SAN FRANCISCO — The black sedans arrived late in the day. Six federal agents in windbreakers got out, walked into Nabil Ismael's tobacco store and closed the cuffs around his wrists.
He was looking at 20 years for drug conspiracy, one agent said.
Ismael felt sick. He'd been helping the government make its case. Didn't they know that? "It was the worst day of my life," said Ismael, 29. "And I figured that Essam was behind the whole thing."
An article in Friday's Section A about a man wrongly set up by a DEA informant inaccurately described a nickname given by defense lawyer Ian Loveseth to his client Nabil Ismael. The article stated that the nickname unfavorably compared the size of Ismael's brain to another part of his anatomy, which could be read as a denigration of Ismael's intelligence. In coining the nickname, Loveseth sought to capture Ismael's bravery.
Essam Magid, 43, had befriended Ismael, a fellow Yemeni, the year before. He said he worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration. If Ismael could help locate some cocaine connections, Magid said, Ismael would be in line for a federal job and a better life.
The idea of working for America stirred the young immigrant's patriotism, he says. So he agreed.
By the time he suspected he was being framed, it was too late.
Prosecutors eventually offered Ismael a deal of four years in prison. If he had accepted the offer and pleaded guilty, he would have become the latest of at least a dozen defendants locked away because of one of the DEA's more controversial informants.
Instead, he took on the machine of a federal prosecution. In doing so, he exposed two agencies plagued by problems in their handling of confidential sources: A U.S. Department of Justice inspector general audit this summer found that problems persist with the DEA's informant system, despite an agency admission in 2001 of "system failures" and a pledge to reform.
Meanwhile, a recent inspector general's investigation of the FBI's informant program noted violations in that agency's use of snitches in 87% of cases reviewed.
Ismael's case ultimately made public what federal agents and some prosecutors had known for years: Magid was out of control.
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In May 2003, Ismael was a salesman at Platinum Motors, a luxury used-car lot in the Bay Area suburb of San Bruno.
A talkative Magid stopped by the dealership one day to introduce himself. He flattered the young salesman, telling him he could certainly do better than working for $36,000 a year and no benefits.
Speaking in Arabic, Magid disclosed that he worked for the government, Ismael later recalled in an interview and in testimony. He said there might well be a job for Ismael too -- if he was willing to help the United States.
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