Date: Sat, 28 Sep 96 20:33:52 CDT From: d.wiesner@genie.com Subject: More news on CIA, drugs Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive L.A. TIMES, 9/28/96, Page B1 Probe of CIA Rekindles Interest in Old Drug Case Inquiry: Defense attorney says sheriff's deputies found evidence in 1986 linking agency operatives to L.A. drug sales and Contras Jim Newton Times Staff Writer A 6-year-old motion filed in a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department corruption case is adding fuel to a burgeoning public discussion over the alleged participation of U.S. government agents in drug trafficking and weapons shipments. The motion, filed in 1990 by Century City defense lawyer Harland W. Braun, alleges that sheriff's deputies serving a search warrant in 1986 turned up evidence linking CIA operatives to military activities in Central America and drug sales in Los Angeles. Claims of a similar relationship were made in a recent series of articles by the San Jose Mercury News, which alleged that the CIA-sponsored Nicaraguan Contras smuggled cocaine to South Central Los Angeles. Sparked by that series, members of Congress are conducting their own probe. They have obtained the 1990 motion as part of that inquiry. Rep Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that he has received a copy of the motion, but has not had time to review it. According to the six-page document, deputies serving warrants in a 1986 drug case entered the home of an alleged money launderer believed to be associated with a major drug ring. The deputies allegedly encountered a man who identified himself as a CIA agent and gave the deputies the name of his contact in Virginia, where the agency is headquartered. The man was allowed to notify the CIA of the searches, the motion states, adding that the deputies proceeded with their search. "Officers discovered films of military operations in Central America, technical manuals, information on assorted military hardware and communications, and numerous documents indicating that drug money was being used to purchase military equipment for Central America," according to the motion. "The officers also discovered blown up pictures of the suspect in Central American with the Contras showing military equipment at military bases." Deputies concluded that the suspect was working with the Blandon family, the motion stated. Oscar Danillo Blandon is an admitted drug dealer who worked as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration adn was a key witness in this year's drug conviction of former Los Angeles crack kingpin Ricky Ross. Braun's allegations were reported by the Times when he first filed the motion in 1990, but the issue quickly died, in part because U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedlie, at the request of prosecutors, issued a gag order barring Braun and other trial lawyers from airing the matter. Rafeedie said that even if the allegations made by Braun were true, they were not relevant to the case against sheriff's deputies accused of skimming drug money and filing tax false tax returns among other things. But now, with the issue of possible drug involvement by CIA operatives again in the news and Braun no longer prevented from publicly discussing the issue, the defense lawyer is renewing this provocative allegations. "Someone in the 1980's made the decision that it was important enough to support the Contras that they [the government] would participate in drug dealing," he said. In his motion, Braun said that after seizing the materials from the house, deputies booked the material as evidence. According to Braun, however, federal agents, removed the property from sheriff's headquarters. "Mysteriously, all records of the search, seizure and property also 'disappeared' from the Sheriff's Department," Braun wrote in his motion. Sheriff's officials vehemently denied those allegations at the time and prosecutors accused Braun of floating the issue to distract from the evidence against his client, a sheriff's deputy named Daniel Garner. Garner later served time in Federal custody. But now Braun accuses the federal government of ignoring the importance of the allegations raised in his motion. According to the defense lawyer, who is one of Los Angeles' most prominent attorneys, agents and prosecutors never followed up on the charges, a failure Braun believes represents an act of official negligence. Braun acknoledges that he never pursued the allegations, which he presented in court not so much to spark an inquiry as to bolster his client's case. Braun intended to offer the evidence in order to show that the government had acted outrageously. Had he succeeded in convincing the judge of the government's misconduct, Braun said, he would have asked for the charges against Garner to be dismissed. But when Rafeedlie barred the issue from the trial, that ended the matter, Braun said. "I didn't really think of this ideologically," he said. "I thought of it as a defense.... I didn't follow it up because I really didn't have a major interest in it." ===== The following is excerpted from Alan Abelson's 9/30 Barrons column: Drugs have finally been injected into the election. And we're not referring to the tranquilizers and soporifics the candidates have been dealing in so prodigiously. We mean the hard stuff. Desperate to give his lagging campaign a shot in the arm, Mr. Dole seized on a newly issued report showing sharp rise in drug use among kids during the past four years. Proof positive, he snorted, that under Bill Clinton, the country has gone to pot. The President retorted that Mr. Dole must be hallucinating. For even a child could see that the study was hopelessly flawed and politically motivated, since it failed to even mention that Mr. Clinton never inhaled--as his medical records, when he gets around to releasing them, will show conclusively. And anyway, he knew for certain that the kids interviewed weren't stoned but merely scared out of their minds by Mr. Dole's TV spots. Nonetheless, he urged a joint effort against marijuana. Strangely, neither Mr. Dole nor Mr. Clinton has sought so far to make an issue of the startling disclosure that the CIA was hawking crack in L.A. during the 'Eighties. Mr. Clinton remains mute out of consideration for his loyal supporters in the area, many of whom patriotically patronized the CIA in its somewhat unorthodox attempt to raise money for worthy causes. Mr. Dole's discreet silence is in deference to the fact that the CIA's venture was mounted under a Republican Administration (no surprise, really, since Republicans have always been dedicated to nourishing the entrepreneurial spirit in government as well as the private sector). We can authoritatively report that it's all a fantastic case of mistaken identity. For the CIA engaged in selling crack was not the Central Intelligence Agency but an entirely different hush-hush unit, the Cocaine Investment Authority. The latter was set up specifically to invest in the illegal substance trade, inspired by the brilliant notion (rumor credits it to Oliver North) that the surest way to kill any business-drugs included-- was to establish a large government presence in it.