Word: stingingly
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...firm called National Credit Service offered businessmen phony invoices that they could use to claim false tax deductions, as well as the privilege of credit-card payment. Lucrative though its business was, the firm closed up shop last week with the announcement that it had been an FBI sting. "We got everything we hoped for, and more," said Chicago FBI Special Agent Bob Long. Officials predict that the sting, dubbed Operation Safe Bet, could produce indictments of as many as 75 people, including nightclub owners, mid-level mobsters and police, once a grand sifts through hundreds of hours of taped...
...videotapes in which the industrialist seemed to agree to invest in a 220-lb. cocaine deal. But the jurors indicated in interviews after the acquittal that they regarded the tapes as inconclusive; they were more concerned about the credibility of the witnesses and their actions in setting up the sting. While Hoffman was unflappable during his 18 days on the witness stand, the impact of his accusations was dissipated by several disclosures: that he had erased some audiotapes that may have contained conversations with De Lorean; that he at one point asked for a cut of any proceeds from...
...Lorean Defense Attorney Howard Weitzman took the occasion of his victory to denounce Government sting operations generally and the use of operatives like James Hoffman in particular. The jurors, Weitzman said, felt Hoffman was a "liar" and were "offended" by the fact that he was paid about $180,000 in "expenses" for his participation in the De Lorean and other investigations. While criminal witnesses are a "necessary evil," Weitzman believes "they have gotten out of hand; these people are given a license to fabricate and invent...
...hours over seven days, reading transcripts, talking and finally crying, to reach its verdict. They were split on whether De Lorean engaged in a criminal conspiracy, jurors later said, but unanimous in deciding that even if he had, he had been improperly entrapped by the Government's elaborate sting operation. They made their decision on the first ballots...
...declared that the verdict would not deter the Government from conducting undercover operations in the future. Since 1977 the FBI budget for such investigative techniques has climbed from $1 million to $12 million. While Assistant FBI Director William Baker conceded that the agency's procedures for conducting a sting operation might need some "tuning up," he claimed that the verdict will not set a precedent. But Democratic Congressman Don Edwards of California announced that he will push for legislation for tighter control of such operations in the future; he proposes that in some types of undercover stings the Government...