RACE, GENDER WERE FACTORS IN DELTA STOPS POSTED

MANATEE COUNTY - When several members of Manatee County's Delta Division
drug task force picked victims to rob or frame with false charges, they
chose women and minorities.

The reason: The white officers thought no one would believe their victims.

"It appears the wrongdoers in Delta picked their victims well," said
Bradenton defense attorney Mark Lipinski, who represents several of the
victims. "Let's face it, the people they chose were easy pickings."

Over at least a three-year period, ending in 1998, the deputies, assigned
to road patrol and the Delta Division, targeted Hispanics for shakedowns
during traffic stops and blacks and women during drug arrests, according to
state and federal court records.

Of the 28 known victims of the former Manatee County sheriff's deputies, 26
were black or Hispanic, according to federal court records. The other two
were white women, according to court records filed in the ongoing
investigation of the Sheriff's Office.

The U.S. Attorney's Office, which has been investigating the Sheriff's
Office for more than a year and a half, said in court records that the
deputies chose their victims based on a combination of race and opportunity.

Former deputies Christopher L. Moore, 30, and Paul D. Maass, 26, stopped at
least 20 Hispanics over a two-year period.

During each of the stops, Moore and Maass robbed the victim of money,
knowing the robbery was not likely to be reported because the victim "did
not want to rock the boat with law enforcement," the U.S. attorney's office
said in court records.

That attitude is part of a Hispanic cultural respect for law enforcement,
said Gerardo Ramirez, a court interpreter who deals with Hispanic
defendants every day.

"Authority is authority," Ramirez said. "If they tell you to do something,
you do it. The deputies know that."

Many abuse complaints by blacks and women were dismissed because of a lack
of corroborating evidence. Often, the investigation into a complaint would
boil down to the complainant's word against the word of the deputies.

"Who do you expect people to believe?" Lipinski said. "A clean-cut Delta
officer or a minority or other disenfranchised person?"

Of the abuses that were reported, none were verified until April 1998, when
sheriff's deputy Charlie Britt, then a member of the Delta Division,
reported that fellow deputy Chris Wilson, 31, beat Larren Wade, a black
suspect, during an arrest.

The deputies knew that, without similar corroboration, no one would believe
a complaint from a black or Hispanic about abuse, said Derek Byrd, a
Sarasota defense attorney.

Inherently, people want to trust law enforcement and believe officers when
they say no abuse occurred, Byrd said.

"That is probably why these white officers felt that these were the people
to target," Byrd said.

In at least one case in which Delta agents planted evidence, race appears
to have been the motive. When deputies planted cocaine on Sarah Louise
Smith, 21, of Sarasota, they made racially tinged comments, said Smith's
attorney, Greg Zitani of Sarasota.

"Sarah's arrest definitely had some racial overtones," Zitani said.

Sheriff Charlie Wells said the officers involved might have been racists,
but his department is not.

"I'm not a racist, and this department isn't racist," Wells said.

Staff writer Brett Barrouquere can be contacted at 742-6163 or
brett.barrouquere@herald-trib.com.