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FBI Agent shoved pistol in Woman's Mouth (10/16/2001)
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Agent shoved pistol in woman's mouthWas trying to prove insurance fraudBilly Gunn / Staff ReporterPosted on October 15, 2001A month after filing a law-suit for an insurance claim for an electrical shock, Sonya Williamson found herself with a pistol shoved in her mouth by an FBI agent.The FBI apparently sought to scare her into moving, to try to prove that her claims of paralysis were false. While she was scared, she didn't move. And the FBI started to realize that her injury, which officials sus-pected might be fraudulent, could be real.It was March of 1990 when Glenmora native Sonya Wil-liamson filed her lawsuit against Haynes Best Western of Alexandria in New Orleans civil district court. The law-suit was in connection with an electrical shock she suf-fered in July 1989 in Room 170 at the Best Western.Within a month after fil-ing her lawsuit, Sonya's hus-band, Robert Williamson, was indicted on 12 federal counts of insurance fraud related to a 1987 workman's compensation claim by an employee of Williamson.Robert Williamson had to surrender to authorities.Williamson's attorney in the case, Mike Small of Alex-andria, said recently that he can't remember specifically telling Robert to surrender voluntarily to federal offi-cials, "but that's something any defense lawyer would do."Robert Williamson said that through Small, he did volunteer to surrender, but the FBI's Don Dixon refused that route.What happened in the dead of night in April 1990 in Lafayette is detailed in a 1992 deposition by Ellis Pisciotta, a Maryland Casualty claims representative who inspected Room 170.FBI agents "were going to make a lot of noise and basi-cally scare anybody who was in the house," according to the deposition by Pisciotta, who was in regular contact with Dixon."I did talk to (Dixon) after that, and he said she (Sonya) didn't get up and run and that the lady looks in bad shape."If Sonya had moved while being threatened, her injury claim would be proved bogus.Dixie Williamson, Sonya's daughter who is now 21 and a student at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, said she remembers the early-morning incident in 1990 well.She and her brother Abner were sleeping on the couch in the living room. "I hear a bam, bam and screaming, and (FBI agents were) hollering, 'If you don't open the door, we're going to bust it down,'" she said.About a half dozen FBI agents with handguns locked and loaded "had on these trenchcoats. They held a freaking gun to my head. I'm like screaming and crying."Dixon walked into Sonya's room and "kicked her bed."He actually drove a gun in my mother's mouth," to try to get her to move, Dixie said. "They can do this and get away with it?"Justice will come."Arlone Belaire, Robert's mother, was sleeping in her son's home that night."They threw my boy on the floor. They had a gun in my face," she said. "I could see that barrel. I can still see that barrel."Part of the federal crimi-nal case was built on whether the Williamsons' former em-ployee, Erby Thompson, had been hurt on the job.Part of the case was built on Thompson's testimony, which he gave after he and Crockett Johnson (no rela-tion to Sonya's family) of Pit-kin got into trouble in a cat-tle-stealing operation in late 1987.Thompson later recanted that testimony."I was forced, over my ob-jection, to testify against Robert Williamson in federal court about the alleged com-pensation insurance fraud, and the FBI and the U.S. (as-sistant) attorney told me ex-actly what to say," Thompson later said in a sworn state-ment dated July 2, 1993.Robert was found not guilty on all 12 fraud-related counts. But the trial and the investigation leading to it started a pattern of legal at-tacks that haunted the Wil-liamsons for years."The belief was that if they turned the spotlight on me, Sonya's case would disap-pear," Robert Williamson said."Those prosecutors and agents were hell-bent on get-ting him at any cost," Small said.Billing records of the in-surance lawyers in the sum-mer of 1993 show that on a regular basis they discussed a then-current federal investi-gation of Robert Williamson, this time for prescribed medicine fraud.They had telephone and face-to-face meetings with Larry Regan of the U.S. At-torney's Office in Lake Char-les and with Dixon, records show.The billing records sug-gest insurance lawyers even were privy to grand jury tes-timony, which as a rule is kept secret.U.S. Attorney William Flanagan of the Western Dis-trict, who was not in that po-sition in the early 1990s, said Sept. 25 that the issue of shared information came up in 1993 when Mike Skinner was U.S. Attorney.Skinner, Flanagan said, sent the matter to the Office of Professional Responsibili-ties in Washington, D.C., which ruled that no viola-tions occurred.Assistant U.S. Attorney Regan said recently that the O.P.R. investigation was no white wash, that officials have lost their jobs over the oversight office's findings. But the billing records even show travel to Lake Charles for an FBI conference with Dixon, and other travel to discuss "various elements of the case" with Assistant U.S. Attorney Regan.Other parts of the billing records suggest New Orleans attorney Berit Reiss talking to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Regan and Luke Walker about grand jury testimony by Robert's mother.The result of the grand jury investigation was a sec-ond indictment of Robert Wil-liamson, this time charging him with fraudulent insur-ance claims for medicine pre-scribed for his mother.Skinner, according to press files, dropped the case before it went to trial after "new evidence" was brought to Skinner's attention.The Town Talk has learned that Skinner dropped the case after he was enlight-ened about the connections among the FBI, federal prose-cutors and New Orleans in-surance defense lawyers in Sonya's civil suit and the re-curring grand jury investiga-tions.Ransdell Keene, attorney for the Williamson children and a former U.S. attorney, said private-sector lawyers bringing evidence of fraud to the attention of U.S. prosecu-tors and the FBI is not un-usual."I do not impute any evil motives (on behalf of federal agents) at all," he said."I believe the insurance lawyers gave the government a hard sell," Keene said. "They pushed the govern-ment hard."Dixon putting a gun in Sonya's mouth shows how powerfully he thought her lawsuit against Best Western was fraudulent, Keene said."FBI agents are people like you and me. They can be conned," he said.The billing records also show that Tommie Johnson, Sonya's mother, was kept abreast of the federal investi-gations by the insurance at-torneys.Numerous calls were made to her from Reiss, one of the New Orleans attorneys, concerning grand jury testi-mony about Robert, her son in law, billing records show.The Johnson family, through Sonya's brother Marlin, said recently the fam-ily didn't want to be inter-viewed about Sonya."There's no doubt that (Sonya) is sick," Johnson said recently. "I would encourage you to investigate."I don't want to do any-thing to aggravate the situa-tion," he said. "It's been a very trying situation."The whole thing has de-stroyed our family," Johnson said.Billy Gunn: 487-6340; bgunn@thetowntalk.com> http://www.thetowntalk.com/html/7029DC7E-16A0-4541-A51E-59B962506743.shtml
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