Sherman Lair

An Alta Loma man who helped prosecutors investigating the Drug Enforcement Administration's worst scandal was given a two-year sentence Thursday for his role in a 25-kilogram drug deal. However, he will only have to serve 90 days in a halfway house if he stays out of trouble. Sherman Lair, 41, who had pleaded guilty to a narcotics conspiracy charge, will be on probation for the remainder of the two-year term under the sentence imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr.

An Alta Loma man who helped prosecutors investigating the Drug Enforcement Administration's worst scandal was given a two-year sentence Thursday for his role in a 25-kilogram drug deal. However, he will only have to serve 90 days in a halfway house if he stays out of trouble. Sherman Lair, 41, who had pleaded guilty to a narcotics conspiracy charge, will be on probation for the remainder of the two-year term under the sentence imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr.

A former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to charges that he conspired with two other agents to traffic in narcotics, including stealing drugs from the agency's evidence vault in Los Angeles and hiding drug profits in foreign bank accounts. "I actually distributed cocaine and heroin," John Jackson told U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. in Los Angeles. Jackson spoke clearly and without emotion. Ralph B.

A former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to charges that he conspired with two other agents to traffic in narcotics, including stealing drugs from the agency's evidence vault in Los Angeles and hiding drug profits in foreign bank accounts. "I actually distributed cocaine and heroin," John Jackson told U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. in Los Angeles. Jackson spoke clearly and without emotion. Ralph B.

Three of five defendants in the Drug Enforcement Administration's corruption case in Los Angeles have pleaded guilty to charges. Last week, two men pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. They were former DEA Agent Wayne Countryman, 47, of Walnut, to participating in a narcotics conspiracy and tax evasion, and Sherman Lair, 39, of Alta Loma, to a narcotics conspiracy. Countryman faces up to 25 years in prison and fines of $4.

A man who has pleaded guilty to a drug trafficking charge in the Drug Enforcement Administration corruption trial of former DEA agent Darnell Garcia testified Tuesday in a Los Angeles federal courtroom that Garcia used him as a middleman for four illicit cocaine deals. Sherman Lair, 40, of Alta Loma testified there was no doubt that Garcia gave him cocaine in 1986, and that Lair's brother-in-law sold the drugs. One of the deals took place in a parking garage across the street from U.S.

An expanded federal indictment was issued in Los Angeles Wednesday against three former Drug Enforcement Administration agents and two others charged with drug trafficking and money laundering. The new indictment against former DEA agents Darnell Garcia, 42, of Rancho Palos Verdes; John Jackson, 39, of Claremont, and Wayne Countryman, 45, of Walnut, and two other defendants adds more currency and customs violations to the original charges issued last October.

Overriding objections by prosecutors, a federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday set bail at $1 million for a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who has spent more than a year in prison awaiting trial in a major corruption case that rocked the agency.

In a legal maneuver that could delay extradition of former Los Angeles-based narcotics agent Darnell Garcia, attorneys for the one-time fugitive said Thursday they will seek to block his extradition from Luxembourg through a special court. The lawyers--Mark A. Borenstein of Los Angeles and Carlo Revoldini of Luxembourg--said in separate interviews that the European Court of Human Rights, which sits in Strasbourg, France, will be asked to rule on efforts of U.S.

A former federal drug agent testified Tuesday that his partner, Darnell Garcia, proposed murdering three men whom Garcia suspected were leaking information to investigators gathering evidence in a burgeoning corruption scandal within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Wayne L. Countryman, 47, of Walnut, told a federal court jury in Los Angeles that Garcia attended two meetings--one in 1987 and another in 1988--in which plans to kill the men were discussed.

Barbara Jackson, the wife of a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to a charge of failing to file an income tax return in 1987. The plea was entered as part of a plea-bargain agreement linked to the agency's corruption scandal.

A bank account containing $3 million belonging to former narcotics agent Darnell Garcia of Rancho Palos Verdes, charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, has been seized by Luxembourg authorities, a prosecutor in that country disclosed Monday. At the same time, Garcia's wife, Adaline Brigitte Garcia, has been arrested by Luxembourg police, according to informed sources. Details of her arrest were sketchy. Garcia was arrested in Luxembourg last July.