LAWMAKER SAYS DEA UNHELPFUL House Investigating Why Case Called Off DEA and Justice Department officials are stonewalling a congressional investigation of allegations that political interference killed a federal drug case against a Houston rap entrepreneur, a powerful House Republican said Wednesday. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton charged that Drug Enforcement Administration officials tried Monday to stop his committee's investigators from interviewing Houston police detectives who worked on the joint DEA-Houston Police Department case targeting James A. Prince and his associates at Rap-A-Lot Records. The Indiana Republican said Justice officials also have thus far refused his investigators' requests to interview nine federal agents in Washington and Houston who may have knowledge about what happened to the two-year federal probe. "How can I conclude anything other than you and the attorney general are practicing political damage control for the current administration?" Mr. Burton wrote DEA Administrator Donnie Marshall on Wednesday. The DEA referred inquiries to the Justice Department, where a spokesman said Mr. Burton's complaint "is an issue of concern, and we are looking at the matter closely." One official said the case probably would be referred to the Justice Department's inspector general. Mr. Prince, 36, has never been charged. He has maintained that he and his associates have been targeted because of police racism and resentment of his rise from a Houston ghetto to prominence in the national rap music industry. He could not be reached Wednesday. The DEA's case netted more than 20 convictions before its progress slowed last year. Information developed from the inquiry led to convictions of several top Rap-A-Lot employees or associates, including a Houston police officer, and recently helped solve a 1997 Houston slaying. Houston resident Lamar Burks, 28, was sentenced on Monday to 70 years in state prison. DEA Agent Jack Schumacher testified that the federal agency began developing information on Mr. Burks late last summer after learning that Mr. Prince had asked him to kill a key DEA witness, said Harris County prosecutor Craig Goodheart. "Prince approached Burks either directly or through intermediaries to carry out the hit," Mr. Goodheart said. "We know of multiple meetings between Burks and Prince." Another Houston man was indicted in July on federal witness-tampering charges after a Houston federal judge watched him threaten to kill the same DEA witness while he was testifying in the March federal criminal trial of a Rap-A-Lot employee. In Monday's state court case, Mr. Goodheart said, Mr. Schumacher testified that Mr. Burks led a violent gang believed to be responsible for distributing two to three kilos of cocaine each week through Houston's 5th Ward, and had ties to a larger Rap-A-Lot organization that was believed to have sold five to 15 kilos of cocaine weekly. DEA information helped tie Mr. Burks to the 1997 shooting of Earl Perry, 27, in a dice game, Mr. Goodheart said. Houston police investigators told the House committee Monday that progress on their joint Rap-A-Lot case with the DEA ended in September 1999 after the DEA's top Houston agent announced it was being closed "due to political interference," Mr. Burton wrote Wednesday. "All of the officers felt strongly that they were making headway against a suspected large-scale drug trafficker," Mr. Burton's letter stated. "As one Houston police officer told Committee staff on Monday ... 'The rug was pulled out from under us.'" The officers' statements mirror accounts to The Dallas Morning News earlier this fall by investigators involved in the Rap-A-Lot investigation. Although both Houston DEA chief Ernest L. Howard and Mr. Marshall have maintained that the case remained open, case investigators told The News that it was suspended in September 1999 after California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters complained on Mr. Prince's behalf to Attorney General Janet Reno. Top DEA officials began a yearlong internal investigation after Ms. Waters complained that Mr. Prince was a victim of harassment, brutality and racial profiling by "rogue" DEA agents. The agency recently notified Agent Schumacher and his partner that there was insufficient evidence to support Mr. Prince's allegations. House investigators began demanding internal DEA correspondence in the wake of The News' report. Last week, the DEA turned over e-mails in which Mr. Howard told superiors last March that he was shuttering the case and transferring Mr. Schumacher, the lead case agent, to a desk job because of escalating political pressure. Mr. Howard's e-mails to top DEA officials came within days after Vice President Al Gore appeared March 12 at a Houston church whose financial ties to Mr. Prince were examined during the DEA inquiry. Mr. Howard also told a colleague in one e-mail that Mr. Prince attended the vice president's church visit and "undoubtedly had a picture session." A Gore spokesman said the vice president has no knowledge of the matter. Mr. Burton told the DEA administrator that he was particularly concerned about Mr. Howard's e-mails because he told the committee in July that the DEA's Rap-A-Lot case was ongoing. "It is unclear how to interpret Mr. Howard's comments about the Vice President, or his comments about bowing to political pressure. Clearly, however, something was very wrong," Mr. Burton wrote. Despite the apparent derailment of the DEA case, some of Mr. Prince's employees or associates remain under police investigation. The FBI recently filed federal bank robbery charges against Rap-A-Lot artist Andre "007" Barnes after witnesses identified him as the man who held up three Friendswood banks between Oct. 2 and Oct. 21, said Friendswood Police Chief Jared Stout. Chief Stout said the suspect was striking to witnesses because he spoke "with a confidence bordering on arrogance," displayed no weapon and carried out the three robberies without attempting to disguise himself or evade surveillance cameras. Police recovered a rental car used in one of the robberies and determined that a female acquaintance had rented it for Mr. Barnes. Mr. Barnes, 27, is a member of the 5th Ward Boyz, a three-member gangsta rap group that is one of Rap-A-Lot's most successful recording artists. The group's most recent album, released in late August, has repeated references to Mr. Prince and his "Rap-A-Lot mafia," and includes a song co-written by Mr. Barnes that declares "rhyme or crime, I gotta get mine. ... I'm a born criminal." Another Rap-A-Lot album, released in October by artist Scarface, taunts the two DEA agents targeted by Mr. Prince and Ms. Waters, and brags of the "Rap-A-Lot mafia's" ability to kill informants and ruin agents' careers.
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