FEDS: COP STOLE, SOLD SEIZED COCAINE

Now-Retired Officer Put Police Evidence Back On Street For Profit,
Prosecutors Allege

A former Chicago police officer, retired to a life of luxury in Olympia
Fields, was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals Thursday after he was
accused of stealing cocaine from an evidence room and selling it to drug
dealers.

John L. Smith, 54, is charged with drug conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion.

A Chicago police spokesman said Smith earned about $45,000 a year as a
patrol officer when he retired from the department in 1999 and moved to the
suburbs.

Nonetheless, he managed to drive a Rolls-Royce.

Police said Smith's activities account for large quantities of drugs
discovered missing in 2001 from the police evidence department inside the
Cook County Criminal Courts building at 26th Street and California Avenue.

Chicago Police Superintendent Terry Hillard said the theft of drugs from
evidence weighed heavily on him, and he immediately called in federal
agents to investigate the theft.

Hillard said the Evidence Recovery and Property Section, or ERPS, has since
been moved out of the antiquated courthouse and into a new building where
video cameras and bar codes keep track of each speck of evidence.

"We have come a long way," Hillard said.

Prosecutors said Smith began stealing from the evidence room in 1995, three
years after he was assigned to work there. Police said Smith began his
career at the Chicago Police Department in 1976.

Federal agents said Smith concentrated his efforts on evidence pertaining
to three criminal cases in the courthouse, and took 20 kilos of cocaine
from one case, 12 kilos of cocaine from another and 17 kilos of cocaine
from a third.

Federal agents said the three cases already had gone to trial, ended in a
guilty plea and been tossed out, respectively, so the theft of the drugs
went unnoticed for some time.

Hillard said 75 to 125 sworn officers and civilian employees worked at ERPS
when it was housed at the courthouse.

"During this particular time, everyone had access," Hillard said.

Prosecutors said Smith smuggled the cocaine out of the evidence room and
gave it to an unnamed man at 12114 S. Emerald St. in Chicago and 1014 W.
103rd Place in Chicago.

That man then divided the cocaine into packages and processed some of it
into crack, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Smith committed fraud when he told a bank the $70,000 he
planned to use as a down payment on his Olympia Fields house was a gift.

Prosecutors said Smith signed an affidavit stating the money was a gift.

Smith also used a $174,216.20 check drawn on the police credit union to buy
a Rolls-Royce.

Federal agents said Smith's lifestyle provided a clue in the case, but they
declined to reveal how they caught him.

IRS investigators said Smith earned between $200,000 and $500,000 a year
from the drug sales, but he did not report the income.

Smith came to court wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and gym shoes.

He was taken into custody after his lawyer told a judge he needed time to
find out whether Smith had any assets to put up as a bond.

Prosecutors said most of Smith's possessions would be confiscated, and his
house was subject to forfeiture.

Smith is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 13 for a detention hearing.

He pleaded innocent to the charges.