Afew days before Ricky Ross’s trial was scheduled to begin, in March 1996, Jesse Katz of the Los Angeles Times called me at home, where I had holed up to sketch out the first drafts of the series. Though we worked for competing newspapers, Katz had been a helpful and encouraging source during the months I’d spent wending my way through the rise and fall of Ricky Ross’s crack dealing career.
That day, however, he prefaced our conversation with a warning: he was calling me as a reporter, not as a source. He was doing a story about Ross’s upcoming trial, and he knew I was investigating Blandón’s connections to the CIA and the Contras. He wanted to ask me about that.
I was thunder-struck. I’d never told Katz anything of the sort, precisely for this reason. One of the most devious ways to avoid being scooped was to do a story on the other guy’s story first. Though you normally got only a fraction of the tale, it took some of the sting out of getting beat, and some of the wind out of your competitor’s sails.
“You must think I’m stupid, Jesse. I’m not telling you anything.”
“Well, I already know it, and I’m going to put it in the paper. I’m just offering you a chance to comment,” he said. “Look at it this way: as long as I’m going to write about it anyway, it’s in your interest to make sure that what goes into the paper is accurate.”
I had to laugh. “I haven’t heard that line in a long time,” I said. “Forget it. If you’ve got the information, print it. You don’t need me to comment.”
“Look. Alan Fenster filed a motion asking that the case be dismissed because the prosecutors were illegally withholding information from the defense. He filed an affidavit from a private investigator who said he’d spoken to you, and it says you have information that Blandón was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. So what I’m asking is: is it true?”
I had been double-crossed. A private eye hired by Ross’s lawyer had come by my house looking for information on Blandón, but I’d told him very little. He then pulled out a copy of a DEA report Fenster had gotten through discovery, which showed that Blandón clearly knew the cocaine he was selling to Ross was being turned into crack by the Crips and Bloods. It was an important bit of documentation for my story.
He would give me this, he said, if I would simply show him something about Blandón that the government hadn’t turned over, so the defense could honestly say there was information being hidden from them. I wouldn’t be identified. They didn’t need a copy They just needed to know that such documents existed.
From covering the case, I knew the federal attorneys had been withholding reams of evidence about Blandón’s sordid background and his association with the Contras. If Fenster could catch them at it, I thought, maybe the court would order the Justice Department to make all the documents public, which would give me access to records I wanted to see.
I thought it over and agreed to show the PI one of the FBI reports I’d gotten from the Iran-Contra files at the National Archives. The next thing I knew, Fenster had named me and exposed the Mercury’s investigation in his motion, and now the L.A. Times was onto it.
I should have known better. For weeks Ross and Fenster had been badgering me to publish the series before the trial started, figuring that the publicity might give the Justice Department second thoughts about pursuing the case. But after sitting down and roughing out an outline, I saw there was still too much I didn’t know—too many unanswered questions. Dawn and I agreed that if Blandón, who was ignoring our interview requests, was going to testify, the story would benefit by waiting.
Several days earlier I’d told Ross that we were holding the story. It would not run before his trial. Angry and desperate, he’d called Katz and told him what little he knew about my investigation, hoping to stampede the Times into rushing something into print so they could beat us to the punch. Fenster followed that up by filing the motion and affidavit, giving Katz a court document to hang his story on. But the Times still had nothing; it was all secondhand. That’s why Katz was fishing for confirmation. I wasn’t going to give him my story, I told him. “Well, I had to try,” he said. “No hard feelings.”
Right after I hung up, Alan Fenster called. The Justice Department, he said, had just filed a motion to prevent him from questioning Blandón about the CIA.
“Why? Have you gotten some information about that?”
“No, but apparently they think I have,” he said. “You should read this thing—it’s amazing.”
The motion, written by Assistant U.S. Attorney L. J. O’Neale, was as bizarre as Fenster had claimed: “The United States believes that at least one defendant will attempt to assert to the effect that the informant in this case sold cocaine to raise money for the Nicaraguan Contras and that he did so in conjunction with, or for, the Central Intelligence Agency.”
O’Neale said the government was sure the information was false, but the motion made it clear that he wasn’t sure at all. “This matter, if true, would be classified,” O’Neale had written, “if false should not be allowed. The only purpose for asking questions in this regard would be as a clumsy attempt to bullyrag the United States into foregoing prosecution.”
If the CIA was involved in drug sales, it would be classified? That was a good one. The whole legal basis for O’Ncale’s motion was tangential; Fenster hadn’t filed the required notice to alert the government that he might reveal classified information at trial. Therefore, O’Neale wanted a court order “prohibiting any defendant from making any reference in this case to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, or to any alleged activity of that Agency.”
Fenster said there was a hearing on the government’s motion scheduled for the next day, and I jumped on a plane to San Diego. I couldn’t wait to hear the U.S. Justice Department stand up in court and say that information about CIA involvement in drug trafficking was classified.
When I got there, I noticed that I was the only spectator in the courtroom. Good. I took a scat in the front row.
Shortly before the hearing began, I heard the courtroom door open behind me. It was Jesse Katz, with a big smile on his face. The Times had flown him in from his office in Houston just to be here, he told me.
I groaned silently. There goes the ball game. All the connections between Blandón, the Contras, the CIA, and Ricky Ross were going to come out in public, and the L.A. Times was going to beat me on my own goddamned story. Nine months worth of work down the crapper. I wanted to tear my hair out.
From a side door, prosecutor L. J. O’Neale strutted in, carrying a boxload of records, followed by DEA agents Jones and Gustafson. O’Neale looked at me; he looked at Jesse Katz; and then he blanched. When federal judge Marilyn Huff called the courtroom to order, O’Neale immediately asked to approach the bench.
He and Fenster huddled with the judge, whispering. Occasionally O’Neale would gesture to Katz and me. The huddle broke up, and Fenster walked back to the defense table, shaking his head.
“I have reviewed the government’s request that the court seal, uh, certain portions,” Huff announced cryptically. “You may be heard at sidebar. Mr. O’Neale. And defense counsel.” The lawyers again trooped up to the judge’s bench and began an animated, whispered conversation.
Katz and I strained to catch bits and pieces. I heard “CIA” several times—“murders in Mexico”; “money from the U.S. government”; “Contras.”
O’Neale looked at us and turned back to the huddle. He warned defense attorney Juanita Brooks to lower her voice. “The reporters that Mr. Fenster has brought to court today are listening very carefully,” he told her.
As with most federal court proceedings, the conversation was recorded and I later obtained a copy of the tape. Brooks, in a low whisper, told the judge that she was very disturbed O’Neale had hidden from the defense the fact that “Blandón was a member of an organization responsible for numerous murders in Mexico.” O’Neale denied it. While he admitted that Blandón had gotten into the drug business by selling cocaine for the Contras, he said there was “absolutely no connection between Blandón and the CIA.”
“He was never authorized to do that by a CIA agent?” Huff whispered. “Well, look,” O’Neale hissed, “that’s something I’m not even sure I can say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to because that comes within the realm of—look, I have no reason to believe he had any contact with the CIA and I would defy counsel to come up with any kind of credible information that he had a connection to the CIA... ”
Fenster, struggling to keep his voice low, whispered that the reason he didn’t have any information was because the government had refused to turn over “pages and pages of records...that I know for a fact exist!” O’Neale denied there was anything significant in the files.
Ten minutes turned into twenty minutes, and it dawned on us that the entire motion was going to be heard in whispers at the judge’s bench. I’d never seen anything like it, and I’d covered many federal trials. Katz was beside himself.
“They can’t do this!” he insisted. “How can they do this, just because we’re here?” I told him I didn’t know and commiserated with him, but inside I was exulting. Thank God for this one instance of government secrecy.
The next morning I ran down to the hotel lobby and grabbed a copy of the Times. Katz’s story had run, focusing on the relationship between Ross and Blandón. Blandón, Katz wrote, had “taught [Ross] the trade” and oversaw his rise “through the ranks of the Los Angeles underworld, becoming the first crack-dealing millionaire on South Central’s streets.” The story hinted at “new and surprising dimensions” involving Blandón and some alleged “ties to U.S. intelligence sources,” but never said what they were. There was no mention of the Contras. Whew.
When the trial got under way that day, once again I was the only reporter in the courtroom. Katz had apparently gone back to Houston, and no one from the Times had been assigned to cover the trial that the paper had previewed that very morning.
Once again, Fenster demanded that the government turn over its records about Blandón, arguing that it was prejudicing Ross’s chance to fairly cross-examine his chief accuser. O’Neale calmly assured Fenster that he’d gotten everything the government felt he was entitled to know about Blandón—his prior arrest record and the fact that he’d been paid $40,000 for setting Ross up. What else could he possibly want?
“I don’t think my client’s life should be up to the government to determine what he should be allowed to know about Blandón’s credibility,” Fenster told Huff indignantly.
“The system we’ve set up has the government review all the information in its files to decide whether it complies with the law,” Judge Huff replied blandly. “Mr. O’Neale, in good faith, has made that review.”
“So we’re supposed to trust the government to tell us if the CIA was involved?” Fenster asked. “They say that there’s nothing that exists. I don’t know if they really know that. I mean, I don’t know if they’ve checked with the CIA to determine if such matters exist.”
To my surprise, O’Neale admitted that he hadn’t checked. Even though he’d personally assured the court several times that the government had no grounds to believe Blandón had any CIA ties, he’d never actually gotten around to asking the CIA. There was no need, he insisted: “One hopes that whatever the CIA does in the best interests of this country, that it will be concealed from view. And one hopes that if they do something that is in the worst interest or in violation of the laws of this country, that it will come to light. But, no, I haven’t checked with the CIA. I’ve had no cause to check with the CIA.”
Huff ignored O’Neale’s stunning admission and told Fenster that he should trust her to do the right thing. Why, just that morning, she reminded him, she’d ordered prosecutors to turn over two pages from Sergeant Tom Gordon’s long-missing search warrant application for the 1986 raid on Blandón’s house.
The rest of it, she’d decided, wasn’t relevant. Huff denied Fenster’s motions.
There was one other matter the United States wanted to take up, if the court would be so kind, O’Neale said. Huff smiled pleasantly at him and told him to go ahead.
Reaching into his briefcase, O’Neale yanked out a copy of the morning’s L.A. Times and waved it over his head. It had come to his attention, he announced dramatically, that the defense lawyers were leaking confidential information to the press! Huff appeared shocked and looked angrily at the defense table. O’Neale noted that Katz’s story contained a phrase from a Justice Department memo that explained Danilo Blandón’s deal with the government.
“I submit to the Court that our reasonable belief is that this document was obtained from one of those four!” O’Neale said, jabbing the offending newspaper in the direction of the four defense attorneys across the courtroom. “And there is no other explanation! It’s not a filed document. It’s not a public record document...but somehow, somewhere, that letter of February 15th was given to a journalist!”
Huff gave the defense lawyers a hard stare.
“I’m not saying that there’s any criminal wrongdoing here,” O’Neale added. “I’m saying that we have to be very careful in this case about pretrial publicity.... Not only am I concerned about a fair trial, I am also concerned with the safety of the witness and the witness’ family. There is a real safety issue here .... We have heard through reliable sources that there are threats of death against the witness, and we take those seriously and this is a serious business.”
O’Neale stroked his beard and looked reproachfully at the defense lawyers.
“Without ascribing any wrongdoing to any counsel present, it is my opinion, and I state this only as an opinion, that Mr. Ross personally is attempting to manipulate the media, and may be attempting to affect the outcome of the trial through the media! As I say, I ascribe this to Mr. Ross personally, and I’m not sure that he is under any obligation—as are attorneys. However, I do again point out that this document comes, there were four copies sent out and here it is in the paper—it has to come from one of those four copies! I sure didn’t give it to anybody!”
The defense lawyers were shaking their heads and appeared to be chuckling. One of them, Federal Public Defender Maria Forde, slowly got to her feet.
“Ms. Forde?” Huff said icily.
“I find it personally offensive that Mr. O’Neale would take the position that someone had to leak this document to the press,” Forde said slowly. “I think with a little review he would have been able to remember that this document became a part of the public record when it was filed as Exhibit A of Mr. Fenster’s motion to dismiss because of egregious Brady violations. It is a document of public record.”
“Oh,” Huff said quickly. “I see.”
She looked at O’Neale, who began babbling. “I’m sorry. In that case, Ms. Forde, uh, I will say Ms. Forde is correct, that there may be—uh, that I had forgotten that that was an exhibit and insofar as anyone took personal or otherwise offense, I do apologize for that.” Before he sat down, though, he wanted to remind everyone that he was still concerned about the death threats—“wherever they came from.” I laughed silently. What a clown.
Blandón, wearing tinted aviator glasses and a dark suit, made his grand entry the next day, shielded by U.S. marshals. They led him to a row of chairs directly in front of me, and he sat down stiffly. After chasing him around California and Central America for nine months, seeing him now for the first time sitting only a foot away gave me a strange feeling. “Chanchin” in the flesh. I was sorry Georg wasn’t here to see this.
I leaned over the rail and tapped Blandón on the shoulder with one of my business cards.
“I’ve been calling all over for you,” I said. “I’m sure your mother-in-law is tired of hearing my voice.” He turned and smiled. “I apologize.” I told him I needed to talk to him. He shook his head. “I can’t, because of all of this.”
“Okay then. How about after the trial?”
“No. Personally, if it was up to me, I would say yes. But they won’t let me,” he said, nodding toward the prosecution table.
“The prosecutor won’t let you talk?”
He shook his head. “DEA.”
“So you won’t talk to me ever, is that it?”
He nodded and shrugged. “Sorry. What can I do?”
O’Neale called Blandón up to the stand and led him carefully through his testimony. He touched on the Contras, admitting that Meneses had recruited him to sell cocaine for them. He said he’d stopped selling Contra cocaine when he split from Meneses in 1983 and started keeping the money for himself.
That was odd, I thought, flipping through my notebook. When I’d interviewed O’Neale in November, the prosecutor had said that occurred in 1986. The day before the trial, I noticed, O’Neale had said in court that it happened in 1984. By the end of the day, though, Blandón would be insisting that he’d actually quit in 1982—long before he’d met Ross, he said. O’Neale kept going over and over that point.
Then it dawned on me. They were trying to open a window, hoping to put a decent interval between the time Blandón was selling dope for the CIA’s army and the time he started selling dope to the L.A. gangs. They were trying to break the chain linking the Contra’s cocaine to the Crips and Bloods.
There was one big problem with that tactic. It didn’t jibe with all the other facts. Ross said he’d been dealing with Blandón and his minions since 1981. Second, there were government documents out there strongly suggesting that Blandón’s testimony was false—records that said he was selling cocaine for Meneses and the Contras all the way through 1986. Of course, Fenster didn’t have those records, since the government had refused to turn them over. (Additional records surfaced after the trial was over and Blandón eventually admitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA Inspector General that his Contra contributions continued through 1985.)
During the noon break, Fenster approached me in the hallway outside the courtroom. “Can we have lunch?” he asked. We walked to the restaurant of the Doubletree Hotel at Horton Plaza, near the courthouse. Fenster sipped an iced tea and asked me what I thought about Blandón’s testimony.
“You got the Highlights for Children version of his cocaine dealings with the Contras,” I said.
“That’s what I thought. How am I supposed to cross-examine this guy? I don’t even know what to ask!” He laughed ruefully. “Isn’t this just crazy? I mean, here I am, defending a man against a life sentence, and I’ve got to ask some reporter if the prosecution testimony is accurate. That’s justice for you. You know more about the bastard than I do.”
“Not as much as I’d like, unfortunately. And he just told me he’s never going to talk to me.”
A light came on. Wait a minute. What law said I needed to do my interview directly? The solution was right here in front of me. Blandón was up there on a witness stand, under oath, in front of a federal judge, He was a sitting duck. I’d never get a better shot at him than this. For that matter, I doubted he’d ever be seen in public again. It was now or never.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I need to make sure this is okay first, but what would you think about me giving you some questions to ask him?”
“You read my mind,” Fenster said, getting a notepad out of his briefcase. I excused myself and went to a pay phone. Miraculously, Dawn was at her desk, and I explained the situation. There was no other way, I told her. Could she see any possible harm in giving Fenster some questions about the Contras? “I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “I wish we could do all of our interviews under oath.”
When Fenster began his cross-examination the next day, he came right at Blandón, grilling him about his family’s connections to the Somoza dictatorship. “There were certain families in Nicaragua that were part of the ruling cartel of Nicaragua, is that correct?”
O’Neale turned and glared at me and then jumped to his feet.
“Excuse me, I have an objection!” he shouted. “Relevance! Inflammatory language! What is the—the—relevance to—what the—”
He was overruled, and Fenster pushed on, boring in on Blandón’s unbelievable claim that he quit dealing cocaine for the Contras when the CIA came through with $19 million in aid.
“Nineteen million dollars isn’t even a drop in the bucket when you run that kind of operation, isn’t that correct?”
“I didn’t...I didn’t know we received the $19 million,” Blandón confessed. “I cannot tell you.”
“Is it your testimony that you decided to keep the profits from the drug dealing because the Contra organization had enough money to fund their own war? Is that your testimony?”
“No sir. Let me explain one thing. When we meet—when we raise money for the Contra revolution, we received orders from the—” He paused and looked at O’Neale. O’Neale stared at him. “From another people.” Because of the order prohibiting CIA testimony, Fenster was unable to pursue that line of inquiry.
He quizzed Blandón about his meetings in Honduras with CIA agent Enrique Bermúdez, the FDN organization in Miami, and his connections to the Meneses family. The Nicaraguan looked helplessly at O’Neale, and several times the prosecutor leaped up to object, spluttering that Fenster’s questions were irrelevant and prejudicial. Most of the time he was overruled. Blandón was like a deer caught in the headlights. Every so often DEA agent Jones would turn and give me the evil eye.
He knew where this shit was coming from. So did O’Neale, who actually complained about it to the judge. They’d done their best to keep it bottled up, and it had spilled out anyway. I walked back to my hotel room that night ten feet off the ground.
It was all out in the open now. The FDN had sold drugs to American citizens—mainly black Americans—and the CIA was on the hook for it: a CIA agent had given the goddamned order. I thought back to all the lies that had been told about the Contras’ innocence. All the bullshit that had been piled on the reporters, cops, and congressional investigators who’d tried to do an honest job and bring light into the dark swamp where covert operators and criminals colluded. There was no denying it any more.
Now I was ready to write.