MEARDAY LAWYERS: TAPES PROVE FRAME-UP

Drug Charges Dropped 4 Days After Subpoena Filed

Prosecutors dropped 2-year-old drug charges against Jeremiah Mearday just
days after his lawyers subpoenaed the federal government for secretly
tape-recorded telephone conversations of an allegedly corrupt Chicago
police officer.

Mearday's lawyers believe those tapes might back Mearday's long-held claim
that police planted drugs on him when he was arrested in March 1998 in
front of his West Side home. Mearday has maintained that police set him up
in retaliation for his earlier brutality complaints that touched off a
storm of community protest and led to the firing of two Chicago police
officers.

Now, Mearday's lawyers said evidence of a frame-up might be found within
the thousands of wiretapped conversations and other material gathered in an
expanding FBI probe of former gang crimes officer Joseph Miedzianowski. He
was arrested in December 1998 and has been accused of shaking down drug
dealers, planting drug evidence and overseeing a Miami-to-Chicago narcotics
ring. Records show that Miedzianowski and his partner, John Galligan, who a
year ago was stripped of his police powers in connection with the federal
probe, were among the officers who responded to the 4000 block of West
Crystal Street after Mearday's arrest.

In addition, one of the Grand-Central police officers who allegedly found
the six packets of crack cocaine in Mearday's size-11 Timberland boot was
reassigned to desk duty last year during the course of the federal
investigation.

All three officers were listed as possible prosecution witnesses against
Mearday in the drug case, according to court documents.

On May 1, Mearday's lawyers subpoenaed the U.S. attorney's office for
records detailing "acts of alleged misconduct, including, but not limited
to, allegations of planting narcotics on suspects, filing false arrest
reports, and narcotics distribution" gathered in the Miedzianowski
investigation.

Four days after the subpoena was filed, Cook County State's Atty. Richard
Devine's office dismissed the two felony drug charges against Mearday, who
still faces three separate counts of aggravated battery for allegedly
scuffling with officers during the incident.

Devine's chief spokesman said the decision to drop the drug charges was
unrelated to the subpoena for federal investigative records.

Prosecutors dropped the charges, said spokesman Robert Benjamin, so they
could concentrate on the aggravated battery case.

"It's a matter of focusing on the violence charges," Benjamin said in an
interview last week. Penalties for conviction of the drug charges, however,
are much more serious, carrying up to 15 years in a penitentiary compared
to just 5 years for aggravated battery.

Mearday's lawyer, Craig Tobin, said a state police forensic report shows
that no cocaine residue was found in Mearday's boot.

He said he was confident that federal authorities have additional
information, such as secretly recorded conversations, to corroborate
Mearday's account that police planted the drugs.

"We think there's a substantial amount of information that the feds have
over there," Tobin said. "It's our anticipation that there were discussions
about Mearday. You just don't voluntarily drop felony drug charges."

To date, federal authorities have indicted 22 people on drug-conspiracy
charges but Miedzianowski is the only police officer to be arrested.
Miedzianowski, a cop for 22 years, has pleaded innocent and is in federal
custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

The ongoing federal investigation has caused some embarrassment to the
13,500-member department headed by Supt. Terry Hillard, who earlier this
year broke up Miedzianowski's old gang crimes unit and ordered the tightly
knit unit of more than 100 officers dispersed throughout the city.

Federal authorities have compiled voluminous wiretap conversations and
other evidentiary material as part of their nearly 24-month investigation
of Miedzianowski and others.

Mearday's lawyers expect the U.S. attorney's office to resist the subpoena
on grounds that releasing the information might compromise their investigation.

According to federal court documents, a former gang leader told authorities
that on several occasions he provided small amounts of cocaine to
Miedzianowski to plant on people who gave the former officer trouble,
including one woman who had filed a police brutality complaint against him.

In addition, other court documents filed in the Miedzianowski case show
that he was caught on tape allegedly threatening to plant drugs on a drug
suspect as a form of control.

In the conversation between Miedzianowski and a convicted drug dealer, the
former officer explained the perils of crossing the police: "Because just
like in everything else, if you don't have something, you will have
something when (a policeman) comes to your house."

Federal authorities declined to comment about the Mearday subpoena or their
ongoing investigation. Officers from the Grand-Central police district
arrested Mearday March 19, 1998--just one week after two other policemen
from that district were fired for allegedly beating Mearday the previous
fall. In that incident, Mearday had charged that police stopped him for no
reason and beat him on the head with flashlights, breaking his jaw. The
officers charged that Mearday attacked them when they stopped him for
questioning.

Mearday's allegations of brutality roiled community activists and police
officers. Police boycotted the 1998 St. Patrick's Day parade in the Loop
and showed up in droves at Mearday's court hearings.

Soon after Mearday's March arrest, his supporters, who had rallied around
him after the alleged beating by police, immediately challenged the
department's account of the confrontation and accused officers of a setup.

Police charged Mearday, now 21, with three counts of aggravated battery and
two felony drug charges after police said they found crack cocaine hidden
inside the innersole of his boot.

According to Tobin, the 1998 incident began when Mearday was standing in
front of his home talking on a cellular telephone and police confronted
him. He said police pushed Mearday around and pulled their guns.

"This was a plant, a conspiracy to get this kid arrested," Tobin said.
"Everyone over the age of 5 knows this was a plant."

But officials with the union that represents the rank-and-file officers,
the Fraternal Order of Police, insisted at the time that Mearday's second
arrest showed he was nothing more than a drug dealer.

They said that arrest vindicated former officers James Comito Jr. and
Matthew Thiel, who were fired for allegedly beating Mearday in September 1997.

Police said the March arrest came as officers were canvassing the West Side
neighborhood looking for witnesses to the shooting of a police officer.
They stopped Mearday, whom they said they did not recognize, for an interview.

Mearday ran, police said, then turned and allegedly hit one of the officers
in the face. The others wrestled him to the ground and tried to handcuff
him, according to the police account. Two other officers were slightly
injured in the incident.

The FOP's president, William Nolan, said in an interview last week that he
was unaware of the decision by Devine's office to drop the drug charges and
was stunned by the turn of events.

"I am really surprised that they have done this," Nolan said. "That Mearday
is like Teflon."