Dallas Morning News, The (TX) - Chris Raesz, P.C



Dallas Morning News, The (TX)

November 9, 2003

Criminals' assets help task force

Some say property is traded for leniency, but DA denies it

Author: KEVIN KRAUSE; Denton County Bureau

Edition: SECOND

Section: NEWS

Page: 1A

Dateline: DENTON

Article Text:

Fred Snow sold cars and cocaine.

William Burl Hatchett beat his prostitutes and forced them to have his name tattooed on their bodies.

David Treft cooked an estimated half-million dollars worth of methamphetamine.

All three faced prison; all three got probation.

That's because - though the district attorney denies it - the North Central Texas Narcotics Task Force struck deals with them and others for lighter punishments in exchange for cash, cars, motorcycles, jewelry and other property that the task force needed to fund its operations. Denver McCarty, a former task force prosecutor, said he offered the deals to a half-dozen defendants during the last two years because the task force needed the money to stay in business.

"If we don't have enough money by the end of the grant year, we're all out of a job," he said. "You kind of knew what kind of forfeiture money you needed to have, or everybody's going home."

Task forces like the one in Denton County comprise police officers and prosecutors from various member agencies. Most of their salaries are paid using federal grants. Such grants require that a portion of the task force's budget be brought in by the task force. That's done in part by seizing the assets of defendants, having courts validate the forfeiture of the property and then selling it.

But defendants can use the courts to fight seizures for years. And the Denton County task force has committed to using property seizures, not tax dollars, for the local contribution of its budget. To speed the process, prosecutors have persuaded some defendants to hand over - forfeit - their assets in exchange for a lighter sentence.

In Denton County, task force forfeitures have averaged about $150,000 per year for the last six years, according to the county auditor's office.

Mr. McCarty, who left the Denton County district attorney's office in June when it appeared the task force might lose its funding, said that he authorized most of the deals and that District Attorney Bruce Isaacks approved agreements involving the more serious crimes.

Mr. Isaacks, Denton County's district attorney since 1991, said forfeitures have never been a part of plea negotiations in his office. He said he would have fired Mr. McCarty if he thought he was offering the deals.

"We don't do that here," he said. "I've had defense attorneys offer to give up stuff, but we don't do that. None of these asset forfeiture cases have any bearing on the ultimate disposition of the criminal case."

Most costs covered

Formed in 1987, the multi-agency drug task force is one of 42 regional task forces across Texas and has included police in Collin, Grayson and Wise counties. It routinely teams with the Texas Department of Public Safety and federal investigators and has the authority to investigate illegal drug use and trafficking areawide. Participating agencies loan officers, and the task force grant pays 75 percent of their salaries.

Over the last three years, 11 municipal police agencies that once participated in the North Central Texas task force dropped out, leaving only the Highland Village police and the Denton County Sheriff's Department.

Mr. McCarty acknowledged that some drug offenders who got probation as part of the agreements didn't deserve it. He defended the deals, however, saying he took millions of dollars of illegal drugs off the street and raised money for the task force during his 20-month stint.

"I was fairly aggressive about getting the [forfeiture] money," said Mr. McCarty, whose $90,000 salary was paid for by the task force grant. "But we weren't just giving away the farm."

Mr. McCarty, now a defense lawyer in Denton, said constant pressure to find forfeiture cases made his job difficult.

"I would rather have to focus on how long to send these guys to the pen and let the forfeitures take care of themselves," he said.

Denton County Sheriff Weldon Lucas, the task force's project director, said forfeitures don't dictate which cases get investigated.

But, he said, "Sometimes you get close to the [task force funding] deadline and you have to look at the cases that have forfeitures and how you can get them to trial, and if you can get them to trial."

Ethics at issue

Under state law, police can seize property if they believe it was used to commit certain crimes or was bought with crime proceeds. But such seizures can be held up in the courts. Some defendants initially oppose the seizure, then agree to forfeit their property in the hope of lighter sentences. Experts say such an arrangement is legal but disagree whether it's ethical.

"I think it looks bad," said Bruce McFarling, a former North Central Texas task force prosecutor who is now a state district judge in Denton County. "It would be a matter of, we're letting criminals go because they're paying property. Someone with more property will get a better deal than someone else."

Bryan Slabotsky, a North Central Texas task force prosecutor in the early 1990s who is now an Oklahoma prosecutor, said he also steered clear of such deals. "We always bent over backwards not to associate the two," he said.

"You're creating the appearance that someone rich enough can buy their way out of a drug case," said Scott Henson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's police accountability project in Austin. "It's coercive to the extreme. If you can prove your case, prove your case. The problem is you need the forfeitures to keep your paycheck coming."

Others say the deals are no different from other plea bargains.

"We reward people who turn over first," said George Dix, a University of Texas law professor. "If you happen to have information or can help the state in another case, you can get a deal."

Mr. McCarty agreed.

"People who cooperate with law enforcement get better deals," he said. "If someone doesn't have any money, it may work to their disadvantage. But it also works to their disadvantage if they don't have any information to contribute."

Robert P. McCulloch, president of the National District Attorneys Association and the prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County, Mo., said it's OK as long as there isn't a blanket policy guaranteeing leniency for forfeitures.

"Obviously, they're interrelated," said Mr. McCulloch, who cannot offer the deals in Missouri because of state law. "You're talking about the same case and the same conduct."

Ken Houp, supervising attorney at the University of Texas' Criminal Defense Clinic, said defendants can decline the plea bargain and fight the criminal charge and seizure. The problem, he said, is when people are treated differently.

"Sometimes the biggest crooks get off because they're able to cooperate and give more information than the little guy who doesn't have anything to give," he said. "It runs into due-process and equal-protection problems. It smacks of justice for sale."

Current and former task force officers acknowledged being under pressure to come up with forfeitures and said they dislike deals for leniency.

"It's frustrating that it becomes a bargaining chip and ultimately wins out," said Barbara Markham, a former North Central Texas task force member who is a police officer in the Denton County city of Oak Point.

Mike Martin, a current member of the task force, said eliminating the requirement that the task force raise part of its operating budget through seizures or forfeitures would mean "a lot of stress and strain off us."

How common?

It's difficult to gauge how widespread leniency-for-forfeiture deals are because they are usually made in private, defense attorneys say. The federal government doesn't make them. But published reports indicate they've occurred in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Arkansas and Wisconsin in recent years.

"It just keeps going on. What's to stop it?" said David B. Smith, co-chairman of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' Forfeiture Abuse Task Force. "Each DA has his own little fiefdom. If he's elected, there's no one above him who can stop it except the public."

Dallas County District Attorney Bill Hill said that if a case is solid against a drug dealer, it's fairly easy to seize the suspect's assets in court.

"I don't see any necessity in cutting the guy a deal when we're going to get his property anyway," said Mr. Hill, whose office is not associated with a regional drug task force.

Collin County District Attorney John Roach said his office only offers lighter punishment for assets if the criminal case is weak and they were going to offer leniency anyway. David Montague, spokesman for the Tarrant County district attorney's office, said policy there forbids such deals.

'Basically a money-grab'

Denton County's Mr. Isaacks issued a warning in 1998 to drug dealers: "As long as I am the district attorney, my office will continue to aggressively prosecute drug dealers so they cannot get back on the streets."

Mr. Snow, 60, of Denton, struck a deal last year with Mr. Isaacks' office for two years' probation in exchange for signing over 14 of the 18 vehicles the North Central Texas task force seized from his car lot, as well as $5,169 in cash.

Officers had seized 41 grams of cocaine, some individually packaged, along with methamphetamine and marijuana, during a search of Snow's Auto Sales.

Richard Gladden, who represented Mr. Snow, called the deal extortion because, he said, the district attorney's office held the threat of prison over his client's head.

"They said they would prosecute to the fullest if he didn't agree to the deal. The operation of the drug task force is basically a money-grab," Mr. Gladden said. "Their primary interest is not administering justice as much as it is accumulating wealth."

Mr. Hatchett, 40, lived an extravagant lifestyle, police said, marked by flashy cars, expensive jewelry and a $487,000 Oak Point house.

He was convicted of engaging in organized criminal activity and received five years' probation in exchange for agreeing to sign over $7,000 in cash, nine fur coats and 58 pieces of gold, silver and diamond-studded jewelry that netted almost $40,000 at auction. In addition, the district attorney's office allowed Mr. Hatchett to move to Florida without an assigned probation officer after his conviction.

"We ran him out of Texas," said Mr. McCarty, who acknowledged that Mr. Hatchett probably would have gotten a stiffer sentence without the forfeiture.

"We got a chunk of his money," said Mr. McCarty. "That hurt him."

Mr. Treft, 42, also avoided prison - by agreeing in May to forfeit property seized at his Frisco home five months earlier.

Inside the house and in garbage bags, police found the makings of a methamphetamine lab: 25 plastic bags, 29 battery packages, 26 cans of ether, denatured alcohol, acetone, 36 empty tablet bottles, scales, a drug recipe and two buckets of a liquid that tested positive for methamphetamine.

Mr. Treft said task force members told him he could agree to forfeit cash and three vehicles or spend the rest of his life in prison. He took their deal before a grand jury could hear his case.

"It was more like a robbery than a bust," he said. "They ran right over me and came right after my bikes. ... They didn't even care about the drugs," Mr. Treft said. "They were like kids in a candy store. They were jumping up and down, all oooing and ahhing when they uncovered my bike."

Mr. Treft said he was later given the option of buying back his seized property and paid the task force $15,000 for his 1996 Chevrolet and 2002 custom-built motorcycle.

He said his attorney, Stephen Wohr, told him he could get his other motorcycle back for another $12,000. He said he couldn't come up with the money in time and the bike was forfeited, along with more than $13,000 in cash, two television sets and camera equipment.

Mr. Wohr declined to comment.

$100,000 short?

A case stemming from a 2001 raid at a house in the Denton County city of Little Elm illustrates how forfeitures can affect sentencing.

Kevin Kuntz, 39, was facing life in prison after task force officers found several methamphetamine labs at his home. He received 90 days in prison, followed by eight years' probation, in exchange for $100,000, according to his attorney, Fred Marsh.

Also arrested at the Little Elm house on the same charges as Mr. Kuntz were Glenn Boliver, 37, of Lake Dallas, and Patrick Pappas, 40, of Watauga.

Mr. Pappas agreed in April to plead guilty to a lesser charge and received a 12-year prison sentence. Mr. Boliver's case went to federal court, where he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in September and was sentenced 19 years in prison.

His attorney, Clifton Holmes, said, "My guy didn't have $100,000."

E-mail kkrause@

Caption:

PHOTO(S): (1-3. JIM MAHONEY/Staff Photographer) 1. The Denton County district attorney's office offered a deal to Fred Snow of Denton after he agreed to sign over most of the vehicles seized from his car lot, as well as $5,169 in cash. 2. Denton County Sheriff Weldon Lucas says forfeitures don't influence investigations. 3. (Bulldog ed. p. 18A) William Hatchett lived an extravagant lifestyle, police said, as illustrated by this $487,000 home in Oak Point. 4. Kevin Kuntz. 5. Fred Snow. 6. William Burl Hatchett. 7. David Treft. 8. David Al-Hakeem. 9. Deion Sharra Gabriel Sr. CHART(S): 1. (Staff graphic) NORTH CENTRAL TEXAS NARCOTICS TASK FORCE PLEA BARGAINS. 2. HOW THE TASK FORCE IS FUNDED.

Copyright 2003 The Dallas Morning News

Record Number: 1258773

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