Latinos Rally to Raise Funds for Agents’ Job Bias Suit Against FBI

Joe Sanchez, a leading Los Angeles Latino businessman and political fund-raiser, called his decision “the most difficult I have had to make in my life.”

Sanchez was approached two months ago by a group of Latino FBI agents based in Los Angeles and asked to help raise money for legal costs of a class-action suit accusing the FBI of discrimination in the recruitment, hiring and promotion of Latino agents.

“You hear so much about the activities of the FBI that you have to wonder what the repercussions are of getting involved in something like this,” Sanchez said Wednesday. “But I put my fears aside because I felt this was the right thing to do.”

Today, largely because of Sanchez’s efforts, several dozen Latino business and political leaders will meet at a $500-a-plate breakfast to help raise funds to pay the legal expenses of taking the case to trial this summer in federal court in El Paso.

“It’s time the Latino community became involved in a cause like this,” Sanchez said. “We have been involved in boycotts, protests and demonstrations. Now we have graduated to a new level--this kind of complex legal fight in the court system.”

With Sanchez at today’s breakfast will be FBI Agent Bernardo (Matt) Perez, 48, whose bitter feud with the head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office in the early 1980s touched off the legal fight now certified as a national class-action case.

Perez, now assigned as the No. 2 man in the FBI’s El Paso office, was in a similar job in the much larger Los Angeles office when he clashed with the agent-in-charge, Richard T. Bretzing.

Bretzing viewed Perez as unqualified for a top executive post in the FBI, and Perez viewed Bretzing as a bigot. He charged that Bretzing, a Mormon bishop, is both anti-Latino and anti-Catholic.

The Bretzing-Perez fight, which led to charges of a “Mormon Mafia” inside the FBI’s Los Angeles office, received considerable publicity during the espionage trial of former FBI Agent Richard Miller in Los Angeles when Perez claimed that he had urged Bretzing to fire Miller, who was also a Mormon.

Bretzing denied that Perez had ever suggested firing Miller, and U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner spoke openly in court of the possibility of charging Perez with perjury in connection with his testimony.

Perez, who arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday for today’s breakfast, said he learned only this week that, in fact, the FBI launched a criminal investigation after the Miller case to determine if he had committed perjury. He said he has been told the investigation is now closed.

Perez said 250 Latino agents are now involved in the class-action suit, including 17 of 22 Latino agents in Los Angeles. He estimated that another 110 Latino agents in the FBI decided not to participate in the case.

The help of leaders of the Latino community in Los Angeles has been particularly pleasing to him because he felt isolated for years in his fight against the FBI, Perez said.

“The experience has been very terrifying to me personally,” he said. “I asked for legal help from the government during the Miller trial and I was denied it because I am a Hispanic. Instead, they chose to go after me and discredit me and those around me.”

Joining Perez at today’s breakfast will be FBI Agent Paul P. Magallanes, 49, an agent for 20 years who is certified as part of the lawsuit against the FBI. Magallanes has charged that the FBI has unfairly disciplined him for supporting Perez.

“We’re very grateful to be getting this kind of support,” Magallanes said. “The lawyers have run out of money and have had problems even paying their staff. The trial is approaching and we’re glad to be getting help in our hour of need.”

Sanchez said the Latino group, called Hispanics for the FBI, hopes to raise $500,000 in Los Angeles, Washington, El Paso, Phoenix and Albuquerque. The goal for Los Angeles is $50,000.