Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 Source: San Antonio Express-News (TX) Copyright: 1999 San Antonio Express-News Contact: http://www.expressnews.com/ Forum: http://data.express-news.net:2080/eshare/server?action4 Author: Dane Schiller, and Maro Robbins, Express-News Staff Writers STATES SEEKING FUNDS FROM WASHINGTON FOR DRUG CASES LAREDO — A battle is brewing between state and federal officials over who should prosecute minor drug cases, known as "border busts," made by federal agents guarding the U.S.-Mexico border. Joe Rubio, Webb County's district attorney, launched a flare seen all the way to Washington in October 1997 when he said he would no longer take such cases unless the federal government reimbursed him for the cost of the prosecutions. As a result, the Justice Department has had to scramble to find new ways to prosecute hundreds of area cases. For years, Webb County and virtually every other border jurisdiction prosecuted defendants arrested along highways or at international bridges with narcotics stashes considered too small to push through federal court. But seemingly minor cases added up to a huge drain on county resources, federal and state officials concede. "It was costing Webb County one million dollars a year. I was just asking them to pay us," Rubio said recently. "It was a sweetheart deal for them," he said of federal authorities. Martha Chase, county attorney for Santa Fe County, Ariz., population 20,000, is also refusing to accept minor drug cases from the federal government. "It is a matter of resources and the feeling it is a federal agency that made a stop on the border where the federal government has jurisdiction. Why turn it over to a small, impoverished county?" Chase asked. John Kelly, the Justice Department's lead prosecutor along the U.S.-Mexico border, has said counties need more reimbursement as they feel the brunt of federal law-enforcement policies. He and Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton administration's drug czar, are trying to find drug war grants and other resources to ease the strain on border counties. "As you get out into more remote areas, we get bigger challenges getting the resources we need," Kelly said of prosecutions along the border. "What has been a solution in San Diego or El Paso is not necessarily the solution in McAllen or Laredo," said Kelly, who is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New Mexico and is based in Albuquerque. Kelly said more prosecutors have been sent to the border, including doubling the number in Laredo since Rubio's policy shift. Bill Blagg, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, which is based in San Antonio, said his staff is prosecuting smaller drug cases to help relieve pressure on local district attorneys. "I felt like I had to do something so we did not swamp them," Blagg said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake