A man who claims to be a former FBI informant has filed a $54 million federal lawsuit against the government, saying his life is in danger because his identity was compromised after he went undercover to help the agency.
"I was disclosed," said Anthony Martin, 63, who described himself as a retired bank robber and convicted felon.
Martin said he volunteered to work undercover for the FBI after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He said he was installed as a taxi driver in Las Vegas and provided information that led to the arrests and convictions of at least four "people entering the country illegally" on charges including fabricating false passports.
But while filing a complaint in 2004, he said, a Las Vegas police officer checked a computer database and addressed him as Lee McKnight, the name he gave up when he entered the federal witness protection program.
"I got a promise that my old name would never be disclosed, and it should not have," Martin said. "They intentionally put me in danger."
Martin, who is representing himself in court, claims breach of contract, breach of oral agreement and violations of constitutional free speech, equal protection and the right against cruel and unusual punishment. He filed the civil lawsuit on Jan. 29 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
He is seeking $6 million in damages from each of nine defendants: the FBI and former FBI Director Robert Mueller, the U.S. Marshals Service and witness protection program chief Thomas Wight, the federal Department of Homeland Security and its former chief, Michael Chertoff, and the Justice Department and former attorneys general Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales.
The Justice Department would represent the defendants, department spokesman Charles Miller said Friday. He declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying his department had not received a copy.
The FBI and U.S. Marshals Service in Las Vegas also declined comment.
Martin said he quit the witness protection program in Beaumont, Texas, because it didn't pay him enough but believed the government would continue to protect his identity. He made public a copy of a letter from Wight stating that Martin "voluntarily terminated" from witness protection in July 1992.
"While you are no longer a witness in good standing," the letter said, "it appears that for humanitarian reasons this office provided you with a new name birth certificate" and a certificate of discharge from active military duty.
Martin said he now collects disability for physical ailments and mental stress and helps train young fighters at a gym. Details of his past were not immediately available, but he said he had served 18 years in prisons in New York, Nevada, Minnesota and Wisconsin for crimes including armed robbery and bank robbery.
The lawsuit claims that the "Plaintiff was exposed. … with dual identities, a criminal record and felony status … thus jeopardizing his life."
"I want a fair hearing in court to present my side," Martin said. "Let them present their side. Not in the newspaper."
The disclosure of an informant's name faces penalty that includes prison time. Former Vice President Dick Cheney's then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to the FBI about his role in leaking CIA operative Valerie Plame's name and CIA affiliation to a reporter.
Former President Bush commuted the sentence, sparing Libby from serving prison time.
