FORMER FBI EMPLOYEE SENTENCED IN ONGOING CHICAGO GENERAL
SERVICES ADMINISTRATION CORRUPTION PROBE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray of the Criminal Division, Thomas Kneir, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office of the FBI, and Harvey G. Florian, General Services Administration Regional Inspector General, announced today that former FBI typist Theresa Pitt has been sentenced on charges of disclosing oral and wire communications.

Pitt was sentenced at U.S. District Court in Chicago this morning by the Honorable Charles R. Norgle, Sr., to three years probation, four months of home confinement, and a $5,000 fine.

Pitt had previously pleaded guilty to the charges. In her plea, defendant Pitt, who had been employed as a typist by the FBI since 1990, admitted that she had been assigned to transcribe taped conversations made between the targets of this investigation and the government’s cooperating witnesses. In transcribing these conversations, Pitt recognized that the targets were friends of hers, and she undertook to warn them of the ongoing investigation. Her conduct compromised, but did not entirely derail, the investigation.

The GSA contracts case resulted from a five-year undercover investigation in which numerous consensual recordings were made of GSA officials and contractors by cooperating GSA employees. The investigation is continuing.

Sixteen defendants have been charged and pleaded guilty to date in the investigation, and Pitt is the eighth to be sentenced. The others to plead guilty include:

- Charles Funke, a GSA contractor;
- Jerry Taylor, a former GSA supervisor;
- Carolyn Pease, a GSA contractor;
- Scott Bravos, a GSA contractor;
- John Gibson, a GSA contractor;
- Gerasimos Valsamis, a GSA contractor;
- Glenn Hardy, a GSA supervisor; and
- Raletta Ingram, a GSA supervisor.

The seven defendants previously sentenced are:

- Arthur Orr, a former GSA pipefitter;
- James Kramer, a former GSA supervisor;
- Barry Lewinson, a GSA contractor;
- Terrence Kulick, a GSA contractor;
- Merritt Pulkrabek, a Court Security Officer;
- Scott Arias, a GSA contractor; and
- James Barratt, a GSA contractor.

The prosecution is being handled by Trial Attorneys Alison Van Horn and Peter Zeidenberg of the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., headed by Noel L. Hillman, Chief, with the assistance of Assistant United States Attorney Dean Polales of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois; the remainder of the United States Attorney’s Office is recused from this investigation. The investigation is being conducted jointly by the Chicago Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Chicago Zone Investigations Office of the General Services Administration Office of Inspector General. U.S. Marshal Kim R. Widup and the Marshals Service in Chicago also cooperated in the investigation.

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