MJM’s Second Rack & Roll Article
By Greg L | 23 February 2007 | Rack & Roll Scandal | 5 Comments
Today’s Manassas Journal-Messenger article on the Rack & Roll scandal covers a lot of territory, reducing what could easily be a John Grisham novel down into a few sentences, and unless the MJM had the opportunity to run a story every day for the next six months there’s not much chance they could adequately delve into every important piece of this disturbing tale. That’s just a result of the limitations of a local paper. It at least gives me plenty of opportunities to expand on the themes they introduce. Perhaps someday the full product of Alex Granados’ work will be published where space limitations are more relaxed, and editorial interference is less intrusive.
The article makes mention of a Manassas Park Police officer who ended up in a dispute with David Ruttenberg regarding his relationship with the officer’s girlfriend, a Ms. Nina Buell. Although they don’t mention the officer’s name citing safety concerns, this officer became the officer in charge of the Joint Narcotics Task Force (JNTF) investigation of Rack & Roll, appears to have personally supervised informant Jeffrey Price’s activities at Rack & Roll, and then had the temerity to deny any relationship with this woman, who also became an informant of the JNTF, under oath at the ABC hearing.
City Attorney Dean Crowhurst claims that Manassas Park had only one officer on the Joint Narcotics Task Force and had no control over it’s activities, despite the fact that the officer in charge of JNTF’s operations at Rack & Roll just happens to be a Manassas Park Police Officer — the same one with the girlfriend Nina Buell. At the same time the JNTF is established, another task force is established, namely the gang task force, which has provided the city council with briefings on their activities. The city council contributes funds to both the JNTF and the gang task force, and we’re supposed to believe that the gang task force reports to the city council but the JNTF does not? Perhaps Mr. Crowhurst was misinformed.
The article then goes on to mention Jeffrey Price, who figures pretty prominently in this story:
He said the narcotics task force brought in paid police informants to deal drugs in the pool hall. One in particular, Jeff Price, was arrested the night of the drug raid, according to a transcript of the ABC hearing.
The police dispute the idea that Price was a police informant, but his sister [Jessica Price] and Chris Price (no relation to Jeff Price) said Jeff Price had said he was working for the police, the transcript states.
Jeffrey Price is a young man, then homeless and with a pregnant girlfriend, both of whom lived out of her car which was often parked in the Manassas Park Shopping Center. Sometimes folks would give him a buck or two. Sometimes Price would clean up at Rack & Roll after hours for a quick $20. But much of the time he’d be working as an informant of the JNTF and selling drugs to undercover police officer Robert White in Rack & Roll. Price would be fronted cash to purchase drugs, and then would resell these to officer White, and be allowed to keep the profits from the transaction. After rumors of his drug activity reached Dave Ruttenberg, Dave confronted Jeffrey Price who told Dave that he was working for the police and actually received a phone call during that conversation from his police contact who he called “Mario”.
The article mentions that the police deny that Jeffrey Price was working for them, which they did under oath at the ABC hearing. Now they’re stuck with that story, which is rapidly unravelling. Jeffrey Price told Dave he was working with the police, and even had an entry in his cellphone for “five-o” which would connect him with “Mario” at a phone number which by all appearances is still actively used by undercover police operations. Jeffrey Price also attempted to plant a bottle of liquor the day before the 2004 raid at Rack & Roll in precisely the same location where police officers seem to have spent a lot of time looking for evidence — precisely as was done by a police informant supervised by Tom Kifer, in his capacity as head of security for Rack & Roll, with the same behavior noted where he attempted to plant evidence. Prince’s older sister Jessica and his mother both maintain that Jeffrey Price was working with the police, and Jeffrey Price even went so far as to get his younger fifteen year old sister drunk at the Golden Pheonix and then drag her over to Rack & Roll in an attempt to frame him for ABC violations. Chris Price (no relation), another police informant, has sworn that Jeffrey Price was working with undercover officer Robert White (see references). There’s so much to contradict this flimsy claim — far more than what a newspaper article would have space to print, and there’s more than I have detailed here — that believing it requires a supension of disbelief that is truly vast.
Yet in the article the city claims that they had an investigation done to ensure that their officers were behaving correctly. I’ll have more on that vignette later.
The article wraps up with the unequal treatment which has been given to Dave Ruttenberg, which I’ve talked about in some detail in “A Tale of Two Establishments”, and adds to that evidence the consequences meted out to O’Meara’s (yes, that’s who they were talking about) for their violations. O’Meara’s gets fined for their violations, which is the right thing to do. Rack & Roll ends up getting set up once, is raided by 90 cops in ski masks and carrying shotguns, has their ABC license revoked, and is pretty much put out of business as a result.
But officials of Manassas Park maintain this is all ridiculous, outlandish, and untrue. Can anyone believe that now?
Tomorrow we’re going to hear a little about Colonial Downs. It should be very interesting.
References:
ABC Hearing Transcript Day One, pages 167, 169, and 221
ABC Hearing Transcript Day Two, pages 93, 283-286, and 290
Sworn statement of Jessica Price
Sworn statement of Chris Price (page 1, page 2)
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“Mario” would be Officer Lugo of the Manassas Park Police Department who is assigned to either the drug or gang task force. I believe it is the gang task force but I could be wrong on that part. I wasn’t a believer at first, but I have to say the evidence is overwhelming. I know that I will be very careful when I vote next time.
Hell, sounds like the story from “Walking Tall”. Some serious house cleaning is needed.
I think the vast amount of information and evidence provided in these posts is almost overwhelming. I would like to make a quick point. The Conditional Use Permit (CUP) had conditions in it that had to be met in order for Mr. Ruttenberg to get the permit. One of the objections raised in the council discussion was an excess of police activity at Rack & Roll. According to the rules - police ACTIVITY is grounds denying the permit. Not convictions but just police activity could keep Rack & Roll from obtaining a CUP. And look what activities took place - a ninety man raid at Rack & Roll which uncovered virtually nothing, and Rack & Roll bouncers in cahoots with the M.P. Police encouraging drug trade and underage drinking. And these contrived illegal activities are being used against Mr. Ruttenberg to prevent him from obtaining the permit. AND when the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) reviewed the case and overturned the CUP denial and granted the CUP, the city decided to sue itself, because the council apparently believed that the BZA is really useless and cannot make binding decisions. The scary thing is that Manassas Park should be bending over backwards to apologize to Mr. Ruttenberg and correct their injustices. But what I see is a bitter City Council, Mayor, and Prince William Attorney who get upset when THEIR names are tainted but cannot see the irony the they have immorally ruined the name of Dave Ruttenberg. PEOPLE - HELP THIS MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ILTV, let’s not forget the police harrassment of Rack N’ Roll customers. Now THAT is considerable police activity and I’m sure it showed up in the logs and actually used against David. There’s considerable irony in that.
About a year after the raid customers of Rack N Roll were being approched by MP police in the parking lot after they walked out the main doors at night. The cops were trying to ‘recruit’ people to work undercover for them in exchange for a lesser charge. Thankfully I was never approached. What the cops are doing, still to this day, is wrong. They know it’s wrong. I hope many people rot in Hell for what they are doing to Dave. He does not deserve any of this!! No one does!!