An FBI agent was pulled off the investigation into David Petraeus’s illicit contact with Paula Broadwell when he reportedly became obsessed with Jill Kelley, the other woman involved in the probe, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The FBI found that the agent had sent shirtless photos of himself to Jill Kelley, the Tampa woman who reportedly received a half dozen emails from Paula Broadwell that warned her to stay away from David Petraeus. The emails were sent from anonymous accounts.
That same agent was a friend of Jill Kelley’s and he had started the FBI investigation into the emails – which eventually led to David Petraeus’s downfall – after Kelley came to him for help upon receiving the anonymous threats.
The FBI declined to identify the agent, who is now under an internal investigation by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
After Jill Kelley, a married mother of three, told the agent about the emails, he referred the matter to a cyber crimes unit.
Shortly thereafter, the agent was barred from the case over concerns that he “might have grown obsessed with the matter”, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Even after he was prohibited from involvement in the case, the agent decided to contact a member of Congress, Republican David Reichert, about the matter.
He complained that senior FBI officials were going to “sweep the matter under the rug”, the FBI learned.
Meanwhile, investigators had traced the harassing emails back to accounts used by Paula Broadwell, a 40-year-old married mother of two from Charlotte, North Carolina. In one of the emails, Paula Broadwell accused Jill Kelley of touching “him” underneath a table and another email asked if Kelley’s husband was aware of her actions, according to the newspaper.
Jill Kelley, 37, is a volunteer who organizes social events for military families in the Tampa area. She often hosts the events at her million-dollar Bayshore Boulevard home, which is located only a couple miles from MacDill Air Force base, where David Petraeus was leader of the U.S. Central Command.
“The Kelley mansion became the place to be seen for coalition officers,” according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Jill Kelley’s husband, Dr. Scott Kelley, is a highly sought-after surgeon who specializes in a rare type of minimally invasive surgery to cure cancer of the esophagus.
Since the Kelleys have been in Tampa, one or both have been subjects of lawsuits nine times – including an $11,000 judgment against them that originated in Pennsylvania, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
