Longtime FBI agent sentenced to prison on child porn count
By John Miller, Associated Press Writer
Originally published by Associated Press, August 8, 2005
BOISE, Idaho (AP) A longtime FBI agent who helped arrest mountain-man Claude Dallas and was involved in a deadly 1984 siege involving white supremacists in Washington state is going to prison for 12 months after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
William Buie, 64, of Boise, most recently worked as an investigator for the Idaho attorney general's office.
He was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court to a year in prison on one count of possession of sexually exploitative materials involving minors. He had pleaded guilty in March.
Buie told agents with the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force that he learned to access child pornography Web sites while attending a seminar on preventing child exploitation as part of his law enforcement training in 2000 or 2001.
He acknowledged using his bank debit card to gain access to child erotica and child pornography Web sites, including using the card to buy a month of access to a child pornography Internet site entitled ''Eternal Nymphets.''
Buie, a former FBI sniper who worked for about 30 years for the agency in Seattle, Butte, Mont., and Salt Lake City, participated in the arrest of Dallas in 1982 in Paradise Valley, Nev., after the self-proclaimed mountain man had spent a year on the run after killing two Idaho Fish and Game agents. Dallas served 22 years in prison for manslaughter.
Buie also took part in the 1984 siege on Whidbey Island, Wash. in which Robert Mathews, leader of the violent racist cell called ``The Order,'' was killed following an 18-month wave of armed robberies and assassinations.
U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge gave Buie a reduced sentence of just a year behind bars, down from the standard sentencing range of 27 months to 33 months. That's after his lawyer, Mark Manweiler, argued that Buie's efforts to find sex-addiction treatment and his exemplary work record as well as concern that as a longtime FBI agent he would be in danger behind bars entitled him to a sentencing break.
"He would be unusually susceptible to abuse in a federal correctional institution,'' Manweiler wrote in his motion.
In a statement, the Justice Department said that as many as 150 sexually explicit images depicting children were found on Buie's home computers. It said no images were found on Buie's work computer.
After leaving the FBI, he worked as a criminal investigator for the Idaho attorney general's office for about six years, according to court documents.
According to terms of his sentencing, Buie must turn himself in on July 20 to begin serving his federal prison term.
Phone messages left by the Associated Press late Monday at Buie's Boise residence and on his cell phone weren't immediately returned.
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