Law
Enforcement:
This
Week's
Corrupt
Cops
Stories
1/6/06
Police corruption in the drug war knows no holidays. This week, the long-running Dallas "sheetrock scandal" grows even sleazier, a San Francisco cop is accused of being a serial horndog, and in Honolulu, a cop faces prison for selling meth and a prison guard may find himself on the other side of the bars for similar reasons. Let's get to it: In Dallas, the long-running "sheetrock scandal" has grown even sleazier -- if that is possible. In the scandal, which has already resulted in a prison sentence for former Dallas Police Officer Mark Delapaz, confidential informants working with Delapaz and his partner, Officer Eddie Herrera, set up some 30 innocent Mexican immigrants for multi-year sentences based on seized "drugs" that later turned out to be gypsum, the stuff used to make sheetrock and pool cue chalk. The Houston Chronicle reported December 19. Now Herrera is singing like a bird, and is corroborating stories told by the informants that they should have been paid $1,000 per kilo of seized drugs, but were instead "taxed" by Delapaz, who took part of the rewards as kickbacks. Herrera has told Texas Department of Public Safety investigators that he and Delapaz often forged the informants' signatures on payment receipt forms. Delapaz was convicted last year of perjury and sentenced to five years in prison, but remains free on bail. He now faces up to 20 years in prison for felony theft, organized crime, and aggravated perjury charges. Herrera still faces trial on state perjury charges. In San Francisco, San Francisco Police officer Michael Turkington was arrested December 22 on drug, sex, and false imprisonment charges for forcing himself on an 18-year-old woman while on duty. Prosecutors said Turkington, 35, befriended a San Francisco State University student, forced her to perform oral sex on him in his patrol car, then gave her marijuana in an apparent effort to placate her. Turkington is charged with false imprisonment, oral copulation, distribution of marijuana, and committing those crimes while on duty. Turkington last week faced trial on similar charges. In that case, he is accused of taking three 16- and 17-year-old girls to Sunset Park and giving them a bottle of vodka. In Honolulu, Honolulu Police Officer Robert Sylva, 50, pleaded guilty last week to distributing methamphetamine. He now faces a prison sentence of 10 years to life. Sylva, who has been in custody since his arrest in March, admitted to selling meth on at least three occasions, and prosecutors said he was in uniform on at least one of them. Sylva was busted after a girlfriend whom he supplied turned out to be a confidential informant. His defense attorney, Alvin Nishimura, told the Honolulu Advertiser Sylva was despondent after the deaths of his parents and young child in 2004 and sought out women with drug problems. Sylva was not a drug user or dealers, Nishimura said, merely a middleman. In Honolulu, prison guard Akoni Sandoval Kapihe was charged December 16 with providing contraband drugs to inmates at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center. In a still-evolving case, Kapihe is accused of smuggling marijuana and methamphetamine to prisoners in protein supplement containers. Indicted a week later were several prisoners and their relatives, who are accused of conspiring with Kapihe to get drugs into the prison. In one indictment, an inmate and his wife were charged; in another, an inmate and his mother. They all face charges of conspiracy with intent to distribute marijuana and meth, according to the Maui News. In Hammond, Indiana, East Chicago police officer Eligah Johnson, 45, pleaded guilty December 23 to distribution of cocaine and carrying a firearm while engaged in a drug crime, the Northwest Indiana Times reported. The plea in federal court leaves Johnson facing up to 25 years in prison for his role in a cocaine trafficking operation headed by an East Chicago building inspector, Veta Tyner, who also pleaded guilty the same day. Johnson was a 16-year veteran patrol officer.
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