DEA'S STAR DRUG INFORMANT KEY PLAYER IN TAMPA CASE

A new controversy erupted Tuesday over a freelance informant who has
pocketed between $2 million and $4 million setting up drug stings all
over the country for the federal government. And this time it involves
a state drug case in Tampa.

The defendants, lulled by the informant's charming demeanor and
street-smart ways, were arrested in a reverse cocaine sting in
downtown Tampa last summer.

Defense lawyers say they were set up by Andrew Chambers Jr., who was
once described by an attorney in a case elsewhere as ``the mother of
all snitches.''

Prosecutors handling the Tampa case said Tuesday they weren't aware of
Chambers' involvement in the case - even though Chambers' work has
been the subject of a rising tide of criticism in other jurisdictions
- - until they were told about it by defense attorneys.

``Our attorney found out from the defense attorney,'' said Pam Bondi,
spokeswoman for the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office.

But officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said they
found that puzzling. The agency mailed two certified letters to State
Attorney Harry Lee Coe in November, they said. Assistant Special Agent
in Charge Robert Michelotti said the letters instructed Coe's staff to
phone the DEA's chief lawyer to discuss issues surrounding the use of
the confidential informant.

Michelotti declined to make the contents of the letters public, and it
was unclear whether they specifically referred to the Tampa case. But
Michelotti did say that neither letter was addressed to the prosecutor
working the case, Assistant State Attorney Dana Friedlander.

When told Tuesday night of what Michelotti was saying, Bondi said,
``Our office has no record of any letters from DEA.''

Tuesday's dispute over who knew what and when they knew it adds more
fuel to a raging debate over the propriety of using Chambers as a paid
informant and raised new questions about whether the DEA has kept
close enough tabs on him.

Chambers, 42, has worked with the DEA for 14 years and is thought to
be the agency's highest paid informant. He played a key role in a drug
sting now working its way through federal court in Tampa - a case
outlined in a Tribune report Tuesday. Good at what he does, Chambers
has been credited with helping to convict more than 300 people
nationwide, often by setting them up to buy DEA-supplied drugs.

But Chambers comes with serious credibility baggage. Among other
problems, two federal appeals courts have found that he has committed
perjury.

``It's very troubling,'' defense attorney Guillermo Gomez Jr. said
Tuesday. ``When you have a confidential informant such as Andrew
Chambers negotiating reverse stings, the sorts of inducements and the
sort of control law enforcement has over him become very, very
important.''

Gomez represents Gilbert T. Manning, one of two defendants in the
Tampa case. Police accused Manning and Charles Edward Carpenter of
traveling here from East St. Louis, Ill., to purchase 2 kilograms of
cocaine for $35,000 in a reverse sting. They were arrested June 8 and
charged with conspiracy and trafficking in cocaine.

Gomez and Assistant Public Defender John Skye say the deal was set up
by Chambers.

Gomez linked Chambers to the case about two weeks ago after receiving
a copy of a flier containing Chambers' photograph. The flier was
mailed to defense attorneys in several parts of the country by H. Dean
Steward, an assistant federal public defender in California who is
investigating the role Chambers played in an unrelated case.

Court records show that Chambers has been arrested at least seven
times since 1989 on charges ranging from making a false statement on a
credit application to solicitation of a prostitute and impersonating a
law enforcement officer.

Most have been dismissed, but Chambers was convicted and fined $450 in
Denver in 1995 after a female undercover officer accused him of
offering her $20 for sex. When Chambers was arrested, police say, he
told them he was a DEA agent, when in fact he was an informant.

When asked about his arrest history while testifying in subsequent
drug trials, Chambers lied, court records show.

Chambers has also been accused of misrepresenting his education. And
in 1995, he admitted under oath that he has not paid income taxes on
the money he has collected from the DEA.

The DEA continued to use Chambers for undercover work until September,
when, amid growing criticism, it instructed its agents not to use
Chambers without the approval of prosecutors.

Last week, as the criticism continued, the DEA suspended Chambers' use
indefinitely.

Manning and Carpenter are to stand trial March 16. Prosecutors are
evaluating whether they need Chambers to testify, Bondi said. If he
does, defense attorneys say, they will fight it.

``I accept the statement [that prosecutors didn't know] at face
value,'' Skye said, ``but what does that say about the work they did
to investigate their case?''

The Chambers issue comes on the heels of other controversial federal
cases involving reverse stings and informant testimony.

In December, a state trooper testified before a U.S. magistrate in
Tampa that he and his colleagues regularly misled state judges about
their reasons for stopping motorists suspected of carrying drugs.
Several weeks later, in an unrelated case, a state judge recommended
that federal prosecutor Karen Cox receive a public reprimand for
allowing a witness to testify under a bogus name.

``Now we've got the same sort of thing,'' Skye said Tuesday. ``Is this
a matter of the ends justifying the means? Just how deep or how high
does this thing go?''

[ Staff writer Gary Sprott contributed to this report.]