From: David Goldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> This is rather interesting.......I wonder why they haven't set up people who are friends of the CIA................. David Goldman | Thursday December 9 9:28 PM ET Report: Feds Set Up Drug Suspects TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Florida troopers concealed that they were tipped off to suspected drug smugglers by undercover FBI agents who had supplied the very drugs the suspects were charged with possessing, an officer testified. The FBI also rigged suspects' cars so agents could immobilize the vehicles by remote - giving the troopers an excuse to question the drivers, Trooper Douglas Strickland testified Tuesday. In light of the testimony, defense lawyers in at least three counties say they might ask a court to reopen cases involving drug convictions. ``It didn't smell right from the beginning,'' said Jack Edmund, who represented a Baltimore man arrested on cocaine charges after being pulled over by two troopers in 1995. Representatives of the FBI, the Highway Patrol and the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment. The issue arose Tuesday during a federal cocaine trial for three men. Their lawyers are trying to have the charges dismissed because of the practice of ``ruse stops.'' Strickland testified that a ruse stop is when a highway patrol trooper pulls over suspected criminals, fully knowing that their car is loaded with drugs and has been tampered with by FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Strickland testified that troopers who made ruse stops routinely falsified information on sworn arrest affidavits to protect FBI informants and avoid letting suspects know they were targets of federal investigations. In 1998, Strickland and another trooper arrested Michael Flynn, Norman Dupont and Dewey Davis. The troopers had watched undercover agents load 220 pounds of cocaine into Flynn's trunk earlier that day. Strickland said the troopers also knew that FBI agents had rigged Flynn's engine so that it could be shut down by a remote-control kill switch. When the troopers encountered Flynn's stopped Lincoln Town Car on a highway, they had to find independent probable cause other than what they already knew from the FBI to search the trunk. Strickland told Flynn there was an emergency fuel turnoff switch in the trunk of the Lincoln Town Car that had probably tripped by accident. But Flynn did not want to open the trunk, and the arrest report said that made the troopers suspicious. The FBI was left out of the arrest report. Lawyers for the three defendants asked the judge, Elizabeth Jenkins, to order an investigation and said there could be hundreds of wrongly convicted people in prison. She did not indicate when she will rule. Questions or Comments Copyright (C) 1996-1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- GRAB THE GATOR! FREE SOFTWARE DOES ALL THE TYPING FOR YOU! Tired of filling out forms and remembering passwords? Gator fills in forms and passwords with just one click! Comes with $50 in free coupons! <a href=" http://clickme.onelist.com/ad/gator4 ">Click Here</a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
