BIG MAN, BIG PROBLEM
Sheriff Dave Meneley started 1999 as the county's chief cop wearing a badge
and ends the year as a defendant facing two perjury charges and an attempt
to force him out of office. What happened in between?

Have you heard about the sheriff's deputy?" the tipster asked a reporter in
February 1996.

"No. What's up?"

"There's a Shawnee County sheriff's deputy assigned to the drug unit. He's
working undercover, buying drugs from dope dealers. But he tried some
cocaine, now he's hooked on it, he can't get off, and he's using drug
evidence," the tipster said.

"Who's the deputy?"

"Tim Oblander."

Fast forward to the present when Sheriff Dave Meneley, Oblander, now a
former deputy, and sheriff's Sgt. Frank Good face criminal perjury charges
in Shawnee County District Court for allegedly lying under oath, all linked
to Oblander's cocaine abuse when he was a deputy.

Starting Jan. 18, Meneley fights for his political life as a two-judge panel
will decide whether to force him from the office he has held for seven years
based on charges filed by the attorney general's office.

In a slam-bang chain of events starting in December 1998, it's been a
tumultuous year in the sheriff's office since a district judge unveiled
hundreds of pages of investigative reports compiled by the Kansas Bureau of
Investigation about the disappearance of cocaine evidence from a sheriff's
department drug evidence locker.

The interweaving criminal and civil legal cases and the large cast of
characters has created, at times, a confusing story. What follows is a recap
of how the scandal got to where it is today.

The missing cocaine

The case started in early 1996 when District Attorney Joan Hamilton wrote a
letter to Attorney General Carla Stovall asking her office to assign the
Kansas Bureau of Investigation to probe what happened to three-quarters of
an ounce of cocaine that disappeared from an evidence locker at the
sheriff's department in July 1994. Hamilton's office got a tip a deputy
might be linked to the disappearance.

The months-long KBI investigation ended in August 1996 within days of the
statute of limitations expiring. No charges were filed, and the case and its
almost 400-page report hibernated for two years until October 1998. Hamilton
then mailed letters to defense attorneys asking them to search their files
for old drug cases investigated by sheriff's deputies because the KBI report
might contain evidence that could clear their clients. A judge granted the
request of two assistant public defenders representing a drug client to open
the KBI report.

Later, that case was dismissed after a uniformed Oblander sat in a witness
chair and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against giving testimony that
could incriminate him. Meneley declined to discipline Oblander, saying the
corporal has the same rights as anyone else.

Also in October 1998, Bruce Harrington, a Topeka defense attorney, told how
a client whispered to him in court that during a February 1997 preliminary
hearing a deputy was falsely testifying about the amount of cocaine
confiscated from the defendant during a sheriff's narcotics drug bust.

Deputies took more cocaine than the deputy testified, the client told
Harrington. In an interview with a Capital-Journal reporter, Meneley
dismissed the accusations.

"I would never believe a crook," Meneley said last week when asked about the
defendant's comments to Harrington. When drugs disappear from a law
enforcement evidence room, "the criminals, and especially the defense
attorneys, exaggerate it. Drug dealers will say anything."

When asked last year about the persistent rumor that a deputy was addicted
to drugs and had reached into the sheriff's department drug evidence room,
Meneley said, "That's not true."

As for Harrington's client, the felony cocaine sale charge was dismissed in
July 1997, and he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drug charge.

KBI report opens

"Personally, I'm glad it's out," Meneley said two days before the KBI report
went public.

The KBI report exploded into public view Dec. 7, 1998, after District Judge
Thomas Conklin unsealed it.

Copies of the 371-page report were sold at the courthouse for $12.60, the
cost of photocopying it. Conklin opened it after The Topeka Capital-Journal
filed a lawsuit asking that it be unsealed. Among the buyers was defense
attorney William Rork, who bought two copies, saying he was reviewing the
report on behalf of Meneley.

The report included interviews of deputies who told KBI agents that:

Meneley told two deputies that Oblander was the person who stole another
narcotics officer's cocaine evidence in 1994, had taken and used some of the
drugs he had purchased on the street and was in treatment for cocaine and
methamphetamine use. Meneley denied making those statements.

The two deputies also told KBI agents that Oblander had told the sheriff he
had a drug problem. But Meneley testified that when Oblander entered a
substance abuse treatment facility in 1996, Oblander was being treated for
an alcohol problem. Meneley said he didn't know Oblander had a drug problem
while he worked for the department.

Two deputies told KBI agents that Sgt. Good told them Oblander had a cocaine
problem and had taken drug evidence from a department locker.

When questioned July 26, 1996, during the inquisition, Oblander invoked the
Fifth Amendment on eight occasions, including whether he had knowledge about
the theft of the missing cocaine, whether he told Meneley about the missing
cocaine and whether he told Meneley he was undergoing drug treatment at any
particular facility.

In a news conference in December 1998, Oblander said he took the Fifth
Amendment during the Nov. 23, 1998, drug hearing to avoid embarrassment
about treatment he underwent for alcoholism and to protect himself from
possible questions about whether he was drinking on duty and while driving a
sheriff's department car. Oblander denied stealing cocaine from the
sheriff's department evidence locker, denied being a cocaine user and denied
telling Meneley he stole the cocaine and was a cocaine user.

A day later during a news conference of his own, Meneley lashed out. He said
statements by some deputies that he knew who took cocaine from an evidence
locker in 1994 were "a lie."

Meneley was asked whether two deputies made false statements about Oblander
and the missing evidence.

"I guess it comes down to one man's word against another. The fact of the
matter is I have no knowledge of where this cocaine went," Meneley said.

The Hernandez hearings

The scandal picked up speed in January and February 1999 when deputies
testified Meneley and Good had confided that Oblander was using cocaine and
had taken drugs.

The hearing was launched after Carlos Hernandez, a convicted murderer in an
unrelated case, asked a judge to dismiss two drug charges against him,
alleging the drug evidence against him was tainted as a result of
mishandling by deputies.

Prosecution and defense attorneys battled over whether District Judge Eric
Rosen should release records of Oblander's treatment at an Atchison
substance abuse clinic to determine whether he was treated for cocaine abuse
or alcoholism.

On Feb. 26, Oblander resigned. Three days later, less than an hour before
Rosen was to issue a decision on whether to release his clinic records,
Oblander faxed an admission of his cocaine and alcohol to Rosen and the
newspaper from the office of Rork, his attorney.

Rosen did release Oblander's medical records, which showed the former deputy
had been treated for cocaine abuse.

The Rosen ruling

After the Hernandez hearings ended, Rosen dismissed drug charges against
Hernandez. But more importantly, Rosen's ruling blistered the conduct of a
small group in the sheriff's department as "outrageous," saying Meneley
tried to cover up illegal activities by demoting, transferring and promoting
deputies. The ruling also said any sheriff's department drug evidence in a
three-year time frame was contaminated. As a result, District Judge Charles
Andrews has dismissed or overturned several pending drug cases or drug
convictions.

On March 17, 1999, Meneley had dared Hamilton to charge him with something
linked to the drug scandal so he could have his day in court. Meneley issued
the dare during a radio talk show.

In April 1999, Hamilton answered his dare. Meneley and Good were arrested a
day apart for their testimony during the Hernandez hearing. Their arrest
came less than three weeks after Oblander's arrest on six counts of perjury
and one count of official misconduct.

On May 24, Stovall cited 13 counts of willful misconduct or violations of
moral turpitude when she asked the Shawnee County District Court to force
Meneley out of office. Grounds for an ouster are willful misconduct, willful
neglect to perform a duty required by law or violation of any statute
involving moral turpitude, according to Kansas law.

Legal jousting

From there, the criminal cases against Meneley, Good and Oblander and the
ouster proceeding, a civil action, spiraled into a complex series of legal
maneuvering. The next several months are a morass of filings, counter
filings, and appeals of court decisions. Defense challenges have sought to
remove prosecutors, witnesses, evidence, judges and sometimes even
themselves from one or more cases.

And the results?

Rork was disqualified from defending either Meneley or Oblander after two
district judges said it was a conflict of interest for him to represent both
officers or either officer.

The criminal cases took side trips into the U.S. District Court to appeal
state court decisions disqualifying Rork. Federal judges didn't reverse the
state court decisions.

None of the three criminal defendants has been tried. Good has been bound
over for a trial that is to start Feb. 7. Meneley will appear for a
preliminary hearing starting Jan. 11. In a diversion agreement, Oblander
agreed to testify against Meneley and Good.

The ouster trial, which was to have been on the fast track and was predicted
to be decided by September 1999, then later was rescheduled to Nov. 8, still
hasn't gone to trial.

The three-judge panel appointed to hear the ouster was trimmed to District
Judges Matthew Dowd and Richard Anderson after a ruling by an out-of-county
judge concluded the public could question whether Meneley could get a fair
trial based on remarks attributed to District Judge Marla Luckert, the third
judge on the panel.

And the clock continues to tick.