Shoddy RA Records Get Fed Suspended

[Herbert Spencer]

An "anonymous tipster" reported a Homeland Security official had lied about having a college degree. Seems easy enough to verify. And when a look at his records at RA Sacramento City College revealed no degree he was suspended and targeted for a criminal investigation.

But the registrar later admitted that although the degree was not reflected on his 25 year old transcripts, "it was possible that he had received a degree and it wasn't posted on his transcripts--in fact...this had happened in the past!"

In fact, the registrar explained that "a student could have graduated from SCC but not have this fact reflected in the official transcript."

"It is clear...that SCC's files are incomplete and poorly maintained, which is not surprising in this day and age since SCC is a government institution...."

Most of your better diploma mills are happy to verify your "degree" and "transcripts." Not only can't the RA Gold Standard paper shufflers seem to manage it, the sheer incompetence typical of government institutions can get you suspended from your job and hauled up on bogus criminal charges too! RA or no way? More like RA = no way.

Quote:Federal Agent Targeted In Phony Degree Probe
Grand jury investigating high-ranking DHS/ICE official

MARCH 25--A high-ranking Homeland Security official who held a top secret security clearance and supervised squads of agents in Los Angeles has been suspended as a federal grand jury probes whether he lied about having a college degree, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The ongoing criminal investigation is targeting Jorge Guzman, a 25-year law enforcement veteran who served as the assistant special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s L.A. branch.

In mid-December, agents executed a search warrant at the 51-year-old Guzman’s office inside a downtown L.A. building. Simultaneously, he was placed on paid administrative leave, and stripped of his firearm, badge, and government vehicle. Correspondence sent to his dhs.gov e-mail address is now returned to the sender marked undeliverable.

Lawyers for Guzman, pictured at right, contend that he graduated from a California community college and has provided federal officials with copies of an authentic diploma. In a recent court filing, Guzman’s counsel stated that their client’s “name and reputation are being ruined by a false allegation” and shoddy sleuthing.

Whatever the investigation’s outcome, it will likely prove deeply embarrassing to Homeland Security officials. Either a high-ranking ICE supervisor was able to move up the law enforcement ladder while repeatedly lying about his educational history, or an experienced agent was wrongly accused by peers whose botched probe effectively torpedoed his career.

Triggered by an anonymous tip that Guzman “has lied throughout his career that he has a college degree,” ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility opened an investigation late last year. In employment applications and background check documents, Guzman has reported receiving an Associate of Arts degree from Sacramento City College in January 1986, shortly before his hiring as a Border Patrol agent.

After a review of personnel records and school transcripts, and an interview with a college admissions supervisor, agents concluded that there was probable cause to believe that Guzman had lied about earning a degree from the two-year college, which he attended between 1978-1986. And that he had provided superiors with a bogus diploma.

So agents applied for, and received, permission to search Guzman’s office for a “replication of a diploma from Sacramento City College” and any items “evidencing the creation, procurement, possession and transmission” of the diploma. Though that search was conducted on December 10--the date Guzman was placed on leave--details of the DHS probe have not been previously disclosed.

“In order to search discreetly the office of a high-ranking ICE official,” government lawyers reported that agents enlisted the assistance of a higher-ranking DHS official. When told of the allegation against him, “Guzman became emotionally upset,” according to a court filing by Assistant United States Attorney Joseph Akrotirianakis. The prosecutor added that, “After composing himself,” Guzman voluntarily retrieved the “purported diploma” from his government-owned vehicle.

The document, Akrotirianakis noted in a recent court declaration, was being “tested for authenticity in a number of ways.”

In a series of blistering U.S. District Court filings, Guzman’s lawyers have criticized the government’s decision to launch a criminal investigation instead of pursuing the matter “through an administrative personnel action.” The grand jury probe is a “witch hunt” and “ridiculous inquiry,” they contend. The government’s “illegal search warrant,” lawyers charge, is filled with “wholly inaccurate characterizations” and “half-truths, at best.”

Before his suspension, Guzman supervised four ICE groups probing human smuggling and trafficking as well as benefit fraud. He has been quoted in newspapers about ICE cases and has appeared on TV programs like CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” He was quoted earlier this month by The Daily in a story about Mexico’s violent drug cartels (Guzman also appears in an accompanying video, which apparently was shot before the raid on his office).

Guzman has previously been the subject of a series of other internal investigations, inquiries that prompted him to file a lawsuit alleging that he was targeted because he is Latino. While admitting no wrongdoing, the Department of Justice in 1999 paid Guzman $400,000 to settle the legal action.

[Albert Hidel]

Quote:Guzman has previously been the subject of a series of other internal investigations, inquiries that prompted him to file a lawsuit alleging that he was targeted because he is Latino. While admitting no wrongdoing, the Department of Justice in 1999 paid Guzman $400,000 to settle the legal action.

Somebody really hates this Guzman guy. Because he's Latino? Only like every other person in LA is Latino, so that must be it.

Or could it be because he was the lead dog in prosecuting online perverts and internet pornographers????

Quote:This customs job requires extra fortitude
Agents fighting a cyber war on internationally trafficked child porn must wade through the images in building cases against makers or users.

November 07, 2006 | H.G. Reza | Times Staff Writer

Jorge Guzman ... heads a computer forensics team of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, based in downtown Long Beach, who track creators and consumers of child pornography trafficked internationally on the Internet.

Working in a cramped lab with sophisticated electronic equipment and computers seized from suspected pedophiles, agents look for evidence by dissecting a computer's hard drive like a medical examiner performing an autopsy.

...Since launching Operation Predator in July 2003, which established Guzman's team and about two dozen others across the country, ICE agents have arrested more than 9,000 people suspected of accessing child porn, including 2,000 in California.

Guzman's team has played a role in hundreds of cases nationwide, and dozens more are under investigation. The team also assists local law enforcement.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Anne Gannon in Santa Ana said evidence gathered by the forensics team was so damning that few cases went to trial. Every one of the 20 child exploitation cases she has prosecuted has resulted in guilty pleas, she said.

"Their use of technology and cooperation with local law enforcement agencies has been hugely successful in identifying and jailing persons who are the greatest threat of exploiting children," Gannon said. ...

Anonymous tipsters and pedophile-pandering porn peddlers...where have we seen that act before?

[ham]

Hmm...
Why doesn't senhor Guzman start with the White House?

Quote:In 1991, there was a call boys scandal in the Bush White House. The CIA, Catholic charity Boys Town, and prominent Republicans, like Lawrence King, were all involved.

Afraid? Come on...those looking for a pedophile in everyone watching porn online are those who look for a racist motive in everything. When trillions go to waste because of the various Madoff out there, where are these cyber cops and their damning forensic computer expertise? Taking a break to savour chicha, burritos and pao de queijo?
It is not by sheer chance that the most famous pedophile-busting posse is a rabid left-wing group known to actually make things happen; akin to their homologue SPLC, they seem not so squeaky clean and forthcoming, but hey...
In other words, they field provocateurs online who entice adults into compromising situations by posing as horny minors online.
In other words, how often is the pedophile Joe the milkman who agreed to a meeting only after Sam the twink or Rhonda the highschool nympho had been parading their asse(t)s in front of him for two weeks?
Professional law enforcers with their bellies, coffee mugs and donuts are just too happy to "deputize" these scumbags.
Concerns have been raised by a number of experts about the issues raised by such methods.
Cops and squealers have also been accused to put up Gene Hackman-styled action scenes in order to appease the camera's need for action.
Who knows, mr. Sanchez here may be one of those.
It's easy.
Put ten grams of drugs into a letter, send it to everyone, then film as they receive it in order to arrest them.
Then let YOU prove to THEIR satisfaction it is all a set-up...