LOCAL NEWS
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
BENT paid more than $27,000 to informant
By PHIL WRIGHT
STAFF WRITER
The arrests of dozens of
locals in January for drug
crimes was the result of one
confidential informant who
received more than $27,000
for working with police.
The Blue Mountain
Enforcement
Narcotics
Team’s Operation Wild-
fire relied on the informant
from June until December
2018 to buy drugs through-
out Umatilla, Morrow and
Gilliam counties, accord-
ing to court documents the
Umatilla County District
Attorney’s Office filed. He
arranged the vast majority
of the sales though Face-
book Messenger. He wore a
microphone to record trans-
actions during drug deals.
The drug team searched
him before and after each
buy.
And BENT also paid
him more than $27,000 as
of February.
Stuart Roberts, Pendle-
ton police chief and head of
BENT’s board, said Wild-
fire’s informant came to
BENT on his own, told
police drugs affected his
family and he was fed up
with drugs poisoning his
community. The informant
also guaranteed he could
deliver.
“He said he could buy
from 63 different people,”
Roberts said, “and he did.”
The district attorney’s
office on Jan. 8 presented 58
Wildfire cases to the grand
jury to decide charges. The
informant was among the
indicted. BENT on Jan. 16
rolled out with warrants and
arrested 54 people at homes
across the area, plus several
who were in jails or prisons.
Roberts explained police
work with three kinds of
confidential
informants.
One is the “unwitting,” the
person who gets in a jam
with police and makes a
deal to get out. The second
is the “non-testifier,” the
person who agrees to con-
staff photo by e.J. Harris
Defendant Antonio Reaves and his attorney Justin Morton
listen to Umatilla County chief deputy prosecutor Jackie
Jenkins during Reaves’ sentencing Friday at the Stafford
Hansell Government Center, Hermiston. Reaves was one of
dozens the local drug task force arrested in January during
Operation Wildfire.
duct a drug buy but will
never testify in front of a
jury. Roberts said these
types are often “one and
done.”
Then, he said, is the tes-
tifier, and they are rare.
Wildfire’s informant is a
testifier. He took the wit-
ness stand this week in the
first jury trial of a Wildfire
case. Antonio Reco Reaves,
35, of Burien, Washington,
faces charges for selling
heroin.
Court documents and
the public trial identified
the informant. But the East
Oregonian is not identify-
ing him in this story for two
reasons: the EO was not
able to contact the infor-
mant directly, and out of
concern for his safety.
Defense attorney Kara
Davis in early April filed a
motion in 20 Wildfire cases,
including the Reaves case,
to compel the state to pro-
duce a full accounting of
how much BENT paid the
informant for services and
what other actions it took on
his behalf. Davis said last
week the informant even
received cash to testify to
the grand jury.
The drug team’s bud-
get runs about $150,000
a year. Roberts said most
of that pay is overtime for
the police on the task force
and for drug buys. The
$27,000-plus for the infor-
mant included $2,000 cash
for information leading to
a search warrant, accord-
ing to court documents, and
at least $2,600 for lodging.
Roberts said BENT had to
move the informant and his
family to keep them safe.
He said the expense
seems large, roughly a one-
fifth of BENT’s budget, but
the cost was not out of line
with some past operations.
“The way we justify this
is, if you can take that many
dealers off the streets, you’re
going to have an impact,”
Roberts said. “Once we did
Wildfire, things dried up.
People couldn’t get their
hand on anything.”
Roberts said BENT could
have paid Wildfire’s infor-
mant $1,000 for a couple
of buys and moved on. But
he questioned if the public
would want that when the
team had the resources and
the informant willing to do
much more.
Davis said she had evi-
dence the informant used
drugs, conducted drugs
deals on the side and pres-
sured women for sex in
exchange for not ratting out
their boyfriends, all while
taking cash from BENT.
Those actions would dis-
qualify BENT from using
the informant under its own
policies, she said, yet no
one investigated him.
Roberts said Davis nor
anyone else reported those
allegations. Until some-
one contacts the police and
makes an accusation, there’s
nothing to investigate.
He also said the drug
team followed its policies.
The informant on a few
occasions showed up high,
Roberts said, and the team
scrapped the buy and sent
the guy home. The police
chief also said informants
tend be be offenders and
have connections to crime
and are not going to be the
most upstanding of citizens.
District Attorney Dan
Primus said it is hard to
know how paying an infor-
mant plays to a jury. Prose-
cutors present the evidence
to bolster the state’s case,
he said, but prosecutors and
defenders don’t always get
to know why a jury makes
the decisions it does. Fram-
ing informant pay for a jury,
he said, is “one of the things
we have to evaluate with
each case.”
Wildfire has plenty of
cases still marching through
the court. The jury this week
found Reaves guilty of sell-
ing heroin, a Class A felony
in Oregon.
Primus said several
Wildfire defendants cut plea
deals, but Reaves was the
first jury trial. Reaves’ sen-
tencing was Friday after-
noon. The district attor-
ney’s office recommended
a prison sentence of 20
months, in part because
Reaves has convictions in
2015 and 2016 for possess-
ing drugs, attempting to
elude, resisting arrest and
more, and he committed
the heroin crime a month
after he finished serving
probation.
Reaves received a sen-
tence of three years proba-
tion. The Umatilla County
Jail released Reaves Friday.
HeRMIsTOnHeRaLd.COM • A7
Hermiston learning
service offers music,
special needs tutoring
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
For kids with develop-
mental disabilities or spe-
cial needs, one-on-one edu-
cation can make a world of
difference.
A Hermiston couple is
hoping to fill that role. Jon-
athan and Jazmin Lopez
opened Einstein Learning
Center in January, draw-
ing on their different back-
grounds to offer one-on-
one tutoring services for
students with a range of
needs.
The service, at 215
E. Main Street, Suite D,
is open to students of all
ages, from kindergarten to
college.
They offer communica-
tion skills support for kids
with special needs, as well
as tutoring in math, writ-
ing and reading. They also
offer some music classes,
as well as foreign language
courses.
Both Jonathan and
Jazmin are bilingual, and
offer tutoring services in
Spanish as well as English.
Jonathan said his wife,
Jazmin, has been tutoring
for about 12 years.
“She started tutoring
right out of high school,
and got a part-time job in
college,” he said.
Initially, she wanted to
be a teacher, but soon felt
she could do more to help
students in an individual
setting.
Though the service is
open to anyone looking
for tutoring, Jonathan said
about half of their current
clients are students with
autism. They work with
them to find ways to com-
municate, whether using
special apps or doing exer-
cises to use different parts
of the brain.
“Technology is a big
one,” Jonathan said.
“Proloquo2Go is an app
that allows the student to
be able to communicate at
ease by selecting emotions,
thoughts and feelings,” he
said.
They also do simple
brain and physical exer-
cises, using different tools
and toys to help students
stimulate different parts of
the brain.
The couple also draws
on their musical train-
ing to help students. Jona-
than plays guitar, bass and
drums, and Jazmin plays
and has taught piano. They
now have a group of four
students learning to play
piano.
But Jonathan said they
also work music therapy
into their sessions with
students.
“For kids with autism,
music can be very help-
ful,” he said. “We do a lot
of music skills, and kids
are able to pitch match —
we’ve found it can be help-
ful for them to remember
things.”
The prices for tutoring
vary, but Lopez said they
can be anywhere from $30
to $50 an hour.
“We tailor services
based on the student,” he
said.
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