Pubdate: Thu, 08 Feb 2001
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2001 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611-4066
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Author: Matt O'Connor

COPS JAILED IN DRUG STING ORDERED FREED

Two Chicago police officers accused of stealing cash and five bricks 
of phony cocaine from a drug stash house set up as a ruse by the FBI 
were ordered released from custody Wednesday after their pastors, 
relatives and friends vouched for their honesty and character.

Prosecutors said they hadn't decided if they would appeal the 
decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow in an attempt to keep 
Sgt. William M. Patterson and Officer Daryl L. Smith locked up in the 
Metropolitan Correctional Center pending trial.

The two could be released to house arrest as soon as Friday if the 
relatives and friends post property valued at $100,000 for each 
defendant.

At the detention hearing Wednesday, prosecutors said Patterson, 51, 
the first active command-level Chicago police officer arrested in 
nearly two decades, and Smith, 40, were both on duty Feb. 1 when they 
allegedly stole $20,000 and the fake cocaine from a South Side 
apartment as an undercover video camera recorded the scene.

Michael Falconer and Michael Rovell, lawyers for the two officers, 
contended it was a legitimate police raid of a suspected drug house.

But charges alleged Patterson and Smith wore ski masks over their 
faces and later dropped off the phony cocaine in a vehicle owned by a 
drug dealer who helped set up the theft from the purported stash 
house. In reality, the drug dealer was working undercover for the FBI 
after his arrest in November, secretly taping conversations with the 
officers, authorities said.

If the raid had been legitimate, the drugs and cash should have 
properly inventoried as evidence, said Assistant U.S. Attorneys 
Morris Pasqual and Brian Havey.

Prosecutors also revealed Wednesday that after his arrest last week 
Patterson gave a statement to FBI agents in which he admitted the 
$20,000 was in a front hallway closet in his Far South Side residence.

Patterson consented to a search of his house, and authorities 
recovered the money from the closet, FBI Special Agent John Mark 
Burbridge testified at the hearing.
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