COP'S ARREST TAINTS DRUG CASES

DA Drops Charges in 37 Prosecutions

As a member of the New Orleans Police Department's 4th District task
force, officer Joseph Lusk was involved in a plethora of Algiers drug
busts, arresting people for dealing or using illegal drugs.

Lusk's own arrest last month on suspicion of malfeasance in office
means 37 of those cases have been dropped so far by the Orleans
Parish district attorney's office -- whose prosecutors can't press
forward on cases with an allegedly corrupt cop as a main witness.

Each case needed to be evaluated to determine whether Lusk was an
"essential witness," or whether prosecutors could go forward without
his testimony, relying on other NOPD officers, said District Attorney
Keva Landrum-Johnson. Almost all of the cases involve drugs -- save
for the battery of a police officer charge in which Lusk was the
alleged victim, an office spokesman said. "Once an officer is under
investigation of any sort, we wouldn't want to call him to testify
for us," Landrum-Johnson said.

Arrested April 16

Lusk was arrested by his department's Public Integrity Bureau on
April 16 amid allegations he tipped off a woman about a drug location
under surveillance on the West Bank.

This female acquaintance, Inger Hurst, allegedly told 4th District
officers about the text-messaged tip-off -- which Hurst said was
meant to help her evade arrest for her drug purchases -- when she was
picked up the next day on suspicion of crack possession.

Lusk, who resigned from the NOPD the week of Hurst's arrest, was
booked the following week with malfeasance. The DA's office expects
to present his case to a grand jury next month, said Robert White,
the assistant district attorney in charge of the office's public
corruption unit.

Challenging Police Version

Lusk's attorney, Frank DeSalvo, has challenged the police version of
what happened between Hurst and Lusk, saying the officer can explain
what happened. To some observers of the criminal justice system,
Lusk's case demonstrates the ripple effect of police officers who are
subsequently busted for wrongdoing, even before they are convicted of
any offense.

"It goes much deeper than the damage that is done in the mind and
eyes of the public, in undermining the public's confidence in the
criminal justice system," said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the
Metropolitan Crime Commission.

In addition to the pending cases, prosecutors should expect
defendants convicted on the basis of Lusk's testimony to file
appeals, Goyeneche said.

"They have new evidence that an essential state witness is
untrustworthy," he said.

Although Lusk was often out on patrol with a partner, prosecutors
sometimes decided to drop the case if Lusk was the only one to
perform a key task, such as depositing seized drugs in the police
evidence room, Landrum-Johnson said.

During a trial, prosecutors need to be able to put on the stand the
officer who handled the evidence collection in order to establish the
chain of custody, she said.

"It is not just what happened on the scene," Landrum-Johnson said.
"We have to look at it from the very beginning to the end."

Dropping Drug Cases

In one case that was dropped, Lusk and his partner, officer Brian
Sullivan, arrested two men on Newton Street after watching a
"hand-to-hand" crack sale in early March, according to a brief police
report in the court file. When the officers approached the pair,
Sullivan reached into the right-front pocket of Larry Robinson, 42,
finding one crack rock. Lusk frisked Terry Ealy, 18, discovering
eight rocks and $10, according to the report.

Last week, the district attorney's office released Ealy from the
charge of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, while
still moving forward with the prosecution of Robinson.

A defendant in another case, Albert Washington, was about to plead
guilty to drug charges in order to get into drug court when the
district attorney dropped the case because of Lusk's involvement,
said John Fuller, his attorney.

But Fuller applauded the DA for not moving forward with a tainted
police witness.

"I think the DA office's hands were tied on this one," he said.

Raising New Questions

Defense attorney Harry Tervalon said he raised questions about a Lusk
investigation into the bust of three people for drug dealing even
before the officer was arrested.

Lusk was tipped off by a "concerned citizen" that drug dealing was
going on at a house on Teche Street and set up surveillance himself,
writing in a police report that he watched four drug transactions,
Tervalon said.

The officer filed a report detailing the time of these sales,
including one at 9:35 p.m. But according to the time notation on a
search warrant Lusk obtained that same evening in May 2007, at 9:40
p.m. he met with a magistrate commissioner to obtain the warrant to
search the house, Tervalon said.

Two men and a woman were arrested that night, including Tervalon's
client, Patrick Canty. All were charged with possession with intent
to distribute crack cocaine and marijuana.

Tervalon said he raised questions during a hearing held several weeks
before Lusk's own arrest about whether the officer's testimony could
be believed.

"The search warrant was signed at an impossible time, according to
the police report," said Tervalon, a former police officer himself.

After the officer's arrest, the DA dropped charges against all the defendants.

Although the DA dropped cases where Lusk was considered an "essential
witness," Tervalon said criminal defense attorneys will likely
attempt to bring up the officer's involvement in other cases at some
point during trials.

"He caused problems for a lot of good officers," he said.