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Scottie Wheeler
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Affiliation
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Born
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1947
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Status
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Incarcerated, Conspiracy
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Relatives
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Episode(s)
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Played By
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Lieutenant Scott "Scottie" Wheeler (born 1947) was an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration who was secretly leaking information about ongoing DEA/Metro-Dade operations to the drug lord Esteban Calderone.
Wheeler was formerly a Detective with the Metro-Dade Organized Crime Bureau's Vice Division, where he was the partner of Detective Sergeant James "Sonny" Crockett. When Crockett uncovered Wheeler's corruption while pursuing Calderone, he confronted his former partner outside his home and he was arrested.
Biography[]
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 became partners 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 DEA, working his way up to the rank of Lieutenant.
At some time, Wheeler met and married his wife Donna, with whom he conceived two children, one daughter and a son, Scott Jr., who was born with medical problems and is confined to a wheelchair. The Wheelers remained close friends with Crockett and his family even after Scottie's transfer out of Vice.
Calderone informant[]
However, Scott Jr.'s mounting medical expenses, the fact their mortgage was falling behind, and the frustration of making $30,000/year while investigating dealers who considered such an amount small change 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 within $70,000 cash (twice his DEA salary). Despite his better judgement, he used the money to catch up on his bills.
Soon afterwards, Calderone lieutenant Trini DeSoto began calling Wheeler demanding "information" on ongoing investigations, threatening to reveal his acceptance of the money if he did not comply. Wheeler claimed to try and get out of the situation "a dozen times, but it was too late" and he was trapped informing for Calderone, operating on the hope no one would get killed. However, his hopes proved misplaced -- as the situation escalated, Crockett's replacement partner, Eddie Rivera, as well as Calderone operatives Corky Fowler and Leon Jefferson, were all killed as a direct result of Wheeler's informing. Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs would have become another victim if not for Crockett's intervention, where DeSoto is gunned down.
Downfall[]
After linking up with Tubbs, Crockett found out who had been leaking information to Calderone by running back-traces on an address book Tubbs found in Leon's ransacked apartment after his assassination. 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.
Notes[]
- Scottie actor Bill Smitrovich also appeared as another DEA character, Commander Burr, in the episode "The Prodigal Son".