Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 Source: Commercial Appeal (TN) Copyright: 2003 The Commercial Appeal Contact: http://www.gomemphis.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/95 Author: Bartholomew Sullivan CRITTENDEN EX-DRUG-OFFICER TRIAL OPENING FBI Sting Grew Into Cash-Skimming Case West Memphis Police Sgt. Edwin A. 'Tony' Bradley pulled over a car with a broken taillight in March of 2001 and seized $45,000. Afterward, Bradley, 42, sent a sample of marijuana to the Arkansas State Crime Lab along with an affidavit saying he had found it with the cash. That was a big mistake, according to federal authorities, who had set up Bradley in a sting operation. There had been no marijuana in the car when he stopped it, and the car's occupants were undercover FBI agents. The money, too, belonged to the FBI. Bradley and Joseph W. Applegate, 32, a former sheriff's deputy, will be the first of four Crittenden County drug officers accused of skimming cash from suspected drug couriers to be tried in federal court in Little Rock starting today. They are accused of conducting illegal searches, seizing cash for themselves, making false arrests, filing false reports and maintaining an illegal supply of marijuana to submit as evidence, according to indictments in the case. Former Crittenden County sheriff's deputy Barry A. Davis, his wife and his father, along with former deputy Louis F. Pirani, his wife and brother also are expected to be tried this spring. They're accused of lying about the source of money for lavish lifestyles that included the purchase of airplanes, motorcycles and other items. Applegate is to be tried again this year on charges he conspired with Pirani and Davis to deprive people of their property without due process, according to an indictment announced in October. A series of indictments indicates Crittenden County law enforcement officers may have pocketed up to $335,000 in recent years. Today's case before U.S. Dist. Judge George Howard involves the March 2001 cash confiscation; a July 13, 2001, seizure of $43,000 in FBI money from a car parked at the Southland Greyhound Park, of which only $40,000 was turned in to authorities; and the Feb. 18, 1997, stop of a vehicle on Interstate 40 from which Bradley allegedly took $36,575 but turned over only $26,575. West Memphis Police Chief Robert H. Paudert has said he went to the FBI with concerns about corrupt officers inside the department soon after his 1999 appointment. He assisted with the undercover probe. On July 17, 2001 - four days after the Southland sting operation - the FBI searched the homes of Bradley and Applegate. Paudert immediately suspended the two, along with police Insp. James Sudbury, who headed the drug unit. He fired them a few months later following an internal investigation. The Crittenden County drug interdiction effort has been a source of controversy for more than a decade but has brought in millions of dollars in seized cash, guns and automobiles. Arkansas law enforcement officials seized more than $5.4 million in cash from the interstates in a 2d-year period reviewed by The Commercial Appeal last year after a Little Rock grand jury began issuing indictments in July. That figure represented slightly more than half the cash seized by law enforcement agencies statewide during the same period. In 1993, a previous version of the drug unit, then a joint West Memphis-sheriff's task force, was investigated by the Arkansas State Police. It turned up evidence that officers, including Bradley, Davis and Sudbury, were keeping guns confiscated from suspects. At the time, Pros. Atty. Brent Davis said the findings, at a minimum, demonstrated a lack of good judgment, but he elected not to prosecute.