WASHINGTON — The Secret Service announced Friday that three employees under investigation in connection with misconduct with prostitutes last week in Colombia have decided to resign, bringing to six the number of people forced out of the agency.
Another person has been cleared of misconduct but still faces “appropriate administrative action,” the agency said, adding that the investigation had expanded to include an employee who was not initially under scrutiny.
“At this point, five employees continue to be on administrative leave, and their security clearances remain suspended pending the outcome of this investigation,” the agency said in a written statement.
The agency said it continued to investigate the remaining employees “utilizing all investigative techniques available to our agency,” including polygraphs.
Also on Friday, President Obama met in the Oval Office with the director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, who briefed him on the investigation.
The Secret Service’s announcement of the resignations came several hours after the United States military clarified the scope of its investigation into alleged misconduct by military service members last week before the president arrived in Cartagena for a regional summit meeting.
The spokesman for the United States Southern Command in Miami released a statement on Friday saying that the investigation now was focused on 11 service members, one more than had previously been disclosed. They are six members of the Army Special Forces, two from the Navy, two Marines and one from the Air Force.
The spokesman, Col. Scott Malcom, said that the Marine and the Navy members were based in San Diego and that the Air Force member was from Charleston, S.C.
“They have returned to their parent commands,” Colonel Malcom said. “As they are not yet charged with anything specifically, they are not under any formal restrictive conditions. However, they are required to remain at the home station until the investigating officer is done with them.”
Colonel Malcom said that the military was sharing information with the Secret Service, but that “outside this comparing of notes, these are two separate and distinct investigations; each agency has its own set of governing rules.”
Meanwhile, a woman who said she spent the night with a Secret Service employee offered more details of the night of club-going that initiated the scandal.
The woman, who said she did not have sex with the employee, said that a group of about a dozen Americans, who she now believes included the Secret Service employees, were at a Cartagena club, Tu Candela. She said that most appeared to be drinking moderately. But she recalled two drinking heavily, including one man who she said was dancing and acting in an exaggerated manner. The other heavy drinker, she said, was the man who took home her friend, a prostitute, and later refused to pay her.
She said that man was buying $100 bottles of Absolut vodka and paying tips of about $30 to a waitress and a cigarette vendor.
She recalled how she acted as a translator, helping her friend arrange for a night of sex that, according to her, was to cost $250 to $300. She said the American answered, saying, “No problem.”
The woman said that the next morning the man refused to pay her friend and pretended not to understand their demands for money, offering only the equivalent of about $30 in local currency. She then wrote “250 US” on a piece of paper and showed it to the man. He became angry, she said, and locked them out of his hotel room.
It was that dispute that prompted the Secret Service to send the group of agents home before Mr. Obama’s arrival.