FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CRM

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1998                                                                                                                           (202) 514-2008

                                                                                                                                                                                   TDD (202) 514-1888




FEDERAL JURY IN SAN FRANCISCO


CONVICTS FORMER DEA SUPERVISOR





	WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A jury in the U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division,
yesterday convicted Clifford T. Shibata, a former supervisor of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, on all thirteen counts of an
indictment charging him with mail fraud, theft from the
government, and making false statements.

	Shibata was a veteran DEA agent and supervisor with 25 years
of service when he was indicted in March 1997.  After a three
week trial, the jury found that Shibata executed a scheme to
steal over $178,000 from the government while working as a DEA
Group Supervisor in the Burton Federal Building in San Francisco
from August 1994 to November 1996.  

	The DEA kept an imprest fund in San Francisco to make
undercover drug purchases and to pay informants.  The jury found
that Shibata used his supervisory position to obtain money from
the imprest fund, divert it to his own use, and then to cover up
the crime with forged documents.  The jury rejected Shibata's
defense, in which he took the stand and claimed that he could not
remember the circumstances in which he made 137 cash withdrawals
using forged documents.  

	The case was prosecuted by Richard C. Pilger and Peter J.
Ainsworth, Trial Attorneys with the Public Integrity Section of
the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in Washington,
D.C.  The investigation was conducted by the DEA's Office of
Professional Responsibility in Los Angeles, California, and was
led by Senior Inspector Lowrey Leong.

	The case was presided over by Judge Susan Illston, who set
sentencing for September 4, 1998.

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