Newsbrief:
This
Week's
Corrupt
Cops
Stories
10/15/04
The beat goes on. Without further ado: In Kansas City, a former police sergeant pleaded guilty in federal court on October 7 to bilking the US government out of $30,000 for security services never performed. Robert Maize, 45, established two companies that employed off-duty Kansas City police officers to provide security at inner city apartment complexes, with payment coming from anti-drug security grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The contract was legitimate, but Maize's work reporting wasn't. In pleading to one count of wire fraud, Maize admitted to billing 743.5 hours of security time worth $29,099.58 for work that never took place. Maize, who resigned from the force the day before he pled guilty, now faces up to six months in federal prison. Maize was suspended from the force in April 2002 and received wages totaling more than $120,000 after the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners decided to pay him until the case was resolved. In New York City, a former narcotics detective was sent to prison for two years October 8 after pleading guilty in April to robbing drug dealers. Carlos Rodriguez, 39, became the first officer sent to prison in what is the city's worst police corruption scandal in a decade, the New York Times reported. Rodriguez admitted to stealing $100,000 from a drug dealer and splitting the proceeds with another officer. He told the court he spent his $45,000 take on renovating his Long Island home. He also told the court he was drunk and distraught over his wife's health when he committed the crime, but that didn't buy him much leniency. The same day that Rodriguez was sentenced, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced the arrest of Highway Patrol trooper Sgt. Reginald Flagg of Clarksville and three others on crack cocaine possession and conspiracy charges. Flagg is accused of conspiring to possess more than 300 grams of the rock, while a nightclub owner and two others face related charges. The charge is a Tennessee Class A felony and carries a 15-to-25-year prison sentence. Flagg is free on $50,000 bail. And a day earlier in Sanford, North Carolina, a former Sanford police officer was charged with stealing two pounds of marijuana from the department's evidence room. James Ed Gregory faces two counts, one of delivering marijuana and one of possession with intent to sell, the Sanford Herald reported. Gregory allegedly stole the weed stash in March, when he took it from the evidence locker saying he was going to destroy it because it was no longer needed as evidence.
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