Remember when President Bush said Bin Laden was wanted dead or alive, and put a $25 million bounty on his head? Tom Lee of Michigan took it seriously, and wants his payout.

Tom Lee, 63, of Grand Rapids, Mich., “accurately reported” to an FBI special agent in 2003 that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, according to a letter sent in August to FBI Director James Comey by an attorney for the Loevy & Loevy firm. …

Lee, a U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent, said he learned of the complex’s location from a Pakistani intelligence agent who told him he had personally escorted bin Laden and his family from Peshawar to Abbottabad. The agent was a member of an anti-al-Qaida family who had done business with Lee for decades, according to a copy of the letter provided by the law firm.

Lee claimed he relayed the information to a U.S. customs agent who had previously worked with Lee on investigations into corruption in the international gem trade.

The award is framed quite broadly:

U.S officials said later that year that the $25 million offered by the U.S. State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” program for the “capture or conviction” of bin Laden would not be paid because the compound was located by tracking a key bin Laden courier through electronic intelligence, not an informant.

But the FBI claims they found OBL independently:

U.S officials said later that year that the $25 million offered by the U.S. State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” program for the “capture or conviction” of bin Laden would not be paid because the compound was located by tracking a key bin Laden courier through electronic intelligence, not an informant.

But Lee’s attorneys said the information he provided entitled him to the full reward.

“Once Mr. Lee learned that U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden in the precise location he had identified … in 2003, (he) made numerous attempts to contact the Grand Rapids FBI field office in order to claim his reward,” the letter stated. “Unfortunately, all of Mr. Lee’s communications to that office have gone unanswered to date, as has his electronic submission to the FBI via its website.

This is actually a decent contract issue because of some complications.

Lee’s account, however, differs from numerous published reports that the bin Laden compound wasn’t even completed until 2005. U.S. officials were quoted as saying it was believed bin Laden didn’t move to the complex until early 2006. One of bin Laden’s wives who was taken into custody following the 2011 raid reportedly told interrogators they’d been there for five or six years.

What if he told the FBI in 2003 where Bin laden was in 2011, but Bin Laden was not there in 2003? I suppose it would depend if the FBI tried to act on the 2003 tip, and found nothing. My guess is he gets zero.