Phillips’ Alleged Drug Supplier to Stand Trial

A 40-year-old man who allegedly supplied the rock cocaine that police say was later sold to Anaheim Angel leadoff hitter Tony Phillips was ordered Monday to stand trial in Superior Court.

Daryl Allen Smith is a parolee arrested in August on suspicion of selling three $10 rocks of crack cocaine to a police informant, who in turn sold the drug to Phillips at an Anaheim motel room, police said.

Phillips, who was arrested on the same day, pleaded innocent this month and is awaiting trial.

On Monday, Commissioner Michael Leversen ruled in Municipal Court in Fullerton that Smith also must stand trial and ordered him to appear in Superior Court on Oct. 6 for an arraignment.

Police investigators said they entered Room 52 of the Ivanhoe Motel in Anaheim shortly after midnight on Aug. 10 and found Phillips with a loaded pipe in one hand and a lighter in the other.

The deal, allegedly between Phillips and an exotic dancer working with police investigators, was captured by surveillance equipment, authorities said.

The informant told investigators she had sold drugs to Phillips on at least one previous occasion, about a week before the arrest.

The Angels withheld Phillips from the lineup and later tried to suspend him, but the ballplayers union, the Major League Baseball Players Assn., said that would violate the agreement between labor and management allowing first-time offenders to obtain treatment without penalty. Phillips went back in the lineup and is due back in court Oct. 7 for a pretrial hearing.

Smith has a lengthy criminal record that includes one armed robbery conviction and three drug-related violations, according to state records. He was paroled two weeks before he was arrested, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections said.