THE F.B.I. MEETING
These six still frames are from the video Tim Ring surreptitiously recorded of a 1993 meeting with two agents from the FBI's Phoenix Division Fugitive Task Force. These agents insisted on concealing their identities, but were later identified as FBI Special Agents Keith Tolhurst and Scott Rivas. Also visible in the still frames is Michael Sanders, who represented Ring's team as its "Face" agent. All other team operatives observed the meeting from nearby positions, but remained anonymous due to the FBI's known history of deception and betrayals.
The meeting had been arranged by Phoenix PD Detective Larry Flick, in regards to a fugitive known to be hiding in Mexico, wanted for the murder of Phoenix Police Officer Ken Collings. During the one hour meeting, the two Fugitive Task Force agents "tasked" Ring's team with going into Mexico to forcibly abduct the fugitive and return him to the United States. This type of operation is known as an "irregular rendition." Both agents repeatedly stated the need for the FBI to maintain plausible deniability, because of the fugitive's known connections within Mexico's government, and the political tension concerning the official extradition of Mexican citizens to the United States. The purpose of the video was to have a record of the meeting, and to identify the two agents in the event of being disavowed by the FBI.
Knowing of the danger he faced from both sides, Ring acquired a $500,000 life insurance policy, and made a Last Will video before he left for Mexico. More operations followed, but a major change to the mission priority led Ring to end his service in November 1994. Ring's FBI handler warned him that operatives like him who try to leave government control usually end up dead or in prison.
Tim Ring was arrested three months later, in February 1995. He watched as FBI Special Agent Tolhurst "sanitized" his wallet, removing a list of names and phone numbers related to the irregular rendition operations. All of Ring's personal operational files disappeared during the government's search of his home. The video tapes of the FBI meeting and Ring's Last Will escaped being "disappeared" because they were stored separate from his operational files, with Ring's life insurance policy, and were logged into evidence before the government realized what the tapes contained.
* See: 'HOME' to view Tim Ring's "Last Will" video.
During Ring's trial, FBI Special Agents Tolhurst and Rivas were never called to testify. The prosecutor used other FBI agents to testify that fugitive abduction operations do not exist, and that such operations would be a crime. At that same time, the FBI and DOJ were preparing to release a public report which cited the Ker-Frisbie Doctrine, and referred to irregular renditions as being a preferred method, with a long history of court decisions finding such operations to be lawful. The FBI/DOJ public report was not published until 1997, weeks after Ring's trial had ended with his wrongful conviction.
* See: DOCUMENTATION, The Mexico Operations, for the excerpt from the DOJ/FBI public report, "Terrorism In The United States 1997."
In 2012, just before the start of Ring's Rule 32 Post-Conviction Relief evidentiary hearing, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office disclosed, for the first time, a FBI 302 report about the 1993 meeting between the two FBI Fugitive Task Force agents and Ring's team. The 302 had been written by FBI Special Agent Tolhurst over three years after the meeting, in preparation for Ring's 1996 trial. In the 302 report, FBI Tolhurst claimed to have seen a duplicate copy of the 1993 meeting video, and that he and FBI Rivas could be clearly heard denying authorization for the irregular rendition operation. By withholding the 302, MCAO denied Ring his right to challenge FBI Tolhurst for falsifying the report as part of a pattern of FBI deception. Obviously, if such a video existed, with a clearly audible denial, MCAO and the FBI would have introduced it during trial to refute Ring's testimony.
It is common practice for Arizona courts to openly defy U.S. Supreme Court decisions that do not favor prosecutors. Judge Robert Duber II refused to obey the laws that required him to hold MCAO accountable for the many proved examples of its misconduct and corruption. Judge Duber's entire unlawful PCR ruling received only a rubber-stamp review from the Arizona Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion, and has never been reviewed by any higher court.
None of Ring's court-appointed defense attorneys ever introduced the video of the F.B.I. meeting or Tim Ring's "Last Will" video into evidence.