The Corrupt Cops Stories Are Back

Drug War Chronicle may have gone on hiatus, but police drug war corruption didn't. Here's a full month's worth to get you restarted. Let's get to it:

In West New York, New Jersey, a West New York police dispatcher, a retired detective, and a Hudson County corrections officer were arrested on July 17 along with four others in a drug bust that led to the seizure of four kilograms of suspected cocaine, two handguns, seven vehicles, and more than $70,000 in cash. Ileana Hernandez, 56, a dispatcher with West New York Police Department, is charged with official misconduct, pattern of official misconduct, conspiracy to commit official misconduct, and conspiracy to distribute CDS (cocaine). Thomas Mannion, 60, a retired West New York police detective and longtime Police Benevolent Association local president, is charged with conspiracy to distribute (cocaine), and Marquis Santiago, 33, a Hudson County corrections officer, is charged with conspiracy to possess a controlled dangerous substance (cocaine). Hernandez has been suspended from duty.

In San Francisco, a former Sonoma County police officer was convicted on July 9 of extortion, impersonating a federal agent, and other charges for a scheme to steal marijuana and money from southbound drivers coming from the state's Emerald Triangle pot-growing region. Former Rohnert Park Police officer Joseph Huffaker was found guilty of six counts of conspiracy to commit extortion, extortion, conspiracy to falsify records in a federal investigation and falsifying records in a federal investigation, along with conspiracy to impersonate a federal officer and impersonating a federal officer. He and another former police officer, Brendan Jacy Tatum, were involved in a scheme where they pulled over drivers suspected of possessing "significant amounts" of cannabis. The officers would falsely claim to be agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to extort the cannabis and threaten to arrest the drivers if they objected. While the Rohnert Park police had previously run enforcement actions aimed at the traffic on US Highway 101, Huffaker and Taum continued them without official sanction. They went down after the FBI received complaints from citizens of being "shaken down" by officers on the highway. Tatum earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy, falsifying records, and tax evasion in connection with the scheme. He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 3. Huffaker will be sentenced on October 15 and faces a potential prison term of decades.

In Los Angeles, an LA County sheriff's deputy pleaded guilty on July 10 to possessing more than a pound of heroin he planned to smuggle into a Santa Clarita Valley county jail last year. Deputy Michael Meiser, 40, had been working at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic, and he went down attempting to smuggle Pringles cans filled with heroin into the prison in exchange for $15,000. But sheriff's department investigators were onto him and stopped and searched him, finding the heroin and the cash. He's looking at a mandatory minimum of five years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.

In Atlanta, a former Customs and Border Patrol officer was sentenced July 8 to 20 years in federal prison for smuggling 16 bricks of cocaine into the US at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Ivan Van Beverhoudt, 45, boarded a flight in the US Virgin Islands with two carry-on bags loaded with the coke, and traveled in his official capacity with his CBP-issued firearm to avoid screening. But a dope-sniffing dog alerted on him, and he was arrested on the spot. In February, he was convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, importation of cocaine into the United States, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

In Louisville, Kentucky, a former Louisville police officer was sentenced on July 21 to 33 months in prison for his role in the botched March 2020 raid that left emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor dead from police gunfire on the floor of her apartment. Former Louisville Metro Police detective Brett Hankison, 46, had been found guilty in federal court last November of violating Taylor's civil rights during the incident, in which a squad of officers executing a search warrant with bogus information conducted a late-night no-knock raid on her apartment, leading her boyfriend to open fire on the violent intruders and thence to the police return fire that killed Taylor. Hankison did not fire the shots that killed Taylor, but was found guilty of wildly shooting into her and an adjoining apartment. Taylor's death helped spark the massive Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and the lack of punishment for other officers involved led to renewed unrest outside the courthouse during the sentencing, where four people were arrested. While the Biden Justice Department had prosecuted Hankison, the Trump Justice Department asked the judge to sentence him to only time served, just one day in prison. But US District Court Judge Rebecca Grady rejected that request, calling it "incongruous and inappropriate," and saying the department treated Hankison's actions as "an inconsequential crime."

The corrupt cops stories are back. Really, they never went away.