The Drug War Is Criminogenic And Corrupt: Local, State, and Federal Corruption Cases, Organized By U.S. Region. Part One: New England
what a little keyword search can do.
My awareness of the unparalleled ability of the lucrative business of legally forbidden drugs to corrupt public officials- particularly law enforcement officers- predated my personal experience as an Internet user by many years. I think my first inkling of the seriousness of the problem was when I learned that much of the heroin seized in the famous French Connection case- hundreds of kilos of heroin, at the time a quantity unprecedented in American history- was later stolen from the police evidence room where it had been kept. (The culprits have never been identified.)
I began to take notice of every drugs-related police corruption incident depicted in books that I read, or that made the newspaper headlines (or, more rarely, the TV news.) However, it wasn’t until Internet search engine algorithms streamlined their efficiency in the early 2000s- in conjunction with the increasingly wide availability of uploaded news media print archives- that we (all of us) had the information technology to get some idea of the actual extent of the problem of police drug corruption in the United States. The Internet has enabled us to get our stories together on topics like this. If we use it, that is, instead of wasting time going down pop culture rabbit holes and following bread crumb trails laid down by other people. The links I’ll be providing are not a bread crumb trail. I’m not selling the pretension of esoteric knowledge available only to the Q Brotherhood, or something silly like that. Anyone can find the same results with bone simple keyword searches along the lines of [police+corruption+drugs+(your city here)], if you know what I mean.
This isn’t a bread crumb trail, either: the Drugs and Police Corruption news article archive of StopTheDrugWar.com, a compilation that’s updated by the site on a regular basis, usually weekly. There’s no cherry picking, no rumors or fictional allegations. The linked sources are primary source material, straight up, presented with a minimum of commentary. (Granted, occasionally the editors can’t help themselves. I get the impulse.The unending parade of incidents comprises a horrible spectacle, but it’s entertaining nevertheless.) StopTheDrugWar.com began publishing their archived reports of Drugs and Police Corruption around 17 years ago; the first entries date from the week of June 27, 2006. The archive is currently at 84 pages, and counting.
A couple of things need to be kept in mind about that compilation: 1) the stories are followed from the first report- typically beginning with an arrest, not a conviction. And 2) the disposition of the various individual cases is most often followed afterward, so some of the material that’s included in a given week refers to incidents noted in previous weekly reports.The scandals reported are commonly resolved with criminal convictions. But not always.
Using that archive in conjunction with my own keyword searches, I’m going to search through online reports and post only past cases that have led to criminal convictions or civil settlements, along with the most recently reported incidents that are still under investigation. My searches are also going to include reports of corruption and misconduct scandals prior to June 2006 where criminal convictions or civil settlements were obtained.
I’m also going to add an extra feature to my compilation that isn’t found in the StopTheDrugWar archive: I’m going to organize my page results by region, state, and city, so that readers will be able to grasp the reality that Drug War-related police corruption is all over the country, found from coast to coast, in Hawaii and Alaska, urban, suburban, and rural, in big cities, small towns, and counties, extending from rookie correctional officers to elite tactical squads and high-ranking members of Federal law enforcement bureaus, along with court officials, prosecutors, and judges.
I anticipate that some time will be required in order to provide the foundation of a nationwide accounting; I entreat interested readers to be patient with me. In the meantime, the StopTheDrugWar archive is freely available for public access.
This compilation begins with the New England region, extending outward geographically until it reaches the West Coast states, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Maine
Former Maine police officer gets 4 years behind bars for drug and gun convictions
“MACHIAS, Maine (BDN) -- In a case involving one of Maine’s worst-ever cases of police corruption, a former candidate for Washington County sheriff who worked as a police officer in eastern coastal Maine for nearly 20 years was sentenced Monday morning to serve 4 years in prison on drug and gun charges.
Jeffrey Bishop, 55, originally faced 35 charges after he gave opioid pills to a teenage girl in the parking lot of a high school in Harrington. Police also found more than a dozen stolen guns at his house in Cherryfield…”
https://wgme.com/news/local/former-maine-police-officer-gets-4-years-behind-bars-for-drug-and-gun-convictions-police-corruption-washington-county-sheriff-candidate-jeffrey-bishop-selling-drugs-to-teens-narraguagus-high-school-calais-police-department
New Hampshire
Maine Woman Illegally Searched Gets $200K after NH State Police Arrest
“Robyn White spent nearly two weeks in jail during which time she was subject to illegal body searches, including an invasive cavity exam, because a New Hampshire State Police Trooper fabricated a crime, according to White’s federal civil rights lawsuit.
Now, White has settled with the state of New Hampshire for more than $200,000.
White’s attorney, Larry Vogelman, did not respond to a request for comment. According to the settlement agreement obtained through a right-to-know request, White is getting $212,500 from the state of New Hampshire to settle the lawsuit.
Mary Beth Purcell, director of claims with municipal insurance carrier Primex, said Strafford County also settled with White for $25,000.
The trooper who initiated the stop, Haden Wilber, is on the list recently released by the state of police officers who left their jobs under questionable circumstances…”
https://indepthnh.org/2021/12/31/maine-woman-illegally-searched-gets-200k-after-nh-state-police-arrest/
Vermont
Legacy of a 'super cop' turned bad
“…When Lawrence testified in court, many defendants were dismayed. Everyone had wondered who the undercover cop was behind the raid, and here, in court, was a man that few of the counter-culture defendants recognized from the St. Albans streets. Although defending attorneys had their suspicions about Lawrence, his charismatic personality and popularity among prosecutors and law enforcement officials seemed to keep any serious attacks on his credibility at bay.
Now that the face of Paul Lawrence was publicly known, thanks to his testimony in court, his effectiveness as an undercover cop in St. Albans was over. Although his cover was blown in St. Albans, drug culture was rampant throughout Vermont, and there were plenty of law enforcement agencies that could use the help of Paul Lawrence — the Super Cop…
Paul Lawrence found immediate success. By late May, Lawrence had made more than a half dozen buys, but Kevin had not been present for any of them. Bradley was confused. His confusion led to suspicion when, while working together, Lawrence failed to recognize a character on the street that he had told Bradley he had made a buy from. Although Lawrence's reputation as a super cop made many admirers amongst his peers, Kevin Bradley was just too smart and too level-headed to have any wool pulled over his eyes…
…Lawrence never left his car and never personally engaged Schwartz. However, he came back to the police station with heroin wrapped in tin foil. "I made a buy from the Rabbi," said Lawrence. Paul Lawrence's days as a bad cop were over.
After a lengthy trial Lawrence was convicted of perjury and sent to prison. All pending cases that required his testimony were dismissed. Seventy-one cases of the convictions that depended on Lawrence's testimony were pardoned by then-governor Tom Salmon…
Paul Lawrence's shady character and questionable drug buys seemingly followed him wherever he worked, from Windham, to Addison, to Chittenden County. Yet he continued to be employed as an undercover narcotics agent and even gained a reputation as "Super Cop."…”
After the Lawrence case, Vermont law enforcement changed the way that drug buys would be handled. It would take two officers to corroborate a buy, eliminating the possibility of another maverick bad cop like Paul Lawrence…”
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2015/01/03/legacy-asuper-cop-turned-bad/21230427/
Guarded Secrets: Claims of Sexual Misconduct, Drug Use Plague a Vermont Prison for Women
“In 2014, a federal grand jury indicted officer Tracy Holliman, a 50-year-old South Burlington resident, on charges that he had sex with two federal detainees at the South Burlington prison. Prosecutors dismissed the original charges after Holliman pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for deleting emails in which he admitted to the crimes. He was sentenced to five months in jail…”
The only conviction thus far in connection with the long-running record of scandal of police corruption and misconduct in Vermont Regional Correctional Facility for women, at Chittenden. But as of the date of the story, December 4, 2019, investigations are still going on. Read the article for more details.
https://justdetention.org/guarded-secrets-claims-of-sexual-misconduct-drug-use-plague-a-vermont-prison-for-women/
Massachusetts
And Justice For None: Inside Biggest Law Enforcement Scandal in Massachusetts History
“How the system covered up tens of thousands of falsified drug tests – and how two teams of crusading lawyers exposed the wrongdoing”
“…the state’s leaders are on wartime footing: This is the second massive scandal in five months. In August 2012, a chemist named Annie Dookhan was busted for faking tens of thousands of drug tests at her Boston lab, always in favor of the prosecution. Worse, when she was feeling especially helpful, she’d add bogus weight to a borderline sample, pushing the charge from distribution to narco-trafficking. (She seems to have been motivated by scorn for addicts, saying that she wanted to get drug dealers “off the street.”) Her crimes had blown the top off the state’s justice system. Countless convictions were cast in doubt, inmates jammed court dockets with appeals, and both the state’s district attorneys and attorney general’s office scrambled to protect their tainted verdicts. It was the worst-ever scandal in the state’s war on drugs. If the defendants in Farak’s cases were to learn of her crimes, there wouldn’t be enough lawyers on the Eastern Seaboard to staunch the run on the courts. Between them, the two chemists had potentially helped wrongfully convict more than 32,000 defendants…”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/and-justice-for-none-inside-biggest-law-enforcement-scandal-in-massachusetts-history-253708/
Epic Drug Lab Scandal Results in More Than 20,000 Convictions Dropped
2017 update of the story covered by the Rolling Stone article:
“The dismissals capped a five-year legal fight, longer than it took to discover, prosecute and punish Dookhan, who worked at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Boston. She admitted to tampering with evidence, forging test results and lying about it. The former lab tech served three years in prison before being released last year…”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/epic-drug-lab-scandal-results-more-20-000-convictions-dropped-n747891
FBI Agent John Connolly and Gang Boss/Confidential Informant Whitey Bulger
“Former FBI agent John Connolly crossed over into corruption while handling criminal informants such as James "Whitey" Bulger, and was later convicted of racketeering and second-degree murder. Updated: Sep 15, 2020”
https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/john-connolly
Connecticut
Cop writes about Stamford’s years of crime, corruption, mob control
“STAMFORD - Most people wouldn’t recognize the Stamford that Michael Docimo helped police.
When he began walking the beat in 1972, neighborhoods were plagued by drug dealing, shootings, armed robberies, prostitution, gambling, muggings and burglaries. To make things worse, the city was under the influence of two New York crime families that had infiltrated the police department itself.
There was corruption on top of crime..
Docimo was among the police officers who worked for years to break that stranglehold. The effort nearly broke him, too.
Now he has written a book, “The Streets,” published in December, chronicling times that were punishing for the city and - Docimo would learn - for himself…”
https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Cops-writes-about-Stamford-s-years-of-crime-14936113.php
Former Stamford police officer writes book exposing department’s corrupt past
“STAMFORD — As a young narcotics officer, Vito Colucci learned several Stamford police officers were linked to an underworld of crime and corruption.
Some of his colleagues committed murders, extorted mob bosses and had their hands in loan sharking, drug dealing and cover-ups.
In his new book, “Rogue Town,” the former cop shares many of his experiences as he secretly investigated the department’s corruption and escaped several brushes with death.
“It was an interesting time in Stamford,” said Colucci. “My lieutenant was in cahoots with an organized crime family. He was protecting major people in organized crime. My sergeant was running a narcotics ring in the city and ensured that people who worked for him as drug dealers did not get arrested.”..”
https://www.thehour.com/stamford/article/Former-Stamford-police-officer-writes-book-8252583.php
“A 27-year-old New Haven man filed a civil rights lawsuit Monday alleging that three former New Haven Police Department officers, former NHPD Chief Francisco Ortiz and the city of New Haven fostered an environment that led to his unlawful arrest and imprisonment.
The three former officers named in Norval Falconer’s suit — Lt. William White, Det. Justen Kasperzyk and Det. Jose Silva — were all imprisoned earlier this year on corruption charges…
…After White’s arrest in March 2007, then-Chief Ortiz dissolved the narcotics division…”
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2008/11/11/nhpd-faces-lawsuit/
Former Hartford police officer sentenced to prison
“HARTFORD -- A former Hartford police officer has been sentenced to 15 months in prison on drug, larceny and perjury charges stemming from a grand jury investigation into police corruption.
James K. Meehan is a police officer who stole from people on the street, took drugs, and then lied about his illegal activity to an investigating grand jury, Hartford Superior Court Judge John F. Mulcahy Jr. said in passing sentence…”
https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Former-Hartford-police-officer-sentenced-to-prison-12142688.php
Former Norwalk police detective pleads guilty to drug counts
March 27, 2018:
“MILFORD — The son of Norwalk’s mayor, accused of stealing thousands of dollars in heroin and OxyContin pills from the Fairfield Police Department where he worked as a detective, won’t serve a day in prison.
Stephen Rilling agreed to plead guilty to several misdemeanor charges and was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Frank Iannotti to a suspended 5-year sentence with three years’ probation…”
https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Mayor-s-son-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-drugs-12782772.php
Rhode Island
[entry deleted as irrelevant]
To be continued…