ACCUSATIONS OF SELECTIVE DRUG BUSTS

Black Officers' Group Points Finger At Feds

A group of black police officers accused federal prosecutors in
Manhattan of selectively enforcing drug laws by declining to arrest
hundreds of "white, affluent" drug users implicated in a narcotics
trafficking investigation.

The group, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, said prosecutors
were using a double standard: letting wealthy users go free, while
city police pursue a "no tolerance" policy against street-level users.
The city effort, known as Operation Condor, has resulted in tens of
thousands of minor drug arrests.

"We are locking up African-Americans and Hispanics for having drug
paraphernalia or even one joint," said the group's leader, Lt. Eric
Adams, standing with several narcotics detectives and other members of
the group yesterday outside the offices of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney
Mary Jo White.

But federal officials do not want to arrest and prosecute affluent
people caught buying drugs, and "this sends a terrible message to poor
people who are serving time or have been arrested on possession
charges," he said.

But Marvin Smilon, a spokesman for White, said: "The focus of federal
drug enforcement is on importers, dealers and distributors. Rarely are
any drug users prosecuted federally."

Smilon declined to comment further.

According to prosecutors and defense lawyers, while federal
prosecutors could pursue such cases, the reality is that the federal
courts can't handle thousands of low-level drug arrests.

"The prosecutors have wide discretion, but as a practical matter there
is no way in the world they are going to flood the federal courts with
1,000 misdemeanor drug cases," said Paul Madden, a criminal-defense
attorney who handles federal cases in Brooklyn.

Cases are sometimes referred to local prosecutors, a federal law
enforcement official said, but videotape of someone buying drugs isn't
always enough evidence to get a conviction. Often, a seizure of the
drugs involved also is required.

The controversy stems from a Dec. 20 New York Post article citing
unnamed sources who asserted that White's office had refused to
prosecute hundreds of well-to-do users caught on videotape buying
drugs from a home-delivery cocaine ring busted a year ago. Most of the
members of the distribution ring have pleaded guilty.

One federal law enforcement source said White's office maintains the
same non-arrest policy toward users in poor neighborhoods as in
wealthier areas.

"We use the same procedures in the South Bronx and in Harlem that we
do in these cases," the source said.