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The Post-Gazette detailed how a federal program created to protect innocent witnesses and pull down well-insulated crime lords has itself become a danger to public safety. With example after example of lapses, abuses, and disasters, the investigation showed: criminals released by the program with new identities and backgrounds have gone on to commit scores of violent crimes. Some criminal leave the program wealthier than when they entered, often given large government rewards and bounties and are permitted to keep millions in criminal proceeds. Two systems of justice seem to have evolved, with witnesses -- in high profile cases getting money and shortened prison time while other witnesses serve out their sentences or have been abandoned without promised protection or relocation funds. (May 26 - 31, 1996)