The Last Undercover (7 page)
As dinner broke up, we went our separate ways. My disgust continued when I learned that many of the out-of-town attendees were staying at either the YMCA or the Youth Hostel, places that in my youth served as sanctuaries from evil, or at least so I thought. I was on the government dole and selected a very nice hotel with many of the New York amenities, located on East Thirty-first. I kept my location a secret from the other members by avoiding answering the question. I ambled back to the hotel—at a slightly faster pace once I knew no one from NAMBLA was watching—and prepared for the first session of the conference the next morning.
A NAMBLA SAFETY LECTURE
E
arly Saturday morning, I entered the building at 520 Eighth Avenue and joined several other attendees I recognized from the night before. We waited in the lobby for only a few minutes before Peter Herman and Ted from New Jersey pulled up curbside and began unloading food for breakfast and lunch. Others helped carry the food as we boarded the elevator and made our way to the fifteenth floor. My “handicap” always prevented me from doing any heavy lifting, and I milked this aspect of my cover for all it was worth, whenever it suited me.
Apparently as part of the continued secrecy surrounding the entire organization, we took the elevator to the fifteenth floor, walked down a long hallway, and made our way up the stairwell to the sixteenth floor, where the meetings took place. This internationally recognized organization, celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, had to secretly access stairways to the conference venue.
The accommodations also failed to reflect the dignity the membership claimed society owed them. It was small and plain—a rehearsal room—with no wall decorations or amenities. Metal folding chairs circled the room. The floor had one restroom—a “one-holer” that was supposed to accommodate all the attendees—and the group of teenage boys rehearsing a play in a second room on the same floor. My fellow attendees were delighted when they learned they would be sharing bathroom facilities with teenagers. More eye candy for the predators.
Although it is unfair to say we were “locked” in the room for the day, Peter made it clear we would not be coming and going as we chose, which was the reason for breakfast and lunch being provided. His admonition was concise: “Nobody can leave the building.” There was a fear someone might slip out and alert law enforcement of the locale of the meeting. Paranoia gripped this organization like no other group I ever infiltrated—just another reason I constantly had to be on my toes.
Approximately thirty men gathered that morning, more than had been at Grand Central Station the night before. All were white and, with few exceptions, all looked as if the best accommodations they could afford would be the Y. Many appeared qualified for AARP cards; they were over the hill and, from what I could observe, they’d had a pretty hard climb.
Noticeably absent from the conference were boys. Although I never specifically asked in any communication I had with the NAMBLA leadership, I knew of no boys who were members. It seemed odd that this “First Amendment–protected” organization, so intent on “empowering” youth, would fail to have a single juvenile member. Why weren’t boys lining up to join and seek their legal sexual emancipation? By contrast, the membership of Little League and Boy Scouts is dominated by boys. If NAMBLA was so intent on “the sexual liberation of boys” and, as the organization claimed, boys desired such liberation, it seemed that juveniles would be joining in droves, pressuring their parents and Congress for sexual freedom.
I was now wearing a wire, and as my recorder ran, Peter Herman called the meeting to order and welcomed us with a short talk. He then turned to Rock Thatcher, who was sitting near me, and asked him to give the “safety lecture.” Rock was from Phoenix, in his late fifties, stocky, and articulate. At first I thought he was going to give an AIDS advisory. Wrong! Rock said,
The most important, the most definite stand that we have ever taken is simply against any age of consent. We’ve debated, and we’ve never been able to draw a line and come up with a recommendation for a specific age of consent. So on principle, we say you can’t draw a line and you have to take each case on its merits as to whether or not there was abuse, whether or not there was consent. That’s our most basic position.
From all my reading, Rock’s statement came as no surprise. NAMBLA’s view was clear: The organization believed men and boys should be allowed to engage in mutual sexual relationships, regardless of the age of either participant, as long as both parties “consented.” If the adult did not “abuse” the child or “force” himself upon the boy, that was understood as tantamount to “consent,” and the organization saw nothing wrong with the actions of the adult. I wasn’t quite sure why this was part of a “safety lecture.” Rock went on.
We don’t advocate that anybody break the law, even though we advocate changes in the law. We’d like to urge you not to break the law, and we’d like to urge you not to talk about breaking any laws while you’re here on this occasion.
Rock was taking great pains to reinforce the position that NAMBLA was opposed to breaking the law. In other words, the organization believed sex with boys was morally okay but illegal by statute. I wasn’t clear as to who was supposed to benefit from this admonition. His next statement provided the answer.
We have been infiltrated by the media. We’ve been infiltrated by law enforcement officials, and I have to say candidly, I don’t know most of you well enough to say that you’re not an infiltrator. There certainly have been times in the past when a similar warning has been given at our conferences . . . and the infiltrator sat right there [he gestured toward my seat!] and listened to it. One of them has even filed an affidavit against us in the lawsuit we are defending, so this is a concern. . . . Specifically this weekend we request that you not talk about anything that might even be considered illegal . . . even privately. If you don’t know the person you’re talking to, then you shouldn’t be talking about anything that could possibly sound illegal.
Rock was playing to the infiltrator, and apparently I had chosen the “infiltrator chair.” Skilled fiction writers disdain the use of coincidence to advance plot, but this was truly an instance of truth being stranger—or at least more ironic—than fiction. I have to admit, it was unnerving to see him pointing to my seat, but the membership didn’t pounce, so the coincidence was apparently just that. It was obvious they anticipated some legal challenge to holding such a meeting and wanted to make the record clear that the organization did not “condone” criminal behavior. The point was made, but by all appearances it was a matter of form over substance. For most members, it was a “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” kind of thing, not a warning to be taken seriously.
Ted, the retired schoolteacher from New Jersey, apparently growing impatient with the standard caution, interrupted: “No confessions, no asking where to get child pornography in Manhattan, and no asking where you can travel someplace in the world—that’s not why we’re here. I think that’s very clear.”
Rock Thatcher continued. “We’re here, basically, I would say, for two purposes: one is social, and the other is administrative. And there will obviously be a certain amount of sharing of information about items of interest that we all share, but they don’t need to get into anything like discussing specific activities that could lead . . .”
Lead to what? I wondered.
Chris from Chicago interrupted. “Something we used to do at some of the old meetings was to make an announcement and ask anybody who’s an agent or a case agent or a spy for the media, please stand up and remove yourself.”
Chris, who I would later learn was a longtime member and on the steering committee, was serious in his request. Often while undercover, drug dealers would look me in the eye and ask point-blank if I was a cop. Jailhouse lawyers promulgated the rumor that a failure to answer that question honestly would result in convictions being overturned due to “entrapment.” Once, after his arrest, a gang member, who asked that question while selling me drugs and heard my denial, laughed in my face and said the conviction would never stand. I responded, tongue-in-cheek, that the law required him to specifically ask if I “was affiliated with any federal law enforcement agency or working on behalf of any federal officer.” Convinced by my meaningless officialese, he responded with an obscene invective critical of the jailhouse lawyer who advised him during his recent period of incarceration. Apparently, Chris was under the same misimpression. I didn’t respond to his demand and remained seated.
Rock continued. “I personally used to advocate . . . that we invite the police regularly into our meetings so that they could see what we were doing. . . . We’re not here to train people on how to seduce underage boys, and if you came for that, you might as well leave now.”
Chris felt the need to chip in again. “We have a constitutional right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, and unless you’re agreeing . . . to our principles, then you shouldn’t be in the organization.”
In one respect, Rock was going to get his wish. The “police” had been invited to this meeting—even though he didn’t know it. The entire meeting would be recorded, and we would learn what did go on at these conferences.
I cannot imagine any other organization beginning its annual national conference with such a caveat: Don’t break the law, but if you plan to talk about breaking the law, make sure you do it with someone you really know and trust; otherwise, he could be the press or, even worse, an undercover FBI agent who has infiltrated the ranks. And of course, we will be sharing, but when sharing information about “items of interest that we all share,” don’t get into discussing specific activities.
It sounded like double-talk, but, as Chris noted, it was constitutionally protected double-talk.
Within the first few minutes of the conference, NAMBLA had affirmed its purpose: to abolish age-of-consent laws. What would this “First Amendment–protected” organization do to further that aim, its primary purpose? In more than three years as a member of NAMBLA, I never once heard of any effort to campaign or lobby any political figure at any level of government to abolish or even modify the age-of-consent laws—not once. There was no talk of hiring a paid lobbyist in Washington; there was no organized letter-writing campaign; there was no endorsement of candidates. Even though most letters to the editor of the
Bulletin
were answered in some manner, the only letter I ever saw that asked which politicians should be supported in the upcoming election went unanswered. Odd, I thought, for an organization whose stated purpose concerned legalized change of accepted social mores. It wasn’t the last inconsistency I would uncover during my membership in NAMBLA.
Los Angeles, 1984
One thing we knew we could count on with Darrel: he’d have plenty of highly paid legal talent to bring into the mix. In 1984, as we began preparing for the barrage of pretrial motions, Heather pulled me aside one afternoon.
Her former boyfriend, Robert, was a major player in the Mexican Mafia, also known as La Eme. Many in law enforcement believed that outside the penitentiary walls, Robert was the acting head of this prison-spawned organization known for murder, drug trafficking, and witness intimidation. One magazine article quoted a law enforcement official who described Robert as “a very intelligent, very crafty individual—almost bordering on genius.”
Heather asked me if I wanted to “do” Robert. He was truly a very worthy target, but I told her she’d already done enough and I didn’t want to put her in that position. She got a tear in her eye and said I had been so nice to her and her son that, as a present, she would introduce me to the acting head of the Mexican Mafia. It was a gift I couldn’t refuse.
I decided to pose as a movie stunt coordinator and lead Robert to believe I was distributing heroin to my Hollywood associates. On the morning of my first meeting with him, I called a friend who worked at Universal Studios. He told me they were shooting on location in Malibu. Any location shoot is a major production rivaling a military operation for logistics. Typically, there will be acres of trucks, cars, equipment, and people. I told Robert where “we” were shooting and asked him to join me just up the block. I would break away for a short time from filming to discuss “our business.” The scene played well as he drove up and saw the massive trucks and lighting equipment so familiar to those around Los Angeles. He bought my act as a stunt coordinator and I promised him that one day I would invite him onto the set. He seemed pleased with his new Hollywood friend. Heather’s introduction sealed my drug bona fides, but the extra little details of my story made me a valued customer.
On March 23, 1984, I purchased one ounce of heroin for eight thousand dollars. I paid him four thousand dollars and promised to make the second payment once I sold off some of the product. This arrangement allowed me more meetings with Robert and the chance to engage him in additional criminal conversations. At that time, street-level China White might only be two to three percent pure. The heroin Robert delivered graded out at nearly 100 percent, a powerful product by any trafficker’s definition. On the street, it would have been pure poison, instant death for anyone who mainlined it. This also meant an actual drug dealer would be able to “step on” the heroin many times by “cutting” it with substances like sugar or quinine. He could then sell the diluted mixture at a very sizeable profit.
On March 28, 1984, I had a second meeting with Robert in which I paid him the additional four thousand dollars. Robert spoke broken English with a strong accent, and it was often difficult for me to understand him. I knew a jury might have just as much difficulty discerning his admissions. As we sat down that afternoon at an outdoor café, I stood up and, feigning embarrassment, asked Robert to trade seats with me. I told him I “blew out an eardrum doing a fire gag” and was deaf in one ear. I re-seated us so he could speak directly into my “good ear.” The ploy worked and allowed me to ask him to repeat his criminal admissions.