Rules People In Witness Protection Have To Follow

In situations where authorities find themselves struggling to prosecute powerful individuals or massive organizations for grievous crimes, testimonies and evidence provided by people connected to these suspected criminals can be the deciding factor. However, becoming a whistleblower comes with inherently serious risks, not only to the person divulging the information under oath, but to their loved ones as well. Thus, in order to persuade potential key witnesses to essentially rat out dangerous criminals, the Witness Security (WITSEC) Program was born.

The program started in 1971, made possible under the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 and amended in 1984. Conceptualized for the specific purpose of taking down the Mafia and other crime syndicates across the United States, the WITSEC program authorizes the U.S. Marshals Service to provide round-the-clock protection to witnesses for the duration of time they are expected to testify in court, including any pretrial appearances. Additionally, it enables the witness and their immediate family members to start over with new identities and in an entirely different location to ensure their protection. To date, there have been over 19,000 protected witnesses under the program, which has only one requirement for initial eligibility: a clear and credible threat against the life of the witness, as determined by law enforcement or prosecutors.

The U.S. witness protection program has been operating for a long time, yet confirmed facts about how its witnesses live are limited. Still, the handful of verified information that's publicly available gives us a peek at WITSEC's tight veil of secrecy and the rules that its program participants have to abide by.

Given the scope of what the WITSEC program entails, not every witness can become part of it. Whether it's a witness who has information about drug trafficking, terrorist activities, or organized crime, they must undergo a thorough vetting process involving the sponsoring U.S. attorney and law enforcement agency, as well as the U.S. Marshals Service. Ultimately, all potential candidates for WITSEC protection are subject to the approval of the Office of Enforcement Operations (OEO) under the Department of Justice.

Determination for WITSEC inclusion also requires that the applying witness undergo psychological testing and evaluation arranged by the OEO. Among the most detailed accounts of this psychological exam is the story told by the husband-and-wife pair formerly known as Jess Brewer and Rae Devera. In their 1996 interview with The New York Times — a rare case of WITSEC witnesses being cleared for a media interview by the government — Devera recalled the day that the assigned evaluator, "Jim," dropped by their family's location for the first interview. Some time later, a second, more in-depth interview session took place with a psychologist from the Bureau of Prisons, who was accompanied by an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Devera described the psychologist's questions as "very personal." In their individual interviews, Brewer and Devera had to delve into deeply private details about their marriage and their intra-family dynamics, and if they had any history of alcohol misuse, serious violence, or attempting to take their own lives.

Threats to the life of a potential witness are possible, regardless of the kind of evidence they may be able to provide. At least one defense attorney has gone on record saying that during his time as a federal prosecutor in the '80s, none of the informants he sponsored for WITSEC were rejected, even though the testimonies they gave weren't always absolute game-changers. 

With that said, while the quality or quantity of testimony isn't necessarily a deciding factor for WITSEC protection, the commitment to delivering said testimony certainly is. Specifically, even before the informant is accepted by WITSEC, they must do one of two things: testify before a grand jury, or agree to testify during the trial. Moreover, the prosecutor must attest to the informant's testimony being both necessary and important to the case. 

It's worth noting, though, that just because testimony is deemed "significant and essential" by the Department of Justice, that doesn't always equate to it being useful. As WITSEC witness Jess Brewer told The New York Times, he testified in drug-related charges against two criminals — Solomon Aikau and Jesse James Bates — in 1994. While this contributed to Aikau receiving a five-year prison sentence, Brewer's testimony against Bates didn't play much of a role in his conviction, as Bates got nine years for a more serious, albeit unrelated, charge. Nevertheless, the government honored its promise to Brewer despite only half of his testimony being key to the case.

Depictions of WITSEC witnesses in pop culture (like the 1990 movie "Goodfellas," inspired by real-life informant Henry Hill) have helped shape the public's perception of how witness protection completely turns a person's life upside-down — and in certain respects, the idea isn't so far off from the truth.

Once a witness gets into WITSEC, their and their family's lives up to that point are essentially over. For their security, they are provided new names, birth certificates, and Social Security numbers, and they are forced to uproot their lives and start anew in an entirely different location. They must also come up with an entirely new backstory and must never divulge details about their pre-WITSEC lives to their new acquaintances. The commitment to absolute secrecy in WITSEC cannot be overstated: In the case of Jess Brewer, only four marshals (out of the 3,500 members of the agency) knew the specifics of his new life.

In a 2013 interview with CNN, Gerald Shur, the American lawyer recognized as WITSEC's creator, shared his process behind selecting which place the witness and their family would be shipped off to. Shur would ask them to name places in the U.S. that they consider their favorite or that they would like to visit, and then he would remove those from the list of options. "Because when you tell me you want to go to Hawaii," said Shur, "I know you have told all your friends that."

One might think that, for a witness fearing for their life, completely abandoning everything they've known should be an easy choice. But one can never truly know the kind of loss and loneliness that comes with WITSEC participation until they have become part of it. The relocation process involves more than just getting new names and a new house; it also entails cutting ties with every person you've ever known who isn't your partner or child. Pets are almost certainly out of the question, too: Witnesses have reported having to leave behind their dog or cat. 

It is, perhaps, even worse when you're not the witness. As Gerald Shur described to CNN, the implication of going under WITSEC is that the witness isn't the only person severing ties with their loved ones. The witness's spouse will almost surely never be able to see their parents again; the witness's children will most likely never be able to hug their grandparents, ever. And even though communication is still allowed, it can only be done under the supervision of the U.S. Marshals Service, and only through its secure channels. Plus, sharing any details about their new lives is absolutely prohibited, so there's little they can talk about with the loved ones they abandoned.

Forging new ties will also undoubtedly be a challenge. For fear of accidentally spilling the beans about their identities or being asked about their past, WITSEC participant Rae Devera actively avoided befriending their new neighbors, making only one friend nearly two years into the program.

Given the kind of information provided by the informants who go into WITSEC, it shouldn't be surprising that an overwhelming number of them don't have squeaky-clean records. In fact, per CNN, WITSEC founder Gerald Shur estimated that about 95% of WITSEC-protected informants have either associated with criminals or committed serious crimes themselves. Thus, the risk of WITSEC witnesses falling back into their unscrupulous ways is quite real — and in certain cases, it has resulted in their expulsion from the program. 

The most high-profile example of this is Henry Hill, the former Mafia mobster whose name was changed to Martin Todd Lewis while in WITSEC. His cooperation with law enforcement led to the arrests of many of his former associates. Unfortunately, the prospect of living a quiet life was apparently not enough to keep Hill on the straight and narrow. Unable to resist the urge to both use and deal drugs, he became a lawbreaker once more, resulting in him being convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1987 and, of course, kicked out of WITSEC.

In 2009, former mob hitman Joey Calco blew his cover after he lost his temper over, of all things, a calzone. Relocated to Palm Coast, Florida, after testifying against the Bonanno crime family, Calco ran a pizzeria under the name Joseph Milano. Unfortunately, he pistol-whipped a customer who complained about his product. After his arrest (for both the assault and illegal gun possession), the New York Daily News quoted the U.S. Marshals Service as saying, "Any type of criminal activity could certainly lead to removal from the program."

Entering WITSEC means torching your old life and starting over — which also means that for a period of time, you'll be left with no steady source of income. Thus, you will be entitled to financial assistance, covering your housing expenses and basic necessities while you settle into your new surroundings. The amount that you will receive is not based on how useful or significant your testimony ends up being; rather, it is calculated based on how much you would need to survive in whichever state you will be relocated to. However, this stipend is not a permanent privilege; after you are capable of supporting yourself and your family, the payments will cease.

With that said, the WITSEC program will help you find a job and will even provide training to make you viable for employment in the field or industry you choose to join. In the 1990s, when undercover FBI informant Emad Salem entered WITSEC with his wife and two children, he found himself taking on a myriad of unrelated jobs — including, but not limited to, jewelry salesman, hotel manager, massage therapist, roofer, scuba diving instructor, and tree trimmer — after having their cover blown (and thus, relocating) multiple times.

But if you somehow find yourself in need of references from fictitious "previous employers" or a convincingly padded resume, you can forget about asking WITSEC for those. Additionally, WITSEC will not provide you with a clean credit history, nor will it clear your debts (meaning you need to pay or arrange to pay your loans and other obligations before you can enter the program).

One might think that because the WITSEC program is specifically designed to prevent harm from coming upon an informant and their loved ones, it should be easy for their children to get in, too. But it's not as straightforward as that, especially if only one of the child's parents will sign up for witness protection.

Should an informant wish to enter WITSEC with their child, the program requires that both of the child's parents — regardless of their marital status — come to a mutual agreement with regard to the child being renamed and relocated. Moreover, the parent entering WITSEC is required to have court-ordered custody of the child. This doesn't mean that the non-WITSEC parent will be prohibited from seeing the child, though; provided that the non-WITSEC parent has court-ordered visitation rights, they may visit the child 12 times a year, with related travel expenses shouldered by the U.S. Marshals Service. If these conditions are not met (e.g., the non-WITSEC parent decides to sue for custody), the WITSEC parent may not take their child with them.

This may seem harsh, but it's worth considering that going under witness protection — especially the amount of secret-keeping that it requires — can be significantly challenging for a child. On at least one occasion, Emad Salem's child accidentally blew their family's cover, prompting them to hastily pack their bags and restart their lives once more.

Unlike committing a crime, blowing your cover won't automatically get you booted from WITSEC. In many known cases, WITSEC witnesses and their families are quickly hidden in a secure location; after their compromised identities are scrubbed, the government provides new documents and a fresh address for them to begin anew. (Interestingly, the U.S. Marshals Service can help "facilitate" plastic surgery for witnesses who want to permanently change their appearance; however, the witness will have to foot the bill.)

Based on publicly available information, there seems to be no hard limit to the number of times a family under WITSEC can start over. According to Emad Salem, his family had to relocate almost once a year for eight straight years after their identities kept getting exposed. On the other hand, Wahed Moharam, who provided information pertinent to the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, was expelled from WITSEC after he broke his cover three times over the course of a decade. Initially, he was assigned to Phoenix, Arizona, but after he violated an unspecified "witness security rule," he was hastily moved to Seattle, Washington. But after yet another security breach, Moharam was relocated to Kansas City; it was here that he gained some level of fame after he started showing up at the Arrowhead Stadium and proclaiming his admiration for the Kansas City Chiefs as the character "Helmet Man." Curiously, it wasn't this behavior that got him into hot water with WITSEC; it was, according to Moharam himself, because he told his new wife about his old life.

Being expelled from WITSEC is not the only means of terminating your agreement with the government; you can also choose to exit it for any reason — albeit at your own risk. Attorney and WITSEC creator Gerald Shur shared two brutal examples with CNN: a man who was slain by an exploding doorknob at his old residence, and a woman who was murdered some time after she exited WITSEC.

A rather prominent case of someone leaving WITSEC on their own volition is Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a dangerous mobster whose testimony in the early '90s helped put numerous underworld figures, including Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, behind bars. (Read about where John Gotti's son really ended up.) Spending only months under WITSEC before reportedly choosing to exit the program, Gravano moved to Phoenix, Arizona. But it didn't take long before he engaged in criminal activities once more; in 2002, he was sentenced to 20 years for drug trafficking, though he was released in 2017.

By far, the most horrifying example is Marion Albert Pruett, who lived with his wife in New Mexico under the WITSEC-provided alias Charles Pearson. After his wife's burnt body was discovered in the desert, officials detained him but had to release him due to a lack of evidence. Surprisingly, despite this heinous crime, WITSEC upheld its end of the agreement and did not disclose Pearson's criminal history or true identity to local authorities. Pearson then opted to exit WITSEC, after which he murdered four more victims before being apprehended.

Beyond the scope of the written law, it is difficult to assess the quality of post-WITSEC life that witnesses lead after exiting the program. After all, since complete and total secrecy is its most crucial element — and because the threat to the life of any former WITSEC witness could persist, even after they give their testimony — it is highly unlikely that any ex-WITSEC participant would willingly reveal that they used to be part of the program.

However, WITSEC rules state that even if the witness were already out of the program, they will still be protected in the courtroom, should they be required to return and testify once more for any case or cases they originally joined WITSEC for. Additionally, WITSEC officials can decide to extend protection to a former WITSEC informant if they decide that there are serious threats to the informant's security that are a direct result of their previous WITSEC participation.

The U.S. Marshals Service proudly maintains that, to this day, no active participant of WITSEC has been harmed or slain under their watch. Realistically, this makes a convincing argument for remaining under WITSEC. But here's the truth about witness protection in the United States: While WITSEC may guarantee the physical safety of a witness, the emotional turmoil that goes hand in hand with the experience is an entirely different matter. Emad Salem admitted that even under active WITSEC protection, he was constantly under immense stress, felt paranoid about people who may be out to get him and his family, and rarely had a moment's peace.