Did you know that the Witness Protection Program used to provide plastic surgery
for witnesses? It sounds bizarre, but it's true. Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy,
editor-in-chief of Mental Floss.com. To entice mobster Aladena Frattiano to
testify in the late 1970s, Witness Protection paid for his wife's surgery,
including breast implants and a facelift. One unnamed participant was given a
psychologist-suggested penis surgery, not to disguise his identity but because he
was depressed and needed a self-esteem boost in order
to testify. Seriously. Anyway, as of the late 90s it became the policy to not
provide plastic surgery for witnesses. They would help witnesses get it but
government money would not be used.
And that's just the first of many facts
about the Witness Protection Program that I'm going to share with you today.
Here's an obvious fact: the Witness Security Program, or WITSEC, is pretty
mysterious. It's run not by the FBI but by the US Marshal Service, and in 2013
their then associate director for operations, David Harlow, explained, quote,
"No one knows what we do to protect witnesses and it's good for us." Okay, so
what do we know about the Witness Protection Program? We know that it began
as a result of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, which in part said
that the government would protect witnesses. At the time members of the
Mafia were known to kill witnesses in advance of, or afte,r they testified. Their
families were also in danger. Gerald Shur, who worked for the Justice Department at
the time, founded WITSEC. He was the head of the witness security program for
around 25 years and was instrumental in turning it into what it is today.
He's also how we know a lot of what we do know about the mysterious program. He
co-wrote a book titled WITSEC: Inside The Federal Witness Protection Program. As of
2019, between witnesses and their families, around 18 thousand nine hundred
and fourteen people have been moved thanks to the program. The current cost
of keeping WITSEC running is about 10 million dollars a year and, according to
the government officials in charge of the program, WITSEC has a 100% success
rate, meaning witnesses who have remained in it and followed all the rules have
not been harmed as a result of testifying. There were a few protected
witnesses before the program actually began, including Joe Valachi, who was sort
of an inspiration for the program. In 1963 Valachi turned in criminals he knew
from his participation in the Mafia in exchange for safety in prison. Government
officials realized that offering protection was an effective way to
convince criminals and witnesses to come forward, and they officially started
WITSEC around 1970. Another early witness was Joseph the animal Barboza, a
murderer who testified against the mob in the late 1960s. Barboza was sent to
California with a new identity. Unfortunately, he may have killed again.
Eventually he was shot, probably by the people he'd testified against. So, you
know, not a rousing success. Oh God. That's that's an excellent question.
Erin the Cat Lady McCarthy...Yeah. The fact that Valachi and Barboza were
criminals wasn't unusual. According to Gerald Shur, about 95% of the witnesses
in WITSEC are criminals in their own right. Around 10 to 20 percent of them
will go on to reoffend. Because of that it's a risky and controversial program, but the
Justice Department notes the upside. It claims that trials with witnesses in
WITSEC testifying have an 89 percent conviction rate. According to Shur, people
hoping to enter Witness Protection have to sign a list of rules. One of the rules
is a pledge to, in his words, quote, "be a good person and live a normal life." And
of course they wouldn't be put into WITSEC unless being a witness in their
particular case would put them at risk. The first thing that a witness in the
program will experience is orientation. There's a WITSEC safe-site and
orientation center in the Washington, DC area, where six separate families can
stay without coming into contact with each other. Family members will go
through medical, dental and psychological exams. Each adult is also interviewed
about their job skills so they can be placed in a new location with a job that
makes sense. So in real life, lounge singer Deloris van Cartier probably
wouldn't have been placed in a convent. And of course a protected witness needs
a new name, but taking a new first name is optional. Sometimes it's easier for a
person to keep their first name so they always answer when they're called and
they don't have to fully change their signature. They can choose their new last
name, but it must 1) be unrelated to their life—so no family members' maiden
names—and 2) make sense ethnically. Then witnesses get a bunch of new documents
like birth certificates and driver's licenses, plus new social security
numbers and legalized name changes. Kids get school records copied in their new
name, and though some parents wanted those records subtly improved, Shur
refused. The program ensures that furnished houses, schools and even
religious institutions are in place in the locations where people get sent. Ghey
also get money. In Shur's day they based the amount of money on the cost of
living in the new area. For about six months, witnesses received a stipend. As
for where they're sent. it's nowhere they want to go...literally. Shur would ask
a witness to list places where they'd like to go and then send them elsewhere.
If they were telling Shur that they wanted to go there he found it safe to
assume that they told other people that, too. But it was also a priority to send
them somewhere that they wouldn't feel like a
total fish out of water, so people from cities were sent to cities and people
from small towns were sent to small towns. Send me the badlands, so I can be
just like Teddy Roosevelt. Shur also has a story of a witness requesting for his
girlfriend to enter the program with him but for his wife to be left behind
because he knew that she would be murdered if she didn't come with him.
In Shur's words, quote, "The object was to have me become the substitute for his
divorce court. I wasn't about to do that." WITSEC participants are allowed to talk
to the family that they've had to leave behind. There's a secure mail program but
they can't keep the letters after they've read them. The marshals take them
away. They can also make phone calls to their families via secure lines that the
program sets up for them. Each witness is assigned a U.S. marshal. If they're in a
dangerous situation, like a court appearance, they're being monitored 24/7
by the marshal. But once they're just living in their new home with their new
identity, the witness only needs to be in touch with her marshal once a year. Not
everyone is in the traditional version of the program. As of 2010 there were
about 500 prisoners who were in WITSEC. There isn't much information on how this
works, but a person would at least receive a name change so that they're no
longer able to be easily located. In the late 90s it was discovered that certain
witnesses like this had received special meals and phone call privileges in
exchange for testifying. Despite the program's excellent track
record there is at least one documented case of witnesses being identified in
their new lives...by one another. An audit published in 2005 revealed that two
witnesses who were acquainted before entering WITSEC ran into each other at a
convenience store. One of the witnesses was relocated. A more high-profile story
of a case gone wrong is that of Thomas Leonard. He was divorced from his ex-wife
but had visitation rights to see his children. Then his ex married a mafia
informant, Pascal Calabrese. The informant, the wife and her children
were moved out of Buffalo, New York in 1967. Leonard was unable to get in touch with
his children until 1975. He sued the US government, which led to a change in
WITSEC. Now a parent with visitation rights has to approve their child's
participation. I mentioned earlier that no one has been physically harmed for
being in WITSEC, but some have broken the strict rules set for them, which has
predictably caused problems. Like Daniel LaPolla, who in the 1970s returned to
Connecticut to go to a funeral. He decided to pop by his old house, which had been
booby-trapped. When he unlocked the door a bomb went off and he was killed.
Finally, Henry Hill—who you might know from the movie Goodfellas—was a
protected witness in the 1980s. His wife and two kids were also in WITSEC and
they all lived in Redmond, Washington together. But that didn't stop Hill from
getting married under his new identity. He moved in with his new wife, Sherry
Anders, and unsurprisingly his other wife, Karen, found out. The two women seemingly
put an end to the madness by confronting Henry together, but then Sherry had a
change of heart and wouldn't end her marriage to him. Eventually WITSEC
removed the entire Hill family from the program because they were causing too
much chaos. Our next episode is about weird old jobs from a hundred years ago and
we want to try something new. Comment below with your favorite antiquated job
from the early 1900s. We'll take our favorite suggestion (that pass this fact
check) and incorporate it into the video. That'll be up on August 21st. Make sure
to subscribe here so you don't miss it. We'll see you then!