WOMAN SAYS NO-KNOCK RAID USED AS LEVERAGE

Feb. 19 - Emma Price said the Denver police officer was insistent:
Become a drug informant for him, or "I'll take your momma off to jail."

After she refused several times, Price said, police stormed the home
of her 79-year-old mother - and found nothing illegal, even though
police had obtained their search warrant by telling a judge it was a
known crack-dealing location.

The officer who recruited her as a snitch and ordered the no-knock
raid, Price told The Denver Post: Joseph Bini.

Just hours later, a SWAT team shot and killed Ismael Mena during
another no-knock raid requested by Bini, which prosecutors say started
when Bini lied to a judge.

After Bini was charged with felony perjury in connection with the Mena
raid, The Post reviewed noknock search warrants that Bini requested or
participated in last year. Denver police officials are conducting a
similar review. One of those warrants involved Price and her mother.

Bini's attorney wouldn't comment.

The 45-year-old Price, an admitted drug user, said in an interview
that Bini repeatedly pressured her to become an informant for him. The
overtures, she said, always came with a warning that she'd find more
trouble if she didn't work with him.

"He was saying he could give me a job and pay me for
information,"

Price said of Bini. "I kept telling him that I wouldn't do it. I don't
do information; I do drugs, that's it."

Price said Bini vowed to " "take your momma off to jail' if I didn't
snitch for him," she said Tuesday. Price said that a few days after
Bini's latest attempt, "they came crashing into my mother's house and
found nothing."

It was the second raid on the house, court records show, although
Price claims police have barreled through the door several other
times. The house is owned by Price's mother, Minnie Clarke.

Denver police confirmed Friday that they are reviewing all search
warrants Bini wrote or with which he was involved - all of which were
no-knock warrants with little or no drugs confiscated, The Post found
in its own review.

"The deputy chiefs indicated to me they are conducting the review,"
said Sgt. Tony Lombard, a police spokesman.

Likely to be among those is the no-knock warrant that was executed the
morning of Mena's death on Sept. 29.

Police officials canceled two other noknock search warrants - one
requested by Bini and the other by his partner - when the fatal raid
on Mena occurred, SWAT team officials confirmed. Records show the
warrants were signed an hour before the raid on Clarke's house occurred.

Bini is charged with felony perjury in connection with the sworn
affidavit he filed for the search warrant at the High Street house
where Mena lived. The city has admitted it raided the wrong house, and
a special prosecutor has said the informant Bini relied on had
inaccurately identified the targeted house to Bini.

The officers who shot Mena were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Price said she heard of the fatal raid, but didn't know Bini had been
involved. She said her history with Bini began about two years ago,
and his requests for information started shortly thereafter.

So did the trouble, according to Price.

She recounted a separate incident when Bini allegedly searched the
house. Then, she said, when he was asked for the warrant that
authorized the search, Bini sat in the living room and wrote one out
on the coffee table, then handed it to them.

Price and Clarke said they tossed the warrant into the trash shortly
after the incident occurred.

"I won't have my client comment on any of that, and I've never heard
of these allegations," said David Bruno, Bini's attorney. "It's just
people coming out of the woodwork."

Court records show Price has a history of petty offenses and
misdemeanor drugrelated arrests dating to 1988, but hasn't spent more
than 30 days in jail for any charge, many of which were dismissed. A
felony drug charge from 1996 was dismissed by prosecutors before it
reached trial, records also show.

"I use drugs, but I don't sell them," Price said.

Nonetheless, police raided the Josephine Street house where Clarke
lives, four hours before the ill-fated Mena raid, court records show.

But the sworn affidavit used to get the warrant against Price was
written by one of Bini's colleagues, Officer Daniel Andrews, even
though it states Bini and a third officer gathered the information on
which it's based.

Bini and Andrews were partners and worked on the department's
neighborhood policing team in northeast Denver.

Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter has repeatedly refused to comment
about anything that involves Bini, who will be prosecuted by Jefferson
County District Attorney Dave Thomas.

In the affidavit, Andrews never claims he saw the undercover purchase
that resulted in the no-knock raid on Josephine Street. In fact, the
affidavit says Bini not only didn't see the buy, but didn't even see
Price. It says only that Bini was told by his informant that such a
purchase happened and Price was the dealer.

Andrews refused to comment about the affidavit.

In their perjury case against Bini, prosecutors said Bini made several
false statements, including his assertion that he saw the illegal drug
buy that led to the Mena raid.

The affidavit also says the Clarke house had been the object of
numerous complaints from neighbors and that the same informant,
working with Bini, had made two other drug buys there.

The only arrest made at the house occurred in February 1998, when
Price was charged with possessing a crack pipe following another
no-knock raid. She pleaded guilty to the charge and received 30 days
in jail, court records show.

Bini is not mentioned in court records or the affidavit that led to
the 1998 warrant, nor has he arrested Price on any charge that ended
up in court, records show.

Police at the District 2 station said they could not confirm how many
complaints had been filed against the Clarke address.

When black-hooded police smashed through Clarke's door on Sept. 29,
she said she "wasn't afraid."

"They've done this before," Clarke said. "I guess they know me now,
and they were real nice."

They even offered her an ambulance if she wanted, but she said she
declined, opting instead to take one of the heart pills she said she
always carries with her.

Clarke said the police ran into the basement and "dumped a gallon of
paint all over the floor. I was about to paint the house, and now it's
on the floor."

Four hours later, police broke into Mena's house.

"I might have a broken door, but at least I'm alive," Clarke said.
"And I can fix the door."