CIA ties to drug smuggling that was later suppressed. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims. Coverage in other papers After the announcement of federal investigations into the claims made in the series, other newspapers began investigating, and several papers published articles suggesting the series' claims were overstated. The first detailed article on the series's claims appeared in The Washington Post in early October. In their front-page article, reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus wrote that "available information" did not support the series's claims and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series.The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. One article, dealing mostly with the response of the Los Angeles Black community to the stories, described the series's evidence as "thin". Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. The other article, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras' fight against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." The series ran from October 20–22, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. The first article, by Katz, developed a different picture of the origins of the crack trade than "Dark Alliance" had described, with more gangs and smugglers participating. The second article, by McManus, was the longest of the series and dealt with the role of the Contras in the drug trade and CIA knowledge of drug activities by the Contras. McManus wrote that Blandón's and Meneses's contributions to Contra organizations were significantly less than the "millions" claimed in the series, and stated there was no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. The third article, by Mitchell and Fulwood, covered the effects of crack