Zadekpedia2016-09-10 · Guest: Anthony L. Fisher (Associate Editor at Reason.com) · 11:39
Filed under: Crime, police and punishment
Topics: Criminal Justice Reform · Drug Policy
Predatory use of confidential informants in law enforcement
Bob Zadek and Anthony L. Fisher discuss the predatory use of confidential informants by law enforcement, specifically focusing on the tragic case of Andrew Sadek. Sadek, a North Dakota college student, was coerced into dangerous undercover work after being threatened with decades in prison for minor marijuana sales. The conversation highlights the lack of oversight for multi-jurisdictional drug task forces and the life-threatening risks posed to untrained civilians.
Topics: Confidential Informants, War on Drugs, Andrew Sadek, SEMCA, Law Enforcement Oversight, Drug-Free School Zones, Criminal Justice Reform
Speakers: Bob Zadek — Host Anthony L. Fisher — Associate Editor at Reason.com
The Modern Draft [00:18]
Bob Zadek: Hello everyone, it’s Sunday and it’s the Bob Zadek show. Thanks so much for listening. We are the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air all weekend. This show of ideas, not attitude, proudly and always. Thanks so much for listening. 424-BOB-SHOW to call in at any time. 424-262-7469.
Remember the draft? The draft was—for those of you not old enough to remember—the draft was a system by which young American males were required to provide military service. A dangerous occupation. They had no choice. Their freedom was denied to them. If they were of a certain age and qualified medically, they were required to carry a gun and be shot at and often killed. That regretful period of American history is hopefully behind us.
Or is it? Today, the draft still exists in an insidious and somewhat secretive fashion. But yes, it exists. The draftees are not every single young American, but are selective young Americans who are called, as you will learn during the next hour, CI, or confidential informants.
What does this system of confidential informants have to do with the draft? I’m glad you asked. To help us understand this dark technique used by the American police establishment, I’m happy to welcome back to the show Anthony Fisher. Anthony is the associate editor at Reason.com. He is an accomplished television and video producer. He first appeared on my show many years ago for his fine work on the Occupy movement—remember that? We’re happy to have Anthony back this morning. Anthony, welcome to the show.
Anthony L. Fisher: Thanks, Bob. Good to be back.
Defining the Confidential Informant [02:54]
Bob Zadek: Now, Anthony, I started off with a somewhat sinister introduction, equating the system of CIs or confidential informants to the draft. Of course, most listeners are not so aware of the phrase “CI” or “confidential informant,” and for sure, if you agree with my analogy, they are not aware at all of the relationship with the system of CIs to the now-eliminated system of the draft. So first, what is the system of CIs in America? And explain that, if you will, with your wonderful work you have done on the life of Andrew Sadek. Now, I should mention that’s Sadek with an S—same spelling as my name, except I have a Z—but obviously no relation. So Anthony, welcome to the show this morning, and what is a CI and why do we care? And then lead into the story of Andrew Sadek.
Anthony L. Fisher: Okay, so a CI is a confidential informant. They are most often people who have been either arrested of crimes and are—or they’ve got reason to cooperate with the police. They are compromised in some way legally, and they are tools. It’s tough to refer to human beings as tools, but they are tools and they are vital tools for police. And it’s not an immoral thing that police may arrest someone or detain someone and say, “Listen, you can get out of this. You can get basically a get-out-of-jail-free card if you cooperate with us and provide us evidence of other people’s crimes,” whether that means wearing a wire, working undercover, whether it means making drug buys on behalf of the police. The confidential informants are not exclusive to drug law enforcement, but are probably most common in drug law enforcement.
The Case of Andrew Sadek [05:01]
Anthony L. Fisher: And the thing that—the reason the Andrew Sadek case mattered is because it’s one of a disturbingly large amount of young people who have run afoul of the law—non-violent first-time offenders—who are being compelled to work as confidential informants. And another reason why it’s so important to know the details of this case and to advocate for greater oversight or reform is that most of the time these completely overwhelmed young people are scared to death at the possibility of losing their freedom for either the rest of their lives or a good amount of their young lives. And so they agree to work as confidential informants without telling their parents, without consulting a lawyer, and—most disturbing of all—without the proper training to deal with the work that requires being a confidential informant.
Bob Zadek: Now, the story—Andrew’s story—is compelling because it adds a human, real face to your opening discussion of CIs. When one hears the use of CIs in the abstract, it’s easy to say, “Well, they did something wrong, so screw them. And if it makes law enforcement more efficient, that’s good for everybody. Maintaining public order is good for everybody. So who cares? It’s Andrew’s own fault; he shouldn’t have broken the law.” But so that’s a very tempting attitude to adopt if you don’t have a human behind the discussion. So tell us the story of Andrew Sadek and what caught your attention.
Anthony L. Fisher: I discovered this story—a colleague of mine had just briefly noted it on the blog after picking it up somewhere, probably a local North Dakota publication or TV network put it out there—that this young man, 20 years old, good student, by all accounts a good son, a dutiful son, but you know, like a 20-year-old college kid, as many 20-year-old college kids, including our current president, will do, they engage in some casual marijuana usage. And he sold two bags of small amounts of marijuana to another confidential informant.
Bob Zadek: So he sold marijuana to what to him was another student. It was a fairly, in his world, commonplace transaction among people who knew each other. There was no organized crime element. It was two guys on a college in North Dakota doing what to them was a pretty everyday and not noteworthy transaction.
Anthony L. Fisher: It’s not really much different than say somebody at your college buys a case of beer and you break them off a six-pack. You know, that’s pretty much the extent of this. It’s not like he was involved in any sort of, like you said, organized crime or serious heavy drug trade. But the police and the drug task force that ensnared him did. Now, this is an important distinction too, and I’ll try to explain it as quickly and clearly as I can.
Lack of Oversight: SEMCA [10:01]
Anthony L. Fisher: There is no accountability, or at least there was at the time, there was no accountability for the drug task force that was known as SEMCA, which was the Southeast—I don’t even want to screw up the acronym—but it’s basically a bunch of local law enforcement entities in Southeast North Dakota who only answer to their own board, which was made up of officers, senior officers of those same law enforcement agencies. So they literally answer only to themselves. At the time, they didn’t even answer to the North Dakota Attorney General. So there was no chain of command here. There was no way of knowing that—there was no review of these policies. And there was no one to say, “Hey, do we really need to take this kid who sold a couple of tiny bags of marijuana and make him a confidential informant?”
So that’s important to note. But what’s also important to note is that in this interrogation, the officer handling his case encouraged him—encouraged him to go deeper into the drug trade. He encouraged him to make more contacts than he already had and to find drug dealers who were dealing in harder drugs than marijuana.
Bob Zadek: So now what’s happening is—and I want to be sure our friends out there understand this morphing. The morphing is from somebody who’s going to walk around a college campus in jeans and try to trick his fellow classmates into dealing in marijuana, which is sort of not that dangerous, perhaps. He now is becoming a narco with no training and with all of the danger that comes with it. Anthony, we’re going to go to break in a few seconds for a two-minute break. This is Bob Zadek. I’m talking to Anthony Fisher.
Show prep notes
Bob’s own preparation for this episode.
Anthony L. Fisher on Dangers to Confidential Informants
Associate Editor at Reason Magazine
(424) BOB-SHOW
Reason Archive & BIO:
Associate Editor at Reason.com. His beats include criminal justice, civil liberties, free speech, and foreign affairs. Previously a producer for Reason TV, he has created documentaries and interviews which have been featured on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and been viewed millions of times on Youtube. His doc “Sex, Drugs, and Small-Town Texas Justice” was nominated for a Southern California Journalism Award by the Los Angeles Press Club, and his report on college students being used as confidential informants was picked up by 60 Minutes.
He is also a sports/culture columnist for TheWeek.com, and has written for the Huffington Post, Filmmaker Magazine, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, and the New York Observer. He frequently appears as a commentator on Fox News Channel’s “Red Eye,” HuffPost Live, The Blaze, NPR, and many other radio and television outlets.
As Producer of “The Independents,” he was one of the founding creative forces behind the groundbreaking nightly news show on the Fox Business Network. Before that, he worked on the writing staff of a web series for an Emmy-winning production company and directed short films that have appeared on Comedy Central and the Sundance Channel.
Anthony’s first feature film, “Sidewalk Traffic,” won the Audience Award at the Lower East Side Film Festival, Best Microbudget Feature at the Berlin Independent Film Festival, and will be distributed by Random Media later this year.
BLURB:
Andrew Sadek was 20 years old when he was caught dealing small amounts of marijuana on his college campus in North Dakota. He was told that he could face up to 40 years in prison, or accept a plea bargain and aid campus drug busts for a time as a confidential informant. Soon after accepting the plea, but before completing the terms of the bargain, Andrew disappeared; his body surfaced days later across state lines in Minnesota. The law enforcement agency which had assigned Sadek his task not only failed to inform Sadek’s parents of his role as a confidential informant when he went missing, they also dragged their feet in investigating the death. Anthony Fisher, an Associate Editor at Reason Magazine, picked up the story, which has since been covered by 60 Minutes – shining a light on a very shady corner of the U.S. Justice System. Bob welcomes Anthony back on the show this Sunday to discuss the lack of accountability surrounding the use of confidential informants.
Straight Facts
Death of Andrew Sadek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“In April 2013, Sadek apparently began selling marijuana, meeting customers in the school’s parking lots. On two occasions, the buyer was another student working as a confidential informant (CI) for the Southeast Multi-County Agency (SEMCA), a task force of police officers from various local law enforcement agencies in the three counties of southeastern North Dakota (Ransom, Richland and Sargent), plus Wilkin County in neighboring Minnesota, working on drug enforcement. Sadek’s first sale to the CI was 1⁄8 of an ounce (3.5 g) for $60; the second was one gram for $20.
…
The following day he met with SEMCA officers. Because he had sold marijuana on a college campus, they told him that under North Dakota law he could be charged with a Class A felony, the most severe, and sentenced to over 40 years in prison if convicted and sentenced consecutively. He agreed to work as a CI as well to avoid that fate.
…
Two months later, investigators from both states released the autopsy report. The cause of Sadek’s death was a small-caliber gunshot wound to the head. Whether the wound was self-inflicted or not could not be determined; the weapon has not been found. A backpack he was wearing had been filled with rocks.( The Buccaneers sweatshirt was missing, but his body was wearing a jacket that he did not appear to be carrying or wearing on the security camera footage, and which his family did not recognize as one belonging to him. His wallet was also missing.
…
The day the autopsy report was released, Sadek’s mother Tammy gave a radio interview to Fargo station KFGO-FM.( She claimed that the NDSCS campus police, who were in charge of investigating the circumstances of her son’s disappearance and death, were treating it as a suicide and not seriously exploring angles that suggested homicide instead.( She scoffed at that theory:
There was no suicidal tendencies. There was no note. There was no depression. And his grades were excellent … Who shoots themselves in the head and fills their backpack with rocks, ties it to themselves and ends up in the river? It’s just too much.(
She conceded that a .22-caliber pistol was missing from the family home, but doubted her son would have chosen to kill himself with graduation only two weeks away.
[VIDEO] - A look at the controversial use of college students as informants CBS - 60 Minutes
REASON.com Commentary
[VIDEO] -The Disposable Life of a 20-Year-Old Confidential Informant - Reason.com - June 15, 2015
His death calls to mind similar cases in which young drug offenders facing draconian penalties were forced into dangerous undercover work, including Rachel Hoffman, a Florida college student who was murdered in 2008 after agreeing to arrange the purchase of MDMA, cocaine, and a gun for $10,000.
Confidential Informants and a Lack of Accountability - Hit & Run : Reason.com - September 5, 2015
Looks at a case in which the DEA hired a confidential informant that was using a truck that belonged to a company with no ties to the case at hand. Not only was the man’s property damaged, but he then feared retaliation from the drug cartel that was involved in the case.
“He has not been able to get the DEA to pay for the damages to the truck, let alone apologize.”
Drug War Draftees - Reason.com - Dec. 14, 2015
“Sadek’s journey from small-time pot dealer to waterlogged corpse, which was highlighted by 60 Minutes last week, dramatically illustrates the dangers faced by young, legally naïve drug offenders who are pressured by the threat of imprisonment to do unto others what was done unto them. Even at a time when the collapse of pot prohibition seems inevitable, drug warriors insist this cruel, occasionally deadly chain of betrayal is essential to their work. They may be right about that, but their work is fundamentally immoral, employing unethical means to achieve an ever-elusive goal that a just government would never pursue.”
“Sadek’s mother, Tammy, suspects her son was killed by “somebody he was trying to get for them” or “somebody he already got,” as she put it in a radio interview last January. She told Reason TV that campus police suggested Andrew had committed suicide, which struck her as wildly implausible. None of his friends described him as depressed, no weapon or suicide note was ever found, and it is hard to imagine how he could have managed to shoot himself in the head and hurl himself into the river while wearing a rock-filled backpack. An autopsy was inconclusive on the question of whether Andrew’s death was a homicide or suicide.
North Dakota then denied having jurisdiction because the body was found in Minnesota.
60 Minutes also interviewed Matt Sander, who attended the same college as Andrew Sadek. Like Sadek, Sander was caught selling pot and pressured by Jason Weber to be a C.I. “He kept repeating, ‘This is the only time you can save yourself,’” Sander said. Sander claims Weber discouraged him from consulting a lawyer, which Weber denies. In any case, Sander turned Weber down and, with the help of a lawyer hired by his family, got two years’ probation. Sadek, a first-time offender, probably could have gotten a similar deal if he had resisted Weber’s pressure.
[VIDEO]Rep. Steve Cohen Calls for Confidential Informant Reform, Citing Story First Covered by Reason TV - Hit & Run : Reason.com
Impassioned speech by democratic congressman citing the law-enforcement-marijuana-industrial complex, that exists in parallel with the military industrial complex.
The Sickening Use of Young People as Confidential Informants in the Drug War | Drug Policy Alliance
“60 Minutes shows us young people who were busted for small amounts of marijuana or Ecstasy who were threatened with years in prison unless they worked as confidential informants. Tragically, a number of informants end up getting put in life-threatening situations or are pressured into lying at the expense of innocent people to save their own skin.”
Whether or not Sadek killed himself or was murdered, the use of confidential informants creates an ordeal that perpetuates secrecy, unaccountability and the institutionalization of treachery.
Secret Justice: Criminal Informants and America’s Underground Legal System | Prison Legal News June 5, 2010