Records Expunged in '99 Texas Drug Sting

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 2, 2005

Filed at 6:18 a.m. ET

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- Thirty people convicted in a discredited drug bust that sent dozens to prison on bogus charges had their criminal records wiped clean.

Visiting Judge Ron Chapman ordered the records expunged Tuesday. At an evidentiary hearing in June 2003, the judge called the undercover agent who built the cases, Tom Coleman, ''simply not a credible witness under oath.''

Coleman arrested 46 people, most of them black, in this small, predominantly white farming community, leading civil rights groups to question if the busts were racially motivated.