As reported in this Baltimore Sun article, headlined "Corrupt former Baltimore Police officers get sentences reduced from 454 years to 20 years," a couple of crooked cops this week got their sentences reduced considerably to undo the now-repealed harshness of severe stacking mandatory minimum 924(c) counts thanks to the FIRST STEP Act. Here is a summary from the press account:
Two former Baltimore Police officers sentenced to a combined 454 years in federal prison for shaking down citizens in the early 2000s had their prison terms reduced to 20 years each by a federal judge Monday.
U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang agreed with arguments put forward by attorneys for William King and Antonio Murray earlier this year under the First Step Act, noting that since their convictions in 2006 Congress has passed sentencing reforms that would have led to significantly shorter sentences if the officers were sentenced today....
The U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed that the sentences should be reduced, but to 30 years for Murray, and 65 years for King. “Neither sentence is unreasonable given the offense conduct in this case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra Wilkinson wrote.
The officers’ attorneys noted that former Gun Trace Task Force Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, who pleaded guilty to years of robberies and drug dealing, received 25 years in prison in 2018.... Chuang agreed, saying 20 years for King and Murray “roughly corresponds with the type of sentences presently imposed in comparable police corruption cases in this District.”...
Prior to the Gun Trace Task Force case, the case of King and Murray was one of the highest-profile Baltimore police corruption cases. The officers, who were assigned to the BPD’s public housing drug unit, were called out in the “Stop Snitching” underground video, with a man on the tape saying the officers looked out for certain drug dealers. A man they shook down went to the FBI, and authorities launched an investigation that found the officers were detaining and robbing drug dealers.
At the time, the officers “maintained that their activities were all in furtherance of legitimate police activity in an effort to develop sources to lead to arrests of drug distributors,” said prosecutors, adding the officers claimed they used their ill-gotten money to pay informants who could help them catch those higher up in the drug gangs. King later said the tactics were imported by the department’s New York police leadership, and blamed immense pressure to reduce crime as the reason he and some colleagues went bad.
The men were convicted of robbery, extortion, and drug and handgun offenses, which each had penalties that were “stacked” at sentencing. The sentencing judge, J. Frederick Motz, lamented at the time that the sentences were “absolutely disproportionate to the crimes that were committed” but said he had no discretion to depart from the mandatory sentencing laws.
The opinions from the district court in these two cases can be downloaded below:
Download United States v. William King No 05-cr-00203 (May 24 2021 D. Md.)
Download United States v. Antonio Murray No 05-cr-00203 (May 24 2021 D. Md.)
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