I don’t understand how anyone could think that witness tampering would work, at least not where you plan to kill unfriendly witnesses.  Its one thing to bribe witnesses, or threaten them so that you get just what you want from them on the witness stand, or even to ensure (somehow) that they are not available to testify.  But its quite another thing to actually murder them.

Former IRS agent, Steven Martinez, was picked up by the FBI recently for plotting to kill four witnesses that were going to testify against him in a criminal trial that involved defrauding clients to the tune of $11 million.  Martinez’ poor decision-making skills followed him all the way to trial where he decided he would have not one, but four witnesses, killed — and he didn’t think that would appear suspect (all four of them dropping off at about the same time)?  Even his hitman selection demonstrated poor judgment because the guy he picked had a conscience and turned Martinez in.

There must be something about the repetitive harrassing of taxpayers, denying tax relief, and blindly following procedure that saps all the common sense out of IRS employees.  If Steve Martinez is any example at all, they certainly make very bad criminals.