The October fires have kept the 10News I Team busy trying to figure out who is telling the truth and who is blowing smoke.
Critics of CalFire say they were slow to react and didn't do a good job of getting aircraft up and over the fires.
Where was the Navy?
Where were the Marines?
These are all valid questions after such a devastating fire that took precious lives and property.
CalFire tell us a different story about how the agency reacted. We talked to the people in the aircraft and those on the ground worrying about the people in the aircraft. They say at 0930 hours on the fateful Sunday they initially dispatched one air tactical plane (the quarterback of the effort) three air tankers and three Hueys. Within the next hour, the incident commander on the ground for CalFire ordered two more air tankers, two sky cranes and another Huey. Was it enough? Could more be done?
You can draw what conclusions you wish by looking at the documents the I-team acquired from CalFire. More will be coming. While they don't answer all questions, it gets us closer to finding the truth. There is another report in the works from the USDA-the federal prospective of the effort. I called their Joint Information Center to find out when this report is coming out but they hadn't gotten back to me by the time I posted this blog.


jwblog@10news.com

Watch our SPAWAR story. If you didn't know, this is the high tech R & D outfit that is part military, part civilian and full time top secret. We rarely get a peek inside the place and after our story, it probably will never happen.

It started with a anonymous e-mail. The sender was telling me to file an open records request (FOIA)to the Inspector General for the Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia. The sender was pretty specific about fraud going on inside SPAWAR. The e mail indicated certain case numbers would lead me to interesting information about the inner workings of SPAWAR. So I sent a series of FOIA requests, starting in late April of this year. I included the case numbers the tipster had given me. If you wish, you can see how the Inspector General's Office responded to my request. If you look at them you will see how specific my requests were. My mystery source had some very good information. But the requests got me nowhere. So I'm thinking either my guy is full of it or maybe the IG isn't likely to supply me information if there is an investigation in the works. I suspected the latter.

I exchanged more e-mails with the mystery man and eventually began to gain his trust. I say "his" because we eventually talked on the phone. After two months of this feeling out period, we finally met face to face for a soda at McDonalds. As he talked, I could tell this guy was a straight shooter. Painfully so. The kind of guy at work who isn't afraid to tell the boss he screwed up. As he layed it all out, I knew he was onto something. And we had a story.














His bosses and coworkers were moving money around to finance a project that would make them all rich. They were going to build a super phone on steroids. It could be used in any theatre of conflict--a phone encased in metal. The moneys would be used to develop the VPAC, as it was called. We eventually would find where they applied for a patent for the gadget. Mr.N (my tipster) says SPAWAR is a top secret place, there is little oversight, the bosses in each department are always covering for each other, in other words, they didn't think they would get busted. So they stole funds that were supposed to be used to upgrade some electronics for the Air Force that were aboard a US Navy ship. I'm still not sure why the Air Force had their electronics on a US Navy ship but I suspect it was for surveillance purposes.

I've also provided you with part of the work order for the Air Force job. Just click on it to see for yourself.


Sometime after we began doing our investigation, Reporter Steve Atkinson found out the Air Force had gotten wind about their funds being shuffled out of their account. They got their money back. But what happened to those insiders who tried to pull off the deal? Nothing really. Apparently their supervisors gave them a hand slapping. One quit, three stayed, one got a promotion. I had to agree with what Mr. N had told me, SPAWAR is a good old boys club. But since the I-Team had crashed the club, we were hoping to shake up a few folks. We found out the FBI and probably Navy Intelligence were going to continue to look into what we had stumbled across. They still are. I don’t know about you but I think these "insiders" deserve more than a hand slapping.

I can't say for sure but I think nothing would have happened if Mr.N hadn't written that e mail to the I Team last April. We in turn have since contacted the office of Congressman Brian Bilbray and that office in turn contacted the Office of the Inspector General to see that this theft is fully investigated. They did confirm the F.B.I. investigation.

I want to thank Mr. N for having the courage to come forward on this story.
No matter what, it’s the good citizens like Mr. N who make this job worth doing.

jwblog@10news.com

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JW


I appreciate the fact that you were able to expose the fraud at SPAWAR that you reported on recently. I agree that those who perpetrated this fraud should be punished more severely.

However, as with any organization there are those few who choose to commit acts which are unethical and destructive to an organization. Please consider the fact that there are more than 4,000 employees at SPAWAR, most of whom work extremely hard to be good stewards with taxpayer dollars, and do tremendous work for all of our military services, local, state, and federal emergency agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Concerned Citizen

Our investigation airing November 7th is a tough one. "Younger Sex Offenders" is the title. We spent two years getting this story on the air. Getting mothers of children who had been raped or molested to talk about the issue was a serious and difficult undertaking. After much effort, reporter Lauren Reynolds and producer Kristen Castillo were able to get the mothers to talk. And the story that resulted is very intriguing.

It involves a very controversial subject--sexual attacks
by teens on underage children. In one case, a four year old girl was raped by her 14 year old cousin. Years later, her mother is emotionally distraught over the rape and the little girl, has some serious mental health issues today related to this ugly crime. It would be six years after the rape, before the mother would find out about the rape. At that time the attacker was 20 years old. The young rapist did a short jail stint and was placed on probation. We can never know who he is, the court records are sealed. There will be no warnings on websites about him or his history.

In the second case, a camp counselor at a skate camp molested an 8 year old. Because the counselor was 18 at the time, his information is published on the internet.
The reason, he committed this crime at age 18. He had two other victims that the families swear happened when the counselor was under 18 years old but it was never proven in court.

We also found there was a 40 percent increase in sex cases involving juveniles over the past two decades. This is an incredible jump--we are not sure of the cause of the giant increase. You could argue many different reasons, from sexual content of the media and music to earlier puberty. The bigger questions are when is a child, a child anymore?

A psychologist who deals with these sorts of cases says young sexual criminals can be rehabilitated successfully. She says that the recidivism rate is far lower than adult pedophiles. They deserve a chance to get their lives back together, she argues.

The mother of the little girl who was raped thinks they should be treated as an adult--tried as an adult, and then have his information posted on websites so the community is aware of them.

Watch the story if you get an opportunity--it's riveting.

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