2 Women Acquitted in Drug Agent Case

A federal jury acquitted two women Friday on charges of helping a former state narcotics agent distribute 650 pounds of cocaine that he allegedly stole from an evidence locker.

Jurors also reached verdicts on four of eight counts against ousted Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement officer Richard Wayne Parker, but U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz sealed them and told the panel to return Monday, presumably to continue deliberations.

The two acquitted defendants, Christine L. Whitney, 27, of Redondo Beach and Pamela Sue Gray, 44, of Hermosa Beach, embraced their lawyers and cried after the verdicts were read.

If convicted, they would have faced prison sentences of up to 18 years for conspiracy and possession of cocaine for sale.

Assistant U.S. Attys. Rebecca S. Lonergan and Beverly Reid O’Connell declined to comment on the verdicts, noting that the jury was still deliberating.

Parker, 44, is accused of stealing the cocaine during a faked burglary at the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement office in Riverside over the July 4 weekend in 1997. Although investigators concluded it was an inside job, he did not become a suspect until a year later when he was arrested in an FBI drug sting unrelated to the Riverside case.

Agents intercepted him as he drove out of a Pasadena parking structure after receiving $47,000 in drug proceeds from his former girlfriend, Monica L. Pitto, 40, of Hermosa Beach. Authorities said she was his main conduit for disposing of the stolen cocaine.

Pitto, an admitted drug abuser, was tailed there after selling a kilogram of cocaine to a drug dealer-turned-informant. She confessed and implicated Parker. The next day, outfitted with a hidden recorder, she took part in a sting that resulted in the arrests of Whitney and Gray.

Whitney, a medical assistant, was apprehended after she picked up a gym bag containing cocaine from Gray’s apartment and delivered it to Pitto in a South Bay parking lot.

“I don’t run drugs for a living,” an FBI agent quoted her as saying later. “It was a fluke that you nailed me today. I did something stupid. I was just a messenger.”

Her attorney, Scott Furstman, said after Friday’s verdicts that the jury evidently disbelieved both the FBI and Pitto, who struck a deal and testified for the prosecution in the seven-week trial.

Furstman said a careful review of Pitto’s secretly recorded conversation with Whitney showed that his client had no idea she was delivering drugs to Pitto.

The government’s case was not helped when a Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement officer picked out a female FBI agent seated in the courtroom gallery section when he was asked by a prosecutor to identify Whitney during the trial.

Gray, a financial officer for a small computer animation group, was accused of working as a runner for Whitney. When she was arrested, Gray had nearly a kilogram of cocaine under her bed.

“I knew what was going on but I didn’t want to deal with it,” FBI agents quoted her as saying after her arrest.

Prosecutors contended that in addition to allowing cocaine to be stored in her apartment, she made trips to Las Vegas for Whitney to deliver cocaine and pick up money from drug sales.

Gray’s lawyer, Daniel G. Davis, denied those allegations, insisting there was no evidence that his client knew what was being stored in her apartment.