CONVICTED DRUG DEALER LIKELY TO BE FREED EARLY

Schenectady -- Chester Jones' arrest by corrupt cops was faulty,
affidavit shows

A convicted felon with a history of drug arrests may be released from
prison early because of improper police work by two former Schenectady
police officers found guilty in a recent corruption probe.

District Attorney Bob Carney, who is reviewing the officers' cases,
confirmed Friday that he contacted Schenectady County Public Defender
Elbert Watrous Jr. this week about Chester Jones' case, and he does
not plan to challenge any motions Watrous may file to overturn Jones'
conviction.

Watrous declined to comment, but, according to sources, he plans to
file legal papers next week asking that Jones' conviction be set aside.

Jones, 24, was arrested with $2,100 of crack cocaine in his coat
pocket in September 1998. Though he has admitted in Schenectady County
Court that the drugs belonged to him, new evidence suggests the former
cops, Richard Barnett and Michael Siler, may have violated Jones'
constitutional rights in how they made the arrest.

Jones' conviction is one of hundreds of felony gun and drug cases
Carney promised to review in the wake of the FBI probe that led to the
conviction of four of the department's leading officers, including
Siler and Barnett.

Siler brought Jones' arrest to Carney's attention over a three-day
period of interviews in March. Siler agreed to cooperate with Carney
as part of his agreement with federal prosecutors.

Siler arrested Jones in September 1998 after acting on an informant's
tip that Jones was selling crack out of a house on Emmett Street.
Siler visited the house and couldn't find Jones, but he did notice
Jones' coat hanging from a hook in the hallway. In a sworn statement
Siler gave to Carney, Siler claimed he could see a plastic bag
sticking out of the coat's breast pocket.

Moments later, Siler got a call from Barnett saying he had found Jones
a few blocks away, according to the affidavit. Siler grabbed the coat
and drove to Stanley Street, where he saw Barnett talking to Jones on
his bike. They told Jones to put on his jacket.

"Jones took the jacket and put it on with a resigned look on his
face," said Siler, in the March 25 affidavit obtained by the Times
Union. "After he put the coat on, Officer Barnett placed him under
arrest." They seized the jacket and found a bag with 63 pieces of
crack cocaine, worth about $1,200.

Jones pleaded guilty to that charge and a charge from several months
earlier, in which Siler arrested him coming out of a suspected drug
house on Hulett Street. In that case, police found $940 of crack
cocaine sewn into the zipper of Jones' pants after he was
strip-searched.

Prosecutors had strong words for Jones in May 1999, shortly before he
was sentenced to 9 to 25 years in prison. He is serving time at Great
Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock.

"What stands before you, judge," Assistant District Attorney Al
Chapleau said, "is an unrepentant drug dealer who is an entrepreneur
in the area of crack cocaine."