Pubdate: Sat, 17 Mar 2007
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2007 The Tribune Co.
Contact: http://www.tbo.com/news/opinion/submissionform.htm
Website: http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446

OFFICER BUNGLED 4 CASES, POLICE SAY

Charges Dropped Against 3 Defendants

TAMPA - In 2005, Tampa police Officer Melodie Delgado participated in 
about 70 undercover drug deals, focusing on people police thought 
were members of a gang called the Drak Boys.

Problem is, she couldn't keep track of whom she had arrested when 
preparing some of her cases for trial, police said.

Delgado, 42, bungled four cases so badly that prosecutors dropped 
charges in three of them and reduced the penalty in the fourth, 
according to internal investigation findings released Friday.

One of the men whose charges were dismissed is awaiting trial on a 
new felony cocaine-possession charge from 2006, public records show.

Maj. George McNamara called the carelessness distressing. "You have 
to work the cases thoroughly through the criminal justice system," he 
said Friday. "What makes this so glaring is, in her failure to do 
this, charges were thrown out."

The police department reviewed these four cases after prosecutors 
raised questions during trial preparation about Delgado's methods of 
identifying the defendants, the internal investigation states.

The investigation found that Delgado failed to review evidence 
accurately from her undercover transactions before presenting her 
cases to prosecutors. She also gave "sloppy" and "ambiguous" 
testimony, police said.

As a result, the department has suspended Delgado for 12 days and 
reassigned her to patrol in District 2, where she must undergo two 
months of training and a year of probationary supervision, McNamara said.

Officially, the investigation notes the 17-year veteran was guilty of 
inattentiveness to duty, incompetence and violating the standard of conduct.

Police said Delgado told investigators she realized her 
misidentification in one case but did not bring it to the 
prosecutor's attention. She said she was embarrassed about making a mistake.

Police said each case Delgado bungled stemmed from April through June 
2005, when she worked with a confidential informant to purchase less 
than a gram of crack cocaine from Sulphur Springs drug dealers.

Public records show that each man whose case the department reviewed 
had been charged with felony possession of cocaine and felony 
delivery of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school.

Prosecutors realized there were problems with the cases around March 
2006, police said.

For instance, in a deposition that month regarding a man, then 23, 
Delgado was unclear about how she identified him. The prosecutor and 
the defense attorney later discovered that a man Delgado had 
identified on a surveillance recording as the man was a different 
person, police said.

That misidentification also occurred with two other men, then 30, 
police said. In addition, Delgado did not appear for a June 
deposition in one of the men's case, police said.

In April, prosecutors avoided pushing for a three-year mandatory 
minimum prison sentence for Johnny Williams, then 36, after Delgado's 
testimony in court was ambiguous about how she identified him from 
the drug deal, police said. There also were questions about whether 
the confidential informant was in or out of Delgado's car. Williams 
received about five years of probation.
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