JURY: DRUG ARREST WAS A SETUP

A federal jury has slapped a $250,000 verdict against a pair of undercover
Provo City police officers who purportedly entrapped two Las Vegas stereo
salesmen on drug charges.

The jury found against officers Devon Jensen and Russell Billings for false
arrest and malicious prosecution in U.S. District Court on Saturday. Jensen
and Billings will remain on the force, said Provo police Capt. Keith
Teuscher. Paul Kazanofski, 32, and Arthur Gallerani, 34, were arrested in
March 1996 on charges of second-degree felony distribution of marijuana.
Months later, the case against the men was proceeding to trial when 4th
District Judge Lynn Davis dismissed the charges after a hearing on the
issue of police entrapment.

During a trial this month in the federal civil rights case, attorney
Kathryn Collard said the undercover officers had foisted the marijuana on
her clients despite their protests that they did not want or use drugs.
"It's a great thing to know that sort of police conduct and abuse won't be
tolerated and that a jury will sock it to cops who do that," Collard said
Monday. "This war on drugs got completely out of hand." The two Las Vegas
men were selling stereo speakers out of a van five years ago in a Provo
bank parking lot when they met Jensen. Collard said her clients saw
Jensen's long hair, figured he was a musician and asked if he would like to
buy speakers.

The undercover officer allegedly said, "I'll give you $500 and some
'green.' " "What's 'green' ?" one of the men purportedly replied. Jensen
answered "marijuana," Collard said, but the men replied, "We just want money."

Jensen asked the salesmen to follow him to an Orem park-and-ride lot --
which under Utah law is listed as a drug-free zone, where penalties for
drug offenses are harsher.

Billings, who the men thought was coming to pay for the speakers, arrived
and allegedly plopped a paper sack full of drugs on the van's front seat.
The two men again protested they did not want drugs, Collard said, but were
then arrested on drug distribution charges.

Despite the verdict, Provo City Attorney Dave Dixon told The Associated
Press the arrest was valid and that no sanctions were expected against
Billings and Jensen. "It was clearly a case of he-said, he-said, with the
jury ending up believing the plaintiffs," Dixon said.