toledoblade.com --

The Ohio Highway Patrol made lots of headlines and TV news video last year for its arrests of suspected drug couriers as they crossed the Ohio Turnpike in northwest Ohio, particularly in Lucas County.

Millions of dollars worth of cocaine, heroin, and a potent form of marijuana from British Columbia, Canada, were seized.

But a review by The Blade of those cases as well as those for the previous two years found that a disproportionate number of the motorists stopped and arrested in high-profile drug cases were minorities - mostly Hispanics but also some blacks and Asians.

In 2004, for example, just one suspect was white while 26 were Hispanic and six were black. By comparison, a total of 15 whites were arrested over the entire three-year period reviewed.

In one traffic-stop case, an Ohio Highway Patrol trooper was terminated by his supervisors over his decision to fire his gun in pursuit of two black suspects he contended had a gun. The chief of the patrol's administrative investigation unit told The Blade that the trooper engaged in racial profiling in deciding to follow the suspects for six miles before initiating stop procedures.

"Operationally, the story he told and what they were doing seemed suspect from the very beginning," said Staff Lt. Reginald Lumpkins.

A study scrutinizing whether racial profiling has occurred in Ohio Turnpike stops and drug arrests by troopers in northwest Ohio has stalled because of a lack of funding. Research by the firm conducting the study here, Lamberth Consulting of West Chester, Pa., came about because of a 1996 court decision in New Jersey in which a judge concluded that state police had been targeting African-American drivers for traffic stops and arrests along that state's turnpike.

A group of prominent Toledo-area attorneys contributed $10,000 to help hire Lamberth Consulting on behalf of Manuel Razo, 58, of Oak Park, Ill., who was stopped Nov. 11, 2003, on the Ohio Turnpike. Troopers found nearly 80 pounds of cocaine in the vehicle.

Razo believes his vehicle was stopped because he is Hispanic, said his attorney, Richard Roberts.

Razo told his attorney recently that he and his family were unable to raise the additional money needed to complete the study.

On Monday, Razo entered into a plea agreement on one count of trafficking in drugs and was sentenced to five years in prison.

"I didn't know where to look [for other sources of funds to complete the study]," Mr. Roberts said. "It would have taken another $10,000 to $15,000. Nobody wants to get involved."

Stops, arrests drop off

In Ohio just one trooper has been disciplined for racial profiling, an incident that occurred three years ago in the Dayton area, said Lt. Rick Zwayer, a state patrol spokesman.

But the specter of racial profiling on the Ohio Turnpike recently arose in a hearing involving the firing of Trooper Jeffre Dickens, who was dismissed in February.

Lieutenant Lumpkins said he believes a traffic stop in Fulton County a month earlier had the markings of racial profiling. He said he believes former Trooper Dickens stopped the vehicle because the men inside were black.

During the traffic stop on the morning of Jan. 12, 2005, Mr. Dickens fired five shots as the SUV tried to flee troopers. He and another trooper drove after the vehicle and finally pulled it over. The driver and passenger, both African-American men, were charged with possession of 10 pounds of marijuana.

Trooper Dickens told patrol investigators later that he fired the shots, which narrowly missed hitting anyone, because he saw the shadow of a gun in the vehicle. No gun was found with the suspects, however, and the state patrol later concluded that the trooper did not have a justifiable reason for firing his gun.

Lieutenant Lumpkins emphasized that a single traffic stop with indications of racial profiling isn't enough to substantiate disciplinary action. There must be a pattern shown in a series of stops that a trooper disproportionately targeted a higher number of minorities for traffic offenses and arrest. There were no other complaints of racial profiling against Mr. Dickens, Lieutenant Lumpkins said.

But he said he wonders why Mr. Dickens and the young trooper with him in a state patrol car tailed the SUV - which was operating in heavy fog without headlights on - for some six miles before initiating the stop attempt. If their intent that morning was to tell the SUV's black driver, as they had done with an earlier vehicle, that bad weather made driving with headlights necessary, the lieutenant asked, shouldn't the stop have occurred much sooner?

"His whole operation was sloppy and not how we want our troopers to perform," the lieutenant said.

Mr. Dickens, through his attorney, declined to comment pending arbitration over his dismissal and could not be reached for comment after he was discharged.

After the shooting incident, stops and arrests involving large seizures of drugs along the turnpike in northwest Ohio dropped dramatically.

Patrol officials said it has nothing to do with the shooting. Capt. Richard Collins, who oversees 130 troopers in northwest Ohio, said the drug enforcement unit that worked the turnpike now concentrates on a wider area of state highways and expressways but still hits the turnpike about once a week.

"Are we having as much success as in the past? Honestly, not so much right now," Captain Collins said.

Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates said she doesn't know why the state patrol has backed off intensive enforcement along the turnpike in northwest Ohio. "I don't know if it had to do with law enforcement strategy or public relations," Mrs. Bates said.

'Mules' take the rap

At the same time that troopers are being accused of profiling, a number of the high-profile cases from the past three years ended with what appear to be light sentences - or even dismissals.

The Blade review found that of more than 100 people arrested on the turnpike in northwest Ohio over the past three years in major drug busts involving large quantities of drugs worth millions of dollars, only 39 remain in jail today.

Lucas County Common Pleas Judge James Bates, who has handled some of the turnpike drug cases, said light sentences often result from the fact that many of the suspects involved who plead or are found guilty do not have extensive criminal records.

"Most of them are mules," Judge Bates said, referring to the drug trade slang for couriers. "Whoever sends these people across the country are picking people who don't have too bad a record. If they get caught, they are not in too bad a position [with regard to sentencing]."

In April, Edgar Gonzalez and Gerardo Lopez of Santa Ana, Calif., were sentenced to a year in prison after their arrest eight months ago for transporting $2.2 million in heroin on the Ohio Turnpike. Up to that point, the heroin seizure was the largest in the history of the state patrol.

The car was pulled over and searched, troopers said, because it lacked a rear license plate. But taped on the right front windshield was a valid temporary vehicle tag from California, according to attorney Don Cameron, who represented Gonzalez.

"The car was in compliance. There was no speeding or improper passing or whatever they make up out there," Mr. Cameron said of the troopers. "It is racial profiling. There is no doubt."

"Yet our world is a practical world," the attorney said. "Edgar took a year in prison" under a plea agreement rather than face the possibility of 11 years if convicted at trial of all the charges against him.

In another case involving a large amount of drugs, a lack of evidence led to dismissal of drug trafficking, drug possession, and possession of criminal tools charges against Erika Sanchez-Lopez, then 23, of Mexico. She was a passenger in a sport utility vehicle that was stopped Sept. 29 on the Ohio Turnpike near Maumee for lack of a license plate light. Troopers found 200 pounds of cocaine inside.

The driver, Ruben Marin-Yescas, 46, of Tucson, Ariz., was charged with the same offenses. He pleaded guilty to trafficking and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Attorney Steven Groth, who represented Ms. Sanchez-Lopez, said the evidence showed her client was an innocent cover for traffickers. "She was with a couple of aunts and a couple of children and traveling to New York for some shopping ahead of her wedding," he said.

John Weglian, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor and chief of the office's special unit division, conceded there was no evidence Ms. Sanchez-Lopez knew about the drugs. In addition, Mrs. Bates said Trooper Dickens, who was dismissed for his conduct in the other turnpike traffic stop, was involved in this case and would not have been a helpful witness.

Police witnesses for the prosecution must be "scrupulously clean," she said. "When they have something in their background, such as they have lied or have been a bad actor, it is very difficult for the prosecution to convince the jury in those cases."

Alfredo Valdovines, of Essex, Md., arrested 1 1/2 years ago, was charged along with another man with trafficking in cocaine after their car was pulled over. But a search of the vehicle that turned up five pounds of the drug had problems - something brought to the attention of the court by Tom Matuszak, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor.

The vehicle belonged to Mr. Valdovines, but the driver, Juan Gonzalez, also of Essex, Md., was the one who gave consent to troopers for the search. In a 1964 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled a vehicle's owner who is present at a traffic stop must be the one to give consent. Gonzalez was sentenced to a year in prison. Charges against Mr. Valdovines were dismissed.

Some stops questioned

Local judges seldom side with defense attorneys in arguments over the manner in which traffic stops have been conducted along the turnpike.

However, a Lucas County judge ruled this year that there was no traffic violation to trigger a turnpike stop of Filemon Loza-Gonzalez on Feb. 20, 2004. Troopers searched his vehicle and charged him with money laundering after a large amount of cash was found in the vehicle.

Judge Ruth Ann Franks concluded that a patrol's video of the traffic stop showed the SUV was several car lengths back from a tractor-trailer and not following too closely as the trooper testified as the basis for the stop. The judge also brushed aside a prosecution argument that the trooper expressed concern the driver might be fleeing just prior to the stop.

"There is not a scintilla of evidence that the defendant was exceeding the speed limit, impaired, or driving erratically," the judge wrote.

Deb Rump, a former assistant U.S. attorney who was one of the lawyers representing Mr. Loza-Gonzalez, said the decision by Judge Franks was a surprise to some local attorneys, who regard her as "a law enforcement judge."

"Any time a judge says a witness or prosecutor lacks credibility, that is about as bad as it gets," Ms. Rump said.

The county prosecutor's office has appealed the judge's ruling to the Ohio 6th Court of Appeals. Oral arguments were heard Sept. 6; no decision has been issued.

Other area judges are raising questions about some traffic stops. Judge William Skow of the 6th District court sided with other judges in upholding a recent conviction of a man found guilty of possession and trafficking in drugs after the defendant was stopped on the Ohio Turnpike because a trooper observed his pickup drifting over the edge line onto the berm three times.

But the judge debunked the trooper's claim on the witness stand that there was a "litany of criminal indicators" to further justify the stop. One by one, Judge Skow ridiculed a list of other factors cited to substantiate the stop - such as the truck having Florida plates while traveling on the turnpike, an interstate highway - as "more an example of prosecutorial hyperbole than anything else."

Judge Skow labeled as absurd the prosecution's point that the driver arrested in the stop was carrying a cell phone. "I may be the last person left in America who doesn't travel with a cell phone," he wrote.

Ends justify means?

In the New Jersey litigation over racial profiling, one argument made in defense of state police was that their suspicions about which motorists were involved in criminal activity were ultimately verified by the discovery of illegal drugs in many of the vehicles stopped and searched.

However, such a stance was untenable, according to a task force report on racial profiling prepared by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.

Unlawful searches aren't "made good" if police turn up contraband, the authors wrote, citing a well-established principle of law.

The guilt of those arrested becomes irrelevant if the arresting officer inappropriately relied on race, ethnicity, or national origin in initiating the stop or conducting the investigation, researchers stated.

"The fact that the arrest rates for whites was comparatively low does not mean that white motorists are less likely to be transporting drugs, but rather that they were less likely to be suspected of being drug traffickers in the first place and, thus, less likely to be subjected to probing investigative tactics designed to confirm suspicions of criminal activity," the authors wrote.

Jane Randall, a bilingual attorney in Toledo who has represented numerous defendants who speak Spanish and charged with drug trafficking, said selected enforcement poses a peril to everybody.

"If racial profiling in violation of constitutional rights is done to minorities, it is a small step before it ripples to all of us," she said.

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