The Orange Leader
August 30, 1988
'I'm God,' Wade told witness
by Mike Wheeler
Staff Reporter
SHERMAN - Suspended Orange County Sheriff James W. Wade said he could "do anything he wanted to" because he was sheriff, an accused drug dealer testified Monday.
Bobby Rogers of Vidor said he was approached by Wade and Donnie Flowers in early 1986 about joining the two in an alleged drug trafficking scheme.
"I was worried," Rogers testified Monday, the beginning of the third week of Wade's federal drug trial. "But, James (Wade) pointed to his badge and said, 'Don't worry. I can do anything I want to. I'm God.'"
Rogers said Wade later asked him to kill one of the co-conspirators in the alleged drug scheme.
"When Donnie (Flowers) talked to the FBI about the drug operation, James (Wade) called, we met at Claiborne West Park (near Vidor) and the sheriff said Donnie needed to float," Rogers testified.
"James asked if I would help get Donnie out of jail (in Hardin County) and then kill him," Rogers said.
Flowers, after being arrested in a Hardin County drug raid in 1987, reputedly told FBI agents about Wade's involvement in the Orange County drug scheme.
Flowers, also an unindicted co-conspirator in the drug scheme and who testified in Wade's trial last week, said Wade had furnished money from an Orange County narcotics fund to make methamphetamine, and had provided chemicals and laboratory equipment from the Orange County evidence shed.
The FBI began its investigation into Flowers' allegation against Wade last January and Wade was charged in a 10-count federal indictment on May 2. The sheriff pleaded innocent to all the charges on May 13.
Addie Guillory, the third unindicted co-conspirator, has not testified.
Rogers, whose testimony Monday at 9a.m. began the third week of Wade's federal drug trial, said Wade provided him protection from arrest while Rogers sold drugs, some of which the sheriff himself provided, and then split the profits with the sheriff, the witness said.
But Wade's former chief deputy testified Monday afternoon that the sheriff had told a U. S. attorney of the lawman's plans to pose as a "dirty sheriff."
Johnson said, "Sheriff Wade told Mr. Wortham that (Wade) intended to put word on the streets that (Wade) was a dirty sheriff. But Mr. Wortham advised the sheriff that might not be a real smart idea," Johnson said. " Mr. Wortham told the sheriff, though that if he did pose as a dirty sheriff, he should document it."
Johnson said he did express his personal views about the "dirty sheriff" idea to Wade.
"I told Sheriff Wade that (Wade's) integrity was such that no one would believe he's really a dirty sheriff," Johnson testified.
Johnson also testified that about tow months after he came to work for the Orange County Sheriff's department in mid-1986 he became concerned about the security of areas where criminal and drug evidence was stored.
Evidence was stored in a "meth shed" behind the sheriff's department building and inside and evidence locker inside the main building, and some evidence, such as marijuana, was kept in a closet in the sheriff's private office Johnson said.
Johnson said large evidence items, such as boats and cars, were later stored in the maintenance shop and new evidence storage area was created in D-block cell in the county jail, an area left unfinished when the jail was built.
However, methamphetamine evidence in one particular drug case was discovered in 1986 to be missing from the meth shed and was later found in the sheriff's department annex in Vidor, Johnson said.
"I was concerned about evidence that should have been at the department's meth shed in Orange turning up elsewhere," Johnson said. " So we attempted to beef up security of the evidence storage areas."
The former chief deputy said he and two deputies even went so far as to break into the meth shed by removing the door hinge pins "just to prove you could get into the shed without a key," Johnson said.
Johnson said he also discovered about the same time that then-Deputy Don Duhon had a key to the closet in the sheriff's office.
"Sheriff Wade's secretary caught Duhon in the sheriff's closet one morning," Johnson testified Monday. " As far as I knew then, only the sheriff had a key to that closet. I took Duhon's key after he was caught in the sheriff's office."
When Johnson confronted Wade with the fact that Duhon had a key to the closet, Wade denied knowing the deputy had a key and told Johnson he did not know how Duhon could have "Managed to get one."
"Duhon, though, had told me that Sheriff Wade had given him the key to the closet," Johnson said.
Duhon resigned from the sheriff's department in January after being identified as a federal witness against Wade.
The former deputy, who is in Sherman and is expected to testify early this week, has said he was not directly involved in the alleged drug trafficking scheme, but was a witness to drug and methamphetamine laboratory equipment deliveries where Wade was present.
Johnson also testified that marijuana had been discovered missing from the sheriff's office and said pills stored in the chief deputy's office, that at first field tested to be methamphetamine, turned out later to be only diet pills.
"The pills, taken in a 1987 Bridge City drug raid when Charlie Dial was arrested, were stored in my office, but, after later testing at the Jefferson County Regional Crime Laboratory, turned out to be diet pills," Johnson said.
Some of the Bridge City drug raid pills also turned up in the possession of Beaumont resident Jon Reaud, FBI Special Agent Zechariah Shelton testified last week.
Reaud, Shelton said, claims he was given the pills by Wade, along with other drugs, during the time Flowers alleges Wade ran the Drug Operation.
Reaud has not testified in the trial.
Flowers, though, has testified that he, too, received some of the pills from the sheriff.
Rogers, the second of three unindicted co-conspirators in the case, testified that he sold marijuana for Wade on at least five occasions in 1986 after joining the drug scheme.
"I first met James (Wade) in 1986 at a car wash in Vidor," Rogers said, when Rogers claims he was introduced to the sheriff by Flowers, who Rogers said called Wade "the boss."
Rogers sad he receive five deliveries of marijuana, each from eight to 10 pounds, from Wade and on every occasion when Rogers met the sheriff, using electronic telephone beepers to make contact, gave Wade Money from the previous marijuana sales.
"I gave James (Wade) anywhere from $500 to $1,100 on at least four of the meetings we had," Rogers testified.
The trial began in Sherman on Aug. 15 after being moved from Beaumont on a change of venue.
IN their case, government attorneys say Wade was corrupt and used his sheriff's position to further a conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, or "speed."
Wade's attorney's, Gary Richardson of Tulsa, Okla., and Jeff Kearney of Fort Worth, are using the "dirty sheriff" theme as Wade's defense and say they will introduce evidence to prove the sheriff did pose as a corrupt lawman in order to catch Orange County drug dealers.
Testimony continued today t 10 a.m. in the Grayson County Courthouse in Sherman.
Back
