UPDATE on the BOBBY BANKS TRIAL

Saw threat as serious, LR officer tells court

BY LINDA SATTER
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

When the main target of a major drug investigation delivered a veiled threat toward a Little Rock police detective, the officer took it seriously, he testified Friday. After all, the detective acknowledged, one of the man’s associates had been murdered, another was missing, and police had found laser-sighted 9mm pistols, a powerful silencer and video surveillance cameras inside the man’s house, which was guarded by a fence and pit bull dogs.

In addition, 30-year-old Bobby Banks, the man who delivered the threat through two deputy U.S. marshals who transported him to jail, had talked of beating up his own mother and was suspected of holding a gun to a woman’s head, detective Mark Stafford testified on the fourth day of Banks’ federal drug conspiracy trial.

Prosecutors said the message relayed to Stafford last October, which resulted in a federal charge against Banks of interfering with an officer, was that Banks knew Stafford’s address, his wife’s name and that he had children. Stafford, a veteran Little Rock police officer who for the past 13 years has been part of a multi-agency violent crime task force called Metrock, testified that he has known Banks for about 15 years.

“Do you think Mr. Banks would follow up on that threat ?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Pat Harris asked. “Yes, I think he would,” Stafford replied. “Do you think he’s capable of it?” “Definitely,” Stafford said.

During all but the first day of testimony, when acquaintances of Banks noisily came and went from the courtroom and were suspected of using gang signs in the gallery, U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. invoked rules limiting access to the trial. Several federal marshals and courtroom security officers have been positioned throughout the courtroom, while others patrol the perimeter of the courthouse in downtown Little Rock where the trial is under way. One female spectator who was seen talking to a juror — albeit innocently, the spectator told the judge — was banned from the courthouse Friday for the duration of the trial.

Prosecutors have presented testimony from two key “cooperating witnesses,” a man and a woman, who said they wore hidden body microphones monitored by police while buying crack and powder cocaine in various “crack houses” near Central High School in Little Rock between December 1999 and December 2004. Prosecutors say Banks operated the crack houses.

Jurors also have heard from several people who once faced charges alongside Banks but have since pleaded guilty or had charges dropped in exchange for their cooperation. One person who was named in the indictment, but was shot and killed in a rural area just before the indictment was released, was Kenneth Dewayne Williams, 49, who witnesses said they knew as “the Cable Man.” Another defendant, Harry Tyrone “Sleepy” Baker, is missing and considered a fugitive.
Harris showed jurors a letter that another of Banks’ former associates, Donald Lee Bone, testified that he received a couple of weeks ago. The envelope listed Bone’s wife’s name as the sender, even though she didn’t send it, and included a non-existent return address. Stafford said it actually came from the Tucker Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. He also identified a letter that Bone received in the mail shortly after the indictment was unsealed, this one from the department’s Grady Unit. It listed a phony return address with a sender’s name of “Mary Deadman.”

Stafford testified Friday that in addition to the relayed threat, he was also unnerved by an encounter with Banks in early 2004. Shortly after 1 a.m. one day, about 10 to 15 minutes after Stafford cruised past Banks’ house, located on a dead-end street in southwest Little Rock, Stafford said his cell phone rang — and to his surprise, it was Banks. He said he doesn’t know how Banks got his cell phone number, but they talked for about half an hour.

Stafford said that call and Banks’ reference to Stafford’s home and wife showed that someone had done some research because none of the information was readily available through ordinary means.

After being indicted, Banks initially was allowed to remain free on electronic monitoring until his trial. But after he violated the terms set by the court and was considered a fugitive, officers got word on Sept. 13, 2005, that Banks was at his wife’s home on Windamere Drive, Stafford testified. He said that after waiting several minutes for Banks’ wife, Katrina Harshaw, and other family members to let them into the house, officers found Banks in the crawl space under the house. It was accessible only through a well-concealed secret compartment in the floor of a linen closet in the bathroom, Stafford said. He explained to jurors how a piece of linoleum lifted up to reveal a dug-out opening into the crawl space. He said the trap door could be locked back into place only from underneath. “You would not know it was there unless you were advised that it was there,” Stafford said.

The government rested its case late Friday afternoon, and the trial is scheduled to resume with the defense case at 9:30 a.m. Monday.

This story was published Saturday, February 04, 2006