Last week, a 35-year-old former St. Louis policewoman facing charges of dealing heroin along with double counts of unlawful use of weapons was acquitted by a jury after deliberating for a couple of hours.
The seven-year veteran with the department was charged back in June of 2015 in a drug raid. Both city police officers and agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized cash, drugs and firearms from a house on Page Boulevard. The policewoman was targeted in the investigation.
She was present when cops and agents stormed the premises searching for contraband. According to police, both a .45 caliber and a .40-caliber handgun were taken from the woman’s bedroom. Cops also seized what lab tests determined to be heroin.
Police confiscated a coffee grinder rimmed with what they suspected was residue from the heroin, a digital scale in a bag, empty capsules, sandwich bags for packing suspected drugs and a substance used to adulterate the heroin. Cops also confiscated over $10,000 in cash from the home.
The heroin, guns and other contraband were located in what was allegedly the former police officer’s bedroom. However, according to court documents, her home address was actually on Union Boulevard.
Before she was arrested on these charges, she was suspended in February for “conduct unbecoming of an officer.” That was the impetus for the internal investigation that culminated in the raid and the felony charges.
A spokesperson for the St. Louis Police Department reported that the former policewoman never returned to her duties after the February 2015 suspension.
Even when at first it appears that the police have got you dead to rights, a skilled defense attorney may be able to turn the case around and win an acquittal.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Ex-St. Louis police officer acquitted of gun, drug charges,” Joel Currier, March 02, 2017
