Drug Use in Probe Criticized

A five-month undercover probe of drug use and selling by Poway city employees was halted in February when deputies learned that two private investigators from Narcorp had smoked marijuana and used cocaine with the people they were investigating, said an officer with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

“It came to our attention in early February that one of the undercover operatives had utilized narcotics, had ingested narcotics during the course of the investigation,” Lt. Pat Kerins said. He added that another Narcorp investigator also smoked marijuana with employees during the investigation. There was only one instance each of marijuana and cocaine use, Kerins said.

Sheriff’s deputies supervised the investigation and the Narcorp investigators.

Defense attorney Richard Mills, who is representing two of four employees arrested on drug charges, said that the investigators entrapped his clients.

“I think we have a great entrapment case. It’s something that’s going to be tough to prove, but I think that we have a real good shot in this case,” Mills said.

Narcorp leader Hal Phenix acknowledged that his investigators used drugs while working undercover, but said that they acted out of fear for their safety and because they believed that the investigation would otherwise be compromised.

Threatening Situation

“Our policy is that if you use drugs you’re fired. The only exception is if you feel that you’re in a situation where you’re potentially going to get hurt. In order to avoid that type of incident, you have to ingest a substance. Then you better tell me so I can put it in the report,” Phenix said.

Kerins called the action “regrettable,” but said that he was confident that the four arrests made in the case would not be jeopardized by the investigators’ use of drugs. However, he also said that the operation was ended, apparently prematurely, because sheriff’s officials viewed the drug use incident as “unacceptable.”

” . . . We decided at that point that it was unacceptable . . . and decided to terminate the case and bring it to the attention of the district attorney,” Kerins said. While the Sheriff’s Department did not encourage the investigators’ actions, Kerins said that he can understand why they may have used the drugs. The Sheriff’s Department will continue to work with Narcorp, he said.

“There will be situations where your life might be threatened and an investigator will do something that he would not normally do in other situations,” Kirens said. “I think that everybody is being totally frank. It will be up to the court to evaluate the situation and eventually to a jury . . . . Nobody’s trying to hide anything here.”

However, a Poway city worker who asked not to be identified said that the Narcorp investigator who smoked marijuana was not threatened. According to the employee, the investigator took two puffs from an improvised marijuana pipe while working with a street maintenance crew. The employee said that the investigator puffed on the pipe when it was passed to him by another employee.

Pleaded Not Guilty

The four workers charged in the investigation pleaded not guilty and have a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 18.

Poway City Manager James Bowersox, who approved the undercover probe that cost the city about $40,000, said he was not aware that the investigators had used drugs.

Prosecutors in the district attorney’s narcotics division said they were unaware that the investigators had used drugs, despite claims by Kerins that they were informed of that in the case reports forwarded by sheriff’s investigators.

The four men charged in the investigation are Michael Meyer and David Andreason, who are represented by Mills, and Donald Stuart and Richard Francabandera. The four were fired by Bowersox.