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On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 7: Atchison was connected in Florida as well as in Alabama

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On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 7: Atchison was connected in Florida as well as in Alabama

 

Roy Atchison

This blog is the seventh concerning John David Roy Atchison, Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola, arrested in Detroit in September 2007 on charges relating to pedophilia. He committed suicide in federal prison in October 2007; arrest and suicide were not foregrounded by the Justice Department in the Bush administration, and family connections have further obscured the matter.

 

 

From the Southern Center for Human Rights

In 2005, the Southern Center for Human Rights and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a lawsuit in federal court in Gulfport, Miss., on behalf of a number of poor plaintiffs, alleging that the City of Gulfport had established basically a debtor’s prison. Among the plaintiffs was an illiterate woman, mentally challenged, who had been incarcerated repeatedly for unpaid fines in spite of her impairment and the fact that her income consisted of a small monthly SSI check. Plaintiffs alleged through counsel that Gulfport was rounding up people with unpaid fines, mainly in black neighborhoods, and corralling them in the overcrowded county jail with little process.

 

Defendants in the lawsuit, settled in January 2007, included the City of Gulfport and then-Chief Municipal Court Judge William B. (Bill) Atchison.

 

Bill Atchison’s brother was Roy Atchison, the federal prosecutor in Pensacola, Fla., who killed himself in prison after being arrested on charges basically of pedophilia in 2007.

As said, the lawsuit was settled in January 2007, with Bill Atchison, the Chief Municipal Court Judge, and the City of Gulfport both represented by city attorney Jeffrey S. Bruni. Other defendants included a fellow municipal court judge, Richard Smith; Gulfport Municipal Court Administrator bill Markopoulos; and Senior Warrants Officer Walter Eighmey of the Gulfport Police Department. The lawsuit was filed in July 2005. A McClatchey newspaper, the Biloxi, Miss., Sun Herald, had reported in June that the City of Biloxi had a backlog of $10.7 million in unpaid fines assessed in its municipal court.

 

Bruni and the city office of Gulfport have not yet returned a call for comment.

Judge Atchison’s brother was arrested in September 2007, as previously written. News reports did not mention the family connections to Gulfport’s Chief Municipal Court Judge. The Atchison brothers’ parents live in Gulfport. Roy Atchison’s death in prison occurred Oct. 5, 2007.

 

A little more than a year later, the chief judge himself was arrested, on Feb. 4, 2009, charged with abusing prescription drugs after an investigation of several months, according to the Harrison County, Miss., sheriff’s office and Gulfport police. Bill Atchison was placed under house arrest. Concerns about his safety in the presence of inmates he had sentenced kept him from having to do jail time in the facility to which the debtors above, for example, had been remanded.

 

As the Sun Herald reported, the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics alleged that in April 2007 Bill Atchison obtained a 15-day supply of hydrocodone from one physician, another prescription from a second physician five days later, and a third prescription from a third physician two weeks later.

 

Thus the case against Bill Atchison in Mississippi developed during 2007 and 2008—resulting in the early 2009 arrest–and must have overlapped with the developing FBI investigation against Roy Atchison in Florida and Detroit. Their father, retired physician William David Atchison, was allegedly among the doctors from whom Bill Atchison acquired some of his prescriptions. Atchison went on administrative leave after his arrest and resigned his judgeship.

 

A call for information has been placed with Bill Atchison’s attorney, criminal defense lawyer Wayne Woodall. Woodall told reporters that Bill Atchison had undergone two surgeries and was in pain requiring painkillers.

 

Nonetheless, the entire legal matter corroborates a key claim in the Southern Center and NAACP lawsuit about a debtors’ prison in Gulfport, that there is a different justice system for the affluent and well-connected than for the poor.

So does the delicate and muted handling of these legal matters in the press.  There has been little or no media follow-up regarding the numerous cases on which the Municipal Court Chief Judge in Gulfport handed down decisions, including decisions in drug cases, before he resigned in April 2009 after his arrest on charges of abusing prescription drugs. McClatchy, which ran the story on Bill Atchison, did not note the kinship when the Roy Atchison story surfaced but did report the physician father’s alleged involvement.

 

The staff at the Southern Center for Human Rights, located in Atlanta, includes investigator and paralegal Lauren Brown, who according to the Center’s website investigates conditions at jails in Alabama. A report from the Center is linked here.

On the paper trail of a pedophile, part 6: Suicide in federal custody

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On the paper trail of a pedophile, part 6: Suicide in federal custody

 

Roy Atchison

This blog is the sixth on John David Roy Atchison, Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola, arrested in Detroit in September 2007 on charges relating to pedophilia. He committed suicide in federal prison in October 2007; arrest and suicide were not foregrounded by the Justice Department in the Bush administration. FBI material obtained under the Freedom of Information Act suggests that Atchison’s suicide in federal prison could have been prevented, leaving him alive to cooperate with authorities targeting an alleged large pedophile ring.

 

As written previously, the prison death of an alleged pedophile tends to receive little attention. Although Atchison could have assisted law enforcement going after a large pedophile ring had he survived, his death received little media beyond the immediate event; predictably, the Bush administration did little to bring it to public notice. Nor was there a congressional investigation, amidst the highly publicized focus on other problems at the Justice Department, often homing in on the individual career of Alberto Gonzales. The facts in Roy Atchison’s suicide are as painful as is much else in the story, including the similar lack of oversight.

Briefly, the chronology:

  • Atchison was arrested at the Detroit airport Sept. 16, 2007, having flown to Detroit to meet what he thought was the five-year-old daughter of a single mom, actually an FBI agent working an online pedophilia sting. He did not resist arrest and went quietly. Interviewed by the FBI en route from the airport to the Clinton Township, Mich., FBI office, he said he went to Detroit to talk the mother out of selling her child for sex. He was placed in custody at the Macomb County Jail.
  • The FBI field office in Detroit issued a press release on the arrest Sept. 17, 2007.
  • A search warrant for Atchison’s home and computers was signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Miles Davis Sept. 17, and searches were executed that day; the inventory included hundreds of images of child pornography stored in his PC, laptops and flash drives.
  • Atchison was assigned to the Sanilac County Jail in Michigan’s Thumb, Mich., to await trial. Authorities told the press that they were taking special precautions with Atchison, as customary for prisoners at risk—those in law enforcement, those accused of crimes against children, and those who might be informants. Atchison fell into all three categories.
  • On Sept. 18, Atchison was placed on suicide watch in detention.
  • Atchison was taken off suicide watch Sept. 19, by U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia M. Morgan, who said that the suicide watch had been imposed out of “an abundance of caution.” Morgan, like Atchison himself, came into office under the Reagan administration. Both Atchison and his Detroit attorney, James C. Thomas, assured the judge that Atchison would not try to harm himself. Thomas said, “We think he is not a risk to himself and it certainly will be argued that he is not a risk to others.” Atchison consented to continued detention, waiving his right to a detention hearing in Detroit but reserving his right to a future bond hearing.
  • The same day, a grand jury in Detroit handed down a three-count indictment.
  • Atchison tried to hang himself in the county jail Sept. 20, using a bed sheet. A cellmate who saw the 4 a.m. attempt alerted a guard; Atchison was not harmed. U.S. Marshals immediately transported him elsewhere. Thomas, his Detroit attorney, told reporters, “At the time, I thought it was the right decision. Apparently it was a mistake. I feel as bad about it as anyone.”
  • Suggesting that he might have provided further information had he lived, Atchison changed his statements to the FBI in a subsequent interview on Oct. 3. He repeatedly denied having had sexual contact with a child but admitted that he had flown to Detroit for that purpose, dropping the initial story that he was investigating pedophilia, trying to talk mom out of it, etc. On Oct. 3, he told the FBI that he had flown to several cities for sex encounters. He also said that he knew of a pedophile ring in the western United States. Atchison consented to have his online identity assumed by undercover investigators.
  • On Oct. 5, 2007, Atchison was found dead in the shower area of the Milan Federal Correctional Institution, a low-security federal prison in York Charter Township, Mich., used for detention of defendants awaiting trial. He had hung himself with a sheet, as in his previous attempt. The FBI commenced an immediate investigation of the death.
  • Photographs taken by investigators include photographs of the shower area, shown with Atchison’s clothes. The baggy prison pajamas and other garments clearly had enough room in them for Atchison to smuggle a bed sheet from his cell to the shower, where he was unobserved for long enough to hang himself with a sheet.

 

There was little left for the FBI to do, beyond establish that the death was not foul play. The evidence is definitive that indeed Atchison’s death was suicide and not murder.

 

Nonetheless, it should be considered evident by this time that his death was most awfully convenient for the Bush administration, saving the Justice Department further embarrassment in the form of a trial that might have shed light on the atmosphere in the Pensacola office where Atchison worked—including among other things his computer use at the office, his friendly relationships with co-workers who unwittingly facilitated his tendencies, the sloppy overview that enabled him to tote laptops to and from work, and the acceptance of his work habits as an open ‘wheeler-dealer.’ Arguably little of this would have played well, in Florida or nationally, in election year 2008.

 

Second, it seems clear even to a non-lawyer that the most elementary preventive measures were not taken. Atchison had already clearly signaled his desire to kill himself, and had even signaled the method of choice. Smuggling a bed sheet from his cell to the shower area is an act as preventable as it was foreseeable. Be it noted that we live in a country where detainees routinely, underscore routinely, have to hand over their shoe laces and belts.

 

Atchison’s former friend George Witcher, also an Alabama attorney, demurs at this view. Interviewed by telephone, Witcher declares firmly that the authorities could not have stopped Atchison: “This was the end. His life was over.” His career gone, his family affected–there was no way they were going to keep him from killing himself, Witcher states.

 

Still, as said, elementary preventive measures went missing. The suicide watch was lifted remarkably quickly, leaving nowhere near enough time for the prisoner to catch up on sleep, let alone undergo a dependably thorough psychological evaluation.

The post-death photographs of Atchison’s cell, showing his few personal effects, include reading glasses and a book—by Pastor Rick Warren, title partly obscured but beginning The Purpose . . .

Signs were abundant that Atchison intended to take matters into his own hands.

 

Final note: Sad as the death is, the sadness would not seem to be an adequate explanation for refusing to take steps to keep the same thing from happening again, or for refusing to shine a media light that might lead to such steps. Deaths in jail are not supposed to happen.

Similarly, the argument that refusing to face these events somehow spares the family pain does not hold water. Had the judicial process been handled more professionally, the death might well not have happened. In all likelihood, the man’s relatives would prefer to have him alive and trying to work toward recovery.

 

Next, Part 7: Further fall-out?

On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 4: Things that would have gotten you or me in trouble . . .

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On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 4: Things that would have gotten you or me in trouble . . .

 

Roy Atchison

This blog is the fourth in a series on John David Roy Atchison. Atchison, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola office, was arrested in Detroit in September 2007 on charges relating to pedophilia. He committed suicide in federal prison in October 2007. Arrest and suicide were not foregrounded by the Justice Department in the Bush administration. This article, based largely on FBI material obtained under FOIA, focuses on a point at which Atchison’s federal career and its unfortunate consequences might have been forestalled.

 

As indicated in the previous post, the picture that develops in reviewing Roy Atchison through documents is that Atchison was trying to build his business and professional career in Birmingham, Ala., from the end of the 1970s into the early 1980s. After some years of apparent drift, he seems to have tried to play some serious catch-up ball in Birmingham, where his family had roots, getting his act together and settling down. But just before graduating from law school, he had a brush with the law that could have left a serious blot on his record—certainly nothing on par with pedophilia, but charges of narcotics possession, reckless driving and flouting authority easily sufficient to blemish a stronger career record than Roy Atchison had acquired.

As previously written, Atchison succeeded in finishing law school with a J.D. from Cumberland, in Birmingham, in May 1982. While in law school, he also succeeded in working off two Incompletes to get his M.B.A., in May 1981, and simultaneously worked as a clerk in the highly successful Birmingham law firm Starnes & Atchison.

 

Business Week names Starnes & Atchison in best places to work

Exact dates for Roy Atchison’s tenure at the law firm co-founded by his cousin, W. Michael Atchison, vary somewhat. Repeated attempts to contact Michael Atchison have been unsuccessful; the most recent response indicates that Atchison is currently unavailable for comment. Contacted more than once by telephone, Starnes & Atchison, now renamed, declines to discuss Roy Atchison or anyone named Atchison. A journalist is repeatedly informed that Mike Atchison has left the firm and that the telephone answerer has no idea who could provide information. A brief deafness or linguistic difficulty sets in when caller tries to clarify that current inquiries are about Roy Atchison, not Mike Atchison, much as when one calls up the New York Times to ask about Judith Miller.

 

The FBI background check confirms through at least four interviewees, names redacted, that Atchison worked there. One person identified with the firm told the FBI that Atchison worked there a year, in 1981. Atchison himself told Birmingham police that his employer was Starnes & Atchison in May 1982. For an FBI reinvestigation in 1995, he put down the dates as July 1981 to April 1982; supervisor, name partner Mike Atchison.

Name partner Michael Atchison

On May 1, 1982, just a few weeks shy of getting the J.D., Roy Atchison was picked up by Birmingham police. Obviously any brush with the law is a potential concern in a background check, but the brief account transmitted by the FBI is innocuous enough:

“Arrest check at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, revealed a violation for improper license plates and running a stop sign. Both charges were dismissed. Arrest check at Birmingham, revealed an arrest for reckless driving and violation of Alabama Uniform Controlled Substances Act. The charge of reckless driving was [amended] to running a red light. Applicant failed to appear on this charge and a writ was issued for his arrest. Applicant later appeared and paid a fine. The violation of Alabama Uniform Controlled Substances Act was dismissed by the Assistant District Attorney.”

On his application for the position of Assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, Atchison dispatched the incident even more cursorily. In answer to the standard question as to whether applicant has ever been arrested, Atchison wrote only “Alleged violation Ala. Uniform Controlled Substances Act,” with the city and date, noting that it was Nolle Prossed the same day.

 

The arrest report tells a somewhat different story. According to the police report, signed by two officers and a sergeant, Def was observed running a red light, shortly after noon on May 1, and was arrested for reckless driving. When he was pulled over, officers found “a brown bag on seat of veh containing three other plastic bags with a greenish brown leafy substance believed to be marijuana.” Def was advised of his rights and taken to the Birmingham City Jail.

The car was towed; the police officer who went to the jail on May 1 was “unable to talk to the subject.” No attorney is mentioned in any of the records, although several police officers signed off on the process. A check into the records by Birmingham attorney and legal writer Roger Shuler also does not turn up any mention of legal assistance for Atchison. Shuler notes, “I’m quite familiar with Starnes & Atchison. They are a major defense firm here, particularly in defending medical malpractice and legal malpractice cases. In fact, I filed a legal malpractice case one time against a local lawyer, and Starnes & Atchison represented him. The firm, I believe, has defended the University of Alabama in a number of matters. Also, one of their primary partners, Stancil Starnes, became the head of ProAssurance, a Bham-based company that provides malpractice insurance for doctors . . . My impression is that anyone with ties to Starnes & Atchison indeed is well connected” in Birmingham.

Everyone at the law school interviewed by the FBI said, uniformly, that Atchison had not been observed to abuse alcohol or prescription drugs or to use illegal drugs, as did everyone at the law firm, and all his co-workers.

An Assistant District Attorney charged Atchison in the matter—he subsequently failed to appear in court, earning a contempt citation on top of the reckless driving and narcotics possession charges. However, another ADA, Don Russell, dropped charges and dismissed the case: “Subject had no prior arrests, or any evidence that he was selling narcotics.” (Atchison’s two previous traffic citations—one for running a stop sign, another for expired tags—in Tuscaloosa, had also been dismissed.) Generally speaking, possession of more than one bag of controlled substances might be taken as evidence of selling, but it might be noted that ADA Russell got his J.D. at Cumberland Law School, a year after his fellow alum, the highly-regarded Mike Atchison. It might also be noted that Roy Atchison was not only a soon-to-be law graduate and affiliated with an established law firm in town, but was not guilty of driving while black.

Atchison ended up paying a small fine, getting off lightly. Atchison’s own account of the incident, like his statements after his 2007 arrest in Detroit, changed over time. In his interview for the reinvestigation in November 1995, he gave a particularly self-serving account of the incident. In full:

 “Atchison stated that he has never been involved in any criminal matter as a suspect or subject or any criminal charge, arrest, and/or conviction with the exception of a May 1982 charge by the Birmingham Alabama Police Department, when he was driving a friend’s car. He was charged with reckless driving and the police supposedly found marijuana in the vehicle and charged him with violation of the Alabama Uniform Control Substance Act. This charge, as reported on his original application for employment with the Office of the United States Attorney, was “nolle prossed”. Atchison denied any knowledge of having marijuana in the car or knowing that it was in the vehicle and did not observe the policeman remove the marijuana from the vehicle.” [emphasis added]

 When in doubt, blame the cops. The car was identified as a 1980 blue Fiat. The above information was included in Atchison’s background check. However, the investigator for the brief arrest was different from the investigator handling his Birmingham file, so any discrepancies in his statements were not noted.

 

As said, no records are available to show what if any legal assistance Roy Atchison received, to help with the local police, but his connections are very much Birmingham. Cumberland Law School has extensive connections with Starnes & Atchison. Dean James Lewis in communications there returns a call, says politely that they cannot divulge information about students but wishes me luck on the article; information on who wrote Roy Atchison’s reference letters, when Atchison applied to law school, is not released. Attorneys at the now-renamed law firm are listed on the Cumberland Advisory Board for 2009-2010.  On May 10, 1985, the dean of Cumberland provided the following information to the FBI: dean’s list S81, F81, S82; JD May 23, 1982. “The record reflects no illegal use of drugs or abuse of alcohol by the applicant.”

 

Atchison moved to Georgia after the 1982 arrest incident. Perhaps he had been hoping to become a lawyer full-time at Starnes & Atchison, joining the family roster of doctors and lawyers.

 

Next, Part 5: Signs of trouble?

[Note: This blog was originally posted in September 2010 but was deleted by the system. Re-posted here from Word files.]

Roy Atchison: On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 1

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Roy Atchison: On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 1

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Atchison


This blog entry is the first of a series of articles on John David Roy Atchison. Atchison, anAssistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola office, was arrested in September 2007 on charges relating to pedophilia. He committed suicide in federal prison in October 2007. Arrest and suicide were not foregrounded by the Department of Justice in the Bush administration. The first articles, based largely on FBI material obtained under FOIA, will focus on the criminal acts and their context in 2007 in the Pensacola office.

 

Federal courthouse, Pensacola FL

This is not the story of a man who engaged in pedophilia for years or decades before being caught. It is the story of a man whipsawed by the strain of living up to a high-achieving family rooted in Birmingham, Ala., whose high-functioning connections assisted him for years in developing a career for which he turned out not to be suited. On Sept. 16, 2007, Assistant U.S. Attorney John David Roy Atchison, serving as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Florida, was arrested on credible charges of basically pedophilia. Atchison committed suicide in federal prison Oct. 5.

 

A dead pedophile might not sound like a tragedy. But Atchison was thought to be participating in a pedophile ring, and his death removed a useful informant from law enforcement resources. The question of how he was enabled to kill himself rather than being preserved for justice is one of the loose ends left hanging in his case. This article series will look at the case itself, at how Atchison attained his federal career, and at the easy prison suicide in 2007.

 

The legal case begins in August 2007, when an officer identified only as part of the Detroit Deputized Cyber Task Force, posing online as a divorced mother of two small children, was Instant Messengered by Yahoo! Member “fldaddy04.” As the Federal Bureau of Investigation notes, when the TFO [Task Force Officer, name redacted] added the user to her buddy list, the name “John Davidson” replaced “fldaddy04.” By Sept. 12, the FBI had determined that ‘Davidson” was actually Atchison, married since 1983, who lived with his wife, a high school teacher and cheerleading coach, in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and was president of the Gulf Breeze Sports Association as well as an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

 

GBSA

‘Davidson’ identified himself in Internet chat as a male interested in “family fun,” chat room names fldaddy04 and aaronpottypants. According to the FBI, “Davidson stated in the chat session that he’s extremely interested in traveling to Detroit to have illicit sexual contact with [the TFO’s] fictitious five year old daughter.”

 

More specifically, “From August 31, 2007 until September 13, 2007, the subject [Atchison] chatted on a regular basis with the Detective and in these chats very graphically detailed his desire to engage in oral and vaginal intercourse, as well as sodomy, with the five year old ‘daughter’.” Moving from chat to action, “On September 4, 2007, the Detective had a chat with the subject and was informed the subject had reserved a flight to Detroit, Michigan, to arrive at 4:52 PM on September 16, 2007.” Atchison further told the FBI agent to tell her fictitious daughter that “you found her a sweet boyfriend who will bring her presents.”

 

“On September 12, 2007, the writer determined that the subject was flying from Pensacola to Houston, for a connecting flight to Detroit,” and Houston FBI was requested to keep an eye on Atchison when he debarked in Houston and boarded Continental flight #1088 to Detroit shortly after noon. He was arrested by waiting feds, Wayne County Airport Police, and deputies of the Macomb County, Michigan, Sheriff’s Office at Detroit Metropolitan International Airport about 5:00 that day, without incident according to the publicly released statement from Detroit FBI.

 

Atchison was indicted Sept. 17, charged with one count each of attempted enticement/coercion, aggravated abuse, and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a five-year-old girl, all in violation of Title 18, U.S. Code. Search warrants covering his property and premises including the home on Shoreline Drive in Gulf Breeze were signed.

 

Items seized by the FBI include the evidence drearily predictable in such cases—“12 pair of girls panties w/ flower & cartoon print,” for example, “Found under dresser, under bottom drawer of dresser in closet.” Atchison’s children including his daughters were grown, and no minors lived in the house. Note: A daughter denied credibly, repeatedly and consistently to the FBI that Atchison had ever harmed her or touched her or her sister or friends inappropriately, joining the community in shocked surprise at the revelations. No indication of pedophile activity turned up among Atchison’s relatives, acquaintances or co-workers. However, Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney Dixie Morrow told investigators that Atchison “had at some point in the past year or two, made an electronic request through DOJ for authorization to attend a child molestation seminar,” the request “apparently denied as it did not fit with his assigned duties in working civil and forfeiture matters.” Atchison’s work for the DOJ was largely real estate—dealing with forfeited property–stemming from similar work he had done for the General Services Administration and as landlord of a modest property in Birmingham.

 

Further evidence in the house included “four cloth and 1 plastic diaper undergarments,” “found in blue plastic tub.” Authorities also took four guns, with permission, for safekeeping—a Smith & Wesson revolver, two 12-gauge shotguns, and a Chinese semi-automatic—and confiscated Atchison’s passport. Items seized from his person when he got off the flight included, along with the Dora the Explorer doll with accessories and one doll outfit, one (1) tiger stuffed animal, one (1) tube of CVS Petroleum Jelly, one (1) Cialis pill, and four (4) unknown pills.

 

Evidence at Atchison’s office was easy to find: “Upon entry to the office at approximately 1:22 PM, a shopping bag containing three sets of doll clothes was observed resting on the desk chair.” The Walmart bag “was determined to contain three boxes of “Dora the Explorer”. . . “Dress Up Adventure” clothes.” Bag and contents were seized as evidence.

 

Doll clothes purchased by a federal contractor

 

If investigators wondered why Atchison would have revealing objects in his office, the puzzle was quickly solved: The doll clothes had been purchased for Atchison by an employee in the same office. “[Name redacted, a co-worker] advised that the bag contained items purchased on Atchison’s behalf, by staffer [name redacted]. She had placed the bag on his chair upon first entering the office in morning of September 17.”

 

The unnamed employee was with contractor Forfeiture Support Associates, which provides asset-forfeiture services for various DOJ offices. “In this instance, [name redacted] worked for the Pensacola Office of the U.S. Attorney,” preparing documents for forfeiture proceedings, a specialty of Atchison’s. “She began working in this office on January 12, 2007. She primarily supported Civil Attorney J. D. Roy Atchison and had daily contact with him.”

 

According to the FBI, Atchison had in some ways a notably friendly workplace:

 

“On Friday, September 14, 2007, [name redacted] had occasion to enter Atchison’s office and ask if he had anything for her to work on while he was out of town. She understood that he was leaving town over the weekend to visit his brother . . . She could see that Atchison was on the internet looking at a shopping site. Atchison said that he was trying to find Dora doll outfits for his niece. He said she has the doll, but needs the outfits. He showed [name redacted] a red outfit that he had in the office, . . . “Holiday Dora”. [Redacted] and Atchison discussed locations around town where the outfits could be purchased . . . [Redacted] suggested some online sites which might have the outfits he was looking for. It was apparent that he was already looking for these on the internet and she believes this was on his work computer, a desk top.” [emphasis added]

 

One can only imagine the feelings of the FBI transcriber, taking down this friendly discussion about buying doll clothes between a pedophile AUSA and a contract employee. At a time when many U.S. office workers are lucky if a colleague is willing to swing by Starbucks on the way to the office,

 

“During the discussion, [redacted] told Atchison that she would keep an eye out for the outfits this weekend. He asked that if she saw some to let him know. She suggested that if she saw some, she would pick them up and he could just pay her back. He said ok, that would be great.

 

They then discussed what outfits were out there. [Redacted] thought there were about four. Atchison told her there were several different ones out there. He said he could use a couple if she saw any.”

 

[The press office for the Northern District of Florida, contacted by phone and email, has not yet answered questions about Atchison.] By policy and federal law, personnel matters are generally not discussed. The identity of the helpful contract employee has not been disclosed. The company, Forfeiture Support Associates, does extensive work for federal agencies. Contacted with questions and requests for comment, Vice President for Business Development Jack Hunt, sounding unsurprised, refers a journalist to COO Cal Dixon, also unflapped, who refers questions to HR Manager Nicky Rogers. A telephone recording indicates that Rogers is on vacation until Sept. 14.

 

Mission accomplished: “Over the previous weekend, [name redacted] was out doing some personal shopping and saw several Dora Doll outfits. She purchased three of them specifically for Atchison. On Monday morning she placed the bag in his office. She may have put the bag under his desk.”

 

 

Tomorrow, Part 2: “The friendliest lil ole workplace in Florida.” Further context from the DOJ, 2007.