FOXNews.com: Report: Secret Service agents paid Colombian women, investigations continue

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Report: Secret Service agents paid Colombian women, investigations continue May 2nd 2012, 18:12 The Secret Service team involved in the recent prostitution scandal reportedly paid nine of the 12 women they picked up, but none of them was involved in terrorist operations or drug cartels. The finding was included in a 24-page response from the Secret Service to questions submitted by congressional committees investigating the scandal last month in Cartagena, Colombia. However, the agency has asked that the document not be made public because it is "law enforcement sensitive," according to The Washington Post, which reported on the number of women who were supposedly paid. The Secret Service has declined to comment on the story. The women range in age from 20 to 39, and officials said they plan to speak with the three other women as part of the ongoing probe. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, which is investigating the scandal, confirmed that the women were interviewed. "We're going to use this as a base to operate from," said King, R-N.Y. "But we're also waiting for those statements from the women. That will fill in a lot of the gaps." He also said the Secret Service was still translating some of the interviews. The Secret Service deployed 175 agents and officers to the seaside Colombian town ahead of President Obama's trip to the Summit of the Americas. Of those, 135 employees stayed at the Hotel Caribe where the prostitution scandal unfolded, congressional officials said. Two of the 12 employees implicated in the scandal were supervisory criminal investigators; three were snipers and another three were members of a Secret Service counterassault team. Their careers ranged from two years to 22 years, the congressional officials said. Nine of the 12 employees successfully completed polygraph exams, but three employees refused to take them, including the supervisor whose decision not to pay a woman led hotel management and local police to alert U.S. Embassy officials to the misconduct, congressional officials said. The Secret Service has forced eight of the 12 employees from their jobs and was trying to revoke the security clearance of another employee, which would effectively force him to resign. Three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing. The military was conducting its own, separate investigation, but canceled the security clearances of all 12 enlisted personnel. At least three congressional committees are tracking the unfolding scandal, and the Department of Homeland Security inspector general is also conducting a broader inquiry into how the agency responded to the misconduct. King said agency Director Mark Sullivan asked for an independent probe before the scandal became public. "That's important because obviously he wasn't trying to cover it up," he said. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the Secret Service has found no basis to allegations its agents hired strippers and prostitutes in El Salvador last year. Meanwhile, reports of two other incidents resurfaced related to questionable or criminal behavior by Secret Service employees. A week before the Winter Olympics began in Utah  in 2002, three Secret Service agents allegedly met three college girls and days later took them back to their hotel, got them drunk, then carried out two sexual assaults, according the Herald Mail newspaper in Utah. The other incident allegedly occurred in February 2002 in Encinitas, Calif, and involved Secret Service agents trailing then-Vice President Dick Cheney. The incident occurred outside a bar at closing time when an agent allegedly made sexually suggestive remarks to a woman. The boyfriend of the woman and the agent exchanged words, then the agent grabbed him and bit his ear, taking off a piece. No criminal charges were filed, and the agent said during a civil case that the boyfriend tugged at his gun in the struggle, according to KGTV in San Diego. The Secret Service said the incidents were covered extensively in the media when they occurred more than 10 years ago and that the agency responded at that time.

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