Patsy Brumfield reports the good news on NEMS360.com:
Hal Neilson, former resident agent for the FBI’s Oxford office, has been “fully reinstated,” his attorney says.
Neilson, 50, a 20-year-plus FBI employee, was acquitted Nov. 20 of two federal charges that he lied about his financial interests in the University Avenue building where he worked.
A few days later, prosecutors dismissed three other counts when the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict against him.
They said that they were doing so because they could no longer prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Neilson “picks up his badge and gun on Monday in Jackson,” his attorney, Christi R. McCoy, noted Tuesday.
So, will Neilson retire?
Neilson was indicted Jan. 13 and suspended from active duty with the FBI soon after, but he had been under a legal cloud for even longer because of a federal investigation about his business dealings.
Moments after all charges were gone against him, he indicated he was likely to retire around the end of the year.
Neilson also has a lawsuit pending against Tom Dawson of Oxford, a former assistant U.S. attorney, and Jackson blogger Alan Lange, whom Neilson claims libeled him in a book they co-wrote about the Scruggs judicial bribery scandal. Continue reading “FBI fully reinstates Agent Hal Neilson”