Ruling Could Help Henley’s Defense on Drug Charges : Courts: Judge lets Rams cornerback be tried separately from other defendants. Player is accused of conspiring to run a narcotics ring from his Brea home.

In a decision that could help Los Angeles Rams starting cornerback Darryl Henley defend against drug conspiracy charges, a federal judge agreed Tuesday to try Henley’s drug conspiracy case apart from a related extortion case against two other defendants.

The ruling means that some potentially damaging evidence in the extortion case is likely to never be heard by Henley’s jury. It also simplified the case against Henley, said one of his attorneys, Gerald Chaleff of Santa Monica.

“It gets the case down to what it really is: Was (Henley) involved in a drug conspiracy? The answer is no,” Chaleff said. “He didn’t do anything. If he’s guilty of anything, it’s of being too nice.”

But in a setback for Henley, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Taylor also ruled tentatively to allow the testimony of an important prosecution witness in the case. His final ruling on the matter is expected Friday. Federal prosecutors declined comment.

Henley, considered one of the Rams best defensive players, was indicted in December, 1993, on federal charges of cocaine possession and conspiring to operate an illicit drug network from his home in Brea.

Prosecutors charge that Henley, 28, masterminded cross-country shipments of cocaine to Atlanta and Memphis using a former Rams cheerleader, Tracy Ann Donaho, who carried the drugs in her luggage on commercial airlines.

If convicted, Henley faces up to life in prison and $4 million in fines. Others charged in the drug conspiracy ring were Henley’s boyhood friend, Willie McGowan, another associate in Memphis, Gary West, and Rafael Bustamante. Henley’s uncle, Rex Henley, 31, of Rancho Cucamanga, also was charged. Donaho has already pleaded guilty.

On Tuesday, Taylor decided that in order to ensure that Henley and others charged with involvement in the alleged drug ring get a fair trial, they should be tried separately from those accused of trying to extort $360,000 from Henley and family members over a sour drug deal.

Taylor agreed that evidence in the extortion case against the others could unfairly and illegally taint a jury’s view of Henley and his co-defendants.

Taylor was most concerned, he said, with taped phone conversations between one of the alleged extortionists, Alejandro Figueroa Cuevas, and Henley’s family members. In one, Cuevas told Henley’s cousin that Henley owed $360,000 for cocaine that Bustamante had fronted him. Henley, he said, “made a drug deal,” according to court documents quoting from the tape. Cuevas has also pleaded guilty and is expected to testify against the other two accused extortionists, Bustamante and James Timothy Saenz.

Defense attorneys for Henley argued that the taped evidence was hearsay, which is not permissible in court, and would violate Henley’s constitutional right to confront his accusers.

But Taylor ruled tentatively that other damaging evidence against Henley will likely be allowed in his trial. It is from the widow of Eric Manning, who prosecutors said also tried to extort money from Henley.

Denise Manning testified before the grand jury that her husband told her that “Darryl Henley was the man where all the cocaine was going to. He was the person that asked for all the cocaine.” She also testified that “Darryl Henley would guarantee the money” for the drugs and that Henley “agreed to pay her husband for the drugs as soon as he signed his new contract with the Rams.”

Taylor said that if prosecutors can show that Manning’s testimony helps prove that Henley was in a drug conspiracy, he is likely to allow it.