As a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Alan Steuart knew the fear and apprehension that haunts government witnesses in big drug trafficking cases.
He also knew the government lined up witnesses to spill all against his former stepson, a Dallas businessman accused of leading a large marijuana growing and trafficking conspiracy.
What Steuart did with that knowledge shocked veteran lawyers practicing in federal court. Steuart, 65, set about tracking down the witnesses and in the process publicly exposed them in an area known for Mexican drug cartel activity and related violence, court records show.
The veteran private investigator flew to a small Northern California city in October 2021 and hung posters in public areas near where the witnesses and their families lived and worked, asking for information about “DEA informants.” The flyers included the witnesses’ names and photographs taken from their driver’s licenses. He got the information from evidence the government turned over to defense attorneys for his stepson, Justin Magnuson.
Steuart, who resigned from the DEA more than two decades ago under vague circumstances, was sentenced in July to a year in federal prison for obstruction of justice. He pleaded guilty in March and faced up to a decade in prison. Prosecutors dropped a witness tampering count, and Steuart agreed to relinquish his private investigation and security license as part of the deal.
Defense lawyers portrayed Steuart’s actions as typical vetting of government witnesses in a criminal case.
“He was obviously acting as the investigator for his stepson,” his attorney, Ronald Goranson, said in court. “And the defense has a right to investigate who the witnesses are.”
But prosecutors insisted it was the behavior of someone who wanted those witnesses silenced or even harmed.
“I don’t know really what to say. It’s pretty outrageous,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Rattan told a judge. “I mean, it’s just common sense that what he’s done is unacceptable and inappropriate.”
It’s rare for defense investigators to be prosecuted for their work on a case. Magnuson’s attorney said the defense had its own paid investigators and that Magnuson did not authorize and was not aware of Steuart’s activities in California.
James Whalen, an attorney for one of the affected witnesses, said he was glad Steuart was held accountable for his actions.
“It was shocking to me,” he said. “I had never seen anything like that before.”
A bald-headed and imposing figure, at 6 feet, 7 inches and over 260 pounds, Steuart was seen hanging the posters in a grocery store in Nevada City, Calif., where his stepson owned dozens of acres of land and grew marijuana. Magnuson, a successful Dallas entrepreneur, expanded into the lucrative legal cannabis industry and was accused of transporting the drug across state lines for sale.
When properly licensed, it’s legal to grow marijuana in California under state law. But transporting and selling it across state lines is a federal crime.
Chris Knox, one of Steuart’s attorneys, said in a statement his client was helping Magnuson and investigating “potential dirty dealings by some of the government’s witnesses.”
“The government felt as though his tactics crossed the line and indicted him,” he said. “It would have been an interesting trial because a defendant certainly has a constitutional right to investigate and defend himself when he is under federal indictment and facing the most powerful adversary in the world.”
Prosecutors said Steuart’s conduct was reminiscent of how Mexican drug cartels operate south of the border. Terrified witnesses and their families had to go into hiding, they said. Even the prosecutor and lead agent were concerned about their safety and reported suspicious vehicles outside their homes and strange phone calls.
Steuart harbored anti-government views and did not hide his feelings about his son’s prosecution, writing on social media that “the feds have messed with the wrong family,” according to court records.
Magnuson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to travel or transport in interstate commerce and was sentenced in April in Plano federal court to two years. The 41-year-old SMU grad with a $50 million net worth was accused of taking part in a conspiracy to illegally ship his California marijuana crop to Texas for sale on the black market.
Authorities said Magnuson’s cohorts transported the marijuana to Texas inside soda vending machines in semitrailers and then flew cash proceeds back to the West Coast on his private jet.
Magnuson’s attorneys argued that his business associates tricked and betrayed him by selling the drug across state lines without his knowledge. More than 15 people have been indicted in the ongoing case, including Justin’s brother, Clay Magnuson, who also was sentenced to two years.
Agent to private eye
Steuart attended the University of Southern Mississippi in the 1980s and later joined the DEA, according to his social media accounts. His eight years at the agency gained the notice of The Oklahoman, which quoted him in a 1993 article about a six-state crackdown on, coincidentally, illegal marijuana cultivation.
Steuart, then a DEA agent in Houston, told the newspaper that Texas pot growers were moving their operations indoors, cutting down on the number of sprawling cannabis farms in the state. The article highlighted marijuana growing operations in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. The sting operation netted the feds 185,000 plants and about 260 arrests.
About two years later, Steuart quit the DEA to start his own private investigation business.
The circumstances behind his sudden departure so early in his law enforcement career came up during Magnuson’s August 2020 detention hearing. Steuart, who is divorced from Magnuson’s mother, testified on behalf of his former stepson.
Rattan asked him on cross examination why he left the DEA so soon.
“I resigned for personal reasons,” he said.
When she pressed for details, Steuart said his father was killed that year, he was in the middle of a divorce, was recovering from a work-related injury and had a lot on his mind at the time.
Rattan again asked him why he left the DEA, after which Steuart left the courtroom, declining to continue his testimony. She later told a judge that Steuart quit under “very questionable circumstances.” She did not elaborate, court records show.
Steuart started his security company, IronHorse Security and Investigations, in 1995 while in his late 30s. The Houston firm employed other former law enforcement officers, including a deputy administrator of the DEA, an IRS agent, and Harris County deputies, according to his website and social media. The firm specialized in event security, surveillance, GPS tracking and covert operations. Among his clients were actors Forest Whitaker, boxer Evander Holyfield and comedian George Lopez.
Steuart said he had been vetted by the Department of Homeland Security. And when the Saudi crown prince came to Houston, Steuart’s firm set up his safe house. He also worked in Afghanistan, he said.
“I worked hand in hand on a daily basis at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,” Steuart said during court testimony.
Knox, Steuart’s attorney, said his client has an “exemplary” record as an investigator for over 30 years and that he’s “looking forward to moving on with his life.”
Identities exposed
When Magnuson was arrested in the marijuana case, Steuart tried to help the defense team. Steuart’s actions were not only unhelpful but greatly alarmed the government’s witnesses, many of whom were “incredibly distraught and fearful for their lives,” according to court records.
Steuart was seen putting up flyers in eight different “high traffic” locations in Nevada City, including a grocery store and areas known to contain “cartel activity,” a federal agent testified. The posters, with large red lettering, contained the names and photographs of the witnesses against Magnuson and his co-defendants as well as a phone number and a request: “Please contact if you have information.”
That phone number was traced back to Steuart, the agent said. Steuart also posted his informant flyer on Instagram and in a community Facebook page for the area with about 30,000 followers, court records show.
Nevada City, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento, has a population of barely over 3,000. The social media posts aroused some concern within the community that informant identities were being made public, prompting at least one person to ask in the comments if Steuart intended to put a “hit out” on someone. Another asked, “Are you trying to harm these people?”
Steuart fired off a reply to his critics in the post, according to court testimony.
“Anyone who gets in the drug gang illegally is flirting with the consequences,” he wrote. “No one put a gun to their head and told them to be drug dealers. They got caught. Consequences. Dope dealers are like surfers. Sooner or later, you wipe out.”
That sentiment was not widely shared.
“So when one of them gets taken out, you’ll be the first one they look at,” a commenter responded.
Seasoned lawyers who represented the government witnesses were stunned, said Cynthia Kozda, an IRS agent, during court testimony.
“The attorneys explained it as they’ve never seen anything that has crossed the line like this,” Kozda said. “And that they had not seen anything … like this on this side of the border.”
Ryne Sandel, who represented one of the witnesses, said the flyers looked a lot like wanted posters.
“Our clients live in a relatively small community out there. Everybody knows everybody,” he said. “They were posting these flyers all over the community and they were handing them out.”
Sandel said a family member of his client found one of the flyers outing him as a snitch and pulled it down.
“They were trying to pull them down as they saw them,” he said.
Steuart also contacted witnesses’ business associates, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, according to testimony. The agent said Steuart’s conduct amounted to threats against the witnesses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McClendon said Steuart should have known better.
“Steuart is a former DEA agent who is aware of the importance of the safety and security of cooperating witnesses and defendants in federal cases,” he wrote in a court filing.
When he was arrested, Steuart was found to be carrying a law enforcement-type badge in a leather holder that said, “Drug Enforcement Agency” and “Retired Special Agent,” according to court testimony. It was not government-issued and Steuart was not a retired agent, but it was clearly made to look like a credential, prosecutors said.
Steuart was indicted in federal court in December 2021 on three counts: accessory after the fact, witness tampering by intimidation, and obstruction of justice.
Rattan told a judge during Steuart’s detention hearing the former agent was dangerous and should remain in custody. Steuart, she said, was someone with a “specialized background” who had “used his job skills to commit the crime.”
“These witnesses are scared,” she told a judge. “These witnesses are saying, ‘I may not want to testify. I may not want to go forward.’ They’re intimidated.”
A judge agreed with prosecutors and ordered Steuart held in custody pending trial, noting he faced up to life in prison if convicted.
“You know, the wording in these posters, it’s obvious to me what the issue is as opposed to just investigating witnesses,” said U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson.
Sandel said the government took additional steps to ensure everybody was safe.
“I’ve never seen anybody go to the lengths of printing out dozens of wanted posters and posting them all over town,” he said. “It was very brazen. It was pretty over the top.”
