MENA CASE RATTLED POLICE DEPARTMENT

Prosecutors Limited In Trial Of Officer Accused Of Perjury

Prosecutors cannot mention Ismael Mena's name to jurors, or say how police killed him, during the upcoming perjury trial of a police officer.

Denver District Court Judge Shelley Gilman ruled Friday that telling jurors about events that led to Mena's 1999 death when SWAT team members served a no-knock warrant at the wrong house are prejudicial and not relevant.

"The court will only admit evidence that the warrant was served," Gilman said.

The ruling and others in his favor pleased officer Joseph Bini, who turned during the sparsely attended court hearing to give a reassuring wink to his wife.

Bini is charged with making false statements in his affidavit for a search warrant, and with deceiving a judge in order to obtain the warrant.

A Denver Metro SWAT unit on Sept. 29 shot and killed Ismael Mena during the drug raid. It was later determined officers targeted the wrong house based on a warrant Bini signed.

Bini's search warrant alleged he had witnessed an informant buy drugs at 3738 High St., the house where Mena lived. No drugs were found.

Mena, a Mexican citizen, was shot eight times after he pointed a gun at officers after they stormed his bedroom.

David Bruno, Bini's attorney, argued that the crimes his client is accused of committing occurred eight days before the raid.

Prosecutors argued mistakes made by Bini ultimately resulted in Mena's death, and that jurors are entitled to know that.

But the court said if jurors came to realize the case was about the raid on Ismael Mena's home, which has gotten extensive publicity, they would be advised to disregard what they had learned outside the courtroom.

Robert M. Maes, the lawyer for Mena's family, said he agreed with most of the judge's rulings but strongly disagreed with Gilman's decision that jurors shouldn't be told that someone died.

"For the jurors not to know a man died as a result of (Bini's) misrepresentation is to omit half the facts — the critical facts," Maes said. "He was a victim of that man's misrepresentation."

Friday was the most positive day in court for Bini so far in the ongoing pretrial maneuverings by Bruno and prosecutors Mark Randall and Charles Tingle as they prepare for trial Oct. 10.

Bruno won several other rulings from Gilman Friday.

She decided that prosecutors cannot have access to Bini's personnel file from the city, ruling that confidential information would become public and violate his privacy.

She also quashed a subpoena by prosecutors that sought access to a number of internal-affairs complaints and investigations into Bini's conduct on other occasions.

And she ruled that prosecutors cannot tell jurors that a supervisor reprimanded Bini two years before the Mena shooting, for making a mistake and putting the wrong address on a warrant.

That mistake was corrected before the warrant was served, Bruno told the court.

Neither would she allow evidence that a subsequent raid at a house next door to Mena's resulted in drugs being confiscated.

Randall argued that the mistake and reprimand would show that Bini was aware that he needed to be extremely cautious in preparing a search warrant, when he knew the information would result in an armed, no-knock raid by SWAT officers.

Charges against Bini were filed after investigators realized that the search that led to Mena's death was conducted at the wrong house.

The city of Denver settled with Mena's family earlier this year, paying them more than $400,000. The case was a factor in the eventual ouster of then-Police Chief Tom Sanchez and the reassignment of then-Public Safety Manager Butch Montoya.

Friday's rulings were a major blow to prosecutors, who argued during the hearing that telling jurors the whole story of the results of the faulty raid were relevant to the case.