Says Prosecutors Reneged : Former LAPD Informant Gets 9 Years in Drug Case

A Chatsworth businessman who worked as an undercover informant for the Los Angeles police has been sentenced to nine years in prison for possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute the drug.

George Melvin Stephens, a 28-year-old insurance salesman, read a statement before his sentencing Friday by U.S. District Judge James DeAnda in Houston, Tex., in which he accused federal prosecutors of reneging on a promise of a light sentence in exchange for his work as an informant.

Stephens also said that drug traffickers had a “contract” out on his life because of the approximately 18 months he worked undercover for the Los Angeles Police Department, which credits him with helping break up 10 drug-smuggling operations and seize about 230 pounds of cocaine and $1 million in drug profits.

Rejected Maximum Term

DeAnda took into account Stephens’ work as a police informant and refused requests by prosecutors that he serve the maximum 15 years in prison, federal prosecutor Larry Finder said. The judge nevertheless said that charges in a drug-smuggling indictment that preceded Stephens’ work as an informant were serious enough to warrant a lengthy prison sentence, according to Finder.

Stephens began cooperating with the police in 1984, when he was implicated by authorities in a conspiracy to smuggle more than 700 pounds of cocaine into Los Angeles through Brownsville, Tex. Officials dropped him as an informant in March, when U.S. Customs agents in New Mexico arrested him for having 50 pounds of cocaine in his luggage.

Stephens claimed he was forced to carry the cocaine by drug traffickers he had met in Miami at the request of the Los Angeles police. But Texas authorities and Stephens’ Los Angeles Police Department contact, Detective Jerry Marvel, said Stephens was not authorized to possess the cocaine.

2nd Case Dropped

The New Mexico charges were eventually withdrawn by prosecutors. They said Stephens’ role as an informant complicated the case and would make it hard to win a conviction. However, Stephens was indicted in the Brownsville case and pleaded guilty in February to possessing cocaine with intent to sell the drug.

Finder said prosecutors did not promise to recommend a light sentence for the Brownsville case in exchange for Stephens’ work as an informant. They agreed only to let him plead guilty to one of several counts in the indictment if he worked for the Los Angeles police, Finder said.

Finder said he had no knowledge of threats on Stephens’ life by drug traffickers.

The prosecutor said, however, that federal corrections officials would probably allow Stephens to serve his sentence outside California if there was any evidence his life would be in danger.

Before his indictment, Stephens was head of an insurance agency in Woodland Hills, owned three homes and listed his net worth as more than $1 million.