GARY COP CHARGED IN DRUG DEALERS' DEATHS

A Gary police officer has been indicted on charges he murdered two drug
dealers on behalf of the leader of a notorious drug organization,
prosecutors said Monday.

James Ervin, 30, a police officer since 1992, was charged along with drug
dealer Jay Zambrana and two of Zambrana's associates with the 1998 slaying.

Ervin and one of the associates, Gabriel Benavides, strangled the two drug
dealers after Ervin arrested them at the request of Zambrana and stole nine
kilos of their cocaine, prosecutors alleged.

The victims, Raul Hurtado and Gil Nevarez, were lured from the Chicago area
to Indiana on the ruse of doing a drug deal.

Ervin later drove the men's bodies back in their car to the South Side
Chicago neighborhood where Ervin grew up, prosecutors said. The car with
the bodies inside was torched, they said.

Zambrana and one of his workers, Luis Perez, also were charged with murder
for their alleged role in planning the killings, authorities said.

The four men are eligible for the death penalty, but no decision has been
made on whether to seek it, said David Capp, U.S. attorney for the Northern
District of Indiana.

Ervin also was charged with ripping off two other drug dealers of $275,000
while he was on duty and in a marked squad car in January 1999. Those drug
dealers weren't harmed.

Additional charges were brought against another Gary officer involved in
the Zambrana organization, prosecutors said Monday. Officer Luis Roman was
charged with money-laundering for allegedly buying a 1999 Pontiac Trans Am
and a 1999 GMC Yukon with illegal drug proceeds.

Of the 15 indicted so far in the drug organization, seven have pleaded
guilty and two are still at large, including Benavides, who is believed to
be in Mexico.

The Gary police department has begun termination proceedings against both
officers, who have been suspended.