Guilty Before Proven Innocent

How police harassment, jailhouse snitches, and a runaway war on drugs imprisoned an innocent family

Radley Balko from the May 2008 issue

(Page 3 of 7)

In February 1996, local authorities claim to have witnessed Danny Davis participate in a hand-to-hand drug deal in a Church Point parking lot. That evening, a police team clad in camouflage, black ski masks, and full SWAT attire stormed the home of Brandy Hanks’ parents, where Danny and Brandy were staying. The police broke the family’s door open with a battering ram just as Hanks’ partially paralyzed mother approached to open it. She was thrown over the back of her couch, triggering a cardiac event that put her in the hospital. The police roused Danny from sleep at gunpoint, handcuffed him, and marched him outside the house, where newspaper photographers and television crews waited with cameras to capture the fallen football star in shackles.

“They pointed their guns at a two-week-old baby,” Hanks says. “My little sister was so scared she peed herself.”

The police found no drugs, weapons, or anything incriminating in the raid. But Danny Davis says they still attempted to get him to plead to a drug charge for a transaction he says never happened. He refused and was never charged. Davis would be hauled into the police station two more times and pressured by local authorities to plead guilty. He refused both times, and both times the charges were dropped.

It was from these multiple run-ins with local authorities throughout the 1990s that the U.S. Attorney’s Office plucked the four incidents included in the federal conspiracy indictment against the family. These incidents—plus a questionable sting on Ann Colomb’s house in October 2001 that turned up two guns and 72 grams of crack—were the only evidence presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Grayson that the Colomb family ever sold any illicit drugs. The rest of the testimony came from jailhouse informants accusing the Colombs only of buying cocaine, and lots of it.

“They took a bunch of unrelated police harassments of these people over 10 years, coupled it with a parade of jailhouse snitches, and called it a conspiracy,” says Rodney Baum, Sammie’s lawyer. “It was ridiculous.”

The Raid
On October 22, 2001, a local drug task force claimed to have conducted a “controlled buy” of crack cocaine from Ann Colomb. According to police reports, Stevie Charlot, a local crack addict who once toured the world as drummer for a zydeco band, was recruited to conduct the buy. Although police say Charlot wore a wire to record the transaction, they didn’t preserve any recording of it.

In the years between the alleged buy in 2001 and the Colomb trial in 2006, Charlot changed his story several times. In 2002 he told a private investigator hired by Colomb’s defense lawyers (in a recorded conversation) that the buy never happened at all, that he’d made the entire thing up to appease law enforcement officials. Charlot himself was facing a host of drug charges at the time. But Charlot soon was back to his original story, telling the grand jury that “everyone in Church Point dealt with the Colombs,” though he couldn’t provide authorities with the name of a single Colomb drug customer other than himself.

Minutes after Charlot’s alleged drug buy, the local drug task force raided the Colomb home in full SWAT attire, taking down the unlocked front door with a battering ram. They handcuffed Ann Colomb at gunpoint and rummaged through her belongings. James Colomb had to be taken to the hospital with a panic attack and heart palpitations. In a guest room dresser (not Ann Colomb’s panty drawer, where Charlot allegedly told police the drugs were stored), police found 72 grams of crack cocaine, not in rock form, as Charlot alleged, but in round, uncut “cookies,” along with a handgun. The amount of cocaine was significant; a typical “hit” of two to three rocks weighs only a fraction of a gram.

At the time, Ann and James Colomb’s daughter, Jennifer, was staying in the guest room with her then-boyfriend (now husband) Timothy Price. Price, now 26, immediately said the drugs and gun were his. He still does. “I was dealing crack on the side,” Price says. “It wasn’t anything major. And it was stupid. But that stuff was all mine. After we took Jennifer’s dad to the hospital, I heard that they had taken Miss Ann to jail. I can’t tell you how bad I felt. Miss Ann wouldn’t allow a single joint in that house. And because of me, they were trying to say she was some kind of drug dealer.”

Price drove to the police station to turn himself in. “I told them the dope and the gun was mine,” he says. “My mom is a police officer. The gun was hers.”

But Price says the sheriff’s deputies wanted nothing to do with him. “When I told them it was all mine, they put me in a holding cell for about 15 minutes,” he recalls. “Then they came and told me to go home. They said, ‘The dope’s not yours. Tell Edward to come get his momma.’ After that, I didn’t really know what to do.”

Several months later, Price says, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Grayson sent him a letter asking him to come in for questioning. By that time, police had traced the gun found with the cocaine to Price’s mother. Nevertheless, Price says, “Mr. Grayson was surprised when I told him the dope was mine.” Grayson and U.S. Attorney Donald Washington did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

Later, Price says, Grayson tried to convince him to say his girlfriend, Jennifer, had cajoled him into taking a fall for the drugs. When Grayson threatened Price with 10 to 15 years in prison if he continued to claim the cocaine as his own, Price says he decided to get an attorney. When later called before the grand jury, Price acknowledged the gun was his, but on the advice of his lawyer he pled the Fifth Amendment when asked about the drugs.

Today Price says the drugs definitely were his, just as he did immediately after the raid. “I lost a lot of friends and relatives over all of this,” he says. “People looked at me like I was a ghost.” Price was never charged for the cocaine. Five years later, Ann Colomb would take the hit for the cocaine in federal court. Although Price and Jennifer are now married, the Colomb family still hasn’t completely forgiven him. Normally warm, Ann Colomb cools at the mention of Price’s name. Her sons Edward and Sammie roll their eyes when asked about him. But all seem to hold back their disdain now that he’s family.

“He did what he had to do,” Edward says, referring to Price pleading the Fifth. “The drugs were his and he tried to take credit for them. I guess you can’t blame a guy for not wanting to go to jail.”

Comments

Guy Montag|4.14.08 @ 12:08PM|#

If he does not stop causing trouble at the TJ memorial he will really find out what police harassment is!

|4.14.08 @ 12:34PM|#

Please allow me, once again, to thank you Radley for your diligent efforts in exposing prosecutorial incompetence and criminal(?) misconduct.

I'm going to go throw up in disgust now.

|4.14.08 @ 12:46PM|#

I'm from Louisiana, and I can tell you that the "War On Drugs" has corrupted law enforcement there; in the town my parents live in, (about 40 mi. from New Orleans) the sheriff threatened to plant weed on the newly-elected mayor, before said-sheriff was caught running guns he probably got from drug-busts.
Stories like Jena 6 are milked for drama by the Mainstream media, but it's stories like this that are much more common; thanks for covering it!

Elemenope|4.14.08 @ 12:48PM|#

What I really wanna know is if one of the loyal H&R readers is moved to take up arms and plug a few crummy D.A.s (as daily does seem more and more likely) whether Radley would be brought up on incitement charges.

|4.14.08 @ 12:59PM|#

LMNOP,

No. Reporting facts does not constitute incitement to violence.

Yet.

Guy Montag|4.14.08 @ 1:08PM|#

No. Reporting facts does not constitute incitement to violence.

And it won't get you a job at ABC News, The New Republic, The New York Times (unless you are Bill Kristol) or a lot of other places too.

dm|4.14.08 @ 1:49PM|#

another Reason i'm proud to be an american

oh wait

|4.14.08 @ 1:59PM|#

Was it Jefferson who said, "I believe that Liberty from time to time must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants"? Or something like that.

Would Bill Kristol be considered at tyrant?

Guy Montag|4.14.08 @ 2:09PM|#

Would Bill Kristol be considered at tyrant?

No. Well, maybe to the meekest of shadow fearing webheads, or some of the writers and editors of his magazine.

Notamina|4.14.08 @ 4:13PM|#

I find it difficult to believe that Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Grayson would knowingly seek out a conviction on these people. He, and his superior, based on his statement, still think the Columbs are guilty of drug trafficking. They are clearly delusional and therefore, I suggest, that they both be removed from office due to severe mental incapacity.

|4.14.08 @ 6:21PM|#

They are clearly delusional and therefore, I suggest, that they both be removed from office due to severe mental incapacity.

And people scoff at Berlusconi's call for regular mental evaluations of prosecutors.

LarryA|4.14.08 @ 10:32PM|#

"If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to worry about?"

|4.14.08 @ 11:36PM|#

Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! The fact that the 'legal' system finally worked -- the Colombs have their lives back, with prejudice (literally and legally!) -- hardly imbues one with hope for a fine-tuned 'justice' system. Someone's head needs to role on this one -- and DA Washington and/or assistant DA Grayson seem front-and-center.

|4.15.08 @ 4:32PM|#

I'm pretty sure if Radley Balko ever decided to turn his attention to the "War on Sexual Predators," he'd find an equal number of egregious prosecutorial misconduct cases.

However, I have to wonder if those cases would meet with as much sympathy, since drugs are cool.

Radley Balko|4.15.08 @ 9:43PM|#

Michael,

You haven't been reading this site long, have you?

RED GREEN|4.16.08 @ 9:45AM|#

"Snitches"... has been a very popular strategy with the Feds...thats an old NAZI/Stalinist tactic,isn't it?

Angry African|4.16.08 @ 9:53AM|#

Man, man, man. I have been in the US for 18 months. Before that the UK for 4 years, but I am a South African working on sustainability and African investment. I have been crying about the lack of good media out here in the US. I found it. Thanks for this piece. It reminds us what the media can be if they really want to be...

|4.16.08 @ 8:58PM|#

I was extremely disappointed in Mr Balko's article. What a disappointment! As a member of this family, this article presented false statements and inaccuracies. I think Mr Balko needs to check out Webster's and look up the definitions of "racist" as well as "prejudice", there are vast differences between the two. This only proves to me that crooked journalists are no better than crooked cops and prosecutors. Report the TRUTH, don't FABRICATE it!

Dave2|4.18.08 @ 1:17AM|#

bookworm333,

As a member of what family? The Colombs? The Bookworm family?

What are you talking about?

|4.18.08 @ 5:32PM|#

Time to bring in the feds and clean up law enforcement in this area. Also time for a lawsuit to drain the town dry of funds for allowing these racists to do this to these people. Make every person who turned a blind eye pay their taxes to reimburse the Colombs for what was done by their town to them.