Darnell Weare’s history of history of arrests for burglary, forgery, assault and drugs – but no convictions – still gave the Motor Vehicle Dealer Board all the reasons they needed to deny him a license to sell cars.
Instead, they let him open for business. Then he allegedly used that business as a front for drug dealing.
Before his business was finally closed, it would be the scene of a long-running investigation, and the murder of an innocent man.
The events that led to Sherman Banks’ death began soon after Weare was first licensed in 1999, and his car lot, DWeare’s Auto on East Colfax Avenue, became the focal point of one of Denver’s biggest narcotics investigations.
Weare was a supplier to a big-deal drug runner named Andre Shoeboot, his nephew. Agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and the Metro Gang Task Force had been tailing and watching Shoeboot’s operation for a long time.
The used cars and a set of repair bays next to the dealership were integral to the drug operation, police said, with deals and exchanges happening over a sustained period while agents watched or listened in.
And in August 2001, they heard the unthinkable: Weare and an associate strangling to death a man they accused of stealing a narcotics-laden briefcase from the truck of a car on Weare’s lot.
Banks pleaded for his life, court records show, protesting his innocence. Unknown to the dealers, police had lifted the briefcase the night before as part of their investigation.
When police broke in to stop the assault, Banks was dead – wire and duct tape wrapped around his neck and wrists, and a shop rag stuffed down his throat.
And news of Banks’ death was the first that state Auto Industry Division investigators had heard of law enforcement suspicions about Weare’s dealership. Even with a handful of complaints from customers, the business was never audited and never scrutinized, records show.
“If the state didn’t license him, Sherman might be alive because all that stuff wouldn’t have happened,” said Carolyn Banks, Sherman’s mother. “My son died innocent; probably the first time in his life he was innocent of anything.”
Then, with Weare in jail awaiting eventual conviction for first-degree murder, customers began complaining again, records show. Some told division investigators that “Darnell’s in jail for something.”
Little happened until January 2002, when Weare’s license was revoked – five months after he was incarcerated on the murder charge. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in January 2004.
Weare “probably shouldn’t have been licensed, but these are things that happened a long time ago,” said David Dechant, director of the Department of Revenue’s enforcement division, of which the Automotive Industry Division is a part. The dealer board is a segment of the division. “I can assure you it wouldn’t happen today.”
The board has frequently licensed individuals with criminal backgrounds, many of whom commit crimes again and who slip by the board yet again.
One was Joe Willie Hightower, an associate of Weare. With his partner, Fred Shorty, the two created a used-car business in Commerce City that sounded like a cheap 1970s TV drama: Hightower & Shorty.
Hightower and Shorty opened their car lot in May 1993, after appealing a board decision to deny them a license because of their criminal past.
Hightower had a drug-dealing conviction from 1985 and one for theft from 1982; Shorty’s police record included arrests on drugs and weapons charges.
At the appeal, Hightower made another admission: He was finishing parole from a 1983 manslaughter conviction for which he spent more than two of eight years in prison, records show.
“I feel that I have paid enough for my crime, and I now want an opportunity to do right,” Hightower wrote the board in 1993. “I know I have made mistakes, and I will probably make more, but I will not again knowingly break the law.”
It was enough remorse to get licensed. When Hightower’s crimes became automatic disqualifiers in 1998, it didn’t apply to him since he already had a license.
It wasn’t long after Hightower opened his car lot that undercover police were tipped to his alleged drug dealing. Police said Hightower and Weare were each critical sources to Shoeboot, court records show.
At first, only Shorty went to federal prison, a 20-month sentence he began serving in 2000 for drug possession. For his part, Hightower spent 18 months in prison awaiting trial on drug charges, then was released in March 2000 when important undercover wiretaps were deemed inadmissable.
The Motor Vehicle Dealer Board never knew they were gone. Even after the board suspended Hightower & Shorty’s license in 2001 for problems with vehicle titles, board members and investigators still didn’t know about the convictions.
Finally, after a federal drug raid in 2002, state auto investigators were asked for help with the cars still on the lot. Hightower’s dealer license was finally revoked in 2002, a month before he went to federal prison for 26 years.
All the while, division investigators received complaints from Hightower’s customers, including that Hightower and Shorty weren’t responding to them because they were in prison.
Nothing happenened, records show.
The board finally caught up to Hightower & Shorty in February 2001 – a three-day suspension for problems related to vehicle titles – and allowed it to remain open. No record of Shorty’s prison term or Hightower’s arrests were recorded.
Federal agents eventually raided Hightower & Shorty in February 2002, then asked division investigators for help in scouring the dozens of cars remaining on the lot.
It was the first the state knew of Hightower’s drug ring, agents said.
Hightower was convicted on drug charges in May 2002 and sentenced to 26 years in federal prison. Shorty, a free man since mid-2001, could not be located for comment.
The state revoked the pair’s car-dealer license only a month before Hightower began serving his sentence.
