Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Win at all costs - Feds buy into deal with known drug trafficker

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Feds buy into deal with known drug trafficker

November 24, 1998
By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

David Wheeler had smuggled drugs for almost 20 years when federal agents finally arrested the Phoenix man as he was carrying a kilogram of cocaine in 1989 in Oklahoma.

He faced the possibility of life in prison, so he offered federal agents a proposition. He said he would help the government set up a sting designed to capture key drug cartel members from Mexico to Colombia. He might snare some Americans as well, including politicians who were on the take.

Wheeler had always been a notorious con man, but federal agents knew his years in drug trafficking had left him well-connected. They accepted the deal and soon regretted it, even though information he provided led to the arrests of seven supposedly high level Mexican police officers and drug smugglers in the sting he orchestrated in 1990.

After their trial, the government released a memorandum that a Drug Enforcement Administration official had written. It showed that Wheeler not only had lied constantly about his actions in the sting but had committed at least as many crimes during the sting as those people he had set up. The memo said he was out of the control of agents throughout the sting.

The memo bolstered the statements of the defendants, who had argued in court that they were not drug dealers, only opportunistic individuals who were willing to accept the millions of dollars that Wheeler had offered them for protecting a drug enterprise.

The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals found in the government’s case that "millions of dollars are talked about but not one speck of cocaine shows up at any time and not one sample is gathered by the government and nothing really is seen except, surprise, surprise, that which Mr. Wheeler says he saw . . . "

The court reversed every case in which Wheeler testified, saying the memorandum about his misconduct was "plainly material . . . and should have been turned over to defense attorneys."

It showed how Wheeler was "in a position to manipulate the [U.S. Bureau of] Customs, the DEA, the defendants and the evidence."

Wheeler was never charged.