Grand Jury in S.D. Probes Drug Informant, Agents : Raid: Federal officials step in after agents confront a county marshal and Poway raid ends in a shooting.

SAN DIEGO — A federal grand jury has been impaneled to investigate the actions of U.S. agents who shot a Poway man during a botched drug raid last month and accused a deputy county marshal of dealing large amounts of cocaine, The Times has learned.

In both cases, U.S. Customs agents relied on the word of an informant considered untrustworthy by Drug Enforcement Administration officials. The informant is also under investigation.

Federal prosecutors confirmed the grand jury investigation Wednesday. U.S. Atty. William Braniff said it focuses on “drug violations” and on “false statements (made) to the government.”

It is a federal crime in certain circumstances to give government officials or agents false information.

Those familiar with the grand jury probe said it also will examine actions of federal agents in at least two drug raids involving use of an informant known as “Ron” from Tampa, Fla.

Acting on Ron’s tip last month that the home of Donald Lee Carlson, a 41-year old Poway business executive, contained cocaine and machine guns, agents with search warrants demanded to enter Aug. 26 shortly after midnight.

During an exchange of gunfire, Carlson was hit in the arm, leg and chest. He is still recovering. A customs agent suffered superficial wounds.

Braniff announced two days later that Carlson would not be charged in the shooting. No drugs were found at his home.

The same evening Carlson was shot, agents searched a home in the 12000 block of Sage View Road in Poway for drugs. The house was vacant and the search turned up nothing, according to the search warrant.

The next day, officials from customs and the U.S. attorney’s office visited deputy county marshal Michelle Jones at her Clairemont office and accused her of using her Poway home as a “drop house” for 100 kilos of cocaine.

At the marshal’s office, agents said they had her voice on tape discussing the sale of drugs. Jones said the voice was not hers, but she allowed agents to follow her home and search her home, two garages, van and all-terrain vehicles.

Agents found no drugs and Jones said she has been cleared. But she, her husband, Tony, and their friend Howard Black were subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury this morning in San Diego. Jones, six months pregnant and experiencing health problems, said she would not be appearing until she gets better.

Jones said she has been contacted by internal affairs investigators from both the DEA and customs in Washington, D.C., and asked to take a lie detector test.

“They have told me they are investigating their people and the informant who was involved,” she said. “They want to see if their departments were involved in wrongdoing.”

Jones, her husband, and Black have been told that they are not targets of the federal investigation.

Investigators, they said, are particularly interested in Ron, the informant, who befriended Black and came to know the Joneses, the couple said.

Ron had visited the home of Michelle and Tony Jones on three occasions, Tony said. Once was during the Holmes-Holyfield fight June 19, when Ron kept leaving the house to make calls on a cellular telephone in the driveway.

Later, Ron said he had been brought to the house blindfolded during the fight, investigators told Tony and Michelle Jones.

The day before investigators searched the Jones home, Ron appeared at their door, Tony Jones said. He happened to be in the neighborhood, he told Tony, and stayed for about five minutes.

The couple knows little about Ron, other than he used to live in Tampa and was extremely interested in Michelle’s law enforcement career. Michelle said Ron told her he had joined the DEA and she recalled being surprised at how easily he had been hired.

At a joint press conference last month with the U.S. attorney’s office and U.S. Customs about the Carlson shooting, officials did not name the informant used but said he was reliable at the time the Carlson raid was carried out.

Later, they issued a statement saying the informant was under investigation.

Attorney William Nimmo, who is representing Tony Jones, said the “easiest target” of the grand jury investigation is Ron, and from there, “the ball starts rolling. If the truth be known, the agents overstepped their bounds.”

Grand juries operate in secret, and U.S. Atty. Braniff declined Wednesday to comment on who might be involved in drug crimes, who was under suspicion for lying or on any other aspect of the probe.

He said prosecutors have no “present intention or expectation” of charging Carlson.

The investigation, Braniff said, should be wrapped up “in the near future.”

“It’s certainly not one of these investigations where it’s going to be proceeding for years,” Braniff said. “It should be done in terms of months.”

William Q. Hayes, an assistant U.S. attorney also involved in the probe, declined comment Wednesday.

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