DA WIDENS LOOK INTO DRUG CASES

More Dallas Officers, Four Informants Under Scrutiny; Two More Cases Dismissed

The district attorney's office said Thursday that it has expanded its
inquiry into Dallas police narcotics cases to include more officers beyond
the two already linked to more than 60 tainted cases.

Prosecutors also acknowledged Thursday in an interview with The Dallas
Morning News that they have been scrutinizing the actions of four
confidential informants used by two Dallas police officers on
administrative leave.

"We have expanded our review beyond the confidential informants, and we
have gone into another phase of our review," said Steve Tokoly, who
oversees felony prosecutions for the Dallas County district attorney's office.

"We are looking at the conduct of the two Dallas police narcotics officers
[on leave] and any other officer where their conduct warrants our attention
in these matters," Mr. Tokoly said, declining to elaborate.

Police Chief Terrell Bolton and police spokeswoman Janice Houston referred
questions about the investigation to the FBI, which declined to comment.
Ms. Houston said that no other officers have been placed on administrative
leave or assigned to a desk job.

The review, which on Jan. 18 grew to include the FBI, began after defense
attorneys and prosecutors identified a series of Dallas Police Department
narcotics cases involving fake drugs or no drugs last year.

Prosecutors have identified 65 cases they are seeking to dismiss because
the two suspended officers or their paid informants played key roles.

Prosecutors are conducting a review of pending and disposed cases involving
Senior Cpl. Mark Delapaz and Officer Eddie Herrera. They say they will move
to dismiss additional cases if either the officers' or the informants'
testimony was crucial.

According to police reports and court records in more than 50 of the
dismissed cases, as many as eight narcotics officers in addition to Cpl.
Delapaz and Officer Herrera participated in arrests of the targeted
defendants. The district attorney's office declined to identify the
officers or say how many officers may be scrutinized.

A third officer was involved in two cases prosecutors dismissed Thursday
after lab tests proved that the pound of seized evidence contained no
drugs. Cpl. Delapaz and Officer Herrera were not part of the May arrest of
the two people.

Defense attorney Cynthia Barbare said prosecutors returned with a dismissal
after she asked to check on the results of lab tests in her client's case.
Prosecutors believed the tests, which had been in a file folder since
September, had come back positive for cocaine, she said.

A defense attorney who formerly worked as an Irving police officer and a
Dallas County prosecutor said the expanded inquiry could mean several things.

"This indicates they [prosecutors] may believe that due to lack of
supervision, these problems could have happened with the other officers -
or they're just being careful," said attorney Eric Smenner. "I think the
district attorney is being cautious and making sure that the taint on these
cases hasn't spread."

Until Thursday, Chief Bolton and Dallas prosecutors had intimated that only
one confidential informant was involved with the problematic cases.

Defense attorneys, meanwhile, have identified at least four Dallas police
informants who played key roles.

In addition, the paid police informant used most frequently in the cases
now under scrutiny said in an interview with The News that he sometimes
subcontracted other informants. Law enforcement experts say it would be
highly unusual for a confidential informant to subcontract work to other
informants.

The 44-year-old informant, who spoke on condition of anonymity before he
was jailed Tuesday in Denton on an immigration hold, said he sometimes used
his income from Dallas police to pay other people to introduce him to
alleged drug dealers.

"Some guy knows that guy," the informant said. "He told that guy he had a
customer - me."

According to interviews, the four informants worked with Dallas police Cpl.
Delapaz and his partner, Officer Herrera, who were put on paid
administrative leave Jan. 15 by Chief Bolton.

Defense attorneys identified the four informants through legal channels.
When attorneys represent someone charged with drug delivery, they can file
legal motions seeking the name of any confidential informant who took part
in their client's case.

Mr. Tokoly said Thursday that prosecutors have dismissed problem cases
involving four confidential informants.

"We did and have in our review considered the activity of four confidential
informants, and for those cases that we could identify, we took steps
accordingly," he said.

Mr. Tokoly said that his office welcomes those with information to contact
prosecutors.

"If a defense attorney has information concerning the activity of one or
more of the confidential informants or other individuals in connection with
the case of their client, we have been and are receptive to their ...
sharing that information with our office," he said. "Our office will then
take the appropriate action."

More than a year before the questionable cases surfaced, Mr. Smenner, the
defense attorney, warned Cpl. Delapaz about the primary confidential
informant used most frequently in the cases.

Mr. Smenner said he told Cpl. Delapaz that his confidential informant might
be stealing and reselling seized drugs while setting up purported drug
peddlers at the same time.

Mr. Smenner said his investigation and subsequent cross-examination of Cpl.
Delapaz's informant prompted him to tell the officer in July 2000 that he
had a "dirty snitch."

"I told him, 'You better take a look at him [the informant] because he's
going to cause you some trouble,' " said Mr. Smenner, who also is a former
Dallas County prosecutor.

A Dallas Police Association attorney for Cpl. Delapaz said the officer was
unaware of any problems associated with the paid informant. The attorney
declined to discuss any other details related to the officer's conduct.

The informant told The News last week that Dallas police continued to use
him even after questions surfaced last fall about large cocaine busts - one
totaling more than 150 pounds of purported drugs - that turned out to be
mostly ground gypsum, the main ingredient in Sheetrock.

He also said he passed a polygraph examination before being allowed to
target alleged methamphetamine dealers and that police still owed him
$51,000 in payments for drug busts last fall.

Mr. Smenner said he would ask for new trials for two Dallas men convicted
solely on the informant's testimony. Mr. Smenner's client was convicted by
a judge and sentenced to 15 years, and his co-defendant received a 20-year
sentence after pleading guilty.

The informant testified that the December 1999 bust of Mr. Smenner's client
was to be the last of five drug cases he owed Cpl. Delapaz in exchange for
the dismissal of his own drug-delivery charge months earlier.

Mr. Smenner said what bothered him in the trial was that the alleged drug
deal took place in the informant's Oak Lawn apartment, outside of Cpl.
Delapaz's view. In addition, testimony showed that the officer never knew
the informant's friends were present during the drug deal. Neither the
police nor the informant were forced to identify the witnesses.

Cpl. Delapaz also conceded he didn't search the informant or his apartment
before or after the arrest, according to testimony.

Since fingerprints on bags of methamphetamine did not match those of the
two suspects, Mr. Smenner argued that the informant's testimony was the
sole information linking both suspects to the drugs.

"If you take every thing this informant said out of this case, you don't
have enough left to convict these people," he said.

A revision in state law that took effect last fall requires prosecutors to
back up an undercover informant's claims of a crime with additional evidence.

"If this case had gone to trial this past September," Mr. Smenner said,
"prosecutors would have had no choice but to dismiss the case against my
client and his co-defendant. My concern was, you have somebody who was
doing something illegal at the same time he was supposed to be helping
bring a criminal to justice. He was taking advantage of the system to play
both sides of the fence."

Mr. Smenner brought up the issue with Cpl. Delapaz after a judge convicted
his client because, he said, the undercover narcotics officer may not have
been aware of the informant's activity. Cpl. Delapaz told him he had
confidence in the informant, "and he wasn't going to do anything about it,"
he said.

Staff writer Robert Tharp and WFAA-TV contributed to this report.