PROSECUTORS: FBI AGENT, DRUG DEALER LINKED

Men Had Financial Ties Through Construction Businesses, Papers Say

Charlotte FBI agent Erik Blowers had extensive financial dealings with a
convicted drug trafficker he had helped prosecute, court papers say.

U.S. Justice Department prosecutors allege in the documents that Blowers
tried to hide his involvement in a construction business that did work with
convicted drug dealer Terry Duncan.

Blowers, 39, was indicted in April. He is accused of failing to disclose
gifts and travel reimbursements from two trips to Las Vegas in 2000 with
homebuilder David Simonini, a former informant who was under FBI investigation.

Blowers claims he was charged in retaliation for a whistleblower complaint
he filed against U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert and another prosecutor in
July 2003, accusing them of abusing their powers.

But the newly filed court documents contend that the investigation of
Blowers' conduct with Duncan began before the whistleblower complaint was
lodged.

In June 2003, the court papers say, Duncan was arrested for violating
conditions of his supervised release from prison on the drug conviction.

"When Duncan was arrested, he told one of the deputy marshals that Blowers
would get him out of it," the prosecutors wrote in the court documents.

Duncan had been an FBI cooperating witness handled by Blowers, according to
court papers.

Duncan told a Justice Department agent that Blowers had lent him $6,000 and
had purchased real estate from him, according to an affidavit by the agent,
Eric Johnson.

Duncan started a construction company in 1999, and Blowers and a partner
began a construction business three years later, according to the affidavit.

In 2002 and 2003, the affidavit alleges, Blowers bought supplies, labor,
land and materials through Duncan for the FBI agent's construction business.

"Blowers also loaned Duncan thousands of dollars," Johnson wrote. "During
this period, Blowers had almost daily telephone contacts with his business
partner, with Duncan, or both."

Johnson alleges that Blowers knew his financial activities with the
construction business and Duncan were prohibited and falsely stated on
financial disclosure reports in 2002 and 2003 that he did not hold any
"outside position."

Johnson also claims that authorities have seized photographs of Blowers in
the company of "members of the criminal element" in social settings.

Blowers' lawyers, in court documents filed in August, claim Blowers filed
the whistleblower complaint after Shappert learned that the FBI's Office of
Professional Responsibility in Washington was closing its investigation
into Blowers' relationship with Simonini. Shappert "began her own
investigation," the defense lawyers allege, and tried to dig up
"derogatory" information.

Blowers' attorneys also suggested that Shappert and at least one other
prosecutor believed their boss, then-U.S. Attorney Bob Conrad, protected
Blowers by not investigating him.

They say prosecutors may have tried to derail Conrad's appointment to a
federal judgeship. Conrad was sworn in three months ago after his
nomination had been blocked for two years.

But federal prosecutors say the decision to investigate Blowers' conduct
had nothing to do with Conrad's nomination and confirmation. And they say
the U.S. Attorney's Office in Charlotte played no role in the decision to
indict the FBI agent.

"The theory of vindictiveness running through all of Bowers' pleadings is
preposterous," the prosecutors wrote. "His claim of retaliation requires
the participation of investigators and prosecutors at all levels of the
Department of Justice and in the Western District of North Carolina.

"Blowers does not offer a shred of evidence to support his assertion that
he is a victim of a selective or vindictive prosecution. His ominous claims
are supported only by inflammatory rumor and speculation."