The disgraced former state drug lab chemist at the center of the state drug lab scandal that resulted in more than a 1,000 criminal cases being dismissed has been sentenced to three to five years in prison. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol S. Ball accepted Annie Dookhan's guilty plea during a hearing today. Dookhan, 36, of Franklin, mishandled evidence and faked test results at the state drug lab in Jamaica Plain. She pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, perjury and tampering with evidence. [continues 138 words]
My "back doctor" appointment went south. I had planned to praise the previously prescribed physical therapy, which had erased my back pain brought on by the onset of arthritis in my knee. I also intended to give away an extra unused prescription so that my doctor could give it to an indigent patient in need. In spite of my injury having occurred on my own time at home and not at work or in an automobile "accident," my insurance provided excellent coverage for my treatment and prescribed medications. [continues 572 words]
A government informant who was terminated by the Justice Department years ago amid accusations of serial perjury has been reactivated and is working an undercover drug case with DEA agents in Phoenix, prompting allegations of government misconduct by a defense lawyer in a pending case. Andrew Chambers Jr., once labeled in court records as "the highest-paid snitch in DEA history," gave false testimony under oath in at least 16 criminal prosecutions nationwide before he was exposed in the late 1990s, according to U.S. District Court filings. [continues 2577 words]
As Pentagon officials mull a decision that could help or harm Colorado Springs, the choice by Colorado voters to legalize pot could prove costly. Public officials must, like never before, work to keep soldiers off drugs. Looming budget cuts will force the Pentagon to cut Army personnel by 80,000. If all goes well for the Springs, the cuts will cause a realignment of operations that would relocate roughly 3,000 soldiers to Fort Carson. That means our community would benefit from 3,000 additional taxpaying consumers, along with their families, who will boost the local economy. [continues 730 words]
A veteran NYPD narcotics detective accused of perjury is claiming that her nightly habit of downing more than a dozen beers until she "passes out" impaired her memory when she testified about a marijuana bust. The startling claim yesterday by Detective Debra Eager's lawyer Peter Brill stunned Bronx jurors. "She did not intend to lie - to commit perjury," Brill said. "She had no blinking idea" what she told the grand jury because "she woke up in a haze and fog after years of drinking." Prosecutors say Eager lied to cover up an illegal November 2007 search that netted 33 pounds of marijuana. [end]
Documents Detail Allegations of Lies on Drug Arrest; Lawyer Says Account Is Overblown Dallas police said Monday that they are investigating everyone involved in the decisions surrounding the actions of two officers accused of lying about the arrest of a man for drug possession and the circumstances leading to a raid on a pot den. Police spokesman Lt. Paul Stokes released a news statement saying that "the Dallas Police Department is continuing the administrative investigation into the actions of all personnel involved" after the Friday firings of Jon Llewellyn, 30, and Randolph Dillon, 44, who are charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, and aggravated perjury. Both are third-degree felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. [continues 749 words]
Accusations of Lying, Tampering Recall Similar Events a Decade Ago In an episode reminiscent of the city's embarrassing 2001 fake-drug scandal, two Dallas police officers were arrested Friday on accusations that they lied in court and tampered with evidence in drug cases. The officers' arrests, and the circumstances that caused them, have raised questions about whether Police Chief David Brown's top commanders dragged their feet for about a year after concerns arose about the two officers' truthfulness. In a brief telephone interview late Friday, Brown categorically rejected any assertions that his department was slow to react. He declined to elaborate. [continues 1293 words]
Five Peel Regional Police officers who, according to a Superior Court judge, lied under oath as part of a cover-up following a 2009 drug sting in Mississauga, will not face Police Services Act charges. Nearly four months after Police Chief Jennifer Evans announced the officers won't be charged criminally, Peel's top cop said today they also won't face internal discipline under the Police Act. The officers became the subject of a Peel police internal investigation after the finding by Superior Court Justice Deena Baltman in late 2011. [continues 584 words]
THOUSANDS of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury's believing their word over a police officer's are slim to none. As a juror, whom are you likely to believe: the alleged criminal in an orange jumpsuit or two well-groomed police officers in uniforms who just swore to God they're telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but? As one of my colleagues recently put it, "Everyone knows you have to be crazy to accuse the police of lying." [continues 1100 words]
Lengthy Public Trial Exacted a Terrible Toll In the words of the great English novelist John Galsworthy, someone gave the machine that is justice a push. Only 15 years later did it finally run out of gas and stop rolling on. Virtually no one in its path escaped unscathed, with the reputations of the Canadian criminal justice system, prosecutors, the Toronto police force, the cops who investigate their own and even the press all left damaged. The five former Toronto drug squad officers who were the machine's target and suffered its most devastating effects were on Friday spared a jail term by Ontario Superior Court Judge Gladys Pardu. [continues 1134 words]
After more than a decade and millions of dollars in justice system costs, five former Toronto drug squad officers have been sentenced to 45 days of house arrest for their role in the city's landmark police corruption trial. The conditional sentence imposed Friday was far less than the Crown had sought: four years in prison for John Schertzer, leader of the long-disbanded Team 3 of Central Field Command, and three years for his four former underlings. Timeline of the police corruption case [continues 607 words]
From their expressions, it was impossible to tell whether the convicted cops - the lying and justice-jamming cops - were pleased, relieved, even kicking up their heels inside their heads. They will not spend a single day in prison. That was surely enough to put a smile on those five faces. But grins would have been inappropriate. And these former Toronto drug squad officers, as we know from their years of court appearances, have mastered outward stoicism. What we also now know: Forty-five days of house arrest has been deemed sufficient punishment for dirty cops. [continues 957 words]
If five former Toronto drug squad officers are sent to prison, they will be instant targets for cop-hating inmates, their Superior Court sentencing hearing was told Wednesday. "These men, I would suggest, are marked men," said lawyer Earl Levy, who represents Raymond Pollard, one of the five ex-officers convicted of perjury and attempting to obstruct justice. "Their faces have been on television, in newspapers and on the Internet for years. It wouldn't surprise me if their pictures are being circulated in prison as we speak." [continues 607 words]
Lawyers for two former Toronto drug-squad officers convicted of perjury and trying to obstruct justice fought to keep their clients out of jail Tuesday, urging the sentencing judge to show leniency. The lawyers' tactics were two-pronged: Emphasizing the distress the two men have already suffered during the 15 years the case has dragged on, and citing a long list of legal precedents in which perjury and obstruct-justice convictions for police officers have resulted in fines, suspended sentences and probation. [continues 699 words]
Five former Toronto drug-squad police officers convicted in June of attempting to obstruct justice and perjury all deserve penitentiary terms because their crimes "strike at the root of justice," their sentencing hearing was told Monday. "Honesty and integrity on the part of the police is a cornerstone of the administration of criminal justice," lead prosecutor Milan Rupic told the court, and the misconduct in this instance was "deliberate and choreographed." The drug squad team was led by John Schertzer, 54. The other former members are Nebojsa (Ned) Maodus, 49; Joseph Miched, 53; Raymond Pollard, 48; and Constable Steven Correia, 45, the only one of the five to remain on the police force, suspended with pay. [continues 481 words]
When the curtain rises Monday morning at the sentencing of five former Toronto drug-squad police officers, tripped up by their handling of a heroin dealer, it may not signal the final act. When convicted in June of attempting to obstruct justice, with three of the five also guilty of perjury, there was talk of an appeal. But safe to say Canada has never seen a police-corruption case quite like this one. It lasted more than 15 years. It cost many millions of dollars and ended careers. It cast an ugly stain on the country's biggest municipal police force. [continues 662 words]
The sponsors of Colorado Proposition 64, the ballot proposal that would legalize marijuana and regulate it like alcohol, think these are three of the best arguments for voting yes: 1) Marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol. 2) The consequences of a marijuana offense are too severe. 3) Law enforcement resources would be better spent on more serious crimes. The opponents of Proposition 64 evidently agree. How else can you explain why they deliberately cut them out of the State Ballot Information Booklet (aka The Blue Book), the voter guide to ballot issues that the State of Colorado sends to every registered voter in the state before every election? About 2 million will be sent out this year. [continues 901 words]
A Cumberland County libertarian who supports the use of marijuana to fight cancer has lost his bid to have weapons charges against him stayed. Daren Wayne McCormick adheres to the Phoenix Tears and the Freeman-on-the-Land movements. A jury found McCormick guilty of threatening to kill police officers on March 31, 2011, and of weapons offences after an Amherst search the next day. He was arrested in town with a loaded revolver in a holster on his hip, hidden under his long coat. [continues 527 words]
This is the story of Central Field Command drug squad, Team 3, and the long, at times tumultuous, effort to investigate and prosecute officers and also stave off a full-blown public inquiry. The saga has never been publicly told in its entirety. It's about the thin blue line of police solidarity, about a task force led by an outsider but otherwise involving officers investigating their own - a squad entrusted to enforce laws that declare a futile, never-ceasing war on drugs. [continues 7223 words]
Five former members of an elite Toronto drug squad - including Windsor native Ned Maodus - were acquitted Wednesday by a Superior Court jury on the most serious charges they faced, including counts of conspiracy, assault, extortion and theft eight years after they were charged. But the former officers left the downtown courthouse grim-faced after being found guilty on a narrow subset of charges related to a warrantless search. The jury deliberated for nine days on the fates of Maodus, John Schertzer, Steven Correia, Joseph Miched and Raymond Pollard, who were accused of a wide-ranging "conspiracy of silence" aimed at concealing robberies and assaults on local drug dealers. [continues 320 words]
