Fairfax County Police Watch: FBI arrests ex-city cop in online sex-ring case

A former Reading police officer was arrested Thursday by the FBI on charges he helped set up a prostitution ring run by Paul S. "God" Sewell and tried to bribe partners in the ring to lie about his involvement after they were indicted, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia.

Ronald R. Miko, 37, a nine-year veteran of the force, was charged with obstruction of a criminal investigation in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.

Miko was arrested Thursday afternoon by FBI agents and taken into federal custody. He was scheduled to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia today.

According to the indictment:

Miko used a room in a house owned by Sewell - who identified himself as "God" - in the 200 block of North 10th Street, where Sewell and co-defendant Michael Johnson operated an Internet-based call girl operation named "God's Prostitutes." A nearby house in the 200 block of Fisher Court also was used for the business.

The ring operators branded the prostitutes, with names such as "God's Rebel" and "God's Taken" tattooed on the back of their necks. Some of the prostitutes were underage girls.

Sewell, 46, and Johnson, 41, were arrested by Berks County detectives in the summer of 2010.

They were indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges on Nov. 4, 2010.

The indictment alleges that between May 2 and June 7, 2011, Miko wired money to Johnson's federal prison account to keep Johnson and Sewell quiet about Miko's involvement in the business.

If convicted, Miko faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to the federal grand jury:

In 2007, Miko advised Sewell on how to set up the business. Between 2007 and 2010, Miko offered advice to Sewell about the females employed by the ring.

Miko sometimes lived at the 10th Street property and used a room there from about 2005 until it was raided by county detectives on July 28, 2010.

Investigators said he had sexual relations with women at the property who were not part of the prostitution business.

Miko visited the properties several times a week, sometimes in uniform in his squad car.

Sewell and Johnson lived in the house on 10th Street.

After the men were jailed, Miko tried to bribe them not to talk about his involvement in the operation. He wired an undisclosed amount of money to Johnson's federal prison account in an attempt to obstruct the investigation.

City Council fired Miko in January 2011.

Investigators said Miko also was a bodyguard for Sewell.

Sewell, a former bounty hunter who unsuccessfully tried to have his name legally changed to God, was charged with producing child pornography, among other crimes.

District Attorney John T. Adams declined comment. Police Chief William M. Heim could not be reached.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.