BRANFORD, CT — Before joining the FBI in 1985, Greg Dillion had been a Branford cop. He was hired as a supernumerary officer after graduating from the University of New Haven in 1978 and spent three years working mostly weekends, he said, until he was hired. as a full-time officer in 1981.

“I enjoyed my time at the Branford Police Department and am still friends with many of the officers I worked with,” he told Patch. “It was great preparation for me finally becoming an FBI agent in 1985.”

Dillon would end up being a whistleblower, exposing FBI misconduct.

Once he went to the FBI, he was assigned to the Criminal Reactive Squad in Virginia and later served as a member of the Violent Crime Squad in Washington, DC.

In 1990 he returned to Connecticut when he was hired as an inspector for the Connecticut Office of the Chief State’s Attorney in 1990.

Assigned to an FBI fugitives task force, Dillon said he discovered that other FBI agents were “falsifying affidavits and attributing the false information to Dillon,” as well as two investigators he supervised.

Dillon, “realizing the mistakes were intentional and continuous,” told his boss, then-chief state attorney John “Jack” Bailey, Jr.

That’s when things took a 180.

An honest cop against the FBI

In his just-released book, “The Thin Blue Lie: An Honest Cop vs. The FBI,” whistleblower Dillon shares his story.

Dillon said that after reporting that FBI agents were “submitting forged arrest warrants to federal judges, and that ‘enhanced’ probable cause was assigned to me and the other two detectives,” he said at Bailey.

And he had evidence of the officers’ misconduct, he said.

“We were ordered in writing not to discuss our concerns with anyone, and were told that if we were to speak to the media, we had to resign first,” Dillon said.

After being fired from the task force, demoted, transferred and refused another job, he said he started getting “harassing anonymous phone calls to my home and work”.

Shocked by the “lack of accountability and unfair treatment”, he filed a federal civil suit against Bailey in 1998, and after Bailey’s retirement, Chief Prosecutor Christopher Morano in 2007.

Dillon told Patch that the harassment he endured “actually came from the two chief prosecutors, ironically.”

The trial, described as “controversial”, included testimony from medical examiner Dr. Henry Lee, founder of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science at the University of New Haven. And, as Dillon calls him, “the most famous police whistleblower of all time, former New York Detective Frank Serpico.”

Dillon ended up with a courtroom victory in his lawsuit against Bailey, which he called a “landmark decision”, but filed a second against Morano for “retaliation stemming from the original lawsuit”.

The motivation of the whistleblower

Dillon said he became a whistleblower and wrote his book chronicling the fallout because he believes in honesty and integrity, he said.

“If I sometimes sound bitter during this narrative in The Thin Blue Lie, it’s because I always am,” Dillon said in a press release about her book. “If you’re anything like me, you can trust your honesty will be fairly received, only to learn that you’re now the problem. It didn’t go the way I expected. Not far. When I look back, I do not regret my actions, but I regret the consequences of the reactions to my actions.”

Dillon said his book is “brutally brutal at times”, but it was written from his heart and, above all, it is “accurate”.

“And that’s the beauty of the truth: it was true thirty years ago, it’s still true, and it will be thirty years from now,” he said.

Ten percent of book sales go to mentor shepherds

Dillon is a board member of Bridgeport-based Shepherds Mentors, a non-profit, non-denominational organization that helps inner-city high school students by providing adult mentoring, academic and life skills, and financial support. for college preparatory training.

He joined Shepherds in 2002 and is currently mentoring his ninth student, who is due to graduate with honors in May. Shepherds currently works with two schools, he said, “my alma mater” Our Lady of West Haven and Kolbe Cathedral in Bridgeport.

He clarified that the association does not only provide financial support to families who would not be able to send their child to a private college preparatory school.

“We pair the student with a mentor for their 4-year term. We find this essential to the academic success and social growth of the ‘mentee’. The mentor is there to support their student, monitor their progress and broaden their horizons engaging with him outside of school.”

Dillon quoted Wayne Dyer in an email to Patch to illustrate his philosophy of giving back.

“‘The more you give, the more you receive,'” he wrote. “And that’s certainly true with Shepherds. If I hadn’t felt that, I wouldn’t have stayed for 20 years. Ten percent of the profits from my books will be donated to Shepherds.”

“The Thin Blue Lie: An Honest Cop vs. The FBI” was released last month and can be purchased from Dillon’s website here.