FBI suspect Hill held in isolation

Monday, June 25, 2001 | 11:01 a.m.

FBI security analyst James J. Hill, facing charges of selling top-secret investigative information, is in federal protective custody at the North Las Vegas Detention Center.

"He's there as a precaution because he's in the employment of a federal agency," a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said this morning. "Other prisoners might assault him if they find out where he works."

Hill is being kept in his own cell away from the general inmate population, the spokesman said.

The isolation also is needed, the spokesman said, because of Hill's knowledge of classified FBI information.

The 51-year-old Hill, who has worked for the FBI since 1991, reportedly had access to national security and electronic surveillance information, as well as confidential informants and witnesses data stored in the bureau's national computer system.

"I have no idea why he's in protective custody, unless they're worried about security secrets," Hill's lawyer, Barry Levinson, said this morning.

Levinson said he expected his client would be transferred this week to New York to face criminal charges in the alleged theft of the FBI information.

Federal prosecutors in New York are preparing to indict Hill on theft charges and drop a six-page complaint filed against him last week, Levinson said.

By indicting Hill, prosecutors won't have to hold a public preliminary hearing on the complaint and publicly disclose information about the sensitive investigation that has attracted the interest of Congress and the national media.

Hill was arrested on the complaint at the Las Vegas FBI office on June 14 after he allegedly provided classified information to private investigator Mike Levin, a former FBI agent cooperating in the probe.

Levin, who has not returned phone calls, reportedly told FBI agents in New York that he had paid Hill $25,000 since November 1999 for confidential FBI documents relating to criminal cases and then passed on the documents to organized crime members and other FBI targets.

Hill, through Levinson, has denied any wrongdoing and contends others close to Levin at the Las Vegas FBI office may have leaked case files to the former agent.

Levinson said he saw Hill at the detention center on Friday, and he appeared in good spirits.

Hill, he said, still wants to help the FBI find others who may have provided Levin with documents.

Hill's wife, Patty, also saw him twice over the weekend, but reportedly told friends the stress of his arrest made him look as though he had aged 10 years.

In an interview with the Sun last week, Patty Hill said she was convinced that her husband was incapable of doing the things alleged in the New York complaint.

She professed her love for Hill and called him a "regular guy" whose kindness was appreciated by his neighbors.