Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

News Stories

A Rat’s Life: MS-13 Snitches Run Wild

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Another great story this week in SF Weekly, A Rat’s Life: MS-13 Snitches Run Wild While Turning State’s Evidence by Lauren Smiley. The subheading reads: “To bring down the infamous MS-13 gang, the government recruited and perhaps enabled the gangsters themselves.” The story details the career of MS-13 gang member and ICE informant “Bad Boy,” who appears to have intentionally racheted up the violence and gang activities of the 20th Street Clique–including recruiting and tatooing young new members–in order to help the government make cases. Due to Bad Boy and several other informants, this gang RICO case is riddled with snitch problems. From the story:

In a triumphant press conference held by federal officials and then-U.S. Attorney Joe Russoniello about the takedown, Bad Boy didn’t get a mention. Nor did Jaime “Mickey” Martinez, a former gang leader who would later testify to participating in car thefts and a shooting during his time as a government snitch. Federal law enforcement didn’t mention paying these informants thousands of dollars, relocating their families, or letting them stay in the country and giving them work permits.

No wonder: The informants are becoming an increasing liability. One defendant claims he was arrested for committing the crimes he was supposedly informing about, and is now suing the city and his federal handlers. As seven defendants started a trial this month facing sentences of up to life in prison, defense attorneys are claiming entrapment. “The government created much of the violence,” Martin Sabelli said in his opening statements. “The prosecution went awry and [my client] was induced, cajoled, and pressured to commit crimes he was not otherwise predisposed to commit,” said Lupe Martinez.

This case is unusual in another way. Although the government almost never brings perjury charges against its own informant witnesses, Bad Boy is being charged with making false statements to the government for failing to disclose all of his own past crimes. Ironically, this is a good sign, since at a fundamental level it is up to the government to police the reliability of its own informants.

Los Angeles jury convicts British man based on jailhouse informant

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Neil Revill was convicted today of a double murder based largely on the testimony of jailhouse informant Benjamin Chloupek. Revill was accused of killing a fellow meth user Arthur Davodian, who ironically was himself a police informer who may have given information to the police about Revill. Chloupek testifed that Revill confessed the details of the murder to him while they were incarcerated. Chloupek, whose substantial criminal record includes convictions for manslaughter and child abuse involving the death of an 18-month-old, “admitted approaching detectives with his account in the hope of obtaining a lenient sentence on a burglary case he was facing.”

The use of jailhouse informant witnesses in Los Angeles has become a rarity. After a scathing Grand Jury investigation in 1990 in which rampant abuses of informants were uncovered in the Los Angeles jail, the District Attorney’s office clamped down, creating new corroboration restrictions, a central jailhouse informant index and committee, and requiring high-level approval before such witnesses could be used. The District Attorneys office states that it has approved the use of jailhouse informant witnesses only six times since 2006. Here’s the Los Angeles Times story: Jailhouse informant plays a critical role in trial for a brutal double murder.

Contract killer avoids death penalty by cooperating

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Washington Times journalist Jim McElhatton has written another revealing story about the violent dynamics of snitching: this one on seven-time killer Oscar Veal who cooperated against the violent Washington DC drug gang that hired him. In exchange, Veal escaped the death penalty and was sentenced to 25 years, half of which he has already served. Story here: A killer deal: be a star witness, escape execution. Based on thousands of pages of newly obtained documents, the Times story offers a rare window into the secretive dynamics of such arrangements. From the story:

Veal, 39, shot and killed seven people. A contract killer for a large drug ring and murder-for-hire operation a decade ago, he cooperated with prosecutors and became a star witness for the government. Kevin Gray, the lead defendant in one case in which Veal testified, alone was convicted in Washington of taking part in a record 19 murders.

But there is a price to be paid for such testimony. Veal could have faced the death penalty. Instead, he has completed about half of a 25-year prison term — less than four years for each of the execution-style murders he committed. At his 2005 sentencing, which has not been previously reported, a relative of one victim said she will pray until her dying breath that Veal never sees the streets again. And attorneys for the men he testified against portrayed him as a snitch willing to lie in court to save himself.

The Veal story starkly illustrates the trade-offs of the criminal informant deal. On the one hand, deals with murderers like Veal are one of the only ways the government can go after violent criminal organizations. On the other, society pays a significant price, not only because Veal will walk the streets again but because offenders like him know that the most heinous of crimes can be worked off in exchange for cooperation.

Afghan drug lord was paid CIA and DEA informant

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From today’s NY Times “Jailed Afghan Drug Lord was Informer on U.S. Payroll“:

When Hajji Juma Khan was arrested and transported to New York to face charges under a new American narco-terrorism law in 2008, federal prosecutors described him as perhaps the biggest and most dangerous drug lord in Afghanistan, a shadowy figure who had helped keep the Taliban in business with a steady stream of money and weapons. But what the government did not say was that Mr. Juma Khan was also a longtime American informer, who provided information about the Taliban, Afghan corruption and other drug traffickers. Central Intelligence Agency officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents relied on him as a valued source for years, even as he was building one of Afghanistan’s biggest drug operations after the United States-led invasion of the country, according to current and former American officials. Along the way, he was also paid a large amount of cash by the United States.

For more on the increasingly common terrorism/drug informant connection, see David Headley: another drug/terrorism informant works both sides.

A rare rebuke to the government

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Today’s New York Times opines about the FBI’s sordid 15-year history of covering up for two of its top informants, James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi. The government’s mishandling of these two seasoned criminals has generated numerous criminal cases, law suits, and a scathing 2004 Congressional inquiry entitled “Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI’s Use of Murderers as Informants.” In this latest episode, last week Judge William Young ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to compensate the families of two Flemmi/Bulger murder victims because of how government lawyers had “bullied and maligned” the families during litigation.