This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Cops growing pot, cops stealing pain pills, cops doing rip-offs, and narcs up to shady doings. Just another week on the corrupt cops beat. Let's get to it:

In Wilmington, North Carolina, the State Bureau of Investigation has agreed to look into potential criminal activity by Wilmington Police during a botched undercover drug sting. A Hanover County investigation had found that officers acted "outside of acceptable standards," but did not break any laws with their use of alcohol during the undercover drug and prostitution sting. But the investigation revealed several irregularities, including the disappearance of a video camera with critical information about the sting. Its disappearance was not reported until nine months after the fact. The murky scandal has already led to the reorganization of the department's drug squad and the transfer of its commander.

In Mobile, Alabama, a former Montgomery County police corporal was charged last Thursday with federal marijuana offenses. Lyvanh Rasavong had previously been charged in state court, but Alabama prosecutors dismissed those charges in deference to the federal charges. Rasavong is accused of conspiring with another man to sell four pounds of marijuana late last year. The indictment also alleges he sold an ounce to an undercover cop in December. He is charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana. Rasavong was caught with three pounds of pot during a raid on a home in December and has also been implicated in a 100-plant grow bust in October. He is free on bail pending trial and is looking at up to five years in federal prison.

In Shinnston, West Virginia, a Shinnston police officer was arrested Tuesday for stealing pain pills. Officer Charles Roscoe Henning III is accused of repeatedly making off with hydrocodone pills in incidents stretching back over the past two years, including incidents where he took pills he claimed were needed for investigations, where he confiscated pills after warrant searches, and where he confiscated pills during a traffic stop and then took more when the driver brought in his prescription pill bottle as proof of innocence. He faces seven counts of unlawfully acquiring controlled substances by fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge. He's looking at one to four years on each count. Henning has now been fired.

In Jackson, Mississippi, three former Jackson area police officers pleaded guilty last Thursday to stealing federal property -- $23,000 in cash that they thought belonged to drug dealers, but was actually federal sting money. Kent Daniels of Byram, a former Jackson police detective; Zack Robinson, former deputy with the Hinds County Sheriff Department; and Watson Lee Jackson Jr. of Ridgeland, a former Madison County deputy, all copped to plotting to rip off a supposed drug dealer at a Jackson hotel room in September 2011. The former officers pleaded guilty to one count of the two-count indictment. A plea agreement says the penalty could be up to 10 years in prison with three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.