An unpleasant encounter with a police lieutenant in
Gold’s Gym turned into an expensive lesson for Larry Washington, an
alleged drug dealer who learned Wednesday at an emergency hearing that he
was being held on a $1.2 million bond. The case was initiated by two
Springfield Police detectives currently under investigation for possible
misconduct. Washington, originally arrested in March 2005 after
police found more than a pound of cocaine during a raid on his home, had
been free for more than a year on a $200,000 bond. Last month, however,
Springfield Police Lt. Rickey Davis — a potential prosecution witness
in Washington’s case — claimed Washington attempted to
intimidate him when the two men crossed paths at Gold’s Gym. On May
25, Judge Leo Zappa granted the state’s petition to increase
Washington’s bond to $1 million, and Washington was re-arrested. Both Washington and his attorney, Jon Gray Noll,
assumed that the $1 million represented the total bond. Washington, who had
already paid $20,000 on his original bond, set about raising $80,000,
believing that $100,000 would be sufficient bail for a $1 million bond. But when an associate of Washington’s tried to
pay Sangamon County Jail $80,000 on Tuesday afternoon, officials said the
$1 million bond was in addition to the original $200,000 — a fact
Zappa confirmed at a hastily-called hearing Wednesday morning. “I set the bond amount at one million bucks.
Logic would tell you he’d have to have $100,000 to get out,”
Zappa told Noll. This increase does not reflect any new charges; the
state has not charged Washington with any crime based on his encounter with
Davis at the gym. “Basically, we’re increasing the bond on the
drug charge,” Zappa said. Zappa also cited Washington’s criminal history,
which includes a 1989 conviction for attempted murder and three 2001
misdemeanors for violating an order of protection. The encounter that landed Washington back behind bars
began when Davis entered Gold’s Gym and saw Washington. Both men say
Davis initiated two conversations with Washington, and that Washington
responded by telling Davis to leave him alone. “I told him, ‘I don’t [expletive]
with you. I have nothing to say. We’re not friends,’ ”
Washington said Tuesday night, in a phone call from the jail. “I
said, ‘Go talk to your crooked-ass police friends.’
That’s what I said to him.”
Davis recalls there was “a little bit more to
it than that.”
“He said, ‘You have no right to speak to
me, you took away my freedom.’ And then he started cursing,”
Davis said. Davis says that after the first brief exchange, he
began doing sit-ups, but that Washington kept staring at him. So Davis
walked back over to Washington and tried again to establish a friendly
tone, telling Washington that his participation in the 2005 raid was just
part of his job. “I said, ‘We’re here to work out, I hope
we can share this space, I don’t have a problem with you.’ Then
he started cursing and saying some other things to me that I didn’t
appreciate,” Davis says. Specifically, Davis says, Washington told him to
“go back to your yellow crib.” Davis found these words
disturbing because he had recently painted his house yellow. Washington, however, denies saying anything about
Davis’s home, and insists he doesn’t know where Davis lives.
Another Gold’s Gym member who witnessed the encounter later testified
that he didn’t hear Washington mention Davis’s home. “I never stood up to make a move toward him, I
never got in his face, I never even got loud with him,” Washington
said. Three days later, Davis alerted the State’s
Attorney’s office about the encounter. He expected Washington to be
charged with intimidation of a witness, but assistant state’s
attorney Amy Wolff says they decided to issue a warrant for bond violation
instead. “It was a group decision, when we looked at the
totality of the evidence,” she says, adding they could still file a
charge later. Washington questions why Davis was present at the gym
that particular day. Gold’s records show that Washington had a
consistent pattern of working out between 8 and 10 a.m., but that Davis
normally worked out in the afternoon. The encounter happened a week after published reports
that Noll filed a motion asking SPD to reveal the confidential source whose
tip prompted detectives Jim Graham and Paul Carpenter to take
Washington’s trash in March 2005. The detectives claimed they found
quart-sized bags with suspected cocaine residue in Washington’s
garbage cans. With that evidence, they convinced a judge to issue a search
warrant for Washington’s home. That search led to the discovery of
cocaine hidden in cracker boxes. But no confidential source was involved, Wolff said
at Wednesday’s hearing. The detectives are currently the subject of an
Illinois State Police investigation into allegations of misconduct,
including their use of so-called “trash-rips.”
Washington has consistently denied any knowledge of
the drugs in his house; he believes the cocaine was planted there. He also
has a document from the private hauler contracted to pick up his trash
showing that his garbage cans were not out on the curb the day the trash
rip occurred. If Washington manages to come up with another
$20,000, Davis says he won’t be fearful. “The judge set the bond at a million dollars.
If he can come up with $100,000, I have no problem with that. I think one
of the provisions that the judge set there was that he was not to have any
contact with me, so hopefully he’ll honor that,” Davis says. Asked whether he would again walk into the
weight-lifting area of Gold’s Gym after seeing Washington’s car
in the parking lot, Davis had no answer. “I don’t know. I really don’t
know,” he says.
This article appears in Jun 22-28, 2006.
