Baltimore Police Dept Caught Again Planting Drugs
Baltimore Police sergeant planted drugs in doubtable's machine, federal prosecutors say
The sergeant allegedly helped plant the drugs in a car during a 2010 arrest.
— -- A one-time Baltimore Police force officer has been indicted for allegedly planting evidence in a suspect's motorcar during a 2010 arrest, federal prosecutors appear Thursday.
Former Sgt. Wayne Earl Jenkins, 37, allegedly planted heroin in a car after a driver who police were pursuing crashed into another car, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Commune of Maryland said in a press release.
A fatal crash
On April 28, 2010, Jenkins was driving an unmarked Baltimore Police Section vehicle with another officer in the passenger seat when he -- along with a 2d officer in an unmarked car -- began to pursue the auto, the press release states. The suspect, Umar Burley, who was driving at a high speed with passenger Brent Matthews in the rider seat, struck a car at an intersection, and the impact sent the car into the front porch of a nearby row house, federal prosecutors said. The elderly driver of the other car became trapped and afterward died that twenty-four hours.
There were no drugs inside the auto prior to the crash, the indictment alleges. After the crash, and after the pair had been arrested, Jenkins told the fellow officeholder who was riding in the rider seat of his car to call a sergeant who was not at the scene because he had the "stuff" in his car, according to the courtroom documents.
Subsequently medical personnel arrived, Jenkins and then told the officeholder that the "stuff" was in the crashed car and that he was going to tell the third officer -- who had been driving a separate unmarked vehicle -- to discover it because that officer was "clueless," according to the indictment.
Allegations of planting evidence
The officeholder then found near 28 grams of heroin that "Jenkins had planted in the vehicle," the courtroom document says. Later that mean solar day, Jenkins allegedly wrote a false statement of probable crusade, where he claimed that "32 individually wrapped pieces of plastic containing a tan powder substance" were recovered.
Jenkins "knew the heroin ... had been planted," the indictment alleges.
Later, Jenkins listened to recorded jail calls between Burley and Matthews, which indicated that they were aware that the heroin in the car had been planted, the court certificate states. Jenkins then told the officeholder who had been his passenger that he could not testify in the case if information technology went to trial because "something had been put in the auto," referring to the heroin that had been planted, the indictment alleges.
Burley and Matthews were later charged and imprisoned on federal drug charges based on the false study, the indictments states. In 2011, Burley had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the federal drug charge to exist served concurrent to a x-twelvemonth sentence for a vehicular manslaughter conviction, according to the press release. Matthews had been sentenced to 46 months in prison on federal drug charges.
The Justice Department has filed a petition for the federal drug convictions against the pair to be vacated, "because they are innocent," according to the press release.
Charges mounting
On Th, Jenkins was charged with destruction and alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations and deprivation of rights nether color of law, co-ordinate to the U.S. Attorney's Function. He is currently awaiting a Jan. xvi trial on criminal racketeering and fraud charges from a previous indictment and could face an additional sentence of xx years in prison house if convicted of the new charges against him, the court document states.
Jenkins was fired on July 26, Baltimore Police force Chief of Media Relations T.J. Smith told ABC News. Jenkins' attorney, Steven Levin, declined to provide a comment to ABC News. He remains in jail as he awaits trial, prosecutors said.
An officer's mysterious death
The officer who constitute the drugs was Det. Sean Suiter, said Baltimore Police Chief Kevin Davis in a printing conference Thursday. Suiter was shot and killed on Nov. 15 with his own gun and set to bear witness in a police corruption instance the next day.
The indictment did non identify Suiter and simply referred to the officeholder who constitute the drugs as "Officer #1." After Suiter's death, Davis said that despite the timing of the shooting, the testify did non indicate whatsoever conspiracy, and that it appears that Suiter was shot after he and his partner approached a suspicious private.
"What this indictment outlines in great item is that Sean Suiter was non involved in any fashion, shape or form in any criminal misconduct whatsoever," Davis said.
Suiter, who had not been promoted to detective yet, was "used" and "put into a position where he unwittingly recovered drugs that had been planted past another law officeholder," Davis said.
"And that's a damn shame," Davis continued.
Calls for a federal investigation
On Thursday, two Baltimore city councilmen chosen for the police section to plow over the investigation into Suiter's unsolved killing to federal authorities, The Baltimore Sun reported.
The charges filed confronting Jenkins is not the first time this yr that members of the Baltimore Constabulary Department were defendant of planting drug prove.
In July, police body photographic camera allegedly evidence an officeholder tampering with testify by planting what appeared to exist drugs in a yard filled with debris on Jan. 24. The footage purports to show one of the officers hiding a handbag of drugs and and so later "finding" the drugs while two other officers "wait on and have no action," the Maryland Office of the Public Defender said in a press release at the time.
In an emailed statement to ABC News, Smith said, "That alleged planting was a claim made by a defence force attorney and there was nothing that corroborated the claim."
Baltimore Police Dept Caught Again Planting Drugs
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/baltimore-police-sergeant-planted-drugs-suspects-car-federal/story?id=51492675