FORMER MIAMI-DADE OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY TO COCAINE CHARGES

MIAMI - A former Miami-Dade police officer has been sentenced to 10
years in prison after pleading guilty to armed cocaine trafficking,
conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and attempted trafficking in cocaine.

The conviction of Reynaldo Garcia followed a three-year investigation
by the Miami-Dade Police Department and the State Attorney's Office
that a police officer was ripping off drug dealers, State Attorney
Kathy Fernandez Rundle said Thursday.

In 1998, police received information that Garcia and another police
officer were stealing cocaine from drug dealers. The department
arranged a sting operation. Garcia, who had been retired two weeks,
and another officer confronted the undercover officer and stole the
cocaine.

"Garcia besmirched the good work that our police men and women
accomplish everyday," Fernandez Rundle said.