Trust no one. I don’t encourage you to live life this way. It’s haunting, daunting, and draining. But this is where I found myself on February 17th when I picked up the phone and called the FBI agent who I had spoken to a couple days before outside my home. Even though, in doing so, I knew I was breaking Travis’s trust.
I found myself in a space of self-preservation. The past year had brought much uncertainty to my job due to vaccine mandates and furlough threats. It seemed as though I was living on the brink of having the career I had poured my heart and soul into for years taken from me. And this investigation was the final straw in job security. I needed to know what the procedures were for investigating my significant other and if it would affect my security clearance. Would this be reported to the agency who authorizes my background clearance? Would I be investigated by a different agency, would this affect my business, would it affect my tax filing? Would they return to our home to collect more evidence? What was the process with their investigation from here? When I had reported it to the agency where I worked I was not able to obtain answers to these questions.
Years ago I had served a no-knock search warrant with ATF and the Omaha police including their gang unit. It was a tactical team assignment, and I was no stranger to tactical team operations as I had served as the first female assistant team lead on the emergency response team when I worked for the prison. But serving this search warrant left a permanent mark. You will hear me talk a lot about the trauma that our criminal justice system causes because it is very real. When serving this warrant, we literally beat down the doors of a home with battering rams on a very cold evening, where the probation client was living in his grandparents’ basement.
Flash bang grenades were thrown in the home for distraction and security. Flash bangs quite literally flash and bang and then smoke so it gives law enforcement officers a level of protection as those in the home are distracted by the grenade and cannot easily see through the smoke screen. Grandma and Grandpa sat huddled together on the couch watching Wheel of Future physically shaking, their lives and the security in their home likely forever changed. Their home was ransacked, drawers dumped, possessions strewn about, and their home swarmed by law enforcement: gang unit, ATF, and probation all at once.
This was a radically different search than what we practiced in probation where we have to maintain rapport and return to their home safely in the future. The search warrant had been signed based upon the evidence of the probationer’s photos posted to Facebook where the probationer was holding firearms–felons in possession of firearms is a no go. The search turned up zero firearms. While this had been my probation partner’s case and I was asked to work it with them because we knew the floor plan of the home from previous home visits, this had been the biggest regret of my career. And it created an extreme fear for our current situation.
Living in fear of having my job interrupted and my home demolished in a search was too much during such a stressful time. So I called the agent and left a message (they screen all of your calls), “Hi, this is Janessa Finley. I spoke with you a couple days ago about property you and your significant other were looking to purchase in Lincoln, NE. I have some questions regarding your case and how it may affect me. You can reach me at…”
I received a text message a few minutes later asking if this agent could call in about an hour. When we got on the phone together I asked for honesty and transparency. No more lies. I knew there were things they couldn’t tell me, details I wouldn’t be privileged to, and I respected that. However, being told I don’t know is different than I can’t tell you. Of course I wouldn’t have chosen to be in this position ever if there had been an option to choose, but since I was in the thick of it I was going to continue to protect my community and safeguard my country as I had always done. Regardless if that involved a family member. I thought we had established boundaries around our conversation which would be trusted and respected. I was wrong. Trust no one.
The phone connection was not very clear and was cutting out frequently. When I asked the agent to repeat what they had said and explained the connection was poor, they said “Oh, we can move to a different place in the building.”
Who is we? Why hadn’t multiple agents been disclosed at the beginning of the call when I asked for honesty and transparency? Were they recording the interview? What else hadn’t they disclosed or advisements had they not offered? Could I even believe them when they said they had no reason to believe I was involved in the offense?
If there had ever been any rapport between this agent and myself it was for sure entirely ruined at this point. The other agent on the call introduced themselves, and the agents began asking me questions. But I wasn’t done with my questions yet, and I had asserted since I contacted them my questions would be answered first. They certainly were not used to working with someone who imposed and held boundaries.
When asked, they indicated the interview was not recorded, that’s why there are two agents on the call. This was noteworthy and concerning. Travis had indicated his interview was not recorded either. The FBI agent asked him questions, and the Secret Service agent took notes. So these agents draft their reports from their notes and memory, just as I had done as a probation officer. If they so choose, they can alter what was discussed or said at any time and allow their reports to reflect whatever they desire. Additionally, communication in general has many misunderstandings. Whatever they interpret they are hearing is what is going to be reflected in their reports. The validity of testimony relies solely on the documentation of agents who are working to prove someone did something illegal. From experience, I can tell you when you go to court and it’s a government official’s word against a defendant’s, if the government official has documented the details they are testifying to in their report, the government official will win the he-said-she-said game every day in the eyes of the court.
Proving you didn’t do something might be harder than you think. Justice deserves better procedures than this. Especially when FBI agents have shown they lie and deceive on repeat. How can you trust anything they do is done with integrity??
I was on the phone for 49 minutes and 32 seconds with the two FBI agents. I believe I asked questions for at least 20 minutes, and we spoke for about 5 minutes at the end of the call very cordially and supportively about keeping cover and going home safe at night which is not something guaranteed in this job. Notable local losses in the line of duty are both Kerrie Orozco from the Omaha Gang Unit and Mario Herrera from Lincoln PD. There is no greater sacrifice, and their famillies are constantly held close in my prayers.
This left approximately half of the call for questions from the agents. They asked me about how many devices Travis had, which device he used for social media, about his family, and they asked me repeatedly if I had ever been threatened by him. The fourth and final time they asked if I had ever been threatened by Travis, which meant they were asking this question approximately every 5 minutes, I made it abundantly clear I had not been threatened by him and my patience with this questioning had been exhausted. I pointed out I had a laundry list of questions for them and at no point had I ever asked based upon what you know and the evidence you have, is my safety at risk? There’s a reason for that, and it should speak for itself.
This line of questioning is still bewildering to me to this very day. If he posed so much danger to me and they were genuinely concerned about my well-being, why hadn’t they reached out to me? Why was I the one who initiated contact?
This is one of many moments in this story where asking questions of federal officials only lead to having more questions and never getting real answers. But I didn’t know it at the time. Instead, I was steadfast in faith any investigation would come about from a place of integrity and through this same integrity the system would figure out the truth, discover who was behind the other devices, follow the digital trail to (an) additional person/people involved. By the end we would see the entire picture.
I am still not able to see the entire picture to this day. I only have more and more questions based upon the methods used by the prosecution. And I even had an opportunity to pose my questions to the prosecutor. But I’m getting ahead of myself… For now, at this juncture in the investigation we were told there was nothing more to do.
And so we waited and were left to figure out who could trust who and if Travis and I could trust one another ever again…
Lesson learned: Don’t contact the FBI to ask questions. It might just make you a witness against your own significant other unless you’re married.
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Peace & Love,
Janessa