Lt. Smith called Khaalis into his office and demanded his explanation for leaving the wire room and requesting a car stop. At this time Khaalis admitted leaving the wire room without consulting with anybody about requesting a car stop. He told Lt. Smith that he was just trying to be “pro-active”. When questioned about why he had told Lt. Smith that he had talked with case agent Mike Delatorre about stopping the car, he said that he did not know why he had said that, that he wasn’t really thinking about it.
Before the initiation of any CNT Title III wiretap investigation, to include this investigation, a briefing was given to the participating agents regarding minimization. The briefing also specifically provided that no pro-active enforcement action was to be taken without prior consultation with the case agent or the supervisor.
Khaalis Attempts to Learn Protected Investigative Information
CNT has a rule (for reasons of security) providing that only the case agent, the assistant case agent and others given specific permission are allowed to gain access to pertinent information concerning targets.
During the latter part of 2009 Khaalis began a pattern of asking a CNT intelligence analyst for information about subjects in the Murdock and Varner cases. In one particular instance Khaalis tried to obtain information regarding a person of investigative interest, saying that the information was for (case agent) Mike Delatorre. When he was denied access to the information, Khaalis attempted to obtain it from two other analysts. A check with Mike Delatorre determined that Delatone had given Khaalis no permission to ask for the requested information. The analysts were instructed by Delatorre not to give Khaalis any information associated with the Murdock investigation.
This matter was brought to the attention of Lt. Smith, who questioned Khaalis about his unauthorized attempts to access case sensitive information. Khaalis’ response was that he had no explanation for hying to learn information about targets of the Murdock investigation.
Khaalis Attempts to Tamper With Evidence
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) at CNT regarding cell phones seized from arrested subjects is that as soon as possible the phones are to be placed into the possession of analysts so that data of intelligence interest can be downloaded. In at least four separate instances Khaalis attempted to violate SOP.
During November 2009 a subject named Blackshear was arrested and Khaalis and another CNT officer responded to the scene. They seized phones and put them into the possession of Analyst Don Wood. Soon after receiving the phones, Wood received a call from Khaalis instructing him not to download the phones and telling him to place the phones on his (Khaalis’) desk. Wood did place the phones on Khaalis’ desk, but not before downloading the data. In January 2010 Officer Eric Broome, assigned to DEA, requested the phones. Broome discovered that at some point after the phones had been turned over to Khaalis to place into evidence storage, numbers had been deleted from the call history.
A trafficker who regularly traveled between Atlanta and Savannah was arrested and his phone was seized. Immediately after Wood received the phone for downloading, he was approached by Khaalis who began asking if Wood was going to be able to determine who had been calling the subject on the phone. Wood found this to be odd since it was SOP to download seized phones for that type of intelligence information.
A subject named Harris was arrested and two phones were seized. Before Wood could take possession of the phones, Khaalis grabbed both of them. Wood stopped Khaalis from taking the phones away and took possession.
A second subject arrived at the scene of the Harris arrest. While this subject was in handcuffs, Khaalis attempted to take a cell phone out of his pocket. Again, he was stopped in this attempt.
Khaalis Responds to Planted Information
In early March 2010 Khaalis went out of the Savannah area for military training. DEA, FBI and CNT decided to take advantage of the opportunity to place a GPS tracking device on Khaalis’ CNT car. The FBI obtained authorization for placement of the device and it was installed.
When Khaalis returned from military training and realized that his CNT car had been moved from the maintenance garage where he had left it to the CNT lot, he became very upset. Khaalis was observed in the lot doing a detailed search of the car as though he was looking for something in particular.
After this Khaalis refused to drive the car until he was finally instructed by Lt. Smith to stop using the CNT pool cars and resume use of his issued car.
A joint FBI, DEA, CNT effort was undettaken to have a cooperating DEA source telephone into CNT with spurious information about a drug related money transaction to take place at a motel near the airpott. CNT made arrangements to ensure the call would be taken by Khaalis on March 23, 2010. Khaalis took the call, but reported it to his supervisor.
A second call was placed by the source to Khaalis on April 2, 2010. This time Khaalis did not report the call to his supervisor. Instead, he said he was going home to get something to eat. The GPS tracking device showed that instead of going home, he actually proceeded to the site near the airport where the source had told him a money transaction would take place.
Khaalis as “Walk About Jones”
During the period of the Varner and Murdock wiretaps, Khaalis developed a reputation for disappearing from the CNT office for extended periods of time with nobody being aware of his whereabouts. One example involved his disappearance shortly after the minimization briefing on the Josh Varner tap, even though he was scheduled to be on duty as a monitor in the wire room.
Nobody knew where he had gone, but as soon as he returned the phone was dropped. A second example was his unauthorized departure from the wire room during the Murdock wiretap when he requested a car stop. By this point his reputation for “jumping out’ of the wire room had become so pronounced that he was given the nickname by CNT Officer Charles Guyer of “Walk About Jones”. (It is to be noted that Lt. Russ Smith was aware of Khaalis’ behavior, was becoming increasingly frustrated and was complaining to CNT Director Harris. But Smith had been deliberately kept in the dark about the investigation of Khaalis by Harris, who instructed Smith to ignore the unacceptable behavior. It was not until after the February 13, 2010 car stop incident and Smith’s insistence that Khaalis be removed from CNT that he was briefed.)
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