The FBI is in the middle of a PR crisis after a very public embarrassment for one of its agents. According to the New York Times, a counterterrorism supervisor at the bureau had his gun, Rolex watch, and cash stolen from his room after a night of heavy drinking in a Westin hotel bar in North Carolina. As a result, he’s now under internal investigation.
According to a police report, Robert Manson, a unit chief in the F.B.I.’s international terrorism section assigned to the bureau’s D.C. headquarters and in charge of overseeing terrorism investigations in parts of the Midwest and the South, was robbed while in Charlotte, North Carolina for training exercises with other senior agents:
The agents later told the police that they had been drinking with women who said they were exotic dancers, according to a second person who was briefed on the investigation but, like the first, was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
“Investigators determined that the victim, Robert Manson, met a woman in the hotel bar the prior night and took her back to his hotel room,” Robert Tufano, a spokesman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, said in a statement.
Police were called to the hotel at 6:30am the next day, when Manson was still incapacitated because of alcohol, leading to another agent filing the police report. Manson’s gun, a Glock 27, $6,000 Rolex, and $60 in cash had been taken.
Under federal law, FBI agents are allowed to carry concealed weapons, but not while they are drunk. FBI rules also prohibit agents from leaving their guns unsecured (each room at the Westin in question has a safe). No arrests have been made and the gun has not been recovered.
(Via New York Times)