Pubdate: Wed, 18 May 2005
Source: Indianapolis Star (IN)
Copyright: 2005 Indianapolis Newspapers Inc.
Contact: http://www.indystar.com/help/contact/letters.html
Website: http://www.starnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/210
Author: Vic Ryckaert

AN INFORMANT'S CLOSE CALL UNVEILS A WORLD OF RISK

2 Men Are Accused Of Trying To Strangle A Woman Who Was Working With Police
On A Case That Involved Robbery

Wearing a hidden microphone, the 19-year-old police informant thought
she was going to drive Ty Evans to a Geist-area home so he could steal
the $20,000 in cash he said was there.

She didn't know she was the real target Monday night. Evans told the
informant he had to return to his Eastside home in the 6600 block of
Springer Avenue to get his gun first. As he drove in, he closed the
garage door behind them. Bags of cement, tools and a body bag were
inside the car. Officers following the informant then heard a male
voice over the surveillance equipment say: "You (expletive) with the
wrong guy this time!" Police quickly busted into the home, where they
found the informant unconscious, with a rope around her neck.
Remarkably, she survived and was released after being treated at the
scene.

The arrests Monday night of Evans and a second Eastside man offered a
rare glimpse into the life of police informants, and the work
performed by police officers investigating the drug trade in Central
Indiana. Marion County sheriff's investigators offered few specifics
on the case beyond what was included in a five-page report on the
incident. But some officials were willing to comment in general on the
use of informants. "You're concerned about their lives every time that
they assist you," said Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Brian Jennings,
director of the Metro Drug Task Force. "The people they assist on are
criminals and people that hurt people." The multiagency task force
targets violent drug offenders, arresting 112 people last year. Nearly
all of those arrests involved the use of a confidential informant or
some other covert measure, Jennings said. In this case, police say the
surveillance saved the woman's life and put two dangerous men in jail.
Because of safety concerns, police have requested that the name of the
informant be withheld.

Experts outside law enforcement in Marion County said the informant's
age and gender were unusual but not unprecedented.

"In a perfect world, we wouldn't ask 19-year-olds to do this," said
DeVere Woods, an assistant professor of criminology at Indiana State
University when told of the incident.

"But as long as the police are not making promises they can't keep,
and as long as they are presenting options and allowing the
individual, the informant, to make determinations on their own . . .
then it's legitimate. It's acceptable," he said.

"There are a lot of 19-year-olds being sent to Iraq and there are a
lot of 19-year-olds in the criminal justice system," Woods added. If
it had been his case, Woods, who served as a police officer in
Michigan for 26 years, said he would have tried to assess whether the
informant was naive and really understood what she was getting
involved in. "As an investigator, if this were my case and this
happened, I know how badly I'd be feeling today that we put this young
lady in harm's way." The police report doesn't say how the woman
learned of the robbery plot, only that she and Evans were suspects in
a mail fraud and counterfeiting ring being investigated by U.S. Postal
inspectors. She apparently told a postal investigator about the plan
to invade a home in the Geist area. Jennings said police had to act on
the woman's tip. Evans told the informant he was willing to kill the
intended robbery victim in order to steal the $20,000 and about 50
pounds of marijuana.

"They were people that were going to break into a house and kill
somebody," Jennings said. "In fact, they were using that as a ruse."
The police report says the surveillance was going as planned when the
informant met Evans in a parking lot at 10th Street and Shadeland
Avenue about 7:30 p.m. Monday. She had agreed to drive the getaway car
for the robbery, but after she climbed in, Evans told her he had to
return home to "get my piece."

Evans, 43, and a second man in the house on Springer Avenue, Billy
Neely, 28, 2300 block of Prospect Street, face initial charges of
attempted murder, battery and criminal confinement.

The informant's mother, who lives in Arizona, said she spoke to her
daughter briefly Tuesday. "I told her she was terribly lucky," she
said. "If she wasn't wired, she would be dead right now."

Her father, who lives in Indianapolis, said, "I've been crying all
day. I almost lost my daughter."

Meanwhile, Neely's relatives were shocked by his arrest. Allen Neely
said his brother Billy happened to be at the home doing landscaping
and general construction work for Evans, a partner in an Indianapolis
surveying firm.

Neely said he believes his brother had no idea what was happening. "I
really think that my brother was more or less in the wrong place at
the wrong time," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin