Henley Mentioned Drugs in Suitcase, Witness Testifies

A former girlfriend of Rams cornerback Darryl Henley testified Friday that the football player, who is charged with drug trafficking, may have told her that he knew the contents of a cocaine-filled suitcase hours before drug enforcement agents opened it.

But the woman, Jannifer Wilkins of Atlanta, also insisted she could not remember exactly what time of day Henley allegedly made the admission.

The timing is important because Henley, who is accused of using a former Rams cheerleader to courier drugs across the country, insists he did not know what the suitcase contained until agents told him.

The testimony came during three hours of pointed questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. John Rayburn that drew often-crusty responses from Wilkins, who admitted to still “having feelings” for Henley.

“You don’t want to see Darryl go to jail, do you?” Rayburn asked.

“I don’t want to see anyone go to jail,” Wilkins shot back.

Prosecutors say Henley, 28, masterminded a cocaine-trafficking ring that extended from California to Georgia until federal drug enforcement agents stopped his alleged courier, Tracy Ann Donaho, at an Atlanta airport on July 15, 1993. Agents confiscated the suitcase she was carrying that held 25 pounds of cocaine.

Donaho denied owning the suitcase and was allowed to leave, but she was arrested between 8 and 9 p.m. that evening, prosecutors have said, after she and Henley returned to the airport and Donaho tried to retrieve it.

Henley and four co-defendants on trial in U.S. District Court have all pleaded innocent to the charges.

Wilkins testified that she and Henley were in the home they shared in Atlanta when Donaho called in a panic from the airport the morning of July 15. Wilkins said Henley left, explaining that he had to go help a woman at the airport that he knew from California.

After Henley was gone for two or three hours, Wilkins said, she began paging him and that at some point during the day he called her back. Wilkins said Henley told her he “was sitting with a girl, trying to locate her parents. He told me she was arrested, that she had drugs on her.”

But Wilkins insisted that she could not remember exactly when the conversation occurred.

“I can’t give a specific time. I talked with him in the early and late afternoon. He could have mentioned it in either” conversation.

Wilkins also said Henley told her Donaho had come to Atlanta to see someone else, as well as Henley.

Rayburn tried to remind her that she never told drug enforcement agents that Donaho intended to see Henley in Atlanta.

But Wilkins said the agents’ reports about her earlier statements contained several errors, and hinted that one agent urged her to lie to get back at Henley for cheating on her.