ATTORNEYS GIVE FINAL ARGUMENTS; MENELEY CASE GOES TO JURORS

Jurors who will decide whether to convict or acquit former Sheriff Dave
Meneley of two counts of perjury deliberated five hours Monday before they
recessed for the day.

Meneley is accused of lying while under oath in 1999 when he testified he
didn't know former narcotics officer Timothy Oblander had stolen cocaine
evidence to feed his drug addiction while he was a sheriff's deputy.

The Shawnee County District Court jurors were behind closed doors except
for lunch and an hour when a court reporter read back the testimony of
Robert Correll, Oblander's counselor at a drug treatment center.

During closing remarks, District Attorney Joan Hamilton told jurors to
compare Oblander's drug treatment records and the statements of Detective
Daniel Jaramillo and Deputy Phil Blume. Jaramillo and Blume testified that
Meneley told them in July 1995 of Oblander's drug use and drug theft.

Oblander's treatment records at the substance abuse center, recorded in
June and July 1995 and released in December 1999, verify the statements of
Jaramillo and Blume, Hamilton said.

Jaramillo and Blume "knew those things because this defendant said them,"
Hamilton said.

Meneley's defense attorney, Margie J. Phelps, called her client an
excellent career law enforcement officer of about 30 years who was the
victim of lies and who should be acquitted.

Phelps said Jaramillo and Blume were motivated to lie about Meneley by:

Anger, because the former sheriff reassigned them from a federal drug task
force to the sheriff's narcotics unit and finally transferred them out of
that unit.

Greed, in filing a civil suit seeking $250,000 each against Shawnee County
and Meneley.

Ego, because Jaramillo said he knew better how to run the drug unit than
Meneley and was above making the small drug cases that Meneley ordered him
to work.

Phelps listed what she called five fatal flaws in the prosecution's case:

Witnesses didn't specify the date that Meneley told Jaramillo and Blume
that Oblander was a cocaine user.

The pair made no records of Meneley's statement until October 1995 and
February 1996.

Blume and Jaramillo didn't report Meneley's statement to prosecutors or
other law enforcement agencies.

Testimony of Blume and Jaramillo wasn't credible.

There was no motive for Meneley to cover for Oblander or for Meneley to
confide in Jaramillo and Blume.

Jaramillo and Blume, who as narcotics investigators worked in the drug
world where people lie and manipulate, "became very skilled at making up
stories," Phelps said.

Joel Meinecke, first assistant district attorney, pointed to the testimony
of Roger Lovelace, a retired captain who was in charge of the sheriff's
drug unit, as a witness without an ax to grind. On orders from Meneley,
Lovelace interviewed Jaramillo and Blume on Feb. 23, 1996, after The Topeka
Capital-Journal published a news story saying the attorney general's office
was investigating an unspecified allegation about a deputy and the
possibility that contraband had disappeared from the sheriff's department.

Meneley wanted to know who leaked the news to the newspaper. Meneley
"definitely" knew about Oblander's problems as of that day, Meinecke said.

Jaramillo and Blume denied they leaked the information to the newspaper,
Meinecke said, but then they "spilled their guts, (telling Lovelace) the
sheriff told us the whole story." Lovelace testified that the pair told him
Meneley had related to them that Oblander had a cocaine addiction supplied
by drugs he obtained through his work as a law enforcement officer.

Meinecke questioned the credibility of Meneley's three hours of testimony
on Friday.

"You've seen a picture of Dave Meneley from the defendant's point of view.
Will the real Dave Meneley please stand up?" Meinecke said, referring to
"To Tell the Truth," the 1950s and 1960s game show in which contestants had
to differentiate between impostors and the person who actually had an
unusual profession. "Dave Meneley gave the greatest performance of his life
on the witness stand."