OFFICIALS SAY NH DEALER'S FUGITIVE LIFE AIDED BY DEA

CONCORD -- New Hampshire's biggest known marijuana supplier pleaded
guilty to drug charges last week in Concord, but some authorities
believe federal officials in Michigan helped him remain a fugitive for
six years because as an informant he could dramatically enhance a DEA
agent's career.

Alberto Lujan, 47, was indicted Oct. 20, 1992, in U.S. District Court
in Concord and remained on the lam for six years.

Lujan supplied marijuana to Mark R. Heino of Weare, a drug dealer and
local contractor until drug enforcers attempted to kidnap Heino to
persuade him to make good on a $1 million drug debt.

The ensuing shoot-out in which Heino and his family escaped on Aug. 5,
1992, placed Weare in the spotlight. The town of 7,000 people
southwest of Concord was best known until then as the folksy hometown
of U.S. Supreme Court Justice David A. Souter.

At the time, police accused Lujan -- an intimidating figure with ties
to high-level Mexican drug dealers -- of supervising a drug
organization that moved more than 33 tons of marijuana to New
Hampshire and the Northeast through Arizona and Michigan.

Lujan -- also known as "Dad" and implicated in Heino's kidnapping --
fled and wasn't arrested until six years later on June 6, 1998, living
as a quiet family man in Albion, Mich.

A month before his New Hampshire indictments, sensing possible
criminal charges against him, Lujan signed an agreement to cooperate
with federal officials in Michigan, according to court records. That
agreement has frustrated New Hampshire authorities trying to bring him
to justice ever since.

"There's no question this case has been quite frustrating for almost a
decade, but now it's come to a successful resolution largely through
the efforts of Deputy U.S. Marshal Paul Schmeider who spent well over
a year locating and finally apprehending Mr. Lujan and Assistant U.S.
Attorney Terry Ollila who prosecuted the case," said U.S. Attorney
Paul Gagnon.

Allegations that officials in Michigan ignored the fact that Lujan was
New Hampshire's most wanted fugitive and relied on him as a drug
informant anyway between 1992 and his arrest surfaced in January at a
pre-trial hearing in federal court in Concord.

New Hampshire State Police Sgt. Michael Hambrook, assistant drug unit
commander, testified at the January hearing about a meeting in
February of 1993, in Tucson, Ariz., four months after Lujan was indicted.

Hambrook said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael C. Liebson and Drug
Enforcement Administration agent Scott Syme, both of Michigan, wanted
officials in New Hampshire and Arizona to drop charges against Lujan
so he could work as an informant for them.

On Thursday, Liebson and Syme both strongly denied allegations that
they used Lujan as an informant in Michigan while he was a fugitive.

Hambrook said that at the 1993 meeting, Liebson passed around copies
of an immunity agreement Lujan had signed with Michigan. Assistant
U.S. Attorney Michael Gunnison of New Hampshire was surprised Liebson
could meet with a fugitive to sign the agreement and not arrest him,
Hambrook said.

". . . Gunnison asked, was curious basically, if he (Liebson) met with
(Lujan) and he signed this agreement, why in God's name didn't you
arrest him. We're obligated to arrest him. He's a fugitive," Hambrook
testified.

Hambrook said the 1993 meeting became heated and Liebson said the
agreement was made via fax machine, that he didn't meet personally
with Lujan.

Gunnison pointed out they couldn't even know for sure whether Lujan
had signed the document, Hambrook said.

"The argument continued that this man could be very valuable to the
government, that he has a lot of valuable information that apparently
they were learning through a third party, that being Larry Bridges,
who was acting as an informant for the DEA Michigan, and that they
felt Lujan should be an informant and that we should just basically
get out of the way or stop being a roadblock in this thing and
cooperate with them," Hambrook said.

It was at that point in the meeting that Michigan DEA agent Scott Syme
took over, according to a transcript of testimony of the January
hearing in Concord.

"(Syme) indicated to us, that you know, he'd been a DEA agent for a
few years and this man Lujan could be a career-maker as an informant."

When asked what he took that to mean, Hambrook went on: "When I
stopped laughing -- I was horrified to be quite frank with you that
we're worried about somebody's career when an individual who worked
for this man got life in prison, and here we are trying to negotiate
some sort of an agreement for this guy. Why? Because he had the luxury
of maybe knowing more than the guy that went to prison for life?

"I was horrified. Mark Heino got 25 years. It didn't seem to me that
we were going to give any kind of special consideration to Mr. Lujan,
to say nothing about the fact that he's a fugitive," Hambrook said.

Lujan was Heino's marijuana supplier. Hambrook had also referred to
Robert Hahn, who was sentenced to life in prison in connection with
the marijuana smuggling operation.

It was New Hampshire's position from that start that "You don't
negotiate with a fugitive. Surrender and negotiate from custody. I'm
not saying that we wouldn't cooperate or allow him to cooperate, but
it's got to be done the right way," Hambrook testified.

U.S. Customs agent David Penrod testified at the January hearing that
he decided early on he didn't want to work with the federal officials
in Michigan because of the controversy.

"In my opinion based on conversations that we had with the U.S.
Attorney in Michigan and with the DEA in Michigan, I believed they
knew where Lujan was and that they were using him as an informant,
knowing full well that he was a fugitive and that two federal arrest
warrants existed for him, and that was the primary reason I wouldn't
participate with those guys," Penrod testified.

Reached on Thursday for comment, Liebson said, "That's false -- Lujan
was not paid as an informant. We did not use him as an informant."

"This conversation is over. That is incorrect," Liebson said. "It
didn't happen. . . . period."

DEA agent Scott Syme also denied the allegations and said he will turn
them over to Department of Justice lawyers.

"That's simply amazing. That's stunning," Syme said of the allegations
when reached by phone on Thursday.

Syme said he originally wanted to use Lujan as an informant, but it
didn't work out. He did suspect, at least in the beginning, that some
of the more than $200,000 paid to informant Larry Bridges may have
gone to Lujan.

He said Bridges was paid well over $200,000 in about 2 1/2 years
starting sometime around 1992.

Lujan was living with Bridges' brother when he was arrested in Albion,
about an hour and a half from the DEA office in Detroit.

Syme said he had no idea Lujan was living in Michigan, but he did know
that Larry Bridges was Lujan's best friend.

Syme said there was a very large drug case at stake at the time, and
eventually agents made the case without Lujan's cooperation.

"They don't have any basis" for the allegations. "That's all innuendo
- -- people sitting back and gossiping. They did not even call and find
out the facts and it has been going on for years. It's a shame," Syme
said.

He said he always assumed Lujan was on the lam in Thailand or Canada
and that Lujan wasn't a fugitive when the agreement was first signed
in Michigan.

Syme said he only talked to Lujan by phone once or twice after New
Hampshire refused to cooperate and made it clear he should surrender.

"At that point I was told that we were not allowed to get any more
information from him (Lujan) and we didn't," Syme said.

He said Bridges, who continued on as an active informant in Michigan,
was warned to have no contact with Lujan.

"They were best friends, and Bridges was told repeatedly that Lujan
was a fugitive and he couldn't have any association with him," Syme
said.

Hugh M. Davis Jr. of Detroit, who had been a lawyer for Lujan, also
testified in Concord at the January hearing, saying Lujan did
cooperate on drug cases.

"Mr. Lujan had been a fugitive for a number of years. During that time
he had engaged in a continuous process of cooperation with authorities
in various ongoing drug investigations," Davis said.

Davis said he and his client were concerned after Lujan's arrest that
given New Hampshire's posture "that somehow or another, the record of
what Mr. Lujan had done since August of 1992 would either be lost or
diminished in some fashion," Davis said.

On Tuesday, Lujan agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to possess
marijuana with the intent to distribute large quantities from 1985 to
1993 and distribution of marijuana in New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
New York, Arizona and Michigan. He will be sentenced in May.

Lujan and his attorney, Joseph Balliro of Boston, declined
comment.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Lujan, who has a serious heart
condition, will serve at least 18 years in federal prison. Under
federal law, he had faced life in prison if convicted after trial.