APPEAL MAY HINGE ON CHIEF'S CREDIBILITY

A man convicted of possessing crack cocaine claims he was framed by two St.
Louis police officers later found to have made false charges in other cases.

But federal prosecutors say testimony from another officer present,
then-Lt. Col. Joe Mokwa, puts the veracity of the case beyond doubt. Mokwa
is now St. Louis chief of police.

Sylvester Evans is asking the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St.
Louis to overturn his 1998 conviction and 11-year sentence based on the
conduct of the two discredited officers.

Officer Reginald A. Williams was convicted in April of obstruction of
justice and other crimes for making up bogus crack charges against two men.
Prosecutors called him a "rogue cop" who carried out a series of bogus
arrests. His sentencing is set for Sept. 16.

Officer Timothy H. Moore resigned in 2002 after an internal investigation
concluded that he fabricated a bogus charge claiming his ex-wife engaged in
lewd sexual conduct outside a Soulard neighborhood bar.

The Police Department's effort to fire Moore led to a hearing that raised
questions about his conduct. His ex-wife testified in 2003 that she once
found cocaine in their home and that he told her it was to "plant" on suspects.

Reached by a reporter, Moore declined to comment on his ex-wife's testimony.

After Williams was indicted last year, federal prosecutors dropped drug
charges against Anthony J. Thompson, who had been convicted in 2000 and
sentenced to 14 years. Officials said the only witnesses against him, Moore
and Williams, were not reliable. Thompson was released from prison.

Evans testified in his trial in 1998 that he never possessed the drugs the
two officers swore were found in his home. He claimed the police conspired
against him in response to white neighbors who were in a racial conflict
with Evans, who is black.

Police said that Evans, who had a prior drug conviction, signed a statement
admitting the drugs were his. Evans said he signed without understanding
it, and only after Mokwa threatened him and other officers struck him and
called him by a racial epithet.

Mokwa, Moore and Williams denied it.

After a jury found Evans guilty, he appealed and lost. Now he is trying to
reopen his appeal, claiming that new evidence of the false statements by
Williams and Moore support his claim.

Evans claims that statements by Moore and Williams in his trial were
critical to his conviction. "This was the only testimony directly linking
Sylvester Evans to the cocaine base," he wrote in a brief filed on his own
behalf.

Federal prosecutors say Evans' case is different from Thompson's. That
difference is Mokwa, who testified that he found more than 7 of the
approximately 9 grams of drugs that police said were in Evans' home,
prosecutors said.

"Mr. Evans was not convicted solely on the basis of the testimony of the
now discredited officers," Assistant U.S. Attorney Sirena Wissler said in a
reply to Evans' claims. Noting testimony by Mokwa and another officer, who
said he saw a gun in Evans' possession, Wissler wrote, "The government
provided substantial credible evidence in addition to the testimony of
Williams and Moore."

Williams had testified that after Evans was arrested about 3:20 p.m. on
March 27, 1998, officers used a battering ram to enter his home in the 7300
block of Vermont Avenue to serve a search warrant. Williams said he went
first, to make sure the house was safe. He testified that he later found
plastic bags of crack cocaine hidden above the door of a small closet off
the kitchen.

Moore testified that he searched the basement and found a scale and a small
amount of marijuana. Mokwa testified that he searched a chest of drawers in
the bedroom, finding "two plastic baggies." One contained a big rock of
crack, the other held powdered cocaine, he testified.