DRUG AGENTS HAD NO SEARCH WARRANT, LAWYERS CLAIM

Federal drug agents didn't have a warrant when they went into a Farragut
rental home and discovered a marijuana growing operation, lawyers for three
men argued Friday.

"What we have is illegal entry into the home by a government agent here,"
defense attorney Richard Gaines told U.S. Magistrate Thomas Phillips.

As a result, any evidence seized from the house, as well as the arrest and
search warrants obtained after the entry, should be thrown out, Gaines
argued.

Gaines is one of two attorneys representing Geoffrey Hillman Leek, 25. A
three-count indictment charges Leek, Nicholas Edward George, 25, and Hunter
Lee Williams, 24, with conspiring between June 1998 and Oct. 27, 1999, to
manufacture and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, as well as
manufacturing the pot.

Leek and George also face charges of manufacturing marijuana and possessing
the drug with the intent to distribute it between May 1999 and Oct. 22,
1999.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Folmar argued U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration agents were acting on exigent circumstances when they entered
the house in the 10000 block of Bluegrass Road.

The 75-year-old landlady, Folmar explained, received a higher-than-usual
water bill for the property and went with her niece Oct. 22 to the house to
look for a water leak. When they got inside, they smelled an odor, didn't
see furniture and couldn't see in one of the rooms because of black plastic
covering the windows and rewired electricity.

"They were scared," Folmar said. So they asked federal agents to go inside
with them to look for a water leak or damaged property, he argued, and the
agents acted in good faith in accompanying them into the home.

But Gaines argued if the women thought there was a water leak in the house,
they would have called a plumber. Instead, they called the Drug Enforcement
Administration because they thought drugs were in the house. The agents, he
said, should have gotten a search warrant. Instead, they "jumped on the
opportunity to go in the house" and search for drugs, violating Leek's
constitutional rights. The information they obtained once inside was then
used to obtain arrest and search warrants for other residences, he said.

"Each search warrant was based on one illegal entry without a warrant,"
Gaines said.

Defense attorney Kim Tollison, one of two attorneys representing George,
adopted Gaines' arguments.

James T. Bowman, one of the lawyers for Williams, argued the authorities
also didn't have probable cause to search a Meridale Drive residence the men
leased in Johnson City while attending East Tennessee State University.

The authorities knew Leek and George no longer lived there, he argued.

Folmar disagreed, saying Williams admitted Leek and George lived there, but
were not home at the time and that the agents' investigation showed the men
lived there.

The agents found nearly 460 marijuana plants growing in the houses,
according to court papers.

Phillips took the matter under advisement. Trial is set for Oct. 30.