Former FBI agent in Idaho gets year in child-porn case

BOISE, Idaho — A veteran FBI agent who helped arrest mountain man Claude Dallas and was involved in a deadly 1984 siege involving white supremacists on Whidbey Island is going to prison for 12 months after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.

William Buie, 64, of Boise, was sentenced yesterday 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 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 titled "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.

He also took part in the 1984 siege on Whidbey Island in which Robert Mathews, leader of the violent racist cell called "The Order," was killed after an 18-month wave of armed robberies and assassinations.

In a statement, the Justice Department said that as many as 150 sexually explicit images depicting children were found on Buie's home computers. It said no images were found on Buie's FBI computer.

He subsequently left the agency.