Pete’s brother Mike (also described by Interim Chief Tolbert as a strong investigator and leader) was assigned as case agent in a totally separate narcotics trafficking case on an organization including Joshua Varner. Khaalis assisted Mike with the Varner case as his primary duties associated with the Williams case allowed.
Khaalis Comes Under Suspicion- The James Williams Case
Shortly after the June, 2008 stop and arrest ofT-2 both Pete and Mike Delatorre began to debrief T-2 at his place of incarceration, Coastal State Correctional Institute (Coastal). They were able to determine through interviews and photo spreads that the individual to whom T-2 referred was James Williams, a Correctional Officer at Coastal. Once the identification of the subject was established in late 2008, Lt. Russ Smith, CNT, authorized the opening of a case to be assigned to Pete Delatorre.
During an early interview o f T -2 at Coastal, Pete Delatorre was accompanied by Khaalis. Khaalis recalled T-2 saying that James Williams had claimed to have a police officer, who was his brother, “in his pocket”. At the time Khaalis assumed T-2 to be referring to Willet Williams, a Star Corporal on the SCMPD.
Not long after the opening of the Williams case, Pete Delatorre conducted a briefing for the major case team. Delatorre made clear in the briefing that James Williams had a brother, Willet, who was an SCMPD officer and a subject of the case. He specifically asked if any member of the team knew Willet.
Khaalis never made it known that he had a relationship with Willet Williams.
On April 16, 2009 Lt. Smith concluded that not much had been happening on the Williams case and he made a last minute decision to order a surveillance of James Williams for that afternoon, to begin at James’ place of employment, Coastal. Khaalis, Mike Delatorre and others were on the surveillance team.
Coastal State Prison Savannah, GA
While waiting for Williams to depart Coastal, Khaalis suggested to Delatorre that he (Khaalis) contact Willet Williams to determine the location of the subject, who had not appeared at the expected time. This suggestion was rejected.
James Williams finally departed Coastal at approximately 1730 and returned to his home. At approximately 1825 he exited his house and began to show alerted behavior, walking with a cell phone to his ear and acting as though he was looking for something.
At this point the CNT team became convinced that their surveillance had been compromised, but they could not figure out how.
On April 17, 2009, the day after the compromised surveillance, Pete Delatorre was approached by Khaalis who wanted to know if telephone toll records would be requested for Willet Williams’ phone. He was told that Lt. Smith had made a decision to not do so in view ofWilliams’ status as an active duty police officer.
DEA, however, unbeknownst to Khaalis, had requested Willet Williams’ toll records.
Review of the actual records reveals that when the requested toll records for Willet Williams were examined in May, 2009 they showed seven contacts between Williams and Khaalis between 1708 and 1713 on April 16, 2009. This was precisely the time that the CNT surveillance team was outside Coastal waiting for James Williams to make an appearance.
A review of the actual toll records also shows three contacts between Willett Williams and James Williams between 1825 and 1826 on April 16, 2009. This was precisely the time that James Williams was observed exiting his residence with a phone to his ear and appearing to search for something.
Once the contacts between Khaalis and Willet Williams were brought to the attention of CNT Director Roy Harris, Khaalis was considered a suspect in leaking information. Director Harris decided to move the Williams case to the DEA office, unbeknownst to Khaalis or even Lt. Smith. DEA assisted in getting the word out that the Williams case had died out and that Pete Delatorre was assisting DEA on other matters. Pete continued to surreptitiously work the case from the DEA office. He returned to CNT in early July, 2009 specifically for the purpose of keeping an eye on Khaalis, who was now working on other cases. Khaalis often sought to obtain from Pete updates and information about the Williams case, but was told that it had died down. In August Pete once again returned to the DEA office in order to work on the Williams case without Khaalis’ knowledge.
During this period Mike Delatorre’s cases on Josh Vamer and his associate, Hezekiah Murdock, were heating up and Khaalis had been assigned to assist in those investigations. Despite having been told that the Williams case was no longer active, Khaalis continued to seek information about what was going on in that case.
No image for Murdock
Hezekiah Murdock v. USA, No. 13-13855 (11th Cir. 2015)
When Khaalis was interviewed on October 28, 2013 and allowed to inspect the April 16, 20I0 Willet Williams toll records he admitted that he had been in contact with Williams on that date, but he insisted that the purpose of these contacts was not to warn Willet of the James Williams surveillance. He also insisted that the surveillance had not occurred on April 16, 20 I0 and that records indicating that were in error.
The Joshua Varner Wiretaps In January, 2010 CNT attempted to initiate court ordered wiretaps on Joshua Varner.
The first attempt took place on January 27, 2010. During the minimization briefing given by the lead attorney, a DEA Task Force Agent who was present noted that when Varner was mentioned as the target of the wiretap, Khaalis became very alert and looked shocked. Shortly after the briefing Khaalis left the CNT office without authorization and nobody knew where he had gone, despite the fact that he was assigned to be a monitor in the “wire room” until 1700. He returned to the wire room at about 1700 and just then the line became active. The first incoming call intercepted was a warning to Varner to “drop his phone”, in other words, to discontinue use of that phone. The caller could not be identified.
Two subsequent attempts to intercept new numbers being used by Varner ended immediately with “dropped phones”. In each of these attempts Khaalis was assigned to the monitoring teams.
After the failure of the third CNT wiretap a decision was made with the knowledge of only Director Harris, Mike and Pete Delatorre and DEA Agent Mike Sarhat that a fourth attempt would be made, but out of the DEA office. After 4-5 days they had obtained enough evidence to support an indictment of Varner and then moved the tap back to CNT in an attempt to establish who was warning Varner. Khaalis was working in CNT during this period and agitating against DEA, saying that they were withholding information from CNT. A mock minimization briefing was held at CNT to make it appear this was a new wiretap. The phone was dropped shortly after the minimization briefing, but no incoming warnings to Varner were detected and the source of the leak was never determined.
The Hezekiah Murdock Wiretap and the Car Stop In February of2010 a court ordered wiretap of Josh Varner associate Hezekiah Murdock was initiated.
Khaalis was assigned as a monitor in the CNT wire room on February 13, 2010 along with CNT officers Larry Han·is and Charles Guyer. A call was intercepted indicating that Murdock would be meeting with a female within the hour. Khaalis immediately announced he was going to leave the wire room, either giving as his reason that he was going to get something to eat or that he wanted to effect an identification of the intercepted female. In either case, Khaalis left the wire room without authorization.
Khaalis was soon heard on his police radio requesting that a marked SCMPD patrol unit stop the female’s car for the purposes of effecting an identification. The car was stopped.
Guyer immediately called Khaalis on his cell phone and asked what he was doing and whether Khaalis had prior permission from the case agent (Mike Delatorre) or the supervisor (Lt. Smith). Khaalis’ response was “yes and no”.
Lt. Smith soon received a concerned call at home from the patrol officer’s sergeant demanding to know what the probable cause had been for the car stop. This was the first Lt. Smith knew about this incident. He then received a call from Khaalis, who gave his rationale for requesting the stop as wanting to be present for a possible drug transaction between two subjects. He also told Lt. Smith that he had talked to case agent Mike Delatorre.
Mike Delatorre never spoke with Khaalis about this car stop prior to its occurrence and never gave his authorization.
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