JUDGE OVERTURNS JURY VERDICT IN MONEY LAUNDERING CASE

Courts: Gary Defense Fell Victim To Vindictive Prosecution

HAMMOND -- A Gary defense lawyer won the biggest case of his life Monday
when a federal judge overturned a jury's verdict that he was guilty of
laundering drug money.

Attorney Jerry Jarrett was a victim of vindictive prosecution, U.S.
District Court Judge William C. Lee ruled.

"We are elated. We are ecstatic," Bob Lewis, one of Jarrett's law
associates, said Monday.

Lewis said it is extremely rare for a judge to overturn a jury's guilty
verdict.

Neither U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen nor Jarrett, who successfully
argued for the reversal, could be reached for comment.

Lee refused a month before Jarrett's trial to declare the charges against
Jarrett a case of vindictive prosecution. A federal jury convicted Jarrett
on Dec. 14 of disguising drug profits as legitimate investments for two
drug dealers for a cut of the money.

The judge had a change of heart, which he may have signaled during the
trial by publicly questioning the credibility of the prosecution's star
witnesses, drug dealers Carlos Ripoll and Gregory Goode.

The dealers testified Jarrett offered in the spring of 1999 to clean their
drug profits by selling them stock in Left Filled, a business Jarrett
started to sell convenience items for left-handed people. The dealers said
they couldn't deposit large amounts of cash without generating suspicion.

They said Jarrett wrote them checks that appeared to be returns on their
investment, keeping about 20 percent for himself. The government alleges
the business had failed and only served in this case to launder money.

Lee states in his 38-page opinion that federal prosecutors had collected
enough evidence to charge Jarrett more than five years ago, but only moved
against him after he began successfully defending Dr. Jong Bek, a Gary
doctor charged in state and federal court with prescribing commonly abused
drugs to addicts for profit.

Bek dumped Jarrett after a grand jury indicted Jarrett for money laundering.

Jarrett claims he has angered state and federal prosecutors by successfully
representing a number of criminal defendants over the years and that the
money-laundering indictment was meant to end his career.

The Indiana Supreme Court suspended Jarrett's license to practice law March
1. Donald Lundberg, executive secretary of the Indiana Supreme Court
Disciplinary Commission, said Monday that the suspension will still stand
until Jarrett cooperates with an unrelated investigation into his ethical
practices.

The U.S. attorney's office denied Jarrett's allegation, pleading to the
judge its money-laundering case against Jarrett didn't come together until
2003, coincidentally at the same time Bek was indicted.

Judge Lee said he found the government's denial "to be a complete sham."

The judge added the U.S. attorney's office didn't follow its own rules of
procedure in pressing charges against Jarrett.

"While the government has great latitude in deciding when to bring a
federal case, it may not indict simply to remove a foe from a highly
publicized case in which the prosecutors have suffered criticism, even if
it has overwhelming evidence that a (money-laundering) crime has been
committed," Lee wrote.