More Waco Fallout

A former federal prosecutor was sentenced to two years' probation Thursday for withholding information that exploding tear gas canisters were used during the Branch Davidian siege.

U.S. District Judge Charles Shaw also ordered Bill Johnston to perform 200 hours of community service.

"Maybe you need to talk to some high school students," Shaw said. "Maybe you can help somebody not to make a similar mistake."

Johnston, standing before the judge, said: "Whatever my reason, it was wrong. It will never be right to withhold something in fear or panic or whatever reason."

Whether Johnston would get probation or jail time remained up in the air prior to Thursday's hearing, despite an earlier agreement reached with prosecutors after Johnston pleaded guilty in February.

Prosecutors withdrew their pledge to recommend probation because they said Johnston violated his plea agreement when he made statements to the publication Texas Lawyer after his guilty plea.

At the hearing, the judge allowed prosecutor Jim Martin to withdraw the probation recommendation.

Johnston was convicted of withholding information about the use of pyrotechnic tear gas on April 19, 1993, the day the compound burned. Davidian leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died inside.

It was Johnston himself who set in motion renewed scrutiny of government missteps in the siege by warning then-attorney general Janet Reno in 1999 that she and the public were being misled about the FBI's handling of it.

Johnston admitted withholding one page of pretrial notes related to the 1994 prosecution of several surviving Branch Davidians.

"Bill Johnston's behavior is not atypical of other people that claim to be whistleblowers, often blowing the whistle to cover their own tracks," Martin told reporters afterward.

Johnston pleaded guilty to one charge of "misprision of a felony," a crime similar to obstruction of justice that carries a lesser penalty. Prosecutors agreed to drop two counts of obstruction of justice and three counts of lying to investigators and a federal grand jury.

In the Feb. 19 issue of Texas Lawyer, Johnston was quoted as saying, "I didn't plead guilty to anything they indicted me for. They charged me with obstruction of justice and five counts of false statements. I did not plead guilty to that and was not guilty of that."

Johnston was indicted by a grand jury in St. Louis on Nov. 8, just before former Sen. John Danforth, assigned by then-President Clinton to look into the Waco siege, released his final report absolving the government of wrongdoing in the siege.

The Johnston case was heard here because Danforth conducted his investigation from his office in downtown St. Louis.

By Joe Stange
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