Hemp News No. 13 Compiled by Paul Stanford (treefreeeco@igc.org) The following wire stories are provided as a public service by Tree Free EcoPaper, makers of 50% hemp (cannabis) and 50% cereal straw paper. Tree Free EcoPaper is the world's only supplier of wholesale quantities of hemp paper. We offer an electronic catalog which you can receive by dropping us an e-mail request. We'll send you our free samples and hemp paper catalog if you give us a postal address. You can call us toll-free at 1-800-775-0225 from the U.S. and Canada. Our phone number for calls outside the U.S. is 503-295-6705. Our headquarters is in Portland, Oregon and our paper is produced in Asia. Without further ado, please enjoy the news: APn 08/05/93 Topeka Shooting By MATT TRUELL Associated Press Writer TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- A man about to be sentenced on drug and weapons charges rode an elevator to a federal court Thursday and began firing handguns and lobbing pipe bombs when the doors opened, killing a security officer and wounding a bystander, the FBI said. The gunman died about an hour later when explosives strapped to his body detonated, perhaps accidentally, FBI agent Brian Carroll said. At least three other people were seriously injured in the blast. But authorities didn't know until about six hours later that the man was dead, and about nine people spent the time hiding in locked offices. Two judges and their staffs also took cover after the initial gunfire but escaped down stairs out of the gunman's sight. The body of Jack Gary McKnight, 37, was found just inside the district court clerk's office on the fourth floor of the Frank Carlson federal building. Carroll refuted an earlier report from an FBI spokesman that the gunman had fatally shot himself in the head. SWAT team members didn't immediately disturb the body, and kept the building under heavy guard Thursday night while it was checked to see if McKnight had set other explosives before going to the clerk's office. McKnight, of nearby Meriden, was to be sentenced on drug and weapons charges Thursday on the fourth floor of the four-level building. The FBI said McKnight apparently blew up his truck outside the Jefferson County courthouse in Oskaloosa northeast of Topeka at about 8:30 a.m. and then drove to Topeka in a car he blew up in the federal building parking lot at about 9:30 a.m., apparently to divert security officers. Jackie Williams, U.S. attorney for Kansas, said McKnight apparently began firing weapons as soon as the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor. Carroll said McKnight also tossed pipe bombs, causing at least three or four explosions inside the building. Gene L. Goldsberry, 61, the security guard, apparently died instantly of a gunshot wound, Williams said. A civilian nearby was seriously injured. It wasn't immediately clear what McKnight did during the next hour. At one point, Williams said, one of the court clerks approached McKnight and he told her, "You're not the one that I'm looking for." About that time, Williams said, the explosives strapped to McKnight's body blew up. At least three women who worked in the clerk's office were injured by the detonation. It couldn't be determined quickly why officials didn't know for five more hours that McKnight was dead. The dead guard was identified as Gene L. Goldsberry, 61, a retired Highway Patrol trooper working for the U.S. Marshal's Service. There is no security for the first three floors of the building. On the fourth floor, people must pass through a metal detector to get to courtrooms. The fourth floor contains the offices of three U.S. district judges, including U.S. District Judge Sam Crow, who was to sentence McKnight, as well as of a magistrate and two bankruptcy judges. The red-brick building also houses congressional offices and some other government offices. Several other people, including the staff of U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, hid on lower floors before law officers escorted them out, said Dave Bartel, Kassebaum's chief of staff for Kansas. Williams said McKnight was to be sentenced on charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and using a firearm in relation to a drug offense. He was indicted on those charges in December along with his wife, Cynthia, who pleaded guilty only to the weapons charge. She was scheduled to be sentenced Friday. Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Owen said the charges against the couple stem from an arrest Aug. 29, 1992, at their home. Deputies confiscated more than 100 marijuana plants, cultivating equipment, several weapons, alleged child pornography and other drug paraphernalia, Owen said. McKnight had worked for the Santa Fe Railroad for 15 years, the last 12 in the accounting department. He resigned last month. His wife, 36, worked for a telephone company. UPsw 08/05/93 Two dead, five injured in courthouse shootings, explosions By PETER HANCOCK TOPEKA, Kan. (UPI) -- A gunman armed with explosives opened fire Thursday in the Frank J. Carlson Federal Building, killing a security officer and wounding another person before dying in the bloody rampage. Law enforcement officials gave different accounts of the gunman's death. Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Davenport said he died when one of his explosives went off, killing him and injuring three others. Davenport said other devices remained attached to the corpse and police had not yet approached the body. FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza in Kansas City first said he died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, but later agreed an explosive device attached to the gunman's body had detonated. The gunman was identified as Jack Gary McKnight, 37, Oskaloosa, Kan. He was due in court Thursday for sentencing on drug and weapons convictions. Davenport said McKnight apparently died just minutes after bursting out of an elevator and opening fire on the fourth floor of the building where the courtrooms are located. He said McKnight was armed with homemade pipebombs and was tossing them around. Davenport said the suspect killed a security guard working at the metal detector outside the courtrooms and injured another person standing nearby. Three other people suffered injuries in the explosion that killed McKnight and a fifth person suffered back injuries as he crawled through a ceiling while trying to escape, Davenport said. Lanza said the gunman "came off the elevator and started shooting." "It surprises me that there were not more people hurt," Lanza said. "There was a lot of shooting." Lanza said at least 100 people were in the building when the incident began. Four judges, their staffs and the staff of Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R- Kan., were trapped in the building briefly but Lanza said they managed to flee. Witnesses said at least three explosions rocked the area. The gunman also fired shots at police officers standing outside the courthouse but none was believed injured. McKnight allegedly set off at least one car bomb shortly before he opened fire. He reportedly was facing a long prison term on marijuana and weapons convictions. Shortly before the courthouse incident, a truck registered to the suspect blew up in Oskaloosa, Lanza said. Topeka Police Lt. Patti Kaeberle said police combed the building floor-by-floor and found the gunman holed up in the clerk's office on the fourth-floor office. UPce 08/05/93 Former officer pleads guilty to drug charge BELLEVILLE, Ill. (UPI) -- A former police officer in Fayetteville has pleaded guilty to growing marijuana in the basement of his Belleville home. Ricky Bien, 44, pleaded guilty Wednesday in St. Clair County Circuit Court to unlawful production of marijuana. Bien told Circuit Judge James Donovan he had formerly been a police office in Fayetteville, was an auxiliary sheriff's deputy and also was a Vietnam veteran. Donovan scheduled sentencing for Oct. 6. Bien will receive probation under the terms of a plea agreement reached between his attorney and prosecutors, court officials said. Prosecutors said investigators obtained a search warrant after they received information that Bien was growing marijuana. They said a search of Bien's home showed the basement had been turned into a greenhouse, with potted plants under growing lights on timers. APn 08/06/93 Topeka Shooting By MATT TRUELL Associated Press Writer TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- The killer who stepped off a courthouse elevator shooting and throwing homemade bombs may have gotten off at the wrong floor and missed his intended victims, including federal prosecutors, authorities said Friday. Jack Gary McKnight, 37, was killed when a pipe bomb he was holding exploded in the fourth-floor clerk's office of U.S. District Court on Thursday morning. He killed a court security officer and injured five other people during the assault. Officials speculated that McKnight, who was to be sentenced on drug and weapons charges Thursday, meant to get off at the third floor, where the U.S. attorney's office is located. "His target was the judicial or prosecution system," FBI agent Don Pettus said. Pettus said authorities also believe McKnight accidentally detonated the pipe bomb that took his life, although he would have killed himself eventually. "The way he was shooting around, throwing bombs around, no doubt, he wanted to commit suicide, but we believe he still had more targets," Pettus said. He said McKnight apparently killed his three pets -- two dogs and a cat -- at his Meriden home that morning. U.S. Attorney Jack Williams said McKnight may have been gunning for U.S. District Judge Sam Crow, who was to have sentenced him, and other federal officials. "I don't think he meant to go to the clerk's office," Williams said. "I think he probably was looking for the marshal's office, Judge Crow's office or the U.S. attorney's office." Williams said one clerk quoted McKnight as telling a woman at the office: "You're not who I'm looking for."' McKnight pleaded guilty in May to one count of possession of marijuana with intent to sell and illegal use of a firearm during drug trafficking. He could have been sentenced to up to 40 years in prison and fined $2 million. McKnight's wife, Cynthia McKnight, was to have been sentenced on weapons charges Friday, but U.S. Attorney Jack Williams said her sentencing was delayed indefinitely. The courthouse was closed Friday, and officials said they didn't know if it would be cleaned up in time to reopen Monday. McKnight was armed with three handguns and ammunition that he had purchased at a Topeka gun store the day before the shootings, said Larry Scott of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office in Kansas City, Mo. He said McKnight signed a sworn statement at the time of the purchase that he was not a convicted felon. The store's clerk did not violate any laws, Scott said, because all the necessary paperwork had been taken care of. Nine unexploded bombs were found in McKnight's truck, which he apparently blew up outside the Jefferson County Courthouse in Oskaloosa on Thursday before heading to the federal courthouse in Topeka. He blew up his car in a parking lot adjacent to the federal building, Scott said. Pettus said McKnight fired about 60 shots and set off at least four pipe bombs in the courthouse -- one on the hallway of the fourth floor and three others in the clerk's office, including the one that killed him. Of the five injured people, three were hospitalized Friday in satisfactory condition and one was listed in fair condition. The fifth had been released. The security guard who was killed was identified as Gene L. Goldsberry, 61, an employee of the U.S. marshal's office. RTw 08/06/93 COURT SYSTEM WAS TARGET OF TOPEKA GUNMAN, FBI SAYS TOPEKA, Kan. (Reuter) - The gunman who killed a security officer and wounded four other people in a shooting and bombing rampage Thursday kept police at bay and hostages in hiding for several hours even after he was dead, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday. "They didn't know they were being held hostage by a dead man," FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said. Jack McKnight, scheduled to be sentenced to a lengthy jail term, fired bullets and lobbed explosive devices onto the fourth floor of the federal building here before accidentally blowing himself up early in the episode. A security guard, Gene Goldsberry, 61, was shot and killed and a male attorney seriously wounded when McKnight began firing after emerging from an elevator onto the fourth floor of the Frank Carlson federal building. Witnesses told police McKnight was tinkering with a bomb inside the court clerk's office when it went off. The blast mangled McKnight's body and seriously wounded three women with shrapnel and other debris. Others hiding on the fourth floor did not know McKnight was dead, and police did not discover his body or the injured women until about five hours later. "We had to meticulously and methodically go through the building floor by floor. We had to work under the assumption he was alive and a possible danger," Lanza said. The heavily armed McKnight lobbed three or four "explosive devices" into the hallway, just as a car bomb he planted in the building's parking lot exploded, Lanza said. Facing a lengthy prison term, McKnight, 37, a convicted burglar, was probably seeking revenge on people in the court system, Lanza said. "We don't know who he was going after specifically, but he was probably targeting the court system. He was going to lose his freedom for a long time," Lanza said. McKnight pleaded guilty in May to possessing more than 100 marijuana plants and was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday to a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 40 years in prison by federal judge Sam Crow. REUTER RTw 08/06/93 GUATEMALA-U.S. OPERATION DESTROYS MARIJUANA FIELDS GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 6 (Reuter) - Guatemalan Treasury Police said on Friday they had found marijuana fields covering 40 hectares (100 acres) in a joint operation with the U.S. authorities in northeastern Guatemala. Agents ripped up and burnt 60,000 marijuana plants at two farms in a nine-hour operation on Thursday, and were to continue work on 13 remaining plantations near the Belizean border on Friday, Treasury Police spokesman Luis Barrios said. No one was arrested in the operation, he said. REUTER WP 08/06/93 State Officials Seek to Derail Religious Rights Measure By William Claiborne Washington Post Staff Writer Attorneys general across the country are desperately attempting to derail legislation nearing a vote in the Senate that they say could force prisons to supply inmates with organically grown vegetables washed in distilled water. Prisoners could also, in the name of religious freedom, compel authorities to supply them with chateaubriand and sherry, and even civilian clothing that would make it easier for them to escape, the state officials said. Each of those inmate demands - and other, equally bizarre requests based on purported religious convictions - has been under litigation and would be affected if the legislation is adopted without amendment, the officials said. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which attracted little public attention during its journey through the congressional committee process and unanimous adoption by the House in May, would counteract a 1990 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of states to bar use of drugs in religious rituals. A coalition of religious groups, ranging from liberal Protestants to conservative Evangelicals, argues that the bill is necessary to uphold religious freedom for mainstream churchgoers and that the state attorneys are exaggerating the consequences of the measure. The high court ruling, according to supporters of the bill, severely curtailed the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment, causing about 60 court cases to be decided on the side of the government against religious freedom, including cases involving Jews who object to autopsies, Muslim prisoners seeking to avoid being served pork and Amish buggy drivers objecting to motor vehicle fees. In its 1990 decision, the Supreme Court abandoned a test used in earlier cases that required a state to prove it had a "compelling interest" in enforcing a statute that infringed on religious freedom. The Senate bill would allow such an infringement only if it furthers a compelling government interest and is the "least restrictive means" of furthering that interest. Attorney General Janet Reno has said she supports the bill and opposes any amendment to exempt prisons. The 26 state attorneys general said in a letter to the Senate that the bill's "least restrictive means" test would guarantee prison inmates success in their requests for a variety of religious-inspired diets and other special privileges, many of which would be prohibitively costly and which would compromise prison security. The state attorneys cited a lawsuit in Ohio in which an inmate claimed his religion requires him to have steak and wine every night; a Nevada case in which an inmate demanded marijuana, lobster and white wine on religious grounds; and a Wyoming case in which an inmate of Chinese ancestry who was considered to be the facility's highest escape risk demanded the right to pray in an American Indian sweat lodge outside the maximum-security area. The legislation, the state officials say, could cost states hundreds of millions of dollars if they comply with inmates' dietary and other special requests, or equal amounts of public funds if they fight the thousands of court cases that likely would be filed on the basis of Congress's action. Yet, the Congressional Budget Office, apparently without consulting state prison officials, estimated the measure would result in "no significant cost" to federal, state and local governments. Some state officials complained that the measure, sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), is another example of federal lawmakers adopting a seemingly laudable reform measure and taking credit for it while passing the cost of implementation to the states without regard for how it will affect local budgets. If the bill passes, it would cause "serious institutional disruption" and tie up government attorneys in inmate lawsuits for years, Attorneys General Daniel E. Lungren of Florida and Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada said in a separate letter last week to Hatch and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Judiciary Committee chairman. Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has introduced an amendment that would exempt correctional institutions. But a spokeswoman for Kennedy said, "Our position is that such an amendment is not necessary." Oliver Thomas, chairman of the Coalition for Free Exercise of Religion, which includes 68 religious and civil rights groups that are supporting the bill, said that while he accepts that "prison litigation is out of control," only a small percentage of inmate lawsuits involve religion. Acknowledging the bizarre nature of some inmate demands based on religion, Thomas said, "You get these things on both sides." He cited the recent example of an Episcopalian on a Colorado work-release program who was refused permission to take communion because of state prohibitions against consuming alcohol. WP 08/08/93 Bad Money and the Bar; Can Defense Lawyers Keep Drug Dealers' Dirty Cash? By Alicia Mundy AMONG THE unfashionable tactics in the war on drugs is a little-used weapon called lawyers' fee forfeiture. You rarely read about it. But today it's nettling the Washington legal community like nothing since Dan Quayle attacked their tassled loafers. The cause of this consternation is a small-time federal court case in Alexandria in which the government is suing to reclaim money from a lawyer who received fees of $103,000, in cash, from an admitted drug dealer. The case has prompted officials of the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Trial Lawyers Association to join hands to take on a handful of federal prosecutors in Virginia. These groups may soon be joined by the NAACP. Top guns from Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering are defending the accused lawyer for free, while ABA officials are busily lobbying Attorney General Janet Reno. The goal of this effort is not just to quash this case, but to cancel the forfeiture policy itself. Overkill? Not to the defense bar, which recognizes a compelling financial interest when it sees one. It's against the law for anyone, even lawyers, to knowingly accept tainted fees - that is, money from a crime. But for years now, when working for drug dealer clients, defense lawyers have practiced their own version of "Don't ask, don't tell." They don't ask their clients where they get $100,000 or more in cash to pay legal fees, and the clients don't tell them. Lawyers have to report cash payments to the IRS. But the IRS and the Justice Department don't spend much time forcing lawyers to explain the source of the money. There have been only about 55 federal cases of lawyers' fee forfeiture brought since 1986. "It's a hassle," explains a high-ranking Justice official, "trying to prove the lawyers knew or should have known they were being handed dirty money." Such a hassle that the expense of recovering fees is usually outweighed by the cost to the government. Bringing such cases is also an act of professional suicide. If a lowly federal prosecutor starts poking at the hornets' nest of lawyers' fees, he or she will provoke a swarm of angry private attorneys who will never hire this person later. No wonder that the case brought by the feds in Alexandria has earned the nickname "Death Wish II." Still, you can't blame Jay Apperson and Gordon Kromberg for trying. These two assistant U.S. attorneys decided they had a case so blatant that they couldn't pass it up. That case began when Apperson, a narcotics prosecutor, heard a tape recording on which the girlfriend of Paul Covington complained to one of his distributors about all the money he had to collect to pay his lawyer, Bill Moffitt of Alexandria. Moffitt is a nationally renowned attorney who has just become the secretary of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). A rough-and-tumble defense lawyer, he's ticked off narcotics prosecutors from Florida to New York, especially those who expect defendants to deal and squeal - plea bargain and turn informant on other drug distributors. Moffit doesn't like to deal. His client, Paul Covington, showed up on the doorstep in August 1991. The 35-year-old Fairfax native ran Paul's Auto Service in Springfield; he also ran a bustling side business in cocaine. By the time Covington came to Moffitt, he had been under investigation for a year, expected to be indicted and had already had his auto repair business, bank accounts, cars and house seized as drug profits. Moffitt and his partner, John Zwerling, after interviewing Covington, told him they'd need about $100,000 as a retainer. Moffitt told Covington he wouldn't take "funny money" - by which he says he meant money from drug profits. Moffitt had some experience with this issue. A few years ago, he helped prepare a brief for the Supreme Court in a narcotics case that now applies to legal fee forfeiture. In 1989, the Court ruled the firm of Caplin & Drysdale had to hand over $170,000 in legal fees to the government because it should have known the money came from drug profits. But when Paul Covington produced $17,000 in cash on Aug. 22, Moffitt accepted it. The following day, Moffitt and Zwerling met with Apperson and another assistant U.S. attorney, and they were told that the feds had accounted for, and seized, all of Covington's possessions and his drug money. According to prosecutors, the defense lawyers were told that Covington's "legit" businesses had become shams - money-laundering operations for his thriving coke and marijuana corporation. The prosecutors said that anything else left over was probably tainted, and that, as far as they could tell, Covington was flat broke. To prosecutors, the message to Moffitt was clear: If Covington's paid you a nickel, it probably belongs to the government. But Moffitt testified that prosecutors were merely offering an opinion about Covington's financial state, never saying explicitly that Moffitt's fees were drug money. As court documents indicate, Covington showed up a day later to pay the rest of his retainer with a shoebox containing $86,000 in cash. Still, nobody asked him where the money came from. Moffitt's firm wrote him a receipt and duly reported the cash earnings to the IRS (without mentioning the name of the client - an oversight that the Justice Department found a bit disturbing). Moffitt argued in court, as many other defense lawyers have long contended, that he didn't have to identify Covington because of attorney-client privilege. Where'd the money in the shoebox come from? Not the local Fayva outlet. As Covington explained in later court testimony, Covington had lost his emergency cash stash several months earlier when he dug up a grocery bag of coke money he had hidden along Pohick Parkway in Fairfax and found that leaves and dirt had rotted the bag. The bills inside had turned purple. Unwilling to pay his lawyer with such psychedelic currency, Covington called one of his coke distributors to ask him for money he owed Covington. Covington testified that he collected the money from this sub-dealer to pay Moffitt. But he says he didn't tell Moffitt how he suddenly came up with $86,000 in cash, and "Moffitt didn't ask." Moffitt's lawyers see it differently. In a July federal court hearing, they told Judge T.S. Ellis that Covington - who, according to Moffitt's own defense, has a history of psychiatric problems, alcoholism and addiction - was a very careful saver. "He had a near-reverence for hoarding U.S. currency," Moffitt testified - a tendency he picked up from his father. Scrimping and scraping, Moffitt said, Covington could well have amassed a nest egg of almost $100,000 in cash. Anyway, explained Moffitt to Judge Ellis, he had no reason to think Covington was handing him drug money and "I just didn't ask him." Four months later, Covington was indicted and dropped Moffitt for a new attorney. Moffitt says that the U.S. attorneys coerced the dealer into asking for a new attorney so that they could go after Moffitt himself, a long-time thorn in their side. Whatever the reason, Moffitt and Zwerling were off of the Covington case by August 1992. Several months later, the Justice Department approved a request by Apperson and Kromberg to try to reclaim the $103,000 fee, which, by now, Covington and two other dealers had told prosecutors was indeed drug money. "After negotiating with Moffitt for a year on Covington's plea, and after his failure to reveal the source of his cash payment on IRS forms, there was absolutely no reason to believe that Moffitt was going to suddenly, voluntarily cooperate with the government," a Justice official who reviewed this case explains. That's when the case turned ugly - that's when national legal coalitions charged the prosecutors with misconduct, deception and racism. Give Moffitt, who is African American, credit for laying the groundwork. In a motion fighting the fee forfeiture, he said he was a victim of Hitler's justice and cited the Clarence Thomas hearings in a searing closing paragraph: "If the Hill-Thomas hearings were a `high-tech lynching of an uppity black,' then the tactics utilized against . . . Mr. Moffitt in this case are the low-tech equivalent." Good line - so good that Kromberg quoted it two months later. That was a mistake. Kromberg's office had just subpoenaed two lesser-known local lawyers, asking about their fees, in another drug case. In a hearing in June, the attorneys for those lawyers charged that Kromberg had told them he wanted it clear his office wasn't singling out any one attorney - that it wasn't anyone's intent to target one "uppity black," as Moffitt claimed. The judge in that case quashed the subpoenas and sharply criticized the prosecutors; proving you're not a racist, the judge suggested, isn't a good enough reason to subpoena defense lawyers. What's more, the damage to the Moffitt case was done. The NACDL charged racism, other defense lawyers worried they'd get subpoenaed and the lawyers' mobilization began. Moffitt is adamant that the government wanted him because he's black, and says, "They (the U.S. attorneys) can kiss my butt." The charge that the prosecutors are racist and overzealous has obscured another meaningful issue for lawyers: loss of income. "This issue isn't about fees," insists Marvin Miller, a nationally recognized defense lawyer. "It's about the right to have the lawyer of your choice. If the government starts making it impossible for lawyers to represent people charged with drug dealing, the only lawyers for them will be public defenders," Miller adds, making "public defenders" sound like sewer cleaners. Still, shouldn't lawyers be subject to the same tainted-money laws that govern the rest of us? Moffitt's lawyer explained it this way to Judge Ellis: "Lawyers should be treated a little differently, to protect defendants' rights." But Judge Murnagahn of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond answered that one a few years back, when he wrote, "To me, it simply distorts the concept of a democratic process to put the lawyer in a separate category and free him of a responsibility which must be assumed by other citizens." Will holding lawyers to that citizen-standard prevent accused drug dealers from getting good representation? "There's an easy way around this," argues an assistant U.S. attorney. "Lawyers should not take cash, and if they do they should ask where it comes from. It's that simple." Things look more complicated to the Justice Department, which has been showered with amicus briefs from a slew of officials from the ABA, the criminal lawyer's association and prominent attorneys from L.A. to New York. And perhaps administration officials recall that the lawyers' associations were the largest contributors to the Clinton campaign. The Justice Department is being pressured to order Apperson and Kromberg to drop the case before Judge Ellis rules on it this month. That's happened before. In 1987, an assistant attorney general ordered an assistant U.S. attorney to drop a similar forfeiture case because, according to sources then with Justice, "the case was weak and the prosecutor had gone overboard." This time, even Justice officials who are skeptical of the value of forfeiture policy believe this case is strong. But that's not really the issue. The real issue is whether it's sensible for Justice to get into a sparring match with its colleagues on the bar. A Justice official sums up the general sentiment this way: "(Forfeiture) may be the law. But it's just not worth the trouble." Alicia Mundy is a writer for Washingtonian. UPwe 08/09/93 Famed attorney charged in laundering case SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -- Famed defense attorney Patrick Hallinan, who once defended Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, was formerly charged Monday with conspiracy, drug dealing and money laundering. Hallinan appeared before U.S. Magistrate Phyllis Hamilton to answer charges handed down by a Reno, Nev., federal grand jury. Convicted drug dealer Ciro Mancuso allegedly told the grand jury that Hallinan was involved in drug and money-laundering schemes. However, his brother, San Francisco Supervisor Terence Hallinan, said the charges were merely a matter of a convicted drug dealer trying to lighten his sentence. Hallinan was released on $300,000 bail. The government told the judge it had found marijuana in a closet at the 59-year-old Hallinan's luxury Bay Area home. Federal authorities also are curious about $600,000 in cash transactions made by Hallinan. The investigation, the federal government said, has been going on for at least three years. If found guilty, Hallinan could be sentenced to 20 years in jail and could lose his home and law practice. UPne 08/09/93 Ohio pot bust nets New York City man ELYRIA, Ohio (UPI) -- A routine traffic stop on Interstate 90 during the weekend evolved into a drug bust in which 156 pounds of marijuana was confiscated. Ernesto Monge-Valasquez, 24, New York City and Leticia Raquel Escajeba, 23, Tucson, Ariz. were arrested and charged with aggravated drug trafficking and possession of criminal tools. The Ohio Highway Patrol stopped the couple's eastbound pickup truck about one-half mile east of the Ohio Turnpike's Elyria township exit on a traffic violation. A drug-sniffing dog alerted troopers to the possiblity that there were illegal drugs in the car. The dogs are used randomly by the patrol to sniff around the outside of stopped cars. At the patrol garage in Elyria, troopers discovered 156 pounds of marijuana in a fake bottom in the bed. Police estimated the marijuana would have a street value of $300,000. The marijuana was formed into 6-pound bricks wrapped in plastic, enough to fill 13 normal-sized grocery bags. APn 08/09/93 New Cocaine Road By TODD LEWAN Associated Press Writer RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Colombian drug cartels are moving huge amounts of cocaine through the western jungles, turning Brazil into a major pipeline to the United States and Europe. Traffickers set up portable laboratories in jungle clearings to refine coca paste into cocaine, which is then smuggled through the vast Amazon river system to Atlantic ports for export. Colombian drug money has penetrated all levels of Brazilian society, corrupting port and border guards, bank managers, judges and legislators. Billions in profits are laundered through travel agencies, shops and other small businesses, many of them owned by the traffickers. Last year, Sao Paulo police discovered $5 million in cardboard boxes on an empty charter plane from New York. They said the money was to have been laundered and sent on to Colombia. Domestic drug consumption is growing among Brazilians of all ages and classes. Traffickers are increasingly influential in politics, commerce, even crime control. "All of our nightmares are coming true," Edson de Oliveira, chief of Interpol for Brazil, said in an interview. "If Brazil isn't the principal route for Latin traffickers, then it's got to be one of the most important." Isaac Bareto, president of the Federal Narcotics Council, said: "We are in grave danger of becoming a grand-scale Colombia." Eight raids in May and June netted 24,200 pounds of cocaine, largely produced by the Cali cartel and bound for the United States, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Africa. Although that is four times the total seized in all of 1990, drug agents and police acknowledge it represents only a small part of the flourishing trade. "Eleven tons of cocaine seized in two months is ... really not any more than 5 percent of the total amount going through Brazil," said a ranking U.S. official in Brasilia, the capital. He spoke on condition of anonymity. For Brazilians, the drug is comparatively cheap: about $6 a gram, the price of a pizza. Students sell cocaine and LSD in the lunchrooms of Rio high schools. Children as young as 5 run cocaine to customers for traffickers who control the hillside slums like fiefdoms. In the "favelas," as the slums are called, the Red Command and Third Command crime gangs fight daily turf wars. In June, a battle in the Morro dos Prazeres slum raged for three days because the traffickers had more firepower than police. Order was restored only after the army provided combat weapons. A Roman Catholic nun who teaches in a private school on the poor northern outskirts told a reporter 10-year-old children have been caught sniffing cocaine. "The drugs are everywhere," she said, on condition her name not be revealed. "They used to hide it inside hollow pens, but now it's sold openly, in plastic bags, on playgrounds." Colombia has long dominated the Latin American drug trade, but a crackdown on the Medellin cartel and its boss, Pablo Escobar, led other traffickers to shift operations. Since 1989, they have moved into Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Amazon basin with mobile labs capable of producing more than a ton of cocaine a month. Small planes loaded with coca paste from Bolivia and Peru leapfrog through the Brazilian jungle states of Mato Grosso, Rondonia, Para and Amazonas, refueling and dropping cargo at an estimated 600 secret airstrips. After making their deliveries, the planes are destroyed so they cannot be traced, and others often are stolen to replace them. Federal police say 40 planes have been taken from jungle airports in the past two years. Traffickers hire Amazon Indians and farmers to grow coca and transport paste. Some police officers provide cover for smugglers or sell drugs confiscated in raids to supplement their meager salaries. In Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon, the chief of the Para state narcotics division and an assistant were arrested in June for selling 22 pounds of confiscated cocaine. On April 5, three federal narcotics agents were arrested for stealing 310 pounds of cocaine from a federal police warehouse in Manaus, capital of Amazonas state. The cocaine, valued at $5 million, was seized months earlier in a raid on a portable lab. What worries drug agents most is the enormous task of keeping up with the trade in a country larger than the 48 contiguous United States that has 9,000 miles of open borders with 10 countries, including Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. As cocaine sales abroad soared in the 1980s, traffickers began taking advantage of Brazil's complex river network, good air connections and 4,600-mile coastline. Most of the drugs flowed out of the southern cities of Rio and Sao Paulo, but after a crackdown in 1992, smugglers began using the dense northwestern rain forests. According to State Department figures, the United States has increased financing of anti-drug operations in Brazil from $200,000 in 1985 to $3.5 million in 1992. A ranking U.S. official in Brasilia said contributions probably will remain the same in 1994. The money has helped federal police search airports, conduct raids in at least 10 states and destroy thousands of acres of marijuana plantations. Brazilian officials fear heroin may be next. Colombia's production of poppies, the raw material for morphine and heroin, has grown 25-fold since 1991, said a report the Colombian government issued in May. No shipments have been seized, "but that doesn't mean heroin isn't already passing through Brazil," said Mauro Sposito, superintendent of the federal police in Amazonas state. "If we don't stop this trade, within five years we'll be the principal pipeline for Colombian heroin to the world," he said. End Adv for Mon AMs Aug 9 APn 08/10/93 Pot Field Shooting BRODHEAD, Ky. (AP) -- A man who sat in a lawn chair guarding his marijuana field with an assault rifle was shot to death by police after a daylong standoff. Gary Shepherd, 45, had told police they would "have to kill me" to get at his plants, state police said in a statement Monday. The standoff began Sunday after members of a state task force in a helicopter spotted about 50 plants behind his home. The troopers landed and told Shepherd they were going to cut down the plants, said Trooper Gilbert Acciardo, a state police spokesman. Shepherd went inside and came out with a rifle. "He was pretty much sitting there, probably about six or seven hours," Deputy Sheriff Darrell Doan said. "He didn't talk to us at all." Shepherd was shot several times in the head and chest as he raised his rifle toward the troopers, authorities said. Mary Jane Jones, 42, who lived with Shepherd and their young son, said that he never pointed the gun at anybody and that police made no serious effort to negotiate. "There was never a time that anybody pulled into the driveway and said, `Sir, we are not armed. ... We want to talk to you,"' she said. "If Gary had had the chance to done that, that would have made his day." Jones said Shepherd had deep convictions about marijuana use and wanted to discuss those with police. Jones was standing on the porch during the shooting and was grazed by a bullet. Brewer said the two officers involved in the shooting were placed on leave pending an investigation. [End] This URL: http://www.pdxnorml.org/HN_13.txt