FAKE-DRUG TRIAL WITNESS WEEPS

He Describes Arrest, Saying Ex-Detective's Statements Were False

Victor Alvarado wept at the witness stand Friday, telling jurors about what
he said were false statements by a narcotics detective that led to his
arrest two years ago on charges of selling cocaine.

The 26-year-old father of three is one of at least two dozen victims of
bogus drug busts in 2001 involving former Dallas detective Mark Delapaz,
prosecutors said. Mr. Alvarado is the second of four expected to testify in
the federal criminal trial, which began Wednesday.

Mr. Delapaz, who defense attorneys have said is an honest officer who was
duped by a group of crooked confidential informants, is accused of lying in
arrest warrant affidavits and to prosecutors when he said he saw people
involved in transactions of what he believed to be drugs. The white powdery
substance actually was pool chalk.

Nearing the end of his 90 minutes of testimony Friday, Mr. Alvarado began
to cry, his face turning red as he reached for tissue and talked about the
effect of his arrest on himself and his family.

"They were accusing me of selling drugs," Mr. Alvarado said through a court
interpreter. "I never sold anything."

He told jurors how uniformed police officers descended on an Old East
Dallas auto repair shop where he and a friend were retrieving tools for a
construction job.

Mr. Alvarado said he had no idea what was happening that day in April 2001,
but he was quickly taken behind the business ­ at East Grand and Fitzhugh
avenues ­ and strip-searched.

In an arrest warrant, Mr. Delapaz stated that he observed a confidential
informant give Mr. Alvarado $2,500 in marked money in exchange for a clear
plastic bag containing drugs.

Mr. Alvarado and two other witnesses testified Friday that the events
described never happened. The Dallas Police Department's marked money for
the purchase was never recovered.

Asked why he had named Mr. Delapaz in a civil lawsuit asking for $2.5
million, Mr. Alvarado said: "He's the one who was doing all that against me."

Prosecutors contend that Mr. Alvarado was one of the first victims in the
informants' fake-drug scheme. In his case, the informants created the fake
drug bust with the intention of stealing the drug-purchase money supplied
to them by the Police Department, prosecutors say.

Later, according to testimony, the informants grew bolder and began
fabricating large amounts of fake drugs to plant on innocent victims. The
seizures grew because the informants were promised $1,000 for every
kilogram of narcotics they could help police seize, prosecutors said.

Mr. Delapaz is not accused of taking part in the conspiracy to arrest
innocent people, but prosecutors charge that plan could not have happened
without the officer's false statements about witnessing the transactions in
police reports and to county prosecutors.

Those fictitious reports amount to a violation of the victims'
constitutional rights against false arrest, according to the charge.
Federal prosecutors also charged him with lying to an FBI agent. He faces
10 years in prison if convicted.

In testimony earlier Friday, Vanessa Gwyn said Mr. Delapaz returned her
telephone call on Sept. 17, 2001, several days after he had arrested her
mother.

The call came after Mr. Delapaz had learned that a kilo of the drugs
confiscated during Yvonne Gwyn's arrest had tested as fake, according to
testimony. Still, her daughter told jurors, Mr. Delapaz urged her to have
her mother talk to police.

"He basically told me that ... she needed to come clean, and if she didn't,
she would spend the rest of her life in jail," the daughter testified.

Lab officials later discovered that another 29 kilos found in a car at Ms.
Gwyn's auto shop also were fake.

The trial, which could last until mid-December, resumes Monday morning.