Darnell Garcia

For almost five years, former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Darnell Garcia deposited more than $2 million in European bank accounts, according to Swiss bank records presented this week in federal court. The records, obtained by U.S. prosecutors under a treaty with the Swiss government, revealed that the money was deposited in Swiss Bank Corp. branches in two small towns on the Italian border, and then transferred to a branch in Luxembourg.

A former federal drug agent who testified against a colleague accused of heroin trafficking and money laundering was sentenced Monday in Los Angeles to 10 years in prison for his role in the drug ring. John Jackson, 42, of Claremont, who had pleaded guilty, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. Prosecutors described the case as the worst corruption scandal ever to rock the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The corruption trial of former Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Darnell Garcia has had its dramatic moments during the first two weeks of testimony in a Los Angeles federal courtroom. Most of those moments have been provided by another former DEA agent, 41-year-old John Jackson of Claremont, who, like Garcia and a third former agent, was indicted two years ago for drug-trafficking, touching off a major DEA scandal.

Former federal drug agent Darnell Garcia was sentenced Monday to 80 years in prison for money-laundering and drug-trafficking, by a judge who declared that "perhaps the DEA itself should have been indicted" for allowing the corruption to go on so long. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. said the Garcia trial smacked of "a B movie," its evidence showing that, from 1983 to 1987, Garcia and two other Drug Enforcement Administration agents broke the law right under their supervisors' noses.

Jury deliberations begin today in Los Angeles after a four-month trial in which federal prosecutors attempted to prove that a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent orchestrated a series of drug thefts that triggered the biggest scandal in the agency's history. "To put it simply," Assistant U.S. Atty. Stefan Stein told jurors in closing arguments, "Darnell Garcia was a traitor, a traitor to his fellow agents and a traitor to his country."

A former drug agent charged with drug trafficking testified Friday he was in Germany on the day he and another agent allegedly stole more than 200 pounds of cocaine from a drug dealer. Darnell Garcia, the central figure in the worst corruption scandal in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration, also denied in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that he and agent John Jackson stole more than two pounds of heroin from a DEA evidence vault.

A government prosecutor lashed out Thursday at Darnell Garcia, branding the former federal agent "a corrupt cop" who has repeatedly lied to jurors about his role in a Drug Enforcement Administration corruption scandal. In a half-day of intense questioning from Assistant U.S. Atty. Joyce Karlin, Garcia readily admitted he committed more than 20 felonies--including jewelry smuggling and tax evasion--while a DEA agent. But he denied playing a role in stealing seized narcotics, or drug cash.

A former federal drug agent who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges testified Friday that he and Darnell Garcia, a former colleague accused of narcotics trafficking, stole bundles of cash and drugs from drug dealers and stole a pound of cocaine while taking it to a drug lab for analysis. Wayne L. Countryman, a star witness in what has become the worst corruption scandal in the history of the U.S.

As the second week of the corruption trial of former federal drug agent Darnell Garcia unfolds in a Los Angeles courtroom, defense lawyers face a seemingly daunting task in their efforts to convince jurors that Garcia is not an agent who switched sides. Garcia, 43, of Rancho Palos Verdes, is charged with drug-trafficking, money-laundering and providing intelligence information to a fugitive drug dealer.

A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled Monday that a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent accused of drug trafficking could use $100,000 his attorneys say he made smuggling gold and jewelry into the United States for his defense fund. The decision by U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. came after a defense lawyer for Darnell Garcia, 43, of Rancho Palos Verdes said his client needed the cash to pay his two lawyers and an investigator.

A federal judge in Los Angeles, critical of prosecutors for publicly filing a sentencing memorandum, on Monday delayed for a week the sentencing of former drug agent Darnell Garcia. U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. told Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joyce A. Karlan and Stefan D. Stein that he read a story about the memo in The Times before he could review it himself. The media has some right to see documents, he said, but "not necessarily before the court does."

Former federal drug agent Darnell Garcia's "egregious acts of corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering clearly justify" that he spend at least 20 years in prison before being considered for parole, government prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum filed Monday in Los Angeles. The incarceration and fines recommended by assistant U.S. Attys. Joyce A. Karlin, chief of the major crimes unit, and Stefan D. Stein went far beyond the penalties recently proposed by the U.S.

In 1988, it was the scandal in Los Angeles law enforcement: three veteran Drug Enforcement Administration agents indicted for stealing drugs and cash from suspects. Beyond being a sexy case--with millions of dollars stashed in Swiss bank accounts--it was the first hint that something was seriously amiss among agencies that were seizing more cocaine cash than anyone else in the United States. Indeed, a year later, local DEA chief John M.

Former federal drug agent Darnell Garcia was convicted Tuesday in Los Angeles of trafficking in stolen narcotics and laundering his illicit profits through Swiss bank accounts. The verdict brought to a close an investigation that rocked the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Garcia, 44, a black belt karate expert who seemed to personify the image of the cool, street-wise narcotics agent, showed no emotion as the five-count verdict was read in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Terry J.

Jury deliberations in the trial of former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Darnell Garcia were suspended Tuesday for a week because two jurors are ill. Garcia, 44, of Rancho Palos Verdes, is charged with drug trafficking and money laundering. A source said U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr., who is in Hawaii presiding over another criminal trial, adjourned the jury until next Tuesday after being notified of the illnesses.

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday dismissed one of six felony counts against a former drug agent, but not until government and defense lawyers completed final arguments in a Drug Enforcement Administration corruption trial. Veteran lawyers said it was unusual for a judge to make such a last-minute decision before jury deliberations begin, but called the ruling ethically correct and commended him for it. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr.

A former U.S. narcotics agent accused of stealing $150,000 in heroin from the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration's vault in Los Angeles and then fleeing to Europe after he was indicted on money-laundering and drug-trafficking charges was denied bail Monday in federal court. U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr.

A federal judge in Los Angeles, critical of prosecutors for publicly filing a sentencing memorandum, on Monday delayed for a week the sentencing of former drug agent Darnell Garcia. U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. told Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joyce A. Karlan and Stefan D. Stein that he read a story about the memo in The Times before he could review it himself. The media has some right to see documents, he said, but "not necessarily before the court does."

Jury deliberations begin today in Los Angeles after a four-month trial in which federal prosecutors attempted to prove that a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent orchestrated a series of drug thefts that triggered the biggest scandal in the agency's history. "To put it simply," Assistant U.S. Atty. Stefan Stein told jurors in closing arguments, "Darnell Garcia was a traitor, a traitor to his fellow agents and a traitor to his country."

A government documents expert testified Thursday that former U.S. drug agent Darnell Garcia's calendar books, the heart of his defense against charges of narcotics trafficking, were altered on a number of occasions. "Numerous alterations and obliterations were deciphered," Mary P. Fitzgerald, of the Internal Revenue Service's national forensic laboratory in Chicago, told jurors in a Los Angeles federal courtroom.