CHARGES AGAINST BINI MOUNT

July 8, 2000 - The officer accused of perjury in a bungled no-knock drug
raid that killed a Mexican national in September faces two additional
charges, and a Denver District judge ruled on Friday that his trial will
stay in Denver.

Joseph Bini, the Denver Police officer who obtained the warrant that sent a
SWAT team to the wrong house for the Sept. 29 raid, faces another charge of
perjury and a charge of deceiving a judge to obtain the warrant.

Bini's attorney, David Bruno, said he hoped prospective jurors would not
link Bini directly to what happened to Ismael Mena.

"This is not a homicide case, this is a perjury case," Bruno said. "What
(prosecutors) are going to say is that this defendant is responsible for the
death of Ismael Mena. . . . This defendant was two blocks away when the
warrant was executed."

Prosecutors say they will not separate Bini's alleged perjury from the rest
of the raid.

"The jury has to understand the materiality of all this," prosecutor Charles
Tingle said. "We need to mention they were in the wrong house." Mena was
killed when SWAT officers stormed his house in the 3700 block of High
Street. According to police, Mena fired at the officers before they killed
him in a blast of bullets.

Police later admitted they had the wrong address.

Much of the publicity surrounding the case centered on other aspects of it,
not on Bini's role, Judge Shelley Gilman said in denying a change-of-venue
motion.

"The defendant has failed to show the existence of massive, pervasive
coverage of the defendant," Gilman said.

Bini's attorney said the officer got Mena's address from a paid informant
for the Denver police, and Mena's address was off by a few numbers from the
house the SWAT team actually hoped to sting.

Bruno said he hoped to keep the name of the informant confidential to
protect him.

Gilman will decide later if she will bar the release of his name when the
case goes to trial in October.

The incident spurred a nationwide outcry that the number of noknock warrants
officials execute is excessive and was a factor leading to the ouster of
Police Chief Tom Sanchez in February.

Since the Mena incident, the number of no-knock warrants has fallen from 27
as of this time last year to 15 this year.