8 



Secondly, we believe that a citizen ombudsman needs to be estab- 

 lished. Passengers must have a direct channel to report incidents of 

 this nature. Someone to cut through the bureaucracy, follow the 

 progress of investigations, and report to Congress and the responsi- 

 ble Federal agencies on a regular basis. 



I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to share 

 our experiences. 



[Statement of Al may be found at end of hearing.] 



Mr. Tauzin. Thank you, Al. We are going to interrupt the panel 

 and allow questions at this time in order to facilitate air travel 

 that Al must meet. Al, in your testimony, you indicate that the 

 film was taken October 25, 1991. Charges were not filed till April of 

 '93. That is 18 months. That is enough time to have two children, 

 not twins. That is an awful long time. Do you think it should ever 

 take that long again to bring a case to prosecution when there is a 

 film of the violation available to the authorities? 



Mr. Levett. I certainly believe that a reasonable amount of time 

 is necessary to thoroughly investigate the matter and do the re- 

 search, the Coast Guard should not be jumping to conclusions. We 

 feel that the initial investigation that took some eight months or 

 more to get to the Justice Department was excessive. Once the 

 facts were in hand, from our perspective, it could have been imme- 

 diately turned over to the Justice Department for criminal investi- 

 gation, and that is what we didn't understand. 



Simply — I would make phone calls every three weeks or each 

 month to follow the progress of the case. I was given a variety of 

 stories why the case had not been moved along yet. In one instance 

 the computer system was unable to accommodate the necessary in- 

 formation. We were told that the Coast Guard expected to walk the 

 case file across to their legal division within a few days. In fact, a 

 month later it still hadn't been walked across. There were simply 

 no explanations provided. 



Mr. Tauzin. Did anyone in this case ever say whether this was 

 just a single incident or this was common practice? Was there any 

 discussion of that in the plea bargaining that occurred? 



Mr. Levett. I was not involved with the plea bargaining. 



Mr. Tauzin. Well, not involved. You were simply involved in 

 bringing the case and pushing the authorities along? 



Mr. Levett. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Tauzin. And in terms of your involvement, do you think 

 that the case would have been prosecuted if you hadn't stayed on 

 it? 



Mr. Levett. The indication the Marine Safety Office gave us ini- 

 tially was that they felt that this was probably a civil fine, if that, 

 and that was their preliminary sense of it. I encouraged them to 

 consider a criminal investigation on the matter because I felt that 

 the — I believe it was a $25,000 civil fine they told me. I just felt 

 that was insignificant given the nature of the incident. 



Mr. Tauzin. Now, we have been asked this question so maybe 

 you can answer it — is there a financial reward for the citizen serv- 

 ice you performed in this case? 



Mr. Levett. The U.S. Attorney has informed us that under the 

 law we are entitled to a portion of the reward at the discretion of 

 the Court. 



