A Justice Department Phony Fax

Now that he's disciplined those INS dopes for sending out post-mortem student visa approvals to two September 11 terrorists, maybe Attorney General John Ashcroft will discover who recently sent out this phony press release from a New York prosecutor's office. The joke release, apparently prepared as an in-house gag for a departing attorney named Patrick Smith, was instead faxed to several news outlets last month. The release purports to trumpet the government's indictment of a "bunch of mobbed-up, half-naked natives with bones through their noses" who had illegally cornered the conch shell market and cannibalized five of the seven Gilligan's Island castaways (sorry, but this is what passes for Department of Justice humor). Smith's case, the press release notes, was aided by cooperating witness Jeffrey Pokross, who is actually a former mob associate who snitched out his colleagues in a real-life Wall Street swindle case handled by Smith. After officials became aware that the fake press release was distributed to real reporters, Deputy U.S. Attorney David Kelley sent an "urgent release" disavowing the document, which purportedly came from the nonexistent United States Attorney's office in Saipan. (5 pages)