Pubdate: Wed, 24 Mar 2004
Source: Post-Standard, The (NY)
Copyright: 2004, Syracuse Post-Standard
Contact:  http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/686
Author: Sean Kirst
Note: Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard.
Cited: ReconsiDer http://www.reconsider.org/

POPOV TRAGEDY RAISES THEORIES

Why did Simeon Popov die?

Onondaga County Court Judge Joseph Fahey offered one clear answer.
During sentencing last week for Robert Adams, who admitted to being an
accomplice in the Jan. 20, 2002, robbery that led to Popov's death,
Fahey played a recording of a panicked call to the 911 Center by a
young man who reported the killing.

Fahey told Adams the phone call left just one conclusion: "As far as
I'm concerned, Mr. Adams, you're responsible for that," the judge said.

Yet Bonnie Levy, the lawyer who represented Adams, publicly widened
the circle of blame. She said that as many as "nine or 10" Syracuse
students were involved in the marijuana ring that generated the cash
sought in the robbery, and she wondered why those students were never
brought to justice for their conduct. "They were just as responsible,
maybe not legally, but morally, for the death of Simeon Popov," Levy
said.

Nick Eyle has a completely different take on why Popov - a talented
and charismatic music student - is dead. Eyle is executive director of
ReconsiDer, a Syracuse-based organization dedicated to the reform of
American drug laws.

"This case has little to do with marijuana," said Eyle, whose group
includes retired law enforcement officers. "I don't remember hearing
that anyone was high when they (shot Popov). His death had everything
to do with prohibition and the black market that prohibition has
created." In other words, Eyle said, if marijuana was already legal
and controlled in the same way as tobacco, there wouldn't have been a
wad of cash intended for a drug buy to tempt the robbers in the first
place. "It was about money and business," maintained Eyle, likening
Popov's death to ruthless criminal violence during the American
prohibition of alcohol, 80 years ago.

According to court accounts and testimony, the killing occurred
because a Syracuse University student living in an Ostrom Avenue
apartment was looking to buy two pounds of marijuana for $6,000.
Adams, a former SU student, admitted that he learned about the plan
and told an acquaintance, Dominic Dennard, 21.

Adams also admitted to driving Dennard to Ostrom Avenue, in hopes of
stealing the $6,000 or the drugs by force. When the masked Dennard
entered the apartment, his target wasn't there. Instead, Dennard
robbed three others he found inside of a few dollars, some breath
mints and a cigarette lighter, according to statements made in court.

Popov, a promising trombone student, then came to the door to deliver
some chicken wings, according to prosecutor Nick DeMartino. Popov,
DeMartino said, was ordered to come inside. Dennard was eventually
convicted of second-degree murder for shooting Popov at point-blank
range, in the head.

In court, Fahey wanted Adams to hear the human consequences of the
robbery plan. The judge played the tape, in which one young man with a
panicked voice reported the shooting, while another voice in the
background kept shouting that Popov was dead on the floor.

Fahey sentenced Adams to 10 years in prison. Afterward, in a brief
telephone interview, Fahey agreed that the students involved in the
marijuana sales - as well as any citizens who might be selling
marijuana - could learn something from the tape. "Anyone who thinks
trafficking in marijuana is harmless ought to listen to (it), because
you can attract some pretty dangerous and predatory people," Fahey
said.

DeMartino, the prosecutor, said he supports at least one of Levy's
points: Young marijuana dealers might think twice if they heard the
tape. But DeMartino said the three men in the apartment when Dennard
burst in weren't selling drugs.

"I can tell you that the guys who were involved in this immediately,
it has changed their view," DeMartino said. Two of them, he said, went
to the apartment to obtain a small amount of marijuana. They weren't
prosecuted, DeMartino said, because it's difficult to get a conviction
"based on something that's going to happen in the future."

Pragmatically, he said, he also needed their help. "We had a young man
who was shot in the head and murdered, and my goal was to prosecute
and get a conviction. Unfortunately, you sometimes have to use people
involved in a crime" to get a conviction, DeMartino said.

Told of Eyle's argument that legalized marijuana would have eliminated
the motivating factor, DeMartino disagreed. "It's not going to change
a thing," he said. Even if the government controlled marijuana sales,
DeMartino said a black market would survive, and that the crime itself
was about the eternal issues of "greed and opportunity."

Eyle, in response, maintained that no one ever gets shot to death over
the sale of black-market beer. He said marijuana continues to be used
behind closed doors by many American professionals and "captains of
industry," and that blaming the students represents societal hypocrisy.

Still, while Eyle's solution differs from DeMartino's, he would agree
with this basic summary of why Simeon Popov died: "A marijuana
transaction has ruined so many lives," DeMartino said, "and it's a
tragedy."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake