Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

A New York cop goes down for peddling pot, a Connecticut cop goes down for slinging smack, and a Nashville cop goes to the pen for ripping off a drug dealer. Let's get to it:

In New York City, a veteran Manhattan cop was arrested October 31 as police rounded up suspects in a marijuana-smuggling ring that allegedly brought millions of dollars worth of weed from Canada to Long Island. NYPD Officer Glen Smokler, a 13-year veteran assigned to the 30th Precinct in Harlem, is charged with three counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance and conspiracy. Altogether more than 30 people were arrested in Suffolk and Nassau counties, and cops seized more than $3 million in cash, 23 luxury cars, a 44-foot yacht, 10 assault rifles and more than 100 pounds of pot. Ironically, Smokler himself brought down the long-running operation when he burglarized the home of the ringleaders, leading a tipster to tell police Smokler had done it. From there, a five-month investigation broadened until its denouement last week.

In Bridgeport, Connecticut, a Stamford police officer was arrested on drug charges on October 25. Officer Quinn Fillippino, 28, was charged with possession of narcotics with the intent to sell after Bridgeport police spotting him and a passenger allegedly selling drugs from his vehicle. Police said the drug was heroin. Fillippino is on paid leave and at last report was being held on $50,000 bail.

In Nashville, a former Nashville police officer was sentenced last Friday to 2 ½ years in prison for his role in the 2003 robbery of a drug dealer. Charles Williams III was convicted in January of participating in and concealing a robbery cooked up by his partner, Officer Ernest Cecil, and his nephew, Corey Cecil. The younger Cecil, a cocaine dealer, arranged for Williams and his uncle to pull over a vehicle in which he was a passenger and which also contained 3.5 kilos of cocaine. The apparently legitimate law enforcement stop allowed young Cecil to make off with the cocaine, which he sold for more than $70,000, giving some of the profits to Williams and his uncle. Williams is now doing 12 years, and young Cecil is doing 6 ½ despite testifying against the other two.