Pubdate: Tue, 16 Apr 2002
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2002 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author:  Todd Bensman, The Dallas Morning News
Note: Staff writers Steve McGonigle and Robert Tharp contributed to this 
report.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption)

POOL-HALL POWDER TIED TO FAKE-DRUG PROBE

Attorney: FBI Studying If Billiards Chalk Was Used

The FBI is investigating whether paid Dallas police confidential informants 
bought large quantities of white billiards chalk and planted it on innocent 
people who were then arrested for dealing drugs, a public defender and 
others said Monday.

Federal Assistant Public Defender Karl Rupp, who is representing Reyes 
Roberto Rodriguez, said his client's cooperation had helped the FBI begin 
answering questions about how dozens of people were falsely accused of drug 
dealing by Dallas police. Mr. Rodriguez was one of several informants who 
had acted as a subcontractor to the Police Department's primary informant, 
Enrique Alonso, Mr. Rupp said.

The FBI has confiscated the chalk cones from the home of one of the jailed 
informants and collected receipts for large quantities of the substance 
from a supply house based on Mr. Rodriguez's statements, Mr. Rupp and 
others said. Billiards chalk contains gypsum, which was the substance 
identified in about two dozen cases that were later dismissed.

Mr. Rodriguez "has inside information on every aspect of the fake-drugs 
arrests, and that information is likely to resolve the majority of the 
questions that the FBI and the media have had concerning what happened in 
the arrests," Mr. Rupp said.

Background Coverage of the ongoing investigation from The Dallas Morning 
News and WFAA.

He said Mr. Rodriguez had already provided "adequate information for the 
FBI to bring criminal charges in court."

Mr. Rodriguez is being held on federal immigration charges. He could 
benefit from reduced charges if his cooperation were publicly recognized as 
significant. Mr. Rupp declined to detail how his client said the operation 
worked other than to say that FBI agents now believe they know.

Mr. Rupp said "the million-dollar question" that remains unanswered is 
whether the police officers were involved in a scheme with their informants.

The city's response to a federal civil-rights lawsuit stated that police 
believed the informants were credible and had been duped by drug dealers.

The two officers involved in many of the questionable arrests - Senior Cpl. 
Mark Delapaz and Officer Eddie Herrera - are on administrative leave with 
pay while the investigation continues. The officers have refused to comment 
on the investigation, and their attorneys could not be reached for comment 
Monday.

Dallas FBI spokeswoman Lori Bailey declined to comment, citing 
confidentiality rules in place for ongoing criminal investigations.

William Nellis, the attorney for informant Jose Ruiz, confirmed that police 
have seized solidified cones of powder used in billiards clubs from the 
garage of the home where Mr. Ruiz lived. Mr. Nellis said he has not had a 
chance to confer with his client.

Arch McColl, the attorney representing Mr. Alonso, did not return phone 
calls Monday.

Mr. Alonso's daughter, who spoke on condition that her name not be used, 
said Monday that her father wasn't behind the fake deals. Authorities still 
haven't explained how the seized substances initially tested positive in 
the field by police but later were found to be phony by lab experts, she said.

She said that her father was optimistic, but added that he still hasn't 
been accused of any crime related to the drug deals.

"He didn't do nothing. He doesn't know why he's in jail," she said.

Mr. Ruiz and Mr. Alonso were recruited together by Dallas police in 1999 to 
serve as paid informants for drug busts. Both informants are jailed on 
federal charges related to their immigration status.

Over two years, Mr. Alonso was paid more than $200,000 - a Police 
Department record - for his help in making what was billed as some of the 
department's biggest-ever drug busts. They recruited other informants, such 
as Mr. Rodriguez, as subcontractors.

Mr. Nellis said he had not talked to his client but didn't believe that the 
seizure of billiards chalk was significant. Mr. Ruiz worked at a billiards 
hall as a "jack of all trades" and the cones were probably related to his 
work, the attorney said.

"The only thing I can truthfully surmise is that he did work in a pool hall 
and had worked in a pool hall for a long period of time," he said. "It's my 
standpoint that anything found in there ... could very likely have been 
used for legitimate purposes."

Mr. Nellis said Mr. Ruiz refuses to talk further with the FBI after he was 
allowed to be deported but was recaptured after re-crossing the Mexican 
border. The FBI interviewed Mr. Ruiz for several hours before he was 
deported to Mexico.

"He figures he won't cooperate because he told them everything he knows and 
he's still in jail," Mr. Nellis said.

The Dallas County district attorney's office has dismissed more than 70 
cases after learning that some material that tested positive for drugs in 
field tests was found in later tests not to be illegal substances.

In an interview before he was arrested, Mr. Alonso said he did not know how 
the large drug busts later turned out to be gypsum. He said he did nothing 
improper.

Large quantities of the billiards powder were purchased by a man who gave a 
name that matches that of Mr. Alonso's brother in August - a month when the 
Police Department recorded some of its biggest busts.

The manager of a billiards supply store in Lewisville said FBI agents 
questioned him last Friday about the sale of a large amount of pool chalk 
in August to a man who said he was opening a pool hall in Mexico.

Jeff Klundt said receipts show a man who identified himself as Luis Alonso 
and gave an address in Oak Cliff purchased 120 cones of pool chalk from his 
store and a second Billiards & Barstools location in Euless.

They sell for $3.95 apiece. Mr. Klundt said the customer paid in cash and 
did not arouse any suspicions with his story or the purchase amount, which 
he put at 80 kilograms.

"It's quite a bit," Mr. Klundt said, "but you've got to bear in mind we 
deal with a lot of commercial businesses."

An employee of Mr. Klundt's store who gave his name as David said Monday 
that he loaded 90 chalk cones into a light-blue Lincoln Town Car or 
Continental for the customer who identified himself as Luis Alonso.

Enrique Alonso, who remains jailed on federal fraud and immigration 
charges, owns a white 2002 Lincoln Town Car, records show.

WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported last week that Luis Alonso is Mr. Alonso's 
brother. Luis Alonso has denied purchasing any pool chalk, Channel 8 reported.

On Aug. 7, Cpl. Delapaz and Officer Herrera, with help from Enrique Alonso, 
arrested two men at an Oak Cliff fast-food restaurant after discovering 76 
kilos of a white powdery substance in their van. A field test conducted by 
the arresting officers was positive for cocaine, police have said.

Prosecutors later told the arrested men's attorneys that lab tests showed 
the confiscated substance was gypsum, the main ingredient in Sheetrock and 
in billiards chalk. The two defendants spent several months in jail before 
their cases were dismissed in January.
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