Slaying Case Figure Tells of Police Torture Threat : Investigation: Alleged informant claims San Diego detective threatened him and later watched him being tortured by Mexican police investigating death of U.S. agent.

An El Cajon man who is a key figure in a cross-border slaying case contends that a San Diego police detective threatened him with torture at the hands of Mexican authorities before the officer and a U.S. immigration agent turned him over to Mexican lawmen last month.

The detective, Ron Collins, longtime liaison between San Diego and Mexican authorities, was later present at Baja California State Judicial Police headquarters in Tijuana during at least part of a session in which he was beaten, said Luis Roberto Estrella Solano, the El Cajon resident.

Before being released Feb. 14, Estrella says, he was subjected to almost five days of beatings and other torture by Mexican authorities seeking clues about the unsolved slaying of Jeffrey William Anderson, a former immigration inspector who was found dead Jan. 13 south of Tijuana. Estrella says he was released from Mexican custody only after agreeing to pay a $5,000 bribe.

Estrella, a Mexican citizen, says he was a longtime drug informant for the U.S. government and was turned over to authorities in Mexico, where some police officials have been linked to the drug underworld.

Now back in the United States, Estrella is bitter at what he considers his betrayal by U.S. authorities, who, he says, used him and then suddenly cast him aside to face an uncertain fate. He says he fears for his life because his cover has been blown through the complicity of U.S. and Mexican authorities.

“Now, I’m not worth anyone’s time,” said Estrella, a compact, streetwise 29-year-old who spoke to The Times last week. “No one wants to hear about me anymore.”

Much of what Estrella says cannot be independently verified because many of the law enforcement agencies involved in the case have declined to comment. Detective Collins has not returned numerous telephone messages left during the past two weeks.

But U.S. authorities last week obtained one conviction of a Mexican police officer for extortion after launching an investigation based on Estrella’s account of the incident. Meanwhile, five Mexican police officials implicated in the torture, beating and extortion allegations have been forced to resign.

An affidavit on file in U.S. District Court in San Diego in connection with the extortion case outlines Estrella’s version of how he was tortured by Mexican investigators and freed only after agreeing to pay $5,000 to the Mexican agents. Estrella said he has given a full account of the case, including Collins’ role in the matter, to FBI investigators.

Ron Orrantia, an FBI spokesman, declined to comment on the matter, as did Yesmin Saide, the assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego who is handling the case.

San Diego Police Cmdr. Larry Gore said he could not address Collins’ role because of the ongoing extortion proceedings in federal court. Speaking hypothetically, Gore acknowledged that it would be against policy to use the threat of torture in Mexico to extract information, or for an officer to be present during a beating session in Mexico.

Estrella’s troubles began after the mysterious execution-style slaying of Anderson, 24, whose body was discovered Jan. 13 south of Tijuana.

Authorities on both sides of the border have indicated that Anderson’s killing may be linked to the booming border drug trade. But no definitive motive for the slaying has emerged, and no suspect has been known to have been arrested.

Estrella, one of the last people known to have seen Anderson alive, was living in Anderson’s El Cajon home at the time of the slaying. His common-law wife is a longtime friend of Norma Anderson, the slain agent’s widow. Estrella, who says he has told U.S. and Mexican investigators all he knows about the murder, says he has no idea who killed Anderson. Authorities have not named Estrella as a suspect.

Five days after the death, Estrella said, he went voluntarily to San Diego police headquarters at the request of Detective Collins, who has served as a liaison between San Diego and Mexican authorities for more than a decade and has been on the force for more than 23 years.

During questioning, Estrella said, Collins informed several Mexican state police officers who were also present in San Diego that Estrella worked as an informer for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration--a comment that Estrella said shocked him and made him fear for his safety. Many state police officers throughout Mexico have been linked to drug traffickers targeted by the DEA.

“In a few words, Collins burned me,” Estrella said.

During the same session, Estrella said, Collins pointedly warned him that he would be turned over to Mexican authorities if he did not cooperate. At one point, Estrella said, Collins noted, “ ‘I’ve never seen them (Mexican police) not get results from beating someone.’ ”

Estrella said he heard again from Collins on the afternoon of Feb. 9, when, according to the federal affidavit, Collins and an unidentified U.S. immigration agent contacted him at DEA headquarters in San Diego.

At one point during the ensuing interrogation, Estrella said that Collins told him, “ ‘You’re not telling the truth. We’re going to have to send you back to Mexico, because they are going to make you talk.’ ”

At another juncture, Estrella said that the immigration agent explained to him, “ ‘We don’t want to take you to Mexico. You work well. But you’re not telling us the truth. . . . You are the only person who can help yourself.’ ”

Eventually, the immigration official seized his U.S. residence document, summarily canceling his legal status in the United States. Estrella says that the same agent also threatened to send his common-law wife back to Mexico.

Clifton Rogers, deputy district director in San Diego for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, denied that INS personnel ever threatened Estrella or his female companion. A U.S. immigration agent did pay a visit to Estrella’s common-law wife on Feb. 9 but a decision was made not to send her and her children to Mexico for “humanitarian” reasons, Rogers said.

“He (Estrella) was returned to Mexico because he was no longer considered an individual who should be allowed in the United States,” said Rogers, who explained that the request to cancel Estrella’s legal status came from unspecified “U.S. agencies.” Estrella had been in the United States under an INS category known as “parole,” which is frequently invoked for witnesses and others who might assist U.S. law enforcement officials.

While INS officials deny that Estrella was returned “kicking and screaming” to Mexico, Estrella said in interviews that he objected strenuously to being sent back.

“I knew that . . . I’d probably end up with a bullet in my head,” said Estrella, who says he was born in the Mexican border city of Mexicali and spent four years as a youth in the Los Angeles area. “I figured they’d probably just bury me somewhere and no one would ever find me.”

Before he was turned over to Mexican police, Estrella said, he also pleaded for help from Larry Sawyer, the DEA agent whom he identified as his former “control.” But Estrella says that the DEA’s Sawyer refused to intervene, explaining that the matter was “over my head.” Sawyer did offer Estrella the prospect of additional work should he ever make his way back to the United States, Estrella said.

Sawyer, who works with Operation Alliance, the borderwide, interagency anti-drug initiative, declined to comment on the matter when contacted last week.

Estrella says that the DEA has employed him as an informer since October, 1987, sometimes using him in cases involving Mexican drug traffickers. Estrella says he earned more than $60,000 during his time on the agency’s payroll, during which time he says he arranged undercover buys and sales and provided other information. He says he began working with the agency for two reasons: the money and a DEA promise to help legalize his and his family’s status in the United States within three years.

Once across the border, the federal affidavit states, the Mexican agents almost immediately began slapping Estrella on his ears and punching him in his stomach. The officers warned him “that he better start talking about the drug transactions and the homicide,” the affidavit said. Estrella was also advised that “the DEA was not there to protect him anymore,” according to the federal document.

During one torture session early Feb. 10 at the state police office in Rosarito, south of Tijuana, the affidavit states, Estrella says agents tied him to a surfboard, placed pillow cases over his face and poured water through the pillow cases. The torture caused Estrella to gag, bleed from his nose and ears, and almost suffocate, Estrella says.

The following day, Estrella told The Times in an interview, he spotted Collins at the state police headquarters in Tijuana. Collins was watching through a two-way mirror as Mexican police officers beat him, according to Estrella, who explained that he was able to see Collins when an officer inadvertently turned on the lights.

On the afternoon of Feb. 14, the federal affidavit says, Estrella says he was finally freed after agreeing to pay $5,000 to the Mexican agents. He says Mexican police released him at a major clandestine crossing point along the border in Tijuana.