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October 3, 2007 - News-Press (FL)

[Informant] Garnto Case Had Profound Impact

Started With Holiday Traffic Accident

By Lee Melsek

Return to Drug War News: Don't Miss Archive

It began as a routine traffic accident story in The News-Press. One dead, three injured on Fourth of July weekend, 1998.

The story probably would have ended there if I'd missed a call a couple of days later.

It was my retired cop friend. He said we needed to dig deep on the accident. Otherwise, he said, everything would be covered up.

What we found and exposed over the next few weeks convinced three members of Congress to ask for an investigation, forced changes in federal and Hendry County drug enforcement policy and cost a U.S. Drug Enforcement agent his job in Fort Myers.

The News-Press findings also caused local prosecutors to drop charges against a major drug dealer.

The names of the dead and injured weren't prominent. Just four unfortunate young people victimized by a drunk driver. The drunk driver's name also meant nothing. At least that's what we thought.

The dead woman was Kristina Waddell, 21, of Cape Coral. She was a single mom with a 6-year-old son.

Our initial inquiry found that the drunk driver, who was only slightly injured, was well known by cops in Hendry County. His name was Terry Garnto, a career criminal whose arrest record stretched over three pages of single spaced printouts -- 66 arrests for 88 criminal charges in a span of 18 years.

Garnto was supposed to be in a Clewiston jail cell, not partying at Fort Myers Beach, when he killed Kristina Waddell.

Kristina's father, Larry Waddell, had questions.

Why was she dead? Why was Garnto out of jail?

Why had he told traffic cops at the scene that he worked for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration?

All good questions, Metro Editor Joe Fenton and I agreed.

Hendry County Sheriff Ronnie Lee and DEA officials refused to answer my questions about their relationship with Garnto. My editors grew more suspicious.

Was Kristina Waddell dead because two law enforcement agencies screwed up? As more information was uncovered, it began to look like it.

Like all good stories, public records, and even records not so public, slowly unfolded some of the details. In page after page, the circumstances leading to Kristina Waddell's death became indisputable.

Garnto was serving a one-year sentence for assault, but Sheriff Lee let him out after six months. Garnto was to roam the streets buying cocaine and help Lee's officers and the DEA run a drug sting.

Records contained in state cases in LaBelle against some of the drug dealers Garnto set up provided important parts of the story. As we published our findings state and federal prosecutors were forced to drop all 26 cases Garnto had made for them as an informant. His testimony would no longer be credible, they said.

Eventually, Garnto told the feds he'd been invited to join the man they wanted most at Fort Myers Beach over the Fourth of July weekend, records showed.

But the feds didn't show up. They weren't there to watch their star perform and record his meeting with the man they were after.

At the beach, Garnto learned the target was suspicious. He was beginning to think Garnto was an informant.

After a long day of drinking, Garnto panicked. He leaped into his girlfriend's car, sped across the Matanzas Pass Bridge, pushed the accelerator to the floor down San Carlos Boulevard and slammed into Waddell's car.

As we continued to publish stories that dug deep into the dark circumstances leading to the crash, the articles were given to Florida's two U.S. senators, Bob Graham and Connie Mack, and to U.S. Representative Porter Goss. All sent letters to then-DEA Administrator Tom Constantine, asking him to look into the case. Goss said he was deeply disturbed by The News-Press findings.

"Constantine came up to the Hill and cooperated fully. We had a candid meeting," Goss told me after the stories were published. "Something will come out of this."

He was right.

Lee Melsek was an investigative reporter for The News-Press for 32 years. His series revealing the circumstances leading to Kristina Waddell's death won the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors Gold Medal for Public Service.

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