POOL-HALL POWDER TIED TO FAKE-DRUG PROBE

Attorney: FBI Studying If Billiards Chalk Was Used

The FBI is investigating whether paid Dallas police confidential informants
bought large quantities of white billiards chalk and planted it on innocent
people who were then arrested for dealing drugs, a public defender and
others said Monday.

Federal Assistant Public Defender Karl Rupp, who is representing Reyes
Roberto Rodriguez, said his client's cooperation had helped the FBI begin
answering questions about how dozens of people were falsely accused of drug
dealing by Dallas police. Mr. Rodriguez was one of several informants who
had acted as a subcontractor to the Police Department's primary informant,
Enrique Alonso, Mr. Rupp said.

The FBI has confiscated the chalk cones from the home of one of the jailed
informants and collected receipts for large quantities of the substance
from a supply house based on Mr. Rodriguez's statements, Mr. Rupp and
others said. Billiards chalk contains gypsum, which was the substance
identified in about two dozen cases that were later dismissed.

Mr. Rodriguez "has inside information on every aspect of the fake-drugs
arrests, and that information is likely to resolve the majority of the
questions that the FBI and the media have had concerning what happened in
the arrests," Mr. Rupp said.

Background Coverage of the ongoing investigation from The Dallas Morning
News and WFAA.

He said Mr. Rodriguez had already provided "adequate information for the
FBI to bring criminal charges in court."

Mr. Rodriguez is being held on federal immigration charges. He could
benefit from reduced charges if his cooperation were publicly recognized as
significant. Mr. Rupp declined to detail how his client said the operation
worked other than to say that FBI agents now believe they know.

Mr. Rupp said "the million-dollar question" that remains unanswered is
whether the police officers were involved in a scheme with their informants.

The city's response to a federal civil-rights lawsuit stated that police
believed the informants were credible and had been duped by drug dealers.

The two officers involved in many of the questionable arrests - Senior Cpl.
Mark Delapaz and Officer Eddie Herrera - are on administrative leave with
pay while the investigation continues. The officers have refused to comment
on the investigation, and their attorneys could not be reached for comment
Monday.

Dallas FBI spokeswoman Lori Bailey declined to comment, citing
confidentiality rules in place for ongoing criminal investigations.

William Nellis, the attorney for informant Jose Ruiz, confirmed that police
have seized solidified cones of powder used in billiards clubs from the
garage of the home where Mr. Ruiz lived. Mr. Nellis said he has not had a
chance to confer with his client.

Arch McColl, the attorney representing Mr. Alonso, did not return phone
calls Monday.

Mr. Alonso's daughter, who spoke on condition that her name not be used,
said Monday that her father wasn't behind the fake deals. Authorities still
haven't explained how the seized substances initially tested positive in
the field by police but later were found to be phony by lab experts, she said.

She said that her father was optimistic, but added that he still hasn't
been accused of any crime related to the drug deals.

"He didn't do nothing. He doesn't know why he's in jail," she said.

Mr. Ruiz and Mr. Alonso were recruited together by Dallas police in 1999 to
serve as paid informants for drug busts. Both informants are jailed on
federal charges related to their immigration status.

Over two years, Mr. Alonso was paid more than $200,000 - a Police
Department record - for his help in making what was billed as some of the
department's biggest-ever drug busts. They recruited other informants, such
as Mr. Rodriguez, as subcontractors.

Mr. Nellis said he had not talked to his client but didn't believe that the
seizure of billiards chalk was significant. Mr. Ruiz worked at a billiards
hall as a "jack of all trades" and the cones were probably related to his
work, the attorney said.

"The only thing I can truthfully surmise is that he did work in a pool hall
and had worked in a pool hall for a long period of time," he said. "It's my
standpoint that anything found in there ... could very likely have been
used for legitimate purposes."

Mr. Nellis said Mr. Ruiz refuses to talk further with the FBI after he was
allowed to be deported but was recaptured after re-crossing the Mexican
border. The FBI interviewed Mr. Ruiz for several hours before he was
deported to Mexico.

"He figures he won't cooperate because he told them everything he knows and
he's still in jail," Mr. Nellis said.

The Dallas County district attorney's office has dismissed more than 70
cases after learning that some material that tested positive for drugs in
field tests was found in later tests not to be illegal substances.

In an interview before he was arrested, Mr. Alonso said he did not know how
the large drug busts later turned out to be gypsum. He said he did nothing
improper.

Large quantities of the billiards powder were purchased by a man who gave a
name that matches that of Mr. Alonso's brother in August - a month when the
Police Department recorded some of its biggest busts.

The manager of a billiards supply store in Lewisville said FBI agents
questioned him last Friday about the sale of a large amount of pool chalk
in August to a man who said he was opening a pool hall in Mexico.

Jeff Klundt said receipts show a man who identified himself as Luis Alonso
and gave an address in Oak Cliff purchased 120 cones of pool chalk from his
store and a second Billiards & Barstools location in Euless.

They sell for $3.95 apiece. Mr. Klundt said the customer paid in cash and
did not arouse any suspicions with his story or the purchase amount, which
he put at 80 kilograms.

"It's quite a bit," Mr. Klundt said, "but you've got to bear in mind we
deal with a lot of commercial businesses."

An employee of Mr. Klundt's store who gave his name as David said Monday
that he loaded 90 chalk cones into a light-blue Lincoln Town Car or
Continental for the customer who identified himself as Luis Alonso.

Enrique Alonso, who remains jailed on federal fraud and immigration
charges, owns a white 2002 Lincoln Town Car, records show.

WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported last week that Luis Alonso is Mr. Alonso's
brother. Luis Alonso has denied purchasing any pool chalk, Channel 8 reported.

On Aug. 7, Cpl. Delapaz and Officer Herrera, with help from Enrique Alonso,
arrested two men at an Oak Cliff fast-food restaurant after discovering 76
kilos of a white powdery substance in their van. A field test conducted by
the arresting officers was positive for cocaine, police have said.

Prosecutors later told the arrested men's attorneys that lab tests showed
the confiscated substance was gypsum, the main ingredient in Sheetrock and
in billiards chalk. The two defendants spent several months in jail before
their cases were dismissed in January.