DOCUMENTS FOCUS OF CASE

Officer denies state charges that he falsified reports on fake drugs

It's the same fake-drug scandal and the same Dallas
police narcotics detective acquitted in November by a federal jury.
Yet some things will be different when the Mark Delapaz case is heard
in state court. Just as he did in his federal civil rights trial, the
former officer faces allegations that he knowingly submitted false
police reports in some of the bogus drug arrests he made in 2001.

But new state charges resulting from special prosecutor Dan Hagood's
investigation involve documents and allegations about some fake-drug
arrests that the federal jury never considered, according to the
indictments. The forum and legal charges also are different.

"It's less about violations of civil rights and more about false
documents," said Barry Sorrels, a Dallas defense lawyer. "The federal
prosecution accused Officer Delapaz of intentionally participating in
illegal arrests of innocent people. , In this case, he's being accused
of knowingly presenting false police records."

Last year's federal case centered on whether Mr. Delapaz violated the
rights of four Hispanic immigrants he arrested on felony drug charges.
Their arrests - and those of at least 20 other people in 2001 -
unraveled when laboratory tests showed that the evidence in most cases
was billiards chalk with little or no controlled substances.

A group of police informants, who were paid based on the quantity of
narcotics they helped seize, testified that greed prompted them to
fabricate the drugs and frame the people, duping officers.

In laying out their civil rights case, federal prosecutors from
Washington, D.C., argued that Mr. Delapaz lied in the reports and to
the district attorney's office about details of the fake-drug arrests,
depriving those taken to jail of their constitutional rights.

The federal prosecutors did not allege that Mr. Delapaz, who was fired
April 19, knew of the informants' conspiracy. They said the scheme
would not have worked without his written reports that he saw drug
transactions that didn't occur. The federal jurors signaled after
their not guilty verdict that some on the panel believed Mr. Delapaz
might have lied to make what he believed were solid cases stick.
Ultimately, they didn't believe the officer intended to imprison
innocent people, some jurors said.

May 7 hearing The state grand jury indicted Mr. Delapaz on April 15,
prompting the Police Department to fire him a few days later. The next
hearing is scheduled for May 7. It could be months before the cases
make it to trial. Paul Coggins, Mr. Delapaz's attorney now and during
the federal case, said his client made "no knowingly false
statements." He called the state indictments "redundant" and a "waste
of resources" because federal authorities had nearly two years to
aggressively investigate his client. "What's happening with this
double prosecution , is hugely unfair," Mr. Coggins said. "I've never
seen anyone undergo the degree of scrutiny that Mark has." John
Teakell, a Dallas defense lawyer familiar with the case, said the
special prosecutor can legally bring charges similar to those in the
federal trial. He also believes some of the elements of the cases -
civil rights charges vs. allegations of evidence tampering - are
different. Still, he wonders what motivated the prosecutors to seek
the indictments. "I would say it's rather unusual that the state is
following up after a federal trial," he said. "On its face, it seems
unfair." There are similarities between the two cases in that three of
the four people arrested with bogus drugs and highlighted in the
federal trial are cited in the new state indictments. Yet other
indictments brought by the grand jury relate to the false arrests of
four people not mentioned in the federal case.In addition to arrest
reports, which federal prosecutors cited often, the state indictments
also concern narcotics evidence tags, drug-buy reports and questions
about whether officers actually tested the evidence with their small
field kits - all topics that were not central to the federal trial.

The state case also brought the first indictment of a member of Mr.
Delapaz's small narcotics squad of Dallas officers trained to
investigate street-level deals. Most were involved in some way in the
fake-drug arrests. 2nd officer indicted The grand jury indicted former
officer Jeff Haywood, who played a supporting role in two of the
cases, records show, by stating that he got a positive test result on
drug evidence that a laboratory later discovered was billiards chalk.

Mr. Haywood, who left the department in October 2001 to work as a
federal air marshal, talked to the FBI and testified before a federal
grand jury investigating the case. He was never charged by federal
authorities and did not testify at Mr. Delapaz's trial.

The indictments allege that he submitted false prosecution reports and
a narcotics evidence tag after two men were arrested with fake
methamphetamines in May 2001.

"The accusation is that he didn't field-test the stuff. I don't see
how they are coming to that conclusion," said Mr. Haywood's attorney,
Peter Barrett of Dallas. "Why didn't it come out in the federal trial?
My guess is that they felt they couldn't prove it."

Federal prosecutors said in a pretrial hearing that the tests were
irrelevant because they occurred after Mr. Delapaz made arrests.
Accurate field-test results might have allowed those arrested to be
released sooner, but the federal case against Mr. Delapaz centered on
the wrongful arrests, not how long the victims spent in jail, they
argued.

Staff writer Robert Tharp contributed to this report.