NEXTEL BEING SUED BY CITY

Companies Accused Of Impeding Drug Cases; Charged With Defying Order;
Disconnected Cell Phones Disrupt Police Wiretaps

Fed up with phone companies jeopardizing their wiretap investigations, the
city state's attorney's office is taking Nextel Communications to court for
contempt in hopes that the wireless industry will stop impeding police
eavesdropping.

Assistant State's Attorney Jill J. Myers has asked a Circuit Court judge to
fine Nextel for "intentional and willful noncompliance" with a court order
demanding that the company not turn off a cell phone number used by an
alleged drug kingpin.

In that case, detectives say service disruptions tipped off the suspects to
the wiretap, effectively grounding their investigation of Andre L. Cotton,
31, and the large heroin ring he allegedly supervised in West and Northwest
Baltimore.

"I want them to take it a little more seriously," said Myers, who heads the
office's wiretap unit, of the wireless companies. "We only bother to use
wiretaps on violent drug organizations, so these are very serious
investigations."

Nextel, which will respond to the contempt petition at a hearing May 9,
isn't the only company that has frustrated city law enforcement by mistaken
disconnections. Myers says detectives have had similar problems with AT&T
Wireless and Sprint. Although she could not say how many times the
companies had interfered with wiretapped lines, it happens "fairly
regularly," she said.

Maj. Anthony G. Cannavale, commander of the Baltimore Police Department's
drug enforcement unit, is equally troubled. All too often his officers find
that a crucial wiretapped line is suddenly dead and they must scramble to
have it reactivated before the suspect figures out what's happened and
abandons the phone.

In addition, prosecutors and police sometimes have to resubmit lengthy
affidavits to a judge asking for permission to set up another wiretap or
surveillance of the calls a phone makes and receives - delays that can foil
a case.

"While it might be just a glitch for the phone company, it might mean the
difference between a successful and a failed investigation," Cannavale
said. "Their equipment and their technology is being used for illegal acts.
... it seems to me they have the responsibility to be part of the solution."

Nextel spokeswoman Audrey Schaefer would not discuss the state's
accusations or say how many of the company's phone customers are under
surveillance. But she did say Nextel has an entire unit dedicated to
working with police.

"We take our responsibility to the public as a whole and to law enforcement
extremely seriously," Schaefer said.

Clearly the problem is widespread in the business. Last year, AT&T Wireless
came up with a system designed to ensure that people in the billing
department didn't inadvertently undo the work of the company's "National
Subpoena Compliance Center," set up in 1998.

A memo about the system warns law enforcement agencies that it's not
foolproof, however. Only certain employees are allowed to know when lines
are under surveillance, for example, which means instances of wrongfully
disconnected phones are inevitable. Also, suspects might figure out
something's amiss when their phones keep working months after they stop
paying for them.

In the Cotton case, the state's petition alleges that despite a court order
requiring the company to keep the line active no matter what, Nextel
disconnected the phone twice during a two-month wiretap - first because it
was set up by a fraudulent account, and later because of unpaid bills.

Both times the service was restored after detectives complained, but the
disruption apparently piqued Cotton's suspicion.

According to police transcripts of the wiretap, on March 13, the day of the
second disconnection, Cotton, 31, said to his brother, John D. Cotton, 28,
that "something wrong with these joints here, yo for real."

"You better watch what you say on this joint," John Cotton replied.

The brothers quickly stopped using the phone, and the investigation came to
a halt.

Andre Cotton has been indicted on kingpin charges; his brother is charged
with drug conspiracy, and about 20 other people are expected to be
co-defendants in the case. But Myers says the curtailed investigation means
detectives were not able to find the source of the group's heroin, or track
down all the voices they overheard on the wiretapped line.

In an effort to destroy large drug organizations, Baltimore detectives and
prosecutors have greatly stepped up their use of wiretaps in the past year,
investing huge amounts of time and money in special technology units.

The initiative has resulted in the indictments of 119 people - and has
heightened drug dealers' awareness that their cell phone conversations
might be used against them in court. Hoping to outmaneuver police, dealers
talk in code and even buy cell phones in bulk, throwing them away after
just a few days of use.

The criminals' savvy was clear during the drug kingpin trial last year of
Dante C. Linton, 31, now serving a 25-year sentence. "I mean, that's just a
general rule," he told a friend during a cell phone conversation, "don't
talk a lot on the phone."

Investigators say adding the phone companies to the list of hindrances is
too much to bear. Hence the Nextel petition. "I hope it raises the level of
awareness on their side," Cannavale said.