Greg Stejskal - FBI Case Files Michigan: Tales of a G-Man

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2021 by Greg Stejskal

All rights reserved

First published 2021

E-Book year 2021

FBI badge image (authors collection) used with permission of the FBI.

ISBN 978.1.4396.7284.6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021934590

Print Edition ISBN 978.1.4671.4890.0

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

To my parents who, by example, helped me calibrate the declination to true north on my moral compass.

And to Pat, Spanky, my wife, a steadfast friend and romantic partner in the great adventure of life.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank Allan Lengel, the editor of Deadline Detroit, an online newspaper, and Tickle-the-Wire, a federal law enforcement blog. After I retired from the bureau, he asked me to write a recurring column for Tickle. He had the patience to help me write a column that didnt sound like an FD 302, an FBI document reporting a summary of an interviewnot exactly literature.

Also, thanks to John Hilton, the editor of the Ann Arbor Observer, a monthly magazine. John has supported my writing efforts and published some of my stories.

And to all the people who read and/or heard my stories and asked me when I was going to write a bookyou asked for it.

INTRODUCTION

This is not an autobiography or a memoir. It is a compilation of stories from my perspective about cases I was involved in during my over-thirty-year career in the FBI, which was almost all in Michigan. Although this is not a book about me, I thought it would interest readers to know how I became an FBI agent.

My mother and father met when my father was stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington during World War II. My mother had graduated with honors from the University of Washington. They married before my father shipped out. He was a lieutenant in the combat engineers with General Pattons Third Army from their landing in France until VE Day. (He was awarded the Silver Star for valor in an action in Luxembourg.) In 1944, while my father was in Europe, my older brother, Richard, was born. After the war, my parents moved to Omaha, Nebraska, my fathers hometown. He returned to the cattle business, where he had worked prior to the war. (He remained in the army reserve and retired a lieutenant colonel.)

I was born in 1949 and grew up in an older middle-class neighborhood with a lot of kids. (It was the baby boom.) I have fond memories of my childhood. We spent a lot of time outside doing all kinds of activitieslittle of it organized, except by us kids. But every Friday evening, we would rush home to watch Superman on TV and revel in his fight for truth, justice and the American way. It was the 1950s, and despite being in the midst of the Cold War, life seemed simpler and carefree, at least where I lived.

My younger brother, James, was born in 1954. Our mother stayed home but was a strong advocate for public education and became the state president of the Parent Teacher Association. When my brothers and I were older, she earned a doctorate of education degree and was an elementary and secondary principal in the Omaha Public Schools.

My brothers and I were active in Boy Scouts with strong support from our parents. We all earned the rank of Eagle Scout. Scouting had a great impact on me. In addition to the usual scout skills, scouting gave me an abiding appreciation and love for my country and core values like honor and integrity.

When I was in the fifth grade, I read a Landmark book (a series of books for young readers published by Random House), The FBI. Then I saw the movie The FBI Story with Jimmy Stewart. From then on, I wanted to be an FBI agent.

Being an adolescent in the 1960s was a little more difficult. I went to high school at Omaha Central, the oldest high school in Nebraska. It was located downtown but drew students from all over the city. It was solely a college preparatory school with high academic standards and a racially and ethnically diverse student body. Over the years, Omaha Central has turned out some outstanding alumni. I was a better-than-average student, but my main interest was football. When I graduated in 1967, I went to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln (UNL) on a football scholarship.

Nebraska was a football power then (the Nebraska University football team was the national champion in 1970 and 1971). I was a pretty good football player but not good enough to play for the best program in the country, and my football career waned. But my desire to be an FBI agent did not. I was accepted into the Nebraska College of Law. (At the time, the best way to get into the FBI was to be an attorney.) For the first time, I became a very serious student, because success in law school required it. I also acquired a greater respect for the law and the Constitution.

In 1974, as I neared graduation from law school, I submitted my application to the FBI. I graduated with honors, took the bar exam and passed it. While I was waiting to hear from the bureau, I worked as a special deputy U.S. Marshal doing courtroom security. That fall, the FBI advised me that I had been accepted, and I was to report for duty in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 1975.

On March 1, 1975, I married Patricia, ne Legate, who I had met while we were both in school at UNL. When we were married, she was working as a flight attendant with United Airlines. Our honeymoon was abbreviated, and we were only together a few times while I was in new agent training at Quantico, Virginia.

Lobby card from the 1959 movie The FBI Story. Jimmy Stewart signed it for me after I became an agent. Authors collection.

On March 10, I reported to the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., referred to as Main Justice, to be sworn in as a special agent of the FBI with my fellow new agents. In a large room that had been used for the secret trial of the Nazi saboteurs during World War II (a story I first read about in that Landmark book), I raised my right hand and took the oath that every agent takes:

I [name] do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Unlike those Nazi saboteurs who swore an oath to the Fuhrer, we swore allegiance to the concept that the United States is a country of laws and that no person is above the law. We were not taking an oath of fealty to anyone.