DEA MISLED PANEL IN DRUG INQUIRY, RECORDS SHOW

E-mails Point To Pressure On Investigation Of Rap Entrepreneur

Congressional investigators have begun probing allegations that high-level
political interference derailed a major federal drug investigation of a
Houston rap music entrepreneur and his associates, officials in Washington
and Houston said Thursday.

Investigators say the congressional inquiry intensified on Wednesday after
the federal Drug Enforcement Administration turned over records to the
House Government Reform Committee indicating that DEA officials misled the
panel about the Houston case.

Among those records are internal e-mails between DEA headquarters and
Houston, including a series of messages in which the Houston DEA chief
declared that mounting political pressure was forcing him to shutter the
case and transfer its lead investigator to a desk job.

DEA Houston chief Ernest L. Howard told two top DEA officials in a March 15
e-mail: "Now we bow down to the political pressure anyway. If I had known
this, I would have NEVER ... even pursued it. But it is over now."

That and other e-mails announcing the formal closing of the case have
become a focus of the congressional investigation because they came a few
days after Vice President Al Gore made a March 12 campaign stop at a
Houston church scrutinized during the DEA probe.

A DEA spokesman in Washington declined to comment Thursday afternoon. Mr.
Howard also did not return calls for comment.

Jim Kennedy, a spokesman for Mr. Gore, said the vice president had no
knowledge of the matter.

The House committee last week asked for DEA's internal correspondence on
the case in the wake of news reports that it had been suspended. Committee
investigators said DEA officials had previously assured them that the case
against company founder James A. Prince and his associates at Rap-A-Lot
Records was still open.

"We were told that they didn't cancel the investigation. Now, we have
e-mails that they did," said committee staff director Kevin Binger.

"We are concerned about allegations that have been raised about possible
political interference on a federal law enforcement agency,'' he said.
"What we have seen in terms of documents raises our level of concern. We
want to get to the bottom of this.''

The DEA investigation of Rap-A-Lot resulted in multiple drug seizures in
Houston, Beaumont, and Oklahoma City, as well as federal and state
convictions of more than 20.

Mr. Prince has never been charged and has denied wrongdoing.

In one of the DEA e-mails, obtained from a source outside the congressional
committee, Mr. Howard told the agency's deputy administrator and the head
of the agency's office of professional responsibility: "I understand that
the situation involving Rap-A-Lot and James SMITH aka James PRINCE has only
gotten worse. To eliminate any further difficulty in this matter, I have
decided that the Houston Division will curtail any enforcement action
against this subject."

Mr. Howard added in that March 14 e-mail that he was transferring the
veteran DEA agent who led the two-year probe, Jack Schumacher of Houston,
from law enforcement to a desk job.

"This is an unfortunate occurance [sic] in that SA [Special Agent]
Schumacher became involved with this investigation due to my insistance
[sic] that he become involved approximately a year ago. The Houston PD
joined in the investigation due to their interest with the subject and the
corruption of several PD officers. They had an entire squad assigned to my
group,'' Mr. Howard wrote. "At any rate, it's over and we are closing our
case on PRINCE.''

The next morning, the Houston DEA chief again wrote the two senior agency
officials, saying that the agency's previous head, Tom Constantine and his
top assistant, were briefed before the Rap-A-Lot probe was escalated in
1998 "because of the potential political pressure associated with it."

He wrote on March 15 that the officials allowed the case to go forward. He
added that he never would have asked Mr. Schumacher, a highly decorated
agent, to lead the case if he had realized that politics eventually would
derail it.

The Houston DEA head also wrote that his agents would "terminate all active
investigation of Rap-A-Lot" and "vet" any new leads through DEA
headquarters "prior to ANY action."

The Dallas Morning News reported in early October that federal and local
police investigators in Houston contended they were ordered to stop a
two-year investigation of Mr. Prince and his associates because of
political interference from Washington.

Houston police and federal agents who worked on the Rap-A-Lot case told The
News that Mr. Howard first halted work in September 1999 after a powerful
Democratic congresswoman, Maxine Waters of California, intervened on Mr.
Prince's behalf with Attorney General Janet Reno.

Mr. Howard and other DEA officials told The News the case was not closed
and remained under investigation.

Mr. Prince has maintained that he has been unfairly targeted because of
systemic police racism and resentment of his rise from a Houston ghetto to
wealth and prominence as a rap music entrepreneur. In an October statement,
he echoed complaints previously made to Ms. Waters and DEA officials about
years of police harassment, as well as his fear that the lead DEA agent in
the case, Mr. Schumacher, might kill him.

DEA officials and other law enforcement agents familiar with the case have
dismissed Mr. Prince's allegations as ridiculous and unfounded.

Ms. Waters' complaint prompted DEA to launch a year-long internal affairs
probe. At her insistence, the head of DEA's office of professional
responsibility interviewed Mr. Prince in her Washington congressional
office with her husband and several outside lawyers present.

And as recently as March, e-mails from DEA headquarters obtained by The
News show, the agency's top internal affairs inspectors were briefing Ms.
Waters regularly on their investigation of the Houston agents.

Ms. Waters did not return calls for comment. Mr. Prince could not be
reached, and a spokesman did not return calls Thursday.

Mr. Schumacher's attorney, Michael J. Hinton of Houston said that the agent
was notified Wednesday that DEA had cleared him of wrongdoing and found Mr.
Prince's claims to be unsubstantiated.