U.S. Attorney Who Promoted Quadro Tracker® Resigns, Pays Civil Fine; Makers of the Device Are Acquitted

LAW ENFORCEMENT February 1997

In late January, Guy Lee Womack, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, resigned his office and agreed to pay a $5,000 civil fine. Womack confessed that he used his office to promote the Quadro Tracker®, a bogus drug and weapon detecting device. He paid $13,600 for distribution rights in Alabama, Arkansas, New Mexico and Wyoming and hosted meetings with investigators in Houston to show how the device worked (Richard Stewart, "Tracking-device sellers cleared of fraud counts," Houston Chronicle, January 30, 1997, p. 21A).

Three men who marketed the Quadro Tracker® were acquitted by a jury on January 29 in Beaumont, Texas. Wade Quattlebaum, 63, former president of Quadro Corporation, Raymond Fisk, 53, former vice-president of the company, and William Long, 57, a distributor of the device, were found not guilty of three counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

The men were indicted on August 21, 1996 for deceiving customers into buying what they knew was a worthless device. Prosecutors claimed that the Quadro Tracker® was just a radio antenna attached to a hollow plastic box containing "chips" constructed of paper and plastic. The device was sold primarily to law enforcement agencies and school districts. Sales of the Quadro Tracker® were enjoined in April 1996 by U.S District Judge Thad Heartfield, who cited the fraudulent nature of the device

See "Drug 'Detection' Device Marketed to Schools; Secret Technology Creates Skepticism," NewsBriefs, February 1996; "FBI Calls Drug 'Detection' Device 'A Fraud,'" NewsBriefs, March 1996; "Makers of the Quadro Tracker® Are Indicted, Some Still Have Faith," NewsBriefs, September 1996.