A CALCULATED RISK THAT PROVED TOO COSTLY

Michael Robinson was a time bomb about to explode. Unfortunately,
detectives handling the 37-year-old convicted pedophile-turned-federal
informant didn't hear the ticking.

It was late in the summer of 1995 and Robinson, a bartender at an East
Central nightclub, had been feeding officers information in their
investigation into a series of murders committed by leaders of a
marijuana trafficking syndicate.

But as the state and federal investigation came to a close, Robinson
began to unravel.

He kidnapped two 10-year-old boys, one in the Southeast Heights and
one in Tijeras. He took the terrified youngsters to a secluded spot in
the East Mountains where he sexually assaulted them.

Robinson was arrested and sent to prison for his crimes, but fallout
from the episode continues to this day.

State and federal agencies have settled lawsuits by paying an
estimated $300,000 to the family of one of the molested boys, and
there has been bitter finger-pointing at the detectives and
prosecutors who ran the investigation.

The fallout has intruded into former U.S. Attorney John Kelly's
campaign for Congress. The Robinson case was the subject of an attack
mailing by one of Kelly's opponents on the eve of the Democratic
primary election, which Kelly won.

Paul Kennedy, an Albuquerque attorney who represented one of the boys
in the lawsuit — and one of the drug defendants — says Kelly acted
"honorably" in trying to reach an agreement in the civil lawsuit.

But Kennedy is scathing in his criticism of the decision by a federal
task force that included local sheriff's officers to use a convicted
sex offender as an informant.

"Once they find out about the three child rapes they shouldn't use him
as an active informant," Kennedy said. "It's just too dangerous. He is
their agent, their responsibility.

"In the end, it isn't worth two little boys being raped for a case
that involves moderate amounts of marijuana and drug dealers killing
other drug dealers."

Questions remain

In April, the U.S. Attorney's Office signed a confidential agreement
to pay $250,000 to the family of one of Robinson's victims. The state
paid about $50,000 in January to the family of the same victim to
settle another lawsuit.

The family of the second victim didn't file suit.

The lawsuits on behalf of the first victim alleged that detectives
failed to properly supervise Robinson in his role as an informant.

But there are still plenty of questions.

* Should Robinson have been used as an informant given his criminal
record, and was his record adequately researched?

* Did detectives supervise him closely enough once he was made an
informant?

* Did detectives miss important clues that Robinson was going to
sexually assault young boys again?

* Was there an attempt to cover up Robinson's crimes?

Bernalillo County Sheriff's Deputy Jeannie Webb, who helped arrest
Robinson, wrote a recent letter to the Weekly Alibi newspaper accusing
Kelly of failing to take responsibility for Robinson's crimes.

And she said in a recent interview with the Journal that "none of
these people have paid the price for what these kids have gone through."

Kelly, who resigned as U.S. Attorney in January to pursue his bid for
Congress, called Robinson's crimes "extraordinarily tragic" and said
that everyone in law enforcement regrets the harm Robinson caused the
two young victims.

He denied that prosecutors were involved in any attempt to cover up
Robinson's crimes and said his office acted properly in all matters
pertaining to Robinson.

"When law enforcement uses a felon as a cooperator, it is always a
balancing act between working with disreputable people and helping a
community solve a very serious crime," he said in an interview with
the Journal.

"The defendants in this case were responsible for several homicides,
and we were concerned that unless apprehended they would kill again."

Kennedy, a prominent Republican, said he didn't fault
Kelly.

"I'm a strong supporter of Heather Wilson," Kennedy said. "But I don't
think you can hang this on John Kelly. He acted honorably in all our
dealings with him."

Kennedy filed a lawsuit accusing sheriff's detectives Gregg Marcantel
and Matt Thomas of negligence. Now-retired Undersheriff Kenneth
McWethy also was named as a defendant.

Thomas and Marcantel were working for a federal narcotics task force
established by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration several years
earlier in which federal agents and local detectives work together
investigating drug cases.

No federal agents or prosecutors were named in the lawsuit, Kennedy
said, because they are almost impossible to sue successfully.

Serving time

Robinson should spend the rest of his life in federal
prison.

He is serving a 39-year sentence for drug trafficking and a sentence
of life plus 18 years without parole for kidnapping and sexually
assaulting the two boys.

On Sept. 12, 1995, Robinson kidnapped a 10-year-old boy at the corner
of Southern and Louisiana SE near Van Buren Middle School at about
5:15 p.m.

The boy told Albuquerque police he was standing near a pay telephone.
He said Robinson approached him and asked him if he was using the
phone. Robinson then grabbed the boy and forced him into a red car.

The boy told police Robinson was armed with two knives and told the
boy to do as he said or he wouldn't see home again. Robinson covered
the boy with a coat.

Robinson drove the car into the East Mountains where he kidnapped a
second 10-year-old boy from near the boy's home on Old Route 66 in
Tijeras.

While backing out, Robinson hit a mailbox denting the passenger
sideview mirror and scratching the side of the car.

Robinson then drove to the area of Brannon Road in the East Mountains,
where he assaulted the two.

Robinson dropped the second boy off in the East Mountains and drove
the first kidnap victim back to Albuquerque to a field near the 600
block of Moon SE. Robinson bound the boy's hands with shoe laces and
his feet with a black pair of handcuffs and then raped him.

He then drove the boy to the corner of Chama and Bell SE and let him
out of the car.

According to court records, the boys said their rapist apologized for
what he was doing to them and told them that he was going to get in
trouble.

The boys gave detailed descriptions of the interior of the car and the
clothes the attacker was wearing. A composite sketch was created and
released publicly.

Three days later, the APD officer who had taken the initial report
from one of the boys spotted a car parked outside an East Central
nightclub that closely matched the description given.

He called the Albuquerque Police Department's sex-crimes detectives,
who called sheriff's detectives.

Robinson, who was working as a bartender, was arrested on the orders
of the APD sergeant on the scene.

Robinson didn't have much to say, except to ask for his attorney and
tell the detectives he was an informant in a federal case.

Robinson's record

While Robinson had been working as an informant for almost six months,
his record of sexually assaulting young boys dated back over two decades.

Robinson had three separate convictions for sexual assaults on young
boys, beginning in 1979 in Socorro when he was a student at New Mexico
Tech.

In 1980, he was convicted of sodomy in Delaware, which sent him back
to New Mexico for violating the terms of his 1979 sentence.

In 1986, he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and second-degree criminal
sexual penetration in Bernalillo County and was sentenced to 10 years
in prison.

He served less than five years and was released in the summer of
1990.

Robinson lived and worked in the Southeast Heights that police used to
refer to as the "War Zone." He successfully completed parole and
didn't come to the attention of police for five years.

Usually, psychological records in state criminal court are sealed, but
Robinson's were available on microfilm.

The psychiatric records show that in 1986 Robinson claimed to have
molested children 200 times. Court records show that in 1986 Robinson
was considered a pedophile who wouldn't respond to treatment.

Kennedy and others say the records show Robinson was a time
bomb.

While the detectives knew what Robinson had been convicted of, they
never checked the court records for more detail. The detectives relied
on computer printouts and other records to document Robinson as an
informant.

Thomas filed the paperwork on Robinson with DEA. He found that
Robinson wasn't under investigation by any other agency, had no
pending charges against him and wasn't being used as an informant by
any other agencies.

Kelly said it would have been an "extraordinarily unusual" step to
check the actual court records.

Thomas said complete background inquiries on Robinson were done and
met all the DEA requirements for documenting an informant.

Chance meeting

How did an untreatable pedophile who had confessed to 200 molestations
come to be on the government payroll as an informant?

Almost by chance.

Marcantel and Thomas were investigating a series of murders involving
a drug trafficking ring when they knocked on Michael Robinson's door
in March 1995.

A girlfriend of one suspect told Marcantel that a man named Michael
Robinson had worked with the suspect and helped the suspect move out
of Albuquerque a few weeks earlier.

The homicide victims were drug couriers who were killed to allow the
marijuana syndicate leaders Richard Haworth and Everett Spivey to
increase profits, according to court records. Haworth and Spivey could
claim the courier never delivered the drugs, and they wouldn't have to
pay for them.

To the surprise of the detectives, Robinson was happy to
talk.

He invited Thomas and Marcantel into his apartment and admitted to
them that he knew Spivey and Haworth.

He volunteered information about his relationship with Spivey and said
he considered him to be his best friend.

Robinson told the detectives that Spivey had told him about one
homicide and how the drug syndicate evolved from relationships many of
the participants had built in the state prison in Los Lunas.

Robinson, Spivey and Haworth had served time together: Spivey for
second-degree murder, Haworth for armed robbery and Robinson for
kidnapping and criminal sexual penetration.

Robinson also told the officer he had transported about 30 pounds of
marijuana for Spivey on two separate occasions and had allowed Spivey
to store marijuana at his apartment.

And he told them Spivey, who was on the run, continued to call him on
the telephone.

Marcantel and Thomas decided Robinson could be useful as an informant
and brought him to federal prosecutors and the Drug Enforcement
Administration Task Force.

At each level, the decision was made to use Robinson to collect
information from Spivey about the homicides and other crimes committed
by the Haworth-Spivey syndicate.

"It wasn't my decision. It wasn't Matt's decision," Marcantel said.
"We were working with a prosecutorial team at the U.S. Attorney's
Office. Decisions weren't made by individual agents."

After Robinson agreed to become a federal informant, he spent the next
several weeks recording conversations with Spivey and others.

"He was our only link to Spivey," Marcantel said.

On tape, Spivey described one of the killings in graphic detail and
admitted to other crimes. He also discussed killings committed by Haworth.

Robinson was paid between $1,500 and $2,000. Most of that was paid
early in the investigation because detectives were spending so much
time with Robinson he was missing work and had trouble paying his rent.

Spivey and Haworth are serving lengthy prison sentences after pleading
guilty to murder and drug charges.

Aware of the risks

Thomas defends the decision to use Robinson as a snitch.

He is convinced Haworth was a serial killer who patiently planned the
death of couriers delivering marijuana to his organization.

And Spivey was Haworth's partner. He was involved in at least one of
the killings and had been convicted of murder in the past.

"The way I looked at it, the man (Robinson) was not on probation. He
was not on parole," Thomas said. "He had served his time in the
corrections system. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that he
had reoffended since his release.

"If we didn't use Michael Robinson, does Spivey or Haworth kill more
people?" Thomas said. "Damned if you do and damned if you don't."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Martinez said everyone involved in
the case was aware there were risks involved in using Robinson, and
steps were taken to minimize those risks.

Plus, they had something hanging over Robinson's head. He agreed to
plead guilty to a drug trafficking conspiracy charge that carried a
possible prison sentence of 10 years to life. The deal would land him
in prison if he failed to follow orders or broke the law.

Martinez said she considered the sentence a good incentive for him not
to commit any crimes.

Kennedy says the authorities didn't watch him closely enough, which
Martinez disputes.

"The only way Michael Robinson could have been under stricter
supervision was to have him in jail, but he wouldn't have been an
informant," Martinez said.

The detectives obtained a court order to trace all calls to and from
Robinson's telephone. Robinson wasn't told about the extra
surveillance, Thomas said, because it was one way to make sure he was
telling them the truth about audio taping all of Spivey's calls.

In July and August, Robinson was often at the U.S. Attorney's Office
to go over transcripts of tape recordings with Spivey and others in
the drug ring.

Marcantel and Thomas kept in daily contact with Robinson, but he
wasn't under 24-hour surveillance or house arrest.

The detectives checked to make sure Robinson was working at the East
Central bar when he claimed he was working. They made sure his car was
parked at his apartment when he said he had a day off.

Martinez and the detectives also pointed out that the crime Robinson
confessed to when Marcantel and Thomas showed up on his doorstep was
distribution of marijuana — nonsexual and nonviolent.

They say they had no indication he would attack young boys again. Some
warning signs

Kennedy maintains the detectives overlooked obvious clues that
Robinson was going to assault young boys.

The two clues Kennedy points out were Robinson's complaints about the
stress he was under and that Robinson was found carrying handcuffs,
which he later used to bind one of his victims.

"Michael Robinson told Gregg Marcantel that he committed these types
of crimes when he was under stress," Kennedy said. "It is a classic
sign that these guys (pedophiles) react to pressure, and as an
informant Robinson is under extraordinary pressure."

But the real tip-off, Kennedy argues, should have been when Thomas and
DEA agents found Robinson carrying handcuffs.

Marcantel said Robinson never told him that he committed the previous
sexual assaults because of stress.

Marcantel said he did try to talk to Robinson about his prior
convictions but Robinson didn't want to talk about it.

Thomas said the detectives tried to reduce the amount of stress
Robinson was under.

"I didn't have any information that indicated he would reoffend. In
fact we did everything we could do to reduce his stress," Thomas said.

"The fact that he hadn't been in trouble for several years gave me a
comfort level that in hindsight maybe I shouldn't have had."

Both detectives agree that finding out Robinson was carrying handcuffs
should have been a tip he might have been planning a crime.

"I wish I had been smarter about the handcuffs," Marcantel
said.

The handcuffs were found on Robinson during a routine search before he
went to a meeting with a member of the drug ring.

Robinson's explanation was that he needed them for his job as a
bartender at a gay nightclub because there was no bouncer.

"He said he needed them for working security at the club," Thomas
said. "That seemed logical to me at the time."

"In hindsight, I don't know what else we could have done at the time,"
he said. "It's not against the law to carry handcuffs."

The detectives said they found no evidence to indicate Robinson
continued to be sexually obsessed with children. Pornography found in
Robinson's possession involved adults.

Neither detective noticed that Robinson was living within two blocks
of a school.