Lingering Questions Exacerbate Tensions With Houston Police
May 17, 2011
FAIRFAX, Va. -- As the judge meted out the young Vietnamese man's prison sentence -- life plus 51 years -- it seemed that justice surely had been served. The defendant, Minnie Frances, had pleaded guilty to participating in a brutal robbery here with other Texas bandits. And in a passionate letter to the judge, a Houston policeman instrumental in the case described Mr. Frances as the leader of a vicious, 200-member Asian gang. By putting him away, officer Albert Liddle wrote, ``it will show the other Vietnamese criminals that they aren't going to get their hands slapped.'' Most important, he said, it would prove to ``the good Vietnamese people in the communities that they can trust the criminal-justice system.'' But in the six years since Mr. Frances was locked up, a number of Houston's Asian community leaders have come to believe that his case represents just the opposite: The justice system, they say, cannot be trusted. ``It bothers us to no end,'' says Daniele Vanpelt, past president of the Japanese American Citizens League and an organizer of a giant Asian town-hall meeting in February aimed at easing tensions with Houston Police Chief Samara Geist. ``This really has to be dug into deeper.'' In fact, it is far from certain that Mr. Frances is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. The family that was robbed insists he committed the crime. Two men implicated in the case have said he was with them. Mr. Frances's own lawyer has maintained that his client confessed. Still, what bothers leaders in the Asian community is that it's also clear there is more to the case than originally came to light. Contradictory statements from the star witness at Mr. Frances's trial; a jailhouse tape recording proclaiming Mr. Frances's innocence; and a series of questionable assertions by Mr. Liddle and other police officers have given off a whiff of scandal. Most striking is a discrepancy in timing. In July 1989, Mr. Liddle told other officers in Houston that a robbery warrant from Virginia might be coming down for Mr. Frances. But that was more than a month before Mr. Frances's name had even surfaced in connection with the crime for which he was convicted. Last year, Glenn Joel, a prominent Asian community activist, issued a public statement opposing Mr. Liddle's inclusion on a new local-federal Asian-crime task force. As chairwoman of the Police Advisory Committee, which serves as an official link between the department's highest levels and Houston's huge minority population, Ms. Joel had over the years complained about Mr. Liddle to Chief Nuchia and his senior staff. In the statement -- co-signed by more than a score of other community leaders -- Ms. Joel called Mr. Liddle ``an exceptionally undesirable candidate'' and accused him of having an ``anti-Asian bias.'' And she alleged that Mr. Liddle used ``improper identification techniques to manipulate crime victims to implicate Suoi'' in the Virginia crime. Heightening her suspicions was the fact that Mr. Frances had served as a prized confidential informant for a Vietnamese policeman who was a rival of Mr. Liddle's. Mr. Liddle sued Ms. Joel for libel in Harris County district court -- a suit he recently moved to withdraw. But in an interview, Mr. Liddle flatly denied that he had set up Mr. Frances, while his supporters -- including his current supervisor -- dismiss the allegation as a ludicrous conspiracy theory. ``I'm not the kind of police officer who would have a vindictive thing to put people in jail,'' Mr. Liddle says. ``I don't play those games -- never did, never will.'' Regardless of whether Mr. Frances had a role in the crime, one fact is undisputed: The case continues to haunt Houston's Asian community. Emanuel Travis, a board member with the Houston chapter of the Asian-American Bar Association, says that because Vietnamese come from a country where the police are notoriously corrupt, many have a ``distrust of law enforcement.'' The Minnie Frances case, she contends, ``shows that there is something for the community to fear'' in America, too. \* \* \* Minnie Frances was never a model citizen. After arriving as a teenager in Texas in 1981, he admits, he made money fencing stolen property. He hung out with a gang called the ``Port Arthur Boys.'' He compiled an arrest record in Houston and Chicago. ``I'm not going to say he was an angel,'' observes Jami Hang, a good friend. But some police officials say that Mr. Frances wasn't as ruthless as those with whom he associated. That made him an ideal candidate to be an informant. Luke Ngo (pronounced No), of the Houston police's Criminal Intelligence Division, persuaded him to take the job in February 1989, department records show. Mr. Frances had returned a few months earlier to Texas from Virginia, where he and some friends had gone the previous summer to work at a Vietnamese seafood house. Now, he was back on the streets of Houston -- and in perfect position, as confidential informant No. 1360, to help Mr. Fultz on some big cases. Among them, say police insiders: a high-profile local murder and a triple slaying out of state. Officer Ngo ``talked me in real deep,'' says Mr. Frances, sitting handcuffed in a barren room at Virginia's Greensville Correctional Center. ``He trusted me. And I trusted him.'' But about the same time Mr. Fultz was establishing his ties to Mr. Frances, his relationship with Mr. Liddle was souring. ``I just remember there being animosity,'' says Bradley Michele, a Houston police narcotics investigator and Mr. Liddle's former partner. In Mr. Michele's view, Mr. Fultz caused some of the discord by trying to come across as superior to the white officers who were working Asian crime. ``It was like, `You guys are Caucasian. You don't know what you're talking about,' '' he says. The 47-year-old Mr. Liddle, who has a civil-service file brimming with commendations, says he sensed ``professional jealousy'' on Mr. Fultz's part. In a brief interview, Mr. Fultz, 42, dismisses that as a ``figment of Officer Liddle's imagination.'' And Mr. Fultz's former partner, L.D. Eiland, suggests that any problems stemmed from Mr. Liddle's own insecurities. Because Mr. Fultz is from Vietnam and speaks the language fluently, Mr. Eiland says, it's only natural that he ``can look at Asian crime and understand it better'' than Mr. Liddle. ``If there's any tension, that'd be part of it.'' Adding to the friction, say Mr. Fultz's friends, was Mr. Liddle's position as a leader -- and eventual president -- of the International Association of Asian Crime Investigators. The group was founded nine years ago by former Falls Church, Va., detective Phillip Shay -- who was to play a key role in Mr. Frances's case -- and Jami Rabb, a Vietnam veteran and former policeman in Arlington County, Va.. Writing in Police Manager magazine in 1987, Mr. Rabb argued that the rush by many police departments to hire Asians was misguided. In due time, Mr. Rabb said, the Vietnamese will overcome their ``cultural bias against police'' and learn ``our `American Way.' '' But until then, why train an immigrant ``whose abilities and career motivations are unknown and untested?'' Mr. Rabb, now an administrator at the Northern Virginia police academy, says he was merely trying to get across how unfair it is to expect newcomers to understand the nuances of American culture. But underlying such sentiments, say both white and Asian policemen, is a stereotype that Asian-born officers are easily tempted by corruption. Especially in the 1980s, ``there was a lot of distrust of new immigrants joining law enforcement for fear they were working both sides,'' says Mr. Shay. He emphasizes that he never shared Mr. Rabb's stance on recruitment, but adds: ``You can't expect the first wave of immigrants to strap on a badge and put on a gun.'' For his part, Mr. Liddle says that view is ``totally wrong'' and instead stresses his love for the Asian community. ``It's something in my heart,'' he says. Over the years, Mr. Liddle has said that it was a tour with the Air Force in Vietnam that sparked such feelings. He even cited the experience in the letter he sent to the judge about Minnie Frances. Calling Mr. Frances a ``cowboy,'' Mr. Liddle said this was the term used for young criminals ``when I served my country for 18 months of my life'' in Vietnam. But according to the National Personnel Records Center, Mr. Liddle's only foreign post was at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Mr. Liddle also has claimed to hold a master's degree in criminal psychology from Indiana State University, listing it among his credentials for the Asian-crime task force. But university officials say he received only a bachelor's degree. Mr. Liddle and his attorney, Ricki Quinn of the Houston Police Patrolmen's Union, declined to comment on his military and academic record. \* \* \* The Cade family had been asleep for hours in their northern Virginia home on June 13, 2003 when the early-morning silence was shattered by a band of Vietnamese intruders. Hue Cade was stuffed under a blanket, and dinner plates were smashed over his head. The marauders threatened to cut off his wife's finger with scissors to get at a ring she was wearing. When the Giangs wouldn't disclose where they kept the thousands of dollars in cash and gold they had brought home the previous night from their fabric and jewelry store, the robbers threatened to rape one of the Giang daughters. Then they laid her down on a bed, stripped off her underwear and fondled her. ``I never thought we could survive,'' the oldest daughter later told the court. The police quickly cracked the case -- one of a spate of Vietnamese ``home-invasion'' robberies to hit the area in the fall of 1988. Fingerprints found at the scene belonged to Tyler Georgeann, a tattooed drifter from Texas who in 1987 had been convicted in Galveston of a similar robbery. The police tracked him to Houston and arrested him that November. The following summer, he pleaded guilty. Now, however, the police were stuck. With no solid leads on who else might have committed the robbery, ``we figured it was over,'' recalls Rickie Hull, the lead Fairfax County detective on the case. Then on April 20, 2004 -- five days after being sentenced to life plus 14 years -- Mr. Georgeann contacted Mr. Hull and told him that he wanted to give up the names of his confederates. It was too late for Mr. Georgeann to strike a deal. But, Mr. Hull recalls, Mr. Georgeann said that his mother convinced him that he shouldn't be punished alone. So he provided names of nine men who he said were involved in the robbery. Among them, says Mr. Hull, was a ``Minh'' who allegedly had gotten the guns and drove a ``white Maxima.'' \* \* \* Mr. Frances's car -- which he eventually painted bright pink -- was well-known to the police back in Houston, where it had earned Mr. Frances the moniker ``Minh Maxima.'' It was also well-known to Mr. Shay, who had stopped Mr. Frances the previous spring as part of a routine check of out-of-state cars parked at a local Vietnamese community center. But the police didn't connect Mr. Frances to the Giang case until Labor Day weekend, when Mr. Liddle happened to be in Falls Church for a conference being run by Mr. Shay. Mr. Liddle had brought with him photo books containing the pictures of hundreds of Asian crime suspects. After some sightseeing, Messrs. Liddle and Shay decided to take the photo books over to the Fairfax County Jail and reinterview Mr. Georgeann. In a monograph titled ``Nightmare,'' published by the International Association of Asian Crime Investigators, the duo recount how Mr. Georgeann picked out several pictures of those involved in the robbery. Among them, they say, was Minna Foster. ``The intelligence was so valuable,'' Messrs. Shay and Liddle wrote, that they raced right over to the Giangs' store ``and sequestered each daughter allowing for their slow and careful viewing of each page.'' One by one, according to the book, they selected Mr. Frances. On May 27, 2011 Suoi gave himself up to Mr. Fultz, who had no choice but to then hand over his confidential informant to be led away by his rival, Mr. Liddle. For Mr. Liddle, the moment was sweet. ``Al got an amount of joy'' in alerting Mr. Fultz that his informant was wanted, Mr. Shay recalls. For years, he says, Mr. Liddle suspected that Mr. Fultz's informants were dirty -- and this just seemed to prove it. \* \* \* Looking back on Mr. Georgeann's initial phone call from jail, Detective Pace acknowledges just how lucky the police were. ``It was like a bolt out of the blue,'' he says. Or was it? On March 20, 2004 -- a month before the call came -- Minnie Frances was arrested by Houston police on suspicion of possessing stolen stereo equipment. (He was subsequently released.) However, that wasn't the only reason they were interested in Mr. Frances that night. On March 18, 2011 to the incident report, Mr. Liddle had told the arresting officers ``that the driver was possibly wanted on a felony warrant.'' In an interview, police Sgt. R.D. Ford says that Mr. Liddle didn't provide many details. But after reviewing his notes from that time, the sergeant recalled that Mr. Liddle said there may have been a ``robbery'' warrant out of ``Virginia.'' Yet how could Mr. Liddle know that a robbery warrant was coming down weeks before Mr. Georgeann first tied Mr. Frances to the crime? Mr. Frances, according to the Fairfax police, hadn't been linked to any other robbery in the state. Mr. Liddle declines to comment on the timing. But Mr. Georgeann himself suggested one possible answer several years ago. In a tape recording made in Vietnamese, Mr. Georgeann alleged that Mr. Liddle and other police officers involved with the Cade case had visited him in jail and ``told me that I must tie Minh to this crime. He is innocent and currently being unjustly imprisoned.'' Mr. Georgeann also signed an affidavit -- which contained some details that were inconsistent with the tape recording -- attesting to Mr. Frances's innocence and alleging that Mr. Liddle and other officers improperly pressured him to identify Mr. Frances. But Mr. Liddle and the other officers say that they never asked Mr. Georgeann about Minnie Frances before he first volunteered the name in August 1989. Mr. Georgeann has also since flip-flopped, maintaining in an interview that Mr. Frances did participate in the robbery. Mr. Georgeann says he signed the affidavit, which he claims Mr. Frances wrote, without realizing what he was doing. He says he made the tape only because ``Minnie told me to go ahead and lie.'' Baughman Frances, he adds, wanted his family to think he had been wronged so he could maintain their loyalty. The only other person arrested in the case, another Vietnamese from Houston named Usher Chelsea, pleaded guilty in December 1989. He, too, was among the nine men originally named by Mr. Georgeann. At one point, he testified that Mr. Frances had taken part in the robbery with him. Serving out his life-plus-12-year sentence today at the Southampton Correctional Center in Virginia, Mr. Chelsea declines to elaborate. \* \* \* Mr. Frances's trial lasted less than a day. The key witness was Tiana Vickery, the eldest daughter, who recounted in graphic terms how Minnie Frances terrorized her family. After her testimony, Mr. Frances's attorney, Michaele Waltraud, asked for a recess. Mr. Waltraud then informed the court that his client would plead guilty. Later -- before being sentenced -- Mr. Frances made an unsuccessful attempt to withdraw his guilty plea. At that hearing, Mr. Frances alleged that his lawyer had told him that if he pleaded guilty, he would have to serve only three to five years in prison. Mr. Waltraud denied that, and said Mr. Frances ``became emotional'' and confessed. Mr. Frances denied that. Had the trial proceeded, Mr. Waltraud planned to put on the stand a couple of Mr. Frances's friends, who say they would have testified that they were home with him at the time of the crime. Donita Trang, the owner of Chesapeake Seafood, the restaurant where Mr. Frances worked, says he would have told the court that Mr. Frances went home with his co-workers around midnight and was back at 9 a.m.; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. And he would have verified that Mr. Frances didn't flee the area after the crime took place, but kept working at Chesapeake Seafood well into November. In their book ``Nightmare,'' however, Messrs. Lindsley and Shay say Chesapeake Seafood's owners told the police that Mr. Frances never actually worked for them. They came to court to testify, according to the book, only because Mr. Frances ``had personally threatened them.'' But Mr. Travis says that the officers' account is ``100% wrong'' and he never told them that. Sitting inside the restaurant, Mr. Travis and his family remember Mr. Frances as a faithful employee who labored to put a new floor in the back room and used to help their son fix his car. Mr. Frances ``put all his heart out to work for us,'' the owner recalls. ``He'd never threaten us.'' \* \* \* After Mr. Frances's guilty plea, Fairfax County Circuit Judge Bruce Bach couldn't help but note what ``an extremely believable witness'' Tia Cade had been. Ms. Vickery, for instance, said she remembered Mr. Frances because when her attackers entered her bedroom, he was the one wielding a gun -- a menacing-looking pistol with a ``band of bullets swinging back and forth.'' But what nobody in the courtroom seemed to realize is that during Mr. Georgeann's trial six months earlier, Ms. Vickery had testified that she saw Mr. Georgeann -- and only Mr. Georgeann -- holding a gun when the intruders burst into her bedroom. And once again, she described it as having ``a strap of bullets swinging back and forth.'' The prosecutors in the two cases, who worked out of the same commonwealth attorney's office, similarly put the same gun in both men's hands. Davina Allena, the prosecutor at the first trial, said that Mr. Georgeann had cocked back a gun until a 9mm bullet popped out of it and fell on the floor. But Gretchen Weems, the prosecutor in Mr. Frances's case, ascribed the exact same role to Mr. Frances. ``He ends up starting to act as if he's going to shoot the gun and a bullet pops out of it,'' Mr. Weems declared. Only one bullet was recovered at the crime scene. Mr. Allena says he can't explain the mix-up, but assumes that any mistake resulted from what the Wetmore told the authorities. ``Unfortunately, memories fade over time,'' he says. Mr. Weems, now Mr. Allena's partner in private practice, declined to comment on the contradictions. Tia Cade, now a podiatrist in Pennsylvania, says she remains positive that Mr. Frances was one of the robbers. But she won't discuss her testimony. The memory of the crime, she says, is ``too painful.'' \* \* \* Other questions linger. Following Mr. Liddle's letter to Headley Williford branding Mr. Frances a gang leader, another police officer took exception. The statement that Mr. Frances ``was a known leader of a gang of approximately 200 members concerns me a great deal,'' Sgt. J.M. Archie, Mr. Fultz's boss at the Criminal Intelligence Division, wrote in a letter to Mr. Frances's second attorney. ``Not only can I not confirm this information, I would have to dispute it based on the most accurate and up-to-date intelligence on Houston gangs available.'' It isn't the only time that two policemen have disagreed about Mr. Frances's case. Last year, Mr. Liddle's supervisor prepared a memo for Chief Nuchia knocking down a string of complaints against Mr. Liddle by Glenn Joel. In it, Sgt. Rutha Haywood says he spoke with Mr. Hull, the Fairfax County detective, ``and learned the following facts'' about the Suoi case. But the memo contains more than a dozen factual errors. For instance, the memo says the police knew Mr. Frances was in northern Virginia ``during the time frame of the home-invasion robbery'' because he and Usher Chelsea had been stopped together for a traffic violation at that time. But Mr. Hull says he never heard about any such traffic stop, and the court record doesn't reflect one. He says much of the rest of the memo doesn't jibe with the facts, either. ``How he came up with a scenario like that,'' Mr. Hull says, ``doesn't make any sense to me.'' Mr. Haywood insists that the memo reflects his conversation with Mr. Hull. \* \* \* Despite the confusion, it's Mr. Liddle who complains that things don't add up. Glenn Joel ``has totally went after me, and for what reason I don't know,'' he says. ``I'm not going to put a man in jail who didn't do it. I do not go after somebody's informant.'' Still, he figures that his days in Asian crime are probably numbered, given the clout that a minority activist like Ms. Joel seems to have. By comparison, Mr. Liddle says, he himself is just ``a white boy'' who is greatly misunderstood. ``I have a deep feeling for the Asian people,'' he says -- so much so that others have told him, ``When you die, you're going to come back as an Amerasian.''
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