The head of the FBI's counterterrorism division in New York is under investigation for leaving his briefcase filled with classified information that was later stolen and found in another hotel, FBI sources said yesterday.
John P. O'Neill, a 31-year veteran of the agency with a reputation as a top-notch investigator, was attending an FBI conference last year in Tampa when he was paged. Surrounded by FBI employees, O'Neill left the soft-covered case near his chair and went to return the page, sources said. When he returned, the group had broken for lunch and the briefcase was gone.
"He didn't say to any employee, 'Keep an eye on this until I come back,' " an FBI source said.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft declined to comment on the matter yesterday.
O'Neill, the special agent in charge of national security for the FBI's New York field office, immediately reported the briefcase missing, sources said. The incident was first reported by the New York Times, which said the documents included a report on national security operations in New York.
The stolen briefcase, which was quickly recovered, is one of a string of recent embarrassments for the FBI, including a failure to turn over several thousand pages of material in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing case; missing FBI weapons; and the controversial investigation of Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee.
The thief, who has never been caught, took the briefcase to another hotel, left it and stole another case, sources said. When the owner of the second briefcase returned, he opened it and found documents he didn't recognize and called hotel security. Hotel security then reviewed the contents and realized the information was confidential and notified the local FBI.
"It probably looked to someone like a laptop," an FBI source said.
O'Neill's case was returned to him within 90 minutes after it was taken, sources said. "Nothing was tampered with," an FBI source familiar with the matter said. "I'm fairly confident the thing was retrieved intact."
The FBI does not allow documents to be removed from the office without authorization, according to Joe Valiquette, a spokesman in the FBI's New York office. He declined to say whether O'Neill had authorization. O'Neill has not been disciplined, Valiquette said.
O'Neill did not return a telephone call to his New York office yesterday. O'Neill, 49, began at the FBI as a civilian and became an agent in 1976, an official said. He announced last week that he was retiring at the end of this week, officials said.
O'Neill investigated the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last year and the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, in 1998. He also investigated Osama bin Laden, who allegedly operates terrorist camps in Afghanistan.
