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.