Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories
There's an embarrassment of riches for the corrupt cops file this week. We've got pot-dealing sheriffs, we've got corner-cutting DEA agents, we've got sticky-fingered cops, and of course, we have dope-peddling prison guards. And that Philadelphia narc squad scandal just keeps reverberating. Let's get to it:
In Shawneetown, Illinois, DEA agents Monday arrested the Gallatin County Sheriff on federal marijuana distribution charges. Sheriff Randy Martin provided marijuana to a confidential informant, typically in one-pound lots, between November 2008 and this month, according to DEA affidavit in the case. The affidavit also says the informant wore a wire and several of the transactions were videotaped. Sheriff Martin would meet the informant at rural locations, "front" the weed to the informant, and take cash payment for the previous shipment. He is charged with three federal counts of marijuana distribution and two counts of carrying a firearm -- his service revolver -- during the commission of a drug crime.
In Cleveland, Ohio, a DEA agent was indicted May 12 for his role in a 2005 drug operation that put more than two dozen residents behind bars. DEA Agent Lee Lucas, 41, faces seven counts of obstruction of justice, seven counts of perjury, three counts of violating individuals' civil rights, and one count of making false statements in an official report. In the 2005 operation, Lucas' informant, Jerrell Bray, intentionally framed 17 people by doing controlled drug buys but intentionally misidentifying the drug sellers, providing people with his drugs and then retrieving the stash so they looked like drug sellers, and staged scripted recorded conversations to make individuals appear to be drug sellers. Lucas allegedly knew his snitch was rogue, but covered it up, included false and misleading information in reports, and concealed potentially exculpatory evidence. Bray got 15 years. Let's see what his DEA handler gets.
In New York City, an NYPD officer was arrested May 13 and charged with trying to steal $900,000 left in a Manhattan apartment by a drug dealer who had been deported. Officer Shawn Jenkins, 41, plotted with a confidential informant to go to the apartment, serve an official looking document on the new tenant, immobilize him with a stun gun, and retrieve the money from its hiding place under the floor. He is now charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and attempted robbery. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison on each charge.
In Temple Terrace, Florida, a Temple Terrace Police officer was arrested last Friday on charges he stole drugs recovered in a recent case. Officer Zachariah Brown, 33, was arrested after investigators found missing hydrocodone and Xanax pills in his police cruiser. He was booked and released on bail and has been placed on administrative leave with pay until the internal investigation is concluded. He is charged with drug possession, petty theft, and tampering with evidence.
In Philadephia, prosecutors dismissed the first of what could be dozens of drug cases last Friday as fall-out from the ongoing corruption scandal in the Philadelphia police narcotics squad continues to spread. The scandal began with Officer Jeffrey Cujdik, who is alleged to have falsified affidavits in order to get judges to sign drug search warrants. Now, because of the cloud over Cujdik, prosecutors are seeking delays in his pending cases. The case dropped Friday was not one where Cujdik is alleged to have lied on affidavits, but prosecutors dropped it because they had run out of time to stall any longer and Cujdik's credibility in any case is now in doubt. Cujdik, his brother, Richard Cujdik, and another Philly narc, Robert McConnell have all been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation, which has since broadened to include allegations that Philly narcs routinely raided convenience stores, turned off surveillance equipment, and stole cash and goods from the stores before arresting their owners for selling small plastic bags. At least 52 more cases could be dismissed, according to Philadelphia public defenders.
In Summerville, South Carolina, a state prison guard was charged May 14 with selling cocaine to undercover Dorchester County deputies. Guard John Lambert, 28, is charged with distribution of cocaine and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. He is now on administrative leave from his post at the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville.
In Newark, New Jersey, a former Passaic County sheriff's officer was sentenced Monday to seven years and one month in federal prison for stealing $250,000 worth of cocaine from the department evidence room and selling it to drug dealers. Former officer Alan Souto, an 18-year veteran of the force, was a member of the Sheriff's Evidence Unit, and used his access card to gradually begin stealing drugs until he had stolen 95 pounds of cocaine and 1.5 pounds of heroin. He was arrested in March 2008 after authorities noticed a GPS device missing and cooperated with investigators, leading to two other men also being charged in the case. Maybe that's why he got seven years instead of the life sentence he could have received.
In Toledo, Ohio, a former Sylvania Police officer was sentenced May 14 to three years in prison for stealing drug money from the department property room. Former officer Carl Beckman, a 36-year-veteran of the department, nickel-and-dimed more than $30,000 over a 13-year period. He had pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice.
In Hammond, Indiana, a former St. Joseph County Police officer was sentenced May 13 to more than six years in prison for burglarizing a mobile home and stealing plasma TVs and computer monitors from it -- oh, and cocaine, too, which he tried to sell. Former officer Andrew Taghon was one of three local police officers indicted by the feds in the case dating back to 2004. The other two await sentencing.
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reddit"Busy Busy"
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 05/25/2009 - 2:20pmU.S. Police That Help NARCO Terrorists Are Also Terrorists.
During “Alcohol Prohibition” police, judges and government officials were consumers of illegal alcohol. European Immigrants that drank beer, believed U.S. Prohibition was a crazy, that no government could stop Citizens drinking, after all drinking had been going on for thousands of years.
During prohibition my Irish grandfather’s almost broke trucking company, was believed but not confirmed to have survived the Great Depression running booze: drivers were easy to find, grandpa only had to call a police department to send over cops to drive his trucks. Sometimes the police called first looking for work. That helped ensure police would not search his trucks at checkpoints or act on informant tips. The best booze came from Canada and was apparently delivered to private country clubs and judges’ homes. Some of Grandpa’s truck drivers had left Ireland in1921 after the British signed a piece agreement with the IRA and new Republic of Ireland that split Ireland into two countries. Other Irish immigrants, sometimes related bootleggers became cops in New York, New Jersey, San Francisco and LA.
There is little comparison between today’s corrupt cops and those during alcohol prohibition. Corrupt police today threaten our U.S. National Security when for money they help KILLER NARCO Terrorists’ and their gangs in America distribute ill-legal drugs: such corrupt police can never be considered Patriots, but only enemies of the state. Police convicted of aiding NARCO terrorists’ by helping move or sell their drugs in America should be charged with providing support to terrorists. It has been estimated fifty-percent of NARCO Terrorists’ illegal-drug profits are spent paying off corrupt police and government officials including those in the U.S.
Police every year should have to provide an oversight committee with a personal asset and spending report: those "reports" where appropriate might help explain why a cop was able to bank or spend more money than paid as a police officer. Police having to submit personal asset reports to an oversight committee might provide probable cause where justified for government audits of police activities.
Public beheadings
Comment posted by Anonymous on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 8:12pmThese assholes are the lowest form of vermin criminailia. A normal citizen would get life, while these lumps of shit get a paid vacation until proven guilty, whereas a "normal" citizen has to prove their innocents beyond any doubt, and gets a jailhouse fuckin' until he does. The only fitting punishment for this caliber of scum is public beheadings- televised.
How Many Cops Have Bought Forfeited Homes?
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 1:52pmPolice corruption increasingly abounds U.S. Cities. Citizens are illegally shot, falsely arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned.
Too easily, Police can falsify evidence, purchase or influence informant testimony to convict innocent Citizens. As police corruption spreads like cancer—so do the risks Americans may be "falsely" imprisoned—despite the conviction standard “evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Seldom addressed by the press, is how easily police can falsify “civil evidence” to cause “civil asset forfeiture” of a person’s assets like their home. It would be interesting to learn how many cop families got bargains buying forfeited houses. Civil Asset Forfeiture requires a lower standard of evidence than criminal evidence, “only a Preponderance of Civil Evidence”, little more than hearsay to forfeit property. Police need only put false hearsay on the street to manufacture hearsay evidence to seize property. In many cases, No one has to be charged or convicted of a crime for police to forfeit assets.
interseting angle...
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 3:56pmi have read that in some states, cops who participate in cases where property seizure is implemented, get part of the value of the property as a reward...i think i read that in mike gray's "drug crazy"...
"Interesting Angle" There are 200 U.S. Forfeiture Laws
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 05/25/2009 - 3:34pmThere are over 200 U.S. laws and violations mentioned in the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 and the Patriot Act that can subject property to civil asset forfeiture.” Under federal civil forfeiture laws, a person or business need not be charged with a crime for government to forfeit their property.
In the U.S. private security companies and their operatives work so closely with law enforcement to forfeit property—providing intelligence information, they appear to merge with police.
Private police causing asset forfeitures and arrests using government clearances is frightening. For example, how would a civil asset or criminally charged U.S. defendant use the Freedom of Information Act to retrieve information from a private company operating under Government contract, to help their defense? Currently who controls what information quasi-government corporations and their operatives must retain that might be used to assist police in making arrests and asset forfeitures..to ensure Americans' constitutional rights were not violated?
Rep. Henry Hyde’s bill HR 1658 passed, the “Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000” and effectively eliminated the “statue of limitations” for Government Civil Asset Forfeiture. The statute now runs five years from when police allege they “learned” that an asset became subject to forfeiture. With such a weak statute of limitations and the low standard of civil proof needed for government to forfeit property “A preponderance of Evidence”, it is problematic law enforcement and private government contractors will also want access to telecom-NSA and other government wiretaps perhaps illegal, to secure evidence to arrest Americans and or civilly forfeit their homes, inheritances and businesses. Of obvious concern, what happens to fair justice in America if police become dependent on “Asset Forfeiture” to pay their salaries and operating costs? Citizens currently cannot expect honest police or informant testimony when police are trying to forfeit a person's assets. Under the USA Patriot Act, witnesses can be kept hidden while being paid part of the assets they cause to be forfeited.
The Patriot Act specifically mentions using Title 18USC asset forfeiture laws: those laws include a provision in Rep. Henry Hyde’s 2000 bill HR 1658—for “Retroactive Civil Asset Forfeiture” of “assets already subject to government forfeiture”, meaning "property already tainted by crime" provided “the property” was already part of or “later connected” to a criminal investigation in progress" when HR.1658 passed. That can apply to more than two hundred federal laws and violations.
To help protect Americans from escalating police forfeiture abuse, Congress should pass legislation that raises the standard of evidence U.S. Government uses for Civil Asset Forfeiture from a mere “Preponderance of Evidence”, to “Clear and Convincing Evidence.
Pigs in Portland
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 05/25/2009 - 12:09amNorth Portland Police- They file false Police reports and thrash on you, they also deceive and claim you where resisting arrest, when you complied completely. It is so unfair. Their lies believed, over the complete truth. I wanted to take a polygraph and have the Police officer also take a polygraph, but the state rather convict innocent people than see their cops are corrupt. Therefore, the Judges are corrupt also. I am a law-abiding citizen, never arrested before; this conviction was and is unjust. Now I have a misdemeanor on my record. If convicted on every false charge, he said I did. I would now be a felon, which he tried hard to convict me of his lies. The Good Lord above and I know I am innocent of the charge convicted of, and I do not understand how this happens.
Thanks North Portland Police, I used to trust and respect the Police. Now I get happy if an Officer gets hurts, "well that's karma, they probably was a lying rogue cop I say to myself" Before my encounter with this immoral so-called Peace Officer, I used to think, "Oh no why would this happen. Now what is their poor family going to do"? That thought no longer enters my mind anymore, and that is sad. For a few bad cops, I now no longer trust any.
Known Corrupted Cops
Officer Bacigalupi #30878
Officer Sery #36878
All officers that worked or collaborated with Bacigalupi #30878.
Officer John Hughes #45063
However, I would bet there are so many more.
I wish my jurors were informed. Not my luck I had idiots.
BELOW IS EDUCATION FOR EVERY BODY ---FIJA.ORG
WHO OWNS YOUR BODY?
•
• Personal Defense
• It is above question that each individual holds the unalienable right to completely own and manage his or her body. No one is more qualified than you to manage your body responsibly and with dignity. The silly assumption that government personnel, who make as many mistakes as everyone else, can successfully manage their bodies AND yours shows the unmatched ignorance of government officials, especially police, judges and prosecutors.
• Constitutional Defense
• The Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments of the Bill of Rights make it clear that government has no authority to own or manage our bodies. Individual ownership rights extend to decisions for your body, defense of your body, health care choices, privacy, gun possession on your person, body decoration, alternative medicines and supplements, vaccinations, and more. Laws claiming government ownership of your body demonstrate that the greatest threat to human rights is always from one’s own government.
• Jury Defense
• You, as one individual, cannot do much to effect legislation. However, as a juror, YOU can effectively defend each person’s absolute ownership of his or her body. One person can “hang” a jury by refusing to convict. If you are called to serve on a jury, do so! In turn, if your individual management of your body is ever described as a crime, because the government claims ownership of your body, wouldn’t you want a member of your jury to know that was a fraud? You want jurors who understand that they can hang a jury by simply stating that the prosecutor failed to prove the government case. Or you can state no reason for your verdict, as is your right.
• Defense with Knowledge
• More information on defending this absolute right to own and manage your body, which gives you the knowledge to defeat the lies of lawyers and judges, is available at www.fija.org. You and your family and friends will want to learn and share this priceless knowledge about jury authority. It is the best peaceful means to protect us all.
• The History and Effect of Jury Nullification
• Liberty exists only among reasoning people who are tolerant of human diversity. Tyranny thrives on intolerance. Conscientious jurors defend liberty when they refuse to convict fellow citizens maliciously accused of crimes. Reasoning jurors stopped the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and freed tax protesters after the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Juries refused to convict under the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, during Prohibition 1920-30, Vietnam War objectors, tax protesters, medical marijuana users, peaceful gun owners, and others.
• The last peaceful defense of our liberties is the jury. Writers of our Constitution understood that power always corrupts. The people must retain, understand and use all the processes to defend themselves from the greatest threat to liberty: one’s own government. Informed grand jurors and trial jurors can protect you from bad government laws.
• There are countless inferior laws, based on government’s assumed ownership of our bodies that contradict the superior laws of our Constitution and common law. With all the bad laws on the books, it is only a matter of time before you, your family, or friends are accused of some crime. Your last peaceful line of defense is informed jurors who refuse to convict under bad laws based on government’s assumed ownership of your body. You hold all rights to completely own and be responsible for your body.
• Corrupt prosecutors and judges are common. Anyone can easily go through the process to become a lawyer or judge. The US is overrun by them. They are common people, who hold no more intelligence or reasoning ability than any other common person, and often less because of their egos and craving for more power. The duty and design of the citizen juror is to apply reasoning devoid of any craving for power. Lawyers and judges literally cannot understand that concept, even if they read these words, which is why wise people instituted the citizen jury system. Jurors hold the authority to render a verdict against the demands of power-hungry lawyers and judges.
• Today, your understanding of the authority for juror nullification is critically important due to increasing numbers of fear-based laws. These laws are supported by both political parties, by politically appointed government judges and prosecutors, and by United Nations leadership.
• Jurors can nullify bad laws by refusing to convict people being tried under those laws. When jurors refuse to convict, legislators and prosecutors know the law is NOT supported by the community. Acquittals and hung juries are politically embarrassing to legislators, power craving prosecutors, bureaucrats, and most judges.
• It cost many lives to establish a jury system designed to protect our individual rights. One informed person on each jury can regain these rights.
• Defending Body Ownership Creates an Alliance of Traditional Opponents
• Many favorite rights of conservatives, and other favorite rights of liberals, have been reduced to privileges, granted or denied at whim of government officers, by the same flawed process. That process assumes government ownership of individual bodies, and implies the willful surrender of that right by the individual.
• As an adult, if you willfully surrendered your right to ingest substances of your choice, or to have a gun on your person, which are actions of the body that damage no other person, by not expressly objecting to gun and drug laws, you do not own your body. The government owns it. That concept in law has voided human rights, replacing them with privileges, because uninformed jurors have not protected the absolute right of all conservatives and liberals to own and manage their own bodies.
• JURY DEFENSE OF YOUR BODY
• Juror nullification occurs when a juror refuses to convict a person because of bad or misapplied law. Many bad laws are based on government’s falsely assumed ownership of your body. Refusing to enforce bad laws by nullifying them is the highest duty of a juror. Jurors can defend your ownership and management of your body, and thus all of your other rights. Jurors have the authority to judge the law and its application, and to veto bad laws by “not guilty” verdicts. Jurors cannot be punished for their verdicts.
• If you want to defend an individual’s ownership of his or her body, you must first get on the jury. During jury selection, lawyers and judges try to remove informed people from juries. Power-corrupted lawyers and judges depend on seating jurors who will do whatever they are told by government, even in violation of good conscience, reasoning, common sense and constitutional law.
• When called for jury duty and questioned about your understanding of the law or issues, consider stating that you do not keep track of political issues, and that you can apply the law as instructed by the court. If asked, suggest that you do not remember if you belong to any particular organizations because you get too many junk mail organizational solicitations. Imply an impartial attitude.
• You may be the only informed person on the jury. The judge’s instructions and oaths to the jurors are designed to fool jurors and protect the raw power of judges. Despite their official-sounding nature, these instructions to jurors cannot be legally binding, or there would be no need for the authority of independently thinking jurors.
• You hold the absolute right to vote your conscience. If the accused did not identifiably damage an actual person, you can find him or her not guilty. Regardless of other jurors, you cannot be forced to change your verdict. You can state that the government prosecutor did not prove the government case. Or you can state no reason for your verdict, as is your right.
• THE INDIVIDUAL JUROR: THE LAST PEACEFUL DEFENSE OR YOUR RIGHTS AGAINST GOVERNMENT POWER
• Your body and minds right of: expressions thoughts possessions medicines recreation and work
• Government judges and prosecutors crave raw power beyond the legal limit to their authority. That power can only exist if the person brought before the court is deceived by process into surrendering ownership of his or her body, and responsibility for individual decisions about that body, to government and the courts. Informed jurors, who do not seek any power, can defend the right of individual ownership of the body for everyone, equally. Jurors can refuse to convict if the government’s case is based on the concept of government owning an individual’s body, or if the government judges or prosecutors pretend to have any right to make or enforce any decisions about an individual’s body.
• WHO OWNS YOUR BODY?
• “The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and
Seizures shall not be violated ...”
• The human right that controls all other rights is the absolute ownership and management of one’s own body. Without complete ownership of your body, you cannot hold rights.
• Throughout history, kings and dictators claimed ownership of everyone’s body as a way to control all people and their actions. The U.S. Constitution reversed that flawed form of government. But now, government again claims the power of kings, seizing ownership of your body. Their actions, rather than their lies, prove that the government holds no compassion or respect for you. To government, your body is merely a working device it owns, to be taxed.
•
• The Jury is your defense.
WE THE PEOPLE NEED TO GET INFORMED OUR GOVERNMENT IS PASSING LAWS THAT ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL WE THE PEOPLE CAN STOP THIS…
THE BIGGEST AND MOST POWERFUL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY IN THE UNITED STATES HAS THE ABSOLUTE NON-NEGOTIABLE POWER TO IGNORE GOVERNMENT LAWS, KEEP PEOPLE OUT OF PRISON, IGNORE JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS, MAKE THE OUTCOME OF ANY JURY TRIAL WHAT THEY WANT IT TO BE, AND MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT HONEST.
WHAT IS THIS AGENCY?
THE FULLY INFORMED JURY
CALL 1-800-TEL-JURY
www.fija.org
When Will All This End ?
Comment posted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/26/2009 - 1:45amIt's starting to seem like the system is coming apart from every direction. No matter where you look, sheriffs and police, judges and prison guards, DEA and all the rest.....including the criminals who also share in the booty of forfeited assets and drugs that get re-sold back to the black market, you find endless corruption.
Is there no end to this, or will there be some light finally getting through with Obama and Eric Holder now in charge.
Only time will tell, but the chances for positive change seems better now than they ever did under Bush. Let's hope for the best, and pray for new directions....so the police and law can actually protect us.
Tipping Point reached?
Comment posted by malcolm kyle on Wed, 05/27/2009 - 4:54amThe grotesqueness of the present situation may be a sign that things are about to change. There are many more people now than ever, who understand what`s going on and are willing to speak out against the atrocities of the War on "Some" Drugs. This gives us hope that our daughter may get the chance to grow up in a world which is not lacking in either love nor compassion and one that makes a lot more sense than the present.
Prohibiting drugs does far worse damage than the drugs themselves; what other argument do you need?
BTW. The Great Crash of 29 happened during Alcohol Prohibition. Go figure!
...If all else fails give up.
You idiots protect yourselfs
Comment posted by camaro on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 7:00amBy domestic terrorists, more accurately government, sponsored terrorism. There used to be a fine line between police work, and terrorism, now there's no line, and there's laws to promote these acts on the citizens, and courts that enforce terrorist regimes, like the DEA, sheriff’s, SWAT, and others.
Laws that cause harm, aren't "laws", they're "agenda". Laws that cause death, aren't "laws", they're contracts. Laws that jail nonviolent citizens, aren't "laws", they're criminal acts. Laws that disregard rights, aren't "laws", they're acts of terrorism.
What's so different from what Saadam did to his people, to what the government is doing here? Only difference is we have many "Saadams", not just one. And all ours are alive, and thriving on the misery of others, along with stolen property, money, and complete disregard of constitutional rights.
And we don't consider the USA a terrorist regime? C'mon.
Known Saadams
Officer Bacigalupi #30878
Officer Sery #36878
All officers that worked or collaborated with Bacigalupi #30878.
Officer John Hughes #45063
All Multnomah Judges and DAs at court house
there are so many more are you a Saadam too?
Busy Busy
Comment posted by Anonymous on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 1:16amSure is sweet to see what the Drug War is doing to law enforcement. To bad so many get away with it.