FORMER OFFICER PLEADS INNOCENT

FAYETTEVILLE -- The investigation of a Little Flock police officer arrested
on drug charges last month began with a woman's complaint about an
encounter in a Fayetteville bar.

The woman told Rogers police that she woke up naked in Officer Ian Smith's
home after meeting him in the bar and falling unconscious, Fayetteville
police Lt. Greg Tabor said.

Smith is accused of selling two ecstasy pills to a confidential informant
on Jan. 17 while Drug Enforcement Administration agents watched with
surveillance cameras. The same day, police say they searched a house in
Monte Ne shared by Smith and Scoggins and found more than 9 fluid ounces of
gamma butytolactone, or GBL.

The chemical is used to make gama hydroxybuyrate, or GHB, a drug with
euphoric and hallucinogenic effects that has been used to knock out women
in date rape cases.

Assistant public defender Leanna Houston, who represented Smith at the
hearing, said she hasn't discussed the case with her client and couldn't
comment. Scoggins' attorney, Tim Morris of Rogers, also declined to comment
after the hearing, as did Smith.

Smith's arrest in January stunned colleagues who knew him as a popular,
outgoing and competent police officer.

"We were just basically bowled over by the whole thing," said Little Flock
Police Chief Justin McCarver. "We would never have imagined anything like
that."

Smith was a patrolman for the Rogers Police Department from March 20, 1998,
to March 9, 2000, when he left to become a K-9 officer with Little Flock.
Smith said in an e-mail to Rogers Chief Tim Keck that working with a police
dog had been "a lifelong dream."

At the Rogers Police Department, Smith passed exhaustive background checks,
including a criminal history check, a psychological examination and a
polygraph test.

In January, Rogers officials paid $2,000 to settle a federal lawsuit by a
man who said his civil rights were violated after Smith stopped him without
probable cause and arrested him on a public intoxication charge. Other than
the lawsuit, Smith never drew formal complaints at Little Flock or Rogers,
officials with both departments said.

Rogers police Capt. Steve Helms said he was shocked to learn Smith was
under investigation.

"We don't like drug dealers and we hate dirty cops," he said.

As a K-9 officer, Smith was trained to command his German shepherd to sniff
for drugs, track suspects and attack a suspect if a situation required
self-defense, McCarver said.

When the woman made her complaint against Smith in December, investigators
decided they would have a tough time proving a sexual assault case because
the woman claimed to have been unconscious during the attack. But police
said the woman also told them Smith sometimes sold her ecstasy.

Drug agents recorded conversations between Smith and a confidential
informant setting up a deal to buy ecstasy at the Radisson Hotel in
Fayetteville, according to a police report.

Drug agents wired a hotel room with audio recording equipment and cameras
to monitor the meeting from another room, said Mike Reynolds, a sergeant
with the 4th Judicial District Drug Task Force. The DEA brought undercover
agents from other jurisdictions -- so Smith wouldn't recognize them -- to
help monitor the lobby and perimeter of the hotel.

Scoggins arrived at 12:15 a.m. and met with two female informants,
according to the police report. He gave each of them an ecstasy pill, and
the informants pretended to take them, the report says. Scoggins then took
a pill himself.

After a while, Smith called the hotel room, the report says. Scoggins told
Smith the women had taken the pills. Smith then entered the room, it says.

At this point, drug agents might normally bust in the door and make the
arrests. But they were afraid Smith would be armed, and they didn't want to
risk a gunfight that could injure the women.

Smith was placed on administrative leave the day of his arrest and resigned
four days later, on the day the city's personnel committee was to discuss
his case, McCarver said.

The Little Flock Police Department spent $10,000 to $12,000 on a German
shepherd and training for Smith at Law Enforcement and Detection, a police
dog training school in Lincoln. The school's director, Gerald Goss, agreed
to trade Smith's dog for a new one and train a new K-9 officer for free,
McCarver said.

Investigators said Smith isn't believed to have been a major ecstasy dealer.

Fayetteville police arrested 10 people for ecstasy possession in 2001.
That's an increase from one arrest in 2000 and none the year before.
Ecstasy is the popular name for methylenedioxymethamphetamine, a drug with
hallucinogenic and amphetamine-like properties.

Magistrate Robert Gladwin on Wednesday set the men's trial for May 2. Smith
is free on $5,000 bond, and Scoggins is free on $3,500 bond.