Federal Prosecutors Drop Dozens of Stash House Sting Charges

ABC News reports:

The U.S. attorney's office in Chicago has quietly dropped dozens of serious narcotics conspiracy charges stemming from undercover stings involving fictional drug stash houses, a federal law enforcement technique critics contend amounts to entrapment and displays racial bias against minorities.

U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon's office this month moved to dismiss the charges — which carry mandatory minimum prison terms of 10 or 20 years — for 27 out of a total of 33 suspects whose cases are still pending in the district. The suspects were arrested after federal agents led them to believe that the would-be stash houses contained valuable drugs. The drugs never existed and there were often no houses involved. The suspects were usually arrested on the way to the location.

The move from Fardon's office comes amid increasing scrutiny and criticism of the stings by federal judges, who have noted they usually occur in lower-income minority neighborhoods. Even though the drugs are an invention, suspects are typically charged with conspiring to distribute the amount of drugs they were told was in the would-be stash house.

Fardon did not announce the move publicly, and the court filings dismissing the charges offer no explanation. The spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, Randall Samborn, declined comment, including on whether prosecutors planned to drop the charges against the remaining six stash house defendants.

Maybe it's time to admit the war on drugs is a grand failure.