PROSECUTORS SPLIT BETWEEN TWO EVILS

Traditional Crime, Terrorism War Demand Attention

The new U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky says his office
will have to work harder to fight traditional crimes while the nation is
focused on terrorism.

''We're going to have to find a way to make do,'' said Steve Pence, who
returned to the U.S. attorney's office last September after serving as an
assistant in that office during the BOPTROT state government scandal of the
early 1990s.

''Drug activity, illegal activity, none of those are going to stop because
those people are patriotic. Drug dealers don't think, 'Well, I'm going to
be patriotic and stop dealing drugs because there's a war on terrorism,' ''
he said.

Pence, 49, said that since terrorism gets top priority, it might be more
difficult to give cases involving illegal guns and drugs -- the second and
third priorities -- the kind of attention that they got before Sept. 11.

''People are just going to have to do a little bit more,'' he said.

He said with the FBI's shift to fighting terror, the help his office gets
with drug cases from federal agents will have to come from somewhere else.

''If an FBI agent is not going to be able to do it, a local agent will have
to help us do it,'' he said.

It's a shift in priorities also acknowledged by the FBI's new special agent
in charge in Kentucky, J. Stephen Tidwell, who took office in May. Tidwell
said it would take a large drug organization to divert the FBI's attention
from terrorism.

Pence, who said he's a registered Republican and a gun owner, was appointed
by President Bush in September. He made headlines in the early 1990s as the
lead federal prosecutor in Operation BOPTROT, named for an influence-buying
scandal that led to the prosecutions of several key political figures,
including former House Speaker Don Blandford and Bruce Wilkinson, nephew of
former Gov. Wallace Wilkinson.

Pence left the U.S. attorney's office in 1995 to work at a law firm in
Louisville. In 1998, he ran for Jefferson County attorney, losing to
Democrat Irv Maze.

Though terrorism takes top billing these days, Pence said new initiatives
are helping fight traditional crimes, especially those committed with guns.

He mentioned Project Backfire, which teams local prosecutors with the U.S.
attorney's office so that gun crimes that meet certain criteria can be
moved into the federal system, where penalties are harsher.

''Guns in the hands of the right people doesn't bother me,'' said Pence.
''It's guns in the hands of people who are committing crime, or have
committed crimes. That's where we need to be focusing.''

As for the fight against terror, Pence said he has appointed an assistant
U.S. attorney, Irwin Roberts, to head the office's Anti-Terrorism Task
Force. Roberts reports to Pence once a week.

Pence acknowledged that the way terror is fought in Kentucky may differ
from how it is fought in New York City, though he declined to comment on
possible threats to this state.

Pence's office was host to a terrorism summit this spring in Louisville
that drew about 250 law enforcement officers from around the state. He said
at that summit that although Kentucky may not be a major terror target,
money laundering and other operations funding terrorist activities could be
functioning in any part of the state.