Pubdate: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2002 The Dallas Morning News Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 Authors: Holly Becka and Tim Wyatt Note: Staff writers Todd Bensman and Robert Tharp contributed to this report. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption) D.A. DEFENDS FAKE-DRUG RESPONSE Prosecutors said Tuesday that they warned a detective in September about a large cocaine bust that involved fake drugs but that it took another four months for police to hand over their files to help identify defendants who may have been wrongfully accused. During a media briefing, Dallas County District Attorney Bill Hill and his assistants released a timeline to show what they knew about the so-called fake-drug cases. They said they gathered information as quickly as possible to put together pieces of a "complicated, developing" puzzle and worked to remedy a problem they inherited after a series of questionable Dallas police drug busts. Dallas Police Department spokeswoman Janice Houston declined to comment on prosecutors' comments Tuesday, citing the FBI investigation into the drug cases. Prosecutors noted that they had called a detective now on suspension after they received a Sept. 12 lab report showing that a large cocaine bust contained only trace amounts of illicit drugs. Even after talks with police supervisors, prosecutors said they didn't grasp the scope of the fake-drug problem until mid-January, when police gave them information on 59 now-dismissed cases. The 59 cases involved two undercover officers and four questionable confidential informants. "Until we got down to the point of putting together those 59 cases, we didn't have our arms around this," said First Assistant District Attorney Mike Carnes. "We were trying to put the pieces together to figure out what the puzzle was, but we still, in the month of January, were getting information. ... After we were able to make a list of 59 cases, that's the first time that we had a sense of just how far back this went [and] how many defendants were included." By late September, prosecutors said they were seeing the bad drug cases multiply but still didn't have the name of the primary informant. After talks in September and October with the detective, whom they didn't identify, prosecutors said they contacted a Dallas police narcotics supervisor Oct. 26 about results of what by that time were six lab tests that had found little or no drugs. Prosecutors said the overwhelming question was why repeated positive field tests were being refuted by more sophisticated laboratory analysis. Mr. Carnes said the main informant took a lie-detector test Oct. 12. As of Tuesday, prosecutors still haven't received a copy of the polygraph results, which police say the informant passed. Steve Tokoly, who oversees felony prosecutions, said his office was reviewing adjudicated cases dating to 1999, when the main informant is believed to have begun working for police. Mr. Tokoly and other prosecutors say there still is no system in place to link an informant to a particular officer. On Nov. 20, prosecutors and police met with officials at the drug lab at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences to discuss how positive field tests could be refuted by further analysis. Mr. Carnes said they came away with the realization "perhaps this was a training issue ... but it didn't answer all the other questions. It may be a problem with training or something more," he said. Prosecutors worried that "if someone can manipulate the results ... that's a problem." When Dallas police began their internal investigation Nov. 30, prosecutors "still didn't have many answers at all," Mr. Carnes said. It wasn't until Jan. 11 that police gave prosecutors crucial information that led to prosecutors identifying the 59 now-dismissed cases "associated with several informants," Mr. Carnes said. "Until we got to the point of the 59 cases, we had only fragments" of information. Mr. Hill applauded his prosecutors, saying he didn't think anything else could have been done, given the information they had at the time. "Considering the complications of putting all this together, and the fact that they were trying to do something that was almost impossible to do - and that was to gather facts when they didn't have the resources to gather those facts - I don't feel let down at all," he said. Prosecutors repeatedly stressed that they took action as quickly as they learned about problems. They attributed a mishandled lab report in one of the most recent dismissals for fake drugs as being inadvertently overlooked by a prosecutor juggling 150 pending drug cases. They said prosecutors dismissed the four charges against two defendants immediately after discovering the error. Prosecutors also emphasized that they had suspended prosecution of the questionable cases in mid-November. Court records show, however, that defendants in at least two cases were offered plea bargains as late as December. Prosecutors are now requiring lab tests on any suspected illegal substance before seeking an indictment. Previously, they submitted cases to the grand jury based on field tests. The district attorney's office said last week that it had expanded its inquiry into Dallas police narcotics cases to include more officers besides the two on administrative leave but would not say how many officers were under investigation. Prosecutors are working to dismiss more than 70 cases related to the investigation. The FBI is still in the process of gathering police records and evidence from the questionable cases, said Dallas FBI Special Agent in Charge Danny Defenbaugh. Agent Defenbaugh said the bureau was casting a wide net, gathering information about narcotics cases dating to 1997 to ensure that nothing is missed. He said the bureau had not begun to analyze what it had gathered so far. "We're literally at the preliminary inquiry stage and haven't had a chance to review all the documents and records," he said. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is assisting the FBI's efforts, said Anne Estrada, the agency's Dallas-based executive district director. At least two informants used in the drug cases are in INS custody. A federal civil rights lawsuit filed last month alleges that the Dallas Police Department failed to take corrective action, despite knowing as early as September that innocent Mexican citizens were jailed on false drug charges. The lawsuit filed in January seeks unspecified damages from the city and Senior Cpl. Mark Delapaz and Officer Eddie Herrera, now on paid leave. Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton has declined comment on the lawsuit. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake