May/June 1996
Michael Levine, Prison Life
To me, that kind of bullshit was no different from all the federal prosecutors with an eye on public office who exaggerated the importance of their cases to a media that would swallow just about anything as long as it sold papers and got ratings. And it was downright harmless compared to some drug czar facing 20 million Americans on Larry King Live and saying 'We've turned the corner on the drug war' to further his political career. If you put all the dopers the press had reported as 'linked to the Medellin or Cali cartels' hand in hand, they'd circle the earth.
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But the DEA flying an expert witness across country to make a parking lot attendant look like a Class One coke dealer in a federal trial was something I'd never heard of.
'You didn't answer me,' I said. 'What do you think I can do for you?'
'When I cross-examined the DEA expert he named your book, Deep Cover, as one of the books he read to qualify as an expert. Now I want you to testify that he's full of shit.'
'There's gotta be something you're not telling me.'
'If I'm telling you the truth, will you be here on Monday?'
Just the thought of going head to head against the small elite agency I'd been a part of for almost a quarter of a century put knots in my stomach. Outsiders hear about the blue wall of silence, but no description I've ever heard really does it justice. To most guys in narcotic enforcement, the scummy bottom of life's barrel is the CI (criminal informant), the rat. There's only one thing lower: a cop who turns rat on his own. And to me, going to work for a doper was exactly that.
'How did the thing get started?' I asked.
'A CI approaches the DEA with a deal. He's wanted in Argentina and Bolivia. He says, 'If I get you a Class One arrest here, will you get the charges dropped against me over there?''
'How much did they pay him?'
'Over thirty thousand fucking dollars. And they admitted he's gonna get more when the trial is over.'
Thirty thousand was not all that much for a Class One, but I wasn't going to say anything.
'And Mr. Car-parker, what kind of rap sheet does he have?'
'Nothing!' I held the phone away from my ear. 'This is his first arrest.'
'What kind of rap sheet does the rat have?'
He laughed. 'This guy's been busted all over South America for every kind of con job in the book. He even tried to sell his wife's vital organs while she was in a coma.'
'Come on, counselor,' I said.
'If I'm telling the truth, will you be here Monday?'
'I listened this far,' I said. 'If you want to send me your stuff, I'll look at it.'The Fed Ex package was delivered to my room on Saturday morning. I opened it to find a stack of reports including Miguel's work records, the transcripts of audiotapes, the rat's file (much of it blacked out, as I expected), and a videocassette. It was the DEA's whole case.
The work records were straightforward. Miguel worked for a large parking lot chain, punching a time clock for an average of 60 hours a week for the past three years, at minimum wage. He also had a little side business of delivering lunches to workers in the area. And, as the attorney had claimed, he had no prior criminal record.
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