Entrapment

Regarding "Bankruptcy Filers Rush to Avoid New Rules," Oct. 14: If the government is so concerned about credit card debtors going into bankruptcy, why not create a law that would discourage credit card companies from continuously soliciting via mail, telephone, Internet and television to everyone, rich or poor. Aren't such solicitations a form of entrapment? Jack Adelman \o7Glendale\f7

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."

As a paid informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Guillermo Francisco Jordan-Pollito has achieved a remarkable record of success. Over the last 10 years, according to his own testimony in Los Angeles federal court, the former Mexican police officer has earned more than $350,000 helping the DEA put together more than 80 cases against suspected sellers of cocaine, methamphetamines and other illicit drugs. There's just one thing missing from that picture.

A British man trapped the thief who stole his pager by leaving a message saying he had won $835 in a competition. David Withers lost the pager when someone broke into his car. Builder Justin Clark, ensnared in the simplest of stings, was fined $251 for being in possession of stolen property after answering the message. Withers said that soon after he left the message, "my mobile [phone] rang, and a shady-sounding voice asked about the prize."

The Sheriff's Department report called it "a sting operation." Critics called it entrapment of day laborers looking for work. The Sheriff's Department one day last year assigned seven deputies to rid a city block of day laborers, whom Dana Point officials said continuously violate a local ordinance prohibiting the solicitation of employment "while standing on a street or highway." Deputies nabbed 10 men Nov.

By small-town standards, Melissa Frances was something of a wild spirit, what with her asymmetric, auburn hairstyle and black, thick-heeled Doc Martens boots. No amount of studied outrageousness, though, could explain why Frances and her ex-husband, Clarence Wilkinson, a high school principal in this southern Ohio community, wound up enmeshed in rival murder-for-hire plots that last December came apart like cheap shoes.

The jury in the federal extortion trial of Rep. Walter R. Tucker III on Wednesday asked for clarification of the court's instructions on entrapment. In a memo to Judge Consuelo B. Marshall after seven days of deliberations, the jurors asked what it means to be a "government agent" and whether the prosecution's star witness, John Macardican, fits the definition. The government has accused Tucker of extorting $30,000 in bribes from Macardican while serving as mayor of Compton in 1991 and 1992.

Ricky Donnell Ross, the legendary Los Angeles drug lord who vowed to pursue a legitimate business career after his release from prison last fall, has been indicted for allegedly purchasing 100 kilograms of cocaine from an undercover agent, authorities said Tuesday. Ross, 35--a charismatic, dreadlocked, ex-millionaire better known as Freeway Rick--could face a life sentence if convicted.