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Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby is cleaning house by asking the courts to throw out at least 790 criminal cases that were reportedly led by 22 corrupt cops.
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She wants the courts to toss nearly 790 criminal cases handled by the officers, saying she found reason to distrust 14 cops in addition to those convicted in the Gun Trace Task Force scandal, The Baltimore Sun writes.
“When you have sworn police officers involved in egregious and long-standing criminal activity such as planting guns and drugs, stealing drugs and money, selling drugs, making illegal arrests, and bringing false charges, our legal and ethical obligation in the pursuit of justice leaves us no other recourse but to ‘right the wrongs’ of unjust convictions associated with corrupt police officers,” Mosby wrote in an email.
Three of the cops, Robert Hankard, a detective in central Baltimore; Kenneth Ivery, a sergeant in Southwest Baltimore; and Jason Giordano, a sergeant in the citywide robbery unit, are still employed with the Baltimore Police, a police spokesman said.
Hankard has been suspended, 10 cops subsequently resigned, on retired and ne was fired, according to the outlet.
Another cop, Detective Sean Suiter, was shot and killed almost two years ago in West Baltimore.
Although the cops eluded being charged, they were identified and implicated in wrongdoing during the federal Gun Trace Task Force trial, which Mosby said left her no choice but to ask that their cases be thrown out.
A judge will reportedly consider the request after 30 days.
“It is still very early in the process, and we are hopeful for the swift vacatur of all of the many tainted convictions,” said Melissa Rothstein, spokeswoman for the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore.
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What initially began as hundreds of court cases being compromised by the Gun Trace Task Force, increased to thousands according to Mosby.
“At first it was hundreds of cases. Thanks to the testimony that came out just last week, our preliminary estimate is thousands of cases that may be impacted by the wrongful and illegal acts of those police officers,” Mosby said earlier this year while speaking at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
It appears that at least 800 of those “thousands” of compromised cases will at least get thrown out.
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