TEXAS POLICE CONSPIRE WITH CROOKS TO CONVICT THE INNOCENT

One of the crooks finally gets what he deserrves

A Dallas man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday for his role in the 2001 fake-drug scandal in which crooked police informants profited by planting fake drugs on innocent people. Daniel Alonso's prison term far overshadows other state and federal sentences handed down so far to other players in the complicated scheme. Witnesses in the former police informant's trial testified that he was responsible for purchasing nearly 200 pounds of billiards chalk that was then pulverized and packaged to resemble cocaine. Mr. Alonso also helped plant the phony drugs and select unsuspecting people for arrest, according to court testimony.

Prosecutor Toby Shook argued that the informants were motivated by profit and didn't care that innocent people were being arrested and faced up to life in prison for the charges. Mr. Alonso and five other informants received more than $440,000 cash from former Dallas police Detective Mark Delapaz, although the officer's reports documenting the payments are now in question. "This is a man who knew what was happening to those innocent people," Mr. Shook said, referring to Mr. Alonso. "The plan was to get money, and he knew those people were going to go to jail for it." ......

More than two dozen people were falsely arrested in the series of fraudulent busts. Five of the victims waited outside the courtroom Monday as jurors spent two hours deliberating Mr. Alonso's potential sentence, which ranged from probation to 99 years in prison. One of those wrongly jailed, Abel Santos, said he's pleased with the 20-year sentence. "I think it's OK," he said. "We all have to pay a price for what we do. That's enough time for him to think about what he did and learn."

Jury foreman Norman Oliver said that the case was complicated and that jurors struggled to stay focused on the specific charges against Mr. Alonso and not consider the roles that other informants and police officers are accused of performing. "Everything that everybody else did – the other officers and informants – we kept our deliberations to what was part of the evidence we heard in court," he said. In the end, jurors agreed that Mr. Alonso had been a knowing participant in the scheme, although individual jurors initially had a range of feelings about how much punishment he deserved. The panel considered everything from probation to 50 years in prison during their two hours of deliberation, Mr. Oliver said.

In April, Mr. Delapaz was convicted of lying in search warrants and was sentenced to five years in prison. He remains free on bond while his conviction is under appeal. He faces another trial in January for one of more than a dozen other indictments related to his work. Former Officer Jeffrey Haywood faces trial next month for a charge that he lied about performing a field test on one of the drug seizures. Two other former officers have been indicted on charges that include aggravated perjury, fabricating evidence and forgery.

Three of the informants have already pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges and have received sentences ranging from 33 to 41 months in federal prison. Those three and two others also face organized crime charges. Those five may not face a jury trial because they have all admitted responsibility, but Mr. Shook vowed that they would still be punished. "All of those people are going to face justice," he said.

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