FBI Agent Under Fire - From Agency

By: Lisa Myers

Veteran FBI agent Jane Turner was given an unpleasant assignment last year: investigate theft from Ground Zero - a fire engine door, artifacts, goods donated to victims - all allegedly stolen during the cleanup at New York's World Trade Center.

But just as the case was heating up, Turner made a stunning discovery. Inside her own FBI office in Minneapolis, on a secretary's desk, was a severely damaged Tiffany crystal globe.

"She told me that it came from Ground Zero", Turner said. "I was absolutely shocked. And I asked the individual where she had gotten that. She responded it was an evidence-response team member from the FBI."

In her first interview, Turner tells NBC News she was amazed to learn her own colleagues - members of the FBI's elite Evidence Response Team - may have committed the very crime she was investigating.

She says she immediately reported the problem to a federal prosecutor, then to her supervisor, and waited for him to act.

Two weeks later, after nothing apparently had been done, Turner seized the globe, bagged it as evidence and took it to Justice Department officials in Washington.

What did they do? "So far as I know, nothing", Turner said.

The Justice Department is investigating the allegations. So far, there has been no action against whoever took the globe.

Unfavorable Evaluation

But, for Turner, the consequences were immediate. Three weeks after blowing the whistle, she received a scathing evaluation, charging "she has tarnished the FBI's reputation" by telling prosecutors and another federal agency about the globe incident. The FBI took the position that by reporting that an FBI agent may have committed a crime, Turner was the person who actually tarnished the agency - not the person who may have stolen from Ground Zero.

Last fall, after 24 years on the job, Turner was put on leave and stripped of her badge and revolver. "The only thing they allowed me to keep was my 20-year ring", she said.

Privately, some FBI agents are furious that Turner made a big deal about a $275 globe and say she's locked horns with management for years.

Turner said she's not insensitive to her colleagues' thinking that she's being needlessly destructive. "I could understand why they may feel that way", Turner said. "I believe... that no man is above the law, including FBI agents."

But to families who lost loved ones at Ground Zero, the alleged theft occurred on sacred ground. "It's despicable", said Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband, Richard, on Sept. 11, 2001. "It's just unconscionable that someone picked it up and that they didn't have some sort of guilt about it afterwards."

Turner recently received a notice that she's being fired.

An FBI spokesman strongly denies Turner is being dismissed because of her whistleblower allegations. The FBI claims there have been problems with her for years. Among the charges: that she doesn't work well with co-workers and makes disparaging comments about bosses.

'Breaks a Little China'

But Turner points out she had only very positive reviews until four years ago, when she first blew the whistle on FBI misconduct, including a botched investigation into sexual abuse of a child.

NBC News spoke with other law-enforcement officials who've worked with Turner. They described her as a skilled, hard-working, effective investigator - a person who, one said: "breaks a little china", one whose independence and by-the-book manner sometimes rankle colleagues.

Some of her colleagues say: "Look, Jane can be unreasonable. She's a real stickler." Is that fair? "When it comes to violations of federal law, I would agree with that."

But Turner said the real reason she's being fired is she blew the whistle on wrongdoing inside the FBI.

"The bottom line for the FBI - which we're all taught - is, you do not embarrass the bureau. And I had embarrassed the FBI."

Turner said she still loves the FBI, is fighting to keep her job - and would do it all again.