This
Week's
Corrupt
Cops
Stories
1/14/05
Bad apples just keep popping up in this dirty little war on drugs. This week, we have two examples from two different faces of the drug war. From gritty Passaic, New Jersey, comes a story of urban corruption, while from down on the Mexican border, there is yet another case of a Border Patrol officer gone bad. Meanwhile, down in Texas, infamous Tulia narc Tom Coleman whose actions embodied the moral corruption at the heart of the drug war -- is finally getting his day in court. In New Jersey, corruption in Passaic County law enforcement circles made the news this week as a Superior Court judge gave an after-the-fact okay for the County Prosecutor's Office to drug test 10 officers from three different jurisdictions. Prosecutor James Aviliagno tested the cops after someone on the inside tipped off drug dealers before a countywide raid in August, NorthJersey.com reported. The raid was a success, netting 19 North Jersey residents who were part of a steroid and cocaine trafficking ring, but Aviliagno still wanted to know who was dirty. Police unions fought him in court for four months. "We had a serious problem -- that I know was let out by someone in law enforcement -- and a great number of people were put in risk," Avigliano said at a Tuesday press briefing. "I had to get to the bottom of it... I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if I had to." No one has yet tested dirty, but prosecutors had more up their sleeves. Two weeks ago, Sheriff's Officer Gerald Ward, a 22-year veteran, was arrested and charged with tipping off the ring. Another cop, Pompton Lakes Officer Dennis DePrima, has also been charged. He faces counts of official misconduct and conspiracy to distribute drugs. On the Mexican border, Border Patrol agent Luis Francisco Higareda of Holtsville, California, is sitting in jail because of his extracurricular activities. He and a Mexican man were arrested last week after a late-night, 20-mile chase through the desert. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's division, which handles internal Border Patrol investigations, received information that a multi-hundred pound load of marijuana was about to be moved across the border, where a Border Patrol agent would transport it to nearby Calexico. While investigators watched, Higareda drove up to the border at about 10:00pm and met another vehicle coming from Mexico. After what appeared to be a transfer of goods, they began tailing Higareda's official Border Patrol vehicle, prompting him to lead them on the chase that ended in Holtsville. When Higareda finally stopped, investigators found 750 pounds of pot and the Mexican man, Verdugo Cota. Both are charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and their cases will be transferred to federal court in San Diego. In the meantime, they sit in the Imperial County Jail. And then there's Tom Coleman, the itinerant Texas cop whose career blew up in his face after he single-handedly decimated the black population of small town Tulia, Texas, by going undercover and reporting -- without any backup evidence -- that some 40 of them were drug dealers. Coleman's victims were swept into the merciless Texas criminal justice system, with some being sentenced to decades in prison for crimes they did not commit, based on his word. Only after years of struggle by Tulia residents and concerned outsiders alike did the truth about the baselessness of Coleman's charges come out. Now, Texas justice comes for Coleman. For in-depth coverage of Coleman's trial, check out Scott Henson's Texas criminal justice blog, Grits for Breakfast.
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