By Debbie Schlussel
Longtime readers know the story of former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino.
Rick, a rising star at the Justice Department, built a career on convicting drug kingpins, mobsters, and eventually Islamic terrorists. In 2003, he obtained convictions of members of an Islamic terrorist cell living in Detroit, who planned to blow up the U.S. Air Force base in Incirlik, Turkey (from which U.S. and Israeli war planes take off), a Jordanian hospital, a Vegas casino/hotel, and Disneyland.
Jon Tukel: Federal Prosecutor Deliberately Leaked Terror Trial Info, Including Name of Confidential Informant, Now Head of Natl. Security
Two juries found that the men–Muslim aliens–were Islamic terrorists. But political ambitious, Islamo-pandering figures in the Detroit U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Dept. in Washington never wanted him to convict them. They blocked him every step of the way, and after the jury verdicts, they conducted a witch hunt to find ways to overturn the case. They–not the terrorists’ criminal defense lawyers–moved to overturn the case. And then they prosecuted Convertino, after months of anonymously attacking and savaging him in the Detroit, national, and global news media.
I represented, pro bono, a secular, pro-American Shi’ite Muslim from Lebanon who risked his life, assisted in the case, and served as an FBI informant in many other cases. (I represented him in a suit in which he was suing Hezbollah money launderers and cigarette smugglers for money they extorted from his father in Lebanon.) Although he was not an “informant” in the Detroit terror cell case, he assisted in it, and as an informant in other cases, helped put over 200 Islamic criminals involved in drug deals, money laundering, cigarette smuggling, etc., behind bars.
That Muslim–in a show of appreciation from America–was deported back to Lebanon (and I, therefore, could not continue his lawsuit), unlike the Detroit terror cell members, like Karim Koubriti, who is now driving a truck and will become a U.S. citizen.
But, once he got there, there were numerous attacks on his life, and, after a while, he eventually stopped contacting me. Before that, I was the recipient of numerous, valid complaints from him about how he was being ripped off by Steven Emerson, for whom he did a lot of work (and in response, got treated like crap and not paid what he was told he’d get in return). I believe this secular Muslim informant–who did so much work for America–is now dead.
The reason this Muslim informant had attempts made on his life–and why he is probably now dead–is because his name was leaked to Detroit Free Press reporter David Ashenfelter, who irresponsibly published it on the paper’s front page in January 2004. Rick Convertino begged Ashenfelter not to publish the informant, my client’s, name. But Ashenfelter did so anyway, jeopardizing his life.
For years, we suspected that the leaker was Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel. Now, as confirmed by federal documents, we know that he is the man responsible causing the attempted hits on my client, one of which was probably finally successful. Mr. Convertino is now suing the federal government over their illegal actions revolving around the terrorism case. Pursuant to that suit, a court filing, last week, disclosed that Mr. Tukel admitted in an April deposition that “he talked extensively to Mr. Ashenfelter on his cell phone on the evening of Dec. 12, 2003, concerning matters related to Mr. Convertino.”
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