DRUG CASE RAISES ETHICAL QUESTIONS

A first-of-its-kind drug case in Lynchburg sent a jury home Monday
afternoon without a verdict.

But the prosecution of Gregory Usry Sr. poses a troubling question about
the ethics of police in the recruiting and use of drug informants.

Is it ever acceptable for a police officer to lie under oath, even to
protect a drug informant?

Deliberations in the case will continue today in Lynchburg Circuit Court
after the jury considered evidence in the case for about three hours Monday
afternoon.

Usry was charged with maintaining a fortified drug house at 1915 Bluff
Street until police raided the residence five days before Christmas.

"As far as I can see, it was the first prosecution under this statute in
Virginia," Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Michael Doucette said.

To make his case, Doucette had police cadets haul in a 300-pound door,
which had been framed with sheet metal on both sides and adorned with an
even heavier metal plate surrounding its deadbolt lock.

Police said the door buttressed a no windows-no escape fortress in Usry's
basement. Police found baggies of cocaine and marijuana scattered around
the basement when a police department tactical unit entered Dec. 20.

"One of the problems with a fortress is that just as there is no way in,
there is no way out," Doucette said in opening arguments. "Strongpoints
designed to keep people out often have the mirror effect of keeping people
in. Forts become prisons."

Fort Usry had some interesting features.

For starters, police found about six or seven people hanging out in the
basement a few minutes after the tactical team tapped on the door with a
50-pound battering ram.

No answer.

Three or four taps later no one came to the door.

So, police decided to serve their search warrant upstairs on the first floor.

After walking in, police still found no inside door to the basement, so
they returned to the basement door and started yelling, "Police."

Suddenly, the door swung open in the poorly-lit basement and police found
the people lying on the floor inside with their hands reaching out.

One by one, police took the people out of the basement and questioned them
upstairs.

When they searched Usry, they found $920 in cash on his person.

Inside the basement, bags of marijuana and suspected cocaine were tucked
under baseboard and hidden behind water pipes.

Near one rock of crack cocaine, police found a water pipe used for smoking
marijuana.

Police found a total of 11 1/2 grams of cocaine in the house. Its street
value was more than $1,000.

The basement was also cluttered with chairs, beer, tools and some video games.

But it was upstairs on the second floor where police made their most
intriguing find.

Usry provided them a key for a small, locked safe, which contained more
than $6,300 in cash. A count showed that more than $620 of it was in rolled
coins.

But Usry's girlfriend, Brenda Haworth, testified the money was her's.

She said she kept the coins for making change on a soft drink and potato
chip concession she ran out of the basement.

She said the bills were her lottery earnings.

De Bruin produced two receipts to show Haworth had won several thousand
dollars in the lottery the past couple of years.

"That's a lot of potato chips," Doucette observed.

But the lead narcotics officer in the case said Usry was trading in his
chips during a meeting with police following the December raid.

The narcotics officer said Usry started making overtures about wanting to
become an informant shortly after his arrest. The officer is not named
because he is involved in continuing narcotics investigations.

"You missed it," the narcotics officer quoted Usry as saying.

The officer said Usry told him that a kilo of freshly cut cocaine had just
left the house immediately before police arrived.

The street value of the drug would be more than $100,000.

During the next several weeks, the narcotics officer and Usry started
discussing terms for using Usry as an informant, the officer said.

On the day of Usry's preliminary hearing, the narcotics officer said he was
still trying to protect Usry as a potential informant.

When defense attorney Scott De Bruin asked the officer if Usry had
acknowledged knowing anything about any narcotics found in the house, the
officer testified that he had not.

De Bruin argued to the jury that if a police officer made a misleading
statement under oath at the preliminary hearing, he would do it again.

"What we have here is a lie," De Bruin said in his closing argument. "It
was a lie about what occurred."

Drawing on more publicized court cases, De Bruin beckoned images of police
abuses like lying in the O.J. Simpson case or the racially- motivated
Ramparts police scandal in Los Angeles.

"We can't sit back and say Lynchburg is not Los Angeles," De Bruin said.
"We've seen it here today."