An alleged member of the Rolling 30s Crips gang indicted after a crack-cocaine sweep in Denver last year says prosecutors improperly sought permission to wiretap the gang in order to solve the slaying of Denver Broncos player Darrent Williams.
An attorney for Harry “Little Blood” Morgan has filed a motion to dismiss an indictment; it says criminal charges were filed against his client only after the government “manipulated the wiretap process.”
Feds say all was proper
Prosecutors “decided to engage in a clandestine investigation of the Darrent Williams case involving the powers of the federal court,” wrote Morgan’s attorney, Mark C. Johnson. “The prosecutors funneled communications intercepted from the valid wiretap investigation into the homicide case.”
In response, federal prosecutors wrote that there was nothing improper about the evidence they collected against Morgan, who is charged with setting up crack-cocaine deals with other members of the gang.
Williams was shot to death on New Year’s Day 2007 after an altercation between people accompanying the cornerback and another group of men outside a downtown Denver nightclub. No one has been charged in the homicide.
Re-indictment in 2nd case
Morgan’s motion also mentions the federal case against Veronica Garcia, described in court records as the girlfriend of Elite Eight gang leader Brian Hicks.
Garcia was indicted on drug charges last year, but that case was dismissed after her attorney claimed law enforcement improperly used the charges against her to pressure her to provide information about Williams’ homicide.
Garcia, 28, appeared in U.S. District Court on Thursday to hear that she had been re-indicted in the drug case and is facing life in prison because she has prior drug felonies on her record.
She pleaded not guilty and was held without bond.
Her sister, who declined to give her name, said outside the courtroom that Garcia “doesn’t know anything” about who killed Williams and that investigators only think Garcia knows because she used to work in a store that Hicks had on Colfax Avenue in Denver.
The sister also denied that Garcia was Hicks’ girlfriend.
Hicks was in jail on unrelated drug charges when Williams was slain, but his white Chevrolet Tahoe was used in the homicide.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
