The officer goes to Ted’s residence to buy drugs, and this results in Ted’s arrest and prosecution. It turns out the new “customer” is an undercover police officer. She tells him she wants to introduce a new customer to him. So, working with the police, Marissa calls Ted, one of her dealers. The prosecutor tells Marissa that he will drop the misdemeanor charge for this offense and let Marissa enter California’s “deferred entry of judgment” program instead-IF Marissa will help the police gather evidence against some of the dealers who have sold her drugs. She is caught by police with a small amount of the drug in her possession and is charged with possession of methamphetamine.

5Įxample: Marissa is a methamphetamine user.

Police confidential informants come in many different varieties, depending on their motivations and how they operate.įor example, some receive payment in cash from police departments-while others are criminal defendants who provide information about other defendants or suspects in order to get more lenient treatment in their own criminal case. Police confidential informants are people who provide information to a law enforcement agency in return for some kind of compensation. And he is offering this information to the police out of a sense of public duty rather than for compensation. The police use this information to get an arrest warrant for Jerry, who is charged with assault with a deadly weapon.īen is a citizen-informant-also known as an “eyewitness-informant.” He has knowledge of the crime only accidentally, because he was present on the scene. He also tells them where Jerry went after he left the bar. Immediately after the brawl, Ben contacts the police and tells them Jerry is the person who did the stabbing. Ben is present at the bar at the time of the fight but does not participate. 3Įxample: Jerry is involved in a bar brawl in which someone is stabbed. Citizen-informants are people who just happen to witness or otherwise have knowledge about a crime, and who approach the police with that info without expecting anything in return.

Signs of a confidential informant