Jury gets Delta drug-escort case

— Shortly before jurors began deliberating Thursday on public-corruption charges against a former Helena-West Helena police lieutenant, a federal prosecutor asked rhetorically if it made sense that the officer would go out of her way on her day off just tohelp an acquaintance transport motorcycle parts through the city.

That’s what former Lt. Marlene Kalb, 49, claims she assumed Cornelious Coleman, 35, was carrying in his truck when she agreed to follow behind him to protect him from being stopped by“dirty cops.”

Interestingly, noted Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters in her closing arguments, the only “dirty cop” that Coleman claimed had been harassing him was Capt. Winston Dean Jackson, whom Kalb told another officer she had seen robbing drug traffickers of cash and drugs.

A day earlier, from the witness stand in federal court in Little Rock, Kalb tried to justify her words and actions that Coleman, an FBI informant, had secretly recorded on two separate days in September of 2011.

On those occasions, she provided Coleman with a police “escort” through town, then accepted the cash he gave her upon reaching the city limits.

Kalb, a law-enforcement officer for nearly 27 years, was one of about 70 people, including Jackson and three other officers, who were arrested on Oct. 11, 2011, in an FBI-led investigation known as Operation Delta Blues aimed at public corruption and drug trafficking primarily in Phillips and Lee counties.

Kalb has maintained her innocence. Coleman was a lifelong acquaintance, she testified, who convinced her that he had stopped selling drugs and asked for her help, saying he feared being arrested for driving on a suspended license.

Coleman, who Kalb didn’t know was working undercover for the FBI, had had his license suspended for failing to pay $12,000 in back child support. He testified earlier this week that he refused to pay the money because he didn’t believe he was the child’s father.

Jackson, 44, a former Phillips County sheriff’s deputy, was sentenced in June to 6 1/2 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in March to conspiring to distribute, and conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute, controlled substances - specifically, cocaine and marijuana.

Three other officers also have pleaded guilty in the case and received prison sentences. They include former Helena-West Helena officer Robert “Bam Bam” Rogers, sentenced to 14 months for extortion; former Marvell officer Robert Wahls, sentenced to two years for extortion and money laundering; and former Helena-West Helena officer Herman Eaton Sr., sentenced to 16 months for extortion and money laundering.

Eaton is Coleman’s uncle, and Coleman has admitted helping FBI agents ensnare him.

Kalb faces up to 108 months - or nine years - in federal prison if convicted of the charges she faces: two counts of attempted extortion, two counts of attempted possession with the intent to deliver a controlled substance, and two counts of money laundering.

In this case, extortion is defined as a “wrongful taking by a police officer of money,” even if there is no threat.

Also, because Coleman wasn’t actually transporting cocaine, Kalb is charged with “attempted” possession of a distributable quantity of the drug.

Although U.S. District Judge James Moody expressed some concern - out of jurors’ earshot - about the legitimacy of the charge of attempted possession, prosecutors argued that it applies because Kalb believed she was acting as “his co-carrier” while following him.

Parole is not available in the federal system, meaning that if convicted, Kalb would serve the entirety of whatever sentence is imposed. Moody would sentence her in a separate hearing after a comprehensive presentence report is completed.

Zeroing in on Kalb’s defense, Peters told jurors in her closing statements Thursday that there is no dispute that Kalb agreed to, and did, follow Coleman’s pickup through town on two occasions and that Coleman gave her cash at the end of each escort.

While Coleman said he gave Kalb $500 in FBI money both times, Kalb contends that she accepted the first cash only to give it, at his request, to a friend in whom Coleman was romantically interested.

The woman later gave some of it back, Kalb testified.

In the second instance, Kalb contends she tried to refuse money from Coleman but he threw a wad of $300 cash into her police car as she was pulling away, then jumped into his own truck and took off.

“The question is, did shebelieve that he was running motorcycle parts or cocaine?” Peters asked jurors. “The recordings make it perfectly clear he was talking about cocaine.”

Kalb has said the only reference she heard Coleman make to “cocaine” was what she believed to be a joke. She said she was joking back when she asked if he was working for the FBI.

Before the first escort, Coleman can be heard on a recording, which was played for jurors, telling Kalb, “You know I’m loaded down. I’ve gotta get through. I can’t get f

——— off in Helena with these peoples’ sh--. They pay me too much money.”

“Suddenly,” Peters said, Kalb “is on her way. She knows how important it is.”

At the end of the trip, Coleman’s body microphone recorded him telling her, “This truck is loaded with f-

——— drugs. I love you woman,” and, as he hands her some cash,“Get you something nice.”

Kalb, who was in her police car with one ear tuned to her police radio, testified that she didn’t hear that.

Peters reminded jurors of testimony that on Sept. 21, 2011, Kalb told Coleman during a recorded telephone call that she could escort him on the next Monday, Sept. 26, in her private truck, since she would be off work that day.

As it turned out, Kalb was called in to work on Sept. 26 but still escorted Coleman through the city, in her official car.

As with the Sept. 9 escort, they kept track of each other’s location in cell-phone conversations while both were driving, and Kalb pulled in behind him when he drove past her designated location.

In the recording of the Sept. 21 call, Kalb could be heard warning Coleman that on the 26th, “Just be careful because Dean’s out and about,” referring to Jackson.

“Is this about a suspended driver’s license?” Peters asked.

Noting the wad of hundreddollar bills that Coleman gave Kalb at the end of that escort, Peters asked which made more sense: “$500 for motorcycle parts? Or cocaine?”

Later, in rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon said the recordings show that Coleman didn’t toss money into Kalb’s car after the second escort and then take off immediately, as she claims.

“Listen to the recording,” Gordon said. “He gives her money. She says, ‘I can’t take this.’ He says, ‘Get yourself something nice.’ She says, ‘Thanks.’”

Little Rock attorney John Wesley Hall called Coleman a “scorpion” who was “willing to sell out his own uncle” and who told Kalb he loved her, platonically, while secretly trying to entrap her.

Hall also reminded jurors of testimony that Coleman must pay restitution for a forged check by next week - just after the government is to give him $22,000 to relocate after his testimony, in addition to the $30,000 he has already been paid.

Moody told jurors that prosecutors must prove that authorities didn’t entrap Kalb.

“The law does not allow the government to persuade an unwilling person to commit a crime, and that’s what CC [Coleman] did,” Hall told jurors.

“Simply giving someone a favorable opportunity to commit a crime is not persuasion,” Gordon replied. “CC did not persuade this defendant. He simply gave her an opportunity to commit a crime, and when he did, she grabbed it, because she was willing.”

Gordon also defended the government’s payments to Coleman, saying his work wasn’t just for helping prosecute Kalb but for “all the work he did in Operation Delta Blues.”

“That,” Gordon said, “is not a small price to pay to free, or try to free, the people of Helena-West Helena, a town of 13,000 to 14,000 people, fromthe grips of drug dealers and corrupt public officials.”

Jurors were sent home after deliberating about three hours without reaching a verdict, with instructions to resume deliberations this morning.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/14/2012

Upcoming Events