You’ve seen various movies where a small-time drug dealer gets busted by the police and then the authorities give the suspect two options: go to jail or be a confidential informant that will lead to the arrest of a larger criminal. The reality is that these situations don’t only play out on the screen, but also happen in real life, but there isn’t always a happy ending like in the movies.
The scary part is that these individuals weren’t caught with 1,000 kilos of heroin like Frank Lucas or a meth factory like Walter White. These college kids are being turned into confidential informants who are basically being blackmailed into doing dangerous undercover police work, but without any experience and/or training.
Jason Weber, a narcotics officer and chief of a four-county drug task force in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota says that informant recruits from marijuana arrests are “the big majority.” Even if a person is caught with two or three grams of marijuana, the police may pressure that individual into becoming a confidential informant for the cops. On a segment that aired on 60 Minutes (Which you can watch here), Lesley Stahl investigated how a misdemeanor drug deal can lead to a person into a dangerous path of being an undercover agent.
Brian Sallee is a longtime undercover narcotics officer, who has worked with hundreds of informants, and believes that the users and sellers have an advantage in exposing the larger criminals and drug kingpins. When Sallee gets a suspect who he can turn to an informant he will say, “This is the charge. This is a felony. Do you want to help yourself out?” However, Sallee does not inform the suspects that they have a right to a lawyer. That’s because he does not have to tell the suspects that they have a right to a lawyer. Because police often recruit confidential informants before charging them and without arresting them, they’re not obligated by law to read them their rights.
Many of the deals made require these small-time drug dealers or users to rat out 10 drug dealers.
Ken Coghlan, a defense attorney in Oxford who has represented many Ole Miss students who became confidential informants, says that to get 10 drug dealers is “virtually impossible.” He maintains that it actually creates incentive for college kids to entice other kids to break the law. The desperation of the informants compels them to trick those who just use drugs into selling drugs. Thus creating drug dealers out of drug users that never intend to sell.
“They’ll say, ‘I’m out of weed. Can I get 10 dollars worth of weed from you?,'” Coghlan says. “That’s entrapment. And that’s not allowed under the law.”
While these marijuana users aren’t infecting the communities, police have a need to make arrests. Lance Block, who is an attorney in Tallahassee, opposes using young people busted for relatively minor offenses as confidential informants.
Block explains the financial rewards from arrests:
“They wanna drive up their arrest numbers. And it doesn’t matter whether they’re going after a college kid with a couple of joints in his pocket, or whether they’re going after a drug kingpin. The arrest numbers, the higher they go, the better the funding. I mean, law enforcement is addicted to the drug war money as the crack addict is on the street to his drugs.”
Metro Narcotics got nearly $55,000 in federal grants last year.
Plus there’s the danger of being a snitch. “These kids are being recruited to do the most dangerous type of police work, Block states. “They’re going undercover, with no background, training, or experience. They haven’t been to the police academy.”
The investigative report cites tragic tales of two young adults who agreed to be confidential informants for the police and how it ended horribly. Andrew Sadek, a North Dakota college student, was coerced into being an informant for a drug task force after he was busted for selling a total of $80 worth of marijuana in two transactions to an informant. That is a Class A felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000 in North Dakota.
Sadek made three successful undercover drug buys as an informant on the campus of the State College of Science in Wahpeton, N.D. and wore a wire, but then he abruptly stopped, even though he was required to do six buys. Weber told Sadek that he would be charged if he didn’t continue.
The last time that Sadek was seen was on May 1, 2014, a few weeks shy of graduation, when security cameras caught him walking out of his dorm at 2 a.m. He did not return.
Two months later, his body was found in the Red River, about a mile north of Breckenridge, Minnesota. He had been shot in the head and was wearing a backpack full of rocks. No alcohol or drugs were found in his body, and the gun was never found. The cause of death on his death certificate is “indeterminate.”
Sadek’s parents had no idea that their son was in any legal trouble because as an informant they are sworn to secrecy. Had Sadek gotten legal counsel, even if he was convicted, he would have likely been sentenced to probation or jail time rather than prison, said his mother, Tammy Sadek.
A tearful Tammy Sadek told 60 Minutes:
“It’s ridiculous. Ridiculous. Stop doing it. Slap their hands. Fine ’em. Put ’em in jail. Expel ’em. I don’t care. Stop using our kids to do your jobs.”
Andrew Sadek’s death is still an open investigation.
The program also tells the story of Rachel Hoffman, a 23-year-old Florida State University graduate, who was murdered while conducting a mission for police as an informant. Hoffman was caught with 25 grams of marijuana discovered during a traffic stop on February 22, 2007. Then on April 17, 2008, police searched her apartment and discovered 151.7 grams of weed and four ecstasy pills. Hoffman agreed to become a confidential informant instead of facing a possible prison sentence.
Hoffman’s goal was to go on a drug sting operation and buy 1,500 ecstasy pills, 2 ounces of cocaine and a handgun. The Tallahassee Police Department supplied her with $13,000 in cash to purchase the illegal items. The deal was to go down at a specific location where narcotics officers would monitor the situation and jump in when necessary. The drug dealers were suspicious of this young college student who really only bought cannabis, who suddenly wanted 1,500 ecstasy pills, cocaine and a handgun. They changed the location of the buy.
The police officers who were supposed to be protecting Rachel lost track of her when she went to the new location. Rachel joined the two drug dealers in their stolen silver BMW. Then while they were driving, the two suspects allegedly executed her with the gun she was supposed to buy.
Her body was recovered two days later.
The two buyers were charged by a grand jury with first degree murder. On December 17, 2009, which would have been Hoffman’s 25th birthday, Deneilo Bradshaw, one of the suspects, was found guilty of first-degree murder with robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole plus 30 years. Andrea Greene was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Rachel Hoffman.
The only bright spot from this horrific situation was that the Florida State Senate passed “Rachel’s Law” on May 7, 2009. It requires law enforcement agencies in Florida to provide special training for officers who recruit confidential informants, instruct informants that reduced sentences may not be provided in exchange for their work and permit informants to request a lawyer if they want one.
So please be careful, and know your rights before you make a deal that may endanger your life.