2 Indicted Over Access to Customs Service Drug Data

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted a Customs Service data processor and another man on charges of disclosing confidential information about a drug-smuggling investigation, prosecutors said.

David H. Brown, 48, of San Diego, and Joseph P. Souza, 47, of Newport, R.I., were indicted on three counts apiece, Assistant U.S. Atty. Tom Stahl said. If convicted, each faces up to 25 years in prison and a maximum of $750,000 in fines, Stahl said.

The indictment alleges that Brown, who worked for the Customs Service Data Center in San Diego, twice plucked out of a Customs computer a confidential report that an associate of Souza’s, Jerald Bacall of Escondido, was being investigated for drug smuggling.

Both times, in August, 1988, and in April, 1990, Brown told Souza about the reports, and Souza, in turn, told Bacall, according to the indictment.

After the information was passed along in April, 1990, Souza suggested to Bacall that Brown be paid $300 for his work, the indictment said.

In an unrelated case brought in federal court in San Diego, Bacall, 33, was charged in November, 1989, with distributing 1 kilogram of cocaine, Stahl said. Bacall pleaded guilty last March and is due to be sentenced July 23 by Senior U.S. District Judge Howard B. Turrentine.

Brown and Souza were charged with one count apiece of conspiring to defraud the government and two counts apiece of converting government property. They are scheduled to surrender July 26 to U.S. Magistrate Barry Ted Moskowitz, Stahl said.