CENTAC'S BLACK EYE

County's drug task force needs to make changes if it is to justify its
existence and be an asset to justice

Robert Tilton, the Stow police chief, scored an unintentional
bulls-eye with his assessment of CenTac, Summit County's Central
Tactical Unit. Said Tilton: ``I think that CenTac's record speaks for
itself.'' Indeed, CenTac's record does.

CenTac's record speaks to both accomplishments that Tilton meant to
praise and to dysfunctional behavior that has thrown it into a crisis.

CenTac has gone off the track it was meant to travel. Established in
1987, the task force's charge was to use personnel from the many law
enforcement agencies in Summit County to pursue ``targeted, major
organized crime or narcotic type criminal investigations.'' It had
successes.

In 1988, CenTac arrested brothers Albert and Thomas Thrower for a
marijuana trafficking operation. The Throwers made a deal and
forfeited in a plea bargain $3 million in cars, boats and rental
properties. That established a pattern that made CenTac financially
independent and virtually unaccountable as it moved beyond drugs.

Secrecy surrounds CenTac. The extremes the task force has gone to to
guard its independence have become part of the problem. Its operatives
share too little information with the governing board of police chiefs.

Sheriff Richard Warren, the nominal head of the CenTac governing
board, knew too few specifics during the recent escorts case to know
that CenTac agents were listening through motel walls while stakeout
subjects had sex and that informants were buying sex with CenTac
drug-buy money.

What Warren and the board should have realized without being told was
that CenTac had stepped beyond the bounds its mission when it went
after escort services sex as racketeering. It wasn't the first time
CenTac had strayed. It has been doing this since 1990 and Spa 77, a
prostitution case.

Criticized by the state Office of Criminal Justice Services for
spending too much for too few results, CenTac began casting a wider
net. Prosecutors still used -- more accurately, misused -- the state's
racketeering laws (Little RICO) to go after big drug dealers and
organizations, but CenTac also went after food stamp scams, a jewel
thief with a bounty to seize and escorts.

Instead of reining in CenTac, Judie Bandy, the senior assistant
prosecutor assigned to work with the task force, became a part of the
problem -- filing excessive charges that became the hammer to nail
down plea bargains with good, if overstated, returns.

If CenTac's tactics prompted deals that looked good on the conviction
ledger, they came through intimidation and use of the law in such a
way that prompted defense attorneys and their clients not to even try,
as Bandy's boss, Prosecutor Michael Callahan, put it, to ``roll the
dice.'' That undermines public confidence in the justice system.

At some point, CenTac's cases turned into causes. Now, Warren and
others must make a case for why CenTac should continue to exist, for
why its roughshod justice should not be replaced by that of individual
police forces.

Changes are being made. Officers will be rotated in and out of the
task force. No one assistant prosecutor will work with CenTac. The
state auditor is conducting the first audit of CenTac. Warren has
asked County Council to pay $53,500 for a second audit by the Southern
Police Institute.

Before faith is restored in CenTac, more will be necessary, including
the legislature revisiting how state racketeering laws are used.
Prosecutor Callahan, who withdrew from the CenTac board, should
reconsider. CenTac needs the oversight the prosecutor can provide if
he and chiefs are given a thorough accounting of activities.

Most important, Callahan should separate property seizures from plea
bargains. Other task forces do this because it's part of playing fair,
even with the bad guys. CenTac chose to play rough. Now it has a black
eye.