year for their insurance.
The Simpson-Bowles proposal said testing premium support on FEHBP would produce valuable experience that could be used to similarly transform Medicare.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made transforming Medicare into a premium support system a major plank in his deficit reduction plan, which was approved by the House but voted down last month by the Senate. And the Democrats’ upset victory in the May 24 election to represent New York’s 26th District was viewed by some as a referendum rejecting Ryan’s Medicare plan.
Republican staffers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which oversees federal employee issues, and the House Budget Committee, which Ryan chairs, say they’re interested in the FEHBP proposal, although they aren’t pursuing it now.
But Dan Adcock, legislative director for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said Capitol Hill staffers have told his organization that lawmakers are still considering FEHBP premium support.
“We continue to be concerned that ... it’s the next shoe to drop in the process,” Adcock said.
Adcock said he thinks politics could make FEHBP an easy target. Public outcry over Ryan’s proposed Medicare changes have effectively tabled any discussion of reforming that program. But federal employees and retirees make up a much smaller constituency than Medicare enrollees — and after more than a year of Republican criticism of feds’ salaries and benefits, fewer lawmakers are willing to stand up and protect them.
“If in the end there’s no political will to do it for Medicare, FEHBP could become the default,” Adcock said. Lawmakers’ fallback “could be to take heat from a much smaller community of federal employees and retirees, who have been unfairly demonized.”
Walt Francis, a consultant who writes the annual Checkbook health care guide for federal employees, said premium support systems are designed to encourage participants to be more frugal and choose lower-cost health care plans. They also are intended to foster competition among plans to hold down costs.
“This is a straightforward proposal to cut the government’s share of premiums,” Francis said. “If one wanted to reduce federal compensation slowly, this is one way to do it.”
The Simpson-Bowles report said the plan could save $2 billion in 2015 and $18 billion through 2020.
In a 2006 report on premium support systems and Medicare, the Congressional Budget Office said that en-