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An undercover narcotics investigation touted by the government as a significant blow to a notorious haven for drug dealing has been left in tatters after damning revelations about an informant, among them that he was using the same sort of drugs he was buying for the police. The U.S. attorney's office in the District said it has dropped or is preparing to drop charges against 13 of 23 people charged in a five-month investigation in and around the Woodland Terrace public housing complex in Southeast Washington. The cases collapsed less than five months after the arrests were announced. During the investigation, while working for another police unit conducting a separate operation, the informant crashed an unmarked police car into a moving car and several parked cars, according to court documents. But he was not charged, despite the considerable damage and the fact that he didn't have a driver's license. Little of the information about the informant's conduct during the investigation or his checkered history working for the police was initially turned over to attorneys for those charged in the Woodland Terrace investigation. By the time it was provided, some defendants had already pleaded guilty. Other defendants were about to go on trial when the U.S. attorney's office made the disclosures. On Friday in D.C. Superior Court, three defendants who had entered guilty pleas were allowed to withdraw them, and the charges were dismissed by prosecutors. Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said that prosecutors were not aware of the problems with the informant when the first defendants pleaded guilty but that the office acted promptly once it learned of the issues. The unraveling of the cases has renewed questions about how police use paid informants and how prosecutors determine which evidence they must turn over to the defense in the early stages. The problems were first reported in the Legal Times. Prosecutors are required to turn over information favorable to a defendant, such as a statement from a witness implicating another person in the crime or details of a plea agreement of a person cooperating with the government. Defense attorneys in the District have complained that the U.S. attorney's office is delinquent in turning over such information. The disclosure of such information, or the failure to promptly provide it, is a near-constant source of contention in D.C. Superior Court between the defense bar and prosecutors. It can be important in cases in which police and prosecutors are relying on information from people who are being paid by the government or who have pending criminal cases, or both. Superior Court judges periodically have rebuked the U.S. attorney's office for not turning over such material. In this case, the U.S. attorney's office said it did not receive the information from police until it was too late. For the Woodland Terrace investigation, the consequences were colossal. Despite its location -- about a block from the D.C. police department's 7th District station -- Woodland Terrace was a hot spot for people selling cocaine, PCP and marijuana. Last spring, the 7th District's Focused Mission Unit embarked on an ambitious effort to rout out drug dealers there. Woodland, a 234-unit low-rise complex, is bounded by Ainger, Bruce, Raynolds and Langston places. Neighborhood residents had said last fall that the police attention made a difference in ridding the area of the drug trafficking. Working with the D.C. Housing Authority Police, the U.S. attorney's office and other agencies, D.C. police set up dozens of drug buys during the investigation. Many were made by undercover officers, but many others were made by the informant, according to prosecutors. It was not until the first cases were about to go before a jury that some of the most damaging new information was handed over to defense attorneys. Donna Beasley, an attorney for one defendant, said she learned not long before the Jan. 10 trial date that years earlier the informant was thrown out of the witness protection program. Then, on the day of trial, the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney George P. Varghese, told her that the informant had not been licensed to drive when he crashed the police car. The revelation prompted Judge Craig S. Iscoe to postpone the trial. But it wasn't the only notable disclosure that day, Beasley said. While the judge was deciding what to do, Beasley said she was told that the informant had identified someone other than her client in a photo identification of the suspects -- evidence she says was as potentially exculpatory as anything the government could have given her. On Tuesday, the charges against her client -- and three others planning to go to trial -- were dismissed. "Yes, they did the right thing by dismissing it," Beasley said, "but what's going on?" |
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