DEA Agent Used Him as Middleman, Witness Says

A man who has pleaded guilty to a drug trafficking charge in the Drug Enforcement Administration corruption trial of former DEA agent Darnell Garcia testified Tuesday in a Los Angeles federal courtroom that Garcia used him as a middleman for four illicit cocaine deals.

Sherman Lair, 40, of Alta Loma testified there was no doubt that Garcia gave him cocaine in 1986, and that Lair’s brother-in-law sold the drugs. One of the deals took place in a parking garage across the street from U.S. District Court, he said.

Garcia, 43, of Rancho Palos Verdes is charged with drug trafficking, money laundering and passing intelligence information to drug fugitives. Lair is a business associate of former DEA agent John Jackson, who, like Lair, has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking.