Pubdate: Thu, 06 Nov 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Peter Hermann
Page: A1

FBI AGENT SUSPECTED OF EVIDENCE TAMPERING

28 Drug Indictments to Be Dismissed in Light of Probe

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they will dismiss indictments 
against 28 defendants in District drug cases amid an investigation of 
an FBI agent accused of tampering with evidence, including narcotics 
and guns, according to newly unsealed court documents.

Fourteen of those defendants have already pleaded guilty and were 
serving sentences - one was a year into a 10-year term - and 
prosecutors said they can withdraw their guilty pleas and the charges 
would be dropped. A hearing is scheduled Friday in U.S. District 
Court for many of the defendants. The stunning action by the U.S. 
attorney's office came as authorities continue to scrutinize cases 
that the agent, assigned to a D.C. police task force in the FBI's 
Washington field office, may have been involved with. The agent, who 
has not been charged criminally, has been suspended in what officials 
describe as a misconduct investigation.

One drug case that is unraveling involves an alleged gang that 
authorities said was run by 62year-old Lester Pryor and had imported 
heroin and cocaine from California into the District, Maryland and 
Virginia. Police said that they raided 26 homes and seized 11 pounds 
of drugs and that they listened in to thousands of hours of secretly 
recorded telephone conversations.

Pryor and 13 others were indicted. Now, the government has indicated 
charges would be dropped against all of them.

"It was a very substantial drug case," said Robert Jenkins, who 
represents defendant Anthony McDuffie, who had pleaded guilty to drug 
charges in the case and is awaiting sentencing. "I can only imagine 
the scope of the misconduct that occurred that led to something like this."

The FBI and U.S. attorney's office have confirmed that the 
investigation into the agent began the week of Sept. 29 and that 
authorities are still culling through cases that the agent may have 
been involved with. The Washington Post is not naming the agent 
because he has not been charged and neither he nor an attorney could 
be reached. He is being investigated by the inspector general at the 
Justice Department.

Sometime in late September, the agent was found slumped over the 
wheel of his unmarked FBI vehicle near the Navy Yard, according to 
two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case. Empty bags 
thought to have contained drugs were found in the car, the officials said.

The disruption to drug cases had been cloaked in secrecy, with many 
documents filed under seal that gave no hint anything was amiss. But 
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the new information 
unsealed after The Washington Post reported on the case Saturday. The 
judge said access to criminal proceedings "serves an important 
function of monitoring misconduct." Prosecutors said they were 
already in the process of making the documents public.

In another of the affected cases, prosecutors filed court papers 
saying they would drop charges against 10 defendants accused of 
selling heroin and cocaine in the city. They also said that they 
would dismiss a 2013 case against four men who had been accused of 
selling heroin in D.C. neighborhoods.

Information about the investigation of the agent leaked after a judge 
last month ordered the release from jail and prison of more than a 
dozen felons and others with pending charges. Some of those cases are 
among those prosecutors say will be dismissed, while others remain in limbo.

Officials say another case that could be affected involves a 
purported drug organization allegedly led by Juan Floyd. Thirty-three 
people were indicted in the case; none have been released.

Authorities have not described in detail how the agent's alleged 
misconduct may have compromised the cases.

Defense attorneys said that they have not been given many specifics 
and described their clients as being in a holding pattern. But in the 
Floyd case, newly unsealed documents indicate that potential problems 
may stem from a search conducted Nov. 20 on a house and vehicle in 
Deale, Md., about 20 miles south of Annapolis.

One of the defendants in the alleged Floyd drug conspiracy was in 
court Wednesday, a routine bond hearing that revealed the 
complexities surrounding the investigation into the agent and its 
impact on pending court cases. It involved the 20-year-old daughter 
of Juan Floyd, the alleged kingpin who is pending trial.

Brittany Floyd, of Northeast Washington, was arrested during a raid 
last year and charged with conspiracy to distribute drugs. 
Authorities said that they found heroin and scales used for weighing 
drugs in her bedroom; her attorney said that the drugs belonged to 
her father but that she was willing to plead guilty to a felony 
charge so that prosecutors would offer her father a plea deal.

Brittany Floyd had been released from custody as the drug case 
proceeded but had violated the terms of her release several times, 
including an arrest on charges of assaulting a police officer.

Her attorney, Jonathan Zucker, argued in court that prosectors had 
agreed to sentence her to probation on the drug case, but the 
investigation of the FBI agent was delaying an expedited hearing. He 
noted that prosecutors had agreed to drop the assault charge.

Zucker said that his client is a student and that it is unfair to 
keep her in jail because of what he called a "quagmire" involving the 
FBI agent. Brittany Floyd's mother, Tracey Luther, 49, said outside 
court that her daughter "is only being held because the FBI needs to 
clean up its own mess."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom