Tipster Relates Surprise at Agents’ Raids : Law Enforcement: Federal informant never firmly identified any house for drug agents to search, a lawyer tells federal judge investigating three botched raids in Poway.

Ron, the mysterious federal informant supposedly behind three botched drug raids last month in Poway, was surprised to learn that the raids had been carried out because he never firmly identified any house for drug agents to search, a lawyer told a federal magistrate Friday.

Ron said he was dragged out of bed just hours after a Poway executive was seriously wounded by agents in one of the raids, with irate federal officials demanding to know how things could have gone wrong--and accusing him of picking houses at random for agents to search.

Ultimately, according to Ron--who detailed his version of events earlier this week in a three-hour meeting with San Diego attorney Raymond J. (Jerry) Coughlan Jr.--federal agents became so incensed that they kicked him out of their San Ysidro office, where they had taken him for questioning, at 7:30 the morning after the shooting with instructions to walk home to Normal Heights.

“It was a circus,” Coughlan said at a court hearing at which Ron’s account of events leading to the Aug. 26 raids was spelled out for the first time. “It was cowboys. It was unprofessional. And it was unnecessary.”

A federal grand jury heard testimony this week about the raids, during which U.S. agents entered the Poway home of Donald Lee Carlson and traded gunfire, also invaded an empty home nearby and then, hours later, accused a deputy county marshal of dealing cocaine.

U.S. Atty. William Braniff said this week that the grand jury probe is focusing on “drug violations” and on “false statements (made) to the government.” It is a federal crime in certain circumstances to give government agents or officials false information.

Carlson, 41, a business executive, is still recovering from the shooting. He is in serious condition on a ventilator at Palomar Medical Center. Coughlan is his lawyer. But the attorney spent several days tracking down Ron, the tipster around whom the entire case revolves, and met with him on Wednesday. Ron’s lawyer also was at that three-hour meeting, but Coughlan declined to identify the attorney.

At the court hearing Friday, Coughlan said he couldn’t vouch for Ron’s story. But it might prompt the grand jury, Coughlan said, to focus on how “the system (could) go so far foul.”

The hearing Friday was called by U.S. Magistrate Leo Papas. The Copley Press, publishers of the San Diego Union-Tribune, asked Papas to unseal affidavits filed by U.S. Customs agents that explain why they were entitled to the Poway search warrants.

Papas put off a ruling until next Wednesday, saying he wanted to know more from federal prosecutors--who are leading the grand jury investigation--about the state of events.

If the cocaine-dealing probe that led to the raids is over, Papas suggested, he might unseal the agents’ affidavits. But if that probe is still under way, the law does not allow him to make such affidavits public, he said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. William Q. Hayes told Papas that the cocaine-trafficking investigation is so wrapped up in the ongoing grand jury probe that they are “indistinguishable.”

Coughlan, however, urged Papas to unseal the affidavits. Drug agents “have done so much damage to individual people in this city,” Coughlan said. “The focus now has to be on them.”

Federal sources told The Times this week that Ron, who is from Tampa, Fla., was brought to San Diego by U.S. Customs agents, to work air smuggling cases. He was instead put to work with agents from Customs and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration assigned to “Operation Alliance,” an anti-smuggling task force.

Published reports have said DEA agents dismissed Ron as unreliable. But sources told The Times that DEA agents gave him high marks before the Aug. 26 raids.

As detailed in court by Coughlan, this was Ron’s version of events:

Over the last couple of months, Ron tipped agents to several drug deals--but each of them fell through.

A couple of weeks before the Aug. 26 raids, drug dealers whom Ron knew identified three vacant Poway houses as drop sites for a cocaine deal. Ron was to be a driver or lookout, or both.

Then, for an unexplained reason, it was decided that delivery would be to another site. On Aug. 25, Ron helped deliver a significant quantity of cocaine to a Poway house.

Ron left the house and the neighborhood and called drug agents. Two agents picked him up and drove around Poway, looking for the house. The agents sat in the front seat while Ron hid below the windows in back, so he wouldn’t be seen.

The problem, Ron said, was that he could not definitely point out the house with the drugs. He didn’t remember the address or even the street name, and too many houses in Poway looked too much alike, he said.

Finally, Ron identified a house. But he told agents they ought to drop him off that night at the house and wait while he made sure it was the one. If it was, he would give a go-ahead sign and the raid could proceed, he said.

Instead, Ron said, he was awakened at his own home a few hours later by angry agents.

Shortly after midnight on Aug. 26, agents with search warrants had demanded to enter Carlson’s home.

During an exchange of gunfire, Carlson was hit in the arm, leg and chest. A Customs agent suffered superficial wounds. There was no cocaine in the house.

Braniff has announced that prosecutors have no “present intention or expectation” of charging Carlson with any crime.

About the same time Carlson was shot, agents were searching another Poway home not more than a mile away. The house was vacant and the search turned up nothing, according to the search warrant.

After being awakened by agents, Ron was taken to the Operation Alliance office in San Ysidro. Agents accused him of picking houses at random for them to raid, Ron told Coughlan. Ron said he did no such thing. At 7:30 a.m., agents kicked him out of the office, Ron said.

That afternoon, officials from Customs and the U.S. attorney’s office visited Deputy County Marshal Michelle Jones at her Clairemont office and accused her of using her Poway home as a “drop house” for 100 kilos of cocaine, based on information from Ron.

Agents followed her home, searched the house and found nothing.

Friday’s court hearing did not address Ron’s version of why agents accused Michelle Jones. Ron had worked out at the same health club as Michelle Jones’ husband, Tony Jones. He also lived across the street from Tony Jones’ best friend, Howard Black.

Tony and Michelle Jones and Howard Black were among those called to testify this week before the grand jury. Michelle Jones, six months pregnant, did not appear. The testimony Thursday of Tony Jones and Black centered on how they met Ron and what he wanted from them, said William Nimmo, Tony Jones’ attorney.

Michelle Jones, Tony Jones and Black have been told they are not targets of the grand jury.

Ron told Coughlan that federal agents have met with him only one other time since he was kicked out of their office.

“He has been cut out,” Coughlan said.