Newsbrief:
This
Week's
Corrupt
Cops
Stories
3/11/05
It's the usual motley assortment again this week: Small time dishonesty in Texas, enterprising jailers in Tennessee, and a cop with a bad habit in Minnesota. Let's get to it: In the small town of Clute in Brazoria County, Texas, a police department narcotics investigator has been suspended without pay for five-days and placed on six months probation for letting one of his informants rack up a $236 bill on a prisoner's cell phone, the local news sheet The Facts reported on March 5. Detective Sgt. Jay Grimes has turned over the cell phone and a money order to repay the prisoner, Clute Police Chief Mark Wicker said. There were bigger doings in Memphis, where a dozen Shelby County deputy jailers were arrested Wednesday morning on charges they were involved in a pervasive conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the jail. Also arrested were two former jailers and three others, including a US Postal Service employee. They are alleged to have taken money, usually in installments of $500 or $1,000 to smuggle what they believed to be Oxycontin and crack into the jail. But the drugs were bogus, supplied by FBI agents who were investigating corruption, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal. One defendant is charged with smuggling real heroin into the jail. He faces up to 40 years in prison, while the others face 20 years. Shelby County Sheriff Mark Latrell, who is responsible for jail operations, said he was disappointed by the indictments. "It shows we have flaws," he said. "It doesn't look good." In St. Paul, Minnesota, an
assistant lab director for the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has
been caught with his hand in the cokie jar. David Peterson was charged
Monday with possessing more than 25 grams of cocaine he stole from the
state crime lab, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported with a sympathetic
tone usually missing from its portrayal of drug busts. According
to the paper, Petersen was "a man struggling against substance abuse, succumbing
to it, then worrying about how to hide it from his peers." The complaint
against Petersen charges that he used his access to cocaine stored "for
undercover drug buys" (!?) to repeatedly steal from the state stash.
But he got caught when a suspicious fellow BCA agent reported he had been
making many trips to the storage lockers. Petersen cooperated with
investigators, showing them the area in his home where he cut his dope.
Investigators found drug residues there, the complaint said. Petersen
is free on $15,000 bond pending trial. Oh, and he must submit to
a chemical dependency evaluation and random drug tests.
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