$5 MILLION SETTLEMENT SET IN TULIA DRUG BUST

45 Ex-Defendants to Split Award in Race Bias Case Against Task Force

Five years after 46 people, almost all of them black, were arrested
in a now discredited drug bust in Tulia, Tex., authorities plan to
announce a $5 million settlement in a suit and the disbandment of a
federally financed 26-county narcotics task force responsible for the
arrests.

The case attracted national attention because most of those arrested
were black and because the arrests were entirely based entirely on the
work of an undercover narcotics agent who has been accused of racism
and perjury. A court hearing last March exonerated the defendants and
Gov. Rick Perry pardoned them.

"This will conclude the efforts of people in Tulia to get some
compensation and justice," said Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer in Amarillo
who represented the people arrested five years ago in the lawsuit.

Mr. Blackburn said the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task
Force was a target of the suit because it failed adequately to
supervise the agent, Tom Coleman.

The $5 million will be divided among 45 former defendants based on a
formula that will take account of whether they served time in prison
and how long. A forty-sixth defendant has died.

The settlement will be paid by the City of Amarillo, which had a
leading role in running the task force. Marcus Norris, the city
attorney, said many drug task forces in Texas were poorly organized
and governed. That led, he said, to poor supervision of Mr. Coleman in
Tulia, a lack of accountability and catastrophic misjudgments.

"There's a lesson here," Mr. Norris said, "that cities should be very
careful about these alliances."

Mr. Coleman, who was named Texas Lawman of the Year in 1999 for his
work in Tulia, will go on trial on perjury charges in May. He has
pleaded not guilty. Jon Mark Hogg, a lawyer for Mr. Coleman, declined
to comment on the civil settlement.

Judge Ron Chapman, who presided over the hearing, found that Mr.
Coleman was "simply not a credible witness."

Tonya White was among those arrested in 1999, but she produced bank
records showing she was 300 miles away, in Oklahoma City, at the time
Mr. Coleman said she sold cocaine to him. She said the most important
aspect of the settlement was disbanding the task force.

"I'm glad they can't do this to anyone else," she said.

Ms. White and another woman, Zuri Bossett, filed suit last summer
accusing the 26 counties and four cities involved in the task force of
violating the women's constitutional rights and directing racial bias
against Tulia's black population.

Charges against Ms. Bossett were dropped in July 2002 after
prosecutors and defense attorneys reached an agreement. She was
accused of selling cocaine to Mr. Coleman.

Mr. Coleman was supervised by two task force officials who were also
members of the Amarillo Police Department, Lt. Michael Amos and Sgt.
Jerry Massengill. As part of the settlement, Mr. Norris said, they
will take early retirement.

"They were good officers," Mr. Norris said. "They exercised poor
judgment in this case."

Lieutenant Amos declined to comment on that assertion. He said he had
been planning to retire this year, anyway. Sergeant Massengill said he
had no comment.

After last year's hearings, officials in Swisher County, which was a
member of the task force, approved a $250,000 settlement for those
imprisoned on Mr. Coleman's word. In exchange, those defendants
promised not to sue the county.

Vanita Gupta, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, which also represents the plaintiffs along with the Washington
firm of Hogan & Hartson, said it was a mistake to focus only on Mr.
Coleman's actions.

"The task force is ultimately culpable for what happened in Tulia,"
Ms. Gupta said. "They hired, supervised and sponsored Tom Coleman's
activity in the 18 months he was operating there."

Ms. Gupta said that "federally funded narcotics task forces operate
nationwide as rogue task forces because they are utterly unaccountable
to any oversight mechanism."

Mr. Blackburn said the settlement had the potential to draw attention
to the work of similar task forces.

"I am really hopeful that this will send a shock wave to Austin," Mr.
Blackburn said, "and that it will result in a complete systematic
overhaul of narcotics enforcement in Texas."