COPS RECEIVE STIFF SENTENCES FOR RIPPING OFF DRUG PUSHERS

CHICAGO (AP) - Three former Chicago police officers were sentenced to
decades in federal prison Thursday for using their guns, uniforms and
badges to rip off cocaine and marijuana from drug dealers and resell
it.

"You and your merry band essentially raped and plundered entire
neighborhoods," U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman said in
sentencing former officer Broderick Jones, admitted leader of the
ring, to 25 years.

The stiffest sentence went to former officer Eural Black, the only one
of the three who didn't plead guilty and was convicted at a jury trial.

Guzman sentenced the 44-year-old Black to 40 years - the mandatory
minimum - because he was found guilty of two gun charges.

Black insisted to the end that he had done nothing
wrong.

"I hate hearing it - that I'm a dirty cop," he said, pleading for a
chance to someday return to his wife and family.

Despite the harsh sentence, Guzman showed minimal sympathy.

"I marvel at the inconsistency of your thought process, that you could
stand here and tell me that you're not a dirty cop," he said.

"The evidence was overwhelming," the judge added.

Sentenced to 19 years in federal prison was former officer Darek
Haynes, 37, an admitted member of the ring who said he took orders
from Jones.

A joint FBI and Chicago police investigation of the ring in 2005,
dubbed Operation Restore Faith, led to charges against five former
officers and five alleged drug dealers. The drug dealers tipped off
Jones to where police could steal drugs and guns, prosecutors said.

Members of the group then would swoop down on the place where a stash
was kept, wearing their uniforms and flashing guns and badges. Instead
of arresting the pushers and turning in the drugs, however, ring
members made off with the narcotics and resold them.

Brent Terry, 36, one of five men convicted of tipping the officers to
the whereabouts of vulnerable drugs, got a 20-year sentence.

Jones was fined $25,000 and ordered to forfeit $134,000 in proceeds
from the operation. Black allegedly got $6,000 and Haynes just $500.

The last member of the police ring still not sentenced, Corey Flagg,
is due to appear before Guzman to learn his punishment on Friday.

The investigation began when Chicago narcotics investigators spotted a
Cadillac Escalade surveilling a known drug site. They were intrigued
to see that the Escalade bore a sticker from the Fraternal Order of
Police.

Jones, 36, had already been stripped of his police powers and assigned
to desk duty at the time ring members were stopping drug dealers' cars
and breaking into their apartments, federal prosecutors said.

Jones, who brought in his grandmother and 16-year-old daughter as
character witnesses, pleaded with Guzman for a minimum 15-year sentence.

But Guzman, who could have sentenced him to life, said that 25 years
behind bars was more fitting in view of the operation's damage.

Jones had to be punished for violating the public's trust, he
said.

"You have savaged that trust," Guzman said.

"By your actions you have participated in the distribution of lethal
poison in our neighborhoods," Guzman said. "Some of that poison has
undoubtedly found its way into the hands of young men and women like
your daughter."