GRAND JUROR ARRESTED IN NARCOTICS BRIBE CASE

Hidden Camera Provides Evidence

DENVER -- A day after a Denver federal grand jury handed up indictments in
a nationwide narcotics investigation, one of those grand jurors walked into
the offices of an alleged drug kingpin and offered to sell the information
for $50,000, authorities have charged.

Federal officials expressed shock at the rare breach in the grand jury
process, which led to accelerated arrests in the case across the country.

Mark Vincent Hinckley, 37, was arrested Monday night at his Evergreen,
Colo., home for allegedly soliciting the bribe Friday afternoon in the
Denver office of Hassan Zaghmot, 43. Zaghmot, who lives in Aurora, Colo.,
has been indicted as a leader of a coast-to-coast ring supplying
pseudoephedrine to clandestine labs that turned it into methamphetamine.

Hidden video and audio equipment in Zaghmot's office, placed there by
federal agents last month, captured Hinckley offering the information about
the indictments for the money, authorities said.

However, Zaghmot and the other man in his office, Alaa Douaidary, 42,
didn't believe Hinckley and refused to pay him, court documents said.

U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland said the incident forced officials to speed up
the planned arrests of scores of alleged drug ring members in eight cities
across the United States. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno announced the
arrests Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

Strickland said the alleged leak of secret grand jury information could
have jeopardized both the nationwide legal cases and the safety of officers
across the country.

"Lives were at risk there," Strickland said. "This is a dangerous business."

U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham freed Hinckley from custody Tuesday
on a $10,000 unsecured personal recognizance bond. Nottingham scheduled a
hearing Tuesday on whether enough evidence exists to try Hinckley on a
charge of soliciting a bribe, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

That hearing will be canceled if a second federal grand jury indicts
Hinckley on the charge next week.

Hinckley is a computer service and repair technician at an Evergreen
computer firm.

The federal grand jury on which Hinckley served indicted Zaghmot, Douaidary
and seven other alleged members of the drug ring last Thursday, about 24
hours before Hinckley allegedly visited Zaghmot's office.

An amazed agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, watching the
visit on a television monitor at a secret location, summoned other law
enforcement authorities.

Authorities said the visitor, whose identity was then unknown, was
detailing evidence and showing paperwork that had been presented to the
federal grand jury one day earlier.

Officers raced to Zaghmot's office, Denver Wholesale Co., to arrest the
visitor, but he was gone. They immediately arrested Zaghmot and Douaidary.
Later Friday, Zaghmot described the visitor to authorities.