The trial had promised to be quite a show. Relying on Fitzpatrick’s tapes and recollections, the government charged Shabazz with plotting Farrakhan’s death to avenge her father’s assassination in 1965. Shabazz’s mother had accused Farrakhan of playing a role in the slaying, a charge Farrakhan denies. Shabazz feared that her mother, too, would be killed if Farrakhan wasn’t rubbed out. Last week prosecutors released transcripts of phone calls in which she calls Farrakhan “just a slimy pig.” But the case had weaknesses too. In some phone calls, Shabazz had obviously wavered. And prosecutors grew increasingly unsure that Fitzpatrick, a former cocaine user and sometime FBI informant, could survive cross-examination.
Defense attorney Larry Leventhal planned to portray Fitzpatrick as a pariah. “He’s built his life on committing crimes, inducing others to do things and getting a pass for himself by turning those people in,” Leventhal says. “Her troubles were because of his actions.” For his part, U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug says the settlement was in the interest of justice. He understands that his star witness was “feeling bruised,” but, he adds, “in this type of case, no one comes out ahead. I do feel our office dealt honorably with him, even though we couldn’t defend his moral code.”
Speaking by telephone last week from an undisclosed location, Fitzpatrick told his story exclusively to NEWSWEEK, Excerpts:
If a police officer had stopped the violence I’ve stopped, he’d be a hero. But because I’m an informant, I’m a scum-bag. I don’t think anyone loves a snitch. If I’d stopped Oklahoma City, the defense would say I’m a rat.
Qubilah Shabazz left messages for me twice last spring. I finally got in touch with her. She spoke at extended length about all the publicity her mother was bringing to bear on Louis Farrakhan. She went into her feelings about wanting to kill Farrakhan. She was very serious about it. She said she’d searched her mind and decided Michael would help her do it. This was in a dear, calculated, drawn-out conversation toward end of May. I called Dan Scott, the FBI agent who had supervised me in New York when I was 18. [In 1978 he was recruited by the FBI to infiltrate a radical Jewish group trying to thwart the Camp David peace accords; his work helped end a string of 11 New York bombings and convict two conspirators.] I didn’t know who was involved or how deep it was. All I knew was that after 15 years with no contact, the daughter of Malcolm X calls me up and asks me to kill Louis Farrakhan. I wasn’t going to be set up in a conspiracy charge. I thought this was something the FBI should know about.
One of my concerns was that I had a life going. I’d put a lot behind me, and now my past had come back to haunt me. I met with the FBI in late May. I did not want to be an informant again. The idea of flushing my life down a toilet was very unattractive.
I offered to make the tapes. If I didn’t think the threat was serious, I wouldn’t have gone along. I didn’t do it for money, and I didn’t do it to avoid jail sentences. I did it because it was the right thing to do.
Listen to the tapes. The government encouraged me because they didn’t have a case without me. If people think I’m politically incorrect to cooperate with the FBI, sorry.
I’d been in the program before [after the 1978 case], I knew what a horrible life it was. I did not leave my friends and loved ones willingly. The $45,000 the government paid me was calculated to equal six months of my salary at the job I’d have to leave. Would you take six months’ salary to leave everyone and everything you know?
Short of a jail cell, this is the hardest existence I can fathom. Imagine sitting in a Sleepy 8 motel room for months when your only social contact is the Domino’s delivery man. Since January, I think I’ve lived in six cities, give or take. Last week, after the settlement, I saw my girlfriend for the first time in almost four months. We were allowed to embrace for 15 minutes, with six federal marshals standing nearby.
I’m supposed to sound like a murderer, remember? A hit man wouldn’t agree to kill someone and then say it’s wrong.
Ask anybody in my high school. She was a passing acquaintance at best. I remember speaking to her no more than a half a dozen times. There is nothing in the transcripts to support that charge.
I turned to drugs when my father took three years to die of lung cancer, and I have battled that addiction ferociously.
This is a sad event. I’m proud of all my FBI involvement, but I’m not proud that this happened. It’s as disturbing to me as it is to the rest of the nation. But I had no choice. I’ve been accused of betraying the trust of someone close to me. Where is the betrayal? I believe the betrayal is her calling me and asking me to kill Louis Farrakhan.
I was. The government also encouraged me to not to talk to the media so I could tell the truth about my motivation in the case, and address questions about my character. The government was eager for me to participate and pressured me to do so. The government abandoned me at every possible chance to answer false accusations. The government knew I did the stand-up thing and wouldn’t say it.
I’m jaded. The government made the political decision that there had to be a scapegoat.
I did what very few citizens are willing to do. For that I received incredible media distortions, simply because of the politics of this case. Even when the truth was established in court, nobody retracted the suggestion that I did this to avoid jail on a petty cocaine-possession charge–the maximum I could receive is probation.
I hope to live a life of obscurity.
I have no ill will toward Qubilah. I’m not glad she chose me. It’s sad. I wish her the best. She’s a girl who had some hatred in her-justifiably so.
If I thought my father had been killed by Louis Farrakhan, I might want to do something about it. I understand that.
I don’t think anybody’s blameless. There’s a lot vested in preserving the Shabazz family’s good name, and that became a focal point in this case. That had nothing to do with me. I was in it to save lives. The case boiled down to a very troubled girl who put the government-and me-in a no-win situation.
