Pubdate: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 Source: PR Newswire Copyright: 1999 PR Newswire MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE SERGEANT PLEADS GUILTY TO CORRUPTION CHARGE Reports U.S. Attorney BOSTON, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- An eighteen year veteran and Sergeant with the Massachusetts State Police, pled guilty today to a corruption charge. United States Attorney Donald K. Stern; L. Wayne Nicks, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; Colonel Reed V. Hillman, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; Philip A. Rollins, District Attorney for Barnstable County; Frederick Aufiero, Chief of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division; and Steven J. Pirotte, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, announced that RICHARD COREY, JR., age 41, of 88 Fresh Pond Road, in East Falmouth, Massachusetts, pled guilty today before Chief U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young to a one count superseding Information charging him with corruption from 1994 through 1998. The Information charged COREY with depriving the taxpayers of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts State Police, of his honest services over the four year period by accepting cash payments from Edwin Jones, a/k/a Fast Eddy, a cocaine dealer operating on Cape Cod, in exchange for providing Jones with confidential and investigative law enforcement information and other assistance. U.S. Attorney Stern stated: "Richard Corey was getting paid for feeding sensitive law enforcement information to a drug dealer. He will go to federal prison for his crime. But nothing will ever erase the dishonor he brought to his badge." At the change of plea hearing today, the government stated that the information and assistance that COREY provided to Jones included, but was not limited to, the following: - -- COREY disclosed and/or confirmed to Jones the identity of an undercover officer who was negotiating an undercover drug buy from one of Jones' associates. - -- COREY disclosed to Jones the identity of an individual who was providing information about Jones' illegal activities to law enforcement officers. - -- COREY disclosed to Jones that a witness, identified by name, had come into the Massachusetts State Police barracks in Yarmouth, Massachusetts to report that Jones had threatened that witness and that Jones was engaged in illegal narcotics activity. - -- COREY informed Jones that a license plate provided by Jones belonged to an undercover surveillance vehicle. Jones told COREY that he wanted the license plate information because he believed that the car bearing that license plate surveilled him after he left the COREY's residence. - -- throughout the period in which COREY devised and executed this scheme to defraud, he passed on to Jones discussions that he heard about Jones and investigative information he had pertaining to Jones or Jones' associates. For example, when Jones bailed an associate of his out of jail, he asked COREY to listen for any talk concerning Jones at the State Police barracks. Shortly thereafter, the defendant warned Jones that people at the barracks had, in fact, been talking about Jones having bailed his associate out and COREY told Jones that the State Police were unhappy with Jones for doing so. - -- throughout this period, Jones also sought information from COREY about State Police speed traps and surveillance positions and COREY provided Jones with such information. - -- from in or about 1994 through May 29, 1998, Jones provided the defendant with cash payments in exchange for the defendant's disclosure of confidential and investigative law Enforcement information and other assistance that the defendant provided to Jones. Chief Judge Young scheduled sentencing for June 29, 1999 at 2 p.m. COREY faces a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment and a $250, 000 fine. This case was investigated by the Massachusetts State Police and the Barnstable District Attorney's office, with the assistance of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Internal Revenue Service, and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily R. Schulman of Stern's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, and Alex Whiting of Stern's Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit. - --- MAP posted-by: Patrick Henry