Cop who robbed cig sellers will patrol cell
The New York Post by Bruce Golding - May 24, 2012
A crooked cop who used his badge, gun and NYPD “raid” jacket to rip off cigarette smugglers got 33 months in the slammer yesterday from a judge who called the caper “baffling and disappointing.”
“When the public sees police officers commit crimes, it casts doubt on the whole structure we have of encouraging respect for the police,” Manhattan federal Judge Sidney Stein lamented.
Stein also noted in amazement that “on top of it all,” former Detective Kyron Collins, whose dad is a retired officer, flushed his career down the toilet and threw away his pension for a mere $1,700 share of the proceeds.
Collins, 37, pleaded guilty in January to robbing $7,000 in cash and a load of bootleg Newports after flashing a fake search warrant so he could ransack a stash house in The Bronx last year.
Defense lawyer Eric Siegle said in court yesterday that Collins’ “single, stupid act” came after he was “duped” by a pal, Ammar Alkamel, who claimed he had been swindled by the smugglers.
In reality, Alkamel — who’s currently on the run — “masterminded several other robberies” after getting busted for cigarette smuggling in Pennsylvania and becoming an informant for the feds, Siegle said.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Two On-Duty Officers Arrested on Federal Drug Charges
Two LR Police Officer Arrested on Federal Drug Charges
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Gavin Lesnick
LITTLE ROCK, AR — Two Little Rock Police Department officers have been arrested on federal drug charges alleging that they escorted drugs through the city while on duty, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas said Thursday. Mark Anthony Jones, 45, and Randall Tremayn Robinson, 38, were arrested Thursday afternoon. It wasn't immediately clear how long either had been an officer. “Those who are sworn to uphold the law are not above the law themselves,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Christopher Thyer said in a news release. “The Little Rock Police Department is an institution filled with honest and hard-working professionals who risk their lives daily for the safety of its citizens. As a prosecutor, it is difficult to accept that individual officers would take actions that ultimately harm our community; undermine the efforts of their fellow officers; and weaken the public trust in all of law enforcement. As difficult as it might be, however, it is our duty to fully investigate such allegations and, if substantiated, hold police officers accountable for breaking the law. We owe it to this community and, more importantly, to the upstanding individuals who wear the badge ofthe LRPD.” According to an affidavit provided by Thyer's office, Jones was on duty on Jan. 12 when he escorted what he believed to be a large shipment of marijuana from near Interstate 430 to a storage facility. He is accused of providing security for another shipment on Jan. 31, an act for which he was paid $2,000, authorities said. The purported drug dealer was actually a confidential source working with investigators, according to the news release. In February, Jones is accused of traveling to California and meeting with an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer. In that meeting, Jones agreed to get additional security for a 1,000-pound shipment of marijuana, the release said. Jones and Robinson are both accused of escorting that shipment on March 22 "while armed and in uniform," the release said, adding the men were each paid $5,000. Little Rock Police Department Chief Stuart Thomas called it "disheartening" to see officers in his agency arrested. "I am, however, extremely proud of the men and women of this Department who participated in this difficult and demanding investigation and who, throughout, demonstrated professionalism, integrity and confidentiality to the highest degree," Thomas said in the release. "I am also deeply indebted to the United States Attorney’s Office and the Little Rock Office of the FBI which, without hesitation, provided the resources and expertise necessary to bring this matter to a successful conclusion." The officers are facing charges of conspiracy to aid and abet possession with intent to distribute more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana, aiding and abetting the possession with intent to distribute more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana and possession of a firearm in a drug trafficking crime, authorities said. The arrests come less than a year after five police officers in eastern Arkansas were arrested on federal drug and corruption charges, including allegations that they escorted drug dealers or protected drug shipments.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Gavin Lesnick
LITTLE ROCK, AR — Two Little Rock Police Department officers have been arrested on federal drug charges alleging that they escorted drugs through the city while on duty, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas said Thursday. Mark Anthony Jones, 45, and Randall Tremayn Robinson, 38, were arrested Thursday afternoon. It wasn't immediately clear how long either had been an officer. “Those who are sworn to uphold the law are not above the law themselves,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Christopher Thyer said in a news release. “The Little Rock Police Department is an institution filled with honest and hard-working professionals who risk their lives daily for the safety of its citizens. As a prosecutor, it is difficult to accept that individual officers would take actions that ultimately harm our community; undermine the efforts of their fellow officers; and weaken the public trust in all of law enforcement. As difficult as it might be, however, it is our duty to fully investigate such allegations and, if substantiated, hold police officers accountable for breaking the law. We owe it to this community and, more importantly, to the upstanding individuals who wear the badge ofthe LRPD.” According to an affidavit provided by Thyer's office, Jones was on duty on Jan. 12 when he escorted what he believed to be a large shipment of marijuana from near Interstate 430 to a storage facility. He is accused of providing security for another shipment on Jan. 31, an act for which he was paid $2,000, authorities said. The purported drug dealer was actually a confidential source working with investigators, according to the news release. In February, Jones is accused of traveling to California and meeting with an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer. In that meeting, Jones agreed to get additional security for a 1,000-pound shipment of marijuana, the release said. Jones and Robinson are both accused of escorting that shipment on March 22 "while armed and in uniform," the release said, adding the men were each paid $5,000. Little Rock Police Department Chief Stuart Thomas called it "disheartening" to see officers in his agency arrested. "I am, however, extremely proud of the men and women of this Department who participated in this difficult and demanding investigation and who, throughout, demonstrated professionalism, integrity and confidentiality to the highest degree," Thomas said in the release. "I am also deeply indebted to the United States Attorney’s Office and the Little Rock Office of the FBI which, without hesitation, provided the resources and expertise necessary to bring this matter to a successful conclusion." The officers are facing charges of conspiracy to aid and abet possession with intent to distribute more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana, aiding and abetting the possession with intent to distribute more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana and possession of a firearm in a drug trafficking crime, authorities said. The arrests come less than a year after five police officers in eastern Arkansas were arrested on federal drug and corruption charges, including allegations that they escorted drug dealers or protected drug shipments.
Global Problem of Top Cops Assisting Criminals
3 top Dominican Republic cops accused in drug case
The Associated Press - May 24, 2012
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – Three high-ranking police officials in the Dominican Republic have been accused of providing security to drug traffickers, marking the latest public corruption case to hit the Caribbean nation as it tries to clean up its military and police. The officials worked for the National Drug Control Agency and were arrested alongside four men allegedly waiting for a drug shipment bound for Puerto Rico, agency chief Rolando Rosado said Thursday. The officials have been suspended from their jobs as have others who have been charged in drug-fueled corruption cases that have resulted in dozens of arrests and dismissals in recent years. "It's a serious situation," said Tulio Castanos, vice president of the Institutional Justice Foundation, a non-governmental group that is helping the government design and implement police department reforms. "The people have lost faith in the police." The Dominican Republic has a national police force of 32,000 officers and a military with 65,000 members, for a country of about 9 million people. Since 2009, more than 700 agents with the National Drug Control Agency, a combination of police officers and military personnel on loan, have been removed for a variety of crimes, according to government statistics. Of those, 200 were suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the national police force has expelled about 1,400 officers since 2010 for a variety of alleged crimes, including ties to drug trafficking, spokesman Maximo Baez said. Members of the police and all branches of the military have become ensnared in drug investigations, including a recent one involving a navy officer in charge of port security accused of attempting to smuggle more than 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds) of cocaine to Spain on board a cargo vessel. In another case, nearly 20 officials, the majority with the navy, were accused in 2008 of killing seven Colombian drug traffickers to steal 1.3 tons (1.18 metric tons) of cocaine. Five of those officials were sentenced to 30 years in prison, while three others received 20-year sentences. So far this year, authorities have confiscated more than 4 tons (3.6 metric tons) of cocaine. They seized nearly 7 tons (6 metric tons) during all of 2011. "The biggest concern is that in almost every seizure, officials were implicated," according to a report by Citizen Involvement, a non-governmental organization that tracks corruption allegations in the Dominican Republic. The government is now requiring members of the police and armed forces to pass polygraph and background tests. In addition, internal affairs units are regularly investigating corruption allegations and handing out punishments, which has been increasing along with the country's role as a stepping stone for cocaine and other drugs bound for the U.S. and Europe. The government's attempt to address the situation comes amid growing concerns among Dominicans about the way drug trafficking has seemed to take a central role in the country. But there is also pressure from the U.S., which was critical of Dominican anti-drug efforts in its annual 2012 trafficking report. In a 2009 diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks and other organizations, the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic noted the country had an "embarrassing" drug seizure rate and cited a lack of resources for law enforcement and infiltration of the armed forces by criminal organizations. Former President Leonel Fernandez and others also have cited low salaries, typically around $155 a month for police officers, as a long-standing problem that may be a factor in some corruption cases. Complaints that police and military officials demand payment from drug traffickers to operate in certain neighborhoods are common, said Manuel Maria Mercedes, president of the National Commission of Human Rights. Payments can range from $125 a week in poor communities to more than $1,000 a week for drug-distribution points in popular tourist regions, and shootouts ensue if they fail to pay, he said. "Hundreds of citizens have lost their lives this way," he said.
The Associated Press - May 24, 2012
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – Three high-ranking police officials in the Dominican Republic have been accused of providing security to drug traffickers, marking the latest public corruption case to hit the Caribbean nation as it tries to clean up its military and police. The officials worked for the National Drug Control Agency and were arrested alongside four men allegedly waiting for a drug shipment bound for Puerto Rico, agency chief Rolando Rosado said Thursday. The officials have been suspended from their jobs as have others who have been charged in drug-fueled corruption cases that have resulted in dozens of arrests and dismissals in recent years. "It's a serious situation," said Tulio Castanos, vice president of the Institutional Justice Foundation, a non-governmental group that is helping the government design and implement police department reforms. "The people have lost faith in the police." The Dominican Republic has a national police force of 32,000 officers and a military with 65,000 members, for a country of about 9 million people. Since 2009, more than 700 agents with the National Drug Control Agency, a combination of police officers and military personnel on loan, have been removed for a variety of crimes, according to government statistics. Of those, 200 were suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the national police force has expelled about 1,400 officers since 2010 for a variety of alleged crimes, including ties to drug trafficking, spokesman Maximo Baez said. Members of the police and all branches of the military have become ensnared in drug investigations, including a recent one involving a navy officer in charge of port security accused of attempting to smuggle more than 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds) of cocaine to Spain on board a cargo vessel. In another case, nearly 20 officials, the majority with the navy, were accused in 2008 of killing seven Colombian drug traffickers to steal 1.3 tons (1.18 metric tons) of cocaine. Five of those officials were sentenced to 30 years in prison, while three others received 20-year sentences. So far this year, authorities have confiscated more than 4 tons (3.6 metric tons) of cocaine. They seized nearly 7 tons (6 metric tons) during all of 2011. "The biggest concern is that in almost every seizure, officials were implicated," according to a report by Citizen Involvement, a non-governmental organization that tracks corruption allegations in the Dominican Republic. The government is now requiring members of the police and armed forces to pass polygraph and background tests. In addition, internal affairs units are regularly investigating corruption allegations and handing out punishments, which has been increasing along with the country's role as a stepping stone for cocaine and other drugs bound for the U.S. and Europe. The government's attempt to address the situation comes amid growing concerns among Dominicans about the way drug trafficking has seemed to take a central role in the country. But there is also pressure from the U.S., which was critical of Dominican anti-drug efforts in its annual 2012 trafficking report. In a 2009 diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks and other organizations, the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic noted the country had an "embarrassing" drug seizure rate and cited a lack of resources for law enforcement and infiltration of the armed forces by criminal organizations. Former President Leonel Fernandez and others also have cited low salaries, typically around $155 a month for police officers, as a long-standing problem that may be a factor in some corruption cases. Complaints that police and military officials demand payment from drug traffickers to operate in certain neighborhoods are common, said Manuel Maria Mercedes, president of the National Commission of Human Rights. Payments can range from $125 a week in poor communities to more than $1,000 a week for drug-distribution points in popular tourist regions, and shootouts ensue if they fail to pay, he said. "Hundreds of citizens have lost their lives this way," he said.
The Global Problem of Self-Policing Police Corruption
Thousands of police accused of corruption – just 13 convicted
The Independent by Paul Peachey - May 25, 2012
Forces should not probe their own officers, says IPCC chief as shocking figures come to light
LONDON, UK - The new head of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has questioned the ability of forces to investigate their own officers for corruption after it emerged that more than 8,500 allegations of wrongdoing resulted in just 13 criminal convictions. Officers – including some from the most senior ranks – were accused of crimes including rape, the misuse of corporate credit cards and perverting the course of justice, but most cases were not substantiated and only a tiny fraction ever came to court. Dame Anne Owers said that there was scepticism about the extent to which police officers could investigate colleagues' alleged crimes, and she demanded more resources to supervise inquiries to ensure confidence in the system. "The public is understandably doubtful about the extent to which, in this particular instance, the police can investigate themselves," she said in a report by the IPCC. She concluded that the corruption identified over the three years to 2011 was not endemic or widespread. But she accepted that it was "corrosive of the public trust that is at the heart of policing" with the number of cases increasing. "A serious focus on tackling police corruption is important, not just because it unearths unethical police behaviour, but because of the role it plays in wider public trust," said Dame Anne, a former inspector of prisons. The report was published just after it was announced that the IPCC – which looks into allegations of police misconduct and deaths in custody – will itself be put under the spotlight by a powerful parliamentary committee amid concerns over its record. Its investigation teams include former police officers and the Home Affairs Select Committee will assess whether it is able to carry out impartial inquiries. The IPCC corruption report was ordered by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, because of concerns in the light of the phone-hacking scandal and the role of private investigators. The commission said that it looked at a total of 104 cases and referred less than half of those to prosecutors. It resulted in court cases involving 18 officers, with 13 of them convicted. The highest ranking officer convicted was Ali Dizaei, the former Metropolitan Police commander, who was sacked this month after his release from prison after serving a three-year term for misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice. He was found guilty of framing a man in a dispute over an unpaid bill for work on his personal website in what the court heard was a "wholesale abuse of power". The report also highlighted the case of the former chief constable of North Yorkshire, Grahame Maxwell, who narrowly avoided the sack after helping a member of his family to get a job. An examination of the cases found that substance abuse, links with criminals and dissatisfaction at work all increased the vulnerability of officers to corruption and needed to be addressed. Policing has been punctuated by scandals over the past four decades that led to notorious miscarriages of justice including the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. Deputy Chief Constable Bernard Lawson, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "This report again recognises that corruption is neither endemic nor widespread in the police service. However, the actions of a few corrupt officers can corrode the great work of so many working hard daily to protect the public."
The Independent by Paul Peachey - May 25, 2012
Forces should not probe their own officers, says IPCC chief as shocking figures come to light
LONDON, UK - The new head of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has questioned the ability of forces to investigate their own officers for corruption after it emerged that more than 8,500 allegations of wrongdoing resulted in just 13 criminal convictions. Officers – including some from the most senior ranks – were accused of crimes including rape, the misuse of corporate credit cards and perverting the course of justice, but most cases were not substantiated and only a tiny fraction ever came to court. Dame Anne Owers said that there was scepticism about the extent to which police officers could investigate colleagues' alleged crimes, and she demanded more resources to supervise inquiries to ensure confidence in the system. "The public is understandably doubtful about the extent to which, in this particular instance, the police can investigate themselves," she said in a report by the IPCC. She concluded that the corruption identified over the three years to 2011 was not endemic or widespread. But she accepted that it was "corrosive of the public trust that is at the heart of policing" with the number of cases increasing. "A serious focus on tackling police corruption is important, not just because it unearths unethical police behaviour, but because of the role it plays in wider public trust," said Dame Anne, a former inspector of prisons. The report was published just after it was announced that the IPCC – which looks into allegations of police misconduct and deaths in custody – will itself be put under the spotlight by a powerful parliamentary committee amid concerns over its record. Its investigation teams include former police officers and the Home Affairs Select Committee will assess whether it is able to carry out impartial inquiries. The IPCC corruption report was ordered by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, because of concerns in the light of the phone-hacking scandal and the role of private investigators. The commission said that it looked at a total of 104 cases and referred less than half of those to prosecutors. It resulted in court cases involving 18 officers, with 13 of them convicted. The highest ranking officer convicted was Ali Dizaei, the former Metropolitan Police commander, who was sacked this month after his release from prison after serving a three-year term for misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice. He was found guilty of framing a man in a dispute over an unpaid bill for work on his personal website in what the court heard was a "wholesale abuse of power". The report also highlighted the case of the former chief constable of North Yorkshire, Grahame Maxwell, who narrowly avoided the sack after helping a member of his family to get a job. An examination of the cases found that substance abuse, links with criminals and dissatisfaction at work all increased the vulnerability of officers to corruption and needed to be addressed. Policing has been punctuated by scandals over the past four decades that led to notorious miscarriages of justice including the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. Deputy Chief Constable Bernard Lawson, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "This report again recognises that corruption is neither endemic nor widespread in the police service. However, the actions of a few corrupt officers can corrode the great work of so many working hard daily to protect the public."
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Corrupt Sheriff Brought Down By Reporters
Corrupt Kentucky Sheriff Brought Down By Reporters
CBS News - May 6, 2012
A pen and a pistol were the tools one young Kentucky newspaper reporter needed during his investigation of his hometown sheriff. Adam Sulfridge exposed corruption in local law enforcement in his rural Kentucky county and ended up with an award-winning story and enough death threats against him that he had to start carrying a gun. The following is a script from "Cleaning Up Whitley County" which originally aired on May 6, 2012. Byron Pitt is the correspondent. Clem Taylor, producer.
Prescription drug abuse has become an epidemic in America. Few places have been hit harder than Kentucky, a state that has also been ravaged by addiction to crystal meth. In Whitley County, Kentucky - in the heart of Appalachia -- matters were made worse when the man suspected of being at the center of the drug trade was the county's top law enforcement officer, Sheriff Lawrence Hodge. There had long been suspicions that Sheriff Hodge was dirty, but nobody - not even federal agents - could prove it. That's when two local journalists -- both in their 20s -- launched their own investigation. And they soon discovered poking into the affairs of a powerful county sheriff can be risky business.
Adam Sulfridge: You know you're 20 years old, and you're taking a shower one day and getting ready for class and you get a call from a federal agent because there's a credible threat against your life. Everything about it is just so surreal. You know. You don't-- you don't think a whole lot about it. Then later that night you start thinking, you're like, "Geez, somebody wants to kill me. That's a little odd." And it's the sheriff. The sheriff wants to kill you. This wasn't exactly how Adam Sulfridge had pictured a career in journalism. Adam was born and raised in Whitley County. In 2009, he was a sophomore at the local college and needed a job. The county's daily newspaper, the Times-Tribune, had an opening. And soon, Adam had his first assignment and dangerous enemies.
Byron Pitts: Why did you feel compelled to buy a gun?
Adam Sulfridge: You do have a credible threat against your life. And it seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to do. Samantha also purchased a gun at the same time.
Samantha Swindler, then 27, was managing editor of the Times-Tribune and Adam's boss.
Samantha Swindler: We were reporting on people involved in the drug trade. And people who were all hopped up on oxys, I don't know what they're going to do. I thought if something happened I'd go down with a fight.
Samantha was exotic by Whitley County standards: born in New Orleans, educated in Boston. She'd tangled with public officials as editor of a small newspaper in East Texas. She saw familiar signs in Whitley County.
Samantha Swindler: There are problems in this community with the good ole boy system, corrupt politics, that kind of thing.
Byron Pitts: It seems to me in many ways that this community's strength is also its weakness in some ways. This is a nice polite place where people have polite conversations -
Samantha Swindler: People are very proud here and it's a good thing, but it's also a bad thing in the way that it doesn't allow you to see the things that need change.
Whitley County, Kentucky, population 35,000, is tucked in the state's southeast corner on the border with Tennessee. People here take pride in the natural beauty of Cumberland Falls and in historic Sanders Cafe, birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken. There is also poverty. The median income is $26,000. Drug addiction is rampant. Throughout the region, red signs identify homes once used as meth labs. And then there's prescription drug abuse. Oxycodone flows in so freely. They call this stretch of I-75 "the pill pipeline." In 2002, Lawrence Hodge was elected sheriff of Whitley County on the promise he'd clean it up. The sheriff's raid on one meth lab was covered by the local CBS affiliate. [Lawrence Hodge: When I knocked on the door the smell was already knocking me down. We're glad to shut it down. It put a dent in our drug problem here.] But early in his tenure there were rumors, talk around the county the sheriff had gone bad.
Todd Tremaine: From about 2004, he just went downhill and was corrupt. Involved with drugs dealers, taking payoffs, extorting money from defendants.
Todd Tremaine, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, says the FBI and State Police tried building a case against Sheriff Hodge, but couldn't penetrate his inner circle of drug dealers, crooked politicians and police officers.
Todd Tremaine: He was very insulated.
Byron Pitts: What do you mean "insulated?"
Todd Tremaine: There was a lot of fear of what Lawrence might do if they cooperated with the federal agents or state police.
Byron Pitts: He was untouchable?
Todd Tremaine: Yes.
Editor Samantha Swindler had heard similar stories, and suspected Sheriff Hodge might have a weakness: a paper trail. So she checked the department's evidence log.
Samantha Swindler: There were months when nothing was checked in. I knew that this wasn't right, because we had arrests every day in this area, particularly related to drugs. And when it's related to drugs you know there's probably a gun. And it wasn't there.
But to mount a serious investigation of the sheriff, Samantha needed help.
Byron Pitts: Why would you hire a 20-year-old? His only journalism experience is working on his high school newspaper?
Samantha Swindler: Well, when you say it like that...
Byron Pitts: Well, it's true.
Samantha Swindler: Well he was smart and he knew about the community and he cared about local government.
Adam Sulfridge: My aunt overdosed. And the first question I had was, "I wonder if she got her drugs from somebody that the sheriff was, you know, protecting.
Adam went to work, combing through years of case files. He noted arrests where drugs and weapons were seized by the sheriff's department and should have been logged. It was tedious and time-consuming.
Adam Sulfridge: At that point I was working up to like 70 hours a week. It was-- it was insane and it wasn't healthy. But I was, you know, just driven. I knew I was onto something and I couldn't stop.
What he was onto was a series of felony cases -- involving guns and drugs -- in which deals were cut and sentences mysteriously reduced. What's more, the defense attorney in each case was Sheriff Hodge's close friend, Ron Reynolds. One case involved this man, Rick Benson, a retired social worker. In May 2004, Sheriff Hodge and his men raided Benson's house. In addition to drugs they found 17 guns. Benson had a previous felony conviction on drug and weapons charges, so was forbidden to own firearms.
Byron Pitts: You knew that you'd go to prison.
Rick Benson: Probably for the rest of my life.
Byron Pitts: We're you scared, were you anxious?
Rick Benson: Oh yeah, I was terrified.
Byron Pitts: Because?
Rick Benson: My world was over.
During the raid on the house, Sheriff Hodge found Benson's bank statement. There was $600,000 in his checking account, alone. Despite appearances, this self-described meth abuser was a millionaire, heir to a publishing fortune. The night of his arrest, Benson says Sheriff Hodge offered him a deal. If he cooperated, the sheriff would see that Benson was represented by his old friend, attorney Ron Reynolds.
Rick Benson: I had heard of Ron.
Byron Pitts: And his reputation was?
Rick Benson: He could get things fixed. He said, "I'll guarantee you misdemeanors. With no jail time, but you'll have to move out of Kentucky."
Byron Pitts: Did you think he was on the up and up?
Rick Benson: Well, no. If he was on the up and up, he wouldn't have been able to do that?
Byron Pitts: How much was his fee?
Rick Benson: $150,000.
Byron Pitts: $150,000 is a lot of money.
Rick Benson: The rest of your life in prison's a lot of time.
Rick Benson says he was also forced to pay the sheriff $10,000 in cash and make a donation to the sheriff's department of $25,000.
Adam Sulfridge: That's enough to make you say, "Okay, what's going on here?" But then whenever you see the actual cashier's check in that file, where he donated $25,000 to the sheriff's department as a condition of his plea agreement that's just, I mean that's crazy.
With information on that case and others, Samantha and Adam pressed Sheriff Hodge for an interview. He reluctantly agreed.
Adam Sulfridge: He was just all relaxed, leaning back in his chair, being that good ole boy.
Byron Pitts: The sheriff thought this was a field trip?
Adam Sulfridge: Yeah. You know, you got this, this, little out-of-towner girl and this 20-year-old college kid. We played along, we played nice for a very long time. Let him lie.
In the course of the interview, legally recorded without Sheriff's Hodge's knowledge, Adam asked him about the guns seized from Rick Benson. But the sheriff's answers didn't match the facts. He claimed the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, had them.
[Lawrence Hodge: I don't even know who Rick Benson is...
Adam Sulfridge: He was a big case.
Lawrence Hodge: Oh, that's ATF, yeah. How many guns were they?
Adam Sulfridge: Seventeen.
Lawrence Hodge: On Rick Benson?
Adam Sulfridge: Yeah.
Lawrence Hodge: They would've took those. I tell you, you probably need to have an ATF agent here with me if you want to talk about that.
Adam Sulfridge: So I need to ask them if they got those guns?
Lawrence Hodge: Well, you just need to ask them about the whole case.]
Byron Pitts: So when the sheriff said he'd given guns to the ATF, you knew he was lying?
Adam Sulfridge: They never took the guns. They never even opened a case in this situation. And once we had that, I mean you got a heck of a story.
Todd Tremaine: I was like, "Wow. I can't believe he just said that." And he just kept lying, lying, lying and I was giddy.
Byron Pitts: What do you make of that? That two 20-somethings--
Todd Tremaine: Right.
Byron Pitts: With pens and notebooks could do what seasoned law enforcement officers couldn't do?
Todd Tremaine: They weren't dangerous to him. I think Lawrence was thinking, "Hey, kids, let me show you how the sheriff's department works, you know. Here's the jail and here's Barney and, you know, everybody from Mayberry." But they caught him off guard 'cause they'd done their research.
The reporters then filed what's called an open records request, requiring the sheriff to show where Benson's guns were stored. But six days later, Adam received a startling phone call.
Adam Sulfridge: "The sheriff's department's been broken into." And, you know, that gets you outta bed real fast.
Samantha Swindler: That was my "we got you" moment. I knew that he had staged it. I knew it.
Sheriff Hodge claimed guns, drugs and other evidence had been stolen. The office was trashed, but the doors showed no sign of forced entry.
Todd Tremaine: It was just made to look like a burglary so they could explain for why the drugs and guns had been missing. And they had been missing for several years.
Byron Pitts: So what was Sheriff Hodge doing with these guns and drugs?
Todd Tremaine: Guns gave 'em to political friends, sold 'em, traded 'em for Oxycodone.
Byron Pitts: He became a drug addict.
Todd Tremaine: Yes. He was a very serious drug addict. He had a very bad addiction with prescription pain pills.
Adam and Samantha's interview with the sheriff and the phony burglary gave law enforcement the break they needed. The man who once thought himself "untouchable" was now feeling the heat. Days later, an undercover officer recorded Sheriff Hodge threatening to kill Adam.
Adam Sulfridge: He said, "I'm going to effin' kill him. And the informants, like, "You're just mad." And he goes, "No, you don't understand, I'm going to kill him. I've already been by his house. I know where he lives." Despite the threat, the Times-Tribune continued to publish damaging allegations against the sheriff. And a state audit suggested he may have been stealing money from the department.
Samantha Swindler: He was taking money and cashing it and during convenient times, like before a three-day weekend or right before his wife's birthday.
By May 2010, the people of Whitley County had had enough. They voted Sheriff Hodge out of office. Six months later, he was indicted by a state grand jury. The most powerful lawman in Whitley County, led away in handcuffs, in his uniform. But Lawrence Hodge still had influence. Around the same time, two local thugs - friends of the sheriff, drove to Adam's house.
Adam Sulfridge: The passenger in the vehicle gets out, approaches me without saying a word, puts his hand a little bit into his waistband and I just quickly pulled my pistol.
Byron Pitts: You had your pistol on you?
Adam Sulfridge: At that point I didn't go anywhere without being armed. He saw that it had left the holster. I didn't point it at him or anything. And he explained that they were out looking for junk metal on my dead end street, and that they would be going now.
Byron Pitts: You pulled a gun. Were you prepared to use it?
Adam Sulfridge: Well, you never pull a gun unless you're prepared to use it.
Following that encounter, federal authorities compelled Adam to leave town under their protection. Already facing state charges, Lawrence Hodge was also being pursued by federal investigators. Central to their case was attorney Ron Reynolds, the sheriff's accomplice in the shakedown of Rick Benson. Reynolds turned on his old friend, implicating the sheriff in the extortion scheme. Lawrence Hodge had no choice but to cop a plea.
Todd Tremaine: The prosecutor told him, "We could put you in prison for a very, very, very long time. Our case is solid. You will be convicted." You could see that he was defeated.
Last May, two years after Samantha and Adam launched their investigation, former sheriff Lawrence Hodge pleaded guilty to extortion, distributing drugs and money laundering. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. He declined our request for an interview.
Byron Pitts: That's mostly from the work you two did, right?
Samantha Swindler: Yes.
Samantha and Adam's reporting also led to the conviction of 15 of Lawrence Hodge's associates. Both journalists have since left the Times-Tribune. Samantha lives in Oregon, where she's editor and publisher of a small weekly. Adam, just a year out of college and unemployed, remains in Whitley County.
Byron Pitts: What went through your mind when you saw Sheriff Hodge in handcuffs, in his uniform?
Adam Sulfridge: You know a lot of people thought I'd be jumping for joy and, you know, all elated there that the sheriff got arrested. And it's really not. It's terrible that this happened. I hate to see for my community. I hate to see that plastered all over the place. You know, uh, Whitley County, synonymous now with a corrupt sheriff. I don't like that. I think-- I think the real story should be that a bunch of people here came together and, you know, cleaned it up.
CBS News - May 6, 2012
A pen and a pistol were the tools one young Kentucky newspaper reporter needed during his investigation of his hometown sheriff. Adam Sulfridge exposed corruption in local law enforcement in his rural Kentucky county and ended up with an award-winning story and enough death threats against him that he had to start carrying a gun. The following is a script from "Cleaning Up Whitley County" which originally aired on May 6, 2012. Byron Pitt is the correspondent. Clem Taylor, producer.
Prescription drug abuse has become an epidemic in America. Few places have been hit harder than Kentucky, a state that has also been ravaged by addiction to crystal meth. In Whitley County, Kentucky - in the heart of Appalachia -- matters were made worse when the man suspected of being at the center of the drug trade was the county's top law enforcement officer, Sheriff Lawrence Hodge. There had long been suspicions that Sheriff Hodge was dirty, but nobody - not even federal agents - could prove it. That's when two local journalists -- both in their 20s -- launched their own investigation. And they soon discovered poking into the affairs of a powerful county sheriff can be risky business.
Adam Sulfridge: You know you're 20 years old, and you're taking a shower one day and getting ready for class and you get a call from a federal agent because there's a credible threat against your life. Everything about it is just so surreal. You know. You don't-- you don't think a whole lot about it. Then later that night you start thinking, you're like, "Geez, somebody wants to kill me. That's a little odd." And it's the sheriff. The sheriff wants to kill you. This wasn't exactly how Adam Sulfridge had pictured a career in journalism. Adam was born and raised in Whitley County. In 2009, he was a sophomore at the local college and needed a job. The county's daily newspaper, the Times-Tribune, had an opening. And soon, Adam had his first assignment and dangerous enemies.
Byron Pitts: Why did you feel compelled to buy a gun?
Adam Sulfridge: You do have a credible threat against your life. And it seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to do. Samantha also purchased a gun at the same time.
Samantha Swindler, then 27, was managing editor of the Times-Tribune and Adam's boss.
Samantha Swindler: We were reporting on people involved in the drug trade. And people who were all hopped up on oxys, I don't know what they're going to do. I thought if something happened I'd go down with a fight.
Samantha was exotic by Whitley County standards: born in New Orleans, educated in Boston. She'd tangled with public officials as editor of a small newspaper in East Texas. She saw familiar signs in Whitley County.
Samantha Swindler: There are problems in this community with the good ole boy system, corrupt politics, that kind of thing.
Byron Pitts: It seems to me in many ways that this community's strength is also its weakness in some ways. This is a nice polite place where people have polite conversations -
Samantha Swindler: People are very proud here and it's a good thing, but it's also a bad thing in the way that it doesn't allow you to see the things that need change.
Whitley County, Kentucky, population 35,000, is tucked in the state's southeast corner on the border with Tennessee. People here take pride in the natural beauty of Cumberland Falls and in historic Sanders Cafe, birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken. There is also poverty. The median income is $26,000. Drug addiction is rampant. Throughout the region, red signs identify homes once used as meth labs. And then there's prescription drug abuse. Oxycodone flows in so freely. They call this stretch of I-75 "the pill pipeline." In 2002, Lawrence Hodge was elected sheriff of Whitley County on the promise he'd clean it up. The sheriff's raid on one meth lab was covered by the local CBS affiliate. [Lawrence Hodge: When I knocked on the door the smell was already knocking me down. We're glad to shut it down. It put a dent in our drug problem here.] But early in his tenure there were rumors, talk around the county the sheriff had gone bad.
Todd Tremaine: From about 2004, he just went downhill and was corrupt. Involved with drugs dealers, taking payoffs, extorting money from defendants.
Todd Tremaine, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, says the FBI and State Police tried building a case against Sheriff Hodge, but couldn't penetrate his inner circle of drug dealers, crooked politicians and police officers.
Todd Tremaine: He was very insulated.
Byron Pitts: What do you mean "insulated?"
Todd Tremaine: There was a lot of fear of what Lawrence might do if they cooperated with the federal agents or state police.
Byron Pitts: He was untouchable?
Todd Tremaine: Yes.
Editor Samantha Swindler had heard similar stories, and suspected Sheriff Hodge might have a weakness: a paper trail. So she checked the department's evidence log.
Samantha Swindler: There were months when nothing was checked in. I knew that this wasn't right, because we had arrests every day in this area, particularly related to drugs. And when it's related to drugs you know there's probably a gun. And it wasn't there.
But to mount a serious investigation of the sheriff, Samantha needed help.
Byron Pitts: Why would you hire a 20-year-old? His only journalism experience is working on his high school newspaper?
Samantha Swindler: Well, when you say it like that...
Byron Pitts: Well, it's true.
Samantha Swindler: Well he was smart and he knew about the community and he cared about local government.
Adam Sulfridge: My aunt overdosed. And the first question I had was, "I wonder if she got her drugs from somebody that the sheriff was, you know, protecting.
Adam went to work, combing through years of case files. He noted arrests where drugs and weapons were seized by the sheriff's department and should have been logged. It was tedious and time-consuming.
Adam Sulfridge: At that point I was working up to like 70 hours a week. It was-- it was insane and it wasn't healthy. But I was, you know, just driven. I knew I was onto something and I couldn't stop.
What he was onto was a series of felony cases -- involving guns and drugs -- in which deals were cut and sentences mysteriously reduced. What's more, the defense attorney in each case was Sheriff Hodge's close friend, Ron Reynolds. One case involved this man, Rick Benson, a retired social worker. In May 2004, Sheriff Hodge and his men raided Benson's house. In addition to drugs they found 17 guns. Benson had a previous felony conviction on drug and weapons charges, so was forbidden to own firearms.
Byron Pitts: You knew that you'd go to prison.
Rick Benson: Probably for the rest of my life.
Byron Pitts: We're you scared, were you anxious?
Rick Benson: Oh yeah, I was terrified.
Byron Pitts: Because?
Rick Benson: My world was over.
During the raid on the house, Sheriff Hodge found Benson's bank statement. There was $600,000 in his checking account, alone. Despite appearances, this self-described meth abuser was a millionaire, heir to a publishing fortune. The night of his arrest, Benson says Sheriff Hodge offered him a deal. If he cooperated, the sheriff would see that Benson was represented by his old friend, attorney Ron Reynolds.
Rick Benson: I had heard of Ron.
Byron Pitts: And his reputation was?
Rick Benson: He could get things fixed. He said, "I'll guarantee you misdemeanors. With no jail time, but you'll have to move out of Kentucky."
Byron Pitts: Did you think he was on the up and up?
Rick Benson: Well, no. If he was on the up and up, he wouldn't have been able to do that?
Byron Pitts: How much was his fee?
Rick Benson: $150,000.
Byron Pitts: $150,000 is a lot of money.
Rick Benson: The rest of your life in prison's a lot of time.
Rick Benson says he was also forced to pay the sheriff $10,000 in cash and make a donation to the sheriff's department of $25,000.
Adam Sulfridge: That's enough to make you say, "Okay, what's going on here?" But then whenever you see the actual cashier's check in that file, where he donated $25,000 to the sheriff's department as a condition of his plea agreement that's just, I mean that's crazy.
With information on that case and others, Samantha and Adam pressed Sheriff Hodge for an interview. He reluctantly agreed.
Adam Sulfridge: He was just all relaxed, leaning back in his chair, being that good ole boy.
Byron Pitts: The sheriff thought this was a field trip?
Adam Sulfridge: Yeah. You know, you got this, this, little out-of-towner girl and this 20-year-old college kid. We played along, we played nice for a very long time. Let him lie.
In the course of the interview, legally recorded without Sheriff's Hodge's knowledge, Adam asked him about the guns seized from Rick Benson. But the sheriff's answers didn't match the facts. He claimed the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, had them.
[Lawrence Hodge: I don't even know who Rick Benson is...
Adam Sulfridge: He was a big case.
Lawrence Hodge: Oh, that's ATF, yeah. How many guns were they?
Adam Sulfridge: Seventeen.
Lawrence Hodge: On Rick Benson?
Adam Sulfridge: Yeah.
Lawrence Hodge: They would've took those. I tell you, you probably need to have an ATF agent here with me if you want to talk about that.
Adam Sulfridge: So I need to ask them if they got those guns?
Lawrence Hodge: Well, you just need to ask them about the whole case.]
Byron Pitts: So when the sheriff said he'd given guns to the ATF, you knew he was lying?
Adam Sulfridge: They never took the guns. They never even opened a case in this situation. And once we had that, I mean you got a heck of a story.
Todd Tremaine: I was like, "Wow. I can't believe he just said that." And he just kept lying, lying, lying and I was giddy.
Byron Pitts: What do you make of that? That two 20-somethings--
Todd Tremaine: Right.
Byron Pitts: With pens and notebooks could do what seasoned law enforcement officers couldn't do?
Todd Tremaine: They weren't dangerous to him. I think Lawrence was thinking, "Hey, kids, let me show you how the sheriff's department works, you know. Here's the jail and here's Barney and, you know, everybody from Mayberry." But they caught him off guard 'cause they'd done their research.
The reporters then filed what's called an open records request, requiring the sheriff to show where Benson's guns were stored. But six days later, Adam received a startling phone call.
Adam Sulfridge: "The sheriff's department's been broken into." And, you know, that gets you outta bed real fast.
Samantha Swindler: That was my "we got you" moment. I knew that he had staged it. I knew it.
Sheriff Hodge claimed guns, drugs and other evidence had been stolen. The office was trashed, but the doors showed no sign of forced entry.
Todd Tremaine: It was just made to look like a burglary so they could explain for why the drugs and guns had been missing. And they had been missing for several years.
Byron Pitts: So what was Sheriff Hodge doing with these guns and drugs?
Todd Tremaine: Guns gave 'em to political friends, sold 'em, traded 'em for Oxycodone.
Byron Pitts: He became a drug addict.
Todd Tremaine: Yes. He was a very serious drug addict. He had a very bad addiction with prescription pain pills.
Adam and Samantha's interview with the sheriff and the phony burglary gave law enforcement the break they needed. The man who once thought himself "untouchable" was now feeling the heat. Days later, an undercover officer recorded Sheriff Hodge threatening to kill Adam.
Adam Sulfridge: He said, "I'm going to effin' kill him. And the informants, like, "You're just mad." And he goes, "No, you don't understand, I'm going to kill him. I've already been by his house. I know where he lives." Despite the threat, the Times-Tribune continued to publish damaging allegations against the sheriff. And a state audit suggested he may have been stealing money from the department.
Samantha Swindler: He was taking money and cashing it and during convenient times, like before a three-day weekend or right before his wife's birthday.
By May 2010, the people of Whitley County had had enough. They voted Sheriff Hodge out of office. Six months later, he was indicted by a state grand jury. The most powerful lawman in Whitley County, led away in handcuffs, in his uniform. But Lawrence Hodge still had influence. Around the same time, two local thugs - friends of the sheriff, drove to Adam's house.
Adam Sulfridge: The passenger in the vehicle gets out, approaches me without saying a word, puts his hand a little bit into his waistband and I just quickly pulled my pistol.
Byron Pitts: You had your pistol on you?
Adam Sulfridge: At that point I didn't go anywhere without being armed. He saw that it had left the holster. I didn't point it at him or anything. And he explained that they were out looking for junk metal on my dead end street, and that they would be going now.
Byron Pitts: You pulled a gun. Were you prepared to use it?
Adam Sulfridge: Well, you never pull a gun unless you're prepared to use it.
Following that encounter, federal authorities compelled Adam to leave town under their protection. Already facing state charges, Lawrence Hodge was also being pursued by federal investigators. Central to their case was attorney Ron Reynolds, the sheriff's accomplice in the shakedown of Rick Benson. Reynolds turned on his old friend, implicating the sheriff in the extortion scheme. Lawrence Hodge had no choice but to cop a plea.
Todd Tremaine: The prosecutor told him, "We could put you in prison for a very, very, very long time. Our case is solid. You will be convicted." You could see that he was defeated.
Last May, two years after Samantha and Adam launched their investigation, former sheriff Lawrence Hodge pleaded guilty to extortion, distributing drugs and money laundering. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. He declined our request for an interview.
Byron Pitts: That's mostly from the work you two did, right?
Samantha Swindler: Yes.
Samantha and Adam's reporting also led to the conviction of 15 of Lawrence Hodge's associates. Both journalists have since left the Times-Tribune. Samantha lives in Oregon, where she's editor and publisher of a small weekly. Adam, just a year out of college and unemployed, remains in Whitley County.
Byron Pitts: What went through your mind when you saw Sheriff Hodge in handcuffs, in his uniform?
Adam Sulfridge: You know a lot of people thought I'd be jumping for joy and, you know, all elated there that the sheriff got arrested. And it's really not. It's terrible that this happened. I hate to see for my community. I hate to see that plastered all over the place. You know, uh, Whitley County, synonymous now with a corrupt sheriff. I don't like that. I think-- I think the real story should be that a bunch of people here came together and, you know, cleaned it up.
Zimmerman Alleged Police Corruption
George Zimmerman Complained About Sanford Police in 2011
The Tampa Bay Times - May 24, 2012
ORLANDO, FL — George Zimmerman accused the Sanford police department of corruption more than a year before he shot Trayvon Martin, saying at a public forum the agency covered up the beating of a black homeless man by the son of a white officer. "I would just like to state that the law is written in black and white," he said during a 90-second statement to city commissioners at a community forum. "It should not and cannot be enforced in the gray for those who are in the thin blue line." The forum took place Jan. 8, 2011, days after a video of the beating went viral on the Internet and then-Sanford police Chief Brian Tooley was forced to retire. The department faced criticism for dragging its feet in arresting Justin Collison, the son of a police lieutenant. "I'd like to know what action the commission is taking in order to repeal Mr. Tooley's pension," Zimmerman said. "I'm not asking you to repeal his pension; I believe he's already forfeited his pension by his illegal coverup in corruption in what happened in his department." Zimmerman's public comments could be important because the Martin family and supporters contend the neighborhood watch volunteer singled Martin out because he was black. Supporters have said Zimmerman, who is half Peruvian and half white, is not racist. The Miami Herald first reported details from the January 2011 community forum Wednesday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the tape from the meeting. In the speech, Zimmerman said he witnessed "disgusting" behavior by officers when he was part of a ride-along program, though the agency said it did not know when, if ever, Zimmerman was in that program. "The officer showed me his favorite hiding spots for taking naps. He explained to me he doesn't carry a long gun in his vehicle because, in his words, 'Anything that requires a long gun requires a lot of paperwork and you're gonna find me as far away from it.' " Zimmerman also said the officer in question "took two lunch breaks and attended a going away party for one of his fellow officers." Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett and interim police Chief Richard Myers were both unavailable for comment. Zimmerman out on bond awaiting his second-degree murder trial for shooting Martin. Martin was walking back to a townhome he was staying at when he got into a fight with Zimmerman, who shot him in the chest at close range. Zimmerman, who said the Feb. 26 shooting was self-defense, was initially not arrested. But after protests around the country and an investigation by a state prosecutor, he was charged. Police Chief Bill Lee temporarily resigned his post following a no-confidence vote by city commissioners. He is on paid leave.
The Tampa Bay Times - May 24, 2012
ORLANDO, FL — George Zimmerman accused the Sanford police department of corruption more than a year before he shot Trayvon Martin, saying at a public forum the agency covered up the beating of a black homeless man by the son of a white officer. "I would just like to state that the law is written in black and white," he said during a 90-second statement to city commissioners at a community forum. "It should not and cannot be enforced in the gray for those who are in the thin blue line." The forum took place Jan. 8, 2011, days after a video of the beating went viral on the Internet and then-Sanford police Chief Brian Tooley was forced to retire. The department faced criticism for dragging its feet in arresting Justin Collison, the son of a police lieutenant. "I'd like to know what action the commission is taking in order to repeal Mr. Tooley's pension," Zimmerman said. "I'm not asking you to repeal his pension; I believe he's already forfeited his pension by his illegal coverup in corruption in what happened in his department." Zimmerman's public comments could be important because the Martin family and supporters contend the neighborhood watch volunteer singled Martin out because he was black. Supporters have said Zimmerman, who is half Peruvian and half white, is not racist. The Miami Herald first reported details from the January 2011 community forum Wednesday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the tape from the meeting. In the speech, Zimmerman said he witnessed "disgusting" behavior by officers when he was part of a ride-along program, though the agency said it did not know when, if ever, Zimmerman was in that program. "The officer showed me his favorite hiding spots for taking naps. He explained to me he doesn't carry a long gun in his vehicle because, in his words, 'Anything that requires a long gun requires a lot of paperwork and you're gonna find me as far away from it.' " Zimmerman also said the officer in question "took two lunch breaks and attended a going away party for one of his fellow officers." Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett and interim police Chief Richard Myers were both unavailable for comment. Zimmerman out on bond awaiting his second-degree murder trial for shooting Martin. Martin was walking back to a townhome he was staying at when he got into a fight with Zimmerman, who shot him in the chest at close range. Zimmerman, who said the Feb. 26 shooting was self-defense, was initially not arrested. But after protests around the country and an investigation by a state prosecutor, he was charged. Police Chief Bill Lee temporarily resigned his post following a no-confidence vote by city commissioners. He is on paid leave.
Cop in Hot Water Over Laundry Mischief
Police: PA Officer Broke into House, Did Laundry
The Associated Press - May 23, 2012
AVALON, Pa. — Dirty clothes have a Pittsburgh-area police officer in hot water. Rankin police Officer Jason Rocco is charged with trespassing and criminal mischief for allegedly breaking into a neighbor's home to wash his clothes. Rocco was arraigned Saturday and released on his own recognizance. WPXI-TV ( http://bit.ly/L6xvKc) reports the home's owner noticed his electric bill was unusually high, given that he hadn't lived in the house for months. When the owner visited, investigators say he found the dryer running with Rocco's clothes inside. Avalon police who questioned Rocco say he told investigators the home's back door was already broken and he "just had to do some laundry." A phone listing for Rocco could not be located Wednesday. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
The Associated Press - May 23, 2012
AVALON, Pa. — Dirty clothes have a Pittsburgh-area police officer in hot water. Rankin police Officer Jason Rocco is charged with trespassing and criminal mischief for allegedly breaking into a neighbor's home to wash his clothes. Rocco was arraigned Saturday and released on his own recognizance. WPXI-TV ( http://bit.ly/L6xvKc) reports the home's owner noticed his electric bill was unusually high, given that he hadn't lived in the house for months. When the owner visited, investigators say he found the dryer running with Rocco's clothes inside. Avalon police who questioned Rocco say he told investigators the home's back door was already broken and he "just had to do some laundry." A phone listing for Rocco could not be located Wednesday. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Report Says Widespread Sex Abuse by Prison Guards
Group alleges sexual abuse by guards in AL
The Associated Press - May 22, 2012
MONTGOMERY, AL — A prisoner's rights group is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to look into allegations that guards at an Alabama women's prison are sexually abusing the inmates incarcerated there. The Equal Justice Initiative filed the complaint on Thursday, claiming that guards at the Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka have raped inmates, sexually assaulted them, exchanged smuggled contraband for sexual favors and sexually harassed female prisoners. "This is a matter of grave concern to me. Sexual misconduct of any kind, including custodial sexual misconduct, is not tolerated by this Department," Corrections Department Commissioner Kim Thomas wrote in a statement. The U.S. Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director Bryan Stevenson said the group didn't have the numbers of how many instances of sexual abuse have occurred at the prison, but based on interviews with 50 victims and witnesses he said it was "pervasive." "Some of the problems are criminal in nature, some are structural and some deal with policy," Stevenson said. He said more than 20 Tutwiler employees had been fired or transferred in the last five years for having illegal sexual encounters with prisoners. He said female inmates have been raped and impregnated by guards, and with all but one exception received fewer than five days jail time for it. Stevenson said his group started its investigation of Tutwiler last summer when it was appointed by a federal judge to represent a woman who claimed to have been sexually assaulted. He said in the course of investigating her claim the Equal Justice Initiative heard from other women who said they had been assaulted by corrections officers. The group settled its client's assault complaint, but Stevenson said they asked the Justice Department to investigate further because they didn't see the Alabama Corrections Department making the changes they wanted after being presented with the findings of the investigation. "There doesn't seem to be the kind of reaction to this crime that is warranted," he said. In a news release, the Corrections Department said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy for inmate sexual offenses and custodial sexual misconduct. It said it has practices and procedures in place to identify, monitor and track alleged sexual assaults. The department says there are a number of ways for inmates and other to report abuse, including a hotline and writing or talking to members of prison staff. The Equal Justice Initiative claims that prison staff and administration punish women who report sexual misconduct by routinely placing them in segregation. While in segregation they are unable to send or receive phone calls, mail or personal visits. They don't have access to recreation, special programs or work. Stevenson says this creates an atmosphere of intimidation that discourages women from reporting sexual abuse. He said things like that need to change. "Male guards go into showers, they aren't restricted from going into bathrooms, even though there are plenty of female guards ... subtle things like that we've raised as issues that we'd like to see addressed, as well as not punishing women when they bring up these allegations," he said.
The Associated Press - May 22, 2012
MONTGOMERY, AL — A prisoner's rights group is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to look into allegations that guards at an Alabama women's prison are sexually abusing the inmates incarcerated there. The Equal Justice Initiative filed the complaint on Thursday, claiming that guards at the Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka have raped inmates, sexually assaulted them, exchanged smuggled contraband for sexual favors and sexually harassed female prisoners. "This is a matter of grave concern to me. Sexual misconduct of any kind, including custodial sexual misconduct, is not tolerated by this Department," Corrections Department Commissioner Kim Thomas wrote in a statement. The U.S. Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director Bryan Stevenson said the group didn't have the numbers of how many instances of sexual abuse have occurred at the prison, but based on interviews with 50 victims and witnesses he said it was "pervasive." "Some of the problems are criminal in nature, some are structural and some deal with policy," Stevenson said. He said more than 20 Tutwiler employees had been fired or transferred in the last five years for having illegal sexual encounters with prisoners. He said female inmates have been raped and impregnated by guards, and with all but one exception received fewer than five days jail time for it. Stevenson said his group started its investigation of Tutwiler last summer when it was appointed by a federal judge to represent a woman who claimed to have been sexually assaulted. He said in the course of investigating her claim the Equal Justice Initiative heard from other women who said they had been assaulted by corrections officers. The group settled its client's assault complaint, but Stevenson said they asked the Justice Department to investigate further because they didn't see the Alabama Corrections Department making the changes they wanted after being presented with the findings of the investigation. "There doesn't seem to be the kind of reaction to this crime that is warranted," he said. In a news release, the Corrections Department said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy for inmate sexual offenses and custodial sexual misconduct. It said it has practices and procedures in place to identify, monitor and track alleged sexual assaults. The department says there are a number of ways for inmates and other to report abuse, including a hotline and writing or talking to members of prison staff. The Equal Justice Initiative claims that prison staff and administration punish women who report sexual misconduct by routinely placing them in segregation. While in segregation they are unable to send or receive phone calls, mail or personal visits. They don't have access to recreation, special programs or work. Stevenson says this creates an atmosphere of intimidation that discourages women from reporting sexual abuse. He said things like that need to change. "Male guards go into showers, they aren't restricted from going into bathrooms, even though there are plenty of female guards ... subtle things like that we've raised as issues that we'd like to see addressed, as well as not punishing women when they bring up these allegations," he said.
Overtime Paid to Cops to Search for Chief's Son's Cellphone
If 10 Berkeley Cops Can't Get the Chief's Son's Phone Back, Your Vigilante Recovery Won't Work Either
The Atlantic - May 22, 2012
The iPhone comes with this great little app called "Find My Phone." Launch it from a computer and the software will use your phone's built-in communication tools to locate the device on a map. This is great if you've simply misplaced your phone. But what if it's actually been stolen? Our own Jared Keller discovered the perils of tracking down your phone. He knew roughly where it was -- an apartment building in northeast Washington, DC -- but had no idea how to get it back. The Washington police were not interested in going door to door in a big apartment building looking for some kid's phone, and besides nine other cell phones had been stolen on the same night. The problem isn't specific to Keller, though. It's general. If someone or someones are holding a piece of your stolen property, how are you actually going to retrieve it? The situation holds the potential for confrontation, violent or otherwise, and the resolution of the phone tracking isn't so precise that you can be 100% for sure where the device is. This is true even if you happen to be the police chief of a mid-size American city like Berkeley, California. The Oakland Tribune reports that Berkeley's police chief sent 10 police officers to track down his son's iPhone, after the kid had it jacked from his gym locker at Berkeley High. Civic discussions aside, the real kicker in the story is that even with all those cops swarming around San Pablo and 55th (a couple miles from where I'm sitting), they were not able to locate the phone! So, they had an active tracking signal and 10 cops and still came up empty handed. The boy alerted his father and Meehan pulled out his own cell phone and showed a property crimes detective sergeant the real time movement of the stolen phone. Given the active signal of the stolen phone, the detective sergeant took his team to try to locate it. As the signal was moving into the city of Oakland, the detective sergeant called the drug task force to ask for some additional assistance and members of that team offered to help, said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, department spokeswoman.. The four sergeants followed the signal to the area of 55th and San Pablo avenues in North Oakland, where they contacted residents at several homes looking for the phone. It was never located. If 10 cops who know a neighborhood can't find an iPhone that's broadcasting its location, that shouldn't give you a lot of confidence in your own vigilante recovery of a stolen iProduct. Just saying. Consider this a PSA: just buy a new phone.
The Atlantic - May 22, 2012
The iPhone comes with this great little app called "Find My Phone." Launch it from a computer and the software will use your phone's built-in communication tools to locate the device on a map. This is great if you've simply misplaced your phone. But what if it's actually been stolen? Our own Jared Keller discovered the perils of tracking down your phone. He knew roughly where it was -- an apartment building in northeast Washington, DC -- but had no idea how to get it back. The Washington police were not interested in going door to door in a big apartment building looking for some kid's phone, and besides nine other cell phones had been stolen on the same night. The problem isn't specific to Keller, though. It's general. If someone or someones are holding a piece of your stolen property, how are you actually going to retrieve it? The situation holds the potential for confrontation, violent or otherwise, and the resolution of the phone tracking isn't so precise that you can be 100% for sure where the device is. This is true even if you happen to be the police chief of a mid-size American city like Berkeley, California. The Oakland Tribune reports that Berkeley's police chief sent 10 police officers to track down his son's iPhone, after the kid had it jacked from his gym locker at Berkeley High. Civic discussions aside, the real kicker in the story is that even with all those cops swarming around San Pablo and 55th (a couple miles from where I'm sitting), they were not able to locate the phone! So, they had an active tracking signal and 10 cops and still came up empty handed. The boy alerted his father and Meehan pulled out his own cell phone and showed a property crimes detective sergeant the real time movement of the stolen phone. Given the active signal of the stolen phone, the detective sergeant took his team to try to locate it. As the signal was moving into the city of Oakland, the detective sergeant called the drug task force to ask for some additional assistance and members of that team offered to help, said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, department spokeswoman.. The four sergeants followed the signal to the area of 55th and San Pablo avenues in North Oakland, where they contacted residents at several homes looking for the phone. It was never located. If 10 cops who know a neighborhood can't find an iPhone that's broadcasting its location, that shouldn't give you a lot of confidence in your own vigilante recovery of a stolen iProduct. Just saying. Consider this a PSA: just buy a new phone.
On-Duty Officer Arrested on Drug Charges
Gloucester Township patrolman Tom Eden Jr. arrested on drug charges
The Gloucester County Times by Don E. Woods - April 5, 2012
GLOUCESTER TWP., NJ — An on-duty police officer exited a Howard Johnson motel room Tuesday afternoon after purchasing five Percocet pills and two Oxycontin placebo pills, according to police. Before he could reach his patrol car parked outside on the Black Horse Pike, Gloucester Township Police arrested the uniformed officer — their colleague — for possession. Authorities charged Tom Eden Jr., a patrolman with Gloucester Township Police for seven and a half years, with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of an imitation controlled dangerous substance, possession of a weapon during a controlled dangerous substance offense and possession with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance. Eden was processed at the township police headquarters and released on his own recognizance. The 31-year-old officer is now suspended from the police department without pay with intent to dismiss. As of Wednesday, no court date had been set for Eden. During a press conference at the Gloucester Township municipal building on Wednesday afternoon, Chief of Police W. Harry Earle said the investigation began when an anonymous civilian tipped off a Gloucester Township patrol officer. The civilian alleged that Eden was illegally purchasing prescription pills. After an investigation by the police’s Internal Affairs Bureau with guidance from the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office, police organized a buy between Eden and a confidential informant. Eden was arrested without incident, police said. After the arrest, according to Earle, two pills of Alazopram and one pill of Oxycodone were also found in Eden’s possession. “I am angered that Mr. Eden allegedly abused his position of trust by violating the very laws he swore to uphold and defend as a Gloucester Township Police officer,” Earle said during the press conference. “These actions are clearly not consistent with the ethical and moral standards of the Gloucester Township Police Department and will never be tolerated.” Earle said that he is proud of the 178 sworn and civil employees of the police department and points to the initial tip, given to an officer from an unfamiliar civilian, as an example of the amount of faith the community has in the department. The investigation is still ongoing. As part of a normal review, past arrests made by Eden are currently being investigated, Earle said, but there is no cause for concern yet. Police urge anybody with additional information about possible improper or illegal contact involving Eden to contact the Professional Standards Bureau at 856-374-5707 or the anonymous tip line at 856-842-5560. Earle calls prescription pill abuse a national problem and said this incident shows how it can affect anybody. “What this incident shows is that prescription drug addiction is a silent epidemic that affects every community,” said township Mayor David R. Mayer added. Mayer thanked Earle and the department for the professionalism and the work they put into making the arrest. “It was through the work of the men and women who proudly wear the uniform of the Gloucester Township police officer that we were able to take an individual, who was sworn to uphold the law, off the streets of Gloucester Township,” the mayor said. “What this incident shows is that this behavior will not be tolerated in Gloucester township,” the mayor said.
The Gloucester County Times by Don E. Woods - April 5, 2012
GLOUCESTER TWP., NJ — An on-duty police officer exited a Howard Johnson motel room Tuesday afternoon after purchasing five Percocet pills and two Oxycontin placebo pills, according to police. Before he could reach his patrol car parked outside on the Black Horse Pike, Gloucester Township Police arrested the uniformed officer — their colleague — for possession. Authorities charged Tom Eden Jr., a patrolman with Gloucester Township Police for seven and a half years, with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of an imitation controlled dangerous substance, possession of a weapon during a controlled dangerous substance offense and possession with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance. Eden was processed at the township police headquarters and released on his own recognizance. The 31-year-old officer is now suspended from the police department without pay with intent to dismiss. As of Wednesday, no court date had been set for Eden. During a press conference at the Gloucester Township municipal building on Wednesday afternoon, Chief of Police W. Harry Earle said the investigation began when an anonymous civilian tipped off a Gloucester Township patrol officer. The civilian alleged that Eden was illegally purchasing prescription pills. After an investigation by the police’s Internal Affairs Bureau with guidance from the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office, police organized a buy between Eden and a confidential informant. Eden was arrested without incident, police said. After the arrest, according to Earle, two pills of Alazopram and one pill of Oxycodone were also found in Eden’s possession. “I am angered that Mr. Eden allegedly abused his position of trust by violating the very laws he swore to uphold and defend as a Gloucester Township Police officer,” Earle said during the press conference. “These actions are clearly not consistent with the ethical and moral standards of the Gloucester Township Police Department and will never be tolerated.” Earle said that he is proud of the 178 sworn and civil employees of the police department and points to the initial tip, given to an officer from an unfamiliar civilian, as an example of the amount of faith the community has in the department. The investigation is still ongoing. As part of a normal review, past arrests made by Eden are currently being investigated, Earle said, but there is no cause for concern yet. Police urge anybody with additional information about possible improper or illegal contact involving Eden to contact the Professional Standards Bureau at 856-374-5707 or the anonymous tip line at 856-842-5560. Earle calls prescription pill abuse a national problem and said this incident shows how it can affect anybody. “What this incident shows is that prescription drug addiction is a silent epidemic that affects every community,” said township Mayor David R. Mayer added. Mayer thanked Earle and the department for the professionalism and the work they put into making the arrest. “It was through the work of the men and women who proudly wear the uniform of the Gloucester Township police officer that we were able to take an individual, who was sworn to uphold the law, off the streets of Gloucester Township,” the mayor said. “What this incident shows is that this behavior will not be tolerated in Gloucester township,” the mayor said.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
OPINION - Stop and Frisk is Sound Policing
The NYPD use of stop, question and frisk is sound policing
The New York Daily News - OPINION - May 21, 2012
Ray Kelly and his cops are protecting lives and safeguarding rights - Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has keep up his successful stop, question and frisk policy.
The Police Department’s most strident critics accuse the cops of racial profiling because blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to be stopped, questioned and sometimes frisked. Based solely on the statistics, they charge the police with improperly taking background into account, thereby conducting thousands of stops that violate constitutional rights. Among those who hold this unfounded view is Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin, who has exposed the department to a class-action lawsuit that is grounded in theories and numbers amassed, it seems, to confirm her rather skewed personal opinions. Given this focus on racial profiling by the numbers, now is an opportune moment to discuss the phenomenon candidly and to state that the NYPD would be better held responsible for profiling that has produced enormous good for the city’s minorities. Blacks and Hispanics suffer the brunt of crime to a far greater degree than whites, and poor communities have benefited most as the NYPD has driven felonies down to record levels. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly presents remarkably startling numbers on the topic in an adjacent Op-Ed. As but one example, he notes that, according to the Health Department, residents of predominantly black Brownsville, Brooklyn, have been 30 times more likely to be murdered than residents of the largely white Murray Hill section of Manhattan.
Meanwhile, the NYPD on Friday published its annual report on murder in the city, this volume covering 2011. The document showed that blacks compose 23% of the population but represent 62% of murder victims and 59% of murder suspects — proportions that are roughly in line with the number of blacks who are stopped for questioning. Most startling, and of greatest import, the report revealed that from 2010 to 2011, the number of black murder victims dropped by 10%, accounting for the full decline in slayings citywide that year. The NYPD is obviously paying attention to the city’s black and Hispanic neighborhoods, including with the stop and question effort as well as Operation Impact, which floods high-crime areas with cops. Profiling? You make the call. Murder has continued to trend downward. As of Friday, the city had experienced 136 slayings this year — 20% fewer than last year on a pace that would achieve an astounding breakthrough in saved lives. It won’t happen on its own. New York is a still a place of tentative peace. As the Daily News reports Monday, shootings are up for the year by about 6%, again with the violence concentrated in minority neighborhoods — exactly where police must continue to stop and question people when the cops have a reasonable suspicion of criminality. Many of the department’s critics — including Scheindlin — suggest with no more than numbers and unconfirmed anecdotes that the police are stopping people willy nilly without the requisite reasonable suspicion. Perhaps they will think otherwise after reading Pete Donohue’s column in Monday’s News. Donohue interviewed Steve McCallister, who commanded the NYPD’s Transit Bureau from 2005 to 2008. McCallister, now a police chief on Long Island, said that, for purposes of quality control, he checked on the criminal histories of everyone his officers had stopped and questioned in the subway system. He discovered that half had criminal records. What this all adds up to is not racial profiling. It’s criminal profiling.
The New York Daily News - OPINION - May 21, 2012
Ray Kelly and his cops are protecting lives and safeguarding rights - Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has keep up his successful stop, question and frisk policy.
The Police Department’s most strident critics accuse the cops of racial profiling because blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to be stopped, questioned and sometimes frisked. Based solely on the statistics, they charge the police with improperly taking background into account, thereby conducting thousands of stops that violate constitutional rights. Among those who hold this unfounded view is Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin, who has exposed the department to a class-action lawsuit that is grounded in theories and numbers amassed, it seems, to confirm her rather skewed personal opinions. Given this focus on racial profiling by the numbers, now is an opportune moment to discuss the phenomenon candidly and to state that the NYPD would be better held responsible for profiling that has produced enormous good for the city’s minorities. Blacks and Hispanics suffer the brunt of crime to a far greater degree than whites, and poor communities have benefited most as the NYPD has driven felonies down to record levels. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly presents remarkably startling numbers on the topic in an adjacent Op-Ed. As but one example, he notes that, according to the Health Department, residents of predominantly black Brownsville, Brooklyn, have been 30 times more likely to be murdered than residents of the largely white Murray Hill section of Manhattan.
Meanwhile, the NYPD on Friday published its annual report on murder in the city, this volume covering 2011. The document showed that blacks compose 23% of the population but represent 62% of murder victims and 59% of murder suspects — proportions that are roughly in line with the number of blacks who are stopped for questioning. Most startling, and of greatest import, the report revealed that from 2010 to 2011, the number of black murder victims dropped by 10%, accounting for the full decline in slayings citywide that year. The NYPD is obviously paying attention to the city’s black and Hispanic neighborhoods, including with the stop and question effort as well as Operation Impact, which floods high-crime areas with cops. Profiling? You make the call. Murder has continued to trend downward. As of Friday, the city had experienced 136 slayings this year — 20% fewer than last year on a pace that would achieve an astounding breakthrough in saved lives. It won’t happen on its own. New York is a still a place of tentative peace. As the Daily News reports Monday, shootings are up for the year by about 6%, again with the violence concentrated in minority neighborhoods — exactly where police must continue to stop and question people when the cops have a reasonable suspicion of criminality. Many of the department’s critics — including Scheindlin — suggest with no more than numbers and unconfirmed anecdotes that the police are stopping people willy nilly without the requisite reasonable suspicion. Perhaps they will think otherwise after reading Pete Donohue’s column in Monday’s News. Donohue interviewed Steve McCallister, who commanded the NYPD’s Transit Bureau from 2005 to 2008. McCallister, now a police chief on Long Island, said that, for purposes of quality control, he checked on the criminal histories of everyone his officers had stopped and questioned in the subway system. He discovered that half had criminal records. What this all adds up to is not racial profiling. It’s criminal profiling.
Homeland Security Corruption Investigated
Federal Diary: House subcommittee looks into Homeland Security corruption
The Washington Post by Joe Davidson - May 17, 2012
On a gorgeous spring Thursday, kids on class trips were all over the Capitol grounds, many in matching T-shirts, posing for pictures on the granite steps. They were having a great time learning history and about how government works. If they had crossed Independence Avenue and squeezed into a Cannon House Office Building hearing room, they also would have witnessed how government is not supposed to work. A House subcommittee hearing Thursday examined Department of Homeland Security ethics standards and found them repeatedly violated. Make no mistake: Everyone who spoke stressed that almost all workers are honest and law-abiding. “There are over 220,000 Department of Homeland Security employees who work every day to secure our homeland from dangerous threats and natural disasters,” said Rep. William R. Keating (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. “I would like to thank them for their service.” But that isn’t good enough, not for federal agencies under the eye of Congress. A few crooked or foolish staffers draw attention from everyone else, as General Services Administration and Secret Service scandals recently have demonstrated. Keating said the number of allegations against employees investigated by just one DHS office “is staggering.” Plus, as Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the full committee, said in a statement: “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Testimony pointed to several weak links in the DHS chain. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on oversight, investigations and management, set the tone for the hearing in his opening statement: “There have been many reports of federal employees wasting taxpayer dollars, and in some cases committing crimes, which erodes the trust American people have in our government. . . . We have also found criminal activity in our bureaucracies; Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel collaborating with drug smugglers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel filing fraudulent travel claims and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel stealing personal belongings of passengers.”
According to information released at the hearing: 138 CBP agents have been charged with corruption since 2004; during that same period, more than 2,000 CBP employees have been charged in other criminal cases; an ICE agent pleaded guilty to 21 criminal counts in February; a former ICE intelligence chief is accused of embezzling more than $180,000, and four other ICE employees have pleaded guilty in the scheme; and a recent 22-count indictment says Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees in Los Angeles took bribes to allow drug couriers safe passage through airport security. Mexican drug cartels are particularly interested in getting help with border smuggling. Charles K. Edwards, the department’s acting inspector general, said “the drug trafficking organizations have turned to recruiting and corrupting DHS employees. The obvious targets of corruption are Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers who can facilitate and aid in smuggling; less obvious are those employees who can provide access to sensitive law enforcement and intelligence information, allowing the cartels to track investigative activity or vet their members against law enforcement databases.” It’s not always a matter of turning a good officer bad. Sometimes, the bad pretend to be good just to get on the inside. “In some cases, I believe that their sole purpose in wanting to become a Customs and Border Protection officer or Border Patrol officer is to infiltrate us,” said acting CBP Deputy Commissioner Thomas Winkowski. McCaul and Keating were pleased that Winkowski appeared to represent his agency, but they were not happy that TSA and ICE sent lower-level officials. They all emphasized what their agencies are doing to fight corruption. To Keating, the absence of top administrators “says something about how seriously they are taking this issue, or how not seriously they’re taking this issue.” McCaul expressed his “extreme disappointment.” In response, DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said by e-mail that the department sent “senior agency officials, including those responsible for the day to day oversight of ethical standards and professional conduct for this hearing. . . . The Department respects Congressional oversight and we look forward to continuing to work with the Committee on this important issue.” The hearing indicated there’s lots of work to do. Although all allegations about DHS vice have not been proven, Keating said “they are a testament to the fact that eliminating public corruption at the Department of Homeland Security is in dire need of improvement.” Follow the Federal Diary on Twitter: @JoeDavidsonWP
The Washington Post by Joe Davidson - May 17, 2012
On a gorgeous spring Thursday, kids on class trips were all over the Capitol grounds, many in matching T-shirts, posing for pictures on the granite steps. They were having a great time learning history and about how government works. If they had crossed Independence Avenue and squeezed into a Cannon House Office Building hearing room, they also would have witnessed how government is not supposed to work. A House subcommittee hearing Thursday examined Department of Homeland Security ethics standards and found them repeatedly violated. Make no mistake: Everyone who spoke stressed that almost all workers are honest and law-abiding. “There are over 220,000 Department of Homeland Security employees who work every day to secure our homeland from dangerous threats and natural disasters,” said Rep. William R. Keating (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. “I would like to thank them for their service.” But that isn’t good enough, not for federal agencies under the eye of Congress. A few crooked or foolish staffers draw attention from everyone else, as General Services Administration and Secret Service scandals recently have demonstrated. Keating said the number of allegations against employees investigated by just one DHS office “is staggering.” Plus, as Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the full committee, said in a statement: “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Testimony pointed to several weak links in the DHS chain. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on oversight, investigations and management, set the tone for the hearing in his opening statement: “There have been many reports of federal employees wasting taxpayer dollars, and in some cases committing crimes, which erodes the trust American people have in our government. . . . We have also found criminal activity in our bureaucracies; Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel collaborating with drug smugglers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel filing fraudulent travel claims and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel stealing personal belongings of passengers.”
According to information released at the hearing: 138 CBP agents have been charged with corruption since 2004; during that same period, more than 2,000 CBP employees have been charged in other criminal cases; an ICE agent pleaded guilty to 21 criminal counts in February; a former ICE intelligence chief is accused of embezzling more than $180,000, and four other ICE employees have pleaded guilty in the scheme; and a recent 22-count indictment says Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees in Los Angeles took bribes to allow drug couriers safe passage through airport security. Mexican drug cartels are particularly interested in getting help with border smuggling. Charles K. Edwards, the department’s acting inspector general, said “the drug trafficking organizations have turned to recruiting and corrupting DHS employees. The obvious targets of corruption are Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers who can facilitate and aid in smuggling; less obvious are those employees who can provide access to sensitive law enforcement and intelligence information, allowing the cartels to track investigative activity or vet their members against law enforcement databases.” It’s not always a matter of turning a good officer bad. Sometimes, the bad pretend to be good just to get on the inside. “In some cases, I believe that their sole purpose in wanting to become a Customs and Border Protection officer or Border Patrol officer is to infiltrate us,” said acting CBP Deputy Commissioner Thomas Winkowski. McCaul and Keating were pleased that Winkowski appeared to represent his agency, but they were not happy that TSA and ICE sent lower-level officials. They all emphasized what their agencies are doing to fight corruption. To Keating, the absence of top administrators “says something about how seriously they are taking this issue, or how not seriously they’re taking this issue.” McCaul expressed his “extreme disappointment.” In response, DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said by e-mail that the department sent “senior agency officials, including those responsible for the day to day oversight of ethical standards and professional conduct for this hearing. . . . The Department respects Congressional oversight and we look forward to continuing to work with the Committee on this important issue.” The hearing indicated there’s lots of work to do. Although all allegations about DHS vice have not been proven, Keating said “they are a testament to the fact that eliminating public corruption at the Department of Homeland Security is in dire need of improvement.” Follow the Federal Diary on Twitter: @JoeDavidsonWP
Ex-Cop Sentenced For Civil Rights And Firearms Violations
Ex JPD Officer Sentenced For Civil Rights and Firearms Violations
WNWS by Ketih Sherley - May 21, 2012
Jackson, TN. – Today in United States District Court Judge J. Daniel Breen sentenced former Jackson Police Department officer 36-year-old Marvent Brooks to 22 months in prison for civil rights and firearms violations. That announcement coming from United States Attorney Edward L. Stanton, III; Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas E. Perez; Special Agent in Charge of the Memphis Federal Bureau of Investigation Field Office Aaron T. Ford; Special Agent in Charge of the Nashville Field Division of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Glenn N. Anderson; and Chief of Police Gill Kendrick of the Jackson, Tennessee Police Department. Brooks was also sentenced to three years supervised release following his incarceration. Brooks pled guilty on January 13, 2012, to conspiring with former Jackson police officer David Dreblow to violate the civil rights of a shooting victim by stealing approximately $1200 from him while they processed the crime scene. On the same day, Brooks pled guilty to illegally possessing a short-barreled shotgun in violation of federal law. Brooks’ co-defendant, David Dreblow, pled guilty to conspiracy to violate civil rights on April 3, 2012, and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 5, 2012. Brooks and Dreblow are also being prosecuted for state crimes relating to the theft by the Madison County District Attorney General’s Office. “We will continue to hold law enforcement officers that choose to violate the law and the oath they took to protect and serve accountable for their criminal conduct,” said United States Attorney Edward L. Stanton, III. “This guilty plea should serve as an unequivocal warning to those few law enforcement officers that disgrace their badge and violate the public’s trust that you will ultimately be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” “A community should expect police officers to enforce our laws and not break them,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The department will continue to aggressively prosecute officers who abuse the public trust by engaging in acts of criminal conduct.” “Public corruption among law enforcement officers endangers the citizens of our communities, the very people who look to law enforcement for protection,” said Special Agent in Charge Ford. “These violations are among the most serious criminal offenses the FBI investigates, and the Memphis Division of the FBI will continue to work with our partners to bring corrupt officers to justice.” “Brooks was once an officer who served the Jackson community. In the near future he will be serving federal prison time for the choices he made. It is an embarrassing role reversal,” stated ATF Special Agent in Charge Glenn Anderson. “Law enforcement officers take an oath to uphold the law the first day they are hired. Those who fall short of that daily responsibility need to be held accountable.” "I fully agree with the statements of U.S. Attorney Stanton", said Deputy Chief Barry Michael. "We hold our officers to a higher ethical standard, not only to abide by the laws they are tasked with enforcing, but also to provide the protection and service that our citizens deserve. All of the good men and women, who choose this profession, are affected when only a few of the many make a decision to violate the oath that they swore to uphold. The Jackson Police Department seeks to maintain the highest degree of professionalism and is an agency full of professional and talented officers who are committed to their jobs and service to this community. We will continue to take whatever steps necessary to secure and maintain the respect and trust of the citizens we serve and our colleagues in the agencies we join forces with on a daily basis." The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the Jackson, Tennessee, Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan Skrmetti and Trial Attorney
WNWS by Ketih Sherley - May 21, 2012
Jackson, TN. – Today in United States District Court Judge J. Daniel Breen sentenced former Jackson Police Department officer 36-year-old Marvent Brooks to 22 months in prison for civil rights and firearms violations. That announcement coming from United States Attorney Edward L. Stanton, III; Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas E. Perez; Special Agent in Charge of the Memphis Federal Bureau of Investigation Field Office Aaron T. Ford; Special Agent in Charge of the Nashville Field Division of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Glenn N. Anderson; and Chief of Police Gill Kendrick of the Jackson, Tennessee Police Department. Brooks was also sentenced to three years supervised release following his incarceration. Brooks pled guilty on January 13, 2012, to conspiring with former Jackson police officer David Dreblow to violate the civil rights of a shooting victim by stealing approximately $1200 from him while they processed the crime scene. On the same day, Brooks pled guilty to illegally possessing a short-barreled shotgun in violation of federal law. Brooks’ co-defendant, David Dreblow, pled guilty to conspiracy to violate civil rights on April 3, 2012, and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 5, 2012. Brooks and Dreblow are also being prosecuted for state crimes relating to the theft by the Madison County District Attorney General’s Office. “We will continue to hold law enforcement officers that choose to violate the law and the oath they took to protect and serve accountable for their criminal conduct,” said United States Attorney Edward L. Stanton, III. “This guilty plea should serve as an unequivocal warning to those few law enforcement officers that disgrace their badge and violate the public’s trust that you will ultimately be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” “A community should expect police officers to enforce our laws and not break them,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The department will continue to aggressively prosecute officers who abuse the public trust by engaging in acts of criminal conduct.” “Public corruption among law enforcement officers endangers the citizens of our communities, the very people who look to law enforcement for protection,” said Special Agent in Charge Ford. “These violations are among the most serious criminal offenses the FBI investigates, and the Memphis Division of the FBI will continue to work with our partners to bring corrupt officers to justice.” “Brooks was once an officer who served the Jackson community. In the near future he will be serving federal prison time for the choices he made. It is an embarrassing role reversal,” stated ATF Special Agent in Charge Glenn Anderson. “Law enforcement officers take an oath to uphold the law the first day they are hired. Those who fall short of that daily responsibility need to be held accountable.” "I fully agree with the statements of U.S. Attorney Stanton", said Deputy Chief Barry Michael. "We hold our officers to a higher ethical standard, not only to abide by the laws they are tasked with enforcing, but also to provide the protection and service that our citizens deserve. All of the good men and women, who choose this profession, are affected when only a few of the many make a decision to violate the oath that they swore to uphold. The Jackson Police Department seeks to maintain the highest degree of professionalism and is an agency full of professional and talented officers who are committed to their jobs and service to this community. We will continue to take whatever steps necessary to secure and maintain the respect and trust of the citizens we serve and our colleagues in the agencies we join forces with on a daily basis." The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the Jackson, Tennessee, Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan Skrmetti and Trial Attorney
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Right to Record
The Right to Record
The New York Times - OPINION - May 20, 2012
The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department took an important stand last week, declaring that citizens have a First Amendment right to videotape the actions of police officers in public places and that seizure or destruction of such recordings violates constitutional rights. The Justice Department made the statement in a federal lawsuit brought against the Baltimore Police Department by Christopher Sharp, who used his cellphone to take video of the police arresting and beating a friend at Pimlico on the day of the 2010 Preakness. The officers took Mr. Sharp’s cellphone while he was recording and wiped the phone clean of all videos before returning it to him. The Courts of Appeals for the First and Seventh Circuits have wisely found that the Constitution protects the right to videotape police officers while they perform official duties. The video taken by another witness of the beating at Pimlico shows that the right to record is crucial to holding police accountable for their actions. Mr. Sharp sued for damages to his personal property and for injunctive relief in the form of a clear policy on videotaping consistent with the Constitution and also training for the police. The judge hearing the case arranged a settlement conference for May 30, though the case is far from being settled. Last November, the Police Department issued an order paying lip service to the right of citizens to make “video recording of police activity.” But the day after that order became public, as The Baltimore Sun reported, police officers were caught on video threatening to arrest for loitering a man who was recording them as they surrounded and held someone on the ground. It is essential that the Justice Department and federal courts make clear that police departments will be held liable for violating this constitutionally protected right.
The New York Times - OPINION - May 20, 2012
The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department took an important stand last week, declaring that citizens have a First Amendment right to videotape the actions of police officers in public places and that seizure or destruction of such recordings violates constitutional rights. The Justice Department made the statement in a federal lawsuit brought against the Baltimore Police Department by Christopher Sharp, who used his cellphone to take video of the police arresting and beating a friend at Pimlico on the day of the 2010 Preakness. The officers took Mr. Sharp’s cellphone while he was recording and wiped the phone clean of all videos before returning it to him. The Courts of Appeals for the First and Seventh Circuits have wisely found that the Constitution protects the right to videotape police officers while they perform official duties. The video taken by another witness of the beating at Pimlico shows that the right to record is crucial to holding police accountable for their actions. Mr. Sharp sued for damages to his personal property and for injunctive relief in the form of a clear policy on videotaping consistent with the Constitution and also training for the police. The judge hearing the case arranged a settlement conference for May 30, though the case is far from being settled. Last November, the Police Department issued an order paying lip service to the right of citizens to make “video recording of police activity.” But the day after that order became public, as The Baltimore Sun reported, police officers were caught on video threatening to arrest for loitering a man who was recording them as they surrounded and held someone on the ground. It is essential that the Justice Department and federal courts make clear that police departments will be held liable for violating this constitutionally protected right.
Cop Cleared of Rape Considers Lawsuit Against Prosecutor
Cop cleared of rape weighs suit
The New York Post by Brad Hamilton - May 20, 2012
He was cleared of raping a drunken woman while on duty, and now he wants his pound of flesh. Disgraced ex-cop Kenneth Moreno is eyeing a potentially multimillion-dollar civil suit against the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and HBO, which filmed the DA’s sex-crime unit as it prepped its case against Moreno and his ex-partner Franklin Mata, Moreno’s lawyer said. “It’s a civil-rights action,” said attorney Eric Sanders. A jury cleared the two cops of sexually assaulting the passed-out fashion exec in 2008, but found them guilty of official misconduct for repeatedly returning to her East Village apartment and lying about it. But Moreno feels he was wronged, said Sanders, who claims prosecutors tried to frame his client by planting evidence. The evidence, he said, was a red Bic lighter that the DA team said was found under the accuser’s bed. “They claimed the lighter was Moreno’s and his DNA was on it but none of that is true,” Sanders said. “He doesn’t even smoke.”
The New York Post by Brad Hamilton - May 20, 2012
He was cleared of raping a drunken woman while on duty, and now he wants his pound of flesh. Disgraced ex-cop Kenneth Moreno is eyeing a potentially multimillion-dollar civil suit against the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and HBO, which filmed the DA’s sex-crime unit as it prepped its case against Moreno and his ex-partner Franklin Mata, Moreno’s lawyer said. “It’s a civil-rights action,” said attorney Eric Sanders. A jury cleared the two cops of sexually assaulting the passed-out fashion exec in 2008, but found them guilty of official misconduct for repeatedly returning to her East Village apartment and lying about it. But Moreno feels he was wronged, said Sanders, who claims prosecutors tried to frame his client by planting evidence. The evidence, he said, was a red Bic lighter that the DA team said was found under the accuser’s bed. “They claimed the lighter was Moreno’s and his DNA was on it but none of that is true,” Sanders said. “He doesn’t even smoke.”
Former Captain Didn't Fudge Numbers, He Just 'Delayed' Disclosure
Former NYPD captain didn't fudge crime statistics in past - he 'delayed' in reporting them
The New York Daily News by Ernie Naspretto - SPECIAL TO THE NEWS - February 7, 2010
Former NYPD captain Ernie Naspretto says he delayed in reporting crime statistics til after midnight on New Year's Eve, 1997.
I had no idea if crime statistics were fudged at Brooklyn's 81st Precinct. A probe reported exclusively by the Daily News last week will determine that. But I definitely know the pressure every precinct commanding officer in this city feels - week by week, month by month and year to year - to keep crime down. I'm a retired NYPD captain. I was the commanding officer of Bensonhurst's 62nd Precinct from June 1997 to July 1999. The "6-2" is by no means a high-crime area, but you would have never known that if you saw me on New Year's Eve, 1997. It was the last night of the year, and my Compstat figures, which measure the seven major types of crimes in a given precinct, were looking a little scary. Just six crimes before midnight - anything from murder to a car theft to a mugging - would mean I would break even with 1996 crime levels. Every other precinct in Patrol Borough Brooklyn South had numbers that were coming in well below the prior year. All their commanding officers were home celebrating the new year with their families. Yet there I was, working 2 p.m. to midnight, in my full captain's uniform with my white shirt and gold bars, hanging out in the precinct complaint room, known as the "124 room." I might've been the only captain in history to walk into a 124 room. I hadn't been inside one since I was a sergeant. That sort of work is left mostly to officers. People who came into the stationhouse couldn't believe the precinct captain was there to greet them and take their crime report. The supervisors and cops looked at me like I was nuts, or more accurately, just pathetic. But there was no way I was going to be the only captain in Brooklyn South who couldn't beat last year's figures.
The News reported last week that a cop at the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant complained to internal investigators that his superiors were refusing to take complaints or artificially downgrading felonies to misdemeanors to make their numbers look good. Well, the only thing that has changed for commanding officers since 1997 is that numbers are getting harder and harder to beat, and the pressure to do some dumb things is getting stronger and stronger. So what did I do that night? Did I fudge crime stats? Did I send crime victims on their way with no satisfaction? Absolutely not! I just ... delayed. I might have taken the complaints, but nothing was getting logged in the computer - and therefore would not "officially" count in Compstat - until after midnight. Until 1998. The complainants were happy. They got personal service from the captain. The 124 room civilian personnel were happy. They got to relax that night because nothing was going into that computer until I said so. More importantly, the borough commander and, ultimately, the police commissioner, were happy because Bensonhurst came in one so-called "index" crime below the year before. CRIME WAS DOWN IN ALL OF BROOKLYN SOUTH! Well, not really, because seven index crimes measured in Compstat were reported by victims from 2 p.m. to midnight, but since I prepared and reviewed the hand-written "scratch" copies, only five crimes could possibly be entered into the computer program by midnight. The other two were typed in sometime in the early hours of 1998 - a new year! Did that make me corrupt or unethical? Maybe. Who cares now? All I know is I didn't get any nasty calls or threats from "downtown" on Jan. 2. Compstat, started in 1994, is no doubt largely responsible for New York's resurgence. It is our single greatest crime-fighting tool - but the paranoia has to stop. Crime cannot go down forever. Let's get real. Even if crime were to go up 10%, it would still be at around mid-1960's levels. Crime is never good, but a paranoid police department is worse than a slight increase in crime. Politicians and police brass better get a grip quickly or cops may start seeing things they really didn't see. Or crimes that really happened maybe didn't happen. Ernie Naspretto was an NYPD police officer from July 1981 to July 2001, retiring as a captain. He covered the NYPD as a reporter for the New York Daily News from July 2006 until October 2007. Today he is an affiliate police instructor for the Penn State Justice and Safety Institute and is a security trainer and consultant.
The New York Daily News by Ernie Naspretto - SPECIAL TO THE NEWS - February 7, 2010
Former NYPD captain Ernie Naspretto says he delayed in reporting crime statistics til after midnight on New Year's Eve, 1997.
I had no idea if crime statistics were fudged at Brooklyn's 81st Precinct. A probe reported exclusively by the Daily News last week will determine that. But I definitely know the pressure every precinct commanding officer in this city feels - week by week, month by month and year to year - to keep crime down. I'm a retired NYPD captain. I was the commanding officer of Bensonhurst's 62nd Precinct from June 1997 to July 1999. The "6-2" is by no means a high-crime area, but you would have never known that if you saw me on New Year's Eve, 1997. It was the last night of the year, and my Compstat figures, which measure the seven major types of crimes in a given precinct, were looking a little scary. Just six crimes before midnight - anything from murder to a car theft to a mugging - would mean I would break even with 1996 crime levels. Every other precinct in Patrol Borough Brooklyn South had numbers that were coming in well below the prior year. All their commanding officers were home celebrating the new year with their families. Yet there I was, working 2 p.m. to midnight, in my full captain's uniform with my white shirt and gold bars, hanging out in the precinct complaint room, known as the "124 room." I might've been the only captain in history to walk into a 124 room. I hadn't been inside one since I was a sergeant. That sort of work is left mostly to officers. People who came into the stationhouse couldn't believe the precinct captain was there to greet them and take their crime report. The supervisors and cops looked at me like I was nuts, or more accurately, just pathetic. But there was no way I was going to be the only captain in Brooklyn South who couldn't beat last year's figures.
The News reported last week that a cop at the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant complained to internal investigators that his superiors were refusing to take complaints or artificially downgrading felonies to misdemeanors to make their numbers look good. Well, the only thing that has changed for commanding officers since 1997 is that numbers are getting harder and harder to beat, and the pressure to do some dumb things is getting stronger and stronger. So what did I do that night? Did I fudge crime stats? Did I send crime victims on their way with no satisfaction? Absolutely not! I just ... delayed. I might have taken the complaints, but nothing was getting logged in the computer - and therefore would not "officially" count in Compstat - until after midnight. Until 1998. The complainants were happy. They got personal service from the captain. The 124 room civilian personnel were happy. They got to relax that night because nothing was going into that computer until I said so. More importantly, the borough commander and, ultimately, the police commissioner, were happy because Bensonhurst came in one so-called "index" crime below the year before. CRIME WAS DOWN IN ALL OF BROOKLYN SOUTH! Well, not really, because seven index crimes measured in Compstat were reported by victims from 2 p.m. to midnight, but since I prepared and reviewed the hand-written "scratch" copies, only five crimes could possibly be entered into the computer program by midnight. The other two were typed in sometime in the early hours of 1998 - a new year! Did that make me corrupt or unethical? Maybe. Who cares now? All I know is I didn't get any nasty calls or threats from "downtown" on Jan. 2. Compstat, started in 1994, is no doubt largely responsible for New York's resurgence. It is our single greatest crime-fighting tool - but the paranoia has to stop. Crime cannot go down forever. Let's get real. Even if crime were to go up 10%, it would still be at around mid-1960's levels. Crime is never good, but a paranoid police department is worse than a slight increase in crime. Politicians and police brass better get a grip quickly or cops may start seeing things they really didn't see. Or crimes that really happened maybe didn't happen. Ernie Naspretto was an NYPD police officer from July 1981 to July 2001, retiring as a captain. He covered the NYPD as a reporter for the New York Daily News from July 2006 until October 2007. Today he is an affiliate police instructor for the Penn State Justice and Safety Institute and is a security trainer and consultant.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Police Chief Found Guilty of Official Misconduct, Insurance Fraud
Suspended Hackensack Police Chief Zisa found guilty of official misconduct, insurance fraud
The New Jersey Record by Stephanie Akin - May 17, 2012
Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa, the leader of Bergen County’s largest police department and scion of one if its most eminent political dynasties, faces 23 years behind bars after being found guilty Wednesday of insurance fraud and official misconduct. After three days of deliberation, a jury of five men and seven women delivered a split verdict, acquitting Zisa, 58, of conspiracy and witness tampering charges, but finding that he filed a false insurance report and acted improperly when he inserted himself into two investigations involving his former girlfriend, Kathleen Tiernan, who was also on trial. Tiernan was found guilty of filing a false insurance report, but acquitted on a conspiracy charge. The courtroom was full of friends and family members of Zisa and Tiernan as the jury read the verdict, with employees from the Prosecutor’s Office filling all available seats and standing along the back wall. As the verdicts — five guilty counts for Zisa and one for Tiernan — were read, the courtroom fell silent. Joe Zisa, the city attorney and Ken Zisa’s cousin, closed his eyes and bowed his head. One of Tiernan’s sons rested his head against a courtroom wall. A young woman in the front row appeared to wipe away tears. Zisa, a state assemblyman from 1994-2002, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw but held his head erect. Zisa, who has been suspended from his job for two years, faces a maximum prison sentence of 45 years and a minimum of 23 years, 15 of which would be without parole, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Daniel Keitel said. Tiernan faces up to 5 years on the insurance fraud charge, but there is no presumption of jail time.
A sentencing hearing was tentatively set for June 22. “Obviously we are extremely disappointed with the jury’s verdict,” Zisa’s attorney, Patricia Prezioso, told Superior Court Judge Joseph Conte. She said an appeal is planned. Keitel requested that bail be set at $200,000 and asked for Zisa’s immediate removal from the office of chief of police. Keitel also requested forfeiture of Zisa’s pension and retirement. Conte set bail for Zisa at $50,000 with no 10 percent cash payment option, to be posted no later than Friday at noon. Until then, Zisa remains free on his own recognizance. Tiernan also remains free on her own recognizance with no bail set. The judge said he would rule on the other requests at a to-be-scheduled hearing. “He’s suspended, the fact that he wasn’t removed today was of no moment,” said Keitel, who praised the jury for their work. Stephen Lo Iacono, Hackensack’s city manager, said he will wait for direction from the courts on whether to remove Zisa from office. "Right now, as we speak, his status is the same as it has been for the past two years. He is suspended without pay,” Lo Iacono said. “He’s certainly not on the job. Whatever process the legal system is going to take, we have to live with that and wait for it.” He called it a “terrible day for the city.” “Obviously, I’m sad for the city,” Lo Iacono said. “Sad for the police department. But we have to move on.” Councilman John Lebrosse, who is often at odds with the council majority, said the city should remove Zisa from office as soon as it can. “We need to sever the tie and move forward,” he said. “This has been wearing on the city, the police department, the government and city officials for years now.” The mayor and the other city council members either could not be reached or declined to comment. News of the verdict traveled swiftly, and Capt. Thomas Padilla, who has served as acting officer in charge since Zisa’s arrest two years ago, opted to return to police headquarters to discuss the matter directly at the 5 p.m. roll call. In a department roiled by this trial and more than a dozen civil suits filed by officers against Zisa, Padilla said it was important to have his officers focus on their core mission of serving the public. “Moving forward, I hope we come together as a department and strive to do the best we can,” he said. Zisa and his family members, including former Hackensack Mayor Jack Zisa and city attorney Joe Zisa, declined to comment as they followed him out of the courtroom, as did Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic Municipal Chairwoman, who spent every day of the six-week trial in the courtroom. Several jurors contacted after the verdict said the panel as a group decided against commenting on the verdict. The verdict is certain to have sweeping repercussions in Hackensack, where Zisa has held his title throughout his two-year unpaid suspension, and officials have resisted settling any of the civil lawsuits filed by more than 20 present and retired police officers that name the chief. Those cases, asking for several million dollars in damages, have been on hold pending a verdict in Zisa’s criminal trial. Lo Iacono, the city manager, said the cost of defending the suits — already more than $2.4 million in the last three years — might have already reached a threshold at which the city’s insurer would require the city to settle them. Lawyers for the police officers said the conviction can be admitted as evidence in the civil cases and will likely damage Zisa's credibility. Zisa in civil court also will no longer be shielded by a pending criminal case, allowing plaintiff lawyers to depose him for the first time, possibly as soon as next month. “Clearly, the verdict does speak to the chief’s conduct as chief,” said attorney Robert Woodruff, who is handling two Zisa-related cases. “He was the king. That’s what he was. I guess not.”
Prosecutors argued during the six-week trial that the charges stemmed from a skewed system of justice in Hackensack, where Zisa was the police chief for 15 years and members of his family held the top elected and appointed positions for decades. In a town known by the family’s political opponents as “Zisaville,” there was one system of justice for the Zisas and their friends, and another for everybody else, prosecutors said. That imbalance played out in 2004 and 2008, when Zisa arrived on the scene of two incidents – in both cases just before the break of dawn – and diverted investigations before Tiernan and her family could be charged, prosecutors alleged. In the first case in 2004, prosecutors said Zisa coerced a subordinate officer, Laura Campos, to remove then 16-year-old Ryan Tiernan’s name from a police report of an assault and robbery of a 15-year-old, prosecutors alleged. In the second in 2008, the chief arrived on the scene shortly after a visibly drunk Tiernan crashed his Chevrolet Trailblazer into a utility pole, then whisked her away before she could be tested for sobriety. The couple then filed a fraudulent insurance claim for $11,000, stating Tiernan swerved to avoid an animal, a charge held up by the jury. Prezioso argued that Zisa acted appropriately during both investigations. She showed the jury reams of documents from the police department and other sources she said proved that the police officers who testified against their boss — many of whom stand to gain from civil suits that could be bolstered by a guilty verdict— were lying. Instead, Prezioso said Zisa was the victim of a political conspiracy involving Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli and fuelled by his disgruntled subordinates. Molinelli declined to comment late Wednesday. Prezioso said a group of rogue Hackensack officers, including John Hermann and Joseph Al-Ayoubi, brought the story of the 2008 car crash to the Prosecutor’s Office when Zisa failed to take a bribe to drop disciplinary charges against the leader of the police union, Anthony Ferraioli. Tiernan was collateral damage, Prezioso and Meehan argued. Her car accident, they claim, happened just as it was described on the insurance claim. Key testimony came from Hermann and Al-Ayoubi, who said Tiernan was so drunk at the scene of the 2008 car crash she had trouble walking without Zisa’s assistance, but they filed a false police report of the incident. To do otherwise, Al-Ayoubi testified, would be “career suicide.” Staff Writers Karen Sudol, Nick Clunn, Mike Kelly, and James Quirk contributed to his article. Email: akin@northjersey.com
The New Jersey Record by Stephanie Akin - May 17, 2012
Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa, the leader of Bergen County’s largest police department and scion of one if its most eminent political dynasties, faces 23 years behind bars after being found guilty Wednesday of insurance fraud and official misconduct. After three days of deliberation, a jury of five men and seven women delivered a split verdict, acquitting Zisa, 58, of conspiracy and witness tampering charges, but finding that he filed a false insurance report and acted improperly when he inserted himself into two investigations involving his former girlfriend, Kathleen Tiernan, who was also on trial. Tiernan was found guilty of filing a false insurance report, but acquitted on a conspiracy charge. The courtroom was full of friends and family members of Zisa and Tiernan as the jury read the verdict, with employees from the Prosecutor’s Office filling all available seats and standing along the back wall. As the verdicts — five guilty counts for Zisa and one for Tiernan — were read, the courtroom fell silent. Joe Zisa, the city attorney and Ken Zisa’s cousin, closed his eyes and bowed his head. One of Tiernan’s sons rested his head against a courtroom wall. A young woman in the front row appeared to wipe away tears. Zisa, a state assemblyman from 1994-2002, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw but held his head erect. Zisa, who has been suspended from his job for two years, faces a maximum prison sentence of 45 years and a minimum of 23 years, 15 of which would be without parole, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Daniel Keitel said. Tiernan faces up to 5 years on the insurance fraud charge, but there is no presumption of jail time.
A sentencing hearing was tentatively set for June 22. “Obviously we are extremely disappointed with the jury’s verdict,” Zisa’s attorney, Patricia Prezioso, told Superior Court Judge Joseph Conte. She said an appeal is planned. Keitel requested that bail be set at $200,000 and asked for Zisa’s immediate removal from the office of chief of police. Keitel also requested forfeiture of Zisa’s pension and retirement. Conte set bail for Zisa at $50,000 with no 10 percent cash payment option, to be posted no later than Friday at noon. Until then, Zisa remains free on his own recognizance. Tiernan also remains free on her own recognizance with no bail set. The judge said he would rule on the other requests at a to-be-scheduled hearing. “He’s suspended, the fact that he wasn’t removed today was of no moment,” said Keitel, who praised the jury for their work. Stephen Lo Iacono, Hackensack’s city manager, said he will wait for direction from the courts on whether to remove Zisa from office. "Right now, as we speak, his status is the same as it has been for the past two years. He is suspended without pay,” Lo Iacono said. “He’s certainly not on the job. Whatever process the legal system is going to take, we have to live with that and wait for it.” He called it a “terrible day for the city.” “Obviously, I’m sad for the city,” Lo Iacono said. “Sad for the police department. But we have to move on.” Councilman John Lebrosse, who is often at odds with the council majority, said the city should remove Zisa from office as soon as it can. “We need to sever the tie and move forward,” he said. “This has been wearing on the city, the police department, the government and city officials for years now.” The mayor and the other city council members either could not be reached or declined to comment. News of the verdict traveled swiftly, and Capt. Thomas Padilla, who has served as acting officer in charge since Zisa’s arrest two years ago, opted to return to police headquarters to discuss the matter directly at the 5 p.m. roll call. In a department roiled by this trial and more than a dozen civil suits filed by officers against Zisa, Padilla said it was important to have his officers focus on their core mission of serving the public. “Moving forward, I hope we come together as a department and strive to do the best we can,” he said. Zisa and his family members, including former Hackensack Mayor Jack Zisa and city attorney Joe Zisa, declined to comment as they followed him out of the courtroom, as did Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic Municipal Chairwoman, who spent every day of the six-week trial in the courtroom. Several jurors contacted after the verdict said the panel as a group decided against commenting on the verdict. The verdict is certain to have sweeping repercussions in Hackensack, where Zisa has held his title throughout his two-year unpaid suspension, and officials have resisted settling any of the civil lawsuits filed by more than 20 present and retired police officers that name the chief. Those cases, asking for several million dollars in damages, have been on hold pending a verdict in Zisa’s criminal trial. Lo Iacono, the city manager, said the cost of defending the suits — already more than $2.4 million in the last three years — might have already reached a threshold at which the city’s insurer would require the city to settle them. Lawyers for the police officers said the conviction can be admitted as evidence in the civil cases and will likely damage Zisa's credibility. Zisa in civil court also will no longer be shielded by a pending criminal case, allowing plaintiff lawyers to depose him for the first time, possibly as soon as next month. “Clearly, the verdict does speak to the chief’s conduct as chief,” said attorney Robert Woodruff, who is handling two Zisa-related cases. “He was the king. That’s what he was. I guess not.”
Prosecutors argued during the six-week trial that the charges stemmed from a skewed system of justice in Hackensack, where Zisa was the police chief for 15 years and members of his family held the top elected and appointed positions for decades. In a town known by the family’s political opponents as “Zisaville,” there was one system of justice for the Zisas and their friends, and another for everybody else, prosecutors said. That imbalance played out in 2004 and 2008, when Zisa arrived on the scene of two incidents – in both cases just before the break of dawn – and diverted investigations before Tiernan and her family could be charged, prosecutors alleged. In the first case in 2004, prosecutors said Zisa coerced a subordinate officer, Laura Campos, to remove then 16-year-old Ryan Tiernan’s name from a police report of an assault and robbery of a 15-year-old, prosecutors alleged. In the second in 2008, the chief arrived on the scene shortly after a visibly drunk Tiernan crashed his Chevrolet Trailblazer into a utility pole, then whisked her away before she could be tested for sobriety. The couple then filed a fraudulent insurance claim for $11,000, stating Tiernan swerved to avoid an animal, a charge held up by the jury. Prezioso argued that Zisa acted appropriately during both investigations. She showed the jury reams of documents from the police department and other sources she said proved that the police officers who testified against their boss — many of whom stand to gain from civil suits that could be bolstered by a guilty verdict— were lying. Instead, Prezioso said Zisa was the victim of a political conspiracy involving Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli and fuelled by his disgruntled subordinates. Molinelli declined to comment late Wednesday. Prezioso said a group of rogue Hackensack officers, including John Hermann and Joseph Al-Ayoubi, brought the story of the 2008 car crash to the Prosecutor’s Office when Zisa failed to take a bribe to drop disciplinary charges against the leader of the police union, Anthony Ferraioli. Tiernan was collateral damage, Prezioso and Meehan argued. Her car accident, they claim, happened just as it was described on the insurance claim. Key testimony came from Hermann and Al-Ayoubi, who said Tiernan was so drunk at the scene of the 2008 car crash she had trouble walking without Zisa’s assistance, but they filed a false police report of the incident. To do otherwise, Al-Ayoubi testified, would be “career suicide.” Staff Writers Karen Sudol, Nick Clunn, Mike Kelly, and James Quirk contributed to his article. Email: akin@northjersey.com
Former Traffic Court Clerk Charged in Ticket-Fixing Scam
Former New Orleans Traffic Court clerk charged in ticket-fixing scam
The Times-Picayune by Laura Maggi - May 1, 2012
A former clerk at New Orleans Traffic Court is facing criminal charges that he scammed money out of errant drivers trying to clear up their records, according to documents filed in federal court. James Singleton, the former deputy clerk, is accused in a federal criminal complaint of taking at least $9,000 in bribes from six people. Singleton was arrested by federal agents more than a week ago, but was released on a $10,000 personal surety bond. Singleton was hired at Traffic Court in 2008 and served as the deputy clerk. He left in September 2010, but not before taking thousands of dollars in cash from people who sought his assistance taking care of traffic citations, according to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Krysti Hawkins. He admitted to the wrongdoing during an interview with FBI agents in August 2011, acknowledging he took money to wipe out the outstanding traffic tickets. Though he kept the money, he didn't take care of the violations, Hawkins wrote. The scam was initially uncovered when one man came forward to complain about the fact that he had received notification about outstanding tickets, even though he had been given a "reinstatement letter" from Singleton, said Chief Administrative Judge Robert Jones. "It was based solely on that citizen's complaint that Singleton was confronted and forced to resign," Jones said. Singleton is not related to the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority board chairman and former City Council member of the same name. He is represented by the federal public defender's office, which does not respond to media requests for comment. After Singleton resigned from his position in September, Noel Cassanova, clerk of court, sent a letter to the Orleans Parish district attorney's office and the FBI outlining the case presented by Ernest Roy, the citizen who complained. Roy had received a card from Traffic Court notifying him that there was a warrant out for his arrest because of an unpaid ticket. According to Cassanova's letter, Roy told the clerk, "I paid James Singleton $3,500 cash for this letter." "When I asked him for a receipt, he showed me the reinstatement letter and said, 'Mr. Singleton told me this is all you need,'" Cassanova wrote. The letter Roy received from Singleton is dated November 2009, and purports to inform the state Department of Public Safety that eight tickets have been "satisfied." In fact, Roy had seven open tickets on his record, Cassanova noted in his letter. Lorraine Franklin, Roy's mother, told WWL-TV last week that she helped her son get the money together to pay his tickets and for bail money after he was arrested because of the violations. When initially confronted, Singleton denied that he scammed people who came to court, Jones said. But after he resigned, more people showed up with similar stories about paying him money to get rid of tickets. "Whenever an individual comes forward, we refer that individual to Camp Street," said Jones, referring to the location of the U.S. attorney's office. In the FBI affidavit, Hawkins outlined three 2010 cases in which Singleton allegedly bilked people looking to clear up their violations. In two cases, he took more than $3,000 from people with several outstanding tickets and fines. One of Singleton's victims is serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison for a drug conviction. That man paid Singleton $3,200 to receive a reinstatement letter like Roy, but in fact still has tickets on his record. Another person gave Singleton $100 in June 2010 to take care of a ticket for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Despite taking the money, Singleton didn't remove the violation from the woman's record. She was pulled over by a New Orleans police officer after Singleton quit Traffic Court, but the officer agreed not to arrest her after she explained the situation. At that point, the woman owed $441 to the court, Hawkins wrote. This is not the first time Traffic Court has come under the federal microscope. An sprawling investigation of the court that began before Hurricane Katrina eventually nabbed more than a dozen people, including court employees and a former city attorney, in a traffic ticket-fixing ring. Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3316.
The Times-Picayune by Laura Maggi - May 1, 2012
A former clerk at New Orleans Traffic Court is facing criminal charges that he scammed money out of errant drivers trying to clear up their records, according to documents filed in federal court. James Singleton, the former deputy clerk, is accused in a federal criminal complaint of taking at least $9,000 in bribes from six people. Singleton was arrested by federal agents more than a week ago, but was released on a $10,000 personal surety bond. Singleton was hired at Traffic Court in 2008 and served as the deputy clerk. He left in September 2010, but not before taking thousands of dollars in cash from people who sought his assistance taking care of traffic citations, according to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Krysti Hawkins. He admitted to the wrongdoing during an interview with FBI agents in August 2011, acknowledging he took money to wipe out the outstanding traffic tickets. Though he kept the money, he didn't take care of the violations, Hawkins wrote. The scam was initially uncovered when one man came forward to complain about the fact that he had received notification about outstanding tickets, even though he had been given a "reinstatement letter" from Singleton, said Chief Administrative Judge Robert Jones. "It was based solely on that citizen's complaint that Singleton was confronted and forced to resign," Jones said. Singleton is not related to the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority board chairman and former City Council member of the same name. He is represented by the federal public defender's office, which does not respond to media requests for comment. After Singleton resigned from his position in September, Noel Cassanova, clerk of court, sent a letter to the Orleans Parish district attorney's office and the FBI outlining the case presented by Ernest Roy, the citizen who complained. Roy had received a card from Traffic Court notifying him that there was a warrant out for his arrest because of an unpaid ticket. According to Cassanova's letter, Roy told the clerk, "I paid James Singleton $3,500 cash for this letter." "When I asked him for a receipt, he showed me the reinstatement letter and said, 'Mr. Singleton told me this is all you need,'" Cassanova wrote. The letter Roy received from Singleton is dated November 2009, and purports to inform the state Department of Public Safety that eight tickets have been "satisfied." In fact, Roy had seven open tickets on his record, Cassanova noted in his letter. Lorraine Franklin, Roy's mother, told WWL-TV last week that she helped her son get the money together to pay his tickets and for bail money after he was arrested because of the violations. When initially confronted, Singleton denied that he scammed people who came to court, Jones said. But after he resigned, more people showed up with similar stories about paying him money to get rid of tickets. "Whenever an individual comes forward, we refer that individual to Camp Street," said Jones, referring to the location of the U.S. attorney's office. In the FBI affidavit, Hawkins outlined three 2010 cases in which Singleton allegedly bilked people looking to clear up their violations. In two cases, he took more than $3,000 from people with several outstanding tickets and fines. One of Singleton's victims is serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison for a drug conviction. That man paid Singleton $3,200 to receive a reinstatement letter like Roy, but in fact still has tickets on his record. Another person gave Singleton $100 in June 2010 to take care of a ticket for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Despite taking the money, Singleton didn't remove the violation from the woman's record. She was pulled over by a New Orleans police officer after Singleton quit Traffic Court, but the officer agreed not to arrest her after she explained the situation. At that point, the woman owed $441 to the court, Hawkins wrote. This is not the first time Traffic Court has come under the federal microscope. An sprawling investigation of the court that began before Hurricane Katrina eventually nabbed more than a dozen people, including court employees and a former city attorney, in a traffic ticket-fixing ring. Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3316.
Former Guard Indicted on Federal Bribery Charge
Former guard indicted on federal bribery charge
The Houston Chronicle - May 17, 2012
McALLEN, TX — A South Texas man has been arrested on a federal bribery charge for smuggling a cell phone into a detention center where he worked as a guard. Federal prosecutors announced that an indictment was unsealed against 21-year-old Jorge Luis Sandoval Thursday after his arrest. Sandoval had worked at the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa, which houses federal detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service. It was not immediately known if Sandoval had retained an attorney. The indictment alleges that in early 2010, Sandoval demanded and accepted a cash payment to smuggle the phone from an individual on behalf of an inmate. Sandoval was scheduled to be arraigned Friday in McAllen.
RELATED STORY:
Former federal corrections officer charged with bribery
The Monitor by Jared Taylor - May 17, 2012
McALLEN, TX — Authorities arrested a former federal corrections officer accused of smuggling a cellphone to an inmate at the East Hidalgo Corrections Center. Pharr resident Jorge Luis Sandoval, 21, faces one count of bribery in U.S. District Court in McAllen. A federal grand jury Tuesday returned a one-count indictment against Sandoval; it was made public following his arrest. Sandoval is charged with one count of accepting a bribe while acting under the authority of the U.S. Marshals Service as a correctional officer. He worked at the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa, where the indictment states a person paid him cash to smuggle a cellphone into the prison for an inmate. Sandoval is set to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos at an arraignment and detention hearing Friday in federal court in McAllen. Court documents did not specify information about the inmate who allegedly received the cell phone from Sandoval, or the person who investigators say paid the cash bribe. The alleged bribery occurred between January and February 2010, according to the indictment unsealed Thursday. Richard Harbison, executive vice president at LCS Corrections, which owns and operates the East Hidalgo Detention Center, said Sandoval was fired after wardens at the facility learned of the suspected bribery and smuggling. “If you’re caught smuggling, first thing you do is you’re fired, and then it’s up to the Marshals or the U.S. Attorney to decide if they will press charges,” Harbison said. “There are no warnings when you smuggle contraband in — none whatsoever.” Bribery carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine. The FBI and U.S. Marshals Service investigated the case. -- Jared Taylor covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at jtaylor@themonitor.com and (956) 683-4439.
The Houston Chronicle - May 17, 2012
McALLEN, TX — A South Texas man has been arrested on a federal bribery charge for smuggling a cell phone into a detention center where he worked as a guard. Federal prosecutors announced that an indictment was unsealed against 21-year-old Jorge Luis Sandoval Thursday after his arrest. Sandoval had worked at the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa, which houses federal detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service. It was not immediately known if Sandoval had retained an attorney. The indictment alleges that in early 2010, Sandoval demanded and accepted a cash payment to smuggle the phone from an individual on behalf of an inmate. Sandoval was scheduled to be arraigned Friday in McAllen.
RELATED STORY:
Former federal corrections officer charged with bribery
The Monitor by Jared Taylor - May 17, 2012
McALLEN, TX — Authorities arrested a former federal corrections officer accused of smuggling a cellphone to an inmate at the East Hidalgo Corrections Center. Pharr resident Jorge Luis Sandoval, 21, faces one count of bribery in U.S. District Court in McAllen. A federal grand jury Tuesday returned a one-count indictment against Sandoval; it was made public following his arrest. Sandoval is charged with one count of accepting a bribe while acting under the authority of the U.S. Marshals Service as a correctional officer. He worked at the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa, where the indictment states a person paid him cash to smuggle a cellphone into the prison for an inmate. Sandoval is set to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos at an arraignment and detention hearing Friday in federal court in McAllen. Court documents did not specify information about the inmate who allegedly received the cell phone from Sandoval, or the person who investigators say paid the cash bribe. The alleged bribery occurred between January and February 2010, according to the indictment unsealed Thursday. Richard Harbison, executive vice president at LCS Corrections, which owns and operates the East Hidalgo Detention Center, said Sandoval was fired after wardens at the facility learned of the suspected bribery and smuggling. “If you’re caught smuggling, first thing you do is you’re fired, and then it’s up to the Marshals or the U.S. Attorney to decide if they will press charges,” Harbison said. “There are no warnings when you smuggle contraband in — none whatsoever.” Bribery carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine. The FBI and U.S. Marshals Service investigated the case. -- Jared Taylor covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at jtaylor@themonitor.com and (956) 683-4439.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The Prison Capital of The World
The $182 million private prison industry in Louisiana thrives from a system rife with conflicts of interest, not unlike the kinds found in the most corrupt third world countries. According to a scathing article this Sunday in The New Orleans Times-Picayune, the very people entrusted to enforce the law in the state have deep financial ties to the for-profit prisons, which house a majority of all Louisiana inmates. The article states that “most prison entrepreneurs happen to be rural sheriffs,” and the “prison business model is built on head counts.” In the early nineties, prison overcrowding had become such a massive problem for the state, that the cash-strapped government decided to forego building new state prisons, and instead encouraged sheriffs to pay for private prison construction. In return, they would, of course, enjoy a cut of all future profits. “The financial incentives were so sweet, and the corrections jobs so sought after, that new prisons sprouted up all over rural Louisiana.” Two decades later, this now-entrenched private prison system has helped to double Louisiana’s prison population. In fact, the state wins the distinction of imprisoning more of its residents than any other legal jurisdiction on the planet. Despite Louisiana having the highest murder rate in the country, it surprisingly “has a much lower percentage of people incarcerated for violent offenses [when compared to the national average], and a much higher percentage behind bars for drug offenses [when compared to the national average] …” Why, you ask? Because violent criminals (murderers, rapists, armed robbers, etc) get sent to state prisons, whereas the non-violent offenders are housed at private ‘for-profit’ prisons. The sheriffs therefore have a financial incentive to find and charge non-violent offenders. According to another recent article in the Times-Picayune, “more than half of Louisianians sentenced to state time are in the custody of local sheriffs, who must keep their prison beds full to turn a profit.” And the sheriffs are a powerful lobby force to be reckoned with. They often move to block all legislative attempts to reduce sentences for non-violent offenses, or for “shaving time” for inmates with good behavior. But the profiteering goes even beyond the sheriffs. Sunday’s article describes the entire judicial system as being in on ‘the take’:“You have people who are so invested in maintaining the present system — not just the sheriffs, but judges, prosecutors, other people who have links to it,” said Burk Foster, a former professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and an expert on Louisiana prisons. “They don’t want to see the prison system get smaller or the number of people in custody reduced, even though the crime rate is down, because the good old boys are all linked together in the punishment network, which is good for them financially and politically.”
Even townships profit off the private prison industry, by charging them exorbitant fees to operate within their town borders. Some of the smallest rural towns in Louisiana are leasing their ‘prison rights’ to sheriffs and private companies for hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. And these prisons bring much-needed jobs to the townsfolk, who line up to become correction officers. One of the biggest prison magnates in all of Louisiana, incidentally, happens to be an ordained minister, who has become filthy rich off of incarcerating his fellow citizens. The task of putting bodies in private prison cells now impacts the livelihoods of many important people. Wardens and sheriffs work hand-in-hand, daily, to ensure the profits continue unabated:
Today, wardens make daily rounds of calls to other sheriffs’ prisons in search of convicts to fill their beds. Urban areas such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge have an excess of sentenced criminals, while prisons in remote parishes must import inmates to survive. The more empty beds, the more an operation sinks into the red. With maximum occupancy and a thrifty touch with expenses, a sheriff can divert the profits to his law enforcement arm, outfitting his deputies with new squad cars, guns and laptops.
To fatten profits, inmates in these private facilities are offered little, if any, rehabilitation. Because “putting people in cells” is merely half the equation to this business model. Once they’ve found someone to incarcerate, spending as little money as possible on him becomes the next priority. In Louisiana, each inmate in a private prison fetches $24.39 a day in state money. The ones in state prisons fetch $55 a day. This means the most violent criminals (housed at state facilities) — many of whom are incarcerated for life — take vocational classes, and prepare for careers they will never have, like auto mechanics, plumbing, electrical, welding, etc. Non-violent criminals, on the other hand — sentenced for things like drug possession, theft, etc. — will get sent to a private prison where they will do little more than sit in an overcrowded 80-man cell for months or years on end, gaining no skills that might prepare them to qualify for law-abiding work upon release. And though sheriffs would like to keep them locked up indefinitely, most of these non-violent criminals will eventually be released back into society. On their release date, they will reenter the community with a criminal record and no new vocational skills (making it virtually impossible to find a job), as well as ten dollars and a 1-way bus ticket from the prison. This, of course, helps to ensure they return as repeat offenders — the bread and butter of this insidious business.
Town Ordered to Produce Officer's Personnel Records
Town Ordered to Produce Officer's Personnel Records
The New York Law Journal by Andrew Keshner - May 18, 2012
A state judge presiding over a suit alleging excessive police force during an arrest has ordered the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, to turn over the personnel records of a non-party police officer for an in camera inspection. Discovery as to "any prior use of excessive force" by the officer "would be relevant to the claims of negligent training and supervision, as well as defendant Town's alleged practice and policy of permitting the use of excessive force by its police officers," Westchester Supreme Court Justice Joan Lefkowitz (See Profile) wrote in Lepore v. Town of Greenburgh, 7350-2010. The May 7 decision stems from the 2008 arrest of Angela Lepore, who claimed her constitutional rights were violated by officers' use of excessive force. Her suit also argued the town permitted the illegal use of force and failed to properly train its officers. She sought the production of records for an officer identified as "Police Officer J. Cerone." Though Cerone was not a defendant, the request was pertinent because he was involved in the arrest and there was a claim of faulty training by the town, Lepore argued. The town opposed, arguing Lepore was on a "fishing expedition" and trying to find a way to impeach the credibility of Cerone were he to testify as a fact witness. Moreover, the town said it could not be held responsible for the acts of a non-party agent or employee. But Lefkowitz said other courts have previously allowed the in camera review of personnel records for non-party officers in the context of negligent training and supervision claims. She also noted the negligent training and supervision claims and alleged condoning of excessive force "are not based upon the theory of respondeat superior, but rather upon a municipality's own alleged inactions."
The New York Law Journal by Andrew Keshner - May 18, 2012
A state judge presiding over a suit alleging excessive police force during an arrest has ordered the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, to turn over the personnel records of a non-party police officer for an in camera inspection. Discovery as to "any prior use of excessive force" by the officer "would be relevant to the claims of negligent training and supervision, as well as defendant Town's alleged practice and policy of permitting the use of excessive force by its police officers," Westchester Supreme Court Justice Joan Lefkowitz (See Profile) wrote in Lepore v. Town of Greenburgh, 7350-2010. The May 7 decision stems from the 2008 arrest of Angela Lepore, who claimed her constitutional rights were violated by officers' use of excessive force. Her suit also argued the town permitted the illegal use of force and failed to properly train its officers. She sought the production of records for an officer identified as "Police Officer J. Cerone." Though Cerone was not a defendant, the request was pertinent because he was involved in the arrest and there was a claim of faulty training by the town, Lepore argued. The town opposed, arguing Lepore was on a "fishing expedition" and trying to find a way to impeach the credibility of Cerone were he to testify as a fact witness. Moreover, the town said it could not be held responsible for the acts of a non-party agent or employee. But Lefkowitz said other courts have previously allowed the in camera review of personnel records for non-party officers in the context of negligent training and supervision claims. She also noted the negligent training and supervision claims and alleged condoning of excessive force "are not based upon the theory of respondeat superior, but rather upon a municipality's own alleged inactions."
Corrections Probation Officer Indicted for Civil Rights Violations
North Carolina Department of Corrections Probation Officer Indicted for Civil Rights Violations
The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs - May 18, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Department of Justice announced that North Carolina Department of Correction’s Division of Community Corrections Probation Officer Willie James Steele Jr., 47, was indicted yesterday on civil rights charges for violating the constitutional rights of a female probationer that he was supervising by coercing her into sexual acts on two separate occasions. Steele was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and one count of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. According to the indictment filed in the Western District of North Carolina, the Division of Community Corrections supervised offenders serving state probation in the state of North Carolina and provided courtesy supervision for offenders residing in this state but who had committed criminal offenses in other states. Steele supervised the victim, who had had her probation transferred from another state, and had the authority to recommend to a court or other agency that the victim be incarcerated or otherwise sanctioned if she violated the conditions of her probation. The indictment alleges that Steele engaged in acts that resulted in bodily injury to the victim and constituted aggravated sexual abuse, and that Steele used and carried a firearm during and in relation to that offense. It also alleges that Steele deprived the victim of her constitutional right to bodily integrity on a second occasion. This case was investigated by the FBI and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenny Smith from the Western District of North Carolina and U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Shan Patel. Individuals who have additional information or believe they may have been a victim of Steele’s conduct are encouraged to call the FBI Charlotte Office at 704-672-6100. Charges set forth in an indictment are merely accusations and do not constitute proof of guilt. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs - May 18, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Department of Justice announced that North Carolina Department of Correction’s Division of Community Corrections Probation Officer Willie James Steele Jr., 47, was indicted yesterday on civil rights charges for violating the constitutional rights of a female probationer that he was supervising by coercing her into sexual acts on two separate occasions. Steele was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and one count of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. According to the indictment filed in the Western District of North Carolina, the Division of Community Corrections supervised offenders serving state probation in the state of North Carolina and provided courtesy supervision for offenders residing in this state but who had committed criminal offenses in other states. Steele supervised the victim, who had had her probation transferred from another state, and had the authority to recommend to a court or other agency that the victim be incarcerated or otherwise sanctioned if she violated the conditions of her probation. The indictment alleges that Steele engaged in acts that resulted in bodily injury to the victim and constituted aggravated sexual abuse, and that Steele used and carried a firearm during and in relation to that offense. It also alleges that Steele deprived the victim of her constitutional right to bodily integrity on a second occasion. This case was investigated by the FBI and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenny Smith from the Western District of North Carolina and U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Shan Patel. Individuals who have additional information or believe they may have been a victim of Steele’s conduct are encouraged to call the FBI Charlotte Office at 704-672-6100. Charges set forth in an indictment are merely accusations and do not constitute proof of guilt. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Cops Who Used Taser on Pregnant Woman Seek U.S. Supreme Court Appeal
A Ticket, 3 Taser Jolts and, Perhaps, a Trip to the Supreme Court
The New York Times by Adam Liptak
WASHINGTON, D.C — There have been many hundreds of varied rulings in the lower courts on when the use of Taser stun guns by the police amounts to excessive force, and sooner or later the Supreme Court will have to bring order to this area of the law. Next week, the justices are scheduled to decide whether to hear an appeal from three Seattle police officers who say they are worried about the future of what they call “a useful pain technique.” The case involves Malaika Brooks, who was seven months pregnant and driving her 11-year-old son to school in Seattle when she was pulled over for speeding. The police say she was going 32 miles per hour in a school zone; the speed limit was 20. Ms. Brooks said she would accept a ticket but drew the line at signing it, which state law required at the time. Ms. Brooks thought, wrongly, that signing was an acknowledgment of guilt. Refusing to sign was a crime, and the two officers on the scene summoned a sergeant, who instructed them to arrest Ms. Brooks. She would not get out of her car. The situation plainly called for bold action, and Officer Juan M. Ornelas met the challenge by brandishing a Taser and asking Ms. Brooks if she knew what it was. She did not, but she told Officer Ornelas what she did know. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I am pregnant. I’m less than 60 days from having my baby.” The three men assessed the situation and conferred. “Well, don’t do it in her stomach,” one said. “Do it in her thigh.” Officer Ornelas twisted Ms. Brooks’s arm behind her back. A colleague, Officer Donald M. Jones, applied the Taser to Ms. Brooks’s left thigh, causing her to cry out and honk the car’s horn. A half-minute later, Officer Jones applied the Taser again, now to Ms. Brooks’s left arm. He waited six seconds before pressing it into her neck. Ms. Brooks fell over, and the officers dragged her into the street, laying her face down and cuffing her hands behind her back. In the months that followed, Ms. Brooks gave birth to a healthy baby girl; was convicted of refusing to sign the ticket, a misdemeanor, but not of resisting arrest; and sued the officers who three times caused her intense pain and left her with permanent scars. The officers won a split decision in October from a 10-member panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. The majority said the officers had used excessive force but nonetheless could not be sued because the law on the question was not clear in 2004, when the incident took place. While the ruling left the three officers in the clear, it did put them and their colleagues on notice that some future uses of Tasers would cross a constitutional line and amount to excessive force.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski dissented on the first point, saying Ms. Brooks had been “defiant” and “deaf to reason” and so had brought the incident upon herself. As for the officers, he said: “They deserve our praise, not the opprobrium of being declared constitutional violators. The City of Seattle should award them commendations for grace under fire.” Another dissenter, Judge Barry G. Silverman, said “tasing was a humane way to force Brooks out of her car.” “There are only so many ways a person can be extracted from a vehicle against her will, and none of them is pretty,” he explained. “Fists, batons, chokeholds, tear gas and chemical spray all carry their own risks to suspects and officers alike.” The bottom line, in any event, was that the officers had won. They have nonetheless appealed to the Supreme Court, in an effort to clear their names and preserve the freewheeling use of “a useful pain technique.” Their employer, the City of Seattle, seems to think they have gone rogue. In a separate Supreme Court filing, Seattle disavowed what it called the officers’ “ ‘sky is falling’ interpretation” of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, which said only, as the city put it, that “three applications of a Taser in drive-stun mode in less than a minute on a pregnant woman who does not pose a safety threat” may give rise to a lawsuit for a jury to sort out. Seattle, which said it was liable for any damages in the case, urged the justices not to hear the officers’ appeal. So did Ms. Brooks, who lost in the Ninth Circuit but is still pursuing claims under state law. But several police groups, including the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs’ Association, asked the Supreme Court to hear the officers’ appeal because the Ninth Circuit’s decision “damages the rule of law.” “It won’t be long,” their brief said, “before the word spreads throughout society’s criminal underground that the Ninth Circuit hasn’t simply given them a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but a ‘never have to go to jail in the first place’ card.” Michael F. Williams, a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, which represents Ms. Brooks, said the criminal justice system would endure even if the police were barred from delivering thousands of volts of electricity into the body of a pregnant woman who refused to sign a piece of paper. “The officers are trying to defend inexcusable conduct,” he said. “They inflicted enormous pain on a woman who was especially vulnerable over what was essentially a traffic violation.”
The New York Times by Adam Liptak
WASHINGTON, D.C — There have been many hundreds of varied rulings in the lower courts on when the use of Taser stun guns by the police amounts to excessive force, and sooner or later the Supreme Court will have to bring order to this area of the law. Next week, the justices are scheduled to decide whether to hear an appeal from three Seattle police officers who say they are worried about the future of what they call “a useful pain technique.” The case involves Malaika Brooks, who was seven months pregnant and driving her 11-year-old son to school in Seattle when she was pulled over for speeding. The police say she was going 32 miles per hour in a school zone; the speed limit was 20. Ms. Brooks said she would accept a ticket but drew the line at signing it, which state law required at the time. Ms. Brooks thought, wrongly, that signing was an acknowledgment of guilt. Refusing to sign was a crime, and the two officers on the scene summoned a sergeant, who instructed them to arrest Ms. Brooks. She would not get out of her car. The situation plainly called for bold action, and Officer Juan M. Ornelas met the challenge by brandishing a Taser and asking Ms. Brooks if she knew what it was. She did not, but she told Officer Ornelas what she did know. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I am pregnant. I’m less than 60 days from having my baby.” The three men assessed the situation and conferred. “Well, don’t do it in her stomach,” one said. “Do it in her thigh.” Officer Ornelas twisted Ms. Brooks’s arm behind her back. A colleague, Officer Donald M. Jones, applied the Taser to Ms. Brooks’s left thigh, causing her to cry out and honk the car’s horn. A half-minute later, Officer Jones applied the Taser again, now to Ms. Brooks’s left arm. He waited six seconds before pressing it into her neck. Ms. Brooks fell over, and the officers dragged her into the street, laying her face down and cuffing her hands behind her back. In the months that followed, Ms. Brooks gave birth to a healthy baby girl; was convicted of refusing to sign the ticket, a misdemeanor, but not of resisting arrest; and sued the officers who three times caused her intense pain and left her with permanent scars. The officers won a split decision in October from a 10-member panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. The majority said the officers had used excessive force but nonetheless could not be sued because the law on the question was not clear in 2004, when the incident took place. While the ruling left the three officers in the clear, it did put them and their colleagues on notice that some future uses of Tasers would cross a constitutional line and amount to excessive force.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski dissented on the first point, saying Ms. Brooks had been “defiant” and “deaf to reason” and so had brought the incident upon herself. As for the officers, he said: “They deserve our praise, not the opprobrium of being declared constitutional violators. The City of Seattle should award them commendations for grace under fire.” Another dissenter, Judge Barry G. Silverman, said “tasing was a humane way to force Brooks out of her car.” “There are only so many ways a person can be extracted from a vehicle against her will, and none of them is pretty,” he explained. “Fists, batons, chokeholds, tear gas and chemical spray all carry their own risks to suspects and officers alike.” The bottom line, in any event, was that the officers had won. They have nonetheless appealed to the Supreme Court, in an effort to clear their names and preserve the freewheeling use of “a useful pain technique.” Their employer, the City of Seattle, seems to think they have gone rogue. In a separate Supreme Court filing, Seattle disavowed what it called the officers’ “ ‘sky is falling’ interpretation” of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, which said only, as the city put it, that “three applications of a Taser in drive-stun mode in less than a minute on a pregnant woman who does not pose a safety threat” may give rise to a lawsuit for a jury to sort out. Seattle, which said it was liable for any damages in the case, urged the justices not to hear the officers’ appeal. So did Ms. Brooks, who lost in the Ninth Circuit but is still pursuing claims under state law. But several police groups, including the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs’ Association, asked the Supreme Court to hear the officers’ appeal because the Ninth Circuit’s decision “damages the rule of law.” “It won’t be long,” their brief said, “before the word spreads throughout society’s criminal underground that the Ninth Circuit hasn’t simply given them a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but a ‘never have to go to jail in the first place’ card.” Michael F. Williams, a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, which represents Ms. Brooks, said the criminal justice system would endure even if the police were barred from delivering thousands of volts of electricity into the body of a pregnant woman who refused to sign a piece of paper. “The officers are trying to defend inexcusable conduct,” he said. “They inflicted enormous pain on a woman who was especially vulnerable over what was essentially a traffic violation.”
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