Jon T. Haugen for Senate, 18th District (D)
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The Daily News, Tuesday, 11 June 1996, By Laurie Smith
Sen. Zarelli denies he had cocaine in 1983
Police, lab analysis say one-tenth of gram was found on him
during arrest.
Despite state Sen. Joseph Zarelli's repeated denials of having any arrest
record, a 1983 police report indicates he was in possession of cocaine.
"I've never been arrested for any type criminal activity in my life." Zarelli,
a Vancouver Republican elected last year to serve Congressman Linda
Smith's unexpired Senate term, said Monday.
But later in the one-hour-and-20-minute tape-recorded interview, Zarelli,
34, did tell of a bruising brush with the law at his boyhood home of
Edmonds, Wash. A Christian conservative who ran for office with Smith's
backing, the freshman lawmaker is seeking re-election to a four-year term
in the 18th District.
He was 21 when Edmonds police arrested him for driving with a
suspended license and two municipal court warrants in July 1983. The
incident report also says Zarelli was carrying a tiny, but usable, quantity of
cocaine - less than one-tenth of a gram - which a jailer discovered during
a booking search.
Zarelli was convicted of driving with a suspended license, a misdemeanor,
and fined. However, no charge was filed for possession of narcotics, a
class C felony, and Snohomish County authorities say they can only
speculate as to why not.
Wrapped in magazine paper, the white powdery substance was found
hidden in Zarelli's crotch area, as if he had stuck it down his pants when
police pulled him over in a routine traffic stop around 2:20 a.m. July 23,
1983, according to the report. A supplement dated three months later
says the Washington State Crime Lab analyzed the substance and
determined it to be cocaine.
When confronted with the report's content as to illegal drugs, Zarelli
sputtered, "That's a frigging lie." He lashed out at Edmonds police,
accusing the department of brutality and bigotry toward Italian Americans.
Asked whether he had any memory of the 1983 incident, Zarelli said:
"Yeah, I have memory of the incident. I have memory of three cops
beating the sh*t out of me - that's what I have memory of.
"You need to understand the Edmonds Police Department - at the time
(was) corrupt."
As for why officers would want to rough him up, he said, "It has to do with
growing up being the son of a dago in Edmonds, Wash."
If the cops alleged he possessed cocaine, he said, "then I guess the sh*t
runs a little deeper than I thought in Edmonds lately. It's a tough world."
For his part, Edmonds Police Chief Tom Miller said, "I wouldn't even
dignify his remarks with a comment from our department."
By way of explaining why he ran a warrant check on Zarelli, arresting
Reserve Officer Chet Swanson noted in his narrative: "The name was
familiar to me as I had dealt with Mr. Zarelli before." But 13 years later,
neither Swanson nor Zarelli remembers anything about one another.
An enlisted man in the U.S. Navy at the time, Zarelli was on shore leave
while his ship was in Seattle for a couple of days.
Because it's such an old case, authorities say they're at a loss to tie up
loose ends left dangling by the absence of any formal charge on alleged
drug possession.
"It's been so many years, I don't know how we'd ever be able to track
down what happened on that," Edmonds police spokesman Steven Perry
said.
The police might have decided to let military authorities handle it,
Snohomish County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Jim Townsend said,
adding, "That's the most likely scenario."
But records on file with Edmonds police, including a summary prepared
for the prosecutor, indicate that the department had every intention of
referring the case on the charges in state court, Perry said.
Any disciplinary action against Zarelli in the Navy would be part of his
personnel file, which is exempt from disclosure under the Privacy Act,
officials at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis say. The
Daily News called on Zarelli to waive his privacy rights and authorize
release of his file. He refused, despite what he touted as his "exemplary"
service record.
Had his discharge been anything less than honorable, he said, the Navy
would not have allowed him to re-enlist after his first hitch was up in 1986.
Now following the straight and narrow, Zarelli said he never touches
alcohol or other mind-altering substances, and his driving record since
1984 or '85 has been "flawless".
As a youth growing up in a broken home where money and parental
supervision were scarce, the choices he made then were vastly different,
he said.
"We talk today about the kids who got it so dang hard - about these poor
kids, and they don't have food; they don't have this; they don't have that;
there's so much more to deal with.
"Well, I'm here to tell you that they ain't got it any more tougher than we
did back then. There certainly wasn't a bunch of little help, compassion
groups out there to help us poor little kids."
Zarelli didn't deny doing drugs in the past, but be wouldn't discuss the
matter beyond remarking that he'd made a few bad decisions at a time
when "cocaine was commonplace in school."
"I'm not going to get into what I did or didn't do as a youth, 'cause it's not
relevant," he said.
Zarelli said he couldn't recall why his driver's license was suspended. It
may have been because of a string of moving violations that appear in a
1980 Snohomish County Superior Court file. In that case, he appealed a
lower-court conviction for reckless driving, and the charge was amended
to speeding at 85 mph in a 55 mph zone.
The past 10 years of his life - as a family man, self-employed security
consultant and law-abiding citizen - are what should matter to the voters
as they decide whether to trust him as their legislator, Zarelli said.
The Daily News pursued a criminal records search through the
Washington State Patrol because of Zarelli's answers to questions about
his background during the 1995 campaign.
On a candidate questionnaire, he didn't check either the "yes" or "no" box
in response to, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" When the
question was posed to him again in a 1995 interview, he replied that he
didn't know of anything on his record aside from speeding tickets.
The lawmaker continued to insist Monday that he'd never been convicted
of a crime, although driving with a suspended license is a criminal traffic
offense.
"Is that a crime?" he said with apparent disbelief. "I guess I'm a criminal
then, because I drove without a license."
Expressing indignation that The Daily News checked public records to
verify whether he was telling the truth, Zarelli walked out of Monday's
interview at his district office in the Kelso train station.
"I won't talk to you guys no more," he said. "So you go do all your diggin',
all your trashin'."
In hopes of clarifying an $8,300 overpayment of Zarelli's military living
allowances, The Daily News also is seeking disclosure of his Navy pay
records under the Freedom of Information Act.
Zarelli received the excess funds between August 1983 and May 1985.
He said he was unaware of being overpaid, which happened as a result
of receiving food and quarters allowances for a married serviceman after
his first wife had divorced him without his knowing it.
The Navy tried to get its money back, but Zarelli filed bankruptcy in 1987
to relieve himself of the obligation.
Sen. Zarelli denies he had cocaine in 1983
Police, lab analysis say one-tenth of gram was found on him
during arrest.
Despite state Sen. Joseph Zarelli's repeated denials of having any arrest
record, a 1983 police report indicates he was in possession of cocaine.
"I've never been arrested for any type criminal activity in my life." Zarelli,
a Vancouver Republican elected last year to serve Congressman Linda
Smith's unexpired Senate term, said Monday.
But later in the one-hour-and-20-minute tape-recorded interview, Zarelli,
34, did tell of a bruising brush with the law at his boyhood home of
Edmonds, Wash. A Christian conservative who ran for office with Smith's
backing, the freshman lawmaker is seeking re-election to a four-year term
in the 18th District.
He was 21 when Edmonds police arrested him for driving with a
suspended license and two municipal court warrants in July 1983. The
incident report also says Zarelli was carrying a tiny, but usable, quantity of
cocaine - less than one-tenth of a gram - which a jailer discovered during
a booking search.
Zarelli was convicted of driving with a suspended license, a misdemeanor,
and fined. However, no charge was filed for possession of narcotics, a
class C felony, and Snohomish County authorities say they can only
speculate as to why not.
Wrapped in magazine paper, the white powdery substance was found
hidden in Zarelli's crotch area, as if he had stuck it down his pants when
police pulled him over in a routine traffic stop around 2:20 a.m. July 23,
1983, according to the report. A supplement dated three months later
says the Washington State Crime Lab analyzed the substance and
determined it to be cocaine.
When confronted with the report's content as to illegal drugs, Zarelli
sputtered, "That's a frigging lie." He lashed out at Edmonds police,
accusing the department of brutality and bigotry toward Italian Americans.
Asked whether he had any memory of the 1983 incident, Zarelli said:
"Yeah, I have memory of the incident. I have memory of three cops
beating the sh*t out of me - that's what I have memory of.
"You need to understand the Edmonds Police Department - at the time
(was) corrupt."
As for why officers would want to rough him up, he said, "It has to do with
growing up being the son of a dago in Edmonds, Wash."
If the cops alleged he possessed cocaine, he said, "then I guess the sh*t
runs a little deeper than I thought in Edmonds lately. It's a tough world."
For his part, Edmonds Police Chief Tom Miller said, "I wouldn't even
dignify his remarks with a comment from our department."
By way of explaining why he ran a warrant check on Zarelli, arresting
Reserve Officer Chet Swanson noted in his narrative: "The name was
familiar to me as I had dealt with Mr. Zarelli before." But 13 years later,
neither Swanson nor Zarelli remembers anything about one another.
An enlisted man in the U.S. Navy at the time, Zarelli was on shore leave
while his ship was in Seattle for a couple of days.
Because it's such an old case, authorities say they're at a loss to tie up
loose ends left dangling by the absence of any formal charge on alleged
drug possession.
"It's been so many years, I don't know how we'd ever be able to track
down what happened on that," Edmonds police spokesman Steven Perry
said.
The police might have decided to let military authorities handle it,
Snohomish County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Jim Townsend said,
adding, "That's the most likely scenario."
But records on file with Edmonds police, including a summary prepared
for the prosecutor, indicate that the department had every intention of
referring the case on the charges in state court, Perry said.
Any disciplinary action against Zarelli in the Navy would be part of his
personnel file, which is exempt from disclosure under the Privacy Act,
officials at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis say. The
Daily News called on Zarelli to waive his privacy rights and authorize
release of his file. He refused, despite what he touted as his "exemplary"
service record.
Had his discharge been anything less than honorable, he said, the Navy
would not have allowed him to re-enlist after his first hitch was up in 1986.
Now following the straight and narrow, Zarelli said he never touches
alcohol or other mind-altering substances, and his driving record since
1984 or '85 has been "flawless".
As a youth growing up in a broken home where money and parental
supervision were scarce, the choices he made then were vastly different,
he said.
"We talk today about the kids who got it so dang hard - about these poor
kids, and they don't have food; they don't have this; they don't have that;
there's so much more to deal with.
"Well, I'm here to tell you that they ain't got it any more tougher than we
did back then. There certainly wasn't a bunch of little help, compassion
groups out there to help us poor little kids."
Zarelli didn't deny doing drugs in the past, but be wouldn't discuss the
matter beyond remarking that he'd made a few bad decisions at a time
when "cocaine was commonplace in school."
"I'm not going to get into what I did or didn't do as a youth, 'cause it's not
relevant," he said.
Zarelli said he couldn't recall why his driver's license was suspended. It
may have been because of a string of moving violations that appear in a
1980 Snohomish County Superior Court file. In that case, he appealed a
lower-court conviction for reckless driving, and the charge was amended
to speeding at 85 mph in a 55 mph zone.
The past 10 years of his life - as a family man, self-employed security
consultant and law-abiding citizen - are what should matter to the voters
as they decide whether to trust him as their legislator, Zarelli said.
The Daily News pursued a criminal records search through the
Washington State Patrol because of Zarelli's answers to questions about
his background during the 1995 campaign.
On a candidate questionnaire, he didn't check either the "yes" or "no" box
in response to, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" When the
question was posed to him again in a 1995 interview, he replied that he
didn't know of anything on his record aside from speeding tickets.
The lawmaker continued to insist Monday that he'd never been convicted
of a crime, although driving with a suspended license is a criminal traffic
offense.
"Is that a crime?" he said with apparent disbelief. "I guess I'm a criminal
then, because I drove without a license."
Expressing indignation that The Daily News checked public records to
verify whether he was telling the truth, Zarelli walked out of Monday's
interview at his district office in the Kelso train station.
"I won't talk to you guys no more," he said. "So you go do all your diggin',
all your trashin'."
In hopes of clarifying an $8,300 overpayment of Zarelli's military living
allowances, The Daily News also is seeking disclosure of his Navy pay
records under the Freedom of Information Act.
Zarelli received the excess funds between August 1983 and May 1985.
He said he was unaware of being overpaid, which happened as a result
of receiving food and quarters allowances for a married serviceman after
his first wife had divorced him without his knowing it.
The Navy tried to get its money back, but Zarelli filed bankruptcy in 1987
to relieve himself of the obligation.