Federal documents detail racial remarks by expert in sniper case
Remarks did not affect work, report says
From Jim Spellman
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The defense for sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad rests its case after just three hours. CNN's Jeanne Meserve reports (November 12)
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A forensic chemist for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who testified for the prosecution in the trial of sniper suspect John Muhammad has a history of making racial remarks, according to a 1997 Department of Justice report.
The report, which followed a wide-ranging investigation by the Justice Department's Inspector General office of the FBI Laboratory, states that Edward C. Bender "inappropriately made racial comments while employed as a technician in the [FBI] Laboratory." Bender was employed by the FBI from 1979 to 1990, when he moved to the ATF.
The report goes on to say investigators did "not find evidence that his remarks or his racial views affected his work in particular cases," although it acknowledges investigators "did not generally evaluate the quality of Bender's work as a technician," or "evaluate any of Bender's forensic work after he left the FBI to work for the [ATF]."
Bender testified on November 5 in Muhammad's murder trial in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Muhammad is African-American.
The part of the Inspector General's investigation dealing with Bender followed up on a 1991-1992 FBI probe of Bender and his co-worker at the FBI lab, agent Terry Rudolph. Both investigations stemmed from allegations made by FBI agent Frederic Whitehurst, who succeeded Rudolph at the lab. Whitehurst accused Rudolph and Bender of being racists whose biases negatively affected their work product.
According to FBI documents obtained by CNN, Whitehurst told investigators in 1990 that "both Rudolph and Bender continually and loudly expressed strong racial prejudice using such words as 'jungle bunnies' and 'niggers' repeatedly" in his presence.
The FBI interviewed several of Rudolph's and Bender's colleagues, some of whom confirmed Bender made racial remarks. None of those interviewed, however, suggested Bender's remarks or alleged biases affected his work, and the FBI did not pursue the matter further.
The 1997 Justice Department report concluded the FBI should have continued investigating the allegations.
Justice Department and FBI officials contacted by CNN Thursday declined to comment. An ATF official said the bureau is looking into the matter.
Whitehurst, now a lawyer in private practice, spoke with CNN Thursday and recalled what he called Bender's frequent "racial harangues."
He also accused him of shoddy work, saying, "It surprises me that Edward Bender is still operating. Ed was a capable chemist but very sloppy. Potential contamination was everywhere."
Bender testified in the Muhammad trial that traces of nitroglycerin turned up in the trunk of Muhammad's car, indicating that a weapon had been fired from the vehicle.
Nitroglycerine is an ingredient of the smokeless powder used in ammunition.
Bender's testimony supported prosecutors' contention that Muhammad and alleged accomplice Lee Malvo carried out the killings by firing from a platform in the trunk of Muhammad's Chevrolet Caprice.
"If a firearm was fired in a vehicle, I would expect to find nitroglycerin present," Bender testified.
The chemical turned up in samples vacuumed from the trunk of Muhammad's car, he said.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Peter Greenspun, Bender said he could not say how long the nitroglycerine had been present in the car.
According to a report from The Associated Press, the Virginia prosecutor handling the trial of sniper defendant John Muhammad said Thursday he wasn't told by the government of the information before he put Bender on the witness stand last week. "And I'm not aware of it today," Paul Ebert said.
Muhammad's attorneys, who made their closing arguments Thursday, declined comment in the AP report. Lawyers and prosecutors in the case of the other sniper defendant, Lee Boyd Malvo, said they, too, weren't told about Bender's situation, the AP reported.
The government is required under two Supreme Court rulings, Brady v. Maryland and Giglio v. United States, to provide defendants with all relevant information affecting their case, including derogatory information that could be used to challenge prosecution witnesses.
CNN Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena and Justice Department producers Kevin Bohn and Terry Frieden contributed to this report.
Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
