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Jonathan Luna was a federal prosecutor, working on a plea agreement for the Smith-Poindexter case. On the night of December 3rd, 2003, his vehicle left the Baltimore courthouse at 11:38 PM. His body was discovered early the next morning, face-down in a creek with multiple stab wounds. Could this have something to do with his line of work? Perhaps this is a cover up. Some people believe he ended his own life, but others say this is an obvious homicide.
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RECAP OF PART 1: Walter Poindexter was dealing heroin and one of his suppliers was Deon Smith from Stash House Records. Walter became close friends with Warren Grace and brought him into the business and taught him how to make good money. Around January of 2001, someone broke into and burglarized an apartment that Walter was using to stash drugs and he believed it was Alvin Jones, so he murdered him in retaliation. In 2002, police raided the house Warren Grace was staying at and they found a scale, heroin, packaging materials and two guns, so he was facing a maximum of 40 years in jail. He decided to turn on his good friend and he told the police that Walter Poindexter murdered Alvin Jones. The police gave the information to the FBI, and they decided that more than anything, they wanted to bust Stash House Records. They put together The Safe Streets Program and they were going to cut a deal with Warren Grace to make him an FBI informant.
Agent Skinner first heard of Warren Grace in April of 2002 when he was spilling secrets to the police. Agent Skinner couldn’t wait to talk to him and tried to contact him immediately, but the Baltimore city police were busy talking with him. Agent Skinner would need to get an assistant US attorney to file a writ of habeas corpus to bring him in. In general, FBI agents like to find themselves the young, inexperienced, US Attorneys, that are too afraid to push back. Agent Skinner took the case to Jonathan Luna. Together, the two of them were able to get Warren Grace out of jail and they brought him to the U.S. attorney’s office for a little chat. They got a writ for him, meaning, a court order that says that the incarcerated person can be released into the custody of an agent or law enforcement officer, temporarily, then they must be brought back to prison.
Warren Grace had been picked up for heroin and gun charges and just as fast as he went in, he was able to get time out for providing information and making secret deals. This was obviously very appealing to him. During their first meeting, Agent Skinner tested the waters to see if he could work with Warren Grace, maybe they could work towards a plea agreement. He did agree to plead guilty to the drug and gun charge and he was facing 10 to 20 years in prison. The aiding and abetting charge would be dropped, which would knock 10 years of his 40 year sentence off. Warren Grace was going to work with the government and cooperate with the FBI agents. If he testified truthfully, the government would make a motion to reduce his sentence.
Jonathan Luna promised him that the court would take his cooperation into consideration. The rules of the agreement were to be spelled out when he formally accepted his plea deal on May 31st, 2002. He pled guilty to a reduced set of crimes in federal court, and he was released from prison and went to a halfway house to begin his undercover work with Agent Skinner and the FBI. He agreed to refrain from possessing a firearm, refrain from any use of a narcotic drug, and to only leave the halfway house with approval for official business. He was secretly paid by the FBI for his services. It didn't take long for him to break all of the conditions he had agreed to. In the next year and a half, Jonathan Luna wrote a file full of legal papers that would send Warren Grace back out to the streets and Agent Skinner insisted on letting him run free. They knew he was a menace to society, but they hoped people weren’t paying too much attention to him.
He was running free and selling heroin. Jonathan Luna and the U.S. attorney’s office assumed federal jurisdiction of Warren Grace’s case and that would include the entire investigation of Walter Poindexter and Deon Smith, including the drug-related murder of Alvin Jones. Warren Grace was instructed to apply for a public defender so he would have representation for the plea agreement. He was bound over in federal court on May 2nd, 2002, and the next day, Jonathan Luna and his co-counsel, Jacabed Rodreguez-Coss, filed a federal defendant information sheet which listed FBI Steve Skinner as his arresting officer. Most of the paper trail, tying Warren Grace to the FBI, has intentionally disappeared.
There are a few reasons for this. Safety, you need to protect the source from other people. No one can know that someone is working for the FBI. This protects both the FBI and the source. Warren Grace’s name was never listed on reports, he’s just referred to as a source, but the gender isn’t provided either. A year after Warren Grace’s arrest, in May of 2003, Agent Skinner filed an affidavit where he talked about his early interest in Smith, Poindexter and 9-1-1 heroin and the word source is used for every reference to Warren Grace.
He had advised that Deon Smith was a drug dealer in the City of Baltimore who supplied heroin to a group which called its heroin 911 (nine eleven). Deon Smith owned a recording studio called Stash House Records, located at 911 West 36th Street and he sold heroin from the studio. He had a Mercedes Benz and a large sport utility vehicle. On May 31st, 2002, Warren Grace pleaded guilty to two charges, this was part of his deal that he made and he was released on personal recognizance (ri-cog-niss-ance) pending sentencing. He was assigned to a work release program, Hope Village, in Washington DC and he was allowed out to meet with the FBI or his attorneys. He got work release, because he had a job, working as an FBI informant.
Per his agreement, he was not allowed to have a weapon, he couldn’t use drugs, possess, or sell them, and he needed to refrain from excessive use of alcohol. If he violated any of these terms, he was supposed to be returned to prison. The staff of Pretrial Services opposed the deal, and they expressed concerns to the judge about releasing Warren Grace. The staff believed he was a risk to the community, and they wanted him to remain behind bars.
The FBI, and Tom DiBiagio’s U.S. Attorney’s office, represented by Jonathan Luna, wanted to turn Warren Grace loose. They felt that busting Smith and Poindexter was worth the risk. Warren Grace needed to be returned to the streets to build up his street cred again, that way, Smith and Poindexter would never know he was working as an informant. At this point, in 2002, Walter Poindexter was behind bars. Agent Skinner’s big plan was to release Warren Grace back into the streets, have him fit in with his old crew again, and wait for Walter Poindexter to get out. Once he was out, Warren Grace would deal heroin to Poindexter and Smith, sending them back to prison, then they could infiltrate Stash House Records.
Warren Grace was released to Hope Village and the first part of the plan was simple. He was supposed to work the program, follow the rules and keep his mouth shut. A few days after he arrived, he said that his cover had already been blown. On June 7th, 2002, Jonathan Luna’s co-counsel, Jacabed Rodriguez-Coss filed a motion to remove him from Hope Village. He wrote that in light of the fact that he was cooperating with the government, he should be released. One of the counselors at Hope Village wasn’t too keen on this though.
Somehow, the Director of Hope Village was made aware of the fact that Warren Grace was cooperating with the FBI, but he was told to keep this information confidential. On June 4th, 2002, Warren Grace was confronted by one of the counselors at Hope Village and they directly asked him about his cooperation with the FBI, which he denied. Two days later, Warren Grace was informed by the same counselor, within hearing distance of other inmates, that the FBI would be picking him up the next day.
His security had been compromised, so he needed to be removed. Agent Skinner’s solution was to place him under house arrest at his girlfriend’s house. During home confinement, he was supposed to wear a 24-hour monitoring bracelet around his ankle. Pretrial Services did not agree with home confinement and they again, stated that Warren Grace was a risk to the community. They made the obvious connection that they shouldn’t return a known gun offender and heroin dealer to his home, and he should be detained.
Home release was only available to defendants who didn’t have outstanding arrest warrants. If anyone had checked, they would have realized that Warren Grace had two warrants, failure to pay child support, and traffic offenses. Judge Frederic N. Smalkin approved the motion for home release on June 7th, 2002. Agent Skinner began having interviews or meetings with Warren two to three times a week. They would try to get specific facts from him, then they would go out and see if they could verify those things to see if he was telling the truth. They also started giving him a recording device and sending him into Stash House records to record his conversations with Deon Smith.
The local charges from Baltimore city were made into federal charges and Warren Grace pled guilty to them, so the local cops were no longer involved, and Agent Skinner had told the local cops to leave him alone. He couldn’t have the cops getting involved, because Warren Grace was out of home confinement, back on the streets, selling heroin, with the FBI’s approval AND he was getting paid to do it.
In July of 2002, Walter Poindexter was in a halfway house and he heard that Warren Grace was working with the police and talking about the murder of Alvin Jones. Warren had been going to the halfway house, wearing a wire, and he tried to talk to him. He was also working over Deon Smith at Stash House Records. Warren Grace told Deon that he could teach him the secrets of heroin. He knew how to cut it and combine it with fillers to dilute the heroin and increase the street value. He could teach Deon how to do this, then Deon could sell directly to Warren Grace at wholesale cost, cutting out the middleman.
On one occasion, Warren gave $4,000 of FBI money to Deon Smith to buy some heroin in an FBI-recorded sting. Deon Smith was dealing to him and that was now on record and Warren Grace sold heroin to Walter Poindexter while he was in the halfway house, which was also on record. Warren was allowed to come and go as he pleased. The court believed he was on house arrest, but he really wasn’t. The FBI needed him to be available to keep up his appearances. If he got called to the streets, he needed the freedom to go at any time, otherwise his cover would be blown.
In August of 2002, Todd Stokes, Home Confinement Specialist with U.S. Pretrial Services, writes a memorandum addressed to Jonathan Luna’s co-counsel, assistant U.S. attorney Jacabed Rodriguez-coss and the noticed cited an apparent violation of Warren Grace’s home release conditions. Jonathan Luna and Judge Smalkin were CC’d. Warren Grace had an ankle bracelet transmitter and a receiving device connected to the phone line. He reported on August 14th that the phone line had been disconnected and no one did anything about it for a week. He was running completely rogue during this time, buying and selling heroin, and shooting guns. The neighbors even began to suspect that he was an informant by this time.
In the memo for Pretrial Services, Todd Stokes wrote, “On August 14th, 2002, Mr. Grace called me to advise that his phone service had been disconnected. Due to a delinquent bill, but that his girlfriend, Robin Summers, was calling her Monitoring Services, Inc. advised me the monitoring unit in the defendant’s resident was unable to report. On August 15th, 2002, I spoke to the defendant on an alternate telephone in the residence. He confirmed his girlfriend paid the telephone bill and advised customer service was attempting to determine why her service had not been restored. On August 16th, 2002, Ms. Summers advised me there was a wiring problem in the phone line and a technician would have to come to the residence. On August 20th, 2002, at approximately 12:20 PM, I spoke with Ms. Summers who stated she expected a technician from Cavalier to come to her residence either August 21st or 22nd, 2002 to repair the telephone line. I asked to speak to the defendant, and she advised me he was taking a shower. Ten minutes later, the defendant called me back. I told him the telephone issue had to be resolved today. I asked him why the alternate line (which belongs to Ms. Summer’s minor daughter) could not be used for monitoring purposes.
Mr. Grace initially stated he was uncomfortable using that telephone line, but then agreed. The monitoring equipment was immediately placed on the daughter’s telephone line. On August 20th, 2002, I received a call from Special Agent Jeremy Gates of the Drug Enforcement Administration advising me that an anonymous caller informed him that Mr. Grace had drugs and guns in his residence and that he allegedly shot at someone at Park Heights and Wiley Avenues in Baltimore on August 17th, 2002. He related should the individual call him again he would give the person my name and number. Later that same day, I received a call from an unidentified male essentially conveying to me what Agent Gates told me. He further advised me the defendant was outside his residence, that he manipulated the monitoring equipment, and he was hurting innocent people. Another individual got on the phone and indicated since nothing was being done to the defendant, he must be an informant.”
“On August 21st, 2002, I received another call from the unidentified male who again expressed his concerns about the defendant, and stated that since nothing has been done to Mr. Grace, he would contact Internal Affairs. I was able to identify the telephone number of the individual through the use of my caller ID feature, and I provided Special Agent Steve Skinner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the number. I also apprised him of my discussion with Agent Gates and the anonymous callers. Agent Skinner went to the defendant’s residence on August 20th, 2002 at approximately 5:00 PM, and advised me that the defendant was not present. However, Securicor Electronic Monitoring Services, Inc. Indicated he was in the residence.
At approximately 10:35 PM, Mr. Grace called me to advise he returned to his residence after working out. He acknowledged that he slipped off the ankle transmitter by saturating his leg with Vaseline. He related he was wrong for removing the bracelet, and that was the first time he had done it.”
“The defendant stated that Agent Skinner would transport him to the US Attorney’s office in the morning. I told Mr. Grace to remain at his residence and I would meet with him in the morning as well. It should be noted when the electronic monitoring equipment was installed on the alternate telephone line August 20th, 2002, all events/alerts were retrieved from the time frame when service was first interrupted, and there was no indication that he left his residence during that period.”
“An automated inquiry of the Maryland Criminal Justice Information System conducted on August 21st, 2002, revealed no new arrests or outstanding warrants. However, on August 14th, 2002, I received a call from Deputy US Marshal Robert Johnson who advised me that he received a telephone call from the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office indicating the defendant had two warrants outstanding for non-payment of child support and for motor vehicle offenses.”
“On August 21st, 2002, Agent Skinner took the defendant to the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office to surrender relative to the warrants. At this time, Mr. Grace is in local custody awaiting an appearance before a commissioner. I recommend a warrant be issued, and that the defendant’s bond be revoked.”
A few weeks later, Warren Grace was released back to the streets and this time, he was removed from home monitoring all together. He was free. Agent Skinner had to write a report on this whole debacle and respond to everything that was brought up in the memo. It says, “On August 20th, 2002, at approximately 2:15 PM, writer spoke with an anonymous telephonic caller, who advised writer that an individual who is an FBI source, had drugs and guns in the apartment which the source was living. The caller said that although source is on electronic home monitoring, source frequently leaves the apartment. Specifically, the caller said that source removes the electronic home monitoring bracelet from source’s ankle, before leaving the residence, and that the source will either place the bracelet on another individual or leave it in the apartment. The caller advised that source was involved in a shooting the Sunday night before in the area of Wiley and Park Heights.
The caller also spoke with TODD STOKES, a Home Confinement Specialist with United States Pretrial Services. On August 20th, 2002, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Consent to search form (FD-26) was executed with source at the residence, and source’s vehicle. No drugs, firearms, or contraband were found during the course of the search. The electronic bracelet was found in source’s dresser. Participating in the search were the following FBI Baltimore, Safe Streets Task Force Members:
Detective Todd A Moody, Baltimore City Police Department
Detective Glenn Hester, Baltimore City Police Department
Detective Kaytee Tyson, Baltimore City Police Department”
Agent Skinner said that he contacted the anonymous caller and asked to meet them in an isolated parking lot, but the caller never showed up. He and detective Todd Moody asked the anonymous person for his name, but it wasn’t provided. The tipster did say that he saw Warren Grace selling drugs and he was involved in a recent shooting. Agent Skinner went to Jonathan Luna and asked him to write a statement as well and on August 29th, 2002, prosecutors in Luna’s office wrote a letter, “acknowledging Mr. Grace’s violations and why they were opposed to him being taken off the streets.” Jonathan Luna was helping to cover the FBI’s tracks on this case, but he was also getting into trouble of his own. A week after this, he was prosecuting a case against a bank robber and money went missing during the trial.
Agent Skinner claimed that he would call the Pretrial officer a day before he was going to work with Warren Grace and he would ask them to turn off his home monitoring device, so he could work with him. For months, the taskforce had been recording conversations between Warren Grace, Deon Smith, and Walter Poindexter and they were getting ready to move forward with their plan because Poindexter had been released in August 2002.
The recordings were done with a digital body recorder that records digitally, there is no tape involved. The recording is downloaded onto a computer hard drive and then it’s transferred into a CD ROM. The other option, is the one we typically hear about, which involves a radio transmitter. When this type of device is used, the agent can listen to everything in real time, over radio waves. Since most of the recordings were done at Stash House Records, a recording studio, Agent Skinner worried that they could get some back feed or the conversation could be broadcast through Stash House Records recording equipment.
It seems that they also didn’t want this recorded because Agent Skinner knew Warren Grace was dealing heroin, and he was trying to cover that up. Just three weeks after he had violated his home confinement and was taken in for new warrants, Todd Stokes of US Pretrial Services, just changed his mind. The new warrants disappeared, the child support was paid, most likely by the FBI, and Todd Stokes agreed to let Warren Grace out. On September 12th, Jonathan Luna and the FBI filed a motion of consent to modify Warren Grace’s release conditions. He would be sent home, without home monitoring and Todd Stokes from Pretrial Services suddenly agreed. Just two weeks earlier, he wrote a huge memo, explaining why he shouldn’t be out, he was dangerous. Now he was completely changing his tune. Here’s what his new motion said: “Us Pretrial Services recommends the following modifications of the above named defendant’s conditions of release:
“that Mr. Grace be removed from home confinement with electronic monitoring and Pretrial Services supervision. Except as modified above, all other release conditions previously imposed shall remain in full force and effect. Assistant US Attorney Jacabed Rodriguez-Coss and Defense Counsel have no objection to this modification.” Agent Skinner had pressured him to get off the case. He convinced everyone involved that the investigation would be damaged if Warren Grace “was taken off the streets.”
Todd Stokes told the court that Warren Grace should be removed from home confinement and Judge Smalkin signed this order on September 13th. The interesting thing here is Jonathan Luna was involved in putting Warren Grace back on the streets, which harmed the very people he was trying so hard to protect. He had grown up on the rough side of the neighborhood and knew how the streets worked. It was the driving force behind his desire to become a prosecutor. Whatever his reasons were, it seemed to go against everything he stood for, but he still did it.
Warren Grace, while working for the FBI, was caught concealing heroin and this was an obvious violation of his terms of release, but it was hidden for more than a year. The person that covered it up, was Jonathan Luna. It’s interesting to find out how much money the FBI was funneling into this whole scheme. They were paying Warren Grace and apparently taking care of his child support, and they were paying for drugs. They handed Warren Grace $1100 and told him how many grams to buy from Walter Poindexter. In the following weeks, on at least three occasions in September of 2002, Warren Grace gave Walter Poindexter a total of $5,880 of FBI money for heroin. These recorded drug buys continued into the next month and on October 12th, Warren walked into Stash House Records and purchased $4,000 worth of heroin from Deon Smith with FBI money.
You’re probably wondering why we’re going so in depth on this Warren Grace scheme. What does this have to do with Jonathan Luna, besides him signing off on things and helping to cover it up? Well, Jonathan Luna was writing about Warren Grace, the FBI and the Smith and Poindexter case. That was the last thing he was writing about before he died.
There had been a family living in a corner house and they were smack dab in the middle of all the chaos in the streets and they were constantly being harassed. They called the police, but they either didn’t show up, or nothing was done. The Dawsons were murdered in their own home and the FBI’s “Safe Streets Task Force was nowhere to be found. This enraged Baltimore and suddenly, people were paying attention. Hundreds of citizens gathered around the Dawson’s home, and they demanded to put an end to the revolving door justice system. Some people even speculated that this was done by “higher-ups” who would profit from the drug trade. Baltimore’s criminal justice system was out of control, it was corrupt. The police were being blamed for this tragedy.
Reporter David Montgomery filed a long article in the Sunday paper on Nov 17th that was super gross and victim blamey. He said that Angela Dawson was simply too harsh and should have spoken nicely to her neighborhood drug dealers and this wouldn’t have happened. He quoted a neighbor saying, “Another woman who lived in the same block of Preston said it’s a matter of how you talk to the drug dealers.”
An investigation was launched to look into the heroin and crack dealers in Baltimore’s nearby Park Heights area. This was kept quiet for 18 months and just for the record, Park Heights was the area where FBI paid informant Warren Grace was documented on secret memos as terrorizing helpless neighbors. Jonathan Luna was keeping these memos hidden. On the very day that the Dawsons were murdered, Special Agent Skinner was unreachable because “Safe Streets Task Force” was busy sending Warren Grace into Stash House Records to buy heroin.
After buying the heroin, he was supposed to meet up with the task force. His vehicle was searched, and a package of heroin was found hidden in a storage compartment. For months, he had been buying heroin for the FBI, but what they didn’t know, is he was also dealing on the side. An unsupervised, paid FBI informant caught dealing heroin was not a good look. Jonathan Luna was in a bit of a pickle with this one. His boss, US attorney DiBiagio, was already in a world of trouble and had scandals that he was trying to smooth over. Now, Luna had to cover this mess up to protect himself, his boss, and the FBI.
DiBiagio’s office was exposed. Everyone was looking at them for answers after the Dawson’s murders. In Washington DC, Congress was holding hearings to discuss the FBI and its mishandling of informants. Jonathan Luna knew he could take the fall for this. On May 13th of 2003, the FBI finally raided Stash House Records and Deon Smith and Walter Poindexter were arrested. More than $50k in cash was confiscated from Deon’s apartment. The day before the raid, Agent Skinner filed an affidavit of probable cause requesting a search warrant for the rap studio.
Jonathan Luna filed a sealed indictment jointly charging Smith and Poindexter with heroin distribution and related violent drug crimes. He said, “Members of the conspiracy utilized physical force against members of the conspiracy and against members of the rival drug conspiracies to maintain their reputation in the community, to preserve their own territory, to punish members of the conspiracy who cheated or stole from the conspiracy, and to defend and maintain the loyalty of the members of their own organization.”
“On January 22nd, 2001, Walter Poindexter, aka Fella, shot and killed Alvin Jones aka L, because Poindexter believed that Jones was responsible for burglarizing the stash house where conspirators stored their heroin, money and firearms.” Jonathan Luna filed many documents and believed he was strengthening his case against Poindexter for the murder of Alvin Jones. He did his best to conceal the fact that the FBI’s paid informant had been breaking the law. He wanted to prove that Alvin Jones’ murder was obviously drug related. Deon Smith requested a separate trial from Walter Poindexter, but Luna opposed this.
He said, “The government’s evidence will establish that Poindexter and Smith conducted a heroin distribution network in which Smith was the primary supplier of heroin. Poindexter in turn employed a group of street dealers, including Warren Grace, who sold heroin under the street name nine eleven. The profits from the street sales of nine eleven heroin were shared by Poindexter and Smith.”
He said there were at least two eyewitnesses ready to testify that they saw Poindexter murder Alvin Jones and a joint trial would avoid more inconvenience and trauma for the witnesses. Walter Poindexter and Deon Smith were charged with conspiracy to distribute in excess of one kilogram of heroin from 2000 to May 2003 and this was signed by Jonathan Luna. He sought to prove that Poindexter used violence to expand his heroin network. Warren Grace was set to testify that Walter Poindexter told him he murdered Alvin Jones because he believed he committed the burglary.
Alvin’s father, Alfonso Jones, was going to testify that Alvin had received a call and was very irritated. After he hung up, he said, “Some bitch is accusing me of robbing some house.” While discussing the upcoming trial, the judge did decide that Smith and Poindexter would be tried together for the drug offenses, but there could be no mention of the murder at the trial, because that would be separate. If anyone breathed a word about the murder of Alvin Jones, this would end in a mistrial and if Warren Grace slipped up and mentioned that he was working undercover for the FBI, this whole thing could blow up in their faces.
Jonathan Luna had a meeting with Warren Grace and suddenly, Warren acted like he had a conscience. He said he couldn’t rat out his friend. This had been the literal plan for months and it was the very reason that he was free, but now, he couldn’t possibly testify against Walter Poindexter. He had been the closest thing he had to family. The trial was days away and they didn’t have time for this. Luna threatened to revoke his plea agreement and send him away for decades if he didn’t testify. The day before the trial, November 30th, 2003, special Agent Skinner took Warren Grace out of jail and he got a 4 hour secret conjugal meeting with his wife, in his Baltimore apartment. At this point, Jonathan Luna could have never known that he had less than 75 hours to live.
The trial of Deon Smith and Walter Poindexter began on December 1st, 2003, in the Baltimore federal courthouse, before Judge Willam D. Quarles (corals). Jonathan Luna was visibly nervous and stumbling on his words, which wasn’t like him, but he called his first witness to the stand Warren Grace. The Judge asked the clerk to hand him a piece of paper to spit out his gum, but Warren swallowed it, instead. Jonathan Luna began questioning the witness, but things didn’t go as he had hoped. Warren Grace began mumbling his answers and he wasn’t cooperating. The Judge actually had to stop them and told Luna to take the evening to work with his witness and get him to be a little more pointed and answer more briskly. Judge Quarles also advised Jonathan Luna that he expected a more direct examination and would also expect that his questions would not jump the gun and contain facts that hadn’t been established.
Judge Quarles had realized that it wasn’t Jonathan Luna who was in charge of the questioning, Warren Grace was controlling him. The judge said, “We have a process we used called horse shedding the witness. A hundred years ago, when I was an assistant US attorney, I made it clear to witnesses that, you know, there was one person who was in control.” He subtly suggested that Luna should threaten Warren Grace to be more cooperative by using incentives and showing him how much better his life could be if he did as he was told. With that, court was adjourned for the day.
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