Seeking to Influence a Jury

The trial of Automaker John Z. De Lorean on cocaine-trafficking charges was nearly short-circuited last week by eight white envelopes. Six jurors and two alternates in the ten-week-old trial acknowledged that they had received unsolicited copies of a House report that was highly critical of the kind of FBI "sting" operation that snared De Lorean. The material came from the office of California Congressman Don Edwards, chairman of the subcommittee that prepared the study. Edwards said the copies were posted in response to what seemed a routine request from a San Francisco letter writer to forward the report to 13 people in the Los Angeles area. Said Edwards: "I think somebody is tampering with the De Lorean criminal case. I don't like the idea, and I sure don't like them involving me." FBI agents said that the name signed to the request letter seemed to be fictitious. Although at least one juror admitted having scanned the report, no mistrial was declared.

In an ironic echo of the case, the De Loreans' secretary, Cynthia Lee Brady, 30, was arrested last week by narcotics agents in Clinton, N.J. She was charged with conspiring to distribute 14 grams of cocaine.