DRUG TESTS SUPPORT CLAIMS AGAINST SNOHOMISH COUNTY OFFICIAL

Lab tests showed cocaine on the pajama top Bob Dantini, Snohomish County
treasurer, wore the night he was arrested for allegedly assaulting his
girlfriend, according to police documents released yesterday.

According to a State Patrol crime-lab report released to The Seattle Times
under the state open-records law, examination of a plaid flannel top Dantini
provided to county sheriff's deputies armed with a search warrant turned up
cocaine residue in the left breast pocket.

The evidence is consistent with what Dantini's girlfriend told deputies May
28, when she called 911 from Dantini's Snohomish-area home. Crying and
trembling, she told officers Dantini had assaulted her because she had torn
a vial of cocaine from his pajama pocket after she'd found him with it in a
bathroom.

She then led officers to a vial of what tests later proved to be cocaine,
which she said she'd taken from Dantini's pocket and hidden in a shoe inside
her car.

Dantini could not be reached for comment yesterday. Through his attorney,
James Trujillo, he has previously denied having cocaine and has denied
assaulting the woman, saying she assaulted him because she was jealous of
his relationship with another woman.

The state Attorney General's Office on Thursday declined prosecuting drug
charges against Dantini, 48, because the girlfriend would not cooperate with
investigators. Without her testimony, said Jerry Ackerman, an assistant
attorney general to whom Snohomish County prosecutors had referred the case,
there was nothing to tie the cocaine to Dantini.

Ackerman last night said the cocaine found in the pocket didn't change that
fact. Without the woman's testimony, Ackerman said, her statements to police
would be inadmissible "hearsay" in court, and a jury would not hear her
version of how the cocaine came to be on the pajama top. Instead, they would
learn only that a vial of cocaine was found in her car - and perhaps that
she had torn Dantini's pocket during a confrontation.

The woman, 27, told officers that she did not want to help in Dantini's
prosecution because she was concerned about his career, according to police
reports, and that she just wanted to "move on."

If she had agreed to testify, Ackerman said, chances are the case would have
been prosecuted.

The case was referred to the Attorney General's Office to avoid a conflict
of interest: County prosecutors represent Dantini in his position as county
treasurer.

Sheriff Rick Bart said last night he was "frustrated" by the decision not to
prosecute Dantini - and the fact it took seven months to be made.