WASHINGTON - An agent in the FBI's Minneapolis office has alleged that an evidence recovery team stole a Tiffany crystal globe from the site of the World Trade Center collapse.

Special Agent Jane Turner's claim prompted two senators to press FBI Director Robert Mueller to promise no retaliation against the agent.

Turner turned the globe over to the Justice Department's Inspector General's office after, according to Turner, local FBI officials would not act on her complaint. She said the globe, which retails for $115, is worth more than $5,000 because of its value as a collectible.

Turner contacted Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the committee who has pushed for more whistleblower protections. Leahy and Grassley contacted Mueller last month.

Paul McCabe, a spokesman for the Minneapolis FBI office, said that when the allegation was first made, the office's special agent in charge, Deborah Pierce, immediately referred it to the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility in Washington.

"Any allegations are taken seriously," he said, declining to comment further because of the Inspector General's investigation.

In a Sept. 11 letter to the IG's office, Turner said she discovered the globe sitting on a secretary's desk in August. When Turner asked about it, the secretary told her someone from the evidence recovery team had brought it back from ground zero.

Turner, a 24-year FBI veteran, said that galled her because she is investigating thefts of "souvenirs" taken from the World Trade Center evidence recovery site.

In a Senate speech Tuesday, Grassley said, "It's not only illegally taking evidence from a crime scene, but it's stealing from hallowed ground where thousands of people died on September 11."

Turner did not return a phone message left Tuesday, but her Washington lawyer, Stephen Kohn, said his client was "scared out of her wits. That's why she went to the United States Senate for help."

Kohn added a new allegation. The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported Wednesday that he wrote to Mueller on Tuesday alleging that retired agent Dag Sohlberg improperly gave Minnesota Vikings tickets to FBI agents in the Minneapolis office.

Sohlberg had previously worked as a private investigator for Kieger Enterprises, a Lino Lakes disaster cleanup company under investigation in connection with alleged property theft from the World Trade Center rubble, the newspaper said.

"Given Sohlberg's role with Kieger, it is illegal and unethical for any FBI employee to accept any 'gift' from Sohlberg," Kohn wrote.

Sohlberg called the allegations "preposterous." He told the Star Tribune he also works as the NFL's security representative at Vikings games and operates a command post at the Metrodome, where security has been strengthened since the Sept. 11 attacks, and a number of FBI agents are issued official passes to games.

Sohlberg told the newspaper the league has given him tickets for agents not assigned to the games "as sort of a nice gesture" and beef up the number of law enforcement officers on hand. He said Kieger never gave him any football tickets.

Turner's own letter comes four months after another FBI whistleblower in the Minneapolis office, Coleen Rowley, claimed that FBI headquarters ignored her office's pleas to aggressively investigate alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui prior to last year's terrorist attacks.

Turner's comments are not her first against the FBI, the Star Tribune reported Wednesday. It said she filed a sex discrimination lawsuit in August 2001 alleging she was passed over for jobs that went to less-qualified male agents in 1992 and 1995 and that she faced other discrimination while working in Minot, N.D., starting in 1987.

The newspaper said she alleged that when she transferred to Minneapolis in 2000, her desk was isolated from other agents, who were warned to avoid her.

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Fred Frommer may be reached at ffrommer(at)ap.org