3 Ex-DEA Agents Charged in Major Plot to Sell Drugs

Three former agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of conspiring to sell millions of dollars of heroin and cocaine while part of a nationwide drug distribution network.

Two of the agents were also charged by a federal grand jury with stealing heroin from the agency’s custody, including more than two pounds of heroin directly out of the DEA’s evidence vault.

The 32-count federal indictment against Darnell Garcia, John Anthony Jackson and Wayne Countryman came two months after the filing of a criminal complaint charging them with tax violations in connection with an alleged $608,000 money-laundering scheme.

Broader Indictment

Federal officials had said from the beginning of the case that the three ex-agents would ultimately be charged with large-scale drug dealing activities. The indictment delivered Wednesday, however, was even broader than officials had hinted.

According to the indictment, Garcia, Jackson and Countryman supplied drug dealers in Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Chicago and elsewhere with “kilograms of heroin and hundreds of kilograms of cocaine.”

Garcia and Jackson, the indictment said, played the most prominent role in the alleged conspiracy, reportedly shipping heroin and cocaine to drug dealers across the country in express mail packages.

The indictment Wednesday came while a manhunt continued for Garcia, 42, a former black belt karate champion who vanished shortly before his pending arrest Nov. 22. While Garcia remains a fugitive, other defendants in the case are either in custody or have made arrangements to appear for arraignment today.

Also charged in the cocaine conspiracy was an alleged drug dealer named Sherman Lair, accused of being part of the distribution ring with three other alleged drug dealers named as unindicted co-conspirators, Ron and Conway Waddy and Mahlon Steward.

Federal officials say Lair and Steward are New York drug dealers. The two Waddy brothers were former lieutenants of Thomas E. (Tootie) Reese, a major Los Angeles drug dealer now in prison.

According to the indictment, Garcia provided Steward and the Waddy brothers, who are both fugitives, with intelligence regarding DEA narcotics investigations. Garcia was specifically charged with helping Ron Waddy escape arrest in 1987.

Garcia, Jackson and Countryman also allegedly obtained both the heroin and cocaine for distribution, then laundered the proceeds through banks in Switzerland. The grand jury charged that in August, 1985, the three former agents and their co-conspirators had more than 300 pounds of cocaine in their possession.

Jackson’s wife, Barbara, was also charged in the indictment with four counts of tax fraud in attempting with her husband to evade full payment of income taxes from 1984 through 1987.

U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter has imposed a gag order in the case, preventing lawyers and federal officials from commenting Wednesday on the case. Hatter lifted his order, however, to permit the DEA to announce a $20,000 reward for information leading to Garcia’s arrest and to issue an artist’s sketch of how he might have changed his appearance.

Hatter’s gag order followed reports in The Times that Jackson and possibly Garcia were linked to the theft of more than five pounds of heroin with a street value of $7.5 million in 1984 and 1985. Defense attorneys in the case have argued from the beginning that it may represent “selective prosecution” against all three defendants because they are minority agents. with a history of discrimination battles against the DEA.

Garcia’s former attorney, Mark Borenstein, has described Garcia as “an uppity minority agent” who successfully challenged a DEA move to transfer him to Detroit and then to fire him, defeating the DEA in a legal fight that was resolved in 1986 by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jackson, 39, of Claremont, has been held without bond as a flight risk since his arrest in November. Countryman, 45, named in both the cocaine conspiracy and tax fraud counts, has been free on $120,000 bond since his arrest. Both have pleaded not guilty to first charges and their lawyers have accused the government of exaggerating the case.