Contra Report Nearly Done, Sheriff Says

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday that his department is putting the finishing touches on a 3,500-page internal investigation that looks into the alleged links between Nicaraguan Contras and Los Angeles cocaine dealers.

Block said he plans to turn over the report next month to Senate and House intelligence panels, which are conducting hearings to determine if the CIA supported drug dealing by the Contras as a way to fund their war against the leftist Sandinista government.

At the committees’ request, Block declined to release his department’s findings until they are reviewed in Washington.

But the sheriff said: “I can tell you unequivocally that the report contains many, many examples of the careless repetition of unverified information, which was not factual in the first place.”

The allegation that the U.S. government contributed to the spread of crack surfaced most recently in a San Jose Mercury News series. A subsequent Times investigation found that the Mercury News overstated the relationship between the CIA-funded Contras and inner-city drug dealers.