EX-DRUG AGENT CONVICTED IN TAX CASE

LOS ANGELES - Twelve days of deliberations in the case of a
former drug agent accused of stealing 650 pounds of cocaine ended in a
mistrial on the four most serious charges.

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz declared a mistrial Friday on four
charges that included burglary and possession of drugs with intent to
sell after the jury deadlocked. Prosecutors did not immediately decide
whether they would retry Richard Wayne Parker, 44, on those charges.

Parker was found guilty of just one of the eight charges against him:
tax evasion. Jurors acquitted him of two drug charges and a money
laundering charge.

He will remain in custody until July 6, when he is scheduled to appear
for a hearing, said prosecutors' spokesman Thom Mrozek. Sentencing on
the tax evasion conviction was not immediately set.

The deliberations included a flare-up in which some jurors had to be
restrained from fighting one another.

Parker was accused of stealing the cocaine from the state Bureau of
Narcotics Enforcement's Riverside office in 1997. Prosecutors said he
sold the cocaine through several "conduits."

Prosecutors also said officers who arrested Parker at his San Juan
Capistrano home found $600,000 in cash in some of the eight vehicles
he had recently bought.

Parker's attorney, Richard Hamar, argued during the trial that drug
informants were trying to frame Parker, who was a state agent for 10
years.