Pubdate: Thu, 14 Jul 2011
Source: Aspen Times, The  (CO)
Copyright: 2011 Aspen Times
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/zKpMPhQ7
Website: http://www.aspentimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3784
Author: Rick Carroll, The Aspen Times

WOODY CREEK WRITER ALLEGES DEA RETALIATING OVER COLUMN

ASPEN -- A Woody Creek writer could have to show he was acting in the
capacity as a media member if he wants to avoid testifying before a
grand jury later this month.

Members of the Drug Enforcement Administration issued Michael Cleverly
a court subpoena Tuesday at his home. He is due to appear in front of
a federal grand jury on July 25 as part of a witness-tampering
investigation, launched after an Aspen Times article reported on an
email that had been circulating with the photo of an alleged
confidential source who provided integral information to the DEA's
probe into a drug ring believed to have spanned between Los Angeles
and Aspen.

Cleverly received the email, which has the subject line "contract is
out ... I'm offering $2 for the skin, dead or alive." The Times
subsequently reported on the email, originally sent to eight people,
and interviewed Cleverly for an article published June 27. No other
recipients of the email were interviewed for the article.

Now it appears the DEA wants Cleverly to disclose the name of the
person who sent the email. Cleverly said he refused to provide the DEA
members, when they visited his home Tuesday, with the sender's name.
He was then served with a subpoena, which also requires him to bring
his computer's hard drive to court the date of his scheduled appearance.

The DEA won't comment on the investigation. The Aspen Times contacted
its Denver law firm, Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz LLP, on Wednesday
about the Cleverly subpoena. The law firm and this newspaper are
currently evaluating how to proceed on the matter. Journalists
oftentimes are protected by shield laws when it comes to disclosing
their sources.

For the purposes of this article, First Amendment attorney Steven
Zansberg said Colorado shield laws do not protect Cleverly because the
subpoena is for his appearance before a federal grand jury.

"But the First Amendment privilege would apply, assuming Cleverly
received the e-mail message in his capacity as a reporter/author/journalist,"
Zansberg wrote in an email to the Times.

Cleverly, for his part, said he received his email for his work as a
journalist. He points to a guest column he wrote for the Aspen Times
Weekly -- "Aspen old-timers, drug enforcement and God" -- published
May 29. Cleverly's piece took a critical view of the DEA's May 19
arrests of six Aspen-area residents on cocaine trafficking charges,
opining that "the DEA types act like they're on a mission from God,
exactly the same as that preacher who thought the world was going to
end on May 21."

Once a regular writer for the Aspen Times Weekly before stepping down two years ago, Cleverly said he believes the DEA is retaliating against him for the column he wrote by serving him with the subpoena. Cleverly's writing resume includes a collaboration with Bob Braudis, Pitkin County's sheriff of 24 years until January, on the book "The Kitchen Readings: Untold Stories of Hunter S. Thompson." Cleverly also writes for the website thevileplutocrat.com.

"If they want to find out who sent this email, I'm sure there's a
thousand in this valley who have that email by now," Cleverly said.
"If the narcs want to find someone else who gave them the name, open
up the phone book and start calling."

The agents who came to Cleverly's home were David Storm, who works in
the Glenwood Springs DEA office; Jim Schrant, resident agent in charge
at the Grand Junction office; and Paul Pedersen, a Glenwood Springs
police officer, special DEA task force member, and an officer with the
Two Rivers Drug Enforcement Team.

Pedersen and Storm apparently worked closely with the confidential
informant, who is a woman. Both testified in detention hearings for
some of the defendants in the case, including 65-year-old Aspen man
Wayne Alan Reid, whom officials say was a key player in the alleged
cocaine trafficking organization. The confidential informant,
according to testimony from Storm during a May 28 hearing in Los
Angeles federal court, "was able to provide accurate, detailed
information that led to the seizure of $116,000," from Reid during a
traffic stop in July 2010.

The source also relayed to the DEA that Reid's primary source of
cocaine was 70-year-old Alfonso Elvio-Allocati of Los Angeles, who's
among the 10 defendants a federal grand jury indicted on April 19. The
arrests were made May 19.

During that May 28 identity hearing for Elvio-Allocati, the defendant's attorney asked Storm: "Was this defendant a paid informant?"

The judge presiding over the hearing upheld a federal attorney's
objection to the question.

Legal documents and testimony from a June 14 hearing in Denver's
federal court also indicate the confidential informant was a female
who provided evidence implicating Reid and Christopher Sheehan, 65, of
Snowmass. Both are in federal custody in Denver without bond.

Feds allege that the network funneled more than 200 kilograms of
cocaine from Los Angeles to Aspen over the past 15 years. All six
local suspects have pleaded not guilty to the charges, as have three
defendants in the Los Angeles area. One defendant out of L.A. remains
a fugitive.

The confidential informant evidently had immediate access to Reid, and
twice took pictures of the cocaine Reid allegedly packaged, according
to court testimony. She turned the pictures over to the DEA, according
to June 14 court testimony from Pedersen. The informant also witnessed
on seven different occasions Sheehan allegedly buying cocaine from
Reid, Pedersen testified. 
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