📄 presumed guilty.txt
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In Buffalo, N.Y., on Oct. 9, Juana Lopez, a dark-skinned Dominican, hadjust gotten off a bus from New York City when she was stopped in the terminalby drug agents who wanted to search her luggage. They found no drugs, but DEA Agent Bruce Johnson found $4,750 in cashwrapped with rubber bands in her purse. The money, the 28-year-old woman said,was to pay legal fees or bail for her common-law husband. After he beganquestioning her, Johnson realized that he had arrested the husband for drugstwo months earlier in the same bus station. Johnson called the office of attorney Mark Mahoney, where Ms. Lopez saidshe was heading, and verified her appointment. Johnson then told the woman she was free to go, but her money would staywith him because a drug dog had reacted to it. Ms. Lopez has receipts showing the money was obtained legally - a third ofit was borrowed, another third came from the sale of jewelly that belonged toher and her husband, and the rest from her savings as a hair stylist in theBronx. It has been more than nine months since the money was taken, and AssistantU.S. Attorney Richard Kaufman says the investigation is continuing. Robert Clark, a Mobile, Ala., lawyer who has defended many travelers,says profile stops are the new form of racism. "In the South in the '30s, we used to hang black folks. Now, given anyexcuse at all, even legal money in their pockets, we just seize them to death,"he says.---TRIVIAL PURSUIT "If you took all the racial elements out of profiles," you'd be left withnothing, says Nashville lawyer Edwards, who heads a new National Association ofCriminal Defense Lawyers task force to investigate forfeiture law abuses. "It would outrage the public to learn the trivial indicators that policeofficers use as the basis for interfering with the rights of the innocent." Examination of more than 310 affidavits for seizure and profiles used by28 different agencies reveals a conflicting collection of traits that agentssay they use to hunt down traffickers. Guidelines for DEA drug task force agents in three adjacent states giveconflicting advice on when officers are supposed to become suspicious. Agents in Illinois are told it's suspicious if their subjects are amongthe first people off a plane, because it shows they're in a hurry. InMichigan, the DEA says that being the last off the plane is suspicious becausethe suspect is trying to appear unconcerned. And in Ohio, agents are told suspicion should surface when suspectsdeplane in the middle of a group because they may be trying to lose themselvesin the crowd. One of the most often mentioned indicators is that suspects were travelingto or from a source city for drugs. But a list of cities favored by drug couriers gleaned from the DEAaffidavits amounts to a compendium of every major community in the UnitedStates. Seeming to be nervous, looking around, pacing, looking at a watch, makinga phone call - all things that business travelers routinely do, especiallythose who are late or don't like to fly - sound alarms to waiting drug agents. Some agents change their mind about what makes them suspicious. In Tennessee, an agent told a judge he was leery of a man because he"walked quickly through the airport." Six weeks later, in another affidavit,the same agent said his suspicions were aroused because the suspect "walkedwith intentional slowness after getting off the bus." In Albuquerque, N.M., people have been stopped because they were standingon the train platform watching people. Whether you look at a police officer can be construed to be a suspicioussign. One Maryland state trooper said he was wary because the subject"deliberately did not look at me when he drove by my position." Yet, anotherMaryland trooper testified that he stopped a man because the "driver stared atme when he passed." Too much baggage or not enough will draw the attention of the law. You could be in trouble with drug agents if you're sitting in first ?lassand don't look as if you belong there. DEA Agent Paul Markonni who is considered the "father" of the drug courierprofile, testified in a Floncia court about why he stopped a man. "We do see some real slimeballs, you know, some real dirt bags, thatobviously could not afford, unless they were doing something, to fly firstclass," he told the court. The newest extension of the drug courier profile are pagers and cellulartelephones. Based on the few cases that have reached the courts, the communicationdevices - which are carried by business people, nervous parents and patientswaiting for a transplant as well as drug couriers - are primarily suspiciouswhen they are found on the belts or in the suitcases of minorities orlong-haired whites. For police intent on stopping someone., any reason will do. "If they're black, Hispanic, Asian or look like a hippie, that's astereotype, and the police will find some way to stop them if that's theirintent," says San Antonio lawyer Gerald Goldstein.---THE PERFECT PROFILEA DEA agent thought that former New York Giants center Kevin Belcher matchedhis profile. When Belcher got off a flight from Detroit March 2, he was stoppedby DEA's Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Narcotics Task Force. The Texas officers had been called a short while earlier by a DEA agentat Detroit's Metro Airport. A security screener had spotted a big, black mancarrying a large amount of money in his jacket pocket, the Detroit agentreported to his Southern colleagues. Belcher was questioned about the purpose of the trip and was asked whetherhe had any money. He gave the agents $18,265. Belcher explained that he was going to El Paso to buy some classic oldcars "1968 or '69 Camaros are what I'm looking for." Belcher, whoseprofessional football career ended after a near-fatal traffic accident in NewJersey, told the agents he owned four Victory Lane Quick Oil Change outlets inMichigan. The money came from sales, he said, and cash was what auctioneersdemanded. A drug-sniffing dog was called, it reacted, and the money was seized. Agent Rick Watson told Belcher he was free to go "but that I was going todetain the monies to determine the origin of them." In his seizure affidavit, Watson listed the matches he made betweenBelcher and the profile of "other narcotic currency couriers encountered atDFW airport." Included in Watson's profile was that Belcher had bought a one-way ticketon the date of travel; was traveling to a "source" city, El Paso, "where drugdealers have long been known to be exporting large amounts of marijuana toother parts of the country"; and was carrying $100, $50, $20, $10 and $5 bills,"which is consistent with drug asset seizures." Watson made no mention as to what denomination other than $1 bills wasleft for non-drug traffickers to carry. "The drug courier profile can beabsolutely anything that the police officer decides it is at that moment," saysAlbuquerque defense lawyer Nancy Hollander, one of the nation's leadingauthorities on profile stops.---WIDE NET CAST Officials are reluctant to reveal how many innocent people are ensnaredeach day by profile stops. Most police departments say they don't keep thatinformation. Those that do are reluctant to discuss it. "We don't like to talk much about what we seize at the (Nashville) airport because it might stir up the public and make the airport officials unhappybecause we are somehow harassing people. It would be great if we could Keep thewhole operation secret," says Capt. Bawcum, in charge of the airport's drugteam. Capt. Rudy Sandoval, commander of Denver's vice bureau, says he doesn'tkeep the airport numbers but estimated his police searched more than 2,000people in 1990, but arrested only 49 and seized money from fewer than 50. At Pittsburgh's airport, numbers are kept. The team searched 527 peoplelast year, and arrested 49. A federal court judge in Buffalo, N.Y., says police stop too many innocentpeople to catch too few crooks. Judge George Pratt said he was shocked that police charged only 10 of the600 people stopped in 1989 in the Buffalo airport and decreed encroaching onthe constitutional rights of the 590 innocent people. In his opinion in the case, Pratt said that by conducting unreasonablesearches: "It appears that they have sacrificed the Fourth Amendment bydetaining 590 innocent people in order to arrest 10 who are not - all in thename of the 'war on drugs.' When, pray tell, will it end? Where are we going?"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------DRUGS CONTAMINATE NEARLY ALL THE MONEY IN AMERICA Police seize money from thousands of people each year because a dog with abadge sniffs, barks or paws to show that bills are tainted with drugs. If a police officer picks you out as a likely drug courier, the dog isused to confirm that your money has the smell of drugs. But scientists say the test the police rely on is no test at all becausedrugs contaminate virtually all the currency in America. Over a seven-year period, Dr. Jay Poupko and his colleagues at ToxicologyConsultants Inc. in Miami have repeatedly tested currency in Austin, Dallas,Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, New York City, Pittsburgh, Seattle andSyracuse. He also tested American bills in London. "An average of 96 percent of all the bills we analyzed from the 11 citiestested positive for cocaine. I don't think any rational thinking person candispute that almost all the currency in this country is tainted with drugs,"Poupko says. Scientists at National Medical Services, in Willow Grove, Pa., who testedmoney from banks and other legal sources more than a dozen times, consistentlyfound cocaine on more than 80 percent of the bills. "Cocaine is very adhesive and easily transferable," says Vincent Cordova,director of criminalistics for the private lab. "A police officer, pharmacist,toxicologist or anyone else who handles cocaine, including drug traffickers,can shake hands with someone, who eventually touches money, and thecontamination process begins." Cordova and other scientists use gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy,precise alcohol washes and a dozen other sophisticated techniques to identifythe presence of narcotics down to the nanogram level one billionth of a gram.That measure, which is far less than a pin point, is the same level a dog candetect with a sniff. What a drug dog cannot do, which the scientists can, is quantify theamount of drugs on the bills. Half of the money Cordova examined had levels of cocaine at or above 9nanograms. This level means the bills were either near a source of cocaine orwere handled by someone who touched the drug, he says. Another 30 percent of the bills he examined show levels below 9 nanograms,which indicates "the bills were probably in a cash drawer, wallet or someplace where they came in contact with money previously contaminated." The lab's research found $20 bills are most highly contaminated, with $10and $5 bills next. The $1, $50 and $100 bill usually have the lowest cocainelevels. Cordova urges restraint in linking possession of contaminated money to acriminal act. "Police aid prosecutors have got to use caution in how far they go. Thepresence of cocaine on bills cannot be used as valid proof that the holder ofthe money, or the bills themselves, have ever been in direct contact withdrugs," says Cordova, who spent II years directing the Philadelphia Policecrime laboratory. Nevertheless, more and more drug dogs are being put to work. Some agencies, like the U.S. Customs Service, are using passive dogs thatdon't rip into an item or person - when the dogs find something during asearch. These dogs just sit and wag their tails. German shepherds with nameslike Killer and Rambo are being replaced by Labradors named Bruce or Memphis'"Chocolate Mousse." Marijuana presents its own problems for dogs since its very pungent smellis long-lasting. Trainers have testified that drug dogs can react to clothing,containers or cars months after marijuana has been removed. A 1989 case in Richmond, Va., addressed the issue of how reliable dogs arein marijuana searches. Jack Adams, a special agent with the Virginia State Police, supervisedtraining of drug dogs for the state. He said the odor from a single suitcase filled with marijuana and placedwith 100 other bags in a closed Amtrak baggage car in Miami could permeate allthe other bags in the car by the time the train reached Richmond. And what happens to the mountain of "drug-contaminated" dollars thegovernment seizes each year? The bills aren't burned, cleaned, or stored in awell-guarded warehouse.
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