By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com
A Philly police detective working an FBI drug task force was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for tipping off a drug kingpin about a raid in 2005, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Savage in Philadelphia sentenced ex-officer Rickie Durham, 44, to the two years, rejecting suggestions by federal prosecutors that he get a minimum of 15 years.
The judge called Durham’s actions “reckless” and said he “exposed fellow officers to great risk”, the Inquirer reported. But the judge said it was an isolated incident in what had been an exemplary career.
He was convicted in September of tipping off drug kingpin Alton “Ace Capone” Coles hours before the raid.
His attorney had argued Monday that Durham was acting out of concern for a friend’s sister, who was living with the drug dealer.
So Durham called longtime friend Jerome “Pooh” Richardson, a former NBA player who lives in Los Angeles, the Inquirer reported. Richardson’s half-sister was living with Coles in New Jersey.
Richardson told his sister, and Coles learned of the raid and subsequently made phones calls that were picked up on a wiretap, the Inquirer reported
“He’s remorseful for his actions,” Durham’s attorney Fortunato Perri Jr. said, according to the Inquirer. “He’s upset at this whole situation. . . . It’s been a long, hard road for Rickie, and I think he finally has a bit of a sense that it’s at an end.”
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