TV DRUG BUSTS ARE GETTING LEGAL STATIC

Two Florida attorneys representing persons whose arrests for alleged drug dealings were shown on a national TV program last week said that the broadcast seriously endangered the rights of their clients and that they are contemplating legal actions against correspondent Geraldo Rivera and others responsible for the program.

Both defense attorneys said the program is likely to help their clients beat drug charges stemming from events shown on the two-hour “American Vice: The Doping of a Nation” that was broadcast Dec. 2 on 163 stations across the country, including KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles.

The program was viewed in about 15 million homes across the country. It was, however, widely criticized by journalists, especially for its controversial use of live on-air coverage of drug raids in the Miami, Houston and San Jose areas.

“I think I will find that I may have a lawsuit against Geraldo Rivera, his production company and whoever else is involved,” Florida attorney Robert Duboff said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “It sure is going to be pursued.”

Another attorney said the on-air raids represented an “unholy alliance” between law-enforcement agencies and the media.

“Whenever you’re talking about TV personalities and media timetables, there are legal issues created,” attorney David G. Vinikoor said in a telephone interview. He represents one of four men shown present when Rivera participated in a videotaped September cocaine buy in Ft. Lauderdale.

Vinikoor called the reporter’s actions “so disgusting it’s incredible” and said Rivera’s presence may have promoted the allegedly illegal conduct portrayed on the program.

Charges have been dropped against house painter Terry Rouse, 28, a Harris County, Tex., woman arrested during the raid shown live by Rivera. As police prepared to arrest Rouse, Rivera said they were entering in a house occupied by an “alleged prostitute . . . supplying truckers speed.” Rouse’s attorney has been quoted that he, too, is considering a libel action against Rivera and others associated with the program.

The Texas raid resulted in two misdemeanor charges--for possession of two marijuana cigarettes and illegally carrying a weapon--against the occupant of the house, Eric L. Alley, 38, who arrived on the scene while sheriff’s deputies were present.

“What I wouldn’t give for that case,” said Florida attorney Vinikoor. “I’d own the proceeds of the broadcast.”

Repeated efforts to contact Rivera through his New York office have been unsuccessful. He was quoted in Tuesday’s New York Times, however, defending the broadcast and saying that the controversial Texas segment was “real cops, making a real arrest pursuant to a real warrant.” He also defended the other live segments, saying that no questions about them had been raised.

Now, the other cases are coming under scrutiny. Rivera and program syndicator Tribune Entertainment Co. of Chicago could face millions of dollars in damage claims, attorneys said. Tribune Entertainment spokesmen did not return phone calls from The Times.

Journalists and critics interviewed Wednesday said the format of last week’s program was fraught with ethical and legal problems for Rivera, Tribune, the defendants and law-enforcement agencies.

Events such as the Houston episode are “what keep lawyers rich,” said Ben Bagdikian, dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. It’s not unusual for police to invite journalists along on raids, he noted, but live coverage of a drug bust is “filled with so many dangers that it seems to me pure sensationalism without journalistic merit.”

Spencer Klaw, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, a professional journal, said, “I can’t see that the public’s need to know is served by (live coverage of arrests). It seems like entertainment, a bad idea.”

Don Hewitt, executive producer of CBS’ “60 Minutes” said the presence of Rivera’s camera crews during the busts was “more the police’s fault” than the media’s. “Police love to have journalists along on drug busts,” Hewitt said. “It makes them look good.”

In Florida, more than 60 drug-related arrests were logged on the night of the broadcast--when Miami police swept up a number of individuals implicated in an ongoing sting operation and suburban Broward County deputies arrested five persons during a raid on a Pompano Beach home.

Deputies seized an estimated two kilograms of cocaine in the latter raid, but defense attorney Duboff said the raid was staged for the benefit of Rivera’s camera crew. He said the Broward County defendants were already being called the “Geraldo Rivera Five.”

“I’m not so sure it was journalism, the way it (the raid) was orchestrated and choreographed. It was a movie. It was ‘Miami Vice’,” Duboff said.

Duboff represents three of five defendants picked up in the raid. His clients, Duboff said, were out-of-town visitors who “happened to be in the wrong place at the right time.”

Duboff has seen no evidence, he said, that the names of his clients--one of whom is a Bahamian police officer--were included in the Broward County Sheriff’s Department arrest or search warrants or their supporting affidavits. Duboff’s clients currently in custody and facing $250,000 bonds are: Patrick Lewis, 29; Ricardo Mott, 19, and Sonnie Miller, 42. All are Bahamian citizens, Duboff said, who were visiting the house for the Thanksgiving holiday.

“I don’t know if they would have been arrested if it had not been a media event,” Duboff said.

Duboff said the on-air arrests “reverse the presumption of innocence” in the case and will make it “very difficult for anyone who saw or heard about (the broadcast) to give a person a fair trial.”

He said the on-air arrests “may have seriously compromised” the rights of his clients. Each is facing a charge of trafficking in cocaine in excess of 400 grams, which, under Florida law, carries a mandatory 15-year sentence.