Smithsonian IG Found Personal Use Of Resources

Robert Johnson, a former criminal investigator for the inspector general's office, testified last year that there were so many violations that he left some out after finding "enough to support some action by management."

Reached at his home near Branson, Mo., Johnson said that after he had verbally referred the case to the U.S. attorney's office, prosecutors "declined the case in exchange for the institution taking some sort of administrative action -- with that understanding."

Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said there was no record of the referral, but conceded it might have occurred.

Johnson, who retired two weeks after he wrote the memo, said he stepped down after 16 years because the inspector general's office had become "politicized."

"The top people at the Smithsonian didn't want the office of inspector general looking into what they considered their affairs, period," he said.

The inspector general's investigation concluded just nine months before the opening of the first phase of the $314 million Udvar-Hazy annex at Dulles Airport in April 2003. The Smithsonian is currently facing scrutiny over its management and financial practices. Small resigned on March 26 after The Post reported that the institution had paid him $2 million for living and office expenses since 2000. Burke, a former longtime aide to former senator Bob Dole (R-Kan.), is a candidate to replace Small.

The Air and Space Museum is one of the world's most popular, with three-story galleries in its main building on the Mall and a nearly 350,000-square-foot annex near Dulles International Airport. It includes treasured holdings such as the Apollo 11 command module.

The Garber facility, located on 21 acres in Prince George's County, is considered one of the world's foremost shops for restoring historic aircraft. It includes 32 buildings that store artifacts for Air and Space and other museums.

One of those buildings at Garber, No. 10, housed a restoration shop that employed the whistle-blower whose merit board case brought the allegations into the public record. Michael Cross, a 56-year-old Marine veteran who won a Purple Heart in Vietnam, was a museum specialist, working on exhibits such as the Spirit of St. Louis and the 1903 Wright Flyer.

Cross began work in April 2001 after volunteering for a year at Garber. He received outstanding reviews in September 2001 and January 2002, during his one-year probationary period. In February 2002, Cross joined about a dozen other employees who were complaining to the Smithsonian ombudsman about alleged illegal drug use, the presence of unauthorized guns, sexual harassment and outside work.

Cross told The Post he was concerned about the drug use and guns because of his own checkered past. Twenty-three years earlier, he was convicted of possession of four grams of heroin. He later escaped from prison, lived under an alias and was rearrested.

In addition to contacting the ombudsman, Cross also forwarded a copy of one of his complaints to Small.