From: [f--s--l] at [netcom.com] (David Feustel)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.org.batf
Subject: BATF Fucks Up *AGAIN*!!!
Date: 21 Sep 93 23:32:06 GMT

From page 1 of the Tuesday September 21, 1993 Chicago Tribune:

"More Rukn convictions fall" by Matt O'Connor, Tribune Staff Writer

Calling the decision his "most painful" in 22 years on the bench, a
federal judge Monday threw out the racketeering convctions of former
Chicago businessman Noa Robinson and six high-ranking El Rukn leaders
and ordered retrials because of government misconduct.

In a detailed, hard=hitting ruling, U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen
became the third federal judge since June to conclude that the
government tainted the Runk convictions by deliberately concealing
drug use in jail by two of its star witnesses.

In what has become an unprecedented scandal for the U.S. attorney's
office in Chicago, the convictions of 13 defendants from three Rukn
trials have been overturned. Lawyers for another 24 convicted Rukns
are seeking new trials, and some of the 16 other Rukns who pleaded
guilty are trying to back out of the deals.

"I think the house of cards has tumbled, and it may be impossible to
reconstruct," said Ronald J. Clark, one of the defense lawyers in
Aspen's trial, in reaction to the judge's ruling.

With three judges agreeing prosecutors committed misconduct, the U.S.
attorney's office may find it difficult to appeal the adverse rulings,
said Allan Ackerman, Robinson's attorney, and other lawyers.

Prosecutors also may be unable to retry many of the Rukns because the
credibility of certain key government witnesses has been damaged by
evidence of their drug use in jail and other wrongdoing.

In his 181-page opinion, Aspen said the evidence was "overwhelming"
that some members of the prosecution team knew of illegal drug use by
Henry Leon Harris and Harry Evans, two Rukn coooperating witnesses,
while they were incarcerated in the Metropolitan Correctinal Center.
In addition, Aspen concluded prosecutors "had knowledge of or
condoned" sexual contact between at least four Rukn cooperators and
their wives or girlfriends during visits in the U.S. attorney's office
and a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office in the
Kluczynski Federal Building.

"Even more significantly, such contact visits coupled with shamefully
lax security afforded the cooperating witnesses an uninhibited avenue
for the flow of narcotics," the judge wrote.

(rest of article not typed).
-- 
Dave Feustel N9MYI <[f--s--l] at [netcom.com]>

The Federal Government is running Amuck and We Citizens are in the Way!