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Two former East Cleveland police officers have been sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of robbery and one count of theft in office.
An investigation into the officers found that both Cole and Sims participated in several similar crimes and forgery of higher-ranked law enforcement over one year.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Michael J. Russo criticized the former police officers during their sentencing. “The one person that the public should be able to have confidence in … would be your emergency services, your police officers, your firefighters, your EMTs.”
Russo continued, “You’ve shaken the confidence of the public in the criminal justice system and the trust they put in police officers.”
A department-wide investigation into the East Cleveland Police Department uncovered corruption, fraud, money laundering, and records-tampering leading up the chain of command to Police Chief Scott Gardner, proving that Cole and Sims are just one part of a larger law enforcement problem in the area.
“When a[n] individual who is a police officer has taken that oath, he, in essence, is in a criminal category of his own,” Russo continued. “He, in effect, is a traitor to the system. He’s far worse than your normal burglar or robber or criminal.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
