Police May Cover Bad Checks of Former Santa Ana Informer

An undercover informant at the center of one of Orange County’s biggest crackdowns on street crime is counting on police to help him repay nearly $6,000 in bad checks he allegedly wrote while on the police payroll, his attorney said.

Jose G. Nolasco, a convicted drug dealer whose undercover work in a crime-plagued Santa Ana neighborhood led to 125 indictments, was charged with three felonies last year for passing bad checks during the seven-month “Operation Orion.”

His attorney, Michael Molfetta of Newport Beach, said law enforcement agencies will help Nolasco pay nearly $6,000 in restitution.

“Law enforcement is actively involved in raising the money,” Molfetta said. “Whether that’s a bonus or a gift or a loan, I don’t know.”

Nolasco already had received $58,000--including cash payments, rent and medical expenses--during the operation in 1999 and 2000, court records show.

Prosecutors said that although Nolasco will receive an extra “bonus,” the payment was promised to him at the beginning of the operation and is not connected to the felony charges.

However, that assurance failed to douse criticism from angry defense lawyers whose clients were arrested during the operation. They contend Nolasco’s alleged crimes were far more serious than many of the small-level drug dealers he helped arrest.

“You’re paying this guy so much money to go after my guy with $10, $20, $30 sales,” said Michael Giannini of Orange County’s Alternate Defenders office. “That’s an outrageous use of public funds. You’re using a sledgehammer to get a flea.”

A prosecutor who worked on the Orion investigation said the money Nolasco will receive is simply a final cash bonus from law enforcement agencies that paid him throughout the operation.

Nolasco, 28, can use that bonus as he pleases, including repaying the stores he is accused of defrauding, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey Ferguson said.

“The notion there’s some agency that’s going to take care of this on his behalf, that’s wrong,” Ferguson said. “This was money he was going to get whether or not he owed restitution.”

The amount of the bonus has yet to be determined, but the cost will be shared by the FBI, state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, Santa Ana Police Department and the district attorney’s office, Ferguson said.

Many police agencies make cash payments to informants who are considered a vital tool in investigating crimes, law enforcement sources said.

The payments were necessary, authorities said, because it would have been impractical for Nolasco to hold a job while working full-time on the investigation.

Nolasco was awaiting deportation in 1999 when Orange County authorities tapped him to work undercover as Operation Orion’s star informant.

He cruised the city’s Santa Anita neighborhood, buying drugs and stolen property in a car equipped with a sophisticated hidden video system.

Nolasco’s street savvy and familiarity with the neighborhood made him an ideal operative, gaining the trust of criminals who might not have dealt with an undercover officer, police said.

The arrests in March 2000 were played out on television news broadcasts and highlighted in a segment of the syndicated program “Real T.V.”

After the arrests, word of Nolasco’s troubles began to surface.

In a trial of one of the suspects last year, Nolasco testified that he took drugs while working for the police and overdosed on heroin on the eve of his testimony before the county grand jury.

Nolasco could face more than five years in prison if convicted of writing 19 bad checks while working undercover during the police operation. The state attorney general charged Nolasco with three felonies for allegedly passing the bad checks during a three-day shopping spree in Orange County.

Under a tentative agreement, Nolasco will repay $5,951 to businesses ranging from Home Depot to PetsMart and the charges will be reduced to misdemeanors without a jail sentence, Molfetta said.

Capistrano Beach lawyer Dean Steward, who regularly dealt with informants as head of the county’s federal public defender’s office, described the arrangement and payments to Nolasco as unusual.

“It seems like they gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Steward said. “Pay to informants is very common. The unusual part is allowing this guy to commit crimes and then reimbursing him for it. They can call it whatever they want. Anyone looking at it would think of it as reimbursement for criminal conduct and that’s just not right.”

Santa Ana police Sgt. Raul Luna said Nolasco, now living out of state for his own safety, should be credited for cleaning up a neighborhood once plagued by crime.

“Because of his cooperation, the quality of life in our neighborhoods has improved over what it once was,” Luna said. “It was only because of his known criminal history that he was able to break through the iron curtain that kept undercover officers from infiltrating these groups of violent predators.”

The crackdown followed years of complaints from Santa Anita residents, who felt unsafe in their homes surrounded by drug dealers, graffiti and the sounds of drive-by shootings. After making the arrests, police followed up with community meetings and increased patrols through the neighborhood.

The efforts have made a significant difference, residents in the neighborhood said.

“Gangsters don’t hang around here no more. There’s no more tagging,” 20-year-old Fernando Magdaleno said as he and two friends bounced a basketball on Susan Street. “It used to be a problem. It’s OK right now.”

Joel and Marta Montez sat on their front lawn Tuesday, enjoying a gentle breeze in a neighborhood residents once feared.

“It’s become very tranquil, quiet in our neighborhood,” Marta Montez said in Spanish.

More than 100 defendants have pleaded guilty to charges related to Nolasco’s work.

“They seemed to turn their heads at every step,” said Deputy Defender Dan Cook. “It offends me personally that the guy doesn’t even have to pay it out of his own pocket. It just shows how much they want that operation to work and they don’t want any taint on it.”