DID ANOKA COUNTY DEPUTIES GO EASY ON GRAMS' SON?

The phone rang in Anoka County Sheriff Larry Podany's office about midday
on July 14. U.S. Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., was on the line with a personal
request -- he wanted Podany to find his son.

It was almost certain that Morgan Grams, 21, was in trouble again. Days
earlier he had borrowed a rental car but never returned it. The friend and
co-worker who lent it to him had already called police, then the senator,
trying to get the vehicle back.

That evening, Morgan deputies Grams tracked down the 1999 black Isuzu Rodeo
with Morgan Grams at the wheel. Inside was enough marijuana for a felony
charge.

Morgan Grams -- on probation and not carrying a driver's license -- got off
without so much as a ticket, as did one of his two passengers.

The 17-year-old sitting next to Grams wasn't so lucky. He was found in
possession of nine of the 10 bags of marijuana in the car. He was
handcuffed, arrested and charged. Two days later, he pleaded guilty to drug
possession. It was his first offense. He spent more than a month at Lino
Lakes Juvenile Detention Center.

Morgan Grams, on probation for underage drinking and driving, and with
several prior misdemeanor convictions, was never questioned about the drugs
in the car, even though a deputy found the 10th bag under his seat.

Instead, Morgan Grams was driven home in the front seat of the chief
deputy's unmarked squad car.

Did Morgan Grams receive preferential treatment from the Sheriff's Office?
Podany, who asked Chief Deputy Peter Beberg to handle the senator's call,
says no.

Such "welfare checks" are not uncommon, Podany said. "I think it was
handled fairly competently by the chief and his staff. I don't know that I
would have done anything different out there."

Sen. Grams declined to be interviewed for this article. His press
secretary, Steven Behm, said the senator would not comment on his personal
life. Repeated efforts to contact Morgan Grams were not successful.

Three experts who were asked by the Star Tribune to review the handling of
the incident said it departed from standard police procedure.

"Normally, you'd arrest everyone in the car," said Neal Melton, executive
director of the Minnesota Peace Officer Standards and Training Board
(POST), which licenses peace officers. They'd all be questioned
separately, then booked on the appropriate charges, he said.

None of that happened that evening in July.

A trip to Taylors Falls

At about the time the senator was calling Sheriff Podany, Morgan Grams was
picking up two teenagers in the Rodeo stocked with two 24-packs of beer,
said Willie Wichman, who was arrested that day on the drug charge.

"We each had Baggies [of marijuana]," Wichman said of the trio that also
included a 16-year-old who sat in the back seat and who, like Morgan Grams,
was neither questioned nor held in connection with the drugs. Because the
juvenile was not charged, the Star Tribune is not naming him.

They headed to Taylors Falls for an afternoon of drinking, dope-smoking and
cliff-diving, Wichman said.

Meanwhile, at Alamo Rent-a-Car at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International
Airport, Robert Hyman was hoping that his call to Sen. Grams would bring
results.

Hyman knew Morgan Grams because both were working at Alamo in July,
although they don't anymore. Hyman said Morgan Grams had persuaded Hyman to
lend him the Rodeo for the weekend. But the vehicle wasn't returned. Hyman
said he tracked down and confronted his missing co-worker on Tuesday, July
13, with help from police in Plymouth, where Morgan Grams was staying.

"He was supposed to follow me back to the airport," Hyman said. "He took
off. Just bolted." A stunned Hyman then put in the call to the senator in
Washington.

By the next day, the Rodeo was three days overdue -- and was being used for
the trip to Taylors Falls. Along with its passengers, it carried the
remnants of the beer and 10 quarter-ounce bags of marijuana, police reports
say.

Attempt to locate

Back in the Anoka County Sheriff's Office, Chief Deputy Beberg alerted
officers at that day's 2:30 p.m. roll call to look for the missing vehicle.
Beberg also put out an "attempt to locate" order, which popped up on squad
cars' computer screens.

Beberg tried on his own to find Grams and later described his efforts in a
3?-page report. The chief deputy called the senator to double-check the
rental vehicle's license plate number. He also checked Morgan Grams' last
known address in St. Francis, but didn't find him there.

By evening, Morgan Grams and his two friends were driving to meet two girls
in East Bethel, Wichman said. As the chief deputy drove south on Hwy. 65 at
about 7 p.m., he spotted the Rodeo and stopped it at 205th Av. NE.

Beberg asked Morgan Grams for his driver's license, and Grams gave him an
expired Senate Staff pass with his picture on it. Grams' spokesman Behm
said that Morgan Grams worked for a few months last year as a Senate
doorkeeper, but that he is no longer employed there. The pass states it
must be "surrendered immediately upon termination of employment."

Beberg said he then verified that Morgan Grams was licensed to drive and
that he had no outstanding warrants. Beberg said he also checked the breath
of all three but smelled no alcohol. He also searched the vehicle, finding
five unopened beer cans, including one at Morgan Grams' feet. He found no
empties.

Beberg told Wichman and the juvenile they were free to go. Morgan Grams
wasn't going to be booked, Beberg said, but he wanted the rental car
returned and Morgan Grams sent home.

But 10 minutes after Beberg made the stop, Deputy Todd Diegnau arrived. He
saw Wichman reach back into the car and stash something in the waistband of
his pants. Diegnau, in his first year with the Sheriff's Office, stopped
the teenager to make sure he hadn't grabbed a weapon, his report said.

Diegnau found nine bags of marijuana on Wichman. A third deputy, Chris
Meyer, checked the Rodeo and found a 10th bag under the driver's seat,
according to Diegnau's report. Beberg said he didn't know about the
discovery of the 10th bag until he recently read Diegnau's report.

Beberg said all three occupants were patted down. But Wichman and the other
juvenile said in interviews with the Star Tribune that only Wichman was
searched.

Wichman also disputed Beberg's statement about finding only unopened beer
cans. The youth said there were empty beer cans under the seats. Hyman
confirmed that he found them when he retrieved the Rodeo. "There were five
or six empties," he said.

After Wichman was arrested, the other juvenile was taken home by a deputy.
Wichman and Morgan Grams were taken to the patrol station, where Wichman
was booked. Beberg arranged the paperwork for the Rodeo to be released to
Hyman. Then, Beberg said, he drove Morgan Grams, who sat in Beberg's front
seat, back to his room at a Days Inn in Plymouth. The expired Senate Staff
pass was also given back.

At the time, Morgan Grams was on probation for underage drinking and
driving. A judge had ordered that he not possess alcohol or mood-altering
drugs. Revocation of his probation could have triggered a three-month jail
sentence.

Beberg, who also serves as Anoka's mayor, said political considerations
were not a factor in how he handled the stop.

Rod Grams has ties to the Anoka area, growing up on a dairy farm near St.
Francis, which sits on the Anoka County-Isanti County border. And his
Minnesota office is in Anoka.

"If there would have been a charge I could have made at that time, I don't
care if it was Morgan or Rod Grams himself, I would have made that arrest,"
Beberg said. "I have a very good reputation. Just because it's Rod Grams'
kid doesn't mean that I would back away from it. But there was nothing that
I could arrest him for. Had we not found that marijuana, everybody would
have been sent on their way."

Beberg said even if he had known at the scene about the marijuana under the
driver's seat, he would have handled things the same way.

Sheriff Podany also defended Beberg's actions. "When you make a stop, you
have priorities that you set," he said. "The priority was checking on
Morgan's welfare, [making] sure he was all right."

Attempts by the Star Tribune to interview the two deputies, Diegnau and
Meyer, were unsuccessful. Although Podany and Beberg initially told
reporters that they could talk with the deputies, Beberg said Friday that
the deputies were "not inclined" to talk. Diegnau earlier had left a
message on a reporter's answering machine saying he was willing to be
interviewed when his superiors gave him permission.

A 'no-brainer'

The three experts said standard police procedures were not followed in the
stop of the Rodeo. None could envision a scenario in which the driver would
not be questioned about the drugs.

"It has all the appearances of a case of clearcut preferential treatment,"
said Peter Erlinder, professor of constitutional law and criminal justice
at William Mitchell College of Law. "It would be easy to find thousands of
African-Americans, Hispanics and working-class white males who are in
prison for exactly the circumstances that occurred in this case."

John Laux, former Minneapolis police chief and former executive director of
the POST board, called the incident "bizarre."

Questioning Morgan Grams about the drugs and charging him with the bag
found under his seat, Laux said, "is a no-brainer. That's basic police
work. Anytime an officer finds drugs in a vehicle, the driver is going to
be held accountable."

As for allowing Morgan Grams to ride home in the front seat of the police
vehicle, Laux said: "I can't imagine finding drugs in a car and then
letting the driver ride in the front seat. . . . The way this incident was
handled, that's just not the way it's done."

POST Board Director Melton agreed. All vehicle occupants in a felony drug
stop should be arrested and questioned, said Melton, who was a Bloomington
police officer for 11 years.

If the driver were on probation, Melton said, "you would contact the court.
Depending on the stipulations, there might be a probation violation." That
none of those things were done in Morgan Grams' case, he said, "appears, on
the surface, at least, to be very unusual. I'd like to know if there were
any extenuating circumstances."

Wichman's parents also question how the matter was handled, especially
because their son was a juvenile and it was his first offense.

"Grams' kid was an adult," Terri Wichman said. "I thought it was kind of
unfair that Willie got busted and Grams' kid got off." Added Tom Wichman:
Grams "is an adult and in control of the car. He should have known what was
going on in his car."

Willie Wichman said he didn't know there was a bag of marijuana under
Grams' seat. He admitted to a narcotics detective the day after the stop
that the marijuana found on him was his. Two days after his arrest, he
pleaded guilty to fifth-degree possession with intent to sell, and began
his sentence.

Robert Parta, Anoka County chief deputy attorney, said he'll talk to County
Attorney Robert Johnson "about what we are going to do here; if procedures
were followed and if there should be any additional charges." Parta said
that if it appears Morgan Grams got preferential treatment, the matter
likely would be referred to an outside agency for investigation. Johnson
could not be reached for comment.

A troubled past

The July incident wasn't the first time Morgan Grams had been in trouble
with the law, nor is it the only time he has relied on his expired Senate
pass.

He was convicted in 1996 of gross misdemeanors for stealing his aunt's $400
television and later that year for stalking and making harassing phone
calls to one of his sister's girlfriends. His former probation officer
said Morgan Grams did two stints in a county jail, totaling three months.

Less than two weeks after he was driven home by Beberg, Morgan Grams stole
a car and purse from a woman he took to a nightclub in Coon Rapids,
according to a criminal complaint filed last week. He was charged with
unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a felony, and gross misdemeanor counts
of check forgery and credit card fraud.

The complaint said Morgan Grams used his expired U.S. Senate pass while
trying unsuccessfully to cash the woman's checks in Ramsey. His next court
appearance is scheduled for Jan. 3 in Anoka County District Court.