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DIGITALLY RECORDED¶
SWORN STATEMENT¶
OIG CASE #:¶
2019-010614¶
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE¶
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL¶
SEPTEMBER 29, 2021¶
RESOLUTE DOCUMENTATION SERVICES 28632 Roadside Drive, Suite 285 Agoura Hills, CA 91301 Phone:¶
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APPEARANCES:¶
OTHER APPEARANCES:¶
NONE¶
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My name is , and I am a Senior Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, New York Field Office, and these are my credentials.¶
Okay. I see them.¶
This interview with Federal Bureau of Prisons employee, Hughwon is being conducted as part of an official U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, or DOJ/OIG investigation. Today’s date is September 29th, 2021. And the time is 8:16 a.m. This interview is being conducted at the OIG New York Field Office, located at 1 Battery Park Plaza, New York, New York. Also present is DOJ/OIG ASAC, or Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge, He is in person. And Special Agent is joining us by telephone. He is also with the DOJ/OIG. This interview will be recorded by me, Senior Special Agent Could everyone please identify themselves for the record, and spell their last name? To start,¶
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All right. So, it says, United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Warnings and Assurances to Employees Requested to Provide Information on a Voluntary Basis. “You are being asked to provide information as part of an investigation being conducted by the Office of the Inspector General. This investigation is being conducted pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended. This investigation pertains to job performance failure and security failure. This is a voluntary interview.¶
Accordingly, you do not have to answer questions. No disciplinary action will be taken against you if you choose not to answer questions. Any statement you furnish may be used as evidence in any future criminal proceedings, or agency disciplinary proceedings, or both.” And there is a waiver section. And it says, “I understand the Warnings and Assurances stated above and I am willing to make a statement and answer questions. No promises or threats have been made to me, and no pressure or coercion of any¶
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1 10th. What conversations did you have with each of those individuals? 2 3 : Right. I was just busy working. On the 10th, the day it happened, or -? 4 5 : No. Prior to the 10th. 6 So, the 8th, the 9th, or anywhere back to the July 29th, really. 7 8 : Oh. That we were working on the problem, trying to figure out what was causing it, and that’s when I ordered new hard drives to replace all the drives. That was my next step. That’s what I was going to do that day. But I couldn’t. 9 10 : And what made you do that, though? Who told you to replace the hard drives? 11 12 : Talking through SigNet, and the former com tech, ___, he’s the computer services manager and we talked about buying hard drives. I actually got a purchase order, too. Yeah. 13 14 : So, who was the computer service manager? 15 16 : ___.¶
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just talking about the recording and how Mr.¶
would not go in and review a recording without someone requesting him to do so. He doesn’t recall specifically who made that request for him to review the recording, but he believes that he reviewed the recording on the 9th, and that’s when he determined that it wasn’t recording properly. Is that correct?¶
: Yes.¶
: All right. And you - and again - you don’t remember why you were reviewing that recording?¶
: No. Because we’re in the middle of a -. Well, no, this -. Before Epstein happened, we were in the middle of a camera project, we had people TDY. So, I was, like, the lead in the building, trying to tell everybody what needs to get done. And I think the day before, I was on 10 South, I was putting in a rack or something, so I was busy that day, and I had a TDY guy on me.¶
: And when you - on the 8th?¶
: Yeah.¶
: You got a TDY guy with¶
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1 on the list until, of course, Epstein happened. 2 That’s when SigNet came the next day, and put 3 the new recorders in. 4 [ ]: Okay. So, prior to 5 August 10th, 2019, your main point of contact 6 was SigNet, with [ ]? 7 [ ]: 8 [ ]: I mean, 9 [ ]: [ ] . Yes. 10 [ ]: And what was his role and 11 responsibility with SigNet? 12 [ ]: He is just, like, the guy 13 we will call if there is a problem, or if 14 training, or if I don’t know the system. 15 Because, like, this system, I never had 16 training on it. So, like, when I saw it, 17 because the last institution I was, was, like, 18 maybe two versions ahead of this one. So, when 19 I saw this recording, I was, like, this stuff 20 is old, like, I don’t know anything about it. 21 Like, what should I do? So, I called [ ], 22 and [ ] , like, pretty much would walk me through trouble shooting, if there is a problem. 23 [ ]: And what was the system¶
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You can. I have access to look at it, but I didn’t get trained on it, so¶
- I don’t really look at Supervision. I would
- just go in the regular Nice Vision, and look at
- it that way.
24: Yeah. We were told that, 25 in order to determine if there were problems¶
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advised that the cameras at MCC were out of date. The recorders frequently went bad, and the cameras were all analog, and not maintained properly.Ӧ
: Yes.¶
: “The camera system was over 20 years old. Sometimes, the screen would be active, indicating that the camera was working. However, the video would not be recording.”¶
: Yes.¶
: “advised that only one hard drive of the camera system was working, at the time of the incident, on August 10th, 2019. When a DVR went bad, none of the cameras recorded. There was a system failure of DVR-2 on July 29th, 2019, and the motherboard failed on DVR-2 on August 8th, 2019. The hard drive failure occurred on August 10th, 2019.” Is that something that you provided to them?¶
: Yeah. I probably did.¶
Yes.¶
: So, can you just explain to me what we’re talking about here, because it¶
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Yeah. Yeah. Because I was -. See, what happened was, I was going to start rebuilding the drives, so I labeled everything. It was, it was a mess. So, they wanted me to -. Let me if I can think about it. So, everything stopped working. I go in the room, you’ve got to get the recorder working. Well, I got to pull the drives out to get the recorder working. So, the two drives that I pulled out. And so, the two old drives, and the two new drives, I labeled them, because I knew that it was going to be a big thing. So, I got to pay attention to what I’m doing. And then, in the midst of all that, that’s when they took the drives, and said, hey, we need to stop doing everything.¶
So, who is it that actually pulled the bad drives out? You or the¶
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1: Mm-hmm. 2: — when did you obtain the new drives? 3: It had to be some time during that day or the next day. I probably was looking for drives, because if I — 4: Because you said — 5: — if I knew — 6: — you got them, and you got them from the CSM? 7: Yeah. 8: Okay. And you just don’t know if that, you got them from CSM on the 8th or the 9th? 9: The 9th. Yeah. I know I got some drives from him before because we’ve gotten, I’ve gotten old drives from him before. And I know we’ve ordered drives. I’m not too sure if I ordered a whole bunch of drives to just replace all 16, or whatever, how many are in the raid. But we were, that was going to be the next step, to just rebuild everything. 10: Now, if it was your project, and you are the camera guy, why did he have the drives and not you?¶
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1: — now, when you’re seeing them, and did they go in and they look at this, does that seem like they would be right, and nothing recorded after 7/29? 2: Yes. They’re the experts. 3: So, they would know that nothing recorded. 4: All right. So, from 7/29 to 2019, nothing recorded, but this is the first time you are hearing of it? 5: Yes. That is the first time I’m hearing about that. 6: And during the FBI interview, that’s not something they discussed with you? 7: No. Nobody told me that was on the 29th. That that’s the first time. 8: That’s the first time I’ve heard that. 9: Okay. Sorry, . Do you want to go ahead? 10: Yeah. You mentioned that, earlier in the interview, I might have - based on my notes here - that you did a motherboard rebuild, and there was (Indiscernible) 11:*01:19:44) could have happened around July 12: 29th. And if this happened around July 29th,¶
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are you sure that you went in and you verified that the cameras were actually operating? It was actually recording?¶
Now, if it was recording, how was it that, based on their analysis of this stuff, that there is no recordings in the system after 7/29/2019?¶
The way I was taught to look at the system, was to look at the Nice Vision, and if I saw the red lights, like, the system is recording. But then, I found out later, the red lights on the system recording, the way I was looking at it, it doesn’t mean that there was actual video recording. That’s something that SigNet told me later.¶
All right. But then, that contradicts what you stated earlier. Earlier, you stated that you actually went back in, and you reviewed —¶
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I’m saying, I did both. I would have looked to see if there was video, and then I would have looked to see that I got the red lights, that everything was recording. The initial thing to do is to look to see a red lights, that those are working. And then, the next thing was to do was to pull back to see if there was video. Now, SigNet told me later, after all of this happened, even on the new recorder that we have, the red lights that show, it don’t mean that anything is recording. The system is not recording. You would have to go pull video from, like, a week before, or two weeks before, to see if there was a failure. But you would not know, like, looking at it, that there was a problem.¶
: Okay. But you had said based upon this comment by the FBI report —¶
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So, here. Open, open discussion. Tell us exactly what was going on with these recordings, and when they weren’t working.¶
Well, when I fist got to the institution, that’s why I started a project. I would look for video, and they would tell me there is a problem, and I’m, like, oh, you can’t keep running the institution like this. If there is no video, you have to fix the system. You have to get an upgrade. I’ve called SigNet about the problem. And I informed everybody, hey, this is a problem. You can’t have a jail where you can’t find video whenever you need video. Or the recorder is always failing.¶
I was in Terre for a year and a half. I don’t remember, maybe a couple times where something - as far as video, pulling back video, you would always find a video. There was never a time where you couldn’t find a video. Maybe some cameras weren’t working, but as far as pulling back video for a jail, there is no time where you can’t find video. And my experience, when I got there, was, like, oh,¶
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it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal.¶
And I’m, like, well, this is a jail, with funding and whatever else problems they had.¶
Nobody considered anything here a priority or an emergency. So, after Epstein, that’s when it was, like, oh, well, now you’ve got to stay, now you have to do everything. And I’ve been screaming at the hilltop when I got there.¶
Like, hey, you have a problem, you’ve got to fix it. That’s why I did the money for a project, hey, you need to get new recorders in, you’ve got to put the -. You’ve got to upgrades. Like, you haven’t done anything at all. Like, you have to spend money. Like, this stuff is old.¶
But tell us specifically about times where there were weeks at a time that the recorders —¶
Well, not weeks —¶
— were down.¶
— at a time, but I’m just saying, like, if this happened at this time, right, and I replaced the drives the other time, weren’t they looking for video, and¶
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And then, especially when I had to do the time change, because we had to do a time change in October, on the year changes, and I’m, like, why is it taking a whole day and a half for them, for the recordings to start to rebuild and change the time on the recordings. It shouldn’t take a whole day to do that.¶
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stuff, like, like, this stuff is unacceptable. Like, when I came and, like, the way the building was laid out, and some of the wiring issues in the building, this was just not acceptable.¶
: Trying to figure out how we were going to upgrade, like, because not only did the recorder was bad, it was also the housing units, there was only one camera in the housing unit. So, if anything was to happen on the housing unit, you would see no video.¶
: Okay.¶
It would just be a blanket camera footage of the common area. There would be no additional video.¶
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: Okay.¶
: So, because —¶
: Can I ask a question?¶
: — yeah. Go ahead.¶
Please.¶
: , based on your understanding, how important is it that the cameras are recording on a day to day basis?¶
: It’s very important. And it should be checked on a day to day basis.¶
And the way, at my last institution, that I was aware that anything wasn’t working, was I would actually get a report from SIS, this camera is bad, that camera is out. This camera is not working. Now, after Epstein happened, they wanted to task me with that job. I refused because I can’t be the same person cooking the food, telling you that the cameras are bad, or the food is good. So then, it became up to somebody else to check the cameras. Daily.¶
Now, they check it every day. There is a report that’s sent up. But before Epstein, there was never a daily report of the cameras are recording, or we have an issue. There was¶
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-. I also, I wrote a work order over $10,000, because the camera system as an asset is worth over $10,000. To get that fixed. Because I had that problem, I had also the fire alarm was, I had a problem with that. I had a problem with that. I had a problem with the voicemail system. Everything. When I got to the building, everything was just at a pretty bad state. That wasn’t the only thing that was looked over as, like, oh, we need to get this fixed. The whole building was, as far as communication wise, it was pretty bad.¶
: Yeah. But the question I had was, did you write any reports or —¶
: I -.¶
: — any emails to upper¶
management —¶
: Yes.¶
: — saying, hey, listen -?¶
: Yes.¶
: Okay. Do you recall who you sent it to?¶
: I would have sent it to¶
, and he was my first facility¶
manager.¶
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possibility, then, because it says you —¶
: No. : — no? : No. : You don’t think that — : Hey, once you do the AMS, that’s just the communication thing, like, if - . And not everything is talking, that’s when everything would start working.¶
: Okay. And you said you never would access Supervision.¶
: Mm-hmm. : We talked about all of this. So, it says, this is the issues, “The motherboard failed on DVR-2. Per¶
in the case of a motherboard failure, this would cause the operating system, such as Windows, to shut down or fail. When this happens, it would stop recording to the hard drive, because the recorder software requires Windows Operating System to be operational, to record data to the hard drives.Ӧ
: Mm-hmm. : “Also, when the motherboard fails, the network connectivity is¶
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lost because the network card is dependent on the motherboard to be functioning. And Windows to be running, for the network card driver to be operational. If and when the motherboard failed, this would have caused the network card to shut off, thus triggering the above message of a system failure, of DVR-2. Because it can no longer communicate with the DVR.” Does this sound accurate?¶
I just remember I did the electronics thing, I just did a smell test, and I knew something on the motherboard burned up. You could smell that. Because I, when I took the motherboard out, you could tell it was a problem. Something on the motherboard burned up. Or failure power. Or something. But it was the motherboard. Because I do remember doing that.¶
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And the July 29th issue is news to you?¶
Yes.¶
Okay. Well, we’ll look into that.¶
It doesn’t state clearly if they -. Was anything was retrieved, but prior to 29th, that’s something we have to clarify with the FBI.¶
Okay. All right. Now, regarding the hard drive failure. It says, “Per , if there was a message that stated this is in the Supervision application of the video management system, this would indicate that the failed motherboard had been either recovered, repaired, or replaced, and now functioning because this would allow Windows Operating System to run, allowing the recording to be in operation, and communication to the application management server restored.¶
If there is one hard drive failure, the system is recoverable by replacing the drive and letting it rebuild. If there were two drives simultaneously failed, then the recorded video data is lost, and unrecoverable due to¶
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: — what do you think that suggests?¶
Somebody is trying to say they did their job where they didn’t do their job.¶
So, you think that the memo was, in fact, created on the 10th, instead of the 8th?¶
I don’t know when it was created. I’m just saying, people are trying to cover their tracks. To say they were notified, and they told this person, and that person. When I got there, and I was trying to explain to everybody how important most of the systems were, everybody just looked at me like I’m spinning two heads. Like, I’m not telling you-. I’m, like, I came from a compound. There was a medium. There is a high. There is a low. There is a death row. If something doesn’t work, it’s a jail, you have to stay. Now, after Epstein happens, everybody wants to do their job. So, that’s the long and short of it.¶
Okay.¶
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But look — I mean, we will have our, you know — — the thing about this whole thing, I’m just going to add my part, because I came from another institution. If there is a problem, and, like, especially the cameras, somebody should be notified. Okay. I’m the guy that fixes it. Okay. , what are you doing? Have you fixed it? Now, after Epstein happens, and we’ve had recorder issues now, and that was what I sent the email, okay, I fixed this, I did this, I did that. But before that, it was not happening.¶
Right. That’s the only part I want to add. That’s -. Now, everybody covers their tracks. But before this, sad to say this had to cause the whole Bureau to wake up. But -.¶
Right. Yeah. All right. So, if that’s it? That’s it.¶
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CERTIFICATE¶
I hereby certify that the foregoing pages represent an accurate transcript of the electronic sound recording of the proceedings before the Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General in the matter of:¶
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