DEA turned blind eye to agent’s torrid affair with convicted criminal

http://nypost.com/2017/09/07/dea-turned-blind-eye-to-agents-torrid-affair-with-convicted-criminal/

A DEA agent engaged in an extra-marital affair with a convicted criminal, gave her after-hours access to a drug evidence room, let her listen in on recorded telephone calls, and had sex with her “on numerous occasions” inside his office — but amazingly, was allowed to keep his job and security clearance, according to an internal government report.

The officer, who has not been named by officials, admitted to the torrid romance and was eventually fired from the Drug Enforcement Administration following an investigation by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Using the pseudonym Grant Stentsen, officials released a report Thursday describing how he initiated the affair with his mistress, identified as Marion Wardman — another pseudonym — and what they did exactly over the course of their relationship.

“The Special Agent admitted to [investigators] that he had, among other things: carried on an extramarital affair with a woman who was a convicted criminal; allowed her after-hours access to a DEA office, including a drug evidence room; allowed her to listen to recorded telephone calls of subjects of DEA investigations; and had sex with her on numerous occasions in the DEA office
and his DEA vehicle,” the report says.

The Office of Professional Responsibility first found out about the tryst in 2013 — roughly five years after the forbidden lovers met on the internet — but failed to report it to the agency’s Office of Security Programs, which is responsible for adjudicating security clearances of all DEA employees.

A DEA Administrator at the time, identified as Michele M. Leonhart, was said to have turned a blind eye to the agent’s “serious misconduct” — “inappropriately” intervening to reinstate his security clearance — after being told to do so by then-Acting Chief Inspector Herman “Chuck” Whaley.

The inspector “opposed the suspension of the Special Agent’s security clearance and intended to resolve the matter in a different manner,” according to the DEA report.

“We concluded that Leonhart acquiesced to Whaley’s flawed decision to intervene in the security clearance process, and therefore she shares responsibility for it,” the report says. “We also determined that she did not testify untruthfully to Congress regarding whether she had any impact on the adjudication of agents’ security clearances.”

Investigators from the Security Programs first learned of the agent’s misconduct in 2014, but the agent’s security clearance wasn’t suspended until March 24, 2015. It was then reinstated by Whaley 3 days later.

According to the report, the inspector “stated that the Special Agent’s misconduct merited significant punishment but did not raise national security issues because it did not involve a lack of candor, foreign nationals, or a foreign country.”

The investigation into the agent’s affair was ultimately launched after his mistress called his office in 2013 and alleged that they had been having sex inside the building.

“According to Wardman, she reported Stentsen’s misconduct because she was angry with his response when she told him she was pregnant with his child,” the report says. “Stentsen has denied that he is the father of the child born in February 2014 and, according to the investigations we reviewed, his paternity had not been established.”

The agent was eventually fired from the DEA in March 2016. Leonhart resigned from the DEA a year earlier and Whaley wound up retiring in September 2016.

Filed under: General Problems