The state dismissed all drug charges against Dean Lari last week because of what a magistrate judge described as a “technicality” and Lari’s public defender characterized as “recklessness” on the part of Haines Police.
Haines Borough staff and officials celebrated the felony drug bust publicly last October when Lari was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and marijuana and the delivery and possession of cocaine after a sting operation.
The marijuana and cocaine delivery charges were dismissed in October due to insufficient evidence and the remaining meth and cocaine possession charges were reduced. Last Thursday, those possession charges also were dismissed.
The drug charge dismissal was part of a plea agreement in which Lari pleaded guilty to two counts of violating a domestic violence protection order.
Lari’s public defender Timothy Ayer spoke on the record last week during the court hearing after district court magistrate Mary Kay Germain expressed surprise that all the drug charges against Lari were being dropped.
Ayer told the court that police used illegally obtained evidence in officer Chris Brown’s search warrant application. Ayers said the officer also used contradictory statements regarding the credibility of an informant used to set Lari up.
The case was initiated last October after a female informant went to the police asking them to make Lari leave her alone, Ayer said in court. She later told police she had information about him dealing drugs.
In an interview this week, Ayer said the law recognizes two types of informants: citizen informants and anonymous informants. Courts view citizen informants as credible because they report a crime they’ve witnessed and often have unbiased reasons for reporting the crime.
Anonymous informants, on the other hand, are presumed to have a “criminal milieu” or personal gain at stake, and courts consider them less credible for providing information to the police.
In Lari’s case, Ayer said the informant had “an ax to grind” against Lari that was evident in a police report previous to the bust, but the informant was characterized in the search warrant application as a citizen informant.
“In the search warrant application, (she) was stated as an informant whom the officer is familiar with and trusts their information, which is an omission at best and dishonesty at worst,” Ayer said.
Police used the woman, who has a criminal record, and another informant to set up the cocaine buy.
According to a probable cause statement in the criminal complaint, Lari drove the woman to a liquor store on Main Street. She brought Lari’s cocaine into the store and the second informant paid her for it. Police arrested Lari during a traffic stop after the drug deal.
The woman recorded the controlled buy and gave it to police after Lari was arrested.
“The Haines Borough Police department obtained an audio recording of Lari telling the female subject that he was in possession of cocaine and was willing to sell an 8 ball of cocaine for $275,” a court document states.
According to court documents, that recording was used to initiate a search warrant of Lari’s home where police found what they believed to be traces of methamphetamine, 57 marijuana plants and other drug paraphernalia.
Ayer said in court last week police didn’t obtain a required “Glass warrant” to use the recording as evidence. A Glass warrant is required for police to record conversations between informants and the subject of an investigation.
Ayer said the recording was illegally used to obtain Brown’s search warrant for Lari’s home.
Between the audio recording and the contradictory statements regarding the credibility of the informant, Ayer said, the warrant, issued by an Anchorage court, was invalid. Any evidence gathered as a result of the warrant couldn’t be used in court.
“So the warrant application had not only illegal evidence in it but it also had at the least a recklessness misstatement by the police officer and at worst an intentional misstatement, which all invalidate the warrant,” Ayer said in court. “It would be pretty hard to get this to trial, let alone a verdict.”
Germain told Lari during the hearing he “got off based on technical matters” and advised him to change his lifestyle.
Haines Police chief Heath Scott said “mistakes happen.”
“It’s unfortunate. I don’t like being that guy. We don’t have 10 guys in our investigation section. You’ve got one officer doing stuff by themselves, largely. When we’re reviewing stuff – I haven’t gone to law school recently – but these are things we can get better at and improve. If we don’t do our jobs correctly, we can’t serve justice. We’ve got to protect people’s civil liberties. If we do something wrong, this is the outcome.”
Assistant district attorney Amy Paige declined to comment on the case.
Lari said he’s “lost everything” as a result of police actions, including his family, friends and pets. He thinks the police violated an Alaska law titled “Malicious Procurement of Search Warrant. The statute reads: “a person who maliciously and without probable cause causes a search warrant to be issued and executed is guilty of a misdemeanor.” Lari wants the Haines Borough Assembly to address the issue.
As part of his plea agreement, Lari was sentenced to 30 days in jail, all suspended, on each count and placed on one year’s probation.
One facet of the case that was unclear this week was why police apparently had the woman informant sell the cocaine she allegedly received from Lari to an unnamed second informant in the liquor store.
“Haines police actually created a controlled buy between two of its own informants… which I’ve never seen before,” Ayer said.