DEA Bribe Alleged in Camarena Case : Courts: Man says he was asked to falsely implicate a suspect in the murder of a drug agent. Authorities deny the charges.

A former associate of Ruben Zuno Arce, charged in connection with the 1985 kidnaping and murder of an American drug agent, has accused prosecutors and Drug Enforcement Administration officials of offering him bribes to falsely implicate Zuno and threatening him with harm if he refused.

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday adamantly denied the charges, which grow out of the emotionally charged case of the 1985 torture-murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena. In 1990, a Los Angeles jury convicted Zuno of involvement in that incident, but his conviction was overturned by the trial judge, who said prosecutors had “exploited” the testimony of an important government witness.

Zuno, brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez, faces a new trial starting next month.

In an interview Monday night, Uriel Davila Hernandez said American officials offered him money, a house and citizenship for him and his family if he would testify that Zuno was involved in drug trafficking. Davila, who said he once worked for Zuno, said he refused the offers and was then threatened by drug agents.

“Either you can deal with us when we come to see you, or you can deal with the people we send to see you,” Davila said one agent told him May 20. A week later, Davila’s car was torched while parked in front of his Las Vegas apartment, he said.

Davila, a native of Sonora, Mexico, said he also received three anonymous phone calls after agents visited him in Las Vegas. The callers threatened to hurt him unless he cooperated with the DEA, Davila said.

A soft-spoken man who said he applied for a job with the DEA in 1988, Davila made those accusations during a two-hour interview with reporters from The Times, La Opinion and Channel 34, a local Spanish-language television station. The interview was conducted at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, where Davila sought help earlier this year, maintaining that he was fearful for his safety because DEA agents were harassing him.

Zuno’s lawyers declined to discuss Davila’s comments in detail but reiterated their contention--made in court documents--that the government is mistreating potential witnesses in the case.

The government paid relocation expenses for other witnesses who testified against Zuno and his co-defendants, and some defense witnesses have said they were threatened by the government. Zuno’s lawyers have alleged in court that there is a pattern of government intimidation. They said in a recent motion that one key defense witness received threatening phone calls after being interviewed by defense lawyers.

“As a direct result of these threatening phone calls, the witness is now completely intimidated and too frightened to travel to the United States to testify on Mr. Zuno’s behalf,” Zuno’s lawyers stated in their court filing.

In response to a defense request that the government be directed to halt such intimidation, U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie last week ordered that neither side engage in intimidation or harassment, although he did not find that either side had done so.

U.S. Atty. Terree A. Bowers declined to comment Tuesday on the harassment allegations, referring questioners to the government’s pleadings in the Camarena cases. In one of those briefs, the government denies improper treatment of Davila or any other potential witnesses.

“The government has not engaged in the conduct alleged,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Manuel A. Medrano wrote in that document. It “will not tolerate such conduct by any person purporting to act on its behalf.”

In a brief interview Tuesday, Medrano declined to discuss Davila’s latest allegations in detail, but said “they are completely baseless. They don’t have any merit at all.”

Davila fielded more than two hours of questions from reporters Monday night, and at times struggled to remember details of the alleged harassment. He could not recall exact dates of certain incidents, for instance, and had to be prompted to recall that one meeting occurred in 1991, not 1990, as he first said.

He also had difficulty remembering the name of Zuno’s lumber company, where Davila said he had been employed in 1983 as the general administrator. After pausing to consider the question for some time, Davila said he believed it was called “La Jolla.”

But Davila stressed Monday night that he did not have difficulty recalling several meetings with government agents. The first occurred in late 1989, Davila said, after he responded to a newspaper advertisement in Los Angeles stating that the DEA was recruiting Latino agents.

According to Davila, the interviewer started by asking routine questions, but seemed to show special interest when Davila told him that he was familiar with the area of Mexico where Zuno had lived and worked.

Davila said he was called back for a second interview, during which he was asked more detailed questions about Zuno. Davila said he told investigators that he had worked for Zuno in late 1983, acting as the general administrator of Zuno’s lumber company.

The third interview took place the following week, Davila said, and it was during that session that officials allegedly presented a document for him to sign. Davila said the document stated that Zuno was involved in marijuana and cocaine smuggling and was using his lumber and fruit-packing companies to facilitate his drug business.

Davila called those accusations false and said he refused to sign.

Davila later moved to Las Vegas and said he performed some menial tasks for the DEA over a period of roughly two years. Then, agents began to increase the pressure on him to testify against Zuno, Davila said.

Davila said he again refused, and the threatening calls began. He came to the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, where he signed a sworn statement on May 25. In that statement and in an earlier one written in February, Davila contended that DEA agents harassed him and asked him to provide and solicit false testimony against Zuno.

“We know Mr. Zuno as a good person who has done good things,” Davila said in the interview Monday night. “I have never known anything about him being involved in drugs.”

Zuno and a co-defendant, Dr. Humberto Alvarez-Machain, are charged in connection with the abduction and murder of Camarena and a DEA pilot. The two defendants are scheduled to be tried in federal court starting Oct. 20.