Bradley Brunon was a Los Angeles attorney who represented [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] throughout his legal troubles and provided firsthand observations about the intersection of Contra fundraising and cocaine trafficking in the early 1980s.[^1] ### Observations of Contra Cocaine Trafficking Brunon met Blandón while defending a middle-class [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] exile accused of drug trafficking. He said Blandón was one of several former [[Anastasio Somoza|Somoza]] supporters dealing cocaine in [[Los Angeles]] in the early 1980s. "People were being arrested who had high government connections, or high military connections, in the Somoza regime, who didn't have any particular lifestyle consistent with being cocaine dealers, didn't have a background consistent with that, but they were highly politicized individuals. And the only politics I was aware that they were involved with was this attempt to fund the Contra revolutionary insurgency."[^1] Brunon said it was his understanding that "the [[Contras]], and I don't even know if they were known as that then... had no above-the-line funding. Everything was sub rosa and one of the ways they were trying to raise money was importing cocaine." He clarified that this information "was information that I didn't specifically receive from Blandón, but that I had surmised based on a series of events that were happening."[^1] ### Knowledge of Blandón's Contra Involvement Blandón was fairly close-mouthed about his role with the Contras, according to Brunon. "I don't know the formal particulars of it other than there was this kind of atmosphere of [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and clandestine activities and so forth that surrounded him when I met him. He never was specific. I mean, I believed he was involved with the Contras. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Beyond that, I never got into the particulars with him, because I didn't have a need to know at that point."[^1] ### Encounters with Ronald Lister Brunon met [[Ronald Lister]] in 1986, when Lister showed up unannounced at the lawyer's office and began asking very detailed questions about Blandón's background. "It was just like the hair on the back of your neck goes up. What does this guy want? What's he doing here? Is he investigating Blandón?" Brunon said. "I never knew what his true role was. I mean, he covertly insinuated that he was CIA. At least, if not a sworn member, whatever the hell they do to get to become employees — some sort of operative." Brunon "really didn't have much communication with the guy because he scared me."[^1] Brunon described Lister as "one of these guys who would boast about having bugging capabilities, would boast about having wiretap capabilities, you could get any information any time, one of those... I-can-uplink-to-the-satellite sort of guy."[^1] ### CIA Claims and the FBI A 1986 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] report about Blandón obtained by [[Gary Webb]] through a FOIA request revealed that Brunon had called the [[Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office|L.A. County Sheriff's Office]] after a police raid and claimed the CIA had "winked" at Blandón's activities.[^2] ### DEA Knowledge of Blandón Brunon stated in court in 1992 that the [[DEA]] possessed extensive knowledge of Blandón's drug dealing spanning over a decade: "I have some 300 DEA-6 reports regarding Mr. Blandón, and the reports relate to activities between approximately 1981 and May 1992." This was a period during which Blandón was granted U.S. political asylum, ran a multimillion-dollar cocaine operation, and served as a DEA informant.[^3] ### Views on Blandón's 1992 Case [[LAPD]] narcotics detective Ron Hodges, who investigated Blandón in conjunction with the DEA in 1991-92, told Webb that the case against Blandón was remarkably weak. "What's hard to understand [is] when we actually did the investigation on him and it came to a conclusion, I think he was charged with what they consider a 'no-dope conspiracy,' which is like nothing. It's so minimal. It's like trying to do something when there is nothing there." Brunon pointed out that his client had no criminal record, and the DEA had nothing more than some loose talk with criminal informants and no evidence of actual drug dealing.[^4] ### Footnotes [^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty" [^2]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Prologue: "It was like they didn't want to know" [^3]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it" [^4]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 25: "Things are moving all around us"