By Lawrence Messina
STAFF WRITER
The sign on the office door could be for any
downtown Charleston business. The receptionist's area within also seems
nondescript, save for the fellow at the desk with the pistol jutting from
his waistband.
The anonymous office building harbors a secret: the Metropolitan
Drug Enforcement Network Team, or MDENT. Its collection of police officers
from several area law enforcement agencies represents the Kanawha Valley's
concerted effort to investigate and arrest people who deal with drugs.
The secret office, some distance from Charleston police
headquarters, underscores MDENT's stealthlike approach to the war on drugs.
Its officers work plainclothes, and often appear somewhat scraggly. They
drive unmarked cars, use high-tech surveillance gear and deploy a small
army of paid informants - usually addicts and petty criminals - to identify
and root out drug dealers.
MDENT formed in 1987, and much has changed since then,
from the drugs people snort, smoke and shoot up to the hometowns of the
out-of-state dealers targeting the Kanawha Valley as a market slice.
MDENT's allies in the drug war have also changed. Local
federal prosecutors pursued drug dealers major and petty in the late 1980s
and early 1990s. They have since changed their focus, forcing a larger
role for county prosecutors.
Attitudes about drug crimes have shifted as well, fueled
by a growing legion of critics who range from defense lawyers to federal
judges. They decry the stiff, often inflexible federal sentencing rules
for drug offenses. They question how drug agents execute search warrants,
seize people's property and rely on paid informants.
Throughout these changes, MDENT struggles to focus on
its continuing mission: stemming the tide of illegal drugs that wash through
the region, bringing addiction and crime.
"Right now, I think we're doing a pretty good job,"
said MDENT's Lt. Steve Utt.
A leader in drug prosecutions
Drug trends flow in waves across the country from west
to east, Utt said. Word of a highly addictive form of cocaine called crack
began trickling into the Kanawha Valley in the mid-1980s. The drug itself
appeared around 1987, Utt said.
"We heard all of these stories about how people were
dying from this drug," Utt said.
Dealers from Cleveland, Columbus and Detroit descended
upon the area hoping for new markets. The resulting turf battles were not
as violent as in some cities, but shootings and homicides increased in
Kanawha County.
Seven people were indicted on murder charges in 1987,
Kanawha Circuit Court records show. The number of homicide cases more than
doubled in 1991, when 18 people were charged. The murder victims included
reputed drug dealers from Detroit and New York City.
Besides killings and other crimes, the turf wars poured
crack into area communities. Street-corner "sling-ers" sold a
substantial amount of crack in the area, but the boom didn't stop people
from smoking marijuana, snorting powder cocaine or using other drugs.
Local police and county prosecutors turned to the Justice
Department, which targeted drugs as its top priority in the 1980s. The
Justice Department believed that the states were overburdened and overwhelmed
by drug cases, and tried to lend its considerable resources to the fray.
Federal prosecutors could also threaten prison sentences
far longer than state punishments for convicted drug offenders, thanks
to federal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences for some
drug offenses.
By the early 1990s, MDENT and both state and federal prosecutors
had developed a strategy. Arrested drug suspects were threatened with federal
charges and the sentences they carried. Defendants who agreed to become
informants received a break in federal court or were charged in state court.
Those involved in this battle plan believe it worked.
Street-level dealers sometimes turned on their mid-level suppliers, who
sometimes informed on larger-scale, usually out-of-state dealers.
The strategy also caused federal drug prosecutions in
West Virginia to skyrocket. The state's two federal court districts led
the rest of the nation in per capita drug prosecutions between 1984 and
1993, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
Operated out of Syracuse University, TRAC collects and analyzes Justice
Department statistics.
Federal prosecutors in West Virginia devoted more of their
caseloads to tackling drug offenses than prosecutors in any other federal
court district, according to TRAC figures. Federal prosecutors in Charleston
ranked behind only Washington in the number of drug cases handled in proportion
to their populations. Prosecutors in West Virginia's northern district
ranked third in this area.
Given West Virginia's relatively small population, the
number of federal drug prosecutions appears remarkable. Those involved
in the strategy say the weight of the federal government in Southern West
Virginia proved formidable.
'Problems work themselves out'
U.S. Attorney Mike Carey had headed the federal prosecutor's
office in Charleston since 1987. He helped coordinate the drug strategy
with MDENT and county prosecutors. The strategy changed when Carey, a Republican,
left office in 1994, replaced by current U.S. Attorney Rebecca Betts.
Appointed by President Clinton, Betts announced early
on that her office would shift drug cases toward local prosecutors, reflecting
the new priorities of the Democratic administration.
"I am concerned about all of the drug cases we now
handle," Betts told a reporter in January 1994. "Some of these
could be prosecuted in state court."
Betts joins the critics of the Republican-led "war
on drugs" of the 1980s. Shortly after taking office, she expressed
distaste for mandatory minimum sentences and property seizure laws. Some
of her objections remain.
"I still tend to believe that mandatory minimums
don't necessarily serve the principles of the federal sentencing guidelines,"
Betts said last week. "I still have a lot of reservations about forfeitures.
I want to make sure that they are appropriate under the circumstances."
Betts said that while her office now handles fewer drug
cases, her prosecutors tackle bigger fish. In the years before her arrival,
the office had been bogged down prosecuting a number of street-level dealers
who could have been pursued in state court, Betts said. She now focuses
her resources on major traffickers and drug dealers, particularly violent
offenders, she said.
"I think we've definitely turned around the drug
cases," Betts said.
Caseload figures from TRAC underscore the changes. Federal
prosecutors filed 316 drug-related cases in 1993, Mike Carey's last year
as U.S. attorney. Betts' office filed 103 drug cases in 1996, the latest
year for TRAC statistics.
Though the number of drug cases dropped by more than two-thirds,
drug prosecutions still take up much of the federal caseload. Drug cases
consumed 37 percent of the office's work in 1996, TRAC data shows. More
charges alleging drug offenses were filed that year than for any other
type of criminal offense. During Carey's final year, drug cases made up
67 percent of the charges filed.
The number of drug cases referred to federal prosecutors
has also dropped. Federal drug and law enforcement agents recommended criminal
charges in 482 cases involving drugs in 1993. Agents referred only 232
cases in 1996.
As Betts suggested, local prosecutors now handle more
drug cases than they did before. Kanawha County prosecutors secured 20
drug-related indictments in 1993, circuit court records show. Drug indictments
more than doubled by 1996, with 45 cases filed that year.
The sharp increase in local drug prosecutions coincided
with a very public dispute between Betts and Kanawha County Prosecutor
Bill Forbes. Each accused the other in newspaper stories of not doing enough
to prosecute drug offenders. Following the exchange, Kanawha County drug
indictments nearly doubled again, with 93 cases filed in 1997.
Relations between state and federal prosecutors regarding
drug cases has since improved, Utt said.
"Right now we're having pretty good success in federal
and state court," Utt said. "Problems we were experiencing a
few years ago have worked themselves out."
Utt said that federal prosecutors now work with MDENT
on the larger-scale cases, including those involving areas outside of Kanawha
County or even West Virginia. MDENT also approaches federal prosecutors
with cases involving significant amounts of drugs, mindful of the federal
drug sentencing laws.
"We're satisfied right now with the working relationships
we have now in both state and federal court," Utt said.
A new drug takes hold
The illegal drug trade appears "manageable,"
police and prosecutors say, despite the new federal role. Utt said that
the dealers who survived the turf battles and evaded prosecution appear
content with their share of the illicit market.
"Charleston was starting to have some serious problems
with drugs and violent crime," Utt said. "But I have not encountered
that in the last two years."
Violent crime has declined in Kanawha County, as it has
elsewhere across the country. The county's murder rate has averaged about
12 killings a year in the last several years. Drugs played a role in just
one of the dozen murders last year, police said.
But looking west, Utt sees a new trend approaching: methamphetamine,
or "meth." Utt said he does not believe it will ever replace
crack for addictiveness or for the link to violence.
"We're still dealing with crack cocaine as our major
problem drug," Utt said. "People are saying that meth will overtake
it, but I haven't seen that yet."
U.S. Attorney Betts said her office has started increasing
its share of methamphetamine cases. "Meth has seriously moved into
West Virginia now," she said.
Marijuana usually ranks right behind crack in creating
headaches for drug agents. The largest batch of drug prosecutions in 1997
involved marijuana. Federal prosecutors targeted 43 people for alleged
roles in or links to Jamaican distributors of the drugs. Most of those
defendants have been convicted.
Prosecutors estimate that the groups brought hundreds
of pounds of marijuana into Southern West Virginia until their arrests.
Betts' office is also targeting exporters. She said her office is now working
with federal prosecutors in Tennessee and Kentucky to find and destroy
marijuana crops growing in the area.
"We're going to try to attack this particular problem,
and the cultural mind-set that this particular drug is somehow OK,"
Betts said.
