Pubdate: Fri, 09 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Jordan Steffen

40 ARRESTED IN TRINIDAD STING, ZERO CONVICTIONS

Two Women Wrongfully Arrested in Drug Operation Say Cops Deliberately 
Used an Unreliable Informant.

Trinidad police arrested 40 people in a 2013 "drug sting" after two 
detectives botched their investigation and intentionally used wrong 
or misleading information from an unreliable confidential informant, 
according to a lawsuit the ACLU of Colorado filed Thursday.

None of the 40 people arrested were convicted of drug-related 
offenses, and the informant later was convicted of perjury.

Now, two of the people who were falsely arrested- and ultimately 
fired because of false allegations they were selling drugs - are 
suing and seeking damages from the city of Trinidad, less than 15 
miles from the New Mexico state line, and the detectives who handled 
the case. The scathing, 41- page complaint, filed in U. S. District 
Court in Denver, names Detectives Phil Martin and Arsenio Vigil.

Danika Gonzales and Felicia Valdez claim their constitutional 
rightswere violated by being arrested without probable cause. The 
lawsuit says Vigil and Martin fabricated details and used unchecked 
information from an unreliable confidential informant to obtain 
warrants for their arrests.

"A modicum of police work would have revealed that both of these 
plaintiffs were innocent of all the charges against them," the complaint reads.

The charges against Gonzales and Valdez, who were arrested in 
December 2013, were dropped in June. The lawsuit alleges that Vigil 
and Martin's mishandling of the case was a result of the department's 
"conscious choice to have no policy regarding the use, supervision 
of, and reliance on confidential informants."

Investigators' mishandling of the case was first reported by Westword 
in November.

The same deficiencies found in the arrest warrants for Gonzales and 
Valdez were found in most of the 40 affidavits filed in the sting.

"It seems clear to me that at the Trinidad Police Department it is 
standard operating procedure to recruit snitches of unproven 
reliability and unleash them on the community with money and 
directives to buy drugs," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of 
ACLU Colorado. "The result of that is it is an open invitation for a 
manipulative and opportunistic snitch to take advantage of that."

Trinidad City Attorney Les Downs declined to comment Thursday. The 
officers' disciplinary records were not available immediately from the city.

Feud not probed

Crystal Bachicha was one of two confidential informants the 
detectives received information from while investigating the sting. A 
woman who answered at a number listed for Bachicha declined to 
comment Thursday.

According to the complaint, Vigil and Martin knew Gonzales was a 
probation officer, but they did not reveal she was Bachicha's former 
probation officer. They also did not disclose a long-standing feud 
between Bachicha and Valdez.

The possibility that Bachicha was using her position as a 
confidential informant to settle personal scores was not investigated 
or included on either warrant. Information challenging Bachicha's 
credibility also was withheld from the affidavits, including an 
arrest for allegedly trying to obtain prescription drugs illegally 
while she was working as an informant.

Detectives also did not reveal that Bachicha agreed to work as an 
informant in exchange for the dismissal of pending felony charges by 
3rd Judicial District Attorney Frank Ruybalid, according to the complaint.

Ruybalid, who says several accusations in the complaint are 
inaccurate, said he reviewed Bachicha's case after police informed 
him she would be working as an informant. He said he dismissed the 
charges because they lacked merit. Bachicha ruined her credibility as 
an informant after she testified in court in one of the drug cases 
that she never worked for the Trinidad police, he said.

"It pretty much destroyed my ability to prosecute any of these 
cases," Ruybalid said. "I have no confidence that she is ever going 
to tell the truth again."

Bachicha was convicted of perjury in November.

Informant got $ 3,085

In March, Ruybalid is set to go on trial before a three member 
disciplinary panel for allegations that he and his prosecutors 
mishandled a slew of criminal cases since 2010.

Bachicha netted $ 3,085 from Trinidad police for providing 
information. Detectives testified the amount of Bachicha's payments 
was strictly based on the types of drugs she bought, but evidence 
shows she was paid the most for information about Gonzales and an 
administrative assistant who worked at City Hall, Silverstein said.

"Gonzales is a PROBATION OFFICER," Vigil wrote in the affidavit.

The affidavit claimed that on two occasions Gonzales sold Bachicha 
drugs inside the courthouse where she worked. But Vigil and Martin 
did not witness any alleged drug buys and they did not pull security 
videos from the courthouse to confirm the exchange happened, 
according to the complaint.

"Instead of engaging in this type of basic police work, Defendants 
Vigil and Martin chose to take CI Bachicha at her word," the complaint says.

Investigators also did not witness any of the buys Valdez was accused 
of making. Valdez lost her job with the Trinidad school district, and 
she and her children were evicted from their subsidized housing 
because of the arrest.

Five months after Gonzales was arrested, lab tests from the Colorado 
Bureau of Investigation revealed that what Bachicha said was heroin 
she purchased from Gonzales was actually a mixture of codeine and a 
marijuana component. Vigil wrote in the affidavit that a field test 
was positive for methamphetamine.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom