Say, You Remember That SWAT Raid Over Financial Aid Story From Wednesday?

by William Teach | June 9, 2011 8:41 am

Well, there might be a wee bit more to it than originally came out. Refresher[1]

A federal education official Wednesday morning offered little information as to why federal agents raided a Stockton man’s home Tuesday.

The resident, Kenneth Wright, does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe why what he thought was a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 in the morning.

“I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers,” Wright said.

So, we know what happened after that. He and his kids were detained for around six hours, and the person who was at the center of the search break in, his ex-wife, was not there, and had abandoned the family, along with her loans. So many on both the Left and Right were up in arms over this, wondering why the Department of Education was using SWAT teams to execute search warrants. Well, the story gets a bit deeper, with a bit more clarity

U.S. Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton confirmed for News10 Wednesday morning federal agents with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), not local S.W.A.T., served the search warrant. Hamilton would not say specifically why the raid took place except that it was part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

Hamilton said the search was not related to student loans in default as reported in the local media.

OIG is a semi-independent branch of the education department that executes warrants for criminal offenses such as student aid fraud, embezzlement of federal aid and bribery, according to Hamilton. The agency serves 30 to 35 search warrants a year.

The local Stockton PD had nothing to do with the raid, only standing by in their jurisdiction. Then there is this from the search warrant[2] (page 4)

Apparently, said ex-wife was racking up some serious federal violations, and the OIG would have had no idea if the husband was involved. 18 USC 371 is about conspiracy to commit an offense against or defraud he Federal government. While that might not fully support a SWAT raid as of this time, we’re starting to see a clearer picture of multiple federal violations. The warrant covers what can be searched and seized, which was pretty much most of the house, looking for all sorts of records. And, if we follow this story on further, I have a good suspicion that information will come out that will probably support the use of the SWAT team. Government does some really stupid things, but, one has to figure that somewhere up or down the line, someone was going to say “um, do we really need a SWAT team?” Cooler heads would digest the information and, apparently, say “um, yeah.” No one wants to be caught in a Janet Reno/Elian Gonzales situation.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove[3]. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach[4].