WOMAN FREED IN TV DRUG BUST

Cocaine possession charges were dismissed against a woman who was jailed for three days after her arrest was broadcast live on a national television special anchored by TV reporter Geraldo Rivera.

Terry Rouse, 28, was freed Friday after Judge Don Shipley ruled that there was no probable cause to pursue cocaine possession charges against her.

“It would appear that they’d have more sense than to pull something like this on live TV,” Shipley said.

During Tuesday night’s syndicated Tribune Entertainment Co. program “American Vice: The Doping of a Nation”--which appeared in Los Angeles on KTLA-TV Channel 5--officers in this community about 10 miles east of Houston were shown staging a raid and Rivera said:

“Harris County Sheriff (Johnny) Klevenhagen is going in on a duplex, where an alleged pimp and prostitute--a dude and his lady, real pros--are supplying truckers speed.”

Shannon Nash, Rouse’s court-appointed attorney, said Rouse was staying at the duplex temporarily as partial payment for painting the home.

Rouse said she was painting when deputies began breaking in the door.

“I was scared,” she said. “I thought somebody was coming in to kill me. I hid in the bathroom.”

Cameras filmed Klevenhagen arresting her.

“They wouldn’t let me talk. I said ‘What did I do?’ And they slapped the handcuffs on me,” Rouse said.

Prosecutor Joe Salhab said no evidence was presented to establish that Rouse possessed the one-quarter gram of cocaine found in the house.

Nash said he and his law partner will meet to determine whether Rouse should file suit over the arrest and the broadcast.

(Nash did not return a Times reporter’s phone call Monday.)

Rouse, a native of Illinois, said she has spent three months here sleeping at friends’ homes and in her station wagon.

(Rivera’s New York office said Monday he was out of town and unavailable for comment. A spokesman for Chicago-based Tribune Entertainment said the company had just learned of the judge’s ruling and also had no comment.

(The program, which was broadcast on 163 stations across the country, showed drug busts in San Jose, Calif., and Broward County, Fla., in addition to Channelview. At least five persons were arrested in all, according to Tribune spokesman Jack Devlin.)

Maj. W. W. Walker, of the Harris County sheriff’s detective bureau, said he was present during the raid and heard Rouse say she lived at the house. “We presented this to (the) D.A.’s office and they accepted the charges based on that,” he said.

“This was a situation to where we felt extremely honored having been asked to participate in a national publicized documentary on the war on drugs,” Walker said.

“We extended to the national documentary the same courtesy we extend to our local media. We have let them go on drug busts with cameras and actual drug busts. So this was not something done for the first time,” he said.