MORE 'BAD ACTS' DESCRIBED IN DETECTIVE'S CORRUPTION TRIAL

Dallas: Ex-Partner Recounts Faked Reports, Perjury, Theft

Eddie Herrera poured his heart out on the witness stand Monday during
the punishment phase of former Dallas police narcotics detective Mark
Delapaz's corruption trial.

Turning on his former partner and one-time friend in court, Mr.
Herrera described a work culture of lying and stealing that climaxed
with the 2001 fake-drug scandal.

Rarely looking to his right where Mr. Delapaz faced him, Mr. Herrera
recounted how Mr. Delapaz first taught him to fudge police accounting
reports and skim small amounts of police money intended for making
undercover drug deals.

Nearly $500,000 in cash passed through Mr. Delapaz's hands in 2001,
and investigators now say much of the paperwork is
questionable.

Allegations of theft are just some of the "bad acts" that prosecutors
are parading before jurors deliberating Mr. Delapaz's punishment.

On Friday, the 2001 Officer of the Year nominee was convicted of
aggravated perjury and fabricating/tampering with physical evidence
stemming from the wrongful arrest of an innocent man in August 2001.

Mr. Herrera said the stealing had started small - enough to buy lunch
or some beer.

"We knew nobody would question us about how much money we spent - it
was easy to do," he said.

By 2001, Mr. Herrera said, his partner had taken it to a much higher
level. Mr. Delapaz routinely forged the signatures on accounting
reports documenting large cash payments to confidential informants.
Mr. Herrera also testified that he had covered for Mr. Delapaz by
erroneously saying that he had witnessed many of those payments.

At least 16 payment reports indicate that Mr. Herrera witnessed Mr.
Delapaz paying $176,650 in cash payments to informants. Mr. Herrera
testified Monday that he was not present to witness those payments and
was on vacation or sick leave on many of the dates.

Later, as questions rose over the questionable cases and both officers
were placed on desk duty and later fired, Mr. Herrera said he had met
with Mr. Delapaz to coordinate and corroborate their stories.

"We decided that I'd say that I went in on my days off to help him
out," he said.

The two also met with one of the informants to talk about what to tell
FBI investigators.

"He told him to make sure that he says he signed all the reports and
received all his money," he said.

Mr. Herrera admitted to lying to two grand juries, as well as FBI
investigators. He has been indicted on charges of aggravated perjury
and tampering/fabricating physical evidence and is cooperating with
prosecutors in the hope of receiving leniency.

Mr. Delapaz faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, which
could be tacked on top of the five-year sentence he received in April
2005 for lying to a judge about a search warrant. He has been free on
bail while that conviction is on appeal.

More than two-dozen people were wrongly arrested by Mr. Delapaz and
his crooked informants in 2001. The informants have admitted to
fabricating phony drugs out of crushed pool chalk and setting up
innocent people for arrest.

Mr. Herrera said Mr. Delapaz rarely scrutinized his informants or
conducted real surveillance to verify what was going on. He said he
had often made up details of his reports to back up Mr. Delapaz.

Some of the victims described their ordeal in court Monday. Jacinto
Mejia cried as he told the jury how his family had to go on food
stamps and sell their valuables while he was in jail for five months.

"It was difficult because I have children," he said. "The difficult
part was when I would call home and my daughter answered the phone,
she'd just cry and scream; she couldn't say any words."