CROOKS COVET JUSTICE DATABASES

ST. LOUIS -- Adrian Minnis ran a heroin distribution ring that was
violent and tightly knit, making it difficult for informers to
penetrate it, federal authorities say.

The gang also had a secret weapon: It cultivated a police officer to
dig into a law enforcement database to figure out which of its
customers might be undercover informers, according to an indictment
filed against Minnis and 20 other alleged ring members.

There is no indication the officer actually identified an informer,
or that his prying into the REJIS database led to anyone being hurt.
Yet the accusation against St. Louis police Officer Antoine Gordon,
who has since resigned, suggests that crime rings can target REJIS or
other databases to insulate themselves against investigations.

"A police officer's participation in a drug conspiracy heightens the
risk to civilians and other law enforcement officers," then-U.S.
Attorney Jim Martin said at the time of Gordon's indictment in
February. "Such conduct is inexcusable."

Yet Joe Mokwa, the St. Louis chief of police, said recently that he
was unaware of anyone's safety being endangered by any breach of
confidential information by Gordon.

The charges against Gordon also show that the password protection of
the REJIS data bank works very well, Mokwa said.

"This case personifies exactly the effectiveness of the system," the
chief said. "We had intelligence that somebody was running people's
names involved in narcotics cases without a legitimate reason, and we
ran those names and found out who it was, and took the appropriate action."

Mokwa said officers use REJIS on a daily basis, and tightening
security would be burdensome. "You have to rely upon the integrity of
officers to use the system properly," he said. "To change it, you
would have to restrict their access."

The widely used REJIS system, formally known as the Regional Justice
Information Service, was launched in the mid-1970s for sharing
information between St. Louis and St. Louis County. It evolved to
include some 200 organizations, in Missouri and Illinois. Most are
police departments, but others include prosecutors, courts and
correctional agencies.

In February, federal prosecutors unveiled an indictment accusing
Gordon of using a database in June 2004 to perform "record checks"
for the drug ring to determine whether customers who got heroin from
Adrian Minnis on June 10, 2004, were working as "confidential
sources" for police. In so doing, Gordon aided and abetted the gang's
trafficking conspiracy, a felony, the indictment claims.

Gordon, 34, of the 1600 block of O'Fallon Street in St. Louis, has
resigned from the department, pleaded not guilty and is awaiting
trial. He had joined the force in 1997.

Several attorneys in the case said Gordon is a relative of the Minnis
family, perhaps a cousin.

His lawyer, Rodney Holmes, acknowledged that his client did perform
the record checks, but said there is no evidence it was to aid a drug ring.

"You're not supposed to be running record checks for friends and
family," Holmes said. "It was done. There's no denying that."

"From my perspective, there's no clear indication or evidence to
support that he knew this was for drug transactions, Holmes said.

Gaining inside police information has long been a prize of criminal
organizations. Earlier this year, federal officials accused two New
York officers of passing confidential material to the Mafia in the
early 1980s. The two also are accused of carrying out murders for the
Luchese crime family.

St. Louis police have found improper use of REJIS by officers in the
past. When a city officer was found to have made up a false sex
charge against his ex-wife in 2001, an internal police investigation
showed REJIS was used to obtain information about her. The officer
quit in 2002 as the department moved to fire him.

In another case, a Pine Lawn officer used REJIS in 2002 to track down
and threaten a motorist after an angry encounter while driving. That
led to the officer's conviction on a charge of harassment.

A Violent History

The Minnis gang first came under scrutiny as long as 15 years ago,
according to a federal magistrate judge's ruling in the case. The
judge noted that the ring's members have a history of murder, weapons
violations and assaults, making it unsafe for undercover agents
trying to infiltrate.

The family has a violent past. On Aug. 25, 1992, Leta Minnis, 38, a
mother of 11 children, was shot to death on her front porch in the
5000 block of Vernon Avenue in St. Louis. Investigators said then
they did not know whether the intended target was her or her son
Antonio Minnis, a member of a gang called the Piru Neighborhood
Gangster Bloods, who was standing nearby. He allegedly was involved
in a shooting two months before in which six people, including a
6-month-old baby, were wounded, police said.

His brother, Adrian Minnis, then 20, had pleaded guilty - the day
before his mother's death - of second-degree murder for the fatal
shooting of a 24-year-old man.

Two years earlier, Adrian Minnis was using a one-way ticket to fly to
San Diego when authorities discovered $15,500 in his luggage,
according to a judge's ruling in the current drug case. The money was
seized as drug proceeds, though he was never charged in connection with it.

Another brother, Terrell Minnis, was convicted of cocaine possession
in 1993, second-degree assault in 1994 and involuntary manslaughter
in 1998. He was released from prison in 2001, state records show.

All three Minnis brothers would spend parts of the decade after their
mother's death in prison.

The indictment charges the three Minnis brothers, Gordon and 17 other
defendants with carrying out the drug conspiracy from September 2001
to February of this year.

Thirteen of the 21 defendants have pleaded guilty. But the brothers
are standing by their pleas of not guilty, and may be helping Gordon
in the process. Antonio Minnis appeared in court in June, apparently
ready to change his plea, but backed out after objecting to a
statement about Gordon in the proposed plea agreement.

In a letter to the judge, Antonio Minnis complained that his
court-appointed lawyer told him prosecutors agreed to take the
reference to Gordon out of his plea agreement. "It was still there
when I read it at court," he wrote, without revealing what the
document said about Gordon.

Did prosecutors want Antonio Minnis to say Gordon had performed a
REJIS check for the drug ring? Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Tihen, a
prosecutor on the case, declined to comment.