Beaumont Enterprise
August 31, 1988
Wade inquiry 'didn't occur' to officer
Ex-narcotics chief testifies about security leaks in Orange drug cases
by Margaret Toal
Staff writer
SHERMAN - Officers in the Orange County Sheriff's Department knew in 1987 there was a security leak on drug cases, the former chief narcotics officer testified Tuesday.
But James Wade, then sheriff, was not not investigated, said former Capt. Wayne Dial.
Wade is on trial here for a 10 count federal indictment that alleges conspiracy to make and sell illegal drugs.
Dial, then narcotics division commander, said he investigated "everybody in the department from captain on down" to find the leaks.
By, he said, he did not go higher - on to the chief deputy and sheriff - because "it didn't occur to me."
Dial testified that narcotics officers devised ways to try to prevent the leaks. They used codes on citizens band radios instead of using the assigned police band the citizens can pick up on scanners, he said.
Raid teams with search warrants, as they prepared for drug busts, were briefed on the layout of the house to be raided and the plans for the raid, he said.
No one was allowed to use the telephone after that information was revealed, he said.
"Several times, the sheriff would tell us, 'I'll meet you over there,' "Dial said.
Once when he went back into the office as officers were preparing to leave on a drug bust, he saw Wade on the telephone, Dial said.
"I didn't think anything of it," he said.
Donnie Flowers, 27, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the charges against Wade, testified this past week that he "cooked" methamphetamine in clandestine laboratories for Wade in a drug operation.
He said Wade warned him of possible drug busts through codes on telephone pagers.
Dial told the jury he took a voluntary demotion to patrol lieutenant after the FBI investigation of Wade was revealed earlier this year.
Dial also testified about former deputy Donald Duhon, who worked for the department one year beginning in January 1987.
Flowers has testified Wade had him deliver methamphetamine, a stimulant known as speed, to Duhon.
Dial testified that he heard stories that Duhon used drugs and had a lifestyle that did not fit the image of the sheriff's department.
He said he talked to the chief deputy and Wade, "basically about the lifestyle question."
Dial said he eventually quit telling Wade what he had heard in the community about Duhon because each time "the sheriff was more hostile to these rumors."
Duhon testified nearly 90 minutes Tuesday morning in a closed door hearing with attorneys before U. S. District Judge Howell Cobb of Beaumont to determine what type of evidence and testimony he will be allowed to give in the trial, moved from Beaumont to Grayson County at the request of the defense.
Details of the hearing and Cobb's decision were not made public.
Duhon is to testify publicly, probably today.
In other testimony Tuesday, Dial and Newton Johnson, Wade's chief deputy who replaced him as sheriff on order of a state district judge, said Wade had discussed the possibility of pretending to be a "crooked" sheriff to catch drug dealers.
If Wade was posing as crooked, they testified, he did not have records or investigative files and he didn't request assistance.
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