`IT'S LIKE GETTING OUT OF PRISON'

Newport officer tells of fear and loneliness that surrounds an undercover
cop.

By Christopher Goffard

NEWPORT BEACH Sworn to duty secretly in the back of a car in November
1996, a policeman began his career in Newport Beach and for the next year
never set foot in a squad room.

     He lived in a cramped, termiteinfested studio in West Newport and
lurked in bars from Corona del Mar to Mariner's Mile. His companions were
coke heads, bookmakers, and professional kneecapbreakers. Only a handful
of cops even knew he existed.

     Posing as a marijuana grower from Northern California, he was the
undercover agent in a yearlong investigation that led to 14 arrests earlier
this month. Police say the arrests are connected to a massive bookmaking,
extortion and drugtrafficking ring that has operated out of local bayfront
bars and restaurants for years.

     Last Saturday, the 33yearold policeman packed two duffel bags, cut
his hair and left the world he'd infiltrated so adeptly that some drug
dealers considered him their closest friend.

     For the policeman, who does not wish to have his name divulged, the
experience meant terrible loneliness, isolation and risk; in posh Newport,
the glamour of going undercover was as thin as gruel.

     The three other cops working the case Sgt. Rich Long, who
supervised the operation, and Detectives Ron Vallercamp and Steve Koudelka
became his lifeblood, his link to reality. Part of their job was to keep
him from "going native" becoming seduced by the flash of quick money and
an easy lifestyle. As Long put it, "taking a dip in the dark side." "Those
fears are some of the greatest a police manager has when you put somebody
in an undercover capacity," Long said.

     The undercover cop transferred to Newport Beach from a Northern
California Sheriff's Department, and his new assignment was so secret he
couldn't even tell his old bosses why he was leaving. He lied and said his
mom was sick.

     "That hurt me so bad to do that," he said.

     The cop, who is muscular and now wears closecropped hair, at first
had tough going in his new identity. He began lurking in bars and trying to
strike up conversations. People didn't trust him; they suspected he was a
cop. He was big, he had come out of nowhere, and he was alone.

     "One of the most frustrating things is that I was by myself," he said.
"I didn't know anybody in this town." Like a method actor boning up for his
role, the cop read "High Times" magazine and books about marijuana
cultivation. He became a firstrate cannabis conversationalist. He
memorized details about his alternate identity in case he needed them in a
hurry: His new birthstone, for example, was a diamond.

     "I developed a whole other persona," he said. "I became a whole other
person. It's like I didn't exist for a year. ... It's a very, very lonely
assignment." He spent his downtime reading Tom Clancy and John Grisham
novels and lifting weights. He slept with windows closed.

     "I felt fear, believe me," he said. "I was sleeping with one eye open
the whole time. I was always afraid someone was going to kick in the door
of that Crackerjack box and rip me off." The investigation flourished after
he met Michael Kent Hancock, an exNFL player with the Philadelphia Eagles
and a key player in local cocaine trafficking, police said. Hancock came to
trust him even more than people he had known for years, which induced
jealousy among others in the circle, the policeman said.

     There were rare breaks from the narrow, twisted world he inhabited:
Sunday night dinners at Long's house. Mighty Ducks and Angels games with
Koudelka and Vallercamp but even those quickly ended for fear he might
be spotted.

     "It was our job to keep him balanced and grounded because in the past
people have lost cops," Koudelka said.

     For the policeman, the keenest pain came in May, when he got word his
expartner in Northern California had been gunned down in the line of duty.
The policeman wasn't able to salute in uniform as the coffin wheeled past.
He flew up and attended the funeral in street clothes, watched from a
distance, and left quickly.

     He called his partners sobbing. They consoled him in Long's living
room. The next day, it was back to work.

     "We wept together and made a pact that we would charge on," Long said.

     "People have to understand how miserable a life he led," Koudelka
said. "That takes an amazing amount of dedication. If you were to look up
policeman in the dictionary, that's him." Often, Koudelka said, "We don't
know where the hell he's at, or who the hell he's with, or what the hell
he's doing." The policeman, who is meeting many colleagues at the Newport
Beach department for the first time, will now wear a uniform on patrol. He
said he is looking forward to a thing as mundane as writing a parking ticket.

     "It's like getting out of prison," he said.

     Vallercamp said the investigation is continuing.

     "They're scurrying like rats right now," Vallercamp said of the
criminals. "This hurts 'em."