By Allan Lengel tickletehwire.com
Three Philadelphia cops were indicted Tuesday on charges of conspiring with drug dealers to steal 300 grams of heroin from a supplier, the Justice Department announced.
Officers Robert Snyder, Mark Williams and James Venziale face drug trafficking charges along with three suspected drug dealers and the wife of one officer who allegedly passed on information between the cops and the dealers, authorities said.
Authorities charged that on May 14, 2010, the officers pretended to arrest one of the drug dealers after he got the heroin from a courier, who stood nearby and witnessed the arrest. The supplier was not paid because of what appeared to be a bust.
The cops then drove off and let the dealer go. The heroin was given to someone the conspirators thought was a drug dealer, but was actually undercover DEA agent, authorities said.
Authorities said the drug dealer who was part of the fake bust paid two cops $6,000, and the third received an “additional amount of currency.”
John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, the department’s largest union, told the Philadelphia Inquirer called the episode “a disgrace.”
“We have a bunch of good officers out there on the streets every day, risking their lives,” McNesby said. “This casts a dark cloud over all of them.”
