Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jan 2008
Source: Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
Copyright: 2008 The Plain Dealer
Contact:  http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/342
Note: priority given to local letter writers
Author: John Caniglia, Plain Dealer Reporter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Jerrell+Bray
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?246 (Policing - United States)

WHO DROPPED THE BALL IN INFORMANT CASE?

One man was actually on a flight to Chicago when police said he sold 
them drugs on the streets of Mansfield.

Another suspected dealer, a 6-foot-4 giant with a gap-toothed smile, 
was mistaken in a cocaine buy for someone nearly a foot shorter and 
70 pounds lighter.

In another case, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent picked a 
woman out of a lineup who he said sold him drugs -- with the agent 
using a sixthgrade class picture that was more than 10 years old.

All of these deals were fiction, made up by government informant Jerrell Bray.

But in spite of what should have been obvious red flags in Bray's 
stories, federal prosecutors built a sweeping drug conspiracy against 
26 people in Mansfield. Eighteen went to prison, collectively 
sentenced to more than 90 years in prison.

Last week, prosecutors were forced to take it all back. They went to 
a judge and asked that 15 men convicted in the case be released from 
prison. So far, 23 of 26 cases have been tossed out by judges or juries.

U.S. Attorney Greg White supervised the cases -- cases he now 
regrets. A review of the record raises numerous questions about 
whether the cases should have been pursued in the first place. The 
issues raised go to the heart of the fundamental fairness of the 
justice system.

Questions about the credibility of the case's star witnesses came up 
early, police agencies ran a haphazard investigation, and drug agents 
failed to monitor their own informant, according to court records and 
interviews.

Surveillance, a typical tactic in drug cases, was lacking. And when 
videotapes were used, prosecutors seemed to ignore them, as tall 
suspects were charged when the camera recorded short men. In one 
case, a jury watched a tape and acquitted an accused man in five 
minutes. Still, prosecutors went forward with the cases.

Families of the men sent to prison want to know why.

They also wonder why prosecutors failed to see gaping holes and why 
they didn't press for more and better information before asking a 
judge and jury to send dozens of people, overwhelmingly poor and 
black, to prison.

Interviews with the men's families and their attorneys, as well as a 
review of the court records, indicate these problems existed:

Prosecutors knew early about problems with their star witnesses' credibility.

Informant Jerrell Bray and DEA agent Lee Lucas said that on Oct. 5, 
2005, they purchased more than 50 grams of crack cocaine in Mansfield 
from Roosevelt Williams, a Chicago man who had a girlfriend in Ohio.

One problem:

Williams wasn't in Mansfield on Oct. 5. He had flown back to Chicago 
to see a sick relative. His attorney, Harvey Bruner, obtained airline 
records, including a boarding pass and flight manifest, that backed 
up Williams' story. Bruner turned the documents over to prosecutors.

There were other problems with the sale:

Williams was born in Alabama and had a thick southern accent. The 
person heard on tape selling drugs to Lucas and Bray on Oct. 5 lacked 
any hint of an accent.

Prosecutors eventually agreed to drop the charge against Williams. 
But in the next few months, six other people went to trial for 
Mansfield drug deals involving Bray.

They claimed, like Williams, that the informant concocted the deals.

Court rules require prosecutors to turn over any evidence that could 
help exonerate the accused. Some attorneys who represented the six 
said Blas Serrano, the federal prosecutor handling the cases, should 
have alerted them about the concerns in the Williams case, so the 
credibility issue could be raised during trial.

It's unclear whether problems in the Williams case gave prosecutors 
pause about their other cases, or Bray and Lucas' veracity. Lucas, a 
17-year DEA veteran, has declined to comment about the cases.

Surveillance, typical in drug cases, was lacking.

When federal agents targeted the drug trade around the Cedar Estates 
housing project in Cleveland last year, their investigation included 
dozens of hours of secretly recorded videotapes, shot by both police 
and undercover informants. In the Mansfield case, agents recorded 
almost no surveillance tapes.

If police had bothered to follow suspected dealers and stake out 
their homes, they would have known immediately that Bray was running 
a scam, defense attorneys said.

Basic surveillance practices also would have prevented authorities 
from making one of their biggest blunders in the case: using a 
sixth-grade photograph to identify Geneva France as a drug dealer.

France, then a 22-year-old mother of three children, had never been 
in trouble in her life. She was sent to prison largely on the 
testimony of Lucas, the federal agent who said he was sure he bought 
cocaine from her.

Lucas testified in France's trial that he confirmed her name and 
identity through a photograph of her. He never disclosed that the 
picture of France was more than a decade old. Jurors and France's 
lawyer never saw the photograph.

Two years after France was convicted, a Justice Department 
investigator showed defense attorney Ed Mullin the picture of France 
as a student at Malabar Junior High School.

"I couldn't believe it," Mullin said. "It was a picture of a little girl."

Police failed to monitor their own informant.

Bray pocketed tens of thousands of dollars working with the DEA and 
Richland County Sheriff's Office while Lucas and other officers watched.

The agency paid him about $600 to buy cocaine from drug dealers. But 
Bray stole thousands of dollars in buy money, as well, according to 
defense attorneys and court testimony.

In several deals, Bray supplied the cocaine to friends, who then sold 
the drugs to Lucas, who was working undercover. Later, Bray would 
meet with the friends and collect the buy money handed over by Lucas, 
giving his friends a small fee for their trouble, according to 
testimony and defense attorneys.

It's unclear why police weren't monitoring the supposed drug dealers. 
If they had been, they might have realized Bray was regularly meeting 
with them on the side.

Bray's actions underscore a fear for judges and prosecutors in the 
federal system, where drug cases are built on informants. "They can 
penetrate the criminal element," said Geoffrey Mearns, a former 
federal prosecutor who is dean of the Cleveland-Marshall College of 
Law at Cleveland State University. "But if they are not watched 
closely and independently by law enforcement and prosecutors, then 
the damage that they can do is similar to when there is cancer in an 
isolated area of a body that soon spreads throughout it."

No one noticed the heights of suspects.

Lucas and Bray said they bought cocaine from Joshawa Webb, who is at 
least 6 feet 4 and weighs about 280 pounds.

Webb also flashes a smile that includes a missing tooth and has arms 
covered in tattoos.

Webb sat in jail for 20 months, claiming that he had nothing to do 
with the sale. In the end, authorities determined that Jeremiah 
Conrad, a friend of Bray's, was the man who sold drugs that day to 
Lucas and Bray.

Conrad is shorter and leaner than Webb. Also, there's no gap in Conrad's smile.

Years after the deal, Conrad told authorities that Bray and Lucas 
orchestrated the sale. In another case, Bray and Lucas said they 
bought cocaine from Lowestco Ballard. Lucas testified that he was 
within two or three feet of Ballard at the time of the deal and knew 
it was him, according to court records.

Ballard is 6 feet 6 and weighs about 180 pounds. In one of the few 
videotapes used in the case, it is clear that the person who sold the 
drugs to Lucas is shorter and heavier. The man involved in the deal 
was 5 feet 9.

A jury acquitted Ballard after deliberating only five minutes. "In 
the movies, you see what police and judges can do to a person," said 
Ballard, whose mother works at the Mansfield Police Department as an 
aide. "But then, when you get in the system, you really see what 
police and judges can do. It's unbelievable."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake