February 12, 2003

A jury has sided with two narcotics agents who claimed their boss -- the Pennsylvania attorney general -- retaliated against them because they uncovered a drug-trafficking ring that diverted profits to a CIA-backed Dominican presidential candidate. A federal jury in northeastern Pennsylvania has awarded $1.5 million to the agents after a one-week trial. The verdict capped more than five years of litigation. State Attorney General Mike Fisher said he will appeal.

The agents' allegations involved leftist politician Jose Francisco Pena Gomez, the longtime leader of the Dominican Revolutionary Party and a three-time presidential hopeful. Pena Gomez died in 1998.

The agents -- John McLaughlin and Charles Micewski -- said they had uncovered a Dominican drug-trafficking ring operating in Philadelphia, New York and other Eastern cities that funneled drug profits to the Dominican Revolutionary Party, which they claimed was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department. The agents said the federal government had allowed Pena Gomez to return to the Dominican Republic after a 1995 fund-raising swing through New York with $500,000 in alleged drug profits.

[Read the source...]

Related Links:

• CIA - Drugs and Campaign Fundraising (Part 2) (From the Wilderness, Aug. 1999) - Detailed background on the Pennsylvania case. (Read part one of this article.)