JURY WEIGHS FATE OF FORMER DETECTIVES

One-Time Prichard Narcotics Officers Accused Of Racketeering

Former Prichard narcotics detectives Frederick Pippins and Anthony Diaz
will begin this day waiting for a federal jury in Mobile to convict or
acquit them of racketeering.

The feeling isn't new.

Pippins and Diaz -- along with four other former colleagues -- waited three
days in October while another jury argued over their fate, but they never
got an an swer. That panel deadlocked, forcing a mistrial.

The other four defendants -- former Lt. James Stallworth, former Sgt. John
Stuckey and former detectives Derek Gillis and Nathan McDuffie -- pleaded
guilty Jan. 4 and agreed to testify for the prosecution. Their deals call
for them to receive sentences ranging from probation to three-year prison
terms.

Pippins and Diaz, who reportedly declined similar offers, went back on
trial Monday. Jurors heard closing arguments and began deliberations late
Thursday.

If convicted on the most serious counts, Diaz could face more than 15 years
in prison; Pippins could face up to nine years.

The charges involve allegations that Pippins, Diaz and the others took cash
and other property from drug suspects in exchange for letting them go.

"They stopped prosecuting cases," Justice Department prosecutor Rita Glavin
told the jury in her closing statement. "They stopped fighting the war on
drugs. And they crossed the line."

Defense lawyers stuck with the idea that their clients were unfairly lumped
in with the other former officers.

"You can't convict by guilt by association, and that's what the government
is trying to get you to do," Diaz's lawyer, Lila Cleveland, told jurors.

Pippins' lawyer, Willie Huntley, noted that his client had not been
indicted in two instances when witnesses testified he stole car stereo
equipment from them. He attacked prosecutors' decision not to bring charges
in those instances, examples of what is known in legal circles as uncharged
conduct. Prosecutors commonly present evidence of such matters in an
attempt to show a pattern of illicit behavior.

"They know the rest of their case is really weak, so they gotta bring
something in to bolster it," Huntley said.

On Tuesday, Stallworth provided what might have been damning testimony
against Pippins, the godfather of his son, saying the two men divvied up
$7,000 in drug money. But Huntley waylaid Stallworth's credibility by
producing a tape of a month-old telephone call, secret ly recorded by
Pippins, that Stallworth swore he could not remember.

Huntley told jurors they should disregard all of Stallworth's statements
because he lied about the phone call. Prosecutors told the jury that the
tape -- on which Stallworth tried to assure Pippins that he had not
cooperated with authorities -- only proved how difficult that cooperation
was for Stallworth.

On Wednesday, prosecutors called into question Pippins' finances, with
testimony from an FBI analyst about what she termed unexplained cash.
Huntley countered with three business licenses Pippins held, enabling him
to cut lawns and hawk clothing.

Prosecutors pointed out that the licenses were invalid for all but a small
period of the time in question.

"The reason he didn't need a license to peddle is he had a license to
steal, and it was in the form of a Prichard Police Department badge,"
Glavin said Thursday.

Glavin pointed jurors to testimony from witnesses who said Diaz took cash
out of their pockets during two gambling raids in 1999. Cleveland assailed
the testimony as unbelievable because it came from drug dealers and
addicts, including one man, Michael Bush, who testified Thursday afternoon
that he had smoked crack cocaine Thursday morning.

Glavin told the jury Bush's candor was precisely why they should believe him.

Deliberations are set to resume this morning around 9 a.m. at the federal
courthouse downtown on St. Joseph Street. The trial has been held in Chief
U.S. District Judge Charles Butler Jr.'s courtroom on the second floor.