JURY FINDS FORMER SHREVEPORT POLICE OFFICER GUILTY

Roderick Moore Faces Up To 30 Years On Each Of Two Counts.

A Caddo jury quickly found former Shreveport police officer Roderick
"Rickey" Moore guilty Saturday of supplying drugs to strippers in
return for sexual favors.

Judge John Joyce polled the seven-woman, five-man jury just after 2
p.m., barely two hours after he charged them. That showed only two of
the 12 jurors believing defense claims there was no proof

Moore actually passed drugs to the police confidential informant, a
stripper at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. Moore, 52, had been charged
with providing her with Lortab and cocaine.

Moore was impassive as the jury determined his fate. He was dressed in
tan pants and a gray tweed jacket with elbow protectors, and looked
almost professorial. His family members did not comment. But his
daughter Kammi, who testified against her father, was quietly overcome
by emotion as she sat in a rear row of seats as the verdict was read.

Moore's brother, visibly angry, quietly stalked the Milam Street
sidewalk outside the courthouse as defense lawyers spoke among
themselves and with other family members, planning the next steps.
Moore was handcuffed in court and remanded pending a presentencing
bond hearing, to be scheduled. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Prosecutors Jason Brown and Damon Kervin argued Moore, a 17-year
veteran of the Police Department, abused his power as a police officer
and the trust of the law enforcement community and his family.

"'To protect and serve,'" Brown, lead prosecutor, opened his closing
arguments. "Honor, trust. Words, just words. Words that have
considerable meaning to all of us. Words that he violated."

Brown said numerous facts could be determined, but he only had to
prove the elements of his case, that Moore provided drugs to the
dancers at the strip club.

He said Moore preyed on them since he perceived them to be weak and
vulnerable due to the drug addictions he perceived them to have.

"The end game is simple," Brown said. "He'd do whatever it takes to
get into her pants."

It was a naked abuse of power and the fall of a public
servant.

"This is rock bottom," Brown said. "Not only did he violate the bonds
of family, friendship, duty, honor; he threw it all away. He gave it
away for the abuse of power (over) women in strip clubs."

Defense attorney Rick Candler repeatedly pointed out what he termed
inconsistencies in evidence and testimony and questioned estrangement
between Moore and his daughter. He also questioned whether stresses in
the family caused by Moore's divorce and the death of a son might have
affected the daughter's testimony.

Candler also suggested Kammi Moore was coerced to testify for the
prosecution through fear she might lose custody of her child if she
did not provide evidence against her father. "She was afraid. She was
simply afraid."

Candler also asked why the prosecutors could not provide a stream of
complainants they said Moore coerced drugs from in order to supply his
strippers, and used prosecutors' arguments that such people were
foremost among informants as part of his logic.

"Not one turned into a confidential information, not one turned into a
snitch."

He also said much of the evidence used would have been more
appropriate at Moore's drug trial in late August in Bossier City and
had no place in the Caddo trial.

Candler also cited a number of recent high-profile convictions based
on witness testimony that have been overturned in recent years with
defendants freed, and argued the jury not make the same mistake with
Moore.

During the trial that began earlier last week, prosecutors introduced
video and audio recordings that included messages Moore left on the
informant's answering machine, as well as witness testimony by drug
agents, police officers and Moore's daughter.

Defense attorneys called a single witness, the former house mother at
the strip club, who oversaw a dressing room and restroom used by the
strippers and tried to ensure they did not use drugs or drink while at
work.

Moore faces up to 30 years in prison on each count, Candler said. If
the sentences are consecutive, he could serve up to 60 years in all,
but Candler said that's unlikely.

Candler told the family he wants an expedited sentencing
hearing.

"We can't appeal until he's sentenced," he told them. How that appeal
will be crafted has yet to be determined, he said.

But he said it was clear to him the evidence as presented did not
support a conviction in Caddo. "This was a Bossier Parish case."

Moore faces charges of possession of possession with intent to
distribute cocaine, methadone, marijuana, oxycodone, hydrocodone,
alprazolam and lorazepam in Bossier District Court on Aug. 25 based on
a search of his Bossier Parish residence in connection with the
investigation that led to his Caddo conviction.

Caddo prosecutors were pleased.

"I think the citizens of Shreveport should be glad they have a Police
Department that will investigate itself for corruption," Brown said.
"Corruption in Shreveport will not be tolerated or go unpunished."