Saturday, January 05, 2008

Family men steal drugs--sounds like the mafia

Judge says "if the men were one-tenth as concerned about the children living in the poor neighborhoods they patrolled as their own children, they never would have resold the drugs."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/727182,CST-NWS-cop05.article

Judge astounded by good cops, bad cops
'SCHIZOPHRENIC'
January 5, 2008
BY STEVE WARMBIR

A federal judge Friday had sentenced a crooked Chicago cop to nearly 10 years in prison, and the hearing was over, but the judge wasn't finished.

In an unusual move, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Guzman commented on what he saw over the last two days after he sentenced a parade of rogue officers who robbed drug dealers for cash and cocaine.

What he saw was "almost schizophrenic," Guzman said. The cops were good family men, according to court testimony. Pastors sang their praises. They gave back to the community. One was a Desert Storm veteran. Another made more than 1,000 arrests. And they were part of a ring that sold stolen drugs to return them to the street.

The judge said he had never seen anything like it. "Good guy on one side," Guzman said. "Bad guy on the other side." Guzman sentenced former Chicago Police Officer Corey Flagg to 9½ years in prison, a significant break because of his extensive cooperation against his former fellow officers.

Three of them were sentenced Thursday, with prison terms ranging from 19 years to 40 years.

Guzman appeared exasperated at times as he sentenced the former cops, noting that if the men were one-tenth as concerned about the children living in the poor neighborhoods they patrolled as their own children, they never would have resold the drugs.

Flagg, 37, was the right-hand man of the dirty cop running the drug ring, Broderick Jones. But Flagg was also the first officer charged in the case to cooperate and for that he got a break...

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