A District of Columbia police officer charged
with laundering money for a California-to-Pittsburgh cocaine ring under
indictment since 2009 is free on bond pending a preliminary hearing next week
before a federal magistrate here.
Jared Weinberg made a brief initial appearance
today in federal court in Pittsburgh following his arrest Monday at his
precinct in Washington, D.C., where he has been a police officer for a little
more than a year.
He is charged with conspiracy to commit
money-laundering for the ring, believed to have sold as much as four tons of
cocaine between 2000 and 2009.
Officer Weinberg is accused of laundering drug
proceeds for Damon Lewis Collins, identified as a California drug supplier for
a trafficking organization run by Robert Russell Spence of Coraopolis.
Mr. Spence and Mr. Collins are among some two
dozen alleged members of the ring under indictment here since 2009.
A separate indictment handed up in 2012 has
charged six others with money-laundering, including Officer Weinberg's father,
Howard Weinberg.
Several ring members have pleaded guilty,
including Montel Staples, the former athletic director and basketball coach at
now-closed Duquesne High School.
Prosecutors said Mr. Staples was a go-between
who passed cocaine money to his brother, Tywan Staples, of Oakland, Calif.,
from Mr. Spence.
An affidavit prepared by the Criminal
Investigation Division of the IRS says Officer Weinberg and his father rented
apartments in and around Baltimore for Mr. Collins to use in the cocaine
business.
The IRS estimated Mr. Collins laundered more
than $2 million by structuring cash deposits into his own bank accounts and the
bank accounts of 13 other people, including Officer Weinberg.
Structuring is a technique used by drug
organizations to conceal the source of funds and evade currency transaction
reports.
The case began in 2008 when one of the accused
ring members, Ruben Mitchell of Stockton, Calif., brought a bag onto a flight
from Oakland to Pittsburgh that was too big to fit into the overhead compartment.
The plane stopped over in Las Vegas, where the
bag ended up on a carousel while the flight continued on to Pittsburgh with Mr.
Mitchell.
When no one claimed the bag in Las Vegas,
officials opened it, found 19 kilos of cocaine and called the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration in Pittsburgh to watch Mr. Mitchell when he arrived.
At the airport, drug agents watched Mr.
Mitchell as he frantically looked for his bag.
DEA began building its case and arrested him
in Idaho in 2009. Prosecutors said the ring had initially mailed coke from
California to Pittsburgh, but as the operation grew larger, members started
using couriers on flights.
