Detective Says Slain Officer Suiter Partook In Robberies: Report

BALTIMORE, MD — Testimony in the racketeering trial for two Baltimore Police officers has allegedly implicated Detective Sean Suiter, killed the day before he was to provide grand jury testimony related to the federal case. Seven members of the Baltimore Police Department's now-disbanded gun trace task force were indicted on federal racketeering charges in March 2017.

Two have pleaded not guilty and are undergoing a trial: Detective Daniel Thomas Hersl and Detective Marcus Roosevelt Taylor.

On the stand Monday, one of those who pleaded guilty, Detective Momodu Bondeva Kenton Gondo, testified that Suiter was among a handful of officers who took money from citizens between 2008 and 2009, according to WBAL.

Gondo testified that three other officers who were not among those indicted, including a current Baltimore County Police officer, also participated in the robberies, divvying up money that they seized, WBAL reported; county police issued a statement to the news station that the FBI would be contacted in regards to the allegation.

Suiter, 43, was shot in the head with his service weapon on Nov. 15, 2017, while investigating a triple homicide from 2016, and his killer remains at large. Police said there were signs of a struggle.

Suiter was to testify before a grand jury in connection with the federal racketeering case the day after he was shot. The detective died on Nov. 16, 2017, from a gunshot wound to the head. His funeral drew police from around the region, and the governor proclaimed him a "hero."

The uncle who raised Suiter told The Baltimore Sun that the slain detective "has never done anything wrong in his life" and "people will say anything..."

It was known that the detective had worked with members of the gun trace task force earlier in his career.

The indictment of Sgt. Wayne Jenkins released last year stated that on April 28, 2010, Jenkins was driving an unmarked police car with another officer when he engaged in a vehicle pursuit with a second unmarked car, which former police commissioner Kevin Davis confirmed was driven by Suiter.

The indictment said that Suiter found 28 grams of heroin in a vehicle after it crashed, and that he was set up by Jenkins to find the drugs after they had been placed there by another officer.

"Detective Suiter was used," Davis said after the indictment came out. "He was used and he was put in a position where he unwittingly recovered drugs that had been planted by another police officer, and that's a damn shame."

Jenkins pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in January and faces 20 to 30 years of prison.

Gondo, who provided the testimony in federal court on Monday and is testifying as part of a plea deal, was the officer whose dealings with a northeast Baltimore drug crew sparked a DEA investigation that expanded into a probe of the gun trace task force, according to The Baltimore Sun. The probe began in 2015 and resulted in the indictments of several members of the gun task force, which was promptly disbanded in 2017.

Gondo pleaded guilty to heroin distribution and racketeering charges in October 2017, facing up to 40 years for the narcotics conspiracy. In addition to restraining people and robbing them, he admitting to tipping off his associates who sold heroin at Alameda Shopping Center to help them avoid arrest; placing a tracking device on a drug dealer so he and another officer could rob him when he was out of his apartment; and selling a gun and pound of marijuana to a known drug dealer, according to federal filings.

RELATED:

• 7 Baltimore Police Officers Indicted In Racketeering Scheme
• Reward For Baltimore Cop Killer Climbs To $215,000
• Detective Sean Suiter: 'State Of Maryland Lost A Hero,' Gov. Says
• Sergeant Who Planted Drugs 'Used' Slain Detective: Commissioner

Image from Baltimore Police Department.