By Debbie Schlussel

**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE/Correction ****
Question: When does the funeral of the brother of a racist bureaucrat who holds a G.E.D. and wasted millions in your tax money, qualify as a federal building?
Answer: When that bureaucrat wants to look important to all of her friends and relatives and show them that she’s come a long way in the fake-it-’til-ya-make-it department, and she orders several Federal Protective Service police to guard her brother’s funeral when they are strictly confined to guarding federal buildings.

Blackface Expert, ICE #2 Theresa Bertucci:
Illegally Used FPS Police As Bling @ Bro’s Funeral
(Theresa Bertucci Blackface Image by David Lunde/Lundesigns)
At least that’s the case with Theresa Bertucci, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She has spent her career at ICE cutting the Federal Protective Service–which guards federal buildings–to the bone and cutting FPS agents’ and policemen’s pay. It’s gotten to the point where there are no federal police at federal buildings in places around the country, like Boston (watch the video)–where they are ripe terrorist targets. Only a few such FPS employees guarding buildings in New York. But not today. They’re at a funeral.
And it’s not exactly legal.
Who is Theresa Bertucci?, you ask. Good question. Her biggest accomplishment–other than attaining a G.E.D. after reportedly failing to graduate from high school– is that she served as one of the three judges in an ICE Halloween party costume contest, last year, awarding an employee in blackface, “Best Original Costume.”
For the past three years, I’ve received dozens of complaints about the corrupt Ms. Bertucci. She has tried to surgically emasculate the Federal Protective Service, and succeeded in reducing their pay significantly–Read the memo. And she is single-handedly responsible for millions of dollars in waste and cost overruns at the new ICE headquarters. That’s not to mention the questionable wasteful, multi-million dollar ICE contracts she doled out to cronies at your expense. And don’t forget that blackface costume award at an ICE Halloween party, last year–she is cited in the Congressional investigation of the incident. That would be grounds for termination at any other employer, especially since she oversees ICE’s Equal Employment Opportunity office. But this is the guv’mint.
Yes, while ICE has cut dollars devoted to enforcing immigration laws, and while it has cut severely into the Federal Protective Service (FPS), lowering the number of officers who guard federal buildings and facilities and eliminating many who do security and threat assessments to these edifices, FPS officers have been assigned en masse to guard Theresa Bertucci at her brother’s funeral so she can look hifalutin and all that. Snoop Dogg and Diddy got their peeps and bling, and she needs hers.
Sorry her brother died, but it doesn’t excuse the way she’s behaved over the years and how she’s tried to kill necessary jobs to protect our country. It also doesn’t excuse her need for tax-funded affectation at the funeral.
Here is one of several complaints I got from very concerned FPS employees:

Federal Protective Service is the office within ICE responsible for security and law enforcement operations at approximately 9,000 federal facilities throughout the United States. (http://www.ice.gov/pi/fps/org_hfs.htm)
I thought you be interested to know that, today, FPS is providing “support” at the funeral of Theresa Bertucci’s brother. Apparently, Deputy Assistant Secretary Bertucci’s brother passed away suddenly, and she requested FPS provide a presence at her brother’s funeral. As I write this, two FPS officers in a marked unit are assigned to Saint Raphael’s Church in East Meadow, NY. In addition, the FPS Region 2 Regional Director and Deputy Regional Director are on their way to the service. All of this at government expense.
As FPS is a fee-based agency, which means that tenants of federal agencies pay FPS to provide security and law enforcement services, FPS is limited to protecting federal properties unless the agency requesting assistance reimburses FPS for the service. This is required by law and has been a problem in the past as in the case of FPS conducting security assessments of private residences. Even if FPS were reimbursed, it is unlikely that the detail of FPS personnel to a private funeral for a Deputy Assistant Secretary would be an authorized operation.
FPS continues to struggle to meet Congressionally mandated staffing levels. The New York City Metropolitan Area is extremely short-handed and as a result the safety and security of federal buildings suffer. Yet, FPS has at least two officers and a marked FPS police vehicle assigned to a private funeral detail. The irony of it all is the fact that DAS Bertucci cut the pay of FPS officers by 10%, significantly reduced overtime funding that was necessary to provide coverage due to personnel shortages and put an end to efforts to enhance the retirement benefits of FPS officers all in the name of “fiduciary responsibility” (see attached memo from DAS Bertucci).
As an outspoken critic of ICE, I thought you would be interested in knowing how ICE is using its FPS resources today. I would expect that there are several other senior management officials from ICE in attendance at this funeral, all on the government dime.

Nauseating.
But, wait. Like they say in that old Ginsu Steak Knives commercial, there’s more.
Here are just a few of the many complaints I’ve gotten about Bertucci over the past years–which I’ll be delving into at length in a column in the near future:

Ms.Bertucci is the proud bearer of a GED. That’s right, she doesn’t even have a high school diploma. She is number 3 [DS: Now, she’s number 2!] in the ICE chain of command, after Julie Myers and HS grad Torres. This agency is such a joke. Sources say Ms. Burtucci is responsible for the $50 million dollar budget shortfall for the new ICE HQ building. The money to cover the shortage was moved from the ICE OI [Office of Investigations–that investigates alien smuggling, etc.] budget. Sources also report that Ms. Burtucci is a royal pain in the ass and a moron who feels that she must comment on every issue in the high level staff meetings. Here is an actual example. OI says as part of a work site investigation, they are going to hit 20 McDonald’s restaurants yada yada yada. Ms. Burtucci opens her yap to say, what if a school bus full of children pulls up to the McDonald’s at the same time….yada yada yada. What a joke! No education listed, that is all we need to know. GED, dude!

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Attached for your review are 3 documents that I believe will shed light on questionable government contracts that ICE entered into with ChoicePoint. It also sheds light on a good ole girls system that has evolved into questionable hiring practices by the participants (Theresa Bertucci).

Like I said, I will be delving into this further and will expose what’s in the documents. FYI, another person allegedly involved in the suspect ChoicePoint deal is another Homeland Security employee named “Nicole Bertucci.” Hmmm . . . I wonder he she got the job. I’m sure the surname is just a coincidence, right?
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And about the famous Halloween party costume contest:

I hope you will find this information interesting- On Wednesday, Halloween, the A/S Julie Myers, DAS for Management Theresa Bertucci and Chief of Staff Nick Smith were judges at a Halloween Party to kick-off the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). However, the winner chosen by the 3 top executives for ICE was dressed in Dreadlocks, Prison Suit, and Painted Face to represent either an african-american male or hispanic-american male.
I believe this takes levity too far, especially with a recent suit won by an EEO plantiff regarding discrimination at ICE. It seems that this type of behavior is not only permitted from top ICE management but encouraged and equaling shocking that this event took place at event to encourage charitable donations by federal employees to organizations around the country.
I for one, a consistent contributer, will not be contributing this year due to the actions of A/S, Chief of Staff, and DAS for MGT [DS: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Management, Theresa Bertucci].

This woman, Theresa Bertucci, is not just a joke. She is an embarrassment who has cost taxpayers millions, left federal buildings unprotected, gotten in the way of important ICE investigations and raids, and perpetuated racism. And even without all of those things–any one of which should have been grounds for summary dismissal long ago–Bertucci is simply not qualified to hold even a secretarial position at ICE, let alone the #2 job.
Ironically, her friends and cronies at ICE, Michael Chertoff, Julie L. Myers, and John P. Torres, put her on the ICE transition team to transition ICE from the Bush administration to the Obama one. In fact, this moron is the SENIOR ICE Transition officer. Somebody made an extremely boneheaded decision on that one.
Let’s hope Barack Obama has the guts to tell her where to go. But don’t hold your breath.
**** UPDATE/Correction, 11/25/08: One of the messages from ICE personnel, above, identified the ICE employee who received an award from Theresa Bertucci for his blackface costume, as an attorney for ICE. That is not correct. As I’ve noted in the past, the man was an employee of ICE’s Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) division. Everything else is spot on.