This
Week's
Corrupt
Cops
Stories
1/7/05
It's a mixed bag this week, with one clearly corrupt law enforcer, several who are severely misguided and hypocritical although probably not corrupt, and one truly bizarre tale out of Detroit. First up is John Chiapelas, 61, a 30-year veteran investigator for the St. Louis circuit attorney's office. He was sentenced Thursday to five months in prison for his role in a ring that brought thousands of pounds of marijuana to the St. Louis area, the Associated Press reported. His role consisted primarily of allowing his daughter's boyfriend to use the suburban family home as a stash house. After police investigating the ring watched the boyfriend carry two heavy bags into the home, they searched the place and discovered the bags held 106 pounds of pot. At sentencing he told the judge he was aware of what was going on, but failed to act. "I guess, mentally, I didn't want to admit I had any fault," he said. And then we have a trio of cops and prosecutors who managed to get caught with the goods. In Georgia, Assistant District Attorney Bob Cullifer of the Mountain Judicial Circuit was arrested along with his wife on December 23 on charges of marijuana possession with intent to distribute, the AP reported. The pair were busted after Cullifer went into a convenience store while his wife waited in the car outside. The car alarm went off, the wife could not shut it off, and when police arrived, they smelled a "strong odor of marijuana," searched the car, and found a bag of the kind bud weighing 30 grams. While it appears the possession with intent charge is over the top, Cullifer, a 15-year veteran prosecutor, should have known better. He has since resigned. A couple of states over, in Louisiana, State Police Master Trooper Michael Evans apparently picked up a bad habit somewhere along the way. Last week, he was fired and then arrested on charges of receiving prescription drugs by fraud. He is charged with two counts and was booked into the Ouachita County Jail on a $5,000 bond, the Monroe News-Star reported. Up north in Illinois, Lincoln police officer Corporal Diana Short and her paramedic husband were arrested December 16 after an Illinois State Police drug task force raided their home a day earlier, uncovering a basement marijuana grow operation with 15 four-foot-tall plants, the Peoria Star-Journal reported. Both Short, 45, and her husband John, 41, face felony charges of manufacture and manufacture with intent to deliver, although there is as yet no evidence the pair were involved in pot sales. Local prosecutors are threatening to up the charges, and in a fine display of prosecutorial vindictiveness, are also threatening to charge Short with multiple crimes for lying about her age when she first got her drivers' license and maintaining that lie each time she renewed it. Short resigned from the force in late December, and she and her husband face a January 19 trial. And in a truly strange case, Detroit police officer Ceiere Campbell will be in federal court next week on charges he stole drugs and gave them to addicts in order to entice them to appear on his anti-drug web site, the Detroit Free Press reported. Campbell, who had worked in narcotics, allegedly stole marijuana, crack cocaine, and heroin during drug busts, then gave the drugs to at least 50 people so he could photograph them using drugs on his web site. He was ratted off by a disgruntled relative in May 2003. When federal agents raided his home days later, they found marijuana, paraphernalia, a stolen handgun, and waivers the drug users allegedly signed to permit their images to be used on the Internet. Campbell, who claims he intended the web site to send an anti-drug message, is charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, aiding and abetting the delivery of controlled substances, and possession of a stolen firearm. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
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