Burns shows that Atchison's colleagues in the Northern District of Florida apparently were clueless about his suspicious behavior in the workplace:
When Atchison was arrested, his personal laptops--two, one being used by his wife--were confiscated, along with his workplace desktop and removable flash drives. Setting aside the criminal acts under investigation, this is multiple computer drives to keep an eye on, just with a view to general security and privacy, and carrying laptops to and from the office is potentially a security breach. . . .
The obvious question here is whether AUSAs are allowed to have personal "business on the side,' conducted from the office. Officially federal policy prohibits moonlighting while on the job, for any federal employee and particularly for federal prosecutors.
Perhaps Atchison thought he good get away with questionable behavior because of his family connections. It appears, based on Burns' reporting, that such connections helped him move up in the legal world, even though he was adrift during his 20s and early 30s. He bounced from job to job and moved 18 times in one 14-year period. That doesn't sound like the attributes of a high achiever. But Atchison had one advantage: connections to the powerful Birmingham law firm of Starnes and Atchison. In fact, he worked at the firm as a law clerk for several years in the late 1970s and early '80s:
At that time, he was enrolled at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Ala., returning to the place where his family had roots. During the same year--the exact dates are inconsistently given--he also worked as a clerk at the Birmingham law firm of Starnes and Atchison, co-founded by a cousin, W. Michael Atchison. Well-regarded local attorney Mike Atchison moved to another firm in 2010, and Starnes and Atchison changed its name; see later post. Repeated attempts to contact Michael Atchison have been unsuccessful.
Michael Atchison now works at Burr Forman, one of Birmingham's large downtown firms, and he apparently is not anxious to discuss his late cousin. Is that because members of the Birmingham legal community once helped Roy Atchison get out of some jams? The answer appears to be yes. Through the Freedom of Information Act, Burns has studied FBI documents related to the Atchison case, and she writes:
The tacit question in these records remains how Atchison got government jobs in the first place. Part of the development is clear--law school to a government agency to a more desirable federal job, then the lateral move from one federal jurisdiction to another. Questions about who provided references, who co-signed notes, etc., are not answered. Beyond that, attorney Maurice R. Mitts of Mitts Milavec replies matter-of-factly, "It's not that hard" to get a job in the Justice Department. If you "have a good work ethic and keep your grades up," Mitts says, "it's really not that hard."
It's especially not that hard when you seemingly have members of the Alabama legal community helping to cover up your legal problems. Atchison, it turns out, had an arrest for reckless driving and drug possession. That's the kind of thing that might put a halt to a federal law-enforcement career for many people. But it did not stop Roy Atchison:
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