O.C. Lab’s Drug Stings Yielded Few Jail Terms

SANTA ANA —  Most of the drug users arrested by Santa Ana police officers dealing county-made crack cocaine are not sent to jail even though the controversial stings are intended to make small-time buyers eligible for harsher punishments, authorities said Friday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carl Armbrust acknowledged that a majority of the 350 people arrested during the past 18 months were first-time buyers and were assigned to drug diversion programs instead of receiving jail or prison terms.

The prosecutor also said that authorities involved in the so-called reverse sting operations are actually trying to build felony rap sheets against users who will eventually be eligible for prison sentences if they are arrested a second time.

“My personal feeling is that these drug treatment programs don’t do a lot of good,” said Armbrust, the prosecutor in charge of the Narcotics Enforcement Team. “If they don’t get cured, chances are we are going to get them again and then they go to jail.”

But Orange County Public Defender Ronald Y. Butler questioned whether the police actions amount to entrapment.

“Since most of these people are first-time offenders, you have to wonder if they would be purchasing drugs at all if the police weren’t out there enticing them,” Butler said. “I would seriously question the efficacy of their efforts. I think the motives are pure, but the means to the end seem to be really stretching it.”

Butler confirmed that many defendants are being referred to drug diversion programs instead of prison or jail--an apparent shortcoming of the police tactics. Diversion allows people to avoid jail time if they successfully complete drug treatment programs that last six to eight weeks. Police counter that about one-third of those arrested were on parole or probation for another offense when they bought drugs from undercover officers.

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Armbrust and Santa Ana police officials defend the operations in which the Orange County Crime Laboratory has been manufacturing $10 and $20 pieces of rock cocaine for undercover officers to sell on the street.

“You can’t measure the success of this program just by how many people end up in jail,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton. “We also rely on people in the neighborhoods to tell us whether things are getting better. I think we are seeing a significant degree of success here.”

Butler said his staff will file a legal brief as early as Monday, contending that the manufacture of the highly addictive rock or crack cocaine amounts to “outrageous government conduct.”

The public defender’s brief is being patterned after a similar legal objection filed in Broward County, Fla., where a state appeals court ruled that the county sheriff acted illegally in manufacturing rock cocaine for undercover drug investigations.

The Florida ruling resulted in the reversal of hundreds of convictions obtained from reverse sting investigations.

Reverse sting operations using real rock cocaine have been deemed legal by California courts. Deputy Public Defender Kevin Phillips contends that the county lab’s role in cooking the rock makes it offensive enough to classify it as “outrageous conduct.”

“I haven’t found any authority in statutes and case law that permits them to do it,” Phillips said. “As a matter of fact, the only thing I found was something that says it’s illegal.”

Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Dan Martini issued a statement for the first time Friday about the county crime lab’s role in the Santa Ana investigations and said the lab’s staff converted about “one cup” of powder cocaine to rocks for police.

Martini said Santa Ana police provided the drugs from the department’s store of drug seizures involving cases that had already ended. Release of the drugs was approved by court order signed by Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner.

Armbrust said the unconventional tactics are well worth the effort. Arresting addicts or users in possession of real drugs makes them eligible for felony rather than misdemeanor prosecutions. Instead of adding to a string of non-prison misdemeanors, the prosecutor said, they are able to wield “the hammer” of likely prison time on the second offense.

“I’m happy with what we are doing,” Armbrust said.

The district attorney’s guidelines for the reverse stings state that officers are not supposed to solicit business and should sell only to people who ask for drugs, court records show.

The police stings generally have drawn approval this week from city and county officials who have described the Santa Ana operation as an example of aggressive police work.

Santa Ana Councilman Miguel A. Pulido Jr. said Friday that he has heard only words of support from residents since details of the operation were disclosed. Police arrested most of the 350 defendants in the “Weed and Seed” area, a high-crime neighborhood where federal dollars have been spent to “weed” out crime. Other sales were made in the neighborhood near Willard Intermediate School.

Friday, Pulido said some of the federal money helped to pay for the controversial reverse sting operation.

Citing concerns for the potential liabilities involved in manufacturing and dealing rock cocaine, many police agencies say they are hesitant to employ such methods. But others, now aware of the Santa Ana experience, are supportive of the technique.

Los Angeles Police Capt. Bob Hansohn, who oversees street-level narcotics investigations, said the department never seriously considered small-time reverse sting operations. But he said Friday he is preparing a proposal for consideration by Chief Willie L. Williams that could put some of his officers on the street dealing much like the Santa Ana police.

If needed, Hansohn said, Los Angeles police officers could be supplied with rock cocaine manufactured by the Los Angeles County crime lab.

“If the conventional methods aren’t working, I believe we have the obligation to look at knocking out the problem in other ways,” Hansohn said. “This proposal is just in the preliminary stages. (Chief Williams) may or may not agree.”

Pasadena police have been selling street drugs, rather than those cooked by police, during reverse stings for about eight years, Lt. Jerry Schultze said.

In the court order approving Santa Ana’s program, the Orange County district attorney’s office cited two Pasadena cases in which state courts ruled that reverse stings were legal.

The Inglewood Police Department also has been selling rock cocaine undercover since 1988, when it combined its program with a billboard campaign that warned: “Behind that Rock Could be a Cop,” Capt. Jim Seymour said.

The police operations and billboard campaign helped earn the city All American City distinction in 1989. And two years later, Gov. Pete Wilson appointed then-Police Chief Ray Johnson as director of the California Office of Criminal Justice Planning, lauding him for the reverse sting program.

Unlike the Santa Ana program, Johnson said, the city has not lost any of the rock nuggets by having suspects swallow them.

“Some pop it in their mouths, but . . . we just gently massage the neck until they gag,” Seymour said.

The fact that the Orange County Crime Lab is cooking the rock cocaine should not make a difference, Seymour said. His department has always used rock cocaine confiscated in busts of sellers.

“The purpose is not for cops to emulate bad guys,” he said. “I think Santa Ana is on the right track. If rocking it up is causing the problem for Santa Ana, they can come up and we’ll give them whatever they need.”