9 more boys join accusers of DEA agent

Keith Paul

Friday, March 29, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

Nine more teenage boys have come forward to accuse a local DEA agent of tossing notes to them offering money for sex.

This brings to 18 the number of boys who have accused suspended Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Steven Kinney of soliciting sex, Metro Police told the Sun.

Additional charges are expected to be filed against Kinney, who originally was arrested March 12 on 36 counts of various sex-related charges. Detectives will meet with prosectors Monday to review the case, including information on the nine new boys who have come forward with the accusations, said Sgt. Tom Keller, head of the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit.

"At this time none of the 18 boys we have talked with had any sexual contact with him," Keller said.

Last week FBI agents searched Kinney's DEA-issued car in Los Angeles and sent the potential evidence collected to Metro for analysis, Keller said.

Kinney, 42, was a firearms instructor for the DEA along with being a narcotics investigator in Las Vegas, and would travel often to Los Angeles. Kinney, a DEA agent since 1992, was suspended with pay on March 7, two days after the FBI and Metro searched his home.

Special Agent Daron W. Borst, a Las Vegas FBI office spokesman, refused to confirm an FBI investigation regarding Kinney's Internet use. However, several FBI agents searched Kinney's desk at the DEA's Las Vegas office Thursday. FBI officials also seized two computer hard drives from Kinney's home.

The Metro and FBI investigations into Kinney began earlier this month when his wife turned him in after tracking his computer use.

When Metro sexual assault detectives called Kinney for an interview last year, his wife, Ruth, became suspicious, police say.

Steven Kinney was never charged in that case, but his suspicious wife gathered information she believed linked her husband to soliciting a teenage boy for sex and turned him in, according to a police arrest report.

"The FBI had information that led them to believe that (Kinney) had been contacting young males through the Internet and attempting to entice them into meeting him and having oral sex for money," the report states. "The FBI gained their knowledge of this through Kinney's wife."

After Steven Kinney's interview with Metro detectives last year, Ruth Kinney installed a program in the couple's computer to capture key strokes and, through the program, tracked Web locations, "where Steven was talking to a 15-year-old male asking him for sex," the report states.

Metro's charges stem from allegations that Kinney wrapped notes offering sex for money around small rocks. He is accused of tossing the notes at or near the boys at area department stores.

In February, two brothers, 14 and 11, said they heard something drop on the ground and found a note that offered money for sex and said, in part, "You're hot. Do you want to make $20. I'm cool/safe. If you want to do it, meet me at the soda machines."

The boys were then approached by a man who asked if they wanted to do what was on the note. The report states that the boys ran to their mother, who called police. But the suspect had left.

One of the boys "without hesitation" chose Kinney's picture when shown a photo lineup, the report states.