Evidence Casts Doubt on Camarena Case Trials

Drugs: Probe suggests perjury helped convict three in DEA agent's murder.
U.S. lawyer confident of staff integrity.

Twelve years after a U.S. drug agent was kidnapped, tortured and murdered
in Mexico, evidence has emerged that federal prosecutors relied on perjured
testimony and false information, casting a cloud over the convictions of
three men now serving life sentences.

The evidence suggests that the U.S. government, in its zeal to solve the
heinous killing of Enrique Camarena, induced corrupt former Mexican police
to implicate top officials there in a conspiracy to plan his kidnapping.

Their statements not only were critical to winning convictions against the
three, including the brotherinlaw of a former president, they also have
tarnished the reputations of Mexican political figures and strained
relations between the two countries.

Attorneys for one of the implicated officials developed new information
that prompted The Times to undertake its own examination of the Camarena
case four months ago. Results of that inquiry raise questions about the
integrity of the Drug Enforcement Administration investigation and
prosecutions in Los Angeles:

* A star prosecution witness says he perjured himself after U.S. law
enforcement officials coached him into falsely accusing the three
defendants and Mexican officials of plotting the kidnapping.

* Portions of the testimony by key witnesses appear false. For example, two
witnesses said the kidnapping was plotted in a Guadalajara hotel suite, but
a recent visit to the hotel indicates no such suite exists.

* Key informants received more financial and legal help than the jury was
told about. Some informants were provided final lumpsum payments of
thousands of dollars after the trial had ended. And records show that a DEA
agent helped another witness escape prosecution on felony charges of
spousal abuse.

* The DEA operative who helped investigate Camarena's murder and bring
witnesses to this country says some members of the prosecution team were so
eager to build their case that they ignored warnings that certain witness
statements were suspect.

John Gavin, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who oversaw the early
Camarena investigation, has come to believe that witnesses falsely
implicated an ally of his in the drug wars, who held a top government post.

"My record in the war against illegal drugs and the corruption they
engender is known," Gavin said. "In this instance, however, I am saddened
and embarrassed to note that it is officials within the U.S. Justice
Department who are dead wrong. It is another example of how drugs corrupt
on both sides of the border."

Based on the allegations, the DEA recently launched an internal
investigation into the Camarena probe, which was officially closed in 1995.
Deputy Director James Milford said the agency could not comment about any
aspect of the case until the review is completed.

Officials at the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles said that whatever
new evidence has developed will be thoroughly reviewed.

Chief Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard E. Drooyan said his office is
constrained from discussing details of the case because they are likely to
become issues in court.

Expressing "great confidence" in the "integrity and judgment" of the trial
prosecutors, he said they would never knowingly encourage perjury and would
have taken steps to ensure that all testimony was truthful.

Attorneys for the convicted men said they are preparing to seek retrials
based on the new evidence.

The revelations mark the latest chapter in one of the most farreaching
murder investigations in U.S. history.

From the start, it has provoked strong emotions, both for agents who wanted
justice for a slain colleague and for Mexican officials who felt the
integrity of their government was under attack.

At issue now is testimony that "Kiki" Camarena's abduction was planned at
meetings attended by drug traffickers, corrupt police and highranking
Mexican officials.

Among the alleged conspirators was former Government Minister Manuel
Bartlett Diaz, who held a post second only to the president.

He and other officials also allegedly were present when Camarena was
tortured in a drug lord's home.

At the exambassador's urging, Bartlett hired former U.S. Justice
Department attorney Michael Lightfoot, who has worked for three years to
clear his client's name.

"This is a matter of honor," said Bartlett, now governor of Puebla state.
"There is no truth to these allegations. They are scandalous. They are
absurd."

When the star witness came forward this summer and alleged that U.S.
authorities encouraged him to lie, Lightfoot arranged a polygraph
examination, which reports say the witness passed.

To further test his credibility, the attorney set up a meeting between the
witness and Terrence Burke, a 20year DEA veteran who briefly headed the
agency during the Camarena case.

"Based on my interview with him and my attempt to identify what his motive
was, I concluded that these allegations are extremely serious, and they
appear to be credible," Burke said. "They require a thorough investigation."

The Feb. 7, 1985, abduction of Camarena stirred intense passion among U.S.
officials. The 37yearold agent was walking to his car near the U.S.
Consulate in Guadalajara when men grabbed him in broad daylight.

Then, testimony showed, he was driven to a drug lord's home, where he was
interrogated about DEA activities, tortured with burning cigarettes and
beaten to death.

The outrage was heightened because the DEA concluded that Mexican police
were withholding evidence and actively helping the traffickers who killed
Camarena.

Such concerns caused the U.S. to embark on its own investigation.

Mexico eventually convicted more than two dozen people, including drug
lords Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, who now are
serving 40year sentences.

Three U.S. trials between 1988 and 1992 resulted in convictions of six men
in connection with Camarena's death.

Although Bartlett has not been charged, his attorney has been urging the
government to clear him based on the new information.

The Times independently reexamined that evidence and developed additional
information as well. Dozens of interviews were conducted in Mexico and the
United States, and more than 30,000 pages of internal DEA reports, court
records and other documents were studied.

The reexamination demonstrated the difficulty in establishing who is
telling the truth.

But what emerged is the story of a complex case built largely on the word
of several paid informants with unsavory backgrounds, questionable
credibility and much to gain from cooperating.

The DEA Operative

DEA agents had long suspected that Camarena's kidnapping involved top
officials of the Mexican government. But, records and interviews show,
evidence of a broad conspiracy did not develop until after the first U.S.
trial when Antonio Garate Bustamante joined the 10member DEA team assigned
to the case in Los Angeles.

Garate, 61, a former Mexican police commander with ties to drug cartel
members, said he knew people who were privy to what had happened to
Camarena. Soon the investigation focused on prominent Mexicans, including
Bartlett and Ruben Zuno Arce, the brotherinlaw of Luis Echeverria, who
was president of Mexico in the early 1970s.

Bartlett oversaw an agency that employed several corrupt police officers
implicated in the Camarena case. And Zuno, a wealthy businessman and
rancher, once owned the house where the DEA agent was tortured.

Garate said he had his own reasons to distrust both men: He believed that
Bartlett was behind the murder of a journalist and that Zuno was behind the
slaying of two police officers years earlier.

And he said he once saw the drug lord Caro Quinteroa diamondstudded
pistol on his hipdismount a dancing horse and embrace Zuno during a party.

While Zuno was in the U.S. on business in August 1986, DEA agents
surrounded him, told him he was needed as a grand jury witness and whisked
him to Los Angeles.

Zuno was asked the question that would deepen his troubles: Did he know
Caro Quintero?

"I don't think that I ever met him," he responded.

Zuno would be indicted for perjury after a man known as Lawrence Victor
Harrison told the grand jury that he too had seen the drug lord dismount
the horse and hug Zuno.

There were reasons to question Harrison's reliability: The mysterious
6foot8 DEA informant had used several names and birth dates. By his own
account, he also practiced law without a license for several years before
developing radio communications systems, first for Garate and then for drug
lords.

After Zuno was released on bail, he went home to Mexico.

Then, as he returned to the U.S. for trial three months later, the
businessman was arrested again. This time, the charge was murder.

The Star Witness

A crucial new informant had come to the DEA.

He was Hector Cervantes Santos, who worked for one of the drug barons as a
sort of butlerwithbullets. It was his job to guard the house, admit
visitors and make sure a pet lion got fed.

In 1989, Cervantes contacted Garate, his former boss on the state police
riot squad, and agreed to cooperate with the Camarena probe.

Soon he became the key witness against Zuno and two other men. His
testimony depicted Zuno as a Guadalajara drug cartel member who conspired
with drug lords to kill Camarena and later was notified by telephone that
the DEA agent was dead.

To attack the witness' credibility, defense attorneys produced phone
company statements that there was no service in the neighborhood where the
call allegedly was made.

But the jury was not persuaded. Zuno and two other defendants were
convicted of conspiracy based on Cervantes' testimony.

One was Juan Bernabe Ramirez, a bodyguard for a drug trafficker. Bernabe
was sentenced to life after Cervantes placed him at one planning meeting;
he received two 10year concurrent sentences based on other testimony.

Also sentenced to life was Honduran drug kingpin Juan Ramon Matta
Ballesteros, who also received life for a separate drug conviction.
Cervantes quoted him as saying during a planning meeting: "A closed mouth
catches no flies."

In addition, the prosecution alleged that hair consistent with Matta's was
found at the Camarena murder scene and that agents saw him leave
Guadalajara a few days after the killing.

Cervantes' explosive allegations went beyond the defendants, implicating
the heads of the Mexico City Police Department, Interpol and the country's
antidrug agency, as well as the police commander initially responsible for
solving Camarena's murder.

Although he stopped short of naming Bartlett as a conspirator, the witness
quoted another Mexican official as saying DEA operations were "causing
trouble for Bartlett Diaza stop should be put to the trouble."

While the drug dealers began serving life terms, the judge threw out Zuno's
conviction, ruling that Assistant U.S. Atty. Manuel Medrano had
mischaracterized evidence against him during closing arguments.

An Accuser Recants

In a startling twist, the DEA informant came forward this June to charge
that his testimony was a lie devised by the prosecution.

Medrano and the chief investigator wanted him to implicate Zuno and
Bartlett in a conspiracy with drug dealers, he said in interviews with The
Times and in a sworn declaration for Bartlett's attorney.

Cervantes, 37, said he told investigator Hector Berrellez "that I had never
seen either Zuno or Bartlett in person in my life." "Berrellez repeated
that I had to have seen them, but I just didn't remember. They told me that
they would give me a few days so that I could remember."

Cervantes said that the investigator and prosecutor wrote a script for him
to follow at trial and that Medrano jokingly told him to sleep with a
photograph of Zuno under his pillow "so that I would not forget his face."

In interviews with The Times, Cervantes said he also had falsely implicated
Zuno's codefendants, Matta and Bernabe, at the instructions of the U.S.
government.

Medrano, now a television reporter, said last week that what Cervantes
described never happened: "The allegation is absolutely false." The
investigation, he said, "was conducted in an ethical and professional
manner. I am absolutely fully confident of that. If [the allegation] is a
subject of any motion, I am confident a judge will find the allegation
incredible."

Berrellez, who is now retired, said through a DEA spokesman that he did not
wish to comment.

Cervantes also said he lied when he testified that he was receiving only
$3,000 a month, plus expenses, from the government.

As a reward for his cooperation, Cervantes said, he and his family actually
were paid more than $500,000 over six years.

In addition to $6,000 monthly payments, he said the government promised
$200,000 upon completion of the trial. But he said Medrano told him not to
reveal that unusual arrangement if asked by defense attorneys.

One reason he recently came forward, Cervantes said, is that he received
only half of his final payment.

Medrano denied promising Cervantes in advance that he would get a final
payment or telling him to withhold any details of his government
remuneration from the jury.

Medrano's cocounsel, Assistant U.S. Atty. John Carlton, said witnesses
were promised monthly payments for an indefinite period and received lump
sums in 1995 when the monthly support ended. But he said he is not aware of
any witnesses who were promised the final payments in advance.

Not everything Cervantes says squares with the defense case. Cervantes now
denies knowing a defense witness who had testified at trial that they used
to deal drugs together.

To test Cervantes' recantation, defense attorneys had him take a polygraph
test administered by Edward Gelb, a former Los Angeles Police Department
lieutenant who has taught an FBI polygraph course.

Gelb asked whether Cervantes had seen Zuno with drug dealers, whether he
had seen Bartlett with drug dealers, and whether the prosecutor and
investigator encouraged him to falsely implicate the two men. He concluded
that Cervantes showed no deception in his answers.

Chances are remote, Gelb said, that Cervantes could have beaten the test
three times. "I am as confident as the scores indicate," he said.

Former DEA chief Burke, who spent hours talking to Cervantes, said the
recantation is troublesome whether he is telling the truth now or not. It
raises questions, he said, about whether the prosecution should have relied
so heavily upon him.

New Trial, New Witness

Three new witnesses had surfaced by the time Zuno was retried in December
1992. Like Cervantes, they were former Mexican policemen who had worked as
bodyguards for drug lords before becoming paid DEA informants.

But they implicated even more government officials as well as a Guadalajara
gynecologist who was arrested after Garate directed a DEAfunded team to
abduct him and bring him to the U.S.

When Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain and Zuno went on trial together, the
government did not call Cervantes or another informant.

But one who did testify was Rene Lopez Romero. He was wanted by Mexico,
court records show, and had admitted helping kidnap Camarena and being
present during his torture. He also had admitted being present when four
Jehovah's Witnesses, who made the mistake of knocking on a drug lord's
door, were tortured and shot to death.

It is unclear how and why Lopez became a witness rather than a defendant.
The chief investigator, DEA agent Berrellez, had once assured grand jurors
he took steps to ensure that witnesses had not themselves been involved in
Camarena's abduction.

Berrellez later helped arrange Lopez's immunity in all five murders, plus
tens of thousands of dollars in government support.

Records show that the agent also came to his assistance when Lopez was
charged with wife beating: Days before Zuno's 1992 trial, Lopez was
released without bail after Berrellez intervened.

Later prosecutors dropped the abuse charges altogether after the agent
wrote them seeking their help in "Mr. Lopez's current situation."

Another new government witness was Jorge Godoy Lopez, who had spent 28
months in Mexican jail for his involvement in Fonseca's drug ring.

Although Godoy was not present during Camarena's kidnapping, records show
he has offered various versions about what he did know: Originally, he did
not mention Zuno or Bartlett when he told Mexican authorities the names of
the conspirators. Later, he recanted his allegations, saying he was a mere
rug cleaner, not a bodyguard.

Finally, he contended that Zuno and Bartlett attended several meetings with
drug traffickers, the defense minister, an army general and others.

The first, the witnesses said, unfolded in the fall of 1984 at Las Americas
Hotel in Guadalajara. In a suite stocked with cocainelaced cigarettes, the
dealers allegedly complained about losing too many marijuana fields to the
DEA. And Zuno, according to Godoy, suggested that the agent who was
responsible should be kidnapped and killed, if he could not be bought.

Several months later Camarena was tortured inside a walled Spanishstyle
compound in Guadalajara. Lopez testified that he saw gynecologist Alvarez
washing out syringes in the kitchen area and drug lords meeting for four
hours with Zuno and 21 officialsincluding Bartlettelsewhere in the house.

Once again Zuno was convicted. But the judge ruled that the case against
Alvarez was speculative and dismissed charges against the doctor, who is
now suing the DEA and those who abducted him in Mexico.

The trial brought condemnation from the Mexican attorney general, who said
the U.S. had acted "irresponsibly and immorally" in building false
accusations through offers of money, immunity and protection to unreliable
witnesses.

Zuno, 67, interviewed at a prison in Texas where he is serving a life
sentence, insisted that he was not connected to the Guadalajara drug
dealers and was wrongly convicted. "I do not want a pardon," he said. "I
want justice."

Evidence Contradicted

The recent reexaminations by Bartlett's attorney and The Times cast doubt
on some portions of the informant testimony, including accounts that
numerous people had gathered in a suite at Las Americas Hotel.

Godoy described it as a firstfloor suite with two bedrooms, a living room,
reception area, bar and patios. But the manager recently permitted a
reporter to see the largest firstfloor rooms, and none fit that description.

In addition, Bartlett maintains that he was not in Guadalajara at all in
late 1984 or early 1985 when witnesses said the conspirators met. He
insists he was attending meetings in Mexico City, about 300 miles away, the
entire day that Camarena was torturedan assertion supported by Mexican
officials.

Prosecutors said that they had made every effort to corroborate the
testimony of witnesses but that they were unable to obtain many records
readily available in the United States, such as credit card receipts.

Medrano said it was a "very difficult prosecution under very difficult
circumstances, with very little assistance from the Mexican government."

Since the trial, Bartlett's two accusers have purchased new tract homes in
Southern California. Contacted recently, Lopez declined to talk, and Godoy
did not respond to messages left at his home.

Now Garate, the key DEA operative, expresses concerns that the agency was
too quick to believe whatever they said. DEA officials, he said, chastised
him for aggressively challenging potential witnesses.

During hours of interviews, Garate stopped short of contending that
Bartlett and Zuno are innocent. But he identified several portions of
testimony that he said are not credible. When he raised concerns, said
Garate, DEA agents challenged him: "How do you know? Were you there?"

Former Ambassador Gavin is convinced that Bartlett and other high officials
never attended meetings to plan the kidnapping or interrogation. "That high
government officials, members of the president's Cabinet, would attend a
torture session of an American agent in a drug baron's house at a moment's
notice hundreds of miles from Mexico City is preposterous on its face,"
said Gavin, who served from 1983 through 1986.

The most recent U.S. ambassador, James Jones, said he had asked DEA agents
assigned to the embassy in Mexico to assess testimony that Bartlett
attended the torture session. "They advised me they did not believe it," he
said.

Bartlett attorney Lightfoot wrote to a top Los Angeles prosecutor last
year, complaining that the government's 10year investigation "produced not
one conviction of any of the actual kidnappers or masterminds of the plot."

Instead of prosecuting the one person in U.S. custody who admitted a role,
Lightfoot wrote, officials gave him immunity and used him to provide
testimony that served only "to ruin the reputation of Gov. Bartlett."

The Camarena Murder Case After U.S. drug agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was
kidnapped and murdered in Guadalajara, the Mexican government successfully
prosecuted drug lords Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero and
numerous others. But the U.S. government, fearing corruption in Mexico's
judicial system, had embarked on a parallel probe.

The following chronicles the investigations and aftermath:

February 1985Camarena is kidnapped near the U.S. consulate in
Guadalajara, along with his pilot, and tortured and killed.

November 1987The first U.S. indictments are issued in Los Angeles.

December 1989In Mexico, Caro Quintero and 20 others are convicted. In the
United States, Ruben Zuno Arce, former owner of the house where Camarena
was tortured, is charged with murder.

August 1990Based largely on testimony from Hector Cervantes, Zuno is
convicted of murder along with Honduran drug trafficker Juan Ramon
MattaBallasteros and Juan Bernabe Ramirez, bodyguard for drug lord Fonseca
Carrillo. Zuno's codefendants get life sentences.

May 1991Zuno's conviction is overturned because of prosecutorial error,
and a retrial is ordered.

August 1991September 1992Three new witnessesall former Mexican
policemencome forward, alleging that Zuno, former interior secretary
Manuel Bartlett Diaz and others were present for meetings regarding the
murder. One of the witnesses himself had participated in Camarena's
abduction.

December 1992Zuno is retried, but charges are dismissed against his
codefendant, Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Guadalajara gynecologist who was
abducted by the DEA in Mexico and brought to the United States. Zuno is
convicted and later sentenced to life in prison.

October 1997The DEA is investigating allegations that the prosecutions
were marred by perjury and false information from paid informants with
serious credibility problems. Defense attorneys plan to challenge the
conviction.

A Witness Recants

Hector Cervantes Santos, a drug dealer's butler and security guard, came
forward this summer and recanted his testimony against defendants in the
1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena. In this portion of his
sworn declaration, he accuses a prosecutor, Manuel Medrano, and the chief
investigator, Hector Berrellez, of coaching him to falsely implicate
Mexican businessman Ruben Zuno Arce and Mexican politician Manuel Bartlett
Diaz in the murder conspiracy. Medrano has denied the allegations and
Berrellez could not be reached.

Key Players

THE VICTIMS: Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency,
and his pilot, Alfred Zavalla

THE DRUG DEALERS: Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, who
allegedly plotted the murder with others.

THE CHIEF INVESTIGATOR: Hector Berrellez, a 17year DEA veteran who was
decorated for heroism

THE PROSECUTOR: As cocounsel, Assistant U.S. Atty. Manny Medrano, now a
television reporter, worked closely with key witnesses.

THE DEA OPERATIVE: Antonio Garate Bustamante, who retrieved witnesses from
Mexico and now believes the government ignored danger signals in building
its case.

THE WITNESS: Hector Cervantes, who has recanted testimony that politicians,
police and others plotted with drug lords to kill Camarena.

OTHER WITNESSES: Rene Lopez Romero and Jorge Godoy Lopez, policemen turned
bodyguards for drug dealers, who testified that planning meetings preceded
the Camarena kidnapping.

THE POLITICIAN: Manuel Bartlett Diaz, once a rising political star in
Mexico and now governor of Puebla, who says his name was heavily damaged by
an irresponsible U.S. prosecution.

THE CRITICS: Terrence Berke, former DEA chief who says his own agency's
investigation went seriously awry and alleged perjury should be examined.
John Gavin, former U.S. ambassador who said the allegations against
Bartlett Diaz are absurd, casting doubt on the rest of the government's case.

Copyright Los Angeles Times