TTSOML #102: Assault By FBI Employees Bujanda & Garza

I just need a minute to work into this...Okay,

After talking to Bujanda and Garza on the phone, they discussed what time I should meet up with them. I told them I was going to go for a run at a track nearby and then would shower and meet them. They said okay. So I got ready for a run and then walked over to the track near my apartment. After I had arrived, I noticed a red VW pulling up. She got there maybe 20 minutes into my routine and I was went from running to walking. She approached me and started talking to me. I remember I had a strange feeling about her. She asked me a lot of questions and started talking to me about her boyfriend, who sounded a lot like, actually, Bujanda. She said he traveled a lot and was in CA but he called her from his hotel when he was there, so she knew he cared. I can't remember everything she said, but it was strange enough that I told FBI supervisor Julia Thornton about it. This woman kept asking if I had a boyfriend, and wanted to know exactly what my interest was in any man I was dating. There was no one else on the track and I'd never seen her before. She was fit and looked like she did weights of some kind. Then she left, after having only talked to me and done some walking. She didn't really work out. It was more like she wanted to talk to me. I sensed, and had no proof, but I sensed someone had sent her after I'd talked to Bujanda and Garza. I felt she was, in some way, connected to them.

So then I went home, showered, and dressed. I was late meeting them and wore jeans, heels, and a yellow halter top with dangly earrings. When I walked into Berbattis, I walked to the left, past the bar, and over to a booth where they were sitting, each on one side of the table across from eachother, with their backs to the wall. They were drinking from bottles of beer.

I sat next to Bujanda, who moved his leg to touch mine.

Bujanda made a point, early in our meeting, of showing me this plastic card he had on him, of St. Jude. I thought this was a little odd, because he had told me from the first that he always wore a medal of the saint and I had commented to Christa that I never saw him wearing any medal. I told her, why would he tell me he wears a medal when he doesn't? I had also asked him, at one point, if I could see it, and he said he didn't have it on at that moment. So then, he produces this laminated card of St. Jude at Berbattis. It was a card, not a medal, besides which, what was his point?

Then, I was talking with them and I asked them about their work. I said, "What's the difference between the CIA and the FBI?" and Garza said, "The FBI is better." Then they went on and on about their work and how they liked it and what they investigate. Bujanda said sometimes it's hard to do the right thing and that some guy had come into the FBI and talked about his work undercover. I asked what was hard about it and he said the money. Then he said I should watch this one movie, and I can't remember which one it was. I told him I'd seen Donnie Brasco and liked it. He said Donnie Brasco was good, but said to me the way it REALLY is, I would have to watch "In Too Deep". As he described this movie a little, I started wondering what this was all about. I was meeting his "boss" and Bujanda was also telling me Garza was his handler. I didn't know what a handler was and they explained. So finally, as they knew I had an interest in the FBI, I said, "Are you guys recruiting me or something?" and I said it seriously. They looked at eachother and Garza said, I quote, "We're looking for the right woman for our operations." I got nervous and said I had to use the restroom.

When I arrived there, I ordered one vodka-soda. After I had finished it, Garza laughed and said to Bujanda, "Look! How cute! She's drunk already." Probably because I sort of moved my head in a sweeping gesture at one point. I do remember feeling very tipsy. Garza thought I was drunk and Bujanda agreed. I went to the bathroom, believing I was keeping a straight line, and I felt confused. They were sort of hitting on me, but telling me they were recruiting me for the FBI, and then bringing up Catholic stuff, not to mention, they both made some comments which were direct repeats of things I had said to Mike Tancer and to Christa Schneider. For example, after Garza said I was drunk, he said something about how is it (my drink) and said, laughing like it was an inside joke, "Is it "smmooooooth?" and this struck me because Tancer had laughed out loud when I said the meltaway Exederin was "smooooth" the same way Garza said it. Garza also made a comment about how he had a "hole in his knee" and he laughed and I thought this was strange because I still a "hole" in my knee where the bone graft hadn't filled in yet, which showed up on X-ray. I wondered how he came up with that.

Other things I picked up on were their expressions when they asked me where my parents lived. I said, Coquille, Oregon. They perked up and said "Coquille?" and looked at eachother. There was something about Coquille going on, I guessed.

Prior to going out with them, too, I had Christa AND my old ex asking me exactly what "moves" were a turn on or were irresistable to me. They pressed for details and I didn't know why. My ex asked a LOT of questions, and our "relationship" was already over, but he started asking what my family did for a living, who they were, and the same questions Christa asked long ago. As to turns ons, I couldn't really think of anything in particular, and said it was all good, but when constantly pressed to be specific, I finally said, "I don't know?! being kissed on the neck maybe?" and I probably said something about a hand on my knee. Mainly, I said, being kissed on the neck. They also asked me, if I could have any car I wanted, what kind of car would it be? even, what color. I said I liked VW Passats because they turned a nice corner. As for color I said maybe black, or some classic neutral color (gold, white).

When I came back from the bathroom, they asked me if I'd ever done shots before. I said no. I had had 2 vodka-tonics already. I think Garza bought the first round, and Bujanda bought the second round. They both just drank beer and Garza was having more beer than Bujanda. Bujanda wasn't supposed to have too much, I heard, and drank Michelob Ultra. They wanted to do shots and knew I was already drunk, and I was. But I thought, if they're recruiting me, and they're Mexican, doing tequila shots must be sort of like a cultural way to bond. Every culture has customs. In Russia, maybe you'd bond over business deals with vodka, I don't know. I sort of thought it would be an insult not to and I hadn't done shots and thought I could trust them. They were "FBI" afterall.

But first I tried to make sure I would be safe. I looked at Bujanda and said, "I parked my car in a garage. If I do shots with you guys, could you get me home safely?" I looked directly into his eyes and he didn't flinch. He looked at me straight in the eye and said yes, I would be safe and that he'd drive me back to my house and help me get my car the next day. So they ordered shots of tequila and showed me how to use the salt and lime. We did at least 3 rounds of shots. I'm absolutely positive I did 2 rounds, but I think it was three. Bujanda passed on the last one and got a coke instead. Or maybe he got his coke at the next place we went to.

At some point, both Bujanda and Garza eagerly filled out applications to win a lotto to visit the Playboy Mansion. The waitress came to our table and asked if they were interested and they said yes and both diligently filled out forms and handed them back to the waitress. They also said, Bujanda said, "Where's Scotty?" and they talked about how Scotty was going to join them. I had never heard of a "Scotty" until I was already drunk. They also saw someone there who they thought could get them into trouble of some kind because Garza pointed someone out and made mention. But I don't know who it was, male or female.

I had not had dinner. Neither had they. They ordered calamari and I shared the plate with Garza, but after the 2 drinks and then the shots, I was exceedingly drunk. I have only been that drunk, less than a handful of times: my first time was when I had 8 glasses of champagne as a brand new drinker (at 28 or so) on New Year's. I had thought it was 3 glasses of wine or champagne to 1 hard liquor drink. So I thought I was actually only having a couple of drinks (alcohol equiv) over a long night, with dinner, and I was dog sick the next day. My habit at the time I went out with the FBI guys, was to have one or two drinks on a Friday night, at the most. It took very little for me to have a buzz.

This time, I was so drunk, I remember I couldn't really see things outside of a narrow little scope. It was like my vision was only good for seeing things immediately before me. I couldn't walk straight at all, and both guys escorted me out of Berbattis, holding my arm and directing me. We went to Bar 71 (if that's the correct name), a little dance/pub spot. Garza tried to buy me another drink. I said no. He brought me something anyway and I set it down on a counter without touching it. I tried to dance with them but I was basically too drunk to really dance. Bujanda left and stood against the wall, drinking a gigantic coke with a straw (he'd said all his friends tease him about his oral fixation). He said to me, "Dance with Armando." It was like a command. So I was dancing and Garza kept trying to put his hands on my ass, and I wondered what was going on. Supposedly, Bujanda had been interested in me, and I didn't know where he'd gone and if he was okay or what. I told Garza, lets find Bujanda and Garza kept saying he was alright. I found Bujanda and I asked him what was up, that I thought he had liked me. He said, "I do, but Armando likes you more."

Oh, back at Berbattis, forgot to mention, at one point both Garza and Bujanda went to the bathroom. I think I had to go twice because once I went on my own and the second time, they went with me. They both went into the men's restroom and were there a long time. When the door opened, I was suprised to see it looked like a one-stall restroom and was very tiny. I wondered what they'd been doing in there.

So back to the dance place, after I had set down the other drink Garza tried to give me, they were ready to go. Bujanda made a point of saying to me, "Armando has a black VW Passat!" He was trying to point out the car type before I ever saw it. I thought it was a little odd, why would he bring this up unless he thought it mattered to me? It was the same car type I said I would get if I had a choice. They drove towards my place and I thought it was strange how they knew where to go without my giving them directions. At the last minute, they were talking to eachother in Spanish, and then asked me where to go. But they were almost there.

In a conversation prior to this date, early on, Bujanda told me over the phone, where I was born, my birth date, and a number of other I.D. things. I asked him where he got this information and he said most of it was available online, public information. He said he had to make sure he wasn't going out with a criminal.

When they got to my apartment, I said thank you and told them they could let me off at the staircase to the door. They insisted on walking me to the door. I said it was okay, but thought maybe they were concerned for my safety. So Garza got out of the car and walked me up the stairs and Bujanda was parking. I didn't know Bujanda was parking, I thought I was just being walked to the door and then Garza was going to go back down and leave. When I got to my door, I said thank you and goodnight and Armando pressured me to let him in. I said no. He kept pressuring me, telling me he really had to go to the bathroom. Bujanda started coming up the stairs and was started to walk back down, but Garza had his hand over my hand and was trying to turn the key in my lock. He did this a couple of times and then I finally said, "Okay, fine." I didn't want them in my house, but I felt coerced. So I let them in and I don't remember if he went to the bathroom or not. I know what I did--I walked over to my couch and sat down. Bujanda sat on one side of me. Then Garza sat on the other side of me. At the exact same time, they both started kissing me on the neck, and they put their hands on my knees.

I stood up, shocked. I said, "What's going on?!" Maybe it would have been obvious to everyone else, but I was truly confused. I was also, extremely drunk. I was not able to process things correctly.

I should mention, the part about the glocks. I think before they tried to kiss me was when the guns came up. I asked about shooting, and they took their guns out. They were black and small, and they told me they were "glocks". I asked if I could hold one and Garza said yes, after he made some vulgar comment. I told him to take the bullets out though, because I didn't want to hold a loaded gun. So he pulled a cartridge or something out, and then he emptied bullets out from that piece. He put the piece back in, and gave me the gun. First, I examined a bullet. They were silver or brass or something and almost as large as the tip of my pinky, and they had a copper top. Bujanda tried to show me how to hold it and Garza was saying to pull it slowly and pointed to my "steady arms" he said to Bujanda. He said, "Look at that!" and I think it might have been because I was able to keep my arms steady when everyone knew how drunk I was. But then he also said, "Most women pull it too fast" and I think that was supposed to be inuendo. Bujanda still had his gun with him, which, I assume, also was full of ammo.

They'd been carrying their guns on them, all night and I didn't know.

I asked Garza and Bujanda, before they tried to kiss me and touch me, if they would like a glass of water. Garza said yes and Bujanda said he'd get his own. He stood up and walked into my kitchen, looking around. When Bujanda first got into my aparmtnet, he was running through the whole thing, looking along my desk and at the wall, and then in the kitchen he actually looked behind my refrigerator. I have no idea why he wanted to look behind my fridge but he did. He got his water and I saw him noticing a paper on the counter, where I had some prison names listed. I was taking a class in Juevenile Justice at the time, and part of my project was to get the names of prisons in the area and then I wanted to maybe develop a poll or survey and see how many felt they had been railroaded by the system and to describe what happened, and what went wrong in the courts. I was already talking on the phone to people about it. I didn't know what Bujanda was thinking of my list, but I saw him notice and he said nothing.

When I tried to stand up, and asked what was going on, they said, "Nothing, nothing" and persuaded me to sit down again. I assumed they weren't going to try the same thing and I was drunk, asking them what was going on, and saying I had thought Bujanda was interested and then they were talking about my being in the FBI... So I sat down again and these guys put their hands on my breasts and my thighs and Garza put a hand to my crotch. I stood up again and moved away, stunned. They had also tried kissing my neck at the same time again.

I told them I was going to stand over there and they said "Do you want us to go?" and stood up and I didn't want to let them off that easily. In my state, I was thinking if they left right then, I'd never get the truth out of them. I said, "No, I want you to tell me what's going on." They said nothing again and I said they were not leaving my apartment until they started talking. hey looked at eachother and then Garza distracted me by saying, "I see your guitar over there, do you play guitar?" I said yes and they asked me to play a song. So, like a drunken idiot, I did. I couldn't play very well, because of my condition but I tried and they tried to get me to sit down again, and then Garza pulled out the back of my pants when I was playing, and told Bujanda to look. He pulled on my G-string.

I told to stop it and then Garza said he was tired and taking a nap. First he asked me, "Do you have any REEFER?" I said what is that? I didn't know what reefer was. Bujanda said it was a term for "pot". I said no, and told them I didn't smoke pot and had already told them that. At that time in my life, I'd never smoked it, ever, and I had seen people smoking it, around me, only a couple of times. Bujanda said, when Garza asked if I had any reefer, "Don't answer that question."

I was leaning against Bujanda at that point, and I think Garza was faking being asleep because he had his cell phone out. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd been taking photos. Bujanda put his hands up underneath my shirt. I said I was tired and going to bed and he said he'd walk me to the room. So he did and I was almost passing out. I was getting one of my migraines that night and I had asked Garza for some Advil when we were at Berbattis, and let them know I was started to get a migraine. But he didn't have any with him and I thought maybe the alcohol would dull the pain. The pain was worse by the time I was at my house and I took 2 Vicodin in front of them, to be able to get rid of the pain and sleep. I had Flexeril but didn't want to take that combo because I'd already had liquor.

So I was about to pass out and I was lying down, fully clothed, and Bujanda laid down next to me. He tried to kiss me and I turned away. I told him I just wanted to sleep. I was too tired and drunk to process everything that was happening. But I remember I asked some questions and Bujanda told me he did like me but that he wasn't looking for anything serious. I asked him why he thought I WAS. Then he also told me about his work and how he was depressed (I had already made a comment about that at Berbattis, to both of them. I said, out of the blue, to Bujanda, "I think you're depressed." and then the idea came to me, "I think someone died." Both of their heads snapped up and they looked shocked, like I'd hit on something).
So Bujanda told me he was known, in the FBI, for being the one to put his own father away. He said he belonged to some big-time drug family and he helped them bust his own father and he felt guilty for it, even though everyone at work thought it was so great. I asked about his mother and he laughed under his breath, like he didn't think too highly of her. He said, "All I can say, is she's a hard worker." Bujanda made a point of telling me, "You know, Armando's a Fulbright scholar." He said this, out of the blue, as if to impress me, and I thought it was strange because I had told Christa how impressed I was by the fact that one of my professors, Michael Clark, was a Fulbright scholar and that I looked it up and it was a big deal. She kept asking about this, what I thought about Fulbright scholars. I may have also said something to my ex but I don't think so. I just gushed about Clark one day. And then, here was Bujanda, out of all the things he could have said about his "boss" and "handler", he only says he was a Fulbright scholar. I said, in response, "So?" which is what I think I said when they both made a point to tell me how Garza had a "black VW Passat". Bujanda told me he had a hard time with his emotions and that he couldn't feel things anymore and felt detached from everything. I was sympathetic and said I wasn't going to make out with him, but that I'd give him a backrub. So he took off his shirt, and I did his back and he said, "Yeah! You know how to treat a man!" which made me think about how Garza wanted me to say to Bujanda, when we were first at Berbatti's, "Tu eres mi Rey". He told me to whisper it in his ear, and I did, and Bujanda smiled.

I then laid down and was about passing out. I told him I just wanted to sleep but Bujanda ran his hand down my side. Then I probably looked like I was asleep, and my eyes were closed, and I heard him get up and then I heard him talking to Garza in whispers and then for some reason, I think I saw they were wearing different shirts. Like maybe they had shirts on underneath what they were wearing or something. I don't know why, but I think I saw Garza in a long sleeved white shirt but I could be wrong about that. They left and locked the door behind them.

I woke the next day, around 2 a.m. As I sobered up, I had a dreadful sinking feeling, and was able to process things better. I knew something very wrong had happened but I still didn't know the legal name for it. I started to get scared and nervous that maybe those guys weren't even FBI afterall. How did they know all this info about me? I called a couple of friends and they didn't think they were FBI either. They thought maybe they were con men or something. One friend told me not to report it. That was Robin Bechtold, my old high school boyfriend who I once told an officer might be selling drugs, when I still lived in Oregon. The unfortunate thing there was that his own brother probably got the information. His brother was a Portland police officer, or a state officer, by the name of Nathan Bechtold. I think I made a call after Bechtold tried to buy my oxycontin from me and I knew he sold some stuff. At that time in my life, I never did drugs, thought they were evil, and that drugs were a pariah for society and a menace to the vulnerable. So I reported a couple of things. Like I've always said, I never did any drugs of any kind until several months ago, AFTER my son was taken from me, for medicinal reasons, AND before that, I did NOT abuse narcotic painkillers, contrary to what Wenatchee doctors have tried to claim.

So Bechtold told me NOT to report these guys, and I knew it would ruin my chances of being in the FBI. I knew that my "dream" had been sabotaged because if I reported employees of the FBI, it would be a bad mark with the FBI. My other friend thought I should find out, somehow, if they really were FBI. It was that afternoon that this associate, a friend of Christa's, called me to ask me to come over to his house for a BBQ. I tried calling Bujanda so I could get my car and then I thought what a stupid thing that was, after everything, and I called this other guy instead, who took me to my car. He was a graduate from Lake Oswego, the same high school Christa went to, and that Christa's boyfriend, Ryan Barnes (who worked in NYC in finance--hedge funds) went to. Ryan Barnes and this guy, were best friends. Right now, I'm blanking on his name, I want to say Trevor or Darin or Dylan (last name?) but it will come to me and I'll enter it here. He traveled a lot, on business he said, selling computer stuff I think. He was very short and very muscular and fit. He had a house of his own where he'd done his own masonry for an outdoor firepit next to the swimming pool.

So it was a BBQ/pool party and I was in such shock, I just sat there and couldn't talk really. Someone came over to me and tried to get me to talk and have fun and I tried but I had an awful feeling. I knew that somehow those two FBI guys were connected to my litigation with the Catholic church and those lawyers, and that they'd been trying to distract me, and screw with my head. Too many things were not coincidental. I decided on that day, that I was leaving the state. I was not going to stay in Oregon any longer. I hung out with everyone, and everybody there was a suntanned hard-body and they were all discussing porn movies, and it just felt surreal. I had a "nightcap" with this guy and he tried to have sex with me and I made him stop after he barely touched me. He said, "Don't leave, you're too drunk to drive." I said, "Oh really? I'm too drunk to drive but not too drunk for you to have sex with me?" and I peeled out on his gravel driveway and sobbed all the way to my house. I decided to report the FBI guys. First I told my family though, and of all things, my Granny piped up and said, "I'll just ask Rick Baken!" I talked to Granny almost everyday, and she said Rick's wife, Claudia, could look these guys up and see if they really were FBI. Claudia told my grandmother Rick was only semi-retired. Rick Baken was their next-door neighbor and had an adjoining orchard and had done work in Las Vegas undercover, doing diamond stings and taking on Tony the Ant or whatever. Sometimes, because by that time, you don't know who you can trust anymore, I questioned why the Bakens were living next door to my grandparents and if they were really "born again christians" and if he really worked for the FBI and didn't do any favors for the mob.

By this time, black wasn't black and white wasn't white anymore. I had a lot of enemies.

One thing I think Christa and her friends banked on, was that I would talk about these men who pulled stuff after getting me drunk. I told her about them and she said she was always "in control". She made me feel like it was my fault. I was too ashamed to tell anyone what was going on. I never spoke up about it, and I certaintly didn't know that there were laws against it too. I didn't know anything about the law then, as regards sexual assault.

What the FBI guys did, I'm told, not only amounts to coercion, in getting into my apartment and trying other stuff, but also sexual assault because they were not drunk themselves, and they knew and admitted they knew I was. I think it's probably also fraud to claim you're recruiting someone for the FBI when you're not, and allowing that person to think this is true.

The FBI certaintly didn't want me to know how bad it really was. I was basically told to keep my mouth shut, and the whole "catholic" connection was dismissed out of hand by Julia Thornton. She said, "this is about misconduct or abuse of their position." She said she and the FBI didn't investigate religious or civil matters. I told her it wasn't about "religion" but that there was a connection to my litigation and she refused to document anything to that effect. When I started to cry, she got harsh with me and tried to cut me off.

But I'll get to that.

Granny called me back to say Claudia asked Rick about things and Rick looked them up. They were both in the FBI system and they WERE FBI employees, but Rick couldn't say what their jobs or positions were because it was "confidential." They and the FBI later tried to say someone who is "undercover" doesn't tell people they're undercover but I wondered if they just didn't want me to reveal this or talk about it. Thornton also told me Garza was NOT Bujanda's "boss" though she wouldn't say what he was. Rick said to call up the FBI and ask to speak to the Assistant Special Agent in Charge to report the matter. I had already tried to report to the FBI and they ignored me.

No one returned my call. AFTER I told them I'd talked to an FBI semi-retired guy who told me to contact Laurie, (whom, I believe, was also Catholic), and that he said this was proper procedure, suddenly, they were grudgingly willing to have someone meet me but it wasn't going to be Laurie. I talked to Laurie on the phone first and she was extremely rude to me. If Baken hadn't entered the picture and confirmed these guys were FBI and if the Portland field office hadn't been worried there was someone looking over their shoulder, they never would have met me to even take an initial report.

Instead of the meeting the proper person, I was told to meet an S.A. Julia Thornton, who was then working in the Portland field office in a Terrorism unit. ooops. I suppose that would be "Anti-terrorism". I was told the whole thing was an "internal affair" regarding abuse of position. I didn't know that they knew, already, it was not just that. It was crime. They knew the laws, and I didn't, and they knew that my facts, and my story, amounted to crime and criminal charges. I thought they were going to try to help me and do the right thing but they wanted to shut me down and cover it up.

Things got even stranger from there.