Hell's Angel Acquited Despite Former Minnesota President Turning Informer
9th Commandment
Last update: September 26, 2004 at 7:19 AM
Affair muddied probe of drug suspect
Paul Mcenroe and Tony Kennedy, Star Tribune
September 26, 2004 IRS0926
For more than a decade, federal authorities painstakingly built a
criminal case against the man they suspected of being the main drug
supplier to the Hell's Angels of Minnesota.
After spending untold hours on surveillance, cultivating informants
inside the outlaw motorcycle gang, digging through garbage for clues
and unraveling cryptic financial transactions, prosecutors this summer
prepared to take the case to trial.
Then, on the brink of proceedings in U.S. District Court in St. Paul,
veteran IRS special agent Jim Shoup came forth with a stunning
confession: He was tangled in a romance with the wife of the alleged
drug dealer he had been tracking since 1990. Suddenly, a case that had
appeared rock solid fell apart.
Two weeks ago, the drug trafficking and money laundering trial of the
suspected dealer, Brad Jacobsen, 54, of Apple Valley, and his
co-defendant, Hell's Angels leader Paul (Rooster) Seydel, 49, of
Brooklyn Park, ended in a hung jury.
The exact reasons for the mistrial may never be known because the
jurors' identities are sealed under judge's order and none has stepped
forward to talk. Yet throughout the Twin Cities law enforcement and
legal community, people are speculating that Shoup's affair with
Jacobsen's wife -- and consequently his not taking the stand to
testify -- are the main reasons jurors were unable to reach a verdict.
It would be exceptional for a lead federal agent in a drug-money
laundering case not to testify for the prosecution. But that's exactly
what happened in U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle's courtroom.
A government source with direct knowledge of the case, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said prosecutors didn't call Shoup to testify
against Jacobsen because they feared he would be shredded under
cross-examination. Now, Shoup is under investigation for possible
misconduct, the defendants remain free and no retrial date has been
set.
The former U.S. attorney in Minnesota who once oversaw the criminal
probe of the motorcycle gang said Shoup's conflict of interest and his
absence from the witness stand clearly undermined the government's
chances to win a conviction.
In an interview last week, B. Todd Jones, who was U.S. attorney in
Minneapolis from 1998 to 2001, said Shoup's affair with Jacobsen's
wife impugned his credibility and opened the prosecution to questions
about motivations of the investigation.
"You've got an affair going on with the defendant's wife and the agent
who is investigating him?" Jones said. "No wonder it was a hung jury."
Jones said Shoup "personalized what should be an impersonal
investigation. There's an intimate relationship going on, and he's got
a motivation to maybe do something to take him [Jacobsen] out of the
picture."
An internal affairs investigation into Shoup's behavior opened after
the Star Tribune sought comment from IRS officials on whether Shoup's
relationship with the alleged drug dealer's wife would result in
sanctions against him.
Terry Lemons, who heads the Internal Revenue Service's media office in
Washington, D.C., declined to say whether the IRS was looking into the
situation. But a government source, who asked not to be named, said
the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has
begun a misconduct probe of Shoup, 43, of Champlin.
Shoup, who has been a criminal investigator for the IRS since 1987,
said in an interview that he wished he could publicly explain his
relationship with Donna Cleare, 49, of Apple Valley. "I'm tied because
I can't make a comment," he said. "I hope the people you've talked to
say, 'Hey, this is a hard-working guy.' The truth is the truth. I have
no comment."
Shoup remains working without any restrictions, according to his
attorney, Mark Larsen. "Agent Shoup will cooperate fully in any
investigation conducted by the Internal Revenue Service," Larsen said.
'A bad fact'
In the spring of 2003, Pat Matter -- then president of Hell's Angels
of Minnesota -- pleaded guilty to money laundering and conspiracy to
distribute methamphetamine and cocaine. He was sentenced to prison for
17 years, a penalty he tried to shave down by breaking the gang's
sacred code of silence and turning government witness.
With Matter as an inside snitch, prosecutors set their sights on
nailing the man who allegedly had supplied the Hell's Angels with up
13 pounds of methamphetamine per month from 1998 through 2001.
Despite the enormous advantage of having such a powerful Hell's Angel
testify against his own, the chance of a conviction was thrown into
doubt before the first witness was called to the stand.
In his opening statement to jurors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff
Paulsen found himself backpedaling rather than taking the offense.
"I am going to tell you something else right now, because every case
has some bad facts and you are going to hear about a bad fact in this
case," Paulsen said. He told the jury that Shoup's relationship with
Donna Cleare had taken place at "a period of time when this particular
case was coming to light."
Shoup's behavior, Paulsen also told the jury, coincided with "a very
sad and bitter divorce with a custody dispute, and he was very unhappy
and very lonely."
Paulsen said Shoup met Jacobsen's wife during the course of his
investigation. "And to make a long story short, they had marital
problems in common and they got together to talk about marital
problems and they got too friendly," he said. "He knows it was a
mistake. It was a mistake, a bad mistake in judgment."
Savoring the opportunity to attack the character and credibility of a
government investigator, Earl Gray, Jacobsen's defense attorney, laid
out even more damaging details in his opening statement.
Gray explained how Shoup had investigated Jacobsen since 1990 and had
seen Jacobsen's wife over that period of time. He then described the
November 2003 search of Jacobsen's home in Apple Valley. He told
jurors how Shoup seized photo albums of Donna Cleare "in bikinis, all
over Hawaii, overseas, which Mr. Shoup seized from my client's house.
What does he do? Right after the search warrant he meets up with Donna
... who indeed was upset with her husband," Gray said.
Gray told the jury how Shoup took Jacobsen's wife on two bar dates,
traded many personal phone calls "about their relationship" and twice
entertained her at his house.
"And then a couple months ago, they're walking around Lake Harriet,"
Gray said. "These were dates."
Gray indicated that as the trial date neared, Shoup and Donna Cleare
agreed to cool their romance until after the trial.
"So when does the bar dating start, when does this become a personal
thing and not a criminal case?" Gray asked the jury. "That will be for
you to decide."
Sanctions likely
Jim Benham, a retired IRS internal security investigator, said Shoup
is likely to be sanctioned, but it's difficult to predict the severity
of the sanctions.
"Definitely, he committed a no-no. He used bad judgment," said Benham,
president of the Inspection Retirees Association, a group of retired
IRS internal affairs investigators from across the country.
By striking up a romance with the wife of a defendant, Shoup
undermined the prosecution by giving ammunition to the defense, he
said.
"If he would have testified, the defense attorney would have
challenged him and he would have lost all credibility," Benham said.
"I'm sure he's facing some kind of administrative action."
Since 1998, when the internal security unit in the IRS was eliminated,
misconduct in the agency has been investigated by TIGTA. Luis D.
Garcia, a spokesman for the independent agency, said he can't comment
on open investigations.
"Any breach of integrity in the IRS we investigate," Garcia said. "We
investigate all sorts of IRS misconduct."
According to the agency's semi-annual report to Congress, a total of
784 internal affairs investigations at the IRS from October 2003 to
April 2004 resulted in 53 dismissals, 68 resignations or retirements,
75 suspensions and 89 reprimands
Chocolic
Chocolic
----------------------
"9th Commandment" <ninthcom...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:gjpel0584238c62g6...@4ax.com...