Fairfax County Police Watch: House arrest for ex-officer who took bribe

Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

The judge said he couldn't believe the sentence he was imposing. A "gift," he called it - three months' house arrest and six years' probation for a former Philadelphia police officer who took $5,000 and skipped court so a man he arrested on gun charges could skate free.

"It was an honest mistake, but the worst decision I ever made," Jonathan Lazarde said Thursday before his sentencing by Common Pleas Court Judge Robert P. Coleman.

The judge seemed surprised by the statement and, before sentencing Lazarde, seemed to be reconsidering. Coleman told defense attorney Jack McMahon, "I'm still stuck on 'honest mistake.' "

McMahon argued that Lazarde had pleaded guilty and was sorry for what he did: "Don't hold against him a poor choice of words that were not that articulate."

Lazarde, 28, resigned last April after almost six years of duty. One month later, the officer, who had been assigned to the 35th District in the Olney area, was arrested after city prosecutors alleged that he offered to skip a court appearance for the gun defendant, guaranteeing acquittal.

The man contacted authorities, who monitored a meeting in which the man met Lazarde and handed him $5,000 in cash.

The officer was stopped by Internal Affairs officers as he left the meeting. Police said Lazarde's hands and pants pocket tested positive for an ultraviolent dye with which police treated the money before the meeting.

Lazarde - the son of a retired city police officer, and married with four children and a fifth on the way - pleaded guilty in January to a count of using a communication device, his phone, to commit a crime. The District Attorney's Office dropped bribery and extortion charges.

Assistant District Attorney Frank Fina told the judge that Lazarde's conduct "was a serious matter" but said he did not object to Lazarde serving his sentence on house arrest because his position as a former police officer might put him in danger in prison.

Coleman said conduct like Lazarde's tarnished the reputation of the department and makes prosecuting criminals more difficult.

"I've had two trials where I considered there was overwhelming evidence of guilt and the verdicts were not guilty," Coleman said. "The only argument they had was the police had to be lying."

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.