Probe seeks motivation for troubled drug agent’s death

Wednesday, April 12, 2000 | 10:35 a.m.

Stephen Michael Swanson, 56, of Incline Village claims he was doublecrossed by the government after he landed a major drug dealer while working as a private investigator.

He told the Reno Gazette-Journal in 1997 that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee turned on him after he arranged the arrest of Claude Louis Duboc.

The government first tried to indict Swanson on charges that he sold information on Duboc from his old employer, the Drug Enforcement Agency, back to the DEA.

When a Florida grand jury refused to indict Swanson in 1997, government attorneys then probed his real estate transactions in Nevada and California to build a racketeering and money laundering case against him.

In Gainesville, the 17-year veteran of the DEA faced up to life in federal prison if convicted. Instead, after prosecutors concluded their closing arguments last Thursday, he borrowed a van, drove to Interstate-75 and walked into the path of the oncoming rig.

His attorney, Bill DeCarlis, thinks it was an act of courage that arose out of concern for his wife, who is terminally ill with breast cancer. If convicted, Swanson would have lost medical benefits his wife needed.

"He wanted to eliminate that possibility," DeCarlis said. "He's a fallen hero as far as I'm concerned."

The case against Swanson stemmed from an investigation into the drug-smuggling case of Duboc, who pleaded guilty in 1994 to conspiracy to launder money and import up to 120 metric tons of hashish and marijuana into the United States.

Swanson was one of three people indicted in 1998 on charges of money-laundering and racketeering involving the drugs. Swanson, who retired from the DEA in 1984, claimed the government knew about his involvement because he was helping investigators with their case against the drug operation.

"Basically, most of his defense was that he was working for the government and there was testimony to that fact," DeCarlis said. "I thought that our defense had a realistic shot at succeeding."

In 1996, Washoe County District Judge Deborah Agosti awarded $8 million to Steve and Louise Swanson in a civil suit. The money was to come from Duboc's assets but the Swansons could not collect the judgment from the government, Swanson said in 1998.

The Swansons had filed suit against Duboc after Louise Swanson received death threats, apparently from Duboc's henchmen.

Swanson told the Gazette-Journal in 1997 that Duboc spent millions on lawyers, including F. Lee Bailey. Bailey later went to jail before returning some of Duboc's stocks to prosecutors.