Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/516/police_drug_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?]

Snitches Gone Bad: The Creepy Side of Law enforcement

Just last week, Drug War Chronicle reviewed Ethan Brown's "Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice," which tells the story of the corruption and misdeeds fostered by federal drugs laws that virtually impel people who've been arrested to find others to inform on in order to avoid prison time themselves. We don't know if it's synchronicity or what, but in the week since then, bad snitch stories seem to be popping up all over. Here are three we've spotted in the past few days:

In Twin Falls, Idaho, a man charged in a Twin Falls murder was working as an informant for the Blaine County Narcotics Enforcement Team. John Henry McElhiney of Hailey is charged with killing an 18-year-old Twin Falls man in September. In response to press inquiries, the Blaine County Sheriff's Office has confirmed that McElhiney worked drug cases for the drug squad. The office stopped short of calling him a "confidential informant," however, instead referring to him as a "cooperative individual." It is unclear from local press accounts whether McElhiney became a snitch for money, to avoid prison time himself, or for some other reason. It is also unclear whether his assistance actually led to any other arrests. He awaits trial on the murder charge.

In Seattle, a "cooperating witness" pleaded guilty last Friday to framing people for drug sales offenses. Snitch Tina Rivard, 40, had been arrested in May for forging prescriptions, but instead of charging her, agents with the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Narcotics Task Force offered her a deal: leniency in exchange for helping to build cases against prescription drug dealers. Rivard helped in one case, but in a second, she framed a 21-year-old man on Oxycontin dealing charges by undermining the task force's "controlled buy" system. Although agents would punch the suspect's phone number into Rivard's phone, she would then secretly hit speed-dial and instead call a friend posing as the suspect. He would then make incriminating statements and set up drug deals. Rivard also faked a drug buy from the suspect under the agents' noses, having her friend actually bring the drugs she claimed to have bought. The 21-year-old was indicted and faced up to 20 years in prison, but Rivard eventually admitted she had set him up. Now the indictment against him has been dropped, and she faces 20 years.

In Cleveland, Ohio, an informant for the DEA has been convicted of framing innocent people and getting them sent to prison. Informant Jerrell Bray staged drug deals with friends while investigators watched, but gave investigators the names of people not involved in the deals, then testified or gave sworn statements saying that the innocent people were the drug dealers. Bray managed to set up four people, including a woman who had refused to date him, while working under DEA agent Lee Lucas. It is unclear whether Lucas or other law enforcement personnel knew what Bray was up to, but a federal grand jury will meet next month to investigate obstruction of justice, perjury, and weapons charges against Bray "and others." Bray was sentenced to 15 years in prison on perjury and deprivation of civil rights charges, a sentence that will run concurrently with state time for shooting a man in a drug-related robbery.

Ironically, Bray can gain a sentence cut on the federal time if he "cooperates fully." When will they learn?