LA VELA ATTORNEY ASKS JUDGE TO BAR 'SCOOP' EVIDENCE

The Club La Vela officials who are charged with federal drug crimes say
they didn't have a hand in the overdose deaths of three people, and want
the prosecution barred from using the deaths against them.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Miller filed a notice saying that he would tie
in the 1998 deaths of Cynthia Broxson, Evan Lagerloef and Early Creamer to
his case against club CEO Patrick Pfeffer, 30, and general manager Thorsten
Pfeffer, 31.

The Pfeffers are charged with conspiring to use the club, or allow it to be
used, for the sale and consumption of illegal drugs. They face 20 years in
prison if convicted, plus possible forfeiture of the club.

On Friday, defense attorney Cynthia Giacchetti of Chicago asked Federal
Judge Robert Hinkle to prevent Miller from using the overdose deaths in the
trial.

Giacchetti also asked the judge to prevent Miller from using alleged drug
activity involving gammahydroxy butyric acid (GHB or "Scoop") at the club
prior to March 13, 2000. GHB was made a controlled substance on March 13, 2000.

If Hinkle does restrict that evidence, it would remove about 190 of the
prosecution's allegations of drug use at the club.

Giacchetti said in her motion that Miller can't show a connection between
the Pfeffers and the deaths of Broxson, Lagerloef and Creamer.

"The autopsy reports and the police reports indicate that Broxson,
Lagerloef and Creamer each died at their residences," she wrote. "There is
no evidence that Broxson, Lagerloef or Creamer obtained the drugs that
allegedly caused their deaths from the Defendants."

In fact, Giacchetti continued, Lagerloef and Creamer died in January 1998 -
a time when the club wasn't even open for business.

Broxson, according to the motion, went to the club for a short time the
night before her death. But people with her didn't see her take drugs
inside the club, and she was walking and talking when she left the club,
according to the motion.

"The only evidence regarding drug use by Broxson on the night before her
death was that she and her boyfriend used drugs prior to going to La Vela,"
Giacchetti wrote. "Broxson's boyfriend indicated that Broxson had a drug
and alcohol addiction that went back many years."

The medical examiner's office couldn't determine the drug that caused any
of the deaths, either, according to the motion.

"The only purpose for introducing (the deaths as evidence) is to inflame
the jury, to unfairly suggest that the Defendants were responsible for
these deaths," Giacchetti wrote.

Miller, in a previous hearing, said that the medical examiner's reports on
each of the deaths were taken out of the Pfeffers' files at the club. He
said they were part of information about drug activity at the club that the
Pfeffers were using to track these activities.

The files were seized during a raid on April 27, 2000. Hinkle has yet to
rule on a motion to suppress any evidence gathered during that raid because
the defense maintains that the search warrant was illegal.

As of Tuesday, Miller hadn't filed a response to the defense motions and
Hinkle hadn't ruled on them.

The Pfeffers' trial is scheduled to start Nov. 5 in Tallahassee, and last
between six weeks and three months. More than 200 witnesses may be called.