LAWMAKER INTERVENED ON INQUIRY INTO RAPPER AND LABEL, RECORDS SHOW

DEA Official Says Investigation Active As New Song Taunts Agents

HOUSTON - A federal drug investigation of a Houston rap recording label and
its associates was frozen after a prominent California congresswoman
intervened on behalf of the label's founder with top Clinton administration
officials, case investigators say.

This week, the record label Rap-A-Lot plans to release a CD in which one of
its best-selling artists taunts the Drug Enforcement Administration and
talks of killing agency informants. On the CD, rap artist Brad "Scarface"
Jordan, one of several Rap-A-Lot associates arrested in the DEA inquiry,
brags of the "Rap-A-Lot mafia's" ability to derail an investigation and
drug agents' careers.

"Can't be stopped, not even by a badge," one song declares, going on to
curse two DEA agents by name. "There ain't enough [expletive] in the states
to come stop this Rap-A-Lot mafia."

The joint investigation by the DEA and Houston police of the company and
its founder, James A. Prince, was frozen after U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters,
D-Calif., intervened in August 1999 on his behalf with Attorney General
Janet Reno, according to investigators and documents.

Ms. Waters did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

Mr. Prince has never been charged as a result of the investigation and has
said his company has done nothing illegal. He did not respond to interview
requests.

Ms. Waters' letter to Ms. Reno states that Mr. Smith and his associates
feared for their lives because of what they called racist police harassment
and use of excessive force. In a personal appeal to DEA officials, Ms.
Waters cited the fact that the lead agent in the case, Jack Schumacher, had
been previously involved in six fatal police shootings.

Authorities said each of the shootings was justifed. James Nims, one of Mr.
Schumacher's supervisors, wrote a memo last September that said that all of
Mr. Prince's complaints were "completely false."

Last spring, Agent Schumacher, a 27-year law enforcement veteran who
directed the case through more than 20 state and federal convictions as
well as cocaine seizures in Oklahoma City, Beaumont and Houston, was
transferred from active investigation to a desk job. Police involved in the
inquiry again blame Washington politics.

"It looks like the DEA and the Justice Department in Washington turned
their backs on a good agent and a good investigation," said Joe Harris, a
retired Harris County narcotics investigator who worked on the case. "It
appears the object was to get them to stop their investigation, and it
appears that worked."

The head of the DEA's Houston division said the investigation is ongoing
and Agent Schumacher was transferred because he was needed elsewhere.

"The investigation has not been stopped," said DEA Agent Ernest L. Howard.

"I'm the agent in charge of the whole division. I'm the guy who would know."

But other Houston drug investigators said that Agent Howard made it clear
to them last September that the case was over.

DEA Administrator Donnie Marshall in Washington said Friday that he never
ordered the case stopped. "Nobody ever put any political pressure on me to
close down this investigation, nor did I put any pressure on Mr. Howard,"
he said. The agency chief added that he did not order Agent Schumacher's
transfer and was told that it was done for the agent's protection.

Agent Schumacher, 48, referred questions about the drug case to his DEA
superiors. Asked about his reassignment, he said he was moved against his
will on March 14 from active enforcement and was told he was being
transferred at the request of DEA officials in Washington. He said he was
never told that anyone feared that he was in personal or civil jeopardy.
"All I was told is that it was a very, very political issue."

Mr. Prince, 35, has long maintained that neither he nor his company has
ever done anything illegal and that he has been unfairly targeted by law
enforcement agents because he is wealthy and black.

'88 cocaine bust

Federal and local interest in Mr. Prince dates back to 1988, when a car
with dealer license plates from a used-car lot he owned in Houston was
stopped near El Paso, records show. Authorities found 76 kilograms of
cocaine in a hidden compartment, and one Houston man was convicted in the
case. His companion, a cousin of Mr. Prince's who carried a card
identifying himself as a salesman for the car lot, was later released. Mr.
Prince later helped the wife of the jailed man set up a bail-bond company,
which is still housed in Rap-A-Lot's office building, records show.

The seizure prompted authorities to open a drug case in Houston just as Mr.
Prince was becoming known for promoting explicit "gangsta" rap. The
investigation slowed after it drew attention in 1993, when Mr. Prince
publicly complained that he had been harassed.

Mr. Prince was arrested twice on minor drug and weapons charges that were
later dropped, and his label subsequently released a 1993 Geto Boys CD that
contained lyrics in which the rappers threaten to shoot local police. Mr.
Prince personally complained on the best-selling album of a DEA
"conspiracy" to target his record label.

The album's hit video "Crooked Officer" was banned by MTV because it
depicted the shooting of a police officer. In 1996, that song and the
group's other raps became a presidential campaign issue when Republican Bob
Dole cited the Geto Boys as an example of declining American mores.

The federal investigation moved slowly until 1998, when the DEA formed a
task force with police. Several Rap-A-Lot employees were soon arrested, as
was a Houston police officer later convicted on federal civil rights
charges for using his patrol car to help a Rap-A-Lot employee try to rob a
drug dealer.

Mr. Prince and his associates began filing new complaints alleging police
brutality and racism. One alleged that Houston police used excessive force
and made racist remarks when stopping a Rap-A-Lot van - an allegation that
officials said was ruled unfounded.

On Aug. 20, 1999, Ms. Waters phoned Ms. Reno and wrote her office to allege
a racist conspiracy against Mr. Prince and his associates by "rogue" agents.

A powerful Democrat who headed the Black Congressional Caucus in 1997 and
1998, Ms. Waters wrote that Mr. Prince had contacted her because of her
aggressive criticism of racial profiling and her work "surrounding the
intelligence community."

Ms. Waters gained national attention in the mid-'90s with her accusations
that the CIA had helped launch the U.S. crack cocaine epidemic.

The letter stated"Simply put, Mr. Prince believes strongly that the
Department of Justice must intercede into the questionable practices of DEA
and provide him with the necessary protection to ensure that his life and
livelihood are not subjected to ongoing harassment and intimidation."

In September 1999, the chief of the DEA's Office of Professional
Responsibility agreed to interview Mr. Prince in Ms. Waters' Washington
congressional office, federal officials said. There for the interview were
Mr. Prince's lawyer, the congresswoman and her husband, Sidney Williams.

A former Los Angeles car salesman and professional football player who
served as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas in the mid-'90s, Mr. Williams
graduated from high school and still owns a house in Houston's 5th Ward,
the childhood neighborhood of Mr. Prince and some of his associates. He and
Ms. Waters were married in Houston in 1977.

"It's not unusual to have an attorney present. But having a member of
Congress? A congressional spouse? That's totally unheard of," said one
federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "In DEA, we normally
never have direct contact with Congress in one of our internal-affairs
investigations or in an active criminal case."

Ms. Waters had a court reporter record the interview, in which she warned
that she would hold the DEA responsible if anything happened to Mr. Prince,
said officials who reviewed meeting transcripts. She specifically
complained about Mr. Schumacher, citing his involvement in the six fatal
shootings - one as a DEA agent and five while he was a Houston police
narcotics investigator.

Drug investigators in Houston said Agent Howard, the Houston DEA chief,
came to their office in mid-September 1999 and announced that the case was
being halted by Washington.

"Mr. Howard even gave us the date and time we were stopping it," said
Houston police Sgt. Bill Stephens, a narcotics investigator who supervised
the seven other local officers on the case. "He made it very clear that he
was serious, and there was no longer any DEA support."

Mr. Nims, the DEA official who supervised Mr. Schumacher and his
colleagues, wrote in a Sept. 27, 1999, memo that Agent Howard had recently
ordered him and his investigators "not to pursue any new leads regarding
[James Prince], Rap-A-Lot, et. al. ... This is unfortunate because there
are still many investigative leads and enforcement operations to carry out."

The supervisor wrote that he could personally refute Mr. Prince's
allegations of brutality and racism because he had been involved in every
enforcement operation.

"It appears that [Mr. Prince] has a pattern of manipulating influential
people when investigators get too close to him," the memo stated. "He would
not be doing this if he did not feel threatened because of our successes."

Mr. Nims referred questions about the case to Agent Howard.

Officials with direct knowledge of the inquiry said there has since been
virtually no new investigative activity.

"There is nobody out on the streets working, doing the normal things that
you would do in an active investigation. We're sitting," said one official
who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Nobody is out beating the bushes, and
there hasn't been for quite a while."

Agent Howard said the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility has
found no evidence of racism or brutality by Agent Schumacher or other
agents on the case. DEA officials in Washington said the internal inquiry
is under routine review and should be completed soon.

Ms. Waters' office has since asked repeatedly for updates on the DEA
internal review, officials said.

Gore visits church

Sgt. Stephens and others in Houston said that Agent Schumacher's transfer
came within three days of Vice President Al Gore's visit to a Houston
church that had been scrutinized during the Rap-A-Lot investigation because
of its high level of financial support from Mr. Prince. The church's pastor
told a local magazine last year that the church had named a chapel for Mr.
Prince because of his donation of $1 million.

Ralph Douglas West, pastor of the Church Without Walls, said that Mr.
Prince is a personal friend whom he believes is being targeted without
cause. He said he and others black residents in Houston suspect that police
are pursuing Mr. Prince because he is prominent, black and generous to his
church and community.

"Most of us know that law enforcement has been eager to disprove his
credibility. ...Each time, they never find anything," he said, adding that
Mr. Prince not only has donated money to the congregation but gave him a
Mercedes in 1995. "Any member, if they make a certain amount of money, has
a right as a tither to give to the church."

A Gore campaign spokesman said the vice president knows nothing of the matter.

Sgt. Stephens said he and other local officers heard from federal
counterparts that DEA officials transferred the agent to ensure that he did
no more work on a case that had already provoked Ms. Waters and could pose
a greater potential political embarrassment.

"The consensus was that it was a political move that was based on Gore's
visiting that church, mostly because of the timing. Nothing had changed
involving Jack. All of a sudden, he's abruptly moved," Sgt. Stephens said.

"The word we got from all of the DEA agents was that the idea to move him
came not from anyone local or from Mr. Howard, but from D.C. - from the top
at DEA."

Federal officials noted that Agent Schumacher's transfer also came as Mr.
Marshall, then the DEA's acting administrator, was awaiting Senate
confirmation hearings that led to his becoming permanent head of the agency.

Agent Howard said he was aware of Mr. Gore's visit and was told immediately
afterward that Mr. Prince was there. But he said the timing of Agent
Schumacher's transfer had nothing to do with politics and was solely his
decision.

"Washington had nothing to do with Jack Schumacher getting transferred,"
Agent Howard said.

Mr. Marshall said that Agent Howard decided to move the agent to avoid the
chance that he might be involved in a confrontation with Mr. Prince or his
associates after Ms. Waters complained about him.

"There were allegations that ... Mr. Prince feared [that the agent] would
set him up in a situation where he could do him physical harm and kill
him," Mr. Marshall said. "If he were to continue with this investigation
and then, God forbid, some situation develop ... it was our fear that he
would be presumed guilty."

He added that he had thought the agent was moved late last fall. "By March,
this thing was really off of my radar screen as any kind of an issue," he
said. "I can tell you we wouldn't transfer anybody based on a political
request."

Investigators say that a once-promising case is now derailed, that they and
their informants are being threatened and that a rap star is publicly
boasting of ruining agents' careers.

Some officers say they are concerned about the treatment of Agent
Schumacher, who had been handpicked by Agent Howard to lead the Rap-A-Lot
inquiry. They said he has won awards for his aggressive work, has taught
police training courses across Texas and served in 1999 as president of the
Texas Narcotics Officer Association.

"This was not a racist investigation. I'm black. Jack is definitely not a
racist," said Mr. Harris. "The only thing he hates is crooks."

Witness threatened

A federal trial of one Rap-A-Lot employee ended in a hung jury in April
after a star prosecution witness had been threatened by a courtroom
spectator while testifying. A juror later complained that another spectator
was trying to write down the juror's car license number, records state. The
Rap-A-Lot employee, described by investigators as a gang enforcer, was
acquitted in a second trial but remains jailed pending a federal appeal and
resolution of state charges.

Rap-A-Lot's newest CD release, from one of the label's best-known recording
artists, names the two DEA agents who led the agency's Rap-A-Lot inquiry
and his partner, adding, "comin' in here, making a ... [expletive] case?
Bitch, I'll ruin your career."

The artist, "Scarface" Jordan - who first gained fame as a member of
Rap-A-Lot's Geto Boys - pleaded guilty in 1999 to misdemeanor marijuana
charges arising from the DEA's inquiry. Songs already available on the
Internet from the new CD, Last of a Dying Breed, contain repeated
references to police trying to get "J" - a nickname for James Prince.
Scarface also declares himself "a Rap-A-Lot mobster," denounces snitches
and threatens bullets for federal agents who invade his turf.

In one song, he complains that he "can't get no peace, 'cause Shumacher's
been chasin' me," and denounces by name the DEA informant whose information
led to his arrest. In that song he also declares that he was framed and
does not sell drugs.

The rap that declares, "We can't be stopped, not even by a badge" ends with
the simulated sounds of a DEA informant's execution.

In another song - which police say reads like a direct threat to those who
have already informed for the DEA in the Rap-A-Lot inquiry and those who
might - the rapper sings that he and his group can reach and kill
informants, even in jail.

"I'm tellin' you dog, that even if you getting relief, how the ...
[expletive] is you gonna live on these streets, if you got that jacket on
your back - you a rat?" Scarface raps in the song "Watch Ya Step." "You
don't spill your guts."