CLERK TREATED LIKE DEALER

ST. PETERSBURG - One by one, accused ``drug dealers'' were paraded before
television cameras this week to show police are taking street-level drug
trafficking seriously.

One of the suspects was Khaled Mohamad Alghamdi, a clerk at a Citgo
convenience store at 3401 Fifth Ave. S.

But the 27-year-old immigrant from Saudi Arabia wasn't charged with selling
an undercover detective a rock of crack cocaine.

Instead, he was accused of selling loose cigarettes to an undercover
detective who came to the store twice last month. Each transaction was for
about 50 cents.

``I had no idea if it's legal or not legal,'' an outraged Alghamdi said
after his arrest. ``Some people don't have enough money to purchase a pack
of cigarettes.''

Alghamdi was one of about a dozen people St. Petersburg police showcased
Monday at the city's port terminal, just south of downtown, after a
three-month investigation into street-level narcotics sales. Reporters and
broadcasters were invited to photograph those suspects who were rounded up.

Two of Alghamdi's fellow clerks at the Citgo store also were brought to the
port terminal. They didn't understand the charges against them, either.

Derto Castillo, 33, and Hesham Muqbil, 29, each were charged with selling
drug paraphernalia. Investigators said they sold flowers and steel wool
scouring pads to the same undercover vice and narcotics detective who
bought the cigarettes from Alghamdi.

In the eyes of the vice squad, these items constitute drug paraphernalia
because crack addicts can use the tube in which the flower is placed as a
pipe. And the scouring pad can be stuffed into one end of the tube to hold
the drug.

The detective, in affidavits, said that when she asked Castillo for a crack
pipe on Nov. 5, he gave her the flower, a piece of the scouring pad, and a
soda. And when she asked Muqbil for the ``works'' a week later, he included
in a bag the scouring pad, even though she didn't mention it by name.

But the clerks said that's not what happened. And they said they didn't
know the products were going to be used illegally.

Lt. George Chapman of the vice and narcotics squad said authorities decided
to include some people in the sweep who were not part of the three-month
investigation.

But Chapman didn't think police were obligated to differentiate when
walking the suspects before media cameras.

``I don't see that that is our responsibility,'' he said.