BALTIMORE — A report by the Department of Justice inspector general’s office details “credible evidence of serious misconduct” by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents investigating the death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna more than two years ago.

The report, obtained by The Baltimore Sun and authenticated to the newspaper by the FBI, provides previously undisclosed details about the frantic first days of the Luna investigation, which was conducted by the FBI’s Baltimore field office.

Luna’s body was found Dec. 4, 2003, face down in a shallow stream in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He had suffered 36 stab wounds, most of them superficial, but an autopsy determined he died by drowning. His blood-spattered car was idling nearby.

According to published reports, some investigators believe the 38-year-old prosecutor took his own life — pointing out that he had been asked to take a polygraph test as part of an investigation into about $36,000 in missing evidence from a bank robbery case that Luna prosecuted.

FBI spokeswoman Carla McIntosh said Saturday that investigators are still considering suicide, premeditated murder or a random act of violence as possible causes of Luna’s death.

The inspector general’s report does not accuse the FBI of bungling the investigation to the point that the probe into Luna’s death was compromised.

But it faults FBI agents for the way they questioned one of their own about rumors of an affair between the female agent and Luna.

The female agent later filed an internal complaint charging that the FBI’s then-acting special agent in charge of the Baltimore division, Jennifer Smith Love, improperly ordered two agents to interrogate her and approved an illegal search of her computer, according to the report.

The FBI’s internal investigators found that the interrogation of the female agent did not include the investigators assigned to lead the probe into Luna’s death. The female agent — identified in the report as “Agent Smith” to protect her identity — had been ruled out as a likely suspect, and the interview caused dissension in an office already operating under tremendous strain, the report said.

However, the report said senior FBI officials cleared Love, as well as the two agents who conducted the interrogation, of misconduct and took no disciplinary action.

About two months later, in August 2004, the inspector general’s office opened its own investigation. The probe eventually found enough “credible evidence” of wrongdoing to conclude that the case should have been sent through the FBI’s formal disciplinary process, rather than handled as a mere job performance issue.

“There was at least something there that should have been investigated more,” Bruce Gebhardt, who was the FBI’s deputy director during the initial investigation, told The Baltimore Sun.

The report focuses on the actions of Love, acting assistant Special Agent in Charge Linda Hooper and Special Agent Marina Murphy. It reached no final conclusion about whether the three agents did anything wrong.

But the report criticized the FBI officials for ending their internal investigation too quickly. Even before the inspector general’s office completed its investigation in February, two of the three agents were promoted, including Love, who was made a section chief in the FBI’s counterterrorism division in Washington.

The FBI confirmed to The Baltimore Sun last Friday that the agents, including Love, were investigated again after the inspector general report was finished.

In a prepared statement, FBI officials in Washington said they followed through on the inspector general’s recommendations and referred the case to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

“As a result, the actions of several employees were examined, and while no misconduct was found, performance issues were identified and for the on-board employees, remedial action was taken,” the statement said. FBI officials declined to elaborate on the remedial action.

In a prepared statement, Love denied the “false, malicious” accusations, saying she had been formally cleared of any wrongdoing.

Hooper, who is retired, could not be reached for comment by The Baltimore Sun. Murphy, who is still in the Baltimore office, did not return a call.

Murphy and Hooper were not the lead investigators in the Luna case. But they conducted a lengthy interview with Agent Smith, who never became a suspect in Luna’s death.

FBI agents spoke to everyone listed in Luna’s personal digital assistant service, but Smith was targeted for a follow-up interview. The inspector general wrote that it was unclear who selected Hooper and Murphy to speak with Smith. Love said the idea came from Peter Brust, who supervised the Luna investigation. But Brust disputed that account, saying he told Love that a second interview would be “irrelevant,” according to the report.

Smith said Hooper and Murphy accused her of being “sexually aggressive, advertising her sexual availability within and outside the FBI, and of having inappropriate personal and sexual relationships with married” federal prosecutors, according to the report.

When Hooper and Murphy talked to internal investigators, they denied the charge but acknowledged that they asked Smith about her “flirting.”

Smith gave the FBI permission to search her personal laptop and PDA but then revoked her consent after talking to an attorney. The FBI searched her laptop anyway, the report said. Several witnesses told investigators that Hooper pushed for the search despite knowing about the revocation.

Hooper denied the allegations, according to the report.

The report says Smith told investigators that she and Luna had worked together on four cases. They also worked out at the same Baltimore health club and socialized in group settings. Their relationship, Smith said, had always been “professional and appropriate.”