The 41-year-old woman revealed her secret in a March 2002 letter she mailed from the Douglas County Jail to Judge Michael Malone.

The woman had admitted forging some checks. She agreed not to contest the charges, but was in jail because she failed to show for a date in Douglas County District Court.

What no one knew was that she was working with police as a spy in the war on drugs.

“I hope it is okay to write this to you because I also had something to say that I didn’t want the courtroom to hear,” she wrote in tidy cursive that belied the mess she was in. “I have been working with an officer on the police force and helping him to get drug dealers off the street.”

Her case — and a controversy involving a Lawrence police officer fired for his dealings with a confidential informant — are shedding light on the secret deals between law enforcement authorities and private individuals who help them bust drug dealers. And they are raising questions about how much police should rely on informants and “cooperating individuals.”

‘Necessary’ technique

“It’s a necessary investigative technique” said Sheriff Rick Trapp, a former prosecutor. “We’d love just to be able to use law enforcement officers, but it’s just not feasible, particularly in a smaller community where everybody knows the officers.”

Trapp and others say informants — usually drug users or dealers — can infiltrate a drug ring more easily than undercover officers could.

The fact authorities are making such deals is irresponsible, some defense attorneys argue — and unfair by nature.

Recent cases are shedding light on the secretive deals between law officers and private individuals who help them snag drug dealers. Confidential informants and cooperating individuals are necessary tools for busting drug dealers, according to authorities, but some defense attorneys are crying foul.

“The bottom line is the drug war is so misguided all the participants get dirtied from it,” said John Frydman, a Lawrence defense attorney.

To understand the case of the 41-year-old woman, it’s necessary to understand the difference between two types of people: confidential informants and what police call “cooperating individuals.”

An informant might give tips to police or point out a home where people are buying drugs. The 41-year-old woman went a step farther by putting her name on a “cooperating individual agreement” with the county’s Drug Enforcement Unit. That agreement spelled out what she could and couldn’t do as she helped police arrange drug-buying stings.

One thing she couldn’t do was tell anyone the agreement existed.

Giving and getting

¢ Excerpts from the pact the county’s drug unit makes with confidential informants Past stories:¢ Suspended officer fired (2-11-03)¢ 6News video: Officer to appeal dismissal¢ Join the discussion on our community forum¢ Another Peck case dismissed (2-8-03)¢ Informant steps up to defend suspended policeman (2-2-03)¢ Court tosses tainted cases (1-31-03)¢ City’s top drug cop suspended (1-28-03)¢ 6News video: Top drug officer suspended (1-28-03)

In most cases, people make such agreements because they want something out of the deal, said Lawrence Police Sgt. Tarik Khatib, who heads the Drug Enforcement Unit, a joint operation between Lawrence Police and the Sheriff’s Office.

In some cases, police might give a cooperating individual money for groceries, gasoline or a month’s rent, Khatib said. More often, he said, the individuals are facing criminal charges — say, theft or forgery — and they want to avoid serving time.

“Some of them are given breaks. That’s the way it works,” Khatib said. “You have to give people some breaks to get the guy next up the ladder.”

The 41-year-old woman is identified in public records, but the Journal-World is not using her name out of concern for her safety.

At the time she wrote to Malone, she had been working for the county’s Drug Enforcement Unit for three months.

The relationship started Dec. 19, 2001– less than two weeks after she was arrested for theft and forgery.

Her attorney, Jonathan Becker, said he was alarmed by the cooperating individual document because the police officer’s signature on it was not witnessed. His client’s signature wasn’t on it at all, he said. Also, Becker said he didn’t think police should be allowed to draft such agreements.

More trouble

Assistant Dist. Atty. Dave Zabel conceded in a court hearing earlier this week the agreement was not “the best-written document.”

The woman agreed to go undercover to buy cocaine for police, then return the cocaine to the Drug Enforcement Unit, Becker said.

“The benefit that she saw is that the police would be going to the District Attorney’s Office and speaking up for her,” Becker said.

When it came time for the woman to be sentenced in the forgery case, she was put on probation, even though her criminal background– convictions in the 1980s for aggravated sexual battery and sexual exploitation of a child — usually would warrant imprisonment.

But sentencing in the forgery case in April wasn’t the end of the woman’s troubles.

In September, police alleged that on her first controlled drug buy — in mid-January 2002 — she bought cocaine with police money, hid the drugs in a body cavity and instead gave police baking powder.

The woman’s cocaine-possession charge is still pending. Her forgery case also is pending because she was charged in December 2002 with violating her probation by using cocaine.

Earlier this month, Judge Malone recused himself from hearing the woman’s cases. Becker said it was because Malone thought his client lied to the judge by saying no one had made her any promises before she agreed to plead “no contest” to charges of theft and forgery.

Entrapment?

Robert Jones, a visiting judge from Johnson County, has been assigned to both the forgery and cocaine cases.

Becker said he was looking into whether Stuart “Michael” Peck, the officer fired for allegedly lying to Malone about an informant, was involved with his client becoming a cooperating individual.

Zabel, the assistant district attorney, said in a recent court hearing that no one in his office promised the woman anything. And, he said, there was no entrapment.

From Zabel’s point of view, the case is simple: The woman was supposed to help police buy the drugs, but when she switched the cocaine for baking powder, she broke the law.

The existence of an agreement between her and police — secret or not — does nothing to change that, he said.

“I don’t think there’s any allegation that anyone made her switch baking powder for crack cocaine,” Zabel said.