New York - Ex-Police Lieutenant Gets Prison Term in Drug Money Case
Dr. Kardasz -
Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
a. Why did you choose that typology?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?
a.Why did you choose that decision making process?
Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html
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Ex-Police Lieutenant Gets Prison Term in Drug Money Case
The New York Times, October 13, 2006, By William K. Rashbaum
A retired police lieutenant who admitted to stealing more than $110,000 in drug cash over three years, all while he supervised 40 narcotics detectives in Upper Manhattan, was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison yesterday for conspiring to launder the money.
The retired lieutenant, John T. Maguire, supervised two detectives who stole money with him and who were later captured on videotape in 2003 robbing a drug courier of $169,000, a crime that led to a sweeping police corruption investigation and the department’s biggest scandal in a decade.
The investigation ultimately implicated as many as 10 current or retired detectives, but only Mr. Maguire, the two men caught on videotape and a third detective were charged with crimes. Another detective has been fired. The department is seeking to fire two others.
Mr. Maguire, who earned a degree from Columbia University, where he studied political science on a basketball scholarship, faced nearly four years in prison. But the prosecutor in the case wrote a letter that cited his cooperation with the investigation and enabled the judge in the case, Carol B. Amon of United States District Court in Brooklyn, to hand down a lighter sentence.
In agonized and remorseful remarks, Mr. Maguire, wearing a blue pin-striped suit and a red tie, apologized for the humiliation, dishonor and pain he had brought upon the Police Department and his wife and three young daughters. The girls and their mother, along with other family members and friends, filled the courtroom gallery’s first two rows.
“I’m ashamed of myself and I live in shame every single day,” he said.
“I knew I did wrong and I confessed to God my sins,” he added, pausing as his voice choked with emotion. “I asked his forgiveness.”
His lawyer, Eric W. Siegle, called the crimes “despicable and horrible.” But he sought to distinguish the 51-year-old Mr. Maguire from the two men caught on the video, Thomas Rachko and Julio C. Vasquez. They robbed people, sometimes at gunpoint, and resold drugs, he argued, while Mr. Maguire just stole drug money from apartments, and in one case $96,000 packed in cereal boxes stashed in a parked car.
Mr. Siegle requested a sentence of probation for his client. But the judge said that while she found Mr. Maguire to be genuinely remorseful, the crimes he committed while in a position of power and authority warranted a prison term.
“He was their commander,” she said early in the proceeding, speaking of Mr. Maguire’s relationship with Mr. Rachko and Mr. Vasquez. “He knew what they were up to. He had the power to stop all this.”
When Judge Amon handed down the 14-month prison term, all three of Mr. Maguire’s daughters began to weep, and the oldest dropped her head into her mother’s lap, shaking with sobs.
Mr. Maguire, who retired in July 2001 after 20 years on the force, worked in a narcotics unit when the three men stole together. Earlier, he had served as a Harlem precinct’s Integrity Control Officer. He forfeited $110,000 as part of his plea.
Last week, Mr. Vasquez was sentenced to six years in prison.
Today, Mr. Rachko faces up to life in prison.
Retrieved October 13, 2006 from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/nyregion/13cops.html?_r=1&oref=slogin