FBI Informer Ran Drug Gang, Lawyer Says

Dec. 9 -- The FBI didn't just infiltrate the notorious Nuestra Familia prison gang, it allowed an informant to continue the group's violent and criminal activities for seven months, pulling off drug and gun deals and the killing of a rival gang leader, a defense attorney for one of the men accused in the case alleges in a court filing.

Federal investigators refuse to comment on the case, saying they will eventually answer in court, and at least one local law enforcer calls the charge bogus.

But San Francisco attorney Marc Zilversmit contends the government's own legal filings reveal a federal role in the brutal prison-based gang, and raise troubling questions about how far the FBI can take an undercover operation.

The investigation, dubbed Operation Black Widow, was a joint effort by the FBI and state and local police in Northern California to break the Nuestra Familia gang, which police say operated from Salinas to the Oregon border and was run from inside the state's high-security Pelican Bay State Prison.

The gang has been around since 1965, according to federal prosecutors, started inside Soledad prison to protect Hispanic inmates. But officials say it soon expanded outside, and over the last three-and-a-half decades has carried out hundreds of murders and thousands of robberies, staking its claim to its turf with intimidation and violence.

The investigation into the outfit, which had been going on since 1997, got a break in December 2000, when Daniel "Lizard" Hernandez — facing life in prison for charges that included murder plots in the course of a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) enterprise — contacted the Special Services Unit of the California Department of Corrections to talk about becoming an informer.

Read Daniel Hernandez’s plea agreement.

Hernandez cut a plea deal. According to Zilversmit, who represents another defendant, Hernandez not only helped the government build its case, but also took advantage of the freedom given him by law enforcement to first gain the position of go-between for Nuestra Familia leaders in prison and members on the street and eventually to take over the operation.

"Together, the government and Hernandez ran the street operations, installing a new organization, promoting and demoting members, setting up gun and drug deals, and espousing a philosophy of violence that eventually led to the death of a rival drug dealer, Raymond Sanchez," Zilversmit wrote in a 51-page statement filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in support of his motion to dismiss charges against his client, Armando "Suave" Heredia.