PROSECUTIONS HALTED IN FAKE-DRUG CASES

Reviews Planned For Files, Evidence Tied To Informant

The Dallas County district attorney's office has suspended prosecution of
pending cases involving purported drugs in which lab tests found little or
no illegal substances, District Attorney Bill Hill announced late Monday.

The number of affected cases was not released. As of last week, the
district attorney's office had identified 24 Dallas police narcotics cases
in which lab tests revealed fake drugs or minute amounts of drugs contained
in packages of finely crushed Sheetrock.

Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton also said Monday that police are
re-examining 70 narcotics purchases initiated by a confidential informant
after tests on the purported drugs in two dozen cases found little or no drugs.

In addition to a public integrity investigation already being conducted by
Dallas police, the chief said, he instructed narcotics division officers to
review all 70 buys in which the informant assisted investigators over the
last two years.

Mr. Hill also said his office would review drug cases filed since 1999 that
involved evidence developed from the same informant, who has not been named
by police.

"We want to know whether there is a pattern here that goes further back
than September 2001, when my office first discovered some cases which
involved fake drugs," Mr. Hill said in a written statement.

Chief Bolton said he is concerned about lab findings that cocaine and
methamphetamine recovered in large busts linked to the informant were fake.
He said he ordered the reviews to make sure no other drug cases already
resolved involved fake drugs.

"The stakes are too high," he said, referring to his decision to expand the
investigation.

The district attorney's office learned in September that lab tests on some
purported drugs did not confirm field tests made by Dallas police narcotics
officers. Prosecutors notified Dallas police, who initiated an internal
investigation Nov. 30.

Those arrested have been mostly men with Hispanic surnames who do not have
permanent citizenship.

Many of the cases rely solely on the word of the informant that the drug
transaction was conducted, according to court records.

The chief would not say how the investigation is being conducted or what
would happen if it is found that defendants have been found guilty of
selling illegal drugs that were actually fake substances.

The confidential informant has been paid at least $200,000 since 2000 for
helping police make drug arrests, police said last week. His involvement in
the drug buys - many of which yielded large amounts of cocaine or
methamphetamine and 35 arrests - made him the most prolific and highly paid
informant used by Dallas police last year, officials said.

At the district attorney's office, Mr. Hill also said that steps have been
put in place to avoid problems in the future.

"Drug cases of this nature are now being submitted by the police to the lab
for immediate analysis as soon as the drugs are seized," he said. "Charges
can now be quickly dropped if the immediate lab analysis shows no
controlled substance. And, as we look into this more deeply, we may change
other procedures."

Steve Tokoly, who oversees felony prosecutions for the office, said in an
interview last week that the district attorney's office had dismissed seven
of 10 drug cases in which lab tests showed no illegal drugs.

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 that
required little, if any, down payment.

Prosecutors reindicted one of 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.

In addition, prosecutors had identified 14 pending drug cases as containing
minute amounts of illegal substances in gypsum. However, according to court
records reviewed by The Dallas Morning News, prosecutors had dismissed four
cases involving trace amounts of illegal drugs in gypsum for "lack of
sufficient evidence."

Police Department records also showed almost half of the cocaine and about
one-fifth of the methamphetamines seized last year were found not to be drugs.

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