"Medal of Honor" Held By The DHS

September 11, 2009 – Beverly Hills Film Studios and its President, Producer/Director BJ Davis are going public with their efforts to secure the return of the TV Series “Medal of Honor” and other film properties, unlawfully seized by the Department of Homeland Security during its warrantless searches of the company’s offices and the Davis residence. This is the latest development in a series of events that are truly stranger than fiction and could only be described as a bizarre mix of “Burn After Reading” and “Enemy of the State”.

One of the precipitating events for this Kafka-esque saga was a whistleblowing disclosure pertaining to the suspected breach of national security at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on 4th of July, 2004. This report was made to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) by Julia Davis, former officer of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). When the news broke and the Los Angeles Times reporter asked former CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner about Julia Davis’ report to the FBI, agency officials assumed that she was responsible for the leak to the press. To the contrary, Julia declined to be interviewed by the Lou Dobbs show and other news reporters that approached her, not wishing to embarrass her agency. However, since she previously filed a report of discrimination against the DHS, the agency saw her as a direct cause of the impending public scrutiny. This assumption led to the unprecedented acts of retaliation against Julia Davis and her family.

In preparation for the upcoming press conference pertaining to this matter, Commissioner Bonner and his staff started to make inquiries about Julia Davis to the local Port management. The attack was launched by the former Director of field operations Adele Fasano, who was working with Bonner at the DHS headquarters in Washington, DC. As Adele Fasano testified in her sworn deposition, “The commissioner had been approached by a Los Angeles Times reporter when he was conducting a badge ceremony in San Diego a couple of weeks ago, and the Los Angeles Times reporter had a copy of a letter Ms. Davis authored making serious allegations about us not detecting terrorists at the border.”

Bonner’s office wanted to know if there were any ongoing investigations against Davis that the agency could use to discredit her, thereby attempting to invalidate her whistleblowing disclosure. Fasano was informed that there were no investigations against Julia Davis, which didn’t suit the Department of Homeland Security’s agenda. Following Fasano’s conversation with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s San Diego Office of Professional Responsibility (ICE OPR), sixteen (16) investigations against Julia Davis were launched in rapid succession. These cases were opened and investigated by ICE Agents Herbert P. Kaufer and Jeffrey J. Deal. They dealt with petty, non consequential allegations – for example, investigating whether Julia’s cell phone was broken, who took Gummi Bear candies out of her locker and what she did during her unpaid leave.

Interestingly enough, Deal was readily familiar with Julia Davis, having received her complaint of being stalked and sexually harassed by her Supervisor in 2003. Deal closed that case without any investigation, stating that “there was no action required”, since in his opinion sexual harassment didn’t rise “to the criminal level”. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General later investigated and substantiated Julia’s report, as did the courts, granting her petition for a permanent restraining order and issuing rulings that she was, in fact, severely harassed. Deal’s approach to Julia’s report was notably different from the way he later handled numerous investigations against her.

Jeffrey Deal testified under oath that these cases were initiated “directly from Washington” with a “priority” designation. Cases against Julia Davis were “to be given immediate attention” and “to go to the top of the workload”. In one instance, Deal interrogated Julia for over eight (8) hours straight, with the zeal of a homicide detective. After all, Commissioner Bonner was waiting, Adele Fasano was asking for the investigation “to be completed and referred back to management for action” and Deal was ordered “to get it done as quickly as possible”.

Kaufer and Deal rushed to finalize the menial case involving a broken cell phone, preparing a memorandum that was signed by their Supervisor, former Associate Special Agent In Charge James Wong. In this memorandum authored by Herbert Kaufer, Julia Davis was alleged to pose “a serious breach to security”. Adele Fasano admitted under oath that in her conversations with the San Diego office of ICE she expressed how “glad” she was “to hear that it’s coming to conclusion”, since “the time line was short in order to provide the requested information” “in response to an interview, a media request.”

Julia was harassed and terrorized to such an extent that she involuntarily resigned from the Department of Homeland Security. Immediately after her resignation she sent a certified letter to the investigating agents, volunteering to continue cooperating with any ongoing investigations and even offering to undergo a polygraph examination. Julia eventually prevailed in a discrimination lawsuit against the DHS. The Judge determined that her resignation was involuntary and was caused by the agency’s “illegal conduct”, its “betrayal” of Julia and “unnecessary harassment” to which she was subjected.

In spite of what should have been the end of the ordeal, Kaufer and Deal didn’t stop. After Julia left the Agency, Kaufer and Deal opened an additional of thirty-eight (38) cases against her, for a total of fifty-four (54) investigations. They referred to Julia as a “domestic terrorist” and abused their authority by subjecting her to years of warrantless surveillance and unlawfully obtaining access to private documents and information, under the guise of a never-ending “criminal investigations”.

A multi-agency Task force was formed and tirelessly labored day and night, following, wiretapping, photographing and investigating Julia Davis, BJ Davis and Julia’s parents at taxpayers expense. There was absolutely no valid reason for the two filmmakers to be investigated, aside from the Agency’s retaliatory motives. BJ Davis has been in the film industry for over 35 years, he is a member of the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild of America and other prestigious entertainment-industry unions.

BJ Davis is a premier producer and director who has worked with Academy Award-winning feature film directors Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone and John McTiernan. He has also worked in close collaboration with four-time Emmy Award winner Arthur Allan Seidelman. BJ Davis has worked as a stuntman in over 180 films and television shows and as a second unit director/stunt coordinator in over 250 films and television series. As a stuntman in the beginning of his career, BJ Davis stunt doubled Academy Award winners Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Tommy Lee Jones, Michael Caine and Art Carney. Julia Davis stunt-doubled Angelina Jolie and authored produced screenplays for award-winning feature films, TV series and documentaries. BJ Davis holds two world stunt records: a high fall from a helicopter into the ocean from 180 feet and an aerial neck suspension beneath a helicopter at 70 mph, at 1,000 feet for a period of 20 minutes of flight. For his spectacular stunts and unbeatable world records, BJ was accepted into the Hollywood Stuntman Hall of Fame (other members include movie superstar Kirk Douglas and an American icon John Wayne). BJ produced and directed award-winning films, TV series and music videos.

The Task force had quietly questioned anyone and everyone who crossed paths with Julia and BJ Davis, from politicians to mobsters. Agent Jeffrey Deal admitted under oath that he was encouraging civilians to file criminal charges against BJ and Julia Davis. They even paid BJ’s ex-wife in exchange for providing false testimony against the couple. In addition to their sneak-and-peak intrusions into the Davis residences and office, Kaufer and Deal conducted a warrantless search of BJ Davis’ office and unlawfully removed films, screenplays, tax and financial documents, medical records and numerous other items.

BJ and Julia have recently discovered that Kaufer and Deal managed to obtain their medical and insurance records from the Screen Actors Guild of America, in violation of various federal and state medical Privacy Act regulations, under the guise of the Patriot Act. Egregious abuses of the Patriot Act by the federal government have been recently exposed by the Justice Department audit, which recently concluded that the FBI abused the Patriot Act, improperly and, in some cases, illegally using it to secretly obtain highly personal information about people in the United States. The audit found that for the last three years, the FBI underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over their customer data. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ordered a further investigation and did not exclude the possibility of future criminal charges, stating to reporters: "There is no excuse for the mistakes that have been made".