New city FBI chief no stranger to big cases (Baltimore Maryland)

Baltimore Sun ^ | Oct.14,2002 | Gail Gibson

[Donald Stone]

New city FBI chief no stranger to big cases He headed probe leading to fellow agent's conviction

By Gail Gibson Sun Staff Originally published October 14, 2002

In more than two decades with the FBI, Special Agent Gary M. Bald always was drawn to solving complex, highly organized crimes, from mob-linked political corruption in Philadelphia to the profit-hiding schemes of Colombian drug gangs.

But the highest-profile assignment for the man who this month took over as head of the FBI's Baltimore office - and quickly found himself immersed in the search for a deadly serial sniper - was to unravel a web of wrongdoing in his own organization.

For the past three years, Bald led an U.S. Justice Department task force assigned to investigate an FBI agent in Boston suspected of tipping off gangster informants to pending investigations and indictments.

For Bald, 48, the first task was convincing skeptics that the bureau would fairly investigate its own.

"I definitely would have taken the case wherever it went, and we did," Bald said in his first comments on the case since the sentencing last month of former FBI agent John J. Connolly. "I approached it just like every other case - it was a criminal allegation, and unfortunately the people involved were, or had been, FBI agents."

Bald started his FBI career 25 years ago solving mathematical and probabilities equations in the bureau's laboratory division. He brought the same analytical approach to his later roles as a case agent and bureau supervisor.

In his case work, Bald said he gravitated toward solving complicated, large-scale crimes in which he tried to mentally beat the bad guys at their own game.

He has been on the job less than a week in Baltimore and has put those same instincts to work.

[Donald Stone]

We are going to find out very quickly if Bald has any ethics or integrity.

Late last week a private citizen filed a motion in a federal court asking two federal judges to initiate federal criminal indictment proceedings against seven (7) FBI agents (2 in Maryland and 5 in Florida) and several other high level state law enforcement officials in Maryland & Florida and a politician running for public office in Florida and also one individual with strong personal and political ties to the Republican National Committee.

The motion before these two federal judges pertains to one of many fraudulent schemes that have been identified over an extended period of time beginning in the mid 1980's with an $8 million U.S. Dept. of Education student loan scheme and culminating in a estimated $8.3 million payment made personally to a Mark C. Sapperstein, by the now bankrupt Pinnacle Towers out of Sarasota, FL.

[Liz]

Nice find.

[Askel5]

Thanks for the flag, Donald. Fascinating stuff.

[Fred Mertz]

Let's hope Gary Bald is the real deal with high integrity. Thanks for the flag.

[aristeides]

I heard Bald speaking on one of the Sunday shows. He struck me as sensible.

[Travis McGee]

MD Bump.

[Freee-dame]

The motion before these two federal judges

Forget it if they are Clinton appointees.