JURORS ACQUIT EX-OFFICER IN DALLAS' FAKE-DRUG CASE

Delapaz May Get Job Back; Federal Inquiry Continues

Fired Dallas narcotics Detective Mark Delapaz walked out of a federal
courtroom Tuesday vowing to regain his police badge after jurors in his
federal civil-rights trial found him not guilty of lying about bogus drug
arrests that sent innocent people to jail.

Jurors deliberated for more than five hours before reaching a unanimous
not-guilty verdict on six federal charges that could have sent him to
prison for 10 years.

The jury's verdict is a mile marker in a nearly two-year federal
investigation that leaves several major questions unanswered, ranging from
the quality of oversight within the Dallas police narcotics division to the
practice of employing illegal immigrants to aid in the war on drugs. City
Attorney Madeleine Johnson said Tuesday night that she would offer Mr.
Delapaz his job back Wednesday. She said Mr. Delapaz had been on paid leave
until he was indicted, at which time he was fired.

But she emphasized that he faces further scrutiny. The FBI had asked the
city not to conduct an administrative investigation of Mr. Delapaz until
its criminal investigation was complete. "The next step will be an internal
or administrative investigation. ... Obviously, there are questions that
still need to be answered, and it's vital that we get to the bottom of this
whole issue," she said. Ms. Johnson said that because Mr. Delapaz was fired
based on his indictment, his acquittal meant that the basis for termination
was no longer valid. She declined to say whether Mr. Delapaz could face
dismissal again, and she would not speculate on when he might be back on
the job. FBI officials said they're continuing their fake-drugs
investigation. . Mr. Delapaz's former partner, Eddie Herrera, remains on
paid leave pending the investigation.

At least three federal lawsuits brought by those wrongfully arrested are
proceeding against the city and other individuals involved. FBI Special
Agent Lori Bailey, a department spokeswoman in Dallas, said investigators
would meet with Justice Department attorneys before deciding how to proceed.

"We realize the exigency of the situation," she said. "There's a lot of
issues of concern and a lot of parties involved. We expect to make that
decision as soon as we can."

'Best foot forward' Civil-rights charges often are difficult to prosecute,
but FBI investigators stand by their work in this case, Agent Bailey said.
"We put our best foot forward," she said. "We're satisfied with the effort
that we put forth. The justice system has done what it's intended to do."
The panel of nine women and three men began deliberations Monday afternoon
with three on the panel believing that Mr. Delapaz was guilty of lying in
arrest warrants, according to jurors.

The three holdouts changed their votes to not guilty after deciding that
the specific charge - that Mr. Delapaz had acted with "bad purpose and evil
intent" - made it seem as if he had intended to put innocent people in
jail, one of the original holdout jurors said after the trial. Mr. Delapaz
might have lied to make the allegations "stick," said the juror, speaking
on condition of anonymity, adding, "If he did lie at that moment, it wasn't
with some big evil intent to keep some innocent guy in jail." Jurors pored
over the trial testimony and highlighted discrepancies among various
witnesses' accounts, as well as the witnesses' previous grand jury
testimony, said the juror. Panel members generally thought that the four
confidential informants - themselves former drug dealers - had little
credibility in their testimony against the detective, she said. "There were
holes; there were questions; there were things we wanted to know that the
prosecution did not tell us," the juror said. Some jurors smiled as they
affirmed their verdict one by one while Mr. Delapaz clasped his hands
together in what looked like prayer. After verdicts for the six criminal
charges were read, his wife, Dallas police Officer Catherine Delapaz,
gasped and hugged him.

Jury forewoman Lashona Dunigan said most of the 5 1/2 hours of
deliberations were spent reviewing the case to support those opinions.
"Basically, the facts that the prosecution presented to us had a lot of
loopholes in them, per se," she said. "I believe that ... [Mr. Delapaz]
didn't lie, and I definitely believe that the prosecution should have
presented more evidence."

Mr. Delapaz faced misdemeanor charges of lying in police reports about
witnessing drug transactions arranged by his confidential informants. His
false statements generated enough probable cause to lead judges to approve
arrest warrants against the innocent people, prosecutors charged. In each
of the four arrests, the seized substances turned out to be almost entirely
billiards chalk. Mr. Delapaz, 36, was also charged with one felony count of
lying to a prosecutor and an FBI agent about the cases. Four informants
have admitted to fabricating fake drugs and arranging for innocent people
to be arrested. Their motivation: the Police Department's practice of
paying informants $1,000 cash for every kilogram of seized narcotics.
Police Department records show that the now-discredited informants were
paid more than $275,000 in 2001. But at least one informant has said
through his attorney that he did not receive many of the payments and that
his signature was forged.

Three Guilty Pleas

Three informants each pleaded guilty to a single civil-rights charge in
exchange for their cooperation in the FBI investigation. They remain in
custody and are awaiting sentencing. A fourth informant has not been
charged. At least two dozen narcotics arrests between April and October
2001 involved fake drugs, records show. Prosecutors ultimately dismissed
more than 80 felony cases because they were tainted by the involvement of
Mr. Delapaz and the informants.

Government prosecutors did not allege that Mr. Delapaz was part of the
informants' conspiracy to entrap innocent people, but they said the scheme
would not have worked without his written reports that said the drug
transactions occurred.

Prosecutors suggested that Mr. Delapaz lied in the reports because he was
motivated by the glory of making what he thought were large seizures of
cocaine. The informants, the innocent victims and independent witnesses to
the arrests all testified in the trial that transactions that Mr. Delapaz
described in his reports never occurred.

But lead defense attorney Paul Coggins, a former U.S. attorney, said he
realized that prosecutors had not conclusively proved their case last week.
Because of that, he said, he chose to present only one defense character
witness before resting his case.

"Everything that happened in this trial let me know even more forcefully
that this is a good man and an honest cop," Mr. Coggins said. He said Mr.
Delapaz deserved to be reinstated in the Dallas Police Department, where he
had worked for 13 years before being fired in April when he was indicted on
the federal charges.

"He did his job well. It was the only job he ever had, the only job he ever
loved," Mr. Coggins said.

Interim Police Chief Randy Hampton could not be reached for comment.
Prosecutors declined to comment as they left the courthouse. U.S. Justice
Department officials in Washington, D.C., issued a brief statement, saying
only that they were disappointed by the verdict but that they respect the
jury's decision.

The juror who initially thought Mr. Delapaz was guilty, a schoolteacher,
said panel members thought that Mr. Delapaz was the "fall guy" for a scheme
devised by the informants.

She also said that jurors wanted to hear from police officials about any
internal department procedures that might have been violated and the roles
of other officers in the busts.

The informants "were the ones who set it up and lied and schemed and made
it all happen," she said.

Mr. Delapaz declined to comment other than to thank his attorneys and
family members. As he and his wife left the courthouse, she described those
who testified against her husband as liars.

Staff writers Michael Grabell and Gretel C. Kovach and Al Dia reporter
Isabel Rojas contributed to this report.