-------------------------------------------------------------------

Feds Sought Bigger Drug Deal To Ensure A Stiffer Prison Sentence
(Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's
two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors
have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. The government
entrapped Michael Staufer into a bigger LSD deal than he could really handle,
just so they could double his prison term.)

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 10:34:15 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Feds Sought Bigger Drug Deal To Ensure A Stiffer Prison
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Nora Callahan http://www.november.org/
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 1998 PG Publishing.
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Contact: letters@post-gazette.com
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Author: Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Note: This is the second of a 10 part series, "WIN AT ALL COSTS" being
published in the Post-Gazette. The part is composed of several stories
(being posted separately). The series is also being printed in The Blade,
Toledo, OH email: letters@theblade.com

FEDS SOUGHT BIGGER DRUG DEAL TO ENSURE A STIFFER PRISON SENTENCE

Michael Staufer lost his minimum wage job at about the same time he was
robbed and beaten in August 1992 on a Los Angeles street.

Times were so tough he lived in a garage.

So when a friend named Scott suddenly pressed Staufer to find him 10,000
hits of LSD, Staufer wondered if the guy might have been high on the drug
himself.

Staufer was 21 years old, partied hard and used LSD when he could afford
it. Once, he'd bought 20 or 25 hits of the drug that he resold to his
friends, but he wasn't a dealer, and he certainly didn't have the money to
finance 10,000 hits.

What Staufer didn't know was that federal agents had busted Scott on drug
charges and promised him leniency if he would help the feds snare other
drug dealers.

So Scott pressed Staufer, hoping to set him up in a drug deal that agents
could then bust. So persistent was Scott that Staufer almost lost a
part-time job he'd landed because of Scott's repeated phone calls.

Finally, Staufer gave in and was introduced to the supposed buyer, who was
an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The agent wanted
10,000 hits of LSD.

Staufer's LSD supplier, who barely knew Staufer, initially resisted the
deal because he knew Staufer was not in a position to pay for it. Then, the
dealer told Staufer he would sell him 5,000 doses of the drug.

That wasn't good enough for the undercover agent, who insisted on buying
10,000, knowing it would double Staufer's prison time. After several
conversations, Staufer finally cajoled his supplier to provide the larger
amount. He was arrested when he showed the LSD to the agent.

A judge sentenced Staufer to the mandatory 12-year sentence federal law
required.

"[The judge] explained to Staufer that the court of appeals had just
reversed him for giving a life sentence to a man who had killed his wife by
throwing her off a ship where they were spending their honeymoon, and [the
judge] expressed his disapproval of a system that compelled him to 'give
Mr. Staufer for the transaction more time in prison than [he was]
authorized to give a man who murdered his wife on their honeymoon,' "
according to Staufer's appeal.

An appellate court eventually affirmed his conviction, but it was sent back
to the lower court for re-sentencing. The court ruled his sentence should
be reduced because of "sentencing entrapment" -- the government forced
Staufer into a bigger deal than he could really handle, just so the feds
could double his prison term.

Staufer's sentence was reduced to just more than six years.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Federal Sting Often Put More Drugs On The Streets - Win At All Costs series
(The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year
investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice
by breaking the law hundreds of times. Not only did Rodney Matthews
have the government's permission to fly 700 kilograms of cocaine
into a remote Houston airstrip on New Year's Eve in 1989. He had their
permission to sell it, too.)

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 10:02:03 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: Federal Sting Often Put More Drugs On The Streets - Win At All
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Nora Callahan http://www.november.org/
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 1998 PG Publishing.
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Contact: letters@post-gazette.com
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Author: Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Note: This is the second of a 10 part series, "Win At All Costs" being
published in the Post-Gazette. The part is composed of several stories
(being posted separately). The series is also being printed in The Blade,
Toledo, OH email: letters@theblade.com

FEDERAL STING OFTEN PUT MORE DRUGS ON THE STREETS

Rodney Matthews noticed lawmen waiting as he veered his airplane loaded
with 700 kilograms of cocaine toward a remote Houston airstrip on New
Year's Eve in 1989. He landed anyway.

Police sirens blared, and officers drew their guns, thinking they had made
a major bust

Matthews didn't flinch. He handed over the high-quality Colombian cocaine
with a street value of more than $50 million, and before the new year was
even a few hours old, Matthews -- who could have been imprisoned for life
based on the weight of his load -- was at home in Texas with his family,
with the blessing of the U.S. Customs Service.

All it took, Matthews said, was a phone call to a key federal agent. For
not only did he have the government's blessing to bring in the drug; he had
permission to sell it, too.

That might seem like a strange way to fight the war on drugs, but it's a
common tactic used in government sting operations, the Post-Gazette found.
The object is to snare key leaders in drug smuggling operations. In this
case, it succeeded only in putting more drugs onto America's streets.

When Feds Deal In Drugs

It is against the law for federal agents to distribute illegal drugs, just
as it is for ordinary citizens, but there are exceptions.

Under "extraordinary" circumstances -- to nab big-time dealers or
smugglers, for example -- top Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI or
Custom's officials may issue an order to allow it.

It is that kind of order that Matthews said he was given, but two years
after his close encounter near Houston, Matthews was arrested with a
boatload of cocaine in Florida and eventually sentenced to three life terms
in prison. He insisted that he was double-crossed, that he was busted for
an operation that the government had approved.

Two U.S. Customs agents corroborated his story in court, but top officials
at the U.S. Justice Department denied that. They even brought perjury
charges against the two agents who vouched for Matthews, saying they
wouldn't go along with what Matthews calls a "high-level coverup." A jury
acquitted the agents.

The only certainty in this mess is that Matthews is doing life in prison at
the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, one of the toughest in the country.

>From his cell, he has staged a one-man assault against the government,
which, he says, tried to cover up its deals with him by asking him to
perjure himself and then condemned him to life in prison because he refused.

A Criminal's Initiative

Often, it's the criminals who suggest this country's drug stings -- even
when those suggestions seem far-fetched.

Mustaq Malik knew the only way he'd be freed early from his 24-year
sentence at the federal prison in Petersburg, Va., for drug trafficking was
to help federal agents set up a sting that would snare other big-time drug
dealers.

The native of Pakistan would do anything to ensure the sting's success,
even lie in court, he later told a defense attorney.

Malik testified in 1993 that he had lied in court before and that he was
willing to testify against people he didn't even know, so long as
prosecutors agreed to shave years off his prison sentence.

Defense Attorney: "What you would do is . . . use the government in any way
that you possibly could [in] . . . getting your sentence reduced from 24
years and five months to something lesser, wouldn't you?"

Malik: "Well, that's the system."

The deal that Malik offered federal agents in 1990 seemed especially odd.
The guy he set up, 63-year-old New Yorker Raphael Santana, was already
serving a life sentence in prison. As part of the sting, Malik persuaded
Santana to arrange from prison for the distribution of a shipment of heroin
that Malik would bring into the country. Then the federal government would
bust everyone involved.

But in its zeal to grab a few small-time colleagues of this lifer, the
federal government turned over a package of almost pure heroin from its own
drug lockers to Frank Fuentes, a small-time criminal with a bad drug habit.

Agents could have arrested Fuentes, Santana and the other conspirators
before Fuentes took possession of the heroin. For reasons not clear, they
did not. So Fuentes promptly got the heroin into the hands of street
dealers in New York City.

Experts testified that it would have been cut into 8,500 individual packets
and sold on the street for $170,000.

Federal agents arrested Santana; Fuentes, a down-on-his-luck former dealer
who was so broke that he once missed a meeting with federal agents because
he didn't have money to get his car out of a tow pound; Santana's wife, who
was dying of cancer; and four street-level dealers.

A Senior U.S. District Judge eventually ordered that the conspiracy charges
against the defendants be dropped, saying the amount of heroin given to
Fuentes "boggles the mind" and constituted outrageous government misconduct.

His ruling was overturned on appeal, and Fuentes is again appealing his
life sentence.

Most of Malik's court records are sealed, so his fate isn't clear, but the
Post-Gazette found a few records that show he continued to buy down his
prison term as an informant in New York and Chicago. One court paper also
shows the government paid him $50,000 for his efforts. At last report, he
was in the federal witness protection program.

A Little Help From His Friends

There's another problem with government drug stings: They sometimes create
a drug problem where none existed.

Ben Kalka had been a bit player in the San Francisco drug world off and on
for most of his life -- mostly scoring small hits of cocaine -- but at the
time of his arrest in 1982, he'd become a major supplier of methamphetamine
on those same San Francisco streets.

Cheaper than cocaine and heroin, it induced many of the same sensations,
including quick addiction.

Federal agents had set Kalka up in a sting. But by the time Kalka began
manufacturing the drug, the Drug Enforcement Administration insists the
sting had ended, an argument Kalka finds bizarre.

By the time the government caught up with him, Kalka figures he'd produced
8,000 pounds of drugs worth $10 million, using ingredients federal agents
had arranged for him to buy.

Kalka should have been suspicious of his good fortune in 1980.

A chemist friend had asked him to find a barrel of phenyl acetic acid, a
key precursor for the manufacture of methamphetamine. Kalka had a contact
at a chemical company who said there was no way he could get him the
chemical. While it wasn't illegal, the government scrutinized who bought
and sold the chemical.

A week later, this contact called to say he could get Kalka a semi-truck
load of the chemical precursor weighing 25,000 pounds. All Kalka needed was
the money -- $250,000.

What Kalka didn't know was that in the interim, the contact, Paul Palmer,
had become an informant for the government after being busted for selling
the very precursors Kalka had bought.

By now, Kalka was hooked. He set up a partnership with another drug dealer,
Paul Morasco, to get the money, then began his search for the last
ingredient he'd need for the speed -- monomethylamine. Palmer put him in
touch with Michael Riconosciuto, whose past included shadowy connections
with various U.S. intelligence agencies, unbeknownst to Kalka.

Riconosciuto greeted Kalka like a long, lost brother. He claimed Kalka had
once talked him out of suicide when they were imprisoned in the 1970s at
Lompoc federal prison. Kalka vaguely remembered Riconosciuto.

Riconosciuto said in a recent interview that he was working for the FBI
when he connected with Kalka and the agency told him to find the
monomethylamine for Kalka as part of the sting operation. When the chemical
was delivered, the FBI planned to bust Kalka and various subordinates.

The plan failed miserably, an array of court documents show. Kalka,
naturally mistrustful of almost everyone, managed to divert the
tractor-trailer truck carrying the chemicals away from federal agents who
were tailing it.

Even so, Kalka wonders today why the FBI didn't track him down once the
methamphetamine began hitting the streets. The agency maintains it
eventually stumbled across Kalka's drug enterprise during another
undercover operation.

Soon, he had produced what might have been the largest batch of
methamphetamine produced in this country.

And it was all with chemicals supplied with the help of federal agents.

When he was finally arrested, Kalka gave the government $1 million and
1,000 pounds of methamphetamine, all that remained of the 8,000 pounds of
the drug he'd produced, in exchange for a promise that he would serve no
more than 10 years in prison.

A judge ignored the prosecutor's request and slapped Kalka with a 20-year
sentence. In the meantime, Riconosciuto was arrested and convicted on a
methamphetamine manufacturing charge. From his prison cell in Coleman,
Fla., he described the role of federal agents and their authorization for
him to sell Kalka the final ingredient needed to make the methamphetamine.

Kalka says the government's complicity in supplying the drugs might yet win
him release from prison if he can convince a court to hear him.

In the meantime, he has been moved from one prison to another because of
his repeated attempt to sue the government over his case and the conditions
of his incarceration.

A Drug-Related Millionaire

Charles Hill also earned a fortune in illegal drugs, but he did it legally.

He opened Triple Neck Scientific Co. in 1985 near San Diego. Four years
later, he had amassed more than $9 million in profit from the specialty
chemical business, selling the precursors needed to manufacture
methamphetamine, which was becoming popular in Southern California.

Hill didn't need to hide his operation from the government. He was working
for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which tracked down more than
100 of his customers, arresting them for using the precursors in illegal
drug-manufacturing operations.

The only problem was that the government didn't recover all the chemicals
that Hill had sold. Federal officials admit that the precursors they didn't
recover were likely transformed into thousands of pounds of methamphetamine
that was eventually sold on American streets.

Most of those caught in the government's web quickly pleaded guilty and
went off to prison.

Those who appealed based on the government's tactics were rebuffed. The
appeals court said convictions could be overturned only if "government
misconduct has been so outrageous that it results in a violation of due
process," or was "so grossly shocking and so outrageous as to violate the
universal sense of justice."

The court ruled it was not. "Unsavory conduct alone will not cause the
dismissal of an indictment."

Turning The Tables

Rodney Matthews was the centerpiece in the government sting called
"Operation Shanghai," an example of just how little control the U.S.
sometimes has in its drug interdiction efforts.

Matthews agreed to smuggle drugs with the government's blessing in 1984 to
avoid a three-year prison term for smuggling marijuana.

It wasn't a bad trade. Government agents said he could keep anything he
earned from the smuggling operations, and he earned millions.

The government sting had two objectives, Matthews said in several letters
responding to questions the Post-Gazette posed:

Snare a South Texan named Vic Stadter, an outspoken government critic who
made his opinions known through his newspaper. Federal agents believed he
was a longtime drug smuggler. Stadter denied the charge and accused the
government of harassment.

Bust Pablo Escobar, the notorious leader of the once-feared Medellin Cartel
in Colombia, which the government said was responsible for 80 percent of
the cocaine that came into this country during the 1980s.

Matthews said he got nowhere with Stadter, managing only to take one of his
secretaries on a few dates.

His pursuit of Escobar was more complicated and ultimately unsuccessful.
Escobar died of multiple gunshot wounds after a shootout with Colombian
police in December 1993, before U.S. agents ever laid a hand on him.

During the years in between, Matthews smuggled more than 50 loads of
cocaine for the U.S. Customs Service. At the direction of federal agents,
he delivered his loads to illegal drug syndicates in the United States,
which then distributed them across the nation. Matthews said he invested
most of his profits in property and aircraft and made sure the operation
never cost the government a cent.

He said the government wasn't interested in pursuing the people who bought
his drugs. By not busting them, agents hoped to enhance Matthews'
reputation with Escobar and Stadter, creating an image of a super
trafficker who could avoid the government's web.

That he never got close to Escobar wasn't for lack of imaginative schemes.

At one point, Matthews tried to sell the cartel leader the coastal
schedules of U.S. AWACS surveillance planes, used to detect smugglers in
boats and planes, for $6 million. It was all a scam, he said. He was hoping
the ploy would get him closer to the Colombian.

He said his encounter with scores of federal agents in 1989 at the airport
near Houston was a wakeup call. His contacts for the smuggling sting were
two Customs Service agents and two Texas Department of Public Safety
narcotics agents, and he no longer believed they had enough support for the
operation to protect him.

"It was glaringly apparent that the people who had given me authorization
had over-reached their authority, so from that point on I made sure that no
cocaine hit the street," he said.

Soon, he was accepting only contract assignments from federal law
enforcement agencies, for a fee of $50,000 a flight. He brought in the
drugs and let the federal agents take it from there.

These flights often included overnight stops at U.S. military bases in the
Carib-bean, including Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, "where I would fly in
loaded with Colombian cocaine, using prearranged code names like 'Dark
Cloud' and 'Hot Rod' for tower clearance."

The final irony: The government still owes him $180,000 for those flights,
which agents corroborated during his trial.

Matthews' last operation was in 1992 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. An old friend
set him up to be busted.

Jimmy Norjay Ellard was an ex-police officer from Texas, a pilot and a
longtime associate of Escobar, and he had served as liaison for Matthews
with the cartel leader.

Ellard's resume was bloody. He had instructed Escobar in how to attach a
bomb to an Avianca Airlines plane, which the drug leader did in the early
1980s to eliminate two informers. More than 100 innocent people died in the
mid-air blast.

Federal agents busted Ellard in 1985 for cocaine smuggling, and he was
sentenced to life in prison. He had been in jail for four years when he cut
a deal with an assistant U.S. attorney in Fort Lauderdale, based on his
promise to deliver Matthews.

From prison, he arranged an illegal drug shipment that Matthews would pick up.

Federal agents had falsely told Ellard that Matthews not only worked for
the government but had been responsible for setting Ellard up in his 1985
arrest, Matthews said.

Federal prosecutors and agents in South Florida told Matthews they didn't
believe his story about working for the federal government, despite the
drug agents' corroboration. During pre-trial meetings, when Matthews'
lawyer named the agents he was working with, prosecutors suggested they had
conspired in his crime.

So prosecutors offered Matthews a deal: Implicate the agents in some of his
crimes, and he'd be recommended for a reduced sentence.

Matthews refused; they were honest officers, he said.

Matthews was convicted of drug conspiracy and sentenced to three life terms
in prison, based on the amount of drugs he'd smuggled. Ellard, because of
his help in nailing Matthews, got only five years, but his luck didn't
last. In September, he and his son were arrested in Fort Lauderdale and
charged with conspiring to import marijuana. He is back in jail.

The agents were charged with conspiracy based on facts that came out of
Matthews case. Both were acquitted.

Matthews thought he would find some relief, because he believed the
government would surely come to its senses -- the government's agents,
after all, had corroborated his story and been found innocent of trumped up
perjury charges. He sent a package of information to 140 Members of Congress.

He got five responses, most of them "offering good wishes," he said. Last
summer, he did an extensive interview with the ABC show "Prime Time Live"
in which he explained his story.

Shortly before that story aired, he was put into an isolation cell at
Leavenworth, where he is only allowed out for a short walk each day.

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Informant Lured Him Into A Costly Deal - Win At All Costs series
(The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year
investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice
by breaking the law hundreds of times. Bobby Thomas, who had no prior
criminal record, was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison
after being entrapped into drug trafficking by a professional government
informant.)

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 10:23:05 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Informant Lured Him Into A Costly Deal - Win At All Costs
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Nora Callahan http://www.november.org/
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 1998 PG Publishing.
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Contact: letters@post-gazette.com
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Author: Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Note: This is the second of a 10 part series, "Win At All Costs" being
published in the Post-Gazette. The part is composed of several stories
(being posted separately). The series is also being printed in The Blade,
Toledo, OH email: letters@theblade.com

INFORMANT LURED HIM INTO A COSTLY DEAL

It was the kind of part-time job that never makes the classified pages.

Albert Barruetta needed money. The U.S. Customs Department needed to nab
drug dealers. So Barruetta told agents he had a line on a major
methamphetamine dealer in Pasadena, Calif.

Barruetta knew no major drug dealers, but he did know Cristobal
Crosthwaite-Villa, a Mexican citizen whose car U.S. Custom's officials had
seized in September 1992 at Tijuana, Mexico, as he was trying to cross the
border illegally.

Barruetta tried to fleece Crosthwaite, telling him that for $1,000 he would
not only get his car back but would get him permanent residency status in
the United States. Then he learned Crosthwaite sometimes used drugs, so he
told Customs agents that Crosthwaite was a major drug dealer.

The agency, without checking Crosthwaite's background, agreed to hire
Barruetta as a confidential informant and pay him, on a contingency basis,
cash for each drug dealer he could lure into a sting operation.

Barruetta began cajoling Crosthwaite to find him a source who might buy
methamphetamine. Crosthwaite had no luck until he encountered Bobby Thomas,
who had used drugs with Crosthwaite in the past and, on one or two
occasions, had sold Crosthwaite a few $20 doses of the drug.

Barruetta offered to sell Thomas drugs, saying the deal would also get
Crosthwaite's car returned. Thomas told him he couldn't help. Barruetta
kept pressing him with offers to sell him cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine.

Thomas finally relented, agreeing to buy three pounds of methamphetamine in
the hopes of helping Crosthwaite get his car.

Thomas, who had no prior criminal record, was arrested, found guilty and
sentenced to more than 12 years in prison. The amount of drugs Barruetta
had pressed Thomas to buy determined the sentence length.

In January, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Thomas's
conviction, in part because he'd been cajoled and entrapped into committing
the crime. He is awaiting a new trial.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Drug Charge Beaten, But At High Price - Win At All Costs series
(The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year
investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice
by breaking the law hundreds of times. John Gardner, a 33-year-old
Pittsburgh postal employee, was arrested on drug charges in 1989
after a government informant with an expensive drug habit talked him into
buying drugs to help feed the informant's drug habit.)

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 11:24:58 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Drug Charge Beaten, But At High Price - Win At All Costs
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Nora Callahan http://www.november.org/
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 1998 PG Publishing.
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Contact: letters@post-gazette.com
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/ Author: Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette
Staff Writer Note: This is the second of a 10 part series, "Win At All
Costs" being published in the Post-Gazette. The part is composed of several
stories (being posted separately). The series is also being printed in The
Blade, Toledo, OH email: letters@theblade.com
The first part of the series (posted in three parts) is at:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1068.a04.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1068.a05.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1069.a01.html

Drug Charge Beaten, But At High Price

John Gardner was a 33-year-old Pittsburgh postal employee when he was
arrested on drug charges in 1989.

Gardner had worked for seven years at the post office distribution facility
in Warrendale and had won awards for his exemplary service.

He was charged after a government informant with an expensive drug habit
talked him into buying drugs to help feed the informant's drug habit. It
was all part of a government sting.

Two years later, a federal judge dismissed the charges, saying the
government had "acted outrageously in inducing the defendant to engage in
conduct that led to his prosecution."

By that time, Gardner had lost his job and most of his assets fighting the
case. No federal agents or prosecutors were punished.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Fighting To Prove Innocence Led 3 To Stiffer Sentences
(The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year
investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice
by breaking the law hundreds of times. Three men, all about 60 years old -
Loren Pogue, George Pararas-Carayannis, and Beryl L. Johnston, who were
entrapped by government sting operations were successful in their careers
and active in their communities. After refusing plea bargains and fighting
to prove their innocence, their lives are ruined, their assets gone. Two
are serving long prison terms. The third expects to begin serving
his sentence soon.)

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 08:53:59 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Fighting To Prove Innocence Led 3 To Stiffer Sentences
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Nora Callahan http://www.november.org/
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 1998 PG Publishing.
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Contact: letters@post-gazette.com
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/ Author: Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette
Staff Writer Note: This is the second of a 10 part series, "Win At All
Costs" being published in the Post-Gazette. The part is composed of several
stories (being posted separately). The series is also being printed in The
Blade, Toledo, OH email: letters@theblade.com
The first part of the series (posted in three parts) is at:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1068.a04.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1068.a05.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1069.a01.html

FIGHTING TO PROVE INNOCENCE LED 3 TO STIFFER SENTENCES

The three men were all about 60 years old, successful in their careers,
active in their communities.

They were snared in three government stings. Two are serving long prison
terms. The third expects to begin serving his sentence soon.

Their lives are ruined, their assets gone. Two say they have little hope of
leaving prison alive.

The government offered them deals if they would plead guilty to minor
criminal offenses. They would have done little, if any, prison time, but
all steadfastly maintained their innocence, and because they fought for
that innocence, they are paying dearly.

They say they cannot understand how their government could have lured them
into situations that federal prosecutors would then describe as crimes.

They say they have learned one thing from the shadowy world of government
sting operations: The line between guilt and innocence is a shifting one,
and federal law enforcement officers control the strings.

***

Loren Pogue

Loren Pogue, an Air Force veteran and co-founder of a home for orphans, is
serving 22 years in prison on charges he conspired to smuggle drugs into
the United States and launder drug money.

Pogue never bought drugs, never sold them, never held them, never used
them, never smuggled them. But a government informant with an alcohol and
drug habit, who would later lie at Pogue's trial, managed to snare Pogue in
a 1990 government sting operation that had little else to show for the
hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost.

A real estate agent and Missouri native who'd made a second home for
himself and his family in Costa Rica, Pogue admits he'd had a previous
scrape with the law. In the 1970s, he served 14 months for tax evasion
related to an ill-fated business venture.

His life since had been free of trouble.

Pogue and his wife, Delores Jean, have 27 children, 15 of them adopted.
Friends, neighbors and preachers have written letters to the federal
government detailing his contributions to their communities and their
outrage at his treatment.

Federal prosecutors said he set up and completed a deal to sell a parcel of
land in Costa Rica to drug dealers who intended to use it as a stopover
airstrip for illegal drug shipments to the United States. He denied the
charges vehemently.

After his conviction, Pogue obtained government documents that showed the
key witness in his case committed perjury at his trial, weaving a web of
lies that convinced jurors of Pogue's guilt.

The witness, Mitchell Henderson, was a government informant, a disgraced
ex-police officer, an abuser of alcohol and drugs whom the Drug Enforcement
Administration had promised $250,000 to set up a sting operation to try to
snare Latin American drug dealers.

Henderson testified that a high-ranking official of the Cali Cartel in
Colombia had arranged to buy the land for the airstrip. However, DEA
documents that Pogue obtained after his conviction show Henderson never met
the cartel official, and the DEA knew it.

Henderson also testified that Pogue, from the start, knew that the land
sale was connected to Colombian drug runners, a key point in proving
conspiracy charges. But at a later trial, Henderson testified that Pogue
knew nothing about the deal until the day he showed up to close the
agreement on the land.

The DEA documents also make clear that government officials knew Henderson
was lying at Pogue's trial. Neither Pogue nor the court was informed of
that fact, despite discovery rules that require it.

DEA tapes show Pogue balked at the land deal when the subject was first
raised in the Tampa hotel room where the deal was to be closed. Pogue
admits he finally agreed to sell the land, partly out of fear of what the
supposed drug dealers might do to him if he did not.

Pogue says he knew something else about the property they did not: No one
could build an airstrip on the land. It was a rocky parcel on a steep
hillside with a view of the Pacific Ocean. Building an airstrip there would
be nearly impossible.

Because he listened for a little more than two hours to undercover agents
talk about the thousands of pounds of cocaine that would go through this
airstrip and the thousands of dollars in drug money they would use to pay
for it, the federal charges he faced were major: drug and money laundering
conspiracies. His lawyer says the jury believed the lies of the
government's key witness because at one point, Pogue told the supposed drug
smugglers he didn't care where the money came from.

The 11th United States Court of Appeals upheld Pogue's conviction, not even
issuing an opinion after its judges had peppered attorneys in the case with
questions.

***

George Pararas-Carayannis

The federal government needed an estimated $4 million and a sexy undercover
police officer to snare Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis in a government sting
operation aimed at drug dealers who were laundering money.

The only person to face charges was Carayannis. There was no evidence he
was involved in drugs.

Carayannis was accused of laundering $4,000 and netting all of $35 for
himself. He faces a 41-month sentence, though he has so many medical
problems that doctors have postponed his trip to prison, fearing it might
kill him.

It was the first time he was charged with a crime.

Carayannis is one of the world's foremost authorities on tsunami, tidal
waves that earthquakes trigger and that have killed thousands in coastal
communities around the globe. He was named director of the International
Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii in 1974 and was responsible for
assisting more than 28 nations with natural disaster preparedness. He was
fired from the post after he was indicted in 1995 on money laundering charges.

His nightmare began after a friend who was an interior decorator introduced
him to Lauri McEwen in 1992. Carayannis didn't know that the interior
decorator was an illegal alien whom federal agents had arrested on drug
charges. She agreed to help in the sting in exchange for the right to stay
in the country.

McEwen told Carayannis she was a 26-year-old Canadian who had recently
broken up with her boyfriend. Carayannis said she was beautiful, often
dressing in tight, revealing clothing that highlighted a spectacular
figure. Carayannis, then 56 and divorced, was amazed she found him
interesting. Soon they were meeting for lunch and dinner. They held hands
and kissed tenderly as he courted her, he said. They talked about life and
trips they might take together.

What he didn't know was that McEwen's real name was Dana Kresich, an
undercover Honolulu police officer assigned to the government's sting.

Kresich told Carayannis that she recently had started an escort service, a
euphemism often implying a prostitution ring, but Caray-annis said he never
made that connection. In government tapes of conversations between him and
Kresich, she is never heard to define escort service as being anything
illegal.

He said the undercover agent assured him that the business was not only
legal but that it was registered in the State of Hawaii. Kresich insisted
in court that Caray-annis knew it was an illegal operation.

Since her escort business was new, Kresich told Caray-annis she had not yet
established a credit card account. So several times she asked him if she
could run credit card bills from her business through the machine at a
small jewelry business that Carayannis owned as a sideline to his
government job.

Carayannis gladly agreed. He reimbursed her for the $4,000 or so that the
charges totaled. He earned $35 in fees on the charges, the government said.
Because the credit card companies also charged him that amount as their fee
for the service, the transaction was a wash. Government documents showed
that Carayannis listed the $35 on his tax returns and paid taxes on it.

Federal prosecutors said his actions constituted money laundering because
he ran transactions from a prostitution ring through his credit account.
Carayannis couldn't believe it.

After his arrest, he next saw Kresich in court. Gone were the low-cut
dresses, short-shorts and bedroom eyes. "She was dressed like a nun," he said.

Prosecutors quickly offered a deal. "They told my lawyer to pick any one of
the charges [to plead guilty to] and this would end," he said. "But I
wasn't guilty of anything, and I wasn't going to plead guilty to something
I didn't do."

Now he's not sure he did the right thing. Fighting the government has cost
him everything.

Carayannis emigrated to this country from Greece as a young man. He is the
grandson of Lela Carayannis, who led that nation's largest anti-facist
resistance organization during World War II. She and 71 of her followers
were executed. Other members of Carayannis' family were tortured in
concentration camps.

"I had faith in this system," he said. "I thought with this kind of
evidence and due process, I would be acquitted." But he wasn't. He was
convicted and sentenced to 41 months in prison.

Hundreds of supporters have sent testimonials to the offices of federal
judges and congressmen on Carayannis's behalf along with questions about
the government's tactics. They have accomplished nothing.

Carayannis is in a legal limbo because doctors have said he is not healthy
enough to travel to prison because of the effects of three heart attacks.
So his seven-year odyssey continues.

He says he's sure of only one thing: Because of his medical problems, the
41 months in prison he faces amounts to a death sentence.

***

Beryl L. Johnston

Beryl L. Johnston was a Pappillon, Neb., gentleman farmer, contractor and
finance company owner who thought he was getting a good deal on refinancing
a farm, but his 1993 trip to Florida to seal the deal ended in a 78-month
federal sentence for money laundering.

As often occurs in government stings, Johnston wouldn't learn until after
his conviction that the key witness against him had lied to him, to the
government and to the court in the sting that would cost him his freedom,
his farm and most of his assets.

Based on the evidence, the government violated its rules when it snared
Johnston in the sting, but because appeals take so long to resolve,
vindication might come after his sentence is completed sometime next year
at the Federal Correctional Institution at Yankton, S.D.

It all started in June 1993 when Jerry Woody, a man Johnston had tossed out
of his office years earlier, met two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
agents who were posing as agents for the Cali Drug Cartel. The agents told
Woody and an acquaintance that they needed to launder $10 million from
cocaine proceeds.

People who operate on the fringes of the law usually know that Cali Cartel
members don't share their affiliation with new acquaintances unless they
plan to kill them, but these agents had no trouble hooking Woody, who had
once been a banker but was as financially unstable in 1993 as he had been
most of his life.

Although he'd never laundered anything more than a load of clothes, Woody
told the smugglers he owned a bank on the Island of Palau, a U.S. Territory
off the coast of the Philippines. He said he'd laundered "billions of
dollars" over the past decade through connections in Lichtenstein.

He didn't mention that he couldn't pay his phone bill, had recently run out
on several hotel bills and that his foreign bank was simply a piece of
paper. His bank charter in Palau had been revoked years earlier because
Woody didn't pay the $50 renewal fee.

Virtually everything he told the agents was a lie.

The clincher came when Woody said he could arrange to launder money already
in the United States through a Nebraska farmer who would be willing to put
up his farm as collateral.

The undercover police officers said they wanted to meet the farmer -- they
had $2 million in small bills ready to launder. That complicated things a
bit. The farmer was Johnston, and Woody hadn't spoken to him in years.
Johnston simply happened to own a 25 percent interest in a $6 million
Nebraska farm and Woody had added his name to the growing list of lies he
was feeding the feds.

Woody called an old friend, John Velder, in Kansas City, Mo. -- a man who
knew Johnston through business dealings. Velder, who'd helped Johnston with
a loan in 1991, listened as Woody told him that friends he knew had
recently inherited $20 million -- another lie -- and wanted to invest it.
Woody thought that Johnston, a partner in Fleetwood Farms, might be a
candidate for a low-interest loan.

He also asked Velder not to tell Johnston that Woody was behind the deal,
since Johnston had refused to deal with him on financial matters because of
Woody's tendency to skirt the law. Velder agreed and called Johnston, who
jumped at the offer of a 6 percent loan. The deal would get worked out on
July 7, 1993, in Orlando, Fla.

Johnston was outraged when Woody showed up with Velder, but the good
interest rate kept him talking. At a motel room, the undercover agents
joined them. That's when Johnston says he first learned of the money
laundering scheme.

"They told me they were going to give me the loan, but you're going to
launder our money," he said in a recent phone interview from prison.

Velder left the room before they discussed specifics and was acquitted of
charges filed against him.

Johnston's apprehension with the agents is evident in several conversations
the government recorded, but in the end he agreed to the money-laundering
deal.

Why would he do something so stupid? Fear, Johnston says. Woody took him
aside during the talks, informed him the men were members of the Cali
Cartel and pointed out guards stationed in the hall -- to make sure no one
tried to sneak away. They were actually FBI agents in disguise.

After his arrest, the government offered Johnston a deal if he would plead
to a lesser charge. He refused. "I told [my attorney to tell prosecutors],
'You know there's a law against perjury, and if I admit doing this, I've
committed perjury.' "

But based mostly on the videotaped conversations from the room, he was
convicted. After the trial, he began to discover evidence that the
government should have given to his attorneys.

Woody wasn't interested in laundering money. He was trying to rip off
$25,000 in front money from the supposed Colombian money men, and because
he was broke, there was no way Woody could launder money. In court, the FBI
presented him as an accomplished money launderer of some wealth. Sting
operations aren't supposed to target people who don't have the means to
pull off the crime in question.

Johnston's attorney asked DEA Agent Russell Permaul, "Do you have any
evidence that Woody handled billions of dollars?"

"No, not short of him owning a bank," replied Permaul.

There was no bank. Woody had been living on his girlfriend's credit cards.

Johnston maintained at the trial that he'd known nothing about the money
laundering deal until the day he walked into the motel room, which the
government disputed.

Johnston's son would later learn that DEA documents showed no record of
Johnston until the day before the Orlando meeting. Further, Woody was
prepared to verify Johnston's story on the witness stand, if prosecutors
granted him immunity for those statements, since otherwise he might face
still more charges.

Federal prosecutors refused, Johnston said. So the witness who had lied to
set him up was denied the opportunity to set him free. Woody was sentenced
to 80 months for his role in the deal.

Finally, Johnston wasn't satisfied with the videotaped conversations from
the sting that prosecutors had played in court. The tape abruptly ended the
moment they announced his arrest. After he was convicted, the jury foreman
told his attorney that he couldn't understand why Johnston didn't simply
flee the room.

Had the foreman seen the agents throw him to the ground and handcuff him,
he might have appreciated the fear Johnston says he experienced.

"I was scared; what else can I say," Johnston said. "I'd like to see the
jury foreman in my shoes when they grabbed me."

Johnston's repeated requests that the government turn over the original
tape have been denied. Johnston figures the DEA's real interest in him
stemmed from one thing: his substantial interest in a Nebraska farm that
could be seized under federal forfeiture laws.

He was right. The DEA seized Johnston's $1 million interest in the farm
then sold it for $360,000 to his former partners.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Trapped Into Trying To Settle Vendetta - Win At All Costs series
(The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year
investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice
by breaking the law hundreds of times. Qubilah Shabazz, daughter of
assassinated black leader Malcolm X, was arrested in June 1995 and charged
with plotting to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the man
she thought murdered her father 30 years before. The story behind
the headlines was even more bizarre.)

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 11:40:59 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Trapped Into Trying To Settle Vendetta - Win At All Costs
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Nora Callahan http://www.november.org/
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 1998 PG Publishing.
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Contact: letters@post-gazette.com
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Author: Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Note: This is the second of a 10 part series, "Win At All Costs" being
published in the Post-Gazette. The part is composed of several stories
(being posted separately). The series is also being printed in The Blade,
Toledo, OH email: letters@theblade.com

TRAPPED INTO TRYING TO SETTLE VENDETTA

Qubilah Shabazz, daughter of assassinated black leader Malcolm X, was
arrested in June 1995 and charged with plotting to kill Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan, the man she thought murdered her father 30 years
before.

The story behind the headline was even more bizarre: Michael Fitzpatrick,
the government informant from New York who tipped the feds to the plot, had
a history of trying to persuade people to commit violent acts, dating to
the 1980s. He also had a history as a paid informant for federal agents.

He told federal agents that, for a fee, he could deliver evidence about the
supposed plot. They agreed to pay him $45,000 to nail Shabazz in the sting,
court records show.

He sought out Shabazz, whom he'd known since high school, lured her from
New York City to Minneapolis, convincing her his interests were romantic,
then planted the idea of arranging to have Farrakhan killed, according to
court records.

She never went to trial. Instead, she signed a statement accepting
responsibility for her involvement in the plot and agreed to two years of
psychiatric and drug and alcohol treatment. She received two years
probation, which ended last year and all charges were dismissed.

Prosecutors said the paper she signed proved her guilt. Defense attorneys
insisted it proved nothing but a government conspiracy that had entrapped
an innocent person.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

A Sting Gone Awry - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found
federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law
hundreds of times. Seven small companies employing more than 100 people
went bust after "Operation Lightning Strike," an expensive government sting
operation that at first yielded no results. So the government set out
to entrap the little guys to save face.)

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 18:16:25 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: A Sting Gone Awry - Win At All Costs series
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Nora Callahan http://www.november.org/
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 1998 PG Publishing.
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Contact: letters@post-gazette.com
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Author: Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Note: This is the second of a 10 part series, "Win At All Costs" being
published in the Post-Gazette. The part is composed of several stories
(being posted separately). The series is also being printed in The Blade,
Toledo, OH email: letters@theblade.com
The first part of the series (posted in three parts) is at:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1068.a04.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1068.a05.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1069.a01.html

A STING GONE AWRY

When A Trap Didn't Net Big Game, Government Targeted The Little Guys

Dale Brown was a poster boy for the American dream, an athletic former
Eagle Scout whose start-up company near the Johnson Space Center outside
Houston hustled contracts with NASA.

Brown worked seven days a week, 18 hours a day getting his company started
in the late 1980s, trying to pair clients and their promising technologies
with niches in the billion-dollar needs of the U.S. space program.

Like most small companies, Brown's Terraspace Technologies Inc. sometimes
struggled to make ends meet. A man who bragged about his Mississippi roots
and his ability to make things happen promised to change that in 1992. John
Clifford told Brown he had developed a product that NASA might use and he
was prepared to spend big money to get it noticed.

It was called a miniature lithotripter, an ultrasound device whose
technology might one day be used to improve the medical monitoring of
astronauts in space.

Brown checked out Clifford and his companies with Dunn & Bradstreet, the
Better Business Bureau and the banks that worked with him. All gave the
Mississippi man a thumbs-up.

"I came to believe this guy was our savior, our knight in shining armor,"
Brown said.

Brown, though, was wrong.

John Clifford was actually Hal Francis, an agent for the FBI. His new
device was phony, though legitimate companies had agreed to help the FBI by
pretending to manufacture it. It was part of an FBI sting operation aimed
at trapping Brown and several others who worked in the space program or on
its periphery.

Francis and dozens of other federal agents and prosecutors had set their
sights much higher: Key employees at NASA and a few of its contractors were
suspected of giving and taking bribes, but the feds had failed to snare
these high-placed managers.

Millions already had been spent on Operation Lightning Strike, including
enormous bills for luxury hotel suites, gourmet meals, deep-sea fishing
trips and booze-filled nights at Houston strip clubs. Federal agents needed
something to show for their effort. So they went to work trying to lure
minor space agency players into doing something illegal. Brown would be one
of these consolation prizes.

It was a scenario similar to dozens of other failed government stings that
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette uncovered in a two-year investigation of
federal law enforcement officers' misconduct.

Brown, now 38, eventually was charged with 21 counts of mail fraud and one
count of bribery. After a jury deadlocked, all charges were dismissed, but
the price of fighting for his innocence proved costly. Brown lost his
business, his savings, his fiancee, his health and his belief in the
American dream.

Not An Isolated Case

Brown was in good company.

The other 14 targets in Operation Lightning Strike were also college
graduates. Most had families. Only one had previously been the target of a
criminal investigation.

In 1994, two years into the government sting, federal prosecutors charged
each with violating federal laws. Several of the cases started with the
lithotripter. The government contended that Brown knew the device was
phony, and thus every act he performed in trying to win a NASA contract for
it constituted a crime, but that argument eventually self-destructed in court.

Brown produced a picture of the prototype he took while visiting a firm
that would supposedly manufacture the lithotripter. Francis showed Brown
the device to assure him it was real, and he didn't know Brown had taken
the picture.

Francis cajoled other sting targets into situations that would bring
criminal charges, even though several said they couldn't imagine that what
they were doing might be construed as a crime.

All but two of the 15 suspects were coerced into quickly pleading guilty.
Federal agents assured them that fighting the charges in court would result
in long prison terms, huge fines and prolonged humiliation for their families.

The physical and psychological toll of "Operation Lightning Strike" was
great. Seven small companies employing more than 100 people went bust.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Assistant principal gets 30 years for dealing drugs near his school
(An Associated Press article found at Tampa Bay Online says Willie James
Young Jr., 52, an assistant principal at North Miami Community Middle School,
was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison for trying to buy 66 pounds
of cocaine from undercover drug agents two blocks from his middle school.)

From: "Bob Owen@W.H.E.N." (when@olywa.net)
To: "_Drug Policy --" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: Assistant principal gets 30 years for dealing drugs near his school
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 17:49:16 -0800
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net
Newshawk: ccross@november.org
Source: Tampa Bay Online
Pubdate: 11/23/98 -- 12:50 PM
Online: http://www.tampabayonline.net/news/flor1000.htm

Assistant principal gets 30 years for dealing drugs near his school

MIAMI (AP) - An assistant principal was sentenced Monday to 30 years in
prison for trying to buy 66 pounds of cocaine from undercover drug agents
two blocks from his middle school.

Willie James Young Jr., 52, an assistant principal at North Miami Community
Middle School, was convicted Sept. 9 of possession of cocaine with intent to
distribute and conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute.

Young had met with police informant Osvaldo Marcial and Thomas Walden, a
Drug Enforcement Administration agent posing as a cocaine dealer. Young was
trying to buy cocaine and had agreed to sell the drugs, then pay back the
dealer.

He was arrested April 3.

Federal agents said they didn't have any evidence that Young had sold
cocaine to students at the school, which is in a drug-free zone, but Young
negotiated drug deals with undercover agents in his office and on school
grounds while classes were in session.

He bragged to undercover agents that he had made more than $750,000
trafficking in cocaine, investigators said.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

An After-Hours Lifestyle Can Mess Up Your Style At Work
(The St. Louis Post-Dispatch surveys lifestyle protection laws around
the nation. In states with no such legal protections, your company can use
what you do on your own time to determine how well you perform your job.
Only three states - New York, North Dakota and Colorado - have statutes
protecting employees from job discrimination based on any legal activity
they choose to engage in after work. In half the states, the only protected
after-hours activity an employee can engage in is smoking. In his
just-published book, "Job Discrimination II," Jeffrey Bernbach, an attorney
in New York City who specializes in workplace law, writes that an employer
might terminate workers for such offenses as "drinking six martinis
before dinner or riding your Harley-Davidson or taking herbal medications
for your arthritis, which may label you as a 'health nut,' or even seeking
counseling to get through a bad relationship, divorce, or the death
of a loved one.")

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 18:37:12 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US MO: An After-Hours Lifestyle Can Mess Up Your Style At Work
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: MMcNamara@bridge.com (McNamara, Mark P.)
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Contact: letters@pd.stlnet.com
Website: http://www.stlnet.com/
Forum: http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/index.nsf/forums
Copyright: 1998 Post Dispatch
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 98
Author: Sherwood Ross, Reuters
Section: BUSINESS PLUS

AN AFTER-HOURS LIFESTYLE CAN MESS UP YOUR STYLE AT WORK

Watch what you do after you get off work: your employer may also be
watching - and fire you for it, even if it's legal.

In states that have no lifestyle protection laws, "Your company can use
what you do on your own time to determine how well you perform your job,"
warned Jeffrey Bernbach, an attorney in New York City who specializes in
workplace law.

"Only three states - New York, North Dakota and Colorado - have statutes
protecting employees from job discrimination based on any legal activity
they choose to engage in after work," Bernbach pointed out.

In half the states, he added, the only protected after-hours activity an
employee can engage in is smoking.

In his just-published "Job Discrimination II" (Voire Dire Press), Bernbach
writes that an employer might terminate you for such offenses as "drinking
six martinis before dinner or riding your Harley-Davidson or taking herbal
medications for your arthritis, which may label you as a 'health nut,' or
even seeking counseling to get through a bad relationship, divorce, or the
death of a loved one.

"If your company doesn't approve of your lifestyle, your job may be in
jeopardy," he said.

"The best data we've got indicates that at least 6,000 companies
discriminate against people who smoke off duty," said Lewis Maltby,
director of the workplace rights office of the American Civil Libverties
Union in Princeton, N.J.

"You can't work at CNN (Cable News Network) if you smoke off duty, and
there are some companies that discriminate against off-duty drinking,"
Maltby continued.

"When you sign up as an (CNN) employee, you sign a paper saying that you
won't smoke," confirmed an official of Turner Broadcasting System Inc.,
Atlanta, which operates CNN.

He also said that no one has been fired as a result of this policy, and
that certain states like New York have anti-discrimination laws that negate
such policies.

"Smoking, drinking, riding a motorcycle or having any hobby that the
company presumes is risky - such as skiing or scuba-diving - have their
risks, but is it your boss's business?" Maltby asked.

In one Indiana case, he said, a hard-working machinist and model employee
stopped off at a bar one Friday night after work for a couple of beers and
his employer fired him.

The firing was legal because the company had a written policy against
off-duty drinking.

"Smoking marijuana (off-duty hours) will definitely get you in trouble,"
Maltby added. He noted that "80 percent of the 'Fortune 1000' companies now
have a drug testing program and if you're smoking (marijuana) on weekends,
there's a good chance it can cost you your job."

"There are people who have been fired because of off-duty sex life,
including women cops who have posed for centerfolds. And if you're gay, it
can cost you your job in a heartbeat if anybody finds out about it," Maltby
said.

According to Bernbach, some biased employers, who can't fire employees for
their race or nationality, use their after-hours conduct as an excuse to
terminate them.

"Off-the-job surveillance has become more prevalent as employers look for
tools to get rid of people without running afoul of the anti-discrimination
laws," Bernbach said.

If employers seek to discriminate against you because you are a member of a
minority group or are over 50 years of age, he said, the employers could
say, "We did it because the individual is a known drug abuser."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

On the Hill, Barring Democracy (Washington Post columnist Dick Evans
contrasts the noble words about democracy posted at the web site of US
Representative Robert L. Barr Jr. with the Georgia Republican's ignoble
quashing of Initiative 59, the District of Columbia medical marijuana
initiative.)

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 10:08:22 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US DC: Column: MMJ: On the Hill, Barring Democracy
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: emr@javanet.com (Dick Evans)
Source: Washington Post
Copyright: 1998 The Washington Post Company
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Page: B01, front page, second section
Contact: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Columnist: Steve Twomey - email twomeys@washpost.com

ON THE HILL, BARRING DEMOCRACY

On Oct. 5, the day the House Judiciary Committee voted to open a formal
inquiry into whether President Clinton should be impeached, Robert L. Barr
Jr., a committee member who nearly foams with disgust at our president's
behavior, put the Lewinsky scandal into historical context with some
sobering thoughts, now available on his Web site ( www.house.gov/barr ),
should you care to check.

"Imagine," the Georgia Republican began, "a place where a dictator, a king,
a prime minister or a president could walk into your home at any time, and
force you to accede to any demand, however unreasonable."

Imagine such a place. Terrible.

"Throughout history -- including 18th century Britain -- such regimes have
been the norm," Barr went on. "The system of rule by law under which we
live stands as a stark exception to the historically prevalent notion that
a ruler can take whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, from any subject."

Imagine such a ruler. Horrible.

But there is, really, no need to trouble your fantasy cells. A place where
people are forced to accede to unreasonable demands exists right here, and
a ruler who takes what he wants from his subjects exists right now.

The District is the place, Barr the ruler.

The man who embalmed himself last month in sanctimonious blather as
defender of democratic virtues against a brutish president is the same man
who was in August the chief assassin of a free and fair election,
sponsoring an ultimately successful piece of legislation to steal from a
group of Americans -- those in the nation's capital -- the right to decide
at the polls a public policy issue.

Perhaps the next edition of Webster's will feature Barr when it gets around
to defining "two-faced."

His amendment forbade city officials to spend any funds to supervise or
conduct a particular part of the Nov. 3 election: Initiative 59, a ballot
measure on whether doctors should be able to prescribe marijuana to ease
the pain of serious illnesses. Because the Barr Amendment passed after the
ballots had been printed, residents still got a chance to say yea or nay.
They just never found out the results.

Twenty days on, the outcome remains known only to a computer because the
Board of Elections and Ethics fears that even the nearly invisible cost of
printing the results would represent illegal spending under Barr's
amendment. The wishes of 137,523 Americans -- the number of residents who
voted -- are being held hostage by an act of the Congress of the United
States, may it rest in perpetual shame.

What country is this? Anybody?

I keep waiting for U.N. teams under Jimmy Carter to show up, dispatched to
look into the suppression of voting rights. But the abuse of Washington has
gone on for so long that nobody cares, certainly not the nation, 99 percent
of which doesn't even know the District is a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Hill, its people bereft of voting representation in the House and Senate
and at the mercy of 535 holy patriots who see no irony in walking into the
District's house and forcing it to accede to any demand, to use Barr's
colorful description.

Yes, the Constitution gives Congress that power. But it doesn't require its
use. It doesn't require meddling on the most mundane of issues, in ways
that mock the notion that being a citizen means being equal to all other
citizens. Other Americans get to control their destinies. Those in
America's capital don't.

"Our Founding Fathers understood the importance [of] restraining unbridled
power," Barr said in his Judiciary statement.

At least he didn't claim he does.

Barr has said the issue in the District is illegal drugs. His constituents
hate them and won't tolerate having their money used -- in the form of
federal support for the District budget -- for an election that might
liberalize drug laws. In Barr's World, I guess, governing yourself is not
an inherent right. It's a matter of money.

Who knew there was such a thing as too high a price to pay for democracy?

Well, $500 is apparently too much. That's what the election board says the
total cost of printing, advertising and tabulating the marijuana initiative
would be.

Maybe Clarke v. United States will free the District 137,523.

A decade ago, Congress ordered the D.C. Council to pass a certain law or
lose its entire budget. But the city argued, and the U.S. Court of Appeals
agreed, that to tell a group of Americans what to say by ordering them to
pass a particular law -- laws being a form of speech, reflecting community
thought -- violates the First Amendment.

The court said in Clarke that under the Constitution, Congress didn't have
to create a city council in the District, but once it did, it had to let it
operate like one, which means leaving it free to speak legislatively or not.

It is the same here and now. The city's Home Rule Charter gives citizens
the right to vote on initiatives. To disembowel that right is to deny their
right to speak. And on Dec. 18, that is precisely what the city will argue
to a federal judge.

"It is our job as legislators to diagnose threats to our democracy and
eliminate them," Barr said in his Judiciary statement.

What if the legislators are the threat?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Five states approve medical marijuana (The American Medical News
says the success of all five medical marijuana initiatives
in the Nov. 3 elections means doctors must now decide whether
they want to recommend the drug to patients. Under the new laws,
physicians need only write their recommendation in patients' medical
records. Patients can then request a copy to protect against prosecution.)

Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 16:16:06 -0800 (PST)
From: bc616@scn.org (Darral Good)
To: hemp-talk@hemp.net
Subject: HT: American Medical News - What doctors should do
Cc: mpp@MPP.ORG, edit@mapinc.org
Reply-To: bc616@scn.org
Sender: owner-hemp-talk@hemp.net

Database: Gen'l Ref Ctr Gold
Key Words: Marijuana
Library: Seattle Public Library

Source: American Medical News, Nov 23, 1998 p5(1).

Title: Five states approve medical marijuana.
Author: Leigh Page

Subjects: Marijuana - Therapeutic use
Pharmaceutical policy - Analysis

Electronic Collection: A53334148
RN: A53334148

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1998 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.

AT A GLANCE

MEDICAL POT Following a sweep for all medical marijuana initiatives, doctors
must now decide whether they want to recommend the drug to patients.

With the victory of all five ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana for
medical use, doctors who want to recommend pot to patients will have to weigh
their legal risks.

Despite a federal ban on the drug, medical marijuana was approved in Alaska,
Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington on Nov. 3. The measures become law
within weeks in four states, while the Nevada item requires a second vote in
two years.

What doctors should do

Federal authorities have warned that physicians who prescribe marijuana for
medical use will lose their prescription authority and be subject to exclusion
from Medicare and Medicaid. But proponents say doctors will not be prosecuted
in states with the new laws as long as they simply recommend pot and don't
prescribe or procure it.

That doctrine was endorsed by federal authorities in a Feb. 27, 1997,
statement after a similar initiative passed in California two years ago. But
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy cast doubt on that
doctrine in a lawsuit that challenged the initiative, said Alice Mead, an
attorney with the California Medical Assn. In testimony, officials did not
unequivocally endorse a doctor's right to discuss marijuana with patients, she
said.

Federal agents in California have closed several cannabis buying clubs,
arrested some patients using the substance and even entered a doctor's office
to inquire about his recommendations. But no physician has been prosecuted for
recommending the drug, Mead said.

Still, medical marijuana is one of the few issues where the Clinton
administration and the Republican-controlled Congress agree, and the
administration has not indicated any policy changes following the election.

Proponents attribute the clean sweep -- following the 1997 defeat in
Washington state of a medical marijuana initiative -- to clearer wording that
limits the drug's potential abuse.

Except for the Arizona initiative, which upheld a successful 1996 initiative
that the Legislature tried to overrule, the new laws specify that marijuana
can be used only by patients with certain conditions, such as AIDS, epilepsy
glaucoma and multiple sclerosis, and do not require doctors to prescribe pot.

Under the laws, physicians need only write their recommendation in patients'
medical records. Patients can then request a copy to protect against
prosecution. Although the measures don't legalize any supply channels, they
direct the use of identification cards or confidential registries of medical
marijuana users.

"Patients will no longer have to feel like criminals," said Rob K. Killian,
MD, a Seattle hospice physician who organized a ballot initiative. "I felt
really sleazy to have to recommend marijuana and then turn my back."

The Washington measure gleaned 59% of the vote this year, despite appearances
in the state by high-profile opponents such as former First Lady Barbara Bush
and the federal drug czar, Barry McCaffrey. "Before you vote, ask yourself,
'What medicines do you smoke?"' warned McCaffrey aide David Vereen, MD.
"Smoked marijuana damages the brain, heart, lungs and immune system."

Organized medicine mostly silent

But marijuana's medical efficacy got scant attention from state medical
societies, which were largely neutral on the initiatives.

Only the Nevada society opposed medical marijuana, and only the Alaska society
endorsed it. The rest argued that more research is needed to understand
marijuana's effects, the same stance taken by the AMA and the CMA.

Despite inadequate evidence of its medical efficacy, several national polls
showed two-thirds of voters endorsing medical marijuana. "This is really a
social issue rather than a medical issue," asserted David Landrith, vice
president for policy and political affairs at the Arizona Medical Assn.
"People aren't satisfied to jail every offender or put a cop in every window"

Indeed, voters in Arizona and Oregon soundly defeated separate initiatives
that would have strengthened penalties for marijuana possession.

Adding to the sweep, exit polls showed voters in Colorado and the District of
Columbia also appeared to approve unauthorized ballot items in favor of
medical marijuana.

State authorities quashed the Colorado measure, claiming there were not enough
valid signatures on petitions to put the measure on the ballot. Congress
upheld federal drug policy and barred the District's initiative. Both
invalidations are under legal challenge.

Proponents hope the sweep of victories for medical marijuana will convince
cautious legislators in other states to pass laws. If lawmakers don't act, the
initiative mechanism is available in 20 more states. The measure has already
been approved for the 1999 Maine ballot.

				-- End --

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Online Drug War - A virtual breeze comes to Washington (USA Today
columnist Sam Vincent Meddis heaps praise on the Drug Reform Coordination
Network online library and the web sites and organizations that belong to it,
including Common Sense for Drug Policy, the Lindesmith Center, NORML
and DrugSense. "The Internet is starting to level the playing field
between drug warrior and reformer.")

From: creator@drugsense.org (Cannabis Culture)
To: cclist@drugsense.org
Subject: CC: The Online Drug War
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:33:30 -0800
Lines: 116
Sender: creator@drugsense.org
Reply-To: creator@drugsense.org
Organization: Cannabis Culture (http://www.cannabisculture.com/)

The Online Drug War
Nov. 23, 1998

A virtual breeze comes to Washington

By Sam Vincent Meddis, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/cc.htm

One of the real nice things about working at USA TODAY is the view.

From my cube on the 22nd floor of the company's tower in Arlington, Va.,
I'm afforded what can only be described as a spectacular panorama of
Washington, D.C.

What I like best is that on a clear day you can almost see the hot air
rising from the various government buildings there.

As you might expect, the bombast, deception and exaggeration of official
Washington get particularly thick when some hot-button issues pop up on the
political agenda, anything from taxes to gun control to Monicagate.

But it seems to me that nothing has caused more sustained government hot
air than the so-called drug war. Now thanks to the Internet, a cool breeze
may be moving in.

Let me explain. I personally braved many an anti-drug wind as a reporter
for the paper covering criminal justice issues.

It even seemed fitting that the last story I wrote before becoming online
tech editor here was about our nation's misguided drug policies.

The story, which ran on Nov. 20, 1995, was about the FBI's annual report of
crime across the USA.

What caught my eye were statistics showing that, contrary to drug warriors'
get-tough pronouncements, police were arresting more low-level users and
fewer dealers, while busting as many people for marijuana as for the
hard-core drugs cocaine and heroin combined.

Over the years I saw how billions of dollars were misspent on law
enforcement efforts to battle drugs: thousands of arrests from inner-city
dragnets with military-sounding names, sweeps that turned neighborhoods
into war zones; huge increases in prison populations because of mandatory
sentences that rivaled punishment for rape and homicide, incarcerations
that often only made inmates more crime-prone and violent; extravagant and
largely futile measures to prevent illegal drugs from entering our country,
such as the ill-conceived dirigibles strung on our southern border that
smugglers all-too easily sidestepped.

All the while, insufficient attention was paid to the underlying reasons
why our nation has such a gigantic drug appetite. Or as Barry Krisberg,
president of the National Council of Crime and Delinquency, once described
it to me, "why so many people in America want to blot out their existence
with drugs."

What we need is increased education and less scare tactics, more treatment
and fewer busts.

But the leaders of America's drug war are, in a sense, addicted to their
get-tough policies. What has been lacking on the national scene to help
cure them is a stronger reform voice.

Until now.

The Internet is starting to level the playing field between drug warrior
and reformer.

''It's an incredible tool for the reform movement,'' says Kevin Zeese of
the group Common Sense for Drug Policy. ''It's been a way to get people
communicating, getting the information flow flowing and coordinating.''

The Lindesmith Center, for example, promotes what it calls "harm
reduction," an alternative approach to the drug problem that tries to
minimize the adverse effects of both drug use and prohibition. Another
reform site, DrugSense, serves as a kind of clearinghouse for breaking
stories and editorial opinion.

Paul Armentano of NORML, which advocates the legalization of marijuana,
says it's not a matter of drug-reform Web sites preaching to the converted.

NORML's site gets several thousand visitors each day, and the feedback from
many first-time visitors is quite positive, he says. "Eventually this is
going to cause a very big groundswell for this issue."

In addition to providing news reports and backgrounders on issues such as
the medical use of marijuana, the site also takes advantage of the Web's
interactive capabilities by allowing a visitor to send a free fax to
members of Congress.

David Borden of the Drug Reform Coordination Network says that federal
authorities have historically downplayed studies that contradict their
get-tough approach. As then-President Richard Nixon did in 1972 by ordering
limited printings of a report calling for decriminalization of personal
amounts of marijuana, Borden says.

Another government technique is to release critical studies late on a
Friday, when little media interest is likely, he says. Because of the
organization's Drug Library, studies now are widely available to the public.

The internet, says Borden, "is changing things in a fundamental way."

Can the Net blow away the anti-drug cloud that hangs over our nation's
capitol? I'll be watching.

***

Web sites mentioned:

Common Sense for Drug Policy		http://www.csdp.org/factbook/
Drug Library				http://www.druglibrary.org/
Drug Reform Coordination Network	http://www.drcnet.org/
DrugSense				http://www.drugsense.org/
Lindesmith Center			http://www.lindesmith.org/
NORML					http://www.norml.org/

-------------------------------------------------------------------

DEA Agent From Texas Slain In Colombia Bar Fight (The Dallas Morning News
says Frank Arnold Moreno, 37, was shot once in the chest about 1 am
outside the El Divino bar in downtown Bogota after what one US Embassy
official called "a bar brawl.")

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 17:47:32 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: DEA Agent From Texas Slain In Colombia Bar Fight
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: adbryan@onramp.net
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 1998 The Dallas Morning News
Contact: letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Author: Associated Press

DEA AGENT FROM TEXAS SLAIN IN COLOMBIA BAR FIGHT

BOGOTA, Colombia - A U.S. drug agent from Texas was shot and killed
early Sunday in an entertainment district of Bogota, apparently after
an argument in a bar, authorities said.

Frank Arnold Moreno, 37, was shot once in the chest about 1 a.m.
outside the El Divino bar, U.S. officials said. A bystander was shot
in the neck, they said, and police were pursuing a suspect.

Mr. Moreno of Edinburg, Texas, had gone to the bar with a male
Colombian friend and was killed after what one U.S. Embassy official
called "a bar brawl."

"I don't think it had anything to do with drugs," said the official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I understand he was walking away
and then boom, boom."

Witnesses took Mr. Moreno to a Bogota hospital, where he was declared
dead.

It was not immediately known whether Mr. Moreno was carrying a gun,
and the police official said it did not appear that Mr. Moreno had
fired any shots.

Authorities said Mr. Moreno, his friend and the gunman had been told
to leave the bar because of aggressive behavior that included shouting
insults.

Mr. Moreno had been in Colombia for about a year and was recently
married, officials said. His wife lived with him in Bogota. Police
said the body was being flown to the United States on Sunday night.

Mr. Moreno had previously been assigned to Oklahoma City.

Authorities would not say whether the killing was directly related to
a drug investigation. They said they believed the last time a DEA
agent was shot in Colombia was in 1982, when two agents investigating
marijuana smuggling were wounded in an attack in the Caribbean port of
Cartagena.

The DEA has about 50 agents in Colombia, the world's leading producer
and exporter of cocaine. About 80 percent of the cocaine sold on U.S.
streets comes from Colombia, as does an increasing amount of heroin.

Colombia has one of the world's highest murder rates, with about
27,000 murders a year.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

NT Drugs Shock - They're Rife Among Pupils (According to The NT News,
in Australia's Northern Territory, a national survey taken in 1996 suggests
that students' cannabis use in the territory was as prevalent as tobacco use,
though no more prevalent than in other states or the Australian Capital
Territory. The survey found 75 per cent of 17-year-old males had used
cannabis at some time in their lives, and half had used cannabis in the seven
days before the study.)

Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 03:34:14 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: Australia: NT Drugs Shock: They'Re Rife Among Pupils
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Ken Russell (kenbo01@ozemail.com.au)
Pubdate: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Source: NT News (Australia)
Contact: Fax: +61 8 8981 6045
Page: 1 & 2
Author: Ross Irby

NT DRUGS SHOCK: THEY'RE RIFE AMONG PUPILS

Report Reveals Dope, Speed Popular

Territory school students are big users of cannabis, many sniff petrol,
glue or paint, and others have tried LSD and speed, a survey has found.

The national survey found cannabis use in the NT is as prevalent as tobacco.

But Territory Health officials said drug use among NT students was no worse
than in other states or the ACT.

Surprise

A health spokesman said high use of cannabis and petrol was not a surprise.

The 1996 study included 716 students from 10 Territory high schools and
four primary schools.

It found 75 per cent of 17-year-old male students had used cannabis - half
of them used cannabis in the seven days before the study.

Of the 16-year-olds surveyed, two in 10 reported using cannabis in the past
seven days.

About 50 per cent of 15 and 16-year-olds and 17-year-old females said they
had tried cannabis.

The details are part of the 1996 national study of 29700 students revealed
last week at a Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy.

It was conducted by the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer but
leaked by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.

The survey also found, like the rest of Australia, Territory students aged
12 to 17 were big users of painkillers.

Most students, with the exception of 17-year-old males, reported using
painkillers in the previous month.

Half of 16 and 17-year-old females had used painkillers in the past week.

But less than 10 per cent of Territory students reported they had tried
ecstasy.

Disputed

The study also found one third of Territory students aged 16 and 17 had
tried LSD - with 16 per cent trying speed (amphetamines).

But this figure was disputed as "questionable" by Territory Health Services
director of Alcohol and Other Drugs Program, Dr Ian Crundall.

Dr Crundall said there was no evidence these drugs were common among the
older community and he doubted their use by students.

But he agreed NT petrol sniffing was the worst.

He said: "We have no evidence LSD is prevalent."

"Obviously petrol is an issue -particularly in central Australia.

He said: "The use of cannabis is no different here from other states.

"Alcohol and tobacco are our major drugs."

Health Minister Denis Burke said he was concerned about statistics which
found any high use of drugs by Territory youth.