Smuggler’s blues: Was Barry Seal a hero or huckster?

When Barry Seal pleaded guilty to drug smuggling charges in federal court in Baton Rouge in 1986, U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola, who was bound by an agreement hammered out with the Justice Department, had no choice but to sentence the barnstorming Baton Rouge pilot to probation. Polozola made his disgust with the agreement known by adding a special condition to Seal’s sentence—six months in a halfway house. “Drug dealers like Mr. Seal are the lowest, most despicable people I can think of,” Polozola told the assembled crowd of Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Justice Department officials who appeared at Seal’s sentencing hearing to speak on his behalf. As Polozola handed down his sentence, he fixed his gaze on Seal. “In my opinion, people like you ought to be in prison.” Three weeks later, Seal was shot to death in the parking lot of the Salvation Army halfway house on Airline Highway, exactly where Polozola had ordered him to live, without armed bodyguards, for six months. 225 investigative writer Chuck Hustmyre reports new evidence and interviews to reveal how Seal also flew covert missions for U.S. intelligence, and didn’t start smuggling drugs until after his covert work cost him his job. Read the full story in 225 magazine here.