Report faults handling of sex offenders in witness program

WASHINGTON — A watchdog report faulted the Justice Department on Wednesday for its handling of sex offenders enrolled in the national witness protection program, saying there were insufficient safeguards to protect the public.

The department’s inspector general identified 10 participants who had been convicted of a sex crime, such as rape or a sexual assault, before being admitted into the program. Of those, four were granted waivers to registration requirements ordinarily in place for sex offenders.

“We believe that a waiver of the registration requirement with no alternative procedures in place to monitor these individuals does not strike a balance between the safety of witness and the risk to the public, but instead elevates the security of the witness over the risk to the public,” the report states.

The Justice Department said the 10 previously convicted sex offenders are no longer with the program and that no one who was granted a registration waiver was convicted of a new sex crime while with the program. It said four of the 10 were convicted before there was any legal requirement to register and before a federal law was passed that granted the attorney general the authority to waive registration.

The program was created in the 1970s, primarily to offer protection, relocation and often new identities for witnesses in organized-crime cases.

The Justice Department said it has worked to implement the inspector general’s recommendations for better protections. It says that in the history of the program, “only an extremely small number” of people have been admitted into the witness protection program after having been convicted of a sex offense.

“Admitting and relocating witnesses or their family members who were previously convicted of sex offenses mandates an extraordinarily high level of scrutiny,” the department said in a statement, “and it is department policy that sex offenders are presumed ineligible for relocation services. Overcoming that presumption is extremely rare.”