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Sgt. Michael Cheff, 49, of Paterson, gave a few of his fellow officers a portion of the proceeds and didn’t report it, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Federal authorities have been busting a band of rogue officers who they said violated civilians’ civil rights by stopping and searching their vehicles without justification and stole money from civilians.
Cheff “routinely received a portion of these stolen monies from some of these officers and signed off on corresponding false police reports about the underlying incidents,” Carpenito said.
In 2016, Cheff told one of the officers to start logging into evidence some of the money that the officer was stealing, because “effecting narcotics arrests without logging money into evidence would otherwise raise questions,” the U.S. attorney said.
One of three officers who stopped and arrested a suspect on Nov. 14, 2017 stole a few hundred dollars from him, then went to his apartment with Cheff while another remained with the handcuffed civilian, Carpenito said Tuesday.
They got consent to search the apartment by lying to the suspect’s mother, the U.S. attorney said.
While searching the suspect’s room with two officers, Cheff took money and drugs from a safe in the closet, Carpenito said.
“He handed a small portion of the money to one of the officers and told the officer to log it into evidence [and] put the rest of the money in his pocket,” the U.S. attorney said.
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ALSO SEE: Paterson police raided two homes directly across the street from one another, arresting two ex-cons and five alleged buyers while seizing raw and packaged heroin, cocaine and a sawed-off shotgun.
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In a bathroom back at headquarters, Cheff “gave the officer who had stayed behind to guard the individual a portion of the stolen money and gave a portion of the stolen money to one of the officers who had searched the apartment with him,” Carpenito said.
Cheff also “approved a police report that falsely stated that the officers had recovered $319 from a shelf in the individual’s room” – when, in fact, he’d “stolen a substantial sum of money,” he said.
Later that day, one of the officers sent text messages to another officer discussing the theft.
The officer said, among other things, that Cheff “got us for over a stack today,” that “there was a safe” and that Cheff “grabbed the cash,” the U.S. attorney said.
The suspect reported finding $2,700 missing from the safe, he added.
Cheff was due for a Tuesday morning first appearance in U.S. District Court in Newark on charges of conspiring to violate the civil rights of an individual and with falsifying a police report.
“It is deeply troubling when an officer who has sworn to uphold the law violates his oath and uses his badge as a license to commit a crime,” said Newark FBI Special Agent in Charge Gregory W. Ehrie. “It is doubly so when that officer not only supervises others who are engaging in illegal activity but also, as these charges allege, participates.
"The FBI covets the strong partnership we have with our local law enforcement partners. They are critical to the work we do," Ehrie added. "Like Paterson’s police chief, we do not want to see the badges of good officers tarnished by the misdeeds of the corrupt. We stand ready to assist any police chief in the effort to root out corruption from the department.”
Carpenito credited special agents of Ehrie's office with the investigation and thanked the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, Paterson Police Department, and the department’s Office of Internal Affairs for their assistance. Handing the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Rahul Agarwal, who is deputy chief of Carpenito’s Criminal Division.
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