Weasels


 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.