D.C. OFFICER FOUND GUILTY OF AIDING GANG

A federal jury in Greenbelt yesterday convicted a D.C. police officer of
conspiracy to distribute marijuana for his role in a Southwest Washington
drug gang that operated in the District through most of the 1990s.

Officer Andrew James McGill Jr. showed no emotion as the guilty verdict was
announced in a packed courtroom in U.S. District Court. The jury acquitted
McGill of transporting a stolen car across state lines and deadlocked on a
charge of perjury. McGill had been charged with lying to a federal grand
jury last summer about his knowledge of the drug gang's activities and
whether he ever helped the organization.

At the request of Assistant U.S. Attorney Stuart A. Berman, U.S. District
Judge Deborah K. Chasanow ordered McGill, who had been on home detention,
taken into the custody of U.S. marshals. Prosecutors said McGill faces a
maximum of 10 years in prison. Chasanow scheduled a sentencing hearing for
Aug. 11.

D.C. police will file papers to dismiss McGill, who has been on
administrative leave without pay since his arrest in January.

"Good riddance to him," Executive Assistant Chief Terrance W. Gainer said.

Gainer said McGill should be given the maximum sentence.

"I think his punishment should be at the highest end of the options
available," he said. ". . . He's not an ordinary criminal. He's a crooked
cop, and he should be punished severely for that."

Berman and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Trusty declined to comment on the
verdict, which was announced late in the afternoon. Maryland U.S. Attorney
Lynne A. Battaglia could not be reached for comment.

William C. Brennan, McGill's attorney, said he and his client were
"disappointed but not surprised" at the marijuana conspiracy conviction.
"He was prepared to accept the verdict," Brennan said.

McGill, 29, was convicted of helping a drug gang he had been assigned to
help investigate in 1996 and 1997, as part of a police narcotics unit in
the 7th Police District, according to court testimony. .

With no video or audio evidence of McGill engaging in any illegal activity,
prosecutors and agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration built
their case against McGill on an unusual combination of testimony by drug
gang members and police officers, as well as phone records.

During the eight-day trial, a half-dozen drug gang members – who
pleaded guilty to federal drug charges and agreed to testify against McGill
in exchange for consideration for lighter sentences – testified
against McGill.

The gang members said that McGill called or paged them numerous times to
warn them of imminent police raids, that he joined some of them at a party
with strippers, that he took cash payoffs ranging from $200 to $50 and that
he drove two of them around the city the night the gang members stole two
sport-utility vehicles. Two drug gang members testified that McGill
purchased a half-pound and a pound of marijuana from them, respectively.

Eight D.C. police officers testified against McGill, detailing several
instances in which McGill made phone calls moments before drug raids which
were thwarted; in one instance, drug gang members ran from an apartment
building that was to be raided moments after McGill, who was part of the
team of officers assigned to the operation, made a phone call, according to
testimony.

Buttressing that testimony, a DEA intelligence analyst testified that 18
calls were made from McGill's phone or phones the officer used to the pager
of a drug gang member. That gang member testified that McGill paged him to
warn him of drug raids.

McGill joined the police department in 1990 and was assigned to the 7th
Police District.

By then, the FBI was already investigating a drug gang headed by Erskine
"Pee Wee" Hartwell, which operated primarily out of a four-unit apartment
building at 37 Forrester Street SW.

IN 1998, the DEA also began to investigate the drug gang. By May, 1999,
about a dozen members of the gang, including Hartwell, were indicted and
arrested. In pleading guilty to federal drug charges, Hartwell admitted his
role in three killings and several nonfatal shootings.

Hartwell testified that he and McGill met in 1995 and became friendly.

Staff writer Arthur Santana contributed to this report.