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Remember these guys?? Remember how one of their partners was mysteriously murdered just before he was set to testify against them
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/w...igating-a-murder-of-one-of-their-own.3668255/
BALTIMORE — Former Gun Trace Task Force Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, perhaps the most corrupt officer uncovered in Baltimore Police Department history, was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in federal prison for his role in a stunning range of crimes.
The sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake was five years below the maximum possible term under his plea agreement. Prosecutors had asked that Jenkins receive the maximum sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise said the harm inflicted by Jenkins was “immeasurable,” walking through how he stole drugs on a “near-daily basis” for years and encouraged and helped his squad carry out robberies while bilking taxpayers for unworked overtime pay.
Jenkins sobbed during an apology that stretched several minutes, his voice cracking throughout.
“I made so many mistakes, your honor,” Jenkins said. “I know it’s my fault. I deserve to be punished and I deserve to go to jail.”
Jenkins is the second officer in the case to be sentenced, and was the first of four set to be sentenced Thursday and Friday. In both cases so far, Blake has gone five years below the sentence sought by prosecutors.
Former Detective Marcus Taylor, who fought his charges at trial and maintains his innocence, will be sentenced Thursday afternoon, and former detectives Evodio Hendrix and Maurice Ward, who pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government, will be sentenced Friday.
Wise told Blake that Jenkins had operated his two plainclothes drug squads “like a criminal gang.” His plea agreement includes admissions that he stole looted drugs during the April 2015 riots and spearheaded robberies that netted the officers up to tens of thousands of dollars at a time. He was recorded on a wiretap telling officers in one of those robberies to pretend like he was the U.S. attorney while interrogating a man who they believed had drugs and money they could steal.
In addition to the sweeping racketeering charge, Jenkins faced additional charges of civil rights violations for a 2010 incident in which he and two other officers drove up suddenly on two men, who said they believed they were being robbed and fled. While driving away, the men got into an accident that killed 87-year-old Elbert Davis, and police planted drugs in their car. Both men went to federal prison.
Jenkins apologized to Davis’ family, who appeared in court, and to Umar Burley, who was freed from prison last year after the charges were revealed.
“From the bottom of my heart, I wish I could take that day back,” Jenkins said.
He maintained that he did not plant the drugs, but said he knew and helped cover it up: “I wish I had come clean when I found out the drugs were planted,” he said.
But Davis’ family said afterward that they were unmoved by the apology.
“Today was the first day we heard him say he was sorry,” one relative told reporters.
Jenkins was described as a “golden boy” viewed as “untouchable” within the department, and there has yet to be a public accounting from the Police Department about how his conduct went unchecked so long. State lawmakers passed a bill creating a task force to investigate the corrupt task force, and are working to assemble a panel that will have subpoena power and hold public hearings.
Beyond the robberies, prosecutors outlined how Jenkins’ squads regularly violated people’s rights. Jenkins drove the wrong-way on one-way streets, drove at groups of people and slammed on the brakes to see who would run, and searched vehicles and homes without probable cause. They referred to the latter as “sneak and peeks.”
The conduct was taking place in the midst of a civil rights investigation of the Police Department by the Justice Department.
Detective Momodu Gondo testified last year that Jenkins was “very reckless … I mean, he was just out of control, putting citizens at risk … I just never saw anything like this.”
Wise said Thursday that the officers were running a “numbers game, stopping enough people without any cause in order to recover firearms.”
He said the department relies on front-line supervisors like Jenkins to keep an eye on misconduct, and noted the officers were fabricating video evidence using iPhones, even as the department was rolling out body cameras as an accountability tool.
“It shows what a committed, sophisticated and devious person can do to thwart efforts to detect this behavior,” Wise told Blake. “If you step back and think about it, what chance do we have when you have people like Jenkins and his co-defendants fabricating evidence?”
Jenkins also formed an alliance with a bail bondsman and family friend, Donald Stepp, who would re-sell drugs the officers had taken off the street. Stepp estimated he made $1 million in drug sales and cut Jenkins in on $250,000 of the profits.
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Cooperating defendants testified that Jenkins also carried masks and tools to commit break-ins and was plotting high-stakes robberies of drug dealers.
After being caught, the officers were detained together in a county jail, where Jenkins exhorted them to stick to their cover stories and deny wrongdoing, Wise said. He eventually pleaded guilty.
Jenkins, who is being held at the Chesapeake Detention Facility, was led into the courtroom in a maroon jumpsuit and only briefly glanced at the full crowd of spectators. He appeared emotional from the outset of the hearing.
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Steve Levin, Jenkins’ attorney, said Jenkins was consumed by regret. Friends and relatives described the father of three young children as a devoted family man who helped his community.
“His dream now is that he will have some shred of a life after serving (a hoped-for sentence of) 20 years,” Levin said. “It is, as dreams go, not much. But it is something to hold onto.”
In his apology, Jenkins said he tarnished his police badge and disgraced the Marines. He and his wife lost a child in late 2015; he lamented that he was no longer able to visit the child’s grave each Sunday. And he said he was crushed to have no relationship with an 18-month-old child born just a few months before his arrest.
“I brought this on myself,” he said.
Taylor was the youngest of the eight officers charged, and had worked with Jenkins for two years. Jurors convicted Taylor of taking part in multiple robberies.
Taylor denies the accusations and says he is innocent, and his attorneys have asked for a new trial, which will be considered before he is sentenced.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/l...n-task-force-sentenced-to-25-years/ar-AAylO4c
Serve and Protect by robbing, killing and drug dealing the perfect place to be a criminal and it's all legal until you get caught.