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FBI agent tells jury how officer took news he was caughtMay 14, 2009 (Star Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Last April, Minneapolis police officer Michael Roberts' supervisor ordered him to deliver a package to FBI headquarters downtown. There, an agent told Roberts to leave his gun and cell phone in his squad car and took him to an 11th-floor conference room to talk about an investigation. By the time the meeting ended, Roberts had signed a two-page statement confessing that he took $200 from a drug dealer and gang member in exchange for private police information. Several months later, a grand jury indicted him on federal corruption charges. "I knew it was stupid, unethical and illegal to take the money," Roberts wrote in the statement. With the prosecution resting its case Wednesday and the defense planning to call only three witnesses, jury deliberation is expected to began today in the police department's first corruption case that targeted several officers. Roberts isn't expected to testify. Wednesday's testimony started with one of the department's highest-ranking officers discussing its code of conduct and truthfulness policies. Deputy Chief Scott Gerlicher said the actions of which Roberts is accused -- including selling a known criminal information on how to find a rival gang member and later filing a false report to cover it up -- violated numerous department policies and state laws. Some of the more dramatic testimony came from FBI Special Agent Brian Kinney, who teamed with another agent to interrogate Roberts. He said they planned to catch Roberts unprepared. Because it was going to be potentially confrontational, the agents made sure he came without his service weapon. At first Roberts told the agents he didn't know Taylor Trump. Roberts had met Trump, now 48, twice in August, 2007, and gave him information from false case records set up by Minneapolis police conducting a corruption probe. When agents showed Roberts surveillance video of him and Trump looking at records on the computer in his squad car and money being exchanged, Roberts acknowledged he did know Trump. Kinney testified that shortly after Roberts' second meeting with Trump, Roberts called officer Tony Adams to ask what he knew about the man. Adams told him Trump, also known as "Valachi," was a drug dealer. Roberts then filed a report, disclosing that Trump had given him money and saying he put some into the department's property room, and the rest he had either spent or put in a bank account. F. Clayton Tyler, Roberts' attorney, took issue with the FBI's handling of the signed statement, saying it excluded important information, such as Roberts' attempt to refuse money from Trump during their first meeting. The statement also didn't mention that he gave the money away to a friend, Tyler said. Roberts said he would take a lie-detector test before he signed the statement, and he declined the FBI's request to wear a wire and go after other cops, Tyler said. For the first time, the jury heard from three officers to whom Trump claimed to have previously given money for information. Each of the officers, Mike Doran, Craig Stoddard and Lt. Rick Thomas, said they occasionally saw Trump on the street years ago. But each adamantly denied he paid them for information. Sgt. Charlie Adams, who has worked in the department for 23 years, praised Roberts' work in North Side neighborhoods. His relationship with citizens was particularly helpful when Adams was a homicide detective, he said. Adams said it was reasonable for Roberts to give away the money, but Adams said he wouldn't have taken it in the first place. Adams added that he never gives the address of a suspect to the crime victim, something Roberts did for Trump. The day's final witness was Fred Washington, a convicted felon who arranged the meetings between Trump and Roberts. Washington said he had know Roberts since he was growing up in north Minneapolis. In telephone conversations between Washington and Trump, Washington said Roberts ran record checks for him all of the time. On the stand, he admitted Roberts had given him information only once, when Washington asked if his ex-wife still lived in Minnesota. Washington didn't pay him for the information, he said. David Chanen --612-673-4465 To see more of the Star Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.startribune.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Star Tribune, Minneapolis Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |