067: John Chesson - Hate Crime, Courageous Cooperating Witness

FBI Case File Review

Jerri Williams

True Crime, Government

4.7 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2017

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Retired agent John Chesson reviews a hate crime/civil rights matter from his early days in the FBI. The case involved the investigation of six South Philadelphia men suspected of violating the civil rights of an African American woman by vandalizing the home she had just rented on their block. The case was assigned to John and his co-case agent, Christina Kibbey. Mike Kates (also spelled Cates), a wheelchair-bound man who lived on the street, agreed to become their cooperating witness and to help them gather the evidence needed to prove that damaging the house was a racially motivated scheme to make the house uninhabitable and to intimidate and discourage the woman from moving into the neighborhood. Kates courageously recorded consensually monitored conversations with the subjects of the investigation and testified as the star witness in the subsequent trials. All involved were found guilty. On October 21, 1999, FBI Director Louis Freeh awarded Mike Kates the 18th Annual "Louis E. Peters Memorial Service Award" for his selfless commitment to protect victims of crime.

Check out episode show notes, photos, and related articles. https://jerriwilliams.com/john-chesson-hate-crime-cooperating-witness/

Buy me a coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/JerriWilliams

Join my Reader Team to get the FBI Reading Resource - Books about the FBI, written by FBI agents, the 20 clichés about the FBI Reality Checklist, and keep up to date on the FBI in books, TV, and movies via my monthly email. Join here. http://eepurl.com/dzCCmL

Check out my FBI books, non-fiction and crime fiction, available as audiobooks, ebooks and paperbacks wherever books are sold. https://jerriwilliams.com/books/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to episode 67 of FBI Retired Case File Review with Jerry Williams. I'm a retired agent writing crime fiction
0:16.1	inspired by true crime FBI cases. In this episode we get to speak to
0:22.2	retired agent John Chesan who served in the FBI for 25 years.
0:29.0	During most of his bureau career, John primarily worked cybercrime as an investigator and supervisor of computer
0:38.5	intrusion cases and as the coordinator of the Philadelphia and San Francisco Bay Area Infra Guard programs.
0:48.0	However, in this episode of FBI Retired Case File review, John is interviewed about a hate crime
0:56.2	Civil Rights Matter from his early days in the FBI. The case involved the
1:02.3	investigation of seven South Philadelphia neighbors suspected of violating the civil rights of an African American woman by vandalizing the home she had just rented on their block. The case was assigned to
1:17.1	John and his co-case agent Christina Kibby. Mike Katz, a wheelchair-bound man who lived on the street, agreed to become their cooperating
1:28.2	witness and to help John and Christina gather the evidence needed to prove that damaging the house was a racially motivated scheme to make the house uninhabitable and to intimidate and discourage the woman from moving into the neighborhood.
1:48.2	Cats courageously recorded consensually monitored conversations with the subjects and testified as the star witness in the subsequent trial.
1:59.0	All the people involved were found guilty.
2:02.0	On October 21st, 1999, FBI Director
2:08.2	Louis Freee awarded Michael Katz the 18th annual Louis E. Peters Memorial Service Award for his
2:18.1	selfish commitment to protect victims of crime.
2:22.6	This Citizen Award was sponsored by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.
2:30.0	The full citation can be read in this episode's show notes.
2:35.6	This case review includes two surprising happily ever after conclusions and an unexpected tragedy.
2:45.0	I wish I could take credit for the fact that this episode
2:50.0	follows last week's episode also about a relationship between an agent and his informant.
2:58.0	But it really is just a coincidence.
3:01.0	Last week's episode, of course, was the episode with Jim Huggins about Mark Putnam's
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jerri Williams, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jerri Williams and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.