Retired federal agent Keith Billiot was in the middle of a lengthy answer about what gave him and his team probable cause to arrest several suspects for drug conspiracy in 2019 when he said something that wound up tanking the case.
Typically, Billiot said at the evidentiary hearing in Chicago’s federal courthouse in March, “people of Latino descent are the ones that are supplying (narcotics to) people of African-American descent or Caucasians, or whatever.”
“The fact of the matter is that the drugs come up from Mexico or come in from Colombia but they come through Latino countries into the cities throughout the U.S., and therefore they’re typically trafficked by Latino people,” said Billiot, who was a special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for 30 years. “So all of that, when you put all of that together, it indicated a narcotics transaction to me.”
The problem was, no one had asked Billiot about the ethnicity of any of the four defendants — three Latinos and one Black.
The hearing quickly exploded into accusations of racial police profiling, with a series of defense attorneys and even the judge trying to get to the bottom of why Billiot suddenly injected race into the equation, according to a transcript reviewed by the Tribune.
Billiot repeatedly defended his comments as “a fact” and accused the defense of twisting what he said to help their clients.
Now, the U.S. attorney’s office has dropped the entire case — an exceedingly rare move that came just a few days before the hearing on probable cause was set to resume.
No reason for the abrupt dismissal was given in the one-page motion filed by prosecutors on Friday. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney John Lausch said in a statement Tuesday that “after reviewing the matter internally, we decided that moving to dismiss the indictment was the best course of action in this case.”
The move underscored just how problematic Billiot’s words were for prosecutors, who abandoned a complex drug investigation that involved undercover informants, cellphone records, physical surveillance and the seizure of multiple kilograms of narcotics and more than half a million dollars.
Records show that after granting the motion to dismiss the indictment, U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey ordered the immediate release of two defendants who’d been in custody for more than three years and the return of money and other property put up by the other two as bond security.
Attorney Gal Pissetzky, who represents now-cleared defendant Charlie Dotson, said that in more than 20 years of criminal defense work he had “never actually witnessed such blatant racism displayed on the record by a high ranking DEA officer.”
“I am certain (Billiot) did not even realize what he was saying until it came out of his mouth, and then it could not be unheard for the remainder of the day,” Pissetzky wrote in an emailed statement to the Tribune. “Mr. Dotson is very pleased with the results.”
The attorney for another dismissed defendant, Francisco Carranza-Rosales, said the case “once again highlights the absolute necessity for the DEA to be required to utilize body worn and dash board cameras.”
“The DEA needs to come within the mainstream of law enforcement, so that when situations like this occur, there is no need for the Court to rely upon the claims of the DEA Agents about how things allegedly went down,” attorney Michael Leonard said in a written statement.
A spokesman for the DEA in Chicago had no immediate comment.
Billiot, who now lives out of state, could not be reached. He is also facing a pending federal lawsuit stemming from the 2020 fatal shooting of a suspect in another drug case, court records show.
The case that disintegrated last week, meanwhile, stemmed from a monthslong investigation being supervised by Billiot targeting a suspected drug-trafficking ring that came onto the DEA radar through an undercover informant, court records show.
On Jan. 29, 2019, in the middle of the polar vortex that had brought frigid temperatures to the Chicago area, Billiot and his team were watching as two of the former co-defendants met in the parking lot of the Brickyard Mall on Chicago’s Northwest Side, according to court records.
Two days later, agents tailed one man to a home on the 6500 block of South Kenneth Avenue in Chicago, where the second was later seen leaving while “concealing an object that he was holding underneath his jacket,” according to the criminal charges.
The agents allegedly followed that man to a nearby parking lot, where he entered a vehicle to meet with Dotson. Agents moved in and found an open bag with about $34,000 in cash and a closed backpack in the back seat that contained a kilogram of cocaine, according to the now-dropped charges.
Back at the home on Kenneth Avenue, law enforcement observed a fourth former defendant peeking out a window before walking into the basement. The suspicious activity led the agents to believe “individuals in the residence were attempting to avoid contact with law enforcement,” according to the charges.
Agents entered the residence and conducted a search after allegedly getting consent. The agents did not have a search warrant.
Lawyers for the defendants filed a series of motions last year seeking to throw out evidence gleaned from the search, saying agents had no warrant or probable cause to enter the home.
The questionable testimony from Billiot came on the second day of an evidentiary hearing on those motions in open court. He was still on direct examination by the lead prosecutor in the case when he started talking about how drugs are generally trafficked in the U.S., including his view that they’re mostly brought in by Latinos.
“I’d like the court to take judicial notice of the statement that was just made here of this agent,” attorney Thomas Anthony Durkin, who represents one of the former defendants, said, according to the transcript. He also moved to strike the testimony, saying it was “based on unconstitutional behavior and thoughts.”
The judge granted a motion to strike that portion of Billiot’s testimony and said he would “utterly and completely disregard the race of any individual involved in the matter.”
But attorneys for the defendants continued to hammer away at Billiot’s comments during cross-examination.
“So I take it that if you were to see Latinos with a black person like you testified to, that would make you suspicious, right?” Durkin asked at one point.
“Not in the least sir,” Billiot replied.
The line of questioning clearly infuriated Billiot, who said he was merely stating a fact about how drug trafficking typically occurs in the U.S.
“This inference of racism is so phony,” Billiot said to Durkin, according to the transcript. “You know nothing about me. Nothing. For you to infer that I’m a racist, I’m the godfather of an African-American child.”
“Really?” Durkin shot back.
“There is nothing racist about what we do or how we do it,” Billiot said. “Nothing.”
“Well if there isn’t — if there’s nothing about it, what are you so upset about?” Durkin asked.
“I’m upset at you inferring that I’m a racist or that the young men and women that I led were racist,” Billiot testified, according to the transcript. “There is nothing racist at all about the tactics, techniques, or investigative measures that we take to defend the neighborhoods of this community and the neighborhoods throughout the U.S. from the scourge of drugs. Nothing racist about it.”
Asked about what happened to the case this week, Durkin said the testimony remains troubling in his mind.
“What was articulated under oath was something that any experienced defense lawyer knows goes on all too often,” said Durkin. “It is a major underpinning of the war on drugs.”
Judge Blakey also asked Billiot about his answers during the hearing, including whether he had taken any “particular course of action” in the investigation in part because the suspects’ ethnicities were “either consistent or inconsistent” with his prior experience.
“No sir,” Billiot answered, according to the transcript. “The ethnicity didn’t have anything to do with it.”
