Posted by High Crime on 11/10/2009, 10:44 am
11.10.2009 10:24 am
Corrupt former St. Louis cop gets prison time
By Robert Patrick
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A corrupt former St. Louis police officer who stole drug money, planted evidence and made a false arrest was sentenced Tuesday to 28 months in federal prison.
Bobby Lee Garrett, 49, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis Aug. 28 to six felonies: theft of government property, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of making false statements and one count of misapplication of government funds.
Garrett admitted his role in the theft of drug money on three occasions in 2007 and 2008 and admitted planting evidence, arresting an innocent man to cover up the theft of money and involvement in falsifying court documents, lab forms and police reports.
Garrett apologized Tuesday, saying “I’m not a bad person but a good person who made a bad decision.”
Garrett said that he had let the community, the police department, his family and friends down, and said that his actions should not cast a “shadow over the police department.”
Both Garrett and his lawyer, Chet Pleban, pointed out Garrett’s two decades as an officer.
Pleban said that Garrett should be remembered for his “entire career” battling criminals “terrorizing the citizens of the St. Louis metro area,” not his “missteps.”
But many of those cases have been thrown into doubt by Garrett’s criminal troubles. The indictment of Garrett and his former partner, Vincent T. Carr, last December triggered a review of over 1,000 criminal cases by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office and U.S. Attorney’s office. Dozens of pending cases have been dismissed.
Before sentencing Garrett, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber said that the court system would be dealing with the “fallout” from Garrett’s activities “for a long time.”
Carr, 47, was sentenced to a year in prison last month.
Another of Garrett’s former partners, Leo Liston, 35, was sentenced to three months in prison in September.
Garrett, Carr and Liston were on the city’s Crime Suppression Unit, where officers often wore plainclothes, drove unmarked cars and were given more freedom to aggressively pursue chronic criminals.
Webber, Pleban and Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith all said that the 28-month sentence, which was part of a plea deal, was appropriate.
In court, Goldsmith took pains to praise the 99.9 percent of officers who “everyday do the right thing,” and those who witnessed Garrett’s activities and cooperated after being approached by investigators.
Goldsmith said that it was “extremely important” to send a message “to keep doing the right thing.”
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