Factual Errors in Last Seen Podcast Episode 6
1.
HORAN: “About six months into Operation Masterpiece, something else happened
that would mark a low point in Bob Wittman’s FBI career. It’s something he and
his colleagues are still reluctant to talk about. It’s almost mundane, except
that it’s the office equivalent of a back stab. The knife in Wittman’s back was
a memo. It was written by the Boston supervisor and sent to FBI headquarters in
Washington, D.C. It also went to Wittman’s old boss, Eric Ives."
RODOLICO:
“So you're saying that the Boston office claimed to the D.C. office that you,
Bob Wittman, were trying to get $5 million — the $5 million from the Gardner
Museum. What did you think?"
WITTMAN:
“It was disgusting and frustrating."
Wittman's response does not exactly answer the question. Was that, or was that not what he was saying? It does not square with what he wrote in his book, Priceless: “How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures:
“About a week after our heated call,
Fred [pseudonym of the Boston supervisor] penned an outrageously slanted EC,
one that not only presented a lopsided version of the way Operation Masterpiece
had unfolded but raised questions about my integrity. The most damning section
included a claim by a French participant that I planned to delay the Gardner
sting until after my retirement in 2008, so that I could claim the $5 million
museum reward for myself. It was a preposterous allegation. FBI agents aren’t
eligible for rewards for cases they’ve worked, even after they retire. Everyone
knows that.” [Page 290].
So it was not the FBI supervisor in
Boston, who didn’t “know that,” and who accused Wittman of wanting the $5
million reward. it was a French participant, who accused Wittman of trying to
delay the return until after he retired so he could collect the ward.
2. HORAN: “After 16 years, there was at last a plan in place to recover the stolen Gardner art. At least some of it. But then, Wittman says, the Boston supervisor canceled it, citing vague security reasons.”
In Wittman’s book it was specific
security reasons:
We’re hearing that Sunny [one of the
targets of the FBI sting] thinks you’re a cop. So this changes everything,
Wittman. We’re gonna have to ease you out of this—insert one of my guys or the
French UC.” —“Priceless” page 287 The “vague security reasons” were that his
cover was blown.
3.
HORAN: “He’s essentially accusing the Boston FBI of misconduct.”
Wittman’s book makes it quite clear that the problem was not only the Boston office, or the supervisor from that office. Authorities in France, both French and American where the actual set up to recover the art was to take place, also were opposed to continuing Wittman's involvement undercover.
In his book Wittman wrote:
“When I
mentioned that it would be delayed for three weeks because Laurenz was going on
vacation in Hawaii, Pierre [Tabel, chief of the national art crime squad.]
burst out laughing.
“What’s so damn funny?” I asked.
“My guys in Paris, your guys in Paris, Fred in Boston, Laurenz off
sunning himself at the beach when you want to do a deal, losing your friend
Eric [Ives transferred to Hawaii (page 293)] from Washington,” he said.
“Everyone is giving you the banana to slip on.”
So not only the Boston office but
“everyone,” according to the Chief of the National Crime Squad in France,
according to Wittman’s own book on page 294.
Last Seen gives the story the Hollywood treatment, of the action adventure
hero, stymied by a jealous supervisor but not in Wittman’s words either in the podcast,
nor from his book.
