Pubdate: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 Source: Des Moines Register (IA) Copyright: 2002 The Des Moines Register. Contact: http://desmoinesregister.com/help/feedback.html Website: http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123 Author: Lee Rood WITH SNITCHES' AID, FEDERAL CASES MADE The federal government gave James Pratt little choice: Commit the ultimate betrayal against his motorcycle-gang brothers, the Sons of Silence, or sit in prison and wait to die. Defense attorney Tim McCarthy spelled out Pratt's reason for becoming a snitch. "You're looking to get out of jail, get your lung transplant by any way possible?" McCarthy asked. "Yeah," the witness answered flatly. "I wouldn't mind living." Testimony from a dozen snitches such as Pratt damned a wealthy accountant and two aging bikers who were accused in U.S. District Court in Des Moines of conspiring to deal methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. After a seven-week trial, Russell Schoenauer, Robert Norman and Pelayo Jose Cuervo were convicted last month of numerous drug charges, largely on the word of prison inmates who, like the ailing inmate, had much to gain for their testimony. An age-old criminal justice tradition, snitching offers most federal drug prisoners their only hope of early release under the stiff mandatory prison sentences passed by Congress nearly two decades ago. Growing use of such bargaining with drug offenders has resulted in thousands more convictions across the country, but at the cost of letting other criminals go free sooner and creating an incentive to lie. Prosecutors used their powerful and sometimes controversial discretion under the nation's drug laws to free Pratt, a twice-convicted methamphetamine dealer, hours after he testified for the government. At least eight other prisoners, several of them career criminals, became eligible to have years knocked off their sentences under agreements reached before the trial began. Judge Robert Pratt, who presided over the trial and is no relation to James Pratt, said the parade of snitches used to build the prosecution's case was not uncommon in his courtroom. "I think all judges are amazed at how often jurors believe the testimony of convicted criminals," he said. "The thing is, you can't get convictions without them. And yet, do you want to live in a snitch culture? That's the government's policy." The judge said his worst fear is that drug offenders plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit rather than risk conviction under what he called the federal system's "draconian" drug laws. U.S. Attorney Steve Colloton praised his office's handling of the case, saying the three guilty verdicts closed the final chapter of a motorcycle club's lawlessness in Iowa. But defense attorneys said the high-profile case also raised an important question about the trade-offs being made to achieve victory in big federal drug cases today. The government won, they conceded, but at what cost? Extensive Probe A decade in the making, the United States vs. Schoenauer et al. involved roughly a dozen law enforcement agencies, 25,000 pages of documents and interviews, 1,200 wiretapped phone conversations, and scores of photographs taken from the ground and air. Authorities seized, through search warrants and subpoenas, enough financial records, guns, correspondence, address books, photos, leather jackets and biker memorabilia to fill a bank vault. A case so vigorously investigated might have been a slam dunk but for one obvious hole, defense attorneys said. "It was all about drugs, firearms and money, but there were no drugs, no (illegal) firearms and no money," said James Martin Davis, one of the Midwest's top criminal defense lawyers, whom Schoenauer recruited from Omaha. Four years of tips from a paid spy in Schoenauer's office, financial sleuthing by experts trained to detect money-laundering and fraud, hours of clandestine recordings, and searches throughout central Iowa yielded several mysteries but no concrete evidence of widespread drug dealing. The Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation pulled out of the investigation before prosecutors charged Schoenauer and his co-defendants, Norman and Cuervo, in a conspiracy case, Davis said. "It was wishful thinking," Davis said. "They wanted to have a big organized crime case in Des Moines. But this isn't Miami. It isn't Phoenix, and it is not New York or Boston." Drug agents who had followed the Sons of Silence for almost a decade thought otherwise. To build their case, they turned to drug informants, including several already behind bars who had signed agreements to cooperate with authorities. Several of the witnesses were compelled to testify before a grand jury in exchange for possible sentence reductions. Colloton, the U.S. attorney, said it was not unusual for such a case to be built largely on the testimony of other convicted drug offenders. Lower-rung dealers are crucial in implicating their leaders, he said. Drug laws allow prosecutors to offer sentence reductions and immunity from prosecution to those willing to turn against their drug networks, sometimes at great personal risk. "Without that process, those at the highest level could not be convicted," Colloton said. Critics and national advocacy groups for years have railed against the federal system for penalizing drug offenders who fail to cooperate with authorities. In U.S. district courts, where many of the largest cases land, prosecutors often charge people with numerous crimes, many of which are dropped when defendants agree to become informants or testify against their drug networks. Serious federal drug charges carry stiff mandatory sentences of 10 years to life that require at least 85 percent of the term to be served. With few exceptions, the only way for convicted drug offenders to reduce their sentences is to cooperate with the government in the prosecution of others. In Iowa's Southern District, the consequences for drug crimes are even more severe: The average prison sentence for trafficking is almost 10 years, roughly four years longer than the national average. Almost 96 percent of those convicted in the southern half of Iowa plead guilty before trial. Information Is Key Eric Sterling, head of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said one of the biggest problems with current drug laws is that sentences are manipulated based on the information that offenders provide, with little regard to snitches' culpability. Critics say the rigidity of the sentencing system also encourages drug offenders to lie or exaggerate testimony, a common problem across the country. "The only tests that are used now are the oath before God," Sterling said. "Among inmates, the fear of prosecution for lying is almost unheard of." Although all nine of the men originally charged in the Schoenauer- Norman conspiracy were accused of serious drug crimes, prosecutors' deal-making before the trial suggested Schoenauer was the primary target, defense attorneys said. Five of the alleged co-conspirators pleaded guilty before the Jan. 14 trial. All were offered deals by prosecutors for their cooperation that resulted in dozens of charges being dropped. Norman was offered a similar plea deal despite being charged as a kingpin, his attorney said. Cuervo was never approached about a plea agreement, but that wasn't surprising, said Joe Bertogli, the biker's lawyer. "My client had nothing to offer against Schoenauer," he said. Likewise, Schoenauer was never offered a deal, his attorney said. Wearing shaggy beards and thinning ponytails, the posse of middle-aged drug dealers was flown by the U.S. Marshals Service from prisons throughout the Midwest. The witnesses in waiting were housed, some since before Thanksgiving, at the Polk County Jail at a total cost of almost $50,000. Most were Sons of Silence members who were serving lengthy sentences with no chance of parole. Together, the bikers' testimony provided a glimpse of the underworld that had led drug agents to pursue Sons chapters across Iowa. The leather-vested nomads had fanned out across the country on club- sponsored runs, guzzling beer, racing motorcycles, sometimes dealing drugs to pay their way. Above all, the fraternity despised snitches, witnesses said. Turncoats within the club had been beaten, even gunned down. Norman and Cuervo were the aging leftovers from Iowa's crackdown on the easy riders. A 1998 racketeering case left almost a dozen Cedar Falls- area Sons facing old age behind bars. The two tight-lipped bikers had been fingered as dealers but had eluded arrest until their biker acquaintances agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Nearly all of the prisoners who testified at the trial admitted that they hoped to have their sentences reduced by cooperating with the government. A majority had seen dramatic reductions for previous cooperation. The witnesses described using drugs, hiding drugs or shipping drugs at various times through the 1990s. When asked for specifics, their memories were often foggy. Several could not remember what year alleged drug transactions took place. They told the jury they had difficulty remembering details, including, sometimes, previous sworn testimony. Bertogli, McCarthy and Davis said they had little ammunition with which to fight the prisoners' claims. The rough dates and vagueness of the allegations made them virtually impossible to disprove. Some of the witnesses appeared to embellish previous accounts made before grand juries, the attorneys said. A few were called chronic liars by other witnesses. Some had admitted lying to the FBI, grand juries or police. Steven Henry, who had never met Schoenauer, said he was charged in the conspiracy even though he was not involved. The 56-year-old retired Sons member told jurors he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in the case rather than face numerous charges investigators had lodged against him. Pleading not guilty and going to trial meant risking a stiff prison sentence. "You didn't want to go to trial and run the risk of being found guilty even though you're not guilty. Is that right?" Davis asked him. "That's right," Henry testified. Like Henry and most of the other conspirators, witness James Pratt faced a possible sentence of 10 years to life if convicted. He was allowed to walk away under a last-minute deal his lawyer negotiated with prosecutors. Diagnosed in 1999 with a rare and terminal disease, Pratt learned shortly after his arrest that he could not progress on a lung donor list while behind bars. Pratt agreed to plead guilty of two felonies; 26 other charges were dropped. Over three days, he offered recent and credible-sounding accounts of his meth use with Schoenauer, implicating the accountant in drug deals involving Norman. Less than three hours after he finished testifying, the twice-convicted meth dealer was free. The terms of his release were sealed under court order, as they are in most such agreements. Week Of Deliberation The jury took seven days to reach a verdict, twice deadlocking on the charges against Schoenauer. In the end, Cuervo and Norman were convicted of every charge against them. Schoenauer was found guilty of distributing methamphetamine and conspiracy, but he was deemed not guilty on the kingpin charge. The jury said several of his properties should be seized through forfeiture. Interviewed after the verdict, Colloton said he had no reservations about his office's handling of the case. Norman, a drug kingpin, was behind bars. All three men were guilty of distributing drugs. Ultimately, the U.S. attorney said, Congress makes the drug laws that dictate how the system works. The jury, he said, "is the arbiter of the credibility and the strength of evidence in our judicial system." Prosecutors Cliff Wendel and Lester Paff declined to be interviewed. However, during a break in the trial, Wendel conceded that the case likely would not have gone to court before Congress enacted the drug laws that transformed the federal system. "Before, either we had the drugs or we didn't," he said. "Now, this is 85 to 90 percent of what we do." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth