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Bad Idea Squared: Cops Rob Drug Dealer ... Except He's One of Them

By Eric Lipman

Talk about bad luck. There you are, just trying to supplement your meager civil servant's salary by doing a little moonlighting, and you have to go and choose a "business partner" who isn't who he says he is, ruining your whole plan. That is -- sort of -- what happened to two Philadelphia police officers this week, as noted by the South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog. Further details are provided by NBC Philadelphia. It seems Officers Sean Alivera and Christopher Luciano decided to jack a marijuana dealer for 20 pounds of pot and $3000 in pocket money. In keeping with their positions of trust, they weren't gonna smoke the stuff themselves, but have it "redistributed on the street by an un-named drug dealer." As it turns out, the dealer they targeted was actually an undercover cop. Oops. The two officers are now facing a nice list of charges, including criminal conspiracy, robbery, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment and theft. This sort of thing -- cops robbing dealers -- seems to be "trending" in Philly (and also in New York), with at least five officers accused or convicted of similar crimes in the past year alone. Maybe we need to start...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on October 07, 2010 (boomark / email).