Maryland U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio yesterday said the threat of terrorism should not overshadow law-enforcement efforts to keep residents safe from criminal threats.
“You don’t want to say, ’Well, we can make you safe from a terrorism threat, but please don’t go to the mall’ or ’Your children shouldn’t be left to wait for the school bus.’ You have to do both,” Mr. DiBiagio said during a meeting with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
Mr. DiBiagio, who was appointed by President Bush in 2001, said that despite criticism of his priorities and his leadership style, he has made significant progress during his three-year tenure in establishing independence and aggressiveness in an office where performance “needed to be elevated.”
His critics have said the federal prosecutor remained committed to his law-enforcement agenda even after the September 11 attacks, when federal law enforcement shifted its focus from prosecuting white-collar crimes and public-corruption cases to preventing terrorist attacks.
Mr. DiBiagio defended his priorities, saying his focus on law enforcement is consistent with the war on terrorism, adding that his office has aggressively investigated the “cash-rich” crimes that fund terrorists, such as identity theft, cigarette smuggling, insurance fraud and drug trafficking.
“Terrorists are criminals. Just like all criminals, they need money,” Mr. DiBiagio said. “That’s why I think it’s so important — and I think this administration has recognized — that you don’t let up on the criminal enforcement because that’s where you’re going to get some of the money-generating schemes.”
He also defended the Patriot Act, saying his office has made use of it once in seeking a court order for delayed notification to search a safe-deposit box. That case was unrelated to terrorism.
“It’s very helpful,” he said. “I have not seen anything that would indicate the Patriot Act is being abused or that it has much potential to be abused.”
Mr. DiBiagio, a Republican, dismissed a highly publicized flap between himself and his Justice Department superiors this summer as “overblown” and “misconstrued.”
In July, the Baltimore Sun published a memo in which Mr. DiBiagio urged his staff to produce three “front-page” public-corruption or white-collar fraud indictments by Nov. 6.
Mr. DiBiagio said the memo simply reflected the goal of producing cases that his prosecutors had been developing. But as a result of the memo, Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey directed Mr. DiBiagio to submit any proposed indictment in a public-corruption matter for his review in order to protect the “credibility” of the office.
Yesterday, Mr. DiBiagio said such reviews are standard procedure and Mr. Comey’s action was meant to “remind the public of the scrutiny that is in every public-corruption case.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office currently is investigating the Baltimore City Council on charges of corruption and nepotism.
Mr. DiBiagio touted the achievements of his three-year tenure, noting that his office has prosecuted 2,000 cases and obtained a 98 percent conviction rate, with an average prison sentence of 6 years, between September 2001 and June 2004.
Among some of his office’s most-notable cases are the successful prosecutions of former Maryland State Police Commission Edward T. Norris on charges of misspending public funds, former state-pension-fund manager Nathan Chapman on wire-fraud charges, former Allfirst Financial Inc. currency trader John Rusnak on bank-fraud charges and Darrell Brooks on charges of killing a family of seven in a Baltimore arson.
Mr. DiBiagio said he has no political ambitions and has not considered whether he would serve if he is reappointed to his current position.
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