The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Betrayal on the Bayou | 8. Approximation of Justice

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Chad is charged on a long list of counts related to corruption. He isn’t just going to plead guilty. He’s going to trial. In court, he’ll face his informants and his right-hand men who betrayed him. But whether or not Chad gets what he deserved remains an open question. Is Chad a bad apple or is the DEA a rotten orchard? Subscribe to The Binge to get all episodes of Smoke Screen ad-free right now. Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Smoke Screen: Betrayal On The Bayou show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. A Neon Hum & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. The Bench.

The day Chad Scott's arrested is a muggy Sunday evening. It's the 1st of October, 2017. Overhead, an FBI plane surveils Louis Armstrong International Airport, New Orleans. Chad Scott is returning home from water skiing in Charleston, South Carolina, and his plane is about to land. Agents arriving at the scene have been warned that Chad should be considered armed and dangerous.

Lead FBI agent Chip Hargrave was there. We didn't expect violent resistance from him, but there's a chance he could have, you know, eluded us, gotten out of the net, gotten to his truck and driven out of the airport without us knowing it. And did we also interpret correctly from the file that some agent had let the air out of his tires

in the parking garage? Yes, I did. You did? I did. Now, I didn't slash the tires. I just let the air out of his tires in the parking garage? Yes, I did. You did? I did. Now, I didn't slash the tires. I just let the air out of them. Chad exits the plane, and he's ambushed. I mean, as soon as I breached the jetway,

there were like 10 or 12, 13 guys come running down like Ghostbusters. Started grabbing me and pushing me against the wall. I mean, I was in shorts and a t-shirt and patting me down. They walked Chad through the airport. They did the perp walk, the parade walk, walked me all through the airport with 12 of them surrounding me in handcuffs from the terminal all the way to the front door. Placed me in a car, took me to the FBI office, and processed me fingerprint photographs. What was going through your head when you were walking through that airport? Nothing good. I mean, I was pretty shocked and pretty pissed off at the way they handled it,

because it was obviously, you know, just to do the parade walk. Were you still confident at that point that they had nothing on you? I mean, listen, if somebody indicts you federally, like I said, I've been part of the federal system for a long time. I know that it's an uphill battle from the day you get indicted.

You know, one of them told me, you need to get your head right and tell us what you know. And I'm like, come on, man. Did you say that? No. Chad Scott is headed to trial. Because of my experience in federal court, I know that it's a system set up for the government to win. The federal government is no longer on Chad's side.

Tactics that Chad used as a federal agent are going to be used against him. The feds have convinced Chad's right-hand men, Johnny and Carl, to betray him in front of judge and jury. In the beginning of this series, we asked whether Chad was the greatest DEA agent in the South or a criminal. That is the debate that will take place in the courtroom. And this time, Chad's freedom will depend on what the jury thinks. In this episode, Chad is going to be held to account. Some of his victims will be disappointed. Some of his champions will be too. Because by the end of Chad's trials, the judgment for the white devil was nothing like what we expected.

I'm Feynman Roberts. And I'm Jim Mustian. And from Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is the season finale of Betrayal on the Bayou. Episode 8, Approximation of Justice. The feds take Chad to a jail outside New Orleans, a place where Chad used to lock up drug dealers. So they put me in the car with two younger agents. They were having to Google Maps how to get to St. Charles Parish Jail.

And I was like, I'll tell you all how to get there. They take Chad's fingerprints and his photograph. They strip him and wash him down with de-lousing spray. And they give him an orange jumpsuit and orange jailhouse flip-flops. And as I'm walking to the back, there's already guys in there beating on the window, screaming my name. Put that motherfucker in here.

And I said, you ain't putting me in there. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, did they not tell you who I am? He's like, tell me what? I said, I'm a fucking federal agent. You cannot put me in there. How do you mean, does word just travel that quickly? I mean, yeah, once I was there,

I mean, they knew who I was. Chad spends a night behind bars. Spent the whole night listening to you motherfucker. Just sitting there thinking, how did I get here? What in the world did I do to get here? Two days after being arrested, in the late afternoon, Chad has a hearing and he's released on bail.

He didn't even want to go back to the jailhouse to get his clothes. I was like, man, I will walk out of here in this orange suit. I don't want to go back to St. Charles. I was like, man, I will walk out of here in this orange suit. I don't want to go back to St. Charles. Like, hour and a half in handcuffs. So when the marshal says, man, I think we got somebody's clothes in here,

I said, I'll take whatever you got. Just let me get the hell out of here. We were there for that hearing. The New Orleans advocate also sent a photographer to stake out the federal courthouse. There's a photo of Chad on the steps. He's wearing badly fitting clothing, baggy jeans, a rumpled blue collared shirt, and orange jailhouse flip-flops. Chad looks right into the camera with icy intensity. On the steps, Chad is flanked by his mother and two supporters,

Matt Komen and Steve Garcia. My name is Steve Garcia, and I'm an attorney. And my name is Matt Komen. I'm also an attorney. Komen and Garcia would become Chad's legal team. Matt Komen is a former federal prosecutor who worked with Chad for years. But, you know, being arrogant and having a little bit of hubris has never been a federal crime. Should it be, we'd all be in trouble. Steve Garcia met Chad through water skiing. Chad's problem in life is the same problem he has everywhere.

And it's actually in water skiing, believe it or not. He's just better than everybody else at it. So he follows his own rules. Garcia is a high-octane civil lawyer. He's the guy you call if you want to sue a nursing home for elder abuse. He's won his clients millions in compensation. He agrees to represent Chad. I frankly incensed that the government would waste my tax dollars

and make the streets less safe than they were when Chad was on them. So I agreed to represent him. And through that, I then found out about this guy named Matt Komen, who was also representing him, who had extensive criminal experience. I was a criminal lawyer early in my career, but hadn't done criminal for decades. Chad's other lawyer, Komen, is a legal encyclopedia. He's known to list citations off the top of his head during arguments. Garcia, on the other hand, is passionate. His default is righteous indignation.

We met each other, we fought a lot, screamed at each other a lot, threw pens at each other a lot. But one thing was consistent, is that we fervently believe that this was an unjust, unfair, improper prosecution and utilization of the government's resources. Chad will need the support because he was hit with 10 federal charges. Half of them are related to perjury during the trial for Booby's grand supplier, Jorge Peralta. That trial where Chad got Booby to testify that, Jorge Peralta. That trial where Chad got Booby to testify that he knew Peralta. Two more charges are for incorrect information on the seizure paperwork for Booby's white Ford F-150. And then you have a charge for not going through the proper channels to dispose of Orestes' wallets, phones, and belts. And for pocketing the cash. That's a charge called

conversion of property. But the charges are remarkable, not because of what's in them, but because of what's missing. There's nothing related to Chad being a multi-kilo drug dealer, as the feds once suspected, or Chad planting drugs to beef up charges against suspects, or Chad beating up people he'd arrested,

the indictment told a story, but it wasn't the one we'd been hearing about the white devil. This was like the moment after a long poker hand when the FBI showed their cards. Fabian and I were expecting a royal flush, but instead, it was a three of a kind. We thought that Chad's charges would look a lot like Johnny and Carl's, who'd been stealing drugs out of evidence, using and selling them.

We'd been told that Chad was their ringleader, so that's what we expected. But that wasn't the picture the indictment painted. Instead, the picture was of an overzealous cop who bent the rules to convict drug dealers. We asked the lead FBI agent, Chip Hargrave, why the charges seemed so procedural. The fact that Chad said he'd gotten Booby's truck from one state and it was another, that Chad had gotten Booby to lie on the stand

against a well-documented drug trafficker. Mistakes, no doubt, but not the same as betraying the DEA mission by becoming a drug dealer himself. Chip took issue with the idea that Chad wasn't facing serious charges. The defense have been pretty adamant that, in particular, the truck charges are something that could have been handled administratively. I'm asking you to respond to the claim that there were essentially some chicken shit things in this case that Chad was charged with. Okay. So the people that would, and look, it's a valid argument, but I will point to this, that basically Chad strong-armed an American citizen to buy a vehicle,

you know, $40,000, $50,000 of their money. You know, I agree. He's a dope dealer. He says he's a drug dealer, you know, but there's still coercion in American citizens to spend money that they have in order to buy a vehicle that will be put into government service by the agent that is strong-armed the guy. You know, I'm not okay with that. But in my opinion, the worst thing that Chad did is the perjury. If you get up on a stand and you lie to put somebody else in jail, can you imagine anything more horrific? And on top of that, if that guy gets out of jail, he is now going to believe that every police officer, every federal agent, that they all do that.

So the next cop that stops him in a traffic stop for speeding or running a red light is now put in immediate, much more danger than he previously would have been because this guy got up on the stand and convinced this other person that all cops are bad and that all cops are liars. However you see these charges, they aren't on the same level as a violent offense. And in that way, they aren't as serious as the allegations Chip had heard about Chad ripping out a man's dreadlocks or Chad beating a man against a concrete floor. That victim apparently had been willing to come forward.

So what happened? I asked Mike Zummer, the agent on Chip's team, about it. Was it something that occurred to you to be immediately usable? You know, in those cases, you're always worried about statute of limitations, what's the charge going to be. I mean, clearly a civil rights violation would be the immediate thought that came to mind. But, of course, it is always a question, right? If you can't have any kind of corroborating evidence, and if it's his word versus the DEA agent's

word, that's always a question about whether that's something that you want to charge or not. It's important to take note of what Mike is saying here. The statute of limitations for civil rights abuses not resulting in death is seven years. But Chip told us that in Chad's case, prosecutors could have worked around that by tying the civil rights abuses together under a conspiracy charge. Jeff Salette, Chip's boss at the FBI, said that he even pushed for a racketeering, or RICO, charge. I mean, there was always a debate whether Chad should have been charged in a RICO. I think the judge actually even asked that question. I certainly would have been pretty happy had he been charged in a RICO because to me, it was a continuing criminal enterprise, right? We had many conversations about pursuing a RICO

investigation so we could bring stuff in. And, you know, some of that stuff was, all right, well, if Chad Scott beat this person 10 years ago, we wanted to hold him accountable, right? If you don't charge RICO, and again, this is how I always say this, I can advocate, I don't prosecute. The United States Attorney's Office makes prosecutorial decisions. That's the separation of powers, and this is where I say, like, FBI agents investigate, prosecutors prosecute. But ultimately, prosecutors decided not to bring RICO charges. Because here's the other thing. Civil rights abuse cases, specifically the part of the law that has to do with cops abusing their power, are notoriously difficult to prove in court.

We looked at various civil rights violations. And while some of those are believable, they were unprovable. There was quite a few of them. And there was discussion within the team that, why don't we have a case where we bring these guys in and they can all get up and testify, just to show what Chad was really doing out there. And it was decided by the prosecutors, and I support this decision, I think it was a good one, that they had a black and white four-corner of the law case. And they didn't want to risk the chance of flooding that with a bunch of people coming and making all these allegations, you know, that are drug dealers and criminals and all this other stuff, you know. They were worried that they were going to take what they believed a makeable, simple, straightforward case into kind of a mess that may not go their way.

This is one of the reasons why cops rarely get convicted of crimes like use of excessive force, what's known as a 242 case. It's in the letter of the law. Here's the thing about 242s. It's not enough to have a violation of somebody's civil rights. Even when you have irrefutable evidence, say a beating caught on tape, in order to prove a 242 in court, you'd have to prove intent that a law officer willfully deprived a victim of their rights. And how do you get into anybody's heart and mind beyond a reasonable doubt? It's something the feds have struggled with repeatedly in high-profile civil rights cases, and it's often the determining factor have struggled with repeatedly in high-profile civil rights cases, and it's often the determining factor when they choose not to bring charges. We've looked into some of the allegations that Chip told us about Chad beating up people he'd

arrested. In the case of the man who said his dreadlocks were ripped out, Chad remembers this arrest, recalls the man losing a piece of his dreads in the fight, but Chad says he didn't lay hands on him. Chad says that he simply did not beat up people he'd arrested. Like I said, I've never done that to anybody. You know, you forget that my primary goal in all of my cases was to take the investigation to the next level. If you're going to go beating suspects and doing that, how much information do you think they're going to give you? So those are simply false. And had they had that to charge me with, they would have charged me. We did find documentation that showed the

arrestee with the dreadlocks was injured so badly that a judge issued an order for him to get medical attention. And the records we have don't specify whether this man's injuries were caused by Chad or somebody else. We've reached out to his lawyers and haven't heard back. We can tell you that the lead FBI investigator believed that Chad had beaten arrestees. We can also tell you that Chad, in the end, was not charged with anything related to civil rights abuse. And yet, at this moment, after Chad is charged and out on bail, there are people on the North Shore who are still terrified of Chad Scott,

the white devil. And no matter what the charges are, if Chad is found guilty and sent to prison, he'd be off the streets. Chance Scott has not one but three trials interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. His ten charges are split up and there's a retrial after a hung jury on one set of charges.

The judge is Jane Trish Malazzo. She's small but forceful, like a Cajun Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Judge Malazzo made special allowances for reporters, like me, to use a laptop during the trial. The only power outlet was toward the front, all the way to the right, where the feds were all sitting. I ended up on a bench next to Michael Gannon, the fed with the Boston accent. Well, that does sound like good times. There's a lot that happens during the trials.

We're going to give you the highlights. One thing that stands out is that Chad's lawyers don't always get along with the judge. She lectures him frequently during bench conferences, while she plays Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World over the loudspeaker so the jury can't overhear. A lot of what happens in court describes the events around Chad's charges, like the perjury.

Booby gets up and testifies. What he tells the jury is similar to what he said to the feds. He's like, I'm going to use you. He's going to trial next week. I'm going to use you. He said, you sure you're going to know him? I'm like, man, just get me up there and I got you. Booby also tells the story of that white Ford F-150 Chad asked for as a sign of good faith. You got to give me

this big fairy tale, you know, so I could tell the prosecutor, you know what I'm saying, how you out here working and you're doing a good job. You got to give me something now. So I'm like, what do I need to trade? He said, whatever you feel like it. So I'm like, what do I need to trade? He said, whatever you feel like it. But I sure like this truck. In court, you also get a good sense just how much pressure Chad could put on his informants. But Chad knew Boobie hadn't given up dealing drugs.

He's like, man, you really can't do that. I said, man, what you want me to do? You threatening to lock me up. I got to do what I got to do. I'm in Rome. When you're in Rome, you do what the Romans do. He's like, well, I don't want to be your jail cellmate, but you need to stop that. That Chad knew his informants were using their own money for drug busts. You know, I stated, I can't believe he let $60,000 walk to get a deal under his belt. You know, Chad, you know, shushed me at the table. You know, we'll talk about it again. Expert witnesses testify to try to help the jury understand what it means when DEA agents seize property from drug dealers.

They get into the minutia of the rulebook. The prosecution calls Chad's boss from early in his career. This is the supervisor who called Chad among the best agents in the division in a letter of reprimand. The supervisor's letter is argued over in court. Here's why it's important. The DEA didn't take the opportunity

to correct Chad early in his career. They didn't make sure he changed the way he treated informants and people he'd arrested. Instead, the DEA praised his dedication to the mission. So, who is to blame? Is it the agent? Or is it the system that gave him a badge and a gun? Some of Chad's colleagues testified for him, too. Skip, Chad's longtime friend and supervisor, gets on the stand. So does a federal prosecutor and a former head of DEA Internal Affairs. Those are heavy hitters testifying under oath, essentially, that they didn't think Chad had done anything wrong.

That Chad was an extraordinary DEA agent. Throughout the trials, the defense argues that mishandling paperwork might be against policy, but that doesn't make it illegal. Here are Chad's lawyers. I mean, think about this. He didn't book the car. He didn't take the car home. He put the truck into the Marshal Service for determination by the United States government where it should go. You get prosecuted for that? With my money? With my taxes? Really? It's ludicrous. This is all was based clearly just on the backs of these crooked, corrupt cops, Carl Newman and Johnny Domain, and the crooked and corrupt drug dealers,

Frederick Brown and Edwin Martinez. And that's it. On the other hand, the prosecution paints a picture of a master manipulator, a corrupt cop who broke the law to get what he wanted. In most any case, you're going to have cooperators. You don't get Snow White witnesses, you know, no choir boys, no priests, that kind of thing. So that's just what you have to work with. Who's doing the greater harm out there?

I would argue that Chad is doing the greater harm. The drug dealers, they're just straight up criminals. But that isn't what Chad was. You know, he was a special agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration. That is a high calling. And so we should be held to higher standards. The prosecutors say that there was a lot of power and trust placed in Chad that came from his badge. But Chad took that power, distorted and abused it.

The jury never hears from Chad. I do regret not testifying. I do regret not being able to sit in front of the jury and tell them how this worked, how the truck came about, how the forfeiture came about, why it happened. I was there at the second trial when the jury ruled on the first set of charges. Chad's whole family was in the courtroom, among them his wife Michelle, his mother, and his two sons. Eight months earlier, there'd been a mistrial after three days of deliberations. This time, it was a lot quicker.

I had dinner plans that night. I kind of hoped the trial would go on for another day. I got up and was talking to Chad's lawyer, Matt Komen, the former prosecutor. The jury had only been gone for an hour and a half. But while we were chatting, the court officer came over and talked to the judge. I saw Komen's face fall, saw the judge mouth verdict. Listen, again, I've been through more federal trials than most agents. I think I turned to my mom and I said, this isn't good.

I mean, I've been part of this system for 27 years. This isn't good. So, I mean, I knew when the jury came back that quick that it was bad news. The counts were read. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Over and over again. Chad's family is stunned and crying. Even Judge Malazzo tells the lawyers that she's shocked.

She says she's behind the eight ball. It's just after 5 p.m. and she was getting ready to leave for dinner. In the end, after all three trials, Chad Scott is convicted on nine of ten counts. In June of 2021, right after the last guilty verdict was read, Chad is taken to jail. The judge needs to decide how long Chad will be behind bars. Chad's guilty verdict was a gut punch, but there's about to be another.

Because next is sentencing. Even though Chad is never charged with anything related to civil rights abuse, a few alleged victims speak at sentencing. Two men testify that Chad's team planted evidence and stole money from them. Christopher Simon, the promoter from Rap-A-Lot Records, recalls that day in 1999 when Chad pulled him over and bloodied his lip with a Rap-A-Lot medallion. And lead FBI investigator Chip Hargrave tells the court that potential witnesses were so terrified of Chad that they wouldn't talk. Prosecutors tell the judge that Chad punched people when they were handcuffed. They tell the story of the man who was beaten against a concrete floor,

of the mother who thought that if she talked to the feds, Chad would kill her son. The prosecutors say that Chad, quote, broke every rule in the book to get whatever he thought the approximation of justice ought to be. Prosecutors didn't bring civil rights charges against Chad in court, but they made sure that in sentencing, the judge knew the allegations. In this way, there is a kind of Al Capone quality to the Chad Scott case. In the end, he's essentially nailed on paperwork. But there's a sense in the courtroom that there's more to the story.

The Justice Department decided that a civil rights case against Chad was too difficult to prosecute. We would have liked to have seen all those people paraded across just so the jury could hear it all. But the other part of my mind, the mature part of my mind, such a small little flake that it is, was like, yeah, y'all are exactly right, because this is nice and clean, it's understandable, and it can move forward. The prosecution asks the judge to give Chad 19 and a half years. The judge takes a recess until 8 the following morning. In the end, Chad's sentence is influenced by a concept known as a cross-reference.

The judge looks at the man Chad committed perjury to help convict, Jorge Peralta, the guy convicted for drug trafficking. And because Peralta's conviction was so serious, that has influenced Chad's fate. Chad is given a 13-year sentence. His scheduled release date is March 22, 2032, when he'll be 64 years old. We've been following Chad's story for more than seven years now. From the beginning, Chad has been asking for an independent investigation. Listen straight down to the door. Investigate it. Investigate away.

I want somebody independent to investigate this. And we've done our best to present what we found with an open mind and an even hand. People are still fighting about Chad and if he got what he deserved, even while he serves his time. Today, Chad's in a low-security prison in Kentucky. He emails and he pays for a service that allows him to send texts. We message him regularly, checking details for the podcast. He's still one of the most responsive people I've ever talked to. For a person behind bars, Chad is shockingly in the know.

We've gone out there twice to visit him. They wouldn't allow recorders inside the jail, but we talk with him over the prison phone about what it's like on the inside. Just kind of a groundhog day every day. Trying to keep from aging too much while I'm losing these years in here. He still proclaims his innocence,

denies taking anything from people he arrested, says that Carl lied during the trial. Listen, Carl, Carl was in a predicament. I don't forgive him, but Carl would have told him I shot a JFK. I mean, by the time he had gotten to where he was at, so. This is an irony the size of an elephant.

The feds used the people closest to Chad to inform on him. They put pressure on Carl and Johnny, who were staring down the barrel of a long prison sentence, and the feds got what they wanted, a guilty verdict and a nice long sentence for Chad. It's a move out of the Chad Scott playbook. Is there some degree of the government giving you some of your own medicine here? I don't think I ever loaded people up with bullshit amounts. And, you know, I mean, we pretty much caught you with your hands in the cookie jar. I mean, if you were willing to help yourself, I was willing to help you.

So, you know, I mean, I guess being part of the federal system, maybe it is a taste of my own medicine. But for the most part, I think I treated people fairly. Virgil Ard, the former drug dealer from Episode 1, would beg to differ. And I'm saying, well, I know I was a drug dealer at the end of the day, but I wasn't guilty of the amount of drugs that he had, and I wasn't guilty of brandishing a firearm. Virgil's allegations are similar to some of those that came out at sentencing. We asked Virgil what he makes of Chad's conviction and 13-year sentence.

It's partial justice. When I say it's partial justice, you know we have the Me Too movement, we have the Black Lives Matter. But who's out here caring about the inmates who's been falsely accused and sentenced to long-term prison sentences? They're saying, hey, Chad touched these cases regardless, whether they was informants or not, whatever. Those guys deserve to be released or get some type of justice as well. Some of what Virgil is asking for has come to pass. Chad touched hundreds of cases. After his arrest, there was a whole team dedicated to combing through them.

At Chad's sentencing, the prosecutors lamented that dozens of Chad's cases had to be sold cheap. Jorge Peralta, the confessed drug trafficker, had his charges dismissed. He got to walk free. The feds also dismissed double murder charges against a man who had already pled guilty. Many others pled to reduce charges. But there are many people Chad put behind bars who remain there to this day. So, the question remains, is Chad a bad apple, or is the whole orchard rotten? Chad told us early on that a lot of documents at the DEA are complete fabrications.

While Chad Scott was being investigated, the Department of Justice was looking into the way the DEA operates. There were congressional hearings digging into things like how they use informants and their bad paperwork. Then Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond questioned the head of the DEA about Chad's misconduct. In DEA's past, present, future, any times do you let drugs hit communities in order to get the bigger fish? We're not supposed to, no, sir.

Okay. Are you aware of any instances where it may happen? I'll have to check and get back to you on that. Chad, of course, did exactly that. I talked with Susan Knave, a former DEA supervisor who took the reins of the New Orleans office in the Chad Scott aftermath. She says that after Chad's case, the DEA did change a couple of things agency-wide. They made sure task force officers can't start working before their background checks are complete. And they added some layers of oversight to handling and storing drug evidence.

And it's worth noting, that's all stuff related to Carl and Johnny's misconduct, not Chad's. We repeatedly reached out to the DEA for official comment on many points of this story, both while we were initially reporting it and for this podcast. We've asked about how they may have changed how they operated since the Chad Scott investigation. This is one of the cases that they should be able to speak freely about

because it's closed. But time and time again, we've been told that the DEA declines to participate. They have not offered an answer to any of our questions. It reminds me of an alternate acronym I recently heard for the DEA. Don't even ask. The Chad Scott story put the DEA on the radar for me. I've been continuing to report on the DEA as part of my job

as an investigative reporter for the Associated Press. What we're seeing is the DEA in crisis. It turns out Chad Scott isn't the only bad apple at the DEA. Not even close. In 2020, a special agent named Jose Irizarry pled guilty to 19 corruption counts, including money laundering and bank fraud. Irizarry is one of the most corrupt agents in DEA history, having conspired to launder money with the very Colombian cartels he was supposed to be investigating. He filed false reports and ordered DEA underlings to wire money to international bank accounts

he controlled. The result was a lavish lifestyle of expensive sports cars, Tiffany jewels, and international travel, subsidized by, you guessed it, American taxpayers. A colleague and I interviewed Irizarry in his final days of freedom. He told us most DEA agents had come to accept there was nothing they could do to make even a dent in the drug war, calling their efforts a quote, fun game. Somehow, perhaps because he didn't have the temerity to go to trial, Irizarry received a slightly shorter prison sentence than Chad Scott. Twelve years.

By my count, Chad is among 16 DEA agents to face federal charges since 2015. I ask almost everyone I interview why the DEA keeps hiring so many criminals. Some people say that you need to be dirty to be a drug agent. As the saying goes, you don't find informants sitting in church. In recent months, Congress has finally started taking an interest in the management of the DEA. DEA Chief Ann Milgram is under scrutiny from the Justice Department's own watchdog. One thing I can say without a doubt is that something is happening. As wild and complicated as the Chad Scott story is,

it's a symptom of the underlying structural problems at the DEA. For decades, Chad was held up as a golden boy at the DEA. His superiors had seen his methods for years before he was charged, and they decided to turn a blind eye. Here's Mark Nicholson, who was on that team of whistleblowers in the early 2000s. If you're going to be dirty, you're going to get caught eventually. And so that was my reaction. I was like, well, damn. It was like I told you so.

It could have been handled in an administrative level with DEA back in 2003. What I'm saying is it could have saved a lot of people a lot of misery if the rank at the time had taken the information that we were given to them and turn it over but they didn't they didn't do it. Mark's supervisor, the whistleblower Ron Woods. I have no compassion for him. I have no empathy for him. I don't sympathize with him. Nothing. The dude was dirty. Quite frankly, on a personal note, I think that was the root of me getting blackballed. The fact that I was down in New Orleans and I blew the whistle and called everybody out and kind of

disrupted their little thing they had going on down there. Everything was flowers and ice cream down there. And I came down there and messed it all up. And that was the beginning. That was the root of what I consider was backlash towards me. And so I have no sympathy for this dude. Ron left the DEA and he became a firefighter in Arlington County, Virginia. He says he was the oldest person to graduate from the fire academy there. Carl Newman did three and a half years for armed robbery and conversion of property. He was already a free man by the time Chad's third trial rolled around.

That's why we were able to talk to him at his kitchen table. So I want to ask you about this. I got to ask you this. No, go ahead. You're a drug cop who occasionally uses drugs. Right. Mentally, how do you work that out in your mind? When you're taking out the X to use it, like, do you think for a second, I shouldn't use this, I'm a drug cop, or what?

How does that work? It'll enter your mind a couple times. It didn't really with the X or the molly. Now, meth, it would enter my mind. It would. Do you still occasionally recreationally use drugs? No, not right now. Will I in the future? Probably so. Carl, who is a convicted felon, is collecting a pension from his time at the Tangibo Parish

Sheriff's Office. Johnny's plea ended up giving him a 21-month prison sentence. By the time he learned his punishment, he'd actually served more time than he was given. But not long after his release, Johnny was caught dealing eight kilos of cocaine in Texas. He's currently serving a six-year prison sentence, another sweetheart deal he received for reasons that remain under seal and federal court. The most recent word on Boovey was that he's facing charges for gun possession as a convicted felon. We've also heard that he bragged that he made up the whole perjury thing to get back at Chad for forcing him to cooperate and for seizing his stuff. Boovey declined to speak with us for the podcast. His lawyer said he just wants to get all this behind him.

Chad's appeal was just denied this summer. His convictions were affirmed across the board. In prison, Chad befriended Wayne Jenkins, a corrupt Baltimore cop who was immortalized in the HBO series We Own This City. Wayne has admitted to committing armed robberies, stealing and selling hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. Wayne and Chad might be friends, but Chad says that Wayne is in a whole different league.

That guy is dirty. And that way, Chad's also different than Carl or Johnny. Chad may have done a lot of things, but he says he never betrayed the DEA's mission. Chad was always standing in the middle of the Tangipoa River, just trying to hold that water back. You know, I 100% believed in the mission and the war on drugs. I mean, probably one of the biggest hits I take from some of the community was the fact that I had so many

informants kind of giving up their own. But, I mean, I truly believe in the area that I was working in that we had an effect. It's not that we can stop it, but I can tell you when I was out there, man, drugs were hard to get in that area. I mean, I dried, I dried pants for a pair of shoes

for a long time. Smokescreen, Betrayal on the Bayou is an original production by Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment. It was written and produced by Odelia Rubin. It was reported by me, Feynman Roberts, and my co-host, Jim Mushton. Our editor is Catherine St. Louis. She is also

Neon Hum Media's executive editor. Our executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch. Sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville. Theme and original music composed by Hansdale Shee. We also use music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Our associate producer is Ann Lim. Fendall Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Samantha Allison. Alexis Martinez is our podcast coordinator. Special thanks to Stephanie Serrano, Mia Warren, and Kate Mishkin. And to our consultants, Thank you. Eagle team, including Lauren Pagoni, Rachel Goldberg, and Allison Sherry. I'm Feynman Roberts.

And I'm Jim Mustian. If you're enjoying the show, please be sure to rate and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. Thanks for listening.