Frederic "Fred" Whitehurst is an American chemist and attorney who served as a
Supervisory Special Agent in the
Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory from 1986 to 1998. Concerned about problems he saw among agents, he went public as a
whistleblower
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...
to bring attention to procedural errors and misconduct by agents. After the FBI retaliated against his claims, he began to attend law school at night and used his
Juris Doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice l ...
degree to continue his fight. After ten years of refusal, the FBI investigated his claims and agreed to 40 reforms to improve the forensic reliability of its testing.
Biography
Info
Frederic W. Whitehurst was born Nov, 1947 in Newport, Rhode Island. He currently lives in Bethel, North Carolina with his wife Cheryl.
Vietnam
Whitehurst served as an intelligence specialist at the
Americal base in
Đức Phổ
Đức Phổ () is a district-level town (''thị xã'') of Quảng Ngãi province in the South Central Coast
South Central Coast ( vi, Duyên hải Nam Trung Bộ, links=no) or (South Central Region) is one of the regions of Vietnam. It c ...
,
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
during the early 1970s. He was tasked with reviewing seized documents and destroying any that had no military value. Working with translator Sergeant Nguyen Trung Hieu and following his advice, he saved two diaries written by Dr.
Đặng Thùy Trâm, a civilian woman doctor working for North Vietnam. He kept them for 35 years, with the intention of eventually returning them to Trâm's family, if possible.
FBI career
Dr. Whitehurst received a Ph.D. in chemistry from
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...
, and a J.D. from
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...
. He joined the
FBI in 1982 and served as a Supervisory Special Agent in the FBI crime lab from 1986 to 1998.
While he was employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory, the FBI officially rated Dr. Whitehurst as the leading national and international expert in the science of explosives and explosives residue. Concerned about a number of issues that he observed with old equipment, rusty gear, improper protocol, and by the behavior of agents in the laboratory, he began to investigate their procedures. He eventually uncovered and reported what he thought were cases of scientific misconduct, alleging that the agents were biased toward the prosecution.
In 1989, Whitehurst was brought in on an international trial in San Francisco, CA and noticed that one of his colleagues had testified untruthfully. After notifying the court officials, the FBI's response was to reprimand him and give him time off.
After speaking to managers and even going so far as to call FBI Director
William S. Sessions
William Steele Sessions (May 27, 1930June 12, 2020) was an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and Director of the Federal Bureau of Inve ...
and spend an hour expressing his concerns, the allegations were ignored and nothing was done.
Whitehurst began to attend law school at
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...
by taking his classes at night, earning his J.D. in 1996. During this period, to protect himself in administrative proceedings, Whitehurst hired
Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in defending
whistleblowers. The Attorney General attempted to stop Whitehurst from talking to counsel and threatened to prosecute him if he revealed anything outside of the FBI or DOJ.
When the FBI investigated his claims the Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) report of Whitehurst's allegations, it was concluded that,"most of Whitehurst allegations were not substantiated," and that Dr. Whitehurst had, "common sense and judgement to serve as forensics examiner." The FBI crime lab finally agreed to forty major reforms, including undergoing an accreditation process.
Post-FBI years
Dr. Whitehurst currently serves as the Executive Director of th
''Forensic Justice Project''(FJP). The FJP was formed in 1998 as a project of the
National Whistleblower Center The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax exempt, educational and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1988 by the lawyers Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP. As of March 2019, John Kostyack is ...
, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. The goal of the FJP is to lead a national effort to accomplish the following:
* Review cases to make sure that innocent people have not been wrongfully convicted through the misuse of forensic science;
* Provide expert testimony in cases in order to assure that forensic science is not misused in civil and criminal prosecutions impacting on the public interest or the rights of individuals;
* Offer objective scientific evaluations of forensic evidence;
* Publish and distribute information necessary for an objective analysis of the quality and objectivity of forensic science and crime laboratories nationwide.
Dr. Whitehurst practices criminal law in
Bethel, North Carolina
Bethel is a town in Pitt County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,577 at the 2010 Census. The town is a part of the Greenville Metropolitan Area located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region. Confusingly, there are three o ...
. He was elected to the commission of the town of Bethel.
The Diaries
In March 2005, he and his brother Robert (also a Vietnam War veteran) brought the Đặng Thùy Trâm diaries to a conference on the Vietnam War at
Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sy ...
. There, they met photographer Ted Engelmann (also a Vietnam veteran), who offered to look for the family during his trip to Vietnam the next month. With the assistance of Đỗ Xuân Anh, a staff member in the Hanoi
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
office, Engelmann was able to locate Trâm's mother, Doãn Ngọc Trâm. He obtained connections to the rest of her famil
In July 2005, Trâm's diaries were published in Vietnamese under the title ''Nhật ký Đặng Thùy Trâm'' (''Đặng Thùy Trâm's Diary''), which quickly became a bestseller. In less than a year, the volume sold more than 300,000 copies, and comparisons were drawn between Trâm's writings and that of
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...
.
In August 2005, Fred and Robert Whitehurst traveled to
Hanoi
Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi i ...
, Vietnam, to meet Trâm's family. In October of the same year, the Vietnamese family came to
Lubbock,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
, to view the diaries, which are archived at Texas Tech University'
Vietnam Archive They also visited Fred Whitehurst and his family in his home state of
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
.
The diaries have bee
translated into Englishand were published in September 2007. The book includes photographs of Đặng during high school and with her family. Additional translations have been made and the book has been published in at least sixteen different languages.
In 2009 a film about Đặng Thùy Trâm by Vietnamese director
Đặng Nhật Minh
Đặng Nhật Minh (b. Huế, Vietnam, 1938) is one of Vietnam's foremost film directors. He began making documentary films around 1965 and is the first Vietnamese person to be awarded the Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture, in 1999. His films have w ...
, entitled ''Đừng Đốt'' (''Do Not Burn It''), was released.
Legacy
During his military service in Vietnam, Whitehurst saved
Dr. Đặng Thùy Trâm's diaries, which were first published in 2005 and are the basis for the 2009 film ''Đừng Đốt'' (Do Not Burn It). In addition, as noted above, he investigated, uncovered and reported scientific misconduct which forced the FBI crime lab to agree to forty major reforms, including undergoing an accreditation process.
The following is a list of investigations that Whitehurst was personally involved in:
*
1993 World Trade Center Bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S., carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the complex. The urea nitrate–hydrogen gas en ...
*
Oklahoma City Bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-government extremists, Timothy McVeigh and T ...
*
O.J. Simpson
Orenthal James Simpson (born July 9, 1947), nicknamed "Juice", is an American former football running back, actor, and broadcaster who played for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League. Once a popular fi ...
*
Pan Am 103
*The Y2K Bomber
*Assassination attempt against
George Bush
*
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was ...
*
Shoe Bomber
*Investigation of the FBI crime laboratory
References
Further reading
*''Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab'', by John F. Kelly and Phillip K. Wearne
*''Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab'
''Prologue'', New York Times Web
External links
''National Whistleblower Center''''Forensic Justice Project''Whitehurst' testimony at the World Trade Center Bombing Trial by David Johnston,
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
review of ''Tainting Evidence'' (September 27, 1998)
"Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab, by John F. Kelly and Phillip K. Wearne", ''Crime Magazine'' reviewby National Whistleblower Center Chairman
Stephen M. Kohn, Esq. before the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, May 13, 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehurst, Frederic
Living people
Georgetown University Law Center alumni
Duke University alumni
North Carolina lawyers
American whistleblowers
Year of birth missing (living people)