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Scottie Wheeler
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Affiliation
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Lieutenant, DEA
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Status
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Incarcerated, Conspiracy
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Spouse/Children
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Donna Wheeler, two children
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Episode Appeared
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Played By
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Scottie Wheeler (born 1947) is a Lieutenant in the Drug Enforcement Agency, who was arrested for leaking information about ongoing DEA/Metro-Dade Vice operations to the drug lord Calderone.
Career
Wheeler began his career in 1969 working with the Metro-Dade police department, eventually working up to Detective in the Organized Crime Bureau's Vice Division, where he met and formed a partnership with fellow Detective James "Sonny" Crockett. During their time together, Wheeler earned two Medals of Valor, including being shot protecting Crockett, and became close friends, even getting their families together for meals and other activities. Wheeler eventually transferred out of Vice and got a job as an agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), working his way up to Lieutenant.
Downfall
Wheeler is married to his wife Donna, and they have two children, one daughter and a son, Scott Jr., who was born with medical problems and is confined to a wheelchair. Scott Jr's mounting medical expenses, the fact their mortgage was falling behind, and the frustration of making $30,000/year while watching dealers blow that much in one night made Wheeler vulnerable, and in March 1984 Wheeler received an unsolicited suitcase while working some bars in Little Havana, "compliments of Calderone", he opened the bag three weeks later and found $70,000 cash (which was twice his DEA salary) and used that to help catch up his bills. Then Calderone lieutenant Trini DeSoto began calling Wheeler demanding "information" on ongoing investigations. Wheeler claimed to try to get out of this situation "a dozen times, but it was too late", hoping no one would get killed. In fact, Crockett's partner, Eddie Rivera, and another Calderone operative, Leon Mohammad, were killed by Calderone's people based on information from Wheeler's leaks. With his new partner, Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, Crockett found out who the leak was by running back-traces on an address book Tubbs found in Leon's ransacked apartment after Leon's death. Crockett saved Tubbs from being killed by DeSoto based again on information Wheeler provided Calderone, then confronted Wheeler with documentation proving his involvement in the conspiracy. After hearing Wheeler's story, Crockett went ballistic and began choking Wheeler for causing his partner Rivera's death and stonewalling his investigation of Calderone, and had to be pulled off by Tubbs. Wheeler was then arrested at his home while his family watched from the yard.