Pubdate: Sat, 30 Nov 2013
Source: Herald-Mail, The (Hagerstown, MD)
Copyright: 2013 The Herald-Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.herald-mail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1537
Author: Jennifer Fitch

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANTS PLAY INVALUABLE ROLE

Drug users testifying in a murder case in Franklin County, Pa., two 
weeks ago called them snitches and rats.

The witnesses had nothing nice to say about confidential informants - 
"snitches get stitches" was one of the gentler comments.

Yet, many of them either had provided police with tips themselves or 
assumed their close friends had done so.

The four-day court hearing dealt with the 2010 fatal stabbing of 
Kristy Dawn Hoke by Jeffrey Eldon Miles Sr. A judge sentenced Miles 
to life in prison for first-degree murder.

Hoke signed up as a confidential informant with the Washington County 
(Md.) Narcotics Task Force on March 3, 2008, and gave agents details 
about drug activity in the State Line, Pa., home where Miles lived, 
according to testimony from a Washington County agent.

The search warrant executed in May 2009 based on that information 
resulted in drug paraphernalia charges.

"He told me she had gotten his door kicked in," Miles' son, Dustin 
Lamier, testified.

Lamier started providing information to a Franklin County Drug Task 
Force detective at age 18, Hoke participated in 15 investigations for 
Washington County, and Miles claims to have talked to government 
officials about a dirty cop who was on his drug-dealing payroll.

So, just how many people are serving as confidential informants for 
law enforcement in this area?

When asked by The Herald-Mail about the use of confidential 
informants, Franklin County and Berkeley County, W.Va., drug task 
force officials declined to release the number of confidential 
informants enrolled in their counties.

"It's a revolving number," Washington County Narcotics Task Force 
Director Lt. Todd Kerns said of the number of informants being used 
at any one time. A good estimate, he said, is about 25 at any given time.

The Washington County Narcotics Task Force operates with about 10 or 
11 agents, primarily members of the sheriff's office and Hagerstown 
Police Department, according to Viki Pauler, the supervising 
representative of the Washington County State's Attorney's office for 
the task force.

That figure is augmented by Drug Enforcement Administration agents 
who work with the task force on joint investigations, she said.

The Franklin County Drug Task Force has six full-time detectives, 
including two Pennsylvania State Police troopers assigned to the 
unit, District Attorney Matt Fogal said.

Confidential informants "are an important part of many drug 
trafficking investigations," often because the investigations begin 
with the informants' tips, he said.

Fogal said confidential informants typically are motivated by 
financial payments, consideration in pending criminal cases or a 
sense of doing the right thing.

"Many agree to cooperate because they are facing criminal charges," he said.

Likewise, Washington County's task force uses some paid confidential 
narcotics informants, while others volunteer information, but many 
are people facing drug charges that are seeking leniency for their 
own cases by cooperating with police, Pauler said.

"Some provide information. Some actually go and purchase narcotics. 
It varies depending on what the needs are," Pauler said.

The number of informants who are paid, as opposed to working off 
criminal charges, also fluctuates, Kerns said. One paid informant 
testified during a trial about two years ago that he was paid $60 
when he took part in a controlled purchase of drugs.

"That varies also, but that's in the ballpark ... around $50 to 
$100," Kerns said.

People do have to sign paperwork that spells out what they can and 
cannot do as informants, but it is not a guarantee of what kind of 
consideration they will get if and when they go before a judge on any 
charges against them, Kerns said.

That is up to each judge, he said.

In Miles' degree-of-guilt hearing, a defense attorney questioned the 
Washington County agent about why he did not do more to tell Hoke 
that Miles mentioned he knew whose information prompted the May 2009 
search warrant.

"If an informant is compromised, this office addresses that security 
concern in a number of different manners," Fogal said of Franklin 
County, declining to provide specifics due to security concerns.

During a drug buy in Washington County, those making the purchases 
usually are provided with electronic devices, sometimes both audio 
and video, that agents can monitor in "real time," and agents often 
are in close enough proximity to observe the transactions and 
intervene if the need arises, Pauler said.

Those charged in drug crimes eventually will know the name of an 
informant, if one or more was involved in their case, Kerns said. 
That information becomes available to defendants through the 
discovery process in a court case, he said.

"Certainly, we keep informants abreast before taking someone into 
custody," Kerns said.

However, there is nothing available locally like the federal witness 
protection program, which can relocate informants or provide them 
with new identities, he said.

As last month's hearing wrapped up, Fogal told the judge he felt too 
much emphasis might have been placed on Hoke's role as a confidential 
informant as being a potential motive for her killing.

"I think the whole idea of a confidential informant has been 
overblown in this proceeding," he said.

Staff writer Don Aines contributed to this story.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom