TheAgitator.com
DEA Informant Scandal Unravels
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Last July, I posted about a brewing scandal in Cleveland in which longtime DEA informant Jerrell Bray admitted to conspiring with DEA agent Lee Lucas to lie in at least two dozen cases, resulting in 21 convictions.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports on the sad case of one of the wrongfully accused, nursing home attendant Geneva France.
Geneva France walked out of federal prison with $68 and a bus ticket home. That’s all the government had to offer a woman who had served 16 months of a decade-long prison sentence for a crime she didn’t commit.
The mother of three returned to her family, but her youngest child — who was 18 months old when France was sent to prison — didn’t recognize her.
And France, 25, had no home to return to.
Her landlord had evicted her from the rental during her incarceration, and everything she owned had been tossed on the street.
France’s case is the nightmare scenario for a system that critics say sometimes dispenses justice differently for rich and poor.
It shows how easy it is for the government to get convictions in cases built on shaky investigations.
Defense attorneys say a street-smart but dishonest informant and a federal agent working without oversight manipulated the system to convict France and dozens of others.
"They stole the truth," France said. "I don’t think I’ll ever trust people again. It’s too hard."
"I don’t know how a human being with a heart could stand up there and lie about another person," France said. "They stole part of my life."
France can’t find work because she can’t get references, and can’t explain the 18-month gap in her employment record she spent wrongfully incarcerated. She couldn’t keep in touch with her kids while in prison because they couldn’t afford to visit, and she couldn’t afford to call. The federal government owes her a hell of a lot more than $68.
Fifteen more convictions related to the investigation are likely to be overturned in the coming weeks. Bray, the informant, is now in prison for perjury. Remarkably, DEA agent Lucas not only hasn’t been charged or convicted, he apparently still has a job. His dealings with Bray mark the sixth time in his 17-year career that he has come under investigation for his work with informants.
In 2005, a report by the FBI’s inspector general found that agency failed to comply with DOJ guidelines regarding the use of informants 87 percent of the time. That’s not a typo. In nearly nine of every ten cases. And that’s just the FBI. The report didn’t cover other DOJ police agencies, like the DEA or ICE. I’ve reported on how the FBI won’t even guarantee that its informants aren’t killing people—or sending innocent people to prison—while agents look the other way.
And the sad thing is how many think that this is the way it should be. “She must have done something”, “If we pay her for compensation, then it’s going to come out of my taxes”, or something along those lines.
And even worse, we all will pay for it anyways, in the end. If not in taxes, then in society slowly rotting away under us.
What can we do about these things?
And people look at me like I’m nuts when I say I don’t trust my government as far as I could throw Rosie O’Donnell.
Is this suprising? No. Remember the case of Dr. Bernard Rottschaefer. An informant documented in prison correspondences how she, the lead DEA investigator, and the assistant US Attorney conspired to defraud the court, put false testimony on the stand, and frame an innocent man. Of course when this conspiracy came to be public, the courts refused to correct the wrong and the career investigator and prosecutor were kept on the job. Not only kept on the job, US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan had the assistant US Attorney rewarded for exemplary service for her work in the Tommy Chong case during the same time the prison correspondences went public. Nice eh.
It’s an absolute corruption of our “innocent until proven guilty” when the falsly acused/convicted are forced to rely on Innocence Projects to get them OUT of jail. Worse is the reality that proven misconduct is not penalized but rather swept under the rug. An incredible double standard for the police and prosectution to be able to lie, cheat and rob people of their lives without consequence.
The drug war has corrupted our justice system. Many of these agents aren’t horrible guys and think they are doing good. I can’t understand it. I did digg the reason post and reposted it on my blog.
Thanks for your hard work.
This is why we need a law on the books at every level that makes perjury against innocent parties punishable by whatever punishment they would have or were sentenced to receive. This DEA agent and his informant should be doing life in prison without the possibility of parole for what they did. Nothing they can do in this life makes up for what they sought to inflict on innocent people. No forgiveness, no mercy.
Somewhat unrelated- but check out the discussions here
http://www.policelink.com/news/articles/9395-cop-killer-in-custody-after-standoff
“If we pay her for compensation, then it’s going to come out of my taxes”
Doesn’t have to. I bet we could sell some of that DEA agents’ stuff to give Ms. France a leg up in the world. Hell, given the DEA’s predilection for asset forfeiture, just seize his house, give it to the poor woman, along with a letter of apology and reference to explain the 18 month employment gap, and toss the lousy m’f'r who is responsible for her faulty incarceration under the jail.
No one was fired, arrested,brought to trial for 9/11.
‘Nuff said.
The use of drug informants is out of control. Our federal government has gone too far to get convictions. Too many of the prosecutors are egotistical who won’t stop until they get a guilty verdict. Many of the informants are a bigger threat to society than the people that are charged.
The use of informants is way out of control. In coos county Oregon they used someone who was mentally ill and had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. As if that isn’t bad enough, to make her appear like a credible person, they helped her get a job as a school bus driver, just three years after she was in a program for drug and alcohol abuse.
Call the court house and tell them you want to serve on a jury. If your personal opinion that the defendants crime is based on an unjust law you have the right and the duty to vote not guilty. It was not the lawmakers that repealed alcohol prohibition. The jurors nations wide consistantly returned not guilty verdicts.
Reading discussions of this case in the local paper in the town where this occurred ( Mansfield Ohio ) many people do not see anything wrong with the tactics of the DEA. How anyone can buy into the idea that these cowards, sociopaths, and thugs serve any legitimate purpose is beyond my understanding. One of my fondest wishes is that every DEA agent suffer intractable pain at some point in their pathetic lives and not be able to find a doctor to treat their pain because of DEA policies. It is time to disband this outlaw agency!