The FBI only turned over informant files on four of the eight Geek Squad employees it worked with, Riddet wrote, but in one of the files, an employee told agents he 'was in the process of writing a software program (that) would help them identify potential images of child pornography in their computer systems' and that 'FBI investigative information/techniques (were) revealed to source for operational purposes.'įederal prosecutors Brown and Scally responded that the software was intended to identify child porn on employees' work-issued computers, not customers' computers. Riddet also cited an internal FBI report announcing a meeting at Geek Squad City, which noted, 'The Louisville Division (of the FBI) has maintained close liaison with the Geek Squad management in an effort to glean case initiations and to support the division's computer intrusion and cyber crime programs.' The same agent wrote in a separate memo that agents were 'seeking training of the Geek Squad facility technicians designed to help them identify what type of files and/or images would necessitate a call to the FBI.' the money, more of an embarrassment than an incentive, did nothing to turn Geek Squad City supervisors into government agents or Geek Squad City itself into a secret FBI surveillance machine.' Employees there are working on about 2,000 computers at any one time, the prosecutors said. But however ill-advised those payments may have been. Three of these employees are no longer with the company and the fourth has been reprimanded and reassigned.'įederal prosecutors wrote that 'It is true that a few payments to Geek Squad City supervisors by the FBI unnecessarily muddied the waters here. Any decision to accept payment was in very poor judgment and inconsistent with our training and policies.

The FBI indicated to me they could not take the money back because they had to spend it as part of their budget.' But he then noted, 'I contacted our legal department' to tell them about the payment, which led Riddet to emphasize that Best Buy management had been put on notice about the FBI payments.īest Buy's statement to the Post said, 'We have learned that four employees may have received payment after turning over alleged child pornography to the FBI. One Geek Squad employee who received a $500 payment from the FBI filed an affidavit saying he was 'extremely reluctant and irritated that the FBI gave me money, and tried to give it back. attorney in Kentucky which stated that, 'Under the control and direction of the FBI, the CW (confidential witness) agreed to notify the FBI when CW detects the presence of child pornography during the regular course of CW's employment and is willing to testify in a court of law.' But in court filings he said that there were 'eight FBI informants at Geek Squad City' between 20, and that the facility's 'data recovery system was designed to identify and report child porn from all over the country.' A number of Geek Squad employees received $500 or $1,000 payments from the FBI, documents and testimony showed. attorneys Anthony Brown and Gregory Scally.

That in turn led to a warrant and search of Rettenmaier's home, which led to the discovery of 'thousands of images of child pornography,' according to a reply brief by assistant U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles deny any violations in the search of surgeon Mark Rettenmaier's hard drive, for which the FBI obtained a warrant after being contacted by a Geek Squad supervisor. If a government agent wants to search a computer, they need a warrant, and the case has raised issues of privacy invasion and violation of constitutional search and seizure rights.īoth Best Buy and the U.S. The court is now considering the extent of that relationship and whether it is grounds to throw out a pending child porn case, though it could also have ramifications for the dozens of cases which originate from the Kentucky facility annually.ĭefense lawyers for the doctor argue that Geek Squad City's technicians acted as government agents by receiving payments from the FBI, regularly speaking with and referring cases to the FBI, and creating a program to search for child porn. While there is no question that Geek Squad technicians have notified authorities after finding child porn, the new court documents assert that there is a deeper relationship than has previously been revealed between the company and federal authorities.

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