KEY WITNESS RATTLED IN COPS' CORRUPTION TRIAL

Exboyfriend Stole Drugs, She Testifies

By Matt O'Connor, Tribune Staff Writer

Jamie Wright didn't plead insanity to avoid testifying against the father
of three of her children, as she had earlier threatened to do.

But she was a most uncomfortable witness for the government Monday while
fielding questions for about three hours at the corruption trial of her
former boyfriend and two other Gresham District police officers.

Testifying under subpoena, Wright said she witnessed Baxter Streets, a
tactical unit officer in the South Side district, rob drug dealers of cash
or narcotics about 20 times between 1993 and mid1995. She frequently rode
along with Streets in his police car while he was on duty and witnessed
some of the incidents from that vantage point, Wright said.

She also appeared to damage the defense of Streets' partner and
codefendant, Tyrone Francies, saying Francies was present for some of the
robberies.

Those two officers and Gerald Meachum, are on trial on charges of robbing
two undercover cops posing as drug dealers of a combined $23,000.

Prosecutors are trying to show, through Wright's testimony, that those were
not isolated incidents.

On crossexamination, Streets' lawyer, Patrick Tuite, carefully stepped
around a minefield of potentially explosive issues as he concentrated, in
part, on Wright's mental stability.

"I'm not on trial," she snapped at one point. "I have proof that I'm not
insane."

But more aggressive questioning by Francies' lawyer opened the floodgates
on some of the things Tuite had appeared to be trying to avoid.

The interrogation by attorney Thomas A. Durkin revealed that Wright was
only 15 when she and Streets, who was married and had a family, began a
lengthy relationship. They had a son when she was 16, Wright said, and two
more children within the next three years.

And while she professed to still love Streets, Wright, now 24, on Monday
called him "low down and dirty" for "playing one woman against another."

Wright charged that Streets kept her in the dark about his marriage until
1993 when she met his wife"But I'm always going to love him."

She testified Streets tried "to jump on me" in March 1995 after learning
another man had fathered her fourth child, but when she complained about
his actions to Streets' sergeant, she wasn't allowed to file a complaint.

For years after they had their first child together, Streets paid her
monthly rent of about $550 and gave her at least $150 to $200 a week for
other expenses, Wright testified. That could provide prosecutors with
fodder to suggest to the jury a financial motive for why Streets, with two
families to support, allegedly robbed drug dealers. They put into evidence
a lease agreement for an apartment that contained the signatures of Wright
and Streets.

Wright also testified that when she confronted Streets in 1993 about the
origins of the money he was giving her, the defendant indicated that "it
was not my concern about where he was getting the money from as long as my
kids were being taken care of."

Wright said she didn't know the names of most of the drug dealers she saw
Streets rob, but that her nephew was one of the victims. She also testified
that Streets tipped off her brother, Ivy, when police were in the
neighborhood so that he wouldn't be arrested for dealing drugs.

On one of the occasions when she was riding with Streets and Francies in a
police car while they were on duty, she said, they came upon a prostitute
standing on a street corner, prompting Streets to comment, "There's a quick
arrest."

Instead, Wright alleged, the woman avoided arrest by having sex with
Francies in a motel, prompting a longterm relationship between the two.
Wright said she twice witnessed Francies give what appeared to be tiny
packets of cocaine to the woman.

Wright said Francies later tried to explain away his actions by saying,
"Why should he have to spend his (own) money when he can give her drugs he
gets from drug dealers."

The wives of Streets and Francies sat in the courtroom gallery during the
testimony.

On crossexamination Wright increasingly grew impatient with repetitive
questioning, particularly from Durkin. "Why are you asking me all these
stupid questions?" she asked him at one point.

She claimed she wasn't angry at Streets, saying, "I have no reason to lie
about Baxter, none."

Tuite revealed her promise in a letter to Streets earlier this month that
she would plead insanity to avoid testifying against him. And in response
to a snippy answer to one of his questions, Tuite said, "I think it's time
to see her papers," a reference to her claim she could prove she wasn't
insane.

That drew a rebuke from U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle Sr., who later
angered Durkin by cutting short his crossexamination of Wright.

Later Monday, prosecutors played an audiotape of informant Garry L. Brown
meeting Nov. 14, 1996, with Meachum and Robert Meeks, a codefendant in the
trial, to set up the first alleged robbery of what turned out to be a
police undercover agent.

Meeks, who prosecutors said had dealt cocaine with Brown previously, is
accused of turning to him to help target other drug dealers flush with cash
who could be easy prey for corrupt police officers. What Meeks didn't know,
according to the government, is that Brown had been arrested with 2 kilos
of cocaine a few months before and agreed to cooperate with authorities in
future investigations.

According to a transcript of a taped Aug. 29, 1996, telephone call that was
played at the trial Monday, when Brown expressed a reluctance to get
involved in the scheme, Meeks reassured him by saying:

"You ain't got to worry about the officers. They straight. You ain't got to
worry about that, they super straight. When you want to do it?"