Two Border Protection officers who work at Midway Airport were arrested on charges they provided confidential law-enforcement information to a drug-trafficking operation that has roots in Mexico and sold millions of dollars of cocaine, heroin and marijuana in Chicago and elsewhere, authorities said Tuesday. The charges alleged that the two officers, Jaime Garcia, 27, and Alma O. Teran, 28, both of Chicago, passed on sensitive information from law-enforcement databases to an alleged ringleader of the drug operation concerning whether he and others were targets of an investigations. [continues 426 words]
Supreme Court Case Used To Argue For Client's Release Last week, Andre Seymour was facing life imprisonment for his federal drug conspiracy conviction in Chicago. This week, his lawyer is asking a judge to release him from custody because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could have a profound effect on federal courts across the nation. The high court decision has raised constitutional problems with judges increasing convicted defendants' sentences based on evidence not presented to juries while using a lesser standard of proof than beyond a reasonable doubt. [continues 434 words]
He Took Drugs, Cash From Dealer A former Chicago police officer was sentenced to 24 1/2 years in prison Friday for stealing more than 200 pounds of marijuana and cash from a narcotics dealer and trying to hold up other drug dealers on three occasions in 2001. The sentence imposed on Mario Morales, a patrol officer since 1996 who at the time of the thefts was assigned to the Rogers Park District, was among the stiffest handed down in U.S. District Court against a law enforcement officer, according to a government filing. [continues 280 words]
Judges Shuffled To Cut Backlog, Jail Crowding The presiding judge of Cook County Criminal Court disclosed Wednesday he plans to shuffle responsibilities of several judges by Sept. 30 to try to speed up court cases and relieve overcrowding at Cook County Jail. Judge Paul P. Biebel Jr. said he won't close two night narcotics courts as he once planned and intends to create a third drug court-- this one for the day shift--by moving a preliminary hearing court from the Criminal Courts Building. [continues 445 words]
Three Chicago police officers were indicted Tuesday on charges they entered the homes of three suspected drug dealers without search warrants in 1996 and later lied under oath about where the arrests took place to conceal the illegal searches. One of the officers, Xavier Castro, 52, was charged in February, but the other two, Matthew Craig, 39, and Robert Gloeckler, 38, were named for the first time in the indictment Tuesday. The initial charges alleged Castro falsified reports in one arrest; the new indictment alleges the Foster District officers were involved in three different incidents. [continues 312 words]
5 Former Officers Sentenced In '96 Corruption Probe Three former Chicago police officers, convicted of racketeering for shaking down drug dealers for cash and cocaine and providing protection for large narcotics deliveries, on Thursday were given sentences that should keep them in prison for life. Two other former officers also received stiff prison terms. The sentences bring to an end one of the most notorious police corruption cases in Chicago history. All together, seven Austin District tactical police officers, plainclothes cops assigned to root out gangs and drugs on the West Side, were convicted in a series of robberies, home invasions and extortions of narcotics dealers in 1995 and 1996. [continues 725 words]
Robbins Sergeant Accepted Payoffs A former police sergeant in south suburban Robbins pleaded guilty Friday to a federal racketeering charge for providing protection for a longtime crack-cocaine dealer in return for payoffs of $100 or more at a time. Jerome McGee, 36, who was charged last July, will face up to 9 years in prison when he is sentenced in July, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Jacqueline Stern. The drug dealer began cooperating with federal authorities after his arrest in late 1995. [continues 191 words]
A federal appeals court Monday reversed a district judge's decision that the City of Chicago ordinance regulating parades was an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found the ordinance wasn't "a form of censorship" and properly allowed the city to restrict parades based on valid concerns about time, place and manner. Robert MacDonald, a vocal advocate of the legalization of marijuana, had filed federal lawsuits in 1997 and 1998 after the city twice denied him permits to parade through the Loop and along Michigan Avenue. [continues 253 words]
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. [continues 257 words]
A group advocating the decriminalization of the sale and possession of marijuana alleged Thursday in a federal lawsuit that their plans to hold a parade through the Loop had been blocked by the City of Chicago in violation of the 1st Amendment. Windy City Hemp Development Board protested the city's plan to move the proposed May 6 parade to Columbus Drive, far from downtown crowds, the suit contended. "If the city doesn't like your issue, they will not give you a proper venue to stage your protest," said Caren Thomas, a director of the board and a plaintiff in the suit. [continues 170 words]
A major Panama-to-Chicago drug-smuggling operation used infants and mothers as decoys to smuggle liquid cocaine hidden inside formula cans past U.S. Customs officials, federal charges unveiled Friday reveal. Officials said drug smugglers "rented" the babies or aggressively recruited young mothers to bring their infants with them as they acted as couriers. At a press conference, veteran drug-fighting investigators expressed shock and outrage at the smugglers' brazen use of babies to deflect the suspicion of Customs inspectors at airports. [continues 812 words]
Two former Austin District tactical police officers who broke the code of silence and confessed to ripping off suspected drug dealers of cash and sometimes cocaine were sentenced Wednesday to reduced prison terms in return for their cooperation. Gregory S. Crittleton, who admitted taking part in three home invasions, was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months in prison, while Lennon Shields, who once helped rob an undercover cop posing as a drug dealer, was given a 5-year prison term. [continues 636 words]
Drug kingpin Nate Hill was convicted Monday by a federal jury of supplying more than 3 tons of cocaine to two of Chicago's largest street gangs, the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords, for nearly a decade. Hill was also found guilty of ordering hits on three enemies; two were killed, but the third survived despite being shot several times in the head, authorities said. The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated over four days before convicting Hill on seven counts of narcotics conspiracy, tax fraud, money laundering and operating a continuing criminal enterprise. He was acquitted of one count of money laundering, and the jury was unable to reach a verdict on a drug count. [continues 571 words]
Accused drug kingpin Nate Hill admitted he sold cocaine in the early 1990s, but he insisted at the start of his trial Thursday that both the government and street gangs refused to believe he had gotten out of the business. A gang thought he had relocated to avoid paying street taxes, put out a hit on him and shot him in the back and leg, Hill told jurors in opening remarks. And the government hit Hill with a thick indictment accusing him of supplying more than 3 tons of cocaine to two of Chicago's largest street gangs, the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords, between 1987 and 1995. [continues 329 words]
Two former officers of the Maywood Park District Police Department Wednesday implicated Robert Bailey in the 1996 shakedown of a suspected drug dealer in testimony at Bailey's trial. Prosecutors also played audio and videotapes of the robbery for jurors in federal court. The suspected drug dealer turned out to be undercover FBI Special Agent Miguel DelTorro. Bailey was then a 20-year-old cadet on the park police force. DelTorro testified Wednesday that he was forced to drop his pants in Bosco Park as the officers searched for cash. [continues 188 words]
Robert Bailey was only a 20-year-old cadet on the Maywood Park District Police Department when he helped two more veteran officers shake down a suspected cocaine dealer in 1996, prosecutors alleged Tuesday. One of the other officers, Michael Broome, had been caught extorting money from a citizen in 1995, agreed to cooperate with authorities and was wearing a hidden recorder during the shakedown. And the drug dealer who was robbed of $1,200 was actually an undercover FBI agent. [continues 368 words]
MAYWOOD -- A federal jury on Monday acquitted a former officer with the Maywood Park District Police Department of charges he shared in a $2,000 payoff from a purported drug dealer in 1996. An attorney for Andre Williams contended that the officer's partner, who was then cooperating with authorities, had pocketed the $2,000 for himself while misleading the FBI to think he had split half with Williams. The jury's verdict came despite the fact that authorities had audio tape and videotape of the payoff, the cooperation of the partner and the purported drug dealer was an undercover agent. [continues 181 words]
A veteran Chicago gang crimes officer was arrested Wednesday on charges that he was part of a cocaine and heroin operation that stretched from Chicago to Miami, offering it protection for a year but then, boldly, taking control of its local business. The arrest represents the first part of a three-part investigation that, according to sources, is focusing on several police officers who are suspected of shaking down or robbing drug dealers of money and cocaine--charges similar to those in the Austin and Gresham Districts that rocked the department two years ago. [continues 853 words]
A former Chicago police officer was sentenced to 13 months in prison Thursday for pocketing payoffs in return for providing sensitive details about a police investigation of a drug dealer. Richard Lopardo, 55, pleaded guilty nearly two years ago to accepting $500 in late 1991 and $2,000 in cash in October 1992 for his part in the scheme. Lopardo retired in 1996 after he was confronted by the FBI and agreed to cooperate. He was with the Chicago police for 23 years. [continues 375 words]
A drug operation with ties to Mexico conspired to deliver more than 2 tons of cocaine in the Chicago area in the first six months of 1998, according to two indictments brought Thursday in federal court here. The indictments charged 10 men in the conspiracy and seek a combined $28.5 million in illicit proceeds, including a West Side produce company where authorities allegedly found cocaine hidden in a shipment of carrots. Six of the defendants were arrested in May when federal agents seized more than 1 1/2 tons of cocaine and an additional $6.1 million in one of the area's largest seizures ever of cash and narcotics. [continues 132 words]
