October 7-13, 2004

city beat

Marked Man

undercover plight: John Sims, his identity shielded by the shadows, says a mysterious SUV's been staking him out. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Politicians reach out to subject of a recent City Paper cover story.

by Amy L. Webb

John Sims is no stranger to surreptitious crackdowns. He once spent part of the night waiting for FBI agents in a dark alley. They were supposed to exchange covert information and videotapes, but Sims says the agent never showed. Another night, Sims brought a Jamaican drug lord to a hotel near the airport for a meeting with INS agents. The deal went bad and his life was endangered, but the trouble was worth the risk, Sims says.

In June, City Paper published Sims' story recounting his fateful meeting with a gang of drug runners and subsequent work with federal operatives [Cover Story, "I Was a Federal Informant," Amy L. Webb, June 3, 2004]. That story helped catalyze meetings with elected officials and a New Jersey state investigator. But in recent weeks, Sims says that someone in a black SUV with tinted windows has been casing his West Philly home. It could be minions of the Jamaican he helped to nail, or even the District Attorney's Office who he says dropped the ball on a fake ID scam that may be linked to al-Qaida terrorists.

So just who is this Sims, and why might someone still be after him? It depends on whom you ask.

Some of his neighbors would say that the 42-year-old is a community activist, who has doggedly worked to provide paying jobs and low-income housing for the poor in North Philly.

His mother would tell you that he's the man who saved her life—Sims donated a kidney to her and picks up her medication at a Center City hospital every week.

And though the many agents he says were involved with him during the past seven years won't go on record describing Sims' relationship with the INS, DA, FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Philadelphia Police Department, documents and microcassette tapes indicate that Sims was indeed working as a "CI," a confidential informant supplying information without having his identity disclosed.

In 1994, Sims bought a property at 1511 W. Lehigh Ave., just blocks away from his childhood home. He developed the bottom floor into a recreation center for neighborhood kids, who flocked there after school to get help with homework and tutoring. Occasionally, Sims would order pizza for everyone in the room, which for some would be their only chance for a hot dinner.

Sims renovated the upper three floors into clean, low-income apartments. Weeks later, a group of Jamaican men moved into one of the rooms. Sims says that he often found the men smoking marijuana on the rooftop or flashing guns at the building's security cameras.

"I was too afraid to evict them, so I reached out to the police, but they never responded," Sims says. "Then I tried the District Attorney's Office, but they refused to help me, too. I was desperate, so I called the FBI next. They wanted to meet me right away, so the next day I went to the federal building and we sat down to talk."

Inspector William Colarulo, a Police Department spokesman, and Cathie Abookire, spokeswoman for the DA's Office, have both said that they cannot comment on whether Sims made phone calls asking for help. The FBI, too, will not confirm or deny that it met with Sims—though copies of the CI agreement signed by Sims and the FBI prove that he was working with them to nab the Jamaicans.

Sims continued as a CI, working with the FBI and INS. In August 1999, Rodney C. Peters, the alleged leader of the Jamaican drug ring, boarded a plane for Minnesota. Later that night, he murdered a man and fled the scene. Peters returned to the apartment, hiding there until Minnesota law enforcement arrested and extradited him back for trial, according to prison records. Peters is serving a 25-year sentence at the Stillwater maximum-security prison. Sims' relationship with the agents didn't end there. He still feared for his life, thinking that Peters' friends would come back for retribution. Less than a year later, his West Philly home was firebombed.

Then in October 2001, Sims got a disconcerting call from a friend—somehow, the W. Lehigh property had been seized and put up for auction by the DA's Office. "They'd mistakenly put the property up for auction back in 1998, and apparently they just never took the address off their list," Sims says.

Abookire says that it was Sims who called first, begging the DA to take the property off his hands. "We did put it up for auction," Abookire says. "Later on, he changed his mind." Abookire maintains that the DA never took or occupied the property.

In the time that the building was closed, Sims says that he lost thousands of dollars in potential rent money. He's since gotten the building back, but the property has fallen into disrepair. Now, Sims says that in response to CP's first story about him, he's found renewed interest in his safety and will file suit to reclaim the money lost because of what he calls "a big, clear mistake made by the DA."

"Everyone has ignored the situation," Sims says. "Except for New Jersey State Police."

After the story ran, a state investigator called him inquiring about the Jamaican drug ring and a stack of fake IDs they left behind in the apartment along with a note card reading TERRORIST with a New York cell phone number. Operatives for al-Qaida used similiar New Jersey-issued driver licenses to buy their air tickets just before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Kathleen Casey, the state investigator, could not comment, but a source within the department says that Sims' case has been handed over to an intelligence unit within the Motor Vehicle Commission, which is investigating the licenses.

Sims has received letters from U.S. Rep. James Greenwood (R-8th District) and U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). He's also spoken with U.S. Sen. Arlen Spector's (R-Pa.) office. All of his contacts have promised to liaise with the Department of Homeland Security on his behalf.

But so far, the DA has refused to help restore his building. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Paw wrote Sims a memo in August saying that "we can provide no assistance to you in your complaint" and that "we consider this matter closed."

"At this point, I'm hoping to get peace of mind out of all this," Sims says. "I want to rebuild the community center and get decent tenants into my building, the one that the DA basically destroyed. But that takes money. From my end, I've already put in the hard work."