Drug Charges Are Dismissed Against Smith

Drug charges against former University of Washington football player Danianke Smith and three others were dismissed Thursday after a judge said prosecutors had failed to share the chief informant’s bizarre tale of revenge with the defense.

King County Superior Court Judge Joan DuBuque granted a defense motion for dismissal of the charges against Smith, a reserve linebacker from Long Beach who was a senior on last year’s Washington team. Charges also were dismissed against John Reisig, Alexandra Sandoval and Daphne Pie.

Smith was suspended from the team in November after he was charged with five counts of selling cocaine or marijuana.

Smith’s attorneys, Jeff Robinson and Jenny Durkan, said they only recently discovered the motives of Samuel David Nemours, the Washington student who helped police make the drug busts.

In a taped interview with Smith’s attorneys last Friday, Nemours said he was mainly concerned about the sale of drugs to children, but also wanted to seek revenge against two Husky football players whom he suspected had killed a friend of his in Los Angeles about five years ago.

Nemours said he decided while in high school that the best way to confirm who was responsible for the death was to get into Washington and then get close to the two players.

In the process, Nemours met Smith, who had known one of the players targeted by Nemours, Durkan said.

Prosecutors and police are required to forward relevant information, including knowledge of motives, to the defense.