Wrongly accused Tulia, Texas, drug defendants get settlement checks

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Tulia, Texas residents wrongly charged and jailed in falsified drug cases five years ago began getting checks Friday from a $6 million settlement stemming from a lawsuit claiming the arrests were racially motivated.Retired Judge Ron Chapman, who decided how the settlement would be divided among the 45 defendants, said distribution of the checks began Thursday night. The defendants will share $4 million, while some of the attorneys who represented them will receive $2 million.Civil rights groups claimed the drug cases were racially motivated because 39 of the 46 arrested or charged in the 18-month drug sting operation were black. Tom Coleman, the former undercover agent who made the arrests, is white.Coleman, 44, testified at trials that he bought cocaine from dealers in Tulia, though he had no audio or video surveillance to back up his claims. He faces aggravated perjury charges in connection with post-conviction hearings for a few of those imprisoned.Along with their checks, each claimant will get a letter from the judge.“It’s my heartfelt hope that you would use this in a positive way to improve your future and your family’s future,” the letter reads.Vanita Gupta of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said each check was for a “significant amount” but declined to give details.Splitting $4 million among 45 people would mean the checks would average a little under $90,000.Ted Killory, an attorney for one of the defendants, said he was pleased that the wrongly accused got at least some compensation, but “no amount of money is going to make up for losing four years of life in prison.”Gov. Rick Perry granted pardons last year to 35 defendants in Tulia, a small farming and ranching community of about 5,000 between Amarillo and Lubbock. Charges were dropped against others arrested.The judge decided how much each of the defendants would get based on how much time they spent in jail and the financial losses related to that. There were 46 defendants, but one has since died.Former state Judge Ron Chapman, who was brought out of retirement to preside over a review of the Tulia cases, said in a report that Coleman was “the most devious, nonresponsive witness this court has witnessed in 25 years on the bench in Texas.”An official at the multiagency task force that ran the drug sting operation had testified that Coleman’s former employers said he needed constant supervision, was a discipline problem and tended to run to his mother for help.