U.S. Paid $2.7 Million to Camarena Witnesses : Prosecutions: Some informants in U.S. drug agent’s slaying have serious criminal histories, documents show.

The federal government has paid more than $2.7 million to witnesses--including some with serious criminal histories--in its case against two Mexican nationals charged with participating in the 1985 torture-murder of U.S. drug Agent Enrique Camarena, according to documents obtained by The Times.

The documents, produced by the government for an upcoming trial, indicate that some informants have received hundreds of thousands of dollars. One key witness, Hector Cervantes Santos, testified in a previous trial that he used to make less than $1,000 a year in Mexico; since late 1989, the Drug Enforcement Administration has paid him more than $178,000 for information, expenses and security related to the Camarena case.

In addition, the documents reveal that the Justice Department has promised to request American residency or work permits for several witnesses, some of whom have criminal histories.

Rene Lopez-Romero was involved in the 1984 kidnaping and brutal murder of four American missionaries in Guadalajara, according to the government. Despite Lopez’s involvement in that unsolved crime, the government is paying him a $3,000 monthly stipend and prosecutors intend to call him as a witness in this case.

Payments, rewards, protection and favors are considered essential facts of life in fighting drugs. But the amounts in this case--coupled with the other benefits promised to informants--have raised concerns among some legal experts about how far the government will go to gather testimony.

“At some point, somebody has to start asking: ‘What’s the limit?’ ” said Gerald Uelmen, dean of the law school at Santa Clara University. “At what point do these people become willing to tell the government whatever it wants to hear?”

Ruben Zuno Arce and Humberto Alvarez Machain are accused of conspiracy to kidnap and murder Camarena and his DEA pilot, a crime that is among the most vicious in the annals of American drug enforcement. It also has become one of the most vigorously investigated and prosecuted. Alvarez was kidnaped in 1990 at the behest of American drug agents and brought to the United States.

Defense lawyers--who are prohibited from paying their witnesses--say the government’s payments and favors in this case have made it nearly impossible for Zuno and Alvarez to get a fair trial.

“It’s outrageous. It’s disgusting,” said Barry Tarlow, a noted criminal defense lawyer who represented one of the other defendants in the Camarena case. “It really is shameful what is going on in this case.”

Prosecutors and some legal scholars respond by noting that witnesses in high-level drug cases are rarely model citizens and that they are rarely inclined to testify out of a sense of civic obligation.

“You know the old saw,” said one lawyer: “Conspiracies hatched in hell do not have angels as their witnesses.”

The result is that drug cases, particularly grisly ones such as the Camarena murder, often feature testimony by unsavory characters. It is up to the jury to evaluate the witnesses and determine whether they appear to be telling the truth.

“Naturally, when you have payments made to people, that’s something that the defense is going to argue to the jury, that these witnesses are not reliable,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. John L. Carlton, one of the lead prosecutors in the long-running case. “We’d always prefer that there not be any impeachment materials, but you’ve got to live in the world the way it is.”

Carlton and other prosecutors note that disclosure of the government’s relationships with witnesses allows jurors to consider that information and make an informed judgment on it. Information about witnesses’ criminal histories and relationships with the government is known as “Giglio material,” because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 1972 case, Giglio vs. U.S., that all potentially impeaching evidence about prosecution witnesses must be turned over to defense lawyers before a trial.

The government has complied with that requirement in this case, and prosecutors stress that just because a person has a criminal record or receives payments from the government does not mean that he or she is lying.

“The larger the payments, the stronger the possible inference that this witness may have a motive to lie,” UCLA law professor Peter Aranella said. “But the jury will be educated by the prosecution about these witnesses and the government’s relationship with them. . . . It’s up to the jury to decide these questions.”

Most of the government’s informants in this case have received less than $100,000 each, but many have received more, according to a Times study of the payment sheets. One informant, Frank Retamoza Gallardo, has been paid $909,862 since 1989. That money was paid for expenses in another major drug case, but Retamoza will be called upon to testify in this one as well.

Several other witnesses have received more than $150,000, most of it doled out over a period of years. Many of the witnesses have received such large sums because this case has dragged on for so long, officials said.

“The amounts are staggering,” said Eugene Iredale, a San Diego defense attorney. “Of course it compromises the witness’s testimony. . . . If a defendant paid a witness these sums of money to testify, he’d be indicted for obstructing justice or suborning perjury.”

Beyond the size of the payments, the other benefits that prosecutors have promised witnesses in this and other cases trouble some legal observers. In this case, prosecutors on several occasions have interceded with immigration officials on behalf of potential witnesses, urging the INS to halt deportation proceedings.

Augustin Bueno Gonzalez is one of those who has received special consideration in return for his cooperation. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bueno, whom the government lists as having 34 aliases, was apprehended time and again for illegally entering the United States.

In 1984, he was arrested on charges of participating in a heroin, cocaine and marijuana conspiracy, and has racked up a list of offenses, including weapons charges, lying on a passport application and violating his probation.

Nonetheless, prosecutors agreed to recommend to INS officials that Bueno not be deported.

“In short, to deport Mr. Bueno-Gonzalez to Mexico would in effect impose a death sentence on Augustine Bueno-Gonzalez,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Jimmy Gurule wrote to immigration authorities in 1989. “For these reasons, I would ask that you seriously consider dismissing the immigration detainer against Mr. Bueno-Gonzalez.”

Although many of the other informants also have criminal records, in most cases the crimes are relatively minor. There are two glaring exceptions: Ramon Lira and Rene Lopez Romero.

On Dec. 2, 1984, four young Americans--Benjamin and Pat Mascarenas and Dennis and Rose Carlson--disappeared while selling Bibles and proselytizing for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in a well-to-do Guadalajara neighborhood.

That crime remains unsolved and no arrests have ever been made. But the government’s documents in the Camarena case reveal that two of its witnesses may have information about that crime.

In the file, prosecutors acknowledge that Romero and Lira were participants in the 1984 abduction of the missionaries. The government does not explain their role beyond saying that they were involved, but authorities familiar with the case say the two men were low-level employees of Ernesto Fonseca, a Guadalajara drug lord in the 1980s.

On that December morning, the four missionaries apparently knocked on Fonseca’s door, not knowing whose home it was.

“Fonseca became convinced that the missionaries were DEA personnel and ordered that they be abducted,” the government’s document states. “They were made to partially undress, blindfolded and interrogated.”

The document adds that the four missionaries were interrogated and tortured at two homes belonging to Fonseca. By late afternoon, their abductors had determined that they were not DEA agents, but they continued to hold them and moved them to another home owned by Fonseca’s cousin.

“At Fonseca-Uribe’s ranch, both female missionaries were taken into bedrooms, and one of the females was tortured further,” the document states. Late that night, all four were taken to a grave site south of Guadalajara. They were made to stand next to the open grave and were shot. All four bodies were buried in the single grave, according to the document.

Today, Lira and Lopez are each receiving $3,000 a month from the American government for their cooperation in this case. Lopez, a former state police officer in Mexico, also has been promised an INS work permit once the proceedings are concluded.

Relatives of the long-missing missionaries learned of the government’s deal with Lopez and Lira several weeks ago, when State Department officials called to tell them that they were being paid by the government and would be testifying in the Camarena case. For some, it was a blow almost too hard to take.

Pat Mascarenas, who has waited in vain for news of her lost brother for nearly eight years, said she was enraged when she learned of the American government’s arrangement with Lira and Lopez. Like other relatives, she believes that American authorities care more about prosecuting the men accused of killing a DEA agent than those who murdered her brother.

Agents say that that is not true, and some American officials blame Mexican authorities for the glacial progress on the missionaries’ case. In fact, some officials suggest that the missionaries’ bodies could be recovered if only Mexican authorities would allow it.

But the victims’ families know only that their loved ones are gone and that two men who may be responsible are on the U.S. government’s payroll.

“I’m sick, and half the time I can’t get paid for my Medicare,” said Mercy Mascarenas, Benjamin’s mother. “And then I find out that these criminals are being paid their medical expenses. These are the criminals who took my son. It’s awful, just awful.”