Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Informant Crime

Denver Post examines costs and benefits of informant use

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The Denver Post ran this three-part in depth series on informant use: How police reliance on confidential informants in Colorado carries risk, Some want harsher laws for confidential informants in Colorado, and Colorado gang slaying by ATF informant shows perils of informant use.

The series documents a large number of convictions obtained through informant use, including important evidence against violent gangs.  It also reveals wrongful convictions, an ACLU lawsuit, tens of thousands of dollars paid to informants, and the continuing violent crimes committed by some informants while they were working for the federal government.

Jailed Mexican mafia snitches receive $150,000 and leniency

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From the Orange County Register: Money, cable TV, food delivery: How Mexican Mafia snitches lived like kings behind bars.  Here are a few excerpts:

“As two of the most prolific jailhouse informants in Orange and Los Angeles counties, Raymond Cuevas and Jose Paredes befriended suspects in jail and collected information in more than 30 criminal cases, according to a spreadsheet assembled by prosecutors. …For their efforts, Cuevas and Peredes received more than $150,000 from local law enforcement agencies during an 18-month period ending in March, records show.

The pair enjoyed other perks, too, including cable TV in their cells and Del Taco food delivered by officers. Cuevas and Paredes also received leniency on criminal charges that could have sent them to prison for life, according to court transcripts and other records.

Thirty-nine-year-old Cuevas, known as “Puppet,” was arrested four times for armed robbery. His last arrest was on charges of possessing a loaded weapon, a possible third strike that could have sent him to prison for life. Instead, the informant received a deal that allowed him to plead no contest in 2013; he received credit for five years already served but no prison sentence.

For several years, Cuevas was the shot-caller for Latino inmates at Los Angeles’ North County Correctional Facility, according to a ruling from the Second District Court of Appeal. On one occasion, he informed his deputy handler that he had just ordered a knife attack on another inmate as part of a jail turf war, the ruling stated. No action was taken by Los Angeles County deputies to prevent the attack, which left the inmate seriously wounded, the ruling said.  Cuevas was not prosecuted for the attack, but two inmates who carried out the order were convicted, according to the appellate ruling.”

HuffPost on DEA snitching debacles

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In a two-part series about “the sketchiest things the DEA has done while waging the war on drugs,” informant debacles take the lead in this Huffington Post article.  Here are a few of the headlines:

-The DEA once turned a teenager into a drug kingpin so he could act as an informant.

-The DEA allows informants to break the law, but have no records as to how often it happens.

-One of America’s most notorious terrorists once served as a DEA informant.

-The DEA strung one informant along for 20 years with the promise of citizenship. She still hasn’t received it.

Families sue DEA for informant handling policies

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From the Associated Press:

“The family of Jason Estrada recently filed a $50 million lawsuit against the agency, the second suit in recent months alleging problems with the DEA’s handling of informants. . . . Edward Quintana, 31, has been charged with killing Estrada. He also is charged with criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13. . . . The lawsuit and attached documents show Quintana became an informant for the agency in 2011 after Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant on his home and seized nine ounces of heroin, $12,000 and three loaded semi-automatic handguns. . . . Another lawsuit filed last month said DEA agents paid a struggling addict in crack cocaine during an undercover investigation into a Las Vegas, New Mexico, drug operation.”

USA Today on crimes committed by FBI informants

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Newly uncovered documents reveal that the FBI expressly authorized its informants (or Confidential Human Sources) to commit over 5,600 crimes in a year. USA Today obtained the documents in response to a FOIA request. Although it is well known that informants often continue to offend, this one of the first public accountings of informant crimes authorized by the government. The 5,600 number does not include unauthorized crimes committed by informants, although the FBI is required to document those as well.
The FBI has special rules governing the authorization of informant crime. Referred to as “Tier 1” and “Tier 2 Otherwise Illegal Activity,” handlers can approve the commission of crimes by their informants, as long as the informant does not personally commit perjury or a violent crime. Permissible crimes include: drug trafficking, crimes of violence committed by persons other than the informant, and the provision to a third party of “a controlled substance, an explosive, firearm, or other dangerous weapon…with little or no expectation of its recovery by the FBI.” Those rules can be found in the U.S. Dep’t of Justice Guidelines for the FBI’s Use of Confidential Human Sources. While 5,600 crimes may sound like a lot, this is the tip of the informant crime iceberg. As the USA Today story put it,

Crimes authorized by the FBI almost certainly make up a tiny fraction of the total number of offenses committed by informants for local, state and federal agencies each year. The FBI was responsible for only about 10% of the criminal cases prosecuted in federal court in 2011, and federal prosecutions are, in turn, vastly outnumbered by criminal cases filed by state and local authorities, who often rely on their own networks of sources.

In fact, the FBI has some of the best accountability and transparency rules in this area. Many state and local police departments lack guidelines for documenting or authorizing informant crime, leaving it to the discretion of individual officers to decide whether and under what circumstances their informants will be permitted to commit new crimes.