DRUG FUND PAID COPS' SIDE TRIPS, FBI WANTS TO INSPECT TRAVEL
RECORDS

As a member of the Memphis Police Department's Organized Crime Unit,
Lt. Charles Newell went to Nevada to discuss the growing gang problem
with other officers from around the nation.

Money confiscated in drug-related arrests paid Newell's airfare, hotel
bill and expenses, as well as the travel expenses of four colleagues
from the department.

But midway through the National Gang Conference in Las Vegas, Newell
had something other than Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples on his mind.

In fact, he was nowhere near the conference hall. Nor was he leaning
over a dice table.

Newell was 275 miles away, in Los Angeles, for a meeting with an
acquaintance - lawyer Johnnie Cochran.

The MPD drug-forfeiture fund also paid for the car Newell rented to
get to California.

Newell said it was a quick detour: He made the nearly four-hour drive
to L.A., met with Cochran for 30 minutes, then returned to Las Vegas.

"When you go to a conference, the main focus is the conference.
Sometimes you get a break," Newell said. "It's not like I was off
partying in Los Angeles."

In his meanderings - 765 miles during a five-day conference - Newell
was not alone. Police department records suggest that others too have
roamed widely during out-of-town assignments paid for by the cash-rich
drug fund.

Newell's venture into California in December 1997 was traced by a
$26.82 gasoline purchase he made near San Bernardino on an OCU credit
card. But rental car records show that other MPD employees have logged
nearly as many miles during training sessions.

"Anytime someone attends a conference, it is for the benefit of the
agency. They are for training, and we certainly would want them to be
there,'' said interim Police Director William Oldham, who is in Sun
Valley, Idaho, this week for a national conference.

"In light of any information that they are not there, we would want to
look into that to see exactly what occurred.''

This drug-money-financed travel has attracted the attention of the FBI
as well. Last week the agency requested copies of OCU travel records
spanning several years.

Agents will have to look elsewhere for some of those records, however.
In response to public records requests from The Commercial Appeal,
Police Department officials reported that some records - a variety of
expense forms, rental car receipts and gasoline charges - could not be
found.

And because of missing records, for example, the department cannot
identify which employees bought gas with an OCU credit card at two
fuel stops far from approved destinations.

The FBI was already examining the department's use of federal grant
money as well as purchases made with credit cards backed by OCU drug
funds. The FBI's interest in travel records indicates a widening
investigation of the Police Department, although the exact nature of
the inquiry could not be determined.

As is customary with the FBI, Special Agent in Charge Tom Locke would
not comment.

City officials have already acknowledged they were unaware that OCU
credit cards, issued in the names of fictitious companies and intended
for use by undercover narcotics officers, were being used for
out-of-town travel and the purchase of routine goods and services
around Memphis.

Chief Administrative Officer Rick Masson told the Memphis City Council
recently that it did not appear that any expenditures violated state
or federal laws, but that some were inappropriate under city policy.
He said newly drafted procedures will more tightly govern how the
funds can be spent.

Masson, second in command to Mayor Willie Herenton, said an oversight
committee would be established to periodically review drug-fund
expenditures.

Until being reassigned recently, Deputy Chief Brenda Jones directed
the operations of OCU, the unit that conducts undercover narcotics and
gang investigations. Jones was among the department's frequent fliers,
making at least eight trips since 1996.

"You can never get too much training,'' Jones said
recently.

She put nearly 600 miles on her rental car in four days at a
Washington conference in October 1997. She would not talk to reporters
about the trip.

Available records show she made a nighttime purchase of gasoline on an
OCU credit card near the outskirts of New York City two months
earlier, while attending a conference in Philadelphia, 70 miles away.

"Oftentimes you don't want to eat at the hotel where you're staying,''
she said in a previous interview.

Drug funds also paid for a purchase at that same service station, in
Woodbridge, N.J., in October 1998, when Jones and other MPD employees
were attending another conference nearly 200 miles away in Washington.
But records do not reflect who made the purchase, only that the
vehicle displayed a Virginia license tag.

The service station is near the New Jersey-New York border, along an
interstate that links Washington, Philadelphia and New York City.

Jones was also one of the five MPD employees who made the 1997 trip to
the Las Vegas conference.

The Commercial Appeal could not determine from the available records
whether other members of the Memphis contingent accompanied Newell on
his trip to Los Angeles.

In a previous interview with the newspaper, Jones said no one skipped
the conference to travel outside Nevada.

But when asked specifically about Newell's gasoline purchase in
California, Jones said, "I would think he may have made a business
trip. When Johnnie Cochran comes to Memphis, he (Newell) is
responsible for his security.

"If he left Nevada and went to Los Angeles, I would say he was meeting
with Johnnie Cochran. I would see that as legitimate. . . . I don't
see a problem.''

Newell, who served as supervisory lieutenant at OCU, was reassigned
recently by Oldham.

"I'm in management. If he sees fit to move me, I've got to move. I'm a
soldier,'' Newell said.