INFORMANT LOSES BID FOR MORE MONEY

COURTS: A jury finds that a police drug informant had a contract with
Duluth, but that it hadn't been breached.

The world of drugs is a sewer and Robert Jackley was a good swimmer in that
sewer, Duluth Deputy City Attorney Alison Lutterman told a St. Louis County
jury Thursday.

Lutterman said Jackley made up his own rules while working as an effective
drug informant for the Duluth Police Department and the Lake Superior Drug
Task Force. He is educated, articulate and gifted at deceiving people, she
said.

"But in this world, this house, this system, there are laws and he has the
burden of proof," Lutterman told the seven-member jury in her closing argument.

Jurors deliberated four hours and found that Jackley didn't meet that
burden. He failed to prove the claim in his lawsuit that the city of Duluth
breached a contract for his services and owed him $61,000 in payment for
drug dealers he helped bust.

Jurors determined that Jackley did have a contract with the city, which the
city had denied, but that it hadn't been breached. Jurors awarded him no money.

Juror Tom Napoli, a Proctor artist and the married father of four young
children, said jurors respected the work Jackley did, but they didn't find
evidence he had been promised anything more than he was paid.

"We are all very thankful that there are people that would do what he
does," Napoli said. "We sometimes think we are Mayberry RFD here, but he
was in the dregs of society. Everybody was wishing we could have done
something for him, but there wasn't enough evidence for us. There was
nothing to say that he deserved $61,000. But I thank God for people like
him. Oh, man!"

Jackley, 48, entered an oral agreement with the city in 1995 to provide the
Police Department's Special Investigations Unit with information about
crimes involving gangs, drugs and sex.

He testified that he is a recovered crack cocaine addict. He said he became
a police informant for the money and because he had seen children
victimized by the cocaine use of their parents. He said he wanted to
protect children.

The plaintiff said the agreement was that he would sit down with police
after all the drug cases he helped make had been resolved and determine the
amount of money he was owed. He said he was told higher-level drug dealers
were worth as much as $4,000 to $5,000 each. One retired police
investigator testified and supported Jackley's claim. Another retired
investigator and a current department supervisor testified that no such
offers were made to Jackley.

All of the witnesses for the plaintiff and defense at trial agreed that
Jackley did good work in helping to bust drug dealers.

Jackley infiltrated gangs of drug dealers from Milwaukee, Detroit and
Chicago while working for police in Duluth.

Jackley and one retired police investigator said that the plaintiff's work
led to more than 30 drug arrests and convictions in the Duluth area,
including the takedown of a major heroin, crack cocaine and prostitution
ring Jackley called the Milwaukee 7.

According to exhibits provided to jurors by Lutterman, Jackley was paid
$33,460.96 for information he provided to Duluth police and the Lake
Superior Drug Task Force between 1995 and 2001. He was paid another $3,595
to purchase drugs in controlled buys under police supervision and $1,892.78
in miscellaneous expenses.

The money he was paid for tips ranged from $50 to $2,000. In March 2000, he
received 15 payments ranging from $50 to $395.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Office of Drug Policy and
Violence Prevention is designated to make such money available through the
Federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act to support criminal justice activities.

The 6-foot-5, 178-pound man -- who was once known on Duluth streets as
"African Dave" -- said he came to the United States from Monrovia, Liberia,
on a visitor's visa in 1986 because of a civil war in his homeland. He said
he was a leader of a youth group in which members were slain by a rival
tribe. His plan was to seek political asylum here.

Jackley, who works as a nursing assistant at a Chisholm nursing home,
couldn't be reached for comment on the verdict.

"Obviously, we disagree with the jury's verdict, but we respect the jury
system and their decision," said Todd Deal, Jackley's Virginia attorney.
"It was a tough case. Robert, I think, would tell you that he and I both
knew that -- given the evidence -- the decision could go either way. We're
pleased that the jury found that a contract existed, which, of course, the
city was denying the existence of a contract at all."

Deal said he would confer with Jackley before deciding whether to appeal
the verdict.

Lutterman credited Jackley for turning his life around.

"It sounds like he's gotten rid of his drug habit, cleaned up his life,
gained employment and is living by the rules that regulate our society, and
for that I congratulate him," she said.