NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/drugs/18490

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Subject: Pittsburgh 1991 article, pt.IV
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Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 21:18:03 GMT
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This is a repost of the 1991 posting:
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[originally posted to misc.legal and alt.drugs.  Crossposted to
talk.politics.drugs by [e-mail]]

Continuing the series of Pittsburgh Press Articles on the War on
Drugs, here is the fourth in the series. Once again, some comments:

Please don't harass the Melissa Furtner woman we read about in the
previous articles. If you must express your outrage, perhaps a polite
letter wouldn't be too bad. But don't call her. Please, we don't know
she's guilty of anything. You'll hear a little more of the *alleged*
story in this article.

I've gotten phone calls from four different states about these
articles. I'm glad that the response has been so good.

About the FOP convention here in town...Bush spoke Wednesday, and
praised the drug seizure business. The Press blasted him in it's OP/ED
page. I'll give you some quotes next article.

You can contact the Press at 412-263-1100. Please don't involve me in
this in any way, 'cause I haven't officially recieved permission to do
this. I'm still waiting for another call.

This article made me glad to be a Pittsburgher. There's a lot of
fiercely independent people here, and people who respect the idea of
innocent until proven guilty. Of course, we have our problems, too.

This was originally posted to alt.drugs and misc.legal. /Bernie\,
[e-mail], has volunteered to post it to talk.politics.drugs, and
[e-mail], whose name I don't know, has
indicated he will pass them on to talk.politics.guns, where their is
an interest in these forfeture laws. This is also going to ACTIV-L and
the LIBERNET mailing lists, and groups like misc.headlines, and
alt.evil. Put them anywhere there is an *interested* audience, please.

I've recieved a handful of offers for things, like tapes and books,
and the like. Thanks, all, but I have to decline. I told the Press
that noone would recieve any benefit of any kind from this, except
academic. But thanks.

Sorry for the long windedness. Here is the article. Once again, all
typos are mine.


This article was the HEADLINE on the FRONT PAGE of the Wednesday, Aug
14, 1991, Pittsburgh Press.

-----------------------------------------------

            P R E S U M E D     G U I L T Y
             The law's victims in  the war on drugs

   Crime pays big for informats in forfeitures

By Andrew Schneider and Mary Pat Flaherty
The Pittsburgh Press

Part Four: The informants

    They snitch at all levels, from the Hell's Angel whose
testimony across the country has made him into a millionaire, the the
Kirksville, Mo., informant who worked for the equivalent of a
fast-food joint's hourly wage.

    The snitch for al reasons, from criminals who do it in return
for lighter sentences to private citizens motivated by
civic-mindedness.

    But it's only with the recent boom in forfeiture that paid
informants began snithching for a hefty cut of the take.

    With the spread of forfeiture actions has come a new, and some
say problematic, practice: guaranteeing police informats that if their
tips result in a forfeiture, the informants will get a percentage of
the proceeds.

    And that makes crime pay. Big.

    The Asset Forfeiture Fund of the U.S. Justice Department last
year gave $24 million to informats as their share of forfeited items.
It has $22 million earmarked this year.

    while plenty of those payments go to informats who match the
stereotype of a shady, sinister opportunist, many are average people
you could meet on any given day in an airport, bus terminal or train
station.

    In fact, if you travel often, you have likeley met them --
whether you knew it or not.

    Counter clerks notice how people buy tickets. Cash? A one-way
trip?

    Operators of X-ray machines watch for "suspicios" shadows and
not only for outlines of weapons, which is what signs at checkpoints
say they're scanning. They look for money, "suspicios" amounts that
can be called to the attention of law enforcement -- and maybe net a
reward for the operator.

    Police affadavits and court testimony in several cities show
clerks for large package handlers, including United Parcel Service and
Continental Airlines Quick Pak, open "suspicious" packages and alert
police to what they find. To do the same thing, police would need a
search warrant.

    At 16 major airports, drug agents, counter and baggage
personnel, and management reveal an underground economy running off
seizures and forfeitures.

    All but one of the airports' drug interdiction teams reward
private employees who pass along reports about suspicios activity.
Typically, they get 10% of the value of whatever is found.

    The Greater Pittsburgh International Airport team does not and
questions the propriety of the practice.

    Under fedral and most states' laws. forfeiture proceeds return
to the law enforcement agency that builds the case. Those agencies
also control the rewards of informants.

    The arrangement menas both police and the informants on whom
they rely now have a financial incentive to seize a person's goods --
a mix that may be too intoxicating, says Lt. Norbert Kowalski.

    He runs Greater Pitt's joint 11-person Allegheny County
Police-Pennsylvania State Police interdiction team.

    "Obviously, we want all the help we can get in stopping these
drug traffickers. But having a publicized program that pays airport or
airline employees to in effect, be whistle-blowers, may be pushing
what's proper law enforcement to the limit," he says.

    He worries that the system might encourage unnecessary random
searches.

    His team checked passengers arriving from 4,230 flights last
year. Yet even with it's avowed cautious approach, the team stopped
527 people but netted only 49 arrests.

    At Denver's Stapleton Airport -- where most of the drug team's
cases start with informant tips -- officers also made 49 arrests last
year. But they stopped about 2,000 people for questioning, estimates
Capt. Rudy Sandoval, commander of the city's Vice and Drug Control
Bureau.

    As Kowalski sees it, the public vests authority in police with
the expectation that they will use it legally and judiciously. The
public can't get those same assurances from police designees, like
counter clerks, says Kowalski.

    With money as an inducement, "you run the risk of distorting
the system, and that can infringe on the rights of travellers. If
someone knows they can get a good bit of money by turning someone in,
then they may imagine seeing or hearing things that aren't there. What
happens when you get to court?"

    In Nashville, that's not much of an issue. Juries rarely get
to hear from informants.

    Police who work the airports deliberately delay paying
informants until a case has been resolved "because we don't want these
tipsters to have to testify. If we don't pay them until the case is
closed they don't have to risk going to court," says Capt. Judy
Bawcum, commander of the vice division for the Nashville Police
Department.

    That means their motivation can't be questioned.

    Bawcum says it may appear the airport informats are working
solely for the money, but she believes there's more to it. "I admit
these (X-ray) guards are getting paid less than burger flippers at
McDonalds and the promise of 10 percent of $50,000 or whatever is
attractive. But to refuse to help us is not a progressive way of
thinking," says Bawcum. "This is a public service."

    But not all companies share the view that their employees
should be public servants. Package handling companies and Wackenhut,
the X-ray checkpoint security firm, refuse to allow Nashville police
to use their employees as informants.

    "They're so fearful a promise of a reward will prompt their
people to concentrate on looking for drugs instead of looking for
weapons," says Bawcum.

    Far from being uncomfortable with the notion of citizen-cops,
Bawcum says her department relies on them. "We need airport employees
working for us because we've only got a very small handful of officers,"
at the airport, she says.

    For her, the challenge comes in sustaining enthusiasm,
especially when federal agencies like the DEA are "way too slow paying
out." Civic duty carries only so far. "It's hard to keep them watching
when they have to wait for those rewards. We can't lose that
incentive."

    Most drug teams hold tight the details of how their system
works and how much individual informats earn, preferring to keep their
public service private.

    But in a Denver court case, attorney Alexander DeSalvo
obtained photocopies of poice affadavits about tipsters and copies of
three checks payable to a Continental airline clerk, Melissa Furtner.
The checks, from the U.S. Treasury and Denver County, total $5,834 for
the period from September 1989 to August 1990.

    Ms. Furtner, reached by phone at her home, was flustered by
questions about the checks.

    "What do you want to know about the rewards? I can't talk
about any of it. It's not something I'm supposed to talk about. I
don't feel comfortable with this at all." She then hung up.

    As hefty as the payments to private citizens can be, the are
pin money caompared to the paychecks drawn by professional informants.


    Among the best paid of all: convicted drug dealers, and
self-confessed users.

    Anthony Tait, a Hell's Angel and admitted drug user who ahs
been a cooperating witness for the FBI since 1985, earned nerly $1
million for information he provided between 1985 and 1988, according
to a copy of Trait's payment schedule and FBI contract obtained by the
Pittsburgh Press.

    Of his $1 million, $250,000 was his share of the value of
assets forfeited as a result of his cooperation. His money came from
four sources. FBI officers in Anchorage and San Francisco; the State
of California, and the federal forfeiture fund.

    Likewise, in a November 1990 case in Pittsburgh, the
government paid a former drug kingpin handsomely.

    Testimony shows that Edward Vaughn of suburban San Francisco
earned $40,000 in salary and expenses between August 1989 and October
1990 working for DEA, drew an additional $500 a month from the U.S.
Marshall Service and was promised a 25% cut of any forfeited goods.

    Vaughn had run a multi-million dollar international drug
smuggling ring, been a federal fugitive, and twice served prison time
before aranging an early parole and paid informant deal with the
government, he said in court.

    As an informant, he said, he preferred arranging deals for
drug agents that are known as reverse stings: the law enforcement
agents pose as sellers and the targets bring cash for a buy. Those
deals take cash, but not dope, directly off the streets. In those
stings, he said, the cash would be forfeited and Vaught would get his
pre-arranged quarter-share.

    His testimony in Pittsburgh resulted in one man being found
guilty of conspiracy to distrubute marijuana. The jury acquited the
other defendant saying they believed Vaughn had entrapped him by
persuing him so aggresively to make a dope deal.

    The practice of giving informats a share of forfeited proceeds
goes on so discreetly that Richard Wintory, an Oklahoma prosecutor and
forfeiture proponent who until recently headed the National Drug
Prosecution Center in Alexandria, Va., says, "I'm not aware of any
agency that pays commissions on forfeited items to informants."


    Although the federal forfeiture program funnels millions of
dollars to informants, it does not set policy at the top about how --
or how much -- to pay.

    "Decisions about how to persue investigations within the
guidlines of appropriate and legal behavior are best left to the
people in the field," says George Terwilliger III, the deputy attorney
general who heads the Justice department's forfeiture program.

    That hands-off approach filters to local offices, such as
Pittsburgh, where U.S. Attornet Thomas Corbett says the discussion of
whether to give informants a cut of any take "is a philisophical
argument. I won't put myslef in the middle of it."

    The abscence of regulations spawns "privateers and junior
G-men," says Steven Sherick, a defense attorney in Tucson, Ariz., who
recently recovered $9,000 for John P. Gray of Rutland, Vt., after a
UPS employee found it in a package and called police.

    Gray, says Sherick, is "an ececentric older guy who doesn't
use anything but cash." In March, 1990, Gray mailed a friend
hand-money for a piece of Arizona retirement property Gray had scouted
during an earlier trip West, says court records. The court ordered the
money returned because the state couldn't prove the cash was gained
illegaly.

    Expanding payments to private citizens, particularly on a
sliding scale rather than a fixed fee, raises unsavory possibilities,
says Eric E. Sterling, head of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation,
a think tank in Washington, D.C.

    Major racketeers and criminal enterprises were the initioal
targets of forfeiture, but its use has steadily expanded until it now
catches people who have never been accused of crime but lose their
property anyway.

    "You can win a forfeiture case without charging someone," says
Sterling. "You can win even after they've been acquited. And now, on
top of that, you can have informants tailoring their tips to the
quality of the thing that will be seized.

    "What paid informant in their right mind is going to turn over
a crack house -- which may be destroying an inner city neighborhood --
when he can turn over information about a nice, suburban spread that
will pay off big when it comes time to get his share?" asks Sterling.

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--
Shawn Valentine Hernan          |Wizard-wanna-be           |    STOP
Computing and Information Services|Systems & Networks        |the war on drugs!
University of Pittsburgh      |[e-mail]|   It is a
[phone]              |[e-mail]   |  WITCHHUNT!
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Reposted by:-
Brandon Hutchison,University of Canterbury,Christchurch
                  New Zealand


PS: Apparently there are further parts of the original article which have not
    been posted to the NEWS.