Ex-DEA Agent: Is Fugitive Tempting Fate in L.A.?

He is a man on the run--a black belt karate champion described as “a man who could throw his gun away and rip your head off.�

But four months into an international manhunt--with initial reports that he might have been headed for Spain or Mexico--former federal drug agent Darnell Garcia has apparently chosen to run only as far as North Hollywood.

On Friday both police and Garcia’s former colleagues were asking why?

The questions came as the manhunt--at least for the moment--shifted away from Europe and Latin America to a shabby neighborhood surrounding the intersection of Lankershim and Victory boulevards in North Hollywood.

The investigation’s focus returned to Los Angeles when a Los Angeles Police Department officer said he recognized Garcia pretending to be on a stakeout Jan. 6 at the intersection.

Garcia, sitting in a late model blue Ford LTD, reportedly flashed the officer a hand sign indicating he was a law enforcement officer and also showed a badge that looked like he was with either the DEA or the U.S. Customs Service.

Police officials were baffled Friday at why he would appear to be tempting fate so blatantly.

Garcia’s friends and some of his former colleagues in the DEA were even more amazed. And some were openly skeptical that the man they knew as a street-wise and tough narcotics agent would ever make himself so vulnerable to capture.

“I can’t believe it,� said Donald Hugh, one former DEA agent who worked with Garcia for years and supported him during a lengthy racial discrimination fight that preceded the current criminal case against Garcia and two other ex-agents.

“Obviously, Darnell is not a stupid person,� Hugh added. “I frankly can’t guess where he is. But if he is still in town, he’d be like a U-Boat--so far submerged he’d be off sonar. I can’t believe he’d be driving around in cars and waving at policemen.�

Garcia, 42, was charged Nov. 22 along with two other former DEA agents--John Jackson and Wayne Countryman--with an alleged money-laundrying scheme. He eluded surveillance agents just eight hours before his pending arrest and has been a fugitive ever since.

Federal prosecutors say that additional charges involving large-scale cocaine dealing will also be filed in the case.

The federal prosecutors who charged Garcia declared him a menace to potential witnesses in the case long ago, describing him as a world-class karate champion with deadly connections among drug dealers in Los Angeles.

They were blocked by a federal judge’s gag order from any comment Friday on why Garcia, who had resigned from the DEA in August, 1987, may have chosen to remain in Los Angeles and what possibly could have lured him to North Hollywood.

But there was no restraining order on Los Angeles attorney Mark Borenstein, who successfully represented Garcia for years in a discrimination case against the DEA and who has argued that federal prosecutors have deliberately exaggerated Garcia’s potential for violence.

“I have thought that Darnell was here since the case started,� Borenstein said. “He has his wife and his son here. . . . I just hope that he will come forward. This is kind of the last fight for him in a lot of fights against the DEA, and I think he can win it.�

Borenstein said he was not surprised by reports that Garcia had been spotted in Los Angeles, and he predicted that as soon as Garcia “believes he can get a fair bail hearing,� he will surrender to authorities.

The lawyer, now representing Garcia’s wife in an effort to prevent the Internal Revenue Service from seizing their $581,000 home in Rancho Palos Verdes, added that he thinks one reason his former client remains a fugitive is the government’s effort to seize all his assets as the illegal profit of alleged drug trafficking.

While Borenstein expressed concern about Garcia’s ability to raise bail, others spoke of the increasing danger he faces from Los Angeles law enforcement agencies because of the latest reports that he has been seen armed, possibly in search of witnesses who could testify against him.

“It sounds to me like they are setting the guy up for problems,� said former agent Hugh.

Appeals for His Surrender

Agreeing that Garcia faces increasing risks if he truly is running around Los Angeles passing himself off as an active DEA agent, former drug agent Tom Martin, who once supervised Garcia in Los Angeles, appealed to his ex-colleague to surrender.

“I think the thing for Darnell to do is give serious consideration to getting with his attorney and turning himself in,� said Martin, now a private investigator in Orange County.

“I’m not smart enough to know what Darnell is thinking,� said Martin. “My feeling is he probably is in fear of his life.�

Amid the speculation Friday, the intensity of local law enforcement’s interest in capturing Garcia was revealed with dramatic force near the same intersection where Garcia was reportedly seen Jan. 6.

At a bus stop near Lankershim and Victory, Hollywood resident Hugo Monzon Gonzales, approached by a Times reporter, identified a color photo of Garcia and said he was at that moment inside a nearby dance club called La Zona Rosa.

Within minutes of the report, a dozen LAPD officers were on the scene and two police helicopters were hovering overhead. There was no Garcia to be found, however.

Chameleon-Like Nature

While still an area of interest to the agents hunting for him, Garcia’s plush neighborhood in Rancho Palos Verdes was considerably more quiet, a reminder of the former DEA agent’s chameleon-like nature.

Garcia, his wife and his son lived in high-style in one of the semi-custom houses that adorn the Island View subdivision, high on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Borenstein said Garcia’s wife, Adaline, continues to live in the house with their son. He said they are rarely seen because they spend much of their time with her mother nearby.

Interviews with his neighbors Friday revealed a man occasionally outgoing and sometimes secretive. During conversations with neighbors, Garcia would sometimes tell them that he worked as a jeweler. Sometimes he wouldn’t say anything at all.

“He was always very nice to me,� said neighbor Karol Plocky.

About the only thing that stood out about Garcia, besides what neighbors called his “menacing� appearance, was that he seemed to have a tremendous amount of free time. A few neighbors noted that he spent a great deal of time in his house and wondered how he could afford to live in the neighborhood without working. Several said they were stunned when they found out he had been a DEA agent.