TESTS CAST DOUBT ON 24 DRUG CASES

Police Study Procedures After Seized Evidence Found To Be Fake

Questionable Drug Seizures

April 26 - Dallas police narcotics officers make the first of a series of
18 large cocaine busts. The bust nets more than 60 pounds of cocaine, later
found to be made up entirely of crushed Sheetrock.

September - The Dallas County district attorney's office notices a growing
number of lab test results from the large cocaine busts that show little or
no controlled substance in seized evidence.

Oct. 1 - Narcotics officers using confidential informants start turning up
a new series of large methamphetamine delivery arrests.The seized evidence
is later found to contain trace amounts or absolutely no illegal drugs.

Oct. 26 - Prosecutors alert Dallas police to the pattern of bad lab tests
in certain drug cases.

Nov. 30 - Dallas police begin an investigation into the suspect drug seizures.

Dec. 5 - At least 10 first-degree felony drug cases have been dismissed so
far in the courts by the district attorney "in the interest of justice" or
from a "lack of sufficient evidence."

Dec. 31 - Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton holds a news conference and
confirms that his department's internal investigation has identified at
least nine suspect drug cases.

Jan. 4 - Prosecutors confirm that at least two dozen drug cases are in
question because lab tests showed seized substances to be fake. In at least
one case, prosecutors decided to indict a suspect for possession of a
"simulated" controlled substance.

Laboratory tests reveal that almost half of all purported cocaine seized in
drug raids by Dallas police in 2001 turned out to be finely crushed
Sheetrock, court records show.

Likewise, records show that nearly one-fourth of all methamphetamine seized
in Dallas police drug raids last year was composed of gypsum, the main
ingredient in Sheetrock.

Forensic testing has cast doubt on at least 24 Dallas police narcotics
cases, according to information obtained by The Dallas Morning News through
interviews and court records.

The cases are first-degree felony drug-delivery charges involving at least
18 defendants in which lab tests have shown that little or absolutely no
illegal drugs were found in almost 700 pounds of seized evidence. In those
cases, less-reliable field tests showed that the substances were drugs.

If convicted, those defendants could have faced from five years to life in
prison.

The cases have raised questions about Dallas police officers' use of paid
confidential drug informants, prompted an internal investigation, and
spurred police to revise their drug-evidence procedures. Drugs are now
submitted for forensic testing as soon as they are stored in the police
property room, said Dallas police spokeswoman Janice Houston.

Last year, Dallas narcotics officers seized more than 1,400 pounds of
substances thought to be cocaine during drug raids and undercover buys,
according to department statistics. However, when the substances were
tested by the district attorney's office for court cases, more than 660
pounds turned out to be pure gypsum or contained trace amounts of cocaine.

For methamphetamine seizures, 22 of more than 100 pounds turned out to be
mostly Sheetrock, with lab results pending on an additional 32 pounds of
suspect speed.

Two cases involving counterfeit drugs were cocaine seizures that Dallas
police and prosecutors touted as record-setting busts. Court records show
that the same Dallas narcotics officers, relying on drug deals set up or
carried out by confidential informants, made the arrests. In both of those
cases - as in the majority of the other cases - field tests showed the
seized substance to be cocaine.

One of the busts, which netted 150 pounds of a substance that later turned
out not to be cocaine, was made with help from a paid confidential
informant in July. Dallas police said it was one of the largest drug busts
in Dallas County law enforcement history.

At one point, the Hispanic day laborer charged with the crime was jailed in
lieu of $1 million bail. Months later, after his charges were called into
question, he was released from jail on a personal recognizance bond that
required only his signature. His case is pending.

The district attorney's office has so far identified 10 drug-delivery cases
filed by Dallas police in which the seized evidence didn't contain any
illegal drugs. In addition, prosecutors have found 14 pending cases in
which the seized evidence contained so-called "low-quantity" amounts of
drugs or amounts that were too small to quantify, said Steve Tokoly, who
oversees all felony trial prosecutions for the district attorney's office.

Of the 18 defendants identified by records and defense attorneys, all have
Hispanic surnames and only two have prior felony convictions, both of which
involved drugs, according to Dallas County records.

Chief Declines Comment

Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton and his command staff declined to
comment late last week about the latest information on the 24 cases. An
official with the Dallas County district attorney's office said he was
unaware of the data about the large amount of counterfeit drugs.

"This information is something that was brought to me for the first time,
and I have no way of determining at this time whether the data is
fundamentally sound or not. Therefore, I cannot comment on it one way or
the other," Mr. Tokoly said.

Chief Bolton said in a New Year's Eve news conference that those arrested
were guilty of selling fake drugs and that he doesn't think his officers or
their confidential informants did anything wrong.

He said his department hasn't decided whether to continue using one such
confidential informant, who earned more than $200,000 in a total of 60
payments from the Police Department over two years.

The informant, who was the department's most highly paid and prolific
informer during 2001, was involved in nine cases now under investigation by
the department's public integrity unit. The average payment to the
informant was $3,300. Chief Bolton said last week that the sums were based
on the amount of drugs seized.

Ready To Investigate

Chief Bolton said at the news conference that the department would
investigate if police found anything to suggest that there were problems
with that informant or any other informant. "We don't want anybody in jail
if they haven't done anything wrong," he said. "At the same time, you've
got to remember the intent of the people with this stuff. The intent was to
peddle in illegal drugs and illegal profit."

Dallas defense lawyer Richard Carrizales said he has long believed that
Dallas police have potentially problematic relationships with confidential
informants.

"They're so concerned with the numbers and making cases that even when
there's red flags, they don't check them out," he said of narcotics
officers. "These ... [informants] are paid a lot of money to do this, so
they don't have to work. They can lead these narcotics officers to whoever
they want and the people usually on top of the list ... are immigrants."

Civil-rights Concerns

Adelfa Callejo, chairwoman of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations and
former president of the Mexican-American Bar Association, said she intends
to ask the Justice Department and the Mexican Consulate to investigate the
matter. "As a criminal defense attorney, I have a problem with the district
attorney presenting cases to grand juries and returning indictments on drug
cases without lab reports showing the evidence to be a controlled
substance," Ms. Callejo said. "Further, the Hispanic community leadership
is extremely upset over what appears to be racial profiling and a gross
violation of the civil rights of these Hispanics."

Mr. Tokoly, with the district attorney's office, said prosecutors acted as
quickly as possible after obtaining lab results in September from the
Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences and noticing the pattern of
fake drugs.

He said that a prosecutor informed Dallas police about the matter Oct. 26.
Dallas police spokesman Senior Cpl. Steve Walthall said the department
initiated its investigation Nov. 30.

Meanwhile, "on a case-by-case basis, we moved to dismiss those charges when
that was the appropriate thing to do," Mr. Tokoly said.

The district attorney's office dismissed seven of the 10 cases in which
tests have shown the evidence to contain no drugs; one was dismissed as
recently as Thursday.

A grand jury declined to indict a man charged in one of the cases, and two
suspects were allowed to leave jail on personal recognizance bonds.

Still, prosecutors secured the re-indictment of one defendant in the 10
cases from a first-degree felony to a lesser charge of delivery of a
simulated controlled substance, a state-jail felony punishable by up to two
years in jail. The suspect was arrested on two
possession-with-intent-to-deliver charges, Mr. Tokoly said.

"In one of those, the lab report came back reflecting no cocaine," he
continued. "In the second, the lab report reflected some cocaine. ... It
was the decision of the prosecutor reviewing those cases at the time to
re-indict."

Mr. Tokoly said late Friday that the 14 cases identified as containing
trace amounts of drugs in gypsum were pending. He declined further comment
on the matter.

However, according to court records, prosecutors dismissed four cases
involving trace amounts of illegal drugs in gypsum for "lack of sufficient
evidence." It is unknown whether the district attorney's office is counting
the four dismissed cases among its 14 with "low-quantity" drug amounts.

Court records show that two people have pleaded guilty in cases in which
lab tests have raised questions about the drug seizures.

Lives 'Destroyed'

One such defendant, 26-year-old Jaime Siguenza, insisted he was innocent
but pleaded guilty rather than face prison, his lawyer said. He was
deported to Mexico after receiving five years' deferred-adjudication
probation in a plea bargain. Mr. Siguenza faced two drug delivery charges
after police discovered several supposed kilos of cocaine in a salvage car
in the parking lot of his father's car-repair business. An independent
witness said he saw a stranger jump the fence and loiter near the salvage
vehicles more than an hour before police swooped in, said Dallas defense
attorney Bill Stovall.

Analysis in Mr. Siguenza's cases found no controlled substances in the
salvage vehicle and minute amounts of cocaine with lots of gypsum in a
package he was alleged to have sold the confidential informant.

"Siguenza ... said, 'I didn't do it, but I'd rather plea and live free in
Mexico that do 15 years in the pen,' " Mr. Stovall said. "It's ruined his
marriage, family, and everything else. ... The way they're currently
handling these cases is to reduce the charge down to something where the
defendant is basically forced to choose the lesser of two evils."

Mr. Stovall, a former Dallas County prosecutor who served under current
District Attorney Bill Hill, said his client's case and others he has
learned about have upset him.

"The police officers are still working the cases, they're still using the
same ... [informants], and nothing seems to be done to resolve this while
these people are sitting in jail for months," Mr. Stovall said. "Lives and
families are being destroyed."

One of those who sat in jail for 21/2 months was Erubiel Cruz, a
46-year-old mechanic who runs an Oak Cliff car-repair shop. Prosecutors
dropped his drug-delivery charge after tests showed that almost 22 pounds
of methamphetamine seized during an October bust at his business was gypsum.

His Dallas defense attorney, Brady Wyatt, said prosecutors told him tests
revealed "trace amounts ... [that] weren't enough to prosecute" Mr. Cruz.

In jail while awaiting the lab results, Mr. Cruz maintained his innocence
and refused to plead guilty to lesser charges.

He said that while he was behind bars, he met other people who said the
same police informants set them up for arrests by the same undercover
Dallas police narcotics officers.

Mr. Cruz, who has no criminal record in Dallas County, said he had never
seen the two informants who drove their car into his Marsalis Avenue shop
Oct. 1.

In police reports, however, narcotics officers said the two informants had
made a smaller purchase of drugs from Mr. Cruz earlier that day and
returned for a major buy.

Samples of the substances in both buys tested positive for methamphetamine
by police on the scene, but Mr. Wyatt said field tests are unreliable.

"Let's put it this way," he said. "The police didn't even get the right
address for their search warrant on my client. I don't think they knew who
they were trying to get that day, but they obviously got the wrong guy."

Mr. Cruz said he is also confused about why he was singled out and remains
worried about others who are facing similar circumstances.

"We don't know what was going on," he said. "We still don't know who's
behind this."

Staff writer Robert Tharp contributed to this report.