For LAPD ‘Entertainment Squad’ Narcs, Coke Is It

Draped in gold chains and bracelets and posing as the head of an out-of-town investment firm, Ray Martin fit right in at Carlos N’ Charlie’s, an upscale nightspot in West Hollywood.

Martin often hung out with Barbara Eggar, and the two were invited to private clubs and exclusive parties attended by some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names. And they, in turn, would ask friends over to their luxury condominium in Marina del Rey.

Driving a $70,000 Ferrari, Martin and Eggar wheeled into Hollywood’s fast lane and into a world they found to be obsessed with cocaine.

“Eighty percent of the people we came in contact with used it,” Eggar said. “And I don’t mean just actors. I’m talking about top management down to the people in production.”

Martin and Eggar never used any drugs themselves, however, and nobody thought anything about it. Martin excused himself by saying he had just come out of a cocaine rehabilitation clinic and Eggar refrained to lend him moral support.

Their real reason for abstaining, however, was that they are undercover narcotics detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department’s “entertainment squad,” their life style paid by the department, their Ferrari on loan from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Formed after comedian John Belushi’s drug-related death in 1982, the eight-member detective unit was created to track down the sources of drugs in the industry that produces the nation’s television shows, feature films and popular music.

Capt. Bob Blanchard, commanding officer of the Police Department’s narcotics division, said the squad was established in response to public concern over reports of widespread drug abuse in the entertainment industry.

“They were reading about it and saying to us, ‘Why aren’t you doing anything about it?’ ” Blanchard said.

Created in July, 1983, the squad first gained widespread public attention during the recent trial of actor Dan Haggerty, who was convicted of selling one-eighth of an ounce of cocaine to Martin and Eggar.

Detectives in the unit also had made 69 other arrests as of last week, mostly of employees in the production end of television and movies. The squad’s supervisor, Sgt. Bill Lewis, said most of those arrested pleaded guilty or were convicted, but he did not have precise figures.

Lewis said it is not his unit’s mission to go after the industry’s stars.

“But if they happen to get in the way during an investigation, that’s something else,” he said. “The big names that we hear about are not dealers. They’re users, and that’s not our problem. We’re not out to throw big names in jail for the publicity.”

The detectives try to talk many of those they arrest into working as informants--often with success, Lewis said. But such cooperation can prove costly if word gets out that a suspect has become a snitch for the police.

“There’s no one person who says that they never work again because they cooperated with us,” he said. “It just makes its way through the industry, and for some reason, some of these people never do work again.”

Without naming names, Martin and Eggar offered an example.

“If you’re a writer,” Martin said, “and, say, you know of a cameraman who’s selling drugs, and you tell us, and it comes back that you’re the one who gave us the information. . . .”

“You’re blackballed,” Eggar continued.

“Or your scripts don’t get sold,” Lewis said. “They say your writing just isn’t up to par anymore.”

Industry officials said they hardly know that the entertainment squad exists, let alone that anyone is being blackballed for cooperating with the police.

Spokespersons for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild and the Screen Actors Guild said they were either unaware that the squad had targeted their industry or that they had only hazy recollections of its activities.

“I think it came up once or twice, peripherally, in informal ways, at our meetings,” said Kim Fellner, spokeswoman for the Screen Actors Guild.

“As far as I know, the only thing that happened was a couple of undercover drug things at the studios. It filtered out to some arrests on the sets. There were some concerns expressed about civil rights. But beyond that, it has never really come up.”

Took No Action

Fellner said the Screen Actors Guild took no action on the matter, and that the concerns raised about a year ago were of such minor significance that they were not even reflected in the minutes of the meeting.

One industry official who is aware of the squad is Mac St. John, national spokesman for the International Assn. for Theatrical and Stage Employees and the chairman of the production employee union’s drug and alcohol abuse program.

He termed the squad “beneficial” because “if somebody is trying to uphold the law, I’m for it.” But St. John did express some reservations.

“We are attempting to help these people and get them back into productivity and save their lives rather than arrest them,” he said. “But police business is police business.”

‘More Paranoid’

Tom Kenney, director of the substance abuse program for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, said the entertainment squad could “make people more paranoid.”

“When something like that (the squad) begins to go on, what seems to happen is that people start to back off,” Kenney said. “They don’t want to talk about their problem. And that prevents the right type of help from reaching them. Everybody starts ducking.

“I can see them going after the big-time dealers,” Kenney added. “But we don’t have any big-time dealers on the lots. What happens with these people is that they just put it up their nose themselves.”

Lewis refused to release the names of entertainment industry employees arrested by his squad because some of them are now working as informants.

But he said some of the arrests involve “a guy who owned a recording studio,” “a guy who does some acting,” a “guy who owned a lighting studio,” a couple of rock musicians and various hairdressers, makeup men, set designers and truck drivers.

Meet Stars, Athletes

While most of the arrests have involved production employees suspected of drug trafficking, the four-month investigation by Martin and Eggar took them into the turf of the industry’s best-known personalities.

They were introduced to movie stars and famous athletes at parties that were also attended by a few suspected organized crime figures and an occasional politician.

Cocaine dealers were always on the periphery, and the two detectives said they were shocked at the drug usage they observed.

“When you have this privacy, when you’re a member of this select group, people tend to relax and show you what they’re doing,” Eggar said.

But Martin said he grew to like some of the the people he met, “people I’d have no qualms about sitting down to dinner with. They just get caught up with this drug scene.”

More Than 10 Arrests

Their investigation led to more than 10 arrests, the detectives said, with their biggest involving a dealer who was caught with four ounces of cocaine.

Martin and Eggar said a lack of money forced them to curtail their operation.

“In the Haggerty case, we spent $325 for one-eighth of an ounce, and we were going for a half-ounce that would have cost $1,100,” Martin said. “We had another source where we were trying to get two ounces, but that would have cost another $4,000. . . . We ultimately stopped, though, because it was hard to get that much money from the department.”

Capt. Blanchard acknowledged that money is a problem in the entertainment squad’s operation. “There’s never enough,” he said.