Informant testifies against DEA agent

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Informant testifies against DEA agent
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN • Associated Press • January 9, 2010

CLEVELAND -- A rogue informant testified Friday that he framed people on drug charges in undercover buys supervised by a federal agent charged with helping the informant.

Jerrell Bray, 38, who has served time in prison for manslaughter and perjury, was the government's lead witness at the trial of Lee Lucas, 41, a 19-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Lucas, who was Bray's handler in a 2005 cocaine sting in Mansfield, took notes and occasionally whispered to his defense attorney as Bray described a series of frame-ups in which he typically asked a friend to pose as someone setting up a buy.

Bray framed 17 people by deliberately misidentifying them or staging scripted phone calls to make them appear to be drug dealers, prosecutors said.



Read more: http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20100109/NEWS01/1090319

[Judi Lynn]

1. Background on the case: U.S. probe puts Cleveland DEA agent's work under scrutiny

U.S. probe puts Cleveland DEA agent's work under scrutiny
Career has been marred by several investigations

http://media.cleveland.com.nyud.net:8090/metro/photo/lee-lucas-dea-052309jpg-ad41df0b2daeb1fb_medium.jpg

Lee Lucas
Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer, File

Sunday, July 29, 2007
Mike Tobin, Amanda Garrett and John Caniglia Plain Dealer Reporters

In 1992 -- just six years after graduating from St. Edward High School -- Lee Lucas tailed two dirty cops through the sand and glamour of Miami's drug underworld.

Thanks in large part to his efforts, the cops, two cocaine kingpins and more than a dozen others were ultimately convicted of dealing bundles of Colombian powder out of a neighborhood bar near the Orange Bowl.

It was an exceptional beginning to Lucas' career as an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the agency charged with enforcing federal drug laws.

But he soon ran into trouble: A federal appeals court said Lucas acted either "deliberately or recklessly" in misleading a judge about the track records of the informants he used in the case.

The convictions stood, as there was enough other evidence to support them. But Lucas' misrepresentations foreshadowed a DEA career that has been marred by at least a half-dozen investigations of unethical or unlawful behavior.

He was cleared of any wrongdoing, and Lucas moved from the air-conditioned DEA offices of Miami to the jungles of Bolivia and, ultimately, back home to work in Cleveland. Through it all, Lucas made one major case after another for prosecutors, targeting everyone from small-town thugs to international playboys.

Now, however, a U.S. Justice Department investigation threatens not only to ruin Lucas' career, but also to unravel dozens of drug cases here and overturn scores of convictions.

Geoffrey Mearns, dean of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University and a former federal prosecutor, said last week that Lucas' cases are likely to be examined for truthfulness.

More difficult, however, is limiting fallout. Federal prosecutors regularly ask jurors to rely on the truthfulness of federal agents, he said.

More:
http://truthinjustice.org/lee-lucas1.htm

[CLANG]

2. Hang 'em high!

[lib2DaBone]

3. If a DEA agent uses cocaine.. then turns around and busts the seller...

Does this mean the DEA agent is not a cocaine user? :shrug:

[Flaneur]

4. This whole informant culture is exceedingly ugly and sleazy.

You have to wonder about a drug policy that depends on informants for its enforcement. They're either mercenaries doing it for money or schmucks being squeezed by the narcs to roll over on somebody else.

And you have to wonder how many other DEA agents and state and local narcs are operating just like Lucas. It's an inherently corrupt culture.

[pundaint]

5. I don't wonder, I assume. People who lie all day at work aren't likely to be able to

suddenly tell the whole truth for a jury.

[sasquatch]

6. Send him to the general prison population and let the wolves eat