"Irresponsible spokesmanship" by FBI and Penn Pike - EDITORIAL

We were accused of "irresponsible journalism" Thursday morning for the report (see http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/4418) we'd run of the FBI raid at the Pennsylvania Turnpike HQ Thursday and Friday Oct 23 - 24 in pursuit of a corruption investigation.

Of course our report inconvenienced both parties. Both went into flat denial mode. It never happened. The FBI weren't there. There was no corruption investigation. We should retract the story immediately.

Pretty much the same line from the Pike and the FBI.

We had an unimpeachable source for the story who had multiple witnesses, but he and his witnesses couldn't be revealed.  They'd lose their jobs.

The 'visitors' were plainclothes and they had FBI badges. We knew there was also a state grand jury investigation of the Turnpike underway so maybe they were state police? No, they were FBI. And they took away a lot of computer equipment and other records.

All totally false, fabricated, the official spokesmen declared.

Then these deniers at the Turnpike and the FBI struck out, unlucky.

We were contacted by Bob Dietz an inspector for the Turnpike who had been working with the FBI for months on corruption on the 6-laning project north of Philadelphia, MP326 to MP333. Cost of the 7 mile (11km) widening project ballooned from $181m to $330m during the course of construction 2004 to 2008.

To boot, the project was built with bad concrete, poorly laid drainage lines and other serious defects. Dietz said he was ordered by project managers for the Turnpike to suppress his reports of poor construction.

Also Dietz was at the Turnpike head offices Thursday and witnessed the FBI raid. And he gave us the name of Stephen Gray, one of the FBI agents who participated. He knew agent Gray from his cooperation with the FBI over the preceding months on the MP326-333 case. He'd been interviewed by Agent Gray.

And we could use his name, he said.

So we ran that followup report "New details emerge on FBI raid...second source confirms" http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/4419 Thursday afternoon.

The FBI spokesman was subdued when we called with the name of the eyewitness to the raid and the name of one of the FBI officers involved, and understandably. He'd screwed up and he'd been caught out.

He mumbled something about being unable to confirm or deny details of an ongoing investigation.

For the Turnpike too the flat denial would no longer fly. They turned a somersault.

OK, they said, the FBI were here... but we're the victims, we called them.

Believe that? Well we've got the proverbial bridge to sell you.

The affair is irresponsible spokesmanship, not irresponsible journalism - editor.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-10-30