Accusations Shake Marshal’s Dedication : Probe: Search and allegations against law woman, her husband and their friend have made her ‘madder and madder.’

Michelle Jones always dreamed of a career in law enforcement and figured the county marshal’s office was the best way to move up the ladder.

But when her boss called her into a meeting Aug. 26 and she saw a roomful of U.S. Customs agents and an assistant U.S. attorney, she found herself part of a criminal investigation.

They pulled out a tape recorder and turned it on. It was not her voice describing a drug deal over the telephone, but agents insisted it was.

“They said, ‘This is you and now you’ve got to prove it isn’t,” Jones said in an interview Wednesday from her Poway home.

She was told information had been gathered since January that her house had been used to drop 100 kilos of cocaine. The drug had been transported in a family van and in all-terrain vehicles. Agents said they had proof, including aerial photographs and a list of telephone calls, which they never produced.

Eager to prove herself innocent, Michelle allowed four customs agents and a prosecutor to search her home without a warrant. They burrowed through the house, two garages and just about everything else.

Did she have a cellular phone? they asked.

Michelle said no. They told her they had cellular phone transmissions from the house.

She remembered that an acquaintance, Ron, had brought a cellular phone when a group had gathered at her home during the Holmes-Holyfield fight in June. Ron had been introduced to Tony through a mutual friend, Howard Black.

Soon, she learned that Ron was a DEA informant and had told officials of the alleged drug-dealing. Michelle knew Ron worked for the DEA but couldn’t understand why he’d implicate her.

Before the agents left, they took pictures of the couple and Black. No drugs were ever found, and later they were told they were off the hook.

Michelle, 30, and Tony Jones, 33, married two years and parents of a 10-year-old daughter, were subpoenaed to testify today before a federal grand jury investigating the actions of federal agents who searched her home and raided a house nearby. Howard Black is also scheduled to testify.

Six months pregnant and feeling tremendous pressure from the investigation, Michelle Jones said she has gotten more and more angry as the days have passed.

“At first, the initial day the agents came in, I was mortified because I’m in law enforcement and drugs are not what we’re all about,” she said. “Then I got madder and madder. Last week, (the agents) showed up again and I started to stress. The tears just started flowing.”

These days, she thinks about Donald Lee Carlson, who was shot by federal agents the night before in Poway, based on a tip by the same informant. Carlson had a gun and fired back.

“If it wasn’t for my job in the marshal’s office, they might have raided our home the same way,” she says. “And if someone is coming through my door at midnight, I’d grab my revolver and shoot too.”