WHO DROPPED THE BALL IN INFORMANT CASE?

One man was actually on a flight to Chicago when police said he sold
them drugs on the streets of Mansfield.

Another suspected dealer, a 6-foot-4 giant with a gap-toothed smile,
was mistaken in a cocaine buy for someone nearly a foot shorter and
70 pounds lighter.

In another case, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent picked a
woman out of a lineup who he said sold him drugs -- with the agent
using a sixthgrade class picture that was more than 10 years old.

All of these deals were fiction, made up by government informant Jerrell Bray.

But in spite of what should have been obvious red flags in Bray's
stories, federal prosecutors built a sweeping drug conspiracy against
26 people in Mansfield. Eighteen went to prison, collectively
sentenced to more than 90 years in prison.

Last week, prosecutors were forced to take it all back. They went to
a judge and asked that 15 men convicted in the case be released from
prison. So far, 23 of 26 cases have been tossed out by judges or juries.

U.S. Attorney Greg White supervised the cases -- cases he now
regrets. A review of the record raises numerous questions about
whether the cases should have been pursued in the first place. The
issues raised go to the heart of the fundamental fairness of the
justice system.

Questions about the credibility of the case's star witnesses came up
early, police agencies ran a haphazard investigation, and drug agents
failed to monitor their own informant, according to court records and
interviews.

Surveillance, a typical tactic in drug cases, was lacking. And when
videotapes were used, prosecutors seemed to ignore them, as tall
suspects were charged when the camera recorded short men. In one
case, a jury watched a tape and acquitted an accused man in five
minutes. Still, prosecutors went forward with the cases.

Families of the men sent to prison want to know why.

They also wonder why prosecutors failed to see gaping holes and why
they didn't press for more and better information before asking a
judge and jury to send dozens of people, overwhelmingly poor and
black, to prison.

Interviews with the men's families and their attorneys, as well as a
review of the court records, indicate these problems existed:

Prosecutors knew early about problems with their star witnesses' credibility.

Informant Jerrell Bray and DEA agent Lee Lucas said that on Oct. 5,
2005, they purchased more than 50 grams of crack cocaine in Mansfield
from Roosevelt Williams, a Chicago man who had a girlfriend in Ohio.

One problem:

Williams wasn't in Mansfield on Oct. 5. He had flown back to Chicago
to see a sick relative. His attorney, Harvey Bruner, obtained airline
records, including a boarding pass and flight manifest, that backed
up Williams' story. Bruner turned the documents over to prosecutors.

There were other problems with the sale:

Williams was born in Alabama and had a thick southern accent. The
person heard on tape selling drugs to Lucas and Bray on Oct. 5 lacked
any hint of an accent.

Prosecutors eventually agreed to drop the charge against Williams.
But in the next few months, six other people went to trial for
Mansfield drug deals involving Bray.

They claimed, like Williams, that the informant concocted the deals.

Court rules require prosecutors to turn over any evidence that could
help exonerate the accused. Some attorneys who represented the six
said Blas Serrano, the federal prosecutor handling the cases, should
have alerted them about the concerns in the Williams case, so the
credibility issue could be raised during trial.

It's unclear whether problems in the Williams case gave prosecutors
pause about their other cases, or Bray and Lucas' veracity. Lucas, a
17-year DEA veteran, has declined to comment about the cases.

Surveillance, typical in drug cases, was lacking.

When federal agents targeted the drug trade around the Cedar Estates
housing project in Cleveland last year, their investigation included
dozens of hours of secretly recorded videotapes, shot by both police
and undercover informants. In the Mansfield case, agents recorded
almost no surveillance tapes.

If police had bothered to follow suspected dealers and stake out
their homes, they would have known immediately that Bray was running
a scam, defense attorneys said.

Basic surveillance practices also would have prevented authorities
from making one of their biggest blunders in the case: using a
sixth-grade photograph to identify Geneva France as a drug dealer.

France, then a 22-year-old mother of three children, had never been
in trouble in her life. She was sent to prison largely on the
testimony of Lucas, the federal agent who said he was sure he bought
cocaine from her.

Lucas testified in France's trial that he confirmed her name and
identity through a photograph of her. He never disclosed that the
picture of France was more than a decade old. Jurors and France's
lawyer never saw the photograph.

Two years after France was convicted, a Justice Department
investigator showed defense attorney Ed Mullin the picture of France
as a student at Malabar Junior High School.

"I couldn't believe it," Mullin said. "It was a picture of a little girl."

Police failed to monitor their own informant.

Bray pocketed tens of thousands of dollars working with the DEA and
Richland County Sheriff's Office while Lucas and other officers watched.

The agency paid him about $600 to buy cocaine from drug dealers. But
Bray stole thousands of dollars in buy money, as well, according to
defense attorneys and court testimony.

In several deals, Bray supplied the cocaine to friends, who then sold
the drugs to Lucas, who was working undercover. Later, Bray would
meet with the friends and collect the buy money handed over by Lucas,
giving his friends a small fee for their trouble, according to
testimony and defense attorneys.

It's unclear why police weren't monitoring the supposed drug dealers.
If they had been, they might have realized Bray was regularly meeting
with them on the side.

Bray's actions underscore a fear for judges and prosecutors in the
federal system, where drug cases are built on informants. "They can
penetrate the criminal element," said Geoffrey Mearns, a former
federal prosecutor who is dean of the Cleveland-Marshall College of
Law at Cleveland State University. "But if they are not watched
closely and independently by law enforcement and prosecutors, then
the damage that they can do is similar to when there is cancer in an
isolated area of a body that soon spreads throughout it."

No one noticed the heights of suspects.

Lucas and Bray said they bought cocaine from Joshawa Webb, who is at
least 6 feet 4 and weighs about 280 pounds.

Webb also flashes a smile that includes a missing tooth and has arms
covered in tattoos.

Webb sat in jail for 20 months, claiming that he had nothing to do
with the sale. In the end, authorities determined that Jeremiah
Conrad, a friend of Bray's, was the man who sold drugs that day to
Lucas and Bray.

Conrad is shorter and leaner than Webb. Also, there's no gap in Conrad's smile.

Years after the deal, Conrad told authorities that Bray and Lucas
orchestrated the sale. In another case, Bray and Lucas said they
bought cocaine from Lowestco Ballard. Lucas testified that he was
within two or three feet of Ballard at the time of the deal and knew
it was him, according to court records.

Ballard is 6 feet 6 and weighs about 180 pounds. In one of the few
videotapes used in the case, it is clear that the person who sold the
drugs to Lucas is shorter and heavier. The man involved in the deal
was 5 feet 9.

A jury acquitted Ballard after deliberating only five minutes. "In
the movies, you see what police and judges can do to a person," said
Ballard, whose mother works at the Mansfield Police Department as an
aide. "But then, when you get in the system, you really see what
police and judges can do. It's unbelievable."