Suit Charges FBI Blackmails Gay Agents

SAN FRANCISCO —  A fired gay FBI agent accuses the agency of blackmailing suspected homosexual agents by threatening to expose them to family and friends unless they resign.

Frank Buttino said the practice was revealed in documents he obtained from the FBI for the discrimination lawsuit he filed on behalf of all gay FBI employees and job applicants.

The class-action lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial here in September. Despite President Clinton’s support of equal rights for homosexuals, the Administration plans to defend Buttino’s firing, Justice Department spokesman Joe Krovisky said.

Buttino, a 20-year veteran then stationed in San Diego, was fired in 1990 after disclosing his sexual orientation in response to an anonymous note that was sent to his supervisors.

The anonymous note in 1988 included a letter that Buttino had sent in response to a personal ad in a gay newspaper. Buttino at first denied writing the letter, but acknowledged it several months later.

The Justice Department said he was fired because of his lie to investigators and because he made himself vulnerable to coercion.

Buttino says those explanations were a pretext for an anti-gay bias.

In his newly published book “A Special Agent: Gay and Inside the FBI,” he said FBI documents showed an abusive policy by the bureau’s internal-affairs unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility, toward employees suspected of being gay.

The unit would call these employees to headquarters and demand the full details of their homosexual conduct under threat of being fired for non-cooperation, Buttino wrote. He said it also would tell employees that their relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers would soon be interviewed about homosexual conduct.

Buttino said he realized “the FBI is the blackmailer! It was the bureau that threatened to expose its employees’ homosexuality if they wouldn’t resign. Yet historically the bureau had used the blackmail argument as justification for excluding gays and lesbians from employment.”

The records described cases of heterosexual agents who had falsified government documents and expense records, lied in court, and in one case had been arrested for felonious sexual conduct in a public bookstore, all without being fired, Buttino said.

But he said prospective new employees “were summarily rejected and employees forced out when the mere suspicion of homosexuality was raised.”

The FBI, asked about Buttino’s allegations, issued a statement saying it would not comment during the lawsuit but denying that homosexuality automatically disqualifies an employee or applicant.

The bureau has no “blanket policy of rejecting applicants or refusing to retain on-board employees based upon homosexual conduct,” the statement said. “Rather, each situation is assessed on a case-by-case basis.”

FBI Director William Sessions has said in court papers that he was unaware of any homosexuals working for the FBI. Buttino wrote that at least four homosexuals, including one agent, had been allowed to continue working for the FBI since he filed his lawsuit in 1990.

Buttino still wants his job back, but said his firing and its aftermath turned him into an activist. At the July, 1991, Gay Pride parade in San Diego, in which he was co-grand marshal, he thanked the FBI for “tearing down the walls of my closet.”