A Special Agent is suing the FBI after contracting a debilitating disease after being forced to share sleeping space with a colony of rats in Guantanamo Bay.
“I’m sure they thought I’d just die and go away,” Theresa Foley told the Boston Herald. “And I’ll admit, there were a few times I felt like I wanted to do just that. But when I think that it was my own government who’s left me in this position, that’s brought such misery not just to me, but to my parents and my brother . . . well, I can’t give up. Or shut up. Or just go away.”
The disease has left the 45-year-old Foley unable to walk on her own, and she suffers in pain from two spinal fusions, six other major surgeries and the effective loss of her right leg.
Foley, from Roslindale, Mass., became an FBI agent 11 years ago. In 2003, she was sent to work in Guantanamo Bay with a group of agents assigned to debrief detainees from the war on terror.
Foley, who was raised in a law-enforcement household, liked the work but became disillusioned at the behavior of her colleagues, who seemed more interested in soaking up the Cuban sun and rum than talking to terror suspects.
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She was forced to live for 10 months in a squalid bungalow that hosted a colony of large rats and contracted a hideous bacterial disease called leptospirosis. Her doctors traced the infection that bored into her central nervous system back to the rats.
Foley continued to work even as her legs began to swell. After a supervisor insisted she kneel in order to pass a routine firearms qualification, the muscle in her right leg ripped apart.
Terry Foley has been relegated to worker’s compensation for almost the last seven years.
“I had a supervisor from the Bureau come up from Washington to visit me at my parents’ home. ‘I want to put a face to the name,’ he said to me. He left and we never heard from him again.
“Well, I haven’t gone away.” Terry Foley said. “I’m still here and they’re going to know it.”
The FBI declined to comment.
15 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.gsosbee | Aug 20, 2011, 02:21 PM EDT
The fbi routinely set up their own agents for disaster when the agent uncovers crimes which the fbi wants to keep secret. http://sosbeevfbi.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fbi-covers-up-up-crimes?xg_source=activity
gsosbee | Aug 20, 2011, 02:19 PM EDT
The fbi routinely sets up their own for potential disaster, especially when the agent is onto illegal fbi operations, such as cover up of atrocities: http://sosbeevfbi.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fbi-covers-up-up-crimes?xg_source=activity
RonSarson | Aug 05, 2011, 08:16 PM EDT
It's not politically correct to call them rats. They are muslims. Maybe dirty rotten terrorists who kill innocent people, but not rats. Did one of these muslims bite her?
bootsjoyce4 | Aug 02, 2011, 11:17 AM EDT
You know you never hear much about Gitmo these days. There's no reason that this agent and others had to live in these conditions. Shame on the US government. I hope my Irish American sister makes a full recovery including compensation. Kevin Joyce US Army Vet, USPS ret.
SingleDonald | Aug 01, 2011, 10:37 PM EDT
I agree with jfbuckley. Agent Terry Foley should have just told her superiors that she was moving somewhere else. The only problem might have been lack of availability, on that island!
Nachtzehrer | Aug 01, 2011, 10:32 PM EDT
why didnt she just move to a different living space?.....i see it says she was forced to live with the rats....did the FBI hold a gun to her head and "force" her to stay there?.....where i think its horrible that shes has been afflicted with such a debilitating disease, i find it hard to believe had it been that bad she couldnt just move. worst case she pays out of pocket, far cry better then sleeping with rats if you ask me!
Freeman | Aug 01, 2011, 09:51 PM EDT
Agent Foley is so lucky, she could have been luckier though and ended up with a real Massachussetts rat, a white rat
jfbuckley | Aug 01, 2011, 02:58 PM EDT
I personally know Theresa Foley and can vouch for the FACT that she is a well qualified, dedicated and hard woking agent who VOLUNTEERED for the Gitmo assignment and took her assignment very seriously ! PhlutiePhan your affirmative action comment is presumptious, offensive and totally illinformed. How you connected the dots to come to the conclusion that Theresa couldn't do the job based on the story is beyond imagination. The FBI and the nation would be far better off if we had more dedicated agents like her and it wouldn't have taken the FBI 16 years to catch Whiey Bulger
donal1951 | Aug 01, 2011, 02:06 PM EDT
I know what it's like to have The Job turn against you. You're a brave woman Terry Foley, hang in there.
PhlutiePhan | Aug 01, 2011, 01:37 PM EDT
I did shipboard training in Guantanamo. The only rats I saw were across from "Checkpoint Charlie". It appears that she was sympathetic to the detainees and may have been punished with her quarters as a result. It still appears to be sad. I would have to believe that she was hired by the FBI through affirmative action and couldn't do the job.
PhlutiePhan | Aug 01, 2011, 01:35 PM EDT
I did training at Guantanamo but on a ship. I never saw any rats other than those across from "Checkpoint Charlie". It also sounds like she was sympathetic to the detainees and the FBI may have punished her with lousy quarters.
themurphia | Aug 01, 2011, 11:39 AM EDT
Why has she been talking to the rodents of the pappaRATzi..?
cillowen | Aug 01, 2011, 10:38 AM EDT
can't even appreciate how those prisoners are faring. Insantity abounding and toilet bound.
colkelley | Aug 01, 2011, 09:48 AM EDT
When I was in the Navy I flew out of Guantanamo Bay and the visiting officers quarters I had on-based were the worst quarters on the base. Not sure where she was that she could not report a rat infestation...I just watched the bugs and lizards crawl under the door...
Tropiholic | Aug 01, 2011, 09:43 AM EDT
ghastly!