Expert Says Former DEA Agent Altered Calendar Books

A government documents expert testified Thursday that former U.S. drug agent Darnell Garcia’s calendar books, the heart of his defense against charges of narcotics trafficking, were altered on a number of occasions.

“Numerous alterations and obliterations were deciphered,” Mary P. Fitzgerald, of the Internal Revenue Service’s national forensic laboratory in Chicago, told jurors in a Los Angeles federal courtroom.

Additionally, Fitzgerald concluded that four of Garcia’s entries were written with ink not manufactured at the time of the entries. Jurors were not present to hear this.

Garcia, 44, of Rancho Palos Verdes, a former DEA agent, is on trial on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.

Pointing to photographic blowups of Garcia’s handwriting in calendar books for the years 1984 through 1987, Fitzgerald said Garcia:

* Crossed out names and telephone numbers of two former Drug Enforcement Administration agents, John Jackson and Wayne Countryman, who have pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and testified against Garcia.

* Crossed out the name of a convicted drug dealer, Ron Waddy, and Waddy’s telephone beeper number. Garcia is accused of passing DEA intelligence information to Waddy.

* Altered upward by several hundred thousand dollars the profits he allegedly received from an Italian firm for smuggling jewelry into the U.S.

Jewelry smuggling is a key to Garcia’s defense. He contends that about $3 million he has in a Swiss bank account represents smuggling commissions, and not--as the government contends--drug profits.

Fitzgerald told jurors that in one altered entry microscopic examination showed Garcia added the number “4” with a non-ballpoint pen to a commission entry of $59,905, which was written with a ballpoint pen, so that it read $459,905.

Fitzgerald was not able to provide specific dates of the alterations and obliterations.

Garcia also used the calendars to show he was not present at the times the government alleges he was stealing millions of dollars worth of cocaine in the 1980s.

Fitzgerald said special light analysis and high-powered microscopes were used on Garcia’s notes. Ink dating was possible, she said, because manufacturers use “tags,” invisible to the naked eye, to identify the year in which ink is produced.

The ink-dating methodology used by the witness was challenged by defense attorneys. As a result, U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. heard arguments, while jurors were outside the courtroom, on whether to allow ink-dating testimony.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Joyce Karlin said Fitzgerald proved that “four entries are backdated”--for the years 1985 and 1987--with ink that was not manufactured until 1989.

But Garcia lawyer Mark Borenstein raised questions about the scientific validity of ink testing.

Prosecutors dropped the issue.