Reuters

Steve Mortenson, the owner of the Trenton Water Depot in Trenton, N.D., reviews logs inside his depot on March 26.

WATFORD CITY, N.D. -- In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting."

It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taking. Yet as the state's Bakken shale fields have grown, so has the fight over who has the right to tap into the multimillion-dollar market to supply water to the energy sector.

North Dakota now accounts for over 10 percent of U.S. energy output, and production could double over the next decade. The state draws water from the Missouri River and aquifers for its hydraulic fracturing, the process also known as fracking and the key that has unlocked America's abundant shale deposits. The process is water-intensive and requires more than 2 million gallons of water per well, equal to baths for some 40,000 people.

As in all booms, new players race in to meet the outsized demand. At the heart of this battle is a scrappy government-backed cooperative, conceived to ensure fresh water in an area where its drinkability is compromised.

The co-op has decided to sell 20 percent of its water to frackers to help keep prices low and pay back state loans. That has not gone down well with the Independent Water Providers, a loose confederation of ranchers, farmers and small businesses that for years has supplied fracking water.

Since opening in January, the co-op has tried to limit the power of the confederation with an aggressive legal and lobbying strategy. The Independent Water Providers have fought back, arguing that the co-op shouldn't be selling fracking water at all. The state Legislature stepped in with a law last month designed to quell the tension and nurture competition, but industry observers expect the acrimony to continue.

"When all of us had nothing (before the oil boom), there was nothing to fight about," said Dan Kalil, a longtime commissioner in Williams County, home to many oil and natural gas wells. "Now, so many friendships have been destroyed because of water and oil."

Jeanie Oudin, an analyst with energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, predicts the competition could push down North Dakota fracking water prices at least 10 percent in the next few years, or roughly $170,000 per well. That's a sizeable savings in a state where fracking costs are the highest in the country (remoteness meant there was little infrastructure in place). The water accounts for 20 percent of the roughly $8.5 million it costs to drill a North Dakota oil well.

NBC News

Click on the image above for an interactive map showing where the United States produces various forms of energy.

"Regardless of where operators get their water from, the growth in active water depots should increase the availability of raw water for hydraulic fracturing and ultimately bring down costs," Oudin said. The depots are where energy companies buy most of their fracking water.

The North Dakota Petroleum Council, a trade group for Statoil, Hess, Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil and other large energy companies, declined to comment on the fight or to forecast how much water prices could fall. The council acknowledged that it would prefer multiple sources for the state's 8,300 wells.

Energy companies get most of their water in the state by trucking it from depots to oil and natural gas wells. Some wells require more than 650 truckloads to frack. Companies such as EOG Resources Inc and Halliburton Co are experimenting with ways to reduce their dependence on water.

Fracking water depots, which cost roughly $200,000 to build and can gross more than $700,000 per year, are typically small metal buildings on concrete slabs filled with pumps and small tanks connected to the Missouri River or local aquifers. They can have two to six hookups and fill water trucks with as much as 7,800 gallons of water per visit.

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The government-backed co-op has nine water depots to hold the fresh water that is piped from the treatment plant in Williston, about 45 miles north of Watford. It plans to build four more depots throughout the Bakken and hugely expand its pipeline system to bring fresh water to more homes. Small lines from the new pipelines will connect directly to some oil wells.

On the other side, Independent Water Providers member JMAC Resources will build more water depots in the region and a massive pipeline just south of the Missouri River to supply oil wells. Other members of the group have also applied for depot permits.

North Dakota water suppliers do not pay for water, and the state Legislature rejected a proposed water tax earlier this year. Each side's plans will rapidly increase the options that energy companies have to access water, further depressing prices.

Dangerous to drink
The co-op, officially known as the Western Area Water Supply Project, was designed to boost the quality of the water reaching western North Dakota homes. State studies for years had identified high levels of sodium, sulfates and magnesium in the aquifers.

In Watford City, a dust-caked community of 2,000 dotted with oil-workers' run-down RVs, the sodium level of the drinking water had been 18 times higher than the level recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "You would drink (it) and get high blood pressure," said Mayor Brent Sanford.

The high chemical content convinced Watford City officials in 2010 to support the co-op as it was being organized, Sanford said.

By selling 20 percent of its water to frackers, the government-backed co-op hoped to keep water prices for homes low and generate enough revenue to pay back $110 million in state loans for the project. The co-op sells water to frackers at roughly 84 cents a barrel, compared to 21 cents a barrel for homes. (One barrel equals 31.5 gallons, or about 119 liters.)

Denton Zubke, the co-op board's chairman and a credit union president, has defended the co-op's right to sell water to frackers as the independent ranchers and farmers decry what they see as government overreach into a private industry.

"Free enterprise was never going to bring potable water supply to rural parts of North Dakota," said Zubke, who also operates a private water depot. "The only way we foresaw putting these water pipes in the ground was to pay for them with industrial (fracking) water sales."

More than 230 million gallons of water flow every day past the Williston plant, and the co-op itself doesn't expect water demand from homes to exceed capacity until at least 2032, calming any shorter-term concern about fracking's taking water away from human uses.

Closest is best
Steve Mortenson, the Independent Water Providers' chairman, says he supports the co-op's clean-water mission but believes private industry is best equipped to provide fracking water. "We don't feel we should have state-backed competition," he said. "We never expected they would use the leverage of government to oppose private business."

Confederation members can chose at what price to sell their water; most sell at 50 cents to 75 cents per barrel. Mortenson sells at 65 cents per barrel at his depot in Trenton, a bedroom community on the state's western edge.

Mortenson, a soft-spoken rancher, offers washers, dryers, showers and free snacks at his depot as a gesture to the truck drivers who bring him business. Energy companies typically choose water depots closest to well sites to save on fuel costs, even if the price is higher than rival sites farther away. That has driven the building of even more water depots around the Bakken.

Zubke disputes the Water Providers' claim to be any better at selling fracking water. He fears expansion by the independents could jeopardize the co-op's ability to pay off its debt. Using a complex Depression-era federal law known as 1926(b), he and other co-op officials have been sending cease-and-desist letters to some confederation members throughout North Dakota. They've also lobbied state officials --so far, unsuccessfully -- to deny water permits to some independents.

Despite the contentiousness -- call it fracktion -- the Independent Water Providers and the co-op are sticking with their plans.

"We don't want to profit from the water," JMAC owner Jon McCreary said. "We want to profit by selling the infrastructure to deliver the water."

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Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP file

CIA Director John Brennan, shown testifying on Capitol Hill on April 11, testified he conducted a background briefing after the Associated Press reported the Yemen bomb plot in May 2012 to avoid "dangerous questions and speculation."

A massive Justice Department investigation into the disclosure by the Associated Press of an ongoing covert operation against an al Qaeda suicide cell in Yemen -- a probe that included a sweeping  secret subpoena of the press association’s phone records  -- has been justified by U.S. officials on the grounds that the news organization “put the American people at risk.”

But that assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder could be undermined by the White House’s decision to publicly comment about the operation at the time and reveal details beyond those in the original AP story, according to legal experts and counterterrorism officials.

Within hours after the AP published its May 7, 2012 story, then-White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, currently the director of the CIA, held a background conference call in which he assured television network commentators that the bomb plot was never a threat to the American public or aviation safety.

The reason, he said, is because intelligence officials had “inside control” over it.

He later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he conducted the briefing to avoid “dangerous questions and speculation” about the operation.

Brennan’s account came after the AP reported what it called “an intelligence victory for the United States,” saying  intelligence officials had thwarted an “ambitious plot” by an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen “to destroy a U.S. bound airliner” using a refined underwear bomb.  

U.S. officials say that, when they were first contacted by the AP, they were concerned publication of the story would endanger the life of a British informant who had penetrated the group. AP executives say they agreed to hold their story until they were assured by government officials that “national security concerns had passed.”

Brennan’s use of the phrase “inside control,” a detail not initially included in the AP story, quickly led U.S. news organizations to report that the plot had been foiled by an undercover informant.

“The U.S. government is saying it never came close because they had insider information, insider control, which implies that they had somebody on the inside who wasn’t going to let it happen,” Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism adviser to Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and who participated on the conference call with Brennan, said on ABC’s “Nightline” that evening.

NBC’s Chief Justice Correspondent, Pete Williams, did further reporting for Nightly News the next night.  “It turns out that the bomber was actually an informant cooperating with intelligence services friendly to the United States,” Williams reported.

Bolstering his reporting was an interview with Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

“I want to say that the device was always under control, and that no one in the Unites States was ever at risk because we did have control,” she said.

“The administration’s background statements helped reporters put two and two together and ultimately led to the disclosure that did reveal the existence of an intelligence source,” said Michael Leiter, the former director the National Counter-Terrorism Center under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and now an NBC News counterterrorism analyst. “That’s not to say that the original leak didn’t also do damage and undermine operations.”

Tommy Vietor, then chief national security spokesman for the White House, disputed the idea that Brennan disclosed sensitive details in his background briefing and said  it was “ridiculous” to equate Brennan’s use of the  phrase  “inside control” with having an “informant.”  

U.S. officials acknowledge that, after they were contacted by the AP and told it was going to publish the story, they alerted British intelligence, which scrambled to extract the informant and his family from Yemen. But the leak infuriated British officials and strained relations between MI-6, the country’s intelligence service, and the CIA, officials say. Moreover, U.S. national security officials familiar with the matter said the real damage was done by the original leak to the AP because it revealed that the FBI had possession of the bomb. It also ended any chance of using the informant in the future. “They were going to keep him in there,” said the official.

Still, the willingness of administration officials to publicly comment on the plot could undercut the Justice Department’s position if the AP decides to take any legal action challenging the secret subpoenas.

“It complicates considerably the force of the argument that this disclosure seriously compromised national security,” said Floyd Abrams, a leading First Amendment lawyer who represented the New York Times in a historic legal  battle over its publication of the Pentagon Papers.

In that case, Abrams noted, the Times successfully argued that much of what the Justice Department had argued was damaging in the papers had already been revealed in public statements by U.S. government officials.

David Schulz, a lawyer for AP, said the news organization is “exploring all our  options” for  legal action to challenge the Justice Department’s secret subpoena for about two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines in an effort to identify the leaker.

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Among those options, he said, were filing suit for a “declaratory judgment” that the subpoena had violated its reporters’ rights and a demand for a return of the phone records and an order that the Justice Department destroy all copies. In doing so, the AP may cite the comments by Brennan as evidence that the leak did not harm national security in the way that the Department of Justice has asserted, h said.

“We were surprised by the attorney general’s comments yesterday about the potential security threat  from the leak under investigation,” Schulz said in an email to NBC News. “The president’s top national security advisor at the time said there was never a risk to air safety, and ‘no one in the United States was ever at risk.’ These shifting positions show the malleable nature of national security claims, and underscore the need for independent review by a judge when civil rights are infringed to protect against asserted security threats.”

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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls on a reporter during a news conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday.

Justice Department and Associated Press officials clashed Tuesday over leaked classified information that led the government to seize AP phone records, with Attorney General Eric Holder saying it “put the American people at risk” and the news organization’s chief executive insisting it delayed publishing its story until it was assured “national security concerns had passed.”

The day of back-and-forth public sallies came as new details emerged about negotiations between the AP and U.S. officials over the unauthorized release of classified information on a foiled bomb plot in Yemen, information that apparently triggered the investigation.

“This was a very, very serious leak,” Holder said at a news conference. “I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 – and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, in the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen. It put the American people at risk – and that is not hyperbole.”

Holder defended the secret subpoena for about two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines without prior notice as a necessary step, saying that trying to find the source of the leak “required very aggressive action.”

Holder’s comments and a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole defending the seizure of the AP records – without notifying the news organization until last week --  drew a stern response from AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. He  blasted the action as "overbroad under the law," saying  that "more than 100 journalists work in the locations served by those telephones."

"Rather than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying that notifying us would compromise their investigation," Pruitt said in a statement late Tuesday. “They offer no explanation of this, however.

Julie Fletcher / AP file

Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt.

"Instead they captured the telephone numbers between scores of AP journalists and the many people they talk to in the normal business of gathering news."

Pruitt also defended the AP's decision to publish the story that apparently sparked the leak investigation.

The May 2012 AP article disclosed what it said was a CIA operation that foiled a plot to  plant a bomb on a  plane from Yemen on the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death.  

The covert operation involved an informant working for British intelligence, who passed along information about a plot to detonate a refined version of a so-called “underwear bomb” aboard a U.S.-bound aircraft, intelligence officials told NBC News.  The leak, and the CIA’s subsequent claim that it was behind the operation, infuriated the British, who said it put their operative at risk, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Prior to the publication of the story, there were extensive negotiations among AP, White House and CIA officials, said the officials. The AP initially agreed to hold the story until May 8, 2012, thereby giving intelligence officials time to minimize any risk to the informant and his family, they said.

But as first reported by Reuters, the agreement broke down at the last minute over AP demands that the U.S. government officials not confirm the details of the news organization’s account for an hour after publication. A source familiar with the negotiations said White House officials concluded they could not make such a promise given they expected to be deluged with media inquiries about the matter.

Erin Madigan, a spokeswoman for the AP, disputed the Reuters account.

 “As we told Reuters a year ago, at no point did AP offer or propose a deal in relation to this story. We did not publish anything until we were assured by high-ranking officials with direct knowledge of the situation, in more than one part of the government, that the national security risk was over and no one was in danger.”

In any case, the AP ran the story on May 7. That evening, shortly before the network news broadcasts, then-White House Counter-Terrorism Adviser John Brennan held a background briefing for former counterterrorism advisers. The former advisers then appeared on television networks to talk about the foiled plot and maintain that intelligence officials had “inside control” over it.

Brennan, now CIA director, later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he conducted the briefing to avoid “dangerous questions and speculation” about the operation.

Pruitt on Tuesday denied the article posed a threat to national security.

"We held that story until the government assured us that the national security concerns had passed," he said. "Indeed, the White House was preparing to publicly announce that the bomb plot had been foiled.

"The White House had said there was no credible threat to the American people in May of 2012. The AP story suggested otherwise, and we felt that was important information and the public deserved to know it."

Pruitt's statement  came after he received a letter from Cole, the deputy attorney general, which said  "there was a basis to believe" the phone numbers subpoenaed "were associated with AP personnel involved in the reporting of classified information." He said the subpoenas were "limited to a reasonable period of time" and were only taken after all "alternative investigative steps had been taken …  including conducting over 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents." 

 The statement from the AP came as criticism of the Justice subpoena mounted on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

 The House Judiciary Committee is planning to grill Holder about the matter at a previously scheduled oversight hearing on Wednesday, said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the panel’s chairman.

“We definitely have some pointed questions about how and why it was decided to request such a broad and lengthy” subpoena, he told NBC News.

Holder has recused himself in the case, apparently because he had prior knowledge of the information that was leaked. If Holder says he can’t answer detailed questions about the case because of his recusal, Goodlatte said the panel will follow up with Cole, his deputy.

“We will definitely be pursuing this matter,” Goodlatte said.

His comments came as others voiced sharp criticism of the AP subpoena. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Fox News on Tuesday that “it was a broader gathering of information that should never have been authorized.”

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Dave Philipps

Tom Davis at his corrals in La Jara, Colo.

The semis would rumble down country roads packed full of wild horses. Truckload after truckload, sometimes 36 horses at a time, all with the same destination: a ranch in the small town of La Jara, Colo.  

Records show that for years, the Bureau of Land Management sold and shipped more than 1,700 wild horses from its animal holding facilities to just one rancher. Now federal investigators are trying to figure out:  What did he do with all those mustangs? And did any of them ultimately end up being butchered in the slaughter plants of Mexico? 

Wild horse advocates fear the worst. They want to know the truth about the fate of the horses and whether the U.S. government looked the other way as the federally protected animals seemingly disappeared. 

“I want to know where the horses went,” said Laura Leigh of the group Wild Horse Education, which advocates on behalf of the wild mustangs. “It’s disgusting, it’s abhorrent.  Whoever signed that slip to approve those sales, I want to look them in the eye and say, ‘What were you thinking?’” 

Federal investigation
The BLM is charged with protecting wild horses under federal law and has confirmed that the Interior Department Office of Inspector General is investigating the agency’s sale of mustangs to rancher and livestock hauler Tom Davis. 

The Davis investigation comes amid a growing controversy over the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. The agency faces a dire situation: Nearly 50,000 horses captured during frequent roundups, so-called “excess animals,” are living in government holding facilities that are nearing capacity.  Horse adoptions are down, so the BLM has turned to selling the animals. 

The government says Davis, who paid just $10 per head, was the biggest buyer ever of wild horses. Its sale of the animals to Davis from 2008 to 2012 was uncovered by writer Dave Philipps in a September 2012 story, “All The Missing Horses,” for the nonprofit news organization ProPublica.  The story questioned whether Davis sent the horses to so-called “kill buyers,” middle men who export livestock to meat packing plants in Mexico, but reached no firm conclusion. 

At the time, BLM issued this response to the ProPublica story: “The BLM condemns any sale of wild horses for slaughter.  We care deeply about the well-being of wild horses, both on and off the range, and the BLM does not sell and has not knowingly sold or sent horses or burros to slaughter.” 

Slideshow: Big dustup over wild horses

Courtesy of The Cloud Foundation

Controversy over roundups of wild horses roaming the ranges in 10 Western states is reaching a boil, with ranchers, horse advocates and even the government itself in agreement that the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse and Bureau Program is "out of control." Click to view photos of the horses in the wild, and during and after the BLM roundups.

Launch slideshow

Davis did not respond to repeated attempts by NBC News to contact him for comment and his lawyer, former federal prosecutor William Taylor, declined to answer questions about the federal investigation of his client. 

But Taylor provided NBC News with a statement criticizing the government for not following part of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.  While the 1971 law was enacted to protect wild horses, Taylor said, “Congress specifically amended the Act in 2005 to remove ‘excess’ animals from the Department of Interior’s protection, and to force the government to sell those animals without condition. … How does the government have any power under the Act to bring a case based on the sale of excess animals?”

The BLM acknowledges on its website that it is “not in compliance” with that part of the federal law which directs the agency to sell excess animals “without limitation” to any willing buyer, even to those who would slaughter the animals.

Last year, ProPublica reported that Davis is a proponent of slaughtering wild horses in the BLM’s holding system and that he had tried unsuccessfully to obtain funding to open a slaughter plant in Colorado.

“Hell, some of the finest meat you will ever eat is a fat yearling colt,” Davis was quoted as saying, “What is wrong with taking all those BLM horses they got all fat and shiny and setting up a kill plant?”

But Davis denied to ProPublica that he ever knowingly resold any wild horses for slaughter, saying he found “good homes” for the mustangs he purchased from BLM.  

Who needs 1,700 horses?
According to BLM sales documents obtained by ProPublica under the Freedom of Information Act, Davis told government officials he wanted the animals to “put on oil fields ... to keep grass controlled” and to “use for movies.”  

Horse advocate Leigh said neither of those explanations should have withstood the government’s scrutiny. 

“You know, I haven’t seen any Westerns coming out of Mexico with wild horses being stampeded in front of a camera,” she said.  “It’s a joke and it’s not a funny one.” 

So-called state brand certificates issued by the state of Colorado and obtained by NBC News indicate Davis shipped many of the animals he bought from the BLM to small towns near the Mexican border. The Colorado brand commissioner says approximately 431 horses shipped from Davis’ property “appear to be BLM horses” that were sent to unspecified addresses in towns in different parts of New Mexico and Texas, including Spofford, Texas, 36 miles from the Eagle Pass border crossing into Mexico. 

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that there are Mexican slaughterhouses across that border,” said Ginger Kathrens of The Cloud Foundation, a wild horse advocacy group. “So it’s not a stretch to think that those horses ended up going to slaughter.” 

Another advocacy group, the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, has called for the investigation of both Davis and the BLM. The organization’s director, Suzanne Roy, said, “I think the government looked the other way at what was happening to these horses. ... I think it was willful ignorance on the part of the government.” 

Joan Guilfoyle, chief of BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, told NBC News she does not know what happened to the horses that were sold to Davis, but denied the agency did anything wrong.  “We have no knowledge of him being a person who has ill intent toward the horses,” she said, “so there was no reason to question the purchase of these (animals) because he has to sign the paper that says what his intention is.” 

In fact, 50 BLM bills of sale reviewed by NBC News indicate Davis agreed not to resell the wild horses for slaughter. On a BLM sales questionnaire, Davis’ name was signed on this declaration: “I agree to provide humane care and to not sell or transfer ownership of any listed wild horse or wild burro to any person or organization with the interest to resell or trade or give away animals for processing into commercial products.” 

An official familiar with the Davis investigation told NBC News that investigators are not only trying to determine what happened to the horses, but whether Davis violated any of the conditions of his purchase. 

Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson said that, based on the bill of sale language, investigators could be trying to determine if there is evidence of a felony violation such as lying or making a false statement to a federal official. 

New sales rules
In January 2013, BLM responded to public criticism of its sale of wild horses to Davis by announcing new rules for the agency’s sales program.  In an effort to prevent future large sales of wild horses, the agency issued a memorandum stating: “Without prior approval from the (BLM) assistant director, no more than four wild horses and/or burros may be purchased by an individual or group within a six-month period.” 

Horse advocacy groups immediately criticized the new rules as “window dressing.”  Laura Leigh of Wild Horse Education said, “It changes nothing, especially when they add a little fine print in there.  There is no change.  It creates a press release so BLM can look responsible, like they’re listening to the American public.” 

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One month later, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and 20 other members of Congress signed a letter to then-Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, who oversaw BLM, citing the “substantial public outcry” over the ProPublica story on Davis.  The Feb. 13 letter said the co-signers were “troubled by your department’s lack of response to the legitimate concerns raised” by horse advocates and demanded an update about the Inspector’s General investigation.  Grijalava’s office said Salazar never responded to the letter.

Later this year, the Office of Inspector General is expected to present its findings to a U.S. Attorney, who will decide if any charges will be filed against Davis.

Lisa Myers is NBC News' Senior Investigative Correspondent; Michael Austin is a producer in NBC's bureau in Burbank, Calif.

John Makely / NBC News

Fernando Colon was accused by Ariel Castro in 2004 of sexually assaulting the latter's daughters, Emily and Arlene, who also were his stepdaughters. He was initially charged with 28 counts, including rape and kidnapping, but was found guilty of five lesser offenses.

Nearly a decade before being charged with kidnapping, raping and torturing three Cleveland women, Ariel Castro was himself the accuser in a sexual assault case involving his daughters. The accusations, which resulted in the conviction of his ex-wife’s second husband, now offer a new window into Castro’s tangled family relationships. 

The case against Fernando Colon also raises questions about whether FBI agents squandered an opportunity to question Castro about the disappearance of two of the women in the months after their abductions.

John Gress / Reuters

Ariel Castro appears in court Thursday in Cleveland.

Castro made the accusations against Colon, 39, in July 2004, shortly after 14-year-old Georgina “Gina” DeJesus vanished on her way home from the west Cleveland middle school she attended. 

Colon, the husband of Ariel Castro’s ex-common-law wife, Grimilda “Nilda” Figueroa, says he told two FBI agents nine years ago to investigate Castro in connection with the disappearances of Amanda Berry and DeJesus, but that the agents seemed uninterested in his tip.

Castro has now been charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape for allegedly abducting DeJesus, Berry and Michelle Knight, and was arraigned on Thursday.

When DeJesus, a seventh-grader, disappeared on April 2, 2004, the FBI had reason to question Fernando Colon. Colon, was the stepfather of 13-year-old Arlene Castro, Ariel Castro’s daughter, who was DeJesus’ self-described best friend and had been with her right before she vanished. He also was the last adult known to have seen DeJesus before her disappearance. 

According to Chris Giannini, a private investigator who at the time was Colon’s boss, when school let out that day, Arlene Castro and DeJesus walked to Westown Square, the nearby shopping center where Colon worked as a security officer. Arlene asked Colon if Gina could come over and spend the night. 

When Colon said” no,” according to Giannini, the girls tried to get around Fernando “by checking with mom” via payphone. He said the girls got a second “no” from Figueroa.   

'The last one to see Gina'
After  Gina DeJesus disappeared, Arlene Castro told investigators that she and her friend went their separate ways when their sleepover was nixed. But according to a Cleveland police report issued Wednesday, Gina DeJesus has added a new detail. She says that before they separated, they also talked to Ariel Castro. After the girls split up, DeJesus now says, Ariel Castro returned and offered her a ride, which she accepted.

Soon after the disappearance, FBI agents contacted Giannini and said they wanted to question Colon “because he was the last one to see Gina,” according to Giannini. They searched the patrol car that Colon used to cruise the Westown parking lot to make sure Gina had not been in the car. According to Colon, FBI Agent Phil Torsney and another agent whose name he doesn’t recall then conducted a polygraph. 

“I guess I passed the polygraph,” recalled Colon. Having taken courses in policing, Colon said he understood why he had been questioned, but realized that there was someone else the FBI agents should contact. 

John Makely / Courtesy of Fernando Colon

Fernando Colon keeps this photo of Grimilda "Nilda" Figueroa in his Cleveland apartment.

According to Colon, Castro, who had not spent much time with the girls since splitting from their mother in 1995, and had contributed little to their financial support, had recently started spending more time with  them, driving them places and buying them cellphones. Colon said he told the agents that Castro also might have been acquainted with two of the missing girls -- in addition to Arlene’s close friendship with DeJesus, his older daughter, Emily, was friends with Amanda Berry, who had disappeared nearly a year earlier. 

“I said that if you’re talking to me because of my stepdaughters you should really be talking to Ariel Castro. He has more chance and opportunity than I do,” said Colon. “These girls are best friends with his daughters. (The agents) told me, ‘Well, we have to deal with you. Whatever arises in the case, we’ll take care of that.’” Colon does not know if they ever followed up and questioned Castro. 

Agent Torsney, who is now retired from the FBI and living in another state, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At a press conference Wednesday, FBI Special Agent Stephen Anthony took issue with Colon’s version of events, telling reporters that his agency had "scrubbed" its records on  the case and had found no mention of Colon referring to Castro, and had “no reason to believe” he’d made the statement. 

Colon says he heard nothing more from law enforcement about the DeJesus case after the polygraph. Several months later, however, Colon found himself under investigation for a different crime. Ariel Castro and his daughters Emily, 16, and Arlene, 13, alleged that Colon had molested both girls between 1996 and 2001. 

Payback seen behind accusation
Colon maintains his innocence, and told NBC News that he thinks Ariel Castro made the accusations as a way of fulfilling a threat he’d made back in 1995, when his wife left him for Colon.

Grimilda Figueroa and Colon met when Colon was working at a local hospital, and Figueroa came in with injuries that she said were the result of abuse by Castro. She had accused Castro of domestic violence in 1993, but a grand jury declined to indict him. 

After she’d come to the hospital a few times, Colon said he offered her a way out of her relationship with Castro. “(Castro) had so much control over her,” Colon said. “He had her so wrapped up she had nobody to talk to. She told me his windows were tinted so nobody could see in and there were padlocks on the doors.  . .  I said, ‘If you were offered help to get out of the situation, would you take it?’ She said, ‘Yes.’” 

After the breakup, Figueroa and her four children by Ariel Castro – Anthony, Angie, Emily and Arlene  – went to live with Colon in 1995. According to Colon, Castro was furious, and after peppering the house with abusive phone calls, issued a threat to Colon. “He told me very clearly, ‘One day I’m going to get back at you and I’m going to ruin your life.’” Colon said that Castro waited for his moment “and then accused me of something that does the most damage to a person.” 

Castro made the molestation accusations in July 2004, two months after DeJesus vanished. “I think he did it to get police attention away from him,” said Colon. “By that point I think he already had all three (kidnapped) women under his roof.” 

NBCNews.com/Courtesy of Kayla Rogers

Arlene Castro poses for a picture in march of 2004.

Colon believes that his stepdaughters, Emily and Arlene, went along with their dad’s molestation charges because Castro had begun buying them things and doing them favors, even promising to get them a car, and because the girls resented Colon’s attempts to impose discipline. In court documents, he said that he had a “long history” with the two girls: “Defendant states that they are unruly and they don’t listen.” He also said that Emily was a drug user who at age 16 would stay away from the house for weeks at a time, according to court documents. 

Figueroa testified on Colon’s behalf at his 2005 bench trial. She said that Castro had started purchasing clothes for Arlene and had promised Emily an SUV. Figueroa also claimed that Castro, who had recently inherited some money, had promised her an expensive present as well. “Castro told me to go along with the complaints against Fernando Colon and he would buy me a new car,” said Figueroa in a pre-trial affidavit. “Castro was laughing and excited. … Castro believes that we will be together again.”

In the affidavit, she said that Arlene had “never discussed any inappropriate conduct between her and Fernando” and that as a stay-at-home mom, she had never witnessed any inappropriate sexual contact between Colon and his stepdaughters.

Arlene and Emily testified against Colon. But Anthony Castro, Ariel’s son, joined his mother in testifying on Colon’s behalf, saying he didn’t believe the charges of molestation.

Ex-wife sought restraining order
According to Chris Giannini, just before the trial began, Figueroa said that Ariel Castro had threatened to harm her if the girls did not testify at the trial. Arlene did not want to testify, said Giannini, and Emily was in Indiana with her adult boyfriend and didn’t want to return to Ohio. Figueroa sought a temporary restraining order, in which she inventoried years of alleged abuse at Castro’s hands: she alleged he had broken her nose twice, broken her ribs and caused a blood clot or tumor in her brain.

Giannini acted as an investigator for Colon in 2004 and 2005, helping his employee prepare his defense. At one point, he was able to arrange an interview with Castro to ask him about the allegations. Giannini said that Castro claimed that while he was driving Arlene and a friend around, the friend alleged that Fernando had stood over her while she was at a sleepover at Arlene’s house.

According to Giannini, Castro then claimed Arlene said that Colon had penetrated her digitally and demanded to know who she was having sex with.

“I had already heard somebody tell me the exact same story about Ariel,” said Giannini, who described the informant as “a family member.” “Right away I know what (Castro) is doing.  He’s projecting his own behavior on to Fernando.”

When the case against Colon went to trial at the end of August 2005, Ariel Castro took the stand to deny that he had ever abused Figueroa. Instead, he said, Figueroa had tried to get physical with him, once hitting her head on a door jamb in the process, which resulted in a trip to the hospital.

He also denied threatening Colon and Figueroa, and said he had gone to police immediately after hearing Arlene and her friend talking about Colon’s alleged inappropriate sexual behavior. When asked if anyone lived with him at his house on Seymour Avenue –  the address where police recovered Berry, DeJesus and Knight on Monday -- he said, “No.”

Kathleen DeMetz, Ariel Castro’s public defender in the kidnap and rape case, said she was unfamiliar with the Colon case and declined further comment.

The indictment of Colon originally contained 28 counts, including rape and kidnapping. On Sept. 6, 2005, the judge found Colon guilty on five counts of gross sexual imposition. He was sentenced to three years of probation, and is now a registered sex offender in Ohio.

“He hasn’t been able to get steady work in eight years,” said Giannini. “You can’t work in this field (security) with a felony on your record.” Colon also split up with Figueroa for good after the trial.

When news of Castro’s arrest broke, said Colon, his mother called him from Puerto Rico, sobbing. “She said, ‘I told you that all you had to do is have faith and something would come out,’” said Colon.

Now that Ariel Castro is in custody, said Colon, “I want my life back.” Colon and Giannini see an opportunity to challenge his conviction and repair his reputation. One of the first items on their agenda is speaking to Colon’s former stepdaughters to see if they will reconsider their testimony.

Talking to Emily Castro will require a trip to Indiana. Now 25, she’s currently serving a 25-year sentence in an Indiana state prison for the attempted murder of her daughter.

In April 2007, Emily slashed the then-11-month-old girl’s neck and then tried to slash her own wrists. At trial, defense attorneys argued that she was insane at the time of the attack. Nilda Figueroa appeared as a witness, testifying that Emily had struggled with depression for years and seemed paranoid since her daughter’s birth. She also said she had taken Emily to get mental help prior to the attempted murder.

Colon and Giannini also plan to contact Arlene, whose phone was not accepting calls on Wednesday.

Nilda Figueroa , however, can’t be enlisted in Colon’s bid for rehabilitation. She died in 2012 in Indiana at age 48.

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This story was originally published on Thu May 9, 2013 3:29 PM EDT

AFP/Getty Images

An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars at the U.S. consulate compound are engulfed in flames on Sept. 11, 2012, during an attack by an armed mob.

A small team of Special Forces operatives was ready to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi last year after Libyan insurgents attacked the U.S. mission there, but was told it was not authorized to board the flight by regional military commanders, according to a career State Department official scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday.

Gregory Hicks, then deputy chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, told investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that U.S. officials had persuaded the Libyan government to allow the Special Forces operatives to board the rescue flight from Tripoli to Benghazi. But an officer received a phone call telling them to stand down before they left for the airport, according to excerpts of his account made available to NBC News on Monday. That conversation occurred after the U.S. ambassador to Libya and another American had been killed in the initial attack, but hours before a second attack that killed two other Americans.

Hicks quoted a Special Forces commander as telling him, "I have never been so embarrassed in my life, that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military," referring to his willingness to authorize the mission.    

U.S. military officials confirmed Hicks' account late Monday, but said the team was reviewing security measures at the Embassy and was not equipped for combat.

The Special Forces soldiers would have been the second group of U.S. government personnel to travel to Benghazi. Earlier, six Americans flew from Tripoli to Benghazi to attempt to aid the embattled personnel at the diplomatic mission.

Sources told NBC News that Hicks told investigators that the team that was denied permission to fly to Benghazi consisted of just four Special Operations soldiers and that the flight did not arrive in time for their presence to have had an impact in the fighting. Two Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the initial attack on the Benghazi consulate, which began just before 10 p.m. on Sept. 11. Two former Navy SEALs died in a mortar attack on a nearby U.S. diplomatic annex early on Sept. 12, shortly before the flight from Tripoli arrived.

Hicks also said that the U.S. did not seek permission from the Libyan government to scramble aircraft to respond to the attack, saying he believed that the show of airpower would have intimidated the Libyan Islamists blamed for the attack.

“I believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced,” said Hicks, “I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split.  They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them. “

Hicks said that the U.S. never asked permission from the Libyans to enter their airspace, believing Benghazi was too remote a target and that it would take two to three hours to get F-16s in the air. “The answer was, ’It’s too far away, there are no tankers, there is nothing that could respond,’” he recalled. 

The only U.S. defenders who arrived in time to battle the insurgents was a small group of men who chartered a plane in Tripoli after the initial assault on the Benghazi consulate and arrived in Benghazi by 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 12, in time to help set up a defense at the diplomatic annex. Ex-SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were killed in a mortar attack on the compound between 5 and 6 a.m.

A Libyan C-130 transport plane that would’ve carried the second group of U.S. Special Forces operatives from Tripoli to Benghazi ultimately left Tripoli for Benghazi between 6 and 6:30 a.m., after Doherty and Woods were dead. It later evacuated survivors from the attack.

Two separate U.S. Special Forces teams from elsewhere in Europe were ultimately authorized to respond to the attacks, but did not arrive at staging bases until the evening of Sept. 12, more than 12 hours after the fighting had ended.

U.S. military officials confirmed late Monday that a four-man Special Operations Forces team was denied permission to leave the US Embassy in Tripoli following reports that the consulate in Benghazi had been attacked.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the team was reviewing security at U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East and was not prepared for a combat assault mission, being armed with only 9mm sidearms.

They also noted that the situation at Benghazi remained unclear and there were concerns the Embassy in Tripoli also could become a target. 

In his testimony, Hicks also said he felt the State Department’s special Accountability Review Board report on Benghazi, issued in December, was “incomplete.”

“The ARB report itself doesn’t really ascribe blame to any individual at all,” said Hicks. “It does let people off the hook.”

In addition to Hicks, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism, and Eric Nordstrom, diplomatic security officer and former regional security officer in Libya.

Both Hicks and Thompson are career State Department employees and described as “whistleblowers” because they say they fear retribution from senior State Department officials.

Neither Hicks nor Thompson had yet spoken publicly about the attacks. Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., called Hicks’ testimony “startling.” Thompson and Hicks are being represented by high-powered Republican lawyers Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing, who have characterized the ARB report as a “cover-up.”

Both the White House and State Department challenged the assertion that Hicks' testimony was new.

"These issues have been addressed and reviewed in great detail by the Accountability Review Board,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said at a briefing.  “There were eight hearings, 30 briefings, 25,000 documents. The ARB interviewed over 100 witnesses.” 

NBC Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski and Pentagon Producer Courtney Kube contributed to this report.

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Hunger-striking detainees at the Guantanamo detention facility are being force-fed through tubes inserted into their noses twice a day -- causing them to gag for air and vomit -- during a procedure that a U.S. military defense lawyer just returned from the U.S. base in Cuba described as “brutal” and agonizing.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, who represents two Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo, told NBC News on Sunday that one of his clients described being shackled by his wrists and around his waist —while food is “dumped into this throat” for up to two hours at a time.  His comments came as the U.S. military released new photos showing the chair to which hunger-striking detainees are strapped, and bottles of Ensure, the nutritional supplement, that they are being fed.

“When that tube goes up your nose, your eyes begin to water, as it passes through the back of your skull. As it passes through your throat, you begin to gag and you begin to suck for air until it's passed into your stomach,” Wingard said. “It’s agony, according to my client.

“The more times that you’ve been force-fed this way, the more your nose gets inflamed, the more your esophagus begins to burn, the more your stomach begins to burn.”

Ronald Flanders, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said Sunday the force-feeding is a “legally approved procedure” used by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons  – and that the technique is similar to that used for the elderly and small children. He also said the procedure is necessary to save lives. “We have an obligation to keep these folks safe,” he said.

The procedure is controversial within the medical community. The American Medical Association recently wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel saying the force-feeding “violates core ethical values of the medical profession” when a prisoner makes a rational decision to refuse food.

Of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo, 100 are now hunger striking and 23 are being force-fed, according to the U.S. military’s latest figures.

The widening protest last week prompted President Barack Obama to renew his efforts to shutter the prison, used to hold suspected terrorists taken into custody in overseas battlefields. “The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests and it needs to stop,” he said.

Congress has so far blocked his efforts, placing restrictions on transferring the detainees to foreign jurisdictions or bringing them into federal prisons in the United States. “The fact is there’s been no coherent plan presented to the Congress of the United States as to how we would dispose of these individuals,” Republican Sen. John McCain said Sunday on Fox News. “And one of them is not to send them back into the fight where they can kill more Americans.”

Wingard, who returned from a five-day trip to Guantanamo last week, said conditions at the facility are “dire and getting worse.” One of his clients, a Kuwaiti named Faiz al-Kandari, has lost a third of his body weight and now weighs 105 pounds but appears determined to continue, he said. Aggravating the situation, 86 detainees have been cleared for release or transfer, but efforts to send them home have stalled, making them more desperate, he said.

As for renewed talk by Obama and others about closing the base, Wingard said, “These men have heard these words for the past eleven and one half years. They’re not going to be brutalized into submission, and I think the net result will be some of them will die.” 

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The nation’s second largest educational testing service apologized Wednesday for computer issues that disrupted federally-mandated online tests for thousands of students in Indiana and Oklahoma this week –  exams that are already controversial for their outsize role in determining school funding, student evaluations and teacher salaries.

 “We sincerely regret the problems we have caused,” said a spokesperson for California-based CTB/McGraw-Hill, which holds contracts  or testing  in all 50 states and controls nearly 40 percent of the market. “We regret the impact … (of) system interruptions” and “have made changes to correct the situation.”

State officials, meanwhile, said they would hold CTB/McGraw-Hill accountable, and raised the possibility of financial penalties. 

Three-thousand students in Oklahoma and 30,000 in Indiana lost their computer connections during testing on Monday and Tuesday mornings, according to state officials. CTB McGraw Hill said that the outage in Indiana occurred because “our simulations did not fully anticipate the patterns of live student testing” – the third straight year that Indiana students have experienced service interruptions during online testing administered by the company.

Both states resumed the federally-mandated testing of third through eighth-graders Wednesday and reported no further incidents, but only after Indiana complied with a request from CTB/McGraw-Hill to cut the number of students taking the state’s ISTEP (Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress) test in half – a precaution that the Department of Education said it will also take on Thursday.

At a morning meeting, members of the Indiana Board of Education called the situation “disastrous,” saying the test results were “tainted” and that the interruptions added to the anxiety of students already stressed by the high-stakes examinations.

At least two members of the board asked whether CTB/McGraw-Hill was living up to its four-year, $95 million contract, with Tony Walker calling the company’s performance “almost a breach.” “The vendor that botched the (test) should have to pay the state a portion of the money,” said Walker.

'The only focus ... a fair test'

The state’s contract allows for damages of up to $250,000 per day, not to exceed 10 percent of the value of the contract, for “failure to deliver . . . uninterrupted … availability.” State Department of Education spokesman Daniel Altman told NBC News that officials had not yet decided whether to ask for financial penalties.

“The only focus right now is getting the tests finished and making sure students get to take a fair test,” said Altman.

Indiana’s problems began Monday about 10 a.m. ET, when grade-schoolers taking the ISTEP test began to experience interruptions. “A few started seeing an ‘As the World Turns’ kind of globe on their screens, and then the problem was throughout the room,” said Teresa Meredith, a kindergarten teacher in the Shelbyville schools and the vice president of the Indiana State Teachers Association. Some parts of Indiana are on Central Time, and the crash started “right when those students started coming online at 9 a.m.,” she said.

One Indiana fourth-grader  was interrupted six times before completing the test successfully, according to one Twitter account, while others were unable to finish at all.

CTB/McGraw Hill increased server capacity on Monday evening and on Tuesday Indiana students tried again. This time, the problems didn’t become severe until 11 a.m., said Meredith. She said her own daughter, a seventh-grader in a rural school district, had answered most of the questions on the test when the problems began.

“She said, ‘Mom, I got through with question 21 and then I saw the globe,’” recounted Meredith. Before she was able to raise her hand and ask for help the test moved on to the next question and she finished “as fast as she could,” Meredith said.

On Tuesday evening, CTB/McGraw-Hill asked Indiana officials to cut the number of students taking the test on Wednesday by 50 percent. Throughout Wednesday, schools across the state tweeted out assurances that testing was now going smoothly.

“With the exception of a few pauses in the testing system, our students taking the ISTEP test have experienced no significant disruptions,” the Indianapolis Public School system, the state’s biggest, reported at noon.

At the end of the school day, the Indiana Department of Education released a statement that said that schools had successfully completed more than 300,000 testing sessions with “minimal interruptions.” It also announced, however, that reduced testing would have to be extended another day. “In order to minimize interruptions to students,” said the statement, ”the Department has again asked schools to reduce their daily testing load by approximately 50 percent.”

Indiana schools also experienced service interruptions of online testing by CTB/McGraw-Hill during 2011 and 2012, but not at the level of this week.

In Oklahoma, Department of Education spokesperson Tricia Pemberton said she was unaware of “any disruptions” on Wednesday. “We are up online testing again and we’re hoping to finish those tests,” she said. “We’ve have extended the testing window for our districts and made some other accommodations.”

After 3,000 students were knocked off the computer system “midassessment” on Monday and Tuesday, State Education Superintendent Janet Barresi called the interruptions “completely unacceptable.”

“I am outraged that our school districts are not able to administer assessments in a smooth and efficient manner,” said Barresi.

Assurances it won't happen again

Pemberton said that CTB/McGraw-Hill said it did not have enough “hardware space” for the number of students who went online. “They assured us that if we continue in the fall, they will test it properly to make sure we don’t have this problem again.”

Oklahoma, which is in the first year of two separate contracts with CTB/McGraw Hill, began its online testing last week, but did not experience significant issues until this week, when Indiana’s students began online testing. 

Pemberton said that some students would be allowed to retake the test, and that the state would extend the number of days on which it offered testing.

Linda Hampton, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, which represents the state’s teachers, said as a teacher she knew students were “sick to their stomachs about testing – and that’s without the interruption.”

“We go through a process, sort of like a coach, getting kids ready for a game,” she said, “and then, suddenly, there’s no game. It only increases anxiety.”

But Hampton said she felt the snafus only point up the larger problem with basing so much – funding, the right to graduate, and for one student she recalled, the right to serve in the military – on a few hours of testing.

“We believe in accountability, but it should be meaningful accountability,” she said. “It should be more than a snapshot on a given day.”

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