Baltimore’s State Attorney Marilyn Mosby is seeking justice by getting 790 convictions led by crooked cops thrown out.
After researching hundreds of cases, Mosby says she found good enough reason to distrust 14 cops in addition to those convicted in the Gun Trace Task Force scandal, The Baltimore Sun reports. As a result, she is asking the courts to throw out at least 790 criminal cases that were reportedly led by 25 corrupt cops.
“When you have sworn police officers involved in egregious and long-standing criminal activity such as planting guns and drugs, stealing drugs and money, selling drugs, making illegal arrests, and bringing false charges, our legal and ethical obligation in the pursuit of justice leaves us no other recourse but to ‘right the wrongs’ of unjust convictions associated with corrupt police officers,” Mosby wrote in an email.
A police spokesperson confirmed that three of the accused crooked cops, Robert Hankard, a detective in central Baltimore; Kenneth Ivery, a sergeant in Southwest Baltimore; and Jason Giordano, a sergeant in the citywide robbery unit, are still employed with the Baltimore Police. Hankard has been suspended, 10 other cops have resigned, retired or were terminated, and Detective Sean Suiter was shot and killed almost two years ago in West Baltimore, The Grio reports.
All the cops accused of crooked activity were charged after they were identified and implicated during the federal Gun Trace Task Force trial last week. However, Mosby says the charges should also result in their cases being thrown out. A judge is expected to consider the request after 30 days, the outlet states.
“It is still very early in the process, and we are hopeful for the swift vacatur of all of the many tainted convictions,” said Melissa Rothstein, spokeswoman for the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore.
The compromised cases started in the hundreds, but after the Gun Trace Task Force trial, it soon increased to thousands, Mosby said.
“At first it was hundreds of cases. Thanks to the testimony that came out just last week, our preliminary estimate is thousands of cases that may be impacted by the wrongful and illegal acts of those police officers,” Mosby said earlier this year while speaking at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
