Informant in 'dirty DUI' case tells his story Key informant in East Bay police corruption scandal details his role in 'dirty DUIs,' decision to come clean

Carl Marino, government informant who exposed private investigator Christopher Butler and former cop Norman Wielsch, is seen in front of the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Court House on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif. less Carl Marino, government informant who exposed private investigator Christopher Butler and former cop Norman Wielsch, is seen in front of the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Court House on ... more Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Informant in 'dirty DUI' case tells his story 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

In the end, even the people he may put in prison say Carl Marino did the right thing.

They just wonder what took him so long to do it.

Early last year, Marino, a former police officer turned aspiring actor, became a confidential informant for the state Department of Justice and helped expose one of the largest police corruption scandals in Bay Area history.

In a video that capped three weeks of undercover activity at the Concord private detective agency where he worked, Marino filmed two men - his boss, Christopher Butler, and Norman Wielsch, commander of a Contra Costa County antidrug task force - as they sold him methamphetamine that authorities say Wielsch stole from police evidence lockers.

The pair were arrested, and their subsequent statements to authorities have led to federal indictments of four police officers for a litany of alleged misconduct, from accepting bribes to making drunken-driving arrests of men targeted by Butler to stealing cash from crime scenes.

Butler and Wielsch, however, have pleaded not guilty and await trial.

If the case gets to court, the star witness will be Marino, a 41-year-old Marina district resident who looks more matinee idol than ex-cop. For two years, he worked for Butler as a private investigator - and, by his own admission, a henchman - before he turned state's evidence.

It's unlikely Marino will be prosecuted for his actions, though he has no guarantee from federal authorities. But in a series of interviews, he agreed to tell The Chronicle his story.

According to Marino, it's the story of a man who went along with things he knew were shady, or even criminal, until he found himself in too deep and afraid for his life. His work ranged from setting up the targets for "dirty DUIs," the planned drunken-driving arrests, to playing a cop in a phony drug bust, to duping a police chief.

The drug sales were the last straw, he said, and spurred his decision to come forward.

Butler tells another story. He told prosecutors Marino betrayed him when he couldn't get the one job he truly craved: a part on a reality show that was set at the detective agency.

Whatever his motivation, Marino's story - along with interviews with former Butler employees, a review of confidential Department of Justice reports and police and court records - paints a dramatic picture of an unfolding scandal.

"I want people to know what role I played in all of this," Marino said.

Becoming a decoy

Marino met Butler in 2008 after he had moved to California from New York, where he worked as a sheriff's deputy for 17 years.

He answered a Craigslist ad for a job at a Concord detective agency, Butler & Associates. Its owner, Butler, now 50, was also an ex-cop, retired from the Antioch force.

Butler's agency did legitimate work such as tracking insurance claimants and finding deadbeat dads. But its specialty was infidelity surveillance: catching cheating husbands.

Rather than tail a husband for weeks, Butler preferred to offer the man a chance to cheat. He hired attractive women to create what he called a "designed coincidence" - a random encounter in an online dating site or a local bar.

To test a new decoy's effectiveness, Butler had Marino pretend to be her first target. "Once they found out (who I was) at the end of the night, they usually laughed," he said.

One woman, who said she feared reprisals if her name was used, said she had been auditioned by Marino and spent an hour having drinks and kissing him in a bar. Once he told her the truth, she laughed it off as her entry into the unusual world of Butler & Associates.

But, she added, "It did show me what both of those guys were capable of."

Catch the Candyman

Marino soon graduated to a riskier venture. In February 2009, Butler hired him to aid in the false arrest of a Diablo Valley College student whose mother suspected he was selling drugs from their Danville home.

With the mother's help, and for a $3,500 fee, Butler drew up a "scared straight" plan for the 19-year-old, whose customers knew him as "the Candyman."

Two female decoys met the young man at a supermarket, then asked if he could score ecstasy pills. He agreed to meet them in a Pleasant Hill parking lot with 30 tablets.

When he arrived, he was surrounded by a crowd of fake cops barking orders. Butler, wearing a blue Antioch police vest, handcuffed him and read him his rights. Marino, wearing a gun, ushered the decoys away from the scene.

Butler videotaped the raid for posterity. The video shows antidrug chief Wielsch playing his supervisor. The two threaten the young man with jail, but decide to release him to his mother after confiscating his drugs - which were never reported to authorities.

As the scene unfolded, Marino said, red flags went up. He realized he had taken part in an illegal detention.

Wielsch's involvement, though, eased his mind. Before the raid, he waited with the other fake cops inside Wielsch's office at the Central Contra Costa Narcotics Enforcement Team. The bust went down in the task force parking lot.

"I thought things were off," Marino said, "but what was I supposed to do? Question the commander of the drug task force?"

More dirty work

As he grew closer to Butler, Marino managed to play along with his boss' plans, but also undermine them when he thought they went too far.

In 2010, two Richmond police officers hired Butler to sabotage a lieutenant they claimed was having an extramarital affair while on duty.

Butler sent one of his decoys to the lieutenant's office to interview him for a "college essay about his job." A few days later, she met the officer at a San Jose restaurant, where Butler filmed the couple kissing in the parking lot.

Now it was Marino's turn. Posing as the decoy's enraged boyfriend, he went to Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus and filed an official complaint. The chief launched an investigation, which ultimately cleared the lieutenant and spoiled the officers' attempt to smear him.

"I'm not going to justify my actions," Marino said, "because I knew it was wrong as I was doing it." But Butler, he said, had assured him they were going after a dirty cop.

When the Richmond officers hired Butler to set up two other men in a "dirty DUI," Marino decided to scuttle the plan. Using an assumed identity, he sent a Facebook message to tip off the targets.

'P.I. Moms' and drugs

Over the next year, Marino dedicated more time to his acting career and won a small speaking role on the NBC show "Trauma."

His work for Butler was mostly stakeouts. During their hours in the car, Butler talked about landing a reality show based on the agency. He had sent producers a "sizzle reel" of video, including footage from the Candyman bust, but got no takers.

So Butler came up with "Mommy P.I.s" - a team of suburban mom investigators who tailed unfaithful spouses in a minivan.

He assembled a group of women and pitched his creation to the media, offering ride-alongs on their cases. The moms were soon featured in People magazine and on TV's "Dr. Phil" and "Today" shows.

Most of what the media saw was fake, Marino said; Butler's decoys were the mistresses and his buddies the cheating husbands. Yet in November 2010, the Lifetime Network decided to turn the team into a reality show, "The P.I. Moms of San Francisco."

But as they set up lights and cameras, Marino knew he would not be in the cast.

"Of course I wanted to be on the show," he admitted.

Instead, Butler approached him about a different role. One night, he called Marino into his office and opened a black case that held several pounds of vacuum-packed marijuana.

"I knew exactly where it came from the moment he opened it," Marino said. "It had to come from the only person who had access: Norm Wielsch."

Butler told him that Wielsch, who is now 50, wanted to make some cash as he neared retirement. Marino agreed to take a pound and sell it for $1,500, the profit to be split with Butler and Wielsch.

He said he took the weed thinking like a cop: It was his best move if he wanted evidence to build a case. Instead of selling it, he said, he stashed it in his closet and paid for it with his own cash. And he decided it was time to turn the two men in.

The final weeks

As 2011 began, Butler struggled to deliver TV-ready cases for "P.I. Moms." To save the show, Marino said Butler cooked up a variety of new stings.

At the same time, Butler pressed him to sell more drugs for Wielsch. As the top drug cop in Contra Costa County, Wielsch was powerful and well-connected. Marino knew he had to find someone in law enforcement he could trust to talk to.

Amid these worries, though, Marino pushed the "P.I. Moms" producers for a role on the show.

In a Jan. 7 e-mail, Marino hinted that he would expose the show's cases as fakes. He also said including him in the cast would boost ratings among Lifetime's female viewers. "Oh, trust me," he wrote. "I appeal to housewives."

In response, he got a letter from the show's attorneys, who threatened legal action if he breached the nondisclosure agreement every Butler employee had signed.

Marino said he sent the e-mail as a cover and at Butler's prodding. By raising questions about the show, he said, he was trying to distance himself from Butler's operation.

A week later, Marino used another pen name to e-mail a Diablo magazine reporter and alert him about Butler, Wielsch and the drugs.

The reporter agreed to contact a law enforcement source for Marino, but as days passed without a call from authorities, Marino grew convinced Wielsch had been tipped off.

As he waited, more "dirty DUI" work came his way.

On Jan. 14, Marino posed as a TV producer making a reality show pitch to a Livermore winemaker. After several drinks during an "interview" at a Danville bar, the man was stopped and arrested for DUI by an officer bribed by Butler, according to prosecutors.

"I wanted to tell him what was going on," Marino said. "I felt bad for him. But I couldn't say anything. If I did, Chris would have been onto me."

Caught on tape

On Jan. 21, with the reporter's help, Marino met with California Department of Justice agents. They provided him with recording devices, placed GPS monitors on Butler and Wielsch's cars, and tapped the pair's cell phones.

Over the next two weeks, Marino used marked money to pay Butler for marijuana and steroids authorities say Wielsch stole from evidence.

Then, on Feb. 15, Marino recorded himself handing over $9,800 in marked bills to Butler and Wielsch in exchange for a pound of meth. He expected Wielsch to frisk him and discover the wire.

"If they found it," Marino said, "I have no doubt they would have tried to kill me."

But the deal went down, and Butler and Wielsch were arrested the next morning. Marino got the news on his way into work.

"It was overwhelming," he said. "The day before I thought I was going to die. The hard work was over, but now, do I have to worry about their family and friends coming after me? Because they all know I'm the informant."

Hero or hypocrite?

Marino is no longer a P.I., but he has continued his acting career. He recently showed up on Fox's "Alcatraz."

Michael Cardoza, Wielsch's attorney, says his client feels no ill will toward Marino, and believes he was right to come forward.

"He did the right thing," Cardoza said, "but for his own reasons, and none of which were altruistic."

Butler's attorney said Marino's two-month delay in reporting the drug activity was not the move of a veteran cop, but the act of a vengeful actor.

"Sometimes bad people do the right thing for the wrong reasons," said the attorney, William Gagen.

Butler was more direct. In a written statement to authorities, he said Marino went to police only after his pleas to get on "P.I. Moms" - including a blackmail threat - had failed.

"Marino told me ... that I had better figure out a way to include him in the show or he would make my life 'a living hell,' " Butler wrote. "I asked Marino what he meant by this. Marino told me that he 'knew way too much about my cases, my business, and Wielsch's marijuana.' "

Marino says the allegation is another Butler con - another "designed coincidence."

"They can say and think whatever they want," Marino said. "It wouldn't matter. All I'd have to say is, 'Hey jury, take a look at the video.' "