No Charge Filed in FBI Probe of Agent Racism

An investigation of allegations that white FBI agents in Chicago racially harassed a black colleague was concluded without any criminal charges, the Justice Department said Friday.

The department said it was unable to determine who wrote and sent two “vicious hate letters” to special agent Donald Rochon in 1985 while he was assigned to the FBI’s Chicago field office.

“Evidence of other activities did not establish prosecutable federal criminal violations,” the department said.

The finding came nearly two years after the Justice Department found that Rochon, who is suing nine FBI agents, was the victim of “blatant racial harassment” while assigned to the bureau’s Omaha field office.

Harassment Campaign

Rochon, who was subsequently assigned to the Chicago field office from 1984 to 1986, claims in the suit that he was the victim of a campaign of racial harassment by white FBI agents.

David Kairys, a Philadelphia attorney who represents Rochon, criticized the Justice Department’s decision not to bring charges, saying the evidence he had gathered since filing the lawsuit in 1987 was “sufficient for an indictment” of racial harassment.

Rochon, now assigned to the FBI office in Philadelphia, claims his family’s safety was threatened with anonymous telephone calls to his unlisted number and that he was threatened with dismissal if he pressed harassment claims to state authorities.