LV suspect attended special FBI training

Monday, July 2, 2001 | 11:14 a.m.

Maria Emeterio attended the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., last year as an investigator for the Nevada attorney general's office during the time an indictment alleges she was selling confidential FBI information, court documents show.

The 34-year-old Emeterio, arrested Wednesday in the FBI's secrets-for-sale scandal, testified recently under oath that she received special law enforcement training at the academy last summer.

Former FBI agent Mike Levin, the chief witness in the widening secrets probe, alleged that he had been buying classified FBI records from Emeterio since 1999 and selling them to targets of criminal investigations.

Levin, a Las Vegas private detective, told FBI agents that he also obtained confidential investigative documents from James J. Hill, a local FBI security analyst, and Mary Ellen Weeks, a Municipal Court intake-services officer.

Both also have been arrested on charges in a criminal complaint in New York.

Emeterio and Weeks, who are free on their own recognizance, were ordered to appear in federal court in the Eastern District New York this morning to answer the theft and obstruction of justice charges. Hill, who still is in custody, is being taken to New York this week.

Levin, 36, pleaded guilty in the scheme last week and is being held at a federal correctional facility in Brooklyn while he continues to cooperate in the investigation, which so far has resulted in 10 arrests.

All of the FBI information Emeterio sold to Levin reportedly came from the FBI's National Crime Information Center, a computerized criminal data base used by law enforcement agencies across the country, the FBI complaint said.

Court documents obtained by the Sun show that Emeterio, who resigned upon her arrest last week after six years as an investigator, oversaw the attorney general's restricted use of NCIC.

She testified that she was given special training by the Nevada Highway Patrol on NCIC's confidential procedures and then passed on what she learned to others in the attorney general's office.

The Highway Patrol, she said, conducts internal audits of all NCIC checks by state investigators to make sure the information isn't abused.

When Emeterio was asked under oath if NCIC information was public, she replied that it was for law enforcement eyes only.

Emeterio, whose mother is a Henderson police sergeant, was one of only four people working for the attorney general who had access to NCIC, the court documents show.

The former investigator, the documents report, also was the attorney general's training officer for Scope, the computerized data base maintained by Metro Police.

She testified that she provided her fellow investigators with identification numbers so they could gain access to Scope's information.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general's office could not be reached for comment this morning to discuss Emeterio's activities at the office.

Emeterio, who does not have a college degree, also provided background in court documents on her professional career, which began at the Gold Coast in 1988.

She joined the security department there as a dispatcher and ultimately became an officer, the documents show.

In 1991, the documents add, she took a job in security at Main Street Station before returning to the Gold Coast, where she rose to the rank of sergeant.

From there, Emeterio worked as an internal investigator for the MGM Grand until she was hired by the attorney general's office in 1995.

Emeterio began her career in the attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and moved on to the Missing Children's Unit, the documents show.

The FBI has charged Emeterio with selling 20 NCIC reports at $100 a piece to Levin since 1999.

Levin, while working undercover for the FBI, telephoned her from New York on June 18 to request NCIC information on an FBI target.

Emeterio allegedly was overheard by agents complaining that Levin still owed her money from a previous request for records.

The FBI documented Emeterio later faxing Levin the new confidential NCIC information from the attorney general's office.

After he received the information, Levin called Emeterio to thank her and say he would "take care" of her when he returned to Las Vegas.