2 BUSTED IN CITY HALL DRUG RING

GARY, Ind. - The city's chief computer programmer and a payroll clerk were
accused Wednesday of running a cocaine ring that made drug deals out of
City Hall.

The two made deals on city phones and delivered drugs on their lunch
breaks, the FBI said.

"The enemy is not from without. The enemy is from within," said Scott King,
mayor of this struggling city of 117,000.

The programmer, Arthur L. Harris, and his girlfriend, payroll clerk Karen
Laverne Shivers, were arrested Monday. Agents found about $6,000 in cash,
six ounces of crack, five ounces of powdered cocaine and drug paraphernalia
in their two apartments.

According to court papers, agents taped a phone conversation in which
Harris boasted that he was selling more than $1,000 worth of cocaine a day.

The mayor downplayed the government connection in a city plagued for years
by violent crime, drugs and double-digit unemployment.

"I know it's an easy hook in the media to say `Oh, Gary,"' King said. "But
there's not a private or public sector place of business that can throw
stones here."

The two employees had been under surveillance for more than a month after
an informant tipped off police that they were dealing crack and powdered
cocaine, FBI agent Mark Becker said.

The FBI used the informant to buy drugs from Harris, who arranged the deals
from his desk at the management information systems office at City Hall,
according to the FBI. Harris delivered drugs to the informant in a parking
lot after running home to get them on his lunch hour, the FBI said.

Becker wouldn't say if anyone else on the city payroll was under
investigation. No drugs were stored at City Hall, Becker said.

Harris, 46, was charged with possessing and distributing crack and
operating a crack house. He was jailed pending a hearing Thursday.

Shivers, 41, was charged with operating a crack house. She was released on
$20,000 bail.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski