Drug Dealer Was Victim of Life of Crime : Justice: His courtroom suicide stemmed from his failed efforts to manipulate the system and to escape responsibility for his actions.

I am writing to respond to the Dec. 15 commentary of Craig E. Weinerman concerning the courtroom suicide of his client, Donald Shantos (“Arbitrary DEA Policy Takes Fatal Toll”). Weinerman accuses the Drug Enforcement Administration of running a “corrupt and callous informant system” because it chose to investigate Shantos for drug dealing even though he had been an informant for DEA. Far from being blameworthy, DEA’s action in holding Shantos accountable to the same laws as other citizens was a principled decision that should give us confidence in the integrity with which DEA is conducting itself in this very difficult area.

Donald Shantos engaged in a life of crime long before he ever came into contact with DEA. To safeguard and further his illegal drug dealing, Shantos provided information to the DEA.

In 1988, DEA agents followed a shipment of 440 pounds of ephedrine from Arizona to Shantos’ Pacific Beach home. Ephedrine is a key ingredient in making methamphetamine. When the DEA agents confronted Shantos, one of them realized that he was an informant.

Based upon the facts known to the agents, it did not appear that there was a prosecutable case against Shantos. Therefore the agents offered to make him a paid informant to make a case against another individual, whom Shantos was going to supply with ephedrine. Shantos agreed, and his efforts resulted in the conviction of the manufacturer.

For his efforts, Shantos was paid $2,000, which was the only money DEA ever paid him.

DEA agents did not learn from Shantos until several days later that he had previously received $66,000 for delivering ephedrine to the methamphetamine manufacturers. By this time the money had dissipated, and therefore it is not accurate to say that DEA told Shantos he could keep the money.

From the beginning, DEA made it clear to Shantos that anything he did as an informant had to be cleared in advance. He had no authority to engage in criminal activity with the view toward informing DEA at a later time.

The next investigation Shantos participated in was not successful, and the agents concluded that Shantos had probably compromised the investigation by tipping the target off concerning DEA’s interest. Shantos was then terminated as an informant.

In September, 1989, Shantos went to DEA with information that Bud Wharton was engaged in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Shantos did not tell DEA (but DEA later learned) that Shantos had provided ephedrine to Wharton in exchange for methamphetamine, which Shantos had distributed through another individual.

On Dec. 7, without Shantos’ knowledge, DEA arrested Wharton in possession of six pounds of methamphetamine. It was at this time that DEA learned, to use Weinerman’s words, that Shantos “was attempting to deal drugs behind (DEA’s) back.”

At this point, Shantos, who did not know that Wharton had been arrested, contacted one of the DEA agents, who asked him to try to contact Wharton that evening. Shantos then called Wharton, who answered the telephone in the agents’ presence. Wharton agreed to meet Shantos that evening at 7:30. Shantos then paged the DEA agent and told him that he had been unable to contact Wharton. The agent said he would be out of town until the following Monday and to avoid meeting with Wharton until then.

Contrary to the agent’s instructions, Shantos met Wharton that evening and tried to arrange for the delivery of the methamphetamine for the same night.

Finally, on Feb. 9, 1990, Shantos met Wharton to take delivery of 4 pounds of methamphetamine. He had not told DEA about this meeting, even though the DEA had told Shantos repeatedly not to meet with Wharton or accept delivery of the methamphetamine without an agent being present.

Shantos was arrested when he received the drugs. He confessed that he had lied to DEA and had intended to sell the drugs as he had sold other drugs in the past. Arresting and prosecuting Shantos violated Weinerman’s notion of order: the Shantoses of the world should only be used to prosecute the Whartons of the world and not vice versa. He justifies this “natural order” by stating that drug manufacturers tend to be violent and Congress was thinking of people like Wharton when it passed mandatory sentencing laws. The simple answer is that violence pervades the entire drug milieu, including drug dealers like Shantos, and Congress also had drug dealers in mind when it passed the sentencing laws.

Weinerman says that, rather than criminally investigating Shantos, the DEA should have taken him into a “woodshed” and confronted him with his double dealing. Why? Shantos had not only lied to DEA about his involvement, but he had also broken the law.

Why should he not have to answer for his actions in the same way as others, including those against whom he informed?

Weinerman also complains about the substantial sentence his client faced, as opposed to the reduced sentence that Wharton received as a result of his cooperation. The simple answer is that Congress provided for consideration to induce such cooperation.

I should also note that Shantos had every chance before trial to reduce his criminal exposure, including the opportunity to be examined by a highly qualified FBI polygrapher, which he refused.

The investigation of drug manufacturing and trafficking is extremely difficult; and dealing with informants is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of such investigations. DEA has established a highly structured system to do so in a responsible manner. Rather than slip into the moral quicksand of tolerating ongoing criminality, DEA treated Shantos with principle and clarity.

Shantos’ decision to commit suicide was the consequence not of a “corrupt and arbitrary” DEA informant system but of Shantos’ failed efforts to manipulate the system and to escape responsibility for his actions. The fault was not in Shantos’ stars but in himself.