AGENTS WIN SUIT VS. PA. ATTORNEY GENERAL

PHILADELPHIA - A federal jury awarded $1.5 million to two narcotics agents
who claimed the Pennsylvania attorney general retaliated against them
because they uncovered a drug-trafficking ring they said diverted profits
to a CIA (news - web sites)-backed Dominican presidential candidate.

John McLaughlin and Charles Micewski sued over their transfer from the
Philadelphia office of the state Bureau of Narcotics Investigation in 1996.

"They won their lives and their reputations back," said their attorney, Don
Bailey.

Attorney General Mike Fisher said he will appeal. It was his predecessor,
Tom Corbett, who transferred the agents.

McLaughlin and Micewski said they uncovered a drug-trafficking ring
operating in Philadelphia, New York and other Eastern cities that funneled
drug profits to the left-wing Dominican Revolutionary Party, which they
claimed was supported by the CIA and State Department.

They said the U.S. government allowed the party's presidential candidate,
Jose Francisco Pena Gomez, to return to the Dominican Republic after a 1995
fund-raising swing through New York with $500,000 in alleged drug profits.

CIA spokesman Tom Crispell on Tuesday dismissed the agents' allegations as
"absurd."

The agents said that shortly after they made their allegations, the
Philadelphia district attorney and U.S. Attorney's office stopped
prosecuting their drug cases. More than 125 cases were dismissed or dropped
after prosecutors accused agents of fabricating evidence and lying on the
stand.

McLaughlin, Micewski and other agents were transferred and removed from
street duty.