Affair muddied probe of drug suspect (IRS Run Amok Again)

For more than a decade, federal authorities painstakingly built a criminal case against the man they suspected of being the main drug supplier to the Hell's Angels of Minnesota.

After spending untold hours on surveillance, cultivating informants inside the outlaw motorcycle gang, digging through garbage for clues and unraveling cryptic financial transactions, prosecutors this summer prepared to take the case to trial.

Then, on the brink of proceedings in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, veteran IRS special agent Jim Shoup came forth with a stunning confession: He was tangled in a romance with the wife of the alleged drug dealer he had been tracking since 1990. Suddenly, a case that had appeared rock solid fell apart.

Two weeks ago, the drug trafficking and money laundering trial of the suspected dealer, Brad Jacobsen, 54, of Apple Valley, and his co-defendant, Hell's Angels leader Paul (Rooster) Seydel, 49, of Brooklyn Park, ended in a hung jury.

"A government source with direct knowledge of the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said prosecutors didn't call Shoup to testify against Jacobsen because they feared he would be shredded under cross-examination. Now, Shoup is under investigation for possible misconduct, the defendants remain free and no retrial date has been set"

Would you get this kind of a break? Tell your friends the travesty...

"The former U.S. attorney in Minnesota who once oversaw the criminal probe of the motorcycle gang said Shoup's conflict of interest and his absence from the witness stand clearly undermined the government's chances to win a conviction.

In an interview last week, B. Todd Jones, who was U.S. attorney in Minneapolis from 1998 to 2001, said Shoup's affair with Jacobsen's wife impugned his credibility and opened the prosecution to questions about motivations of the investigation.

"You've got an affair going on with the defendant's wife and the agent who is investigating him?" Jones said. "No wonder it was a hung jury."

Jones said Shoup "personalized what should be an impersonal investigation. There's an intimate relationship going on, and he's got a motivation to maybe do something to take him [Jacobsen] out of the picture."

An internal affairs investigation into Shoup's behavior opened after the Star Tribune sought comment from IRS officials on whether Shoup's relationship with the alleged drug dealer's wife would result in sanctions against him.

Terry Lemons, who heads the Internal Revenue Service's media office in Washington, D.C., declined to say whether the IRS was looking into the situation. But a government source, who asked not to be named, said the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has begun a misconduct probe of Shoup, 43, of Champlin.

Shoup, who has been a criminal investigator for the IRS since 1987, said in an interview that he wished he could publicly explain his relationship with Donna Cleare, 49, of Apple Valley. "I'm tied because I can't make a comment," he said. "I hope the people you've talked to say, 'Hey, this is a hard-working guy.' The truth is the truth. I have no comment."

Shoup remains working without any restrictions, according to his attorney, Mark Larsen. "Agent Shoup will cooperate fully in any investigation conducted by the Internal Revenue Service," Larsen said.

Just get rid of the corrupt, enslaving, disgusting IRS and the code now. Ridiculous.

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