Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 10, 1995 TAG: 9511100100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For the second time this year in a high-profile drug case, U.S. District Judge James Turk has lambasted police tactics during an arrest and suppressed evidence before trial.
Turk on Thursday ruled that prosecutors cannot use a statement given by Robert Selman after his arrest last December. Selman, along with nine other people, is to be tried next month in connection with what the government says was a conspiracy to grow and distribute marijuana. Police believe it was the largest indoor marijuana-growing operation in the Roanoke area.
"I'm terribly upset with the way this man was treated," Turk said after a nearly daylong hearing on motions in the case in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. "It was an absolutely abusive show of power, in my opinion."
Selman, 35, was arrested last December after police allege he accepted $8,000 in payment for marijuana from an informant. Selman, who was in a car with his wife and 12-year-old son at the time, was surrounded by police officers with guns drawn.
"They jerked me out of the car, slammed me on the ground, pushed my face across the gravel," Selman testified.
Police said they didn't know whether he might have a weapon and that he hinted at violence during secretly taped conversations with the informant. No weapon was found.
"From a security standpoint, that's the way they're trained," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott said. "Ultimately, it's the safest way to effect an arrest."
The judge disagreed.
"It seems to me like somebody overreacted," Turk said. "There was a small child in the vehicle. You didn't have any idea whether [Selman] had a gun. It shocks the court that anybody would do something like that."
Although he was arrested in Bedford County, a group of investigators working together from the city of Roanoke, and Roanoke, Bedford and Botetourt counties took Selman to the Botetourt County Sheriff's Office. He was held there for about two hours and, he said, was never read his rights.
Police say he admitted during that time distributing about 10 pounds of pot a month as part of an organization growing and selling the best-quality marijuana in the area. It was known on the street as "Phototron" pot, named after a piece of equipment used for climate control in greenhouses.
Selman has pleaded not guilty.
Botetourt County Sheriff Reed Kelly testified that he informed Selman of his rights on the ride to the Sheriff's Office, and Roanoke County Detective Michael Warner confirmed that.
"I don't buy that," Turk said. "Even if they did [read Selman his rights], I think he was in such a state of shock it wouldn't have registered."
Selman was never taken before a magistrate, as required by law, which denied him a "neutral and independent evaluation that there's just cause to let the process [of arrest] continue," argued his attorney, Jack Gregory.
Police said Selman agreed to cooperate that day, so they released him and made plans to meet him the next day to set up his marijuana supplier. But the next morning, Selman said he "couldn't do any more" for them, so they arrested him. That day, they had an arrest warrant and read him his rights, he testified.
Gregory argued that police may have taken Selman into custody mainly to get him to cooperate, with the understanding that "as long as you continue to help, we won't arrest you."
Earlier this year, Turk suppressed all evidence police and federal agents found when they searched Vittorio "Victor" Cucci's home in Covington in 1991. They seized tax and financial records, but those will not be allowed in Cucci's upcoming tax evasion trial.
As in the Selman case, Turk was troubled in part by the fact that Cucci had a young son who watched as police roughly arrested his father.
Police and federal agents stormed into Cucci's home after observing him set up a cocaine buy for an informant. His wife, 5-year-old son and family friends - including two other children - were held at gunpoint for several hours, "in hostagelike fashion," Turk said in a ruling. Cucci was taken to a police car, where permission to search his home was obtained through "police coercion" and threats, Turk said.
"There is simply no excuse for this type of police activity," the Cucci ruling said. "The court can only hope that the high-handed tactics used in this instance were an aberration brought on by the seriousness of the crimes at issue, rather than the accepted practice of the agents involved."
Cucci is in federal prison on a cocaine charge.
by CNB