COCAINE EVIDENCE ALLOWED IN TRIAL

BRADENTON -- About 9 pounds of cocaine seized by police during a drug
traffic stop this year can be admitted at trial despite defense
arguments that the stop was illegal, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Attorneys for Sarasota residents Milton Borjas Delacruz and Arturo
Oviedo argued that Bradenton police had no basis to stop the vehicle
in which the men were riding Feb. 23 on Cortez Road in Bradenton.

The defense attorneys said, among other things, that police used an
unreliable confidential informant who was in custody when he said he
would help investigators.

Also, authorities did not see a traffic violation before a sheriff's
deputy stopped Delacruz's car in the 4400 block of 67th Street West.

But Judge Peter Dubensky said police had enough background details
about the suspect to make a stop, confront the man, arrest him and
search his car.

Detectives knew the type of car Delacruz was driving, where he was
going and what he looked like. The confidential informant recognized
Delacruz in a driver's license photo. Surveillance teams were in
place along Cortez Road, and Delacruz drove into a trap.

He and Oviedo were arrested at gunpoint before the pair could deliver
the cocaine to associates in a house where other drug deals have
taken place, authorities said.

"His (Delacruz's) name came up as one of the biggest drug dealers
around here," Bradenton police Detective Mike Skoumal said Wednesday.

The confidential informant, meanwhile, is charged in federal court
with drug and weapons violations.

He was arrested during a traffic stop the morning of Feb. 23 and,
within hours, arranged a deal to entrap Delacruz the same day, police said.

Oviedo and Delacruz could face life in prison if they are convicted.
Trial is scheduled for November.

Delacruz had a trafficking conviction dropped in 2003 when an
appellate court ruled that prosecutors had not linked him to a small
brick of cocaine found in a kitchen cupboard in his house in Sarasota.