[continued from previous message]   
      
   Just three weeks after her recorded assault, court records show, the woman was   
   charged with possession of drug paraphernalia stemming from an arrest that   
   happened about a month before the sting, and she’s been pulled over and   
   booked on possession    
   charges at least twice since then. The woman, who declined interview requests   
   and is not being named because the AP does not typically identify victims of   
   sexual assault, pleaded guilty to possessing drug paraphernalia last year and   
   was placed in    
   behavioral health court in lieu of jail time.   
      
   “It’s absolutely horrible,” said the woman’s attorney, Harold Murry.   
   “She has a drug problem and I don’t know if she’s going to be able to   
   beat it or not. But when you become a snitch, they keep your drug problem   
   going and then they arrest    
   you for it.”   
      
   Wood, who worked in the sheriff’s office for two decades before his   
   election, confirmed that the alleged rape has prompted his department to   
   finally update its equipment to keep an eye on undercover transactions as   
   they’re happening.   
      
   “That changed everything, the way we do business,” Wood said.   
   “Technology has grown unbelievably. There’s things that we can do to keep   
   the folks safe.”   
      
   Experts who reviewed the case for AP noted that the technology to monitor   
   undercover transactions has existed for generations and should have been used   
   to protect the woman in this case. The safety of the confidential informant is   
   paramount, they said,    
   prioritized over evidence collection or any other aim of the operation.   
      
   “I see this as a massive ineptitude,” said Michael Levine, a former U.S.   
   Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked undercover for years and now   
   testifies as an expert on police procedures. The deputies, he said, should   
   “never in a million    
   years” have sent the informant into such a high-risk setting without the   
   ability to monitor the operation. “They’re cowards.”   
      
   David Redemann, a longtime Seattle police officer who now leads training on   
   such stings, said the case highlights the vast disparities in law   
   enforcement’s undercover playbook, with many agencies lacking the resources   
   to properly train officers or    
   monitor informant drug buys.   
      
   “We do this 10,000 times a day around the country, and not everybody has   
   transmitting equipment,” Redemann said. “Is this tragic as hell?   
   Absolutely. We need to learn from what happened here.”   
      
   Law enforcement’s use of confidential informants is akin to a black market   
   in which “deals are made under the table and often undocumented,” said   
   Alexandra Natapoff, a Harvard law professor and leading expert on informants.   
      
   Not only are informants treated as disposable pawns, she said, but qualified   
   immunity has made it very difficult to sue the police when things go off the   
   rails.   
      
   “As a matter of common sense and humanity, police should take obvious,   
   straightforward precautions to protect their informants,” Natapoff said,   
   “but there is no law that says they have to.”   
      
   With few exceptions, states have been slow to track or regulate law   
   enforcement’s use of informants, even in the wake of high-profile   
   oversights. In 2009, Florida lawmakers adopted Rachel’s Law, the first   
   comprehensive legislation in the country    
   governing use of informants, after the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Rachel   
   Hoffman in connection with an undercover drug sting for Tallahassee police.   
   Among other things, the law requires police consider the “risk of physical   
   harm” to the informant.   
      
   None of the deputies who arranged the undercover buy in Louisiana were   
   disciplined, the sheriff said, and no other law enforcement agencies were   
   asked to examine the handling of the case. A spokesman for the Alexandria   
   Police Department said the agency    
   had not been made aware of the sexual assault, even though it allegedly   
   happened in the city and the suspect Jones has an extensive criminal history   
   dating to 1992, including convictions in neighboring Mississippi for robbery,   
   car theft, aggravated    
   assault and drug distribution.   
      
   Jones is scheduled to stand trial Oct. 17, having refused a plea offer from   
   prosecutors. His attorney declined to comment.   
      
   Last month, as AP was reporting this story, prosecutors without explanation   
   reduced Jones’ charges from forcible second-degree rape to third-degree   
   rape, or simple rape, significantly lowering the amount of time he could spend   
   behind bars if convicted.   
      
   Prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment on why the charges were   
   reduced or why the informant was charged with drug crimes even after her   
   cooperation in the ill-fated sting.   
      
   Weeks before the charges were reduced, Rapides Parish District Attorney   
   Phillip Terrell defended the deputies’ handling of the case, telling AP   
   “there is no indication in my file that law enforcement did anything   
   wrong.” The prospect of any    
   informant coming under attack “had not crossed their mind,” the district   
   attorney said, adding he was “certain they wish this would not have   
   occurred.”   
      
   “They never thought of that, and had they known that was occurring they   
   would have certainly stopped it,” Terrell said. “One of their big concerns   
   now is the safety of the confidential informant.”   
      
   https://apnews.com/article/crime-alexandria-5fdc645d413aaec5b4078b2f23579149   
      
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