Granted immunity, former Baltimore police sergeant admits to decades worth of crimes

THIS IS WHY YOUR CRIME STATISTICS MEAN NOTHING!!!!

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https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/c...wfWZULsS4-APcojSs-sX3ccLfAfKsooo2b7a1WPalGXxo

Money. Cocaine. A gun.

Former Baltimore Police Sgt. Keith Gladstone admitted Tuesday to stealing all of that, and more, during his testimony as a witness for the U.S. government in a case against one of his previous subordinates.


Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise had Gladstone take the stand to testify against former police Detective Robert Hankard. Prosecutors are accusing Hankard of depriving people of their civil rights, helping to plant evidence and lying to a grand jury, all of which they say occurred while he was a member of the Cease Fire Squad that Gladstone commanded.

[ Trial begins for former Baltimore Police detective accused of helping to plant evidence, conducting illegal searches ]

Gladstone pleaded guilty in 2019 to one charge of conspiracy to violate civil rights for planting a BB gun at the scene where one of his friends, former Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, ran a man over with his car. The gun planting scheme is at the center of the government’s case against Hankard — prosecutors and Gladstone claim Hankard gave the gun to another officer who gave it to Gladstone to plant.


Hankard has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

As part of his plea agreement, Gladstone was granted immunity for past crimes provided he testify truthfully in court and cooperate with the feds during their investigation. And while Hankard is the one on trial, Gladstone stole the show during nearly seven hours of wide-ranging testimony about times he stole fireworks, helped violate Baltimoreans’ civil liberties and broke police protocol to help Hankard and another officer, Carmine Vignola, get their stories straight after shooting someone in 2016.


“I would like to have some reduction in my sentence,” Gladstone said when asked about his candor and cooperation. He has not been sentenced yet.

Hired to the police force in 1992, Gladstone said in court that he started stealing money from drug dealers he was arresting in the mid-1990s to pay confidential informants, and that doing so was common practice inside the Baltimore Police Department.

A few years later, maybe in 2003 Gladstone said, he started stealing money for himself. Hankard also stole money with Jenkins, the former head of the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force unit who was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Gladstone said. He estimated the pair probably stole money during raids and searches anywhere from three to five times.

“Wayne Jenkins was a friend of mine,” Gladstone said.

[ Man suing Baltimore Police Department for $17M over Gun Trace Task Force corruption ]

Protected by his prosecutor-granted immunity, Gladstone detailed the time he and two other officers decided to deliver 3 kilograms of cocaine they found inside a backpack in a police van to a confidential informant to sell on their behalf. Armed with a gun, Gladstone personally drove the officer to deliver the drugs.

“So you were an armed cocaine trafficker?” asked David Benowitz, Hankard’s attorney.

“I was,” Gladstone said.

The three officers made $20,000 each from the sale, said Gladstone, adding that he spent most of it on veterinary bills after a fire alarm went off in his house and his German shepherd ripped teeth out unhinging a sliding-glass door.

Sometimes, he said, he stole objects instead of money. Once, a suspect traded him an AR-15 rifle in exchange for being set free. Another time, when raiding an auto repair shop, Gladstone said, he stole tools and fireworks. He and his squad used the tools, he testified.

The fireworks?

The fireworks he stole were old mortars, and when he lit them they burned through the bottom of their packaging. One shot off into the woods at his Pennsylvania home and caught some trees on fire, Gladstone said. Another hit his son in the back and exploded.

“The fireworks didn’t work out,” he said.

For all his self-admissions, Gladstone’s sole purpose in the trial was to help prosecutors persuade a jury to convict Hankard.

Gladstone said he is the one who planted the BB gun, and that he got it from Vignola, Hankard’s former partner. Vignola, who also pleaded guilty and is expected to testify Wednesday, claims he got it from Hankard.


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Hankard told a grand jury in 2019 that he never gave Vignola a gun.

Also at stake is whether Hankard willingly falsified affidavits for search warrants and police reports. In 2015, Hankard, Vignola and Gladstone were running an undercover operation at a motel when Hankard and Vignola arrested a suspected drug dealer, except when they arrested him he didn’t have any drugs on his person or in his truck.

Gladstone, who was their supervisor at the time, took the man’s motel key and went to his room, without a search warrant, where he found a large amount of what appeared to be either heroin or cocaine. After realizing they arrested the man without enough probable cause, Gladstone said, he planted some drugs in the suspect’s truck to cover their tracks.

Hankard, in his affidavit for a search warrant, made it sound as if the motel room had not been searched to help finish the cover-up, according to prosecutors.

Gladstone never singled out Hankard as being solely responsible for anything, and often made it a point to name everyone involved in each incident. In fact, Gladstone said he never wanted to involve Hankard in the gun planting incident, describing him as a “blabbermouth.” While his testimony was ranging and entertaining, he did show some remorse with his wife sitting in the back of the courtroom.

“I’m so ashamed I did that, but those choices were my choices,” he said about selling drugs and stealing money.

“We would become what we were fighting.”

 

"but that is just a TV Show. . . its not real" - DEm People

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So you agree that they should be allowed to lie, cheat, steal and murder. . . . . like the "criminals" they are trying to get
but they should have absolute immunity from punishment . .. unlike the "criminals" they are trying to get????????????

Is that what you saying?
You are PRO-CRIMINAL-POLICEMEN

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