THE WAR ON DRUGS, THE MENDO FRONT

In a San Francisco federal courtroom last Wednesday and Thursday, Redwood
Valley's John Dalton finally got a hearing to dismiss all charges against
him because of the government's outrageous conduct in its pursuit of the
man they seem to believe is the Northcoast's Mr. Big of the thriving
marijuana business. Federal prosecutors and law enforcement easily met
their reputation for outrageous conduct by behaving with true-to-form
disregard for the rules during the two-day hearing. The attentive and even
handed officiating of US District Court Judge Susan Illston, and the staid
US Marshals who serve as her bailiffs, stood between a cadre of tax-paid
cops and lawyers who seem indifferent to the standards of police behavior
which are supposed to prevail in democratic states.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has charged Dalton with a continuing
conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and has kept him in the federal prison
at Dublin without bail for two years and eight months. But the DEA itself
was on trial last week in the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco. The
government is desperately worried about this case and the desperation
shows. The DEA and federal prosecutors reached way down into their bag of
dirty tricks for even more outrageous conduct including harassment and
intimidation of defense witnesses and courtroom spectators. (They assigned
a DEA agent to follow this reporter outside the federal building. They're
not nearly as slick as they think.)

Additionally, there was a deliberate attempt to misrepresent to the court
the contents of the DEA's own policy and procedures manual; an attempt to
arrest a defense witness on a specially-contrived bench warrant out of
Mendocino County; "lost" potentially exculpatory evidence (a recording of
Victoria Horstman by DEA agent Mark Nelson can't be found); and, most
significant of all, the DEA and its two-man federal legal team didn't even
try to defend the DEA's extra-legal behavior during the investigation which
resulted in John Dalton's arrest and incarceration. Instead they relied on
the completely irrelevant strategy of portraying Dalton as a monster whose
alleged abuse drove his wife into the arms of the DEA.

If the government is successful in convicting John Dalton at trial,
scheduled to start August 16, he faces a 30-year-to-life sentence. Dalton
is 44 years old. But there isn't a single piece of physical evidence
linking him to marijuana cultivation. It's a conspiracy case. The
evidence amassed by the DEA against Dalton consists of the dubious
testimony of snitches, all of them either rewarded in cash for their input
or promised reduced jail sentences for their testimony against the
unassuming, long-time resident of Mendocino County. And there are tape
recordings obtained via the former Mrs. Dalton in ways routine in police
states but not in America.

The official title of last week's hearing was "A Motion to Dismiss for
Outrageous Government Conduct."

* As reported last week, the federal prosecutors got off to a bad start
when they were required to reveal that their primary witness and lead
investigator in the case against John Dalton had committed perjury. DEA
Special Agent Mark Nelson, in an effort to conceal the date on which he
first slept with Dalton's wife, Victoria Horstman, falsified a fingerprint
card of Horstman's. Later, during a DEA internal affairs investigation of
Nelson and Horstman's affair, Nelson signed an affidavit under penalty of
perjury swearing to the bogus date he'd placed on Horstman's print card.

Agent Nelson was the first witness called by the defense when the hearing
resumed Wednesday. He was accompanied to the witness stand by his
non-government lawyer, George Niespolo. Mark Nelson is a tall, thin,
balding 36-year-old guy whose appearance is completely at odds with his
role in this case as the irresistible seducer of married women. He looks
more like a shoe salesman than an elite drug warrior. He has an extremely
high forehead that leaves little room for the rest of his nondescript
features which occupy the bottom third of his head. While Nelson's
appearance has nothing to do with the trial, most of the courtroom first
thought lawyer Niespolo, a stout, ruggedly handsome man, was the drug cop
and Nelson was the attorney. Nelson's agent-partner, Robert Price, who sat
at the prosecution table throughout the hearing when he wasn't menacing
witnesses out in the hall with a lot of ersatz tough guy eyeballing, looked
every bit the drug warrior he is. Tall, angular and crewcut clean, Price
was so stiff and straight his spine seems to have been surgically replaced
with a broomstick.

Defense attorney Tony Serra told the court that at the time in question in
1994 agent Nelson was 32 years old and had been with the DEA for nine years
representing his entire law enforcement experience. Serra brought out that
it was only the third or fourth time Nelson had supervised and been lead
investigator on a case; that he was married with two children and at the
time of meeting Mrs. Dalton (Victoria Horstman); and that his wife was
pregnant with their third child at the time of his encounters with Mrs.
Dalton.

Nelson testified that he became involved with the John Dalton investigation
in 1992, and that in February of 1994 he and another agent, believed to be
Rob Price, rented a three-bedroom house in Redwood Valley on M Road from a
Ukiah real estate broker. The rented premises were to be used as a "safe
house" for DEA agents. INS agents also stayed at the safe house from time
to time, according to Nelson. Agent Nelson said he only brought Horstman to
the safe house, also known as the COMMET house, on one occasion in
September of 1994. He admitted the visit of a civilian was "absolutely"
against DEA rules, that he initiated the contact with Horstman and picked
her up and brought her to the house when he knew no one else would be
there, and that he did not include any of this information in his reports.
"It was highly inappropriate for a DEA agent," was Nelson's contrite but
incomplete account of Mrs. Dalton's and his first tryst in the tax-funded
love nest. "How many times did you have personal contact with Victoria
Horstman prior to September 13, 1994," demanded Serra, "when it was just
the two of you alone?"

Nelson: "I think four."

Serra: "Did you advise your supervisor in advance that you planned a
private meeting with an informant?'

Nelson: "Probably not."

Serra: "Aren't you required to seek approval in advance from your
supervisors to meet privately with an informant?"

Nelson: "Yes." Serra: "And these were not exigent circumstances? There was
no emergency that you had to meet privately with Horstman?"

(Nelson doesn't answer.)

Serra: "You concede you broke the rules?"

Nelson: "Yes."

Serra: "Why one-on-one meetings?"

Nelson: "I don't know how to answer."

"Why?" demanded Serra, which brought an objection from the prosecutors.

The answer to that question came the next day near the end of the hearing
when Dalton's prosecutors attempted to introduce a page from the DEA's
manual. The single page from the DEA's top secret sleuth manual the
prosecution wished to put in evidence concerned a number of rules about
agents meeting with informants but the entire page had been blacked out
except for one line, which suggested agents "whenever practical" were not
to meet alone with informants.

Tony Serra argued strenuously against allowing the censored document' s
admission as evidence, arguing that he believed the "redacted" (lawyer talk
for omitted or blacked out) portions of the document contained the relevant
rules that agents were to never meet alone with an informant without first
getting permission from their supervisors, and even then one-on-one
meetings could only take place under emergency circumstances. The
government argued the DEA's rules were secret, and if they were produced in
open court, the public, and presumably the "bad guys," would gain an
advantage over the drug warriors.

Judge Illston quickly concluded that allowing only one line of an entire
page of regulations into evidence was "self serving," and ordered the
government to produce the entire chapter on agent/informant interactions.

Agent Price relayed through the US Attorney that permission would have to
be granted at the highest levels of the DEA in Washington De, and that the
judge could not expect an answer for five to seven days. Judge Illston was
steadfast, and ordered the DEA to produce the documents.

But by the close of the hearing, Tony Serra had secured the entire DEA
manual through his own sources, and his characterization that the DEA's own
rules state no agent is to meet privately with an informant without prior
approval means what it says. Only in a dire emergency, as when an
informant's life is in danger, does the agency permit a one-on-one meeting
with an informant and even then the agent is required to ask permission.

Serra found 15 times where Nelson had documented private meetings with
Horstman, none of them under "exigent" circumstances.

Agent Nelson denied a sexual relationship with Horstman as his reason for
breaking the DEA's rules and bringing the comely housewife to the so-called
safe house.

Tony Serra, a master of cross examination, fired questions at the outgunned
adulterer with his trademark machine-gun speed and intensity. There were
four main areas Serra covered, three of which -- the events at the "safe
house" with John Dalton's wife, the bugging of Dalton and Horstman's
bedroom, and Nelson's involvement in Dalton and Horstman's subsequent
divorce represented the basics of the government's undeniably outrageous
conduct in the pursuit of Dalton. Serra got Nelson to admit to the
incriminating facts of his lust-driven behavior while he was supposed to be
on the job.

Nelson and the DEA went to great lengths to hide the fact that Victoria
Horstman was cooperating with them against her husband. In internal DEA
reports, Horstman is referred to as an SOI (source of information), or by
the special agent number assigned to her, SR 0054. But by the time Nelson
got a search and seizure warrant for Dalton, Horstman was balking at
further cooperation and wanted to reconcile with her husband. In the
search warrant, a public document once it is served, agent Nelson refers to
Horstman by name, exposing her to potential retribution. In tens of
thousands of court cases, the feds have fought tooth and nail against
giving up their informants' identities, and the courts have just as often
said they didn't have to name names. This court-sanctioned secrecy has
often resulted in convictions where the defendant was unable to confront
his accuser. A Marshal commented that he was "disgusted and shocked" by
agent Nelson's testimony that the DEA, apparently having concluded that the
unhinged Horstman was more trouble than she was worth to them as they
chased her husband, blithely revealed her identity.

Asked if he gave up Horstman's identity so he could better control her,
Nelson said "no." He said his "boss, the Assistant US Attorney" told him to
do it, but after some meaningful stares from the prosecution table that it
was unwise of him to blame it on the government lawyer, Nelson backed off
and took responsibility for naming Horstman.

(It was at this point I noticed that Nelson no longer wears a wedding ting,
a ring Horstman made much of in her statements to investigators. It is also
when I became aware of DEA agent Rob Price's repeated trips from the
prosecution table to the hallway where defense witnesses were waiting to
testify. Later these witnesses would tell me that Price would come out to
demand they stop talking or to stop pacing the hall. Price would tell them
they were disturbing the judge. But Judge Illston never once commented on
any distraction, or even so much as cast a frowning glance at the courtroom
doors, and I never heard any noise from outside the courtroom. Neither did
the US Marshals who serve as the judge's bailiffs show any concern. The
DEA's Price kept up his petty (and failed) attempts to intimidate witnesses
testifying against the DEA throughout the two-day hearing.)

[sidebar]

A Summary Of Nelson's Testimony

He had never taken Horstman up in a helicopter, and that to his knowledge
neither had anyone else.

He paid Horstman a total of $4,800 for her cooperation, plus "tickets and
things."

He denied threatening Horstman with the loss of her children if she didn't
inform on her husband. He both admitted and denied threatening her with
prosecution for money laundering if she didn't become a snitch.

He admitted talking to Horstman about a reward payment for her continuing
cooperation, but denied the amount discussed was 10% of assets seized from
Dalton. (The DEA seized just under $1 million of Dalton's accumulated
property. Dalton is a skilled mechanic whose services are much in demand.)

He admitted agreeing to talk to the US Attorney about getting a Mustang car
seized from Dalton for Horstman.

He denied he's in a position to recommend any reward payment. (In a written
report, Nelson recommends a "substantial reward payment" to Horstman.)

He admits kissing Horstman at the "safe house" in September of 1994, but
won't admit that it was on September 14th 1994 he first stepped over the
line with Mrs. Dalton and the date he subsequently falsified in his report.
He says he kissed her first, then modifies that to say the kiss was
"mutual." Asked why he kissed her, Nelson replied, "I felt some attachment.
I felt sorry for her and I'd grown to like her. There was an emotional
attachment, and I was curious." Tony Serra shot back, "Curious to know what
it felt like to kiss another man's wife?" -- objection sustained.

He admitted he hadn't had sex in three months because of his wife's
pregnancy. "You were horny?" Serra bluntly inquired to an immediate
sustained objection from the feds. Asked if the emotional attachment was
sexual, Nelson replied, "A little bit of that."

He said he and Horstman each had one beer, but that she only drank a little
bit of hers, "maybe a quarter," and that he finished off "the other 3/4 of
her beer" as well as his. He said he was somewhat under the influence of
alcohol because he hadn't slept or eaten in the past 36 hours. He denied
knowing Horstman was an alcoholic.

He denied fondling Horstman or touching her in any inappropriate way.

He denied ever kissing Horstman on any other occasion, "Except maybe just a
peck, you know, just to say thanks".

He admits flying Horstman from Washington State to San Francisco, then
driving her from there to Santa Rosa to see a divorce lawyer. He denies
coercing Horstman to divorce Dalton. But when Serra's questions turned to
fingerprinting Horstman, nominally Nelson's reason for bringing her alone
to the "safe house" that star-crossed night of September 14, 1994, Nelson
took the 5th. Nelson proceeded to invoke his right against
self-incrimination a total of five times, and implied it another when he
simply refused to answer Serra's question.

The prosecution consisted of two Assistant US Attorneys, Lewis Davis, who
seemed like he might be a human being stuck with a nasty job, and Christine
Massullo, a person who obviously enjoys her work Ms. Massullo is smart,
quick-witted, and if she has any scruples against going for the kill, they
weren't on display.

When it came time for the fed's lawyers to get tough, it was Massullo all
the way. At times, especially during the breaks, Davis tried to distance
himself from his fierce colleague. He'd joke with the defense team while
Massullo huddled with Robo Rob Price plotting the next dirty trick.

On cross examination, the feds elicited the fact that former Mendocino
Sheriff Sgt. Ron Caudillo introduced the DEA's stumbling agent Nelson to
Mrs. Dalton nee Horstman, and that Horstman told Nelson she had been
physically abused by John Dalton. The prosecution also managed to posit Ms.
Horstman as an innocent girl gone awry because of Dalton's beastly
treatment of her. Tony Serra instantly dismantled the government's
presentation of Ms. Horstman as a chaste and loyal suburban housewife by
reading the transcript of a brief but explicit phone message left by
Horstman at the COMMET headquarters in Ukiah: "This is Victoria Horstman
and Mark Nelson can go free. And Rob Clark (believed to be Rob Price's
alias)- I want to suck his dick."

Serra followed his literary introduction of the former Mrs. Dalton by
calling her to the stand.

Horstman's testimony was rambling and confused, and obviously contrived and
obstructionist when it wasn't rambling and confused. She couldn't recall
when she married Dalton or when she divorced him, other than it was
"sometime in the '90s." She said she's had a lot of different therapists,
but she couldn't recall a single name. She doesn't remember when she first
met Nelson, when she started informing on her husband, what drugs she had
taken that mourning (Traxene and Zoloft). But, she remembers exactly why
her memory is so bad, and never missed an opportunity to expound on it,
even when it had nothing to do with the question asked. According to
Horstman, she can't recall the 90s because "they were the Dalton years."

"It was because I was tortured at that time," Horstman testified,
suggesting the trauma of her marriage had resulted in the memory loss of
most of the decade. Asked anything connected with her life with John
Dalton-or not- and Horstman would sob that she couldn't remember. "It's
the trauma." But when she was asked about agent Nelson's avuncular kiss at
the "safe house," Horstman's recollection was vivid and detailed. (Before
court got started that day, prosecution attorney Lewis Davis assessed his
own witness, Ms. Horstman, for the Judge. "Victoria Horstman is a liar."
Which leaves the prosecution with two liars as their primary witnesses, DEA
Special Agent Mark Nelson and the woman he took to the Redwood Valley safe
house for an on-the-job boff on the pretext she was an informant.)

Horstman said it was she who initiated the visit to the "safe house"; she
who initiated the kiss; she who initiated an ensuing tongue-lunge; and that
she put Nelson's leg ("It was a pressure point") between hers on her
crotch. "I initiated that," Horstman said of the footsies. "We were
partially lying side by side on the couch."

Horstman used the word "initiated" so often in regards to her tryst with
Nelson it left the distinct impression she was either well-coached or
Nelson was so overcome by the encounter he'd been immobilized.

All the sexual prelims, other than the conceded kiss, contradicts Nelson's
testimony. At one point, not in response to a question but apparently to
explain the remarkable detail of her memory of the "kiss," Horstman blurted
out, "I'm very observant." "I needed to be near Mark because he was my
security," explained Horstman. (In a January interview she said she was
still in love with Nelson.) But to the DEA internal affairs investigators,
Horstman denied ever kissing Nelson until Nelson himself admitted the kiss.
Asked to explain her contradictory versions of events, Horstman said, "They
(internal affairs) forgot to put it in their laptop."

Asked if she drank all of the beer Nelson gave her at the "safe house,"
Horstman replied, "Yes. That's what alcoholics do," again contradicting
Nelson's testimony that his love interest has left the beer after a
lady-like sip. Horstman had written two letters to the DEA that prompted
the internal affairs investigation. In her communiquE9s, Horstman says
Mark Nelson grabbed her, pulled her down on the couch and kissed her,
forcing his leg into her crotch, and that Nelson had told her, "Don't say
anything; it's our tittle secret." Horstman says she doesn't remember
writing that, then explained it was John Dalton who forced her to write the
letter and she'd composed it "so he wouldn't beat me." She says Dalton
stood over her at their home computer and dictated the letters to the DEA,
"They're Dalton's words, not mine," his former wife told the court. But
when Serra presented her with her declaration, written by his investigator,
H. B. O'Keady, and signed by Horstman, which relates eventually the same
information as her letters to the DEA, Horstman stated, "I didn't read it.
I just assumed he wrote it the way I said it. I thought he taped it," she
said of O'Keady's affidavit she'd affixed her signature to. Horstman
admitted it was her signature, but insisted she never read it before
signing. "It's all one sided," she added irrelevantly.

Throughout her time on the stand, when confronted with words she had
written or declarations she'd signed, Horstman insisted either her husband
had forced her to write them, or that the investigators had deliberately
misconstrued what she had said or that she did not read her statements
before signing. Horstman also claimed when she was cross examined by Serra,
that three masked gunmen, one whose voice she recognized as that of her
husband, had broken into her bedroom and threatened to dismember her and
her family. Horstman broke down at that point, sobbing uncontrollably, and
forced a recess.

[continued in part 2]