Claims of DEA Agent Misconduct Dismissed : Courts: Judge finds no basis for assertions that U.S. officers kidnaped and tortured potential witnesses to build case against alleged Bolivian narcotics kingpin.

A federal judge Monday dismissed allegations that Drug Enforcement Administration agents went on a violent rampage in Bolivia in their attempts to gather information against accused drug kingpin Jorge Roca Suarez, calling the charges vague, unsubstantiated and irrelevant to the case.

“I don’t find it persuasive in the least,” U.S. Dist. Judge Stephen V. Wilson said of the argument presented by Roca’s lawyer.

Wilson’s ruling thwarts an aggressive effort by Roca’s lawyers to have the case against their client dismissed and clears the way for the trial to begin next month. Roca and members of his family are charged with drug trafficking and laundering vast sums of money, acts that prosecutors say were the result of Roca’s position at the top of one of Bolivia’s largest and most powerful cocaine cartels.

Roca was in court Monday and sat impassively as Wilson turned down his motion to dismiss the charges. A group of DEA agents, including several of those against whom accusations of misconduct were leveled, also sat in the courtroom. Although the agents were on hand to act as witnesses, Wilson ruled that their testimony was not needed.

The motion by Roca’s lead lawyer, Yolanda Barrera, accused the government of outrageous misconduct, and was backed by sworn declarations from more than two dozen Bolivians and Americans. The declarations alleged that DEA agents kidnaped, raped, tortured and intimidated Bolivians from 1989 to 1992.

Several witnesses claimed that DEA agents and Bolivian soldiers used electrical shocks, as well as beatings with sticks and rifle butts, to extract information from them. Others said their heads were forced underwater until they believed they would drown, and one man alleged that pliers were used to pull out his toenail.

“I have watched on television what happened to Rodney King, the black man, in Los Angeles, and I would like to tell you that these officers did the same thing to me, but worse,” said one Bolivian, Carmelo Dominguez Vaca.

According to Barrera, the DEA’s actions make it impossible for Roca to get a fair trial because people who would testify on his behalf are scared of what the DEA might do.

But prosecutor John F. Gibbons emphatically rebutting each allegation as part of a 57-page brief filed with the judge. Gibbons presented copies of photographs showing that some of those who claimed to have been tortured did not appear to have been physically harmed.

Gibbons and his co-prosecutor argued that the allegations were untrue; and even if they were true, they should not force the government to free Roca. None of the people who say they were tortured have provided evidence that is being used against Roca, and prosecutors argued that even if those people had been abused, it would not have affected the case.

“Defendant Roca has purposely introduced a red herring into this case, hoping to exploit the sheer audacity of his claim to bring about a dismissal,” Gibbons wrote.

Wilson called Gibbons’ response “very compelling opposition” and brusquely rejected the claims of torture and misconduct.

The judge dwelt longer on a different aspect of Roca’s motion. Several declarants said they believed that American drug agents had improperly obtained materials related to Roca’s defense by infiltrating his legal team in Bolivia.

In particular, Roca’s lawyers alleged that the DEA received the only copy of a document proving that Roca received $1.5 million as a gift from his mother. That gift would help account for money that prosecutors believe Roca earned as a drug trafficker.

But Wilson ruled that there was not enough evidence to show that such a document existed or that the DEA had obtained it.