Accusations against Secret Service revealed
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has revealed details of serious allegations against Secret Service agents and officers since 2004, including claims of involvement with prostitutes, leaking sensitive information, publishing pornography, sexual assault, illegal wiretaps, improper use of weapons and drunken behavior.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many of the accusations were confirmed to be true.
The heavily censored list, which runs 229 pages, was released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to The Associated Press and other news organizations following the Secret Service prostitution scandal that erupted in April in Colombia. It describes accusations filed against Secret Service employees with the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general.
In many cases, the government noted that some of the claims were resolved administratively, and others were being formally investigated.
The complaints included an alleged sexual assault reported in August 2011. In the heavily censored entry, an employee was accused of pushing a woman who also worked for the agency onto a bed during a work trip. The employee “got on top of (censored) attempting to have sex,” even though the woman “told (censored) `no’ several times.”
The incident was closed with an “administrative disposition” in February.
They also included an anonymous complaint in October 2003 that a Secret Service agent “may have been involved with a prostitution ring,” noting that two telephone numbers belonging to the agent, whose name was censored and who has since retired, turned up as part of an FBI investigation into a prostitution ring.
In addition, in 2005, an employee was reported to the Washington field office for being arrested on a charge of solicitation in a park. Documents do not reveal the outcome of that case.
In 2008, an on-duty uniform division officer was arrested in a Washington prostitution sting. The officer, who was driving a marked Secret Service vehicle at the time, was placed on administrative leave, the records show.
