The Last Undercover (17 page)

Before I could go much further along that line of thought, he dropped a bombshell: “But, if you said you had a fourteen-year-old boy in your apartment and I could have sex with him without getting into trouble, I would do it for the experience—but I don’t feel like I have to.”

What kind of statement was that supposed to be? Suddenly he sounded like the predators Jim from New Jersey feared were part of the membership. Apparently, Jeff was no closer to rehabilitation than before he entered the 12-step program.

Jeff and I ended the evening with a promise to meet again, but it would be almost ten months before we had our next face-to-face encounter. Though Jeff certainly wasn’t making a concerted effort to leave his problematic behavior behind, the evidence for prosecution just wasn’t there.

We did exchange a few more e-mails. In a February 23 communication, he complained that the Canadian fourteen-year-old “verbally assaulted” him. A discouraged and ambivalent Jeff wrote, “Sometimes I think this BL is a crock of shit, and other times I realize it’s such a part of me.”

In a second e-mail following the dinner, Jeff said he had another friend he met online who was a BL and lived in Long Beach. He suggested the three of us get together. I was ready, hoping to rekindle the investigation. I tried to pursue the invitation but Jeff was never able to arrange for the three of us to meet. Once again, my case agent and I realized we lacked the evidence to go forward, so we put the matter of Jeff Devore on hold.

16

KEEPING MY SHIRT ON

Los Angeles, 1995

M
y favorite track was Santa Anita, situated on 320 acres at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains in Arcadia, California. There I could easily envision the excitement during the days when racing was truly the “sport of kings.” Even though the grandstand could accommodate twenty-six thousand patrons, the days of capacity crowds had long passed. I frequented the clubhouse level, where all of our targets congregated.

Racetracks abound with unique characters. From the wealthiest in society to the unemployed, thousands spend afternoons at the track. Grown men who have not won a race in years still brag of the time they hit a “big one,” even if it was decades earlier.

The crowds increased on the days following the issuance of welfare checks; young children were dragged to the track by parents hoping to extend their state-issued monthly stipend into a windfall. It was sad to watch people pin their precarious financial hopes on a horse.

On Wall Street, seldom will a broker seek advice from the janitor, but at the track, even CEOs sought the help of exercise boys or grooms in the ironic hope someone making less than minimum wage might hold the key to a successful wager. Nicknames were commonplace—Fingers, the Mouth, the Greek, the Broom, the Printer . . . even I acquired a moniker: Bob the Cop!

I began the undercover assignment at Hollywood Park in Inglewood. I would walk down to the paddock before the race and observe the horses being readied. I listened as various gamblers commented on the mounts, usually unable to distinguish the subtleties they were observing. It didn’t matter; I just wanted to learn the language and repeat it when I was around the targets. When I returned upstairs, I tried to remain within eyesight, if not hearing range, and would occasionally engage our targets in conversation about a particular race or horse. Typically, they blew me off, responding with a look or a grunt, or even more common, just ignoring me. It was no place for a fragile ego. After several weeks of just observing and then attempting to close on the subjects, I decided to make a move.

The Mouth, one of our prime targets, would put together a Pick Six wager every race day. He would often sell a piece of the ticket, asking trusted associates to contribute to the purchase price, allowing for a much larger Pick Six wager. The Mouth’s Pick Six tickets were often in the hundreds of dollars and occasionally he wagered in the thousands. On at least two occasions when the Pick Six pari-mutuel pool was several hundred thousand dollars, I recall tickets costing more than ten thousand dollars. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Mouth held onto the losing tickets. They were gold at tax time, since winning wagers could be offset by losing bets. Even if the Mouth sold his entire ticket, he still kept the losing ticket to offset winnings. Events would subsequently prove that the Mouth’s sophisticated tax fraud netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax refunds each year.

On a Friday afternoon, I approached the Mouth as he stood near an usher. With the same brashness I saw in other gamblers, I introduced myself and asked if he was selling pieces of his Pick Six ticket.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “What are you talking about? How do I know you’re not an IRS agent?” He looked at the usher and jerked a thumb in my direction. “Do you know this guy?”

The usher said he’d seen me around.

As the Mouth continued with the tongue-lashing, I fished a wad of money from my pocket. As it turned out, green was his favorite color. He sold me a piece of his ticket, we hit five of six on the Pick Six wager that afternoon, and I won back all I wagered and then some. The Mouth and I became betting partners. From that day on, almost daily, I contributed some piece of a Pick Six ticket the Mouth wagered.

As the days and weeks progressed, I began to meet some of the Mouth’s associates. Although I was never accepted as an equal, I could converse with them and occasionally bet with them on those days when the Mouth was absent from the track.

One associate had been gone for several months, recovering from knee surgery. When he returned, he questioned who I was and whether I was “a cop.” In subsequent conversations, the Mouth and the others referred to me as “Bob, the guy Rene thinks is a cop.” Soon the moniker was shortened and I became simply “Bob the Cop.” Rather than hide, I played up the sobriquet. When the Mouth, who well deserved his handle, would refer to me in a loud voice as “Bob the Cop,” I would ask him if he had purchased tickets to the policeman’s ball. He’d laugh off the joke and we’d go about our business.

With the Mouth it was all business; he had little desire to socialize and our conversations were limited to track-related subjects. On one occasion, the Mouth introduced me to his associate, the Greek. The Mouth was going on vacation and introduced us so I could wager with the Greek, if I desired. When the Mouth referred to me as Bob the Cop, the Greek insisted I pull up my pants legs. I looked at him with obvious confusion. He repeated, “Pull up your pants legs. Show me your ankles.”

I did as instructed. All he saw was socks and he was satisfied. The Greek said, “Undercover cops wear guns on their ankles.” I was glad I left my gun in the car . . . but the Mouth went even further.

I was wearing a loose fitting sweatshirt and had not tucked it in. The Mouth grabbed the sweatshirt and pulled it up, exposing an elastic back brace I was wearing. The recording device was concealed in the front of the brace and wires ran up my chest to my nipples, where the microphones were taped. I quickly slapped the Mouth’s hand, dislodging it from the shirt.

I then made a less-than-polite remark by way of letting him know what he could do with his hands.

He had seen the elastic band around my stomach. “What is that?”

“It’s a back brace. I’ve got a bad back and standing around here on the concrete listening to your crap all day hurts my back. Now, who do you like in the first race?”

It was a close call. Had he pulled the sweatshirt any higher he would have seen the wires and the investigation would have ended in a New York minute. From that moment on, I tucked in my shirt.

One afternoon while at Santa Anita, some of the targets became suspicious of me for some unknown reason. The Mouth confronted me and demanded to see my wallet and identification. My hands shook as I pulled my undercover driver’s license from my wallet. The Mouth noted the shaking, became agitated, and accused me of being a cop. I told him my hands always shake—which they often do, thus explaining my sometimes-poor shooting scores at the range—and told him to quit taking my money if he thought I was a cop. He seemed satisfied with my answer but the rest of them kept their distance throughout the remainder of the assignment.

San Diego, after the New York Conference

Following the New York conference, I had little communication with NAMBLA except for the occasional
Bulletin.
I was assigned full-time to a sensative national security–related undercover operation and transferred to the San Diego office. I heard nothing further from NAMBLA on the privacy pamphlet, and maintained minimal correspondence with a few prisoners in the pen-pal program, primarily to maintain credibility in case Los Angeles desired my continued services on the pedophile case.

Once I settled into the San Diego office, I met with the Innocent Images National Initiative contact in the division. I explained to him in detail my membership in NAMBLA and the nature of my previous undercover activity. His enthusiasm was contagious and we clicked immediately. I sensed we could work well together and was hoping he might want to proceed. However, I left the decision up to him and his supervisor. They did not disappoint me: My new case agent contacted Los Angeles and got up to speed with the NAMBLA investigation.

In July, I received a handwritten letter from Chris, the mop-haired socialist who had rambled almost incoherently at the conference. Chris was a member of the steering committee and was inquiring about my work on the privacy pamphlet. He said he was following up on the work I did and asked if I was interested in continuing on the project. Chris used the return address of PO Box 174, Midtown Station, New York, NY 10018, the address from which all the NAMBLA correspondence came. I assumed Chris was in New York and replied.

Chris,

I received your letter and am glad someone is taking charge of the pamphlet project. Thanks for doing that. Being in California makes everything so distant. You’re lucky to be in New York and close to all the action.

I’m still interested in helping in whatever way I can. I do have some health problems so it isn’t always easy to get too committed. Peter may have given you what I have already written on “Privacy.” I submitted it to Peter and the others on the committee and never heard another word. . . .

As I told Peter, I have access to a hotel in San Diego where I booked an investment seminar. . . . If you were interested I could take advantage of this offer and we could maybe have the pamphlet people meet here for a weekend before the Membership Convention. Lots of young, tanned bodies in sunny Southern California. Something to think about. Just let me know.

About a week later, I received a letter from Peter, reminding me it was time to renew my membership. Had I truly been a boy lover, I’m not sure I would have expended the funds: the organization was of little benefit, as far as I could tell. I did not see it as “political” or “educational,” as advertised in the statement of purpose. I was aware of no “spokespeople” who were raising “awareness in the media . . . and among the general public.” Nor did I see any tangible effort whatsoever to modify age-of-consent laws. There was no lobbying at any level of government, no letters to the editors of major newspapers or magazines, no appearances on any media outlet. Support and comfort could just as easily come from going on the Internet and spending time in a chat room—without paying the membership dues. Whatever the membership numbers were, the organization’s actual primary purpose, as I saw it, was to reinforce among members their destructive and criminal passions.

Kathy Baxter, the director of the San Francisco Child Abuse Counsel, accurately described the organization in the 1992 KRON-TV investigative report: “It is a group, in my opinion, of men primarily who get together to network with one another on where to find young boys, how to pick them up, how to get them involved, and how to feel good about what you’re doing.”

Nevertheless, I sent Peter a letter and a postal money order I know he gladly cashed. In August, I received my invitation to the November conference. My cover was still obviously intact.

The conference was being held in Miami, Florida. The invitation described Miami as a “delightful city . . . and November is a delightful time of the year to be there.”

What followed was troubling: “We have reserved a block of rooms in a charming secluded inn at very reasonable rates. . . . The cost . . . will be $175. This low price is for double occupancy rooms.”

Double occupancy! There was no way I was double-occupying any room with a NAMBLA member. For one thing, I needed some private space to store my surveillance equipment; a NAMBLA roomie wouldn’t be very conducive to that. For another thing, I wasn’t sleeping with one eye open for an entire weekend. No, double occupancy wasn’t an option for me.

My San Diego case agent and I discussed the potential dilemma with his supervisor. Although both agreed a real undercover agent would take one for the team, they conceded that the Bureau would pony up enough funds to insure I got my own room, single occupancy.

I sent in my registration fee and began preparation for the Miami conference. On September 14 Chris sent his response, a handwritten note.

Robert:

Thanks for your efforts to get back to me. I can tell your [sic] busy! Thanks even more for your offer of a venue there [in San Diego]. It is too bad we couldn’t swing it. Believe it or not with all the hurricanes, we plan to meet in Miami. I hope you can make it! Try to have in mind something you’d like to do, if you can think of something. It’ll help. By the way, I don’t live in the NYC area.

Meetings with the San Diego and Los Angeles case agents, as well as communications with Headquarters and Miami, set the ground rules and expectations for my attendance at the conference. Since this would be my second time, I made all the agents aware that I thought I could be more open in my conversations with the various attendees at the meeting, inquiring more proactively for criminal admissions. We correctly assumed my credibility had been enhanced by my previous attendance and continued participation in the organization. We wanted to be prepared to handle any crime that might be discussed. In keeping with that concept, Los Angeles agreed to support the investigation by providing a Web site and posing as a travel agency.