Indiana officer suspended 8 days for deleting phone messages
Police chief gets 7 years in prison for accepting bribes
Indiana
officer suspended 8 days for deleting phone messages
ANDERSON, Ind.-- A central
Indiana police officer has been suspended without pay for eight days for
deleting telephone messages seeking
police assistance.
The Herald Bulletin reports the
Anderson Safety Board voted unanimously Thursday to suspend Officer Nathan Smith for three violations of general
orders.
Board attorney William Byer Jr.
says Smith has 10 days to request a hearing or accept his suspension.
City documents show Smith was a
desk officer at the city police headquarters. Chief Larry Crenshaw says Smith
failed to complete necessary police reports, "purposely deleted"
phone recordings requesting police
assistance and left his assigned post without supervisory approval.
Byer says once the department
realized there was a problem, staffers went over every call that had been
missed. He says there should be no liability concerns for the city.
Police
chief gets 7 years in prison for accepting bribes
By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
The self-proclaimed “best cop
money can buy” is headed to federal prison for seven years and three months for
accepting bribes to protect drug dealers as chief of police in his tiny borough
of East Washington.
U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers
Conti imposed that term this week on Donald Solomon, 58, who pleaded guilty
last year to taking $7,800 to provide protection and Tasers for men he thought
were drug dealers transporting cocaine through his town.
But the dealers were undercover
FBI agents.
He was originally sentenced to
135 months, but a federal appellate court ruled in September that the judge
improperly applied an increase to his term for abusing a position of trust and
ordered another sentence.
The new range was 87 to 108
months.
Solomon asked for less than the
minimum because he said he has been a model prisoner in Louisiana and has found
God. Prior to sentencing, he submitted numerous letters written on his behalf
and cited his efforts to rehabilitate himself behind bars.
But prosecutors said he didn’t
deserve a break because his deeds as a corrupt cop, some of them detailed in
video surveillance, outweigh anything he has done since he went to prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert
Cessar said Solomon “eagerly and actively” marketed himself as a protector of
drug dealers in his community, even providing them a police escort as they left
town after making deals. Asked after one transaction if he wanted to continue
providing protection, he said “Hell yeah.”
He also had an acquaintance
shoot up the car of a rival and tried to hire a hitman to kill a borough
councilman he thought needed to “go feed the [expletive] fish.”
As police chief, Mr. Cessar
said in court filings, Solomon was supposed to protect his community.
“Instead,” he said, “he sold
his badge to protect drug dealers and was willing to pollute his community with
significant amounts of cocaine.”
The judge denied Solomon’s
request for more leniency than sentencing guidelines recommend but imposed the
minimum because of his attempts to better himself.
In addition to letters about
his reform, Solomon had written a letter to the judge in which he apologized to
her, the FBI, the U.S. attorney’s office and his fellow officers.
He had blamed many of his
problems on a 2011 divorce from his wife that left him despondent, and by the
fact he was not allowed to take a second job to supplement his pay as police
chief.
