Undercover officer promised concert tickets in exchange for drugs
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
02-28-1996
DRUG SUSPECT LURED BY CONCERT TICKETS -- ENTRAPMENT CLAIM WINS HIM PARTIAL ACQUITTAL
By SUSAN EDELMAN, Staff Writer
Date: 02-28-1996, Wednesday
Section: NEWS
Edition: 3 Star, Also in 2 Star P, 2 Star B, 1 Star Late, 1 Star Early
Richard Kobre admitted he arranged the sale of 12 pounds of marijuana. But he claimed he had been lured to commit the crime by an undercover officer who enticed him with an offer he couldn't refuse: Grateful Dead tickets.
This week, a Bergen County jury bought, at least in part, that entrapment defense, finding the 30-year-old Fair Lawn construction worker and self-described "world-class Deadhead" not guilty of a drug offense that could have landed him in jail for three years or more.
After an eight-day trial in Superior Court in Hackensack, a jury on Monday acquitted Kobre of one of the most serious charges against him, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute it within 1,000 feet of a school, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.
Kobre, who was arrested with three other people in Fort Lee in the summer of 1992, was convicted of three counts of marijuana possession and one count of distribution. He was found not guilty of a second count of drug distribution.
"I feel like the world has been lifted off my shoulders," Kobre said Tuesday.
But he expressed anger at the undercover investigator. He says the investigator harassed him and lured him into drug-dealing with more than 25 phone calls and the promise of front-row seats to nine Grateful Dead shows at Madison Square Garden.
Kobre and his lawyer, Kevin G. Roe of Hackensack, also accused the investigator, Peter DeLisa, of lying on the witness stand about his job history.
Under cross-examination last week, DeLisa denied that he was ever the subject of disciplinary proceedings. But in an unusual development, acting Bergen County Prosecutor Charles R. Buckley, who had been sitting in the audience at the time, later gave Roe personnel records showing that DeLisa had indeed been fired by the Broward County (Fla.) Sheriff's Department in 1988.
According to Roe, who praised Buckley for volunteering the information, the records also indicated that DeLisa had been accused of displaying a gun to a suspected drug dealer while at the same time referring to a movie in which drug dealers were shot.
Superior Court Judge Elijah L. Miller Jr. allowed Roe -- who had completed his closing arguments -- to introduce the records into evidence and cross-examine DeLisa again. DeLisa continued to deny that he was fired, even when presented with a termination letter.
During that testimony, DeLisa insisted that he had resigned for personal reasons. Records showed that his resignation letter was disapproved before he was terminated, Roe said.
DeLisa could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and Buckley declined to comment on the officer's work history.
Buckley said Tuesday that DeLisa had done nothing improper on the Kobre case. DeLisa's testimony about his job history "was not a question of perjury," Buckley maintained, adding that he had produced the personnel records so that Roe "could go a little further" in his questioning of DeLisa, and "to be as fair as we could to the defendant."
Buckley denied that DeLisa or other members of the narcotics task force use concert tickets or other inducements to lure suspects into selling drugs.
"I don't believe it," Buckley said. "That is not a sanctioned type of activity."
The prosecutor also scoffed at a jury that would "accept that someone not predisposed to committing a crime would willingly embark on a life of crime because they were offered tickets to the Grateful Dead."
Roe argued otherwise: "He was enticed. He was seduced. It was like offering a football enthusiast 50-yard-line seats in the Super Bowl. This was the method of persuasion which overcame his resistance to committing crimes."
Tape recordings of conversations between Kobre and DeLisa showed that the investigator indicated he had a girlfriend who worked for a ticket agency. But other conversations, in which Kobre claims DeLisa promised the tickets, were not taped.
Sentencing is set for April 26. Kobre is likely to be placed on probation, Roe said, because he had no prior criminal history. The attorney said his client had been a marijuana smoker and not a drug dealer.
Copyright 1996 Bergen Record Corp. All rights reserved.