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Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #516)
Consequences of Prohibition
Corruption
Drug War Issues
Police Corruption

The allure of cocaine proves too much for a California highway patrolman and a pair of Brooklyn narcs, and a pair of New Jersey cops pay for peddling pills. Let's get to it:

In Santa Ana, California, a California Highway Patrol officer was arrested Monday for allegedly stealing more than a million dollars worth of cocaine from a Highway Patrol evidence room. Officer Joshua Blackburn, 32, a six-year-veteran, is accused of breaking into the evidence room at the patrol's Santa Ana headquarters. Highway Patrol authorities discovered the theft Friday and notified Santa Ana Police, who made the arrest. Blackburn is being held on $4 million bail at the Orange County Jail.

In New York City, a former Newark police officer was sentenced December 20 to 33 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in a scheme where he, another Newark police officer, and a New Jersey doctor conspired to obtain dozens of illegal prescriptions for Oxycontin, fill the prescriptions, then sell the drugs for cash. Former officer Ronald Pompanio, 42, faced up to 87 months, but got a break for cooperating in the investigation and testifying against the doctor. Both Pompanio and former officer John Hernandez pleaded guilty in September 2006 to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute oxycodone, the main ingredient in OxyContin, after admitting that they filled the prescriptions and sold the drugs on the street in northern New Jersey. The doctor, Joan Jaszczult of Bloomfield, has also pleaded guilty and faces up to 10 years in prison. The conspirators admitted to trafficking in a minimum of 250,000 milligrams of oxycodone. [Ed: The question always needs to be asked in cases like this, was the doctor a real conspirator, or was the doctor an unwitting victim about whom the drug sellers made up a story to get time off their sentences? Or whose actions the prosecutors misrepresented? Media outlets often rely on the official line without investigating further, so to really know the story in a case like this it might be necessary to independently examine the facts.]

In New York City, two NYPD officers were arrested on December 19 on charges of misconduct and falsifying records in connection with the disappearance of 11 bags of cocaine. Officers Julio Alvarez and Sean Johnstone of the Brooklyn South narcotics unit arrested a man on September 13 and turned over 17 bags of cocaine as evidence, but Johnstone, who was working undercover with Alvarez, was later recorded saying that Alvarez had actually seized 28 baggies of cocaine. This is the same pair of officers who made these pages last week, when we reported on a brewing scandal at Brooklyn South over the use of racial epithets recorded by transmitters they were wearing. It was those same transmitters that recorded the admission of stealing the 11 bags of cocaine. Unlike most defendants in New York's courts, Alvarez and Johnstone were given the courtesy of appearing in court without handcuffs and were allowed to remain free without bail. [Ed: Why the special treatment? Why not the same courtesy for other defendants?]

News Brief

This work by StoptheDrugWar.org is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Comments

Anonymous (not verified)

fuck da police

Fri, 12/28/2007 - 10:01pm Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

Not surprising, the double standard applied by the Injustice system of criminal proportions. When the poor struggle to survive by employing the capitalist model; as promoted in this country as a good thing which is taught in example everywhere in this western thinking society the Genocide is accomplished. when the Nazi's committed the Holocaust did the common everyday German see it as anything but eliminating a scourge and a good thing? Yet when that same individual commits the very same act and that person is of a different class : ie; a family man, usually a non-minority, lacking the history of percieved morality, or otherwise commonly accepted do gooder who somehow is viewed as a casualty in a bad situation and not as a criminal they are excused!

Mon, 12/31/2007 - 4:58pm Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

How sad to see such quick and thoughtless comments. It does show the amount of forethought and depth given however. The real problem here would have been if what happened was not brought to light. If these situations were covered up. That is what happens in a society with no freedom of the people.
Hmmm - how are you able to have this discussion forum and site in this oppressive capitalist country ?

Wed, 01/02/2008 - 2:34pm Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

sounds like a bunch of crap
these poor slobs get killed everyday and no one gives a crap, but this seems awful interesting, huh? only to a scum bag.
i am no cop lover but i would beleive cops over admitted drug dealers.
thats why ny is such a joke

Mon, 01/21/2008 - 5:19pm Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

what is this drug dealer related to a politician or something??? hmmmm, money talks, while the poor man walks.
typical NYC politics, blame the alleged dirty cop, not the prev. convicted, admitted drug dealer. Punk. again who must have some very powerful relatives, maybe in the DA's office or something???
step out of the box people, its a big world out there.
i pray that good will prevail, now and always.
hang in boys, god is with you.
it is always easy to take the low road. you are in for a ride but i have faith in god and the truth, stay up, it will be hard, but the truth will come out.
..as for the admitted cocaine dealer... i dont care if it was 47 or 12 bags, i hope he sniffs them himself and overdoses. get a real job, like everyone else - you lazy animal !!

Mon, 01/21/2008 - 5:26pm Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

i wonder if it does make a difference that these undercovers busted the head of the Crooklyn DA's major narcotics office, brother, and two prominent brooklyn attorneys nephew recently for large drug crimes, a-1 and a-2 felonies, which is equivalent to murder; with this resulting in NO prison sentences, rather drug treatment!
drug treatment programs are for addicts NOT dealers!
..i wonder How these stories Failed to make it on the news or in the papers?

Tue, 01/22/2008 - 1:24am Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

It looks like a lot of law enforcement types can't stand the truth by the nature of their remarks supporting the convicted cops. Now, If they would only pay attention to their brothers and sisters in LEAP. This 10,000 strong organization of law enforcement professionals, many of whom served their years in drug law enforcement, want to see the drug war ended. They realise the harm done to society, in general and, law enforcement in particular, by the drug war Check it out, officers!

Randall St Jacques CFO
Windsor West Parti Marijuana Party

Fri, 02/01/2008 - 11:06pm Permalink

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