Ex-FBI agent sentenced for child porn

BOISE – A veteran 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 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, who more recently worked as an investigator for the Idaho attorney general’s office, 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, an FBI sniper who received weapons training at Quantico, Va., 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 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.