JUDGE FREES 3 MEN IN DRUG CASE

Defense lawyers were not told that a paid informant had hired others
to help identify suspects. Other DEA cases are in jeopardy.

As a paid informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Guillermo
Francisco Jordan-Pollito has achieved a remarkable record of success.

Over the last 10 years, according to his own testimony in Los Angeles
federal court, the former Mexican police officer has earned more than
$350,000 helping the DEA put together more than 80 cases against
suspected sellers of cocaine, methamphetamines and other illicit drugs.

There's just one thing missing from that picture. The DEA's star
undercover operative used a stable of his own paid informants to
assist him in setting up drug buys, a fact that was kept from defense
lawyers in an undetermined number of those cases.

The failure of federal prosecutors to disclose that information has
resulted in a sharp rebuke from a federal judge and the dismissal of
charges against three defendants. And more legal challenges are in the
works, including one that will be heard today by another federal judge
in Los Angeles.

Ronald O. Kaye, a former federal public defender now in private
practice, uncovered Jordan-Pollito's use of "sub-informants" last year
after combing through telephone records turned over to him by federal
prosecutors in a methamphetamine-trafficking case.

The prosecution contended that the sub-informant in Kaye's case had
done nothing more than introduce Jordan-Pollito to the three
defendants. But Kaye was able to show that the sub-informant, Jose
Agapito Gomez, made 29 telephone calls to the defendants during a
one-week period leading up to their arrests. The defense attorney also
documented 68 calls between Jordan-Pollito and Gomez during the same
period.

After hearing arguments from both sides, U.S. District Judge
Florence-Marie Cooper ordered the government to disclose the names and
file numbers of all cases in which Jordan-Pollito or Gomez had been
employed and how much they had been paid.

When the prosecution refused to do so, Cooper tossed out the
indictment and ordered the defendants freed.

"The government's representations regarding the use of confidential
informants in this case have repeatedly proven to be unreliable," the
judge stated in a strongly worded opinion. Cooper said that either the
government did not know about the sub-informant's existence, which she
called "highly unlikely," or the government deliberately lied to the
defense.

If the government did not know, she went on, then its ability to
monitor the activities of its undercover informants has been seriously
compromised. And if the government did know and withheld the
information from the defense, "that is an even greater evil," the
judge wrote.

Cooper said it appeared at first that an entrapment defense was not
feasible, because there were so few contacts between Jordan-Pollito
and the defendants, and those tape-recorded encounters showed no
pressure being applied by the DEA informant.

But the series of phone calls by the sub-informant to the defendants,
which were not tape-recorded, supports "an inference that pressure was
being brought to bear by the sub-informant, which could have been used
to support an entrapment defense."

"A law enforcement agency must not be allowed to shield itself from
accountability by hiring someone outside of law enforcement who is
free to violate citizens' rights," she said.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles would not comment on
Cooper's ruling except to say "the government takes its discovery
obligations very seriously and endeavors to meet its legal and ethical
obligations."

After the judge's ruling, prosecutors said they intended to challenge
the decision before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But last
week, the government withdrew its notice without explanation.

Kaye and defense attorney Paul Potter are scheduled to appear today
before U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian to seek a new trial for
two other defendants convicted as a result of a drug-trafficking sting
involving Jordan-Pollito and Gomez.

In that case, which was decided a few weeks before Cooper's ruling,
Jordan-Pollito and Gomez were both subpoenaed by the defense.
Jordan-Pollito said it was the first time he had ever been called to
testify in a case.

Questioned on the stand about his background, the 33-year-old
informant said that when he was 20, he became a police officer in the
Mexican state of Colima and was assigned to a detail investigating the
chief of police there. After a threat against his life, Jordan-Pollito
said, he fled to the United States, settling in Santa Ana, where he
worked for a time as a security guard before becoming a DEA informant.

He said he had never told his DEA handlers that he was paying other
parties to set up cases and that the agents had never asked. He also
said he had used Gomez about 10 times, paying him only "if the cases
worked out." But Gomez was by no means the biggest producer in his
network, he added.

The DEA operative said he had earned more than $350,000 from his work
with the agency, a figure confirmed by government officials.

All the payments were in cash.

Jordan-Pollito also acknowledged having received an additional $50,000
as an informant for the FBI; the Secret Service; the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the California Bureau of Narcotic
Enforcement; the L.A. County Sheriff's Department; and the Santa Ana
Police Department. He admitted that until recently, he had not paid
income taxes on any of the money.

In court papers asking Tevrizian to order a new trial, Kaye accused
the prosecution of misconduct by withholding evidence of 52 telephone
calls from Gomez to the key defendant in the case over a three-week
period leading up to the arrests. The defense lawyer also quoted
sections of Cooper's ruling criticizing the government's conduct.

In a reply brief, Assistant U.S. Atty. Beong-Soo Kim said that the
jury had considered and rejected a defense claim of illegal
entrapment, that the telephone records had been explored at length
during the trial and that the "new" evidence offered by the defense
was old hat.