You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.
—JOHN IRVING
THE YEAR WAS 1973. Hundreds of species had already vanished from the planet. Extinction caused by man had been ongoing for centuries, from the dodo to the Tasmanian tiger, the Barbary lion, the great auk, and the Carolina parakeet. Human greed and consumption decimated the Steller’s sea cow, a creature the size of a large truck weighing in at three and a half tons and measuring thirty-five feet in length. Hunted relentlessly, the species became extinct only thirty years after having been discovered, exterminated for its meat and skin.
Passenger pigeons flew across the eastern United States in numbers so large they darkened the sky, only to be wiped out by “market hunters.” John James Audubon claimed to have seen a flock in Kentucky a mile wide that took three days to pass through. He calculated there were three hundred million flying overhead per hour. The storm of their flapping wings could be heard as far as six miles away. But even they went the way of the dodo. The last of their kind died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden.
More species were rapidly disappearing when the United States passed what many hailed as the most powerful conservation law in the world. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) would help put the brakes on extinction by requiring federal wildlife agencies to protect threatened and endangered species while preserving their habitats.
“It was two hundred years ago that there were buffalo on the plains, there were whales in the ocean, and there was an attitude that we can do no wrong,” former prosecutor Lee Altschuler told the judge during the Skalski, Kral, and Grinnell butterfly case. “And it was twenty-two years ago that the Congress came to a different determination.”
They had decided to pass the Endangered Species Act.
On paper, the ESA sounds like one hell of a big club for the agents of Fish and Wildlife to wield. In truth, it has all the clout of a wet noodle.
Its biggest flaw is that ESA criminal provisions don’t include felonies involving serious jail time. Rather, the most severe crime under the act is a Class A misdemeanor, which means someone can kill the last tiger in the world and the worst that will happen is a yearlong jail sentence. Low criminal penalties are one reason the illegal wildlife trade is booming.
Less known, but with far more teeth, is a statute called the Lacey Act. The Lacey Act was drafted by Iowa congressman John Lacey and introduced in the House of Representatives in the spring of 1900. The act’s original purpose was to ban the interstate trade of illegally hunted game and waterfowl. The law has since been amended a number of times to include not only protected wildlife but also insects, plants, and timber. The Lacey Act now prohibits the importation, exportation, sale, and purchase of wildlife and plants in violation of state, federal, Indian tribal, or foreign law. The last condition is the very best part. The United States has the authority to enforce another country’s conservation laws whether that country chooses to uphold them or not.
The maximum penalty under the felony portion of the statute is $250,000 and/or twenty years imprisonment. It’s helped expand the role of federal wildlife agents and is now one of the broadest and most comprehensive forces in their arsenal. The Lacey Act has become an important weapon for combating international wildlife crime. Due to this, the statute has its detractors, who claim that the law is misguided and see it more as a catchall akin to Big Brother or the Patriot Act.
A few wildlife dealers complain that the Lacey Act has given FWS everything it needs to go after any and everyone, and that agents have turned into thugs. Many believe U.S. citizens shouldn‘t be forced to follow another country’s laws when that same country doesn’t appear to care about them. They grumble that the Lacey Act makes it all the more difficult for businesspeople to import foreign butterflies and bugs and that the law is confusing.
Not so, dissents Brent Karner, associate manager of entomological exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He believes the Lacey Act to be perfectly clear in intent, as well as an absolute necessity. “The laws are in place to protect the natural world so that there will be something left on this planet for people to enjoy and to learn about,” Karner declares.
Kojima knew the law well, but he never let that stop him. He was the man who could never be caught.
Newcomer didn’t hear another word from Kojima after his last threatening e-mail on June 17, 2004. Neither did John Brooks or Newcomer’s confidential informant. It was as if he had dropped off the face of the earth. He was a spider that had gone back inside his hidey-hole. Kojima didn’t even show up at the 2004 L.A. Bug Fair. Newcomer felt like a total failure. Kojima had managed to outfox him. Kojima’s network was bigger and better than ever, and he was still out there somewhere selling butterflies. That was the biggest irritation of all.
“Mendoza missed him and then I missed him. Kojima’s left thinking he’s the most wanted butterfly smuggler in the world and that he’d outsmarted the Fish and Wildlife Service. That totally pissed me off,” Newcomer recalled.
He had no choice but to become immersed in other work as two years rolled by. Newcomer investigated sea otter shootings, trafficking of illegal piranha, and Jackson chameleons illicitly flowing into the mainland from Hawaii. He eventually dipped his toe back into undercover work while on a case involving Asian arowana smuggling.
Asian arowana, or dragon fish, are native to Indonesia and Malaysia and considered to be the rarest and most prized freshwater fish in the world. Beautiful and mysterious, they can sell for as much as ten thousand dollars apiece on the black market. Red ones are believed to ward off evil spirits from one’s home, while gold arowanas will bring their owner good fortune and wealth.
That wasn’t the case for the smugglers Newcomer dealt with when he posed as a middleman with connections to a corrupt U.S. Customs official. He played the go-to guy who could get anything into the States. His target was a crooked Indonesian supplier. Newcomer’s “job” was to receive the endangered arowana and make sure that they passed through Customs. He’d then deliver them to illegal buyers. It wasn’t long before the pipeline was swiftly closed down, though the final outcome wasn’t the one that Newcomer had hoped for. The case was indefinitely shelved at the U.S. Attorney’s Office while the Environmental Crimes Unit went through some shuffling and reorganization. In the meantime, wildlife crime continued its onward march.
Even so, the arowana case helped bolster Newcomer’s confidence after his disastrous blowup with Kojima. He now figured undercover work was the way to go.
“I learned I could do it and play other people. I wasn’t nervous or afraid now that I realized I could pull it off,” Newcomer said.
His ongoing work also convinced him that wildlife criminals don’t love animals in any way, shape, or form, no matter what they might say. They’re in the business of buying and selling animals for only one reason. Every wildlife crook he’d ever known had tried to convince him otherwise, but Newcomer concluded it was all a pile of crap. They loved butterflies, fish, birds, or whatever else they sold, as one would love diamonds for their value.
Special Agent Lisa Nichols succinctly summed it up. “It’s just to make money. The rarer, the more unusual, the fewer, and the weirder something is, the more it’s in demand by people in the trade.” That was why Kojima remained the king of butterfly smugglers. He continued to obtain what no one else could.
Newcomer tried to put the case behind him and not constantly dwell on Kojima. It drove him crazy whenever he did. So much so, that Newcomer couldn’t bring himself to close the case. He convinced himself it was low-priority and not worth the time it would take to fill out the necessary paperwork.
In truth, an obsession is hard to shake, and his defeat continued to eat away at him. Kojima had become Newcomer’s Moby-Dick. The folder lay like a slow-burning ember buried beneath other cases that sat on his desk. The only concession Newcomer made was to slap a Post-it note marked CLOSED on its cover.
He finally moved into a larger office in 2006 and was able to make it his own. Piles of papers and folders mushroomed on his desk like weeds growing out of control. They jockeyed for space with books touting the titles Hand-to-Hand Combat, Basic Stick Fighting, and Special Weapons/Special Tactics Training.
By March, Newcomer found himself sitting at his desk with a bag of Fritos and a jumbo cup of McDonald’s Coca-Cola while wondering what to do next. He needed to tackle something totally different from the butterfly case and stop feeling like such a failure. At the same time, he craved the addictive rush that only a big case could bring.
Family photos stared down from his bookshelf, seemingly unaware they were being stalked by a plastic model of Bigfoot. Newcomer glanced at his old boyhood Smokey the Bear thermos, still without a scratch or a mark, when his eyes came to rest on a plastic bag of eagle feathers. He munched on his breakfast of champions as a memory began to stir.
He’d received a call back in the fall of 2003, just as the Kojima case had kicked into gear. A man had found a wounded red-tailed hawk in his backyard and taken it to the California Wildlife Center. A staffer proceeded to notify Newcomer. The hawk had been injured by gunshot. It was the kind of case that agents usually don’t take, since they tend to be unsolvable.
Even so, Newcomer called the man who initially found the bird. Did he happen to know anything about it? His response was no, but Newcomer’s timing couldn’t have been better. He’d just discovered a second hawk in his yard that very day. This one was dead. In fact, he’d thrown the bird into his freezer.
Either all hell had broken loose, and birds were haphazardly falling from the sky, or something wasn’t quite kosher in North Hills. Newcomer’s interest immediately perked up. He arranged to pay the man a visit.
He drove out near the Van Nuys airport to the scene of the crime. The area was a sprawl of tract houses all lined up in rows. Looking at the neighborhood, he figured the perps were probably a bunch of kids idly plinking at birds.
Newcomer knocked on the man’s door and asked if any teenagers lived in the neighborhood. Then he began to point at individual houses and inquire who lived in them. Also, what did each of the residents do? He finally pointed to the house next door and asked the same questions.
“Oh, that’s Marty Ladin,” the man said. “He loves birds. In fact, he breeds pigeons.”
Bingo! If Ladin loved pigeons, then it was a good bet that he hated hawks. Newcomer instantly had a suspect on his list. He didn’t immediately go and talk to the guy. First he interviewed Ladin’s neighbors.
One woman told of hearing gunshots one day and finding a large bird with big yellow feet in her yard. Another neighbor had a similar experience. Comparable tales were repeated throughout the neighborhood. Gunshot blasts always resulted in dead birds being found in someone’s yard. By now, a siren was blaring inside Newcomer’s head. It was time to head over and interview Marty.
The first thing Ladin wanted to know was what all the neighbors had said. Something else struck Newcomer as odd. Marty was a little too eager to cooperate in any way possible. If he’d been any more helpful, Newcomer would have had to pin a deputy’s badge on him.
He brought the conversation around to pigeons, and Ladin soon began to babble like an overflowing fountain. He revealed that he had racing pigeons worth five thousand apiece and hawks were killing his birds. By the way, what would happen to someone who snuffed out a hawk? he asked.
Newcomer listened as he studied Ladin’s setup. A bunch of shotguns lay all around the grounds. Ladin followed Newcomer’s gaze.
“You carry a weapon?” he asked Newcomer.
Ladin’s sinister tone was enough to creep Newcomer out. He knew Marty was the guilty party, but without hard proof there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. That’s where the survival skills he’d honed as a boy came in handy.
He paid Marty Ladin another visit a few days later. This time he wasn’t empty-handed; he came armed with two videotapes. He laid them on the kitchen table like a couple of six-shooters. Then he asked Ladin a few more questions.
Had Marty ever noticed the streetlamp that stood outside his house?
Ladin answered yes, though he wasn’t quite sure what the hell that had to do with shooting a hawk. Newcomer quickly filled him in.
“There’s a camera inside it. We’ve got you on tape shooting that bird,” Newcomer informed him.
Ladin folded like a bad hand of cards at a poker game. He admitted his crime, pled guilty in court, and paid a five-thousand-dollar fine.
Oddly enough, neither he nor his lawyer ever asked to view the evidence. It was a good thing, since Newcomer had managed to pull off one of his “brass ball” bluffs. There was no camera in the streetlamp, and both videotapes had been blank.
Newcomer now remembered something else Marty Ladin had once told him. Other guys in the neighborhood belonged to pigeon-racing clubs. In fact, there were pigeon clubs all over Southern California. That could mean only one thing. Hundreds of pigeon aficionados were probably having the exact same problem with hawks. More than likely, they were trying to get rid of them, too. Newcomer quickly did the math. If that was true, then thousands of hawks and falcons were being killed each year along one of their major migration routes, the Pacific Flyway.
Newcomer had grown up in Colorado as a child of the seventies. To see a hawk during that time had been rare. Spotting a raptor was akin to glimpsing a grizzly bear in Yellowstone. If you were lucky enough to spot one, you’d stop whatever you were doing and stare. Newcomer spent his childhood thinking that hawks were cool. He also knew something about their history. The use of DDT had affected the numbers of falcons and hawks in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s, causing their populations to plummet. It had taken time, money, and years for the raptors to make a recovery. The thought that people would wantonly harm them now totally pissed him off.
He knew the Ladin case had been only the tip of the iceberg. The subculture of pigeon racers was a whole other world. It had remained on a back burner in his mind while the Kojima case had been active. Newcomer suddenly knew the next case that he wanted to do, but he’d first have to sell it to Marie Palladini.
He did his homework in order to present a rock-solid case. His first discovery was that investigating racer-pigeon clubs while working undercover would be a problem. These clubs were hard to infiltrate; there was very little social interaction, and members usually didn’t go to one another’s houses. Instead, the birds were released at different locations and their flight times noted upon return.
However, Newcomer learned of another, equally popular sport, one that featured Birmingham roller pigeons. Referred to as “spinners” and “tumblers,” the birds are bred with a genetic defect that causes them to roll in midair. The pigeons fly to great heights, where they experience a brief seizure, throw up their wings, flip backward, and repeatedly somersault, looking like feathered whirling dervishes as they spiral uncontrollably toward the ground.
The good ones live to compete another day. The unfortunate ones end up meeting their maker.
Roller-pigeon fanciers fly their flocks in “kits” composed of twenty or more pigeons. Seeing them tumble in syncopation is akin to viewing performing dolphins at SeaWorld or watching a new Olympic team sport. For hawks, they’re the raptor version of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the go. Roller pigeons are viewed as fast food on the wing.
Newcomer remembered having first seen roller pigeons in the Denzel Washington movie Training Day. Gang members flew them as a warning whenever cops entered their neighborhood. He’d also heard that the boxer Mike Tyson was an avid roller-pigeon devotee.
Newcomer put his notes together and presented the case to Palladini. She was less than enthusiastic at first. Special agents have plenty of endangered animals to save. Hawks were way down on Fish and Wildlife’s list of priorities.“I just didn’t see it as a federal case,” Palladini explained. “I thought there were a lot bigger cases we could be making with Newcomer’s talent and ability. Why would we waste our time on this when the state could be doing it?”
As it turns out, the state could never have done what Ed Newcomer did.
He pleaded his case by arguing that the number of hawks being killed impacted the resource and made it a high priority. Palladini reluctantly gave the okay but warned him not to spend too much time on it. She first wanted to see where the case would lead.
Next he had to break the news to his wife.
He’d first met Allison at a tae kwon do tournament back in Washington State. He was working as the assistant attorney general in Olympia, and Allison was doing social work in Seattle. He’d immediately shared his goal of wanting to become a U.S. Fish and Wildlife special agent. Even so, Newcomer said that he’d never do undercover work. They dated for six years and eventually married.
Newcomer had gone back on his word with the very first case. However, dealing with Kojima had never truly felt like an undercover operation. Infiltrating the roller-pigeon crowd would be a different matter. Many club members were African Americans from tough East L.A. neighborhoods. Newcomer was more Rocky Mountain High. He slowly eased Allison into the idea by talking about it as the case got under way. She was carefully prepped as to the change that would take effect. Even so, this wasn’t what she had signed up for.
“I remember thinking I hadn’t really understood that he’d be going undercover, and here he was getting ready to enter an inner-city group wearing a gun and a wire,” she said, tucking a renegade curl into place. Her long wavy hair was carefully contained in a ponytail. “I knew he’d be carrying a gun, but it was still very different from what I had expected. I married a lawyer and ended up with this guy that packs an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun.”
Things would work out as long as he continued to honor their pact about family time. Otherwise, what was the sense of even being married?
Still, it was weird to be the wife of a guy who put his life at risk. At the same time, she knew Newcomer was doing a job that he totally loved; the work was important, and he was good at it.
There was another thing that struck her as odd about Newcomer getting into criminal work. Upon moving to L.A. they’d taken an acting class together for fun. Newcomer always joked about being such a terrible actor and not knowing how people could do it. Yet here he was not only taking on different personas but also being able to fool everyone.
“I thought it was weird that he was such a good liar. It was like, ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ ” Allison admitted. It was a quality that she didn’t know he had, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
Newcomer had a simple explanation. “I learned to be a good liar as a kid in order to defend myself against shitheads.”
Newcomer morphed into Ted Nelson once again, having had plenty of time to perfect his undercover persona. Nelson had a Social Security number, credit cards, and even an undercover bank account, all newly acquired since the Kojima case.
He was now ready to make contact. Newcomer searched the Internet for information on pigeon clubs in the area and phoned one of the listed members. The fancier invited him to attend an Inner City Roller Club (ICRC) pigeon show to be held within the next few weekends. The show’s location would be in a lot behind the Pigeon Connection, a bird store at Western and Eighty-third, on the edge of South Central Los Angeles.
Newcomer would have to change his appearance. You couldn’t go looking too white bread when you’re invited to a pigeon show in South Central L.A., and you certainly couldn’t appear to be a clean-cut, buttoned-down cop. Most roller-pigeon competitors are blue-collar guys, so Newcomer grew a long droopy mustache and threw on a ratty ball cap to adopt a gruffer look. He also exchanged his crisp clothes for scruffy boots, beat-up T-shirts, and a pair of jeans that he found at a Goodwill store. The new Ted Nelson didn’t have his own commercial marine business; instead, he made deliveries for one. Newcomer wired himself up with a video camera and headed to the show.
A large, racially mixed crowd milled about the lot. One man flaunted a Pomona gang tattoo on the back of his head, while another brandished a Rollin’ 30s Crips tattoo on his neck. The men normally wouldn’t be caught dead or alive in one another’s neighborhoods. Yet here they raced pigeons, drank beer, and talked together. Newcomer was warmly welcomed as a newbie who was eager to learn about birds.
“Part of it was that I was the new mark, the guy you could maybe sell your shitty pigeons to,” Newcomer explained.
Everyone spoke openly about killing hawks. A man bragged of having recently whacked a peregrine falcon with a pump-action pellet gun. There were lots of ways in which the birds could be killed. It was literally choose your own poison.
One vendor sold a poison paste that he’d concocted. A little Temik mixed with mayonnaise and rubbed on the back of a pigeon’s head worked wonders. Put it on one or two sacrificial birds that weren’t flying very well, and simply wait for a hawk or falcon to take a nosh. Presto! The attacking bird was a goner.
Another guy sold pigeon jerseys for ten dollars a pop. They were little vests that had Velcro on the front. The backs were constructed with loops and loops of fishing line. All you had to do was to put one on your pigeon and let a falcon strike. Once its talons became entangled in the snares, the bird would panic and drop to the ground.
“At that point, you can take all your frustration out on the falcon,” the vendor explained.
He emphasized his point by pretending to brutally stomp on a bird. Of course, this was only his part-time job. The vendor’s real career was working as a smoke jumper for the U.S. Forest Service. He put his life on the line to save the forest and then literally stomped on its inhabitants. The irony took Newcomer’s breath away.
Nelson was also advised on the best way to dispose of a dead hawk’s carcass. The smart thing was to bag it up and throw it into a Dumpster several miles from your house. That way you wouldn’t get caught. After all, killing hawks and falcons was illegal and could incur a ten-thousand-dollar fine. But not to worry; it was nearly impossible to be discovered trapping and killing them. He was then shown all the hawk traps that could be bought. They were large contraptions made of wood and wire mesh that measured about twelve feet square.
Newcomer spent six hours bonding with his new best friends. One of them took his photo and posted it on ICRC’s Web site the following day. Ted Nelson was listed as a “newcomer” in the caption. Newcomer found that to be hilarious. But he also knew that they’d have to be caught in the act before he could arrest anyone. That required Marie Palladini’s approval.
He showed her the surveillance tape. Palladini listened as the men professed their hatred for falcons and hawks and bragged of killing them. She also saw the number of traps that were for sale. He told her that the president of the national group, the National Birmingham Roller Club, lived right here in L.A., along with a local chapter of 250 members. If just 50 percent of them killed 10 hawks each year, then 1,250 hawks annually were being slain in this area alone. That amounted to a huge impact along the Pacific Flyway.
The next club fly was taking place at a number of members’ homes, including that of national president Juan Navarro. As far as Newcomer knew, they were all killing falcons and hawks.
That proved enough to convince Palladini. The problem was much worse than she had originally thought. She gave him the go-ahead, and Newcomer went at it full steam. He was determined to target those in leadership positions as well as the worst offenders, most of whom would be at the next fly on April 15.
Ted Nelson now became part of the roving band that traveled to members’ homes to watch their roller pigeons being flown. It was clear the men all had a bond. The setting was as social as a tea party.
Newcomer took note of the wood-and-wire traps that were set near everyone’s pigeon lofts. Each trap contained a separate bottom cage, where a couple of live pigeons had been placed as bait. They were all designed and sold by Darik McGhee for the bargain price of $120 apiece. He built them in his garage. McGhee explained that he liked to give something back to the hobby and support the people involved. Besides, the more people that bought traps, the fewer hawks there would be.
A security guard at a roller rink, McGhee took it upon himself to become Ted Nelson’s mentor. Extremely aggressive pit bulls were kept chained in his yard; the female had started to dry up and wasn’t producing enough puppies, and McGhee casually mentioned that he’d soon be “getting rid” of her.
He also told Ted that he’d recently shot a hawk with a .177-caliber pellet gun equipped with a scope. McGhee proceeded to pick up the gun and show how it was done, shooting one of his own pigeons by way of demonstration. It was no big deal. The bird hadn’t been flying very well lately, anyway.
McGhee used to have a five-gallon bucket filled with the trophy talons of all the hawks that he’d killed. He’d recently disposed of it, having realized that they constituted evidence.
Another member of the group wore a black T-shirt with a drawing of a peregrine falcon on the back. The caption beneath it read: “Wanted Dead or Alive (Preferably Dead).”
Peregrine falcons had been listed as endangered in 1975, with just 324 nesting pairs in North America. Federal and state agencies as well as conservation groups had mounted a huge campaign to boost their numbers. The falcons were finally removed from the Endangered Species list in 1999. Now here was this bozo flaunting a T-shirt advocating killing them. Just looking at it made Newcomer feel sick.
Everyone was taking photos of the goings-on at each person’s house, and Newcomer snapped a few of his own. He managed to catch the license plate of the man in the peregrine falcon T-shirt and ran a criminal history on him. What do you know? It just so happened that he was wanted for rape in Los Angeles County. The quandary was, how could Newcomer turn the guy in and not blow his cover?
Newcomer placed an anonymous call to the LAPD and reported when and where this guy could be found the next morning. Sure enough, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department showed up and arrested him.
The news consumed the members of the pigeon fly at Juan Navarro’s house the following weekend. They’d all known about the rape charge but couldn’t figure out how their friend had been caught. It was then that Newcomer realized hawk killing was considered more than a badge of honor; it constituted a brotherhood that demanded a code of silence. You didn’t turn in a member just because he was wanted for rape, robbery, or drug running. Besides, a few of the men had their own criminal histories.
That didn’t include club president Juan Navarro, who lived in a three-million-dollar mansion in a swanky neighborhood near Griffith Park. Located in the hills above Hollywood, it’s one of the largest urban wilderness areas in the nation, home to not only the Hollywood sign but also mule deer, mountain lions, coyotes, peregrine falcons, and Cooper’s and red-tailed hawks.
Navarro openly bragged of killing approximately forty hawks each year. He was unable to shoot them, since his neighbors were so close. Instead, he’d slide a stick in the trap and ping the hawk on its head. Once it was dazed, he’d quietly pummel it to death.
“It’s a great thing. You’ll get all your frustrations out. You’ll see,” he told Newcomer.
Only one person seemed suspicious of Newcomer: Brian McCormick, president of the Riverside County California Performance Roller Club.
The next fly took place at his home the following weekend. The place was easy enough to find; McCormick had a large pirate flag flying from his flagpole. Newcomer strolled the grounds and noticed a baited hawk trap set under a giant tree in his yard. He proceeded to ask him about it.
“I’m just starting to get into this, but I understand I’m going to need a hawk trap. Does it work better under a tree for some reason?” he inquired.
It was a bad move on Newcomer’s part.
McCormick glared at him and tersely responded, “I don’t trap hawks. What are you talking about? Anybody tells you they trap hawks is stupid.”
Newcomer realized his mistake and quickly backed off. “You don’t? Okay, I got it. No big deal.”
But he knew McCormick was up to no good as the man brusquely walked away.
Newcomer then spotted a Remington 870 shotgun custom-fitted with an eight-foot barrel. It leaned against the house near where McCormick stood with a group of men. Newcomer sidled up in time to hear a remark made by McCormick. Noise from the nearby highway made it difficult for neighbors to hear gunshots that came from his property. Rather, they sounded like trucks backfiring, while the long barrel helped to act as a silencer.
McCormick glanced around, and his eyes momentarily locked on Newcomer as he added that the “po-po” might be watching him. Newcomer understood that to mean the police and now realized that he was under suspicion.
McGhee called a few days later and warned Ted to be careful when it came to talking about hawks. “You’re brand new. Some of the guys get a little touchy when you start asking questions about them,” he advised.
Newcomer rushed to his own defense. “Whoa! That’s all any of you talk about. I didn’t even know I had to worry about hawks until I started getting into this hobby. Now I find out that I have to buy a hawk trap or they’re going to kill all my birds. You want me to learn about raising pigeons, don’t you? Well, isn’t this part of it?”
McGhee smoothed his ruffled feathers. “Don’t worry, man. I told them you’re a good guy. I know you. I’m your mentor.”
It was great to know his cover was solid, but Newcomer couldn’t help but be upset. The men liked to pretend they protected their pigeons the same as they would any pet.
“That’s what really got me,” Newcomer admitted. “It was total BS. Every single one of these guys broke a bird’s neck when it got old or didn’t perform to their satisfaction. They’d throw it in the garbage or over a wall and wait for raccoons and cats to take off with them.”
Newcomer ended every pigeon fly by driving to the nearest McDonald’s, turning off his surveillance equipment, ordering a jumbo Coke, and making notes of what he’d observed. Before long, he’d amassed an enormous cache of material but had yet to snag anyone.
It was while teaching defensive tactics to FWS agents in Washington that he bumped into fellow special agent Dirk Hoy. The two began to compare notes. Hoy told of a case he’d just opened in Oregon involving “a really weird group of people that fly these pigeons.” He was pretty sure they were killing falcons.
“Oh, my God. I’m doing exactly the same thing,” Newcomer told him.
They decided to coordinate their efforts and work together.
There was no question that roller-pigeon fanciers were hammering hawks flying across the western United States. The question was, what was happening to raptors throughout the rest of the country?
Newcomer sent an e-mail to every FWS agent in order to find out. In it, he explained what he was doing, what he’d discovered, and that there were clubs all over the United States. Any agent interested in starting a case should contact their resident agent in charge. Newcomer also asked that they coordinate with him and Hoy before pursuing any action. All cases would have to be taken down on the very same day so that no evidence was destroyed.
Newcomer had hoped for positive feedback. Instead, his initiative promptly backfired.
“Ed approached agents from other districts because he had this vision of where the case was going; but he didn’t go through the proper chain of command, and for that, he was reprimanded,” explained Palladini.
One of the regional FWS supervisors took it as a personal affront and responded by saying, “Who the hell does Newcomer think he is, telling my agents what to do?”
Once again politics in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trumped expediency. Newcomer began to have trouble on another front, as well.
Bill Carter, then chief of the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Unit, disagreed with Newcomer’s strategy. He wanted the first man on whom there was solid evidence arrested and the case brought to a quick end. It would look bad if FWS allowed the killing of hawks to continue just to make a splashy case. The government could be perceived as creating additional crimes by sanctioning such a move.
Newcomer stood his ground, seeing this as their chance to hit hard and send a law-enforcement message for generations to come.
“If only one guy is arrested, then everyone else in the clubs will think, ‘Wow. Too bad he got caught. Boy, was he stupid. I’m sure glad it wasn’t me.’ The culprit will receive a slap on the wrist, and no one’s behavior will change. We need to show that killing hawks is condoned by the clubs,” he reasoned.
Newcomer was adamant about taking down as many offenders as possible. It was a controversial move, but this was their only shot. The fact was, an undercover agent wouldn’t be able to work his way in with these groups again for years after this. At the same time, he heard the clock ticking away. He had a limited amount of time before he’d have to close the case down.
Carter gave him a short reprieve, and Newcomer ratcheted up his undercover work.
He’d recently heard of Rayvon Hall, a man who’d bought one of McGhee’s hawk traps and was a member of Brian McCormick’s pigeon club. Ted Nelson decided to pay him a visit. He stopped by and introduced himself as a friend of McGhee’s. He’d heard Rayvon had great pigeon lofts. Would he mind if Ted took a look at them?
Hall cordially agreed to show him around.
They went to the backyard, where Hall, like every other roller-pigeon fanatic, had a hawk trap set. Nelson casually asked how he disposed of the raptors. Hall explained there was a school nearby so that shooting the birds wasn’t usually an option. The sound of gunshots could result in complaints to the police. Therefore, he’d devised his own favorite method of dispatching them.
“I mix bleach with ammonia, put it in a spray bottle, and spray it in their face and mouth. The chlorine gas burns their eyes, along with the inside of their lungs and throat.” He liked to watch as they slowly flapped around, suffocated from the poison, and died.
Newcomer was momentarily stunned. It was one thing to quickly kill an animal, but this was torture, pure and simple. Rayvon Hall had just put himself on Newcomer’s short list. This guy was going down.
It was one reason why Newcomer watched the TV show Animal Precinct, even though it bothered him intensely. He felt it was important to know what people were capable of. It also fired Newcomer up to do his job. Hall’s actions were right up there with some of the worst episodes.
“Then I cut off their talons and throw the bird out,” Hall added.
“Oh, yeah? Wow! I’d really like to see one of those talons,” Newcomer said, giving the man all the rope he needed to hang himself.
Hall had recently killed a Cooper’s hawk, and the talon was somewhere around. He found it and handed it to Newcomer. “I give them to my friends as souvenirs. Here, you can have it,” Hall offered.
“Really?” Newcomer asked.
This was one of those gotcha moments. He’d bought a hawk trap from McGhee and gotten him to admit that it was illegal. Now Hall was giving him a talon. The evidence was beginning to mount. A few more hits and he’d have a home run.
Next on his list was Keith London, owner of the Pigeon Connection and president of the Inner City Roller Club.
Newcomer parked his Chevy Tahoe across the street from London’s residence early one morning. He was there to conduct surveillance with a fellow agent. Timing is everything in life. Today it worked in Newcomer’s favor. London not only had a hawk trap on the roof of his garage, but you could see the damn thing from the street. Even more amazing was that a hawk had just been caught inside and was frantically flapping its wings.
The two men sat, waited, and watched. London soon appeared and climbed the roof with a pump-action pellet gun in his hand. He pumped the pellet gun and shot the bird once, but that wasn’t enough. London pumped it a few more times, carefully took aim, and shot the hawk again.
Newcomer felt as disconnected as though he was silently watching a movie. Part of him wanted to jump out, stop the killing, and help the bird fly off. He could take the case down right then, though little would have been accomplished. London would receive a one-count misdemeanor, and the case would be blown without having had a deterrent effect. Thousands of hawks would have died for nothing.
Instead, the gotcha moment set in as Newcomer realized, I’ve got to get these guys. London is going to pay. He couldn’t believe that he was actually getting the killing on videotape. It was the only way he could deal with the event playing out before him. A flash of excitement rushed through him as he registered that London was finally nailed.
The agents remained glued in their seats as London reset the trap and tossed the dead hawk into his backyard. Then he climbed down, grabbed the bird, and disappeared inside the house. He emerged a short time later carrying something wrapped in a white paper package. London angrily tossed it into his trash can, got into his vehicle, and drove off.
Newcomer waited until London was out of sight and then scrambled to retrieve the booty. Inside the package was a freshly killed Cooper’s hawk, its carcass bloodied with apparent trauma to its head and chest. The bird was limp and still warm to the touch.
It was one of those episodes that Newcomer truly hated. He’d made a personal pledge never to kill an animal, not even while working undercover. Newcomer had gone so far as to become vegetarian. Yet he’d sat as a hawk’s life was taken and done nothing to stop it. Doing so would have brought the entire undercover operation to a screeching halt. Any action on his part would have not only jeopardized cases in California, Washington, and Oregon but prevented a number of dirtbags from being caught.
He took a deep breath and held his emotions in check. The hawk was bagged and tagged as evidence. The carcass would be sent to the USFWS Forensics Laboratory for a necropsy.
Newcomer now determined that surveillance and night work were the best way to go. That meant he spent his days at the office and nights doing spot checks on pigeon breeders from 10 PM until one in the morning. Then there were the weekend pigeon flys to attend. Spend that much time on the job, and it definitely puts a strain on your marriage. Newcomer was finding that out firsthand. Tension began to build as things became rocky on the home front. Still, Newcomer had no choice but to keep up his hectic schedule.
He asked Special Agent John Brooks to help him out once more. Next on his list of nighttime stakeouts was Brian McCormick’s place. He hoped to find proof that McCormick was baiting hawk traps.
Newcomer and Brooks donned camouflage gear, grabbed a couple of AR-15 rifles and two pairs of night-vision goggles, and arrived in an unmarked vehicle. They made their way onto an empty field adjacent to McCormick’s backyard.
The night was peaceful and calm as they crept toward the fence. Then all hell broke loose. McCormick’s dogs came tearing outside snarling and barking. Two seconds later, the lights flicked on, illuminating the pirate flag flying against the night sky in his yard. The skull and crossbones couldn’t have appeared more sinister. Newcomer and Brooks took five giant leaps and dove into the tall grass for cover as a figure stepped out of the house.
It was a warm night, and Newcomer lay perfectly still looking at the stars. The sky was filled with them. There were more than he’d ever seen before in his life. So many that he nearly became mesmerized. Then he remembered McCormick’s Remington 870 shotgun with its extended barrel and his nighttime reverie quickly dissolved. At the same time, he realized something else. The two agents were lying motionless in rattlesnake habitat. The area was riddled with the reptiles.
He continued to listen for the sound of McCormick’s footsteps in the grass, but it was hard to hear anything above the barking of the dogs and the pounding of his own heart. Even the rush of his blood beat like a kettledrum in his ears.
The dogs finally stopped barking, McCormick went back inside, and the lights were turned off. The agents decided not to press their luck. Brooks and Newcomer packed it in for the night and vamoosed with their backsides still in one piece.
The next target that Newcomer wanted to focus on was national president Juan Navarro’s house. Newcomer called in the big guns for help on this one.
Sam Jojola, a twenty-five-year FWS veteran, was an undercover agent extraordinaire. His personal mantra defines exactly how he operates: It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Jojola had been a member of an ultra-elite group of deep-undercover investigators, part of Fish and Wildlife’s Special Operations unit. The squad had consisted of five special agents who conducted long-term international investigations. The strike team focused on those dealers illegally exploiting the most fragile wildlife resources in the commercial trade.
Jojola worked everything from bird-smuggling and reptile cases to big-game poachers. He’d had at least ten different covers over the course of his career and always managed to keep them separate. Jojola joined the military when he was eighteen years old, became a paratrooper, and was assigned to an Army Ranger unit in Ft. Benning, GA. After that, he worked as a New Mexico state prison guard before turning to wildlife. Jojola had experience with people of every ilk.
“It’s a chess game, and the pieces are the people,” Jojola explained. “In this game, you’re moving four, five, and six steps ahead; you have to lay the groundwork for developing the right moves early on. Make the wrong move, and everything shuts down. Then you’re in checkmate.”
Jojola once morphed into Simon Calderon for an undercover sting on illegal hunting guides. Calderon’s personal vehicle was a beat-up van complete with a shot-out windshield. He made sure to register the vehicle in his undercover name. It was something not all Fish and Wildlife agents think to do. That proved to be a smart move on Jojola’s part.
An illegal-hunting guide had a friendly police contact run a search on Calderon’s license. If Jojola had been a fed, it would automatically return as “no record found.” Instead the license came back registered to one Simon Calderon. Jojola went so far as to have medication filled in his undercover name in case the guide looked inside his shaving kit.
Jojola’s favorite cover was Nelson DeLuca, owner of Silverstate Exotics, dealing in rare reptiles and birds. Silverstate Exotics was Jojola’s front for a sting called Operation Chameleon.
The suspect in the case accused Jojola of being a Fish and Wildlife agent whenever he saw him. He even held a poisonous Gila monster up next to Sam’s face as a threat. Jojola made his chess move by reaching up and gently scratching the reptile’s head.
“That’s the amazing thing. Sam continued with the case no matter what. I don’t know if I would have stayed with it once it became that scary. The guy’s either playing or testing you, so how you react is key,” Newcomer said.
Jojola knew the key well and exactly how to work it. You had to believe the character you were playing, and be someone that your suspect would want to spend time with.
Jojola was one of the living legends of Special Ops. He spoke fluent Spanish, flipped money, bought birds, and ran real businesses as part of his sting operations. He was a true master of the undercover trade. These days he was working as the deputy resident agent in charge of Fish and Wildlife’s Torrance office. He was also a strong advocate of Ed Newcomer.
“Ed has everything going for him,” Jojola stated. “He has the technological, legal, and undercover capabilities, along with strong organizational skills. Some people may have two out of three, but Newcomer has them all plus the political smarts.”
Newcomer asked if Sam would help with surveillance on Navarro’s place. Jojola instantly agreed.
The two men planned their course of action, jumped into an undercover vehicle, and drove to Juan Navarro’s late one evening.
When you’re driving around Los Angeles in the dead of night, everything looks like a giant movie set. A huge Tyrannosaurus rex appeared to have torn its way through the roof of Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. The former Max Factor Building, the Magic Castle, and Hollywood High were all ready and waiting for their next screen take. The Hollywood United Methodist Church stood bedecked with a giant pink ribbon along with a sign that read, ALL ARE PRECIOUS IN GOD’S SIGHT. Griffith Park loomed nearby.
Navarro lived in a large Tudor house on a swanky street in Los Feliz. The two agents had just turned a corner when a private security guard appeared smack on their tail. Flashing his yellow lights, he pulled them over. Dressed all in black with knapsacks, .40-caliber guns, and night-vision gear, Jojola and Newcomer could easily have passed for a couple of professional prowlers. Newcomer explained the situation, and the security guard went on his way.
The agents continued around the block before parking on a quiet corner. Setting off, they hiked in a few hundred yards toward a culvert. Then they crawled on their hands and knees in a no-man’s land. Tall blades of dry grass brushed against their cheeks in a blizzard of bristles, and each weed crushed beneath them resonated as loud as a scream.
They finally hit a drainage ditch that served as a border between two residential neighborhoods. The concrete canal was about fifteen feet wide and filled with assorted debris and muck that turned their feet into suction cups. Newcomer and Jojola slogged through the waste until they arrived outside Navarro’s backyard. There they pushed aside the overgrown foliage to find the perfect view. Newcomer quickly spotted a baited hawk trap ready and waiting for its next victim, and the men went to work.
Surveillance cameras were set in the ditch and aimed precisely through the chain-link fence at the trap. Triggered by motion, the cameras would record whatever activity took place. If Navarro was caught in the act, then a point would have been made: The president of the National Birmingham Roller Club condoned the killing of falcons and hawks.
All the while, the men heard rustling near their feet . Jojola flicked on his night-vision goggles and spied giant rats scurrying along the fence line. The agents finished setting up their equipment and left on the double. Then they drove once more to the front of Navarro’s house.
Two black garbage cans had been placed at the edge of his drive since their arrival. Garbage cans also appeared in front of the other houses on the block. Apparently, tomorrow was trash-collection day.
Jojola looked at Newcomer and made a suggestion: “Going through trash is a great investigative tool not used nearly enough by agents. I say we go for it.”
Newcomer agreed, and they parked a short distance from the house. Scurrying back, they grabbed the garbage cans, threw them into the pickup, and drove off.
“We got them and Navarro didn’t see us!” they said gleefully, giving each other a high five.
They discussed where to take their booty as Newcomer drove down the street and swung onto a busy boulevard. The conversation was abruptly interrupted by what sounded like the bouncing of three giant basketballs.
Ba boom, ba boom, ba boom!
Newcomer glanced in the rearview mirror in time to see the last garbage can flying out of the truck.
“What was that?” Jojola asked in alarm.
Newcomer’s head fell onto his hands. “You’re not going to believe this, Sam, but all three garbage cans just fell off.”
“I guess we should probably go back and get them,” Jojola replied dryly.
By now, not only had the lids popped off, but the contents of the plastic bags inside were strewn all over the road. It made no difference to the cars that dodged and wove around the containers without slowing down.
Newcomer did his best to stop traffic as they scooped up what garbage they could. From there they drove to a nearby lot, where they spread the trash on the ground in their own variation of Dumpster diving. People milled about, but no one paid them the least mind. They were just two more guys hanging around in the middle of the night.
Jojola and Newcomer spent the next few hours digging through the refuse of the Navarro household. By the time they were through the men knew exactly what the family had eaten that week. However, no evidence of hawks or falcons was found.
The garbage cans were closed back up and dropped off in front of Navarro’s house. They’d try another garbage run in a couple of weeks. It would take that long to get the stench of refuse out of their clothes and nose. The agents wouldn’t have been surprised if a flock of gulls had followed them home.