Crime in the name of the Law
By ALICIA CALDWELL
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000
BRADENTON -- They prowled the streets of Manatee County, looking
for the perfect victims -- poor, troubled people no one would
believe.
Then, they robbed them. Beat them. And even bragged about it.
When it began to come apart, they hung together and conspired to
keep quiet. They saw themselves as above the law.
After all, they were the law.
The crimes committed by the Delta squad, an elite drug
interdiction team at the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, have
trickled out in shocking detail in federal court during the past
eight months.
It's a tale of rogue cops who routinely lied on police reports
and carried their own stash of crack cocaine to plant if they
couldn't find any on the people they wanted to bust.
"They developed their own set of rules and mind-sets about how
things should be," said Mark Lipinski, a Bradenton lawyer who
represents several Delta squad victims. "They preyed upon people
who were basically defenseless."
So far, the toll is jarring: Four Delta squad agents have pleaded
guilty to a variety of federal charges and await sentencing. More
than 100 charges have been dropped against 67 defendants in cases
made by Delta officers.
And the federal investigation, according to the lead prosecutor
on the case, is continuing.
Among the transgressions detailed in federal plea agreements:
Delta agents got a bogus search warrant for a Manatee County
duplex and planted crack cocaine there. A woman visiting the home
was arrested. As a result of her felony conviction, she lost
custody of her child. Before her encounter with the Delta squad,
she had no criminal record. Eventually, her conviction was
overturned and her child was returned.
Delta officers conducted an illegal search of a Bradenton motel
room and stole $9,000 from a man, who filed a complaint with the
Sheriff's Office. Later, deputies planted crack cocaine in the
man's car as retaliation for the complaint.
Delta agents routinely obtained search warrants based on lies: If
drugs had been bought outside a house, Delta officers would say
the buy had taken place inside the home and get a search warrant
for the house.
The officers brought crack with them on busts. If they didn't
find any in the homes or pockets of the people they were trying
to arrest, they would plant it. Fabricating cases wasn't the only
aim. The agents wanted to use seizure laws to take cars and other
property from their victims.
Sometimes the agents would give crack cocaine to people who were
helpful to their investigations.
One agent bragged that Delta operated under the "good old boy"
system and didn't have to abide by rules to which other deputies
were subjected.
How did the officers of the Delta squad get so out of control?
Sheriff's Office officials called them renegade cops who operated
under something approaching a code of silence.
Long-time Manatee Sheriff Charlie Wells, who is running for a
fifth term this fall, said that as soon as his office started to
see indications of bad cops among them, they began an internal
investigation.
Based on evidence, Wells said he thinks the Delta crimes were
isolated incidents committed in a short time frame, perhaps three
to six months.
"Unfortunately, we still hire police officers from the human
race," Wells said. "Fortunately for us, this didn't go on for a
long time."
Others, however, aren't so sure.
"This way of doing things seemed to be a fairly entrenched, okay
way of doing things," said Jeffrey Del Fuoco, lead prosecutor on
the case from the U.S. Attorney's Office. "It just seems to me
that this kind of a network doesn't spring up overnight."
Wells is known for his old-school law enforcement approach:
County jail inmates wear black and white striped uniforms and
work on a jail farm. The Delta task force, started in 1986, was
designed to combat the drug trade from street level to suppliers.
Despite the Delta scandal, Wells seems to have retained his
popularity in conservative Manatee County.
As the November election approaches, his only opposition comes
from a retired sheet-metal worker who has no law enforcement
experience, no political party affiliation and paltry campaign
funds. Wells' contribution list includes many of the county power
brokers. Why isn't anyone taking on Wells?
"Nobody thinks they have a chance, I guess," said Thomas
Williams, Wells' only challenger. "He's got too much money behind
him. He's got powerful people behind him."
Nevertheless, reverberations from the Delta scandal are unlikely
to end soon. Along with the continuing criminal investigation,
several lawyers have filed or are preparing civil lawsuits
seeking damages for those wronged by the Delta squad.
Blake Melhuish, a Bradenton lawyer who has represented a Delta
victim in criminal matters, said the federal plea agreements are
so detailed that they are virtual blueprints for civil lawsuits.
"There's no reason to wait anymore," Melhuish said.
The scandal came to light in April 1998, when Larren Wade, a
suspected drug dealer, filed a complaint with authorities,
claiming Delta officers stole $9,000 from him.
Wade was thought to be distributing crack cocaine in Bradenton.
Delta agents were out to make a case on him. One evening, they
made a purported crack buy from him, but he briefly slipped away
and Delta agents couldn't find the "buy" money. So, they took
some out of Wade's pocket and decided they would call that the
buy money.
After all, who would take his word over that of the police?
"This was able to flourish as long as it did because the victims
they picked out didn't have a voice," Lipinski said.
However, other people began to catch wind of what was going on.
Rumors began circulating within the law enforcement community.
Lipinski said he heard from deputies that Delta agents were
beating people, stealing money and planting drugs.
"That's when I began to suspect that something was seriously
wrong," Lipinski said.
Wells said sheriff's officials began to notice a pattern: The
same group of officers was being accused of the same types of
behavior.
Wade's complaint resulted in an internal investigation that
burgeoned into a state and federal investigation involving the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's Office.
As the Delta officers began to plead out to federal charges,
Manatee's 87-year-old courthouse buzzed with talk of the scandal.
"From beginning to end, it's unbelievable," Melhuish said. "I
grew up believing the cops were the good guys. We're finding that
sometimes they're not."
Del Fuoco said he expects further charges. It's unclear, he said,
how far up the chain of command the improprieties go.
"We go where the evidence goes," Del Fuoco said. "The
investigation definitely continues."
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