FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT SENTENCED FOR MAKING FALSE STATEMENT TO FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Acting Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray of the Criminal Division and Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine announced today that Tonie D. Jones, 34, a former special agent with the San Antonio Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was sentenced yesterday before the Honorable Edward C. Prado of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, for making a false statement to federal investigators during the course of an internal investigation, a felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001.

Judge Prado, who was a federal district judge when Jones pleaded guilty on April 9, 2003, sentenced Jones to one year probation and a $1,000 fine.

Jones was a Special Agent with the FBI’s San Antonio, Texas, office from January 1996 through May 2002. In 2001, federal investigators from the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility, and, subsequently, the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, were investigating allegations that certain FBI special agents had surreptitiously audiotaped FBI management, in violation of agency protocols. In pleading guilty, Jones admitted that on three separate occasions between April 2001 and August 2001, he lied to FBI-OPR and DOJ-OIG investigators about his role in the audiotaping. Specifically, Jones categorically denied participating in the audiotaping twice to FBI-OPR and a third time to DOJ-OIG, when he was in fact aware that he and another special agent had surreptitiously recorded a conversation with FBI management.

Jones also admitted that, when he interviewed for a position at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations in January 2002, he falsely stated that he had never been the subject of an internal investigation, when, in fact, Jones knew at the time that he had been the subject of an internal investigation by federal investigators.

The case was prosecuted by trial attorneys Rita Glavin and Matthew Solomon of the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, headed by Section Chief Noel L. Hillman, and investigated by the Office of Inspector General, Department of Justice, El Paso, Texas Field Office.

###

03-447