TOP DEA INFORMANT'S LIES

Jeopardize More Drug Cases

ST. LOUIS -- In 16 years on the street, working in cities across the
country as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Andrew
Chambers put up some big numbers.

Seized: 1.5 tons of cocaine and $6 million in assets. Arrested and
convicted: 445 drug dealers and other criminals. Earned: at least $2.2
million in rewards and other compensation.

But Chambers' detractors can point to some big numbers of their own: He has
been arrested at least 16 times, and lied on the witness stand about those
arrests -- as well as about his educational background and whether he had
paid taxes on his DEA earnings.

Because of those lies, prosecutors have dropped charges against 15 alleged
drug dealers around the country, and at least 12 others who were convicted
in part on Chambers' testimony are demanding release.

Those numbers could grow. The DEA is going through transcripts of every
trial Chambers has testified at, looking for lies.

"It's information that we think we have an ethical responsibility, if not a
legal responsibility, to be able to provide to prosecutors who still have
pending cases," said DEA spokesman Terry Parham. "This information, on top
of that, needs to be turned over to the defense."

The DEA insists Chambers never lied about the drug deals he busted up. But
Dean Steward, the former federal public defender who is generally credited
with bringing Chambers' lying to light, questioned that.

"When you got a guy that would lie about just about everything else, why do
you think he would tell the truth about what led up to the deal?" Steward
said. "That's just common sense."

In any case, Chambers' lies deprived defense attorneys of information they
were legally entitled to have to try to undermine his credibility in front
of the jury.

The DEA considers Chambers, 43, the most valuable undercover informant in
its history. But he was dropped in February, and his actions are forcing
the agency to take another look at how it uses informants in the war on drugs.

The DEA has determined that Chambers started lying in 1985, one year after
he began work as an informant. The agency also determined that DEA agents
knew he was lying in 1985 but continued to use him without telling
prosecutors and defense attorneys about the problem.

According to Parham, Chambers was embarrassed to admit he had been
convicted of soliciting a prostitute, and arrested on suspicion of assault,
forgery, writing bad checks and impersonating a federal agent.

Chambers also had testified that he had paid his income taxes; it turns out
he didn't pay taxes on $100,000 the DEA had paid him over six years. He had
also testified that he studied criminal justice at Iowa Western Community
College; the school has no record of his attending.

The high school dropout from suburban St. Louis got his start with the DEA
by walking into the St. Louis field office seeking to join up as an agent.
Without a four-year college degree, Chambers wasn't eligible. But the DEA
signed him up as an informant.