In retrial, embattled ex-DEA agent Chad Scott quickly found guilty on 7 corruption counts

[Horton]

Here is a link to the news article.

https://www.nola.com/news/courts/article_f6685ea4-c8df-11e9-8656-e37e80d99019.html

 

Chad is the most revered boat driver in the modern era and a very accomplished skier. How guilty or innocent he is we can only guess but this is a loss for water skiing. My belief is that he made procedural errors but never put a penny in his pocket.

 

 

[UWSkier]

I'm speechless, and incredibly bummed... :(

[Than_Bogan]

Dammit.

[Brewski]

Dang Dang Double Dang

[Alvin_Neff]

The FBI calling a DEA agent corrupt is like a pot calling the kettle Black! Chad is a really great guy who took a lot of bad guys off the streets and served the DEA over 30 years as one of their respected agents. I really hate to hear about this travesty of justice!

[richfoster]

I don't believe that every single procedure can be followed when trying to take down the bad guys. Those agents are putting their lives on the line and I'm sure some rules have to be bent. And of course those that are already convicted are going to lie against him for their own benefit.

[ballsohard]

The white devil

[Bruce_Butterfield]

If you were a drug dealer facing a big sentence, would you hesitate for a second to lie against someone trying to put you in jail? Couple that with a prosecutor looking to win a big case and cares more about advancing his career than about truth and justice. Very sad.

[MillerTime38]

My best friend is a narcotics detective and he tells me stories all the time about obstacles he faces when trying to build cases because the drug dealers know the laws just as well as the cops. But he still closes cases and doesn’t bend the rules like @richfoster is suggesting because he is a law enforcement officer and swore to an oath. Cops that bend the rules are the reason why the public has such a bad perception of the police. I am sure he had to deal with the absolute scum of the earth and the streets were probably safer with them in prison but that doesn’t make it right.

 

As @Alvin_Neff said Chad is a good guy and hopefully the judge takes all the good he did in his 30 years of public service into consideration during sentencing. Also wish him luck in October with his next court battle and thoughts and prayers to his family.

 

@Bruce_Butterfield I guess the two former Members of the DEA task force that testified are liars as well and there is no chance that Chad was bending the rules to close big cases to advance his own career?

 

As @Horton mentioned we may never know how innocent or guilty he is but 12 jurors heard all the evidence and came back with a unanimous decision and I am not going question the prosecutors motives because someone is a great boat driver and I thought was a nice guy who I met at a couple waterski tournaments

 

 

[Stevie Boy]

Not my place to make any Judgement at all, but if you have one football team that can break all the rules and one football team that has to adhere by the rules, who is going to win the game.

 

[ScottScott]

@Stevie Boy The side that breaks the rules are referred to as criminals.

[Stevie Boy]

@ScottScott exactly my point, some of them being extremely nasty people, who do not really have a place in our world, they get dealt with on the basis of what they have been caught doing, not on the horrendous crimes some of them have committed.

I would think in this case , whether doing right or wrong Chad may have been going about his business with the best intentions, to serve the law abiding citizens in this world.

In some other countries these criminals just dissappear never to be seen again.

[LeonL]

Surprisingly enough, I find myself with mixed feelings with regard to such dealings with criminals. As a believer in doing right with disdain for such scum as drug dealers, the same should hold true for me for law enforcement. I'm torn. Statistic prove that most criminals commit nearly 10 crimes (some would say much more) before being caught and convicted. Maybe a little bending of the rules in order to get a conviction of a know criminal is OK. Again, I'm torn.

[MillerTime38]

@LeonL I think that is probably how it starts, you bend the rules a little bit and it works and you get convictions and then before you know it you are flat out breaking rules, maybe I am wrong but asking people to commit perjury on the stand is not bending the rules, it’s asking someone to commit a felony......

[LeonL]

@millerTime38, you're right of course. Perjury is a felony.

[ktm300]

In federal court, trials are called slow pleas. I know nothing of the facts of this case, but I do know that if the feds want you, you're likely toast. If the feds ever come to speak to you, you are a fool to utter anything other than "I want my lawyer"

 

Every citizen should visit a prison. I doubt most would be so cock sure about incarcerating people for lower level crimes. There are over 4000 federal criminal statutes plus all of the various state and subdivisions statutes.

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-federal-criminal-defendants-go-to-trial-and-most-who-do-are-found-guilty/

[The_MS]

Going to work with a bullet proof vest on every day has to take its toll. That’s all I know is that BAD people absolutely SUCK and Chad did his best to keep them away from everyone.

There is not a person on this board who are holy enough to throw stones. Be it steeling a dime, nickel or lying, cheating or whatever. It’s all the same as any allegations about Chad.

[skispray]

I don't know anything about Chad personally, and I know he was an asset to the ski world, but he was convicted of 7 federal crimes, was he not? Sure, I hear you, he's a good guy and I guess it's possible that he was the victim of a conspiracy. But was it possible that he was in fact breaking the law and thereby deserving of conviction? Seems like it's possible... So I find it weird that there are so many people here claiming that he either did nothing wrong or that what he did was wrong but you don't care because it was with noble intentions. Do you all really have enough information to make these kinds of judgments? Or are you biased in this case and not evaluating this situation objectively? From where I sit, it seems like the latter is at play quite a bit, and I find it a bit concerning.

[The_MS]

I’m not the judge and was not on the jury. I did not offer up a verdict. I’m just based in reality.

[Stevie Boy]

Do not get me wrong here, if you did wrong you have to take whats coming to you, but it seems the biggest crime in our soceities is getting caught, how often do you hear if only he or she had done it in a different way, then they would not of got caught.

The world we live in today is so screwed up, from the Top to the Bottom.

[RazorRoss3]

@Horton, you say "procedural errors"... that's filing a piece of paper work late... one of the accusations from the article is "asking two drug dealers to lie in the trial of a third dealer to boost the chances of getting a conviction and of promising major sentence reductions for the two dealers if they did his bidding"... if true, that's not a procedural error, that's witness tampering which is illegal, it is assisting in perjury which is illegal. The article does not mention any instance where he personally benefitted financially however if fraudulent (I say fraudulent not false because there is no accusation of an innocent individual being incarcerated) convictions career then yes, he benefitted from the crimes of which he is accused. -subsequent paragraphs are a general comment, not directed to @Horton specifically but to all readers.

 

I don't mean to pass any judgement against or in favor of Chad, the article posted reads with a bias to my eyes and it would be nice to see more information in order to come to a rational and informed conclusion. All I'm trying to point out is that the crimes Chad is charged with are not small, they are not procedural errors, if true they are a fraudulent and intentional manipulation and abuse of our criminal justice system which further endangers all law enforcement officers by eroding the already shaky faith their communities have in the justice system.

[bananaron]

I am a retired police officer and worked narcotics for 7 yrs on a drug task force.In that line of work you deal with many different people that most of us never have contact with.And at the federal level it is large scale and very involved.I do not know the case and can only say its sad to see this happen and probably none of us know what really happened.People will say anything in court to protect themselves and remember being found guilty does not always mean you are just like a not guilty verdict does not mean you did not do it.Today too much of the case is tried in the news media and a person is guilty before you get to court.Good luck to Chad and his family none of us like to see this happen.

[So_I_Ski]

I don't know anything about the man other than his involvement in water skiing but it wouldn't be the first time that someone in law enforcement was breaking the law that they were supposed to be upholding in order to further their own career as opposed to serving the public. There have been literally tens of thousands of cases of innocent people being convicted, jailed and in many cases executed simply because someone in law enforcement wanted a conviction. You only need to watch "Making of a Murderer" and "When They See Us" to appreciate the sickening lengths to which law enforcement will sometimes go in their over zealous drive to get a conviction.

 

Having said that, it is also worth noting the following. First, jurists are on average, citizens that also hold the viewpoint that bending the law to get the "bad guys" might sometimes be necessary. Second, they would be far more reluctant to find a law enforcement officer guilty than they would another citizen. Third, the evidence must have been quite compelling for them to unanimously agree to a guilty verdict. Fourth, they would certainly not be reliant solely upon the testimony of convicted felons considering that the defense would have spent a great deal of time trashing their character and their possible motives for testifying against Chad. Lastly, no other law enforcement body would see any benefit in going after one of their own and no prosecutor would want to make his reputation bringing charges, let alone a conviction of a law enforcement officer, particularly one with Chad's reputation and length of service.

 

None of this means that I believe he was guilty, I'm just saying there are a lot of factors to consider before proclaiming his innocence simply because he was a prominent member of the water skiing community. I sincerely hope if he is innocent his conviction is overturned upon appeal. I can't think of anything worse than being jailed if you were innocent.

[lpskier]

“Fourthly, all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously, for the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. And Sir Matthew Hale in particular lays down two rules most prudent and necessary to be observed: 1. Never to convict a man for stealing the goods of a person unknown, merely because he will give no account how he came by them, unless an actual felony be proved of such goods; and, 2. Never to convict any person of murder or manslaughter till at least the body be found dead; on account of two instances he mentions where persons were executed for the murder of others who were then alive but missing.” Blackstone, “Commentaries.”

[dvskier]

@lpskier Did you ask Chad if he wanted you to assist his legal team? Curious as to how the jury returned a guilty verdict so quickly when he got a mistrial last year.

[teammalibu]

Really sad to hear this, Chad is a friend and I know that most of us would never be able to do that kind of work!

[lpskier]

@dvskier No, Dave, I didn’t. Should I have? Frankly, I thought Steve Garcia did an excellent job, the final result notwithstanding.

[JaredSmith]

Would be great if @Chad_Scott would chime in on his side of the story at some appropriate point in time.

[OldboyII]

Crazy and twisted world, where good boys are labeled as "bad" and really bad ones rule.

[Dirt]

I believe this is very political and there is much more to this than the article states. The local rag newspaper seemed to have some kind of vendetta against him. If the Feds target you, they will get you for something. They have unlimited funding and small case loads. AUSAs sometimes try to make a name for themsleves so they can move on to the private sector and cash in later. Im guessing Chad cannot tell his side of the story to anyone but his attorney. They may want to appeal.

 

I will be praying for Chad and his family.

[aupatking]

I have faith he’ll win his appeal.

[UWSkier]

I went looking for other articles about this case, but it seems everything that's ever been written has been by the author of the original linked story. Would love more diversity of reporting before making any sort of judgement on this. Seems many on here are making some real leaps to judgement based on fairly limited data.

[dthate]

@Dirt that has been my thought reading this thread. The things we see currently in our "justice" system are upside down, we see all manor of corruption, the law biding have few options when the feds can outspend us with our money. If you are breaking up revenue streams for powerful drug lords and corrupt politicians, its not beyond their ability to get to you. Other than that MAGA...

 

I am praying for Chad and family also.

[dave2ball]

How about supporting Chad and his family through this rough time. No other comments need to be made. @horton might be a good idea to close this thread. Just my 2 cents.

[gregy]

Doesn't look good for him. Unless something major changes I think he's has a way out. There's a Houston officer that just got charge with murder the other day for stepping over the line. Very sad.

[gjohnson]

Did a post just get deleted?

[ForrestGump]

@Horton, This is an entire thread which I really, really wish you'd just delete. I've always agreed when you posted "news". But not this time. Someone breaking a record....cool. Someone winning an event.....awesome. Not this. Chad is a really good friend to me and speculation and judgement by people who have zero clue of the details behind this really gets to me. This is truly a devastatingly bad situation for him and his family.

[MillerTime38]

@BoneHead what said on this thread has been speculation? What are the details behind this that we are missing?

[Horton]

After a number of texts, emails and phone calls about this thread I closed it. Chad Scott is a highly respected member of the water ski family. There is nothing good about his conviction and everyone I know who knows him believes it is a miscarriage of justice.

 

This is a no win situation for a web site that is the sole news source in a sport. Chad’s situation is news because he is a public figure in the sport. Reading some of the comments showed me that perhaps allowing the general public to comment was an error.

 

To all of you who posted messages of support for Chad, Thank You. For the comments that some found objectionable the fault is mine.