ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603110102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
PARTICIPANTS IN THE FEDERAL witness protection program must agree to sever ties with their families, their hometowns, their belongings.
Across the United States, nearly 15,000 people live with no official past.
The federal witness protection program, now 25 years old, has relocated or protected nearly 6,600 people who agreed to cooperate with the government, and another 8,000 or so dependents.
Begun as a way to protect Mafia members who were willing to break the traditional code of silence, the U.S. Marshals Service program now is more likely to handle witnesses to drug activity. The Justice Department boasts an 89 percent conviction rate in cases using protected witnesses.
Tony began enjoying benefits of the program while he was in prison. Most of his sentence was served in secretive ``witness units,'' where protected prisoners live in separate, nicer facilities from the general prison population and go by just their initials, he says.
After he began cooperating with federal prosecutors while in a Virginia state prison, his safety among the other prisoners was in jeopardy. Tony describes being hidden in Mecklenburg on death row for two days and then whisked to Washington, to a safe house with wall-to-wall carpeting and a huge color TV. He was impressed.
After he testified, he was allowed to serve his sentence on state charges in federal prisons, in the special units.
The program is so strict, former Richmond federal prosecutor Howard Vick says, that even the prosecutors who sponsor witnesses don't know where they are once they enter the program. If the prosecutor wants to meet with them, the Marshals Service arranges a meeting in a neutral location.
``You lose complete contact with them except through the marshal,'' Vick says. ``Once we vouch for them, it's the marshals' business from then on out.''
And only a handful of people within the Marshals Service know the location of any given witness.
Even after a U.S. attorney sponsors a witness, the Marshals Service still can reject someone who refuses to play by the rules. But once a person is in the program, the Marshals Service has no authority to withdraw protection unless that person breaks a law or compromises security, Marshals Service spokesman Bill Licatovich says.
Participants must agree to sever ties with their families, their hometowns, their belongings. They're usually relocated in another part of the country where they're unlikely to be recognized.
Along with new identities and hometowns can come job training in a new field. The average witness continues to get funding from the witness protection program for 17 months, Licatovich says. The funding amounts to about $2,000 a month, but varies depending on the size of the witness's family.
``It's not a welfare program for the rest of their life,'' Licatovich says. ``But we have an obligation to get them resettled.''
The prison units for witnesses who must serve time before going into the program, such as Tony, are operated by the Bureau of Prisons, Licatovich says. The Marshals Service picks the witnesses up as soon as they are released from prison.
John Douglas, criminal chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond, won't comment on Tony's case specifically, but says the government keeps its word to witnesses.
``We work very hard to try to protect people who work with the government, because it's a crucial part of law enforcement,'' Douglas says. ``We protect people who need protection and we have an obligation [to].''
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