FEDERAL JUDGE REOPENS DRUG CASE

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man who says he was sent to prison on phony cocaine
charges will have his case reviewed, winning another day in court as the
result of a widening scandal in which policemen allegedly framed and even
shot innocent people.

On Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Brian Q. Robbins ordered a new hearing of the
evidence in the case of Esaw Booker.

Booker has maintained since his arrest in 1992 that he was innocent of
selling $20 worth of cocaine, saying the drug was planted on him and that
officers lied in court.

An officer who testified against him was Rafael Perez, a former Los Angeles
Police Department narcotics agent. Perez, who was convicted of stealing $1
million worth of cocaine, is cooperating with officers investigating a
police corruption scandal.

"No one would listen to me," said Booker, 54, who uses a walker since
suffering a recent stroke. "I'm happy to get an opportunity to get this all
behind me. Five years I spent in prison for something I didn't do."

Last month, Javier Francisco Ovando was released from prison after Perez
told investigators he helped frame Ovando on an assault charge after a
fellow officer shot him in the head, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Eleven officers have been relieved of duty with pay and one has been fired
since the investigation began.

Booker's case is among the first of what prosecutors and defense attorneys
say could be hundreds that will be reviewed as a result of the scandal.