Lying by DEA Informant

“An Undercover Informant Comes Under Suspicion” (March 5) reports that the man the Drug Enforcement Administration considered its “best” undercover agent, Andrew Chambers, has consistently lied about almost everything he has ever done, even while on the witness stand. It comes out that this liar has been paid over $4 million by various government agencies to tell these lies. Everyone involved in this sorry mess should be prosecuted, at the least, for malfeasance, misappropriation of public money and probably for obstruction of justice as well. The DEA should be dismantled and absorbed into the FBI, for if this is the man they consider their “best” agent, who knows what their worst has been up to?

The war on drugs has mutated into a war on freedom, and we ignore the threat presented by the DEA at peril to our democracy.

RUSTY AUSTIN

Culver City

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In the drug wars, who is the greater threat--the informant who puts drug dealers in jail or the defense attorney who keeps his guilty clients on the street? Tainting informants to get drug-dealing clients off is the first order of business for defense attorneys. So Chambers is not perfect. So what? Did the public or the U.S. attorney object to the testimony of admitted hit man Sammy “the Bull” Gravano when he took the stand against Mafia boss John Gotti? No! Any misdeeds by Chambers pale in comparison to the crimes committed by the ruthless drug thugs he put away.

Would the DEA prefer informants that were 100% pure? Absolutely. Is that realistic? Not in the underground world of narcotics and dangerous drugs. Chambers is highly successful in the dirty business of confiscating illicit drugs and eliminating those who traffic in them. He was responsible for over 300 arrests in Los Angeles and the seizure of tons of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. He is the L.A. drug dealer’s worst nightmare. In the past he was targeted for death. Now they are using their drug money to hire defense attorneys to destroy him. L.A. would be a scary, ugly and violent profit center for the international drug cartels without Chambers.

RALPH B. LOCHRIDGE

DEA (Ret.), Inglewood

JOHN MARCELLO

DEA (Ret.), Manhattan Beach