DEA Attempting to Shake Off Taint of Drug Scandal

On the eighth floor of the World Trade Center in downtown Los Angeles is a small room converted into a giant safe. Behind a thick metal grill is a 300-pound ex-Marine named Tony, a menacing figure assigned to guard the few million dollars worth of heroin and cocaine stacked inside.

This is the evidence vault of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles. The vault is surrounded by a small army of 75 federal drug agents on the same floor and the one below.

Tony, a civilian evidence custodian, enforces the rules here, and one is that agents are never allowed inside the vault.

“This is where the bull stops. If you come in the vault and start rushing me, we stop doing business right now.”

One day five years ago, according to a federal indictment, DEA Agents Darnell Garcia and John Jackson entered the DEA’s evidence vault Tony now guards. The agents deposited about 2 1/2 pounds of heroin for safekeeping.

Three days later, according to the indictment, the two agents returned and took the heroin out. It was reported as missing, but an investigation resulted only in the firing of the civilian evidence custodian then on duty.

The alleged heroin theft is one count in a massive federal drug corruption prosecution focused on Garcia and Jackson. They and a third ex-agent, Wayne Countryman, are also accused of money-laundering and conspiring to deal millions of dollars worth of heroin and cocaine.

The case, months away from trial, is viewed by some federal officials as potentially the biggest scandal in DEA history--an episode that has already hurt agent morale and tarnished the public image of the nation’s lead agency in the war on drugs.

“It’s a situation that certainly has had a demoralizing impact on the agents,” said John Zienter, head of the DEA’s Los Angeles office. “And it’s not one that enhances our image in the community. But it’s one we accept as part of our job. Just like losing our lives.”

Zienter spoke last week after a Los Angeles federal judge lifted a gag order that had blocked federal officials from discussing any aspect of the case, including its impact on the agency and a continuing manhunt for one of the accused agents.

The agent-in-charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles office said most DEA agents already view the alleged corruption of their three former colleagues as just another investigation.

“We’re dealing with a naive public,” he added. “The agents get a lot of questions from their neighbors and friends. ‘Jesus, does this happen often?’ That sort of thing. Fortunately, the other agencies are very appreciative of our problem and as supportive as they can be.

“Life goes on. We’ve got a lot of cases to make. It’s a situation where they are treating this case now like any other.”

Apart from tightened security in the evidence vault, there are few visible signs that the corruption probe has had any impact on DEA operations in Los Angeles or affected the DEA’s relations with other law enforcement agencies.

Agents of the FBI and the U.S. Customs Service said last week that they view the case as something that was inevitable because of the huge financial temptations that confront all narcotics officers.

Deputy Chief Glen Levant, the head of all narcotics enforcement for the Los Angeles Police Department, said relations with the DEA have never been better.

“The unfortunate thing is that three people are involved in an alleged conspiracy,” Levant said. “That’s every policeman’s nightmare. But it hasn’t caused any problems in dealing with us. To the DEA’s credit, they dug it out themselves.”

While DEA officials attempt to cast the ongoing investigation as routine, it has been complicated by the fact that Garcia, 42, an international karate champion who has described himself as “a legend in his own time,” is still on the loose.

Slipped Away From Agents

Just eight hours before his pending arrest Nov. 22, Garcia slipped away from the federal agents who had been following him for weeks. Despite one police report that he was seen Jan. 6 in North Hollywood, no one close to the case even pretends to know where he may actually be hiding.

“It is only continuing as an investigation because Garcia is still a fugitive,” Zienter said. “Because we are a worldwide agency, this has become an international manhunt. We have gone to our foreign offices and are working with our counterparts in foreign countries.

“I don’t have a feel for where he may be. I wish I could tell you I did. This is no longer an agent. This is a violator. To us, he is like any other violator. Sooner or later, somebody will get him.”

The case has brought unusual attention to the agency’s Los Angeles operations, headquartered in an unlikely setting at the World Trade Center, a complex of tiny shops and import firms on Figueroa Street.

Forced to move from the U.S. Courthouse because of space problems, the DEA was headquartered in another downtown building for several years before moving to the World Trade Center in 1973.

The headquarters consists of a maze of hallways and private offices. It is not uncommon to see agents returning from the field with duffel bags full of drugs and guns.

Passing themselves off as criminals one day and walking into shoot-outs the next, the undercover drug agents of the DEA have acquired the reputation of being the “cowboys” of modern law enforcement.

No job in U.S. law enforcement is more dangerous, and the force of federal drug agents headquartered in the World Trade Center at times resembles a heavily armed combat team.

More Firepower

Some agents have fully automatic submachine guns, and all will have them in the next two years. For added security, most agents carry at least two or three handguns on assignments, and some have even more.

The rule of thumb is that if you have spent 10 years in the DEA, you have probably been shot at least once. Two local agents were murdered last year in Pasadena. Throughout the country, DEA agents are involved in two shootings a week.

By almost all accounts, Garcia was as tough as any agent in Los Angeles. Jackson, 39, his friend and now his co-defendant, lived more by his wits, known as one of the smoothest undercover agents in the DEA.

In contrast, Countryman, 45, allegedly the least involved member of the conspiracy, was known as a run-of-the-mill agent. He was a bit of a plodder, some colleagues say. But most people liked him.

Jackson is being held without bond at the U.S. Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, declared by federal prosecutors to be a potential threat to witnesses and a danger to the community. Countryman was released after posting $120,000 bail. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Friends and some former colleagues of the key figures in the unfolding drug case question officials’ descriptions of Garcia as a crony of some of the nation’s most dangerous drug dealers and a potential threat to witnesses.

“This business of Darnell and Jackson being dangerous. They might talk somebody to death, but that’s about it,” said ex-agent Donald Hugh, who worked with both men. “There was never any rough stuff with them. There are a lot of wimps in the DEA who are taking this karate stuff too seriously.”

Tom Martin, a former DEA supervisor who works as a private detective in Santa Ana, said Garcia was a good agent.

Picture ‘Being Distorted’

“His personality didn’t conform, but if ever there was a guy you wanted to go through a door with, it was Darnell,” Martin said. “I think the picture of him is being distorted. My guess is he’s just a frightened man right now.”

There are two dramatically different views of what went wrong inside the DEA. Federal prosecutors see it as a story of greed and three unhappy agents. Defense lawyers describe it in terms of a racial vendetta against three minority agents.

Lawyer Mark Borenstein represented Garcia in an early discrimination case and a later court fight that successfully blocked a DEA effort to fire him in 1985 for refusing transfer to Detroit. He sees the current drug prosecution as an extension of the discrimination battles in the past--an accusation denied by federal officials investigating the case.

“The Darnell I’ve been reading about isn’t the guy I know,” Borenstein said. “He is a maverick. But he wanted to do a good job. He was not a perfect agent, but when I met him, he was so proud to be a DEA agent and a good cop. He really did want to rid the streets of drugs.

“The whole case is just one aspect of something bigger . . . what appears to be an agency run amok.”

Whatever the root cause for the office’s troubles, it remains Tony’s job to see that no mistakes are made like the one that cost his predecessor his job. A careful man, Tony doesn’t want his last name made public on the chance someone might try to kidnap him and steal his keys.

While the evidence vault has always been guarded by civilian custodians, Tony by his mere size and extraordinary vigilance represents a significant tightening of security.

“There’s no shucking and jiving when you get even close to the drugs inside this vault,” the big man said. “If you play games around me, it’s ‘Adios, amigo.’ ”