DEFENDANTS PRESS FURTHER FOR COCAINE CASE DISMISSAL

TAMPA - As a federal drug case continues to generate heat for law
enforcement, the defendants try to get the charges dismissed.

Pointing to a ``pattern of misconduct,'' the defendants in a big
federal cocaine case that has become a major embarrassment for the
Florida Highway Patrol and FBI are trying again to get the charges
dropped.

The three men, facing 10 years to life in prison if convicted, say
highway patrol troopers involved in the case ``committed criminal acts
under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.''

A trooper revealed under oath two weeks ago that he made false and
misleading statements about the case in a sworn affidavit. The trooper
also said he and his colleagues do this routinely in major drug cases
to protect undercover agents and confidential informants.

His disclosures have caused major fallout.

U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Jenkins last week called the trooper's
actions ``disturbing ... reprehensible,'' but said she couldn't throw
out the case. The defendants hadn't shown that law enforcement
misconduct was prejudicial to them, she said, noting that the drugs
were found before the misconduct occurred.

Lawyers for the three men now are asking Jenkins to
reconsider.

``The defendants have suffered or are threatened with actual
prejudice,'' they wrote in court documents. ``That prejudice flows
from a system of justice in which government agents believe that it is
proper to [commit] perjury.''

It's possible that misleading affidavits have been filed in scores of
cases, the lawyers wrote. Unless the court intervenes, they said, the
misconduct will continue whether by ``self interest or moral
blindness.''

The lawyers noted that Jenkins said she was disturbed that federal
prosecutors apparently saw no problem with the practice of filing
incomplete affidavits.

``Only this court has the power to punish the government and deter
future crimes,'' they wrote. ``If this Court does not act to protect
our liberties, who will?''

The FBI and U.S. attorney's office declined to comment Wednesday.
However, both agencies previously have said the trooper was not
instructed to lie.

The case and ensuing controversy revolve around the May 1998 arrest of
a motorist from Orlando charged with carrying 220 pounds of cocaine in
the trunk of his car.

Michael Leonard Flynn, 40, was arrested on Interstate 4 near Lakeland
by Trooper Douglas Strickland. In a later affidavit, Strickland said
he found the cocaine when he and his partner offered to help Flynn
with a stalled car, and Flynn wouldn't open his trunk.

But in truth, Strickland already knew about the cocaine. He said he
had watched FBI agents load it as part of a reverse sting operation.
And he knew that Flynn's car had been stalled by federal agents using
a remote-control device.

Strickland revealed none of that in the affidavit.

Flynn was freed after Polk County prosecutors discovered the trooper's
omissions and dropped state charges against him. But earlier this
year, Flynn and two associates, Norman Dupont and Dewey Davis, were
indicted by a federal grand jury on cocaine charges.

This week, The Tampa Tribune learned that Strickland also signed an
affidavit that misstated the circumstances behind the arrest of a
Baltimore man on cocaine charges in 1995. The trooper was working with
Tampa police and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency at the time in
another reverse sting.

The defendant pleaded guilty and is serving a 10-year prison
sentence.

Florida's top state trooper vowed this week to increase training for
troopers who assist in federal drug busts. Col. Charles C. Hall said
news reports about the misleading affidavits challenged the agency's
integrity.

Strickland has not been disciplined and remains on the
job.

A number of lawyers have said they will re-examine the files of
clients arrested in similar stops in hopes of reopening those cases.